the Golden Orange (1990)

by Wambaugh, Joseph

  The barroom bitching started rather early that night. Tripoli Jones tasted Spoon's Special Lobster Salad and yelled, "Your lobster oughtta have dates on 'em like milk cartons: open before April first. This lobster's rancid"

  Spoon hollered back, "You want a money-back guarantee, go buy a car battery!"

  The ex-marine then yelled to the multitudes, "Anything happens to me from eatin this, I want a hose down my nose, and Ollie North's lawyer!"

  Winnie tiptoed up the carpeted stairway, planning to slip into bed without waking Tess, but she was lying awake. He wondered how many sets of those sheets she owned. They always seemed fresh and they were always the color of the flesh of a slightly overripe peach.

  She didn't speak until he slid into bed beside her. Then she turned on her side and said, "I don't know what to do, Win. Tell me what to do."

  He was sober enough to know that his speech was slurred. "I'm not sure, Tess. I got a couple ideas we can talk about tomorrow."

  "We have to do something. I can't live like this! Looking for a killer wherever I go! I hoped it was Hack Starkey, and that when you found him you'd make him stop somehow. I still can't believe you found him so easily."

  "It wasn't that easy," Winnie said, not without some professional pride.

  "I don't want to end up like Daddy!" She threw her arms around him and pressed her naked body against his. "Please don't let me end up like Daddy, Win!"

  "You won't," he said, stroking her hair, smelling jasmine. "I won't let anything happen to you."

  As they kissed, she rolled Winnie on top of her. He was lying diagonally across the bed, and was getting aroused, but when he glanced up at the marble nymph with her hand outstretched, he saw that she was offering him something. What?

  "What's the matter, love?" Tess said. "Too tired tonight?"

  It s just. . . it S . . .

  He almost had it! There! It was there! The amorphous spangled image of a woman in a white dress! Reaching out!

  "Too sleepy tonight, old son?" she asked, easing him off her body. "It's okay if you're too sleepy."

  Then it was gone. Winnie Farlowe felt a touch of panic. He thought about going to the library the next morning to read up on the dija vu experience.

  Winnie said, "I musta met you in another life! Either that or I'm going nuts. Which is very possible."

  "That again? Still think we met somewhere before, huh?"

  "I need to plug into one of those New Age brain wave machines," Winnie said. "I need their synchro-energizer to unscramble my brain waves. It's like we met in a dream, you and me!"

  Tess sighed and said, "Go to sleep, love."

  Before he closed his eyes, Winnie leaned over to Tess and said, "There's another thing bothering me besides this dream I can't remember. You said Warner Stillwell goes to a hospital from time to time. That led you to believe he had AIDS, right?"

  "Yes."

  "Starkey told me there's nothing wrong with him. He doesn't have the HIV virus."

  "He would say that," Tess said. "He'd like you to think badly of my father. Even if Hack Starkey isn't physically able to do me harm, that doesn't mean he isn't good buddies with Warner Stillwell. They were thick, those two!"

  "He denies that too. He claims that he and your dad were ... buddies. That he worked for your dad, not for Warner Stillwell."

  "Of course, Daddy paid him! It was Daddy's money, wasn't it? But Hack Starkey was Warner's man, I tell you. He's still Warner's man. Who's paying his medical bills now? Did you ask him?"

  "No."

  "Why not? I thought you're the ace detective."

  "Tess ..."

  "Well, you seem to believe this . . . this deviate instead of believing me!"

  Winnie sat up with his back against the padded headboard. He tried to take her hand, but she turned her back to him.

  "I believe you, Tess! Why wouldn't I?"

  "Find out who's paying his medical bills. I'll bet it's Warner Stillwell. For past services rendered! And I'll bet Warner has AIDS. I resent and detest what you're hinting at! That my dad got AIDS from that... that creature, Hack Starkey!"

  "Go to sleep, Tess," Winnie said. "I don't mean to hint at anything. I can't. I don't know what the hell to think."

