Floaters

by Joseph Wambaugh

  It was Blaze’s turn to look hurt. And to pout. She said, “I can’t believe you think I’d…promise something to that guy! Whadda you think I promised him? My body?”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “I don’t sell my body, Simon!”

  “I didn’t mean that. No offense!”

  “What did you mean?”

  “I think maybe you got yourself caught up in the spy game and you’re gonna be a middleman and maybe offer some money to Miles. That’s what I mean.”

  “To you,” she said simply.

  “What?”

  “To you. I’m in a position to offer the man’s money to you. If you do the job just the way you explained it to me—on the day of Black Magic’s last race with oneAustralia.”

  “This is screwy talk,” Simon said. “You drunk or what?”

  “Five thousand dollars,” she said.

  “Screwy talk.”

  “That’s what I told him,” Blaze said. “And then he said ten thousand. That’s as high as he’ll go. He said if you could do it just the way you told it to me, he’d pay ten thousand bucks.”

  “I told you it’s impossible to even get in that yard, Blaze. Jesus, this is crazy!”

  “Miles is not gonna be able to go to work on the day of the last race with the Aussies.” Now she was gripping his arm, dead-staring him.

  For a moment Simon felt afraid of this woman. Then he said, “Leapin’ les-bos!” Too astonished to add, “Pardon my French.”

  “I don’t think it’ll be too hard,” Blaze said. “Just a harmless little something in his beer the night before and he won’t be going to work the next morning. Come to think of it, I might need an extra dose. He must go about three hundred pounds, wouldn’t you say?”

  “You got this idea jist from talking to people for a magazine article?”

  “To be honest with you, Simon, I’ve known the anonymous gentleman for a few years. I have a part-time job with a public relations firm downtown, and we handle his account. I’ve actually dated the man a few times. Nothing serious, but he trusts me.”

  “Tell me this. It’s all I wanna know. Is it Koch or is it Conner?”

  “I really can’t say.”

  “It’s Koch,” Simon said, satisfied. “Smaller balls but bigger bucks.”

  “Whadda you think, Simon? Interested?”

  “I gotta think it over,” Simon said. “Man, I never been to jail before except for drunk driving. I gotta think it over. This is heavy.”

  “You told me they’d never even know the sling was cut.”

  “I know, but…”

  “Ten…thousand…dollars,” Blaze said. “Tax free. Cash. How long does it take you to earn that at fifteen bucks an hour?”

  “How do you know what I make?”

  “He told me what crane operators get paid.”

  Simon thought for a moment. Then he put on his game face and said, “I suppose you want half of it?”

  “Nope,” she said. “It’s all yours.”

  “Whadda you get?”

  “A chance to be in on something more exciting than anything I’ve ever done. Think of the story I’ll write!”

  “Not about me being in on it?”

  “Of course not. We’re in this together, you and me. But I’ll have an angle for a story that won’t have to end up in San Diego Magazine. My story’ll be in a national magazine. How the Kiwis’ bad luck hounds them. How they really lost the Cup due to a simple mechanical failure. The tragedy of New Zealand.”

  “My job? How about my job?”

  “It’ll look like an accident. Your boss isn’t going to blame you. Does he like the Kiwis?”

  “None of us like ‘em.”

  “There you are, then.”

  “I gotta think it over,” Simon Cooke said. “Maybe I oughtta stop drinking and go home and think.”

  “Good idea,” Blaze said. “I’ll give you my home phone number.”

  “You oughtta do some thinking, too,” he said. “A kid like you? You don’t know people like Koch and Conner. They’ll use a kid like you and then they’ll dump you.”

  “I promise,” Blaze said, “to think it over, too. But you should think of something else.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Think of the excitement of it! Only three people in the world will know how the Kiwis lost their chance to win the America’s Cup. You, me, and Mister Moneybags. Think of how that’ll bring us together. Secret sharers. You and me.”

  “You and me,” Simon said. Her green eyes made him woozy.

  “We’ll be bonded,” Blaze said. Then she paused. “Would you like that, Simon? If we were bonded?”

  “Leapin’ les-bos!” Simon Cooke blurted. “Pardon my French.”

