Choke

by Stuart Woods

  “My attitude’s not that good,” Chuck said, laughing. “I gotta make a living.”

  “Found a place to live yet?”

  “I brought it with me.”

  “Trailer?”

  “I haven’t sunk that low; it’s a little motor yacht. I found a berth at Key West Bight.”

  “That’s where it’s all happening, boatwise,” Victor said. “Say, is the yellow Speedster yours?”

  “Yep. I restored the thing from scratch when I was living in Palm Beach.”

  “I guess Merk told you, this isn’t Palm Beach.”

  “I’m glad to hear it.”

  “Listen, Chuck, you and I don’t know each other very well, but I’ve got to ask you…”

  “Yep, I choked.”

  “Not about that.”

  “About what, then?”

  “About Palm Beach. We got a whiff of the rumor down here. Did you really get the club president’s wife pregnant?”

  Chuck shook his head.

  “I didn’t really believe it,” Victor said.

  “It was the chairman’s wife. And it was a hysterical pregnancy.”

  “A hysterical pregnancy?”

  “Hysterical, isn’t it? She actually missed two periods.”

  “I don’t believe it.”

  “Neither did her husband. Of course, by the time she was running on schedule again, I was out of the club.” Chuck looked out over the moonlit water. “It’s beautiful, isn’t it?”

  “It is,” Victor agreed.

  Chuck watched as a boatload of people left a good-sized motor yacht anchored offshore and made their way to Louie’s aboard a Boston Whaler. The skipper tied up the boat, and a party of six scrambled ashore.

  Chuck glanced at his watch. “Our hosts are twenty minutes late,” he said. “You may have to buy me dinner.”

  “They’ll show,” Victor said. “Harry’s the type to keep his promises.”

  Another half hour passed before the Carrases turned up, and the whole restaurant turned to watch their entrance-or rather, Clare’s entrance. She came down the stairs in a white strapless dress that Nature held up, and for a brief moment, not a word was spoken within sight of her.

  Chuck stood up and watched her walk toward the bar. “Hello, Harry,” he said, shaking the husband’s hand first. “And Clare.”

  Her cool hand squeezed his again. He stopped himself from fantasizing.

  “Sorry we’re late,” Harry said, “but our table’s ready, so let’s sit down and have a drink there.”

  Chuck and Victor followed the couple to a well-placed table and ordered another round. Harry ordered scotch; Clare ordered a glass of sauvignon blanc.

  Harry raised his glass. “Welcome to Key West,” he said.

  “Thank you, Harry,” Chuck replied. “I think I’m going to like it here.” He tried not to look at Clare as he said it.

  “So you’re down from Palm Beach,” Harry said. “Are the rumors true?”

  “No, they’re not,” Victor said. “It was a hysterical pregnancy.”

  They all burst out laughing, and Chuck joined them.

  “Chuck,” Harry said when they had stopped laughing, “do you make a specialty of other men’s wives?”

  “No, Harry,” Chuck replied. “But from time to time, they seem to make a specialty of me.”

  Everybody laughed again.

  Clare put a hand on Chuck’s arm. “Who could blame them?” she said, and there was just a touch of sarcasm in her voice.

  “You’re too kind, Clare,” Chuck replied.

  The talk turned to tennis as the menus arrived, and they stayed on that subject through two courses, until Harry changed it.

  “You do any diving, Chuck?” Harry asked.

  “I do. I live on my boat, over at Key West Bight, and I’ll be happy to take you out sometime.”

  “We’ll take you,” Harry said.

  “I’d love to.”

  At that moment a gust of wind struck, so sharp and so sudden it knocked over a wineglass, and a split second later a roar filled the air. Suddenly everyone in the restaurant was standing, looking in the same direction.

  Chuck followed their gaze. A column of yellow fire rose into the sky, and debris was falling into the water in a large circle. The motor yacht Chuck had noticed earlier had now become a flaming hulk.

  “Holy shit,” Victor murmured.

