Black Swan (A Sam Acquillo Hamptons Mystery)

by Chris Knopf

  She stirred in the stuff and blew over the top of the coffee mug as I settled back into my spot above the anchor locker, braced inside the pulpit, at the far forward tip of the boat.

  "She is your girlfriend," said Anika, "not like your wife or anything."

  "She's my girlfriend, though also like my wife and everything."

  "Oh," she said. Then some time passed, until she said, "My dad hasn't done so well in the girlfriend department. I'd like to blame it on his kids, but the real problem is workaholia. Too busy stroking the keyboard to stroke anything else."

  "Computers?" I asked.

  "Oh, yeah. Co-founder of Subversive Technologies. He invented C-scale. And N-Spock. You wouldn't know, being, like, a carpenter."

  Oh yes I would, I thought, not wanting to share that I'd used N-Spock to drive a wall of daisy-chained, massively parallel main-frames in the multi-million-dollar oil and gas research and development lab I ran before they fired me for socking our chief corporate counsel in the nose. There's more to the story than that, but that's the gist.

  "So you're glad he's bagged it all and moved out here," I said.

  "Glad isn't exactly the word, but yes, I'm glad. He's still not a happy man, but now he could be. Why am I telling you all this?"

  "Because I'm nosy?"

  "I have to go make breakfast," she said, standing up. "Come to dinner if you can. At least I can promise the food'll be good. Axel is the cook. No ingredient goes unloved, I guarantee you that."

  She worked her way down the port side of the boat, using the shrouds-cables connecting the mast to the hullto propel herself forward, her hips expressing a pleasant, loose roll, even under the cover of her thick bathrobe.

  "Hm," I said to myself.

  (

  I spent the next day crammed inside the engine compartment of the Carpe Mariana. It wasn't the engine I was interested in, but the spider web of destroyed cable dangling from where it was supposed to be neatly strung between sturdy blocks and greased fittings. Being a new boat, it lacked that smelly, corroded quality I was used to, though that was faint consolation. None of the tangle made sense; nothing indicated why the cable snapped, scything off all the supporting apparatus, leaving behind little ragged plastic parts and limp threaded wire.

  I'd once been responsible for diagnosing multi-milliondollar process failures at petrochemical plants in places like Malaysia, Perth Amboy and Kuwait, but none were more perplexing than this.

  Maybe I'd been out of the business too long, I thought. Maybe all that vodka had finally caught up with me.

  "What time is it?" I yelled up to Amanda.

  "About two thirty," she yelled back.

  Too early for the first drink, goddamnit. I continued to stare at the ravaged steering mechanism. I closed my eyes and called up an image of what I thought should be a healthy steering mechanism, following the pulleys and cables as they transferred dynamic forces through a series of intermediary stages from wheel to block to rudder. With a slight jolt, I recalled the thrust of the waves out in the stormy water, and how it felt to hold the wheel against the pressure of the hurtling seas. That's when I saw the mechanics at maximum stress, and felt with my own body the strengths and weaknesses of the system.

  I opened my eyes and looked back toward the transom, to where the cable curled down through twin blocks into a well that led to fittings-from that vantage point invisibleclamped to the rudder. I saw an ugly gash in the fiberglass directly above where the cable dove down into the well, which I lit up when I shot my flashlight in that direction.

  My first impulse was to call the designers who'd engineered the system a bunch of lazy boneheads, but seconds later I caught myself. I couldn't know all the constraints, restrictions and overruling the design team had to endure. Something had obviously gone wrong, but responsibility was likely shared across a diverse group of designers, mechanics and accountants. That was usually the case. Disasters are almost always the result of several malfunctions occurring simultaneously, which interact with each other, causing a cascade of unforeseen consequences leading inexorably to catastrophic systems failure.

  These combinations are later identified and corrected, and thus unlikely to be repeated, leaving the field clear for a new set of variables to entangle and collide.

