Berkeley Noir Page 14

  Worked thus, two or three swells later, the vessel lay bow to windward, stern by the lee, both jib and mizzen flogging like guns firing at will, the entire operation slowly driven backward by wind and turning tide.

  "Now what?" Except that she had to shout to be heard, Regan put the query in an entirely reasonable tone.

  "I need to go forward and get that sail under control," Ron shouted back, "before it destroys itself."

  Regan regarded the scene at the bow. In the streaming dark, it looked as if the shadows, lines, and shapes of the inanimate world had come alive to conduct a knockdown brawl, with appropriate sound effects, strafed by tracers of rain as the works flailed in and out of the red and green of the running lights. The flogging canvas, fore and aft, sounded like a regiment of enraged taiko drummers.

  "Let's start the engine!" Regan shouted.

  "I thought you wanted to go sailing!" Ron shouted back.

  Regan looked at him.

  "Besides, that's three grand worth of sail up there." Before she could dismiss the financial angle, Ron said, "Let's try something else first. If it doesn't work, we'll start the engine."

  Regan nodded. "At your orders, skipper."

  "We're in irons. Understood?"

  "Irons it is."

  "We want to bring the bow to port. Once she's on a starboard tack, I'll take a line forward, reave a new starboard sheet, and we'll be good to go."

  "But how do we get out of irons without a foresail or the engine?"

  Ron pointed. "We bowse the mizzen boom to port. The breeze will push the stern to starboard. As soon as the wind comes over the starboard side, we sheet both sails to port and Bob's your salty uncle."

  "Heading right back where we came from," Regan pointed out, casting an eye into the darkness.

  It struck Ron that back where they'd come from was the last place Regan Ellis wanted to go. "We'll make a U-turn soon enough!" Ron shouted above the din. "With this fresh breeze we have all the boat control in the world!"

  When Regan smiled, raindrops pelted her teeth like bird shot. Fresh breeze indeed.

  "Take three wraps on the port winch and get the slack out of the sheet."

  "Done . . ."

  "Where's the goddamn winch handle?" The winch handle wasn't in its holster, low down on the forward side of the mizzen mast.

  They felt around in a couple of inches of brine until Regan found it under a tangle of wet lines. Handing the crank to Ron, she belayed the tail of the port jib sheet around the away horn of a cockpit cleat, so as to pass the better part of the load to the boat's superstructure rather than her own, to prevent the sail flogging the sheet forward.

  Meanwhile, Ron retrieved a four-part bosun's tackle from the rope locker. He clapped one block to a loop of line midway along the mizzen boom, the other to a dock-line cleat abaft the cabin, and led the purchase across the cockpit to starboard, took three wraps around the starboard winch, and inserted the sprocket of the winch handle. "Ready, boss?"

  "At your orders, skipper."

  Ron hove away on the tackle, forcing the mizzen sail to port, against the gale. As the rattling sail took the wind, the pressure pushed the stern of Boy Toy to starboard, which had the effect of turning the bow through the eye of the wind. Air began to flow over the starboard side The foot of the No. 4 cracked over the foredeck, starboard to port, its clew trailing a twenty-foot spiral of wounded sheet.

  "Sheet home!" ordered the skipper. "Lively, now!"

  Regan hardened the port sheet. If the jib had wrapped the forestay in the interim, it would have been a different story. But the stalled sail shivered to leeward until the fabric took the wind and ceased its flogging, and Boy Toy cracked into a starboard reach. Ron released the tail of the bosun's tackle and hardened the mizzen until its boom lay just a little to port of the centerline of the boat. And all went silent, excepting the maelstrom, as Boy Toy galloped through wind and tide and the teeming dark with a phosphorescent bone in her teeth, her new course nearly parallel to the span of the Golden Gate Bridge, whose lights cast an ochre pall high into the mist, not two miles west of their position.

  "It worked!" shouted Regan. "It worked!"

  "Dang," said Ron, as if no one were more surprised than he.

  "I haven't had this much fun," Regan replied, clinging to the wheel, foulie hood and drenched hair streaming to leeward, "since I totaled my first Jaguar."

