A Night to Remember

By Bowen Gillings

AWARD-WINNING author. A lively cocktail of intrigue and mayhem shaken (not stirred) together with a dash of laughs on a sunset cruise for the ages, from the author of Dawn Trouble and First Family.

"A Night to Remember was an all-nighter for me. After reading it, this author is on my auto-buy." – Donnell Ann Bell, award-winning author of Black Pearl

 

After losing his lunch across Monterey's Coast Guard pier, nervous newly successful writer Walter Straub wobbles aboard the Diego Wind for a sunset cruise with a who's-who of celebrity authors. It takes a few fruity cocktails, a disputacious dinner, and some playful orca before he's comfortable in his rented tux and finds the nerve to speak with lovely, bestselling author Avni. All goes swimmingly until a guest becomes fish food. Then more writers turn belly up. When those left look to pin the deaths on him, Walter must either sink or swim.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Bowen Gillings
• Release date: Nov 24, 2022
• ISBN: 9798215932827

Bowen Gillings

Bowen Gillings is an award-winning author writing to bring the world more fun. He is an active member of Pikes Peak Writers, Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers, and the League of Utah Writers. An Army veteran with a Masters of Education and five martial arts black belt certifications, he loves travel, cooking, trekking rugged trails, and a fine adult beverage. He lives in Colorado with his wife, daughter, and odd dog.

Book preview

1

ONE NICE THING ABOUT soup is it comes back up the same consistency it went down. My chicken and summer vegetable remix blends right in with the other gunk stuck to the pier. I sputter and spit, praying there isn’t another heave waiting on deck.

A year ago, I had no problem keeping my lunch. A year ago, today’s trip wasn’t even a blip on my radar, not even a speck of an inkling of an idea of a wish that it might happen. And never beneath the California sun.

Days like this don’t happen to people like me—a seventeen-year schoolteacher from Madison with a thirty-year mortgage on a house occupied solely by his soon-to-be ex-wife. I’m the guy who pedals a Schwinn to work and gets his meals from the frozen food aisle. Guys like me don’t hit the jackpot and we certainly don’t get comped airfare, a room at the Hotel Abrego, and a chauffeured ride to the Coast Guard pier in Monterey. Guys like me don’t write bestsellers, either.

But I did.

My book hit number seven this week. I’ve held a dozen book signings in a dozen towns. I’m getting invites to sit on expert panels and invites to give keynote speeches. My publisher wants a sequel within a year. It’s all happening really damn fast. And now I’m here beneath a cloudless sky, breathing lungfuls of briny air, hearing surf slapping along the stones, and watching crabs scuttle toward my puke.

Bits of broccoli are stuck in my teeth. I spit. Gah. S-sorry...

Not a problem, sir. Chet is behind me, patiently waiting, holding the coat of my rented tux. He’s a tall, tan collection of sinewy muscle flashing a too-white all-day smile wrapped in a salmon polo and khakis. When he picked me up in front of my hotel driving a convertible Jag, he introduced himself as Mr. Ashbury’s assistant. If I had an assistant maybe I’d enjoy this rocket-propelled ride I’m on, instead of getting violent indigestion.

Chet drapes a clean handkerchief on my shoulder. It’s not the first time something like this has happened to one of our guests.

I wipe my mouth with the cloth and stand, fumbling on whether to stuff it in my pocket or hand it back.

Chet to the rescue once more. Here you go, Mr. Straub. He takes the cloth in exchange for a travel-sized Listerine bottle.

Thank you. I swig and swish and rinse and spit. Four times. Then a bottle of water appears in Chet’s hand and I down it, ending with a burp of gratitude muffled against my shirtsleeve. Now, other than echoing tummy flutters and a consistent beading of forehead sweat, I feel almost human.

We should move along, sir. Everyone else has arrived.

I nod, slowly. Everyone else. Friends of Justin Ashbury.

Justin Ashbury’s...friends.

A few steps away, his Diego Wind rocks at her moorings, ready and waiting.

Easy stomach, no need for a round two. Ashbury may be a wealthy, media-savvy, larger-than-life literary icon who’s had bestsellers every year since Clinton left office and his friends are just as jet set, but he’s also the guy who invited me—paid for me—to join him on this evening cruise. He wants me here. So settle down belly and brain. Would Cary Grant balk and barf? No. Today marks the new Walter Straub.

