Twice a Spy

name of the boat?” he asked.

“No.”

“What’s your friend’s name?”

All Charlie knew was that the name wouldn’t be Bream. “Is there any way I could see a list of all the people who’ve arrived?”

LeCroy’s eyes filled with understanding. “Let me guess: Your old lady took a cruise for two with a yacht owner you’ve never met and know nothing about, but would very much like to sock in the nose?”

“That sums it up well enough.”

LeCroy smiled. “I have more cases like this than you’d believe.”

“Then I have come to the right place.” Charlie decided that the private eye was probably better suited to this job than the CIA was.

“I can execute this search now.” LeCroy tapped his keyboard. “It usually runs ninety-nine ninety-five. How does that suit you?”

“How does cash suit you?”

“Goes well with my leather billfold.”

It took Charlie a moment to figure out in which of his new cargo pants pockets he’d placed his wallet. He dug it out and produced a hundred-dollar bill. Directed by a bob of LeCroy’s head, he dropped it into the in-box.

“Okay then.” The private investigator interlaced and stretched his fingers, the way pianists limber up. “So where’d the bastard take her?”

“Saint Lucia or the vicinity.” Bream would have covered his tracks, Charlie thought, though it made sense to start there.

LeCroy clicked away at the keys. “Bingo!”

Charlie felt a shiver of excitement.

“Ronald Feldman and Annabelle Kammeyer, ages sixty-one and thirty-one, of Fort Walton Beach, Florida. Arrived here in Mobile from Saint Lucia on Tuesday the twelfth, two days ago.”

Charlie’s excitement dissipated. “Couldn’t be my ‘friend.’ He was still in the Caribbean Monday the eleventh. I don’t think he could’ve gotten up here that fast.”

LeCroy reapplied himself to the keyboard. “I’m gonna check a bunch of ports. It’s possible the guy cleared customs in Florida or in Gulfport, Mississippi. Also a lot of folks get it out of the way in San Juan.”

The Florida Panhandle and Mississippi were both thirty miles away. The residents of Mississippi would offer a strong argument that their barbecue beat Alabama’s. Charlie could practically hear his prospects deflating.

The bulky dot-matrix printer behind LeCroy grunted out three sheets of paper. The detective snapped them up and perused. “Okeydoke, in the past forty-eight hours ending yesterday at four-fifty-eight P.M.-that’s about as late as CBP stays open-we’ve got eighty-three private vessels that checked in one way or another and either passed inspection or were cleared without inspection.”

“Can you tell me how many had a guy aboard between, say, thirty and forty?”

LeCroy ran his finger down the top page, counting to himself. “Thirteen so far. Plus a boat with a Jean aboard, age of thirty-one. Probably a broad, but could be a French guy, right?”

Charlie tried not to appear forlorn.

“Cheer up, kiddo. The game’s just begun,” LeCroy said. “Now’s when I put the gum to the pavement.”

“And do what?”

“Trade secret. Two twenty-five a day, plus expenses.”

“How about two hundred, if you give me a for instance?”

“Fine. Between us: harbormasters. They make it their business to know which fish are in their harbors, let alone which boats.”

“Aren’t they supposed to be discreet?”

“Yeah, but they’re also supposed to not accept donations for their kids’ new video game console funds, if you get my drift.”

“I think so,” Charlie said. He liked the harbormaster strategy, but odds were LeCroy would offer bribes that Bream would smell a state away.

LeCroy flipped through his desk calendar. “I got spouse cases today and tomorrow, meaning I’m stuck in a car with a camera in a motel parking lot. After that, I’m yours. What do you say you call me then?”

“That fits my schedule perfectly,” said Charlie, who intended to go visit the harbormasters now.

5

The posh Mobile Bay Marina sat a quarter of a mile up the beach from the Grand Hotel. The information Charlie needed was strictly proprietary. Finally, a task suited to a horseplayer.

At the track, a fortune could be made with the knowledge that a favorite was running just because “he needs a race,” meaning he’s not fit to win, so the jockey will “school” him-just let him experience competition. Much of Charlie’s “job” had been wheedling such intel from grooms. The attendant in the Meadowlands owners and trainers parking lot often proved an oracle-just not often enough. At Aqueduct, the refreshment stand workers were Charlie’s best sources. Amazing what an owner would let slip while waiting for his seventh Big-A Big-B-thirty-two- ounce beer-of the day.

In the waterside village catering to the Mobile Bay Marina, the Grand Hotel, and a cluster of golf and beach developments, Charlie posed as a tourist. He was interested in chartering a yacht, he told the eager-to-serve proprietors in three of the quaint art galleries and boutiques crammed onto the short main street. He learned that the marina’s veteran harbormaster, known to all as Captain Glenny, viewed her job as part sheriff and part priest. Refueling a cabin cruiser took in excess of an hour, during which time returning yachtsmen regaled her with their adventures. In twenty years on the job, she had become their friend and confidante.

Charlie sensed such a woman would look upon any bribe with indignation. Were Bream among her charges, she would alert him within moments.

Charlie took a page from the Post and Daily News beat reporters at the track. Their jobs, consisting of little more than reporting the order of finish and adding a dash of commentary, placed them at journalism’s lowest rung. Nevertheless, their status as members of the media induced complete strangers to speak with the sort of candor psychiatrists rarely attain from their patients. The limelight acted as a powerful stimulant, even the few particles of limelight emanating from a department whose existence newspapers didn’t like to acknowledge.

Charlie’s cover began with a stop at a nearby Sears. He bought a baggy pair of khakis, an oxford shirt, Hush Puppy knockoffs, and an extra-large synthetic wool parka. The idea was to look like a journalist as well as hide his identity from Bream.

In the same mall, Charlie hit Cheapo’s, an office supply store. For $4.99 he printed himself business cards using the same name that appeared on his forged New York driver’s license, John Parker, and billing him as Editor at Large for South, a new lifestyles magazine based in Tampa. He chose Tampa because it was far enough away from Mobile to preclude Do you know? questions. Also Tampa was the only place in the South where Charlie had actually spent time-albeit all of it at Tampa Bay Downs.

The Mobile Bay Marina stayed open twenty-four hours. It was probably never more inviting than when Charlie arrived, the bay a pastiche of blues and silver, the sun having brought the air to the precise temperature at which being outdoors felt most invigorating. Rustic docks and gleaming hulls and spars swayed with the mild current. From the parking lot, he saw no one about, though there might be yachtsmen below deck. He wasn’t sure how to pass through the big entry gate without drawing their attention. Then he spotted the OPEN TO THE PUBLIC sign.

It felt like a gift.

The instant he set foot on the pier, a middle-aged woman burst out of the harbormaster’s office. She was stout and might have been pretty if she hadn’t appeared poised to bark at him. Her spiky hair was cut short, exposing a sizable collection of gold earrings, worn only on her left ear.