The yacht club was already full of people and every mooring was taken. The shore boat from Isthmus Cove was taking groups of people through the emerald water to the little pier by the club.
Tess looked very sad when she finally spoke to him. She said, “If I were to say that with you I feel something I’ve never felt before, would you believe me?”
“Yes! I feel the same!”
“I want you to believe me,” she said. “I want you to believe I’d spend my life with you. If such a thing were possible.”
“Tess,” he said. “Tess!”
Tess Binder’s eyes! He was always trying to peek within. Whenever he’d get close to succeeding, she’d suddenly draw those gray curtains or switch off the lamps.
Even now she pulled away, and suddenly she became her playful old self. “We don’t have time for that!” she said. “It’s time to go down there and party, old son! A full moon makes me howl!”
“It was full last night,” Winnie informed her. “The moon, sun and earth, they won’t quite line up. Not tonight.”
19
Dark Water
The yacht club was very ascetic by mainland standards, even by Avalon standards. But for the isthmus it was posh. Which meant that the plumbing worked and the floor was in one piece and there were cabañas and dressing rooms, and a few bungalows that were actually heated in winter. Yachtsmen, even if they were F.F.H. rich, prided themselves on rustic informality. The location was, like all of the isthmus, probably more beautiful than any coastline on the Southern California mainland. The water was turquoise and emerald, and clear. And the bottom was sandy white, the nearest thing to tropical water that California has to offer.
And since this was an isthmus yacht club where people came directly from their boats, the dress code was campground casual, even at a yacht club luau. Tess was overdressed, but Winnie, in a Reyn Spooner aloha shirt, white cotton trousers and deck shoes, looked about right for the soiree.
The food had been prepared on the mainland and delivered to the restaurant at Two Harbors for last-minute touches. There were three bartenders and six young women serving food at this, the largest annual yacht party on the west end of Catalina Island, hosted by Dexter Moody.
An eight-piece orchestra from Newport Beach that usually played weekends on Balboa peninsula had been brought in to play tunes from the big-band era. There were at least three hundred people swarming over the yacht club and spilling out onto the grassy lawn and the beach itself. The music could be heard clearly all the way to Two Harbors.
In the club lanai, Winnie was astonished to see a suckling pig on one buffet table, another table heaped with five kinds of shellfish, and a third with eight or ten dessert choices. About thirty people were already dancing in the main room while others heaped food onto plastic plates and took the feast outside on the grass.
A smiling silver-haired man with a lei around his neck stood beneath a mounted pair of harpoons, and greeted guests who lined up to meet him.
Tess, pulling Winnie by the hand, went to the front of the queue and kissed the man on the cheek.
“Dexter, meet Win Farlowe,” she said.
Dexter Moody smiled warmly at Winnie, made polite small talk to the annoyed woman they’d just shunted aside, and still managed to ask Tess how she’d been and why she hadn’t called him lately.
Winnie kept his eye on the nearest drinks table, and while Tess spoke with Dexter Moody, he went for it, delighted to see that they had Russian and Polish vodka out here, past land’s end, in a tiny speck in the Pacific Ocean. Rich people!
By the time Tess joined Winnie he was on his second double. He ordered a Scotch for her and said, “Some party.”
“Want me to introduce you around? I know a couple dozen of these people.”
“I’m only interested in one person,” Winnie said, and she squeezed his hand for that. “Think we oughtta grab a slab off Porky before he’s all gone?”
“If I know Dexter, he’s got a whole flock of suckling pigs out back. Or herds, whatever.”
“Maybe we oughtta eat something.”
“Let’s not spoil our edge by eating,” Tess said. “Let’s dance it off instead.”
Winnie finished his drink and ordered a fresh one, which he left on one of the lanai tables. They danced for fifteen minutes, slow dancing, swing, even the twist from the old days. Tess was as graceful as he knew she’d be. She was good at everything. He only hoped the orchestra wouldn’t spoil the party by playing “Where or When.”
After they both worked up a light sweat, they went outside on the patio to cool off. Winnie’s drink had been picked up by a waitress, so Tess told him to grab a table while she went for another. She came back with four drinks, two for each of them.
