Floaters Page 5

  A blue Lexus stopped a block from Rita Mason while she was tormenting the blubbering john. She watched a string-bean blonde, in a skirt Rita couldn’t have fit into when she was twelve years old, get out and thank the driver. The blonde sauntered to the street corner, held her purse down beside her thigh, and waited for the next one.

  Rita spoke into her bra. “Letch, I think it’s that girl you’re interested in. Corner of Thirtieth.”

  Then she returned to the vice car, where the teary john screamed at her, “You can’t arrest me! You lied to me!”

  To which Rita replied, “I don’t know where it says I have to tell you where I really work.”

  Then the john cried out, “You can’t arrest me! I gotta go pick up my kids at Boy Scouts camp!”

  To which Rita replied, “I’ll phone your wife and tell her to get them. Should she stop for pizza on the way home?”

  Letch Boggs watched Dawn Coyote pick up two dates that evening. Dawn was too streetwise to be tailed closely, but Letch watched her take them to the general vicinity of the Dream Scene Motel, owned and operated by an Iranian they’d arrested two months earlier.

  That she was going to the expense of a motel room was suspicious in itself. Most of the street whores would just direct the john to someplace safe, like an apartment-house garage when a parking gate was left open.

  The “strawberries,” or rock whores, who worked farther east on the boulevard, would blow a guy in a doorway just for a taste of rock cocaine, but Dawn liked to take her tricks to a quiet church parking lot in North Park for the blow jobs. Sometimes they’d get to hear another organ being played in the church.

  Referring to the Iranian motel owner, Letch said to his partner, “Some a those hanky-head dromedary rapers never learn.”

  His partner for the evening, a bearded, burly cop named Westbrook whose mother was a Lebanese Muslim, said nothing.

  When Dawn Coyote emerged from the motel after turning her second date, she didn’t return to the boulevard. Instead she walked directly from room number 4 downstairs to room number 13 upstairs. She was in number 13 for ten minutes before she came out and returned to work.

  When Dawn was back on the boulevard, Letch and Westbrook entered the motel office, where the Iranian was watching American Gladiators. He was about Letch’s age, but shorter, fatter, and his collar was littered with dandruff. Instead of rodent teeth, two of his were gold-capped, and the grease-clogged pore pattern on his fleshy nose and cheeks looked like a street map.

  He recognized Letch at once and said, “Good evening, Officer! You have come to examine the register, yes? Please, you may help yourself! May I offer you a soda? Or a cup of tea? Or—”

  “The key to number thirteen,” Letch said.

  “Number thirteen!” The Iranian blanched. “What is the problem? What?”

  “Or you can wait till I talk to Dawn Coyote about how you rented her a hot bed tonight. Again. And failed to list her on the motel register, a violation of the municipal code.”

  “Officer!” The Iranian pressed his hands together in a prayerful gesture. “Please! I cannot be perfect. I was not present when the room was rented. I was gone to the mosque to pray for my mother. With great respect I must ask if you have a warrant to search?”

  “You have the right to remain silent,” Letch said. “You have the right to—”

  “Wait! Wait!” the Iranian pleaded. “If I give you permission to enter number thirteen…”

  “You can go back to American Gladiators and we’ll forgive and forget. This time.”

  The Iranian reached under the counter and handed Letch a key.

  “Allah ahkbar,” Letch said to his partner. “God is great. Sometimes.”

  —

  “I never liked selling real-estate,” Ambrose explained while Blaze stifled a yawn.

  The third glass of wine had relaxed her to a snooze. She battled to keep her eyes open, smiling politely when he poured another from the second bottle.

  He was careful to wipe the mouth of the bottle with a damask napkin. A drop plinked onto the old walnut coffee table and he quickly dabbed at it, then polished the spot with the dry half.

  By now he’d removed his jacket and so had she. But he still hadn’t loosened his old-boy tie, and he hadn’t come close to stating his business. Blaze decided that she was going to earn the five hundred bucks one way or the other.

  “Most of us have jobs we aren’t fond of,” she said.

  “Of course,” Ambrose said. “I’m sure you don’t like yours.”

