Cradle (6 page)

Carol walked on slowly. She pulled the computer listing that Julianne had given her
from a small purple beach bag. Before she could look at it, she heard a telephone
ring on her left and her eyes lifted naturally to follow the sound. The telephone
was ringing on a boat just in front of her. A husky man in his early thirties was
sitting in a folding chair on the same boat. Wearing only a red baseball cap, a pair
of swim trunks, dark sunglasses and some thongs, the man was intently watching a small
television propped up on a flimsy tray of some kind. He held a sandwich in one hand
(Carol could see the white mayonnaise oozing out between the slices of bread even
from her distance of ten yards or so) and a can of beer in the other. There was no
sign that he had even heard the telephone.

Carol moved closer, a little curious. A basketball game was in progress on the television.
On about the sixth ring of the phone, the man gave a small cheer (with his mouth full
of sandwich) in the direction of the six-inch picture tube, took a swig from his beer,
and abruptly jumped up to answer the call. The telephone was underneath a canopy in
the centre of the boat, on a wood-panelled wall behind the steering wheel and next
to some built-in counters that appeared to contain the navigation and radio equipment
for the boat. The man fiddled with the steering wheel unconsciously during the brief
conversation and never took his eyes off the television. He hung up, issued another
short cheer, and returned to his folding chair.

Carol was now standing on the jetty, just inches away from the front of the boat and
no more than ten feet away from where the man was sitting. But he was oblivious of
her, totally absorbed in his basketball game. ‘
All right
,’ he shouted all at once, reacting to something pleasing in the game. He jumped up.
The sudden movement caused the boat to rock and the jerrybuilt tray underneath the
television gave way. The man reached out quickly and grabbed the TV before it hit
the ground, but in so doing he lost his balance and fell forward on his elbows.

‘Shit,’ he said to himself, wincing from the pain. He was lying on the deck, his sunglasses
cocked sideways on his head, the game still continuing on the little set in his hands.
Carol could not suppress her laughter. Now aware for the first time that he was not
alone, Nick Williams, the owner and operator of the
Florida Queen
, turned in the direction of the feminine laugh.

‘Excuse me,’ Carol began in a friendly way, ‘I just happened to be walking by and
I saw you fall….’ She stopped. Nick was not amused.

‘What do you want?’ Nick fixed her with a truculent glare. He stood up, still holding
(and watching) the television and now trying as well to put the tray back together.
He didn’t have enough hands to do everything at once.

‘You know,’ Carol said, still smiling, ‘I could help you with that, if it wouldn’t
injure your masculine pride.’

Nick put the television down on the deck of the boat and began to reassemble the tray.
‘No thank you,’ he said. ‘I can manage.’ Obviously ignoring Carol, he set the TV back
on the tray, returned to his folding chair, and picked up his sandwich and beer.

Carol was amused by what the man had clearly intended as a putdown. She looked around
the boat. Neatness was not one of the strengths of the proprietor. Little odds and
ends, including masks, snorkels, regulators, towels, and even old lunches from fast-food
restaurants were scattered all over the front of the boat. In one of the corners someone
had obviously taken apart a piece of electronic equipment, perhaps for repair, and
left the entire works a jumbled mess. Mounted on the top of the blue canopy were two
signs, each with a different type of print, one giving the name of the boat and the
other saying
THANK YOU FOR NOT SMOKING
.

The boat looked out of character for the sleek modern marina and Carol imagined the
other boat owners reacting with disgust each day as they passed the
Florida Queen
. On an impulse Carol looked at the computer listing in her hand. She almost laughed
out loud when she saw the boat listed as one of the nine available for hire.

‘Excuse me,’ she began, intending to start a discussion about chartering the boat
for the afternoon.

Nick heaved an exaggerated sigh and turned away from his televised basketball game.
The miffed look on his face was unmistakable. It said, What? Are you still here? I
thought we’d finished our conversation. Now go away and let me enjoy the afternoon
on my boat.

Carol couldn’t resist the opportunity to harass the arrogant Nick Williams (she assumed
that the name on the computer listing and the man in front of her were the same, for
she couldn’t imagine a crew member acting with such apparent confidence and authority
on someone else’s boat). ‘Who’s playing?’ she said cheerfully, as if she had no idea
that Nick was trying to get rid of her.

