Floaters

by Joseph Wambaugh

  “Why do you think I’m on the phone? I’m trying to do what’s right. I like San Diego. I don’t wanna run away. But I don’t want cops giving me subpoenas and trying to make me say things I can’t say!”

  “We have some excellent evidence already. Evidence against Oliver Mantleberry. With your testimony, your truthful testimony about what you saw that night, he might even get the gas chamber.”

  “Oh, sure,” Blaze said. “How many people in this state been executed in the last thirty years? One, maybe? Two? Get real!”

  “Think it over. If you won’t give me your number, then call me tomorrow.”

  “I’ll think it over.”

  “Same time tomorrow?”

  “Okay.”

  “She’d do it for you, wouldn’t she?”

  “Who?”

  “Dawn.”

  “Detective Zorn,” Blaze said, “Dawn Coyote would’ve sold me out, and her mother, and her own baby, when she needed something to jam in her arm.”

  “You will call me tomorrow?”

  “I said I would, didn’t I?”

  —

  Fortney did something so stupid on Wednesday afternoon that he promised himself he’d never tell a soul about it, not even Leeds. Especially not Leeds, since his partner was the only one who knew the source of that stupidity. Fortney, who’d been keeping up with the regatta, knew that the Citizen Cup trials to decide the defender boat were still in doubt, but the Kiwis would probably wrap up the Louis Vuitton Cup tomorrow afternoon in Black Magic, thus earning the right to challenge next month for the America’s Cup.

  He had some interest in all this because by the time the marathon regatta finally ended in May, the city would have realized a $300-million economic boost. Anything that helped the city’s budgetary woes might indirectly forestall the threatened shutdown of the Harbor Unit. He had good reason to pay more than passing notice to the America’s Cup regatta.

  But not enough to justify the incredibly stupid decision he’d made at five that afternoon. Fortney had decided to join the sailors, and the sailing-stupids, and the cuppies, all of whom would be out there in the gin mills for sure. Because if past history meant anything, she’d be out there with them. The ultimate cuppie: the fiery redhead named Blaze whom he couldn’t get out of his mind. If Leeds ever heard about this bit of middle-aged angst, this baby-boomer madness or whatever it was, he’d never hear the end of it.

  Fortney shaved closer than usual that afternoon. He even splashed on a little foo-foo cologne. He combed his graying hair with the help of a rearview mirror to arrange strands over the balding crown, but his curls wouldn’t cooperate. He wore jeans he’d taken right from the dryer, checking to see if his butt was still holding up. He even wore a long-sleeved shirt.

  —

  Simon Cooke thought, Fuck it! She was shining him! Okay, the deal sounded good and she talked a convincing game, but what guarantee did he have that he’d get paid after it was over? When you came right down to it, he didn’t know Blaze Duvall. All he had was a phone number. And she hadn’t answered that for the past few days, not until she’d called him today. How did he know she was for real?

  Simon dismissed the thought almost as fast as it popped in his mind. Blaze was too straight, too honest. The way she looked at him with those big green eyes of hers. But maybe she was too straight, too naive? Maybe she was being used by Mr. Moneybags. Simon still figured it was millionaire Bill Koch, boss of the mostly all-woman team. Yeah, Koch was the guy. Just the kind of rich asshole who’d take advantage of a decent kid like Blaze.

  He made a decision that afternoon identical to Fortney’s. Simon Cooke was going out that night to hunt for Blaze Duvall.

  —

  Ambrose Lutterworth didn’t have to go hunting for Blaze Duvall. She showed up on his doorstep at 7:10 P.M., dressed not in the tailored look he preferred for their encounters and not in the sexy sailboat-casual she’d affected for her cuppie appearances. Blaze was wearing a green, hip-belted leather miniskirt, a short-sleeved, black wool turtleneck sweater, and low-heeled black Gucci boots.

  For once she was dressed the way she wanted to dress rather than being costumed for men who, in one way or another, were all just clients.

  Ambrose pecked her on the cheek and said, “My, you look…different.”

  “Not your style, I know. But I felt like wearing it.”

  “No! I mean, you look beautiful. You always look beautiful.”