  “Gas,” Harry said. “Gotta be gas.”

  “Gas and gasoline,” Chuck replied. “Diesel wouldn’t blow like that.”

  “Do you suppose anyone was hurt?” Clare asked.

  “I don’t think so,” Chuck replied. “We saw a large party leave the boat and come ashore here a little while ago.”

  As if on cue, a woman screamed.

  Chuck looked toward the bar. The woman had now covered her mouth with her hand and was pointing toward the fire. Tears streamed down her face.

  “What’s she bitching about?” Harry asked. “She’s alive, isn’t she?”

  3

  Tommy Sculley was on his feet with the rest of the diners, gawking at the explosion. Then he got hold of himself, reached for his pocket cell-phone, and dialed 911.

  “I knew it,” Rose said. “I knew you’d do something to fuck up this dinner, but I’ll admit, I hadn’t expected anything quite so elaborate.”

  “Rosie, shut up and eat your dessert,” Tommy said.

  “Key West Police Department,” a woman’s voice said.

  “This is Detective Sculley. A boat has exploded a hundred and fifty yards off the east end of the island, and there may be fatalities. I want you to…”

  “Who did you say this is?” the woman asked.

  “Detective Thomas Sculley of the Key West Police Department,” he replied.

  “I don’t know any detective named Sculley,” she said.

  “Sweetheart,” Tommy said, “if you don’t listen to me and do what I tell you right now, you’re going to get a very personal introduction. I’m new, okay? Now you get hold of the Coast Guard and tell them to scramble a cutter and to make sure there’s a medic on board.”

  “You sure this isn’t some kind of joke?”

  “What’s your name?”

  “Helen Rafferty.”

  “Helen, as one Irishman to another, this is the straight scoop. Now, does this department have a boat of some sort?”

  “Yeah, but it’s hauled out getting some work done at the moment.”

  “Swell. You call the Coast Guard, and I’ll find my own boat.”

  “Are you sure…”

  “Do it, Helen, and think about it later.” He raised a hand. “Waiter!” he yelled. “Check!”

  Five minutes later, Tommy had left his wife to pay the bill for her birthday dinner, collared the young man who had skippered the Boston Whaler to the restaurant, and was on his way to the scene of the explosion, along with a very unhappy accountant from Atlanta.

  “I just bought the thing,” the accountant said. “This is our first cruise.”

  “What’s your name?” Tommy asked, notebook at the ready.

  “Warren Porter,” the man replied. “Who are you, and what are you doing in my tender?”

  Tommy flashed his new badge. “Key West PD; name’s Sculley.”

  “How did you get here so fast?”

  “I was having dinner, just like you.” Tommy turned to the man driving the boat. “Are you new on the yacht?”

  “No, sir,” the young man said. “I worked for the previous owner.”

  “Were you in charge of maintenance?”

  “Yes, sir. She’s maintained to the hilt, you can take my word for it.”

  “Take his word for it,” the accountant said. “I’ll show you my first yard bill.”

  “Was there a gas system for cooking?”

  “Yes, sir, two twenty-gallon bottles, both stowed on the port quarter. The system is… was first-rate, conformed to all the Coast Guard regulations.”

  “What kind of fuel d
id the engines use?”

  “Gasoline. Fairly unusual in a boat of this size, but the guy who built her wanted as much speed as possible for the weight of the engine, and diesel didn’t cut it for him.”

  They reached the site of the explosion, and Tommy looked around. “Jesus H. Christ!” he said. “There’s nothing left.” All he could see were small pieces of flotsam, some of them still on fire. They added an eerie glow to the moonlight.

  “There’ve got to be some bigger pieces,” the skipper said, “but they’ve probably sunk. I mean, nothing short of an atomic bomb could reduce a sixty-foot boat to such splinters. I’ll bet we’re sitting on top of some major wreckage.”

  A siren sounded, and from around a point appeared a large vessel wearing a lot of lights.

