by Unknown
all of a sudden none of it made sense. Matson had money, but the boat I'd seen would have cost at least $3 million, and that much he didn't have. Sometimes people become more mysterious in death than they were in life, and that seemed to be the case with Matson. Then I started thinking about the money the Colonel had offered me; five zeros after a one, and don't forget the comma. I kept thinking about the yacht out there, inert off the coast with a dead man on board like a thing waiting to be done. I began to feel a strange tension come over me, as though I were being held back, and I knew then that I would do it. I knew in my gut that I had a rendezvous with that boat that I would keep for better or for worse. It was only then that the tension eased and I could relax.
I t was seven o'clock when I picked up the phone and called the Colonel's house. I was half hoping that it was too late. The maid answered, and a moment later the Colonel picked up the phone. It annoyed me that he didn't sound at all sur- prised to hear my voice. "Did you call to say you've changed your mind?" he asked. "No, I called to ask what your sign was." "A dollar sign," he said, laughing heartily at his own joke. We were good friends now, fellow conspirators. "I knew you were a mercenary at heart, Jack. You were starting to worry me." "Send your daughter over with half the money, and send her soon." He didn't laugh at that one. "You think I keep that kind of cash around the house?" "I don't care where you keep it," I said. "I get the other half when I get back." I listened to the sound of my own voice as I said this, and I didn't particularly like what I heard. 58
The Colonel must not have liked my tone either. I listened to him breathe for a few seconds. "What time?" he asked. "What time should I send her?" I thought for a moment. "Make it midnight." "She'll be there." "Groovy." "I'd like to ask you a question." "Ask." "Are you doing it for Vivian or for the money?" "What do you think?" "Mercenaries often lack heart, Jack. But love and money aren't mutually exclusive." "So long, Colonel," I said. "You'll be seeing me soon." Then I thought of something. "Oh, and one last thing while I've got you on the phone." "Yes?" "How did Vivian get out to the boat, and how did she get back? Don't tell me she swam." There was only a brief hesitation. "She went out on her Jet Ski, and that's the way she got back." There was another pause. Nothing in his tone indicated that he might be lying, but it's harder to judge a thing like that over the phone. With the Colonel, though, it would have been difficult even if I'd been staring him in the eye. "Anything else, Jack?" "If there is, it'll have to wait." I hung up and sat for a while staring at the phone as though it were a crystal ball, but it wasn't. I stood up and looked around the room. Something about it seemed foreign all of a sudden, like I was standing in a house that belonged to a man I knew only vaguely, someone you meet once at a party and never see again. Eventually I got restless, so I went down to the Cuban place on the corner and had a double shot of espresso. 59
The first thing I did when I got back to the apartment was get my gear ready for the trip. I got the kayak out of the stor- age room and waxed it so it would slide through the water like a greased-down barracuda. Then I loaded the compart- ments inside the hull with the things I would need. It was not going to be a particularly long excursion, but I made sure I packed two bottles of water, a flashlight, four flares, a dive knife, my spare cell phone, and two protein bars. I took my life vest out of the closet, dusted it off, and laid it across the kayak where it rested, very much out of place, on the living room floor. Then a sudden thought darted into my mind with the ur- gency of an unexpected warning I couldn't ignore, and I went to the desk and got out the Glock 9-millimeter. I didn't much like the look of it for some reason, and I had that feel- ing you get when you meet an old friend you're not quite sure you want to see again. I put in a full clip, felt it click into the handle. A sensation of dread rippled through me and passed on. I put the gun in a plastic bag, sealed it, and stuck it in a pocket inside the kayak. I was glad when I didn't have to look at it anymore. I was watching the Tonight show when I heard the Porsche pull up. I peeked through the slats in the venetian blinds in time to see Vivian crossing the street. I listened for her foot- steps, and when they got loud, I opened the door before she could ring. I didn't want to wake Sternfeld. It was a little late for kayaking, and I didn't need any questions. Vivian walked past me, and I closed the door behind her. She was wearing a black, sleeveless, leather dress that showed, I thought, a bit too much leg for the neighbor- hood--not to mention for my better judgment. She went over and looked down at the kayak. Her body was as hard and as dark-bright as a candied apple, and I caught her scent as she went by me, brushing my chest with her shoulder. She 60
