Just Add Water (1) (9 page)

At a little after three in the
morning—an hour and several lifetimes after I had, in a moment of unbridled
moronity, jumped into a Porsche with a lunatic—I was back home.

I paid the cab driver
 
the fortune he’d demanded to allow RJ into
his crappy old heap, unlocked my front door, turned off the security alarm,
checked the mirror to see if my hair had turned white, and gratefully sank onto
the couch. Had I the strength, I would have kissed the tile in my foyer.

My eyes burned from worn off booze,
fatigue, and no small amount of residual anger. I forced my eyelids closed,
hoping for relief, but instead got an instant replay of my rocky ride into
Hell. And that was
before
I got into
the taxi.

When Lars floored that Porsche, we
rocketed into a guardrail and continued scraping alongside for a least a
quarter of a mile. Metal tortured metal, sparking a meteor trail in our wake.
When we at long last bounced off the rail, the car began a hair-raising,
reverse loop waltz.

A series of
explosions—blowouts—were instantly followed by even more sparks as tire rims
sliced through shredded rubber, then struck the pavement. Our pyrotechnic
spectacular, well worthy of a Frances Scott Key composition, thankfully brought
traffic to a halt. I say thankfully, for when we ultimately skidded to a stop,
we were nose to nose with the grinning grill of a humongous eighteen wheeler.
The truck’s driver was not amused.

There was a moment of eerie silence
before horns began blaring, headlights flashed,
 
and the truck driver threw open his cab door and climbed out
carrying what looked suspiciously like an automatic weapon.

“Lars,” Jan screeched, “
do
something!”

So what does her lard assed
Lothario do? He jams the accelerator to the floorboard, spins the car
one-eighty and takes us on a four rim, sixty mile per hour bronco ride across
the bridge. I know I smelled brimstone.

Now safely back in my living room,
I opened my scorched eyes and shook my head to clear the lingering
screeches—metal, mine, and Jan’s. I wondered if she was all right. When RJ and
I bailed at the toll plaza to flag down a cab, she chose to remain with that
maniac Lars and his machine of doom. I reasoned that because Lars was insane
didn’t mean he was a serial killer. Just your everyday psycho with a death
wish. And as for that brother of his! I was building up a good head of steam,
moving from very pissed off to furious, when RJ’s frantic barks sat me bolt
upright.

“What is it, boy?” I asked. His
nose was glued to a closed door leading from the living room to a downstairs
bedroom, bath, laundry room, and garage that were his quarters when I was gone.

Behind the door lay a set of stairs
leading down to what had, at one time in my house’s life, been a mother-in-law
set up. Because my home was built on a slope, the basement level bedroom
window, with its lockable dog door flap, was directly under the hot tub. When
we were both away from the house, RJ’s private passageway to his outdoor pen
remained locked, as did the door into the main part of the house. The very door
my dog was now threatening to eat.

Although badly frightened by the
frantic snarls and yelps, I forced myself to the door and sighed with relief
when I saw the deadbolt engaged. The downstairs area was sealed off.
 
We were safe as long as that door was
secure. But RJ was still raising holy hell, and I trusted his instincts. Then,
in a heart stopping moment, it dawned on me that I had forgotten to reset the
alarm before collapsing on the couch ten minutes earlier.

Cold dropped into my stomach faster than
thermometer mercury at the onset of a Texas blue norther. My arms went numb, as
did my feet. If I didn’t move fast, I’d probably faint. I made it to the closet
housing the alarm system panel in ten molasses-slow steps. Every window and
door in the house was wired and each of the three zones had its own bank of
lights. Since the system was off, they were all yellow. Nothing obvious was
amiss. I was beginning to think that RJ’s night had caught up with him, right
up to the second I punched in the code to reset the system. ZONE
ONE—downstairs—blinked a furious red. Something, either a window or door down
there, was open.

A quick look at the diagram told me it
was the dog door. And since I couldn’t have set the system before leaving the
house if any door or window was ajar, someone must have opened it in the last
few minutes. My shaking finger hit the PANIC button as I cursed the day I had
agreed to a thirty second delay to avoid false alarms.

Even though I knew the alarm on the roof
would go off and wake the entire neighborhood in a few seconds, I ran to the
kitchen and dialed 911. Not waiting for an answer, because I knew the police
would trace the call, I left the phone off the hook, ran back to the foyer
closet where the alarm panel was housed, and grabbed the only thing my great
grandmother Stockman had left me.

