Just Add Water (1) (19 page)

As usual, I didn’t take Jan’s
advice. I didn’t even attempt to hire Jenks who, according to Jan herself, said
I was “flighty.” Whatever that means.

I did vow, however, to learn more
about my own boat in my spare time. Which was suddenly scarce. I was in the big
middle of the La job when I received a formal request, via Allison-at-law, to
attend a settlement meeting in Seattle.

“Hetta Coffey,” she said, “you are
hereby requested to get your substantial ass on a plane to Washington State to
meet with the parties in question.” Gee, I love lawyer talk.

Allison gleefully summarized the
content of the missive she received from my not-quite former client. Not only
did they regret any inconvenience—inconvenience, my ass, I almost suffered a
nervous breakdown—to me caused by our “misunderstanding.”
Misunderstanding?
 
I think not. I
understood perfectly. They’d fired me!

In a sudden change of heart, they
were now willing to make the completion of my original contract worth my while.
At least that was Allison’s translation.

“What exactly does ‘worth my while’
mean, Lawyer Lady?” I wanted to know.

“It means they’ve found out they
screwed up and are hoping you’ll let them buy you off. Which of course, you
will. Unless you’d prefer owning a large construction company in Seattle?”

“Let me think. Blood money sounds
good.”

“Actually, you really do have to
think this one over. Hard. Yes, we’ve got ‘em by their nappy, little public
hairs, but if you pluck them too hard and too publicly, word gets around in the
industry. On the other hand, if you don’t play a little hard ball, you come off
as too desperate for work to fight them. Maybe we can reach a happy medium. You
know, work a miracle that makes even you look like a stone professional.”

“Hey, watchit, girl.”

“A stone professional with a new
and exorbitant hourly rate.”

“That’s better. Gee, Allison, I
guess that’s why I pay you the big bucks.”

“Hetta, you haven’t paid me a red
cent. Nor do you have to. Your almost-ex, now-present client is willing to
reimburse you for any legal fees incurred. That’s me. I am, as we speak,
compiling an enormous billing for my partner to send in.”

“You don’t have a law partner.”

“Never you mind. I have it
handled.”

“I love it. So, when does this gang
grovel begin?”

“I’ll tell them we can be
there....” I could hear Allison thumbing through her Daytimer, “Say, Thursday
morning? Then we can celebrate in fine style Friday and Saturday.”

“We?”

“Shit yes, girl. They’re payin’ and
I need a vacation. I’ll book the flight, hotel and all. Bring your fuck-me
pumps cuz we’re gonna par-tay down this weekend. What’s the most expensive
hotel in Seattle?”

* * *

Revenge is good. It’s really,
really good, but much to my amazement, I actually ended up semi-defending the
guy who caused the whole problem. Dale was so pitiful in his own defense I
figured
someone
had to do it for him. Hell, I can be downright
magnanimous when basking in the glow of victory. Also, I held my trump card,
figuring if he got out of hand down the line I’d slam dunk him with it.

What trump card, you may ask? It
turns out the idiot had an affair with an employee at Baxter Brothers, used her
to get a slanderous letter regarding
moi,
then dumped her. Thanks to the Trob’s inside info, I arranged lunch and a
little chat with the dumpee. Plied with a couple of martinis, she agreed not to
tell Dale’s wife of his indiscretion if I agreed not to tell the brothers
Baxter they harbored a file thief. The Trob was once again at the heart of my
salvation.

Before Allison and I left for
Seattle, I gave Fidel a call. Not only had he once again saved my ass, he had
even wangled a slot for my Beemer in the Baxter building executive parking lot.
When I worked for Baxter I didn’t even know there
was
an indoor parking lot, much less one where they washed your car
practically every day. Ah, the perks of power.

“Yo, Trob,” I said, “how’s your
hammer hangin’?”

“Oh, hi, Hetta.”

“Hey, those folks in Seattle called
off the dogs and are gonna renew my contract. You are a genius. But of course,
you know that.”

“Yes.”

It was going be a typical Trobite
conversation. “Are you going to tell me how you did it?”

“No.”

Sigh. “Do you mean you’re not going
to tell me, or do you mean you don't know how you did it?"

Silence. Two part questions not
involving mathematical equations are of little interest to the Trob.

“Never mind. How’s my car?” An easy
question, or so I thought.

“Sold.”

“Excuse me?”

“Sold,” he repeated.

That’s what I thought he said. Now
what? “I haven’t even put the ad in the paper yet, Fidel. Did you say you sold
my car?”

“Yes.”

“To whom?”

“Me.”

Huh
? “Listen to me very
carefully, Wontrobski. You don’t know how to drive, and I hold the papers on
the car. How can you sell my car to yourself?”

