Myra Crane was angrier than she’d ever been in her life. Sitting bolt upright on satin sheets, she screamed at the taping device, as she recorded her husband and her governess through a remote microphone. The gentle words they exchanged came easily as they lay in bed, but what she heard them say about her hurt her pride and sent daggers through her heart. Yet, what she heard and recorded, however wrenching, was all the proof she needed to confirm her husband’s adultery. Alone and enraged, she visualized her husband’s betrayal through his own words; and her pained responses echoed in the emptiness of her stateroom.

Myra’s hands trembled. A large marquis solitaire diamond shimmered in the light, as her fingers tilted a champagne filled flute to her lips. She drank, sighed deeply, and steadied the glass. With her free hand, she tugged at the strap of her nightgown, where it irritated her shoulder. As she worked to adjust the strap, her brunette hair, silver grey at the temples, gradually loosened and slipped down her back. Her peripheral gaze caught her image in a mirror on the wall to her left. She turned, slowly, and looked into it, wanting to deny the inebriated woman who looked back. She put the glass down and continued to listen and record. Her hands clenched, jeweled fingers curling into little fists. Alone in her stateroom suite, she pictured them in bed and wondered how long her children’s governess had been her husband’s lover. She picked up the glass and drank. Despite the intensity of her pain, her eyes began to close and her head drooped, as she slumped over, spilling champagne on the bed. Then, in obedience to that instinct that keeps one from tumbling over, she lurched up and opened her eyes. She finished her glass and poured another. She drank deeply, feeling the champagne warm in her chest. Slowly her eyes began to close again, and she slumped over once more; but she was alert enough to notice that they had stopped talking. She sat up, straining to hear, as she listened to the passion in their soft sounds and words. The sounds and words translated easily into images of her husband’s lips caressing her governess’ breasts, of his tongue licking her nipples to tautness, of their nude bodies, coupling. She drank, sitting rigid, angry, intense, listening. She trembled. Her small hands pounded her bedcovers, leaving little impressions, as jeweled fingers struck into soft satin sheets. Then, very tired, from too much champagne, too little sleep, and too intense an anger, her eyes gradually closed and she slumped forward once more. She felt a strange mix of weariness, champagne, sadness, rage, and a deep need for revenge.

She lay down, but after only a few minutes sleep, opened her eyes and sat up again, listening intently; regretting the day she’d married Stephen; regretting the decision which had changed her name from Myra Reinsdorff to Myra Crane; regretting that Stephen had fathered her children; and cursing the day she’d met him. She hated him now. She hated him for demeaning her in front of her friends, by cheating with a servant. She hated that earlier in their marriage she’d rechristened her yacht in his honor, the yacht in which he now carried on his affair. ‘Flight of the Crane’, stretched across both sides of the yacht’s bow, in large, bronze letters. But Myra remembered her father’s name there and the memory of ‘The Reinsdorff’ bronzed across that same bow made her smile, a little. The yacht had been her father’s pride and joy. Two hundred and ninety feet of glistening steel, it berthed 57, including servants and a crew of 11.

Most off all, she remembered her father pleading with her, begging her to stop seeing Stephen Crane. But the more he’d fought her involvement with Stephen, the more determined she was to have him. The very attributes Hermann found appalling in Stephen, Myra found attractive. When Hermann realized that he couldn’t prevent his daughter from marrying Stephen, fear of their marrying gave way to fear that they would elope. He therefore agreed to their marriage, but insisted that Stephen sign a pre-nuptial guaranteeing that all Myra’s wealth, including her future inheritance, would remain forever in her name, alone. After their marriage, Hermann began to see that his rough, uneducated son-in-law had a keen mind for business, to complement his natural aggression. Hermann taught Stephen to run his businesses, and Stephen was an eager and willing pupil. When Stephen’s considerable abilities became apparent, Hermann developed a new but grudging respect for his son-in-law and an awareness that Stephen was more than, ‘just poor white trash’. Hermann continually increased Stephen’s responsibilities, but despite the fact that he respected his son-in-law’s work, he never overcame his disdain for Stephen as a person; and he sensed that Stephen, too, was discontent, though Myra in the early years of the marriage seemed unaware that he was.

When Hermann’s health began to fail, though he hated doing it, he positioned Stephen to run his vast pharmaceutical and communications empire. After Hermann’s death Stephen assumed full operational control of Myra’s fortune and, in a short time, doubled her wealth. In this, Myra gave her full support, but she never withdrew the pre-nuptial her father had forced Stephen to sign. Understandably, Stephen assumed power, not like a man thankful for a better life, but like a man wearing a grudge, against his wife and her deceased father. As Stephen’s reputation as a shrewd but unscrupulous entrepreneur grew, so did his disdain for his wife and the control she exercised over him.

Myra’s yacht was five days at sea, in calm tropical waters, as she drank, recorded, and listened.

Their passions momentarily slacked, Stephen and Laura resumed their conversation.

