The Nautical Chart Part 20

"Was."

"Who was was the Tuc.u.man Torpedoman?" the Tuc.u.man Torpedoman?"

My G.o.d, he thought, how self-contained and clever she is. How b.l.o.o.d.y clever. Again he folded his arms on the table and shook his head, laughing almost to himself. A resigned laugh that swept away his irritation the same way wind dissipates fog. When he looked up, the eyes were still staring at him, but the expression had changed. She was smiling, but this time the sarcasm was gone. It was a frank smile. Nothing personal, sailor. And he knew deep down that was true; it wasn't anything personal. So he asked the waiter for a Sapphire gin and tonic, then made an expression as if he was trying to remember. A thoughtful Popeye with a drink in his hand. Those nights with Olive Oyl, et cetera, et cetera. And since that was exactly what it was about, and she was waiting, and he didn't have to invent anything because it was all mere in his memory, he laid himself, the character of himself, out on the tablecloth, effortlessly spun from the taste of gin on his tongue. He talked about the Torpedoman, about Crew Sanders, about the merry-go-round horse they stole one night from a New Orleans amus.e.m.e.nt park, and about Anita's in Guayaquil, and the Happy Landers in El Callao, and about the southernmost wh.o.r.ehouse in the world, which was the La Turca bar in Ushuaia. And about the row in Copenhagen, and another with police in Trieste, and another time the Torpedoman and Gallego Neira had to run after they broke a patrolman's jaw-leg, don't fail me now-with Coy, as usual, dangling between the two of them, an arm around each, his feet running in the air without touching the ground, but they had reached the s.h.i.+p safely. And he also told Tanger, who was leaning forward and listening intently, about the most fabulous fight ever seen in any port in the world-the one on the tugboat in Rotterdam that was carrying sailors and stevedores from dock to dock and s.h.i.+p to s.h.i.+p, all of them seated on long benches, when a thoroughly trashed Dutch stevedore had tripped over the Torpedoman, and the fight spread like a flash of gunpowder. Viva Zapata! Gallego Neira had yelled, and eighty men filled with booze went at it tooth and fist in the main cabin. Coy went up on deck to get some air, and from time to time the Torpedoman would stick his head through a porthole, take some deep breaths, and then jump back into the melee. It all ended with the tug delivering unconscious and beat-up sailors, and stevedores reeking of alcohol off-loading them like cargo, dumping off bales here and there, each to his own dock and his own s.h.i.+p, like a pizza delivery service Pizza delivery, he repeated. Then he sat back, a slight smile on his lips. Tanger was very quiet, as if afraid she might tumble a house of cards.

"What has changed, Coy?"

"Everything." The smile disappeared, and he took another drink, savoring the a.n.a.lgesic scent of gin slipping down his throat. "No such thing as a voyage today, almost all the real s.h.i.+ps are gone. Now a s.h.i.+p is like an airplane. It's not a voyage; voyage; they transport you from point A to point B." they transport you from point A to point B."

'And it used to be different?"

"Of course. A person could find solitude. You were suspended between A and B, and it was a long pa.s.sage- You carried very little baggage, and not putting down roots didn't matter."

"The sea is still the sea. It has its secrets and dangers."

"But not the way it used to be. It's like arriving too late at an empty pier and seeing the smoke from the funnel disappearing over the horizon. When you're a student you use the correct vocabulary, port and starboard, and all the rest. You try to preserve traditions, you trust a captain the way a child trusts in G.o.d But that doesn't work anymore. I dreamed of having a good captain, like Mac Whirr on the Typhoon. Typhoon. Of being one myself some day." "What is a good captain?" Of being one myself some day." "What is a good captain?"

"Someone who knows what he's doing. Who never loses his head. Who comes up to the bridge during your watch and sees a s.h.i.+p closing in on the port beam, and instead of ordering 'Hard to starboard, we're bearing down on her,' keeps his mouth shut and looks at you and waits for you to perform the correct maneuver."

"You had good captains?"

Coy grimaced. That was a real question. Mentally he turned the pages of an old photo alb.u.m stained with drops of salt.w.a.ter. And not a little s.h.i.+t.

