Crime of Privilege: A Novel (30 page)

He apparently thought I was like Ty and him. Being from the Cape and all.

“They got eight people Goin’ over,” he added. “Ty’s bringin’ the boat back with four.
What’s that tell ya? We’re like the grunt guys, you know? The blue-collar guys.”

“So what I’m asking is if Tyler got put on the race crew at the last minute.”

Billy shrugged. “Coulda been, man.”

“Well, when did he ask you to boat-sit for him?”

“Just, like, a week ago.”

“So he wasn’t planning on sailing before then?”

Billy was distracted. “Jumpin’ Jack Flash” was playing inside. His buddy was getting
all the good chords. “Look, fact is, you can have all the big-shot friends you want
on board, but you want to win, you need somebody like Ty.”

This was getting frustrating. I wondered if Billy was brain damaged. I wondered if
his condition was contagious. “But,” I said, trying to be patient, “doesn’t the crew
have to train together?”

“Damn straight. Captain gets his crew, then you train. Do short races. Take the boat
up and down the coast, out and back, make sure it’s gonna do the job. Make sure everybody
on the crew’s gonna be able to do his job. But guys like me and Ty, we’re usually
the ones givin’ the trainin’.” Billy flexed his arm, got it going like he was pulling
the cord on a power saw. “I was doin’ that, man, till I blew out my shoulder.”

He kept working the shoulder until I realized that he was simulating winching. Then
he grabbed his upper arm and grimaced to let me know he was not back to full strength.
“That’s why I’m not gonna be able to sail her back with Ty. Captain said I could do
permanent damage and, well, he’s a fuckin’ doctor, man. So I did what he said. I’m
trying to rehab it.”

“Who we talking about?” I asked. “Who’s the doctor?”

“Dr. Martin, man. Dr. Peter Martin.”

“You mean Peter Gregory Martin?”

“I mean the fuckin’ Saint of San Francisco. But yeah, he’s a Gregory.”

“Why would you call him a saint?”

“Why? He’s the AIDS doctor, man. Works all those clinics doing shit nobody else will
do. Doin’ it all for practically free, too.”

“But he’s got enough to fund a sailboat and a crew on their way to Hawaii.”

“Hey, man, even saints need vacations. Look at Jesus. Went up the Sea of Galilee in
his time off, remember? Used to go fishing.” Billy stopped messing with his shoulder
and looked through the door longingly. It was time to go back and dance.

“Tell me, Billy,” I said, “the people who are on Peter Martin’s boat right now, other
than Tyler, are they all locals? All people from the fancy yacht clubs here in the
Bay Area?”

“One or two are, like, his old buddies from other places. He’s a—”

“A Gregory, I know. I’m just wondering if one of those old buddies might happen to
be a guy named Jason.”

“I don’t know. I could find out for you, I guess.” He started his winching arm again.
Had to keep up that rehab. He glanced sideways at me in the midst of his movements.

The guy was living on someone else’s boat, drinking beer in the afternoon in a place
like Smitty’s. I offered him twenty bucks.

“Twenty, huh?” Billy stroked his chin, using his good arm. “Can you make it fifty?”

We settled on thirty.

W
E COULD HAVE MET AT SMITTY
’
S AGAIN, BUT BILLY WANTED
to go to the No Name Bar on Bridgeway. I got the impression it was because he figured
it was his chance to get fancy drinks and, indeed, he ordered an old-fashioned.

It was not ideal. The place was narrow and had a trio playing loud enough to overcome
most efforts at conversation.

We were seated by the door, which was good because Billy was wafting both sweat and
alcohol. He was holding a piece of white note-paper in his hand and he wanted to do
a simultaneous exchange. I grabbed the paper from him and spread it out on the table.
The handwriting was childish and I was trying to read by the light of a candle, but
I could make out: Martin, Lipton, Todd, Turpie, Evans, Sherwood, Lally, Travis, Belbonnet.

“That it?”

“You look disappointed, man.” And he looked worried. I suspected he was afraid I was
not going to give him the thirty bucks.

It had been a long shot and now it did not seem worth the investment. Nevertheless,
I handed over three tens.

Billy stacked the money and patted the edges till each of the bills was precisely
in line with the others. He looked at the list, licked his lips, set himself, and
asked, “That guy Jason, though, he’s not on there?”