“Why can’t you leave her, Stephen? What we’re doing is very, very wrong! And we’ve taken too many chances. Your wife’s mean and arrogant, but she’s no fool.—”

The words, unspoken and ugly, coursed through Myra’s thoughts, as she reached for her glass. Her arm, reaching across, hit the bottle of champagne, causing it to fall, spinning round and round on the thick pale blue carpet. She drained the glass and put it down, tears brimming in her eyes. Her hands played unconsciously with a bracelet, fingering the diamonds. Cold stones manipulated by colder fingers.

“You know why, Laura; I’ve told you a million times! It’s not time. Come on! This isn’t the first time we’ve had this conversation.”

“And the answer’s always the same with you, Stephen. Money! It’s always money; and money’s no reason to stay with a woman you don’t love. You should leave that woman, and leave her now, if you don’t love her, and if she causes you so much pain. We can get along without her, Stephen, especially now that you’ve acquired wealth of your own. We’ll lose this yacht and a lot of other things; but they’re only things, Stephen. We’ll still be very comfortable, and we’ll have each other, and our freedom. You’ll be free of her, darling! Look, I know how bad it was for you growing up, but—”

“You do love me, don’t you Stephen?”

“Do I love you? How can you ask that, Laura?—”

“You know I love you, Laura. And as much as I love you, that’s how much I can’t stand Myra. Her father never forgot that I was poor and uneducated. He thought of me as, “White Trash.” Once, I even overheard him refer to me that way. He poisoned her mind against me. In the beginning, I thought that she loved me for who I was, and that we could make it work; but that wasn’t the case, either. I just looked good on her arm, her big handsome stud, her plaything, someone to drag around. That’s all I was. She used me. She would’ve dumped me, when she got tired of me. Then, she and her father found out what I could do and I had a renewed purpose in their lives. She owns me now, like her yacht, her horses, and her mansions. She jokes about me with her friends. She lets me hear it. They want me to hear it, and they laugh. It’s so goddam funny to them. Like her father did, they call me ‘white trash.’ They say I couldn’t buy culture, if it was for sale. I’m just another servant, that’s all. But the worst thing is, that she laughs while I make her skinny ass richer and richer. At first I didn’t see it. I guess I loved her too much to see who she really was. I was just glad to be a member of her family, the Reinsdorffs. Her name had magic, then. But I made the real magic. I don’t know why I continued all these years; or why I continue now, except that one day, somehow, I’m going to take everything I deserve from her. Its mine! I have a right to it! I’ve paid for it, in blood! Yes, I have some money. But not enough. Not enough to repay me for all I’ve been through with her. I built it! All of it! And even this yacht; it’s because of me, that she still has it! For those reasons alone, I should have at least half of everything!! She would’ve lost it all, if it hadn’t been for me. She’s no genius, you know. Hermann understood that; that’s why, before he died, he left me to run everything. He taught me all he could before he died, but he tricked me, too. He told me he’d take care of me but, instead, he left everything to her. He lied to me, tricked me, used me. Everything he did was for Myra. Everything he had, he gave to her. And Myra? She can’t think beyond the parties she throws, beyond all the booze and her sick, arrogant, faggot friends, with all their degrees and titles; Doctor this and Doctor that. They’re like she is, filled with themselves. I built Myra’s empire, Laura, and I have a right to, at least, half of it!! I’m not a thing to be played with and thrown away, when I’ve outlived my usefulness. I have every right to half, every right, except a legal one. Instead, I run it, but own nothing. She won’t help or support me in anything I want to do for myself; and she steals what I create. She’s cunning. Her attorneys gobble up everything. No, make no mistake, the wealth and power are hers.”

“I hate her, Laura!”

“Its funny. In the beginning, like I said, I wanted to make it work, but Hermann might have been the main reason it didn’t. He never gave us a chance. He never let us live normally, like husband and wife. She was always too good for me. And her friends interfered, too. Everyone divided us. They thought I was using her! Can you believe that?! I using her!!”

It was twilight when Stephen left Laura’s suite and began to walk to his stateroom, and to Myra. His two sons and their young friends, pursued by two nervous maids, were below decks playing hide and seek along the ship’s halls, corridors, galleys, and tight little places. Keeping the children between them, the two maids redirected the children’s paths, whenever there was the danger that the children would go up to the deck level, with its railings overlooking the sea. As Stephen walked past, he smiled, stood for a moment, and watched. As he continued walking, the thought of interacting with Myra grew more and more repulsive and instead of going up to his quarters, he went up to the aft deck and peered over the railing. “Flight of the Crane” rolled leeward, slipping through the darkening waters. In the distance, the ocean blended into twilight sky. On the starboard side of the yacht, the cliffs of an island passed, towering 400 feet above the vessel. Dreary and ominous, the cliffs loomed, dwarfing the vessel, reducing it to a steel, gold, and bronze thimble on a dark sea. Along the railing, Dr. Carl Starnes and his wife Deborah stared awe-struck at the rise of stone. They, like all the others aboard the vessel, were Myra’s friends. Helene Van Dusen, renowned impressionist painter, handed her glass to her paramour, rose from her deck chair, and stood wide-eyed near Stephen, as the cliffs passed. Tall and ruggedly handsome with tousled sandy hair which softened the effect of cold, piercing eyes, Stephen nodded to Helene, recognizing her presence. As he looked up, two great albatross flew overhead toward the cliffs.

