Blue Water Blues
by
James R. Muri
version 6/20/07
Wanted: One crew to assist in delivery of high-tech sailing catamaran toAmerican Samoa. Leave soon, return air fare provided. Responsibilities: cooking, cleaning, general watch standing, general assistance. Sailing experience a plus, but not required for the right applicant with the right attitude. No applicants with cruise-threatening medical problems or personal baggage, please. See Skipper on his yacht at slip A-21, Tacoma Marina. Drop-in interviews only.
Who showed up? Druggies, juicers, people looking for an escape from the law, cruddy drifters, suspicious-looking guys who eyed the sleek and sumptuous catamaran with lust in their eyes, slobs looking for a vacation. Day in, day out I'd promised to get back with them. But I hadn't.
Instead, I'd decided to take the cat single-handed. Not impossible at all, of course, as the boat was fully equipped with hydraulic winches, electrically furling sails, huge fuel reserves for its twin turbo-powered John Deere diesels, and all the electronic nav goodies. The boat's entertainment system had been freshly stocked with favorite or previously unseen movies. The library held a couple dozen classic books I hadn't read, so there would be no shortage of things to do. My electronic crewmates would keep their tireless watches for stray ships, all the way across the Pacific. True, not having anyone to talk to would be lonely and boring, but that's the nature of solo crossings.
So I stretched out in the owner's stateroom that early June afternoon, hatch open for the cool breeze, and took a nap.
You may ask what my wife thought of this weird adventure, or why she didn't leap forward to take that vacant crew slot. Easy: I didn't have one. She'd gone her own way two years earlier, having dazzled one of her college students sufficiently that he, in turn, dazzled her, a woman ten years his senior. Good luck to them both, I thought with false sincerity. They'll both need it.
Buddies? Friends? I had plenty of both. But none of them had a couple months to spare. So there I was, asleep on my bunk, when a knock on the boat woke me.
"Hello? Is anyone here?"
A feminine voice, I instantly recognized as I surfaced out of my sweaty slumber. "Yes. I'll be right out." Jerking myself back into my shorts and "Skip the Puyallup, Do Me Instead" T-shirt, I emerged on deck.
For an instant I stopped breathing. An ivory-skinned angel in lobe length stoplight red hair had descended - or perhaps fallen - next to the cat. She illuminated me with tanning bed blue eyes, and her white shorts almost qualified as bun-huggers. Yeah, I thought, a fallen angel with long, lithe legs in a white shirt. Narrow waist, sweetly demure but obvious breasts. Barefoot, white sandals dangling from her left hand, white purse hanging from a strap over her shoulder. I guessed her age at late teens, her height at five-eight, weight maybe one-twenty. A young boy stood alongside, holding her hand.
During the interval between our meeting and my breath returning we took the opportunity to size each other up. She didn't look impressed. And no wonder. Two days' worth of black stubble coarsened up my already primitive face. My hair needed a trim a month earlier. And of course, my attire - informal, and my hygiene - limited.
"I'm the skipper," I informed her when sufficient breath had made its way into my lungs.
She held up a copy of 48 Degrees North. "Is this crew position still open?"
So I had a fairy godmother after all, I thought. "Yes."
"Are there any - conditions?"
"Just that you're willing to work and learn, you don't have any medical conditions that will imperil the crossing, and that you don't bring any personal - uh, issues - with you. You'll need the usual travel documents. Have you ever sailed before?"
"A little," she declared, squinting up at me from beneath her bangs.
I realized that I stood between her and the sun. "Please. Come aboard." I reached down and offered her a hand. She declined it, instead stepping up the boarding ladder and taking a seat in the cockpit. The young boy - ten? - grinned and scampered aboard, his head swiveling in a vain effort to see everything at once.
"Wow," he said, climbing up into the helmsman's seat. He grabbed the wheel. "Is it fast?"
I almost laughed. The catamaran had been six years in the making, a joint effort between myself and my lifelong buddy. He'd developed a name in yachting circles as a cutting-edge designer, and he'd employed me as his fluid dynamics engineer, a role I fit well because I did it for a living for a major aerospace firm which shall go nameless. He stubbornly refused to believe that a cruising catamaran couldn't also be lightning quick, and set out to prove it. Then he'd died during a winter race, hit in the head by an accidentally gybing boom on a friend's boat during a hotly contested mark rounding, and knocked overboard. The autopsy showed he hadn't drowned, he'd been killed outright.
