After clearing the last set of buoys, I pulled the ties off the mainsail and clipped the halyard to the head of the sail. Then I had Amanda hold us in the wind so I could raise it up the mast.
“Not as easy to steer as the Audi,” she said.
We managed it anyway, and I took the wheel from her, killed the engine and we heeled to starboard as I let the wind grip the sail and shove us back toward the north. Once the jib was out, we were fully underway at a gentle five knots. There were a few open fishing boats bobbing around the buoys, but otherwise we had the bay to ourselves.
“I spent the morning with Markham Fairchild,” I told her once we were comfortably settled into a stable port tack.
“Really.”
“I already gave him his bookcase, so he had to give me all the test results.”
“What did he say?”
“He said he had just the right spot for the bookcase and ordered another one.”
“If you aren’t going to tell me you shouldn’t bring it up.”
“I want to tell you. That’s why I wanted to get out on the water today. To talk about it.”
She looked ready to do that, but I suggested we wait for wine and cheese, having missed breakfast. She busied herself with that while I flicked on the ancient Autohelm and set a course we could hold for at least an hour.
“Okay,” she said after we clinked glasses. “Spill it.”
“Markham got the MRIs from when I got slugged by Buddy Florin back from the Town evidence room. Then he had me do it again, and took another set of X-rays. They also ran a bunch of blood and urine tests to compare with others in the past, including what I gave them the day after conking out in the shower.”
She tensed.
“You’re leading up to something.”
“I am.”
She set her wine glass on the cockpit table and sat back, folding her hands in her lap.
“Before you say anything,” she said, “I want you to know that I’ll be there for you no matter what. I know I haven’t always been. I’ve sent you all kinds of foolish mixed messages. I think I’m over that. I think you’re over doing the same thing to me. I’ve been through too much with you now to have it any other way. So whatever’s ahead, I’m seeing you through it whether you like it or not.”
“That’s fine with me, as long as you skip the cosmopolitans.”
“Sorry?”
“Yeah, keep your poisonous concoctions to yourself.” I stood up and leaned over her with as much grace as the sea motion of the boat would allow and kissed her forehead. “Now I’m confused,” she said.
“My mother told me I was allergic to eggs when I was a little kid, but I grew out of it. As far as I know she never fed me pomegranate.”
Amanda put her hand over her mouth.
“Oh my God.”
“Markham said my blood was still chock-full of histamines and leukotrienes the day after I passed out. So they ran allergen screens, including one for the component parts of pomegranate, which I told them I had the night before. Markham said it was pretty rare, but something in me really hates pomegranates. Enough to bring on anaphylactic shock. He said, ‘Don be t’inkin’ dis is all good news. Anaphylaxis do in more people every year den lightnin’.”
“What about the MRIs? What did they say?”
“He still thinks I should give up my boxing career, which I already have. But he said the latest stuff looked pretty good, that the neurologist saw little lasting damage from the last concussion. Doesn’t mean some evil crap couldn’t sneak up on me over time, but right now, all clear.”
She got up this time and wedged herself next to me behind the helm. She put her arms around my middle and her head on my shoulder and stayed like that for a long time as we reached across the Little Peconic Bay, holding hard to the prospect of peace and serenity that the sacred waters promised to bestow.
Thanks again to Mary Jack Wald, my literary agent and guardian angel, and to Martin and Judy Shepard of the Permanent Press.
Special thanks to John Acquino of Southampton for the lesson in deconstructionism.
Other special thanks to Norman Bloch of Thompson Hine for his tour of the New York criminal justice system, and his colleague Rich Orr for making that possible.
For medical advice, my sincere thanks to the Docatola of Rock and Rolla, Peter King, MD. And for that connection, Dave Newell, native guide of the Vermont countryside.
Any inaccuracies or hanky-panky with facts supplied are mine alone.
For editorial wisdom and syntactical tough love, my thanks to Anne Collins of Random House Canada.
On the visual side of the house, thanks to Patrick Kiniry for cover artistry, and Dan Lorenz of Lithographics for
pre-pro generosity, and Susan Alhquist for tireless devotion to production quality.
As always, deepest thanks to valued readers and advisers— in particular, Randy Costello, Sean Cronin and Mary Farrell. And Anne-Marie Regish, who keeps the whole machine running in the midst of startling chaos.
VINTAGE CANADA EDITION, 2009
Copyright © 2008 Chris Knopf
Published by arrangement with The Permanent Press
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review.
Published in Canada by Vintage Canada, a division of Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto, in 2009. Originally published in hardcover in Canada by Random House Canada, a division of Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto, in 2008. Distributed by Random House of Canada Limited.
Vintage Canada and colophon are registered trademarks of Random House of Canada Limited.
Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication
Knopf, Chris
Head wounds / Chris Knopf.
eISBN: 978-0-307-36976-5
I. Title.
PS3611.N66H42 2009 813′.6 C2008-905507-1
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