"I had every kind," he said. "Miserable and drunk and cowardly, and some remarkable men too. But I always trusted them. All my life, until just recently, the word 'captain' inspired respect. I told you that I a.s.sociated it with the captain Conrad describes: 'The hurricane... had found this taciturn man in its path, and, doing its utmost, had managed to wring out a few words.' I remember a bad storm, a nor'wester, the first of my life, in the Bay of Biscay, with huge waves that swept over the bow of the Migalota Migalota to the bridge. She was fitted with McGregor hatches that didn't fit right, and the s.h.i.+p was taking a beating. Water was coming in every time the seas broke over her, and the cargo was a mineral, which s.h.i.+fts when it gets wet. Each time the bow plunged into the water and looked like it was never coming up, the Captain, don Gines Saez, who was welded to the wheel, would mutter 'G.o.d' very low, to himself.... There were four or five people on the bridge, but since I was standing beside him, I was the only one who could hear. No one else noticed. When he glanced my way and saw how close I was, he never opened his mouth again." to the bridge. She was fitted with McGregor hatches that didn't fit right, and the s.h.i.+p was taking a beating. Water was coming in every time the seas broke over her, and the cargo was a mineral, which s.h.i.+fts when it gets wet. Each time the bow plunged into the water and looked like it was never coming up, the Captain, don Gines Saez, who was welded to the wheel, would mutter 'G.o.d' very low, to himself.... There were four or five people on the bridge, but since I was standing beside him, I was the only one who could hear. No one else noticed. When he glanced my way and saw how close I was, he never opened his mouth again."

The three performers had finished their set and were taking their bows amid applause. The break was filled with canned music over loudspeakers installed in the ceiling. A couple got up to dance. "You're leaving because I want you to leave." Bolero. For a fraction of a second Coy was tempted to invite Tahger to dance. Ha. The two of them there, embracing, faces nearly touching. "I want other lips to kiss you," the song said. He imagined himself with a hand on her waist, stepping on her toes like a duck. Oh well, she was sure to be one of those women who jams an elbow between your body and hers.

"It used to be," he continued, forgetting the bolero, "that a captain had to make decisions. Now he's signing doc.u.ments in the port; there's a difference of half a ton and he's telephoning the owner. Do I sign the papers? Do I not sign the papers? And in some office are three guys, three pieces of garbage in ties, who say, Don't sign. And he doesn't."

'And what's left of the sea? When do you feel you're still a sailor?"

When there are problems, he explained. When someone on board was hurt, or broke something, people tended to rise to the occasion. Once, he told her, the mother of all waves had torn the rudder plate off the Palestine, Palestine, near El Cabo. They were adrift for a day and a half, until the towboats arrived. And for that time the crew were all true sailors. For the most part, they're nothing but truck drivers on the ocean, or union officials, but in crises they all work together. s.h.i.+fted cargo, serious damage, bad weather, tempests. All that. near El Cabo. They were adrift for a day and a half, until the towboats arrived. And for that time the crew were all true sailors. For the most part, they're nothing but truck drivers on the ocean, or union officials, but in crises they all work together. s.h.i.+fted cargo, serious damage, bad weather, tempests. All that.

"That word sounds terrible: 'tempest.'"

"Some are bad and others are worse. The unpleasant time for a sailor is when he calculates his course and the course of a major storm, and there's a convergence_______ I mean when the two get to the same place at the same time."

There was a pause. Some things he would never be able to explain to her, he decided. Force n winds off Terranova, walls of gray and white water boiling in a mist of foam blending into sky, waves pounding the bow, a shuddering, creaking hull, crew yelling with terror, tied to their bunks, the radio saturated with the Maydays of s.h.i.+ps in distress. And a few men with calm heads on the bridge, or securing loose cargo in the hold, or below manning the engines amid boilers, turbines, and pipes, not knowing what was going on topside, tending to controls and alarm lights and orders, concerned about the slos.h.i.+ng of diesel in the tanks, about the split in the hull that was leaking water into the fuel, about damage in the burners that might leave them at the mercy of the sea. Sailors trying to save a s.h.i.+p, and with it their lives, accelerating in the downward slopes to maintain control, moderating just before the crests, searching for troughs between the largest waves to veer into when the s.h.i.+p could no longer take it head on And the moment of anguish when, in mid-maneuver, a murderous wave strikes the hull dead abeam and the whole s.h.i.+p heels forty degrees while the men, clinging to anything they can, look at one another with frightened eyes, wondering whether the s.h.i.+p will right herself or not.

'At times like that," Coy concluded aloud, "things go back to how they used to be."

He was afraid he sounded too nostalgic. How could you long for horror? He was nostalgic for the way some men behaved facing horror; but that was impossible to explain at a restaurant table, or anywhere, for that matter. So he breathed hard, disturbed, looking around. He was talking way too much, he thought suddenly. It wasn't a bad thing to talk, but he wasn't used to telling about his life that way. He realized Tanger was the kind of person who chatted easily, the kind whose conversation consisted of asking the right questions and then leaving a silence so the other person could pick up and respond. A useful trick-you learn something and you come off well without giving up anything. After all, people love to talk about themselves. He's a brilliant conversationalist, they say later. And you haven't opened your mouth. Cretins. And he? Besides being a cretin, he was a blabbermouth, from truck to keel. Nevertheless, even with all that, he realized that talking about those things, at the most basic level, with Tanger there and listening, made him feel good.