“Coleridge,” Helene murmured, a smile at the corners of her lips, “suggests that albatross bring the mariner bad luck, Stephen.”

“I make my own,” Stephen answered.

Helene frowned at his curt, dismissive response, her shoulders trembling slightly.

“And besides,” Stephen continued, stammering a little, after a momentary pause, “that’s only if you kill one, isn’t it?”

“Hmm, yes, you’re right, Stephen,” Helene smiled, enjoying the opportunity Stephen had unwittingly given her to attack. “You know, you are right. And your albatross is quite alive, isn’t she? And so is your luck!” She smiled again, arched her eyebrows, and moved back to her lover.

He looked daggers into her back, as she walked away. He couldn’t stand her. They thought he was stupid, but he’d show them. With clenched teeth, he stared as she sat back down, then he turned his attention back to the sea and the shadowy, slimy, things, which swam beneath.

Soft music played across the decks, and in the haze of a declining sun, husbands, wives, and lovers embraced, as they glided through the tranquil waters. From time to time, a great shark appeared, to the delight and awe of those at the railings. Under the ship’s lights, the yacht’s guests danced, drank, and played in the moon-lit, cloudless night.

More than an hour had passed since Stephen left Laura’s suite. As he finally began to walk to his stateroom and to Myra, he saw, accompanied by a maid, his daughter Nina and two of her friends, Sharla Starnes and Austin Harvey. They were playing in a corridor, talking and laughing, with the maid hovering nearby. His sons, Andrew and Lloyd, were nowhere to be seen. He thought that they might still be playing ‘hide and seek’; but he knew that wherever they were, they were safe, perhaps now being watched by Laura, herself. He smiled, at the realization that she took a personal interest in his children. He smiled again, as Sharla laughed out-loud at something Austin had said. But he felt displeasure at the thought of the children’s parents: Carl and Deborah Starnes and Charles and Claudia Harvey, more of Myra’s elitist friends.

He reached his stateroom, opened the door, and walked through to the bedroom. Myra lay asleep, the contents of an overturned bottle staining the dense blue carpet beside their bed. She lay, ungainly, on her back, legs apart, toes pointing straight up, mouth open. She was fastidiously thin; her breasts pointed and erect; the nipples, little pink caps on little snowy mountains. Her heart shaped face, though reddened by alcohol, had that classical shape found in models on the covers of Vogue.

“Shit!” he mumbled.

She awakened at the epithet and looked at him, her nightgown barely covering her breasts, hair in disarray, face reddened, but her eyes brimming fire. Sleep had cleared her mind and she sat up slowly. She stared at him and he could see clearly the hatred in her eyes.

“Was she better? Better than me? But you can’t remember back that far, can you, Stephen? You’re supposed to be a man, but you’re a whore.”

“You’re in a good mood,” he responded. Try being civil, for a change. Why not? It doesn’t mean a damn and it doesn’t hurt.”

“You don’t know what civil is!”

Her body trembled as she moved to the edge of the bed and sat staring at him.

“You’re an excuse for a man; you’re deceitful and vile!”

He feared she’d found out about Laura, and began to fashion a lie. But how could she? She was drunk and in their stateroom, when he’d left it, and he’d been very careful. He was tired, tired of fearing her, tired of being forced to lie. He wouldn’t give her the satisfaction of another one.

“What’s wrong with you?! What’re you talking about? You’re an ass! And don’t talk to me like that, d’ you hear me?!—You’re drunk!”

“I hate you, Stephen!”

Her staring began to unnerve him. The wealth was hers, money, businesses, properties, everything. He poured a drink.

“I never really trusted you, but I began to really suspect you, just a little while ago. Someone told me about you; but I never dreamed I’d find out so much. And I didn’t believe you’d stoop to Laura. Tell me, does she know about the others? No. No, you’d just lie, wouldn’t you? But it was through your cheating, darling, that I found out other things, Stephen, serious things.”

“You don’t know anything. You don’t know me at all. What d’you mean, ‘serious’?”

‘Serious’?? What did she mean?? She couldn’t! She couldn’t know anything!!

“Myra, can we call a truce, just for today? Your friends are asking for us. They’re expecting us tonight at the Captain’s table, the—”

She interrupted. “At the same table with you?! With you?! You’re a monster! Are you mad, too? I’d rather die than sit at the same table with you, crawling dirty from Laura’s bed!!”

“Bed? What’re you talking about?! What bed?! To hell with you, then. Drown yourself in that shit, if you want to; I could care less!”

Her body coiled like a viper but she controlled her rage.

