By The Sea, Book Four: The Heirs (22 page)

Convinced Quinta, anyway. She was there,
covering the event for
Cup Quotes
, and she was properly
dazzled. All 12-meter yachts looked fast, but this one seemed to
have an aura.
Or maybe,
she admitted as she positioned her
camera,
Alan Seton is the one with the damn aura.

She lifted her camera to frame the
obligatory shot for her paper and was surprised to notice, in the
view-finder, one of the three young protesters who had come to the
Cup Quotes
office the previous week. The girl looked like
anything but a troublemaker: she was polo-shirted and pretty, with
brown hair and horn-rimmed glasses that gave her a scholarly,
almost timid look. Obviously she had had no problem slipping past
the guard. On her arm hung a canvas carrier. She was walking along
in the same direction that the boat was being moved

Pardon me," Quinta said to her. "It's ...
Kirsten, isn't it?"

The girl turned around quickly, reddening to
the collar of her shirt, and said, "Oh! I know you. You're from the
Cup newsletter."

"Right. We met when you came to tell Frank
about the escalation in your protest. I wanted to ask you then:
have you had any luck talking with someone in the syndicate?"

"Be serious. They keep referring us to Mavis
Moran, and she keeps telling us to mind our own business."

"Will your people take to your inflatables
again, once the
Pegasus
is back in the water?"

"Yes, and we'll have better video than we've
managed to come up with so far. We finally have someone behind a
camera who knows what he's doing. It'll be very dramatic."

Quinta let out a sigh of professional envy.
"That doesn't help those of us in the print media very much."

The girl was becoming increasingly fidgety
as the lift carrying the
Pegasus
rolled to a stop in its
tracks above the water. "No, I suppose not. Look—if you want a
picture, keep your camera on me."

Kirsten edged away from Quinta, who tracked
the protester in her view-finder as she ambled nonchalantly up to
the sleek 12-meter yacht, flipped reached into her carrier, and
brought out a ripe red tomato the size of a cantaloupe.

"Uh-oh," whispered Quinta to herself, but
she began shooting as the protester hauled her arm back and let fly
the tomato, which landed with a splat in the middle of the
white-winged horse. Kirsten reached into her basket and came out
with another one. Splat. It was no big thing, a ritual desecration,
but the sense of shock among the crew and syndicate members was
palpable. Kirsten never got off a third missile; two crew members
pounced on her and held her while a security guard came scurrying.
Quinta kept shooting, then slipped her camera discreetly into her
bag and left the yard. Not front-page news, but not a routine
launching, either.

It was eerie. For the past week she'd been
expecting malice and finding none. And then, out of the blue on a
lovely day—bang. You just had to know where to look.

Candlelight became Mavis Kendall, and the
single taper that flickered on her table in the Commodore's Room at
the Black Pearl was no exception. It lit up the rich red shades of
her hair and made her skin glow; it praised the perfection of the
lines of her face. It danced over the satin subtleties of her pale
green dress and skipped in tiny fireballs along the gold band she
wore around her neck. It suggested a vulnerability that did not
exist, a softness she preferred not to possess.

Candlelight made Mavis Moran's life just a
little bit easier; in candlelight she didn't have to make the
effort to act seductive.

By the time poor Fred Garrett polished off
the last of his escargots, he was under her spell. Something about
the dazzling green eyes that lowered their gaze from his gaping
stare; something about the woman's low and easy laugh and the way
she touched his hand across the table to emphasize a point—it was
all too much for him. He had no idea where her attractiveness ended
and where the attractiveness of the idea she was proposing to him
began. All he knew was that he was well on his way to signing on
with the
Pegasus
syndicate as a major corporate sponsor, to
the tune of a quarter million dollars. For starters.

Alan Seton had sat across from Mavis Moran
by candlelight before. He was by no means inured to the magic, but
at least he was aware of the danger. Not that he felt sorry for
Fred Garrett. The man owned a fair piece of Napa Valley and his
wine coolers had taken the country by storm. But Fred had an image
problem: his coolers were big with the plastic-cup crowd, and he
was lusting for the Waterford-crystal set. So he'd decided to put a
new name on the same grape and was shopping around for a marketing
ploy.

