He moved a half step to the side, fell so loosely his forehead bounced when it hit the tile. I found the money belt half under her bed. The second strap had torn loose.
When I was ready to leave, I took a final look around. I had put him back into his bed, in the position I had found him. The breathing sounded the same. The single strap held the money belt safely and snugly around my middle, under my shirt. I had both parts of the doll in my hand. When the dark head had broken off, it had rolled into a corner, but when I was hunting for it, the movement of the ship brought it rolling back out to meet me. I had let the water out of the sink.
And he would not know what parts of it were real. After the early honking and bell-ringing, shouts in the corridors, hasty rappings on the stateroom door, announcements to get all baggage into the corridors as quickly as possible, I dressed quickly. She had not moved a muscle, lay in a spill of cream hair, fatty little lips agape, eyes smudged with weariness.
According to his little placard, the room steward was named Arturo Taliapeloleoni.
I moved him back into a corner of his little office. “Scusi,” I said. “I wish to ask you to help me with something of the greatest importance, per favore.”
The blow in the throat had given my voice an unmistakably conspiratorial quality. It made him look apprehensive. “Ah?” he said.
“I am in numero sei. Here is a token of importance.” He accepted it too casually, thinking it a ten. Then he saw the second zero and the color went out of his face, surged back pinkly. “If it is anything I can do, signore.” The bill had flicked out of sight.
“I bought passage alone. But now there is a lady in my stateroom. She is from other quarters aboard. It is of the greatest importance that she and I be permitted to remain aboard until mid-morning.”
“That would be impossible, truly!”
“Many things can be arranged. Indeed, they must be arranged. Or it is possible that as she walks out of the customs building her husband might shoot her right there, in front of your passengers. He is a violent man. Others could be hurt. It would not be good for the company.”
Even his lips were pale. “It would be very bad. But there is the question of the luggage inspection, no?”
“Her luggage will be taken off by someone. Mine will be taken off by someone else, a friend. It will go through customs and be taken away.”
“But if two passengers are missing?”
“The one who counts them could be told of the necessity for this arrangement.”
I dipped my fingertips into my shirt pocket and extracted the other two bills, a fifty and a twenty. I gave him the fifty. “This could purchase some small cooperation in the counting?”
“It is possible.”
I gave him the twenty. And this, of course, is for yourself and the room maid.”
“The cleaning and the fumigation starts. From stateroom to stateroom
“Does not a man of your position have a sign he can place upon both doors of numero sei, that it is to be skipped until certain other work is accomplished? After all, you do not sail for the homeland until Friday, I understand.”
“It is very difficult, but..
“How many chances in one lifetime does a man have to save the life of a beautiful woman?”
He straightened, lifted his chin. “It will be done!”
“You have great understanding.”
When I went back to the room, she had still not stirred.
I selected the essentials she would need. Her white bag would hold them readily. I put the yellow and white checked pajama shift in the flight bag, squashed the bag flat enough to go into my bag, and, locking the door behind me again, toted it down to Meyer’s hovel.
“Have you got a cold?” he asked.
I dropped the bag in the corridor outside the door. His was there. Both were tagged. “They’d both end up on the end table at customs inspection. I pulled the door shut, pulled my shirt loose, unstrapped the money belt.