Chet beckons me to the gangway. This way.

I shrug into the ill-fitting tux jacket, give my stomach one last set of marching orders, and take a good look at Ashbury’s ship before I walk up. I appraise it like I have some discerning opinions on what I’m looking at, even though I don’t know the difference between Ashbury’s yacht and a fishing trawler, other than the Diego Wind, I assume, holds less fish.

What I’m looking at is something out of Indiana Jones—all white paint, burnished wood, and polished brass. There’s even a shiny bell atop the dark-windowed cockpit and a wide smokestack painted with a jaunty devil face blowing away innocent clouds.

Gulls cry. Bantering voices and a Smokey Robinson song drift down from the ship. The scene promises fun times ahead. It also promises I’m about to tumble way, way down a rabbit hole far too big for little old me.

Mr. Straub? Chet’s smile remains patient.

Tonight, it’s my rabbit hole. Stroll or tumble, I’m going in.

Coming, I say, heading over in my best Cary Grant stroll, only to have my chipper strides halted at the base of the gangway by Chet’s outstretched arm.

There’s just one more thing before boarding. He lifts his empty palm.

Oh, I say. Didn’t know tipping was a thing for assistants driving Jaguars. I tug my wallet out, pretty sure I have a ten tucked amongst the wrinkled singles when Chet, nonplussed, stops my momentum yet again.

Not that, sir. Your phone.

I blink at him, thumbs ready to part my wallet like a tiny, worse-for-wear Red Sea. Whazzat?

Pretty sure that was never a Cary Grant line.

"Mr. Ashbury wants this to be a relaxed and unplugged sort of evening, says Chet. Don’t worry, we have a lock box on the bridge." I swear the guy’s cheeks don’t move when he talks, like the smile’s glued on. Must be a hell of a ventriloquist.

Yeah, sure. I stuff my wallet back in its den and hand over my cell. The cracked screen and scratched I Love the 80’s protective case don’t go unnoticed. One of his eyebrows twitches just a bit.

You’ll get this back when we return to port at the end of the evening, Chet says before leading me up the gangway.

Cary Grant, Cary Grant, Cary Grant.

Onboard, the ship’s Golden Age persona continues: a dark wood deck well-polished, striped shade umbrellas over deep green deck chairs, bullhorn speakers hanging below the cockpit and grooving out Ooo Baby Baby.

A conversation is happening on those chairs beneath those umbrellas; an intense conversation by the sound of it. Men and women cluster in the shade, in a mélange of outfits ranging from airy linen and flowing flowered prints to creased leather and, if I’m not mistaken, bright red Chuck Taylor’s. A gruff woman’s voice calls bullshit in the particular way that expresses total disbelief. A challenge follows from a less-gruff man’s voice daring her to prove him wrong.

At the ship’s prow sits a tiki bar with an oddly familiar bartender going to town on a Boston shaker. It’s Chet, right down to the clothes and the aggressive part in his feathered, sandy-blonde hair. Only, Chet is beside me. The bartender cracks open the shaker, filling a martini glass with something frothy and colored to match his shirt. A pink paper parasol gets popped on top and then, as if on cue, a guest with bouncing red curls breaks from the rest to fetch her cocktail.

Would you care to join the others? Perhaps a drink? Chet’s here. I look at him, then the bartender, and back again.

Uh... I stuff my hands into the pockets of my too tight pants. Not Cary Grant. Maybe Jimmy Stewart? A drink, I think.

Tell you what, Mr. Straub, you go introduce yourself and I’ll have Bret come over. Chet cocks his head an inch to the side, like Mom did when compromising with eight-year-old me over boiled spinach.

That would be fine. I nod. Thank y— His name’s Bret?

Yes, sir. I’ll have him come over.

Chet knows what I’m thinking. By the look on his face, he knows I know it. And I know he probably gets it all the time, so I don’t bother mentioning what we both know we know.

He lifts an advising finger. And may I recommend his Absinthe of Malice? Superb.

I shrug and nod—a