“When I first began to distrust you, years ago, I blamed myself. I thought it must have been something I’d done. I thought I’d failed you in some way. You see, I still loved you, at least a little. But not wanting to find out the truth about you, I never pursued my suspicion. Then, just a few weeks ago, someone told me about Laura, and I had to know. And all your dirty secrets began to unravel. Each new discovery was worse than the last. Laura was just the tip of the iceberg. You can’t love anybody, can you, Stephen? And you lie to everyone. Now I find that you really are fucking Laura, my poor, dumb, maid! My maid, Stephen! Why my maid!? Is that who you are, Stephen? Fucking her right here on my yacht, in front of my friends, in my face! I can never forgive you for that!! I’m divorcing you, Stephen. I’m putting you out with nothing, like the “white trash” you are!! And I’m taking from you everything you’ve stolen from me.—”

Her voice seethed with rage, then, gradually calmed.

“I’ve been recording your phone calls, Stephen. I’ve had you followed, taped, and photographed. I know more about you than just your dirty little trysts. I know everything! And what I know will put you in jail! You’re a thief, as well as a whore, Stephen!!”

She strained forward, veins protruding in her thin neck, her hair wild, her face pale, her eyes riveting.

“But I should thank you. If you hadn’t cheated, used me, made a fool of me, I wouldn’t know all that I know about you now, like the deals you’ve been making behind my back, darling!!!”

The words she screamed seemed to hang in the space between them, as she sprang to her feet. He stared at her, his eyes wide with apprehension.

“You’re going to jail, Stephen, and I’ll see that you never get out!! I can do it and you know it! And I will!!”

“For what? What’ve I done to you? What’re you talking about?!—”

“You know what I’m talking about!! Where would you like me to start? Link-Text? No, not them. How about Syn Con, Syn Con Pharmaceuticals? Yes!! You put the public at risk and hid behind that front corporation you and your crooked attorney set up to take the fall. And you were lucky, lucky despite yourself, that no one found you out. You knew, Stephen! You knew all along what was going to happen. You planned it. You ruined lives and you risked my family’s reputation. You did it for money. But then, a man who’ll betray his wife will betray anything and anyone!”

“You can’t prove a damn thing! And why should it bother you anyway, Myra? None of it put money in my pockets. You’re the one who made the money. You’re the one who benefitted. You always are. It was all for you!!”

“You really don’t understand, do you? You’re really that low, that far in the gutter. And I can prove it; and it wasn’t for me. I don’t want money that way. The Reinsdorffs have never done what you did.”

“You’re stupid, if you think that. You don’t know the first thing about your father, I can tell you that. He was no saint.”

“You’re lying! But no matter, that just makes me more determined to destroy you. I can link you to all of it, Stephen! I have you on tape. I have it all; the women, the dirty deals, and now Laura! Laura, our children’s governess! Have you no shame?! You wanted a few million for your self, didn’t you. Five or ten, just for you; so you could leave me when you wanted to. And you almost made it. The funny thing is, had I felt that you loved me, I would have given you the money. But you don’t want me, so you stole; from me, from others, from poor people. And you thought I’d never find out. You stole so that after you left me, you’d be able to live in the style in which I’ve made you accustomed. For you, decency doesn’t exist. It’s like trying to take a hog out of slop; you just can’t do it. Do you want me to prove it, Stephen; would you like to hear the tapes? No, let’s hear you and Laura first, so we can see what a man you are!! A fine man; a man’s man. But maybe not so fine, and maybe, not even a man.”

Smelling of alcohol, her gown awry, partially exposing a breast, she walked past him to an elaborate tape deck which tied into the ship’s intercom system. With a thin finger, she pushed a single button. He heard his voice and Laura’s, two hours earlier.

“How the hell did you—?? It was Kevin, wasn’t it?! Wasn’t it, you bitch, your goddam chauffeur?!!”

“Yes!! Yes!! It was him! He told me about you and Laura and I wouldn’t believe it! I couldn’t! I couldn’t, until I heard it myself, just a few hours ago. And even then, I could hardly believe what I heard. When Kevin first came to me, I had Laura’s rooms at our home bugged and the suite I planned for her use on this cruise. I had hoped that Kevin was mistaken, that I would find that she was involved with someone else. After all, you both couldn’t be dogs. And at first, it appeared that way. You were careful not to have your liaisons in my home and I began to believe that Kevin was wrong about Laura. But, it was only an untimely pause in your relationship. Perhaps you two were angry at one another, or just careful. But no matter, I continued to be suspicious, and I had you followed and your office bugged. And what did I discover? Other women, and Syn Con. I spent thousands on you darling, and you were worth every fucking penny. Yes, Kevin started it all. And he wanted to fuck me, but I wouldn’t let him. I don’t fuck the help!”

“Help yourself.”

“What? You son-of-a bitch!!” A cry erupted hollow and twisted, as tears ran down her face. “Oh, but you’ll like this next tape even better, darling. You’ll love it!”

She removed the tape of him and Laura and inserted another. He heard himself and his attorney discussing Syn Con, and his attorney assuring him that he was safe, as long as no one could connect him with the front corporation or prove that he had knowledge of its operations. He stood motionless, mouth open, eyes wide, gradually comprehending that she really could put him away. She played the tape until it finished and stood looking at him, a smirk on her lips, hatred in her eyes.

“I see. You’ve done your homework, Myra. You’ve done well, and now I’m backed into a corner.—Look,—um,—It doesn’t have to end this way.—”

He looked plaintively into her smirking face, as her eyes riveted into him.