  “Here comes the Coast Guard,” Tommy said. “I got to ask both of you some questions before they get here. Anybody aboard the boat?”

  “No,” the accountant said. “We all came ashore for dinner at Louie’s.”

  “Thank God for small favors,” Tommy breathed. “Who cooks?”

  “Nell,” the skipper said. “She’s my girlfriend; we’ve both been on the boat for over three years.”

  “Does she know what she’s doing with the gas system? How to turn it off and secure it when it’s not being used?”

  “You bet she does,” the skipper said. “She knows as much about the boat as I do, and she’s a careful girl.”

  “Is it just possible that she might have been in a hurry to get ashore with everybody else and forgot to turn off the gas at the bottles?”

  “Well, maybe,” the skipper admitted. “Normally we just turn off the gas at the stove and not at the bottles, unless we’re leaving the boat for a longer period of time.”

  “So you could have had a leak?”

  “It’s possible, but not likely. We’d have smelled it.”

  “Did you have a gas detector aboard?”

  The skipper shook his head. “It went south a week ago. It was on my list of things to replace while we’re in Key West.”

  Tommy nodded. Enough little problems to make an accident were emerging. “Was she insured?” he asked the accountant.

  The man nodded sadly. “Yeah, but there’s a ten-thousand-dollar-deductible, and insurance won’t pay for all the time I put in finding this boat and negotiating the sale.”

  “Let me say two words to you, Mr. Porter,” Tommy said. “Casualty loss.”

  The accountant looked a little happier.

  It was past midnight when Tommy got to the hotel room he and his wife were living in until they found a place. He sneaked in, trying not to wake her.

  “Have fun?” Rose asked.

  “A fucking ball, sweetie,” Tommy said, crawling into bed. “The smell of burning yacht does wonders for your digestion when you’ve just had a great meal.”

  “Well, I guess you don’t have to worry about it being too dull down here,” Rose said. “What happened?”

  “Looks like an accidental gas explosion that ignited the fuel tanks. Nobody aboard, thank God. I don’t think I could have taken the smell of burning flesh after that dinner.”

  “You like it here already, don’t you?”

  “I guess we did the right thing,” Tommy replied. He had retired from the New York Police Department after twenty years, taken his pension, and headed south. Rose liked Florida, and it had taken him less than a month to find the Key West job. He was forty-two, and he had just started building time on a second pension. When he was sixty-two, they’d be free as birds.

  “Let’s talk about that when we’ve found a place to live that we can afford and the furniture has arrived,” she said. “Then I’ll know if we did the right thing.”

  “But Rosie, you always loved Florida,” Tommy said.

  “This isn’t Florida, Tommy. This is like some kind of foreign country, some banana republic. It doesn’t have anything to do with Florida.”

  “It’s hot as hell and it’s humid and it’s got a beach. It’s Florida.”

  “If you say so.”

  He rolled over and dug his arm under her head. “You’re going to love it here, Rosie,” he said. “Just you wait.”

  “I’m waiting.”

  “Rosie?”

  “Yeah?”

  “You remember the couple who came in right after we sat down to dinner?”

  “You mean the couple in the white dress with the tits?”

  “That’s the one.”

  “What about them?”

  “The guy looked familiar, you know?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You never saw him before?”

  “Nope.”

  “Not even in the papers or anything?”

  “Nope.”

  “You know what he looked like to me? He looked connected.”

  “Tommy, they don’t know from connected down here.”

  “You never know,” he said. “Say, did I wish you a happy birthday?”

  “As a matter of fact, you didn’t.”

  Tommy pulled her leg over his, rubbed his thigh against her crotch, and ran a hand up under her nightgown. “Happy birthday,” he said, tickling her ass.

  Rose sighed and kissed him. “Thank you, Tommy; it’s been a memorable evening.”

  “Memorable starts right now,” Tommy said.

  4

  Chuck had a light first week at the Olde Island Racquet Club. His only regulars were Harry and Clare Carras; they never missed, and they always came together. Until Saturday.

