one that most eavesdroppers would be unlikely to recognize, and I had assumed that it referred to Roosevelt Frost, who owned the Nostromo.
As I leaned my bicycle against the dock railing near the gangway to Roosevelt’s slip, tidal action caused the boats to wallow in their berths. They creaked and groaned like arthritic old men murmuring feeble complaints in their sleep.
I had never bothered to chain my bike when I left it unattended, because until this night Moonlight Bay had been a refuge from the crime that infected the modern world. By the time this weekend passed, our picturesque town might lead the country in murders, mutilations, and priest beatings, per capita, but we probably didn’t have to worry about a dramatic increase in bicycle theft.
The gangway was steep because the tide was not high, and it was slippery with condensation. Orson descended as carefully as I did.
We were two-thirds of the way down to the port-side finger of the slip when a low voice, hardly more than a gruff whisper, seeming to originate magically from the fog directly over my head, demanded, “Who goes there?”
Startled, I almost fell, but I clutched the dripping gangway handrail and kept my feet under me.
The Bluewater 563 is a sleek, white, low-profile, double-deck cruiser with an upper helm station that is enclosed by a hard top and canvas walls. The only light aboard came from behind the curtained windows of the aft stateroom and the main cabin amidships, on the lower deck. The open upper deck and the helm station were dark and fog-wrapped, and I couldn’t see who had spoken.
“Who goes there?” the man whispered again, no louder but with a harder edge to his voice.
I recognized the voice now as that of Roosevelt Frost.
Taking my cue from him, I whispered: “It’s me, Chris Snow.”
“Shield your eyes, son.”
I made a visor of my hand and squinted as a flashlight blazed, pinning me where I stood on the gangway. It switched off almost at once, and Roosevelt said, still in a whisper, “Is that your dog with you?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And nothing else?”
“I’m sorry?”
“Nothing else with you, no one else?”
“No, sir.”
“Come aboard, then.”
I could see him now, because he had moved closer to the railing on the open upper deck, aft of the helm station. I couldn’t identify him even from this relatively short distance, however, because he was screened by the pea-soup fog, the night, and his own darkness.
Urging Orson to precede me, I boarded the boat through the gap in the port railing, and we quickly climbed the open steps to the upper deck.
When we got to the top, I saw that Roosevelt Frost was holding a shotgun. Pretty soon the National Rifle Association would move its headquarters to Moonlight Bay. He wasn’t aiming the gun at me, but I was sure he’d been covering me with it until he had been able to identify me in the beam of the flashlight.
Even without the shotgun, he was a formidable figure. Six feet four. Neck like a dock piling. Shoulders as wide as a staysail boom. Deep chest. With a two-hand spread way bigger than the diameter of the average helm wheel. This was the guy who Ahab should have called to coldcock Moby Dick. He had been a football star in the sixties and early seventies, when sportswriters routinely referred to him as the Sledgehammer. Though he was now sixty-three, a successful businessman who owned a men’s clothing store, a minimall, and half-interest in the Moonlight Bay Inn and Country Club, he appeared capable of pulverizing any of the genetic-mutant, steroid-pumped behemoths who played some of the power positions on contemporary teams.
“Hello, dog,” he murmured.
Orson chuffed.
“Hold this, son,” Frost whispered, handing the shotgun to me.
A pair of curious-looking, high-tech binoculars hung on a strap around his neck. He brought them to his eyes and, from this top-deck vantage point overlooking surrounding craft, surveyed the pier along which I had recently approached the Nostromo.
“How can you see anything?” I wondered.
“Night-vision binoculars. They magnify available light eighteen thousand times.”
“But the fog…”
He pressed a button on the glasses, and as a mechanism purred inside them, he said, “They also have an infrared mode, shows you only heat sources.”
“Must be lots of heat sources around the marina.”
“Not with boat engines off. Besides, I’m interested only in heat sources on the move.”
“People.”
“Maybe.”
“Who?”
“Whoever might’ve been following you. Now hush, son.”
I hushed. As Roosevelt patiently scanned the marina, I passed the next minute wondering about this former football star and