“Or someone damn close. He’s had surgery, of course. It’s probably the first thing he did.”
Carl stared at me blankly and then shook his head. A brief smile appeared. “I assume you’ve told Dana?”
“I just talked to her. She wasn’t thrilled.”
“I should think not.” He seemed to search my face. “What’s your name again?”
I took out a business card and passed it across the table. “You knew his kid was in trouble?” I asked.
Behind us, there was another burst of laughter, this one louder than the last. The guys were apparently having another tedious bawdy joke fest.
He glanced at my name on the card and tucked it in his shirt pocket. “I read about Brian in the paper,” he said. “This is curious.”
“What is?”
“The notion of Wendell. I was just thinking about him. Since his body never surfaced, I guess I always had my doubts about his death. I never said much. I figured people would think I was unwilling to face the facts. ‘In denial,’ they call it. Where’s he been all this time?”
“I didn’t have a chance to ask.”
“Is he still down there?”
“He checked out of the hotel in the dead of night and that’s the last I’ve seen of him. He may be on his way back.”
“Because of Brian,” he said, instantly making the connection.
“That’s my guess. At any rate, it’s the only lead we have. Not really a lead, but at least a place to start.”
“Why tell me?”
“In case he tries to make contact.”
The waiter returned with our drinks and Carl looked up. “Thanks, Jimmy. Put this on my tab, if you would.” He took the bill, tacked on a tip, and scrawled his name across the bottom before he handed it back.
The waiter murmured, “Thank you, Mr. Eckert. Will there be anything else?”
“We’re fine.”
“You have a good night.”
Carl nodded absentmindedly, regarding me with speculation.
I reached in my handbag and pulled a copy from the sheaf of composites Valbusa had done. “I have a picture if you want to see it.” I laid it on the table in front of him.
Carl stuck his cigarette in the corner of his mouth, squinting slightly from the smoke as he studied Wendell’s face. He shook his head, his smile bitter. “What a fuck.”
“I thought you might be glad to hear he was alive,” I said.
“Hey, I went to jail because of him. Lot of people wanted a piece of my hide. When money goes down the toilet, someone has to take the blame. I didn’t mind paying my debt, but I sure as hell hated paying his.”
“Must have been hard.”
“You have no idea. Once I filed bankruptcy, all the loans went into default. It was a mess. I don’t want to get into that.”
“If Wendell gets in touch, will you let me know?”
“Probably,” he said. “I don’t want to talk to him, that’s for sure. He was a good friend. At least I thought he was.”
There was another burst of laughter. He shifted restlessly and pushed his drink aside. “Let’s go down to the boat. It’s too fuckin’ loud in here.”
Without waiting for an answer, he got up and left the table. Startled, I grabbed my handbag and scurried after him.
The noise level dropped dramatically the minute we stepped outside. The air was cold and fresh. The wind had picked up, and the waves crashed against the seawall in a series of blasting sprays. Boom! A feathery plume, like a stalk of pampas grass, would dance along the breakwater and go down again, throwing off a splat of water that landed on the walk as if it were being thrown by the bucket.
When we reached the locked gate leading into Marina 1, he took out his card key and let us through. In a curiously gallant gesture, Carl put his hand on my elbow and guided me down the slippery wooden ramp. I could hear creaking sounds as the boats shifted in the harbor waters, bobbing and swaying with an occasional tinkling of metal on metal. Our footsteps formed an irregular rhythm as we clunked along the walkway.
The four marinas provide slips for about eleven hundred boats, protected from the open waters in an eighty-four-acre area. The wharf on one side is like the crook of a thumb with the breakwater curling toward it in a nearly completed circle in which the boats are nestled. In addition to visitors occupying temporary slips, there are usually a small number of permanent “live-aboards,” using their boats as their primary residence. Key-secured rest-rooms provide toilets and showers, with a holding tank pump-out station located on the south side of the fuel dock. At the “J” dock we took a left, proceeding another thirty yards to the boat.