  "Touch the wood," Ron cautioned, tapping three fingers to his own head. "We don't want to be walking home tonight."

  Regan touched three fingertips to the mizzen mast. "Consider it touched, captain!"

  More work lay ahead. Gripping the helm, Regan lodged her feet in the corners afforded by port and starboard lockers where they met the cockpit sole, while Ron cranked in the jib until its high clew hovered above the forward deck, where he might get to it without hanging over the side. This pointed Boy Toy as close to the wind as she would sail, and it was correspondingly rough.

  He jumped to the starboard side and, drawing aft what was left of the parted sheet, discovered the cause of the failure. "Look at this."

  "It's been cut . . ."

  Ron described retrieving the two sheets after they'd blown over the side at the dock. "It must have fouled some piece of junk on the bottom." Rather than throw the rope end over the side in disgust, he properly hanked it.

  He was stowing the coil when Regan said, "Both sheets were fouled together?"

  Ron gave this a thought, then crossed to the low side and eyed the working sheet. After the winch, he found no sign of damage to the line. Forward of the winch, the line was taut as a length of chain. He ran a hand along the sheet as far forward as he could, and there it was. Perpendicular to the length of the line, an incision cut perhaps a third into its diameter. It felt like an open wound. Under the present load, it couldn't last.

  Ron rummaged the rope locker for a length of synthetic line that, though a mere quarter-inch in diameter, featured an extremely high breaking strength. He joined the ends with a Zeppelin bend, forming what's often called a strap or choker—a loop. Clipping his tether to the genoa track, he crawled forward alongside the house and, despite his outboard half occasionally dipping in and out of the passing stream, rove a lateral tension knot, so-called, in this case, a klemheist, about the sheet forward of the incision. Backing to the cockpit, he took a turn about a free cleat, threw in a trucker's hitch, bowsed down the doubled quarter-inch as hard as he could, and made it fast.

  "If she goes," Ron said, "this will hold it." Since Ron Tagus was in charge of Boy Toy, each rope in the locker had a piece of tape on one end with its length inked onto it. By the light of the binnacle he selected a pair of lines. "Now I go forward, see . . ."

  As he spoke, the sea walloped the starboard topside, just forward of the chain plates, lifted five or six feet above the bow, and collapsed onto the foredeck. Six inches of brine sluiced along the windward cockpit combing.

  "You're going to the bow in this shit?" Regan frankly asked.

  "You just keep that steady hand on the helm," Ron said, throwing a stopper knot into a line, "and I'll be fine."

  "One hand for you," Regan shouted pedantically, "one hand for the boat! Little old me would be hard put to get you back tonight!" She dipped a finger in the remaining inch of water, beyond the combing. "Fifty-three degrees and all that."

  "It's not complicated. You hold this course. I jump forward and bend on a new sheet. Which reminds me." He touched the breast of his pfd. "Knife."

  "To cut away the old sheet?" Regan realized. "Because the knot will be too wet to capsize."

  "Too wet and too slow. Then, new sheet rove, I come aft, and we tack."

  "After which you take a new sheet forward on the port side and we do it all over again."

  "Except for the tack." Ron pointed at the jury rig. "After the port sheet has been switched out, we fall off into right back where we started."

  "Bob's your salty uncle."

  "Indeed," Ron muttered as he c
rawled over the starboard locker.

  "One hand for you," Regan shouted, "one hand for the boat!"