  It's impossible to anticipate all possible permutations, which is why planes will continue to crash, albeit rarely, and oil platforms will blow up and steering mechanisms on sailboats will burst apart at the worst possible moment. It's emotionally gratifying for the ignorant to blame it all on human inadequacy, but that's usually only part of the story.

  Often things happen that shouldn't, but they do anyway. It was Juvenal who expressed it thus: Rara avis in terris nigroque simillima cygno. Or as you'd say in English, more or less: "It can be a rare bird, like a black swan."

  new parts were certain to arrive soon, which was all I needed to fix the steering and get back underway. So I stopped trying to divine the root of the failure and spent the rest of the day upside-down ripping out the wreckageclearing the work area in preparation for the new partsand thereby casting aside further forensic study having no purpose but to satisfy my own perverse obsessions.

  True to her word, Amanda provided emotional and logistical support in the form of iced tea and turkey sandwiches. She'd also reconnoitered the island and discovered a way to jack into the World Wide Web, though refused to reveal how until she had my undivided attention.

  So I quit my work and squirmed back up into the cockpit where a tumbler of vodka, a platter of meat and cheese, and the sunset awaited.

  "We're in for a bad storm," she said, almost wrecking the mood.

  "That's what Burton said."

  "It's one of those nor'easters or sou'westers, or whatever, that might as well be hurricanes, if it does what they fear. Though we don't have a lot of trust in them."

  "When?"

  "Late tomorrow, if all goes according to plan."

  "Which it never does," I said.

  "That's what you keep telling me," she said. "I'm just a builder. A veritable landlubber. What do I know?"

  I went below and washed up, scrubbing the lubricating grease off my hands and brushing fiberglass dust off my clothes. When I came back up Amanda handed me my drink and a cracker laden with a teetering mound of pepperoni and cheese.

  "We need to dig out all the fenders we can find," I said.

  "The only fenders I know are on my car."

  "Fenders are short, inflatable tubes that look like chubby hot dogs, or short torpedoes, that cushion the side of the boat. We'll also need a garden hose which we'll cut into sections and slip over the dock lines to reduce chafing."

  "You think it'll be bad?" she asked.

  "Better to prepare for the worst."

  "We can handle the worst?"

  "I didn't say that."

  Amanda and I decided to repress concern over the coming storm and delegate preparation to the next morning. We drank, ate tasty things off platters and luxuriated in the autumnal air, the super-saturated colors born of the magichour light, the stalwart buildings surrounding the harbor and the inner logic of two people joined together for reasons neither quite understood, but in a conspiracy similar to the one with NOAA, choosing to ignore the dangers so to embrace the beautiful illusion.

  Getting ready for dinner with the Feys had its own challenges. Neither of us had packed for a social occasion, planning only to rent a car to get to Maine, pick up Burton's boat, and sail it back to Southampton, stopping along the way to buy provisions and give Eddie a chance to run around with something other than fiberglass beneath his feet.

  I was the luckier one, since the boatbuilder had included a blue blazer in the hanging closet as part of the deal, fitted to Burton's lanky frame, but close enough to mine. All I needed was a black T-shirt and jeans and I was there.

  Amanda had to piece together an outfit anchored by a denim skirt topped by a puffy white Mexican shirt partially concealed by a fuzzy blood red
pashmina. Luckily, Amanda's a very good-looking woman, which in the end makes up for almost everything.

  The front door to the Swan was locked, but ringing the doorbell brought a quick response. Axel Fey opened the door, grabbed Amanda's hand and bowed nearly to the ground, where he seemed to linger, gazing at Amanda's naked ankles. She took it calmly, using her captured hand to pull him back into an upright position.

  "Welcome to the Black Swan," he said. "The ever black and swanny little bed and breakfast by the Inner Harbor. Nice legs, by the way."

  I took his wrist and extracted Amanda's hand.

  "Sam Acquillo," I said, forcing him into a handshake. "Anika said she had a brother. That must be you."

