Thomas Perry - Runner

The monotonous thrum of the two enormous engines below the deck made him feel tired and irritated, and the repeated rise and fall of the boat on the long Pacific swells brought back dozens of episodes of motion sickness. Each time was exacerbated by his expert nonseaman's knowledge of every aspect of seasickness—exactly how bad it was so far, how long it would take to get worse under these specific conditions, at what point he would begin to fear the nausea would lead to vomiting, and how long after that he would accept his fate, surrender to it, and finally welcome it. He stood near the stern and stared back at the harbor.

"Richie."

Ruby Beale's voice was still high and a little screechy when she was straining it, but it had a gravelly unevenness that a lot of old smokers got. Richard turned and looked up the steps toward the flying bridge. That was what they called it: flying. When the ocean was choppy it felt up there as though the boat were trying to fling everyone off it. She was holding on to both railings at the top, her cigarette hanging at the corner of her lip. She was wearing a brightly flowered orange one-piece bathing suit with a voluminous pair of shorts over it, leaving the flabby white flesh of her arms and calves a feast for the sun.

"What, Ma?"

"Come up here."

"Why don't you come down? I like it down here." It wasn't true. He hated it down here, but at least he didn't feel as though he was about to be catapulted into the sea.

"Your father wants to talk to you."

He muttered, "Oh, shit." That was what he had been dreading. When he had arrived at the marina this morning, he had seen that flinty look in his father's blue-gray eyes. He had hoped the expression was just because it was a bit after six in the morning and the old man was still gruff from being up so early, but even then he had known it wasn't. The old man had told Richard to be there by five-thirty. It had always struck Richard as insane that people always went fishing at that hour. He could understand if they had been on their way to a tiny trout stream in the mountains, but how could anybody think the sort of fish that swam in the Pacific Ocean—half of them a mile below the surface and as big as a truck—would be so picky they cared what time it was?

But Andrew Beale was the sort of man who attached moral values to his own preferences. Men who were worth anything were on deck before the sun's rays touched it, their goddamned gear stowed and ready to cast off the lines. When Richard had roared into the marina parking lot in his Porsche Carrera at six-twenty-five, he had known his father would be less than cordial. As he was stepping cautiously along the little gangplank, he had heard his father saying something to his mother about leaving him on the dock.

Richard tested the lowest step to the bridge, and felt slightly relieved. The darker strip on each step was a substance like sandpaper that kept his foot from slipping, and the double railings on this boat were thicker and more substantial than they'd been on the last one. He fought the rocking of the boat by gripping the rails hard as he climbed, so by the time he was aloft and taking his first step onto the bridge, he felt as though he'd been lifting weights.

His father was at the wheel, staring through the huge windshield at the featureless, changeless ocean as though he could see something ahead that was invisible to Richard. At least the sound of the engines was quieter up here. Andy Beale was a man who looked as though he were made of blocks—big head with a neck invisible from behind, square shoulders in his starched white shirt with epaulets, short khaki pants. He was wearing his old navy blue USS Constance Kerr cap. He glared over his shoulder at Richard to see that he had arrived, but he let him wait.

After a couple of long minutes, Richard said, "What's up, Dad?"

"Want to take the helm?"

"No, thanks."

"Suit yourself." The old man throttled back a bit, so the big yacht slowed, and the side-to-side motion became more pronounced. "I've been thinking of talking to you for some time now."

"What about?"

"I'm sure you're smart enough to know that your mother and I keep an eye on you. Just because we might not be actively in your business at any given time doesn't mean we don't know what it is."

"What is it?"

"For months we've been wondering why you haven't seen fit to mention to us that your girlfriend was pregnant."

"What girlfriend?"

"All right. Your secretary, then. Whatever the hell she is to you. Christine. She's sort of a cute little thing, and people tell me she isn't stupid. A bit on the young side for a thirty-eight-year-old man, but that could pay off later. When you're my age, you'd have a woman who was still on the young side for you. Your mother has been trying to think of a way to do a party for you, complete with presents and so on. But she couldn't get very far with that, because you haven't told us. So I'm forced to ask."

Richard Beale felt even sicker. He could see that his father had reverted to his military personality again. His father was still a marvel to him. At various points in Richard's life he had been prompted to ask himself what the hell the navy did to people in four short years to change them so much. His father had been an Oklahoma farm boy until he went in the navy, and he had come out like this, and stayed this way for forty years. Richard knew he had to say something. "Oh, I don't know. I guess I didn't feel ready to start all of that in motion. I don't want any parties or fuss, at least until I know if this is going to work out."

"Seems a little late for that kind of wondering, doesn't it? If you weren't prepared to make a decision about her, maybe you should have kept it in your pants."

"I don't mean that."

"Not that we weren't pleased. Your mother has been running around with a pen and a special notebook writing down things for the wedding. She hasn't even finished figuring out the lists for the engagement party yet, but she has to make some moves to streamline this whole process so the bride won't be too obviously far along at the wedding. I haven't seen her this happy in twenty years."

Was the boat just drifting and rolling with the swells? Richard kept feeling worse. "Look, Dad. I've been trying to protect Mother from getting all excited and then being disappointed later, and you, too. I don't know how you found out Christine was pregnant. She didn't actually come out and tell even me."

"That's not good," said Andy Beale.

"How did you find out?"

"If I had wanted you to know that, I'd have told you. And for weeks, the mistake I thought you were making was trying to keep this to yourself and then springing it on your mother too late. But I guess you were making a different kind of mistake. With you, it's always some kind of mistake."

"That's not fair."

"Pah!" Andy Beale spat out something that was almost a laugh, but carried no happiness. "What I told you four years ago hasn't changed, Richard. I was the one who started this life with nothing but a pair of calloused hands and a reasonably serviceable brain. When the navy sent me here, they sent a million other guys here, too. I was one of the ones who had his eyes and ears open. I could see that lots of those guys were from cold, hard, barren places. Once they'd been here, they were going to come back. Hell, that's been going on since World War Two. That's why there is a San Diego. Some of us were willing to take risks and work hard. I bought my first duplex apartment by working two jobs before your mother and I were even married. I saved the rent on that one to put a down payment on another, and used your mother's savings from her nurse job to buy the third. I never looked back. We both worked for other people until we were over fifty while we were doing real estate deals at night and showing rentals to prospective tenants on our lunch hours. You get to be a big shot and tool around in a Porsche at twice the speed limit and live in a house like a palace and make milliondollar deals all day. But you'd do well to remember that none of it is yours. I let you get used to all of it because I'm not going to live forever, and I need somebody who knows how to run it after I can't. I didn't want you to inherit it at the age of fifty or sixty and know so little that you let somebody take it away from you."