  She perched on the locker with one seaboot hooked into a lower spoke of the helm and a hand atop it. Boy Toy was bucking, wind and tide on her nose, and plenty of water coming aboard, but she needed to be close-hauled so the rigger could access the clew of the jib. Any other point of sail and the clew would be hanging out over open water. Ron crawled forward on his belly, leading the new line through the after and forward turning blocks, clipping, unclipping, and reclipping his tether as he went, and keeping a weather eye. Only once did a sea lift and pin him to the side of the house, but by then he had reached the main shrouds and had plenty to hang onto. It was wet work and progress was slow, made slower by the awkwardness of working in gloves, and the pitching of Boy Toy, which afforded Ron the odd moment of near weightlessness. Gradually he disappeared into the teeming gloom, only to reappear in the lurid green of the starboard running light, to disappear again as he crawled and skidded past the mast, forward of the house, until, arriving beneath the clew of the sail, he was diagonally across the boat from Regan and lost to her sight. Five or six extra feet of sheet passed forward through her gloved hand, then stopped. She considered locking the helm, in case another hand was needed, but Boy Toy couldn't be asked to hold a steady course in these conditions by herself. And two people in trouble would do no good at all. Even as Regan had this thought, the forward half of Boy Toy sailed over an invisible hollow in the water, then dropped in with a crash and buried her nose. A wall of water backed the jib despite the high bias of its foot, throwing the bow to starboard. But with a little help from the helm, Boy Toy labored up and the sail took the wind on starboard. A foot of brine coursed along three sides of the house, past and into the cockpit.

  Legs athwart and both hands on the wheel, Regan's leeward boot filled with seawater. After a long time Ron reappeared and rolled over the starboard combing onto the locker, his watch cap missing, his hair, though short, plastered to his skull, the cuffs and collar of his foul-weather gear leaking seawater.

  "Ready to tack!" he yelled, flat on his back. "What's so goddamn funny?"

  Regan, simply thrilled to see him again, shook her head, rainwater streaming down her face. "I haven't had this much fun," she shouted, "since I totaled my second Jaguar!"

  The sea smacked the starboard topside abaft the main chain plates, lifted a human's height above the combing, and crashed onto the house. As water coursed over the companionway hatch and into the cockpit, Regan freed the winch handle from the port-side winch. "Ready about?"

  "Wait! Switch sides!"

  They did so. Regan took the winch handle, sat to starboard, and disentangled the new sheet from the lines on the cockpit sole.

  "Take the helm!" Ron shouted, and she did so. He clipped to the genoa track and crawled forward to the conjoined jury rig. "Ready about!"

  "Helm's alee!" Keeping an eye on the little Turk's head rove onto the rim of the helm, which marked its centerline, Regan rolled the wheel fifty degrees to starboard.

  Boy Toy responded immediately and turned her bow through the eye of the wind. The mizzen boom clanged over. The jib backed with a smack.

  Ron hacked the port sheet forward of the klemheist knot and the working end shot ahead, into the darkness. "Jib's away!"

  Regan hauled the slack of the starboard sheet till she met some resistance, took three turns about the winch, belayed the after end of the rope under the away horn of the cleat, and inserted the winch handle. Ron appeared in the cockpit to center the helm. Cranking the winch, she made fast.

  "Okay," Ron shouted, "close-hauled on port! Good job! Sit to the high side!"

  As Regan sat to port and took the helm, Captain Ron unhanked the second length of line, threw in a stopper knot, took a deep breath, and clambered to the port side. "Steady as she goes, boss."

  "Aye aye, captain." Ron disappeared up the port side of the vessel, now the high and windward side, clipping and reaving and crawling and holding on and achieving weightlessness as he went.

  Regan fed the new line into the block on the after car. Ron reappeared in the lurid red of the port running light, crawled across the foredeck, into the glare of the green starboard light, then hauled himself up the shrouds, his seaboots braced against one corner of the house and the lower turnbuckles, in and out of water up to his knees, one hand lifting a knife into the night. This point of sail was much like the previous one, rough and wet. Boy Toy pitched through waves and swells, bucking both wind and tide. A wave smacked the port topside and lifted perhaps ten feet above the deck, its underside rendered as ruby as the throat of a giant trout, before neatly dividing itself about the shrouds and collapsing across the foredeck, seething along the decks and the roof of the house with the sound of big surf eagerly coming ashore.

  Athwart the helm, feet planted wide, Regan's other boot filled with seawater. Above all the noise she couldn't hear Ron grunt as he crawled back along the port side of the house in the dark, clipping, holding on, unclipping, as he came one or two feet at a time. Arriving at the cockpit, he clipped to the turnbuckle at the foot of the forward mizzen shroud and rolled over the port combing onto locker, streaming brine.

  "I'm blowed," he croaked, scrubbing the palm of a sopping glove over his glistening face. "Son of a bitch." He pushed himself into a sitting position and took the helm with one hand and the mizzen sheet with the other. "Ready to fall off?"

