“Sandy, darling,” he kissed her hand, “I couldn’t do that to you. I’m under a whole landfill of debt.” He described his follies in the market, the horrors of selling short in a rising Dow, and then, when he had discouraged her pretty thoroughly, he presented his idea.
-“You see, at this point, I might be worth more dead than alive.”
“Vern!”
“Listen a minute. I’ve still got Lively Lady — haven’t been able to sell her for what I paid for her. If I were... well, say I was to be lost out in the Sound. With the insurance on the boat and my personal life policy — you hear what I’m saying? I’m seeing a kind of nest egg for us.” Emphasis on ‘us.’ “And risk free. I mean, I wouldn’t have to be anywhere near the water. Not if someone convincing was to put the alarm in to the Coast Guard. That’s the key, someone convincing. Someone like you who can really act up a storm.”
Sandy didn’t say anything for moment, but, of course, she knew the legal ramifications. Vern was just beginning to worry when she asked, “Who’s the beneficiary?”
“Why you, of course. It would have to be you.”
“How new’s the policy?”
“I don’t have it yet. I didn’t think I needed a big insurance policy. I wasn’t going to disappear at sea when I had everything going great, was I?”
In his irritation, Vern let his voice rise just a little.
Sandy shook her head with what seemed to be regret. “Too big a coincidence. It’s got fraud written all over it.”
She didn’t seem shocked, just practical. Vern could see the problems, but now that he’d actually voiced the idea, he hated to give it up. Before he could reconsider, he heard himself say, “It would be all right if we were engaged. If we were engaged, the policy would make plenty sense.”
“Are we engaged?” she asked.
Vern hesitated for a fraction of a second. He wasn’t eager to risk his freedom, but he could see from her eyes that nothing less would do. “I’d like that,” he said.
“Do you mean it?”
“Yes, yes, I mean it,” said Vern, who thought that he was becoming a pretty good actor, himself.
She smiled then, the big, open smile he liked so much. “Well, all right,” she said.
Vern kissed her hand.
“But I’ll need a ring. It won’t be plausible without a ring.”
“We need a major ring!” Vern did enjoy shopping. “We’ll hit Lux Bond and Green tomorrow. Maybe a party, too?”
“Yes,” she said, then, “No. No party. Not if you’re going to disappear. I’d feel that I was deceiving my family. You know.”
This tenderness of conscience made Vern uneasy. “But they’ll have to know. I mean, before we do it.”
“Oh, sure. Nearer the time I’ll tell them. It’s just that it will be hard. You’ll disappear and be lost, and they’ll feel bad and I’ll always have to be pretending. Acting.”
“You’re such a terrific actress,” Vern murmured.
When Sandy shrugged and looked sad, it passed through his mind that he had never met her family, the family who would grieve for his loss. He was marrying a woman unknown in certain essential aspects. But then Vern reminded himself that at this stage, their marriage itself was still hypothetical. Once they got hold of the money, things could change, might change, would have to change. “Sure, wait till we get the ring and have everything set.” He raised his glass. “To insurance,” he said, and immediately thought that he should have said, “To us.”
But Sandy smiled. “To the depths of the sea,” she replied.
The next day, Vern began to put his plans in motion. Fortunately, with running a marina and selling yachts, he had acquired useful contacts. Guys who pay cash for fast boats and sail them into the wee hours have esoteric knowledge: like where to get a new identity cheapest and the easiest way to leave the good old U.S. of A. and emerge with a new name and new papers in our friendly big neighbor to the north. Stuff like that.
In the busyness of these preparations, Vern buried the rest of his reservations and scruples. If it worried him once in a while to be relying so much on Sandy, well, he reminded himself that she adored him. Besides, he was going to be a new person, too, with new possibilities, no debts, and a very nice chunk of money. He told himself that he could make this scheme work, absolutely.
When everything was ready, Vern rehearsed the plans with Sandy, who listened without making any comment. When he was done, she remarked, “I’ve told my mother we’re engaged.”
“Good,” said Vern.
“She was pleased,” Sandy said, “after — you know.” She meant, of course, the Coast Guard officer, that mysterious married hunk whose name, occupation, and identity Vern had forgotten — if he’d ever known them.
“Sure. That’s great.” Considering her melancholy expression, Vern wondered if Sandy might rethink their marriage, though probably that was wishful thinking. “This will work. Everything will be fine.” He took her hand. “And listen, there’s a storm front coming in end of the week. Is that perfect?”
Sandy gave a little half-smile. “I guess,” she said.
The front arrived Thursday, right on schedule, and, at first, blew up such wind that Vern was worried the Sound would be too rough. It wouldn’t do to look suicidal with a million-dollar policy at stake. Eight hours later, the storm had begun to track east northeast, and the high winds lightened, leaving cloud and rough water behind. Vern called Sandy and alerted his friend Norm, who had a nice little boat shed up on a very small, quiet creek.
This boat shed was the ultimate destination of Lively Lady, and once she was safely moored, Vern took his phony papers and his newly dyed hair and got himself first to Montreal and hence to Quebec City. There he switched on the motel cable and watched a big green and yellow blob devour the East Coast.
Some poor sucker in a rain parka was doing a standup on the Rhode Island shore. Rain spotted the camera lens and sluiced down his face as he went on about gale-force winds and thirty-foot seas. The storm had changed track at the very last minute. Couldn’t have been better for Lively Lady’s disappearance, thought. Vern. Couldn’t have been better.
A couple of hours later, he tuned in again to the news that a fishing boat out of Nantucket had capsized, a surfer had drowned off Newport, and a private yacht was overdue out of Stonington. The seas were so brutal even the Coast Guard boats were having trouble. It would be no surprise at all if a boat like Lively Lady were lost forever.
This was absolutely perfect, and in his excitement Vern called Sandy early. He let the phone ring twice, hung up, called again, let it ring three times, hung up, and waited for her to go to the convenience store pay phone and call him back.
He went through this routine a dozen times over the next three days before he finally got the call. In the meantime, waiting dulled his excitement and sharpened a latent vein of anxiety.
“Vern?” She sounded tired and upset. “Vern?”
“Victor, darling. Please remember not to call me Vern.”
A silence. Ominous.
“Is everything okay? We couldn’t have asked for more from the storm. A boat can sink in a blow like that and never be found. Perfects, eh?”
“Ideal,” Sandy said, but her voice had a strange, flat, shocked quality as if all the electricity had gone out of the line.
“So what’s the problem? Insurance will be in your face, sure, but you’ve just got to be tough. They’re not going to have the ghost of a complaint.”
“It’s more than that,” Sandy said, and Vern could hear tears. “One of the rescue ships got into trouble. They lost a man and another was hurt. I was on the beach that afternoon. I was the one who told them you were out. It’s all so bad, Vern.”