'"The President will be there, and a Saudi
prince, you say? And British royalty? Well, well. That's just the
ambience I'm looking for. An international event to see and be seen
at." Fred's Chill-Wills voice boomed indiscreetly across the
Commodore's Room, forcing Mavis to suppress a wince.

"Without question you will have cachet to
spare in your advertising campaign," agreed Mavis quietly. "The
crème de la crème
of society will descend on both Perth and
Freemantle tor this event. Imagine a four-color ad featuring the
after-deck of an impressive yacht in the harbor, in the foreground
of hundreds of other huge yachts or some of the twelves or even the
Queen Elizabeth II.
And on that after-deck, at an elegant
cocktail party, the steward is serving the wine cooler of choice:
Nicklebys.

"That's it! That's what I had in mind!"
cried Fred, overcome with emotion by the picture Mavis had painted
for him. Alan, what do you think?"

"I think Mavis knows what she's talking
about. After all, she does own an ad agency," replied Alan
genially. It was her favorite tax shelter; she took it more
seriously than the others.

"Naturally we'll look forward to having your
special clients aboard the syndicate boat to observe the trials—and
of course the final races," Mavis added. "They'll have the best
seats in town. Depending on how committed you want to become, we
can put your clients up in Perth, where the trophy itself is being
held, or in Freemantle, where the racing will take place. We will
wine them, dine them—the sky really is the limit."

She gave Fred a mesmerizing smile. "But you
already know all that, Fred, from having read our presentation
portfolio. And meanwhile, I'm keeping you from your grilled
lobster. You must be famished; we've had you on the run all
day."

"Well, I gotta say, I've never been attacked
at sea by an inflatable before," Fred chuckled. "Makes a fella work
up an appetite."

The protesters had been out in full force
that afternoon, harassing the
Pegasus
and being harassed in
turn by syndicate boats. Push had come to shove, and the
protesters' inflatable was bounced nearly out of the water by
Pegasus's
high-powered chase boat, in which Fred Garrett and
his camera happened to be riding. At that point both Mavis and
Alan—quite reasonably—wrote off the potential contribution from
Nickleby's Wine Coolers. Fortunately, Fred was a Texan before he
was a Californian. He'd had a high old time. He wanted in.

"It wouldn't surprise me if those kids were
paid by some other syndicate to harass you," he said, flagging down
a waiter like a railroad signalman. "Who's to say it ain't a put-up
job?"

"We've thought of that," answered Alan,
fighting a yawn. The hour was late, and he would have been in bed
long ago if it weren't for the fact that his ceremonial presence
was required. "The group seems to have rallied around a new leader,
the guy who had the video camera—"

"—the son of a bitch who gave me the
bird?"

"That's the one. He seems to be upping the
ante; he's not above a threat or two. We don't know much about him.
One of our crew swears he saw him hanging around the docks in Perth
last winter while we were practicing there. Could be he's an
overzealous spy, and the protesters make a nice cover."

Mavis had tipped Alan off earlier that Fred
Garrett wanted "a good bang for his buck." Well, Fred was getting
it.

The wine-cooler king picked up his fork and
stabbed his lobster. "They want a fight? Let's give it to 'em."

After that the conversation turned to the
fortune Fred could have made if only he'd known to invest in Perth
real estate. Alan admitted to socking a little something into the
western Australian city, and so did Mavis. But Fred had never even
heard of the place until two months ago; now Perth was about to
become a household name and he was too late. Dang.

And so it went for the rest of the meal,
with Alan smiling numbly at Fred's well-meaning but utterly boring
observations of the America's Cup scene. Every once in a while Alan
would roll his eyes in despair at Mavis, hoping somehow to be
excused from the table so that he could go back to the crew house,
lay his head on his pillow, and sleep. He was finding it more and
more difficult to spend good energy on public relations. He was
going at it too hard; tonight he felt like a pitcher who was losing
his fast ball.

