Stuart Woods: Choke

“I don’t know any detective named Sculley,” she said.

“Sweetheart,” Tommy said, “if you don’t listen to me and do what I tell you right now, you’re going to get a very personal introduction. I’m new, okay? Now you get hold of the Coast Guard and tell them to scramble a cutter and to make sure there’s a medic on board.”

“You sure this isn’t some kind of joke?”

“What’s your name?”

“Helen Rafferty.”

“Helen, as one Irishman to another, this is the straight scoop. Now, does this department have a boat of some sort?”

“Yeah, but it’s hauled out getting some work done at the moment.”

“Swell. You call the Coast Guard, and I’ll find my own boat.”

“Are you sure…”

“Do it, Helen, and think about it later.” He raised a hand. “Waiter!” he yelled. “Check!”

Five minutes later, Tommy had left his wife to pay the bill for her birthday dinner, collared the young man who had skippered the Boston Whaler to the restaurant, and was on his way to the scene of the explosion, along with a very unhappy accountant from Atlanta.

“I just bought the thing,” the accountant said. “This is our first cruise.”

“What’s your name?” Tommy asked, notebook at the ready.

“Warren Porter,” the man replied. “Who are you, and what are you doing in my tender?”

Tommy flashed his new badge. “Key West PD; name’s Sculley.”

“How did you get here so fast?”

“I was having dinner, just like you.” Tommy turned to the man driving the boat. “Are you new on the yacht?”

“No, sir,” the young man said. “I worked for the previous owner.”

“Were you in charge of maintenance?”

“Yes, sir. She’s maintained to the hilt, you can take my word for it.”

“Take his word for it,” the accountant said. “I’ll show you my first yard bill.”

“Was there a gas system for cooking?”

“Yes, sir, two twenty-gallon bottles, both stowed on the port quarter. The system is… was first-rate, conformed to all the Coast Guard regulations.”

“What kind of fuel did the engines use?”

“Gasoline. Fairly unusual in a boat of this size, but the guy who built her wanted as much speed as possible for the weight of the engine, and diesel didn’t cut it for him.”

They reached the site of the explosion, and Tommy looked around. “Jesus H. Christ!” he said. “There’s nothing left.” All he could see were small pieces of flotsam, some of them still on fire. They added an eerie glow to the moonlight.

“There’ve got to be some bigger pieces,” the skipper said, “but they’ve probably sunk. I mean, nothing short of an atomic bomb could reduce a sixty-foot boat to such splinters. I’ll bet we’re sitting on top of some major wreckage.”

A siren sounded, and from around a point appeared a large vessel wearing a lot of lights.

“Here comes the Coast Guard,” Tommy said. “I got to ask both of you some questions before they get here. Anybody aboard the boat?”

“No,” the accountant said. “We all came ashore for dinner at Louie’s.”

“Thank God for small favors,” Tommy breathed. “Who cooks?”

“Nell,” the skipper said. “She’s my girlfriend; we’ve both been on the boat for over three years.”

“Does she know what she’s doing with the gas system? How to turn it off and secure it when it’s not being used?”

“You bet she does,” the skipper said. “She knows as much about the boat as I do, and she’s a careful girl.”

“Is it just possible that she might have been in a hurry to get ashore with everybody else and forgot to turn off the gas at the bottles?”

“Well, maybe,” the skipper admitted. “Normally we just turn off the gas at the stove and not at the bottles, unless we’re leaving the boat for a longer period of time.”

“So you could have had a leak?”

“It’s possible, but not likely. We’d have smelled it.”

“Did you have a gas detector aboard?”

The skipper shook his head. “It went south a week ago. It was on my list of things to replace while we’re in Key West.”

Tommy nodded. Enough little problems to make an accident were emerging. “Was she insured?” he asked the accountant.

The man nodded sadly. “Yeah, but there’s a ten-thousand-dollar-deductible, and insurance won’t pay for all the time I put in finding this boat and negotiating the sale.”

“Let me say two words to you, Mr. Porter,” Tommy said. “Casualty loss.”

The accountant looked a little happier.

It was past midnight when Tommy got to the hotel room he and his wife were living in until they found a place. He sneaked in, trying not to wake her.

“Have fun?” Rose asked.

“A fucking ball, sweetie,” Tommy said, crawling into bed. “The smell of burning yacht does wonders for your digestion when you’ve just had a great meal.”

“Well, I guess you don’t have to worry about it being too dull down here,” Rose said. “What happened?”

“Looks like an accidental gas explosion that ignited the fuel tanks. Nobody aboard, thank God. I don’t think I could have taken the smell of burning flesh after that dinner.”

“You like it here already, don’t you?”

“I guess we did the right thing,” Tommy replied. He had retired from the New York Police Department after twenty years, taken his pension, and headed south. Rose liked Florida, and it had taken him less than a month to find the Key West job. He was forty-two, and he had just started building time on a second pension. When he was sixty-two, they’d be free as birds.

“Let’s talk about that when we’ve found a place to live that we can afford and the furniture has arrived,” she said. “Then I’ll know if we did the right thing.”

“But Rosie, you always loved Florida,” Tommy said.

“This isn’t Florida, Tommy. This is like some kind of foreign country, some banana republic. It doesn’t have anything to do with Florida.”

“It’s hot as hell and it’s humid and it’s got a beach. It’s Florida.”

“If you say so.”

He rolled over and dug his arm under her head. “You’re going to love it here, Rosie,” he said. “Just you wait.”

“I’m waiting.”

“Rosie?”

“Yeah?”

“You remember the couple who came in right after we sat down to dinner?”

“You mean the couple in the white dress with the tits?”

“That’s the one.”

“What about them?”

“The guy looked familiar, you know?”

“I don’t know.”

“You never saw him before?”

“Nope.”

“Not even in the papers or anything?”

“Nope.”

“You know what he looked like to me? He looked connected.”

“Tommy, they don’t know from connected down here.”

“You never know,” he said. “Say, did I wish you a happy birthday?”

“As a matter of fact, you didn’t.”

Tommy pulled her leg over his, rubbed his thigh against her crotch, and ran a hand up under her nightgown. “Happy birthday,” he said, tickling her ass.

Rose sighed and kissed him. “Thank you, Tommy; it’s been a memorable evening.”

“Memorable starts right now,” Tommy said.

Chuck had a light first week at the Olde Island Racquet Club. His only regulars were Harry and Clare Carras; they never missed, and they always came together. Until Saturday.

Clare showed up at 11:00 A.M., alone.

“Morning, Clare,” Chuck said. “Where’s Harry?”

“In Miami, on business,” she replied. “What do you want to do today?”

She looked at him for a moment. “Let’s work on my serve,” she said finally. “I’m too erratic.”