  CHAPTER 7

  After a “dinner” of shark tacos while listening to a jukebox full of Jimmy Buffett at the little saloon in Quivira Basin, Fortney and Leeds headed for Shelter Island in Leeds’s Chevy Blazer. They had no trouble figuring out which restaurant had most of the Saturday-night action—the parking lots told the story. You just looked for the one where you couldn’t park a moped and wait around for a car to leave.

  The moment they got inside, Fortney went to the view window, looked out at the dark water in San Diego harbor, and shivered. Then he headed for the bar, squirmed through the mob of drinkers, and ordered a double scotch.

  “Looks like every sailing-stupid in town’s here tonight,” Leeds said, catching the eye of a saronged waitress with a plastic orchid in her hair. He winked and she smiled.

  Both cops wore windbreakers over T-shirts, and both felt like taking their jackets off. The bar was steamy enough to grow orchids from all of the overheated sailboat-sillies milling around a few molecules apart. And the floor was like flypaper from the spillage of sticky exotic drinks the Polynesian motif seemed to demand.

  After the cops drank with the other customers for half an hour or so, Fortney said to Leeds, “This guy on the other side of me tells this cuppie next to him he’s a good Christian. I said, Where’d you park The Bounty, Fletcher? He didn’t get it.”

  “Neither do I,” Leeds said. Then he pointed at a booth. “Ain’t that the bulletproof redhead that dissed me last week?”

  Fortney fanned away a cloud of cigarette smoke and squinted. You couldn’t mistake her, not with that flaming hair tumbling down the way it did, and wearing a tube top as green as her eyes.

  “Goddamn!” he muttered. “She’s with that wharf rat again.”

  Leeds said, “This is unnatural. Who is that guy? And what’s he got on her? Maybe she’s got vision problems?”

  “Maybe olfactory problems.”

  “What’s that mean? I hate guys that read.”

  “He’s a little bit cleaned up. Probably smells no worse than a cholera epidemic.”

  “I ain’t a detective,” Leeds said. “Just a patrolman that drives a boat. You need a detective to figure out this one, partner.”

  Fortney’s eyes had adjusted by then. He studied Blaze and said, “If she comes to the bar I’m buying her a drink.”

  “You like being dissed by a razor-tongue scorpion?”

  “I’ll risk it,” Fortney said. “But she’ll probably get mobbed by sailors before I get a chance. That babe’s better protected than the California condor.”

  “Forget her,” Leeds said. “Whaddaya think of the cocktail waitress in the sarong? She’s into archaeology. Digs my bones, unless I’m mistaken.”

  “That’s what you youngsters got that boomers like me lost,” Fortney said.

  “What’s that?”

  “High apple-pie-in-the-sky hope.”

  “Lost it in Nam, huh?”

  Fortney said, “All I lost in Nam was two hundred bucks in a crap game one time. I lost my hope for humanity when my first ex-wife got custody of the entire Roy Orbison collection and I got Sonny and Cher.”

  “Well, you just watch your pard operate,” Leeds said, signaling the bartender for another round.
“I’ll be wearing that orchid behind my ear.”

  Before Fortney got the second drink down, he saw Blaze Duvall’s cadaverous companion get up from the booth and head for the door. Blaze waited a moment, then sashayed toward the bar, through a crowd that still consisted of more wannabes than professional sailors.

  But she was quickly approached by three America’s Cup sailors whom Fortney recognized as the ones who’d hovered around her the first time. Then a very large guy ballooned through the crowd, the same giant Kiwi he’d seen the first night, the behemoth with the albino buzz-cut.

  Leeds saw him, too. “Your competition ain’t necessarily pretty,” he said, “but he’s pretty damn big. Give up?”

  “That’s the same guy from last week.”

  “Or it’s a John Deere tractor wrapped in a black T-shirt.”

  “Notice something?” Fortney said. “She either hangs around the skanky little wharf rat or that big Kiwi. Even when she’s got every guy in the joint swarming like honeybees. Lousy taste in men.”

  “Then maybe you do have a chance,” Leeds said.

  “Spread your pecs and save me a place at the bar,” Fortney said.

