Riptide

He stood closer to the fire and spoke in a voice that was low, almost dreamlike. 'I'll never forget opening that book for the first time and realizing that the ugly soiling in the margins was a 'white' ink, only then becoming perceivable through the ravages of time and rot. At that moment, I knew—I knew—that the Water Pit and its treasure were going to be mine.'

He fell silent, his pipe dead, the glowing coals of the fire weaving a mazy light through the darkening room.

Chapter 21

Kerry Wopner walked jauntily up the cobbled street, whistling the theme from Star Wars. Every now and then, he would stop long enough to snort derisively at the shopfronts he passed. Useless, all of them. Like that Coast to Coast hardware store, there, sporting dusty tools and yard implements old enough to be preindustrial. He knew full well there wasn't a decent software store within three hundred miles. As for bagels, he'd have to cross at least two state lines before he found anyone who even knew what the damn word meant.

He stopped abruptly in front of a crisp white Victorian structure. This had to be it, even if it did look more like an old house than a post office. The large American flag that hung from the porch, and the STORMHAVEN, ME 04564 sign sunk into the front lawn, were dead giveaways. Opening the screen door, Wopner realized that it was a house: The post office itself took up the front parlor, while a strong smell of cooking indicated that domesticity was hidden farther within.

He looked around the small room, shaking his head at the ancient bank of PO boxes and decade-old Wanted posters, until his eyes fell on a large wooden counter marked ROSA POUNDCOOK, POSTMISTRESS. On the far side of the counter sat the woman herself, gray head bent over a cross-stitch panel of a four-masted schooner. Wopner realized with surprise that there was no line; that, in fact, he was the only patron in the place.

''Scuse me,' he said, approaching the counter. 'This is the post office, right?'

'Yes, indeed,' said Rosa, tightening one last stitch and carefully laying the panel on the arm of her rocker before raising her eyes. When she saw Wopner, she gave a start. 'Oh, my,' she said, a hand moving involuntarily to her chin as if to reassure herself that Wopner's straggly goatee wasn't catching.

'That's good, because I'm expecting an important package by courier, see?' Wopner squinted at her from across the counter. 'The pony express delivers to these parts, doesn't it?'

'Oh!' Rosa Poundcook repeated, rising from her rocker and knocking the cross-stitch frame askew. 'Do you have a name, I mean, may I have your name, please?'

Wopner let out a short nasal laugh. 'It's Wopner. Kerry Wopner.'

'Wopner?' She began searching through a small wooden cardfile filled with yellow slips. 'W-h-o-p-p—'

'No, no, no. Wopner. No h. One p,' came the annoyed response.

'I see,' said Rosa, her composure recovering as she found the slip. 'Just a moment.' Taking one last, wondering look at the programmer, she disappeared through a door in the back.

Wopner lounged against the counter, whistling again, as the screen door creaked open in protest. Glancing over, he saw a tall, skinny man shut the door carefully behind him. The man turned around, and Wopner was immediately reminded of Abraham Lincoln: gaunt, hollow-eyed, loose-limbed. He wore a clerical collar under a simple black suit, and held a small sheaf of letters in one hand. Wopner looked away quickly, but it was too late; eye contact had been made, and he saw with alarm that the man was already walking over to him. Wopner had never met a priest before, let alone spoken to one, and he had no intention of starting now. He hurriedly reached for a nearby stack of postal publications and began to read intently about the new line of Amish quilt stamps.

'Hello,' he heard the man say. Turning reluctantly, Wopner found the priest standing directly behind him, one hand outstretched, a narrow smile creasing his pinched face.

'Yeah, hey,' he said, giving the hand a limp shake and quickly returning to his publication.

'I'm Woody Clay,' the man said.

'Okay,' Wopner said, not looking at him.

'And you must be one of the Thalassa crew,' said Clay, stepping up to the counter beside Wopner.

'Right, sure am.' Wopner flipped over the brochure as a diversionary tactic while he slid a foot farther away from the stranger.

'Mind if I ask you a question?'

'No, shoot,' said Wopner as he read. He'd never known there were so many different kinds of blankets in the whole world.

'Do you really expect to recover a fortune in gold?'

Wopner looked up from the brochure. 'Well, I plan to do a pretty good imitation of it.' The man didn't smile. 'Sure, I expect to. Why not?'

'Why not? Shouldn't the question be why?'

Something in the man's tone disconcerted Wopner. 'Whaddya mean, why? It's two billion dollars.'

'Two billion dollars,' the man repeated, momentarily surprised. Then he nodded, as if in affirmation of something he'd suspected. 'So it's just for the money. There's no other reason.'

Wopner laughed. ''Just for the money? You need a better reason? Let's be realistic. I mean, you're not talking to Mother Teresa here, for Chrissakes.' Suddenly he remembered the clerical collar. 'Oh, sorry,' he said, abashed, 'I didn't mean, you being a priest and all, it's just—'

The man gave a clipped smile. 'It's all right, I've heard it before. And I'm not a priest. I'm a Congregational minister.'

'I see,' said Wopner. 'That's some kind of sect, right?'

'Is the money really that important to you?' Clay gazed at Wopner steadily. 'Under