“You did well, too, Stephen. You were careful and cautious, except as it concerned me! You were contemptuous of me, as a woman, and as your wife. And I will never forgive you for that!!”

“Myra! Myra! Look, you don’t have to do this! I didn’t do anything to you, for you to do this to me. You don’t have to tell anybody anything. You’re right! I cheated and I’ve done things that I’m not proud of. But I never stopped loving you.” His voice broke, as the words choked in his throat. “No matter what you heard on those tapes, we loved each other once. Didn’t we, Myra? Remember?”

“No!! I loved you, Stephen, and that was my biggest mistake, a long time ago. Its over, Stephen! And don’t beg; you make me sick!”

“I’ll make things different, Myra! I promise! I’ll make it right; I swear it! Who else knows about this? Look, don’t do anything rash, that we’ll be sorry for.”

“I won’t be sorry for anything, Stephen, except for marrying you and for taking you out of the gutter! I should have divorced you long ago.”

“Laura doesn’t mean a damn to me, Myra. You can fire her now, if you want. There’s no sense wrecking everything I’ve—we’ve worked for!”

He sought to touch her, his hands reaching out. She backed away.

“Forget it!! That’s the pity of it, Stephen, Laura doesn’t mean anything to you, nor I, nor anyone, except perhaps the children. And I’ve always wondered why you loved them. Perhaps its the ego in you. Its too late, now, Stephen! I needed your hands reaching for me years ago. Now, I just want you gone. I don’t want you touching me, near me, talking to me, ever again. I don’t even want to look at you. I want nothing to do with you. No, no one knows about you and Syn Con, except me and your attorney; and he’s going to jail with you. Yes, I could forget the whole thing. I taped that conversation myself, and I could easily forget it; but I won’t!! And before I’m through, the world will know just who you are, and about Laura, and all your whores. Think about that, while you’re rotting in jail!!”

“Myra, if its Laura, if its Laura, God knows, just fire her!!”

“So, you’ll give her up, for me, huh?! How nice! How sweet! How caring! How loyal! No! It’s not Laura, Stephen. Its you!! It’s you I want to hurt!! I’ll deal with Laura my way.”

“Don’t do this, Myra! Don’t do this!! Please!! It doesn’t have to be this way! Remember how it was when we first met? Remember the way we—”

He moved toward her again, his hands seeking hers.

“We can be that way, again, Myra!”

“Do you think I’d ever let you touch me again, after you’ve fucked Laura, had your mouth in her?!! Don’t touch me!! Don’t you ever touch me again!! I hate you, Stephen!!”

He stared at her, wiped sweat from his brow, and tried to think of a way to reach her. But at the same time, he hated her and felt that hatred, now, more than ever.

“Myra!”

“Don’t Myra me! Why not, Laura! Say Laura!! Let me hear you say it, Stephen! Laura!! Laura!! Say it!! Say it, Stephen!! ‘Do you love me, Stephen, do you really love me? Yes, Laura, I do’—humph!! Well, you can have your slut and you can both go to hell! Get out!! Get out!! And take her with you!! Maybe she’ll visit you in jail. But I won’t!!”

She removed the tape of him and his attorney and reinserted the one of him and Laura.

“Would you like to hear more? I would! It’s really good, and I didn’t even hear it all. I got sleepy, too much champagne, you know, I never knew you had so much stamina; you never did with me, you dog!! Say, I’ve got an idea. Why don’t I switch it to the intercom, so our guests can hear, hmm?? Would you like that, Stephen?? Hmm?? Would you??—”

She moved toward the tape deck, her finger pointing to a button.

“I’ll bet they already know, anyway. The wife’s always the last to know. They know, don’t they, you filthy dog?!!”

“Bitch!!” he screamed, slapping her hand away from the intercom, as he leaped toward her. “You drunken ugly bitch!!” He grabbed her by the throat and shook her violently. “I won’t let you ruin me!! I fought too hard!! I worked too hard!! I took your shit for years and years!! It’s mine!! I’m going to keep it. I won’t let you destroy me!! I won’t let you ruin me!!”

She flailed at him, her nails biting into his arms. But her cries were muffled by the hands which grasped her throat, choking the air from her lungs.

“Stop, Stephen!! Don’t!! No!!” she gasped.

His hands tightened and tightened, as he bent her to the floor, his face demonic, and then, it was as if he suddenly awakened to find himself crouched over her motionless body.

“Myra!! Myra!!” he cried, cold sweat covering his face and hands. She gurgled, and he took hope. “Myra!! Myra!!” he moaned.

Her eyes had rolled up in her head and only the whites were visible. Her face had turned dark. He’d crushed her windpipe, and she was dead. He sat, dazed. He hadn’t meant to kill her. Still, he was conscious of the danger each passing moment presented. What if he were discovered? He dragged her body to a porthole. It was difficult squeezing her through; and his fear of discovery by anyone leaning against the railing above filled him with dread. He pushed, but her body stuck halfway. He pushed harder. Bits of skin tore, and skin and blood worked their way into the porthole mechanism. At length, she fell to the shark infested sea. He thought he heard a sound behind him and, thinking it Kevin, whirled to face him, fear constricting his heart. But there was no one. Blood ran down from the porthole and he knew he could never clean it all away. It had gotten into the inner wall of the ship itself, through air ducts beneath the porthole. He knew he had to destroy the vessel.

