A big storm was already raging belowdecks, however, and her name was Toots, who’d come past being irritable and jumpy and quivery, all of which he’d expected in the twenty-four to thirty-six hours following her last hit on the pipe, whenever that had been. The symptoms always outlasted the initial big crash every crackhead experienced sooner or later, one time or another. So she’d come past the inconceivable craving during the first three days, and she’d also come past the insomnia and fatigue and now he could hear her below, crying hysterically again, today was going to be one fine clambake, Clyde. This was now Tuesday morning, so assuming she’d scored Thursday night sometime, it was now Crash-Plus-Four-Days and... what? Ten, twelve hours? He’d tried giving her some breakfast ten minutes ago, she’d knocked the tray out of his hands, spattered eggs and coffee all over Amberjacks spanking-clean bulkheads and deck. She’d been like this since late last night, these crazy mood swings, fine one minute, screaming and yelling the next.
Made a man want to start smoking again.
What worried her most was that she’d remain this way forever. Like when she was a little girl and she made a funny face and her mother warned her she’d freeze that way. She didn’t think she could bear this forever. Last time she’d kicked the habit, it hadn’t been this bad. Then again, cocaine wasn’t crack, well yes it was, well no it wasn’t! Whatever the fuck it was, she could not endure the thought that her present condition might turn out to be something permanent, she might be trapped eternally on this roller coaster that kept plunging her into hell through flames and then leveled off onto a grassy plain in a shaded valley before it started its climb again which was when she wanted to scream and scream and scream.
The last time around, when she was on cocaine but not freebase, she’d done whatever had to be done to get the white powder. Whatever. Anything. You named it, she would do it. Yessir, whatever you say. You, too, ma’am, this is Tootsie La Cokie, didn’t you know? I will eat your pussy, suck your cock, take you in my ear, my nose, my armpit, my ass, wherever you want to put it, whenever you’d like it, I’ll do it if you just give me the candy or the money to buy it.
She was sure he still had the stuff hidden somewhere on the boat.
Thing to do was to get it from him.
Convince him to give it to her.
Any which way he wanted.
The man’s name was Guthrie Lamb.
He was telling me he’d been a famous private detective for more years than I’d been on earth, having started his agency back in 1952, when he used to operate out of New York City. He had moved down here twenty years ago, which accounted for his longevity and good health at the age of sixty-something.
He did, in fact, look entirely fit.
I had no way of knowing what he might have looked like when he first put in an appearance as a Famous Detective, to hear him tell it. But he was still a tall, youthful-looking, wide-shouldered man who, I guessed, was capable of handling himself in any situation calling for physical exertion. In fact, if ever I ran into my cowboys again, I would not have minded Guthrie Lamb at my side — particularly since he seemed to be carrying a very large gun in a highly visible shoulder holster. His eyes were a pale blue, but they appeared deeper against the pristine white of his hair and his eyebrows. He had a wide glittering smile. I wondered if his teeth were capped.
I had called him early this morning because there was no way on earth I could raise either Warren or Toots on the telephone, and the last time I’d done my own legwork, I’d got myself shot, thanks. There were three other private detective agencies in town, none of them any good, and Benny Weiss had recommended Mr. Lamb highly. There were rumors in town that he had changed his name from Giovanni Lambino or Limbono or Lumbini or something like that, but why this should have been anyone’s business but his own was quite beyond me. It certainly wasn’t my business. My business was finding out if anyone at the Silver Creek Yacht Club had on last Tuesday night noticed a car parked just beyond the pillar on the right-hand side of the entrance gate.
“What kind of car?” Lamb asked me.
“I don’t know.”
“What color?”
“She couldn’t tell.”
“No light at the gate?”
“She said it was dark.”
“Have you ever been there at night?”
“Yes, but I never noticed.”
“Well, I’ll check it. Usually, if there are pillars, there are lights on top of them.”
“Yes.”
“Maybe one of them was burned out.”
“Maybe.”
“So we’ll see. What time was this supposed to be? When she saw the car.”
“Ten-thirty.”
“Drove through the gate, you say, and was making a left turn...”
“Yes.”
“When she noticed the parked car and swerved away from it.”
“That’s what she told me.”
“Well, let me see who saw what out there. Did we discuss my rates?”
“I’m assuming they’re standard.”
“What’s standard by you?”
“Forty-five an hour plus expenses.”
“I usually get fifty.”
“That’s high.”
“Expertise,” Lamb said.
“I pay Warren Chambers forty-five an hour and he’s the best in the business.”
“I’m better,” Lamb said, and grinned like a shark.
When she called to him from below, her voice was so soft he almost didn’t hear her. The boat was drifting, drifting, he hadn’t put a hook down, there was nothing to hit out here, nothing to run into, just a huge circle of water wherever you looked. Faint breeze blowing, a few white-caps out there, fishing boat far out on the horizon to the west, where Corpus Christi, Texas, was the next stop.
“Warren?”
Almost a whisper.
“Yes?”
“Can you come down here, please?”
He went to the ladder, took a step down, bent, and peered into the boat. She was sitting on the bunk up forward, wrist in the handcuff fastened to the grab rail on her right, legs over the side of the bunk, ankles crossed. The high-heeled pumps that matched the short black skirt were on the deck. He went down the ladder.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
“That’s okay,” he said.
“I shouldn’t have knocked that tray out of your hands.”
“Well, listen.”
“Really, I hate being this way,” she said, and smiled. “Besides, now I’m hungry.”
“I’ll fix you something,” he said, and went to the stove.
“If you have some cereal, that’ll be good enough.”
“No eggs?”
“I’m not sure I can keep them down.”
“That’s not supposed to be one of the symptoms.”
“It’s the boat rocking.”
“Oh.”
“I’m sorry I lied to you, Warren.”
“Did you?”
“Well, sure, you know I did. You’re right, I’m hooked. Or was. I know I’ll be thanking you for this when it’s all over.”
“No need for that.”
He was standing at the countertop alongside the stove now, shaking cornflakes from their box into a plastic bowl. He poured milk over them, found a tablespoon in the utensil drawer, put bowl and spoon on a tray and carried it to the bunk.
“Some coffee?” he said. “I can heat it up again.”
“I’d like that,” she said.
He went back to the stove, turned on the gas under the coffeepot. Blue flame licked at its bottom. The boat rocked gently.
“Boy, it’s funny the way this comes in waves,” she said.