"Today," he said a moment later, "the kind of romantic sailing you dreamed of as a kid is reduced to a handful of small s.h.i.+ps with strange registries that go around picking up coast trade, tubs with rusted hulls, the name painted over another, and greasy, poorly paid captains. I was on one of them just after I got my license as a second officer, because I couldn't find a berth anywhere else. She was named the Otago, Otago, and there weren't many times I was as happy as I was then. Not even on the s.h.i.+ps of the Zoe line... But I didn't learn that till later." and there weren't many times I was as happy as I was then. Not even on the s.h.i.+ps of the Zoe line... But I didn't learn that till later."

Tahger said that maybe it was because Coy was young then. He thought about it a minute. Yes, he admitted, it was likely that he was happy then because he was young. But with flags of convenience, businessmen captains, and owners for whom a s.h.i.+p isn't much different from an eighteen-wheeler, the whole thing had gone to h.e.l.l. Some s.h.i.+ps were so short of crew that they had to get men from the port in order to dock. Filipinos and Hindus were now elite crew, and Russian captains filled with vodka stove in their tankers a little here and a little there. The one possibility for experiencing the sea as as sea was on a sailboat. There everything was still a matter of it and you. But you couldn't make a living that way, he added. And a good example of that was El Piloto. sea was on a sailboat. There everything was still a matter of it and you. But you couldn't make a living that way, he added. And a good example of that was El Piloto.

There was nothing but ice in Tanger's gla.s.s. Her fingers with those ragged nails were poking inside, rattling the cubes. Coy made a move to call the waitress, but Tanger shook her head.

"The other night, on the bow with the flare, you impressed me."

After saying that, she fell silent, looking at him. Her smile widened. Coy laughed quietly, again at himself.

"That doesn't surprise me. I was the one who was impressed, when I hit the water."

"I'm not talking about that. I was paralyzed as I watched those lights coming toward us. I didn't know how to react. But you went about doing things, one after the other, without even thinking. A kind of predisaster routine. You didn't lose your calm, your voice didn't change. Or Piloto's either. You both exhibited a kind of fatalism. As if it was all part of the game."

Coy bunched his shoulders modestly. He studied his own wide, clumsy hands. He had never imagined having to talk about such things with anyone. In his world, that is, the salt.w.a.ter world from which he'd recently been expelled, everything was obvious. Only on dry land did they ask you to explain things.

"Those are the rules," he said. "Out there you a.s.sume disaster is part of the deal. Not willingly, of course. You pray and you curse, and if you have any cla.s.s you struggle to the end. But you accept it. That's how the sea is. You can be the best sailor in the world, and the sea comes along and wipes you out. The one consolation is to do the best you can. I imagine that's how the captain of the Dei Gloria Dei Gloria must have felt." must have felt."

At the mention of the brigantine, Tanger's face darkened. Suddenly she tilted her head, distracted, her elbows on the table, her chin in her hand.

"That's not much consolation," she commented.

"It is to me. Maybe it was to him, too."

The beacons that marked the outlines of the bay had come on, and the water near the sh.o.r.e shone yellow in the drizzle, scored by s.h.i.+mmerings, as if schools of tiny fish were swimming near the surface. The light of the lighthouse was more concentrated, and in the moisture its piercing beam seemed almost substantial as it circled again and again toward the inky blackness slithering across the sea.

"It must be very dark out there," she said.

Coy heard an involuntary tremor in her voice, and that made him look at her more closely. Her eyes were lost in the night.

"Falling overboard in the dark," she added after a few seconds, "must be terrible." "It isn't much fun." "You were very lucky."

"Yes, I was. When you go over like that, you don't normally get rescued."

Tanger's silver bracelet jingled as she put her right hand on the table, very near Coy's arm, but not actually touching. He felt his hair stand on end.

'Tve dreamed about that," she was saying. "I've dreamed that for years. Falling into thick, dense blackness."

He searched her face, a little abashed by the confidential tone. And by the way she kept turning toward the shadows.

"I suppose it's about dying," she continued in a low voice.

She seemed almost frozen, staring with apprehension into the rain. She seemed, he thought, to be looking far beyond the shadowy sea.

"To die alone like Zas. In the dark."

She spoke those words after a long silence, in a tone that was almost a whisper, barely audible. Suddenly she seemed truly frightened, or moved, and Coy s.h.i.+fted in his chair, inhibited, as he shuffled through his emotions. He raised his hand to place it over hers, but dropped it back at his side without completing the gesture.

"If that ever happens," he said, "I would like to be around, to hold your hand."

He had no idea how that might sound, but he didn't care. It was sincere. Suddenly he saw a little girl who was afraid of the night, terrified of traveling alone through infinite darkness.

"It wouldn't help," she replied. "No one can accompany you on that voyage."

She had studied him closely when he said that about being around to hold her hand. Very serious and very intense, a.n.a.lyzing what she'd heard. But now, as if she didn't believe it, she was shaking her head with resignation, or defeat "No one."