He wiped sweat from his brow and tried to keep his hands from shaking. Quickly, he left the stateroom and locked the door behind him. He hurried to the engine room, got a wrench from a tool cabinet, and took it over to the engine, its two large fuel tanks just feet away. He began to trace the fuel line with his eyes.

“May I help you, sir?” The mate’s voice, suddenly behind him, startled him. He wheeled, wrench in hand.

“Th—um—th—there’s something wrong with this gauge. It’s—it’s not reading—it’s not reading—.” His voice choked and trailed off.

The mate interpreted his agitation as concern for the engine and came forward to view the gauge, his own voice resonating the concern he thought he had read in Stephen.

“Let me take a look, sir. I’ll see if there’s a problem”

He stepped in front of Stephen and looked at the gauge. Stephen raised the wrench and brought it crashing down toward the back of the mate’s skull; but in that instant, the mate turned toward him.

“There’s nothing wr—” Before his sentence ended, the wrench impacted, truncating the mate’s words and his life.

Stephen stepped over the body, flung the wrench aside, and grabbed an axe from a tool closet. He broke gaping holes in one of the fuel tanks and set the engine room ablaze. Then he raced up the stairs to search for his children, as great bursts of flame and smoke roared from the engine room. He looked up at the lifeboats suspended high on their winches, but there were only two, when there should’ve been three! The ship’s alarm went off and the yacht’s Captain gathered his crew to try to fight the blaze, but it was useless. Then, he ordered them to man the lifeboats. Fire burst over the yacht devouring works of art, burning crystal chandeliers, consuming, sweeping screaming people before it to the windward or leeward sides of the craft, where the lifeboats hung. One by one, Stephen found his children, first Lloyd then Nina, but a screaming and crying Andrew found him. With his three children clinging to his legs in terror, he struggled to keep his place in the seething mass before the descending windward lifeboat.

“Keep calm! Stay in line!!” Captain Wade shouted as he watched passengers push and fight each other for position in the ever shifting lines before the descending lifeboats. “Make sure they got their goddam life-jackets on and fastened!” Captain Wade ordered his crew over the roar of the flames. He divided his crew, directing them as evenly as possible to the windward and leeward sides of the craft, and ordered them to calm the passengers and help them to the lifeboats. But soon, smoke and flame obscured the windward from the leeward side, and panic developed.

As the windward lifeboat descended, Captain Wade continued to fight to keep the passengers calm. “Stop it!! Stop it, you fools!!” he screamed as they pushed and fought each other to be in front of the line to descend. Their behavior forced him to restrain them, by neck or waist, his powerful arms encircling. “You’re animals!! Stop it!! Line up along the rail!! You’ll get to the lifeboat when you get there. If you don’t stop fighting, none of us will!!” His words finally took affect and the windward passengers calmed down and waited their turns to descend.

With Nina in his arms and Lloyd and Andrew clinging to his legs, Stephen calmly waited, but Nina and Lloyd looked back into the fire and called for their mother. Time passed slowly as passengers prayed and cried. The flames grew hotter and toxic fumes hung over the dying ship. Finally, Stephen and his children reached the ladder, but as they did, Lloyd and Nina tried to break away and run back into the flames for their mother. Stephen restrained them.

“Where’s Mommy Daddy?? We’ve got to find Mommy, Daddy!! We’ve got to find Mommy or she’ll be burned up, Daddy! We’ve got to find her and take her with us! We’ve got to find Mommy!! Where’s Mommy!?” Nina and Lloyd screamed.

“Mommy’s in the other lifeboat, already safe,” Stephen lied to his children, as he picked Nina up and handed her to a sailor. “She’s in the other lifeboat, Nina. The fire kept you from seeing her, but I got a glimpse of her, through the flames. I saw her going down the ladder to get in the other lifeboat. She’s alright.” The sailor took Nina and started down.

“Are you sure you saw her, Daddy!?” Nina and Lloyd cried, their frightened, tear stained faces brightening a little. Again, Stephen swore to his children that their mother was safe in the leeward boat.

As Nina descended, she turned her attention to the sea and strained forward, over the sailor’s shoulder, peering across the dark water for the leeward boat and her mother. The strange, awful sound of creaking, bending steel pierced the roar of the flames and the ship seemed to groan in its agony. When Lloyd and the sailor who carried him reached the lifeboat, Stephen began his descent with Andrew. Captain Wade, then, sent the last windward passenger down and driven by the intensity of the fire, dove from the yacht into the sea. He swam to the boat and climbed in. The crew started the engine, steered the craft around the burning yacht, and headed for the leeward boat, but the leeward boat was still taking passengers.

