By The Sea, Book Four: The Heirs

by Stockenberg, Antoinette

  "Interview. Alan Seton. Disaster. You were right, and I was wrong. Happy now? Here's dessert."

  Quinta placed his dish of pie on a small mahogany reading table, and put down another cup of tea. It distressed her, this almost voyeuristic interest her father had in celebrities' lives. It had to be her mother's fault, for dragging him off to gawk at all those balls.

  She put her own dessert on a small stand next to the loveseat, then circled the living area, turning on lamps to ward off the penetrating fog. It was the kind of night that made less committed New Englanders think about San Diego. But Quinta loved the fog, loved its salty taste and the way it waved her hair; she felt softer and less stressed, in the fog. On the other hand, her father complained that it was like living aboard a boat again and that it made his legs ache. "What's the point of being paralyzed if my bones can still hurt?" he liked to ask. So on foggy evenings they turned on all the lights, to dry things out.

  Quinta was standing at the front windows, drawing the heavy burgundy drapes (almost the only thing left from when her mother was alive), when the window to her left burst violently inward, shattering on the hardwood floor and sending her jumping back in shock. The offending missile, a fist-sized rock, carried away the gauzy curtain as if it were a cobweb and slid across the varnished floor, fetching up against one of the wheels of her father's chair.

  Quinta yanked the drapes violently shut and stepped back. "What happened?" she said, refusing to believe her eyes.

  Her father reached down and picked up the smooth, round rock and stared at it as if it were moon material. Then he muttered, "The Reebok Man."

  Fear set upon Quinta like a clinging bat, but she beat it off. This is Newport. This is Newport, she told herself. The incantation worked. "Don't be silly, dad!" she said sharply. "This time it is kids. This time I'll find them for you." She grabbed a dark-blue windbreaker from a peg in the hall and opened the door. "No, Leggy, you stay here. Stay," she commanded the big black retriever, who sensed a chase was on.

  "Quinta, come back here!" It was a tone she hadn't heard from her father in a dozen years.

  "In a minute." She was already outside, wondering too late whether her father was afraid to be alone.

  This is Newport, this is Newport, she repeated over and over to herself. Newport, where she'd been born and raised. Newport, where the Fire and Police column featured crimes like library books stolen from the front seats of open cars. Newport, where, despite all the hundreds of thousands of tourists who roamed up and down Thames Street in the course of a summer season, folks half a block up the hill knew one another, and cared about one another. Newport, where it was still possible to feel safe at night. Surely someone had seen the stone-throwers. Someone cared, and someone would tell.

  But the night, conspiring with the fog, had driven the real people away, giving phantoms free reign. No one was playing in the street or on the sidewalks. No one sat on her porch, chatting with her neighbors. No one anywhere, up or down the street. Quinta could see, in the yellow cobra-lights on Thames Street, the night shift of tourists strolling past the still-open shops, a decent throng for a foggy night. A rock-thrower could hide there easily. But she instinctively believed that the kids had fled up the hill, not down, because that's what locals would do—escape to their own territory, not the neutral ground of the tourist traps.

  But on narrow Spring Street the lights from a steady stream of one-way traffic blinded her. She thought she saw someone running to the south. Jogger? Teenager? Hard to say. She retraced her steps to her father's house, no longer sure of herself. Kids broke windows, in Newport and in every other city of the world. But what if her father was right, if the hate mail and the rock-throwing were related?

  Who? Why? Neil Powers was a software engineer, a successful author of an ongoing series of technical books. He wasn't controversial; he was hardly even visible. Yelling at some kids for commandeering his wheelchair ramp for their skateboards was a perfectly normal thing to do. It could not possibly have warranted a campaign of terror.

  Unless the campaign were aimed at her. Quinta had her own phone, and her listed address was on Howard Street. If she did have enemies—and she, at least, was out there mingling with the possibilities—then Howard Street was the place to throw rocks. Ah, but what about the Reebok ad? Maybe the incidents were unrelated and aimed at each of them. She sighed, discouraged, as she came back up the ramp. There would have to be a third incident for a pattern to emerge, and she did not want a third.