His grieving widow simply gave me the boat. "It's yours," she said. "You and he designed it and built it. He'd want you to have it."
A boat worth a million, I thought dazedly. So I sold it to a buyer in American Samoa, on the condition that I first complete building it, then deliver it.
"Yes," I told the kid. "It's either fast or very fast, depending on how the skipper chooses to tweak the underwater fins and foils and so on."
"How fast?" he asked, all eagerness and enthusiasm.
"Twenty-five knots ought to be doable in the trades," I told him. "Faster if necessary."
He frowned. "That's all? I go faster than that on my bike!"
The woman shushed him, then introduced herself. "Cherry Treat," she said, holding out her hand. Her eyes waited for my comment
Oh, great, I thought. Fair Godmother sent me a wise-ass. "How do you do," I replied, "I'm skipper Johnny B. Goode."
She eyed me unappreciatively. I decided to skip further jokes and took her hand for a single shake. "Sorry for that. I'm pleased to meet you, Ma'am. Skipper Randy Haller. That's my real name. Most call me 'Hoot'n', or just 'Hoot'.
"What should I call you?" she asked, showing no sign of forgiveness nor understanding of my nicknames.
"Skipper."
"Okay. And this is my - son, Timmy." She almost smiled.
"I'm Tim," the young boy insisted. "Timmy is a sissy name."
"Hi, Tim," I said. Then I turned to his mother. Couldn't be, I decided. Far too young to be his mother. However, I didn't want to risk the 'you're much too young' sort of remark just yet, so I let that thought slide for awhile. "Does he have travel documents too?"
She reached into her small purse and held out two passports. "Look for yourself," she offered.
I declined. "Never mind. I'm not the one you'll have to satisfy. Are you serious about wanting to crew?"
"Yes."
I looked at Timmy. "And will Tim join you on this trip?"
She nodded. "Of course."
"But shouldn't he be in school?"
"He's been home-schooled. Do you have a computer on board?"
"Several," I said, knowing where she was headed.
"Well, I have schooling software. I'll teach him along with my other duties, if that is okay with you."
"It is if your husband isn't an issue, and you can you cook."
For a second she hesitated. "My ex-husband is not an issue, and I can cook. Do we have a cabin?"
"The entire starboard amah is yours," I said. "There are double staterooms fore and aft, complete with desks, hanging lockers, dresser drawers, and you each have a full lavatory with a shower."
She smiled at that. The already bright day became incandescent. "When do we leave?"
So, she'd decided to allow me to employ her as crew. Okay by me, I thought, realizing that she'd interviewed me at least as thoroughly as I'd interviewed her. "I have to lay in the food supplies and make a few adjustments to some of the hardware on the boat, so I think about three days from now we'll pull out. Will that be enough time for you?"
"Yes. In fact, why don't I start immediately? Give me your food list and I'll shop for it all. You do what you have to do to the boat."
I had to confess that I didn't have a list, that my usual shopping technique involved going up one aisle of the supermarket and down another until I had enough food.
"Then let me worry about the menu. How much refrigeration do you have aboard?"
"About twenty cubic feet," I told her, impressed. "Half of that is deep freeze."
"Okay. Do you have cash, or should I just charge the food?"
I gave her ten one-hundred dollar bills. Part of me warned the other part of me that I'd never see her again. "Trip should take about a month. Provision for two. Stock mostly non-perishables. No glass containers or fragile food."
"Okay. I'll be back in a couple hours," she said. "Would you mind watching Timmy? Maybe he could give you a hand. What do you like to eat?"
"We won't need seafood," I assured her, eyeing the enthusiastic rascal suspiciously.
"I know what a crescent wrench is," he bragged as he turned the wheel. His mother climbed down the boarding ladder, cast one more look over her shoulder at us, and walked away.
I had to watch. Wow. Liquid poetry. Male heads popped up from various nearby boats.
Take it easy, Hoot. It's going to be a long trip. And she's much too young. I turned to Tim. "Do you know what a cotter ring is?"
"No, sir."
"Well, let me show you. And then you have a job to do."
