The Crimes of Jordan Wise (15 page)

"Being sensible. Being careful. Trying to keep us safe."

"Careful, right. Another of your favorite words. You don't sound like Richard anymore, you know that? You sound like that tightassed accountant back in San Francisco, Jordan what's his name."

"Now who's spouting bullshit?"

"You are. Control, careful, sensible, safe. What happened to all the excitement you promised me?"

"Haven't you had enough already?"

"No! I'll never have enough. I told you a long time ago how it was with me. I can't stand the way we've been living, all safe and careful. I want to take risks again, live on the edge again. Feel alive again."

"There's a big difference between living on the edge and crossing the line. We're fugitives, for Christ's sake."

"You're
a fugitive, not me. I don't know anything about what Jordan Wise did, I only know Richard Laidlaw. Remember?"

"If we're cought, no matter what you say or I say, you could still be convicted as an accessory. You think your life is dull and confining now? Imagine how it'd be in a prison cell!"

That was the first big fight we had, but not the last. She was contrite when she sobered up, and for a while she reined herself in. She still hung out with JoEllen, but there were no more drunk-driving incidents; I told her I'd take the car keys away from her and cut off her access to the joint bank account if she ever came home loaded again.

But then the holidays rolled up, and there was the night of the Verrikers' annual Christmas party.

Annalise didn't want to go, which would've been all right with me, but at the last minute she changed her mind. She and Maureen were stiff with each other when we arrived, avoided each other after that. At one point I asked Verriker what the problem was between them; he shrugged and said, "Beats me." Usually at parties Annalise was animated and charming, and restrained in her drinking. At this one she kept refilling her glass at the punchbowl, and the more she drank, the more erratic her behavior became.

I didn't realize how drunk she was until she dropped and shattered her glass on the floor tiles and then upset somebody's plate of hors d'oelivres. I was trying to ease her out of there without making a scene, when she said, in a voice loud enough for Verriker and some of the other guests to hear, "Oh, for Christ's sake, why can't you just let me enjoy myself? So I spilled a drink and some food, so what? I'm not gonna spill the beans, you know. Secrets are safe with me, yours, everybody's. My Ups're sealed."

"Be quiet!" I snapped at her.

"Whoops," she said. "Oh, shit."

Verriker said, "Maybe you'd better take her home, Richard."

"Yeah. Right away."

I dragged her out of there. When I got her into the house I cought her arms and shook her, hard. "Are you crazy? Are you trying to get us cought?"

"God, no." She wasn't fighting me. The night air had sobered her a little; she seemed horrified by what she'd done. "I don't know what happened. . . . It just slipped out. . . ."

"How many other times has something just slipped out'? To Maureen, to JoEllen, to Christ knows who else?"

"Never—never! First and last time, I swear."

"It better be the last time," I said. "I mean it, Annalise. Don't ever get drunk enough in public to make a slip like that again. If you do . . ."

She swore she wouldn't. Over Christmas and New Year's she controlled her drinking, stayed home most evenings. We still weren't spending a lot of time in each other's company—work on the yawl was nearing completion and I was putting in long hours at the marina—but when we were together, she seemed to make an effort to be reasonable and good-natured. No more pressure about moving, no more bitchy behavior, a couple of sessions in bed that she didn't treat as duty fucks. I felt relieved. It looked as if she'd gotten her perspective back and the bad patch was beginning to smooth out at last.

She was a thing of beauty by then, a sight to make you catch your breath when you stood off on the stringpiece and looked at her in the slanting rays of the sun. Her spars and brightwork, her hull and deckhouse gleamed with thick coats of varnish and blue and white paint, her brass was shined to a high gloss, her new Dacron sails had a freshly laundered dazzle when unfurled. The ship-to-shore radio worked fine. The overhauled auxiliary diesel ran without a hitch during every ten-minute test run. In the cockpit, all the gauges and dials were in perfect working order and the new compass sat bright and shiny in its gimbals. Belowdecks, the marine refrigerator and primus stove in the tiny galley were in order, the ventilators and new bilge pump worked fine, every fitting and connection had passed muster.

And she was mine, all mine.

January and February are usually optimum cruising months in the eastern Caribbean. Clear weather, light winds, calm seas. I picked an arbitrary sail date, the twenty-eighth, which fit into Bone's schedule. Then I gave Annalise a full week's advance notice. She wasn't thrilled at the prospect of four days on a thirty-four-foot yawl, but when I reminded her of her promise, she agreed to honor it. I asked her if she wanted to come down to the harbor early and see what all the months of hard work had accomplished; she said no, she'd wait and be surprised on the twenty-eighth. I thought about inviting Jack Scanlon and the Kyles for a look, decided it could wait until after the shakedown voyage. The only people I really cared to share the yawl with until then were Annalise and Bone.