After that, nothing. She was still looking at Coy so intently that he s.h.i.+fted in his chair again. He would have given everything he had-though he didn't have anything to give-to be good-looking, to be suave, or at least to have enough money to smile self-confidently before putting his hand on hers. Her protector. To say, I'll look after you, my dear, to a woman whom he'd called a G.o.dd.a.m.n scheming witch only a few minutes before, and suddenly he thought of the freckled little girl smiling in her father's arm in the framed snapshot, the champion of the swim meet, the winner of the silver cup that now, dented and missing a handle, was turning black on a shelf. But he was only a pariah with a seabag over his shoulder, aboard a sailboat that wasn't his, and he was so far from her that he couldn't even aspire to consoling her, or having the last hand that pressed hers before a hypothetical voyage to the end of the night He felt a bitter impotence as she contemplated the distance that separated their hands on the table and smiled sadly, as if smiling at shadows, ghosts, and regrets.

"I fear that," she said.

This time, without even thinking, Coy reached out and touched her hand. Eyes boring straight into his, she slowly removed it. And he, fl.u.s.tered by his gaffe, his blunder, looked away so she couldn't see him blush. But after only half a minute he was struck by how life can produce unique situations that might have been ch.o.r.eographed or directed by the malice of a joker hunched down in eternity. Because at the precise moment he turned toward the railing and the beach, embarra.s.sed by the sight of his clumsy, solitary hand on the table, he saw something that came to his aid so opportunely that he had to choke back his jubilation-a blind impulse, totally irrational, that tensed the muscles of his arms and back and filled his brain with a flash of incomparable lucidity.

Down near the lights bordering the beach, beneath the overhang of a closed little fish shop, he identified the small, unmistakable, and at this point almost perversely lovable figure of Horacio Kiskoros, the ex-Argentine petty officer and Nino Palermo's hired a.s.sa.s.sin. The melancholy dwarf.

THIS time no one was going to steal the catch from his hook. So he waited thirty seconds and, using the excuse of a visit to the gent's, he ran down the steps two at a time, went out the rear door, past the garbage cans, and around in a direction that led away from the restaurant and the beach. He advanced cautiously beneath the palm and eucalyptus trees, planning his approach: one tack to starboard and one tack to port. The drizzle began to soak his hair and s.h.i.+rt, renewing the vigor that charged through his body, tense now with the acid pleasure of expectation. He crossed the road toward an open s.p.a.ce, crept through the fennel growing in the ditch, and with the darkness behind him, crossed back, taking cover behind a trash barrel. I hear him breathing over there, he said to himself. He was to windward of his prey, who, unaware of what was about to hit him, was smoking and protecting himself from the wet beneath the cane and board overhang. A car was parked near the sidewalk, a small white Toyota with Alicante plates and a rental-car sticker on the rear winds.h.i.+eld. Coy skirted the car and saw that Kiskoros was watching the lighted terrace and the main door of the restaurant. He was wearing a light jacket and bow tie, and his brilliantined black hair gleamed. The knife, thought Coy, recalling the Guardiamarinas arch, I have to watch out for his knife. He shook his hands and closed them into fists, evoking the ghosts of the Tuc.u.man Torpedoman, Gallego Neira, and the rest of Crew Sanders. His sneakers helped him take eight silent, fiercely stealthy steps before Kiskoros heard something on the gravel and turned to see who was coming. Coy saw the sympathy fade from the sympathetic frog eyes, saw them fly open and the cigarette drop from a mouth turned into a dark hole, the last mouthful of smoke spiraling through his precise mustache. He leaped, spanning the remaining distance, and his first punch landed right in Kiskoros's face, snapping his head back as if his throat had been cut. Then he slammed him against the wall of the building just below a sign reading La Costa Azul. Best octopus in town. time no one was going to steal the catch from his hook. So he waited thirty seconds and, using the excuse of a visit to the gent's, he ran down the steps two at a time, went out the rear door, past the garbage cans, and around in a direction that led away from the restaurant and the beach. He advanced cautiously beneath the palm and eucalyptus trees, planning his approach: one tack to starboard and one tack to port. The drizzle began to soak his hair and s.h.i.+rt, renewing the vigor that charged through his body, tense now with the acid pleasure of expectation. He crossed the road toward an open s.p.a.ce, crept through the fennel growing in the ditch, and with the darkness behind him, crossed back, taking cover behind a trash barrel. I hear him breathing over there, he said to himself. He was to windward of his prey, who, unaware of what was about to hit him, was smoking and protecting himself from the wet beneath the cane and board overhang. A car was parked near the sidewalk, a small white Toyota with Alicante plates and a rental-car sticker on the rear winds.h.i.+eld. Coy skirted the car and saw that Kiskoros was watching the lighted terrace and the main door of the restaurant. He was wearing a light jacket and bow tie, and his brilliantined black hair gleamed. The knife, thought Coy, recalling the Guardiamarinas arch, I have to watch out for his knife. He shook his hands and closed them into fists, evoking the ghosts of the Tuc.u.man Torpedoman, Gallego Neira, and the rest of Crew Sanders. His sneakers helped him take eight silent, fiercely stealthy steps before Kiskoros heard something on the gravel and turned to see who was coming. Coy saw the sympathy fade from the sympathetic frog eyes, saw them fly open and the cigarette drop from a mouth turned into a dark hole, the last mouthful of smoke spiraling through his precise mustache. He leaped, spanning the remaining distance, and his first punch landed right in Kiskoros's face, snapping his head back as if his throat had been cut. Then he slammed him against the wall of the building just below a sign reading La Costa Azul. Best octopus in town.