leaned over the kayak and caressed the smoothness of the fiberglass hull as though it were the flank of a racehorse. Both her dress and the kayak had the same shine, like ripe fruit stained by the light. "Did you bring the money?" I asked. "Nick's bringing it. He should be here in a moment." She had seated herself in one of the wicker chairs and was light- ing a cigarette. "Why'd you bother to come?" I asked "Your brother's the one with the cash." "Why do you think I came?" "To wish me bon voyage, I suppose." Vivian looked up at me and shook her head. "You're taking a chance for me. I thought I should be here." "You're forgetting there's a little money involved." The doorbell rang, and I let Nick in. The first thing I no- ticed was that he had dyed his closely cropped hair platinum blond, but the darker roots had already begun to appear at the scalp like a row of fresh quills coming in. He wore a black T-shirt over a pair of black Levi's encircled by a black belt with silver studs, like a gunslinger's livery. He was very tall and thin to the point of emaciation, with the wary face of a fox for whom the hounds will always be just around the last bend and closing fast. There was a Louis Vuitton knapsack on his back. He gave me his usual condescending smile, as though I were a fool for reasons beyond my philis- tine powers of comprehension. Considering the night's main activity, he may have been onto something. In the beginning, when we first met, I'd tried hard to be his friend, but from the start he'd never missed a chance to let me know he considered himself my superior in every realm except the physical. He had attended Columbia, the University of Chicago, and the Sorbonne and had managed to escape from each of those august institutions without a STRAITS OF FORTUNE 61
degree, but it wasn't because he lacked smarts. On the con- trary, he spoke Spanish, French, a little Italian, and was extremely well read and knowledgeable about art. He just thought that everybody in the world except for himself and a few of his friends was ineffably crass and stupid, including his professors. Nick stripped off his backpack as though it were on fire and threw it on the floor at Vivian's feet. "Do you have any idea how hard it is to get fifty thousand dollars in cash at this time of night?" he demanded furi- ously, turning first to me, then Vivian. "Relax, Nick," I said. "It's for a good cause. You want a beer?" He looked at me as though I had offered him a turd. "No, you idiot, I do not want a beer. I don't suppose you have any white wine. That would be too much to expect." He looked around the apartment. "How can you live like this?" he asked. "I keep my eyes closed," I said. I picked up the backpack and opened it. There was a lot of money inside. I closed the bag and held it in the palm of my hand. It was heavy. "That seems about the right weight. You done good, Nick," I said. "Real good. I'm proud of you." I carried the bag into the kitchen and put it in the cabinet under the sink, burying it beneath a hoard of plastic bags from the supermarket. Then I went into the fridge and found half a bottle of white wine. It took me a while, but I man- aged to dig up a mismatched pair of wineglasses with a layer of dust on them. I knew Nick wouldn't appreciate that, so I rinsed them off in the sink. I went back into the living room and poured each of my guests a glass. Nick took a very sus- picious sip, held the glass away from him, then set it down. "I hope you like it," I said. "It cost three bucks." I watched him take another cautious sip. 62
"You were overcharged," he said. Vivian drank her wine down in one gulp. "Nick," she said. "Maybe you should go now. I'll meet you back at the house." "Why can't you go with me?" her
