Wambaugh, Joseph - Floaters

by Floaters (lit)

  "Just about" he said. "Cranes can be tricky. It wouldn't happen to me. I'm the best in the business." Then he thought he'd gone too far and added, "At least around this town, I'm the best."

  "What if I decide to write a scenario about the dropping of a boat?"

  "Is that like a screenplay?"

  "Let's say I decide to fictionalize my piece about the America's Cup. Maybe I'd like to create a plot where somebody wants to sabotage the New Zealand boat."

  "Who?"

  "Can't you think of someone?"

  "Sure," he said. "Dennis Conner or Bill Koch, whichever one wins the defender series. I'd include the Pact Ninety-five team on Young America , but they ain't got a chance against Koch or Conner. The thing is, they'd all like to see the Kiwis get hit with a Scud missile."

  "Everybody fears New Zealand, right?"

  "The Kiwis have speed they don't even need," Simon said. "And everyone knows it. But the Kiwis got two boats. Why would Conner or Koch want to sabotage only one of 'em? See, that's the problem with your"

  "Scenario."

  "Yeah."

  "But what if one of the Kiwi boats is a lot better than the other?"

  "I ain't heard that."

  "I've heard it," Blaze said.

  "Who from? Them?" Simon indicated the rowdy mob at the bar who'd grown more raucous after darkness fell on San Diego Bay.

  "Two more," Blaze said to a bosomy waitress in a sarong. Then to Simon, "Let's just agree for purposes of my plot that one New Zealand boat is better, and somebody wants to arrange for a crane operator to drop the fastest of the Kiwis' two black boats. How would he do it?"

  "First of all, you got problems," Simon said, draining the last of the gin from his bucket glass.

  "Why is that?"

  "It can't happen like the French accident happened."

  "Why?"

  "It ain't even a crane, that's why. The Kiwis use a travel-lift. In fact, I'm the guy that taught their operator how to use it!"

  "Anything can be sabotaged," Blaze said.

  Simon gave Blaze a patronizing smile, revealing that he'd even brushed food out of his teeth. "It ain't the same. The travel-lift is a steel beam between two lifting blocks. There's this big eye-beam called a spreader bar, see? I could drive the damn thing right outta their yard and bring it next door and show you, except I'd probably get my nuts tore off. Pardon my French."

  "You can't go in there?"

  "No way," he said. "After the Kiwis leased that part of our boatyard, they closed it off with barbed wire. They got their own cops inside that fence. They're probably carrying Uzis or some fusome damn thing."

  "What if they need something from your boatyard?"

  "Believe me, we get escorted over there. One time I had to lift their boat while I was teaching their guy how the travel-lift works and"

  Simon was interrupted when the waitress brought their drinks to the table. "No, don't!" he said, but Blaze took a twenty from her purse and handed it to the girl.

  Simon didn't fight too hard. He had thirteen bucks in his pocket after paying off two gambling debts. Those fucking Padres couldn't beat the Taiwan Little Leaguers.

  "So go ahead," Blaze said. "You were teaching them how to work the travel-lift?"

  "Yeah, and I had to lift their boat Hind . They hung a curtain between me and their boat so I couldn't see the fucking keel. Oops."

  "So, are you saying somebody would have to have the cooperation of a Kiwi to drop that boat?"

  "No, Blaze," Simon said. "You don't get it. You can't drop that boat with a travel-lift. It's more foolproof than a crane. See, a shackle is attached to the spreader bar, right? With this Kevlar sling that goes through the deck to the top a the keel. Get me?"

  "No."

  "Well, it's like there's these two finger piers that go out. You lift from the center between two finger piers. See?"

  "No."

  "Well, see, the travel-lift is actually a vehicle. I could drive it to Mission Beach if the road was clear. There's like a big horseshoe. There's two lift points. There can't be operator failure. With the travel-lift you pull levers to operate a hydraulic motor. You need lots a common sense, but it ain't like a crane where if you take your foot off the brake the load goes in free-fall. You don't have to daug the winches on a travel-lift. The hydraulic motor's operated by pressure. Get it?"

  "No, but I don't have to get it. Not for my story purposes."