Moments later, as the windward boat approached the leeward, the yacht’s second gas tank exploded. Great red fingers of fire leaped into the black sky, sending chunks of debris high into the darkness, like shrapnel shot from some gigantic cannon. Large and small, it rained down. A large piece struck the leeward boat, splitting it in two and instantly sinking it, killing or spilling its passengers into the sea. Charles, who had already seen his wife, Claudia, fall to her death, held his son, Austin, above the water’s surface. It seemed forever. Then, men from the Captain’s boat pulled Charles and his son in. Vaguely, Charles became aware of people around him, Carl and Deborah, their daughter, Sharla, and others, some wounded, some bleeding, some crying, some praying, some dying. But he saw clearly only one face, the face of his deceased wife, Claudia, and the relentless sea.

“Set course south by southwest,” Wade ordered what was left of his crew. “Low throttle. We’re overloaded and we’re going to take water.” Turning his attention to the sick and weary passengers, he shouted, “Its not over, we’re going to take water and you’ll all have to bail, all of you. With luck, we can make it far enough to catch the Bermuda current and drift to the shipping lanes. That’s our only chance. Bail, bail, all of you, if you want to live!”

Stephen looked from face to face to see if Kevin was among the survivors, but both Kevin and Laura had perished.

At Captain Wade’s command, weary sailors rose and set the engine in throttle and the vessel lurched heavily forward. In motion, it sank lower, and water spilled constantly over the sides.

“Take off your clothes, quickly, all of you! You fought each other to get on this lifeboat, now fight to stay alive!! Take off your clothes, sop the water up and bail it out!! Bail!! Bail!! All of you, if you want to live!!” Wade commanded. “This is no goddam cruise to Aruba now!!”

Through the moon-lit night, the boat strained forward, its engine whining in protest. And, as water constantly came in, the rich, powerful, famous, and renowned, now almost naked, sopped it up and wrung it back into the sea.

Eight days later, they were picked up by a South African cargo vessel, as they drifted in the Caribbean. Suffering from wounds, burns, dehydration, and pneumonia, and clothed in the excess garments of their African hosts, they were helicoptered from the cargo ship to Miami General Hospital, in Florida.

At the precise moment Myra’s yacht went down in the Caribbean, an old woman lay murdered in Southeast Washington D.C. Her neck grotesquely twisted, brown tongue protruding through broken lips, she lay strewn across the back seat of her car. From her bloodied face, her dead eyes screamed the horror of her murder. The end of the Southeast Washington street where she had parked was dark, trash littered, and deserted. A lonely steel shuttered warehouse loomed a few feet from the car. Streetlights imparted greyness to the streets, like the cold grey cement of cellblock floors. Overhead, a dark, cloud covered sky hung like a dingy ceiling.

“82 years old,” Detective Segal almost whispered, as he looked at her raped and stabbed body. “I wanted to kill him!” he continued, softly. “How the hell could he do something like this?” The woman’s dead eyes seemed to follow him as he moved, blaming him for her murder.

David Segal looked at his bloody knuckles and wondered if her murderer, the man he’d just beaten senseless, had HIV. He should never have been allowed back on the streets, he thought. Segal was tall, over six feet, lean, and muscular. His body was scarred by years of police work. A long scar left by a bullet which had torn through the flesh of his left forearm, just above the wrist, was the most visible. It had been largely superficial and it looked a lot worse than it had been. His hair blew gently in the wind. A crowd began to gather just beyond him and the policemen who worked the scene. He looked again at the old woman and wondered again how a human being could do something like that.

“82 and she was still driving,” he said, turning slightly to Robert, a wan smile barely showing, at the corners of his lips.

“How we gonna handle this, when the press gets hold of it?” Robert asked. “You messed him up pretty bad, David. He’s over there now, with Frank, talking about police brutality; and he’ll keep on talking.”

“Screw him and the press,” Segal responded, as he looked at the old woman. Her brown arms looked soft and he could see the flabbiness of the skin under her arms, like the flesh of grandmothers. They’d called her that, the people of the neighborhood. That, and her frailty, made it seem even more unreal that she’d be covered in her own blood and naked below the waist. After her attacker had finished, he’d moved to the front seat, dumped her purse upside down, and taken her money and credit card. He had jumped out of the car and started to run when the three detectives, David Segal, Robert Pierce, and Frank Mitchell drove up.

“I should’ve shot him in the back, while he was running,” Segal said.

“Yeah, sure. And you’d be in real trouble, now, man. And I can tell you one thing, they’d do a lot more to you than they’re ever gonna do to him.”

“If I’d known what he did, I’d have shot him anyway. You know, when we caught him and took him back to her car and I saw her laying there, it made me sick, I mean, really sick, but I looked at him and it didn’t even bother him. He just stood there, like it was nothing. I felt like killing him. Yet, at the same time, I felt this, this, strange feeling, like I was facing some kind of monster, and if I didn’t kill him, he would spread, like a disease. I guess I lost it. I started hitting him and couldn’t stop. I couldn’t, I just kept hitting him. And maybe I would’ve killed him, if you hadn’t stopped me. Its ironic, because I hate violence more than anything.”