“No.” I started to get up. Ten minutes was more than long enough to spend at a small
table with Billy.

He spoke quickly. “What made you think he would be?”

“Nothing. He was just a guy who had sailed with Peter a number of years ago.”

“Yeah? Where?” Billy’s eyes were nearly crossed in concentration as he tried to hold
me in place.

“The Figawi.”

“Oh, man, I
owned
that race. Won it like five times.” He pounded the paper with the side of his fist.

People at other tables looked at us. I made an effort not to look back.

“What’s his last name?”

“Stockover.”

Billy howled loudly enough that the trio actually missed a couple of notes. “I know
that dude, man! I know him!”

I did not react right away. The trio was looking directly at us and Billy was waiting
for me to acknowledge my good fortune.

“Where do you know him from?” I asked cautiously.

“From sailing, man.”

“Back east?”

“No, out here. Remember I told you about training? We did a tune-up race, Newport
Beach to Ensenada, and he was there. Him and Doc ran into each other down there in
Mexico.” Billy was smiling, but sweat was rolling down his face.

“He was racing, too?”

Billy busied himself wiping his eyes clear. He did it by using his shoulders. “I don’t
think so. I think he was just there, ’cause he was coming up from the other direction.
He just sailed up from Tamarindo.”

“Which is where?”

Billy looked doubtful for a moment. He also looked like he was losing weight by the
minute. “I think it’s Costa Rica, man.”

“This meeting, did it seem to be unexpected?”

“Absolutely. It was like, real unexpected.”

I let him know he needed to elaborate on that one.

“Like neither one of them expected the other to be there and all of a sudden there
they both were.” Billy gestured with his hand back and forth from his chest to mine,
as though the same thing had just happened to us.

“Was it awkward?”

“Awkward?” Billy repeated. I was taxing him now. He had to talk it through, recite
the facts to answer the question. “We were in a restaurant at this big table, I remember,
and Doc was at the head of the table because he was buying—and all of a sudden this
guy walked by and they recognized each other and Doc stood up. I remember that because
I was sitting right there at Doc’s end and I figured he was gonna start introducing
everyone. So I was getting ready, you know?” He demonstrated how he was getting ready
by placing both his hands on the edge of the table as if about to spring to his feet.
“But the two of them just talked for a minute and that’s where I heard the dude tell
Doc he had come up from Tamarindo. And I’m, like, waiting the whole time.” He relaxed
his grip. “But then the guy just left.”

“And you thought that was strange?”

“Well, what happened was, okay …” Billy pulled his upper lip as if trying to extract
the memory from his mind, get it to come out his mouth. “Okay, after the guy leaves,
Doc asks if I knew who he was. I wasn’t sure, you know? So I ask what his name was
and he goes, ‘Jason Whatever, used to sail off the Cape.’ ”

“Stockover.”

“What?”

“Jason Stockover, that’s the guy I’m looking for.”

“Yeah. That’s him. Guy from Tamarindo.”

He seemed very anxious that I understand that. At the time, I assumed it was because
he wanted to make sure I got my money’s worth.

“
H
E
’
S GONE
,”
I TOLD BARBARA
.

“He can’t be,” she insisted.

I explained the situation and she cursed Tyler’s name. Then I told her about Billy,
and about Jason. “Can you make up an excuse for me?”

I asked.

“Like what?”

“Like, I don’t know, tell Mitch I broke my leg.”

“Except when you come walking in a couple of days from now, what are you going to
say then?”

“That I went to Mexico for a miracle cure. I don’t know. Tell him I’ve got the flu.”

“And that you’re still in Hawaii?”

“Let him think that, yeah.”

“Only you won’t be.”

“Well, I’m in California now, so obviously not.”

“Where will you be?”

“Costa Rica. Where else?”

TAMARINDO, COSTA RICA, July 2008

I
FLEW INTO THE CAPITAL, SAN JOSÉ, YET ANOTHER MISTAKE BY
a naïve traveler. I rented a car and drove for hours until the pavement ran out.
Then I continued on a hard-packed dirt road until I was sure I had gone the wrong
way. By this time I was in cattle country, and I was supposed to be heading for the
coast. The red-orange dust swirled around me, making me keep the windows closed and
limiting my vision to no more than about ten to fifteen yards ahead of me. And then
all of a sudden there was an apparition, a barefoot man carrying a surfboard across
the road. I hit the brakes.