  Her father was waiting for her. "Well? Grown-up, or kids?"

  "I saw ... some kids, running down Spring Street," she lied. "I'll clean this up. Do you want to call the police or anything?"

  "I already have. Maybe if they read about it in the paper tomorrow, it'll put the fear of God in 'em. Damn punks. If I ever get my hands on them ...."

  But he knew he wouldn't.

  Chapter 11

  The small band of protestors who had latched onto the Pegasus syndicate like barnacles finally managed to attract a feature reporter from a local television station. That was all it took. The day after the group was given air time, their numbers increased fivefold. They clogged the entrance to the shipyard where the Pegasus lay berthed, waving placards and giving the security guard at the gate a hard time of it. They were all well-dressed and freshly scrubbed, completely camera ready.

  "They seem determined," Alan Seton muttered to the others of his syndicate who elbowed their way with him through the crowd.

  Mavis was following in the path he cleared for her. "Everyone wants to be a star," she said.

  "What do they want?"

  "Who the hell knows?"

  "Well, we're going to have to deal with those protesters directly sooner or later," Alan said. "I don't want any more of them out on the water bothering me. Yesterday I damn near took the rig out of one of their little daysailers. I doubt that the Coast Guard will feel like riding shotgun on our practice sessions from now until we leave for Australia."

  "If that's what it takes," said Mavis. "We're not going to dump a single one of our corporate sponsors just to satisfy a bunch of well-heeled brats." They walked briskly down the dock toward the sleek blue hull that carried all their hopes for success. "I wonder how they'd feel if their cries for boycotts actually took hold, Daddy's stock portfolio took a dive, and they couldn't get that Porsche for graduation after all."

  "That's between them and their daddies," answered Alan. "But I don't want anyone knocked overboard or hurt while you battle a matter of principle with them. In any case, it's lousy press," he said as he acknowledged some well-wishers with a wave. "It's your job to keep everyone happy, and that includes protestors, Mavis. Do something. Meet with them. I've got my hands full making the boat go."

  "And you only have to do that for two more weeks," she said impatiently. "Then the Pegasus will be packed up and shipped to Perth. That bunch will not follow their convictions hallway around the world."

  "Don't be too sure. They're smart, rich, and savvy. They like to travel. Don't make them mad; someone could get hurt. I'm counting on you."

  Mavis Moran had the kind of green eyes that could narrow menacingly. She pulled her white Pegasus visor down over her auburn hair and said softly, "Seton, sometimes you piss me off. Sometimes I wonder just whose side you're on." She turned on her heel and walked away from him toward the fifty-foot sport-fisherman that acted as tender and supply boat to the Pegasus while it was out practicing.

  She would not set foot on the dock again until the day's sailing was over and the sport-fisherman, having guided the Pegasus back safely to its berth, was tied up beside it for the night. Mavis Moran had more stamina than some of Alan's crew; she never skipped going out to observe the Pegasus with the excuse that the day was cloudy, or the water was bumpy, or the Jumping Derby was competing in nearby Portsmouth. No. She took her seat high atop the flying bridge, with her binoculars and camera beside her, and—observed. She was fascinated by the Pegasus, obsessed with it.
Alan would look behind him from the cockpit of the 12-meter and there she was, right behind him. It got to the point where he felt pursued by her, spurred to do his job by her.

  There were times when it was of marginal value for Alan to take the Pegasus out and practice, but he went anyway, because Mavis put such store in it. He felt like a prize fighter whose manager keeps pushing aerobics, when all the fighter needs is a little lesson in tap dancing. Yet she had no real power over him, despite her incredibly effective record of fund raising.

  He stood on the dock, half-listening to his navigator's technical chit-chat, the rest of his consciousness split among a dozen avenues of thought: Would the new mainsail be re-cut in time to use this morning? Should they break down and order new custom cheek-blocks to be fabricated? Would Tommy's arm mend in time for Australia? Should they build a bigger box for the on-board computer, or was it overheating for some other reason? Who had ordered the pizzas and why the hell had he agreed to be interviewed by that child?