“I hired a chauffeur until I can
learn. I took care of all the paperwork on line. The money is in your bank
account, less the small car loan you still owed.”

I was astonished. Not that he had
somehow managed to break several federal laws, but he had also uttered three
sentences in a row. An entire paragraph! And the Trob, a borderline agoraphobic
who lived in a hotel only two blocks from his office, hated riding in any
conveyance except for an elevator. What on earth was he going to do with a BMW
convertible?

Trying to find out was too trying,
so I said, “Gee thanks, I think. Saves me putting up with the creeps who seem
to crawl out of the FOR SALE section of the paper. Anyhow, what I called you
about was, I have to go to Seattle to meet with those guys you somehow got
straightened out. When I get back I’d like to bring you lunch. We can have a
picnic in your office, then play dominoes.”

“Okay.”

Things were back to normal. “Bye
now. I’ll call you Monday or Tuesday.”

“Tuna fish.”

* * *

My stars, if life wasn’t sprouting
posies?

And it was time to learn more about
that new life as a boat owner. I vowed to start the overdue education process
the next week, but first Allison and I had to spend a bunch of my client’s
money. We had two full nights to do so.

Unfortunately, we peaked out our
celebration early and decided to limp back home to recover before certain
Seattle authorities could track us down.

It was mid-afternoon Friday when I
hoisted myself onto a yacht club bar stool for some hair of dog.

“Paul, my man,” I groaned, “I need
bubbles and I need ‘em fast. I’m deflating.”

He quickly grabbed a split and
poured for me. I downed it, hoping the icy effervescence would somehow dull the
pain in my head. Kind of like an alcoholic Alka Seltzer without the plop, plop.
While awaiting the hoped for fizz of relief, I gazed out the window. And
blinked.

“Paul, am I hallucinating, or is my
boat gone?”

Paul looked out. “Uh-huh,” he said,
“it’s gone, all right.”

“Don’t
just stand there, call 911! The Coast Guard. The navy. Somebody!” I jumped from
the stool and regretted the jolt.

Paul
looked confused. “Uh, Garrison left this morning with some other people. I
think they were going fishing.”

“What?” I yelped.

Misunderstanding my
misunderstanding, Paul repeated, “He went fishing.”

Summoning a great deal of
self-control I asked, “Did he say when he’d be back, by any chance?”

“Uh, he usually gets back around
four or five.”

“Usually?” My words sounded foreign,
detached, a clutter of verbiage perhaps suspended in a balloon over my head.
Inane verbiage. This couldn’t be real, so it must be a cartoon.

Paul was decidedly uncomfortable,
not knowing where to turn or what to say. It is way un-cool for any yacht club
bartender to get involved in the members’ personal crappola. But he did say,
“That’s what time they got back yesterday.”

“Yesterday. I see. Thanks, Paul.
And Paul, please don’t say anything to anyone, especially Garrison, about this.
Okay? You know, I was out of town, I did come back early, and Garrison and I
don’t always communicate well. I’m sure it’s a very simple miscommunication on
my part.”

Paul looked so relieved, I was sure
he wouldn’t bring the matter to anyone’s attention. As insurance, I asked him
not to even mention I was in the club, especially to Garrison. I made a phone
call, left the club and drove to Jan’s apartment in a red haze. Knowing
Garrison, he'd never know the car was missing.

36

Jan met me at her apartment door
with two aspirins and a great deal of sympathy. “So, what are you going to do?”
she asked. “I mean, right this minute?”

“I’m going to sit here a few hours
and simmer down, because if I go back to the yacht club and wait for Garrison,
there’ll be bloodshed. And it won’t be mine.”

“Very smart, Hetta. Not the
bloodshed part, the simmering down part. You know how you are. Now, what are
you going to do about Garrison? I can hardly wait.” Literally rubbing her palms
together in anticipation, she looked a tad too gleeful.

“I’m glad you’re enjoying yourself,
Miz Jan.”

“Sorry. I haven’t seen you in
action for far too long.”

“I’ve lost my impetus, I guess. How
long have you known me?”

“I dunno. Fifteen, sixteen years?”

“Close enough. And how many stupid,
I mean really, incredibly, stupid things have you known me to do?”

She cocked her head, closed her eyes and
began compiling. I was about to thump her on the noggin when she surprised me.
“None. You have made a few, uh, lousy choices. Like most of us you’ve made a
couple of less than perfect judgment calls, but in general I’d have to say
you’ve handled your life better than most.”

My eyes went all misty. Jan, I
knew, wasn’t simply trying to make me feel better. She meant what she was
saying. So why was I
feeling
so
stupid.