  Regan freed the working sheet, leaving the standing part captured under the away horn of the cleat. "Ready!"

  Choosing his moment, Ron eased the helm to leeward as they both eased sheets. It felt as if Boy Toy were pivoting about her righting moment, and soon enough, she was creaming along on a broad reach, making for the green and red lights that mark the entrance to Raccoon Strait, with rain, wind, and tide at her back.

  Ron belayed the mizzen sheet and sagged against the port shrouds, one foot working a spoke of the wheel, breathing heavily. "Time for a whiskey, boss."

  Without a word, Regan slid back the hatch and dropped below, to quickly reappear bearing two glasses half filled with whiskey. She stood on the companionway steps, and they touched glasses.

  "Cheated death again," Ron said, as he downed half his drink. Adding, "More or less," he quickly finished the other half.

  Regan watched him without tasting her own drink. "Hey."

  "Hey what?"

  "What happened to your eye?"

  Ron flattened the fingers of his free hand over his left eye, then looked at them with his right eye. Regan waited. Ron made a correction to the helm with his foot.

  "That parted sheet was whipping around like a snake on amphetamines. I could hear it but I couldn't see it. As I climbed up the shrouds I figured I'd keep my back to the wind, plus or minus the odd ton of brine boarding the vessel. I was just getting the blade inside the loop when goddamn if the bitter end didn't come from dead aft and pop me in the eye like it was born to the task." Ron circled his empty glass. "What are the chances?"

  Regan frowned. "Wait a minute. You were cutting away the parted sheet? Are you telling me this happened on your first trip forward?"

  "Correct." Ron angled his good eye. "You gonna use that drink?"

  They traded glasses.

  Ron downed his second drink at one go. "You'd think it would help a little," he scolded the empty.

  "Can you see out of it?"

  "No."

  "Let me—"

  Ron peered forward.

  "Hey." She touched his cheek.

  Ron turned to face her. "The lens is gone," he said. "Not that I'm an expert."

  A band of rain swept the boat, southwest to northeast, blown horizontal by the wind. Regan looked north past Ron and toward the lights of Sausalito. She looked south toward the lights of San Francisco. Far to the east, obscured as they were by a vast density of airborne water, she could barely see the lights of Berkeley. Making landfall in the present conditions was out of the question. H
owever they worked it, they were hours if not an entire day from any sort of medical attention.

  "What are we going to do?"

  Captain Ron shook his head. "Nothing."

  "Goddammit," she said softly.

  "One eye for the boat," he said, "one eye for me."

  An hour later they dropped the hook in the quiet shelter of Paradise Cove. Fourteen hours after that, just after sunset, Boy Toy tied up in the Berkeley Marina. A month later, Boy Toy was rechristened as Sedna, an Inuit goddess of the sea. Not quite one year after the events related here, Sedna headed out the Golden Gate and took a left. Less than a day later, a big winter storm roared down the coast.

  Neither the ship nor her crew was seen again in Berkeley.

  PART III

  Company Town

  THE LAW OF LOCAL KARMA

  by Susan Dunlap

  Gourmet Ghetto

  When Sergeant Endo Maduri talked about the case later he'd start off, "That was the last time Shelby and I rode together." It made the guys on the force uncomfortable, but Maduri didn't care.

  "Where'd you nab him?" Maduri had asked Callahan that night.

  The patrol officer had the suspect on the ground. She jutted her chin toward Walnut Square. "On the walkway."

  Maduri raised an eyebrow. The original Peet's Coffee and Tea sat at the corner of Walnut and Vine. The walkway looped behind it. "He the perp?"

  "Witness said perp was in a brown hoodie, mahogany color." She eyed the suspect's puffy black jacket. "Close enough in this light?"

  At five thirty p.m. chilly mist was turning to icy fog. The shops fronting the Walnut Square walkway were closed. Few Peet's Coffee addicts even considered cutting through the walkway from Walnut to Vine. Even fewer were likely to clamber up the Everest of cement steps in the other direction.

  Certainly not Jeremy Lampara.