Beast (18 page)

Talley looked stricken. Darling leaned back, smiled and said to Manning, “You do have a way with words.”

“I’m tired of this crap, Captain. Here’s the way it is: I could have chartered a boat, there were people up and down the coast dying to come. But your pigheaded government has so many rules and regulations, so many permits and licenses, so many fees and duties, that it would have taken months to set it up. So I have to use locals, and that means using you. You’re the best. As I see it, we’ve got only one problem, you and I, and that’s money. I haven’t come up with the right figure yet. Tell me, then. Tell me your price.”

Darling looked at him for a long moment, then he said, “Let me tell you how I see it, Mr. Manning. You are rich and you are a Yankee, but I don’t hold those against you. What makes you an asshole is that you think money will bring your children back. You think killing the beast will. Well, it won’t. You can’t buy yourself peace.”

“I have to try, Captain.”

“Okay,” Darling said. “You’ve laid down your cards; here are mine. I’ve got two hundred and fifty thousand dollars wrapped up in my boat, and, no question, I could use your money. But the only other asset I’ve got is wrapped up in these clothes, and if I lose that asset, my personal worth is zero.” He stood up. “So thanks but no thanks.” He nodded at Talley, and walked out.

“Think about it, Captain,” Manning called after him.

When Darling had gone, Talley finished his drink, sighed and said, “I must say, Osborn, you were—”

“Don’t tell me how to do business,” Manning said. “Charm wouldn’t have worked any better. We understand one another, Darling and I. We may not like one another, but we understand one another.” He signaled to Shilly for the check.

Talley was furious. This couldn’t be happening. Everything had gone so well. He had a blank check from Manning, had meshed his own obsession with Manning’s and had created a common purpose. He could buy anything he wanted, and had: the best equipment, the newest, the most sophisticated.

Best of all, he had a plan.

But now the final thing he needed, the last cog in his elaborate machine, was not available.

He had to hide his discouragement from Manning, in case it might become contagious. If Manning canceled his check, thirty years of research, of hopes, of dreams, would vanish like steam.

They did not speak again until they were in the parking lot, and then Manning said, “How much do we know about Darling?”

“Just reputation. He’s the best around.”

“No … about him … personally.”

“Nothing.”

“Nose around, see what you can learn. There’s not a man alive who doesn’t have enemies. Find one. Throw money at him. Tell him you want to know everything there is to know: dirt, gossip, lies, rumors. Start with the fishermen. Small community, no work, no money … I’ll bet they’re worse than actors—they’ll sell their own mothers for the chance to ruin a competitor.”

“You want to destroy the man? Why?”

“No. I want to control him, but I can’t until I know what there is to know. Old truism, Talley: Knowledge is power. I’ll go downtown in the morning, talk to some people, cash a few chips.”

“Talk about what?”

“Weaknesses … liabilities. Another old truism: Every man has his price. All we have to do is find Darling’s, and then he’s ours.”

Charlotte was waiting in the kitchen when Darling arrived home. When he had finished telling her about the evening, she kissed him and said, “I’m proud of you.”

“Five thousand a day.” Darling shook his head. “I could’ve gotten ten days’ work out of it, maybe more.”

“Yes, but then … ?”

Darling put an arm around her. “You could’ve thrown me a hell of a funeral.”

Charlotte didn’t smile. She looked up at him and said, “Just remember your promise, William. Don’t get involved with people who’ve got nothing to lose.”

THE WHEEL WAS huge, and it took both hands and all her concentration to control it. It was a circle of stainless steel, four feet across, and it seemed to have a life of its own, wanting to yank away from her and let the boat fall off the wind and wallow. It reminded her of an unruly horse. The answer was to show it who was boss; then it would behave.

Katherine wasn’t about to make a mistake now, not after waiting for three days and nights for the chance to take the helm, listening to her father and Timmy and David and the others talk about how tough the boat was to steer in a quartering sea, how it took a man’s strength to control the boat, how they should wait for the wind to die down and the conditions to be just right … blah, blah, blah.

She sat up straight and braced her knees against the wheel post and gripped the wheel so tightly that her fingers began to cramp. The muscles in her arms already ached, and soon, she knew, they would begin to sting.

