Floaters Read online

  That day she managed to keep the cops entertained longer than anticipated, and it was after 5:00 P.M. when they said good-bye. The sun had already dropped behind Point Loma and darkness was falling on the bay. And with darkness the pleasure-boat traffic in San Diego harbor had vanished.

  When the cops pulled away from the dock, they spotted boat activity under the Coronado bridge near one of the huge concrete piers. A pair of 32-foot boats belonging to the Harbor Police were up to something. The Harbor Police—called “Harbor Ducks” by the San Diego cops—was the port district force that patrolled San Diego harbor, but not Mission Bay.

  Despite Fortney’s protests about minding their own business, Leeds drove under the blue-steel span that soared almost two hundred and fifty feet straight up, linking San Diego with Coronado. Every year about a half-dozen wretched souls would ignore the suicide hotline number on top of the bridge and end their lives in the cold waters of San Diego Bay. And one had done it twenty minutes before Leeds and Fortney approached in the Whaler.

  She had very long fair hair that fanned in the salt water, glinting in the glare of the police spotlight as the Harbor Police dragged her by the feet toward their boat. Even though she had reached terminal velocity before striking the water, she had not died on impact. Pink froth clogged her nose and mouth, caused by aspiration of air and salt water, the foam indicating pulmonary edema. That she’d lived for those few moments was extraordinary because when she’d struck the water she’d burst.

  When the Harbor Police lifted her into the boat, Fortney and Leeds could see her intestines spilling through a tear in her cheap cotton dress, and Fortney, who’d always feared dying in dark water, said, “Thank you very much, partner. Just what I needed before the liver and onions I’d planned to cook tonight. But which is now going to the neighbor’s Airedale.”

  Leeds looked around at the otherwise quiet harbor and said, “It’s creepy out here at night. Let’s go home.”

  But when they were halfway out of the harbor and still half a mile from the tip of Point Loma, they heard a thundering roar aft. A black cigarette boat pounded past them in a throbbing, chugging blast of water. Then the driver trimmed his out-drives up and kicked rooster tails fifty feet in the air, hitting the cops like water cannons.

  Both cops got soaked, and Leeds turned on the blue light and throttled forward. But they had to give up the chase. The cigarette boat’s twin 454 Chevy engines were doing sixty knots, and the Whaler’s twin 120 Johnson outboards were no match. When the cigarette boat got past the jetty, it turned toward Imperial Beach and was gone.

  “Like a dachshund chasing a whippet,” Fortney said.

  He got on the VHF to report the incident and make inquiries, later learning that the boat belonged to a daring drug smuggler who made five or six runs a year, usually much later at night. Sometimes he’d take his cigarette boat all the way into the Chula Vista marina. Twice the Harbor Police had pursued him, but their twin 455s couldn’t keep up as he blasted across San Diego Bay. They thought he might be coming all the way from Mexican waters.

  On one occasion the smuggler had been clearly seen after being lit by a police searchlight. The driver was a tall, middle-aged white man in a golf cap, with what was described as a “goofy grin.”

  Fortney had wondered why the hell the guy was so theatrical, using a cigarette boat to haul dope when he could just drive it across at the Tijuana port of entry like every other drug dealer in western America. But after hearing the description, he’d said to Leeds, “Wait a minute! Cigarette boat? Golf cap? Goofy grin? What’s George Bush doing these days?”

  On this Saturday afternoon Fortney clearly recalled that winter day and the cigarette boat. But mostly he remembered the lonely corpse in the dark water. He said to Leeds, “Let’s stay here in our quiet little bay, okay?”

  An hour later Fortney was knocked from the bow of another cigarette boat right into their quiet little bay.

  It happened when the cigarette boat, this one red with yellow stripes, came throbbing past Vacation Isle. A thirtysomething bearded Saudi, wearing a marble-bag European bikini, was driving. And what a beard he had. Leeds, ever political, said it was dense enough to nest two pelicans and Clinton’s diminutive adviser, George Stephanopoulos. And they figured the guy wasn’t really rich by Saudi standards, which meant he could buy the Islandia hotel for cash but might have to get financing for the Hilton.

