The Crimes of Jordan Wise

by Bill Pronzini

  "How many times have we been over this?" I said. "New York is too expensive. And the weather is miserable."

  "Somewhere outside the city, then."

  "Same negatives apply."

  "I suppose you want to stay here for the rest of our lives."

  "That was the plan, wasn't it? We're settled now, we're safe here—"

  "We'd be safe in New York, after all this time. That's just an excuse."

  "Don't you like St. Thomas anymore?"

  "You want the truth? No, not very much."

  "Why? What's changed?"

  "Nothing's changed, that's the point. There's not enough to do on an island this small—half the time I'm bored to tears. But you don't even notice. You don't seem to care about my feelings, my needs. All you care about is that goddamn boat of yours. And your black buddy Bone."

  "That's not true, Annalise."

  "Isn't it? Makes me wonder if you still love me. Or if now I'm just somebody you keep around to screw when you feel like it. . . ."

  She drank more and more; I hardly ever saw her without a glass in her hand. We went out together less often. There were long silences whenever we were together. Our sex life slacked off, to the point where I was spending much more time on Annalise than I was on Annalise. It didn't seem to bother her. Before, she'd been in a constant state of heat, and the aggressor at least half the time; now the aggressiveness stopped altogether. She was still cooperative enough when I initiated lovemaking, but without any of the wantonness that had always made it special between us. She was the dutiful wife, nothing more.

  I kept trying to put us back together, giving her little presents, surprising her with an evening at a restaurant she liked on St. John. Nothing worked. The rift between us kept on widening. But I refused to believe it was permanent. Denial. I needed us to be all right, so we'd be all right. Every marriage has its rocky periods, I told myself, and this was ours—a bad patch that would smooth itself out sooner or later.

  There were other problems, too. By the end of hurricane season, she was no longer spending time with Maureen Verriker. When I asked her about it, all she'd say was a curt "The friendship's run its course." She wasn't seeing much of her other friends, either, the apparent reason being that she'd made a new one at Sapphire Bay she liked more. JoEllen something—Hall, I think—an artist who lived out near Red Hook.

  I didn't care for JoEllen. She was from somewhere in Florida, one of the divorcees who stayed on to make a new life for herself. It wasn't much of a life, as far as I could see. She was fortyish, loud, bawdy—the bohemian type who dressed sloppily in shorts and a loose halter that kept threatening to expose one or the other of a pair of juiceless brown tits. A polar opposite to Annalise in every way except for their shared fondness for sun, steel and scratch bands, and rum punches. Beach buddies, drinking buddies. JoEllen lived hand to mouth on what she earned from seascapes and island scenes aimed at the tourist trade. Annalise thought the oils and watercolors were better than they were, just as she thought her fashion designs were better than they were. She saw JoEllen as another yet-to-be-discovered genius. JoEllen saw her as a regular source of free drinks and small loans.

  They hung out together three or four days a week, sometimes well into the night. Once Annalise didn't get home until after midnight. I was waiting up for her and I heard her squeal the Mini into the driveway, veer off the pavement, and slalighter half a dozen plantings on the way down. She wasn't just drunk—she was glassy-eyed, slack-jawed, jelly-legged plastered.

  I was furious. "What the hell's the matter with you, driving in that condition?" I yelled at her. "What if you'd had an accident, run over somebody?"

  "Well, I didn't."

  "But you could have. You could've been stopped, arrested, thrown in jail. Any kind of serious trouble, the police might do a background check, and then we'd be finished. We can't afford to call attention to ourselves, we can't afford to lose control—not ever. How many times have we been over that?"

  "A million. Two million. That's your favorite word—control. You know what you are? A control freak, that's what you are."

  "That's not true, I've never tried to control you—"

  "Oh, bullshit, Richard. You've been controlling me for four goddamn years. Do this, don't do that, don't take chances, don't take risks. What's that if not controlling?"

  "Being sensible. Being careful. Trying to keep us safe."

  "Careful, right. Another of your favorite words. You don't sound like Richard anymore, you know that? You sound like that tightassed accountant back in San Francisco, Jordan what's his name."

  "Now who's spouting bullshit?"

  "You are. Control, careful, sensible, safe. What happened to all the excitement you promised me?"

  "Haven't you had enough already?"

  "No! I'll never have enough. I told you a long time ago how it was with me. I can't stand the way we've been living, all safe and careful. I want to take risks again, live on the edge again. Feel alive again."

  "There's a big difference between living on the edge and crossing the line. We're fugitives, for Christ's sake."

  "You're a fugitive, not me. I don't know anything about what Jordan Wise did, I only know Richard Laidlaw. Remember?"

  "If we're cought, no matter what you say or I say, you could still be convicted as an accessory. You think your life is dull and confining now? Imagine how it'd be in a prison cell!"

  That was the first big fight we had, but not the last. She was contrite when she sobered up, and for a while she reined herself in. She still hung out with JoEllen, but there were no more drunk-driving incidents; I told her I'd take the car keys away from her and cut off her access to the joint bank account if she ever came home loaded again.

