He was met at the door by Madge Stoker, wife of Grant Stoker, who, like Ambrose, was a second-generation yacht club member, and would probably be the next commodore.
Madge was the daughter of an Imperial Valley farmer who’d become wealthy growing truck crops. She was overweight, loud, and so comfortable with herself that she made Ambrose nervous. Madge looked people right in the eye, something Ambrose found vaguely distasteful. And her fingernails were cracked and split from working alongside a pair of undocumented Mexican laborers whom she employed full-time, tending her gardens and trees. She jauntily reported that she’d never contributed to their Social Security benefits, therefore could never be appointed to Clinton’s cabinet.
“Hello, Ambrose, baby!” Madge said when he entered the marble foyer underneath a thirty-foot ceiling.
The foyer and living room contained several rococo mirrors, Queen Anne lacquered antiques, and eighteenth-century Japanese screens. The doorways and windows and all of the upholstered furniture were overscale, including a pair of wool damask sofas that could seat half of La Jolla. The floor-to-ceiling glass patio doors were framed with taffeta. Ambrose had never entered the Stoker home without wanting to burn it to the ground.
Madge didn’t turn her cheek and buss the air like most hostesses on the party circuit. She planted one on him. Her lipstick was already smeared and would be all over her face by the time the last guests arrived. And if any lady discreetly called her attention to it, Madge Stoker would usually reply, “As Clark Gable never quite said, Frankly, m’duck, I don’t give a fuck.”
After greeting Madge, Ambrose got himself a glass of white wine at one of the two bars that were set up and strolled onto the terrace, where guests could watch the sun drop into the Pacific.
Chablis. He might have known. Drinkable, but only just. A real vintner wouldn’t use it to make salad dressing. Yet the scotch, vodka, and gin were the best money could buy. So like Madge Stoker.
Grant Stoker approached Ambrose on the terrace and shook hands vigorously even though they’d seen each other at the club that afternoon. “So glad you could make it, Ambrose,” he said. “You had me worried when you said you weren’t sure. Wouldn’t be a party without you.”
“I cleared my calendar for you,” Ambrose said, realizing they were both lying. Two boating bullshitters.
Grant Stoker was taller and younger-looking than Ambrose, by virtue of being robust and athletic. Unlike Ambrose, he had all of his hair, wearing it slicked back like a yuppie. It was rumored that he’d had affairs with at least three yacht club wives over the years but had always been discreet so it probably wouldn’t hurt his chances of becoming commodore.
“Come on over and meet some of our friends from north county,” he said.
North county meant Del Mar, Rancho Santa Fe, and Fairbanks Ranch, pricey bedroom communities where wealthy San Diegans lived whose hobbies were more likely horses and golf than boats.
About sixty guests had arrived by then, and most of the men were wearing blazers or poplin summer sport coats. There were plenty of Ferragamo neckties with nautical motifs, but Ambrose would never wear nautical neckties. They were over the top, no question about it.
“This is Ambrose Lutterworth, the Keeper of the America’s Cup,” Grant Stoker said to a cluster of seven people, four men and three women, in casual cocktail attire.
A middle-aged woman with a trim figure, in a mint-green St. John knit, put her hand out and Ambrose shook it.
She said, “My name’s Sam. I saw you on television in Tokyo when you brought the Cup there.”
“Did you?” Ambrose was delighted.
He knew these people weren’t yachtsmen, but, after all, it was a regatta party. Though they might not be sailing enthusiasts, they were probably going to be on spectator boats at some time or another, watching the race on a television screen in the salon, thus having an excuse to get hammered at one o’clock in the afternoon.
“Well, I’ve taken the Cup to quite a few places in the past few years,” he began, smiling shyly. “That’s why I was on Japanese TV.”
“What does the Keeper of the Cup actually do?” Sam asked.
“He travels with the America’s Cup!” her husband said. “Whaddaya think? He takes it to…” Then he turned to Ambrose and said, “Where besides Tokyo?”
“I’ve been to a lot of places,” Ambrose said, forcing himself to drink the chablis, fending off a sudden impulse to flee.
“We’re all landlubbers,” another man explained. He was younger than the rest, wearing a pale blue pinfeather sport coat that Ambrose admired. “Tell us some America’s Cup gossip.”
“What sort of gossip?” Ambrose asked.
