two houseboats. The largest sailing yacht-in fact, the largest
boat-docked here is currently Sunset Dancer, a sixty-foot Windship
cutter. Of the motor yachts, the largest is Nostromo, a fifty-six-foot
Bluewater coastal cruiser; and it was to this boat that I was headed.
At the west end of the pier, I took a ninety-degree turn onto a
subsidiary pier that featured docking slips on both sides. The
Nostromo was in the last berth on the right.
I have been one acquainted with the night.
That was the code Sasha had used to identify the man who had come to
the radio station seeking me, who hadn’t wanted his name used on the
phone, and who had been reluctant to come to Bobby’s house to talk with
me. It was a line from a poem by Robert Frost, 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.
the man whispered again, louder but with a harder edge in his voice,
“Who goes there?”
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
cold-cock Moby Dick. He had been a football star in the sixties and