  "But you could change it to a crane in your story, then it's easy to drop a boat. There ain't a fail-safe for the brake. I mean it's just a story, right? A guy's foot could slip off the brake on a crane."

  "Come on, Simon," Blaze coaxed, putting her hand on his bare forearm, rubbing it gently. "I need my scenario to work my way. I'll bet you could do it. I'll bet you could figure out a way to drop that boat from a travel-lift."

  He felt a swelling in his throat. He'd never felt such a silky touch. He'd never seen eyes so green. He could feel her breath on his face when she moved closer. "Well," he said, "maybe I could if I thought about it."

  "Think about it," she said, massaging his arm lightly. "Think."

  "It's like" Then he looked into the liquid green irises. "Well, it's like hard to do!"

  "There's always a weak point," she said. "In all of life you look for weak spots."

  "The sling," he said, swallowing hard. Goddamn! His throat was swelling faster than his willie!

  "The sling is the weakest point?"

  "Uh-huh," he said, disappointed that she stopped the forearm massage.

  "Tell me about the sling," she said.

  "It's like a braided Kevlar thousand-mile strand," he said. "A continuous strand, like. And over that is this protective sleeve. A sort of loose cover like a sheath. And it's fixed like a hem on a pant leg."

  "So why couldn't somebody un-hem it?"

  "You'd have to remove it and cut enough of the strands on the sling to weaken it."

  "How could you before it'd break?"

  "The operator could make a sudden stop. With a big load you should be in low speed. But if it was accidentally in high speed and you released the levers"

  "What would happen?"

  "There'd be a jolt."

  "How much weight're we talking about?"

  "The keel weighs more than twenty-two tons. The rest a the boat weighs two and a half tons. A sudden jolt with a half-cut sling? I think it'd go. I think it'd go down ."

  "Would they know it was sabotage?"

  "The operator could just say, Oh! I was in high speed? I thought I was in low speed. Good heavens, mates!"

  "Could they prove the sling'd been cut?"

  "No. It's like a spool of heavy-duty thread. It'd just be hanging like spaghetti."

  "Then the operator in my story could get away with it."

  "If he had a gun. He'd need it to get outta the boatyard with his life. They'd kill him, those fuckingoops!those damn Kiwis. I don't like any of 'em, especially my brother-in-law. They're all pushy. They demand the world from our yard because my boss is the landlord. But if you ask them for one little thing, they shine you. Bunch a pricks. Pardon my French."

  "When they leased your boatyard, why didn't they lease one of you guys? You, for instance? I mean, your own brother-in-law is on the team and they wouldn't hire you?"

  "He wasn't my brother-in-law then. Anyways, they're too paranoid, the whole bunch. In ninety-two the Italians leased the travel-lift and an operator. Nice guys. Made pasta for us. I liked them. And I even liked the Japs. Whenever you waved to them they'd bow a little bit When they came back from a practice run they'd yell, Banzai! They were very polite. The Kiwis're arrogant jerks."

  "Would you cut the thread on the sling with a penknife?"

  "No way! You'd need a saw. It'd take some time. Hard to cut Kevlar."

  "Let me see if I understand. The sling would unravel like a loose spool of thread. But it's hidden from view by a cloth condom, right?"

  "That's funny!" Simon giggled. "Yeah. A cloth c
ondom."

  "So somebody could do it on the morning of the last race with the Aussies, who it looks like the Kiwis're going to annihilate. Would that be a good time?"

  "Nope. Can't be done then," Simon said. "How about another round?"

  Without waiting, he held up two fingers to the saronged waitress while Blaze said in exasperation, "You just said it could be done, Simon!"

  "How you gonna get your guy in the yard so he can do it? Those prithose guys won't let my sister in there unless my brother-in-law's holding her hand. They probably make her wear a blindfold if their goddamn keel's exposed."

  "You could climb over the fence from your part of the boatyard to theirs, couldn't you?"

  "With barbed wire and security guards that'd tear your nuhead off? No way!"

  That was it then. Blaze leaned against the backrest and scooted away a bit. It couldn't be done. She'd have to settle for five grand. It was a stupid idea in the first place. Her thoughts were interrupted when he said, "You'd have to do it when they're out racing. Maybe like you said, on the day of the last race against the Aussies. Everybody would be glued to the TV set, even the security guys."