  “Where you going?”

  “Down to the other end.”

  “She won’t remember you.”

  “I’m counting on it. I’m gonna eavesdrop.”

  “You piss off that big Kiwi, make sure you got cab fare. I’m outta here!”

  Fortney leisurely worked his way through the drinkers. When he got ten feet from Miles and Blaze, he turned his back to them, as though he was chatting up one of the many cuppies standing in clusters flirting with sailors. Then he moved right into a clutch of sailboat-sillies who were rehashing the day’s surprise setback for Team New Zealand.

  He overheard Miles say to Blaze, “We’ll not lose another race. You can wager on us and fatten your purse.”

  “But you did lose today,” Blaze said. “I was watching on ESPN and I almost cried.”

  “By fifteen bloody seconds!” he said. “Our first loss, but it was good for us. Perhaps we were starting to believe our press notices. That we’re invincible.”

  “Okay, when can I place my bet? What day will you win the Louis Vuitton Cup?”

  “Next Thursday, of course,” the Kiwi responded. “That’ll be our fifth win and we’ll close them out. Bet on it.”

  “Okay, I will,” Blaze said, and she made an audible note for herself, saying, “On April twentieth, Black Magic will dominate skipper John Bertrand of oneAustralia. Blaze wins a bet of…oh, I might risk seventy-five cents!”

  “Wager a few dollars for me,” Miles said. “I’ll use it to buy you a drink when we celebrate on Thursday night.”

  Blaze said, “How about Wednesday night? What’ll you be doing next Wednesday? The night before you trounce the Aussies?”

  “I know what I should do. Go home early and get a good night’s sleep so I’ll be fit for Thursday’s festivities.”

  “Don’t do that!” Blaze said, too quickly.

  “What?”

  “Don’t stay home on Wednesday evening.”

  The big Kiwi looked puzzled. “Why?”

  “Because I’m busy all next week except Wednesday. It’s the only night I’ll be free.”

  “And?”

  “And I wanted to be with all the lads and hoist a Steinlager or two since I won’t be able to join you on Thursday.”

  “Well, I’ll try to make myself available,” Miles said. “But if I can’t…”

  Blaze put her hand on his arm then, and Fortney saw her stroking his massive bicep. She said, “Miles, please. I’ll meet you across the street where we met the first time. Let’s have a drink together, maybe a bite to eat. Just you and me. Whadda you say?”

  He clearly couldn’t believe it. “Just you and me?”

  “I’ll buy the steaks. You like steak, don’t you?”

  “Bloody well right I do!” He looked at her hand on his arm.

  “I’ll buy you the whole cow,” she said. “Be there at eight o’clock, Wednesday night.”

  “Count on it, love,” he said. “Count on it.”

  “See you then,” she said, grabbing her purse.

  “Steady on,” he said. “Where’re you going? It’s early.”

  “It’s my mother,” Blaze said. “She fell and broke her hip last week. I told her I’d only be out for a couple of hours. My aunt’s coming to stay at the end of next week, then I’ll have more free time.”

  “But you’re okay for Wednesday night?”

  “Wednesday night,” Blaze said. “I’ll give you my pager number in case anything should make you late.”

  “I’ll be there!” the Kiwi said, grinning like a sea monster.

  Fortney battled his way back across the barroom and was next to Leeds when he saw the fiery hair disappear through the doorway. His partner was being lectured by a pair of earnest yupsters about the life-threatening danger of eating butter.

  Leeds said to them, “I don’t know if I can stop. I been doing it all my life. Maybe someday they’ll come up with a patch for it?”

  —

  She rang his doorbell at 11:10 P.M., awakening him from a sound sleep in his Chippendale chair, snug in the smoking jacket. Ambrose felt spittle on his chin and hastily wiped it off. He inspected his shirtfront, but it was dry and unwrinkled. It made him feel like an old man. Snoozing with saliva running down his chin.

  When he opened the door he said, “How’d it go?”

  She didn’t answer but shot him a teasing smile. She walked past him straight to the sofa, where she dropped her blue duffel in case he wanted a massage.

  “How’d it go?” he repeated hopefully.

  “May I have a glass of wine first?”