She and Tim moved aboard that evening, after we unloaded her fire-engine red 2005 Dodge pickup, a dressy and hot ride. She had shopped well, bringing back a quarter ton of non-perishables and just enough frozen and perishables to barely fill the refrigerator and freezer on board. She'd also been clothes shopping, I guessed, judging from the bags of new clothing and toilet articles she toted into the cat. Several male members of the marina stepped up to help carry the provisions to the cat.
Cherry introduced herself as 'Abigail'. Timmy became 'Chuck'.
"What's with the fake names?" I asked, puzzled but not spilling the beans to Ron or Steve, both of whom had gone ahead with arm loads of bagged groceries.
"I'm not an unknown," she answered as though primed for the question. "I'd rather not be looked up on the internet."
John and Bill arrived. We handed them as much as they could carry. They staggered their ways to the boat. "Okay, I guess that makes sense. Should I recognize your name?" I handed her some bags, picked up a couple myself. We made our way to the open gate of the marina.
"You could look me up," she said reluctantly. "I'd rather you didn't."
"I don't need any crew with baggage on this trip," I reminded her as we walked toward the boat.
"I don't have any that'll impact the trip," she replied. "I'd just rather be treated normally, instead of not normal."
Hey. Anyone who aspires to 'normal' doesn't need me digging them up on the internet, I decided. "Okay. Before I look you up, I'll ask your permission."
"Thanks," she said.
* * *
"Shall I make supper?" she asked after the last of the food had been stowed and she and Tim had put their belongings in their staterooms.
"Nah. Save the food for the trip. I usually go to a restaurant nearby when I'm staying on the boat. Do you have any money left over from shopping?" I asked.
She handed me change. Two hundred eighty-three dollars and change, and a handful of receipts. I handed it back. "You're crew. I feed the crew. Why don't you use the money to feed you and Tim for the next couple days? If you run low, I'll provide more."
Her eyes lifted to mine. Something in them hinted of appraisal, perhaps even approval. "Thanks," she said. "That's kind of you."
"Not at all."
Still her eyes. "Listen," she said, "I have one more errand to run. Why don't I bring back supper for us all? Subways okay?"
I smiled. "Sure. And while you're at it, some beer. I like beer with supper." Too late I realized I'd asked her to do something that she probably couldn't do, being too young.
She didn't blink. "Okay," she agreed. "And I'll bring back some breakfast too."
Off she went in that dressy pickup that had brought her and Tim to the marina. I turned to Tim. "Well, while she does that, why don't you and I set up your school?"
For the next hour and a half he and I installed his schooling software onto one of two backup laptops I'd brought along, then we took it into his stateroom and secured it to his small desk. "All set," I assured him.
He frowned. "No fair! Why do I have to go to school during the summer? Other kids get vacations!"
"How many kids get to sail to the South Pacific while they're studying?" I asked him, doing my best to point out the positive.
"But I don't want to study! Why should I?"
"Because your mother says so," I decreed, hoping that would end the discussion.
His brow wrinkled in a deeper frown. "But - but - oh, all right. But I won't like it!"
"Tell you what," I bartered. "Every time your mother reports you did better than ninety percent on any test, I'll teach you something new about sailing."
"Big deal," he mumbled. "You'd do that anyway."
He was right. "Listen," I said. "You're aboard, so you're crew. I'm skipper. Crew does what the skipper says. Boats all work like that. Is that clear?"
He looked at me, eyes not pleased. "Yes."
"Say 'Yes, Skipper'."
He made a face. "Yes, Skipper."
"That's better. So your skipper says to do what your mother says. Do you understand?"
He looked ready to pop. I sensed a mutiny in the making. Luckily, his mother arrived about then.
* * *
"Mrs. Treat," I asked halfway through my Subway and second beer at the dinner table, "you know I have to ask this. I've hesitated because I don't want to offend my crew, or have them think that I'm prying, but you seem far too young to have a youngster Timmy's age."
"Don't call me Timmy," I heard from the chair next to me.
She sighed and put her sandwich down. "Yes, I know. You waited longer than most to ask. I'm twenty-five. You can check my passport if you don't believe it, Skipper."
I didn't believe it, but didn't have the balls to actually look at her passport. "Wow," I breathed. "Sorry."
She cracked a smile. "It's okay. I get carded a hundred percent of the time. How about you? You look about fifty."
