Today was Tuesday. The inactivity was driving him crazy. He started to think. Was it possible to make a move sooner than Friday? Should I wait for that one shot? On Friday night all the heavy luggage would be put out in the hallways, collected and stored for easy disembarkation early Saturday morning. Hardwick smirked. He had heard about a group of drunken waiters who, on one crossing, had wandered down the hallways the night before arriving, fished what they wanted out of a dozen suitcases, then merrily thrown them overboard. But they had been caught. He had no intention of letting that happen to him. Reilly’s and Exner’s suitcases would be picked up and the two of them wouldn’t be missed until the ship was nearly empty, the luggage lay unclaimed on the pier, and he was long gone. As Hardwick pulled himself up out of the pool, he decided it was best to wait till Friday night. The less time they had to investigate the disappearance of the occupants of the Camelot Suite, the better.

Lady Exner undoubtedly would keep aside a bag of wrinkle cream and God knew what other useless potions to fight the aging process for use Saturday morning, which she would have to haul off the ship. He would just chuck it in the water after her, with whatever getup she was planning to greet her money-hungry nieces in. Let the sharks fight over her cigarettes.

Hardwick reached for his towel and started to dry his muscular arms. Reilly was the one who might cause him some trouble, he thought. She looked like a fighter, and being a detective, probably had a lot of street smarts. But those street smarts wouldn’t help when he surprised her during her rapid-eye movement. He wasn’t about to let any woman ruin his plans.

He stood before the mirror at the exit and combed back his shiny black hair. Pleased with his reflection, he bent down to slip on the lime-green water shoes he had bought for windsurfing. When he had worn these on the beach at the Jersey shore some idiot had called out, “Hey, Kermit, where’s Miss Piggy?” Cameron had had to hold back from decking him. The only thing that had restrained him was the sight of a band of beer guzzlers stretched out on their towels, laughing, waiting for his reaction, only too eager to come to the aid of their ringleader. The Andrew Dice Clay Road Company.

Hardwick straightened up and wrapped his beach robe around his frame, tying it at the waist, grimacing at the feeling that the belt had a little more ground to cover than usual. The extra ounce or two was barely visible to the naked eye, but to him it was a perversion. He hated to have any pinchable flesh anywhere, especially around his stomach. Leave the love handles to the Marios of this world.