  "Alan!" came a breathless voice behind him "The mainsail's done; they're carting it down from the shed now!" The crewman—hardly more than a boy—looked thrilled to be the bearer of such glad tidings.

  "Good. We'll leave the dock in ten minutes."

  ****

  Quinta spent forty-eight hours waiting in vain for the next incident of terrorism, then got back to work. She had a piece on Alan Seton to write, and it wasn't going to be easy. She'd led her editor to believe that she could deliver the goods, but now that it came right down to it, she didn't seem to have any goods to deliver. She stared glassy-eyed at her computer screen in her tiny office overlooking Queen Anne Square until the words she'd written so far—six—began to twitch and jump on the screen: When a man like Alan Seton ....

  What could she write about a man like Alan Seton that hadn't already been written? The little he'd said for the record had been pounded into dust by a hundred different keyboards. Not to mention, she'd granted him approval over her write-up of the interview (something a New York Times reporter never would have done). She felt hamstrung. She felt dull. She felt distracted. She wanted desperately to write the article at home, on her father's Mac; that way she could keep one eye for evildoers on the front lawn. But the world had a crying need for software manuals and her father had a deadline to produce one; he would not give up his Mac to her.

  When a man like Alan Seton...

  She conjured up a picture of the man Alan Seton. Tanned face, unfashionably shaggy black hair. Slow to smile, but when he did, it was the real thing. A searching blue gaze that left you room to hide when you needed it. Gentle with children and pets. Standing on the middle step of her porch. Whispering, "Take care."

  This was the Alan Seton she wanted to write about; the Alan Seton of 1983; the only one she knew.

  When a man like Alan Seton drags himself from the rubble of personal disaster to track down a puppy for a frightened teenager, it isn't because he has nothing more important to do. It's because he hasn't renounced ordinary, decent values in one of the most demanding pursuits of modern times: the quest for the America's Cup.

  The rest of the story tumbled over the keys of the computer, a straightforward account of a public figure acting with kindness out of range of a camera. Quinta reread it when she was done and thought that maybe it wasn't a Cup piece at all, but a belated valentine from her to Alan. In any case, she did not feel that she had to submit it to him for his approval; it fell completely outside the range of their interview. She printed it out and placed the piece on her editor's desk. It was ten o'clock at night and Quinta, heading for home, was dog-tired.

  Not so the rest of Newport's youth. The younger among them were hanging out in Queen Anne Square and along The Wall—a low stone divider that split north and southbound traffic along America's Cup Avenue—under the watchful eyes of several of Newport's Finest. As Quinta walked among the crush of tourists and late diners past the blasé kids, it occurred to her that she had skipped the hanging-out phase of her life completely. Casing out the opposite sex; flaunting one's act and seeing how it played with them: it was a teenager's right, a teenager's duty.

  But Quinta had spent those years playing nurse to a reluctant patient, and as a result she'd neither cased nor flaunted. Four boyfriends and almost a virgin. Not much of a record. The main reason she did consent to have sex with one of them (the third one) was that she couldn't bear the thought of walking past The Wall knowing that an awful lot of kids on it had more experience than she did. Not the best motive in the world, but on the other hand it did give her the confidence to say no to number four, a real jerk who liked to kiss and tell. They were all so young, so silly and young.

  I am going to be an old maid, she told herself. I am like my father: socially inept, secretly arrogant. Some combination.

  She watched with awe as a young woman her age, dressed in a smashing black jumpsuit pegged at the ankles and plunging recklessly to the waist in the back, climbed out of a red Corvette with the help of her date, a preppy type with apparently no redeeming value besides his wealth, teeth, and hair. It never would have occurred to Quinta to load up her left arm with heavy silver bangles the way the woman had, or to mousse her blond hair into a spiky mass. Those were things you learned from your peers or (if you didn't have such elegant peers) from sitting on The Wall and taking notes.

  Nuts, she thought. Who cares?