  “I’ll wear a longer skirt for our dinner date,” Blaze reassured him.

  “No, you look wonderful. Really.”

  “Do you have the drug?”

  “Yes, let’s sit down for a minute.”

  Ambrose led the way into the living room, where he and Blaze sat side by side on the old sofa. Two bindles wrapped in notebook paper were on the coffee table. He opened one of them carefully and showed her the powder.

  “It took me a while to mash the tablets,” he said. “If you empty one of these into his drink…By the way, what does he drink?”

  “Beer. What else would those guys drink?”

  “Okay, one of these will do it. You said he’s a very big man?”

  “Very.”

  “I’ve done some discreet checking with my pharmacist and my late mother’s doctor. I think a gram of this will guarantee that even a big man won’t be ready to run machinery the next day.”

  “What is it?”

  “Phenobarbital.”

  “We don’t wanna kill him.”

  “It won’t kill him, but he’ll have the mother of all hangovers.”

  “But he’ll be okay, right?”

  “Do I look like a murderer?”

  Blaze hesitated, then said, “No, you don’t look anything at all like any murderer I’ve seen lately.”

  “Actually it’s a little more than a gram,” Ambrose said. “I crushed eleven of the hundred-milligram tablets.”

  “What’s in the other paper?”

  “Same thing. Just in case something goes wrong with the first one. But, for God’s sake, don’t give him both!”

  “Don’t worry.”

  “And you have no fears about Simon Cooke?”

  “None at all. I own him.”

  “You didn’t have to…do anything with him, did you?”

  “Don’t be silly, Ambrose. Can you imagine me in bed with someone like that?”

  “No, of course not.”

  “Okay, I guess I’m ready.”

  “I’ll have the money tomorrow afternoon. Twenty-five thousand. You know, I’m surprised Simon didn’t make a demand of good faith. Didn’t he ever ask for some money up front to prove our reliability?”

  “I wouldn’t have given him any front money. I don’t trust him that much. But don’t worry. I told you, I own him.”

  “You could own a lot of men, Blaze,” Ambrose said.

  “Wait up tonight, darling,” Blaze said. “I’ll phone you with a detailed report as soon as I get back to my hotel.”

  “Hotel?”

  “Oh, didn’t I tell you? Termites. Thirteen hundred bucks a month and I have to cope with termites. We’ve all had to move out for two days while they fumigate.”

  “Which hotel are you in?”

  “That darling little place on Shelter Island. I selected it so I could be close to the sailor hangouts.” Then she added, “And close to you. I like being close to you, Ambrose.”

  He was touched. He smiled and kissed her lightly, not wanting to smudge her lipstick. But he couldn’t resist just touching her lips with the tip of his tongue. Blaze Duvall even tasted young.

  —

  There was more smoke than usual in the Kiwis’ favorite barroom. That meant there were more foreigners boozing it up on victory eve. Blaze could hardly breathe until she got past a group in the doorway, all of whom were puffing away. One man was even smoking a cigar, something a Californian rarely saw being done in public these days.

  Very few of the America’s Cup sailors had arrived
yet, but there were plenty of regatta fans, those who went out on the pricey spectator boats as well as the big cattle boats that didn’t offer all the amenities but could haul a lot of sponsor pals to the racecourse off Point Loma. The nonsailing tourists were actually dressed more like photo-op weekend sailors than real weekend sailors. Many wore Polo shirts, longish shorts, and belts patterned with signal flags. Most wore Top-Siders, no socks. Several had sweaters thrown over their shoulders. All very preppie.

  And very few, if any of them, failed to notice the tall girl in the green leather mini when she made her way through the crowd, heading for the bar.

  It was so easy: Blaze just bumped against a burly sailing-stupid sitting on a barstool. When he turned around, she said, “Oh! Sorry. Just trying to get the bartender’s attention.”

  “Let me help,” the man said. He yelled, “Bart! Over here!”

  Blaze said, “White wine, please.”

  The man said, “White wine, Bart. On my tab.”

  “Thank you,” Blaze said. “That wasn’t necessary.”

  “It’s nothing,” he said. “By the time tonight’s over, I’ll be buying drinks for half of New Zealand. One more won’t matter. You a Kiwi by any chance?”