The knife, he repeated obsessively as he landed punch after punch, systematically, efficiently. Kiskoros, unable to stay on his feet before that onslaught, slid down the wall as he desperately tried to reach his pocket. But now Coy knew a few things about his opponent; he stepped back a little, built up steam, and the kick that landed on the Argentine's arm caused him, for the first time, to let out a long howl of pain, the howl of a dog whose tail has been run over. Then Coy grabbed him by the lapels and jerked him across the sidewalk in the direction of the sandy beach. He pulled, stopped to punch him, and pulled again. His victim, in agony, was emitting a series of m.u.f.fled groans, struggling to get his hand to his pocket, but with each attempt Coy pounded him again. You're all mine now, he thought, all systems racing with that strange lucidity that occurs in the midst of rage and violence. I have you right where I want you; there's no referee, no witness, no police, and no one to tell me what I should or shouldn't do. So I'm going to lay it on till you're a sack of s.h.i.+t and your broken ribs nail your insides together, and you swallow your busted teeth one at a time and don't have the breath to whisde a tango.

Like a bull looking for a barrier to fall against, Kiskoros was barely struggling. His bow tie was twisted below his ear. The knife, which he'd finally got out of his pocket, had slipped from his unresponsive fingers and lay on the sand where Coy had kicked it. The light from the nearest street lamp gave density to the fine mist as Coy used his foot to roll the sand-coated Argentine over and over to the edge of the water. The last blows came when Kiskoros was already in the drink, splas.h.i.+ng and moaning painfully as he attempted to keep his mouth out of the water. Coy waded in ankle-deep to deliver a last kick that rolled his target a few feet farther, and he watched as it disappeared completely beneath the yellow reflections and rnirrored image of the shed on the black water.

He retraced his steps and sat down hard on the sand. The tension in his muscles began to relax as he recovered his breath. His ankles hurt from the kicks he'd delivered, and the whole back of his right hand, and up his forearm to his elbow, seemed tied in knots. Never in my whole life, he told himself, have I had such a good time beating someone up. Never. He rubbed his fingers to ease the stiffness, lifting his face a little so the rain could wet his forehead and closed eyes. Motionless, gasping through his open mouth, he waited for the galloping to still in his chest. He heard a noise and opened his eyes. Streaming water that made him glisten among the reflections, Kiskoros was crawling along the waterline. Coy kept his seat in the sand, watching his efforts. He could hear the jagged breathing and the dark grunts of a mauled beast, the clumsy splas.h.i.+ng of hands and of legs incapable of supporting a body.

It was good to fight, Coy thought. Like cleaning out the bilges. It was stupendous for the circulation and gastric juices to pour all your anguish and bad humor and soul-rending despair into your fists. It was downright therapeutic for action to take your mind off your problems, and for atavistic impulses from days when a person had to choose between death and survival to claim their place in the game of life. Maybe that's why the world was the way it was today, he reflected. Men had stopped fighting because it was frowned on, and that was making everyone crazy.

He kept rubbing his sore hand. His rage was cooling. He hadn't felt so good in a long time, so at peace with himself. He saw the Argentine, on all fours, lift his body out of the water but then fall back, covered from the waist down. The yellowish light revealed hair and a mustache clotted with sand and reddened by streams of blood.

"b.a.s.t.a.r.d," said Kiskoros from the water, breathless and moaning. "Hey, shove it up your a.s.s."

Then both were silent, Coy sitting and watching, the Argentine face down, breathing with difficulty, moaning quietly from time to time when he tried to move. Finally he pulled himself forward on his elbows, leaving a furrow in the sand, until he was clear of the water. He looked like a turtle about to deposit her eggs, and Coy watched dispa.s.sionately. His anger had nearly dissipated. He wasn't quite sure what to do next.

"I'm only doing my job," Kiskoros muttered after a bit.

"Your job's pretty dangerous."

"I was just shadowing you."

"Well, go shadow the b.i.t.c.h who birthed you out there on the pampas."