As Robert Pierce and David Segal talked, David gradually calmed down. Frank questioned the perpetrator and uniformed officers catalogued and recorded evidence. They cordoned off the area with the familiar yellow tape, too often seen on ghetto streets. As the two detectives talked, David gradually became aware that the crowd, mostly young black males, had grown to a considerable size. It was not the restless hands grasping bottles and bricks which worried him, but the intentions of those who, with hands in their pockets, grasped the butts of guns. Collectively, they outgunned the police. They knew it; and the police knew it. They moved about, threatening, shouting, cursing, because in their view, an unarmed black man had been severely beaten by a white detective, and for no apparent reason. Aware that he was in a badly deteriorating situation, which, at any minute, could get out of control, David Segal began to assess the danger it presented.

“You ain’t have to do that.”

David Segal knew the speaker, a hard faced young drug dealer called ‘Jumpy’. Segal had arrested him a number of times.

“Look at him; he fucked up, man! I thought you was better’n that, you white ass motherfucker, you had me fooled.”

The crowd grew louder, more menacing, moving closer to the officers.

“What you want to fuck him up like that for, man? What’s wrong with you, you white ass bitch!”

“You want to see what he did, before you shoot your mouth off, you want to see? Come on! Come on, let me show you! Look for yourself. See what you think, then!”

As he spoke, Segal walked toward Jumpy but Jumpy broke through the yellow tape and moved to meet him. Jumpy’s eyes were dilated, his face hard. Segal stared at him, then turned and walked in front of him toward the old woman’s car. Two of Jumpy’s “crew” began to follow but when the police restrained them, a struggle began. The excitement passed through the crowd like a shot of adrenalin. Segal and Jumpy looked back toward the disturbance. Jumpy’s crew froze, momentarily, waiting a signal from him. The officers stopped, too, and looked at Segal for direction.

Then the shorter of two crew members exploded, “Get your goddam hands off me, motherfuckin pig!”

“Chill, Stokes!” Jumpy shouted. “Chill!! Let me see what this, this, officer talking about.”

“Let them through, just those two!” Segal ordered. The officers released the two men who simultaneously jerked free and followed Jumpy and Segal toward the car.

“That’s Grandma’s car?” Jumpy said, as they approached. It seemed like a question as he said it.

Officers shined their flashlights in the back seat. The old woman lay as the perpetrator had left her, bloodied, half naked, her tongue lolling from her mouth, her dead eyes staring. Jumpy stumbled back and turned to Segal, his face sick.

“We caught him running away. Her money and credit card were in his pocket.

Jumpy and the two men turned to the crowd.

“It’s Grandma!” they shouted. “He killed Grandma!” He messed her up bad, man. She fucked up! This motherfucker killed Grandma!” Their hardened faces twitched, their voices, strained and trembling, resonated disbelief.

A hush fell over the crowd.

“Grandma! Grandma! It’s Grandma!” The murmur, starting as a trickle, quickly built to a crescendo. “That bitch killed Grandma!”

“I ain’t do shit! I ain’t do shit, man!” the perpetrator screamed. “They framed me, they set me up, man!!”

“Segal don’t frame nobody, bitch,” Jumpy said. What you doing with her money, then!? What you doing with her fuckin credit card!?”

“Why you do that to Grandma, bitch, you crazy or something? You crazy motherfucker, I kill you!!

The crowd leaked through the police line, ran to the old woman’s car, and stared in. Then, angrily, it turned, almost as one, and moved, slowly, toward the perpetrator.

Quickly, Robert and Frank swept him toward a police car. They opened the door, but before they could get him in, Jumpy reached across Frank, and struck him in the face, knocking him limp in Robert’s grasp. The crowd broke, rushing toward him, just as Robert pushed him in the car, got in himself, and locked the doors. With Robert and the perpetrator in the back, Frank drove slowly through the crowd while David and the police struggled to re-establish order. The angry crowd strained forward, intent on exacting street retribution. The car wove its way through, escaped, and disappeared from view. Afterwards, Segal stood in the street talking to Jumpy. Jumpy’s face was dark and his hair coarse and short. Segal’s skin was white, his hair medium length and black. Both were over six feet, lean and attractive, but while Jumpy’s face possessed the clear, unlined appearance of youth, Segal had begun to show age. But the real difference between the two was not in hair, color, or the lines upon their faces, but in their eyes. The eyes of both men reflected courage, but Jumpy’s were hard, almost threatening, while in the depths of Segal’s, one could sense a concern for the people he protected, not usually found in police officers.

“If I searched you now, I’d find crack and a gun, right? You’re still dealing and packing, but what I don’t know is why you do it. I think there’s more to you than that. Give this shit up, Greg! It’s gonna get you killed, or hard time. I don’t have to tell you, you know it. That’s why I can’t understand why you do it.—How’s your Mom, Greg? I know you’re still worrying her to death. It’s all about macho and easy money, isn’t it? It’s that ‘man’ bullshit, isn’t it, Greg?”

Segal always called him “Greg” rather than “Jumpy” and, sometimes, spent time talking to him about his life. Jumpy was aware that Segal took an interest in him.