Just Add Water (1) (12 page)

“I don’t mind braving yacht
salespersons on my own. You’re sure you don’t want to go sailing with WOE
instead?”

“Naw, sailing’s no fun unless
you’re there to get hit in the head and cuss a lot. I’d rather watch you make a
fool of yourself with yacht brokers.”

That’s what friends are for.

20

After Jan left for her date with Lars,
I carefully locked all my doors and set the alarm, something I rarely did until
ready to go to bed. I wanted a soak in my reheated hot tub, but for the first
time since I owned the house, I was reluctant to go out on my own deck by
myself. This really, really, pissed me off.

With grim resolve, I picked up a
stack of yachting magazines and brokerage listings. Somewhere in the pile lay
my ship of dreams. I dozed off on the couch and was preparing to board my own
Dream Mary
when the phone rang.
Martinez. Did this man never sleep?

“We got a hit on a partial print
from the padlock, Hetta.”

Oh, so it’s “Hetta” now? Didn’t
this cop
get
sarcasm?

I sat up. “So soon? Gee, you guys
are fast.”

“New equipment. Everything’s
computerized and I had a hunch, thanks to you. Actually, we got real lucky.”

“Anyone I know?”

“Oh, yes.”

“Are you going to tell me, or is
this going be multiple choice, Martinez?” I can get real cranky when people
wake me up. And then play games. Besides, I was still smarting from his little
brinkmanship lecture.

“Touchy, Ms. Coffey, very touchy.”

“Mar-tin-ez,” I growled in warning.

“Okay. Are you sitting down?” He
sounded downright gleeful. Well, for him. “The prints belong to your long lost
Tokyo guy, Hudson Williams. He sure as hell isn’t deceased, and thanks to your
telling me about him, I went straight to Interpol, and whammo! Modern
technology, ain’t it grand?”

My hand flew to the gold chain and
bar key hanging around my neck. My stomach turned cold. I guess I gasped,
because I could hear Detective Martinez saying, “Hetta? Are you all right, Take
a deep breath.”

I did, finally, but I was sure it
was my last. My heart and eardrums would surely explode any second. I choked
out, “We need to meet. Soon. Can you come over? Tonight? I think I know what
Hudson wants.”

* * *

What do men
really want?

If I knew that, I probably wouldn’t
be in this mess. I was pretty sure, though, what Hudson was after: The Key Note
Club bar key or, more accurately, whatever was in the box at the bar. The
question here was, should I give the key to Martinez? And if I did, would it be
the end of Hudson? I think not.

By the time Detective Martinez
arrived, I’d decided to stall. I was working up a story when he rang the bell.

After accepting a cup of coffee, he
dug into a pocket and handed me a piece of paper folded in quarters. The black
and white image was grainy, obviously faxed to Martinez. Grainy or no, the man
I was looking at was Hudson Williams.

I stared at the eyes I knew to be
blue and marveled I never before noticed their beadiness. Shiftiness. How could
I have ever considered Hudson’s smug face handsome? The world would be a much
safer place if foreplay and hindsight could be reversed. But boring.

“Oh, yes. That’s Hudson Williams
all right.”

“Read the details, see if they
agree with what you know.”

I read the Interpol description
below the photo, adding my own mental comments as I went:

Williams, Hudson O.
Dirty Rat Bastard

Sex: Male.
 
Not if
I get my hands on him.

Date of birth: 1959.
More like spawned
.

Place of birth: New York, USA
 
Under
what rock?

Language spoken: English
And not a word of it true.

Nationality: USA.
 
I
couldn’t think of a comment here.

H
eight: 1.78 meters (70 inches)
Bullcrap!

Weight: 72.5 kilos (160 lbs)
Of
evil.

Color of hair: Blonde
 
Dirty
dishwater.

Profession: Computer sales.
 
Computer
THEFT.

After reading the Interpol data, I
nodded. “Yep, looks right, but he’s shorter. More like five-six and a half. He
was real sensitive about his height and probably lied on his passport
application. I’ve disliked short men ever since he disappeared.

“Anything else?”

“His occupation. It should be
professional jerk.” My eyes fell on a handwritten note next to the photo of
Hudson. “
Merde
, Martinez, That’s my
old address in Tokyo.”

“Don’t worry, you aren’t considered
an accomplice. Read on.”

I did. Hudson was wanted for misuse
of company property, fraud, larceny, and murder. Murder?”

“Murder? I thought he just stole
stuff and jilted women.”

“Oh,
there’s even more. The guy I talked to at Interpol thought your old buddy was
also mixed up in drugs and gem smuggling. Quite versatile, your Mr. Williams.”

I gave him a dirty look. “He ain’t
my
mister, mister.”