Coy stood up unhurriedly, brus.h.i.+ng sand from his jeans. Then he walked toward the Argentine, who was getting to his feet with great difficulty, and stared at him a minute-until he decided to punch him again, this time a less impulsive and more businesslike punch, knocking him flat. Small, wet, stiff, and coated with sand, Kiskoros looked like a pitiful croquette. Coy bent over him, hearing his breathing-thousands of little whistles in his lungs-and methodically checked his pockets. A cell phone, a pack of cigarettes, and the keys to the rental car. Coy threw the keys and the phone far out into the water. The dwarf's billfold was huge, stuffed with money and papers. Coy walked over to the nearest light to take a lpok. A Spanish identification card with a photo and the name Horatio Kiskoros Parodi, other people's business cards, Spanish and English money, Visa and American Express credit cards. Also a color photocopy of a page from a magazine, which he unfolded carefully because it had been handled many times and was damp with salt.w.a.ter. Under the heading "Our divers humiliate England" was a photograph of several British Marines with their hands up, guarded by three Argentine soldiers, feces blackened with grease, pointing automatic rifles at them. One of those three was short, with a frog's bulging eyes and an unmistakable mustache.

"Hey, I'd forgotten. The hero of the Malvinas."

He put the identification and credit cards back in the wallet, added the clipping, kept the money, and dropped the billfold on Kiskoros's chest.

"So, talk to me. Come on."

"I don't have anything to tell."

"What does Palermo want? Is he here?"

"I don't ha..."

He stopped when Coy hit him again in the face. It was a dispa.s.sionate blow, almost reluctant, and Coy stood watching as the Argentine, who was holding his hands over his face, wriggled like an earthworm. Then Coy sat down on the sand again, never taking his eyes off Kiskoros. He had never treated anyone this way, and he was amazed that he didn't fed sorry for him. He knew, however, who that man on the ground was. He couldn't forget Zas, lying dead on the rug, poisoned, and he knew the fate women like Tanger had suffered at the hands of CPO Horado Kiskoros and company. So as far as he was concerned, that sonofab.i.t.c.h could roll up his Malvinas clipping and carefully stick it up his a.s.shole.

"Tell your boss that I don't give a fart about the emeralds. But if anyone touches her, I'll kill him."

He said that with unusual simplicity, almost modestly, as if he didn't want it to sound like a threat. It was merely information, absent any emphasis or overtones. A bulletin for sailors. At any rate, even the least attentive listener would have understood that, in Coy's case, such information was reliable. Kiskoros grunted darkly and turned onto his side. He groped for the wallet and put it in a pocket with clumsy hands.

"You are a f.u.c.k-up," he muttered. "You're greatly mistaken about Senor Palermo, and me_ And you are mistaken about her, too."

He paused to spit blood. He was looking at Coy through wet, dirty hair strung over his face. The frog eyes were not sympathetic now; they gleamed with hatred and hunger for revenge.

"When my turn comes..."

He smiled a horrible smile with his swollen mouth, but a fit of coughing left the threatening and grotesque words in the air.

"f.u.c.k-up," he repeated with rancor, and again spit blood.

Coy kept staring at him as he got to his feet slowly, almost grumbling. I can't do anything more to him, he told himself. I can't beat him to death, because there are things I'm afraid to lose, and freedom and my life still matter to me. This isn't a novel or a movie, and in the real world there are police and judges. There's no boat waiting, at the end to carry me off to the Caribbean to take refuge in Tortuga among the Hermanos de la Costa, and from there defy the English and take twenty prizes. Today those privateers have been recycled and are building condos, and the governor of Jamaica gets apprehend and arrest warrants by fax.

That was his state, frustrated and undecided, considering whether to punch Kiskoros in the face again, when he saw Tanger standing by the side of the road under a yellow street lamp. She was quietly watching them.

AT the far end of the bay, the beam of the lighthouse was circling horizontally into the warm drizzle. The luminous intervals resembled narrow cones of fog as they swung around again and again, in each circuit picking out the slender trunks and motionless fronds of palm trees weighed down by water and reflections. Coy glanced at Kiskoros before setting off along the beach after Tanger. The Argentine had managed to reach the car, but he didn't have the key, so he was sitting on the ground, propped against a wheel, water-soaked and sandy, watching them go. He hadn't opened his mouth since Tanger appeared, nor had she, even when Coy, who was still a little revved up, asked if she didn't want to take the opportunity to send greetings to Nino Palermo. Or maybe, he added, she might draw pleasure from interrogating the g.d. the far end of the bay, the beam of the lighthouse was circling horizontally into the warm drizzle. The luminous intervals resembled narrow cones of fog as they swung around again and again, in each circuit picking out the slender trunks and motionless fronds of palm trees weighed down by water and reflections. Coy glanced at Kiskoros before setting off along the beach after Tanger. The Argentine had managed to reach the car, but he didn't have the key, so he was sitting on the ground, propped against a wheel, water-soaked and sandy, watching them go. He hadn't opened his mouth since Tanger appeared, nor had she, even when Coy, who was still a little revved up, asked if she didn't want to take the opportunity to send greetings to Nino Palermo. Or maybe, he added, she might draw pleasure from interrogating the g.d. sudaca. sudaca. That's what he said-interrogate the G.o.dd.a.m.n South American -knowing that no matter how many kicks he gave him, no one was going to get a word out of Kiskoros. She started off down the beach. So Coy, after a brief hesitation, took one last look at the battered a.s.sa.s.sin and followed her. That's what he said-interrogate the G.o.dd.a.m.n South American -knowing that no matter how many kicks he gave him, no one was going to get a word out of Kiskoros. She started off down the beach. So Coy, after a brief hesitation, took one last look at the battered a.s.sa.s.sin and followed her.

