The Nautical Chart Read Free Page B

with his hands in the pockets of his jacket while deciding whether to head left or right, which involved a choice between a light snack in a nearby bar or a walk to the Plaza Real and two Bombay Sapphire gins with a lot of tonic. Or maybe one, he corrected himself quickly, after recalling the lamentable state of his wallet. There was very little traffic, and through die leaves on the trees, as far as he could see, a long line of stoplights was sequentially changing from yellow to red. After deliberating for ten seconds, just as the last light turned red and the nearest changed back to green, he started walking to his right. That was the first mistake of the night.
    LNAM: Law of Non-Accidental Meetings. Based on Murphy's well-known law—one that had several serious confirmations recently—Coy had the habit of establishing, for private consumption, a series of colorful laws he baptized with absolute technical solemnity. LADWU: Law of Always Dance With the Ugliest, for example; or LBTAFFD: Law of Buttered Toast Always Falls Face Down, and other principles more or less applicable to the recent miserable state of his life. These laws didn't accomplish anything, of course, except to occasion a smile from time to time. At his own expense. No matter, Coy was convinced that in the strange order of the Universe, as in jazz—he was a great jazz fen—chance played a large role, like improvisations so mathematical that you had to ask yourself if they weren't written somewhere. And it was right here that his recently formulated LNAM was proved. As he approached the corner he saw a large silver-gray car parked at the curb, with one of its doors standing open. Then, near a streetlight a little farther away, he could see a man talking with a woman. He first recognized the man, who was facing him, and after a few steps, when he could see how angry he was, Coy realized that the man was arguing with a woman. Now visible in the light from overhead, she was blond, with hair cut high on the nape of her neck. She was wearing a suede jacket and a dark skirt. He felt a tingling in his stomach. Sometimes, he told himself, life becomes predictable by nature of its pure unpredictability. He hesitated a minute before adding, or vice versa. Then he reckoned direction and drift. If there was one thing he was capable of, it was instinctively to calculate these situations, although the last time he had determined a route—a rout would be much closer to fact—it had led directly to a shipping tribunal. At any rate, he altered his course by ten degrees in order to pass as close as possible to the couple. That was his second mistake. It was at odds with any sailor's common sense, which counseled maintaining sea room at any cost, or danger ahead.

    THE man with the gray ponytail looked furious. At first Coy couldn't hear what he was saying because he was talking in a low voice. He did, however, observe that one hand was raised, with a finger pointing at the woman, who was standing stock-still, facing him. Then the finger moved, jabbing her shoulder with more anger than violence, and she retreated a step, as if frightened.
    "... the consequences," Coy heard ponytail say. "You understand? All the consequences."
    Again the finger was poised to jab her shoulder, and she took another step back. Now the man seemed to think better of it, and instead he grabbed her arm, not so much in a violent way as to convince or intimidate. She jumped, startled, and again moved back, shaking free. Ponytail made a move toward her arm again, but found himself blocked by Coy, who had slipped between them and was staring him straight in the face. Ponytail s hand froze, its rings glittering in the light, his mouth open to say something to the woman... or maybe because he didn't know where this character in the navy-blue jacket and sneakers had come from, with his sturdy shoulders and wide, hard hands hanging at either side with feigned casualness, fingers at the side seams of his