  She stepped up her pace, tired of the nightly wade through a sea of humanity to get to her house. Thames Street would be hers again after Labor Day, but that seemed so far away. Still, the moment she turned onto Howard Street, her street, the usual peace and stillness prevailed. She was hurrying up the wheelchair ramp of her unlit porch when her foot stepped into something sticky and wet and slid out from under her, bringing her to her hands and knees on the ramp. Quinta knelt for an instant in the wet pool, disgusted and afraid. Then she smelled paint. Damn.

  She stood up, loath to step forward, feeling her way gingerly with the toe of each shoe until she reached the front door. There was no doubt in her mind that her white pants were ruined, so she wiped the palms of her hands on the front of them, then fumbled in her purse with still-sticky hands for her keys. She slipped out of her sandals, put her key in the lock, turned the carved brass doorknob with two fingers, pushed the door open with her elbow, and stepped inside, uncertain whether to try to sneak past her father and clean up.

  But it was an idle thought. Leggy was already there, sniffing her curiously as she tried to shoo him away. The rolling of her father's wheelchair drew steadily closer as he rounded into the hall, flipping on the hall light and saying, "Quinta? What took you so long?"

  He took one look at his barefoot daughter, smeared all over in blood-red, and gasped. "My God, you're hurt!"

  "No, no, it's just paint. I slipped and fell. Someone dumped paint on the ramp," she said, looking down at herself with similar horror. She looked like she'd just come back from a bloody murder.

  She'd been waiting for the Reebok shoe to fall, and it had, with a vengeance. She was muttering little words of disgust when her father said, surprisingly, "Do you think it's a copy-cat prank? I've read that one act of vandalism breeds another. If someone read about the broken window, do you think they'd come around to do one better?"

  She seized on the idea; anything for time to think. "It's a possibility," she said, heading for the basement and the paint thinner. "It's hard to believe that anyone could be so senselessly mean, but then, look at what vandals do to schools and graveyards and churches—"

  "So we shouldn't call the police, in other words? Because we might be inviting more trouble?" He was looking at her with open anxiety now. Neil Powers had no idea how people who shaved their heads and wore six earrings in each ear thought; he was looking to his daughter for guidance. She may not have been one of them, but she was closer to their generation than he was.

  It also occurred to Quinta that her father really, truly was at the mercy of anyone with two good legs, even
if that person did possess only half a brain. Her father had seemed so fiercely independent up until now, so determined to use his intelligence to make up for his stolen mobility, that it was hard for her to see him as a helpless victim. It was her supreme compliment to him. But it made the confusion in his face that much more painful to accept.

  "No, I don't think we should call the police," she said at last, pausing at the door to the basement stairs. "If tonight was a copy-cat thing, then we would be inviting more trouble when the vandalism got reported. If it is the same person—Oh Leggy, stop it! Stop playing!—then he's going to try another of his cute tricks pretty soon. This time we'll be ready for him, Dad. Damn it. This time we'll be ready."

  He looked by no means convinced, but he let her go downstairs to clean up.

  In the basement Quinta doused a rag with turpentine and scrubbed her hands and toes clean of the red paint. It was in her hair, somehow; she scrubbed the red-tipped ends with a rag, toting up the cost of the vicious little deed. She'd bought the pants at full price, before the July clearance. The sandals were nearly new: half-price and a terrific bargain, wasted. She didn't know which loss offended her more.

  Somewhere between the front door and the basement, her fear had turned to coal-hot anger; maybe it had happened when she saw that her father—her father, who'd gone to sea and survived a wreck on a reef!—was afraid. She'd read about these sadistic campaigns against the helpless and the frail; but her father was neither of those things, and neither was she. The house had a burglar alarm; they'd start using it. She'd get some mace. A gun, if they had to. And they had Leggy, who'd certainly bark if someone actually made it inside. Too bad he wasn't a pit bull. She slammed the rag into a metal waste bin, aware that she was working herself into a fury. What would Dirty Harry do?

  "Dad," she said, on her way upstairs to shower, "I'm bringing my computer home. I can write as well in my room as I can at the office. Frank will understand. When I'm not down at the docks covering the Pegasus story, I'll be here. When we catch this guy we're going to break his legs and his arms, and then we'll see how quick he is."