No, not a family Bible. Nor a quilt.
Certainly no blue chip stock certificates or the deed to downtown Austin. Nope.
Grandmaw Stockman, ever practical, bequeathed me her most precious possession,
her shotgun. Said with a smart mouth like mine I’d probably need it.

I hauled RJ into the closet with me just
as the roof horn, all jillion decibels of it, shattered the early morning calm.
I could picture lights blinking on all over the neighborhood, and many
Winchesters, Smith and Wessons, Remingtons, and their automatic cousins coming
out of their closets. The rising price of ammo was a major concern in my
community.

Although I could barely hear anything
above the siren’s din, I felt RJ’s low rumble—the one reserved for garbage men,
postal employees and cops—and figured the police had arrived. I
hoped
the police had arrived.

Flipping off the wailing horn, I
recognized the unmistakable growl of souped-up patrol car engines. With
salvation at hand, I grabbed RJ by the collar, left the closet, opened the
front door, and stepped out under the porch light. Several million candlepower
worth of spotlights blinded us. James Cagney in
The
Public Enemy
came to
mind. I wanted my mommy.

“Freeze and drop your weapon!” a
voice bellowed from the dark. RJ went bonkers, and it was all I could do to
hold him. In my fatigue and fright, I had forgotten I was packing a shotgun.
With a howling hound in one hand and a double-barreled over and under in the
other, I probably looked, to the OPD, like a redneck survivalist.

“It’s not loaded, officer,” I
wheedled. “Almost not loaded. I’m afraid to throw it down. It might go off.
What do you want me to do?”

“Put on the safety, sit on the
ground, then lay the gun down and scoot away from it. And hold on to that dog.”

Easier said than done, but somehow
I managed with only minor skin loss. Once the gun was out of reach, I was
allowed to stand. Sort of. They told me to put my hands on my head, but if I
did, I would have to let go of RJ. We had a momentary standoff until a neighbor
intervened.

“It’s okay, officer,” I heard my
neighbor, Bunnie Adams, yell, “she’s the homeowner.”

A baby-faced cop, gun at the ready,
advanced cautiously into the blaze of light. Picking up the shotgun, he handed
it off to his partner, who broke open the breech. Homemade shotgun shells fell
onto the ground.

“Not loaded, huh?” the cop said.

“Only rock salt and bacon rind.”

“No shit? Jesus, lady, where did
you get the crazy idea to load your shotgun shells with stuff like that?”

“My great grandmother.”

* * *

“I think I might have found your
problem,” a cop hollered from downstairs. There were now six of them and three
patrol cars. I was in the living room being grilled by the boy cop, who seemed
pissed because he couldn’t find anything to charge me or my dog with. He waved his
hand in disgusted dismissal, indicating I could go down and see what his crony
had found.

RJ, who had lost interest in
barking and menacing men in blue, docilely followed me down the stairs to where
a grinning officer stood in three inches of water.

“Looks like you need the water
police,” he quipped. All the cops in the city and I gotta get one who thinks
he’s Jerry Seinfeld, only black. He pointed to a busted pipe. Water shot up
onto the wiring around a door. “System shorted,” was his brilliant verdict.

I turned off the water main and
tromped upstairs to call a plumber who lived down the street in a home that
rivaled those of the professional athletes on the same block. I could hardly
wait to get
his
bill.

Oakland’s finest, laughing and
shaking their heads, began filing out to their cars. “Hey, you guys, why don’t
you each take a damned bucket of water?” I called out to what I thought was an
empty house. I was startled to hear a reply.

“You want us to mop the floor as
well?”

Crap, leftovers. At least that’s
what I hoped. I followed the voice to find a man in a rumpled suit sitting on
my couch, scratching RJ’s ears. RJ’s obvious approval notwithstanding, I was
judging the distance to my shotgun when the man flashed a badge. I relaxed.

“Martinez,” he said as an
introduction. “I got here a little late. Looks like things are wrapped up, so
guess I’ll be going. Here’s my card if you think you have any more problems.”

I took the card, read it, and
nodded. “Thanks, Detective Martinez. I guess it was a false alarm. Anyway,
that’s what your guys think.”

“And you don’t?”

“I’m not sure. Could be. One thing
for sure, I got a mess on my hands. How did I rate a dick?”

Martinez did a double take and
grunted. “You have some fairly important neighbors who don’t like being woken
up in the wee hours.”