‘Harvard and Tennessee,’ he answered gruffly, amazed that Carol hadn’t got the message.

‘What’s the score?’ she said quickly, now enjoying the game that she had just created.

Nick turned around again, his quizzical look acknowledging his exasperation. ‘It’s
31-29 Harvard,’ he said sharply, ‘just before the end of the first half.’ Carol didn’t
move. She simply smiled and returned his fierce stare without blinking. ‘And it’s
the first round of the NCAA tournament and they’re playing in the Southeast Regional.
Any more questions?’

‘Just one,’ she said. ‘I would like to charter this boat for the afternoon. Are you
Nick Williams?’

He was taken by surprise. ‘Whaat?’ Nick said. At that minute Tennessee tied the basketball
game again, distracting Nick even further. He watched the game for a couple of seconds
and then tried to collect himself. ‘But I’ve had no calls from Julianne. Anyone who
wants to charter a boat here at Hemingway has to sign in at the desk and….’

‘I came down to look at another boat first. I didn’t like it. So I stopped by here
on the way back.’ Nick was watching the television again and Carol was losing her
patience with him. At first he had been amusing.
At least I don’t have to worry about his pawing me
, she thought.
The guy can’t even concentrate on me enough to get his boat chartered
. ‘Look,’ she added, ‘do you want a charter for this afternoon or not?’

The first half of the basketball game ended. ‘All right… I guess so,’ Nick said slowly,
thinking to himself,
only because I need the money
. He gestured to Carol to descend on to the deck of the boat. ‘Let me just call Julianne
and make sure you’re legit. You never know these days.’

While Nick confirmed Carol’s identification with the marina headquarters, a jaunty
young black man in his early twenties came down the jetty and stopped just opposite
the
Florida Queen
. ‘Hey, Professor,’ he said, the moment Nick was off the phone, ‘am I in the wrong
place?’ He motioned to Carol. ‘You didn’t tell me you were entertaining beauty, style,
and class today. Wooee! Look at that jewellery. And that silk blouse. Should I go
now and come back to hear your stories later?’ He winked at Carol. ‘He’s no good,
angel. All his girlfriends eventually end up with me.’

‘Cut the crap, Jefferson,’ Nick said, ‘this woman is a potential customer. And you’re
late, as usual. How do you expect me to run a charter dive boat when I don’t have
any idea when or if my crew is going to show up?’

‘Professor’—the newcomer jumped down on the boat and walked up to Carol—‘if I had
known that you had something that looked like
this
down here, I would have been here before dawn. Hello, there, young lady, my name
is Troy Jefferson. I am the rest of the crew on this lunatic asylum of a boat.’

Carol had been slightly discomfited by the arrival of Troy and the quick repartee
that followed. But she adapted swiftly and regained her composure. She took Troy’s
outstretched hand and smiled. He immediately leaned up and almost brushed his cheek
against hers. ‘Oooeee.’ Troy pulled back grinning. ‘I just caught a whiff of Oscar
de la Renta. Professor, didn’t I tell you this woman had class? Well, angel’—he looked
at Carol in mock admiration—‘I just can’t tell you how much it means to me to finally
meet up with someone like you on this tub. Usually we get old ladies, I mean
old
ladies, who want to—’

‘Enough, Jefferson,’ Nick interrupted him. ‘We have work to do. It’s almost noon already
and we’re still at least half an hour away from being ready to leave. We don’t even
know what Miss Dawson wants to do.’

‘Carol is fine,’ she said. She paused for a moment, assessing the two men in front
of her.
Might as well
, Carol thought,
nobody is going to suspect anything if I’m with these two
. ‘Well, I told the desk that I wanted to go out to do some swimming and diving. But
that’s only partially true. What I really want to do is go out here’ (she pulled a
folded map out of her beach bag and showed them an area of about ten square miles
in the Gulf of Mexico to the north of Key West) ‘and look for whales.’

Nick’s brow furrowed. Troy peered over Carol’s shoulder at the map. ‘There have been
numerous irregularities in the behaviour of whales in this area lately, including
a major beaching at Deer Key this morning,’ Carol continued. ‘I want to see if I can
find any pattern in their actions. I may need to do some diving, so one of you will
have to accompany me. I assume that at least one of you is a licensed diver and that
your dive gear is on board?’