  “Sometimes I do,” Blaze said, trying a coy smile even though her lids were at half-mast. “Like now.”

  “That’s kind of you,” he said, sipping his wine. “I know it must be hard for you to…offer relief to old duffers like me.”

  “You’re not old, Ambrose,” Blaze said. “What’re you, fifty? No more than fifty-five.”

  “You’d be surprised,” he said with a delighted chuckle. “I try to stay in decent shape by playing tennis and running on the beach twice a week.”

  “You’re very fit,” Blaze said. “I should know. I’ve handled your body often enough.” Another coy smile and then, “Do you think we could talk about the business arrangement?”

  “Of course. I just ramble sometimes when I’m with someone simpática. There isn’t a woman in my life right now. I’m rather lonely, to tell you the truth.”

  “I can’t believe that,” Blaze said. “A fine-looking man like you?”

  “One of my passions is cribbage. I belong to a cribbage club. Do you play?”

  “No.”

  Suddenly he said, “What do you know about the America’s Cup?”

  Blaze looked blank. “It’s about sailing, right?”

  “The world’s greatest regatta. And I…I’m the Keeper of the Cup.”

  The announcement had no effect.

  Rambling again, he said, “I was just an ordinary member of the yacht club, and so was my father, a successful developer until he made some bad investments. It’s feast or famine in that business. Probably why I never got into it. I’m just an agent in a local real-estate office.”

  “I’m sure you’re a very good agent.” The wine made her slur.

  “When Dennis Conner won back the Cup from Australia in nineteen eighty-seven under the aegis of the San Diego Yacht Club, my life changed. Drastically. Dramatically.”

  Blaze kicked off her shoes, tucking her feet beneath her on the sofa, ready for a long evening. “Tell me about it, Ambrose.”

  “It’s not easy to explain. I was living in an apartment at that time. Oh, I’ve lived in this house off and on over the years when my father was alive, and even later with my mother. And I’ve been in lots of little business deals. At the yacht club you hear about this and that, but nothing ever worked out for me. And then we got the Cup.”

  “Do you get paid a lot to be the…”

  “Keeper of the Cup? Lord, no! I’m unpaid, except for a stipend when we travel together, the Cup and me.”

  “You make the Cup sound like a person,” Blaze said.

  He studied her, then said, “That’s an interesting observation, Blaze. I think I’ve chosen the right girl to help me. You’re very simpática.”

  —

  Dawn Coyote was delighted that her third date of the evening was a premature ejaculator, saving a hell of a lot of work and time. She called them “preemies.”

  While he was in the bathroom cleaning up and apologizing, she was out the door, running upstairs to number 13. She unlocked the door, rushed into the room, and froze in her tracks. Leaning against the bathroom door was a bearded guy with a stud earring, a vice cop who’d busted her six months earlier. And sitting on the bed with her nine-month-old son, Billy, was Letch Boggs, grinning his rat-tooth grin and cootchy-cooing her baby.

  “He likes Uncle Letch,” the old vice cop said.

  Ten minutes later it was Dawn who was on the bed, on her stomach, crying her eyes out. Letch sat beside her, still
playing with the baby, who was getting cranky, no longer finding Letch’s funny face so amusing.

  “Atta girl, Dawn,” Letch said. “Let it all out. You’ll feel soooo much better.”

  When she sat up, her lips were black from mascara. She dashed into the bathroom and closed the door. The cops heard her retching a couple of times.

  “Needs a pop,” Westbrook said. “What’s she do, heroin?”

  “Speedballs,” Letch said. “This little cub’s gonna be an orphan before long.”

  When Dawn emerged, her makeup was gone, making her look like an anorexic high-schooler. Her left eye was badly bruised underneath, and without the lipstick they could see she had a swollen upper lip.

  “I jist left him here a few minutes ago,” Dawn said, sobbing. “I jist couldn’t find nobody to watch him tonight. My…roommate kicked me out all of a sudden.”

  “That’s a pretty bad shiner,” Letch said. “Oliver hit you with his fist or what?”

  “Oliver who?” Dawn said.