I winced. "Thirty-three," I said.
She arced an eyebrow and looked at me carefully for a moment. "I'm sorry. That was - impolite. I meant a healthy and fit fifty. But I'll bet you clean up well," she decided.
"Thanks," I said. "No offense taken."
"I could be wrong about how you clean up," she hedged.
"You probably are."
"Are you good at sailing?" she asked, then took a bite of her sub.
"Yes."
"I only ask because my life and Timmy's life are in your hands," she pointed out.
"Don't call me Timmy!" the youngster commanded firmly.
"And mine is in yours," I responded. "You'll be standing watch while I get some sleep, as soon as I think you're ready."
"I learn quickly," she said. "It won't take you long to trust me."
"Speaking of trust," I continued as I munched on the last of my sub, "I'm not going to have to be looking over my shoulder when we make landfall, hoping I don't see an ex- husband there, am I? Because I'm allergic to jealous ex-husbands, even when they have no need to be jealous."
She almost scowled. "I said I wasn't bringing any personal issues along," she reminded me. "I meant it."
I look at Timmy, who just then was wrapping his lips around a pound of sub.
She got the hint. "Well, except for Tim, of course."
"Of course." I looked at Tim. "Hey Tim, you need a rank. Everyone in the crew has a rank. I'm Skipper. Your mother is - " I hesitated. First mate? No, that sounded too familiar. " - Boatswain Treat. That's pronounced Bozun by all us old salts. You'll be Seaman Treat. That's you from now on. No Tim, no Timmy, unless you're off duty."
He grinned happily. "Okay. I like that better, Skipper."
"And when you agree with what either Bo's'n Treat or I tell you, or even if you don't, you say 'Aye Aye', and do whatever we've just told you to do."
He furrowed his brow. "When do I get to give an order?"
"You get to make suggestions, Seaman Treat. Like 'Skipper, don't you think we ought to reef the main?' Stuff like that."
"Am I in charge of anything?" he wanted to know.
"Fishing. After we head into warmer waters, we'll slow down every day to try catching supper. That's your job. You catch the fish. I'll show you some tricks that'll help you do that."
He liked that a lot. "And Bo's'n Treat has to clean them and make them for supper, right?" He grinned at his mother.
"Yeah." I almost laughed at the unhappy look on her face. I rubbed it in a bit more. "She's Bo's'n Treat, but she's also the cook."
* * *
I went to bed relatively early, about nine. The owner's stateroom seemed overly large, maybe because I felt restless. Cherry and Tim went to bed not long afterward, Tim's voice excited and thrilled at having his own stateroom and bathroom and computer and everything.
The boat quieted down. The nearby grain trains, passing tugs, the drawbridge horn once, and the slap of wake from passing boats intruded into my efforts to relax. I gave up after a time and went on deck, seating myself in a recliner and letting out a big sigh.
Cherry, in a knee-length white robe, joined me a few moments later. It was easy to see she had something on her mind. She lowered herself into the other recliner, her sleek legs reflecting some of the waterway's lights as she arranged herself comfortably.
"There's probably something else you should know," she started. She looked at me. "I know men find me attractive. But I don't swing that way."
"Oh." Crap, I thought. Fairy Godmother is laughing herself silly somewhere.
"I know you're thinking about Timmy. Well, I tried the straight life, the good wife charade, but except for Timmy, it didn't work out. I think I've always been a lesbian, but it took a marriage to make me realize that."
"Marriage makes most people realize a lot of things," I condescended, hiding my disappointment in philosophical tones. "But why are you telling me this?"
"I thought it'd - simplify things."
"Look, Bo's'n Treat," I responded after a moment of thinking. "I'm not the sort to make uninvited passes, and I'm also not the sort to risk angry ex-husbands. And since you're here as cook and crew instead of cabaña girl and courtesan, you can rest easy."
"I didn't intend to insult -" she began, but I cut her off.
"No insult inferred," I told her, my voice quiet out of consideration for any nearby live-aboards. "In fact, I was going to bring this sort of situation up during a discussion among the three of us. I'll summarize: a harmonious crew is even more important to a safe passage than a stout boat. I hope we have both, because more than we have to rely upon the boat itself, we have to be able to rely on each other. You and Seaman Treat can both rely on me utterly. And until I learn differently, I'll assume I can equally rely on the two of you."
