Amagansett (18 page)

They arrived at the Montauk Yacht Club at seven o’clock sharp, two chauffeur-driven cars pulling up near the clubhouse and disgorging their occupants.

Conrad made his way along the dock to greet them.

He recognized her father, brother and Justin Penrose from photos she’d once shown him at the house. Her sister, Gayle, was talking to a small woman with long dark hair tied back off her face. Her appearance fitted what Lillian had told him of the maid, Rosa. This was confirmed when Conrad drew closer to the group.

‘Help Rosa unload the food, will you,’ said George Wallace to one of the drivers.

Gayle effected the introductions and Conrad shook hands with father and son. George Wallace thanked him for recovering Lillian’s body from the ocean, and for arranging the charter boat. It didn’t seem to occur to him that there was anything odd about juxtaposing the two events in the same sentence, but at least he got them in the right order of priority.

Conrad made a point of gripping Manfred Wallace’s hand a little more firmly than was necessary, and of staring deep into his blue, almost aquamarine, eyes. He was rewarded with a satisfying flicker of unease.

Another man introduced himself as Richard Wakeley. They had spoken on the phone when Conrad first called Gayle to say he’d found a boat for them. Steering Conrad a little to one side,
Wakeley peeled off the sum they’d agreed on from a wad of bills.

Conrad tucked the cash into his hip pocket. ‘Not coming with us?’ he asked, taking in Wakeley’s neatly pressed slacks and leather shoes.

‘I can’t stand the ocean.’

‘She’s a cruel mistress, old Mother Atlantic. As Lillian learned to her cost.’

The overfamiliar use of her Christian name was intentional.

‘Indeed,’ said Wakeley.

In all, there were seven in the party—the Wallaces, Justin Penrose and his father, another man, and an attractive brunette a little younger than Gayle, with dark pools for eyes.

They all seemed pleased with the boat, the
Zephyr
—a lowsided, beamy forty-four-footer. There was plenty of room around the two fighting chairs bolted to the aft deck, as well as a shaded eating area in the large open pilothouse, which had been vacated by the skipper for the running bridge above.

Conrad knew that Captain Whitman B. Chase wouldn’t disappoint, and he didn’t. His grizzled face was shaded beneath the long bill of his swordfisherman’s cap; and his gruff, almost dismissive, greeting of his customers as they clambered aboard was no less than they’d expected, or hoped for.

‘Stow your gear down below. There’s ice in the fish hold,’ he growled. ‘And shake a leg, else we’ll miss the ebb tide.’

They exchanged amused glances, delighted at being taken in hand by this grumpy old sea-dog.

As Conrad helped load the platters of food, the boxes of drink, crockery and cutlery, he sensed an unease in Rosa. She seemed to be doing her very best to avoid his gaze.

Taking a large dish of devilled chicken from her, he said pointedly, ‘Thanks, Rosa.’

There was no mistaking the alarm in her eyes.

She knew. Lillian had told her about them.

Turning away, he tried to assess the impact of this revelation,
feeding the information into the equation. There was no way of knowing how it would affect his plan, if at all.

She certainly hadn’t told her employers, that much was clear from the way they were treating him. And if she hadn’t told them by now, then she was unlikely ever to do so. Lillian had probably sworn her to secrecy, and there was no reason for Rosa to break that trust, even now. Just to be sure, though, he kept a close watch on her until they were ready to leave.

Chase fired the engines and a great cloud of fumes billowed out of the stern.

‘Cast off,’ he called.

Rollo freed the lines, leaping aboard the
Zephyr
as she slid away from the dock and out into the basin of Montauk Lake.

‘Good luck,’ shouted Wakeley, waving them off.

Rosa stood beside him. She wasn’t waving.

They steamed out of the channel then ran east. The sea was glassy calm with a gentle ground swell running, and they bowled along at a steady clip, driven by the throaty GM diesel.

Rollo worked his way to the end of the narrow swordfish pulpit that extended some twenty feet clear of the stem. He stood there, his hands on the rail, facing into the rising sun, the wind whipping his hair, and Conrad wished for a moment that he had a camera with him.

‘Do you want some coffee?’

He turned to see that Gayle had joined him on the foredeck. She hadn’t found her sea legs yet, and probably never would, certainly not in those heels.

‘Thanks.’

He glanced up at the flying bridge where Chase was rolling a plug of tobacco around his mouth.

