Raise the Titanic

    Pitt slowly turned and met a face that was every bit as worn and haggard as his. The lips were turned up in a crooked smile of understanding, but the eyes were dulled with the lost and vacant stare of a zombie. It was Gene Seagram.

    "How did you track me down so fast?" Pitt asked. He was lying in a bathtub nursing a vodka on the rocks. Seagram sat across the bathroom on the john.

    "No great exercise in intuition," he said. "I saw you leave the shipyard and followed you."

    "I thought you'd be dancing on the Titanic about now."

    "The ship means nothing to me. My only concern is the byzanium in its vault, and I've been told it will be another forty-eight hours before the derelict can be moved into dry dock and the wreckage in the cargo hold removed."

    "Then why don't you relax for a couple of days and have some fun. In a few weeks your problems will be over. The Sicilian Project will be off the drawing boards and a working reality."

    Seagram's eyes closed for a moment. "I wanted to talk to you," he said quietly. "I wanted to talk to you about Dana."

    Oh God, Pitt thought, here it comes. How do you keep a straight face, knowing you made love to the man's wife. Up to now, it had been all he could do to maintain a casual tone in his conversation. "How is she getting along after her ordeal?"

    "All right, I suppose." Seagram shrugged.

    "You suppose? She was airlifted off the ship by the Navy two days ago. Haven't you seen her since she came ashore?"

    "She refuses to see me . . . said it was all over between us."

    Pitt contemplated the vodka in the glass. "So it's hearts and flowers time. So who needs her? If I were you, Seagram, I'd find myself the most expensive hooker in town, charge her off on your government expense account, and forget Dana."

    "You don't understand. I love her."

    "God, you sound like a letter to A

    "What good is it without the woman I love?"

    "I see I'm not getting through to you." Pitt was one third into the bottle and a warm glow had begun to course through his body. "Why throw yourself down the sewer over a broad who suddenly thinks she's found the fountain of youth. If she's gone, she's gone. Men come crawling back, not women. They persevere. There isn't a man alive a woman can't persevere into the grave. Forget Dana, Seagram. There are millions of other fish in the stream. If you need the phony security of a pair of tits making your bed and fixing your supper, go hire a maid; they're cheaper and a hell of a lot less trouble in the long run."

    "So now you think you're Sigmund Freud," Seagram said, rising from the john. "Women are nothing to you. A beautiful relationship with you is a love affair with a bottle. You're out of touch with the world."

    "Am I?" Pitt stood up in the tub and yanked open the door to the medicine cabinet so that Seagram was staring at his refection in the mirror. "Take a good look. There's the face of a man who's out of touch with the world. Behind those eyes there's a man who's driven by a thousand demons of his own making. You're sick, Seagram. Mentally sick over problems you've magnified out of all proportion. Dana's desertion is only a crutch to enhance your black depression. You don't love her as much as you think you do. She's only a symbol, a prop you lean on. Look at the glaze over the eyes; look at the slack skin around the mouth. Get yourself to a psychiatrist, and damned soon. Think about Gene Seagram for once. Forget about saving the world. It's time you saved yourself."

    Seagram's face was violently flushed. He clenched his fists and trembled. Then the mirror before his eyes began to mist, not on the outside but from within, and another face slowly emerged. A strange face with the same haunted eyes.

    Pitt stood mute and watched as Seagram's expression turned from anger to sheer terror.

    "God, no . . . it's him!"

    "Him?"

    "Him!" he cried, "Joshua Hays Brewster!" Then Seagram struck the mirror with both fists, shattering the glass, and fled the room.

76

    Pensive and dreamy-eyed, Dana stood in front of a full length mirror and scrutinized herself. The bruise on her head was neatly covered by a new hair style and, except for several fading black-and-blue marks, her body looked as lithe and perfect as ever. It definitely passed inspection. Then she stared at the eyes that stared back. There were no additional crow's feet, no new puffiness around the edges. The mythical hardened look of a fallen woman was nowhere to be seen. Instead, they seemed to gleam with a vibrant expectancy that hadn't been there before. Her rebirth as an unfettered woman of the world had been a complete success.

    "Care for any breakfast?" Marie Sheldon's voice carried up the stairs.

    Dana do

    "A few minutes after nine."

    A minute later Marie poured the coffee as Dana stepped into the kitchen. "What's on the agenda for today?" she asked.

    "Something typically feminine-I think I'll go shopping. Have lunch by myself at an intimate tearoom and then go over to the NUMA clubhouse and scare up a partner for an hour or so of te

    "Sounds charming," Marie said dryly; "but I suggest you stop playing Mrs. Rich Bitch, which you aren't, and start acting like a broad with responsibilities, which you are."

    "What's the sense in it?"

    Marie threw up her hands in exasperation. " `What's the sense in it?' For one thing, sweetie, you're the girl of the hour. In case you haven't noticed, the phone has been ringing off the hook for the past three days. Every woman's magazine in the country wants your exclusive story, and I've taken at least eight requests for you to appear on nationally televised talk shows. Like it or not, you're big news. Don't you think it's about time you came back down to earth and met the onslaught head-on?"

    "What's there to say? So I was the only woman on board an old drifting derelict with twenty men. Big deal."

    "You almost died out there in the ocean and you treat the whole episode as though it were just another cruise down the Nile on Cleopatra's barge. Having all those men catering to your every whim must have gone to your head."

    If only Marie knew the whole truth. But Dana and everyone on board had been sworn to secrecy by Warren Nicholson. The attempted assault by the Russians was to be buried and forgotten by everyone. But she took a perverse sort of satisfaction in knowing that her performance on the Titanic that cold stormy night would linger in the minds of the men who were present for the rest of their lives.

    "Too much happened out there." Dana sighed. "I'm not the same person any more."

    "So what does that mean?"

    "To begin with, I'm taking out papers to divorce Gene."