Benchley, Peter - Novel 06 (38 page)

 
          
 
"What are they going to do to me,
Timothy?" There was fear in the voice.

 
          
 
Be careful, Burnham told himself. You don't
want to provoke anything. But he . . . she . . . has to know how serious this
is. He felt lost. He wasn't a hostage negotiator. All he knew about hostage
negotiating was what he'd seen on Hill Street Blues.

 
          
 
"If you let me help you, nothing,"
he said. "If you don't, I'm afraid they may hurt you."

 
          
 
"I have nothing to live for."

 
          
 
Burnham paused. "This is Timothy you're
talking to, Teresa, not Phil Donahue. Don't pull that I'll Cry Tomorrow crap on
me." He held his breath, praying that the line wouldn't go dead.

 
          
 
A tiny laugh squeaked forth from Teresa, and
she said, "You're too much.''

 
          
 
"Tell me what happened."

 
          
 
"We had a break between charters. I was
going to do some work on the boat. One of the Jacuzzis was leaking."

 
          
 
"Jacuzzis? You've got Jacuzzis on a
sailboat?"

 
          
 
"And a sauna and a massage room. Anyway,
a friend called and said she had a friend who had just broken up and was a mess
and needed to get away, and would I take him for a little cruise? Well, you
know me, I'm a sucker for a broken heart, so I said I would, and this boy came
aboard."

 
          
 
"A boy?"

 
          
 
"Oh, all right, a young man. I'm not
crazy, Timothy. He was a sweet little thing, and very sad, so I took him under
my arm, and one thing led to another, and, well . . . here we are."

 
          
 
"Oh no you don't, Teresa. Step by step,
if you please."

 
          
 
He heard Teresa sigh. "All right. We left
Fort
Lauderdale
and sailed down the coast and hopped along the Keys. We spent a couple
of days in
Key
West
and had a ball. We left
Key West
, and I still had a week before I had to pick up my next charter, so I
thought we'd take a spin to the
Bahamas
. This boy and I had become soulmates. It
could have been more than that. It should have been more than that, but there
was a problem: He isn't interested in girls, and I'm a girl."

 
          
 
"That is a problem."

 
          
 
"I was going mad. Biology was keeping us
apart. Then the truth hit me like a ton of bricks."

 
          
 
"It did?"

 
          
 
"You remember I told you I was having all
those operations?"

 
          
 
"Sure."

 
          
 
"I ran out of money before the end. Daddy
wouldn't give me the money for the last operation. He thought soy beans and
pork bellies were a better investment than turning a pitiful wreck of a Toddy
into a joyous sprite named Teresa."

 
          
 
"You mean . . . you're not a girl?"

 
          
 
"Ninety-nine and forty-four
one-hundredths percent pure. There's just one little item remaining."

 
          
 
"Called a—"

 
          
 
"You call it that if you want. I call it
the devil's plaything. But yes. That hateful creature is still hanging around.
I thought to myself: Well, maybe for once in its life, it can be useful."

 
          
 
"So you told him.”

 
          
 
"Not exactly. The night we left
Key West
, the other girls—the mate and her mate—went
to bed early. I had the watch, and Ian—that's the boy—was with me in the
cockpit. What an ironic name."

 
          
 
"Ian?"

 
          
 
"No. Cockpit. There was a nice breeze
from the southwest, so we were on an easy broad reach. I could handle the wheel
with my toes."

 
          
 
Burnham was impressed. "You've learned a
lot in a year."

 
          
 
"I'm adaptable, Timothy. If I'm anything,
I'm adaptable. Anyway, we were having a lovely time, but then he got anxious.
He started to apologize: He liked me, he respected me, all that nonsense, but
he just couldn't relate —his word—to a woman. I was in a fever. I couldn't
stand it any longer. Maybe the Pinot Chardonnay made me do it, I don't know,
but I stood up and tore off my shorts and showed him. 'It's all right!' I
cried. 'I can be yours!' I knew this would solve our problem. He'd be enchanted."

 
          
 
"And?"

 
          
 
"He freaked out. He screamed. He pointed
as if it was going to attack him. He jumped up on the fantail and tried to hide
behind the backstay. I was terrified he was going to fall overboard. Or
jump."

 
          
 
"What did you do?"

 
          
 
"Nothing! I just stood there. I was
shocked. I mean, I expected him to be surprised, but I didn't think he'd go
bananas. He looked like he'd seen an alien. It doesn't do much for a girl's
self-esteem, I can tell you."