"You can," she said, nodding her head. "I promise."
"I'm sure of it," I told her. "But if you have doubts about me - the sorts of doubts that would bring you to inform me of your irrelevant sexual preferences, for example - it might be wise to re-think staying on as crew. I'm prepared to single-hand. I've done it before." I sounded officious even to myself, then cracked a grin at the possible misinterpretation the term 'single-hand' might bring, especially in view of her lesbian status.
But she didn't bat an eye, at least not one I could see. She remained quiet, except for a single "Please accept my apologies." I did, then left her alone on the deck about fifteen minutes later, and fell immediately asleep in my stateroom.
* * *
I showered and shaved the next morning, then donned a more civilized tee shirt and a clean pair of cutoff Levis. I stayed barefoot. Looking in the mirror, I tried to decide what to do about looking better. I made no excuses: her approval meant something, even if she was a lez, which I didn't completely believe.
Haircut, I thought. What a mop. Fix that first.
We breakfasted on Danish and coffee. Seaman Treat also slugged down a couple blueberry pancakes which his mother put together for him, smelling up the main salon deliciously. Then it was back to work, adjusting this, replacing that, washing, waxing, re-packaging and stowing food and equipment, topping off the cavernous water tanks. We stopped for sandwiches for lunch, then kept on.
By six that evening she and I looked at each other. "Anything else, Skipper?" she asked.
I shook my head. "I think we're done. How about a late supper out?"
Her eyes shifted away. "I'd rather not," she said. "I can fix us a pizza here. Beer and pizza okay?"
"Yeah!" Seaman Treat shouted. "Pizza!"
He and I sat while his mother put that supper together.
"You'll need to find long-term parking for your truck," I told her. "I can take it to a friend's house for a few months, if you like." The widow of my best friend wouldn't mind watching it, I knew.
"No need," Cherry said. "I got rid of it."
"Oh." I let that drift around in my brain for a bit. "Too bad. Nice truck."
"Yes. But it's just a truck," she said, lifting the pizza out of the microwave.
When we'd all been served, she sat across from me. For a moment we regarded each other. "Any reason we can't leave after breakfast?" she asked, her eyes not wavering from mine.
That surprised me. I'd planned on one more day in port, but for the life of me I couldn't think of anything important to do there, other than get a haircut. "I'd planned on a haircut tomorrow, but there's no reason I can't put it off for another month. Breakfast at six?"
"Okay. And then we'll go, Seaman Treat!" She lightly punched him on his shoulder. "Aren't you excited?"
"Yes!" And he clearly was.
She looked back at me. "I'll trim your hair once we get under way."
"Cook and barber," I observed. "Seaman Treat and I have stumbled into luck."
"Wait until you see your haircut," she suggested, "before you decide about your luck."
After supper, when the dishes had been cleaned up and stowed, I walked the trash out to the dumpster near the wharf's gate. She walked with me. "Tell me about the boat," she suggested as we walked up the ramp. "It looks unusual."
"It is," I said, lifting the dumpster lid and tossing in the bag of trash. "What sorts of unusual things did you notice?"
"The mast doesn't look like either wood or metal. And it's huge across the bottom."
"Good eye," I complimented her. "It's some sort of carbon fiber and fiberglass combination. My late buddy, who designed this boat, had it specially built. You can see how it gradually tapers to a more slender diameter at the top."
"Yes, I see that," she acknowledged. "And I noticed that those wires holding the mast from each side aren't metal. All the other boats around here have metal wires." She gestured toward the other sailboats nearby. "Are they as strong as metal wires?"
"Yes. In fact, the mast doesn't even need those shroud lines, but my buddy was an over-builder. Everything is much stronger than it needs to be. Better safe than sorry, he always said, and what's a few pounds when it comes to peace of mind?"
She nodded. "That's reassuring. But why not metal wires?"
"He didn't want metal standing rigging. More things to break, he used to say. So the only metal stay is the head foil, that aluminum extrusion you see running from the bow to the top of the mast. We wouldn't need that, except we have to deploy a furling genoa somehow. The shroud lines - the cable-looking things you noticed on each side of the mast - are a composite fiber, mostly aramid. Very strong, won't corrode, very little stretch. We have no backstay, or more correctly the mainsheet and topping lift perform that function. And with that smaller amount of metal sticking up in the air, we present a very small radar target."
