"And of course Paul jumped at the chance," I said.
"No. In fact, he didn't even consider it seriously, although it sounded like a marvelous opportunity. No, he went home at the usual hour, but came back to the ketch after dinner for another gam. The skipper stayed docked-up for several days during which Paul spent most of his free hours on board. They grew to be close friends bound by a common affection for sailboats and the sea.
"On the skipper's last night in town Paul had a very depressing dinner conversation with his wife. She didn't appreciate his mysterious late-night rendezvous. She was planning to attend a society ball that evening and she insisted Paul accompany her. He refused, she got hostile, and it ended with Paul ducking out to see his friend off.
To make a long story short, when the skipper cast off the next morning he had a new mate. Paul had no intention of leaving permanently. He figured he'd ride down the river to New Orleans where the skipper could pick up a new mate. He didn't have his passport and he sure wasn't going out into international waters without it. When they reached New Orleans he explained to the skipper that he'd have to go back home.
"The skipper just grinned like a Cheshire cat. It seems his former mate had forgotten his passport behind a cushion on the settee. They looked it over and, although the picture didn't resemble Paul, the basic statistics were a pretty good match. A few weeks growth of beard and Paul probably wouldn't have any trouble with the immigration officials.
"Paul's world suddenly opened up before his eyes. He knew what he could expect from his wife if he went back home after his brief river ride. On the other hand, here was the opportunity of a lifetime to live out his dreams of sailing through the waters of foreign lands. He could still return home in a couple months, and the reaction from his wife would be no worse than if he went back immediately. So he took the skipper up on his offer and set out for adventure."
"What about the car he left on the dock?" I asked. "I'm sure the police would find it, connect it with the boat, and be after him in no time."
"That's a good question. A few years ago my friend hired a private detective to check up on his family, out of curiosity. Paul had left the keys in the car and it turned up a few months later stripped clean as a jay-bird's ass. After about a year his wife had him declared legally dead and collected on his life insurance. That was easy enough for a woman with her connections, given the discovery of the stripped car and the fact that Paul had never mentioned the idea of disappearing to anyone.
"The minute she got her hands on the money, she married one of her own crowd. I doubt if she would say anything if she happened to meet Paul face-to-face again, which is very unlikely, because if the insurance company finds out he's still alive they'll want their money back."
"So I imagine your friend is still out sailing the world then," I said.
"No. This all happened several years ago. And Paul was blessed and cursed by an unusual circumstance. The skipper pulled into a little port in--well, let's just say in a typical Atlantic banana republic port--several months later. While Paul was ashore buying some provisions the skipper had a coronary and fell onto the dock. Needless to say, they don't have the kind of emergency medical services down there that we take for granted. When Paul returned to the boat he found his partner dead on the dock with a crowd of locals standing around.
"The local officials asked Paul to bring the skipper's papers around after siesta so they could take care of the formalities. Dazed by the death of his friend and numb with the many beers he had downed since, Paul rummaged through the ship's papers to find the skipper's passport. It wasn't until the local Chief of Police started reading the statistics aloud as he wrote them down that Paul realized he had given the man the wrong passport.
"When Paul realized what he had done he decided not to mention his mistake to the locals. If he had, he would have been on the beach with no money, no job, no working papers and almost no language of the country. But if he let the matter lay he could become the skipper as easily as he adopted the identity of the former mate."
"What happened when the death got reported in the U.S. papers?" I asked. "I would imagine that Paul's plans would fall apart if there was an investigation."
"Paul had several things going for him in this respect. Because the death didn't involve a famous or noteworthy person, it probably never got mentioned anywhere except the local Spanish-language newspaper. Since there was obviously no foul-play involved the police never made a formal investigation of the death. And a U.S. passport with several years still to run on it is worth a fair amount on the black market down there. I imagine the Chief of Police never got around to sending it back to the U.S."
"So where is Paul today?" I asked.
"Well, he sold the ketch after about six months more on the seas. He'd lived out his sailing dreams and he was getting anxious to rejoin the civilized