“Ah, yes. The plumber.”

He smirked. “Nope, the NBA. Nearing
the playoffs, you know.”

“Aha, so all those decibels on my
roof
did
wake the dead? Or is it my
imagination that Oakland died on the court weeks ago and refuses to lie down?”

His lips twitched. “They do have a
big game tomorrow, so let’s don’t bury them quite yet.”

“Such loyalty. Well, you can tell
the NBA…” the doorbell rang.
 
“Oh, never
mind. With any luck at all, that’ll be my plumber. You might stick around and
arrest him when he’s done. He’s sure to commit highway robbery.”

16

My bedside alarm clock went off at
eight, exactly two hours after Mr. Handy Pipe departed with the following
warning: “I’ve left a sump pump working on that downstairs flooding. Check it
after two hours, cuz if the pump runs dry and burns up my motor,
 
I’ll have to charge you for a new one.” What
happened to the good neighbor policy?

I needed sleep, but I needed the
three hundred bucks I’d have to pay for a burned out pump
 
more, so I dutifully set my alarm clock.

Stumbling down the stairs, I found
that most of the standing water was gone. I turned off the sump, dug out my
Shop-Vac, and sucked what I could from the soggy rug. The house alarm people
were due later, and I was anxious to hear what they had to say, because I
remained unconvinced that moisture alone was the culprit for all the havoc.
After all, the police confirmed that the dog door flap was indeed unfastened,
and I distinctly remembered securing it after my brunch guests left the day
before.
 
Which by now seemed like an
eternity ago.

Maybe the alarm company guy would
have an explanation. One of the reasons I had them zone the house when they
installed the system was so I could leave the downstairs system off when I was
gone for more than a few hours. That way, RJ could go in and out of a window
fitted with a lockable pet flap, and into dog jail, as I called the fenced area
under my hot tub.

When we were both gone, the gate
from the backyard into dog jail was padlocked, and the dog flap into RJ’s
bedroom was fastened shut and was wired into the main alarm system. Unless an
intruder smashed out another window, the only way they could get into the main
part of the house from downstairs was to jimmy the lock, open and squeeze
through RJ’s doggie door, go up the stairs, and then break down, or through, a
bolted door into the living room. Up until now, I had been enjoying what may
have been a false sense of security.

I was positive I had hit the “whole
house” setting when Jan and I left. The alarm won’t set unless all lights are
green. Had the system malfunctioned, or had we a mystery visitor capable of
squeezing through the four inch slats of the padlocked dog jail, then opening
the pet flap? Raccoon? Maybe, there were a few around.

I had the kennel designated as dog
jail specially built for a dog that could easily jump my six-foot yard fence in
a single bound. RJ could go outside, into a twenty-by-twenty foot area, and not
be cooped up in the house all day. If it was cold or raining, he would retreat
to his bedroom inside where he had food, water, and a basket. Most of the third
world population would kill for such a set up.

RJ was less grateful. He much
preferred to be either in the main house, lounging on my leather furniture, or
even better, free to roam and terrorize. But, being the pampered, registered,
licensed, and therefore, restricted, American pet he was, my dog had to settle
for what the City of Oakland required. So, dog jail it was.

I crawled wearily back into bed and
reset my Big Ben for another hour’s sleep before the alarm guys showed up. Ten
minutes later the phone rang.

“Where are you?” Jan demanded. Aha!
She was alive. But not for long, if I had anything to do with it. “I mean, I
know
where
you are, Hetta, I want to
know
why
. As you
may recall, we’re taking our first real sail with Women On the
Estuary this morning and if you hurry, we can catch some breakfast before we
leave.”

Shit. I had my own woes, I didn’t
need WOE. “I can’t,” I moaned. “My house is under water.”

“That’s the worst excuse you’ve
ever come up with. It’s not raining, and you live on top of a mountain.”

“It’s a long story, Jan. Go on
without me.”

“Nope. Get up and get down here.
Now!”

“What time are you leaving?”

“We, Hetta.
We
are leaving at ten.”

“Oh, what the hell, I’ll try. If
I’m late, go on ahead. I’ll see you at the club later.”

I hung up and tried to think of something, anything,
positive about the past twenty-four hours. The only thing I could come up with
was I’d been too cheap to re-carpet RJ’s abode after the renters trashed it.