She raised her eyes to mine, the sun on her face causing her to squint. "Is that good?" she asked.
"It is if you plan to sail where he and I wanted to sail," I answered. "Some parts of the world are dangerous - pirates - and keeping our radar return to a minimum is a survival technique in those areas. But we can fly a reflector when we want one. In fact, it's already deployed." I pointed to it. "It's that round thing hanging below the port spreader there. Looks like a couple of pie tins. We can run it down in a heartbeat when we need to, but we won't need to on our trip. We'll leave it up so that ships can spot us."
"Oh. Then the strange paint job, all shades of blue and white -" she began.
"Yes. It's a form of camouflage. The boat will be hard to see, both from the surface and from the air. There have been stories about pirates scouting from the air, then sending out their boats. Of course, this camouflage is a double edged sword; we'll have to assume that no one can see us, so we'll have to be especially vigilant so that we don't get run over by a container ship or something."
We walked back toward the boat. About halfway down the ramp to the wharf Cherry stopped. Below us the cat gleamed, freshly waxed with splotches of different colors from the blue Bimini - which in the northwest was actually a rain fly - the deck recliners, and odd bits of hardware here and there.
"What are those two black areas there?" she asked, pointing amidships.
"Convective solar hot water heating," I explained. "It's a built-in way of making about twenty gallons of hundred and fifteen degree water a day for each amah, according to our math. I haven't been able to get it hotter than a hundred and five so far, but -" I shrugged - "look where we are. Some people call this the Frozen North."
She laughed. "Neat! And they appear to be smoothed right in to the tops of the amahs."
"They are. In fact, they're an integral part of each hull, faired right in and stronger than the surrounding glass. They're half-inch Lexan."
She pointed toward the stern. "The propellers are out of the water. How can they possibly move the boat?"
"That's something I insisted on," I bragged. "We don't drag the props when the engines aren't running. We lift them clear. That took a little special engineering, I don't mind saying. There are a lot of skeptics about how well it will work. We'll see."
She looked up at me, an eyebrow lifting. "You mean you don't know if it'll work?"
"Oh it'll work," I hastily assured her. "The question of how reliable and maintainable they'll be over the long term is still open, though. But that'll be the new owner's issue to explore. We won't need them much for this trip."
She turned her gaze back to the boat. "I sailed sixteen-foot catamarans at camp when I was fourteen," she told me. "It was fun."
"This is just a bigger version, Cherry - I mean, Bo's'n Treat. Sorry."
She ignored my familiarity. "The boom on the mast seems pretty long."
"My late buddy thought that without a backstay to contend with, there was no need to limit boom length. So, as you can see, we didn't. The low aspect main is a big hunka Dacron. Thank goodness we have electrical furling in the boom and hydraulic winches, because without them, handling that main and balancing the helm would be challenging. Nothing I couldn't handle, of course, but I'd probably arrive in Tutuila - the main island of American Samoa - with bigger biceps and broader shoulders."
She looked back at me without acknowledging my humility. "So how well does she sail?"
"I don't know. We've never sailed her. We just finished putting her together today, if you remember."
She didn't actually drop her jaw, but surprise was evident in her eyes. "You're taking a brand new, experimental boat all the way to American Samoa the very first time you sail her?"
I grinned. "Yep. Best way I know to shake out the loose stuff is to put out to sea."
She frowned. "But isn't that risky? What if we sink?"
"We won't sink, Bo's'n Treat. We could take a chain saw to her, chop her up into a half-dozen pieces, and none of them would sink." Not quite true, but close enough. The engine compartments in the stern of each amah would certainly sink.
She seemed less than assured, but turned back to the boat. "That big storage area just behind the trampoline." She pointed. "It runs all the way across the boat, from one amah to the other. What do you keep in there?"
"Sails. If you look in there now, you'll see a self-tacking ninety percent jib with all the necessary hardware, a self-tacking staysail, a storm staysail, and another Genoa just like the one already furled on the head stay. It's a sail locker, something most boats need badly. We built the mother of all sail lockers there."
"You're going to have to explain more about those sails as we go along," she said, "because I don't understand a word of what you just said." She leaned back against the hand rail and cocked one pretty knee.