I plotted out a course that would take us south around St. John, up through Flanagan Passage into Sir Francis Drake Channel, along the east coast of Virgin Gorda and out across the Hawks Bill Bank; we'd swing north by northeast near Horseshoe Reef and run due east through deep water outside the dangerous coral heads that ring Ane-gada, then drop down across the Kingfish Banks and home to St. Thomas through the Virgin's Gangway. Bone approved. It would be a good long test of
Annalise's
seaworthiness, and there were anchorages on Tortola, Guana Island, and Virgin Gorda, and a safe harbor at Ane-gada for emergencies or if any of us felt like an overnight stop.

The long-range forecast promised perfect sailing weather for the four-day period beginning on the twenty-eighth. The day before, Bone and I loaded in stores, topped off the fuel and water tanks, put fresh linens on one of the vee bunks up forward for him and on the double berth in the main cabin for Annalise and me. I ran the engine for ten minutes one more time, even though there hadn't been any tendency toward overheating; the gauge held steady at 140 degrees. Fussily, I even rechecked the gland nut in the stuffing box for any looseness that might cause leakage.

At six that night, the yawl was ready for sea.

At six the next morning, Annalise refused to go along.

She didn't feel well, she said. She thought maybe she was coming down with something, she said. It made her seasick just thinking about being out on the water, she said. I suspected that she was faking, but she sounded so apologetic and sincere, I didn't call her on it. I offered to postpone the trip; she said no, she felt bad enough as it was, she didn't want to deprive me of my pleasure. Why didn't Bone and I just go ahead, she'd come along next time, swear to God she would. I was disappointed and a little upset, but what could I do short of branding her a liar and shanghaiing her? She kept urging me to go, and so finally I went.

As soon as the yawl was out of the harbor and under sail, tacking up against a light southeasterly breeze, I forgot my disappointment and I forgot Annalise. Reality isn't always as wonderful as the anticipation of it, but in this case it was even better.
Annalise
handled like a dream. There is no other feeling like standing at the helm of your own boat, the wind in your face and the sea smell in your nostrils, listening to the hiss of the water and the wind-fattened sheets singing and the lines, shrouds, and stays thrumming in accompaniment. It's more than just exhilaration, a rush or a high. It's freedom and wonder and a kind of pure and innocent joy. I've never put much stock in religion, but there's something spiritual about it, too, an almost mystical connection of man to nature. If there is a God, the closest I've ever gotten or will ever get to Him is the days and nights I spent on that yawl at sea.

We were out four full days, and it was superb sailing the entire time. Running down the trades at four and five knots, the deep water an ever-changing mosaic of blues and greens topped by foaming crests, puffy white trade-wind clouds that never banked or darkened. Even the routine of sea-keeping—checking the chafe points on sheets and sails, restowing shifted supplies, all the other little chores—was a pleasure. We stood watch and watch, four hours on and four hours off; the man on watch steered and trimmed sail, the man off watch did the cooking and bilge-pumping and slept when he could.

We didn't talk much; there was no need for conversation. All your senses are heightened at sea, your thoughts clear and sharp, and you'd much rather tune in on them than on spoken words. The nights were even better than the days, with the vast, star-shot sky draped low overhead and the water sometimes black as oil, sometimes glistening with starshine and luminescent moon tracks.

When we got back to St. Thomas I docked the yawl without a bump, whisper smooth. Bone said, "Good job, Cap'n"—he'd taken to calling me Cap'n on the cruise, a term of respect—and I grinned and nodded. I felt as I had the afternoon I walked out of Amthor Associates for the last time. Apart from ordinary men, above them at a great height. Happier, more content than they could ever be.

The illusion, the delusion, lasted until I walked through the front door of the Quartz Gade villa.

And found that Annalise was gone.

Gone from the house, gone from the island—destination unknown. Vanished into thin air, just as Jordan Wise had vanished from San Francisco.

Everything of value that she could pack into her three suitcases went with her. Jewelry, hers and mine both. Clothing. The antique music box and a handful of gold doubloons we'd bought on St. Martin and all the gold and silver trinkets. The only thing she left behind was the brass-bound pirate's chest, and that was only because it was too bulky and too heavy to be easily transported.

Money, too?

Oh, hell, yes. All the cash from the safe deposit box, everything in the joint bank account, more than $26,000. If any of the stocks had been negotiable for her, they would've been gone as well. If she'd had access to the Cayman account, she'd have plundered that and left me with exactly the same amount she had left in the joint account.

One dollar.

One fucking dollar.

