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Wambaugh, Joseph - Floaters

Page 6

by Floaters (lit)


  She was working up a sweat from the wine. Beads of heat lay on her upper lip, her mouth brooding and sensual.

  She paused to let him turn on his side and saw his watery blue eyes gaze up at the photo, his brows silver-decked in the lamplight. When she began massaging again, he said, "The Cup was on the balcony with me as I sunbathed that day. I put it on a chair and watched it, The sun glinted off the silver and the sun's rays were hot, very hot, reflected onto my bare bottom. I didn't care if I got burned. I didn't care about anything. I don't think I've ever felt so at peace with myself. So contented with my life. So blissfully happy."

  Then Ambrose Lutterworth surprised Blaze Duvall by reaching down and slowly stroking his penis.

  Blaze smiled encouragingly, but he never looked at her. Never stopped gazing at the picture. In just a moment he was erect, and he didn't take his eyes from the photo until he was through.

  This takes the cake, Blaze thought, watching Ambrose Lutterworth reliving an extraordinary moment in his life: when he'd sunbathed on a hotel balcony in Cap d'Antibes, literally basking in the reflected glow of the oldest sporting trophy on earth: The America's Cup.

  Or, as Blaze later explained it to Dawn Coyote, "I got five hundred scoots to watch this geek skipping down memory lane and slapping old Porky. While I set his ass on fire."

  CHAPTER FOUR

  ON THURSDAY MORNING, APRIL 6, THE VARIOUS SAILING SYNDICATE involved in America's Cup XXIX received a fax telling them where the America's Cup Drinking Club would be meeting that evening, the weekly do for hardworking sailors who were to begin crucial Water jousting come Monday morning. A series of twelve races beginning April 10 and ending April 22 would decide the winner of the Citizen Cup and the right to defend the America's Cup under the aegis (or "burgee," the triangular identification flag) of the San Diego Yacht Club.

  Among those U.S.A. syndicates vying for the Citizen Cup were Team Dennis Conner in the boat Stars and Stripes and America?, called "America Cubed," in the boat Mighty Mary , which had been sailed by an all-women crew for the first time in Cup history. That is, until syndicate head Bill Koch flinched, deciding that he needed bearded Dave Dellenbaugh as tactician, resulting in Mighty Mary being dubbed "Mostly Mary" by regatta observers. The third competing syndicate was Pact 95 in its boat Young America . All three were squaring off in the series, which awarded points for winning, bonus points for winning in the semifinals, and even a bonus point for placing second out of three. It was a perfect scoring sys tem for an esoteric sport that was going to cost the three syndicates $67 million. Nobody outside the sailing community could understand it, and much of the sailing community was baffled as well.

  In the battle for the Louis Vuitton Challenger Cup in the best of nine racesand the right to challenge the ultimate defenderwas Team one Australia in AUS-31 , the only boat Australia had left after the sinking of AUS-35 during the fourth round-robin. Their budget for the regatta was an estimated $33 million The other challenger in the Louis Vuitton finals was Team New Zealand, favored to win it all. Their 38 boat had won twenty-three straight round-robin matches, and the older 32 boat was the victor nine out of nine times when laced in the semifinals. Most observers believed that the hulls were equally fast, and equally unbeatable by any defender. The Kiwis referred to their fearsome sloop as Black Magic .

  Of course, as soon as each syndicate received its fax on Thursday morning revealing the location of the AC/DC soireethose supcrsecret faxes designed to ensure against interlopers and camp followersthe sailors telephoned every free-spending interloper and camp follower they knew, informing them in which gin mill to meet.

  There were several waterfront restaurants, in the vicinity of the syndicate compounds, which hosted the weekly dos, and all were interchangeable. They were restaurant-saloons with dark paneling, nautical decor, fake fireplaces, and waiters trained at the Department of Motor Vehicles. All served acceptable fish and steaks, baked potatoes, Steinlager for Kiwis, and Foster's for Aussies. And you could bet your boat on it, the cooked vegetables consisted of zucchini, cauliflower, broccoli, or a combination thereofcheap veggies offered everywhere in a town not known for cuisine. The other thing you could count on in a San Diego restaurant was Caesar salad, a dish created decades earlier by an Italian chef in Caesar's Hotel, Tijuana. In these parts it was as ubiquitous as mold, even though nobody made it correctly with coddled egg.