He was furious not because of the Argentine, who had been a welcome target for pouring out the bile scalding his stomach and throat, but because of the way she seemed to turn her back, whenever it pleased her, to reality. h.e.l.lo. I don't like this. So long. Any time something didn't fit into her plans-unforeseen appearances, difficulties, threats, the intrusion of reality into the daydream of her adventure-it was denied, put off, or set aside as if it never existed. As if the mere consideration of it was an a.s.sault on the harmony of a whole whose true dimensions only she knew. This woman, he concluded as he walked along the beach nursing his bad humor, defends herself against the world by refusing to see it. Although he was hardly the one to criticize her for that.

And yet, he thougjht as he caught up to her and grabbed her arm, whipping her around in the murky light, never in his whole d.a.m.n life had he known eyes that saw so deep and so far when they chose. His grip on her arm was close to brutal, forcing her to stand there as he examined her wet hair, the reflections in her eyes, the drops of rain multiplying her freckles.

"This whole thing,'* he said, "is crazy. We'll never be able..."

All at once, to his surprise, he realized that she was frightened. Her half-open lips were trembling and a shudder shook her shoulders as the beam of the lighthouse slipped over them. He saw all that in the light, and a couple of seconds later the next flash showed that the warm drizzle had intensified to heavy rain, and she stood there trembling as the sudden downpour fell on her hair and face, pasting her wet blouse to her body and pelting Coy's shoulders and arms as, without even thinking, he opened them to take her in. Warm flesh, s.h.i.+vering in the night and the rain, came to the haven of his body, consciously and deliberately. Came directly to him and pressed against him, and for an instant Coy held his arms open, not yet enfolding her in them, more surprised than hesitant. Then he closed them, holding her softly against him, feeling her muscles . and blood and flesh throb beneath the wet blouse, her long, firm thighs, the slim body shaking against his. And the parted lips, so close, lips whose quivering he calmed with his own in a long, long kiss, until they weren't s.h.i.+vering anymore and became warm and soft and opened wider, and then it was she who tightened her arms around Coy's strong back. He put his hand at the nape of her neck, a strong, square hand supporting her head, his hand beneath hair streaming water in the heavy rain. Now their mouths sought each other avidly, with unexpected ardor, as if starved for saliva and oxygen and life; teeth b.u.mped together and impatient tongues touched and thrust. Until finally Tanger drew back to catch her breath, her wide-open eyes staring into his, untypically confused. Then it was she who threw herself on him with a long moan like that of an animal in pain. And he stood there waiting for her, squeezing her so tight he was afraid he would break her bones, and then staggered blindly with her in his arms until they realized that they had walked into the sea, that the rain was beating down, deafening, solid, erasing the outlines of the landscape, the drops popping as if the bay around them were boiling. Their bodies beneath wet, Hinging clothes sought each other violently, collided in strong embraces, desperate, hungry kisses. They licked water from each other's faces, their mouths tingling from the taste of rain and wet skin on warm flesh. And she kept breathing into Coy's mouth the interminable moan of a wounded animal.