  “Afraid not.” Blaze smiled.

  “Here, take my stool,” he said, getting to his feet.

  “Thank you,” Blaze said.

  Men. It was just that easy.

  —

  Fortney finally found her at 8:10 P.M., sitting at the bar, her hair glowing like fire under a taste of overhead light filtered through cigarette smoke. She didn’t have the usual Cup sailors swarming her, but Fortney realized that was only because they hadn’t arrived yet. The crowd was composed of regatta enthusiasts and hangers-on.

  He didn’t go directly to her end of the bar. Instead he got himself a draft beer, then saw he’d waited too long. A mob of twenty sailors came in with half that many cuppies in tow.

  People started yelling greetings from all over the barroom and the place came alive, the crowd swirling and swarming like so many sea snakes. In no time at all the sailors spotted Blaze.

  “Blaze!”

  “Charlie!”

  “Blaze!”

  “Matthew!”

  “Blaze!”

  “Robbie! I saw you on ESPN. Who did your TV makeup?”

  And so it went. Fortney was crestfallen. Blaze was surrounded by ebullient Kiwis as well as several Aussies, who were keeping up a brave front. The Aussies were probably resigned to annihilation tomorrow, but the dueling sailors usually talked about anything but the race.

  Fortney wondered if the regatta was on their minds, or if the same thing was on their minds as was on his: Blaze Duvall. By the time he had another brew, ten of the sailors and Blaze were wedged in a booth designed for six. She was pressed between a huge Aussie and an equally large Kiwi. Fortney noticed that as usual she chatted with everyone, but she often glanced anxiously toward the entrance.

  When he ordered his third pint of draft, Fortney felt more than stupid. This was midlife angst, nothing else could explain it. He had about as much chance with this babe as the Aussies had against Black Magic. He was embarrassed. He felt like getting drunk. This kind of childish behavior could lead to another bad marriage if any decent female human being was halfway kind to him.

  He realized how pathetically lonely he’d become since his last divorce, and he felt humiliated. He often wished he’d fathered a kid somewhere along the way, somebody he could be with on lonely evenings like this. Now it was too late.

  When he next looked over at the booth, the huge Kiwi with the albino buzz-cut was moving toward his mates, blocking out Fortney’s view of Blaze Duvall and half of the sailors. Fortney decided to have one more beer and go home.

  —

  “Miles!” Blaze cried as the behemoth cruised through the crowd like the Kitty Hawk.

  “Blaze, my love!” He grinned, looming over the table, baring the space where an eyetooth should have been.

  “Aren’t we gonna make room for a working man?” Blaze asked the sailors who had her sandwiched.

  They weren’t about to move. “We’re the bloody galley slaves!” a Kiwi said. “That bloke only has to put the slave ship in the water!”

  “Come on, guys!” Blaze said. “Let’s play musical seats and give poor Miles a chance to take a load off. After all, he has the biggest load, doesn’t he?”

  After some grumbling and debates about whose turn it was to buy a round, two sailors got up and Miles wedged his wide-body into the booth next to Blaze. He’d just left the boatyard, was only half washed, and reeked.

  But Blaze smiled warmly and said, “How about a drink, big boy?”

  “My usual,” he said to a frazzled barmaid with rivers of sweat running down her face.

  The only reason Fortney wasn’t off the stool and out of there was that four beers and one tequila shooter on an empty stomach had severely unbalanced his body chemistry. What the hell, he figured, you go this far, might as well stick it in all the way. But while nursing his second tequila shooter he realized that the only one he was screwing was himself.

  Fortney used to work with a black cop named Sleepy Simpson who, every time he figured the world was sticking it to him, would go out and finish the screwing by getting himself shit-faced. Poor old Sleepy suffered from an on-duty head injury he’d got by chasing a Corvette on a police motorcycle, ending up like a pancaked roadkill with half his scalp flapping in the backwash of freeway commuters whizzing by on their way to work.