The dust raced past me, back to front, and then it cleared and there was a bank on
my left. An honest-to-God Bank-of-America type bank. And behind that was some mini–shopping
mall. There had, indeed, been a surfer crossing my path. He had reached the far side
of the road and was walking up a sidewalk with a board under his arm. I looked back
to the side from which he had come, looked through trees and what were now wisps of
dust, and I could see ocean water.

I drove on.

The city center was basically a fork in the road. Turn left, go slightly uphill, come
to restaurants and surf shops and little businesses selling trips to see tortoises,
sailboat rides, deep-sea fishing excursions, zipline
and rainforest adventures; turn right and head down toward the water, where smaller,
older shops sold trinkets, jewelry, Central American fast foods, bathing suits, T-shirts,
skirts and wraps and blouses, and where the streets were made of cobblestones and
men walked around hawking boxes of Cuban cigars.

I drove until I got slightly south of town, where I came upon a bungalow-like hotel
that fronted the beach. For a hundred bucks a night I got a room in the Captain Suizo,
directly on Playa Tamarindo. It was July, and the place was barely occupied because
it was supposed to be the rainy season, off-season for tourists. Except there was
no sign of rain that I could see. All I could see was dust.

The woman who checked me in was thin, with long blond hair that marked her as an exotic
in Costa Rica. It turned out she was from Denmark.

“Oh, Copenhagen?”

“No.”

It was that way with the whole process—no further information needed. Stay, don’t
stay … one night, two nights, three nights, whatever you wish. I tried to be just
as laid back as I told her I had come down from California and, hey, you happen to
know an American named Jason who lives in town? Her casualness reached the point of
lethargy. No, she didn’t know anyone named Jason. Here was my room key. Go around
the back of the building, ground floor, third door. Goodbye.

I
WALKED THE BEACH. IT WAS AN EASY WALK AND PEOPLE SEEMED
to be using it as the main means of getting to and from town. Most of the people
I encountered were quite friendly, especially the older Anglos. They smiled at me
as if we shared a secret, as if we each had discovered a place that was absolutely
perfect but ought to be kept quiet. I didn’t think it was perfect. Someone was building
a high-rise within twenty-five yards of the water, and gray cement dust was mixing
with the brown road dust and the noise of hammers hitting spikes and forklifts dinging
as they backed up and cement mixers rattling and occasionally banging; and all of
it was ruining the tranquility of the bay. Still, I nodded amiably at anyone and everyone
whose eyes met my own, and I looked for an opening where I could say
Hi, how are you? You know Jason Stockover?

It did not take long to realize that the people who weren’t smiling were the younger
ones, those in their twenties and thirties. If I got anything in response to my silent
overtures, it was only a nod, a quick nod as they moved on, moved past.
Don’t ask me anything, man
, they seemed to say.
I wasn’t here, remember?

The older people had a secret place. The younger ones just had secrets.

I got to town and found a bar at the edge of the sand. A restaurant-bar.

I walked in off the beach and sat down at an outdoor table on a concrete apron. For
a while, nobody came to wait on me, and then a waitress showed up, a local girl, a
Tica, short, squat, with a dazzling smile when she chose to use it and the same attitude
I had seen at the hotel. You want to eat? Fine. You want to drink? Fine. You don’t
want either one? That’s fine, too. I asked her what was good and she said coconut
pie. I looked at my watch, saw that it was only three o’clock and ordered coconut
pie and a beer. It turned out to be the best coconut pie I ever had.

Then I sat and stared at the water and wondered what I should do next.

I EVENTUALLY HAD
to notice the sailboats. We were on a big bay, a broad bay, and it had no marina
as such. Sailboats were simply anchored, most of them about a quarter-mile off shore.
There were nice-looking two- and even three-masted craft out there, flying flags of
the United States, Canada, Australia, and other countries that I did not immediately
recognize. Jason Stockover, my prey, was a sailor. He had sailed with the Gregorys.
He had sailed to the finish of the Ensenada race just to be there when the competitors
came in.