He and his crew in Newport would be breaking
camp in another week. There was a phenomenal amount of work to do
to be tuned up in time for the October trials in Perth. It seemed
stupid to be sitting here holding Fred's hand and trying to work
out how many syndicate polo shirts half a million dollars in
corporate sponsorship funds would entitle him to. There were too
many Freds and not enough hours in the day.

Suddenly Fred jumped up and said, "Got to
go. I'm expecting a call from California at ten-thirty." Alan shook
his hand, resisting the urge to thank him profusely, and then he
and Mavis were alone with their Courvoisier.

"You look beat, mister," Mavis said softly.
Alan looked more than beat, she thought; he looked haggard.

Alan shrugged. "It's been a long haul."

She swirled her brandy in her snifter, not
to release its bouquet but for something to do. "Do you think it's
been worth it?

Alan shrugged again. "It's been a long
haul."

She gave him a level look. After—how
long?—four and a half years, they were still at it, this
cat-and-mouse game, with neither one of them willing to reveal
himself to the other. After all that time, it still annoyed and
hurt her that he would not answer a simple question. She used to
blame herself. But lately she'd decided that they were simply too
much alike. For a relationship to work, someone has to start
trusting first. But she had been taught not to trust men, and he
had learned not to trust women. "A waste of time," her grandmother
Tess Moran would have said. "Spend your effort on something else.
Make money. It brings power."

"Mave? What're you thinking about?"

She shook her head sadly. "Nothing much." To
change the subject, she reached over to the slim handbag that lay
on the table next to her and took out a news clipping. "Have you
seen the latest
Cup Quotes?"
she asked, knowing perfectly
well that he had not. Alan Seton made a point of not reading about
himself in the media; he said it destroyed his concentration.
"Check out the 'Quintessence' feature. It nearly brought tears to
my eyes," she added dryly.

Puzzled, Alan took the clipping from Mavis
and held it close to the candlelight. As he read it his face
flushed; a muscle in his temple began to work. He cleared his
throat. The signs of embarrassment were there, but so were the
symptoms of anger. Mavis studied his face carefully, dismayed to
find that she had no idea whether he wanted to tear up the article
or frame it.

He finished the piece, then handed it back
to her with an expression as new as it was indecipherable. "Kids
say the darnedest things," he said.

"I liked the part about your beat-up deck
shoes somehow being a reflection of your battered psyche. Think she
made that up herself?" Mavis asked, determined now to provoke a
clear reaction from him.

"I can't believe she remembered what I was
wearing," he answered noncommittally.

"She was very discreet, don't you think?
There was no way to tell from the article that her father was—well,
who he was. She makes it sound as if you two met quite by accident
in the hospital. And that business of your having offered to be at
her service—quite chivalric of you, Alan. I couldn't tell whether
she was admiring your good intentions, or trying to call in a
three-year-old promise."

Mavis knew she was turning up her cattiness
level, but she couldn't help it. She wanted to know—she really
needed to know—what Alan was feeling just then. He was walking a
razor's edge emotionally, and she was doing her best to push him
off.

He slipped and fell on the side of anger,
and she breathed a sigh of relief. "What the
hell
has all of
it got to do with my going after the Cup?" he wondered.

The smile on her face faded as she thought
about it. "Actually, Alan—quite a lot."

****

Two days later Quinta heard the clap of the
brass lid of the mailbox slot. "Want me to get the mail?" she said
to her father.

"No, no. I'll get it," he said quickly. "You
can pour the tea." He saved the last few paragraphs he'd been
writing and then took off eagerly for the hall.

Like most shut-ins, Neil Powers loved to get
mail. It was his way of keeping in touch vicariously with the world
he'd rejected and that seemed to have no use for him and his
wheelchair. He was on an astonishing number of mailing lists,
mostly for travel brochures and magazines. Recently he'd been on a
come-see-Africa kick, with the emphasis on safaris and river
expeditions. It was all done with a rather grand sense of irony, as
if he were daring some travel agent to satisfy him.