  "I did?" said Anika, swooshing into the foyer, and pulling us off the front stoop where Axel had us trapped. In the better light I got a good look at Axel, who was a younger, flimsier version of his father, with narrow shoulders, features squeezed into the center of his face and pale plastic-rimmed glasses slumped part way down his nose. His skin was peppered with blemishes and his light brown hair needed to be combed. As if noticing me noticing, Anika reached up and did her best to rake in a part and clear the straggly locks off his forehead. He took it with pained forbearance.

  Anika's wine-colored silk dress had been applied with a paint brush. Her figure was a type of near zoftig that rarely held up past a woman's forties, but at this stage, was close to a modernist platonic ideal. My tastes had always run toward the soft-edged ectomorphic, as exemplified by Amanda Anselma, though I could imagine how others might see the appeal.

  Anika herded us into the main dining room at the back of the hotel where they'd set a single large table. A sideboard was covered in trays filled with chicken skewers, broccoli and shrimp. I snatched a small plateful and headed to a small service bar. A little table-tent sign told me to serve myself, something I was highly equipped to do. Halfway through pouring a vodka on the rocks, Christian Fey approached the bar and ordered a bottle of Spaten beer.

  "Pretty tricky," I said. "Get the guests to handle the bar."

  "I apologize for my daughter's presumptuousness," he said, pouring the beer into a heavy glass mug. "But please feel at home. We are, after all, a welcoming small hotel, season or no season," he added, with a sincerity that might not stand up to a gentle breeze.

  "Are your friends coming?" I asked.

  He paused before answering.

  "You must mean Derrick and his entourage," said Fey. "He's my ex-business partner, though we've had our friendly moments."

  Amanda joined us and I poured her a glass of pinot noir after Fey had a chance to make her feel at home as well. Like his son, he bowed, though with less depth and shorter duration. He also complimented her outfit, which was probably the most diplomatic thing he'd do all night.

  I made it out from behind the bar right before Derrick and company arrived on the scene, saving me from another round of bartending. He was still in his suede sport coat, but his companions had freshened their looks, with the big meatball now in a white polyester jacket over a flowered shirt and tan slacks, and the blond in a turquoise dress that lent an opportunity to examine key features of her anatomy. I was tempted to ask where they'd parked the cruise ship, but Fey was talking, trying to explain what we were doing there.

  "Sam Acquillo," I said, offering my hand. "And this is Amanda Anselma. What Mr. Fey is trying to say is we washed up on shore in a damaged boat and he's been a prince about letting us stay until it's repaired."

  "Looks that way," said Derrick, now behind the bar assembling a pair of martinis for himself and the woman, and snapping open a Budweiser for the guy. In the course of this I learned her name was Del Rey, after the big marina in Los Angeles where her parents proudly owned a condo, and the big guy was Bernard 't Hooft, who like Fey, spoke with a European accent, I surmised Dutch. Del Rey helped me get the spelling right.

  "Imagine if the first letter of your name was an apostrophe," she said, giving 't Hooft a friendly swat on the arm.

  Derrick ignored the interplay and focused on asking about the Carpe Mariana-where it was built, the trip down from Maine, the nature of the failure. As I spoke he seemed to deliberate over the answers, as if comparing them against a list of unexpressed criteria. Despite the creases in his face, I guessed his age to be late forties at most. His hair looked a natural light brown, and his eyes were pale blue, pale enough that pupils and whites nearly merged into one.

  "So who owns the boat?" he asked. "Custom jobs are big bucks."

  Burton liked to protect his privacy, so my first impulse was to keep that information confidential. But then I thought of how we'd imposed on the good graces of the Feys, who were outside the conversational circle, but close enough to overhear. It seemed somehow impolite to be that secretive, so for their sake, I gave it up.

  "Burton Lewis," I said. "A friend of mine in Southampton."

  "Burton Lewis as in Lewis and Straithorn? The law firm?" asked Derrick.

  I nodded. He nodded back.

  "Good friend to have," he said.

  Del Rey waited to be filled in, but he ignored her.

  I never had time for gentlemanly sports," he said.

  "Too busy conquering the world," said Anika.

