I was halfway down before I realized that the sailor, Samir, was tracking me. Gay sex I may leave him anyway.”For Maria? You did establish an alibi, didn’t you, although not for as long as I told you to?”“Yes. Fortuitously, I managed that, so I was in place, first on stage, and then waiting the table when the Italian billionaire of secret means, Luigi Castrano, brought the guests who were going to sail with him on the Wind of Fortune to the club a couple of nights before the boat sailed.I did what I had to do to get Castrano to want me—and then to enjoy me.At that point, it was Castrano’s Naples factotum, Howard Brinkley, who was really one of ours, who got me set up. “This was your bloody idea to get Luigi to invite us on this cruise and hash out the movie thing to begin with.”That came as a bit of a surprise—that the actress would have been the one to instigate any of this.I didn’t dwell on that too long, though, as my brief was to get the new arrival, Al-Tirki, out of his dishdasha—the traditional white robe Arab men wore—and into bed so I could confirm his identity from a distinctive tattoo.