“Excuse me, everyone,” Grant Stoker said. “I’ll run along and help Madge at the door so I don’t have to hear Ambrose telling you where all the bodies are buried.”
“They’re buried at sea, of course,” Ambrose said, and everyone laughed vigorously at the little joke. He realized they were already half smashed.
Ambrose really didn’t have to answer a single inquiry. They provided their own America’s Cup gossip, and his headache went from a dull throb to a painful thump.
Nobody understood what the Cup meant to real yachtsmen; not even all club members understood. How could he tell these people? How could he explain the honor? He excused himself and went out on the terrace. The sun was about to set and guests waited, hoping for the green flash.
It was caused when an atmospheric change in air density created a bending of the light when it crosses from cool to warm, as in a giant prism. Blue and green refract more than red and yellow, the blue scattering more vigorously, and if the green is properly positioned, the red fireball may permit a magnified rim of burning emerald as it drops into the sea. Hence, the green flash.
Ambrose had heard of the Scottish legend that promised love and eternal happiness to all who sighted the green flash. It was a lovely thought.
Madge Stoker startled him by whispering in his ear. “Know why all the broads at these parties stand so close to each other when they talk? Their eyesight’s not up to checking out cosmetic surgery from a distance.”
By the time he turned from Madge and looked out to sea, the sun had vanished. Without a green flash.
CHAPTER 6
Blaze arrived at the waterfront restaurant at six o’clock and headed straight for the bar. There was already an assortment of Aussies and Kiwis present who outnumbered the Yanks and certainly outdrank them.
She was wearing an emerald tube top, white Bongo jeans, and boat sneakers. The tube top would slip an inch each time she waved at one of the sailors, and she made it a point to wave frequently as she pranced across the barroom.
In a moment they were circling like sharks on a blood slick.
“Blaze!” an Aussie called out.
“Here, Blaze!” This one was a Kiwi.
“Over here, Blaze!” said another. “You gave those blokes all the attention last time.”
“White wine, Blaze?” an Aussie trimmer asked. “I anticipated your arrival and ordered a bottle chilled.”
“Good on ya, Charlie!” Blaze said.
The restaurant was one of several with Polynesian decor, mostly bamboo veneer and floral design. And there were paintings on the walls that Gauguin might have done if he’d been dead drunk. But the dining area had a sweeping view of the harbor, including the skyline, the North Island Naval Air Station, and the Coronado bridge.
Not one of the professional sailors gave a shit about the view. They couldn’t stop looking at Blaze Duvall and her green tube top. Her eyes a vivid green against the tube.
The restaurant manager got worried that competing sailors might come to blows over this cuppie, so he told his bartender to keep an eye on the action and let him know if things got ugly.
After Blaze perched herself on a bamboo barstool, she looked around and said, “Did Miles get a better deal this evening?”
“Still had a few loose ends back at the c
ompound,” a Kiwi told her. “Never fear, he hasn’t walked past a boozer in ten years without popping in.”
After lights went on in the high-rise buildings downtown and on the sweeping curve of the Coronado bridge studded by lamps, Simon Cooke showed up. Filled with high hopes that Blaze would keep her word, he was as well groomed as he ever got. Which meant he was wearing fresh blue jeans, sneakers that were not caked with grease, and a semiclean sweatshirt with a kamikaze surfer on the back who was hanging five and flipping the bird to the world. Simon Cooke had even washed his ankles.
Blaze said to the sailors, “Excuse me, lads. Keep my seat warm.”
She slid off the stool, much to the distress of the sailors, who started moaning and mooing like cattle, and twisted through the mob to greet a beaming, semisober Simon Cooke.
“I can’t believe it!” he said. “You’re here! You really like me!”
“Easy, Simon,” she said. “You sound like Sally Field at the Academy Awards.”
Blaze selected one of the bamboo booths away from eavesdropping sailors and schmoozed Simon with America’s Cup gossip until he’d finished his first drink. She waited for his second to arrive before she said, “Simon, I’m getting closer to finishing that article, but I need technical help. For example, remember the French boat that got dropped by the crane operator?”
“Sure,” he said. “Everyone knows about that fiasco. I think the guy wasn’t their regular operator.”
“It can happen to any team, right?”
“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 fu—some 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 blind. 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 unhem it?”
“You’d have to remove it and cut enough of the strands on the sling to weaken it.”
“How could you be sure 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…”
“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 fucking—oops!—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 condom.”
“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?”
Floaters Page 10
