Untitled

PART ONE

Chapter One

It was a beautiful April morning, a typical spring day for Long Beach Harbor, home port of the cruise ship Sunbeam. The Sunbeam nestled against its mooring dock in anticipation. Smoke billowed from two giant smokestacks extending high above the upper deck. The Sunbeam would soon embark on a seven-day Mexican Cruise-a voyage that would change the lives of a select few.
The terminal was a beehive of activity as people unloaded themselves from buses and cars. Porters busily piled pieces of luggage on pushcarts to precariously balanced heights. Their day's earnings would depend upon the quantity of luggage they could handle and how quickly they moved during the four hour boarding period.

There is something about a cruise vacation that sets it apart from the traditional on-shore vacation experience. After once indulging in the fantasy of a cruise, the average tourist returns again and again. Aside from providing all that a magnificent floating resort can offer, including visits to exotic foreign ports, there is more. For some, the beauty and tranquility of the sea, coupled with spectacular sunsets and star-studded moonlit nights, provides the perfect setting for spawning romance. And it is curiously odd, during this short period, how friendships are made and cemented to endure long after the cruise is over.
Out there, isolated in the ocean's center, positive energy permeates the air creating a healing atmosphere that can aid in the unraveling of confused minds and the softening of the hardest of hearts. Perhaps a person will experience life-changing personal growth in the form of expanded inner awareness, an intimate commune with nature, or maybe a spiritual unfolding. Some mystery and intrigue also are not uncommon. In any event, the seasoned cruiser always knows he can expect the unexpected.
Eager passengers began to check through boarding gates.

Lieutenant Benjamin O'Reilly, and his wife, Louise, were the first to cross the gangplank and board ship. "Lieutenant Ben" had recently retired after forty years of service in the LAPD (Los Angeles Police Department).
Ben and Louise were completely devoted and attentive to one another. Especially now that the kids were grown and out of the house. They were celebrating his retirement along with their forty-first wedding anniversary. This would be their first vacation since honeymooning in Bermuda and they were quite excited.
Lieutenant Ben was a stodgy fellow who stood about five-foot-six. He was a bit on the portly side, an unfortunate side effect of forty years of subsisting on donuts and coffee for breakfast, eaten either in a patrol car, Dotties Donut Shop, or at the station sitting behind the battered, walnut finished desk that was probably as old as he.
Lieutenant Ben was a product of an ancestry of Irish policeman. He had been shot four times in the line of duty and walked with a slight limp from one of his wounds.
During his forty years with the police force, he had confiscated millions of dollars worth of narcotics as well as large amounts of drug money.
Drug traffickers had attempted to bribe him on several occasions, and he was also presented with many opportunities to pocket significant sums of drug money without detection. He had been tempted at times, especially when he thought of the things he would like to do for Louise and the kids. But these moments of weakness were a secret he would take to the grave.
He had a good reputation for solving crimes, even though his co-workers claimed he did so mostly by accident. They failed to acknowledge that he possessed extraordinary insight. And he did not flaunt this gift.
Louise was a short, stocky, Jewish lady about as round as she was tall. Living up to the sometimes stereotyped image of Jewish people, she had a propensity to hang on to the dollar. To say that she was thrifty with family finances would be an understatement. Her prudence accounted for the lieutenant's brown bag lunch and morning breakfast diet of donuts and coffee, as his allowance would not afford him much more. She was also the reason why they had postponed, as she would put it, any prior vacations.

This cruise was the exception and Lieutenant Ben couldn't get aboard the ship fast enough.

Upon entering the terminal building, Ricky Colletti stood out in the crowd, just the way he intended. His manner of dress, olive complexion, and shiny black wavy hair, combed straight back, cast him as a suave Italian playboy. Dressed in a white suit, white shoes, and a flashy tie, he looked very handsome and might have even passed for a Mafia gangster of Sicilian heritage. As he walked toward the check-in gate, it was no surprise to note that many heads turned, particularly the young ladies.
After boarding, Ricky immediately proceeded to the ship's main cocktail lounge to begin his surveillance. In contrast to his appearance, Ricky was dirt poor; in fact, he had borrowed the expensive Rolex watch he sported on his left wrist from a reluctant uncle.
The lounge was practically deserted, but soon it would be bustling with cruise passengers, friends bidding bon voyage, and waiters prancing about holding trays overhead, dodging stumbling people.

