one of those moods. I'd had a few stings from her sharp tongue in Chicago, and a few more that were even more barbed down here. It gave her a hard, nasty edge that I didn't like at all.
If she'd used that tongue on me regularly, I'd've confronted her about it. But she didn't. She seemed to sense how often and how much she could provoke me, and she never went beyond the limits of my tolerance. Most of the time she was the same soft, sexy, loving woman she'd been that year in San Francisco and the first several months on St. Thomas. It was only Bone and the time I spent with him, and not getting her way when she had her heart set on something, that brought out the bitch in her.
In February of '81 I had a call from Dick Marsten. I'd told him I was interested in buying a boat of my own, and he had one in the yard, he said, that I might want to take a look at. A twenty-five-year-old yawl, thirty-four feet at the waterline, that had just come over from St. John. You don't see many yawls down here anymore, but there were still a few around in those days. This one had been built in Connecticut, run for a time on Long Island Sound, then sailed down in the fifties. Her owner had been ill for some time and she'd been neglected as a result, but she was still a sound vessel. The owner had died recently and his heirs were looking for a quick sale. So the price was right—not exactly a steal at $16,000, but still something of a bargain.
I'd been counting on a ketch, but that was because it was the type of sailboat I was familiar with; the only difference between the two is that the mizzen is smaller on a yawl, and stepped behind the wheel. So I said I'd come down, and when I went I took Bone with me. The yawl was out of the water for scraping, and she looked old and frowsy sitting there in the hot sun. There were a lot of things wrong with her. Her hull and deckhouse needed painting, the spars and brightwork sanding down and varnishing; the halyards would have to be replaced, the tracks and slides overhauled, a new bilge pump put in, and any number of smaller repairs made above- and belowdecks. But she had nice lines, a plumb stem and broad beam, a clean-running stern without too much overhang, and lifelines that had been rigged in heavy bolted stanchions.
When I asked Bone what he thought of her, he said, 'Good salty sea boat. Built strong, caulked tight. Hull's solid. Engine got to have an overhaul, but it should be okay. Tell you better when I hear it run.'
'How long to put her back in shape?'
'Hard to say. Lot of work to be done.'
'Six months?'
'Maybe longer.'
'Is she worth the asking price?'
'Seems so to me. You want her?'
An odd feeling had come over me as we examined the yawl. The same sort of feeling I'd had for Annalise in the beginning, without the sexual element—an intense possessive need that I now understood was the first stirrings of love.
'Yes,' I said, 'I want her.'
'Then you better buy her,' Bone said. Then, as if he'd intuited what I was thinking, 'Right boat for a mon like the right woman. Grab her quick before somebody else take her away.'
'Will you help me with the repairs?'
His two gold teeth flashed in one of his rare smiles. 'Nothing Bone likes better than shining up a good salty sea boat.'
The $16,000 price was firm, but I wouldn't have tried to haggle anyway. We signed the papers that same day, in Marsten's office. When I told Annalise that night, she wasn't pleased I'd gone ahead with the deal without talking to her first, but she didn't turn bitchy about it. Not then. I took her out to dinner and Bamboushay to celebrate.
The next day I went to the harbormaster's office, reregistered the yawl in Richard Laidlaw's name, and arranged for slip space not far from Bone's at the Sub Base harbor marina. Once she was barnacle-free and had been relaunched, Bone and I ran her over to Sub Base harbor under power. The auxiliary diesel labored somewhat, but he was satisfied with its durability. The first thing we did after we got her there was to paint a new name over the old one on the transom. She'd been
I thought Annalise would be pleased when I brought her down to show off the yawl. Wrong. Her reaction was distaste, scorn. The bitch coming out in her then, as if it were the end product of a long brood since I'd told her about the purchase.
'This is what you named after me?' she said. 'This is what you spent sixteen thousand dollars on?'
'She's rough around the edges,' I admitted, 'but Bone says she—'
'Bone says. Bone says.'
'She needs work, that's all. A lot of hard work.'
'So you'll be spending even more time down here.'
'It's going to take some time, yes.'
'You and Bone.'
'I asked him to help me. What's wrong with that?'
'Oh, nothing. Nothing at all.' Heavy sigh. 'I suppose now you'll never take me to Paris. Or even to New York.'
Paris again, New York again. She'd been pestering me about a long trip to both cities, and I kept putting her off. The FBI wouldn't have forgotten about Jordan Wise after only two and a half years; there was still a risk in traveling on the mainland and in Europe. But it was a small risk, I couldn't deny that. And now that I had what I'd always wanted, and the way she was reacting to it...
'All right,' I said.
'All right?'
'We'll go to New York. We'll go to Paris.'
'When?'
'This summer. June or July.'
Fast change. The bitch vanished; she was soft and sweet again. 'Richard! You mean it?'
'Yes.'
'Promise? You won't try to back out?'
'No. We'll start making arrangements right away. But you have to promise me something in return. When the repair work is finished and the
'When will that be?'
'At least six months. Maybe not until the end of the year.'
'Just the two of us?'
'Well, maybe. Bone might have to join us.'
'Why, for God's sake?'
'I don't know when I'll be ready to sail a boat this size by myself. It could be another year or two before I can singlehand. If Bone does come along, he won't bother us. You'll hardly even know he's there.'
'So you say.'
'Will you promise?'
'Yes, I promise,' she said. Then she said, 'New York, Paris. Monte Carlo, too? I've always wanted to go to Monte Carlo. And London? Oh, God, I can't wait!'
Jack Scanlon came down to see the yawl. So did another boat owner I'd met, and the Kyles. Royce Verriker wasn't interested. 'I hear you bought yourself a boat,' he said when I saw him at the Royal Bay Club. 'A fixer-upper that's taking up a lot of your time.'
'I wouldn't describe her as a fixer-upper,' I said. 'She's got a good pedigree. She just hasn't been taken care of.'
'Well, everybody needs a hobby.'
'It's more to me than a hobby.'
'Sure, I understand. Every man needs a vice, too.' He winked at me. 'Mine's making money.'
