Black Swan (A Sam Acquillo Hamptons Mystery)

by Chris Knopf

  I closed my eyes under the strain of the tiller, and then opened them moments later to see in front of me the familiar surf, but no big red buoy. It had moved off our port stern, quickly left behind to attend to its own battles.

  That was the good news. The bad news was the shoal the red buoy was in place to mark was now below the boat. I made another reckless, but essential, pull of the tiller, forcing the bow back into the channel leading to the harbor.

  Moments later, the sea conditions suddenly downshifted into the merely uncomfortable. And now I could see where I wanted to be, with all the familiar landmarks, however obscured by rain and swirling wind. I knew we'd made it.

  I shared that with Amanda.

  "And was there ever any doubt?" she asked.

  "Certainty's a rare thing here on the high seas," I said. "There's only one thing that would insure survival."

  I'd relieved her of her tiller duty, and she was back in her spot wedged against the bulkhead, her proud mane of auburn hair pasted to her scalp and trailing in sodden ribbons over her shoulders and down the front of her orange foulies. Her face, daubed with rain droplets, filled with anxious wonder.

  "What would that be?" she asked.

  "The vodka's in a cabinet next to the galley sink. There's plenty of ice in the cooler. You know where the plastic cups are. Don't be stingy."

  Amanda had wine. Eddie woke up in time to join us as we passed into West Harbor. The wind was still at our backs, but the waves had been further tamed by the surrounding land and Flat Hammock. I muscled the boat into the wind and we dropped the mainsail and fired up the motor, and the Carpe Mariana limped past the breakwater and into the Inner Harbor, finally safe and secure.

  At least from the sea.

  0

  Being October, I knew I'd find plenty of empty moorings in the Inner Harbor. Grabbing one was theft, pure and simple, but no decent person would begrudge a boatful of battered refugees from a stormy sea.

  Since Amanda had little experience snagging moorings, it took a few passes for her to secure the buoy connected to a line that ran to the concrete mushroom sitting immovable on the seafloor.

  The wind, though substantially abated, was still enough to add to the challenge. But we did it, with little damage to the boat or our social equanimity.

  We were soon a pair of lumps sitting in the cockpit, drinking heavily and commenting on the beauty of the surrounding harbor. The rain stopped and blue patches opened up in the sky, allowing the sun to light up the autumnal trees, waterside homes, flagpoles, and the remaining small craft-motorized and sail-all graceful, waiting to be hauled for the winter.

  Amanda wanted to discuss the fortunes of the last twelve hours, good and bad. I did my best.

  "And you call that fun?" she asked.

  "Fun is a wimp of a word. Doesn't describe meaningful human experience. Except those involving full body contact."

  "Did you think at any time we might not make it?" she asked.

  "I might have. So what? We made it. By the way, you look like a drowned Airedale."

  "How many Airedales wear orange jump suits?"

  I slumped down in the cockpit seat and counted my blessings to the beat of my thumping heart. I had wondered more than once if I'd be able to bring the boat safely to shore, and while I cared somewhat for my own survival, the thought of having put Amanda and Eddie at risk was unbearable. And consequently inconceivable, until we were all safe and sound, and mortal danger once again a theoretical construct.

  The sun had begun to dip behind a stand of trees, backlighting the leafy red, orange and green palette. The sky above was the color of faded blue jeans, soon to be purple and rose. Typical of October, frenzied wind and sea conditions didn't always correlate with precipitation. A sailor could be consumed by a raging maelstrom, while the folks on shore enjoyed a sunny, breezy day.

  "You should call Burton," said Amanda. "His boatbuilder's got some explaining to do."

  I unzipped a pocket on the sleeve of my foulie and pulled out my cell phone. There was plenty of battery power, but no signal. I flipped it closed and refocused on my drink.

  "I'll dinghy in and find a pay phone," I said. "After I purge about a gallon of adrenalin and bring my heart rate down closer to a hummingbird's."

  Even wet and bedraggled, Amanda's essential beauty fought through. In the waning light of day, and the calming of the sea, the tone of her green eyes and olive skin had deepened, and her smile regained its brilliance.