Timmy lounged on the cushions beside her. Up forward, David and Peter were sprawled on the deck, working on their tans. They had nothing to do now, on a broad reach, except wait until it was time for the next watch to take over.

“Come off a bit,” said Timmy.

“Why?”

” ‘Cause there’s a flutter of luff in the main.” Timmy pointed to the top of the mainsail. “Jeez … why do you think?”

She looked up, squinting at the brilliance of the white sail against the blue sky. Timmy was right, which annoyed her; it was something she should have seen herself. Or heard. Noticed, anyway. But the luff was so tiny, so insignificant, that she couldn’t believe it would make a difference.

She heaved on the wheel, turning it to the right, until she saw the trailing edge of the sail stop quivering. The boat heeled to starboard, and she had to brace herself with her feet.

“That’s got it,” Timmy said.

“Thank heavens. I’m sure glad you saw that. Now we’ll win for sure.”

“Hey, Kathy … it’s a race.”

“Could’ve fooled me.”

There wasn’t another boat in sight. How many had started? Fifty? A hundred? She had no idea. Enough so that the starting line had looked like a riot, with boats zigzagging back and forth and people yelling at each other and horns blowing. But as the hours had passed, the numbers had seemed to shrink: fewer and fewer boats nearby, then fewer and fewer in sight, as if one by one they were being swallowed up by the sea. She knew that all that was happening was that each captain was trying his own strategy, going off on his own tacks, using computers and experience and guesswork and, for all she knew, voodoo to find the perfect combination of wind and tide and current that would give him an edge.

Still, it was eerie to be alone on the ocean like this. The boat was almost fifty feet long, and down below it seemed as big as a house, but up here—with the waves on either side and the horizon stretching forever and the sky completely empty—it felt as tiny as a bug on a carpet.

Her father stuck his head up through the hatch. “How’s it going, Muffin?”

She had begged him to call her Katherine. Just for this trip. Or Kathy. Anything but Muffin.

“Fine, Daddy.”

“How’s she doing, Tim?”

Be nice, she prayed. Don’t be a typical shithead brother.

“Pretty good …” Tim said.

Thank you …

“… only a little absentminded now and then.”

Shithead!

“We just raised Bermuda on the radar … edge of the fifty-mile ring.”

“Great!” Katherine said, hoping that was the right thing to say.

“Sure is. Means we can cruise right along all night, and if we’re lucky hit the channel just after daybreak. We don’t want to try it in the dark.”

“God, no,” said Tim. “Remember last year?”

“Don’t remind me.”

Of course, Katherine thought. Last year. When I wasn’t there. That’s when the excitement always happens: when I’m not there.

Her father started to pull his head back, then stopped and said, “Funny thing … Bermuda Harbour Radio’s broadcasting a Notice to Mariners about some animal that’s attacking boats.”

“A whale?” Katherine said. “Maybe it’s sick.”

“I don’t know, I think they’re just trying to juice up tourism, play on the Bermuda Triangle thing. Anyway, no point taking chances. Put your lifeline on whenever you move around.”

“Daddy, it’s not even rough.”

“I know, Muffin, but better safe than sorry.” He smiled. “I promised your mother I’d take extra-special care of you.” He gestured to Tim, then backed down into the cabin.

Tim sat up, reached over to Katherine’s life jacket, unwrapped her jury-rigged lifeline and snapped it into the steel ring on the wheel post.

“What about yours?” she said. “You’re not even wearing a life jacket.”

“I’ve done this race three times,” Tim said. “I think I know how to walk around a boat.”

“So do I!”

“Argue with Dad, then, not me. I’m just following orders.” Tim smiled at her and lay back on the cushions.

She flexed her fingers to quell the cramps, and shifted her weight to try to ease the strain on her arms and shoulders. She wasn’t wearing a watch, had no idea how much longer she had to wrestle with this stupid wheel. Not too much longer, she hoped, or she’d have to ask Tim to take over for her, and he’d make some crack that would put her down—nothing mean, really, just some dumb macho remark.