 
          
 
"No."

 
          
 
"I promised I wouldn't hurt him, but he
wouldn't listen. He ran below and locked himself in his cabin. I tried to
reason with him, but every time I tapped on his door, he yelled 'Rape!' and
demanded to be put ashore. So I thought: Well, this little affair has gone
about as far as it can go. I went to start the engine. I wasn't going to waste
time sailing back. If the little sissy wanted to get home, I'd take him
home."

 
          
 
"The engine wouldn't start."

 
          
 
"Right. We'd been having a problem with
some of the injectors, but nothing serious. All of a sudden, it was
serious."

 
          
 
"Why didn't you sail?"

 
          
 
"I tried. After about an hour, the
southwest wind veered to the northwest, then to the north, then it settled in
the northeast. You know what a northeast wind is like in the
Gulf Stream
."

 
          
 
"Garbage."

 
          
 
"It grew and grew and grew. I bet that by
two in the morning it was blowing forty knots. Waves were breaking onto our
midships. Down below, Ian was howling like a tortured cat, and one of the girls
was throwing up all over everything. I don't mind telling you, I was scared out
of my wits. I knew God was punishing me. I didn't know for what—just for being
me, I guess. That got me depressed. After a while, I didn't care if we
sank."

 
          
 
"You wouldn't sink. Those boats are built
like steel."

 
          
 
"Not with a hole in the bow."

 
          
 
"What?"

 
          
 
"I told you one of the Jacuzzis was
leaking? It turns out, a gasket in a return valve had worn away. The mate went
down to turn on the bilge pumps and found out we were taking sea water up
through the Jacuzzi in the bow. I couldn't keep pounding into the sea, or we'd
fill."

 
          
 
"So you ran from it."

 
          
 
"I had to. I came down to bare poles and
turned south."

 
          
 
"Didn't you know what was down
there?"

 
          
 
"Of course I did! You think I wanted to
come to this tacky dump? I put out a sea anchor to slow us down. If the stupid
wind had stopped blowing, I wouldn't be here now. But it didn't, not until we
were about fifteen minutes from being on
Cuba
. I had three choices: Turn around and head
north again, with a foot of water belowdecks, and maybe run into another blow
and this time sink for sure; try to beat my way around the Cuban coast and go
south to the Caymans, which would take at least a couple of days if we didn't
get fired on by Cuban patrol boats; or sail into Havana harbor, which was dead
ahead. I sailed into the harbor."

 
          
 
"Wise choice. But why did you have to ask
for asylum?"

 
          
 
"Asylum! I never asked for asylum! I
asked for assistance."

 
          
 
''What? Who did you speak to?"

 
          
 
"Some Hispanic. On Channel Sixteen."

 
          
 
"Did you ask in English or Spanish?"

 
          
 
"God, Timothy! Who speaks Spanish?"

 
          
 
Burnham paused. He sent his mind forward two
or three steps, hoping it would scan all the possibilities. Had the Cubans
misunderstood? Had they deliberately set out to cause mischief?

 
          
 
"Is it true that you're threatening to
blow up that Russian ship?"

 
          
 
''What Russian?" Teresa gasped.
"Omigod! That thing is a Russian! I don't want to blow up anybody. I just
tied a line to him because my anchor windlass shorted out, and if I put a hook
down here, I won't be able to get it up."

 
          
 
"Sweet Jesus," Burnham said.
"Who have you talked to?"

 
          
 
"Nobody, except that ... Oh my!"

 
          
 
"What?"

 
          
 
"I don't believe it."

 
          
 
"What?"

 
          
 
"That little putz."

 
          
 
"What, for crissakes!"

 
          
 
"As we were coming into the harbor, I
heard Ian screaming out his porthole. Rape, pillage, carnage, the whole number.
I thought that wasn't a very smart way for us to throw ourselves on the mercy
of a Communist dictator, so I went below and dragged him out of his cabin. I
told him our situation, but he wouldn't listen. He kept calling me names. So I
punched him."

 
          
 
"You punched him."

 
          
 
"Well? I didn't hurt him, not really. I
just bloodied his nose. Then I went up top. Five minutes later, I heard a
commotion below. The mate had caught him broadcasting on the single sideband.
She said he was saying 'Rape!' and 'Murder!' and a lot of dirty names into the
radio. I don't know what-all he said, or to whom."

 
          
 
"Where is he now?"