And there wasn't a damn thing I could do about it.

When I couldn't stand the empty house or my own miserable company any longer, I cleaned up and got out of there. I needed to talk to somebody, and the only one I could confide in was Bone.

He listened to me unload as much as I dared to, without interrupting. His face showed no emotion, but I could tell that he empathized; we were friends and he'd gone through the same kind of thing himself with the second wife whose name he wouldn't mention. He didn't offer any bullshit advice, as most men would have. All he said was, "You hurting bad, Richard. Mon hurts like that, only one thing to do. Go out. Let wind and sea wash out the poison."

I said, "Will you go with me?"

"No, mon. No place for Bone on that kind of trip."

"Alone? I couldn't do it. I'm not ready to singlehand."

"You're ready," he said. "You never be more ready."

The next day I put in fresh stores, fuel, water. Then I painted a new name on the yawl's transom and reregistered her with the harbormaster's office. Annalise was gone; I wanted
Annalise
gone, too. Her new name, picked at random, was
Windrunner.

The day after that, I left early into a stiff wind and an uncertain forecast. I had no idea where I was going. If I succeeded as a singlehander, fine. If I screwed up badly enough so that the yawl lost a mast or broached and went down, so be it. I didn't much care then, either way.

I set sail to windward on a starboard tack and let the trades take me wherever they felt like. I had a little trouble handling her at first, without Bone's sure hand with the rigging and the Dacron, and came close once to a bad jibe. But the lessons I'd learned from him, plus instinct and applied skill, allowed me to regain and maintain control.

The not-caring didn't last long. Singlehanding a thirty-four-foot yawl is work, hard work, and requires constant vigilance even under optimum conditions. When you have a passion for sailing, the work soon translates to pleasure and then to that sense of exhilarating freedom. I
could
singlehand. I was on my own boat, alone on the open sea. Everything else diminishes after a while, loses some of its importance—even betrayal and a suddenly brutalized love.

By nightfall I was no longer running aimlessly. I reckoned my position by compass and celestial navigation, used the nautical almanacs and logarithmic tables to chart a course that would take
Windrunner
on a broad loop around St. Croix, and put her on the right coordinates.

The weather held until the afternoon of the third day, when I encountered a rain squall off East Point on the northeastern tip of St. Croix. That was the only real test of my seamanship that I faced. A following breeze had risen, and before long the swells steepened and there was a rough cross chop. Then, as the wind increased, I saw the squall line moving in dark and fast. I double-checked the hatches, lashed down the loose gear, then went forward to replace the genoa with a working jib, again to reef in the main, and one more time to replace the working jib with the storm jib. Rain burst over the yawl in a blinding tropical downpour. The squall lasted about an hour, but despite the driving rain and thrashing sea it wasn't bad as Caribbean blows go.
Windrunner
showed no desire to broach, and I rode it out with the wheel tied down and a lifeline fastened around my waist and clipped to a backstay.

I stayed out five and a half days. At night I slept on the cushions in the cockpit aft. Every morning I pumped the bilges, ran the auxiliary for an hour to charge the batteries, checked the sails and halyards. I shot the sun at noon and took star sights at dusk and dawn, and kept a daily log. The yawl sailed herself with the wind abeam or on the quarter; those times I ran a piece of the sheet from a cleat on the lee coaming to the wheel's king spoke to keep her off the wind, and made my meals and lazed on deck, communing with the towering emptiness of sea and sky. I saw schools of flying fish, and what I was sure was the dorsal fin of a trailing shark. I passed deserted cays and other boats with their sails bellied fat, and avoided reefs, and once made five knots running close-hauled against the wind.

Bone was right, as usual.

When I sailed back into the harbor at Charlotte Amalie, the poison was gone.

I was all right then. But I wouldn't have been if I hadn't purged myself of the first dose with that long singlehand voyage.

I don't know why I picked that Tuesday to make my last visit to the Royal Bay Club. I don't believe in predestination, cosmic manipulation, any of that crap. It was a random choice of day and time to clean out my locker and cancel my membership. I'd never really felt comfortable at the club, and now there was no longer any need to keep up appearances. Since my return I'd managed to avoid the Verrikers and Kyles and other members, and I intended to keep on avoiding them; the last thing I wanted to have to deal with was pity.

The club was usually more or less deserted in the middle of the afternoon, the hottest part of the day. I expected to be in and out in a few minutes. The fact that Gavin Kyle happened to be in the lounge, and I happened to overhear him talking to the British banker, Horler, was sheer coincidence.