  But then the holidays rolled up, and there was the night of the Verrikers' annual Christmas party.

  Annalise didn't want to go, which would've been all right with me, but at the last minute she changed her mind. She and Maureen were stiff with each other when we arrived, avoided each other after that. At one point I asked Verriker what the problem was between them; he shrugged and said, "Beats me." Usually at parties Annalise was animated and charming, and restrained in her drinking. At this one she kept refilling her glass at the punchbowl, and the more she drank, the more erratic her behavior became.

  I didn't realize how drunk she was until she dropped and shattered her glass on the floor tiles and then upset somebody's plate of hors d'oelivres. I was trying to ease her out of there without making a scene, when she said, in a voice loud enough for Verriker and some of the other guests to hear, "Oh, for Christ's sake, why can't you just let me enjoy myself? So I spilled a drink and some food, so what? I'm not gonna spill the beans, you know. Secrets are safe with me, yours, everybody's. My Ups're sealed."

  "Be quiet!" I snapped at her.

  "Whoops," she said. "Oh, shit."

  Verriker said, "Maybe you'd better take her home, Richard."

  "Yeah. Right away."

  I dragged her out of there. When I got her into the house I cought her arms and shook her, hard. "Are you crazy? Are you trying to get us cought?"

  "God, no." She wasn't fighting me. The night air had sobered her a little; she seemed horrified by what she'd done. "I don't know what happened. . . . It just slipped out. . . ."

  "How many other times has something just slipped out'? To Maureen, to JoEllen, to Christ knows who else?"

  "Never—never! First and last time, I swear."

  "It better be the last time," I said. "I mean it, Annalise. Don't ever get drunk enough in public to make a slip like that again. If you do . . ."

  She swore she wouldn't. Over Christmas and New Year's she controlled her drinking, stayed home most evenings. We still weren't spending a lot of time in each other's company—work on the yawl was nearing completion and I was putting in long hours at the marina—but when we were together, she seemed to make an effort to be reasonable and good-natured. No more pressure about moving, no more bitchy beha
vior, a couple of sessions in bed that she didn't treat as duty fucks. I felt relieved. It looked as if she'd gotten her perspective back and the bad patch was beginning to smooth out at last.

  Work on Annalise was finally done at the end of January.

  She was a thing of beauty by then, a sight to make you catch your breath when you stood off on the stringpiece and looked at her in the slanting rays of the sun. Her spars and brightwork, her hull and deckhouse gleamed with thick coats of varnish and blue and white paint, her brass was shined to a high gloss, her new Dacron sails had a freshly laundered dazzle when unfurled. The ship-to-shore radio worked fine. The overhauled auxiliary diesel ran without a hitch during every ten-minute test run. In the cockpit, all the gauges and dials were in perfect working order and the new compass sat bright and shiny in its gimbals. Belowdecks, the marine refrigerator and primus stove in the tiny galley were in order, the ventilators and new bilge pump worked fine, every fitting and connection had passed muster.

  And she was mine, all mine.

  January and February are usually optimum cruising months in the eastern Caribbean. Clear weather, light winds, calm seas. I picked an arbitrary sail date, the twenty-eighth, which fit into Bone's schedule. Then I gave Annalise a full week's advance notice. She wasn't thrilled at the prospect of four days on a thirty-four-foot yawl, but when I reminded her of her promise, she agreed to honor it. I asked her if she wanted to come down to the harbor early and see what all the months of hard work had accomplished; she said no, she'd wait and be surprised on the twenty-eighth. I thought about inviting Jack Scanlon and the Kyles for a look, decided it could wait until after the shakedown voyage. The only people I really cared to share the yawl with until then were Annalise and Bone.

  I plotted out a course that would take us south around St. John, up through Flanagan Passage into Sir Francis Drake Channel, along the east coast of Virgin Gorda and out across the Hawks Bill Bank; we'd swing north by northeast near Horseshoe Reef and run due east through deep water outside the dangerous coral heads that ring Ane-gada, then drop down across the Kingfish Banks and home to St. Thomas through the Virgin's Gangway. Bone approved. It would be a good long test of Annalise's seaworthiness, and there were anchorages on Tortola, Guana Island, and Virgin Gorda, and a safe harbor at Ane-gada for emergencies or if any of us felt like an overnight stop.

  The long-range forecast promised perfect sailing weather for the four-day period beginning on the twenty-eighth. The day before, Bone and I loaded in stores, topped off the fuel and water tanks, put fresh linens on one of the vee bunks up forward for him and on the double berth in the main cabin for Annalise and me. I ran the engine for ten minutes one more time, even though there hadn't been any tendency toward overheating; the gauge held steady at 140 degrees. Fussily, I even rechecked the gland nut in the stuffing box for any looseness that might cause leakage.

  At six that night, the yawl was ready for sea.

  At six the next morning, Annalise refused to go along.