She patted my hand. “You know, it
isn’t easy being a single woman. You’ve always made good money and are
respected in your field. Look, you managed to get an engineering degree, didn’t
you? Okay, so it took you a few more years than most, but you changed majors
three times, which was all right. I mean, artists don’t make much money and
Swahili? Okay, maybe that wasn’t a really great major. Anyhow, my point is
this. You pay your own way and are loyal and generous to your friends.”

“Yeah,” I sniffed, “and I help lil’
ole ladies across the street and feed stray dogs. I meant stupid about men and
stuff like that.”

“Hetta, we are women. Being stupid
about men is our job. If we weren’t stupid, we wouldn’t have anything to do
with them.”

I giggled. “Good one. This time I’m really furious
with myself. Garrison saw I was vulnerable and took advantage. Thank God I
didn’t sleep with him.”

Jan frowned. “Hetta, Lars says
Garrison says you did. Do. Whatever.”

“What?”

“I’m simply telling you what
Garrison told Lars and practically anyone who cared to listen.”

“That son of a bitch. He lives for free on my boat,
tells lies about me, and then takes my boat out fishing without my permission.
What nerve.”

“Oh, I think it’s worse than that.
Lars says he asked Jenks about the work Garrison’s supposed to be doing on
Sea Cock.
 
Jenks thinks there’s something a little, well, fishy there.”

“Like he’s not doing anything?”

“Maybe.”

What an idiot I’d been. On a work project
I was known as a maniac for maintenance records.
 
Logs, checklists and double checks were my passion. I’d set up a
logbook for Garrison, but never even looked to see if he’d made entries. What
was I thinking? I made a decision.

“Jan, do you think I can get Jenks
to check out
Sea Cock
tomorrow? I
know for a fact that Garrison is going to Sacramento and won’t be back until
Sunday brunch. Garrison never misses brunch at the club because past commodores
eat for free.”

She picked up the phone, called Lars, and
a few minutes later, Jenks called back. After I talked to him, I told her, “Everything’s
all set. Jenks’ll meet me on
Sea Cock
tomorrow morning at ten. God, we have to do something about that name!”

“How about
Money Pit
?”

“Too true.”

“So, what are you going to do about
Garrison?”

“I’m not sure yet, Miz Jan, but I
do know that that master-baiter has caught his last fish off
my
boat.”

* * *

“You’re low on oil, your batteries
are almost dry and you’d best think about fueling up pretty soon,” Jenks said,
consulting his spiral notebook. He’d been crawling all over my boat for two
hours without comment, but now he sat at the table with me, sipping coffee.

I couldn’t help notice he needed a
haircut, a good sign as far as I was concerned. I’ve learned not to trust men
who are too well groomed. Real men don’t get no stinkin’ manicures.

“Other than that, Doctor Jenkins,
how long have I got?” I asked.

He allowed me a small smile and put
down his cup. “Neither alternator is working, your running lights are out and
your wiring needs attention. I found wires held together with alligator clips.”

He was getting my attention. “Go
on.”

“My guess is your injectors need
cleaning, if not rebuilding, and there’s a suspicious leak around your port
manifold.”

“Jenks, in the South a gentleman
never mentions injectors in polite company,” I quipped, earning a real grin.
“Look, I didn’t even know I had an injector, much less a manifold. I was
counting on Garrison to take care of all that stuff.”

“Do you have a list of his
projects?”

I went to my desk, shuffled through
a drawer and pulled out a notebook and a batch of receipts. Shoving them across
the table to Jenks, I said, “Here’s what I have. Sorry I haven’t had time to
sort through them. Oh, and here’s the maintenance log I set up. I copied it
from a powerboat magazine article. As you can see, Garrison’s signed off on
most items.”

He carefully read the receipts,
sorting them into stacks and checking them against the log. I poured more
coffee and waited. Finally he sighed and looked up. “The receipts for materials
and log items match.”

“That’s good. I was beginning to
think I’d been had. And heck, I didn’t even get kissed.”

Jenks didn’t smile this time.
“Hetta, I think we should review everything together.”

So we did, starting from the day I
took possession of the boat. When we’d finished, Jenks blew an exasperated
breath.

“Look, maybe you need to discuss
all this with Garrison because, quite frankly, I’m confused. He’s either
fiddled the records or I’m missing something. Why don’t I take care of the
fluids for you right now, then you can get the other stuff done later. Where’s
your oil?”

“Uh, in the engine room?”

“Nope.”

“In the storage unit on the back
deck?”

“Not in the lazarette. I checked.”

“
Merd
e.”

“According to this,” Jenks said,
picking up a receipt, “you bought twelve gallons of Delo 400 a week ago.”

“I know. Maybe Garrison used it?”