  He awoke at The Drinker's Hour, but without the buzzards Fear and Remorse. Since meeting Tess Binder, his waking life had been filled with excitement and confusion and even hope, all of which helped to banish the demons. But none of that could thwart biology-the drop in blood sugar. So he lay awake for nearly three hours staring at the darkness, trying not to hear the song that was tormenting him. Instead, he heard the jazz melody from Thelonious Monk's "Mysterioso." It made him think of his evening in Laguna Beach. Of Hack Starkey's death mask. Of the old woman trying to drive out the evil in Buster Wiles.

  Winnie was feeling clammy and anxious. He had a slight sensation of dread. He countered it by deliberately thinking of his childhood. Of shooting baskets in the driveway with his dad. His dad had always seemed so big and powerful. His father had seemed eternal.

  Once again, Tess got up long before he did. Once again, the omelet was ready when he got down to the kitchen.

  She was wearing a white jersey with green vertical stripes on the front, white shorts, white deck shoes. She smiled and left the frying pan long enough to kiss him. "Sorry for last night," she said.

  "Nothing to it," Winnie said. "I'll be twice as nice today to make up for it."

  "It takes two to tangle, and I was a bitch," she said, putting the omelet on his plate.

  As before, she sat and drank coffee and watched him eat. Once, she reached over and brushed his hair back from his forehead. When his cup was half empty, she refilled it. She wanted to make him another omelet, but he declined. When he wanted to help with the dishes, she pushed him toward the patio with his coffee cup.

  Winnie sat watching the traffic snaking its way along Pacific Coast Highway. He saw an outrigger racing team of six college girls powering past in the narrow channel. All of them were tan and fit, muscular specimens with strong paddling strokes and great shoulders. California girls.

  When Tess came out and sat beside him, she said, "I don't really know if Warner Stillwell has AIDS. Once he told me he had to check into the hospital from time to time, so I just assumed it."

  "It may be," Winnie said. "Doctor Lutz in Palm Desert might tell you if you call and say you're concerned."

  "To tell you the truth, Win, maybe I don't want to know for sure. I guess in my heart I always suspected that what Starkey told you last night might be what happened. That he and Daddy were the ones who got . . . involved for a few . . . perverse moments. I guess in my heart I thought it could've happened that way. I guess I preferred to believe that Daddy was an innocent victim of Warner Stillwell's philandering."

  "I understand," Winnie said. "It's okay, Tess. It's okay."

  She put her hands up under her glasses as though it would block out memories. When she removed them she looked at him dry-eyed, and said, "I can take anything as long as it's the truth."

  "That's the toughest thing of all," Winnie said. "The truth here is awful slippery. It's like a . .. like the words to a song."

  Tess said, "You're staring at me in that odd way again."

  "Was I? Sorry."

  "What should we do about Warner Stillwell?"

  "What would you say if we just met him head on?"

  "How?"

  "Like arrange a meeting. Maybe here or out at his ranch. Just confront him with what we know."

  "That somebody took some shots at me? That somebody spied on me?"

  "Yeah, and that if something should happen to you all of a sudden, he'd be a very sorry old guy one way or the other."

  "Sounds like bad melodrama."

  "It's better'n sitting around waiting for a guy to take another shot. He might aim better next time."

  "There must be some other way."

  "I'm out of ideas."

  "The Ensenada race is coming up," she said
.

  "Yeah, April twenty-eighth. I crewed for a friend a mine three years in a row. We came in second in our class one year."

  "My father had a lifelong friend named Dexter Moody who always throws a party at his yacht club on Catalina Island the week before the race. Some of the sailors use it as an excuse to tune up their boats. They do a shakedown cruise to Catalina, and then back the next day. Daddy and Warner almost never missed that racing party. Dexter was about the only friend from the old days who accepted Warner, and I'll bet he'll take Warner over to the island on his yacht."

  "I don't see how that's gonna help us."

  "Warner will not come alone, no matter what his health's like. He'll have a companion drive him from the ranch, and accompany him on the boat."

  "How about one of his servants?"

  "They're too old and not the type for a yachting party. There's a very good chance that Warner might bring him The man who's stalking me. Is that a reasonable assumption?"

  Winnie looked at the gray pebbles and said, "Search me, lady. Nothing reasonable's happened to me since I met you."