  "I think I just heard an admission of weakness," she said. "It's becoming."

  "Don't pull that gender sensitivity falderal on me, young lady. I'm college trained. MIT."

  "How's your hand?" she asked.

  "Broken. Not yet hurting in earnest. Too much adrenalin. Though a screwdriver might have been a better idea. In retrospect."

  "I should wrap it up with something," she said.

  "First aid kit's below."

  I've often marveled at a human's ability to move on from severe stress, at least while still in the moment. The ultimate consequences were usually held in abeyance, shoved snarling into a dark corner, ready to bust loose just when everyone thinks the coast is clear.

  Amanda brought up a handful of stuff from the first aid kit to make a solid, functional brace for my damaged hand, which responded with sudden, throbbing pain.

  "Perfect," I said.

  "You need to call Burton. Can you manage the dinghy?"

  With one hand tied behind my back, I told her. Which was more or less how it went.

  All I had to do was pull the fifty-pound deflated dinghy out of the cockpit lazarette, inflate it, drop it over the side, lower the saltwater-soaked outboard from the transom mount and attach it to the back of the dinghy, hook up the gas tank and start her up.

  Piece of cake.

  "I'll offer encouraging words," said Amanda, always ready to do her part.

  An hour later, the task was accomplished, much to Eddie's relief. He'd already lifted his leg on the mast, though with more complex ambitions in mind. It took some awkward, fur flying effort to get him down the swim ladder and into the dinghy, achieved with less eager barking and fewer bloodletting claw scratches than one might have expected.

  Once in the dinghy, he scrambled to the bow and stood with head held high and tongue flapping in the breeze, a living figurehead, all prior difficulty completely forgotten.

  "Pain in the ass," I said, as I clamored into the wobbly little boat.

  Eddie was once again uncomfortably distracted by the clattery roar of the outboard motor, which I finally got started after pulling the cord until my shoulder nearly popped out of its socket. I clipped on his leash, half pulled him back into the dinghy and twisted the throttle on the outboard, shooting us through the dimming light of the Inner Harbor.

  Eddie struggled to retain his position on the bow, and I let him, with one hand on the leash, the other on the throttle of the outboard, which nearly tore me in half, though Eddie's reckless abandon made it worth the effort.

  The water fled under the boat, a foam-tipped, grey-blue blur.

  Out of the fuzzy shoreline the gas dock emerged, with what I thought was an unwelcoming posture. When I got there, the thought was reinforced by a big grey-haired guy with a swollen, pocked-marked face who stood above us on the dock with hands on hips and frown fixed in place.

  "Can't tie up here," he said. "Closed for the season."

  "I need to use a pay phone," I said. "I'm moored out there with a busted helm."

  "Not allowed to moor there neither."

  "Where can I tie up?"

  "Nowhere. The island's closed for the season."

  I'd always known this about Fishers Island. At the easternmost reach of Long Island's North Fork, it's a place that doesn't want you there. Three-quarters private, gated club populated by the oldest money in the country, the other quarter a mix of merely wealthy summer people and year-round locals who fully shared in the island's rabid xenophobia.

  I kno
w that's not true," I said. "The ferry still comes out every day."

  The guy just stood there on the dock, an ugly, coveralled Horatio. Eddie waved his long mainsail of a tail and barked, the bark that meant, "Pardon me, folks, but I really got to go."

  I stepped back into the dinghy and motored over to a small beach a hundred feet from the docks and drove up onto the gravelly sand. Eddie leaped out of the boat and ran over to a tuft of dune grass into which he disappeared, ever discreet. While he took care of business, the pockmarked guy strode across the beach and approached me.

  "No dogs on the beach," he said.

  Eddie exploded back out of the dune grass and ran up, his tail wagging, eager to make a new friend.

  "Where's the closest pay phone?" I asked.

  "Connecticut."

  "I get the feeling you don't want us here," I said.

  "You got that right."