‘Hey, Cap, coffee?’

‘Makes me shit liquid.’

‘I think that’s a no,’ said Conrad. He nodded at Rollo riding the wind beyond the bow wave. ‘He’ll have some when he’s finished.’

‘What is that thing?’

‘A pulpit, for harpooning swordfish.’

‘Oh.’

Gayle started making her way around the pilothouse.

‘Best take those off.’ He nodded at her shoes. ‘One big swell and you’ll be swimming.’

She reached for him to steady herself, her fingers pale against his forearm. She was flirting with him, just as she had the other day when she showed up at his place. This time, though, he didn’t resent her quite so much for it. From what Hendrik had told him, it seemed unlikely she was involved.

‘Thanks,’ she said when she was done.

‘No problem,’ he replied, tearing his eyes away from her feet.

They could just as well have been Lillian’s.

The only experienced fisherman among the party was the gentleman who proved to be the father of the brunette. The older men called him Marshal; Manfred Wallace and Justin Penrose addressed him as ‘Senator’; to his daughter he was just plain ‘Pappy’.

The Senator had come armed with his own rod, its reel as big as a dinner plate, and he had every intention of telling the others how things were done. Depositing himself in one of the fighting chairs, his instructions were clearly secondary to the real purpose of the exercise: that of discussing his past exploits. For him, ‘the one that got away’ was a six-hundred-pound bluefin he’d hooked off the Outer Banks of North Carolina, an excellent winter tuna fishery known to few, he claimed.

‘I was in the chair for an hour before the first mate took over. When he folded, I put in another half-hour. That monster never tired, not once, kept running back and forth beneath the boat. We could have been there till nightfall and still not brought it to gaff. Yes, she earned her freedom, that one,’ he conceded magnanimously, through gritted teeth.

As the stories ran on, the others hanging on his every word, it was becoming increasingly clear that the trip had been organized primarily for the Senator’s benefit.

And that, thought Conrad, presented an opportunity for a bit of sport.

They were five miles south of Block Island when the order came down from the flying bridge to start trolling. Rollo took a couple of menhaden from the live well. They hooked the fish up to the lines and trailed them over the teakwood transom into the wake.

Chase slowed the
Zephyr
to six or seven knots. At this speed, the tuna would take the live baits for the real thing. Not that getting bluefin to strike was the problem. What you did with them once they had was the name of the game.

It had already been decided that Justin Penrose’s father should take the first turn in the other chair beside the Senator.

Conrad adjusted the drag on Penrose’s reel.

‘If you get a hit, don’t do anything. The skipper will throttle up to set the hook. I’ll talk you through it from there.’ He started strapping him into the harness.

‘Is that necessary?’ asked Penrose senior.

‘Never know what’s out there.’

‘You wouldn’t be the first to go over the side, Everett,’ chuckled the Senator.

‘That’s the truth,’ called Chase from the bridge. ‘Ask old Eric Doucette, he’ll tell you. If you can find him. No one’s seen him since.’

Penrose shifted nervously in his chair. ‘What happened?’

‘Worked a commercial boat out of Old Harbor on Block Island. Experienced bluefin man. Been fishing ‘em since ever, them Nova Scotians. Hooked a large giant out there in the mud hole, just last year it was. Anyhow, he fights it to the boat and it’s laying there in the water, dead as mutton, or so he thinks. He’s wiring it up when that fish comes to life, takes off straight down. Only thing is, Doucette’s got the wire looped round his arm. Gone in a flash. Straight over the side. Still down there probably, cruising around. Who knows, maybe it dropped him off back in Nova Scotia.’

‘That’s terrible,’ said Gayle Wallace.

‘That’s bluefin for you, don’t want to mess with ‘em.’

Chase was right. For sheer brutish power and endurance the bluefin had no equals among the big-game fish. For all their leaps and fancy acrobatics, marlin and sailfish tired quickly, and it was often said that once you’d hooked a giant bluefin nothing else would do.

Conrad rested a reassuring hand on Penrose’s shoulder. ‘You’ll be okay. Just keep the rod butt in the gimbal and your hands away from the reel.’

He turned his attention to the Senator, whose eyes were fixed on his bait some thirty yards astern of the boat.

‘What line are you carrying?’ asked Conrad.

‘Hundred pound.’

‘Won’t be much fun if we hit some thirty-pound schoolies.’