She's in no hurry to get back to Tim, I thought. That's fine with me. Neither am I. "You'll have plenty of time to learn all that and more, Bo's'n Treat -"
She held up her hand. "I'd rather you call me Cherry when we're away from Tim, Skipper."
"Okay. First names when we're ashore. Never can tell what little ears might pick up while afloat on a small boat."
She smiled. "I was right about you. You do clean up well."
Whoa! What was that about? "You know, it's customary to celebrate a last night ashore with cocktails and music. What do you say?"
"Sure. But let's celebrate on the boat. That way Timmy can join us. He likes parties."
Right. Gently done, lass. "Sure. And I'll be bartender." We started back toward the boat. "What do you like to drink?"
She screwed up her face into a frown. "Shirley Temples, Hoot, for now."
Hoo - Hah! Miss Carpet Muncher is being careful, I thought with surprise. Why? I eyed her askance, not sure what a good reply might be.
She saw my uncertainty. "I do drink, Hoot. But not tonight. And I hope you'll keep introducing me as Abigail and Timmy as Chuck."
"Sure. What's Chuck like to drink?"
She smiled. "Root beer."
* * *
The party was one of those slow to build affairs; a few wharf friends, then a few cell calls and more friends, then friends of friends, music, drinks, snacks, kids, wives, flirting, a couple fights, and so on. By eleven or so the party was in full swing, everyone except Cherry and Tim half looped and in terrific moods, with some of my friends asking me where the devil did I find the babe. I smiled and said I advertised for her.
Ron and John brought a half-dozen mylar helium balloons to the party, with Bon Voyage and Come Back Soon sentiments on them. One balloon, though, was heart-shaped and bright red. Ron grinned at me. "For luck," he told me. I stuck them below in the spares and tool room, at the stern of the port amah.
It took until about one to empty the boat of happy partiers, By one thirty Cherry and Tim and I slept.
Stang Treat stared out the wall-sized window of his fourteenth story office on the Columbia River in Portland, Oregon. Broad-shouldered in his lightweight alpaca jacket, his hands clasped behind him as he watched the river traffic far below, he appeared oblivious to the presence of his Chief of Security, standing by the office door behind him.
"She can't have just evaporated," Stang said in soft tones, his eyes still on the boats below. "A woman like her doesn't just turn to vapor. She's noticeable. She and Tim went into Nordstrom's to shop. You had a tail on her. She had to come out. Three days later, you tell me she still hasn't come out? She hasn't come out, but she isn't in the store? She has to be somewhere, you clown! Everyone has to be SOMEWHERE! How the hell could you lose someone like that?" He turned to stare at his Chief of Security.
Mel Garde looked uneasy. His boss's ice-blue eyes held deadly promise, an implied threat as they stared at him from a strong-jawed mid-forties face. "She charged a few hundred dollars' worth of clothing and accessories at Nordstrom's. A woman of her description had her hair dyed and styled at the hairdresser's in the store," he reported. "She's a blonde now, her hair still long and loosely curled. I didn't learn that until hours after the store closed. She probably changed clothes, got her hair done, and walked out right past our tail, a different woman. Timmy also had his hair done. My guess is they separated, and met someplace after they left the store."
"And then caught a bus or stole a car," Stang bitched, shaking his silver locks. "She's too smart to have tried to fly out. Jesus, sometimes I wonder why I bother with security. Any reports of stolen vehicles in the area?"
Mel frowned. "In Portland? On any given day about two dozen are reported stolen within a mile radius of Nordstrom's. That day wasn't any exception. I've got feelers out on all the thefts. If any turn up interesting, we'll be on it and I'll let you know immediately."
"What about boats?" Stang asked, staring at his chief of security.
"Boats?" Mel asked, surprised.
"Yes, Mel," he said gently in deep sarcasm. "Boats. This is Portland. Lots of boats. Hell, I've got two of them myself. Everyone has a boat. Did you check to see if she might have taken passage?"
Mel Garde flipped his cell phone open. He conversed for perhaps thirty seconds. He closed the phone. "We're on it," he told his boss nervously. "We're checking both passenger and private departures."
"Trains?"
"Of course. We didn't forget those. No trace so far."