  Fortney and Leeds had dropped by the Aussie compound in Quivira Basin on Thursday morning and promised to join a hundred other sailing-stupids who were not supposed to know the location of the boozer bash. But Team New Zealand's compound was located in San Diego harbor on Shelter Island Drive, not far from the San Diego Yacht Club, where Keeper of the Cup Ambrose Lutterworth watched and waited. The Kiwis did not welcome visitors, with or without police badges.

  By the time Fortney and Leeds got off duty that evening and arrived at the restaurant, the AC/DC was rollicking. Both cops were in jeans and tennis shoes, Fortney, who was conscious of his expanding belly, wore a faded unbuttoned sport shirt over a Speedo print tee. Leeds, who was buffed-out and proud of his pecs, wore a Sideout tank top even though it was a brisk evening. He got bummed when he saw the sign on the door: NO BARE FEET. NO TANK TOPS. Which meant that the place was about as formal as it gets on the San Diego waterfront.

  Leeds had to go to his car for his black windbreaker and bitched all through their first round of drinks that San Diego was getting too haute couture for himand that when he retired from the police department he was moving to Maui.

  An Aussie standing next to him at the bar said, "Come to the land of Oz, mate. In Perth you can wear a bloody loincloth and nobody wants to know."

  By eight-thirty that evening there were so many bodies jammed together it was hard to scratch, and the decibel level was only slightly lower than it was on the runway of nearby Lindbergh Field. The cuppies, many of whom were dressed in upscale sailing togs, outnumbered sailors and sailing wannabes by a wide margin.

  A cheerful Canadian cuppie seated at the bar explained to the cops that if they gave up their barstool to go to the head, they could be sure it'd be occupied when they returned. If they asked for it back, they might get it if the occupant was a Kiwi. The Kiwis were more reserved, she said, something like Canadians. If the squatter was an Aussie, the seat might be foreclosed. Aussies were more like Yanks, was how she put it.

  Of course, if a cuppie took your vacated seat, you just smiled and moved on down the bar. Cuppies got preferential treatment and all the drinks they could hold. If the cuppie was hot-looking she had pick of the litter at AC/DC. Not many of the sailors and sailing wannabes took wives and girlfriends to the Thursday-night do.

  "Buy you a brew?" Fortney asked a pair of cuppies who'd just arrived. One of them was a moptop with hefty tits that rested on the bar top.

  She checked him out and declined. He had nice curly hair, even if it was going gray, but he was a tad long in the tooth when one is surrounded by celebrated America's Cup sailors, the average age of whom was about thirty-three. Her younger girlfriend looked at Fortney like she'd found a dead mouse in her martini.

  He gave up, saying to Leeds, "You doing any good?"

  "You gotta sail in the Whitbread Round the World Race to get anywhere with these babes," Leeds complained. "Maybe we oughtta try an Aussie accent and start calling them 'sheila.'"

  "They'd know we're bogus," Fortney said. "No calluses. And our suntans aren't salty enough."

  "So let's take the boat out on the ocean tomorrow," Leeds suggested. "Cruise in the chop and get smacked in the face by gull shit and kelp. Next Thursday we can say we're grinders with Team Dennis Conner."

  Fortney pointed across the teeming barroom and said, "Be still, my landlubber's heart!"

  Leeds turned and said, "Oooooh, baby!"

  A Kiwi with an albino-blond buzz-cut and shoulders wider than a Rolls-Royce grabbed a cuppie by the hips and lifted her up onto a corner of the bar. The cuppie wore a little candy-striped cotton tee
with a blue anchor on the left sleeve, white shorts, and white sneakers. Her fiery, shoulder-length hair cascaded across one shoulder and then the other each time she tossed her head to josh with the sailors surrounding her. Freckles dusted her bare legs and nose, observable because she'd wisely positioned herself directly under an overhead bar light.

  She shook hands with eager sailors, making each one tell her his name and what he did on the racing boats. She was not exactly beautiful, but she had the best body Fortney had seen in the month of April. And out there on Mission Bay he saw a lot of good ones.

  "I hate sailing and sailors," Leeds said. "I don't even like boats in general. But I'd learn to sail and navigate. I'd take a Coast Guard course. Hell, I'd join the goddamn Coast Guard if that's what it takes. To get naked one time with that cuppie!"