  Blaze leaned forward again and this time she grabbed his arm. "Keep going, Simon," she said. "Don't stop."

  Simon Cooke looked across the restaurant, straining his gin-fogged brain for her. "You'd do it at four-thirty in the afternoon," he said. "When they're back from the race. They're gonna kick Aussie ass, so they'll all be congratulating themselves. That's when you'd do it. The sling'd already be cut by then, by the guy in your story. And the spaghetti'd be unraveling."

  "How did you get in the yard to do it when they were out racing?"

  "I didn't. I couldn't. I'm a Yank. They don't trust no Yanks. They wouldn't trust the U.S. Supreme Court. In your story you gotta get the Kiwi operator to do it. The guy who puts the boat into the water in the morning is on standby in the yard all day. He sits in the travel-lift reading a book if it's quiet. And it'll be real quiet in the yard on that last day. They'll be huddled around the TV from one to four o'clock, that's for sure."

  "So for my purposes I gotta get the Kiwi crane operator to do the sabotage on the sling and drop the boat himself?"

  "That's about it."

  "But what if what if on the morning of the last race against the Aussiesthe clinching racetheir travel-lift operator couldn't come to work?"

  "You kidding? That guy's making more'n he's ever made in his miserable life as a bottom painter, or whatever he was down in that shitty little country. I used to be a bottom painter myself. Worked my way up to cranes and travel-lifts. When I worked for the Italians, they paid me four times what I make now. He's not gonna"

  "Let's just say for story purposes he can't come to work. Who's gonna put the boat in the water? And be on standby all day? And take it out of the water? Who ?"

  Simon Cooke stared at Blaze for a moment. Then he tossed down his third gin and tonic, wiped his mouth on his sweatshirt, and said, "They'd have to come to us. We're the landlords. My boss is, I mean."

  " Who would they get to run the travel-lift, on that important day? On such short notice?"

  "I guess me ," Simon Cooke said. "I guess you gotta put me in your story."

  Blaze expelled a mighty breath, then said, " Thank you, Simon. Want another drink?"

  Fortney's body temperature reached 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit sometime before their shift ended that Saturday. It was one of the worst days he'd experienced since wearing a badge. He was thankful their sergeant was an understanding old-timer, not one of those pimpled semi-adolescents with chevrons on their sleeves, computer cops with no military experience and little life experience, too young to be out after curfew.

  He remembered one such sergeant at a jumper call on the Coronado bridge. The crazed jumper was himself an off-duty cop with a nine-millimeter in his hand, trying to get up the nerve to blast himself off the span.

  The young sergeant ordered him to put down the gun. Why? "Because it was city property." Which made Fortney want to draw his own nine and use it on the kid sergeant who lived with a permanent hard-on, but only for the troops.

  His partner's erection was obviously aimed in another direction. Before they got their reports finished, Leeds said, "Let's go trolling for cuppies tonight, whad-daya say?"

  "I've had a very busy day, Junior," Fortney replied. "Didn't you happen to notice, I almost drowned ?"

  "Come on!" Leeds said. "I gotta test that stupid survey about married people having better sex lives than single people. Hear about that? Tonight I'm gonna be a single guy and find out the real truth."

  "You've always been a single guy," Fortney said. "Trouble With you is, you've never been a married guy since you got married."

  "So let's go blow that freaking survey right outta the water."

  "Don't mention water," Fortney said.

  He didn't mention to Leeds or anyone else how much panic he'd felt during that moment in the bay. Even though he was wearing a flotation jacket. Even though his partner was right there in the Whaler instantly reaching down for a handful of that jacket. Even though Fortney knew logically that he wasn't going to drown, it was there , worming its way from the back of his mind to the front: a morbid fear of drowning in dark water. If it had happened at night he might have died of fright. He wondered if he'd dream about it.

  Suddenly he wanted a drink. "Okay," he said, "I'll go along. The experience will no doubt be more amusing than anything that gets my taxpayer dollars on PBS."

  An hour later they were eating tough potato skins, rigid calamari strips, and limp French, fries in a Shelter Island restaurant that was not only packed with race enthusiasts but also with tour groups ready for a San Diego weekend at Sea World and the zoo.