  Sleepy would go narcoleptic when he’d been boozing it, and if Fortney didn’t watch over him, he’d fall asleep behind the wheel. One time Sleepy even left the shotgun on the roof of the patrol unit and drove off. To make matters worse, he never got enough rest because he owned property in Logan Heights and was up half the night doing slumlord collecting. When he finally got so sleepy that he dropped his uniform off at the cleaner’s with $350 in the pocket, Sleepy figured that was it. Time to call it quits and apply for a medical pension from the old head injury.

  Well, Fortney didn’t have an old injury, wasn’t a slumlord, and had about enough cash in his bank account to feed himself and his goldfish as long as they didn’t need gourmet fish food. Yet here he was getting even with the world by screwing himself, just like old Sleepy Simpson. Over a woman. A fantasy woman at that. A woman who preferred a big kahuna Kiwi who looked like he ought to be taken to a carwash and bathed.

  If only Blaze hadn’t stopped at his table and insulted Leeds with that sassy little grin. If only she hadn’t given that wicked slant-eyed glance at Fortney, a glance that had promised a heavenly battery charge to an over-the-hill cop whose future consisted of cruising around Mission Bay for five more years, watching the sun soar overhead and drop into the ocean beyond the south jetty. Five more years before retirement. Then what?

  Fortney was rescued from a riptide of self-pity, but not by surfer lifeguards. By the unlikeliest lifesaver of all: Simon Cooke.

  Simon squeezed himself between the last patron at the bar and the ersatz teak paneling and yelled, “Hey, barkeep! Bring me a double gin and tonic, hold the tonic!”

  He was already hammered, but no worse than Fortney, who looked at him and thought: She drinks with you and that Kiwi. Why? Fortney wasn’t leaving until he could explain the mystery, craving a solution to the puzzle that was Blaze Duvall. He picked up his bar change, leaving thirty-five cents for the bartender, the smallest tip he’d get from a Yank that evening, and made his way through the smoke clouds until he was against the wall, just behind Simon Cooke.

  Fortney reached his arm between Simon and the drinker next to him as though to put his empty tequila glass on the bar. He bumped Simon’s elbow.

  “Hey!” Half of Simon’s gin sloshed over the rim of his glass. He didn’t bother to look around at the clumsy bastard but quickly licked his own hand, preventing catastrophic loss.

  “Real sorry, man,” Fortney said. “Whatcha drinking? I o
we you one.”

  That made Simon do a half-turn and grumble, “Gin. Double.”

  Fortney said, “Another double gin for my friend. And a tequila shooter for me.” Then he put his last twenty on the bar.

  Simon Cooke offered a minismile and said, “Okay, dude. No problem.”

  “This place is rocking out,” Fortney said to him.

  “Yeah.”

  “You come here often?”

  “No. Fuckin’ drinks cost more’n a down payment on a used pickup.”

  “I don’t come too often either,” Fortney said. “It ain’t even a good place for chicks.”

  “It sucks,” Simon said, finishing the half-spilled drink and reaching for the fresh one.

  “I’ll be glad when all these sailboat tourists beat feet,” Fortney said.

  Simon Cooke didn’t bother to respond.

  “You work around here?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You into any of this America’s Cup stuff?”

  “No.”

  “That’s all there is around here these days,” Fortney said. “Sailing types. May as well have another drink. My liver ain’t quite big enough to eat me yet. Wanna join me?”

  “Sure,” Simon said, figuring the guy was probably a faggot even though he didn’t look faggoty. Well, if he wanted to buy double gins, Simon could string him along for a while.

  But Simon got confused about the guy’s sexual identity when the next round was poured. Because he said to Simon, “You see that hot babe in the corner with all those sailors? I’ve seen her every time I been in this joint.”

  Simon didn’t say anything, but his crafty little grin got craftier.

  “You know her?”

  “Why would you say that?” sly old Simon asked, slurring his consonants.

  “I dunno. Just the way you’re smiling, I guess.”

  Simon said, “Yeah, I know her.”

  “You do?”

  “Sure. Her name’s Blaze.”

  “I guess there ain’t a chance, huh? I mean, for somebody to take her away from that big, ugly Kiwi.”

  “I know that prick, too,” Simon said. “I know most of ‘em. All pricks. Every one a them.”

  “What’s she see in him?” Fortney wanted to know. “A slick-looking chick like that?” Now he was slurring his own consonants.