while she was taking a sunbath and they had to fire him. Now he’s drinking too much and making threats.”
“What crap!”
“I haven’t checked with Mrs. De Rham yet. I went to the boat tonight and saw a man named Brady. She was asleep.”
“She was passed out, you mean. The cocktail hour on that boat goes around the clock.”
“What’s your side of the story, Petrocelli?”
“I wasn’t even fired, if it comes to that.” He touched the side of his jaw and winced. “I keep finding new places that hurt. That cat could hit. Come on, Shayne, if you want me to cooperate, dole me out some more anesthetic.”
Shayne reached for the bottle and filled his glass. “If you weren’t fired I take it you quit?”
“I didn’t exactly quit either. You know what she wants you to do, Shayne. She wants you to run me out of town. That’s going to be the easiest job you ever had. Tell me what flight you want me to be on and I’ll be on it. I’ve already got the ticket. I think the tall guy in the bar was trying to tell me something, don’t you? If I get a little more warning next time I think I can take him, but I don’t know about him and his friends both. He’s off that big diesel yacht, the
“Are you ready to tell me what happened?”
“In a minute, in a minute. Do me a favor? If Mrs. De Rham says I made any kind of a move, if she claims I took the initiative in any way, knock her teeth down her throat, will you, Shayne? You seem to be good at it. You know the story in the Bible? Joseph and what’s his-name’s wife? I’m telling it to you the way it was. Listen, if you want a word of advice from a veteran, wear a jock when you talk to her. Do I make any sense?”
“All this happened with her husband aboard? That’s hard to believe.”
“I didn’t believe it myself, Shayne. She took those sun-baths of hers on the forward deck, right in front of the wheelhouse, in a two-piece bathing suit the size of a couple of special delivery stamps. Sometimes she even untied the top, so except for one little strip across her can she was bare all the way down. And I was supposed to be keeping an eye on the compass needle.”
“Who else was along, just her husband and Brady?”
“That’s all. I don’t want you to think I’m bragging or anything, but it was one of those situations. Brady you saw. De Rham’s a nice enough guy, but he’s not exactly Marlon Brando, you know? One of those quirky beards. A peace-loving character, and she walked all over him. I never could figure where Brady fitted in, I mean the three of them. Nowadays you can’t tell the boys from the girls by the clothes they wear and which one has the hair down to the shoulders, but whether they had anything offbeat going I couldn’t tell you. All I know is, there was juice in the air.”
He drank. “And when I say juice-Shayne, on a damp day you could see sparks in the air. The amount of liquor they consumed! I don’t mind taking a drink myself, I’ve got no scruples against it. But that’s on dry land. I don’t touch a drop on the water. It’s one of those things I never do.”
“Never?”
“Never,” Petrocelli said firmly. “It’s like a religion, booze and power boats don’t mix And you know it’s a constant temptation when everybody else is totally stoned. Whatever she tells you about what happened that last night, nine-tenths of it has got to be the gin talking. Bear that in mind. She was up in her private space capsule, going around and around.”
“Now tell me what did happen.”
Petrocelli seemed confused suddenly, as though he himself had trouble remembering.
“I ducked my responsibility, in a way. When I hit the sack that night I would have given you a hundred to one there was going to be trouble. I don’t mean minor trouble. That woman was just too much. She had me on the canvas in ten seconds of the first round. It was no contest.”
Shayne let him pause to get organized.
“They were doing some yelling,” Petrocelli said. “She wrote a will cutting De Rham off, and she had me come down and sign it. He had a long scratch on his face and she’d busted his guitar. That won’t mean anything to you, but he loved that guitar. You could tell by the way he held it. I heard glasses being thrown or dropped. They had some kind of fire, I don’t know what, but next morning there was this big burned place on the coffee table. They were all ready to get their fingers in everybody else’s eyes. Brady was trying to keep out of it but it was taking a lot out of him. I did have a drink at that. She gave me one after I witnessed her signature. And then she said, and I quote, ‘Stay on call, in case neither of these two bums can get it up.’ Or that was the idea of it, I don’t recall the exact words. And she gave me a French kiss and a feel, with Brady and De Rham looking at us. Man, was I embarrassed! I skinned out of there so fast. I even locked my door from the inside because whatever was going to happen I didn’t want to be in the middle of it.”
“That’s all?”
“That’s as far as I can take it, of my own knowledge. Not to beat around the bush or anything, but I thought somebody was going to get killed! It was that kind of climate. But what could I do? Nobody was listening to me. Next morning we were off Palm Beach. The course we’d laid out would take us in through Lake Worth to finish up on the Intracoastal Waterway. They wanted to see Lauderdale and so on. So of course after all the drinking they were all three of them sacked in and I was the only one awake. They didn’t see Delray Beach, they didn’t see Boca Raton, they didn’t see Pompano. At about eleven Brady struggled up on deck, with a couple of poached eggs for eyes. Mr. and Mrs. were back at it in the master stateroom, hammer and tongs. I had a sort of headache myself from all the tension. What I was looking forward to was finding the Sunrise Shores, number one, and a nice uncomplicated bar, number two. I’d just about made up my mind that I and the De Rhams had had it. I might have been able to promote myself a piece if I stuck around, but she was too ticky for my taste. I’ll take advantage of something if it falls in my lap, it goes with being a captain, but I like to keep a sense of proportion.”
“Who paid you off?”
“De Rham. I didn’t see her again to talk to. But I heard her! You know how sound travels on a boat. They were having this same argument all across the north bay. I heard enough to get the gist, and it was all about how Captain Petrocelli was the only real man aboard that boat. I know it sounds self-centered,” he said smugly, “but that’s what she was saying. She didn’t want to have a real dingdong affair with me, all she wanted to do was try me a couple of times. She couldn’t see why he objected. Shayne, it made me shiver. After we tied up, De Rham came out and he looked like death warmed over. Circles under his eyes the size of oranges. He said that under the circumstances, et cetera et cetera, I’d better start traveling. I was only too happy, as you can imagine. People are always looking for captains who don’t look like out and out goons. He was nice about it, nothing but friendly words spoken. I picked up my gear and hit the dock in about thirty seconds flat.”
“That sounds clear enough,” Shayne said. “What’s this harassment she’s complaining about?”
“She’s got a nerve complaining. I got myself a room and began reconnoitering bars. Riley’s has been more or less my headquarters. I had to get the taste of the
He was so caught up in his explanation that he was neglecting his drinking. Shayne let him tell it his own way.
“I talked to Brady. He was in a hell of a mood. A chip on his shoulder. What the hell was I bothering them about? De Rham wasn’t there. Mrs. De Rham wasn’t feeling too well and I couldn’t see her. But I mean! Why should he be the spokesman? I felt like picking him up in my thumb and forefinger and dropping him in the bay. We were never buddy-buddy at any time. I was always the, you know, employee. I can be stubborn when I feel like it and I came back the next day. De Rham still wasn’t there, Mrs. De Rham still wasn’t feeling too well. This time Brady and I had a little altercation, a little back and forth. I wasn’t stone cold sober myself. I thought of getting Mrs. De Rham to write me the reference, but that’s not the same thing, De Rham’s the owner of record. And Brady, the punk, do you know what he did? He came on with a goddamn pistol.”
He drank, finally, and held his glass to the light to show Shayne he could use more gin. Shayne sipped his cognac and waited.
“I have an allergy to guns, personally,” Petrocelli said. “Is a reference worth getting shot to death over? But it struck me later-why the paranoia? Where was De Rham, exactly? They were supposed to be going to South
