“The white guy that floated up with Stitch Harper, it could be Lukatis,” I said.
“Why?” asked Dutch.
“Hunch,” I said. “He?s been missing since Sunday. His sister thinks he may have been involved in
smuggling.”
The first photo rolled off the tube twenty minutes later.
“Stitch,” Dutch said, “or what?s left of him.”
Crabs or sharks or both had done a lot of damage to the black man?s face but there was enough left to
tell who he was. The white man was not as lucky. He was missing a foot, his face was nibbled to bits,
and he was badly bloated. I hoped the dead man would be someone else, anybody else. I remembered
DeeDee?s picture of Tony, pleasant, dark, good—looking kid. And I was thinking about DeeDee, to
whom life so far had been one bottom deal after another. First her father, now the brother she adored,
warts and all. I didn?t hope for long.
“It?s Lukatis,” Dutch said.
“You?re sure?” I asked.
He nodded. “There isn?t much, but there?s enough.”
I turned away from the photo. I knew I would be the one to tell DeeDee. And now something new „as
gnawing at me.
Who had „Tony Lukatis been working for? Longnose Graves or the hijackers?
55
OBIT
The Quadrangle was a grassy square formed on three sides by old brick warehouses that dated back to
the Federalist period, and bordered on the fourth by the river. Cobblestone walks crisscrossed the
park; a sundial at its center gleamed under a broiling, bronze sky. In one corner of the green oasis was
a large oak tree, knobby with age, that shed what little shade there was, although nobody had sought
it?s comforting shadows yet. There was hardly a breath of wind.
It was five to twelve when I got there. The park was beginning to fill up with pretty young girls in
cotton summer dresses and men who looked awkward and uncomfortable in their business suits, most
of them with their jackets tossed over their shoulders, A hot dog stand was doing record business. It
was a pleasant enough place to enjoy lunch, despite the heat.
The Seacoast National was on the ground floor of one of the buildings. Facing it on the other side of
the Quadrangle was Warehouse Three, where I was to break bread with Sam Donleavy the next day.
The third building, which ran lengthwise between them, facing park and river, turned out to be an old,
one-story counting house that was now a maritime museum.