THEY returned to the returned to the Carpanta Carpanta streaming water, tripping through the darkness, clinging clumsily to each other. Arms entwined, they kissed with every step, frantically, as they neared their goal leaving a trail of water on the ladder and deck of the cabin. El Piloto, sitting smoking in the dark, saw them come down the companionway and disappear toward the stern cabins, and he may have smiled when they turned to the glowing ember of his cigarette to wish him a good evening. Coy was guiding Tanger, steering her before him, hands on her waist, as she turned with every step to kiss him greedily on the mouth. Coy tripped over a sandal she had managed to kick off, and then the other, and at the door of her cabin she stopped and pressed against him, and they embraced, crushed against the teak bulwark, hands stroking in the shadows, exploring bodies beneath the clothing they were undoing for one another-b.u.t.tons, belt, skirt falling to the floor, unb.u.t.toned jeans slipping down Coy's hips, Tanger's hand between jeans and skin, her warmth, the triangle of white cotton almost ripped from her thighs, the jangle of the metal ID tag. The l.u.s.ty male vitality, rapt mutual appreciation, her smile, the incredible softness of bared b.r.e.a.s.t.s, silky, aroused. Man and woman, face to face, their panting close to challenge. Her inciting moan and his guiding her toward the bunk across the narrow cabin, wet clothes thrown everywhere, tangled beneath still-wet bodies, soaking the sheets, mutual invitation for the thousandth time, eyes locked to eyes, smiles absorbed, shared. I'll kill anyone who gets in the way now, thought Coy. Anyone. His skin and his saliva and his flesh were effortlessly entering flesh ever moister and more welcoming, deep, very deep, there where the key to all enigmas lies hidden, and where the centuries have forged the one true temptation in the form of an answer to the mystery of death and life. streaming water, tripping through the darkness, clinging clumsily to each other. Arms entwined, they kissed with every step, frantically, as they neared their goal leaving a trail of water on the ladder and deck of the cabin. El Piloto, sitting smoking in the dark, saw them come down the companionway and disappear toward the stern cabins, and he may have smiled when they turned to the glowing ember of his cigarette to wish him a good evening. Coy was guiding Tanger, steering her before him, hands on her waist, as she turned with every step to kiss him greedily on the mouth. Coy tripped over a sandal she had managed to kick off, and then the other, and at the door of her cabin she stopped and pressed against him, and they embraced, crushed against the teak bulwark, hands stroking in the shadows, exploring bodies beneath the clothing they were undoing for one another-b.u.t.tons, belt, skirt falling to the floor, unb.u.t.toned jeans slipping down Coy's hips, Tanger's hand between jeans and skin, her warmth, the triangle of white cotton almost ripped from her thighs, the jangle of the metal ID tag. The l.u.s.ty male vitality, rapt mutual appreciation, her smile, the incredible softness of bared b.r.e.a.s.t.s, silky, aroused. Man and woman, face to face, their panting close to challenge. Her inciting moan and his guiding her toward the bunk across the narrow cabin, wet clothes thrown everywhere, tangled beneath still-wet bodies, soaking the sheets, mutual invitation for the thousandth time, eyes locked to eyes, smiles absorbed, shared. I'll kill anyone who gets in the way now, thought Coy. Anyone. His skin and his saliva and his flesh were effortlessly entering flesh ever moister and more welcoming, deep, very deep, there where the key to all enigmas lies hidden, and where the centuries have forged the one true temptation in the form of an answer to the mystery of death and life.

MUCH later, in the dark, rain drumming on the deck overhead, Tanger turned on her side, her face buried in the hollow of Coy's shoulder, one hand between his thighs. He, half-asleep, felt the naked body plastered to his, felt Tanger's warm, relaxed hand upon enervated flesh still wet, still smelling of her. They fit so perfectly that it was as if they had always been looking for one another. It was good to feel welcome, he thought, and not simply tolerated. That immediate, instinctive alliance was good, a recognition that needed no words to justify the inevitable. That way each had led in his or her part of the journey, with no false modesty. Sensing the unspoken "do this," the intimate, wordless, panting, intense duel that had very nearly cleared away the bad times, equal to equal, with no need for excuses or justifications for anything. No who pays for this, no equivocation, no conditions. No adornment or remorse. It was good that finally all that had happened, exactly as it should have. later, in the dark, rain drumming on the deck overhead, Tanger turned on her side, her face buried in the hollow of Coy's shoulder, one hand between his thighs. He, half-asleep, felt the naked body plastered to his, felt Tanger's warm, relaxed hand upon enervated flesh still wet, still smelling of her. They fit so perfectly that it was as if they had always been looking for one another. It was good to feel welcome, he thought, and not simply tolerated. That immediate, instinctive alliance was good, a recognition that needed no words to justify the inevitable. That way each had led in his or her part of the journey, with no false modesty. Sensing the unspoken "do this," the intimate, wordless, panting, intense duel that had very nearly cleared away the bad times, equal to equal, with no need for excuses or justifications for anything. No who pays for this, no equivocation, no conditions. No adornment or remorse. It was good that finally all that had happened, exactly as it should have.

"If anything happens," she said suddenly, "don't let me die alone."

He lay quiet, eyes open in the darkness. Suddenly the sound of the rain seemed sinister. His state of drowsy happiness was suspended and once again everything was bittersweet. He felt her breath in the hollow of his shoulder, slow and warm.

"Don't talk about that," he murmured.

He felt her shake her head.

"I'm afraid of dying alone in the dark."

"That isn't going to happen."

"That always happens."

Her hand was still between Coy's thighs, quiet, her face in his shoulder, her lips whispering against his skin. He felt cold. He turned and buried his face in her wet hair. He couldn't see her face, but he knew that at that moment it was the face in the framed snapshot. All women, he knew now, had that face sometime.

"You're alive," he said. "I feel your pulse. You have flesh, and blood circulating through it. You are beautiful, and you're alive."

"One day I won't be here any longer."