“So we don’t have to keep making trips to the bar,” she explained.
When Winnie hefted the glass, he noticed there was only one ice cube in it. “Vodka they got, but no ice?”
Tess giggled, but Winnie said, “Must be six ounces a booze in these drinks. We gotta be careful or we’ll be spending the night out back with the suckling pigs.”
“I’ll show you suckling, big boy,” Tess said. Then she touched her glass to his and said, “Chin chin.”
Tess sat with her legs crossed, one pump dangling from her toes. She had tiny toes. He couldn’t figure that out. Why long fingers and tiny toes? Then his eyes moved up her legs. Shiny, tan, bare legs. Shimmering shins! He almost laughed out loud.
They didn’t dance again, but Tess would occasionally spot someone she knew and run across the dance floor to chat. She always took her drink with her and always came back with a fresh one for him.
He couldn’t understand it. The way she moved, so erect, her shoulders thrown back with that boarding school posture of hers. Always seeming dead sober even when she said she was drunk, and giggled, and acted silly.
Winnie had gotten to the games stage. He looked at a ten-foot sailfish on the wall over the bar. He squinted and closed one eye to try to make it hold still. Soon the sailfish looked like it had grown fur. Then it slowly started swimming.
He turned to a woman sitting at the next table and said, “Somebody better spear that fish before he gets away.”
Tess came back briefly to tell him she ran into a friend she hadn’t seen since her Stanford days, and she asked if he was all right. When he nodded, she placed another drink in front of him, another triple or whatever they were, in a bucket glass. Then she was off again.
By nine o’clock he couldn’t read his watch. He had no feeling in his chin, lips or fingers. It was too late to eat. Too late to do anything. He had to stop to think what side of the isthmus he was on. For a second he thought he was looking at Cat Harbor. That made him giggle. The sailfish was bouncing around like they were smack in the middle of a squall.
“A very clever sailfish,” Winnie said to the woman at the next table who’d been gone for half an hour. He started to get up and was astonished when he reeled and fell back in the chair. The bartender had screwed up. This was American vodka.
A face hovered over him. Funny sideburns and whiskers. It was either a wild lynx or a Prussian general. It said, “Easy, mate. Maybe you ought to head for your boat?”
Winnie rubbed some feeling into his lips, sniffed the lousy American vodka and said, “I love the smell of napalm in the morning.”
When Tess finally joined him again, she had a fresh drink for each of them. She put them down on the table and said, “You feeling all right?”
“How do I look?” Winnie asked.
Then he noticed there was a man with her, an imposing man Dexter Moody’s age. The man said, “Maybe he’d better not have any more.”
“Maybe not,” Tess said. “Do you think you should stop drinking now, Win?”
That made him mad. He grabbed the drink and gulped it, but spilled half on his shirt. “Who’s he? A cop? I know when I had enough!”
Tess turned toward the man and said, “I can handle him.”
“Let’s go home.”
“Pay attention!” she said. “This is important! Are you listening?”
“Yeah,” he said, seeing one and a half Tess Binders.
“Warner Stillwell’s here! The Circe came a day early. They’ve just called from Isthmus Cove. The shore boat’s bringing them here any minute.”
“Tomorrow,” Winnie said. “We can talk to him tomorrow.”
“No, goddamnit!” Tess said. “Not tomorrow! Tonight! It has to be tonight! Get on your feet, Win. Let’s go outside and get some air.”
Five minutes later, Winnie and Tess were sitting on the deck looking toward the light on Ship Rock, the light to warn mariners.
Winnie kept focusing on the warning light, and tried to understand what Tess was saying.
“There’re four of them,” she said. “The owner of the Circe, his wife, another woman and Warner. He didn’t bring his assassin.”
“Where is it, Tess?” Winnie asked, hopelessly confused. “The Circe?”
“I told you! At Isthmus Cove. It’s a big boat, so they’ve anchored out by the reef. The shore boat should be arriving any minute. Win, what should we do?”