‘A fish is a fish,’ said the Senator.

Asshole, thought Conrad.

‘What’s the record this year in these waters?’ asked the Senator.

‘Cap, what’s the record this year?’ called Conrad to the bridge.

‘Seven hundred and thirty-six pounds,’ came back the reply.

‘Sweet Jesus.’

‘Pappy!’

‘A third of a ton,’ muttered the Senator. More than enough to put the demon of that giant North Carolina bluefin to rest. He adjusted himself in his chair and waited.

And waited.

Half an hour later they were still trolling back and forth on the offshore grounds, the only consolation being that none of the other boats they could see appeared to be hooked up.

The girls had lost interest by now and had retreated to the shade where they were chatting and flipping through magazines. The men, all five of them, were smoking cigars and talking about Yale. Rollo had climbed to the masthead where he was perched on the old automobile seat that served as a lookout. He was scouring the ocean for telltale signs—a surface break, or a darkened patch, like the shadow of a cloud, indicating a school of baitfish.

‘What do you say we anchor up and try chunking them?’ called the Senator to the bridge.

They’d come prepared with a tub of mashed menhaden chum, but Chase wasn’t ready to start heaving it over the side.

‘They’re out there, I can smell ‘em. And the troll bite’s been holdin’ up good all season.’

‘Did he say he can smell them?’ asked Penrose senior.

Manfred Wallace blew out his cigar smoke. ‘He doesn’t mean it literally.’

‘Don’t be so sure,’ said Conrad.

Manfred Wallace didn’t appreciate the comment, or the tone. It rankled him, though not enough to warrant a response.

‘I don’t know,’ called the Senator to the bridge. ‘My guess is they’re settled in.’

Chase didn’t reply. He didn’t need to. The fish did the talking for him. The water just behind the Senator’s bait erupted in a blur of blue and bronze.

‘Holy shit…’

The Senator’s reel came to life, whirring to a mist as the tuna made a blistering run to starboard. Chase eased the throttle forward to set the hook, then spun the wheel hard and opened it up.

Conrad seized the back of the Senator’s chair, turning it to keep the fish lined up. The others gathered round, staring, mesmerized by the sheer speed of the fish—a hundred yards, two hundred…

‘Look at it go,’ said Manfred.

‘It’s not going anywhere,’ said the Senator.

The bluefin stripped two hundred and fifty yards off the reel before sounding.

‘You get a look at it?’ asked the Senator. ‘All I saw was the hole it left.’

‘I don’t know,’ said Conrad. ‘Not a giant. Maybe fifty pounds.’

‘Seventy,’ called Chase.

Either way, the Senator was right—it wasn’t going anywhere, not attached to a hundred-pound test line. It was simply a matter of cranking it in, something the Senator was clearly quite capable of doing. Twice Conrad spotted him back off the drag on his reel, allowing the fish to make another rush. This was done for the
benefit of the spectators, to make him look good—man and fish locked in battle.

It was all over in ten minutes, the fish alongside the boat. Conrad gaffed it under the chin and Rollo secured a strap around its tail. Together they hauled it up over the gunwale. It flopped on to the deck, its flanks flashing iridescent blue in the sunlight, grading through bronze to the silver of its belly.

‘Poor thing,’ said Gayle Wallace.

‘It’s your daddy I’m after,’ said the Senator.

‘Bait off the port bow,’ called Chase.

Conrad hurried aloft. In the distance, birds were flocking, with more arriving by the second.

‘Big school of bait comin’ up fast.’

‘What do you think’s driving them?’

‘Well, it ain’t lobsters,’ grinned Chase, edging the throttle forward.

As they drew closer Conrad said, ‘Jesus.’

‘Even he couldn’t walk on that lot,’ muttered Chase.

The surface of the ocean was churning with life. And death. Gannets and gulls swooped and slammed on to the water from above, snapping up sparkling baitfish, while hundreds of frenzied school tuna flashed to and fro, their distinctive sickle fins scything through the chop. Every now and then one would break clear of the water in its eagerness to kill, jaws snapping at the silver mist of baitfish leaping before it. There were other fish present too, striped bass and bluefish, both fearsome hunters, and also ready to take to the air for their prey, but no match for a speeding bluefin. A couple of sharks lazily patrolled the fringes of the melee, biding their time, allowing the tuna to tire themselves out.