  Derrick toasted her with his martini glass. Christian took Anika's elbow and used the long sweep of his other arm to herd the group toward the table.

  In both the unconscious and overt maneuvering for seats I ended up between Anika and 't Hooft, with Amanda across from me flanked by the younger and elder Feys. Derrick and Del Rey anchored the opposite ends. Nobody seemed entirely happy with their seating, but the dice were cast. I tried to cushion the disappointment by offering to schlep another round of drink orders. As always, a good idea.

  "So what do you do when you're not delivering boats?" Derrick asked me, speaking across Anika.

  "Installing crown molding, baseboard and window trim," said Amanda. "He can also handle tricky shopwork, like mantelpieces and built-ins. Very proficient. And affordable, especially for me, since I've yet to pay him a dime."

  "Sounds like tit for tat," said Del Rey.

  "We could use you around here," said the elder Fey to me. "Sometimes I think surface tension is the only thing holding this place together."

  "Rethinking the investment?" asked Derrick, a little too quickly.

  "Not for a moment," said Fey.

  Del Rey polished off half of her second martini before all the drinks had cleared the tray. She was about to finish the job when 't Hooft slid his meaty fingers through the stem of the glass and anchored it to the table. Del Rey shot him a glance of equal parts fear and reproach, but kept her hands in her lap.

  Meanwhile, Amanda was holding her own inside the brace of Feys. Axel was in and out of his seat as he checked on various servings, carried out to us by his sister. This benefitted Amanda, who otherwise had to endure a continuous violation of her personal space. When he crowded into her, she was forced to lean into his father, who looked just as pained by the imposition.

  As a distraction, she asked Derrick how long they'd be staying at the Swan. The meager burble of conversation at the table suddenly ceased.

  "That depends," said Derrick, before the dead air became unbearable.

  "Indeed," said Christian Fey, tilting back his head to chug the ample remains of his beer.

  "I'm thinking of launching a reality show," said Anika. "'So You Think You're Dysfunctional!' What do you say?" she asked me.

  I said something about the dysfunctional management of the Yankees infield, and the room settled back into a tentative equilibrium. Another distraction was the food, which as advertised, was delicious. Axel studied each of our faces as we ate, and only picked at his own food, arranging the portions into geometric shapes, further sorted by color and composition.

  I caught myself staring at his plate and returned to general awareness in time to notice the sensation of fingertips tracing the top of my thigh. I reached down and gripped Anika's wri
st, returning her hand to her own lap. I shook my head in a way I hoped conveyed a message to her alone. Amanda didn't notice, thankfully, still engaged in a contest with Axel Fey for the airspace rights around her chair.

  "You might not know there's an airfield here on Fishers," said Derrick. "I'd be happy to fly you to Long Island and arrange to have your boat towed to a larger marina. The one in Greenport, say."

  I told him I appreciated the offer, but felt I owed it to Burton to bring his boat home on my own. And if I had to capitulate, I'd let Burton foot the bill.

  "Your choice, of course," he said, holding his wineglass up to the light, on the lookout for impurities, I guessed.

  Christian Fey overheard the talk about the airport, and leaned toward me so I could hear him over the other conversations.

  "The man at the airport called and said they can't deliver your parts. He's down a man and it's too late in the season to hire another. We could, of course, drive you there."

  I couldn't let him do that.

  "Don't worry about it," I said. "We'll figure something out. You've done way too much already."

  The evening staggered to completion about an hour after that. Amanda was the first to rise from the table, ostensibly to stretch her legs, but actually to escape the persistent attentions of the young Fey. I was next up for similar reasons.

  As soon as I was on my feet, I felt a pull on the sleeve of the blue blazer. I looked down as 't Hooft took my hand and opened my fingers, then lodged a cold metal thing into my grasp. I said thank you, even though we'd exchanged not a single word all evening.

  It wasn't until we were back on the boat, with the cabin lights ablaze, that I had a chance to look at the Dutchman's gift.

  It was a fork taken from the Black Swan's silverware, crumpled into a ball.