The steward wasn't in his customary cubicle at the front entrance, so I walked into the lounge looking for him. Gavin and Horler were at the bar. I would have done a quick about-face before they saw me, except that voices carry in a mostly empty room. When I heard Gavin use my name, I stopped and listened.

"You can't help but feel sorry for Laidlaw," he was saying in his gossipy way. "He doesn't know how much better off he is without that bitch. She—"

I was on the move by then, straight toward them. Horler spotted me first and jabbed Gavin with his knee. When Gavin saw me, his moon face warped in on itself as if squeezed from within. He squirmed visibly on his stool.

"Go ahead," I said. "Don't let me stop you."

"Christ, Richard, I—"

"Let's hear the rest of it."

Horler muttered an excuse and made a hasty exit. Gavin gulped his drink and started to get up, but I held him down with a hand on his shoulder. His eyes pleaded with me, as if he were a dog about to be kicked.

"I'm not going to make a scene," I said. "I'll just buy you a drink and we'll chat a little."

"I don't blame you for being pissed—"

"I'm not pissed. What're you drinking?"

" . . . Scotch and soda."

I ordered another round for him, a double shot of Arundel for myself. Then I said, "What did you mean, I'm better off without that bitch?"

"I've got a big mouth," he said. "Robin says so, and she's usually right about my shortcomings."

"What did you mean?"

"You don't really want to hear it."

"Why is Annalise a bitch? Why am I better off?"

The drinks came and he slugged half of his. "All right, you asked for it," he said, not quite looking at me. "She wasn't faithful to you. She . . . well, not for a long time."

It was several seconds before I asked, "How long a time?"

"At least six months."

"How many men?"

"I'm not sure. Two that I know of."

"The first?"

"Does it matter?"

"You, Gavin?"

"Christ! I don't play around. Never have, never will."

"Who, then?"

"If I tell you . . . what're you going to do?"

"Nothing," I said. What could I do that wouldn't call attention to me? "I'm not the confrontational type. Or the violent type. I just need to know."

I watched him struggle with it for half a minute. Then he said, "Screw it, I don't owe him any favors," and swallowed some of his fresh drink. "Royce Verriker."

Verriker. I felt a rush of hatred for him.
Every man needs a vice; mine
is making money.
And making friends' wives.

"How do you know?"

"I saw him going into your house one afternoon," Gavin said.

"When you were out and Maureen was away visiting in San Juan."

"It could've been innocent."

"It wasn't. I asked him about it later on and he owned up."

"Just like that, he owned up?"

"You don't know Royce like I do. He's a shit when it conies to women. Likes to brag about his conquests. He never bragged to you?"

"No. But then he wouldn't, would he, if he was screwing Annalise."

Gavin made the rest of his Scotch disappear. "He's been like that ever since I've known him. Dozens of women—that divorce practice of his is tailor-made."

"How long did it go on with him and Annalise?"

"A while. Until he met somebody new, I guess."

"Does Maureen know what he is?"

"Hell, how could she not know? She either doesn't care or just turns a blind eye because she loves him."

So that was the cause of the rift between her and Annalise, the reason they'd stopped being friends. Had Annalise felt any shame? Probably not. Did she feel any over running out on me? Probably not.

"Who else besides Verriker?" I asked him.

"Nobody you or I know. Some rich tourist from New York."

"Name?"

"Jackson, Johnson, something like that. Manufacturer of women's clothing. Down here for the sport fishing, stayed at the old Grand."

"How do you know about him?"

"It was right before she left you," Gavin said. "A week or so. By then she wasn't bothering to be discreet about it. Snuggling up to him in public, spent at least one night in his room while you were off on your cruise."

"When did he go back north?"

"I can't tell you that. You'd have to ask at the hotel." Pause. "You think she ran off with him?"

Of course she'd run off with him. A women's clothing manufacturer from New York? She'd have sat naked on his lap on the plane for an opportunity like that.

Gavin said, "Richard, man, you're not thinking of going after her and this guy? Trying to get her back?"

"No," I said.

He seemed relieved. "That's the right attitude. What you heard me say to Horler . . . well, it's a fact. You really are better off without her."

He was right.

I had no doubt of it by then.

At first I tried to figure out how and where it had all gone wrong, if there was a turning point, any specific incident that had led to her betrayal. But of course there wasn't. It was a gradual thing. She had been right when she accused me of evolving back into Jordan Wise, but she'd been undergoing a metamorphosis of her own. We were two divergent life forms, changing in opposing ways—that was what had doomed our relationship. It wouldn't have mattered if I'd realized it along the way. I couldn't have stopped it. The deterioration, the decay, was inevitable.

I could see all this now with an objective eye, as if across a chasm. I understood Annalise as I never had before. And I understood myself, as an individual and in relation to her.