  Clare showed up at 11:00 A.M., alone.

  “Morning, Clare,” Chuck said. “Where’s Harry?”

  “In Miami, on business,” she replied. “What do you want to do today?”

  She looked at him for a moment. “Let’s work on my serve,” she said finally. “I’m too erratic.”

  Chuck nodded. “I’ve noticed, but you’ve never seemed interested in any instruction.”

  “I’m interested,” she said.

  Chuck grabbed a cart of practice balls and led her onto the court. “Let me see you hit a couple,” he said.

  Clare picked up a pair of balls and began serving.

  Chuck was content to just watch for a couple of minutes. She was wearing a tank top and very short shorts, and every time she reached up for a ball, her buns peeked at him from beneath the white material.

  She stopped. “Well?”

  “A couple of problems,” he said, “starting with your grip. You’re too far around on the racquet, so all you can hit is a flat serve. Bring your grip around a bit, like this, and you’ll get some spin on the ball, make it harder to return.”

  She tried a couple more serves. “Better,” she said. “What else?”

  “You’re dumping too many serves into the net; you have to watch the ball until the racquet strikes it. Keep your head up, and you’ll send more over the net.”

  He worked with her for a full hour, and by the end she had improved noticeably.

  “Thanks,” she said. “I enjoyed that.”

  “So did I,” he said.

  She put down her racquet and mopped her face with a towel. “Come to dinner tonight,” she said without preamble.

  Chuck took in a quick breath. “Love to,” he replied, trying to sound casual.

  She gave him the address. “Seven?”

  “Seven’s fine; can I bring some wine?”

  “A good red would be perfect.”

  “A very good red.”

  “See you at seven,” she said. “Don’t dress up.”

  “I won’t.”

  The house was only a block from Key West Bight, a big, three-story Victorian on what seemed to be a double, even triple lot, if the fence was any indication. The door was open, but he rang the bell anyway.

  “Come on in!” she called from somewhere.

  Chuck opened the screen door and entered the house. There was a short hallway that stopped at a stairway. To his right he could see a large swimming pool.


  “Up here!” she called from upstairs.

  He climbed the stairs and emerged into a large living room, with the kitchen to his left, separated by a bar.

  Clare was rummaging in the refrigerator. She turned toward him, and there was a bottle of Veuve Clicquot in her hands. “Some champagne?”

  “Sure.” He set his gift of wine on the bar.

  She looked at the label. “Very nice,” she said. “It will go well with dinner.”

  “The best the Waterfront Market had,” he replied, accepting a flute of champagne. They clinked glasses.

  “New friends,” she said.

  “I’ll drink to that.”

  She came from behind the bar and took a stool next to his. She was wearing a short, sheer dress that buttoned down the front. Two patch pockets covered her breasts, and he could clearly see her panties through the material.

  “You look very beautiful tonight,” he said.

  She laughed, showing even white teeth. “It’s my job,” she said.

  “Your job?”

  “It’s how I earn my keep.” She shrugged. “It’s how most women earn their keep if they don’t have children and don’t keep house.”

  “You make marriage sound very businesslike,” Chuck said.

  “Harry is a businesslike kind of guy.”

  “How long have you been married?”

  “A little over a year. Harry’s first wife died the year before we met.”

  “Where you from?”

  “We’re both originally from the coast-Harry’s from L.A., I’m from San Diego. You?”

  “Small town in Georgia, called Delano.”

  “How did you get to be a good enough player to turn pro, starting from a small town?”

  “I had a high school coach who was very good. He got me a tennis scholarship to the University of Georgia, where I had another good coach. I turned pro right out of school. What did you do before you met Harry?”

  “Oh, lots of things-secretary, receptionist, manicurist, masseuse.”

  “I’ll bet you were a wonderful masseuse.”

  She smiled again. “I was, as a matter of fact. That’s how I met Harry. I was working at a hotel in Vegas.”

  “You’re far too elegant a woman to hang out in Vegas.”