  She didn't feel well, she said. She thought maybe she was coming down with something, she said. It made her seasick just thinking about being out on the water, she said. I suspected that she was faking, but she sounded so apologetic and sincere, I didn't call her on it. I offered to postpone the trip; she said no, she felt bad enough as it was, she didn't want to deprive me of my pleasure. Why didn't Bone and I just go ahead, she'd come along next time, swear to God she would. I was disappointed and a little upset, but what could I do short of branding her a liar and shanghaiing her? She kept urging me to go, and so finally I went.

  As soon as the yawl was out of the harbor and under sail, tacking up against a light southeasterly breeze, I forgot my disappointment and I forgot Annalise. Reality isn't always as wonderful as the anticipation of it, but in this case it was even better. Annalise handled like a dream. There is no other feeling like standing at the helm of your own boat, the wind in your face and the sea smell in your nostrils, listening to the hiss of the water and the wind-fattened sheets singing and the lines, shrouds, and stays thrumming in accompaniment. It's more than just exhilaration, a rush or a high. It's freedom and wonder and a kind of pure and innocent joy. I've never put much stock in religion, but there's something spiritual about it, too, an almost mystical connection of man to nature. If there is a God, the closest I've ever gotten or will ever get to Him is the days and nights I spent on that yawl at sea.

  We were out four full days, and it was superb sailing the entire time. Running down the trades at four and five knots, the deep water an ever-changing mosaic of blues and greens topped by foaming crests, puffy white trade-wind clouds that never banked or darkened. Even the routine of sea-keeping—checking the chafe points on sheets and sails, restowing shifted supplies, all the other little chores—was a pleasure. We stood watch and watch, four hours on and four hours off; the man on watch steered and trimmed sail, the man off watch did the cooking and bilge-pumping and slept when he could.

  We didn't talk much; there was no need for conversation. All your senses are heightened at sea, your thoughts clear and sharp, and you'd much rather tune in on them than on spoken words. The nights were even better than the days, with the vast, star-shot sky draped low overhead and the water sometimes black as oil, sometimes glistening with starshine and luminescent moon tracks.

  When we got back to St. Thomas I docked the yawl without a bump, whisper smooth. Bone said, "Good job, Cap'n"—he'd taken to calling me Cap'n on the cruise, a term of respect—and I grinned and nodded. I felt as I had the afternoon I walked out of Amthor Associates for the last time. Apart from ordinary men, above them at a great height. Happier, more content than they could ever be.

  The illusion, the delusion, lasted until I walked through the front door of the Quartz Gade villa.

  And found that Annalise was gone.

  No warning. No explanation, no good-byes.

  Gone from the house, gone from the island—destination unknown. Vanished into thin air, just as Jordan Wise had vanished from San Francisco.

  Everything of value that she could pack into her three suitcases went with her. Jewelry, hers and mine both. Clothing. The antique music box and a handful of gold doubloons we'd bought on St. Martin and all the gold and silver trinkets. The only thing she left behind was the brass-bound pirate's chest, and that was only because it was too bulky and too heavy to be easily transported.

  Money, too?

  Oh, hell, yes. All the cash from the safe deposit box, everything in the joint bank account, more than $26,000. If any of the stocks had been negotiable for her, they would've been gone as well. If she'd had access to the Cayman account, she'd have plundered that and left me with exactly the same amount she had left in the joint account.

  One dollar.

  One fucking dollar.

  And there wasn't a damn thing I could do about it.

  ST. THOMAS

  1982

  THE FIRST WEEK was very bad. I didn't leave the house, didn't bathe or shave or bother to get dressed except for a pair of shorts. I drank steadily, without ever getting to the blotting-out stage, until the supply of liquor ran out. I raged at her. I raged at myself for misjudging her and for being too stupid to see it coming, and because maybe part of it was my fault for neglecting her, and because there was still some residual love left in me in spite of what she'd done. The phone rang three times during that week and I answered each time, thinking it might be Annalise, and when I heard somebody else's voice I hung up without saying a word.

  When I couldn't stand the empty house or my own miserable company any longer, I cleaned up and got out of there. I needed to talk to somebody, and the only one I could confide in was Bone.

  He listened to me unload as much as I dared to, without interrupting. His face showed no emotion, but I could tell that he empathized; we were friends and he'd gone through the same kind of thing himself with the second wife whose name he wouldn't mention. He didn't offer any bullshit advice, as most men would have. All he s
aid was, "You hurting bad, Richard. Mon hurts like that, only one thing to do. Go out. Let wind and sea wash out the poison."

  I said, "Will you go with me?"

  "No, mon. No place for Bone on that kind of trip."

  "Alone? I couldn't do it. I'm not ready to singlehand."

  "You're ready," he said. "You never be more ready."

  The next day I put in fresh stores, fuel, water. Then I painted a new name on the yawl's transom and reregistered her with the harbormaster's office. Annalise was gone; I wanted Annalise gone, too. Her new name, picked at random, was Windrunner.

  The day after that, I left early into a stiff wind and an uncertain forecast. I had no idea where I was going. If I succeeded as a singlehander, fine. If I screwed up badly enough so that the yawl lost a mast or broached and went down, so be it. I didn't much care then, either way.