Tourist Season

"No, Skip, hold on just a second. I want you to please, please stop killing these i

"Dammit, I haven't. Not one. Not i

"Just stop the murders, please. As a friend I'm begging you. The cops are going to figure it out and they'll track you down. Why don't you end this thing and turn yourself in. You need—"

"What do I need? Help? I need help? Come on, Cab, lighten up. Melodrama doesn't suit you. I've got to run."

"Skip, if you hang up, I'm calling Garcia. I'm going to give him your name, tell him everything."

"Brian didn't explain the rules."

"I can't go along anymore, threats or not. Bloodbath, my ass—I mean, what more can you do, Skip? You even blew up one of my reporters."

"So you're going to put all this in the newspaper?"

"Absolutely."

"Then do me a favor," Wiley said seriously.

"What?"

"Make sure you run a good picture. I'm partial to the right-side profile, the one where I'm wearing the corduroy jacket. The dark brown one."

"Yeah, I remember," Mulcahy said dejectedly.

"What about Cardoza?"

"He's next on my list, after the cops."

"S'pose he wants his New Year's column."

"Don't even think about it," Mulcahy said.

"Fine. Be that way. The paper's dull as dishwater."

"I'll handle Cardoza," Mulcahy said.

"I'm sure. But in the meantime, Cab, watch the heavens."

"What do you mean?"

"Watch the heavens! Got that?"

"Yes," Mulcahy said. He didn't like the sound of things. He would have preferred that Wiley not bother giving any more clues. "Look, Skip, why don't you call Brian?"

"He's busy nymphet-sitting."

"Talk to him!"

"Nah."

"Okay, then he wanted me to tell you something. He wanted me to tell you that it's hopeless, that what you're doing is sheer suicide. He wanted me to tell you that whether you know it or not, it's all over."

"Ho-ho-ho," Skip Wiley said, and hung up.

Right away Cab Mulcahy put in a call to Al Garcia, but the entire Fuego One Task Force was out in the Everglades on a tip. A deer hunter had stumbled into a fresh campsite that looked promising; Garcia wasn't expected back in the office until morning. Mulcahy left an urgent message.

Next he tried Keyes, but Brian was gone too. There was a photo session out on the beach, Reed Shivers explained—the Orange Bowl queen at sunset. The languid look, very artsy. Keyes had tagged along to keep an eye on things; took the gun but not his beeper.

"Shit," Mulcahy said.

Cardoza was strike three. The publisher was attending the Palm Beach premiere of a new Burt Reynolds movie. Afterward was a cook-out at Generoso Pope's.

Cab Mulcahy fixed himself a pitcher of martinis, sat down with Mozart on the stereo, and waited for the telephone to ring. It was the lousiest Saturday night of his life, and it was about to get worse.

One of Sparky Harper's only legacies was the a

This year the Chamber of Commerce unanimously had voted to dedicate the event to Sparky Harper's memory. On the night of December 29, four weeks after Sparky's murder, a crowd of 750 gathered at the Port of Miami and listened as the mayor of Miami read a brief tribute to the slain public-relations wizard. Afterward the crowd streamed up the gangplank and boarded the SS Nordic Princess,where an orgy of eating and drinking and banal joke-telling commenced.

The SS Nordic Princesswas a sleek cruise liner, and nearly brand-new. Built on a fiord in Norway, she was 527 feet long and carried a gross to

Many of the passengers on the Friendship Cruise had never before sailed on an ocean liner. One of them was Mack Dane, the new travel writer from the Tulsa Express.Dane was a spry and earnest fellow in his mid-sixties who had spent most of his newspaper career trying to cover the oil industry. As a reward for his thirty-two years of service (and also to get him out of the way to make room for a young reporter), the Expresshad "promoted" him to the travel beat. The Orange Bowl was his first assignment, the Friendship Cruise his maiden voyage.

Like most of the guests aboard the Nordic Princess,Mack Dane was tickled to be in Miami in December. He had just spoken to his daughter back in Oklahoma and learned that there was three feet of fresh snow and a wind chill of forty-two below, and that the dog had frozen to the doorstep.

As the ship glided out of Government Cut, Mack Dane found his way to the top deck and strategically positioned himself near a tray of fresh stone crabs and jumbo shrimp. Christmas lights were strung festively from the ship's smokestacks, and a live salsaband was performing a medley of Jimmy Buffett tunes in a fashion that no one had ever dreamed possible. A strong breeze blew in from the ocean, pushing clouds and a promise of light rain. Mack Dane grabbed another banana daiquiri. He was having a grand time. He wondered if any of his fellow travel writers were young and pretty.