  As could be expected, he had four very young American babes, in bikinis even skimpier than his, cruising with him. They’d been having their own version of a floating rave party involving an imaginative mix of ecstasy, the trendy hallucinogen costing thirty bucks a tablet on the current market, and peyote. The Saudi was very annoyed to be stopped for speeding.

  Leeds rafted up to him and tied up to the cleat, asking for the guy’s license and finding five pairs of eyeballs staring blankly at him.

  Leeds glanced back at Fortney, who shrugged. Which meant: Give him the attitude test.

  The Saudi flunked the test instantly. “I do not concern about your ticket!” he said to Leeds. “The peoples in my country receive more money in one day than you will have make in your life!”

  “Choosing between Iraqis and Saudis was like choosing between lawyers and insurance companies, wasn’t it?” Leeds said to one of the gorgeous zombies.

  “I have not understood what you mean,” the indignant Saudi said.

  “He just asked if you’ve ever heard of Rodney King,” Fortney replied, as Leeds wrote down the driver’s-license information.

  “Of course we have king!” The Saudi looked to his young companions for translation, but the soberest of the four was watching a weeping madonna in the boat’s exhaust and she was smiling beatifically at the mother of God.

  Leeds climbed onto the bow of the cigarette boat and waved his hand before the eyes of the leggiest bimbette, the one with a coppery ponytail. She was toasting herself on her tummy, a black thong deliciously lost in the crack of her suntanned buns.

  “Don’t that feel uncomfortable?” Leeds asked. “I mean, do you like giving yourself a Melvin all day long?”

  Fortney said with a sigh, “Barefoot girl with cheeks of tan. You could take her pulse with an hourglass.”

  She couldn’t care less what the cops said. She was scoping out a winged purple pony galloping across the Ingraham Street bridge. Waiting for the fucking horse to get sick of the car traffic and fly!

  “Whadda you wanna do,” Leeds asked Fortney, “with this boatload of living dead?”

  “Ship of fools,” Fortney said. “Brain-nuked. They’d need three weeks to come up with a message for an answering machine.”

  Leeds sensed that Fortney was as indifferent and lazy as he was. “Wanna let ’em skate?”

  “Yeah, if Ali Baba here signs the ticket without further ado, he can put a Handi Wipe on his bean and offer thanks to Mecca.”

  The Saudi scrawled his name across the citation and jumped back behind the wheel, gunning the engines the moment the cops were reboarding the patrol boat.

  Leeds made it. Fortney made it with one foot on the gunnel just as the hallucinating Arab dropped it into gear. The cigarette boat jerked the cleat right out.

  Fortney stayed where he was, but the cigarette boat roared from under his right foot. Leeds watched in astonishment as Fortney dropped straight down like an anchor until nothing was visible but his floating blue hat. Then the flotation jacket popped him up like a cork.

  An hour later the bimbettes were sobering up in the company of two happy lifeguards who came to the Harbor Unit’s assistance. And the Saudi was on his way to jail for driving under the influence, with his boat impounded. Fortney eventually returned to the Harbor Unit office with blue lips, chattering teeth, and clammy underwear.

  The lifeguards couldn’t have been jollier if they’d been hanging ten on the Banzai Pipeline. They were sick and tired of the cops dissing them with old Beach Boy songs whenever they motored by, so after they helped rescue Fortney a
nd assisted in wrapping up the deadheads on the cigarette boat, they just had to drop by the Harbor Unit to check out Fortney’s goosebumps.

  When the lifeguards entered, they found Fortney pushing a broom, wearing nothing but swimming trunks and a blanket. His dripping uniform was lying in a puddle on the floor and his holster and gun were draped over the back of a chair. He was sweeping up sand, seaweed, and assorted flotsam and jetsam that had oozed and slithered out of his clothes.

  “Whatcha doin’, dude?” the older lifeguard asked cheerfully.

  “What’s it look like?” Fortney croaked. “I’m practicing curling for the winter Olympics.”

  The younger lifeguard said to the other one, “Dude, I am just unstoked and unvibed.”

  “Whadda ya mean, dude?” his partner said with an evil eye aimed at the shivering cop.

