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СКАЧАТЬ Southern Belle had started upriver from St. Louis about an hour earlier, after the forty members of my tour group had gotten together for lunch at a restaurant not far from the riverfront. I had booked a private room so that we could eat together, and then everyone had gotten up and introduced himself or herself. I don’t think that everybody who goes on one of my tours has to be all buddy-buddy with the other clients, but since we were all going to be together on a relatively small boat for the next twenty-four hours I didn’t think it would hurt for them to get to know each other. After all, some people go on vacation tours hoping that they’ll meet someone who’ll turn out to be special in their lives.

      Most folks, though, just want the scenery and the history. And, in the case of the Southern Belle, the gambling. The side-wheeler was a floating casino.

      Casino gambling is legal in most places up and down the Mississippi River, and there are numerous riverboats devoted to that purpose. Most of them are permanently docked, however. Some even have the engines gutted out so that they’ll never move again, at least not under their own power.

      The Southern Belle was a little different. Built in the late nineteenth century, it had been lovingly restored and refurbished under the supervision of its current owner, a real estate mogul named Charles Gallister. From what I’d heard, he owned half the shopping centers in the greater St. Louis area.

      In addition to being a very successful businessman, he was a Mark Twain buff. Because of his interest in the man some consider to be the greatest American author, Gallister had bought the riverboat and set up these overnight cruises to Hannibal, Missouri, the town where young Sam Clemens had grown up.

      Gallister had the golden touch in more than real estate, too. Rumor had it that he was making a small fortune from the gambling that took place on the Southern Belle.

      All I knew for sure was that it was a powerful draw. When I decided to add the riverboat cruise to the list of literary-oriented tours that my little agency in Atlanta books, I hadn’t had any trouble filling it up. This was the first time my clients had gone on the tour, so I figured I’d better come along, too, just to make sure there were no glitches. I had flown to St. Louis, leaving my daughter and son-in-law back in Atlanta to hold down the fort at the office.

      I had been running tours like this for nearly a year. Thanks to a suggestion from a friend of mine, an English professor named Will Burke, I had concentrated on tours with some sort of literary angle. The Gone With the Wind tour, which included an overnight stay at a working plantation designed to resemble Tara from the book and the movie, was the most popular. Which sort of surprised me considering the fact that there had been a couple of murders on the plantation the very first time I ran the tour.

      Since then I’d been a little leery of trouble every time I added a new tour to my list, but so far everything had gone smoothly. I didn’t have any reason to expect that this riverboat cruise would be any different.

      Laughter from the tourists attracted my attention. I turned to see a man in a rumpled white suit ambling along the deck. He had a shock of white hair, a bushy white mustache, and carried an unlit cigar in his hand. He nodded to the tourists and said, “It could probably be shown by facts and figures that there is no distinctly native American criminal class…except Congress.”

      That brought more laughter and applause. The white-suited man waved his cigar in acknowledgment and went on, “I’ll be dispensing more of the wit and wisdom of the immortal Mark Twain tonight in the salon, at eight o’clock. Thank you.”

      The tourists applauded again. The Twain impersonator continued along the deck, coming toward me. He stayed in character for the most part, stooping over, shuffling his feet, and walking like an old man.

      He greeted me with a nod and said in his gruff Twain voice, “Good afternoon, young lady.”

      “Hello, Mr. Twain,” I said. I held out my hand to him. “I’m Delilah Dickinson. I put together one of the tour groups on the boat.”

      He took my hand. His hand was a giveaway that he wasn’t as old as the character he was playing. His grip was that of a much younger man.

      “Very pleased to meet you, Ms. Dickinson. I quite fancy redheaded women, you know. I’m Samuel Langhorne Clemens.”

      “You know, I can almost believe that,” I told him with a smile. “You’ve got the look and the voice down.”

      He waved the cigar. “Thank you, thank you.” He leaned closer and half whispered, “You can’t tell that I’m new at the job?”

      That took me by surprise. He looked and sounded like he’d been playing Mark Twain for a long time.

      “Not at all,” I told him. “You must be a quick study.”

      He shrugged. “I have some acting experience.” His real voice was also that of a younger man. “My name actually is Mark…Mark Lansing.”

      “I’m pleased to meet Mr. Lansing as well as Mr. Twain.”

      I was happy that he’d referred to me as a young lady, too. When you get to be my age, which I refer to as the late mumbly-mumblies, and you’re divorced and have a grown, married daughter, you don’t often feel all that young. I was just vain enough to enjoy the attention from Mark Lansing, even though in reality he might be younger than me.

      “Will you be attending my performance tonight?” he asked.

      “I hadn’t really thought about it—”

      “I’d appreciate it if you would. I could use a friendly face in the audience. Like I said, I’m new at this.”

      “Well, all right, sure. I’ll be there,” I promised.

      “I hope you won’t be disappointed.” He lifted a hand in farewell. “I have to circulate among the other decks and the casino. See you later.”

      He shuffled off—not to Buffalo—and I went over to the members of my tour group who had gathered along the rail to ask them if anybody had any questions or needed any help with anything. Nobody did.

      That gave me a chance to go back to my cabin for a few minutes and call the office. Unlike Eddie Kramer’s cell phone, mine worked just fine inside the boat.

      Luke Edwards, my son-in-law, answered. “Dickinson Literary Tours.”

      “Hey, Luke, it’s me.”

      “Miz D! Are you on the riverboat?”

      “I sure am. Everything’s going just fine, too. I met Mark Twain a few minutes ago.”

      “Really? The guy who wrote Huckleberry Finn?” Luke hesitated. “Wait a minute. He’s dead. He can’t be on that riverboat.”

      “No, but an actor playing him is.”

      “Oh. That makes sense, I guess.”

      “Is Melissa there?” Luke is big and handsome and charming as all get-out with the clients, but Melissa has a lot better head for business.

      “No, she’s gone to the office supply place to pick up some stuff.”

      “Any problems since I’ve been gone?”

      “Uh, СКАЧАТЬ