NYPD Red

Chapter 73

Gabriel had timed it perfectly. The catering crew had almost finished loading in, most of the guests were on board, and Trager’s yacht, the Shell Game, was ready to get under way.

He busied himself in the galley, artfully arranging mini crab tostadas, smoked salmon barquettes, and coconut shrimp on black lacquered trays.

“You do brilliant work, Armando,” Adrienne said. “Mamet is lucky to have you.”

“I don’t have the gig yet,” Gabriel said.

“You will. Till then, you can feed the rich and hungry. Buffet is at seven.” She walked behind him, gave him a pat on the butt, and whispered in his ear. “Dessert is at my place around midnight.”

“I believe this is what you Americans call sexual harassment on the job,” he said.

She smiled. “And what do you call it in Argentina?”

“Foreplay.”

He winked, picked up a tray, and carried it into the main salon, working his way slowly through the crowd, smiling and passing hors d’oeuvres as he went. The guests were a typical show business mix of men and women, young and old, straight and gay, but they had one thing in common. Every one of them knew how to dress for a cruise-except for the two swarthy Latino men who were both wearing brown blazers, Kmart ties, and cop shoes.

The Chameleon smiled. If this is Trager’s idea of private security, either he has no respect for me, or he wants to help me blow up his boat.

He walked up to one of the rent-a-cops and held out his tray. The man shook his head.

“Oh, please,” Gabriel said. “You don’t know what you’re missing. The shrimp are to die for.”

The guy shrugged, took a napkin, plucked a shrimp from the tray, looked left and right, then grabbed three more.

“I’ll be back,” Gabriel said.

He worked his way to the far end of the salon and stepped through a teak-framed glass door onto the main deck. There were a lot fewer guests out here, almost all of them smoking.

He found a quiet spot on the port side and got his bearings. The Brooklyn Bridge was behind him, which meant they were headed south toward Governors Island and the Red Hook section of Brooklyn.

They wouldn’t screen the TV pilot until dark, which meant the captain would sail all the way down to Sea Gate, or even Breezy Point, before circling back to catch the sunset over Liberty Island.

He had a little more than an hour to set the charges.

He found a door that said DO NOT ENTER, set down his hors d’oeuvres tray, and entered.

He took the two flights of metal stairs down to the engine room.

“Yo,” a voice called out. “Hold it right there, mate.”

Gabriel froze.

The man was a dark-skinned African-American, over sixty, wearing khakis and a faded denim shirt with the yacht’s logo on the left breast pocket.

“Hi there,” Gabriel said.

“Yeah, hi there,” the man said pleasantly. “How many fingers am I holding up?”

“Three.”

“Well, you’ve passed the vision test, so I’m assuming you saw the sign that said ‘Do Not Enter.’ Allow me to interpret it for you. This area is off-limits. So would you be so kind as to go back on deck where you belong?”

“It’s okay,” Gabriel said. “I’m with the caterer. Mr. Trager sent me down to get dinner orders from the crew.”

The man laughed. “Dinner orders? Maybe for the guys on the bridge, but Mr. Trager does not make a habit of serving dinner in the engine room.”

“My mistake,” Gabriel said, “but hey, man, we got food up the wazoo in the galley. You want me to bring you down a tray-shrimp, chicken, fillet of beef?”

The man frowned. “My head says no, but my stomach just chimed in with ‘you can do that?’”

“Can and will,” Gabriel said. “Heck, you and your buddies down here are probably the hardest-working guys on the whole boat. Just tell me what you want, and I’ll bring it to you.”

“Some of everything, heavy on the fillet of beef, and maybe a cold beer.”

“You got it. How many guys are working down here?”

“Three. Me, myself, and I,” the seaman said, laughing. “Name’s Charles Connor.”

“Well, Mr. Connor, you guys deserve at least two beers apiece,” Gabriel said, “so how about I bring you down a six-pack?”

“Thanks, but one’s my limit down here.”

“This is some major setup,” Gabriel said. “How do you run it all by yourself?”

“I don’t run it at all. Captain Campion runs it by computer from the bridge. Normally, once we’re under way, nobody even works in the engine room, but we got a full boat and the booze is flowing, so the captain sent me down here to keep an eye out for happy wanderers.”

“You mean like guys who can’t read the ‘Do Not Enter’ sign?” Gabriel said.

“More like horny couples, three sheets to the wind, who see the sign and figure they’ll sneak down and join the Hudson River version of the Mile High Club.”

“I’ll go get your dinner,” Gabriel said. “Hey, what’s that big noisy thing behind you?”

Connor turned around. “That’s a thruster. It’s what makes the ship-”

Once again The Chameleon squeezed the trigger of the stun baton, dumping an electrical charge of a million volts into his unsuspecting victim’s nervous system. The seaman dropped to the floor, numb and helpless.

“I lied about bringing you dinner,” Gabriel said, putting the baton back in its holster and taking out a fresh roll of duct tape.

Gabriel had no idea how many of the crew would be working down here, so this scene hadn’t been too tightly scripted. But considering it was all ad-lib, he thought both he and Charles Connor had done remarkably well.