She wasn’t a quitter. She had pleaded to come on this trip, and she was determined to do her share, including standing watches. She knew that her brothers had argued against her coming along, and that if her mother hadn’t sat her father down and had a heart-to-heart talk with him about fairness and equality and all the rest, she’d be back in Far Hills teaching tennis to ten-year-olds. She owed it to her mother, and to herself, to prove that she could be an asset, not a liability.

But she couldn’t wait for it to be over, to get to Bermuda and spend a couple of days lying on the beach and tooling around on a motorbike, while her father and the others talked sailing over drinks at the Yacht Club—no, the Dinghy Club, they called it here. Cute.

Then she’d fly home, that had been the deal. Thank God.

She couldn’t fathom the mystique of big-boat sailing, although she feigned enthusiasm and tried her best to master obscure terms like “klew cringle” and “running backstay.”

She enjoyed day sailing in small boats at the shore. It was fun to spend a couple of hours on the water, racing against friends, yahooing around, sometimes even capsizing—but then going home to a hot shower and decent food and a good night’s sleep.

But this: This was a marathon of boredom, discomfort and fatigue. Nobody slept more than four or five hours a day. Nobody bathed. She had tried to take a shower once, but had fallen down twice and cut her head on the soap dish, so had resigned herself to sponging off whatever she could reach whenever she could. Everything felt soggy. Everything stank of salt and mold. The entire belowdecks smelled like a giant wet sneaker. You needed a graduate degree in engineering to operate the toilets. Both of them clogged at least once a day, and blame inevitably fell on Katherine and the only other female on board, David’s stuck-up girlfriend Evan … as if girls somehow conspired against marine plumbing. Katherine had been appointed “assistant chief cook and bottle washer,” which turned out to be a bad joke because how can you cook anything decent when the whole boat is always tilted at an angle so you can barely stand up? All she had been able to do was keep hot coffee and soup available day and night, and sandwich makings in a Tupperware bowl in the sink for whoever wanted something more.

She wouldn’t have minded any of the bad stuff if there had been enough good stuff to compensate, but as far as she could tell, ocean racing—in good weather, at least— consisted of a lot of talk, a lot of sitting around, and about half an hour a day of frantic action, during which her contribution was to stay out of the way.

Katherine had concluded that it must all have something to do with male bonding, and while she was glad to have seen it firsthand, she would be perfectly happy henceforth to hear about it and to smile politely at her brothers’ tales of heroics on the high seas.

Her arms and shoulders were shrieking now; she had no choice; she’d have to turn the wheel over to Tim.

But then suddenly—blessedly—the watch changed. Her father and her uncle Lou came up through the hatch to relieve her and Tim, and Lou’s two boys went forward to replace David and Peter.

“Good job, sweetheart,” her father said as he slid behind the wheel. “Right on course.”

“You have any idea how we’re doing?” Tim asked.

“Hard to tell. I think we’ve got a shot at second or third in our class. Lot of boats on the radar, but I can’t tell what they are.”

Katherine unsnapped her lifeline from the steel ring and went below. She took off her life jacket and tossed it on her bunk. Tim squeezed by her and went forward into the fo’c’sle and flung himself on one of the bunks. Didn’t even take his shoes off. No wonder the place smelled like a gym.

Katherine decided to have a cup of soup and read for a while, until she fell asleep. Nothing else to do.

She heard her father shout, “Ready about!” Footsteps hammered on the fiberglass overhead. She gripped the railing of the top bunk, where Evan was asleep and snoring like a chain saw, and braced herself.

“Hard alee!” called her father, and the boat righted itself and hung there for a second and then, as the boom came around and the sail caught the wind with a whump!, it heeled to port. There was a clatter of crockery in the sink, as dirty cups shifted and tumbled over one another.

She should wash the cups. That was her job. But it was Evan’s job, too, and Evan hadn’t bothered, she’d just gone to sleep. To heck with it; she’d wash them later. She rinsed one cup and poured some soup for herself and drank it down.

On her way back to her bunk, she stopped and looked at the radar screen. It glowed like a green video game. A yellow line swept clockwise in a circle, flashing golden blips that she knew were other boats. At the top of the screen was a ragged smear.

Hello, Bermuda, she thought. Save some sun for me. And maybe, while you’re at it, a good-looking lifeguard. One who hates sailboats.

She was glad she had looked—it made her feel less alone.