By the time the alarm guy arrived,
RJ’s bedroom was all relatively dry, so I loaded up RJ and left Mr. Home
Security to work his magic. I arrived at Jack London Yacht Club just in time to
see the transom of Frank’s boat,
Elegant
Lady
, motoring away, Jan at the helm.

“You having brunch?” Paul asked. I
wondered when the bartender slept, since it seemed no matter what time of day
or night I was at the club, so was he.

I yawned and slipped my sunglasses
onto my head. “I might as well, since my ship saileth without me.” Just like my
life these days.

“Then the mimosas are free.”

“In that case, I’m buying,” a deep voice said from behind
me.

I turned to meet watery gray eyes.
Garrison, of
Sea Cock
renown. His
longish, steely hair was wind tossed, his clothes yachtish. Tanned boyish
features and an easy grin almost masked telltale dissipation. Almost. I
knows
a rascal when I sees one, matey.

“Remember me?” he asked, slipping
onto the barstool next to me.

“Yep. Berkeley. Almost didn’t
recognize you without your boat.”

“You’re Hetta, right?”

I nodded and sipped my drink. Paul
hovered. I declared it the best mimosa I’d ever tasted. He beamed and said he’d
give me the recipe.

“Hetta’s strange in this day and
age,” Garrison said.

“Beg your pardon?” How in the hell
did he know I was strange? He’d only just met me.

“Is it a family name?” His smile
was friendly, his tone conversational. Nothing in his manner bespoke come-on,
but I smelled one.
 

“Oh. Yep, my great grandmother. She
left me her shotgun, too.”

“I consider myself warned.” He
laughed. A nice laugh, but a lit-tle practiced. “Are you a new WOEie?”

For a moment I wasn’t sure. Was I?

“I guess I am. Sort of. They want
you to take two sails before you officially sign up. I have a temporary club
card, but unfortunately missed my boat because I had a few problems at home and
ran late. Are you a member here, Garrison?”

“Yep,” he pointed to a picture of
himself, sporting dark brown hair, on the wall above the bar. “I was Commodore
a while back. Tell you what. If you’ll agree to join me for brunch now and then
later for a drink, I’ll ferry you out to catch your boatload of women. I can
overtake them with one engine tied behind my back.”

He wasn’t jist awolfin’, as we say
back home. In a little under two hours, I was being transferred from
Sea Cock
to
Elegant Lady.
 
There had to
be something Freudian there, but I couldn’t put my finger on it.

Jan was impressed I’d finally made
it and I was impressed that she, unlike me, seemed none the worse for our
evening careen across the Bay Bridge with a mad man. I looked up at that very
bridge and pictured a Porsche dropping onto us.

“Welcome aboard,” Frank said with a
smile. We waved good-bye to Garrison as
Sea
Cock
belched diesel fumes and roared off.

“Stinkpot,” one of the WOEies
grumbled.

“Is Garrison that bad?” I asked.

She grinned. “Not Garrison. His
boat.
Real
boaters don’t need no
stinkin’ engines. We sailors call powerboats stinkpots. And as for Garrison,
he’s kinda the club Don Juan, but basically harmless. Let me guess. If he
brought you out to catch us, you probably agreed to have a drink with him when
we get back to the club?”

“Yep.”

Another woman chuckled. “Has he
gotten to the cocktail cruise part?”

I barked a laugh. “There was
mention.”

The women traded knowing looks.
There was more information to be garnered here, but I didn’t have time to
delve, for we were told to ready ourselves.
Elegant
Lady
was about to round Treasure Island and enter the “slot.”

For
years, and from the safety of a waterfront table at our favorite Berkeley
grazing ground, Jan and I had stared down the “slot” while brunching. Afforded
an unobstructed view straight out the Golden Gate Bridge to the Pacific Ocean,
we had especially relished those days when waves pounded against the breakwater
below the plate glass windows, rocking the building and salting the windows. We
had not known that alleyway of water in front of us even had a name. Now I was
told it was called the “slot.” Slot, schmot. So what?

“Get ready,” Frank warned as the
boat left the protection of Treasure Island.

Forewarned is not necessarily
forearmed.
At least not in my case
. Elegant Lady,
Frank’s thirty-eight
foot sailboat “manned” by a six-woman, relatively inexperienced crew, cleared
the protection of the island and fell over. I later learned the nautical term
for what we did, but as far as I was concerned, the damned boat fell over.
Quite
in
elegantly. Back at the
clubhouse later I was told we almost broached.

