"You're goddamn right I am. We're leaving here Tuesday."
"You're nuts, Pick," Stecker said, not unkindly.
"I'm in love, all right? People in love are allowed to be a little crazy."
"What you need is a piece of ass," Stecker said. "It has amazing curative powers for crazy people. Let's go back to the hotel and commit every sin-except worshipping graven images."
"Let's go sailing," Pickering said.
"Let's do what?"
"Sailing. Boats, sails. You have been on a boat?"
"How are we going to do that?"
"Trust me, my son," Pickering said solemnly. "Put thy faith in me, and I will work miracles."
Five minutes after they passed the Marine guard on the Pensacola Navy Air Station, Pickering turned off Navy Boulevard. Five hundred yards beyond he passed between two sandstone pillars.
"You did notice the sign?" Stecker asked, dryly.
"The one that said 'Pensacola Yacht Club'?"
"The one that said 'Members Only.'"
"Oh, ye of little faith," Pickering said.
"You really think she's going to be in here?"
"There was another story about her father," Pickering said, "in the Pensacola newspaper. In addition to being an admiral, he's the vice commodore here."
"Jesus, you are desperate."
"It also said they serve a buffet brunch, starting at ten," Pickering said. "Admirals have to eat, just like human beings. Maybe he brought his daughter with him."
"And what if he did? Presuming we don't get thrown out on our asses, what are you going to do, just walk up and say, 'Hi, there'?"
"Why not?" Pickering said, smiling at Stecker as he parked the car and pulled the emergency brake on.
A portly, suntanned man in a blue blazer with an embroidered patch on the pocket walked up to them as they entered the lobby of the yacht club.
"Good morning, gentlemen," he said. "Meeting someone?"
"Gee," Stecker said, under his breath, "we lasted a whole ten seconds before we got caught."
"No, we thought we'd try the buffet," Pickering said.
The man in the blazer looked uncomfortable, making Stecker think that he disliked throwing servicemen out of his yacht club, even if that was precisely what he was about to do.
"Gentlemen," he said, "I'm afraid this is a private club-"
"But you are affiliated with the American Yachting Association?" Pickering asked, as he took out his wallet.
"Yes, of course," the man said.
Pickering searched through the wallet and came up with a battered card and handed it over.
"Welcome to the Pensacola Yacht Club, Mr. Pickering," the man said, smiling, and handing him the card back. "I won't have to ask, will I, what brings you into our waters?"
"Our Uncle Samuel," Pickering said.
"Well, let me show you to the dining room," the man said. "If you don't think it's too early, the first drink is traditionally on me club."
"How nice," Pickering said.
The corridor from the lobby to the dining room was lined with trophy cases and framed photographs.
"Well, there's a familiar face," Pickering said, pleased, pointing to a photograph of a large sailboat with its crew. They were standing along the port side, hanging on to the rigging, and they were obviously delighted with themselves.
A thin strip of typewritten legend on the photograph said, "FAT CHANCE, 1st Place, Wilson Cup, San Francisco-Hawaii 1939."
"That was the 'thirty-nine Wilson Cup," the man from the yacht club said. "Jack Glenn, one of our members, was on her."
"Fat Jack," Pickering said. "But please note that splendid sailor about to fall off the bowsprit."
Stecker looked. It was Pickering, as obviously drunk as he was delighted with himself, holding on firmly to the bowsprit rigging.
"That's you," Stecker accused.
"Indeed," Pickering said.
From the look on the man from the yacht club, Stecker decided, the Pensacola Yacht Club was theirs.
"God is in his heaven," Pickering said solemnly. "Prayer pays. All is right with the world."
"What the hell?" Stecker asked, and then looked where Pickering was looking.
A rear admiral, a woman obviously his wife, and Martha Sayre Culhane were coming down the corridor.
"Well, hello, there," Mrs. Sayre said, offering her hand to Pickering. "It's nice to see you again, Lieutenant. You're a sailor, too?"
"Quite a sailor, Mrs. Sayre," the man from the yacht club said. He pointed to the photograph. "He was on the Fat Chance with Jack Glenn."
"Good morning, Martha," Pickering said.
"Hello, Pick," Martha said.
She did not seem nearly as glad to see Pickering as Pick was to see her.
"Since no one seems to be about to introduce us, gentlemen," Admiral Sayre said, "I'll introduce myself. I'm Admiral Sayre."
"How do you do, sir?" Pickering said politely.
"Jim, this is Lieutenant Pickering," Mrs. Sayre said. "I'm afraid I don't know this-"
"Stecker, ma'am," Stecker said. "Dick Stecker."
"We're here for the brunch," Mrs. Sayre said. "Why don't you join us?"
"We wouldn't want to intrude," Stecker said.
"That's very kind, thank you very much, we'd love to," Pickering said.
"I'd like to thank you for doing this, Dick," Mrs. Jeanne Sayre said to Stecker. "Ma'am?" Stecker asked. They were in the cabin of the Martha 111, a twenty-eight-foot cruising sailer, now two miles offshore, and heeled twenty degrees from the vertical in nasty choppy seas. Jeanne Sayre had boiled water for tea on a small stove. Stecker had welcomed the opportunity to get out of the spray by helping her. When he had come below, Martha was with her father in the cockpit, and Pick was way up front, just behind what Stecker had earlier learned (looking at the photo in the yacht club) was the "bowsprit."
"I'm sure you and Pick had other plans for this afternoon," Jeanne Sayre said.
"This is fine," he said. "I'm glad to be here."
"Even though you're going to have to have your uniform cleaned, if it's not ruined, not to mention buying shoes, which have already been ruined?" she asked, smiling tolerantly.
"I've never had a chance to do something like this before," Stecker said.
"My husband too rarely gets the chance to do anything like this," Jeanne Sayre said. "He really works too hard, and he's reluctant-he's really a nice guy-to ask his aides to 'volunteer' I saw his eyes light up when he heard Pick was a real sailor. I didn't have the heart to kick him under the table when he asked if anybody would like a little sail."
"Pick's having a fine time," Stecker said, smiling.
He'd be having a much better time, of course, if it wasn't for you, the admiral, and me; and it was just him and your well-stacked daughter sailing off into the sunset on this goddamned little boat.
The boat at the moment started to change direction. Stecker's eyes reflected his concern.
"We're turning," she said. "I guess my husband decided we're far enough offshore."
The Martha III came to a vertical position, and then started heeling in the other direction.
"Man overboard!" a male voice, obviously the admiral's, cried.
For a moment, Stecker thought it was some sort of joke in bad taste, but then he saw the look on Mrs. Sayre's face, and knew it was no joke. Obviously, Pick, playing Viking up front, had lost his footing and gone into the water. There was a quick sense of amusement-serves the bastard right-quickly replaced by a feeling of concern. The water out there was
choppy. People drowned when they fell off boats, particularly into choppy water.
He followed Jeanne Sayre as she went quickly to the cockpit. He looked forward. Pick hadn't gone overboard. He was halfway between the bow and the cockpit. And he had taken his blouse off.
Pick ripped a circular life preserver free and threw it over the side; and then, in almost a continuous motion, he made a quick running dive over the side. He still had his socks on, Stecker saw, but he had removed his shoes.
Stecker looked over the stern. Surprisingly far behind the boat, he saw Martha Sayre Culhane's head bobbing in the water, held up by an orange life preserver.