  Fortney looked around and said, "Name of tonight's story is: Natural Fibers Takes a Holiday. This looks like Rush Limbaugh's TV audience."

  "I never seen so many VFW poppies," Leeds said. "And I'm pretty sure a couple of the females ain't primates."

  "I'm not feeling all that human myself," Fortney said, "after drinking mutant-making liquids from the bay. If I ever find a third wife young enough to have my baby; I'll have to warn her it won't look good in family photos."

  "She'll give birth to a blob of slime mold or a patch of fungus."

  As soon as Fortney finished the potato skins, he got bilious. He jumped up and ran to the restroom. When he returned five minutes later, he said, "It's starting already. I just hunked up something that looks like Ross Perot, only taller."

  Midway Drive wasn't such a bad place to catch dates, Dawn told herself, except that a lot of them were U.S. Navy enlisted men. She hadn't really done a lot of swabbies before and thought they might not have enough money. They looked pretty young and scared to her, with those sidewall haircuts, driving those cheap little ears. How much money could they have?

  At least there were a lot of close-by motels on Rosecrans Street. She'd learned that many of the sailors would rather pay the tariff at a motel than risk doing the date in parked cars, and they seemed to like having a place to sleep away from the navy barracks. Dawn didn't mind a motel room. It was their money, and this was her last night in San Diego.

  She looked at her watch hoping to catch five more dates. Then she'd fall her connection, score some speed-ball, go home to Blaze's apartment, and tomorrow? A new life. The thought was so exciting that for the first time in months she actually felt happy.

  It had occurred to Dawn that she'd better take off the nipple and clit chains. They'd worked very well with older dates up on El Cajon Boulevard. In fact, one guy gave her a thirty-dollar tip just to shoot a Polaroid picture of the thing. But this evening when the first navy guy took her to a motel room he'd almost passed out when she stripped.

  While removing the clit chain she'd accidentally pinched herself and cried out in genuine pain, which brought tears to her eyes.

  The young sailor almost started crying, too. He said, "Nobody in Deming, New Mexico, goes around
looking like a walking scrapyard."

  She had a hell of a time getting him hard.

  The moment he arrived home, Ambrose Lutterworth removed his blazer and trousers and hung them on the cherrywood gentleman's valet in the corner of his bedroom. The white flannels would have to be cleaned if he couldn't remove the stain from the cocktail sauce that one of those drunken fools had splashed on him when they were out on the terrace at sundown.

  He brushed his teeth and squirted a little cologne on his cheeks and neck, anticipating Blaze's arrival. Then he put on taupe cotton trousers and his monogrammed bedroom slippers. He thought the shirt and tie he'd worn that evening would look all right under his burgundy smoking jacket.

  He loved the softness of the jacket, the shawl collar, the feel of the satin piping and the satin waist sash. He often wore the jacket when he was home alone in the evening. It made him consider taking up cigars, but he never could stand the smell of burning tobacco. He didn't have a single friend at the club who'd ever spoken of the incomparable pleasure of removing one's coat and slipping into a smoking jacket.

  Ambrose sat in his Chippendale wing chair, upholstered in the red and copper stripes of the Royal Temple Yacht Club. He'd spotted that chair in London on his second trip with the America's Cup, bought it on the spot, and had it shipped to San Diego.

  When he picked up the Union Tribune , he felt that sack of wet sand in his belly just from reading about Peter Blake, the forty-seven-year-old leader of the Team New Zealand syndicate. A man with five hundred thousand miles of sailing experience! The master of the Whitbread Round the World Race and the only man to race in the first five Whitbreads, the toughest sailing event ever devised. And he'd won two of them.

  The article told how, in 1992, Blake sailed a 92-foot catamaran nonstop around the world in a record seventy-four days, twenty-two hours, seventeen-and-one-half minutes. Reading of such incredible sailing feats made Ambrose admit that few Americans would take on the Whitebread. It seemed that only Aussies and Kiwis were crazy enough and macho enough to do it, and Ambrose could recall only one American boat out of fourteen in the last race. He wondered if Yank sailors were no longer tough enough for what to a Kiwi like Peter Blake was a rite of passage.