  "Tough," I said, pulling the dinghy up further on to the beach. I flipped open the cowling over the motor and with my back blocking the guy's view, used my Swiss Army knife to unscrew a part that would prevent it from starting. Eddie tried for a few moments to engage the guy's attention, but then gave up and started searching the beach for rotting sea life, one of his favorite things. I slung a rubbery sack, called a dry bag, over my shoulder and whistled for Eddie, who followed me off the beach and out to the street, which I used to reach a cluster of buildings that stood above the docks. One was a gas station, the only one on the island, that backed up to the fuel dock, another the Harbor Yacht Club-a squat near-shack where members stored bathing suits, heard race briefings and took showers in big open air stalls; and a third structure, a place called the Black Swan.

  It was a neo-classic structure built a long time ago to be what it still was today-a small hotel geared to the transitory vacationer, a rare species in the hostile Fishers habitat. It was clapboard-covered, with oversized gables decorated with deep moldings covered in successive layers of partially scraped white paint. There was a battered, 90'sera Mercedes station wagon parked out front in the hotel's gravel parking lot.

  The last time I'd sailed to the island, a few years before, the hotel had a bar and restaurant and a pay phone in the lobby. The sign next to the sidewalk that led through a low hedge and up to the door said "Closed"-but there was a nicely formed female rear end sticking out from between a pair of large yews that decorated the front of the building, so I had a way to ask how closed.

  I cleared my throat, hoping not to startle her, which I did anyway.

  "Sorry," I said. "Didn't mean to startle you."

  She looked somewhere in her twenties, with long, wavy black hair and a broad, pretty face. Even in the dying light, I could see her bright blue eyes and slightly crooked grin. It was getting chilly, but all she wore was a burgundy tank top and jean shorts, both generously dabbled with paint in a variety of hues.

  "You haven't seen Eloise, have you?" she asked, then looked down at Eddie, whom I was holding by the collar. "How does he feel about cats?"

  "Ambivalent. But he won't hurt it."

  "Won't hurt her. She's a girl cat."

  "Haven't seen her, though I just got here. Do you mind if I use your pay phone? I've got a busted boat in the harbor and need to call the owner. I can't seem to get a cell signal."

  "Service went down this morning. All the wind. We don't have a pay phone, but you can use the regular one. As long as my father doesn't mind. You can bring the dog. My brother loves dogs."

  I followed her into the hotel. She flicked on a light in the lobby, which looked exactly as I remembered it, though somewhat spruced up with fresh paint and new drapes. The furniture was the original Victorian, and the rug the same oriental I vaguely remembered. The wall that once held the pay phone had a vintage poster of a woman in a long dress drinking a soda while peddling a bicycle.

  She told me to wait there and disappeared through a door next to the registration counter. I peered through a pair of glass-paned doors at the bar, which looked remarkably open for business, a cheerful thought. Eddie tried to pull away from my grip, but I told him to cool it, something he was constitutionally reluctant to do.

  Soon the young woman reappeared with a tall guy with a fringe of close-cropped white hair framing a bald pate, wire-rimmed glasses and large, fleshy features. I could see his daughter in his broad mouth and blue eyes. His handshake was dry and half-hearted.

  "Your boat's disabled?" he asked, with a light foreign accent.

  "Yeah," I said, "happened out there in the soup. Made for a lively trip in."

  "I imagine so. We monitor channel sixteen. Sounded very bad out there. Everyone surprised."

  "You could say that. I got a broken rudder," I said.

  "Buchanan Marina's still open for repairs. They're good mechanics."

  "What's the draft back there?" I asked, aware of the marina, located on a creek at the furthest end of the Inner Harbor.

  "Four feet max."

  I shook my head and used my thumb to gesture toward the water.

  "Six and a half. What're the chances of renting one of your slips?"

  He looked at me through his thick glasses, his face and light blue eyes registering the complex deliberation the situation apparently called for.

  "That's a tough one," he said. "We're closed for the season."

  "I don't need shore power. We're self-contained. I'd just rather not be moored when I'm working on the boat. And I got the dog and my girlfriend. Cash money," I added, hopefully.

  He and his daughter exchanged looks which seemed pregnant with hidden meaning, then he nodded his head.