Lisa Simmon sat in quiet contemplation at the end of the lounge bar sipping a Virgin Mary. Lisa was a petite blonde with flashing hazel eyes that betrayed a conscious desire to appear independent, self-assured, and emotionally insensitive. She was dressed in a full-length pink pantsuit that left little for the imagination. In terms of physical attributes, she was a beauty to behold, close to a perfect ten.
She was born in the small southern town of Pattersville, Georgia. An alcoholic mother and abusive stepfather caused her to run away from home when she was fifteen years old. Her meager savings were enough for a bus ticket to California with a little left over for food and the bare personal essentials every fifteen-year-old girl should have.
It had been a long, lonely bus ride. Only the hypnotic effect of staring out the bus window, watching wooded areas, wheat fields, and telephone poles pass by, temporally relieved her anxiety. Her heart ached terribly as the miles separated her further and further from the only life she had ever known. She was desperately afraid of the unknown that lay ahead, yet she feared even more the prospect of returning home. She prayed and cried to herself as she reached out to her Daddy. Even though he was dead, she somehow sensed he was watching over her.
She finally arrived in Los Angeles late in the evening, five days later. The only place to sleep that first night was on a hard, wooden bench in the bus station.
She spent the next day walking the streets, overwhelmed by the tall skyscrapers and crowds of people hurriedly walking in all directions, but seemingly knowing their individual destinations. She had never seen a skyscraper close up, nor had she ever seen so many people concentrated in one area at a time. As she strolled the sidewalks, carrying a small suitcase, it was obvious to passersby that she was just another runaway.
The days turned into weeks. For Lisa, it was eternal hell. She was given shelter and befriended along the way only to be raped, deceived, and discarded when she refused to willingly yield to sexual demands. Pimps constantly solicited her for their employ, but she would rather die than resort to prostitution as a means of livelihood.
Desperate, cold, and scared, she huddled one night in an alley somewhere off Hollywood Boulevard. She thought of her younger sister, Mama, and Daddy, before he died-the happy days at the candy store they owned. She reached inside her purse, clutched a small Bible her Daddy had given her, and prayed, as she so often did.
Awakening at dawn was usual, due to early traffic noise and the smell of auto fumes combined with bacon cooking in the diners and restaurants that dotted the business district along Hollywood Boulevard. Still lying in a fetal position, shivering from the cold, Lisa turned her head and looked up to see a stooped over, graying old man looking down at her.
"You needn't be afraid, I am here to help you," he said.
She was, at first, frightened, but his soft voice and easy smile with eyes to match, left little reason for concern. He motioned and she followed. They drove to an old three-story Victorian style house located on the outskirts of town.
Inside, she met Granny, a sweet, frail, little lady whose warm eyes and demeanor expressed love and compassion. Pop and Granny were both in their mid-eighties and usually boarded about six or seven homeless girls at a time. Lisa was able to return to school, although she did have to work part time in fast food restaurants to help with expenses. She considered herself lucky to be there: Or was it luck?
One lazy afternoon, Lisa curled herself into a comfortable chair in the living room of the old house. Her eyes moved in blank stares from flames licking scorched logs in the fireplace, to hailstones rebounding from darkened window panes. They bounced randomly in all directions following no specific pattern, finding their resting place seemingly by unpredictable happenstance. She remotely compared the chaotic, yet rhythmic, dances of the fire flames and tiny hail stones to the circumstances of her life. Then, in a "Divine Holy Instant" of time it came to her as an impression deeply rooted in feeling and knowing, that someday she would correctly perceive these were, indeed, dances that exemplify a synchronized universal order: Everything in its place; in its time.
The smell of Granny's fresh baked cookies lured Lisa from the comfort of the living room into the kitchen. Her curiosity aroused, she spontaneously questioned Granny, "How did Pop find me? And why was he up so early? He never gets up that early in the morning."
Granny held her broad smile in place while she studied her young friend and searched her mind for a truthful answer. "Dear," she said, "Pop sometimes has strange ways about him. He says he gets hunches about things."
"You mean he knew I was there and needed help?" inquired Lisa with a puzzled look.
"No, not quite, he just sometimes knows he should do something. It's hard to explain and I don't understand it myself. But, it's like when a need arises, thoughts pop into his head to guide him. For instance, there was the time when we thought we lost Charlie." Lisa looked over at Charlie, their beloved house cat who had been sleeping beside the warm stove, pick his head up at the mention of his name.
Granny continued, "When Charlie was still a young kitten, he ran off and got lost. Well, Pop came down out of his music room and we got in the car to go looking for the cat. He drove down our street first and then made about five or so turns going down different streets. I remember asking him if he knew where he was going. 'Just following my hunches,' he said. After all the years we been together, I should have known better. I don't ask anymore. Anyway, he turned down the next street and stopped at the corner, got out of the car and started calling for Charlie. He walked up and down the street and pretty soon, here comes Charlie.
