Sea Change

They were unmarked, and, he realized, unopened. He went back out and up the stairs to the helm and navigation area, and found a Magic Marker, one of several, in a beer mug on the shelf by the steering wheel.

He took it back downstairs, took out the stack of numbered videotapes, slipped one from the middle, number five, took the wrapping cellophane off the new video, marked it number five, slipped it in among the others marked tapes, put the red elastic back around them and put the real number five inside his shirt. He put the other new videos back where he’d found them, crumpled the cellophane that he’d removed and put it in his pocket.

Let’s hope it’s not his kid’s confirmation.

Jesse went through the other rooms, and found a lot that was titillating, but nothing that was useful. Then he went back and sat and looked at the master bedroom. He thought about the tapes. It could all be in there. How hard could it be? He studied the entertainment center.

Okay, this is the remote.

He studied the many buttons. Some had arrows or squares or two bars, or dots. Some were labeled. He found a switch that was labeled all on. He found no other switch that said all off.

So this must be the one, all on/all off.

He pressed it. The set clicked on, the screen brightened.

And in a moment there was a picture. Jesse studied it for a moment. He was looking at a small shower. He clicked the 1 1 7

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button that read CH. He was looking at a bed. The plaid spread looked familiar.

For Christ’s sake. It’s on the boat. The bastard’s got the placewired.

Jesse stood and walked to the bedroom with the plaid spread. He placed a pillow in the middle of it and went back to the master bedroom. The bed on the screen now had a pillow in the middle of it. Jesse went back, replaced the pillow and stood in the small bedroom looking at the ceiling. There were small recessed lights in the ceiling. Jesse examined them in the low ceiling. He could find nothing unusual. He went back to the master bedroom and clicked the channels.

Each shower and each bedroom could be accessed on the screen, including the master bedroom. Jesse went and turned on one of the showers and came back. He could hear it.

Sound and Picture.

He went back and shut off the shower. Then he went to the master bedroom and pressed the all on button. The screen went black. Jesse whistled to himself softly. Master technician!

Has to be through the ceiling lights. The fact that I can’t figureit out means nothing. I can’t even play the fucking VCR. He put the remote carefully back where he’d found it. He looked around. Everything looked the same as it had.

Jesse went up on deck and over the side onto the harbor boat. Hardy eased it away from the Lady Jane, and curled it inconspicuously back in toward the town wharf, moving slowly among the moored sailboats.

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25

T he videotape player in Jesse’s office was simplicity itself. It didn’t do anything but play, and required only the ability to push the play and stop buttons on the remote. Jesse put in tape number five and clicked pla .

y

It was a red-haired woman with slim hips and, Jesse spec-ulated, enhanced breasts. The videotape showed her naked in a variety of activities: taking a shower, shaving her legs, washing her hair, putting on makeup, changing clothes, having various and inventive sex with Harrison Darnell. The tape was a long one and repetitive. Showers, sex, changing clothes, sex, showers, clothes.

Jesse sat quietly at his desk watching. He felt like a dirty R O B E R T B . P A R K E R

old man, alone in a room watching sex videos. It was exciting for about a minute. The pleasures of voyeurism. A moment of discovery. Jesse could not remember seeing a naked redhead before. And then the increasing boredom as the scenes became repetitive. There was sound, but little to listen to, except the sex with Darnell, which was so noisy that Jesse muted it. Somewhere in the middle of the tape the redhead got a perm. What had been longish wavy hair became short curly hair. Otherwise she continued to shower and change clothes and have sex with Darnell.

The tape ran an hour. The boredom was penetrating. Jesse forced himself to watch it. When it ended he rewound it and sat quietly in his office for a while. He was pretty sure what was on the other tapes. Blondie probably had her own tape.