  "Do you regret it?" she asked softly. "Meeting me?"

  "You know the answer to that."

  "This might be ... dangerous."

  "I doubt it. He's not gonna take a shot at you at a yacht party."

  She grinned seductively and said, "Are you feeling dangerous this morning?"

  "Why, you got a hammock around here?"

  She got up and patted his hand. "Old son, daytime performances are just the ticket for middle-aged folks. Have you ever tried it from the cockpit of a sailboat?"

  He sometimes thought the most enchanting thing about her was her imagination. Tess ran upstairs and quickly changed into a trendy mariner's outfit: a double-breasted, waist-length jacket with crested gold buttons and baggy sleeves, and white linen pants, with the white deck shoes. She told him she had to phone a yacht broker. When she reappeared, she posed provocatively and said, "How's about a date, sailor?"

  When they got into the car she informed him they were going sailing, but while driving down Coast Highway to the boat dealer, she suddenly asked Winnie if he needed a drink.

  "I never need a drink," Winnie said.

  "Of course you don't," Tess Binder said, turning the Mercedes into the driveway of the club. "But it's almost noon. It's certainly not too early."

  He said to Tess, "Maybe if we're gonna sail I shouldn't have any booze. I feel responsible for somebody else's boat."

  "The people I borrow boats from wouldn't care if you sunk them," she said. "In fact, they'd probably appreciate it. They could collect the insurance and buy a bigger one with more prestige. Let's have just one drink."

  He was starting to think that being with her was like traveling with his own bartender. He had to admit that a brew sounded good.

  They took a table under an umbrella and he ordered a Mexican beer. He was a bit irritated when Tess ordered iced tea, no sugar.

  "How come I'm the guy that has a real drink?" he said.

  "I'll order something else if you want."

  "I don't need somebody drinking with me, Tess!" he said. " You suggested we have a drink in the first place!"

  "Oh, please, let's not quarrel again," she said, slipping her hand into his. "We're going to have a lovely day." When the waitress came with the beer, Tess said, "Changed my mind. I'd like a beer too."

  Before he had time to object to that move, Corky Pteebles blazed onto the patio from the private beach fifty yards away. She wore a see-through coverup over a gold bikini, with gold sandals. On the third toe of her left foot she wore a tiny gold band.

  "As inevitable as dawn," Tess said to Winnie. "She comes up like thunder 'cross the bay. Where she's living with a girlfriend until she can find another husband." When Corky came closer, Tess smiled and said, "My, you've got an early start on your tan this season!"

  Corky stopped at the table, nodded at Winnie and said to Tess, "I know it's declasse nowadays, but I'm an old-fashioned girl. Besides, I look pretty good with a tan, yes?"

  When she turned to Winnie, slit-eyed, he said, "Absolutely!" And noticed a little scar on each of Corky's hips near the bikini line. Then he realized that Tess had similar marks, tiny, but they were there.

  Corky said, "Have you heard what Doris got from Bob for their honeymoon trip? The luggage, I mean?"

  "Tell us," said Winnie, glad that Tess had insisted on the beer. It tasted great.

  "Crocodile luggage with gold fittings. Only gold plated, of course, but still."

  "How much did it cost?" Tess asked.

  "A hundred and twenty-five thousand."

  "What a crock!" Winnie said, but Corky didn't react. Then he said, "Crock?" Still nothing.

  "She can't hold on to Manley," Corky said. "Men don't like her after they get to know her. Manley'11 be available soon, you'll see."

  "He does seem sweet," Tess said.

  "One of those self-made street guys, though," Corky offered. "Thinks it was skill that made his waterfront house quadruple right after he bought it in seventy-five. When really it was dumb luck and a volatile market. They just can't admit things like that, those self-made types. How do you pass an evening with guys like that? What do you talk about? Like, one time I went with them to Beverly Hills, when people still ate nouvelle. He looks at his plate and goes, 'I don't know whether to hang it or drink it.' Then he asks for ketchup! How do you pass an evening when you marry guys like that?"

  "Reminds me of a self-made rich guy that comes down to Spoon's Landing," Winnie said. "Mouth like a mule skinner. Always has a load a snuff in his cheek, so big it looks like he forgot to take it outta the can. He says most a the wives only get to act out by voting for a Democrat once every four years."