  “I mean, like, we thought we wanted to raise a cop of good cheer? And whadda we end up with? A frozen copsicle!”

  “If my nine wasn’t drying out,” Fortney said to the lifeguards, “I’d blast you moondoggies right outta your flip-flops.”

  The older one said, “Gotta go, dude. Our boat’s parked in a handicap zone.”

  —

  Blaze hadn’t begun to get ready for her evening yet. She’d just finished a workout on her exercise bike and was still in her leotard when Dawn arrived at 4:45, carrying the answering machine and looking more harrowed than ever.

  “So, you gonna tell me what’s going on?” Blaze asked.

  “I been sleeping wherever I could for the past few days,” Dawn said. “Moved outta my apartment on Wednesday.”

  “Why?”

  “Oliver’s looking for me.”

  “So? He’s your old man, last I heard.”

  “I been avoiding him for more than a week. Finally he gets mad and phones me. He goes, Stay in your apartment till I get there! That was on Wednesday. I split.”

  “Why?”

  Dawn took a half-eaten bag of M&M’s from her purse and popped a few. “I think I know why he’s looking for me.”

  “I know you want to tell me, Dawn, so just spit it out.”

  “I think he found out somehow that I made a police report.”

  “What kind of report?”

  “Pimping. Naming him as my pimp.”

  “Kee-rist!” Blaze said. “Why’d you do that?”

  “He beat me up.”

  “Lots of men have beaten you up! He’s done it before, hasn’t he? More than once.”

  “It’s a long story. I got no choice. The cops put a twist on me. I had to do it to save my baby.”

  “You are leaving town, right?”

  “Tomorrow,” she said. “I jist need one more good Saturday night. I need a stake.”

  “You need more drugs, is what you mean.”

  “Whatever. But I ain’t going up to El Cajon Boulevard. I’m gonna work down on Midway Drive. Oliver won’t look for me down there.”

  “Where’re you sleeping tonight?”

  “Here?”

  “Goddamn, Dawn!”

  “Only tonight!” Dawn pleaded. “I won’t even get here till maybe four A.M. Jist lemme sleep a few hours, then I’ll be gone for good. I’m scared to sleep in motels. I been beat up and even stabbed in motel rooms. I couldn’t ever sleep in one by myself!”

  “I’d loan you a couple hundred if I had it,” Blaze said, “and tell you to get your bony ass outta town. But I don’t have it to spare. I haven’t been doing much outcall lately, but I’ve got a deal I’m working with one of my old clients tonight.”

  “I wouldn’t ask you, Blaze, if I wasn’t desperate. You been too good to me already. Kin I stay?”

  “Just till tomorrow morning,” Blaze said. “I don’t care how many speedballs you shoot up tonight, you’re getting outta here tomorrow. I mean it. Trust me.”

  “I trust you, Blaze,” Dawn said. “You’re the only one in this miserable fucking town I do trust! I’m gonna find a new life in West Hollywood.”

  “Dawn, honey,” Blaze said, “Richard Gere isn’t out there. You’re just gonna find a whole lot of Oliver Mantleberrys.”

  —

  For the Saturday-evening cocktail party that he was obliged to attend, Ambrose chose a navy-blue tie with green and white diagonal stripes: the old rep tie of the Oxford University Sailing Club. His mother would have approved.

  There was at least one significant party every few nights during the challenger and defender series, and it would get even more hectic during the finals. Ambrose was afraid he might be bedridden by then if his nerves got any worse.

  He’d nicked his upper lip while trimming his gray mustache and had plastered tissue on the wound. He couldn’t keep his hands steady and hadn’t been able to do so since the first day he’d formulated the plan, repeatedly reminding himself that he owed Blaze Duvall five thousand dollars even if he were to call it off. But he was past the point of no return—he was sure of that much, even though he was more scared than ever. His hands could hardly manage a Windsor knot.

  It was late enough in the spring to wear white trousers, he thought. He chose pleated doeskin flannels—cuffed, of course—with a knife crease so meticulously pressed that he felt obliged to sit on the bed and pull them on both legs at the same time. It made him think of the sports cliché: “We put our pants on one leg at a time.” He’d heard a helmsman say it on ESPN in reference to the challenger series. But not Ambrose Lutterworth, not if one wanted creases sharp enough to cut a wedding cake. Once his sister had asked why he didn’t get a block and tackle and just lower himself into his pants.