"Pop says he gets his hunches from relaxing in his music room. You've heard him go up there and listen to classical music. The day he went out to get you, he got up real early that morning for some reason and went into his music room. After he came out, he came through the kitchen here, kissed me on the forehead and started out the front door. I asked him where he was going. He gave me that mysterious look of his and said he didn't know but would soon find out. About an hour later, he came back with you. And Lisa honey, I'm glad he did." Granny reached out and pulled Lisa to her and treated her to one of her famous bear hugs. "Pop treasures the time he spends in his music room because it helps him do good, he says. That's the reason why he sometimes goes in there instead of going to church with us." Granny wasn't totally accepting of that idea and it shown in her eyes. "And that reminds me of another story."
Lisa was content sitting at the table nibbling on cookies and sipping milk as she listened to Granny.
"Pop says his music room is just as good as church. One day, when Reverend Doyle was over here to visit, he told Pop he'd be a better Christian if he went to church every Sunday instead of sitting around listening to music. That was one of the few times I seen Pop get mad. He told the Reverend, 'Even Jesus said that a man should go in a room or a closet by himself and pray and have his commune with God and that's what I do.' Pop also told him that he shouldn't say that his religion is the only right one. Pop studied the major religions. He explained to Reverend Doyle that as far as he could tell, they all teach the same basic message. And that message is love.
"Our sole purpose during this lifetime is to learn how to love without strings attached-without expecting something in return. To love our neighbors as ourselves, as the Bible teaches. Pop told the Reverend that the words may differ, but he discovered that all the major religions include the statement 'do unto others as you would have others do unto you.' He said that's how he lived and that he was more of a Christian than all those folks who go to church every Sunday and then go out on Monday and start sinning again. He went on to say that he didn't know how people could follow a religion without knowing something about other ones. That's when I jumped in and told Pop he knows that the Bible is the word of God. Pop agrees with that, but because of his studying, he also believes that it's not the only word of God and that there are many paths to God. 'My hunches come from a source outside myself and that's my connection with the divine power,' he would say."
Granny paused, and then said, "And you know Lisa, after that day, Reverend Doyle and Pop became good friends and respect each other." Granny looked at Lisa with penetrating eyes. "There's one thing they both agree on. And that's the fact, like it or not, bad things that happen to us should be looked upon as lessons we need to have in order to help us learn to love and have compassion for others. That, dear, is why we are here."
Lisa would never forget that day in Granny's kitchen. It would have a profound influence on her later in life.
Granny and Pop died three years later, but not before proudly attending Lisa's high school graduation. They loved to listen to Lisa sing in the choir and she often serenaded them as they sat on the front porch in their rockers. She felt it only fitting that she sing at their funerals, which turned out to be a short two weeks apart. Pop followed Granny in death just ten days after her funeral.
The high quality of Lisa's singing voice was such that friends recognized her extraordinary talent. They urged her to audition for a part in an upcoming play put on by a local theater group. She won the part and her singing career was launched. Working nightclubs, hoping for that big break, would occupy the next few years. With the passage of time though, her dreams of becoming a recognized first-rate vocalist and recording star began to fade.
She was irresistible to many of her employers and so-called important people. And often, sexual favors became a condition of continued employment. Weary of fighting off the wolves, she traveled across the country to work the nightclub circuit in the big cities. She quickly found that people differed little, from the standpoint of ethical and moral character, regardless of where she went.
Time passed, leaving in its wake two failed marriages, an abortion insisted upon by a recalcitrant mate, and a subsequent nervous breakdown. Unrelenting guilt, coupled with grief over the part of her that was missing-her unborn child-plunged her into depression, a depression so great that it led her to substance abuse, followed by addiction.
Having recently completed a rehabilitation program, Lisa, at age thirty-one, now sits at the end of a cruise ship bar, ready to resume her career, doing the only thing she knows-entert

Lisa's daydreaming came to an abrupt halt when she felt the sensation of staring eyes. Looking into the mirror across the bar, between standing wine glasses, she could make out Ricky's figure in the background. His piercing eyes, like two mental laser beams, explored her from top to bottom. After a closer look, again in the mirror, she immediately saw through his facade and said to herself, 'This one I am going to have to stay away from.' Lisa was a seasoned entertainer and had seen them all-Ricky was nothing new to her.