Stang leaned over his desk, riveting Mel with deadly eyes. "If she gets to the press, I'm a cooked goose," he reminded his chief of security. "But before I'm cooked, I'm going to have you for lunch, you understand?"
"Yes, sir," Mel nodded, suddenly greasy with the sweat of fear.
"And just in case you might be thinking of leaving my employ without announcement, you should know that would be a bad idea. Now find my son and daughter immediately! You understand?"
"Yes, sir."
"Then get it done, sir!"
Mel Garde left the office, knees weak and his mind a morass of fear about his life expectancy. This would be his last job for that perverted SOB, he promised himself. Finish this, then get the hell away while he still had his skin.
Stang Treat lowered himself into in his leather chair and put his hands behind his head. Across the room his large, beveled glass mirror showed his image, the icon of a man of power. Trim as befits a man of action, ice-water eyes, jet-black hair, implacably uncompromising, Stang Treat projected massive self assurance. Yet his stomach soured with anxiety.
"Shit," he muttered. "All those years, all that planning, all that work, and now this."
He swivelled around and stared down at the Columbia River. Busy today, he mused. A lot of boat traffic. They could be right there, and I'd never know it.
* * *
"We have an odd report," Mel told his boss by cell phone eighteen hours later. "Ellensburg cops recovered a stolen Dodge pickup. The perp swears he stole it, all right, but he got it from Tacoma, up on the hilltop area. Keys were in it, he says, the doors unlocked, parked on a dark street just waiting for someone to steal it. The registered owner says he left the vehicle in a parking lot near Nordstrom's in Portland. He recalls bumping into an attractive blonde with a young boy as he left the parking lot. He apologized, helped her up, the boy hit him a few times in anger before she dragged him away. He didn't notice that his keys were missing until hours later, when he also noticed his truck was missing."
Stang put down his wine glass and waved his female companion away. She left compliantly, as she had been trained, her steps mincing in her gaiters and her kimono swishing expensively. He looked around. Alone. "That had to be her. And Timmy is a wizard with sleight-of-hand magic tricks. I wouldn't put it past him to have learned to pick a pocket, too. She's switched transportation. Five choices: another stolen vehicle, busses, Amtrak, air, or - need I say it? Boat."
"We're checking," Mel said. "Twelve men are on it. And she might have decided to hole up, although I think that's a pretty slim bet. But we are checking. Someone has to have seen a looker like your daughter, sir. No offense."
"None taken. She is a looker. Use that word while you look for her."
"I will, sir."
"And don't kill them yet. Not until we know what she's done, and how. Where are you now?"
"Tacoma. If the perp is telling the truth, she ditched the truck in Tacoma. So I'll see if I can pick her trail up here."
* * *
Mel started early the next morning, checking the various marinas in the area. Four teams of men were allocated to this task, and they'd divided up the collection of marinas around Commencement Bay between them. His plan was to talk to people who lived aboard their boats. He'd flash Cherry's picture as a luxuriously coiffed brunette and a computer rendering showing her in blonde hair, and ask if they might have seen a woman looking like either of these two. The other three teams had identical pictures to use.
First stop was the Tacoma Marina. At six fifteen a.m. he approached the gate for piers A through F. Two hundred feet ahead of him a long, expensive yacht edged carefully away from the end of the wharf. A small crowd of well-wishers helped them depart, then waved their good-byes as the boat pulled out into the waterway. Mel smiled and shook his head. The money some people have to play with, he thought with a sigh.
A man stood at the helm of that yacht, Mel saw. A trim woman in white sleeveless blouse and shorts, fending off the early sun with a straw hat and sunglasses, sat near him. A kid stood on the trampoline at the bow, holding onto the furled headsail with one hand. The family reeked of money.
Jesus, he thought. What a lifestyle! Not even breakfast time yet, and those folks are away for a sail on that odd-looking catamaran. He guessed its length to be about sixty feet. A sea-goer, he thought. He couldn't make out a name on the craft.
I've got to find a way to get out of this business and live like an ordinary person, he thought to himself. Soon, he promised himself for a hundredth time. I've got enough blood money. Get this last bit of wet work done and retire.
The kid at the bow of the boat turned and started back across the trampoline toward the cockpit. He wobbled precariously on the elastic netting. The woman stood and shouted "Timmy! Be careful!"