Broach: To incline suddenly
windward, so as to lay the sails aback and expose the vessel to the danger of
oversetting.

Ain’t that the truth? I also
learned that brunching is far superior to broaching.

When we broached, water poured over
the rails and into the cockpit, chilling my feet and soul. Then, when I was
certain we were going over, the boat righted slightly and began to
lurch—probably not a nautical term, either—from one wave top to another. Lucky
for me, my stomach didn’t lurch with it. I don’t get air, car, or seasick
easily, but my fellow sailorettes weren’t so fortunate. I made sure I stayed
upwind.

I’d seen the Americas Cup on
television. Even admired those hardy souls who braved stinging salt spray and
bodily injury to compete for the coveted trophy. But it never occurred to me
that that was
sailing
. Sailing was
sitting in the cockpit sipping martinis, like the boat brochures showed. I
planned to sue for broach of promise.

And even though I am an engineer
and I know, on an intellectual level, that the keel of a sailboat is weighted
with thousands of pounds of lead to keep it from turning turtle, I was
absolutely certain we were going to go tits up. I huddled and cursed.

Frank, who seemed to be having a
grand old time dodging sea and lady spit, finally noticed I wasn’t tossing my
cookies like the others and bribed me into reluctant service with the promise
of a cold beer.

“Keep the sails full,” he said,
turning the wheel over to me and going below for beer. Jan was down to dry
heaves, but when she saw me take the helm, she found something more in her
stomach.

Three beers, four broken nails, one
minor head wound, and several boat bites later, I hauled my sleep deprived,
salt encrusted body off the boat, said something ungracious,
 
and stomped to the yacht club bar. Garrison,
as promised, waited.

“Have a good sail?” he asked.

“Is there such a thing?” I growled.

“Not as far as I’m concerned. Tell
you what, why don’t I take you for a nice quiet dinner on the estuary later?”

“Thanks, but I’ve had about all the
saltwater I can take for one day. Besides, I’ve got to take Jan home, then get
back to my home because...never mind, it’s a long story.”

“Where does Jan live?”

“The City.”

“Why don’t I take you for a nice
quiet dinner in the City? We can drop Jan off.”

“The logistics and my mood are all
wrong for tonight, Garrison. Can I get a rain check?”

“Sure,” he said, barely covering
his chagrin. “As long as it’s for tomorrow evening.”

Too tired to protest, I
capitulated. Besides, I like a man with persistence.

As I drove Jan home, she caught me
up on what happened with Lars and his Porsche after I threw my full-blown,
Texas hissy fit and demanded to be let out of the trashed car at the Bay Bridge
toll plaza. Jan had refused to leave with me, but insisted they stand by until
RJ and I were entrenched in the relative safety of a Yellow Cab. And was Jan at
all put off by her late-night ride with Dr. Death? Nope, she was smitten with
the lunatic.

“Lars is so much
fun
, Hetta,” she gushed. “You know, he drove his poor ole car all
the way across Alameda, right into his driveway and he wasn’t even upset. I
mean, it’s a really expensive car and he laughed it off. Most guys would have
been beside themselves.”

“Most guys have at least a modicum,
a tiny
soupçon,
of common sense. Not
that Lars isn’t common. And that brother! He acted as though we were out for a
Sunday stroll in the park. Did he ever say anything at all?”

“Jenks said Lars was nuts and, even
though his brother was goaded into doing something so dumb, he’d probably never
ride with him again.”

“So, at least one of them has
some...wait a minute. Goaded?”

“Hetta, you
did
say it was a nice car,” Jan said primly.
 

“Listen to me, Miss Prissy
Britches, only a psychopath would construe a compliment for his car as an
invitation to commit vehicular suicide. Homicide. Whatever. It was
my
fault a demonic drunk stomped the
accelerator on a curve and trashed his car, almost killing us all? There’s some
kind of genetic defect in that family.”

“Jenks didn’t exactly say it was
all
your fault. He said to tell you not
to egg Lars on.”

“Why are we suddenly so buddy-buddy
with Bob, and since when are we calling him Jenks?” I demanded, using the royal
we
.

“Jenks is Bob’s nickname. You can
call him that.”

“I don’t plan to call him anything.
I have absolutely no intention of ever seeing or speaking to Lars, or his
brother, old whatchamacallit, again as long as I live. Which, I figure, will be
longer the further away I stay from your bilge brothers.”