“A figure of speech. So Hetta, what
was it you wanted to tell me about Williams? You said you think you know what
he wants from you?”

I’m a really good
liar—accomplished, some of my detractors might say—but for all my apparent
bravado and disdain for rules, some authoritative types can bully me pretty
good. Preachers, cops and the IRS, in that order. Having been raised by an
eclectic mixture of hard-shell Baptists, Baha’is, and redneck backsliders, I
harbor a host of divinely inspired phobias. You see, I have it on good
authority, and believe in my soul, that liars burn in Hell. Ask any one of my
great aunts or grandmothers. So I don’t lie, I fib. I prevaricate. I
equivocate.

“I guess I said it wrong when we
were talking on the phone a few minutes ago,” I prevaricated. “What I meant
was, maybe I can tell you more about what he
might
be looking for. Maybe he thinks I have some of his stuff. But
I don’t, I threw it all away.” Jesus, that sounded lame.

Martinez thought so, as well. “Cut the
crap, Hetta. What stuff?”

Decision time. “Nothing. Maybe he
thinks
I do, though. He left a
television, some furniture, things like that, but I sold it all in Tokyo.
That’s all.”

Martinez arched a brow and wrote a couple of jots
in his ever-present little book. From my upside down vantage point, it looked
like the last words were “pants on fire.”

He agreed to a cup of tea, then pursed
his lips when I added a smidgen of Slivovitz to mine.

“What?” I asked. “Never heard of
thé
Slav
?”

It was after ten when he rose to
leave, and I wondered again about his hours. He wore a wedding ring, and it
occurred to me I’d been remiss in inquiring after his personal life, what with
us becoming such bosom buddies and all.

“Detective, are you married?” I
asked.

He gave me a sly grin. “Why? You
interested?”

“Gee, I dunno. Do you have a lot of
money?”

“Nope.”

“Then nope.”

Martinez left and I went back to my
stack of yachting magazines. I tried concentrating, but the idea that Hudson
Williams was alive and stalking me kept creeping into my thoughts.

For the first time since I owned
the house, I closed all of the drapes and blinds. I tried shaking off this
chagrin with promises of a new life through yacht listings, but soon threw them
on the floor. RJ, who had obviously been whacked with a newspaper or two when
he was a pup, looked up in alarm.

“Sorry, baby,” I said, soothing his
fear with a pat. “It’s all right.”

RJ settled back down with a sigh,
and I retrieved the listings. Damn Hudson Williams’s eyes. He was not going to
have us to terrorize much longer. I intended to find safe refuge for me and my
dog. Sanctuary on our ship of dreams.

My dream ship, which I now
perceived as a seaborne panacea and an escape from all my pyramiding problems
and slumping spirits, continued to elude me. But I hung in there, climbing in,
out, and over every available vessel in the Bay Area.

Over time, I refined my list of
minimum requirements. No less than forty feet, with a double or queen bed in
the master cabin, office space, and a comfortable main saloon. That’s boatspeak
for living room, and is pronounced salon, as in beauty salon, not saloon, as in
cowboy drinking establishment. Oh, and a fully equipped kitchen. Uh, galley.

What I was finding in my price
range and size had few of those redeeming factors. Not only that, many were
wooden. I was strongly advised, ad nauseam, by
everyone
at the yacht club that I had to have a fiberglass hull for
easy maintenance, both upper and lower steering stations for navigating in bad
weather, and twin engines for ease of handling.

Navigating in bad weather? Ease of
handling? Who was I kidding? This tub was probably never going to leave the
dock. I most likely didn’t even
need
an
engine, much less two.

I had all but given up hope of
finding something both affordable and habitable when manna from heaven showered
down on my yacht club barstool.

“I hear you’re on the lookout for a
good liveaboard boat,” said a distinguished looking gentleman in his late
sixties or early seventies. While others were dressed in windbreakers, T-shirts
and khakis, he wore a blue blazer, turtleneck and linen pants. Just under six
feet, he wore his age as confidently as he did his clothes. He also sported a
timeworn wedding band. Not that I notice that sort of thing.

“Yeah, and I’m about looked out,” I
grumbled. Great, that’s what I needed, another barstool sailor giving me
more
friggin’ advice on boats.

He tapped the bar in front of me,
signaling Paul to serve us both another split of champagne, and then he
introduced himself.

“I’m Morris Terry. We haven’t been
formally introduced. I used to be Commodore,” he told me, motioning toward his
photo hanging next to Garrison’s in the Past Commodore rogue’s gallery. Morris
was actually better looking now than he’d been when younger.

“Hetta Coffey. I think I met your
wife last week. Betty?”

“She told me. She likes you.”

“I like her, too. Do you guys have
a boat for sale?”

“Might. Do you like
Sea Cock
?”