  The single-breasted blazer with the patch pockets wouldn’t do tonight, not at an America’s Cup party in La Jolla, where everyone would be dressed nautical style. His double-breasted blazer with side vents was just the ticket for this party. He had six special brass buttons on that blazer, each with an America’s Cup crest. He’d designed the buttons himself and had them made in London. Sadly, nobody at the San Diego Yacht Club had noticed the buttons until Ambrose called attention to them. That’s the kind of yacht club it was.

  But that’s the kind of city it was. The nation’s sixth-largest city, yes, but only its twenty-fourth-largest media market, with still just one daily nonstop flight from Kennedy airport. Ambrose’s late father had always said that San Diego was a lovely place to live because everyone with big ideas had inevitably failed.

  His mother had genuinely hated the San Diego Yacht Club. She thought it ridiculous when compared to the New York Yacht Club, repository of the Cup since Queen Victoria’s reign. And, of course, she thought that the New York club was a pretender when compared to any sailing club in the British Isles.

  The first time she’d entered the San Diego club she’d said, “Where do you buy the live bait?”

  And she used to complain endlessly about people dining at the club in jeans and T-shirts. Even in second-rate San Diego restaurants (and they were all second-rate, she thought) people did not dine in jeans and T-shirts. His mother was from Boston and her family had summered on Nantucket Sound.

  Ambrose’s father had often advised his mother to learn to throw a Frisbee and just enjoy the wonderful climate. Inevitably adding, “It’s not a city, my dear. It’s a huge resort.”

  The shirt Ambrose chose was a blue cotton broadcloth with a white Windsor collar and white cuffs. He started to step into the slip-ons he’d laid out for himself but changed his mind. It was a regatta party, so he needn’t be subtle. He decided to wear two-tone brogans made of linen and cordovan leather, purchased in London on New Bond Street.

  He tied his brogans by resting each leg on the upholstered bench at the foot of his bed so as not to wrinkle his flannels, then stood in front of the full-length mirror for inspection. There was still a needle of dried blood on his lip, but it was almost invisible. Yes, he looked all right, but he fretted about the blazer crest he’d recently added to the ticket pocket. It was handwoven with twenty-four-karat thread, an anchor and a wreath. But was
it…over the top?

  His mother would say yes, that it was so…San Diego. So…American. As though her native Massachusetts was not in the continental United States.

  Ambrose unbuttoned the blazer. Maybe it was over the top. Perhaps he should have had the crest sewn on to his single-breasted blazer. After all, that was a more casual coat and had a patch pocket. He wondered if anyone in the New York Yacht Club would apply a crest to a ticket pocket on a double-breasted blazer? Suddenly it seemed way over the top!

  Then he realized he was breathing fast and gulping air. He sat on the bench seat and tried to control himself, determined to concentrate on his appearance rather than on old memories and fears.

  Ambrose stood up and breathed slowly, expelling all the air before he took the next breath. Slow, measured breathing always calmed him. He rebuttoned the double-breasted blazer, posing for a moment. Then he stepped back, did a half-turn, and examined the entire ensemble.

  Ambrose Lutterworth told himself he didn’t give a damn what an old dead woman would have said. Nor any of the poseurs and prigs from an East Coast yacht club. Ambrose Lutterworth knew who he was: He was Keeper of the Cup!

  But before he left home he put a white handkerchief in the ticket pocket, hoping it might somehow modulate the effect of the golden crest.

  Ambrose arrived at the party thirty minutes after the cocktail hour had started. Like all San Diego parties, it was an early one, and sunset was still an hour away when he parked the old Cadillac in front of a minimansion on La Jolla’s Gold Coast. Ambrose knew that during the regatta, when so many partygoers were working on the race committee, this would end very early, thank God.

  A valet-parking girl, in a white shirt with a black bow tie and black trousers, took his car, saying, “You won’t need a ticket, sir.”

  Which meant that the do wouldn’t be as big as some he’d had to attend lately. Another small blessing.