  “Any special instructions for the Polinsky Children’s Center?” Letch asked.

  “What’s that?”

  “The place we’re gonna take Baby Snooks to after we book you for child endangering.”

  “I only left him for a few minutes!” Dawn wailed.

  “You can tell it to Child Protective Services,” Westbrook said. “And we’ll tell them how we saw you bring two johns into a hot-bed motel room. And how this pup was alone for thirty minutes one time and forty-five the next. Left all alone in a motel frequented by hose monsters.”

  Dawn Coyote sat on the floor beside the bed and sobbed so violently she could hardly breathe.

  “You’re hyperventilating,” Westbrook said, worried by her honks of pain. “And I ain’t about to give you mouth-to-mouth if you pass out.”

  Dawn pulled herself up on her knees and said, “I’ll do anything! Want me to do you? I’ll do you both right now!”

  “Get real,” Westbrook said, dragging a chair over by the window. “Even Letch ain’t that horny.” Letch showed his hamster grin and Westbrook added, “Maybe I spoke too soon.”

  “I’ll do anything!” Dawn said to Letch, who put the gurgling baby on his stomach. The infant had large blue eyes like Dawn’s, and he reached out to his mother with chubby little hands.

  But Letch said, “Don’t touch him till we deal.”

  “Anything!” she said. “Anything you want!”

  “We’re gonna make a report. It’s gonna tell how Oliver Mantleberry’s been working you for the past year, all about how he takes your money and kicks ass when it’s not enough. And you’re gonna have a telephone conversation with Oliver tomorrow that we’ll listen to so we can corroborate the pimping. And you’re gonna testify against him in court.”

  “He’ll kill me!” Dawn said. “You don’t understand! He’ll kill me!”

  “That part’s your problem,” Letch said. “I’d advise you to move someplace where he can’t find you. Outta town’d be best. Come back to testify. I’ll see that nobody bothers you. You try to stiff me and I go straight to Child Protective Services and I get a warrant.”

  “Lemme give you somebody else!” Dawn said. She thought for a moment and said, “I can give you this girl does outcall massage. Name’s Blaze Duvall. Lives in Mission Valley up in the hills. You don’t know about her. I’ll give her up! She keeps her answering machine in my apartment. I’ll let you listen to her calls anytime you want. Lemme give her up instead of Oliver, okay?”

  “You can give her up and Oliver,” Westbrook said. “What’s her name? Blaze what?”

  Letch said, “We gotta have Oliver Mantleberry. Period. I ain’t much concerned with outcall masseuses.” Then he switched on his laptop memory and said, “That apartment in the hills? She wouldn’t be in number Two-A, would she?”

  “How do you know?” Dawn gasped. “How could you know that?”

  Letch giggled and nudged the anxious infant into the arms of his mother.

  Westbrook said, “Don’t ask. The Shadow, he just knows things. The Shadow knows.”

  —

  “Can you imagine how my life changed?” Ambrose asked Blaze for the third time, if she was counting.

  “I can only guess,” she said, deciding not to accept any more wine. She was getting shit-faced.

  “I’ve traveled the world, not as a tourist but as the Keeper of the Cup. I’ve met kings. Sometime I’ll tell you about Princess Anne. She was the loveliest person. Not regal, a real person. I found Prince Rainier to be regal, though.”

  She had just enough alcohol boiling in her belly that she was getting irritable, something she tried to avoid with clients. “Let’s talk business, Ambrose. How about it?”

  “I want to remain Keeper of the Cup,” he said. “I don’t want it to end yet. Not yet.”

  “That’s talking business?”

  She plumped up a throw pillow behind her back. A sofa spring was on the verge of breaking through the fabric. She wanted to go home.

  “Pour yourself another glass,” he said. “I’ll be right back.”

  Against her better judgment she poured half a glass, emptying the second bottle. Blaze figured he’d gone to the can. Guys his age, they were always running to the can. Prostate problems, they said, as if she didn’t know. She’d massaged a lot of prostates in her time. Blaze Duvall figured she could be a pretty fair urologist if handling prostates had anything to do with it. Most of her clients expressed admiration for her long, graceful fingers. Of course she kept her nails clipped short.