  "Forget it," Fortney said. "She's giving the big eye to the creature that lifted her up. The one with a beer mug in each paw. I don't think your nine can stop a lowland gorilla, can it?"

  "I gotta get a closer look," Leeds said. "Save my seat."

  "Sure," Fortney said. "Be careful. Only thing that big I ever saw hauling beer was a Clydesdale."

  Fortney's younger partner squeezed through the sweating throng, nearly upsetting the tray, which held six Foster's straight up, of a frantic cocktail waitress who was shoving people out of the way with her free hand. When he got close to the end of the long bar he smiled dreamily. She was even better up close.

  "Another white wine, love?" the huge Kiwi asked her. Up close he looked even bigger.

  She smiled at the giant and said, "Wouldn't say no, mate!" in a passable New Zealand accent, and all the sailors murmured approvingly.

  Leeds saw in her glance a combination of jaunty smile and mysterious grin, full of mischief, full of hell. He didn't have enough booze in him to be superbold, but he slipped off his wedding ring, switching it to his right ring finger. "A young widower," he usually said, as if the babes he met in Mission Bay gave a damn.

  When the big Kiwi went for the wine, Leeds jumped into his space. "Oooops!" he said, purposely bumping that freckled thigh. "Sorry."

  She turned the smile on him and tried the accent again: "No worries, mate. Which team're you with?"

  "I'm not," he said. "But I do work on a boat."

  Then an Aussie on the other side of her said, "Blaze, Blaze, love! Tell Robbie here what you say when your darts partner knocks yours out of the target."

  "Fair dinkum, mate!" she replied, and the Aussie sailors roared their approval.

  The huge Kiwi muscled his way back with Blaze's wine and a mug of draft for himself, saying, "Cheers, love!"

  Leeds tried to think of an opening, but Blaze was playing to the sailors. She said, "See if I have it right. Robbie, you're a mainsail trimmer, right?"

  A young Aussie with collar-length, sun-bleached hair said, "Right you are, Blaze!"

  "That means you take a scissors and trim off the excess threads, right?"

  After all the guffaws he said, "Hard to do with carbon-fiber sails, but never mind. Carry on!"

  "Okay," Blaze said, uncrossing those splendid legs and recrossing them in the other direction. "You, Matthew, you're a pit man, right? That means you take the pits out of the peaches?"

  "Peaches, oh, yes!" Matthew cried, staring directly at Blaze's perky, candy-striped bosom. Boozy sailors whistled.

  "How about me? Me, Blaze!" the youngest sailor yelled, hoisting a mug of Foster's.

  "You?" Blaze shot him a sidelong grin. "You, young Wally? You're on the mainsheets. I guess that means you have to make the beds. Tell me, Wally, do you ever short-sheet the guys just for a lark?"

  Everything Blaze said had the boozy Aussies and Kiwis in hysterics, and they started poking young Wally, who blushed when Blaze puckered her lips at him,

  "Me, Blaze! Me!" sailors yelled.

  The wine was fogging her usually reliable memory. "Let's see," she said. "You're Charlie. And, let me think, you're a sewer man? That must mean you have to-fix the garbage disposal on the boat whenever it gets clogged with Matthew's peach pits. Correct?"

  "That's all he's good for, Blaze!" a sailor yelled. "Tidying up rubbish!"

  She turned to him and said, "You, Tony, you're a grinder. That must mean you tend to the coffee beans? And serve the coffee and biscuits for lunch."

  Blaze paused then and aimed one of her long, delicate fingers at a very athletic lad who was nearly as tall as the young one and equally smitten. "Kevin," she said. "Let me see"

  "I think I've stumped you," he said. "But have a go!"

  She unfurrowed her brow, grinned, and said, "You're a bowman, am I right?"

  "But what's that mean . Blaze?" he asked. "What do I do?"

  "You take a bow of course," Blaze said. "Every time you beat the Aussies you take a bow!"

  The raucous laughter was interrupted by an Aussie grinder, who said, "They're not going to beat us, Blaze! No bows for these boys!"

  "Can I bet my dingo on it?" Blaze wanted to know, and the Aussies cheered.

  There was much debate over who got to buy her next glass of wine.

  "My turn. I'm buying," one sailor said.

  "Not bloody likely!" another said.