“Not on this boat, he didn’t,”
Jenks said. “Tell you what, I’ll make a list of what you need, put together an
estimate of cost, and get back with you tomorrow. Will you be at the club for
brunch?”

“Is there a cow in Texas?”

Jenks finally let out a laugh,
pulled on his jacket, and pointed to a control panel by the steering console.
“Oh, and Hetta, a suggestion? When you leave the boat, it’s a good idea to turn
off the water pump and the shower sump pump switches.”

I stared at the panel, then at him.
“Switches?”

“Yeah, avoids the possibility of a
fire. Only turn them on when you need them.”

“When I need them?”

“You can’t pump water or drain your
shower when they’re not activated, of course, but when not in use, switch them
off. Just good policy.”

A little light went off in my head.

“So what you’re saying is, if my
shower is overflowing all I have to do is turn on a switch?” I asked,
remembering my first few days aboard, when Garrison took full credit for
“repairing” my shower. As badly as I hated to admit it, Jenks’s brother, Lars,
was right. I’d been gas lighted. Lit. Whatever.

“Yep. Flip the switch, it turns on
the pump. Why?”

“Oh, nothing. I’ve got a little gas
problem.”

Jenks looked at me strangely and
said, “O-kay. See you tomorrow then?” He walked to the door, then turned back.
“I have to say, Hetta, you’re taking all this bad news very well. Most women
would have been, well, really unhappy.”

“You mean to say most women would
have been whining, wailing, and bitching? That, Jenks, is not my way. I don’t
just get mad, I also get even.”

“I can believe it,” he said, as he
waved and left the boat.

Being hornswoggled by the likes of
Garrison didn’t set well at all. I went to work finding out how badly I’d been
had.

According to Jenks, my fuel tanks
were half empty. I had owned the boat for six weeks and had topped off the
tanks, like Daddy told me to, on day one. Since then,
Sea Cock
, to my knowledge, had not left the dock. Except now I knew
it had, at least twice, according to the yacht club bartender.

I pulled out the bill of sale from
Morris and looked at the engine hours: nine hundred eighty on the date of sale.
Moving back to the control panel I’d paid little heed to in the past, I checked
the engine hours now: one thousand ten. It didn’t take a genius to figure out
that
Sea Cock
had been on the move,
thirty engine hour’s worth of move.

I knew, from what Morris had told
me, that I could use a mile per gallon as a rule of thumb. Sometime in the past
six weeks, my boat had traveled around three hundred miles and burned three
hundred gallons of fuel!

 
I was tabulating the scope of how much Garrison had pocketed in
the way of un-bought goods with money I’d given him, when the phone rang.
Engrossed in my calculations, I absentmindedly picked it up. Dial tone. It
continued to ring. I followed the ring and found a phone in Garrison’s
quarters. The dirty thieving rat had had his own line installed! As I was
leaving the cabin, the ringing stopped and his answering machine picked up. Needless
to say, I stayed to listen.

“Oh, hi, Garrison,” a female voice
said to the machine. “Guess you’re not home. This is Molly from Ancient Mariner
Charters. I need to confirm that our charter is still on for this Wednesday.
Call me back at 577-3899. Thanks.”

Charter?

I dialed 577-3899.

“Hi, Molly. Garrison asked me to
contact you about
Sea Cock’s
Wednesday charter.” Call me clairvoyant.

“Oh, yes. We’re scheduled to board
a foursome from Texas at Pier 39 right before noon, so we’ll have to leave Jack
London around ten. Oh, could you ask him to leave the Texas flag out again? The
last couple from Texas was thrilled when we flew it.”

“I’ll bet they were. How thoughtful
of Garrison,” I said, my voice barely civil.

Molly continued, but sounded a
little confused by my obvious sarcasm. “Uh, anyway, please tell him we should
have her back by five, because these folks only want a trip under the Golden
Gate, around the bay, and lunch on board. So that’ll be seven hours at our
usual rate. Since I know Garrison doesn’t take checks, I’ll leave the seven
hundred in an envelope under an ice tray like I always do. We will, of course,
leave the boat clean and a bottle of champagne in the fridge. It’s a real
pleasure doing business with Garrison. His boat is really beautiful.”

“Ain’t it though,” I said, then
hung up. Then I got really, really mad; the bastard had been getting free
champagne and not sharing.

Garrison was lucky he was in
Sacramento, for I’d surely have plugged him full of holes and planted him in
his dust-encrusted Morgan—the one that sat in the parking lot where it had been
for at least a year. The top was ripped in several places and it had two flat
tires, but the vintage car was Garrison’s pride and joy. His big dream was to
get her fixed up and take her on one of those Tour d’ Elegance things.

I spent the rest of Saturday trying
to get my blood below boiling and making a few calls. With each call I felt a
little better.