“I love her. Well, everything but
the name.”

“I know. Betty’s been on my ass to
change it for the past two years.”

I had to cut down on the champagne.
It was affecting my hearing.

“Past two years?” I echoed dumbly.

“Lazy, I guess.” He shrugged,
misunderstanding my misunderstanding.

Mystified, I shook my head. “I
don’t get it. Why would your wife want you to change the name of Garrison’s
boat?”

“Because we own it. I meant to
change the name as soon as we acquired her, but never got around to doing the
paperwork. Garrison was supposed to be doing some work on
Sea Cock
in exchange for a place to live. You know, taking her out
once in a while to keep her running.

“Betty and I have been on a world
tour, now we’re back and nothing’s been done to the boat except hours added to
the engines. If you’re interested in buying, I’m interested in selling, but I’d
appreciate it if we can keep this our little secret for now. I’ll take care of
Garrison when the time comes.”

Sea
Cock
! My mind reeled. Forty-five feet of perfect boat.
Almost
perfect boat; the interior décor was predominantly blue.
“Can I afford it, Morris?”

“That’s up to you and the bank, but
if you can get the financing, I’ll cut you a deal you can’t refuse.”

“Ballpark?”

“Two.”

I was stunned. I had looked at
comparables in the beginning of my quest, but soon narrowed my search to those
boats of a size and vintage to match my budget. Forty-five foot Californians
were beyond my reach. Certainly beyond my reach at three hundred thousand, but
not at two.

I wanted to kiss the man sitting
next to me, but kept my cool and said, in what I hoped was a businesslike tone,
“Morris, I think we can deal, but my house is on the market, so I’d have to
make the purchase contingent on the house selling.”

“I’m in no hurry. Here’s my card.
Like I said, let’s keep this between us for now.”

“No problem at all. My lips are
sealed. But, uh, Morris, I have to ask. Why would you sell me a boat at a
hundred thousand under market value?” So much for my cool business act. It’s a
good thing I stay away from poker.

“I got her cheap. Guy owed me money
and I took the boat. I don’t feel like going though a bunch of crap with
brokers and all to unload her. Besides, Betty told me to make you the offer and
what Betty wants, Betty gets. See what you can do and call me. I won’t do
anything with the boat until I give you first dibs.”

After he left, I walked to a window
and looked down on
Sea Cock,
doing a
mental tour, not as a guest, but as her owner. Okay, so there was a lot of blue
and white, but I could work in peach and ashes of roses.
Sea Cock
was carpeted throughout in a rich marine blue, the
furniture—real furniture, not built-ins like I’d seen on so many boats—was
ivory. She had a large aft master’s suite with a queen-sized bed, tons of
closet space, a separate office area in the main cabin, and a drop dead
stainless steel galley. She even sported a verandah. Oops, sundeck.
Sea Cock
, sans the name, was everything
I wanted in a boat.

But could I really afford her, even
at two hundred grand? Then I remembered that, when considering a change of
locale a few years back, I’d qualified for a big enough loan to buy a two
hundred and fifty thousand dollar condo. Finally, something was going my way!

Ecstatic, I jumped up on the bar
and did a tap dance. Or as much of my
Downtown
Strutter’s Ball
routine as I remembered from Miss Rita’s School of Dance,
circa 1968. After several decades, I was a little sloppy, and my tennis shoes
kept sticking, but the bar patrons evidently found my act a nice change from
Jackie’s twin screws, for they applauded. Or maybe they were relieved that I,
unlike Jackie, didn’t drop my drawers.

I concluded my impromptu
shuffle-ball-change, took a bow, and was climbing off the bar when I spotted
that Bob Jenkins person watching from the doorway. Gawking, is more like it.

Jenks waist-steered a tall curvy
blonde to my end of the bar, gave me a nod, and ordered two drinks. I was in
such good spirits, I opened my mouth to say something clever, but the fading
blonde—who, I noticed with glee, was older than I—picked up on his nod and
practically crawled into his lap to divert his attention. And he called
me
flighty?

While his date clung to him and
spouted inanities, I finished off my champagne and decided to leave before
Jenks and Beldame Barbie clouded up my parade.
Screw him and the ship
he
rode in on, so to speak.
My
ship just came in and I ain’t gonna let his
chronic standoffishness spoil it for me.

I overcame my desire to tell him he
ought to do something about that static cling, slid from my stool, threw my
sweater over my shoulder, and sashayed away in my best Bette Davis bumpy ride
imitation. It was one of my finer moments for, in the foyer mirror, I saw Mr.
Jenkins looking past the blonde, watching me leave. He was actually smiling.
Hey, maybe we did have something in common after all. I consorted with the
criminally insane and he dated the criminally inane.