  When Ambrose returned, he had a folder full of papers, photos, and clippings. He opened it on the coffee table.

  “See this,” he said, pointing to a newspaper photo of a sailboat crunched on the ground.

  “Yeah?”

  “That’s an America’s Cup boat. Belonged to the French, who also had problems with their backup boat. That other one lost a keel and rolled over like a harpooned whale.”

  “So?” Blaze looked at the photo, then back at Ambrose, who at last had loosened his tie.

  “I don’t know for sure who’s going to be the defender, but I know for sure who’s going to be the challenger: New Zealand. The Kiwis. And they’re the opposite of the French syndicate. All business. Ruthlessly efficient and professional. They’ve got two fast boats. And no American defender is going to beat one of those boats.”

  “You don’t say.”

  “The Kiwis have NZL thirty-two and NZL thirty-eight. In nineteen eighty-seven they won thirty-eight victories to only one defeat through the trials, yet they ended up losing four races to one to Dennis Conner in Stars and Stripes. In ninety-two the Kiwis were one win away from the challenger trophy, yet they lost four straight to the Italians. This time they’re hungry and they vow it won’t happen.”

  “Okay, Ambrose,” Blaze said, her patience gone. “Our business deal has something to do with the America’s Cup. What the hell is it?”

  “It’s this. The Kiwis’ thirty-two boat is better, much better than their thirty-eight boat. The defender will have no chance against the thirty-two boat. But we’d have a chance, a good chance in my opinion, against the thirty-eight boat. I’ve done my homework. I’m well-enough connected to have gathered good intelligence. I feel in my gut that the thirty-eight boat can be beaten.”

  “And what do you expect me to do? Exactly what?”

  “I want you to help me. It’s not personally risky, mind you, but I want nothing less than the destruction of the thirty-two boat. They’ll have to race the thirty-eight in the finals. I think our defender can beat the thirty-eight.”

  “And how would I be able to help you wreck a boat?” Blaze asked. The guy was loony! A loony old geek whose life revolved around a dumb trophy.

  “The Kiwis have seven people in their syndicate who they call designers,” Ambrose continued. “Sail and hull designers, appendage designers who crafted their keel, and analytical designers. They have a meteorologist. They stop at nothing to
ensure that all the people in their syndicate are loyal, dependable, dedicated. They even brought their own crane operator with them.”

  Despite her cynicism, Blaze was getting slightly interested. He looked so serious, and he was cold sober, unlike her. “They must have security people guarding those boats,” she said.

  “The Italians had fifteen last time. And a dozen TV monitors. Even dogs. The Kiwis have only two men, but they’re police officers. Real police officers. Brought them all the way from Auckland on leave from the New Zealand Police. They’re well protected in their compound.”

  “I hope you’re not going to say you think I can get to one of them?”

  “Impossible,” Ambrose said. “Those people have national pride in winning the Cup that Americans can’t even imagine. Auckland’s called the City of Sails because they have more sailboats than cars. There’s half an hour of live coverage on their major television channel every night during the challenger trials alone. But there’s a weak spot in their program. In every program. A boat can simply be dropped when it’s being lifted in or out of the water, and the lifting happens almost every day. Their boat can be dropped just like the French boat was dropped. They’re loaded into the water in basically the same fashion, either by crane or by travel-lift. A crane operator can make a mistake. It happened to the French, it can happen to the Kiwis.”

  “I’m not much at operating cranes,” Blaze said. She felt like saying the only machines she could work were electric: a toothbrush and a dildo, which she used on her clients, not on herself. Instead she added, “You want to bribe the guy that does the lifting, is that it?”

  Ambrose smiled. “You truly are a bright young woman, Blaze. You’re on the right track.”

  “What? Tell me, Ambrose!”

  “I want to…incapacitate the New Zealand crane operator who runs the travel-lift. I want it to happen on the last day of the challenger trials when they’re racing the Aussies. When they’re on the verge of finishing off the competition. They’ll have to replace their man without notice. They’ll be forced to turn to the boatyard they rent their space from.”