  “Of course,” he said, dashing to the kitchen to get a bottle of chardonnay. His hands shook when he manipulated the corkscrew. He came back into the living room with the wine in a bucket and two stemmed glasses.

  He thought she looked lovely in that green tube top. Her body was so firm, her smile so dazzling. It made him feel sad. And old.

  After pouring, he said, “Don’t torment me, Blaze.”

  She chuckled and said, “It’s been my experience that most men—all men—like a bit of torment from a woman. When they’re in the mood.”

  “Please, Blaze!”

  “He’ll do it,” she said.

  “Thank God!” Ambrose sat down heavily in the Chippendale. “Are you sure?”

  “As sure as I can be without having him say yes and sign a contract. He’s taken the bait, the hook, all of it. And he’s not gonna spit it out.”

  “Tell me about it. I want to hear it all!”

  “It’s so late, darling,” Blaze said, stifling a yawn. “Can’t I tell you in the bedroom? I brought everything with me. I thought you might need some relaxation. Some relief. I know how much tension you’ve been under. It must’ve been awful, just waiting. No control over any of it. Just awful for a man who needs order and control.”

  Then Ambrose Lutterworth’s eyes swam with tears of relief. He turned away. This young woman—a girl really—understood him. She was sensitive to his feelings in a way that no one had ever been. If he’d met someone like Blaze when he was still young, he wouldn’t have remained a bachelor. And bachelorhood was growing so heavy now in his sixty-fourth year. He pawed at his eyes clumsily.

  Blaze stood up slowly, walked to the Chippendale, and knelt in front of him. “There, there,” she said. “There, there, Ambrose.”

  She held his face in her hands and kissed him under both eyes, then pulled back and tasted the salty drops with the tip of her tongue. “It’s going to be all right,” she said. “You have my word.”

  He was too overcome to speak. She took his wineglass and put it on the coffee table. Then she held him by the hand, urging him to follow. She picked up her duffel, and, still holding his hand, led him like a child into his bedroom.

  She insisted on undressing him and he didn�
��t object. She carefully removed his smoking jacket, his rep necktie, and his shirt. She opened his closet and hung the necktie on the tie rack and the smoking jacket on a hanger. She folded the cotton shirt and placed it on a nearby chair. And then she nudged him and he sat down on the bed.

  She dropped to her knees and removed his monogrammed slippers, placing them precisely side by side at the foot of his bed, just as he would have done. Then she unbuttoned his cotton trousers and carefully unzipped the fly and pulled them off his legs, hanging them upside down in the closet, on a clip hanger, by the cuffs. He couldn’t have done it better.

  Only after she’d slipped off his paisley cotton undershorts and deposited them on the chair with his shirt, did she undress herself.

  Ambrose Lutterworth said nothing. He just lay naked on the silk bedspread, in the lamplight, and watched Blaze peel off the tight jeans and tube top. As usual, she didn’t remove her black bikini panties unless requested.

  Then Blaze reached into her duffel and began preparing her accoutrements, spreading the two large terry towels on the bed and gently rolling him over onto his stomach. She reached into the bag and said, “Powder or oil?”

  “Powder, I think,” Ambrose said.

  “Powder, of course,” Blaze said.

  And in a moment he felt baby powder being sprinkled on his back and buttocks. Those hands, those magnificent hands, began slipping over him, sliding gently and silkily over the powdered flesh.

  Blaze sat astride him and worked his buttocks and back, leaning down to whisper, “Powder is the right choice for tonight. You’ve been through so much this past week. But tonight you’re safe. Blaze has fixed everything. The mere aroma of powder will unlock old memories, old sensations deep within you. You can be a baby again. Tonight, you can be my baby.”

  Her voice was hypnotic. He closed his eyes and whimpered when she leaned down to brush his cheeks with her lips. Ambrose could smell the sweet aroma of wine and the baby powder. She’d never been so tender with him. No one ever had. Ambrose Lutterworth thought he could love this young woman.

  Then Blaze turned off the lamp because Ambrose was a client who had difficulty if a light was on. She said to him, “Should I tell you now what happened tonight or shall I tell you later?”