  They nodded politely, but neither women seemed interested, so Winnie signaled to the waitress for another beer.

  "And have you heard about Blanche's husband?" Corky asked. "The new bank he founded went belly up and he's being sued by thirteen foreign investors. Had to file Chapter Eleven and he's forced to countersue them. But get this! He's syndicating his lawsuit! Fifty thousand shares of common stock at five dollars a share! He prepared a formal stock offering, and from any settlement judgment you get back your investment and a percentage of remaining proceeds."

  "He always had imagination," Tess said.

  "Shares in a lawsuit," Winnie said. "That's pretty amazing all right."

  While the women chatted, Winnie looked at his watch and ordered a vodka. He was definitely feeling a buzz by the time Corky left their table to join another hot momma on the beach. Winnie watched as together they approached a very fat, older man who was having a tall drink at the beach hut. One woman sat on either side of him and he pecked them both on the cheek.

  As Tess signed the bill, Winnie pointed to the fat man and said, "Who's that guy? Is he F. F. H. rich?"

  Tess squinted, then removed her sunglasses and put on the clear ones. "Oh, that's Miles Jarvis," she said. "He's seven-one-four rich."

  "They work in pairs," Winnie said. "Corky makes the approach, the friend closes the deal."

  "They're not hookers, Win!" Tess said defensively. "They have marriage in mind."

  "I'd say those ladies're entrepreneurs. Corky hopes to make a marriage deal. And her little pal's the closer I think I know what that tall drunk in the red toup was trying to say about the hot mommas around here. Like junk bonds: irresistible, but not worth it in the long run."

  He thought they were going to borrow a sailboat there at the club, but Tess surprised him by driving him to one of the yacht brokers on the main channel. She said it was an "up-market company," one of those yacht brokers where all the salesmen wore jackets and ties and the inventory in the boat slips was worth millions.

  The broker was a tall good-looking guy about Winnie's age, with a terrific tan and teeth as white as Buster's. He was definitely commodore material for the old club, Winnie thought, as soon as he got old enough. He wore a blazer and sl
acks and a rep tie with deck shoes. He even wore socks.

  "Boyd Schuyler, meet Win Farlowe," Tess said after he'd kissed her on the cheek.

  "Hear you're a pretty good sailor," the broker said, and Winnie wondered if the guy knew he was the guy that stole Christmas from the boat paraders.

  "How about showing Win some of your stock?" Tess asked.

  They walked down the ramp, where there were huge power yachts in the first row of slips, and Boyd Schuyler said, "A sailor probably isn't interested in these."

  Winnie gazed past them at a thirty-six-foot sloop in the second row. Boyd Schuyler followed his eyes and said, "You in the market for a Swan, Mister Farlowe?"

  Winnie didn't even bother to ask the price. He said simply, "I got to sail a Swan thirty-eight one time. Did a favor for a guy and he took me out."

  "Bit too much of the heavy furniture feel for me," Boyd Schuyler said. "When Tess phoned she said you're the performance-boat type."

  "I'll take whatever you're willing to let us borrow.

  As they continued along the dock, the yacht broker said to Winnie, "I guess you've sailed all the standard stuff?"

  "Used to own a twenty-nine-foot sloop."

  "Do you know the Baltic?"

  "Never sailed one," Winnie said. "I know it though."

  "It's like the Swan in that there's the feeling of security and the traditional warmth down below. You might like that, Tess."

  Winnie thought he saw Boyd Schuyler give a subtle nod to Tess when they got to the penultimate boat slip. The yacht broker said, "I wonder if you'd like to take a look at this forty-footer? She's an ultralight. Only displaces ten thousand five hundred pounds."

  "That's a mini-sled!" Winnie said.

  "Let's take a look, shall we?" said the broker.

  He took Tess's hand and helped her up onto the deck of the sloop, with Winnie right behind her.

  The broker said, "We sailed a fifty like this and beat a Swan forty-six to Cabo San Lucas by nearly twenty hours. She surfs sooner than a heavy boat."