With a hiccup: “I think maybe we should talk to him tomorrow.”
“I wish you hadn’t drunk so much!” she said. “I told you not to drink so much, didn’t I?”
“You told me?” Now he was seeing two instead of one and a half Tess Binders. “You told me?”
“Remember, Win,” she said. “I warned you not to drink so much. I told you several times. You do remember, don’t you?”
He was getting nauseous. Tess seemed to be badgering him and he couldn’t understand why. He knew he was a bit bagged, but that was no reason to badger him. He kept staring at her. He wanted to feel the outline of her face to see which one was hers. He wanted to do something everyone in the world thought he couldn’t do. He wanted to do something extraordinarily difficult. He wanted to stand up.
Then it was too late. The shore boat arrived at the dinghy dock with a load of twenty-five noisy people. They were chattering and laughing as they crossed the pier. Tess didn’t take her eyes off their silhouettes, backlit by the moon reflecting off the still water.
“It’s him!” she whispered. “The second man walking on the right!”
Before Winnie could say anything, she was on her feet, hurrying toward the advancing revelers. She was fifty feet away when she greeted a party of four. Winnie sat and peered toward the darkness, but heard only muffled words and laughter. The group of four approached him.
“Everybody, this is my friend, Win Farlowe! Win, this is everybody!” Tess shouted.
People spoke to him. Men shook his hand. One of them, a handsome older man in a yellow aloha shirt, seemed especially friendly. He looked familiar, but out of focus, like everyone else. Then they all disappeared inside with Tess.
Winnie continued to sit, staring at the light on Ship Rock that warned yachtsmen away. If he could make the light hold still, if he could make it be one light, he thought he might risk trying to walk.
When Tess came back she was alone. She said, “I’m shocked that Warner drove down from the ranch all by himself! He’s been staying with Giles Bledsoe who owns the Circe.”
“What’s it mean, Tess?” Winnie asked. “What?”
“It means you’ll have to deal with Warner alone. You’re not too drunk, are you? Win, I asked you not to drink so much. Don’t you remember?”
“I don’t know, Tess,” he said. “I guess you did. I don’t know what happened. I jist wish everything would hold still!”
“Goddamnit, pull yourself together!”
Even in his condition it startled him. “I’m okay,” he said.
“I’m going to arrange it so you and Warner are together, understand? I’m going to help you to be alone with him, so you can deal with him.”
“I’ll deal with him,” said Winnie Farlowe, but the light was still dancing on Ship Rock.
She left him alone again, and he had strange and bizarre thoughts: Why am I sitting in a kayak? What if I turtle, and can’t get right side up?
Winnie was only marginally more lucid ten minutes later when a festive group of twenty people burst out onto the patio, led by Tess Binder, who said, “Win, you should’ve tasted the suckling pig. Dexter had it cooked in banana leaves!”
“Let’s go everybody!” one of the yachtsmen yelled. “Bring your A-coupons! The tour’s about to begin!”
“We’re going to visit the Circe,” Tess whispered to Winnie, helping him to his feet. “Come on!”
While Winnie was staggering toward the dinghy dock, one arm around Tess Binder, she said, sotto voce, “Hang in there, Win. Warner’s walking just ahead of us. Trust me!”
Everyone was wearing leis, and drinking tall tropical drinks with umbrellas in them, and there was much merriment as they boarded the water taxi waiting at the dinghy dock. Winnie was helped into the boat by the older man in the yellow aloha shirt, who said, “Easy does it. Easy does it.”
The man made sure Winnie was safely aboard, then he seated himself beside Tess on the starboard bench seat.
The shore boat turned out of the cove, cutting right through the silver moonlight on the sapphire water. Winnie kept looking to port, toward Ship Rock, toward the light that said, “Mariner, beware.”
It only took a few minutes to motor around the jutting cliffs, past the reef and Bird Rock into Isthmus Cove. A cloud-bank crossed the moon and it was suddenly much darker in the cove. The big custom motor yacht was anchored dead ahead, as white as Bird Rock itself.