  "Steady, lads," Blaze said. "You wouldn't wanna get me tipsy so you could take advantage, would you?"

  That brought the loudest cheer yet.

  Like fleas on a dead dog. Hopeless. Leeds glumly returned to his partner.

  When he got back, he said to Fortney, "A bit dicey over there, as they say Down Under. Those guys're more dangerous than fertilizer."

  "That humongous Kiwi next to her could pick his teeth with the bones of human-size cops," Fortney added. "Stretch that guy's T-shirt from bulkhead to bulkhead and it could sleep three."

  "What a babe!" Leeds took a last forlorn look over his shoulder at Blaze Duvall.

  She turned to the massive.Kiwi, saying, "And you, Miles, you don't really sail on a boat, but you have the most important job. If I remember correctly, you run the crane that puts the boat into the water, right?" Then she reached down and squeezed the Kiwi's massive shoulder. "Only thing that puzzles me is, why do you need a crane?"

  "She got that right," Fortney said to his heartsick partner. "With those mitts the guy could go kayaking minus the paddles. And if he did a handstand, he'd leave tracks like a platypus."

  Another crane operator, this one much smaller than the Kiwi who'd leave platypus tracks, was having a drink in a neighborhood tavern that advertised "semi-live entertainment." It was one of the last saloons in town where most of the people there smoked, and that's why he liked it.

  Simon Cooke was thirty-eight years old and had been operating cranes and other heavy equipment since he'd dropped out of high school at the age of sixteen. He smoked like a British rock band and was at least as unhygienic. His fingernails were so filthy, they could only be called Dickensian. His mousy hair was worn in an Elvis pompadour, kept in place by a lube-gunful of gel, Simon drank half a quart of gin every night if he had enough money. He ate anything that could be considered deadly junk food but remained cadaverously thin.

  Simon's youngest sister, Dab, was very unlike her brother, and had been wedded for the past six months to one of the afterguard sailors on the New Zealand team. She expected to move to Auckland at the conclusion of the America's Cup regatta and would be glad to see the last of Simon, who was always mooching money that she'd never see repaid.

  After he'd drunk his second gin and tonic and smoked his sixth cigarette, Simon paid the bartender, left a fifty-cent tip, changed his mind, and picked it up again, deciding to make the two-minute drive to the Shelter Island bars, where all the cuppies hung out. Last time he was there one of his brother-in-law's drunken mates had shared a plate of potato skins and greasy onion rings, washed down by a gallon of Steinlager. Simon started salivating just thinking about a rerun.

  When he got to Shelter Island, he did an eeny-meeny and decided on the joint that looked the least crowded. He parked
his battered Ford Escort, entered the restaurant, and was lucky to find a seat at the bar. He looked around at a room full of yachting types and regatta hangers-on but there were no Kiwi sailors that he recognized.

  Simon didn't notice the overdressed older guy with a neatly trimmed gray mustache who'd entered just behind him and headed for the restroom when Simon ordered a drink.

  In a more crowded barroom directly across Shelter Island Drive, Blaze Duvall was telling the tenth joke of the evening to her assembled fans' when her beeper went off. She reached in her purse and checked the number.

  "Okay, mates!" she said to the sailors. "Make way for Doctor Blaze. I'm being paged by the hospital. Emergency surgery."

  A sailor called out, "What is it, Blaze? Hemorrhoid flare-up?"

  "No, Stewart," she said. "A circumcision, I'd do one for you , but they tell me there's not enough to work with!"

  While all the sailors chortled and whacked Stewart on the back over that one, Blaze made her way through the crowd to the public phone and dialed the number on the beeper.

  Ambrose answered on the first ring: "Hello?"

  "It's me," she said. "Where are you?"

  "Across the street. I've been following him since he left work. At first I was afraid he was going home, but he didn't. You better hurry, though. I'm not sure he'll be here long."

  "Okay," she said. "I've met your Kiwi crane man. In fact, I'm pals with half of New Zealand and all of Australia. It's gonna be hard to get away."

  "Find out where they'll be a week from Saturday night"," Ambrose suggested. "That'll be a good time to cement your friendship with the Kiwi. But Simon Cooke's more important. He"

  Ambrose stopped and quickly turned his back as Simon Cooke walked into the hallway, unbuttoning the fly of his dirty jeans even before he opened the, restroom door.

 

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