Hugging that splendid thought to me, I went below to my sleeping cabin. I disrobed and climbed into bed. I stretched out, luxuriously alone and undisturbed.
A door opened!
I had never noticed it before.
It must be the door to the adjacent suite!
TEENIE WALKED IN!
"Hey!" I said in panic and alarm. "What are you doing here?"
"Oh," she said, "the Chief Steward says he's wise in the ways of the world. He has known all along that I am not your niece. They moved me this very evening to the suite next door where I would be handier to you. They always think of the owner's comfort."
She had on a wrap. She was untying it as she stood in the middle of the floor.
"Whoa!" I said in alarm. "You can't be that hard up. This very afternoon I saw you go into a hotel with a man!"
"Oh, him," she said with a gay laugh. "What an amusing lecher. He owns all the hotels in Bermuda, you know. I only went down on him and he had an absolutely awful time trying to (bleep). He liked it all right because I am a real expert, but all it did for me was get me heated up."
She dropped her wrap off and stood there.
Then she took the clip off her ponytail and shook her hair out. She walked to the bed. "Move over," she said. "You don't think I'm going to sleep in there alone, do you?"
She climbed into the bed beside me.
"Wait a minute," I said. "What about Madison?"
She laughed gaily. "Oh, Madison is a very sweet boy. But the trouble is, he loves his mother and wouldn't think of being unfaithful to her. The thought of having intercourse with any other woman drives him up the wall."
"You're lying."
"Ask him," she said. "The only reason he tolerates me around is that he thinks of me as a kid. If Madison wasn't that way, what do you think I'm doing here in your bed, Inky?"
I blinked. There was logic in what she said. Then I saw the flaw in it. "The ship is loaded with other men. Why pick on me?"
She looked at me with her too-big eyes. "Inky, I will level with you. This equipment of yours is too great to be neglected. I am absolutely determined to be faithful to you. I will only go down on the crew to keep in practice. But you get me for a snack in the morning, a piece in the afternoon and a full-scale banquet all night. How's that?"
"NO!" I cried.
"Inky, the sports director this evening told me you were concerned I might kill myself. So if you don't like my program for you, I will have no choice but to throw myself overboard."
I shuddered. That would bring on a rap for murder.
"No," I said.
"No what?" she persisted. "No overboard or no tail?"
"No overboard," I said.
"Ah, that's better. Now that we have things clearly understood, you seem a little limp. So I'll just slip next door where I happen to have a prepared bhong, bring it in, light it..."
My head was spinning. What had I done to be punished like this? Factually, after that parade of women in the apartment, I never wanted to see another one again.
She was pushing the bhong mouthpiece between my teeth. "Suck it in, old boy," she said. "Now hold it like I taught you. Now another puff. This is Panama Red and it's pretty jolty. I think I'll have one, too."
She exhaled the smoke into my face.
After a while, she lifted the sheet and looked. "Ah, that's better, Inky."
A puff of marijuana smoke floated upward. Her voice was clear, above the hiss of the sea. "Now, just lie there and I will show you some of the things I learned."
A porthole cover was swinging gently. "There's a certain little muscle that can go round and round...."
A curtain undulated. "Oh, this white slavery is great...."
Another puff of marijuana smoke blew out the port. "Oooooooh! Inky!!!!!"
Now and then, months later, when I had lots of time to think, I would look back on that night and wish forlornly that I had been my usual alert self, for those hours, I am sure, opened the door to all the Hells I was going to walk through afterwards.
If I had just said NO! louder. But I didn't.
Marijuana can make one awfully blind!
Forlornly, I sat in the owner's salon and stared at the two viewers.
I was pooped. The sports director had been absolutely raving. "Do you realize," he said, "that if you insist on getting stoned at night, you have to exercise twice as long and hard to get rid of it the next morning? So get running before I have a dead owner on my hands!" He had worked me half to death and here, in the afternoon, I was barely able to sit in the overstuffed chair.
Teenie, apparently, was breaking in her new bicycles, and Mad, for some reason, had cooped himself up in the library with an eye on the door, muttering about Mafia that might have sneaked aboard. I was terrified I might have to go swimming with her: my muscles were so gone, I would have drowned!
Heller was in his office at the Empire State Building. He and Izzy were going over Florida ground plans. "I don't see why you need such big alligator tanks," Izzy was saying.
"Those aren't alligator tanks. Those are spore tanks," said Heller. "The spores grow very fast but there have to be an awful lot of them and it takes tanks that big."
"Well, alligators will get into them," said Izzy. "I don't see any alligator strainers."
"These posts," said Heller. "They're a laser screen. They put an invisible curtain around the tanks. Nothing can get into them. The belts here take the spores up this ramp where they are dried and then they go into this hamper. At timed intervals they are blown up the stacks, reach the stratosphere and get carried by the upper winds. They clean up pollution, convert it to oxygen, and when they run out of food they perish."
"I don't see the fort," said Izzy.
"Fort for what?" said Heller.
"Indians," said Izzy. "You got to have some kind of fort for the settlers to retire into when the Indians burst out of their reservation."
"Oh, we don't need a fort," said Heller. "We're handling that problem with alligator cavalry."
Izzy put his glasses on more solidly. He looked very closely at Heller. Then he said, with decision, "You're joking with me again, Mr. Jet."
"No," said Heller. "Would I pull jokes on you, Izzy?"
"You have sometimes. It's very trying, Mr. Jet. I lie awake wondering if I laughed in the right place. It costs me sleep."
"No, listen, Izzy. This is one time I'm not teasing you. Look." He unrolled a big layout. "J. P. Flagrant just roughed out these spreads and sent them in."
The layout said:
RAISE THOROUGHBRED
RIDING ALLIGATORS
Take advantage of the latest craze. Why
be left out when others are making
the fortune that should
be yours?
The prize stud Bullroar auctioned for
$105,000 just last week
at Belmont!
Act NOW, NOW, NOW!
Phone Toll Free
A-L-L-I-G-A-T-O-R
Own Your Very Own Alligator Farm, Inc.
Ochokeechokee, Florida
"Well, I will admit sales have boomed since he came on. But who bought Bullroar for such a huge price?"
"That was another stroke of Flagrant genius," said Heller. "He sold him to King Charles of England because it was such a short distance to fall off."
"Is that why the corporation is now 'By Appointment to His Majesty'?" said Izzy. "I thought I was just making progress in taking over governments."
"Oh, that, too," said Heller. "So now do you believe it about alligator cavalry?"
I pushed the viewer away. There was no point in getting all confused trying to figure out when Heller was serious and when he was joking. I knew that the spores were serious enough. But they wouldn't hurt Rockecenter: they'd just give industry an excuse not to check any pollution they sent into the air. That would sell even dirtier fuel and make Rockecenter even richer.