half brother asked. "I'm not about to leave you here. Look at this place!" "I want to talk to Jack." "You don't need to talk to him. Talk to him when he gets back." "Finish your wine, Whitey," I said. "I'm getting tired of your attitude. Tell your dad I'll be in touch." "Who the hell are you to give me orders?" "You know who I am, Nicky. I'm the one who's pulling your family's collective ass out of the fire, remember? You could do it yourself, of course, but I know that would be be- neath your dignity. You might get your hands dirty, and we couldn't have that, could we? Now, get up and get out." Nick glared at me, but his heat vision failed to melt my head, so he tried it on his sister. "I'll see you back at the house," she said. Nick stood up. He looked around the room. "You and your men," he said. "You'll drag us all down before this is over." He bumped the edge of the coffee table as he went by. His wineglass teetered, then spilled over. I didn't move. The glass hit the floor but didn't shatter. A moment later the door shut. I got up and put the chain on. Vivian sat watching me. I went into the kitchen to get some paper towels to wipe up the wine Nick had spilled. When I came back from the kitchen again, Vivian was on her feet. "How much time do we have?" she asked. "Not much," I said. I knew what she was thinking. She turned her back on me. I don't remember moving, but suddenly I was standing right behind her. "Unzip me," she said. 63
"Is this my going-away present?" "It's whatever you want it to be." I pulled the zipper down slowly and watched as the two halves of the leather dress came apart. Vivian pulled her arms free of the straps, and the garment, unsupported now, col- lapsed about her waist. Her back was brown. I ran my index finger from the nape of her neck down the trail of her spine, feeling the knob of each vertebra until I reached the bottom. Her skin was feverishly hot, as though the leather had sealed in her body's heat that was now being released. She arched her lower back toward me. Then I put my tongue on all the places where my finger had been a moment before. TWO
AN HOUR LATER I sat on the edge of my bed fully dressed, watching Vivian, just out of the shower, drying off with one of my tattered beach towels. If trouble had a body, hers was it. Then I zipped up her dress, and she slipped on her pumps. It had been a great show, but I was feeling impa- tient. A part of me was already out on the water doing what had to be done, and I was anxious to get going. I rechecked my gear and tried to think if there was anything I might have forgotten. I felt like a drawn bow, poised, ready to fire. It was time to go. Vivian sensed my mood and was very quiet. I lifted the kayak up and balanced its weight over my left shoulder. Vivian carried my life vest and held the door for me while I maneuvered the eight-foot-long craft through the door as noiselessly as possible. As usual, I had some trouble on the stairs and had to turn and reposition either the kayak or myself several times, but that was the only hitch 66
with the going-down part. The street was quiet, empty, and Sternfeld didn't poke his head out as we passed his door. It was the time of night when he turned off his hearing aid and let the silence and the sleeping pills put him to sleep. As quietly as I could, I got the kayak up onto the roof of the Thunderbird I'd bought that afternoon from Paul March and lashed it snugly to the bike rack with some bungee cords. "Where'd you get this ghetto cruiser from?" Vivian asked. "From a friend." "I'm not so sure I would call him that." "You'd better hope it lasts one more night," I told her. "You'll have to come back for me in it. The kayak won't fit on the Porsche." "I've never driven a car this old," she said doubtfully. "It's not old, it's an antique." "Antiques usually go up in value." We drove in silence. I was trying to work myself into a state of mind that was matter-of-fact, calm and confident, cut and dried, with no room for conflicting emotions con- cerning the task. The fact that it was Matson who needed burying made it easier. I could still see the leering delight in his eyes and the elfin whiteness of his skin, his pale cock curved like a tusk, but I rejected these images as they arose. I needed clarity now, not conflict. I needed to be alert, not paranoid, a fairly tall order considering the circumstances and the people I was working for. "I never really thanked you for not telling my father about Williams and Nick," Vivian said suddenly, and apropos of nothing. "I never thought you would, though." She was referring to something that had happened at a party at her father's house a long time back, before Matson, when I was still very much in the picture and walking the rapidly vanishing line between hired help and new boyfriend. 67