The two men regarded her with disbelieving stares. Carol felt on the defensive. ‘Really…
I’m a reporter,’ she said as an explanation. ‘I work for the
Miami Herald
. I just did a story this morning on the Deer Key beaching.’

Troy turned to Nick. ‘Okay, Professor, I guess we have a live charter here. One who
says she wants to look for whales in the Gulf of Mexico. What do you say? Should we
accept her money?’

Nick shrugged his shoulders indifferently and Troy took it as assent. ‘All right,
angel,’ Troy said to Carol, ‘we’ll be ready in half an hour. We’re both licensed divers
if we’re really needed. Our gear is on board and we can get more for you. Why don’t
you pay Julianne at the desk and get your things together.’

Troy turned and walked over to the jumbled mess of electronics at the front of the
boat. He picked up one of the boxes with its housing partially removed and began toying
with it. Nick pulled another beer out of the refrigerator and opened the built-in
counters, exposing racks of equipment. Carol did not move. After about twenty seconds
Nick noticed that she was still there. ‘Well,’ he said in a tone of dismissal, ‘didn’t
you hear Troy? We won’t be ready for half an hour.’ He turned around and walked toward
the back of the boat.

Troy looked up from his repair work. He was amused by the friction already developing
between Nick and Carol. ‘Is he always so pleasant?’ Carol said to Troy, nodding in
Nick’s direction. She was still smiling but her tone conveyed some irritation. ‘I
have a few pieces of equipment that I want to bring on board. Can you give me a hand
with it?’

Thirty minutes later Troy and Carol returned to the
Florida Queen
. Troy was grinning and whistling ‘Zippity-Do-Dah’ as he pulled a cart down the jetty
and came to a stop in front of the boat. A partially-filled footlocker was resting
on the cart. Troy could hardly wait to see Nick’s face when he saw Carol’s ‘few pieces
of equipment’. Troy was excited by the turn of events. He knew that this was no casual
afternoon charter. Reporters, even successful ones (and Troy’s street intelligence
had quickly informed him that Carol was not just an ordinary reporter), did not have
everyday access to the kind of equipment that she was carrying. Already Troy was certain
that the whale story was just a cover. But he wasn’t going to say anything just yet;
he wanted to wait and see how things developed.

Troy liked this confident young woman. There was no trace of superiority or prejudice
in her manner. And she had a good sense of humour. After they had opened the back
of her station wagon and she had showed him the footlocker full of equipment, Troy
had demonstrated to Carol that he was fairly sophisticated about electronics. He had
recognized immediately the MOI insignia on Dale’s ocean telescope and had even guessed
the meaning of the MOI-IPL acronym on the back of the large monitor and data storage
system. When he had looked at her for an explanation, Carol had just laughed and said,
‘So I need some help finding the whales. What can I say?’

Carol and Troy had loaded the gear on the cart and wheeled it through the parking
lot. She had been a little dismayed at first by Troy’s recognition of the equipment’s
origin and his friendly, probing questions (which she handled adroitly with vague
answers—she was helped by the fact that Troy wanted mostly to know how the electronics
worked and she, in truth, didn’t have the foggiest idea). But as they talked, Carol
developed a comfortable feeling about Troy. Her intuitive sense told her that Troy
was an ally and could be counted on to be discreet with any important information.

Carol had not, however, planned for a security check inside the Hemingway Marina headquarters.
One of the primary selling points of the slips at the new marina had been the almost
unparalleled security system offered the boat owners. Every person who went into or
out of the marina had to pass through computerized gates adjacent to the headquarters
building. A full listing of each individual entrance and exit, including the time
of passage through the gate, was printed out each night and retained in the security
office files as a precaution in case any suspicious or untoward events were reported.

Matériel entering and leaving the marina was also routinely scrutinized (and logged)
by the security chief to prevent the theft of expensive navigation equipment and other
electronics. Carol was only mildly irked when, after she had paid for the charter,
Julianne asked her to fill out a sheet describing the contents of the closed footlocker.
But Carol really objected when the summoned security chief, a typical Boston Irish
policeman who had retired in the Key West area, forced her to open the locker to verify
the contents. Carol’s objections and Troy’s attempts to help her were to no avail.
Rules were rules.