  "Take the first slip," he said, "stern in. The power's still on. I can run a hose out for water. Fifty dollars a day."

  His daughter smiled in a way that told me whom I should thank for the overpriced concession. I smiled back and shook both their hands.

  "Sam Acquillo," I said.

  "Christian Fey," said the man, "and this is Anika. My daughter. We just purchased the Swan this September, at the close of the season. We're busy with remodeling, so can't be of much help to you, I'm afraid."

  "Been plenty of help already. Soon as I use your phone, I'll get out of your hair."

  Anika leaned over the reception desk, dumping half her breasts out on the counter, and lifted up the phone. Then she and her father left me alone to dial Burton's cell.

  "Hey, Burt, it's Sam."

  "Have you changed your number?"

  "I'm on Fishers Island. Cell service is down. More importantly, the cable from helm to rudder snapped on the way down from Point Judith."

  "Oh dear," he said.

  "Oh shit's more like it. It was kind of snotty out there. You've got an emergency tiller, by the way. Good thing."

  "Terribly sorry about that. What do we do now?"

  "You call the boatbuilder and have him ship the whole steering rig-cables, blocks and fittings. I haven't looked yet, but I want to change it all out. Who knows what caused the failure. Send them to me courtesy of the Black Swan. It's a hotel on the island off Inner Harbor. We secured a slip, though not without some convincing. After Labor Day this place turns into Brigadoon."

  "I know the Swan. It's next to the Harbor Club. Has Fishers' only public bar. And a pool table, as I recall."

  "Could be. It's got a new owner. Thinks he's doing us a favor letting us stay at his empty dock for fifty bucks a night."

  "It's good you're in a slip," said Burton. "More bad weather's on the way. They're saying a whole series of storms are coming up the coast and out of the southwest. It's going to be rough for a while. I tried to call your cell phone to get your position, but couldn't make a connection."

  I tried to imagine rougher water than we'd just plowed through, though I knew such a thing was more than possible.

  "Until cell service is back up Amanda's computer's off email," I said. "I'll try to call on a regular basis, if I can ingratiate myself with the owners. Otherwise, you'll have to buy a house out here to get a landline.
"

  It was quiet on the other end of the line as Burton pondered that option, one he was more than able to fulfill, being one of the fifty richest guys in the world according to Forbes magazine, a rating source Burton looked on with mild contempt.

  "What do they know? Those numbers they publish are ridiculous."

  "Too high?"

  "Far too low."

  We talked some more about how to proceed, dismissing several options like air freighting in the parts, mostly because of the weather. Rich as he was, Burton wasn't one of those crazy billionaires who thought natural forces-like weather, the commodities markets or the NBA-should bend to his will. He took on frustration like the rest of us, as inevitable and uncontrollable.

  "I'll get you the parts," he said. "Have you heard from Jackie?"

  "Huh?"

  "Jackie Swaitkowski. Your attorney. She's been trying to reach you."

  I haven't heard," I said. "What's up?"

  Jackie was technically my attorney because I'd once given her a dollar as a retainer against future work, which actually happened in spades, though I'd yet to increase her compensation beyond that original buck. Some day we'd have to address that, I thought.

  "She didn't say, but my guess is you need to provide some guidance on the civil matter she's handling for you."

  "Do me a favor, would you Burt, and tell her I'll call her as soon as I'm out of this junky weather."

  "Certainly. And meanwhile, call back midday tomorrow so I can report my progress. You and Amanda try to find a way to occupy yourselves. Perhaps card games. Or philosophical debate."

  After I hung up the phone, I wondered if I should find one of the Feys to thank, but decided I'd only be invading their privacy again. So I just left.

  My dinghy was still on the beach when I got back, which didn't surprise me, my technical precautions notwithstanding. The pockmarked guy, now gone, had little incentive for keeping me shore-bound. I reinstalled the part and we motored back to the Carpe Mariana, much more slowly this time as darkness had fallen across the harbor. But she was easy to find: Amanda had put lights on in the salon and hung a lantern from the backstay to guide us home.