Out behind the house on the wooden deck, with the Atlantic Ocean as a backdrop, three hundred people in formal dress were beginning to act informally, men and women naked in the swimming pool, the training wheels of civility getting looser and looser with every glass of champagne. I went upstairs, made a wrong turn, and opened what I thought was the door to a bathroom. It wasn't. If not for the music from the deck below, I might have heard the telltale low moans that always mean the same thing. I flicked on the light and saw Williams lying back on the couch and Nick on his knees, his head bobbing up and down like a monk praying. A moment of surprise and I shut the door, but not quickly enough: They both had seen me. I went on my way, not really caring, but from then on, Williams treated me like an enemy, and Nick, who had never liked me to begin with, had reinforced his air of determined belligerence whenever I was around. "Williams was mortified," Vivian said. "You know how he likes to play that macho thing. He was so worried you'd tell the Colonel that he honestly considered killing you. Can you believe it?" "What made him change his mind?" "Nick talked him out of it." "That doesn't sound like the Nick I know. I was never his cup of tea, you realize, especially after I started in with you." "Nick thought you'd probably blackmail them. He thought he could buy you off." "Why did he tell you about it?" I asked. "I'm not sure. I guess he thought that I might be useful in the negotiations when the time came." I laughed. "What's so funny?" she asked. "You guys," I said. "You're not exactly the Partridge Family, are you?" 68
"You wouldn't have lasted so long with the Partridge Family," she told me. "Anyway, it's not like Nick and Wil- liams were ever an item, you know. It was just something casual at a party that people do when they're drunk. Wil- liams just didn't want the Colonel to find out. You can un- derstand that, can't you?" "You honestly think your father doesn't know about Wil- liams?" I asked. "After all these years? Come on. He doesn't care. It probably works out better that way, at least as far as your father is concerned. No family, no wife and kids, on call 24/7--what would he care about Williams being gay or not? And I know he knows about Nick. The kid's been out of the closet since he was twelve. Your father doesn't care because he doesn't care about Nick--or about you either. As for me, who gives a shit? It's South Beach, baby. Williams is just paranoid, that's all, and believe me when I tell you that the steroids aren't helping his mood much." I pulled into a small lot just south of Sunset Beach and found a space behind a row of scrub pines that couldn't be seen from the street. I cut the headlights while the car was still rolling. I wanted to get going as quickly as possible, and I was out of the car and unlashing the kayak as soon as I put the car in park. It was just the kind of secluded place where a policeman might be inclined to take a cigarette break while filling out a report or two, and I didn't want to have to ex- plain why I was there at that hour with a one-man kayak and a pretty girl for a send-off party. I got the kayak off the roof of the Thunderbird and onto my shoulder again and began walking toward the ocean across the fine white sand, Vivian walking in uncharacter- istic silence beside me. As we crossed the dunes, the sand got soft and I nearly tripped, and Vivian grabbed my arm to steady me. At the shore, just above the breakers, I set the kayak down on the sand and did a little stretching to ease the 69
cramp in my shoulder. Then I slipped on the life jacket and handed Vivian the paddle. "I figure it will take me four hours, maybe more, maybe less," I said. "Somewhere around then, I'll call you and tell you where I'm at. The current runs north. Depending on where I dump the boat, I'll make landfall near Fort Lauder- dale. I'll call you when I get close. That way you won't have long to wait. Just make sure you keep your cell phone handy,
all right?" Vivian was watching with an expression of confused won- derment, as though resigned to some unforeseen and unwel- come conclusion. She seemed very far off. I put my hand on her arm and gently shook it. "Did you hear me?" I asked. I was eager to go. Already the muscles in my back and shoulders were sending me over the water, through the creases of light. I could feel the kayak, a Burns Hell Chaser, gliding across the sea like a strange and quiet amphibian made of fiberglass. Vivian put her hand on my cheek. A single tear broke loose and fled down hers. "Why is it that when I'm with you, it feels like I always have been, that I should always be with you?" she asked. "I have no idea." "But do you know what I mean? Don't you feel something like that, too? Or is it just me sounding crazy?" I looked over her head, across the sand, to where the scrub pines, lonely in the night air, were waving at the stars. I knew exactly what she meant. I thought of all the times before when I had studied her face, trying to recall where I'd seen it before, as though some clue, hidden in her dark eyes, might be discovered there. At any rate, I'd never found it, whatever it might have been. "I know exactly what you mean," I said. "It used to bug the hell out of me." "And it doesn't anymore?" 70