Everyone said things like, “Who designed it?” and “Why did he have it built in Europe?” and “Who did the decor?” And so forth.
Then there was more laughter as the shore boat came alongside the motor yacht, and the Circe skipper, dressed in whites, assisted the revelers aboard.
The man in the yellow flowered shirt helped Winnie up the ladder through the transom gate, and boarded last. When he was on the deck, he put his hand on Winnie’s shoulder and said, “I’ll help you. Just take my arm.”
Tess ran up to them and said, “Glad to see you and Warner have hit it off. Come on, they say the bidet in the master’s quarters is gold plated!”
Winnie stared at the man in the flowered shirt and said, “You’re Warner Stillwell!”
The older man laughed and said, “Yes, we met an hour ago.”
Winnie tried to say something, but Tess dragged him along the aft sun deck, whispering, “Not now! Not yet. I’ll tell you when.”
Winnie was confused. Warner Stillwell was different from what he’d expected. He was more like the handsome healthy man in the photos. Older, but very fit. This man didn’t have AIDS. This man was probably more healthy than Winnie himself!
The skipper assembled the visitors in the main salon they entered from the sun deck. The salon was done in pink and aquamarine with “splashes” of sea-green, as the interior designers say when they’re doing a yacht. There was lots of Lalique, which, in high winds, could come crashing down on you and ruin your cruise for sure. But then, the interior designers never made the channel crossing.
A young woman in whites took drink orders from everyone, but Tess declined for herself and Winnie.
“She’s eighty-two feet at the waterline,” the skipper explained to the assembly. “And we’re powered by eleven-hundred-horsepower diesels.”
“Never mind all that technical stuff,” an older woman said. “Tell us how much it cost!”
Everyone laughed uproariously and the skipper said, “You’ll have to ask Mister Bledsoe.” But he took his cue and cut his speech short. “Belowdeck we can accommodate six guests and three crew. Help yourselves, folks, and any other questions, don’t hesitate to ask.”
While the partygoers milled
all over the glamorous motor yacht, Tess got caught in a crush of a dozen people in the master’s quarters. Winnie decided to make his way topside. He bounced off the mahogany bulkhead a few times and lurched along the teak decks, managing to get back up to the carpeted salon, where he felt brave enough to order a drink like all the other grown-ups.
Warner Stillwell was sitting on a pink leather settee talking to the skipper. He looked up and said, “Feeling better, Win?”
“Much better,” Winnie lied, because he was only feeling a little better. The face of Warner Stillwell was not in focus, but there was only one of him.
“Care for a drink, sir?” the young woman in whites asked, and Winnie hesitated before saying, “Vodka. Very light.”
The skipper excused himself and went forward, leaving them alone.
Warner Stillwell said, “So you’re a friend of our Tessie. Lucky man.”
“Yeah, I think I’m lucky,” said Winnie. He sipped the vodka. A tall glass. American vodka.
“I understand you accompanied her on the visit to El Refugio. Did you like it?”
“Yeah, a lot,” said Winnie. “You’re the lucky man to live in a place like that.”
“I agree,” Warner Stillwell said with enthusiasm. “There’s always something new to see in the desert. The sky’s ever-changing. Even lovelier than the sky here, I think. Wouldn’t want to live anywhere else.”
Winnie was trying to figure out how to begin a clever line of questioning when several people entered the salon, Tess Binder among them. She looked alarmed to see Warner Stillwell and Winnie together, and quickly joined Winnie on the settee.
“I don’t think you should be drinking,” she said to him, forcing a smile.
“I’m okay,” said Winnie and thought he saw Tess shrug, palms up to Warner Stillwell.
Then to Winnie she said, “Win, go have a look at the engine room. A person could literally eat off those engines. Everything’s white and chrome. And have a look at the crew’s quarters.”
She nodded at him almost imperceptibly and he took it as a signal. He stumbled his way down below once again, shambling forward until he was standing alone in the crew’s quarters. Weaving, actually. The last drink hit him hard. Things began to swim and wiggle. He shouldn’t drink that lousy American vodka, he thought. That was the problem.
Golden Orange Page 26