nothing to corroborate the statistics in The Wall Street Journal.
Then he found a note in an information packet from the Coast Guard. He might have overlooked it if it had not spilled on the floor. It was a Coast Guard bulletin urging yachtsmen to take special precautions when sailing in the Gulf of Mexico, around the Bahamas, and in the Caribbean. And, more helpful to him, a Xerox copy of a 4,000-word wire-service piece titled “Peril on the High Seas—Dawn of a New Age of Danger.”
He read the piece once quickly and once thoroughly, underlining as he read, and then walked down the hall to Hiller’s office. The door was closed.
“He’s editing,” Hiller’s secretary said.
Maynard nodded at the secretary and opened the door.
Hiller was hunched over his desk, scrawling changes in the margins and between the lines of a story. He looked up, annoyed at the interruption, but when he saw Maynard he smiled and said, “Margaret Trudeau.”
“What?”
“For the fashion cover. She’s dynamite! Well connected and well put together. She’s a natural.”
“Yeah, well . . .”
“Think about it. That’s all I ask.”
“Listen, I found something on this boat business. In the clips. There have been six hundred and ten disappearances—even more by now; the piece is a year old. Nobody knows why. The Coast Guard figures maybe fifty foundered—you know, broke up and sank. Another half dozen or dozen they know were heisted.”
“What do you mean, heisted?”
“Hijacked. Stolen. Say Mom and Pop are going for a cruise. They can handle the boat themselves on the Inland Waterway, but when they get to Florida and want to go to the Caribbean, they need an extra hand. They stop somewhere and hire a crew—one, maybe two guys, who say they’ll work for free if they can get passage to one of the islands. A couple of days out of Florida, they kill Mom and Pop, dump them overboard, and take the boat.”
“What for?”
“Two reasons. They can go up north and sell the boat, forge a bill of sale that says they bought it, or fence it to someone who’ll change the numbers and the papers and resell it. Even if they get a fifth of its value, that could be ten or fifteen thousand bucks. Or they take the boat south and use it for running drugs up from Colombia. They’re known as grasshoppers. Some cruddy old Colombian boat could never get into an East Coast port without being searched, but a clean, U.S.-registered boat returning to its home port—nobody’d stop it. Once they make the drop, these guys take the boat offshore, scuttle it, come back to shore in a dinghy, and wait for another sucker.”
Hiller said, “Drugs bore the piss out of me.”
“It isn’t just drugs,” Maynard pressed. “That’s only a dozen boats. Make it a hundred boats! Add that to fifty they think sank by themselves, that still leaves more than 450 boats that have simply vanished. Gone!”
“The Bermuda Triangle,” Hiller said. “Bigfoot got ’em.”
“Leonard . . .” Maynard suppressed an impulse to swear. “. . . whatever this thing is, it has screwed up the ethic of the sea. Nobody goes to help a boat in distress any more, because they’re scared they’ll get boarded and Christ-knows-what. A sailboat with two kids on it went down in sight of three fishing boats last July, because no one would help.”
“So, you tell me. What’s the answer?”
“I don’t know. All I ask is, let me have a look at it.”
“I told you: Send a query.”
“That’s not good enough.”
Hiller said nothing. He fixed his gaze on Maynard, leaned back in his chair, and formed a tent with his fingertips, making a sucking sound with his teeth.
Maynard thought, He’s trying to look like Clarence Darrow.
Still without a word, Hiller got up, walked across the room, and shut the door. Returning to his desk, he looked somber. “I suppose this is as good a time as any,” he said, sitting down again.
“Now what?”
“Don’t you think it’s time
Then he found a note in an information packet from the Coast Guard. He might have overlooked it if it had not spilled on the floor. It was a Coast Guard bulletin urging yachtsmen to take special precautions when sailing in the Gulf of Mexico, around the Bahamas, and in the Caribbean. And, more helpful to him, a Xerox copy of a 4,000-word wire-service piece titled “Peril on the High Seas—Dawn of a New Age of Danger.”
He read the piece once quickly and once thoroughly, underlining as he read, and then walked down the hall to Hiller’s office. The door was closed.
“He’s editing,” Hiller’s secretary said.
Maynard nodded at the secretary and opened the door.
Hiller was hunched over his desk, scrawling changes in the margins and between the lines of a story. He looked up, annoyed at the interruption, but when he saw Maynard he smiled and said, “Margaret Trudeau.”
“What?”
“For the fashion cover. She’s dynamite! Well connected and well put together. She’s a natural.”
“Yeah, well . . .”
“Think about it. That’s all I ask.”
“Listen, I found something on this boat business. In the clips. There have been six hundred and ten disappearances—even more by now; the piece is a year old. Nobody knows why. The Coast Guard figures maybe fifty foundered—you know, broke up and sank. Another half dozen or dozen they know were heisted.”
“What do you mean, heisted?”
“Hijacked. Stolen. Say Mom and Pop are going for a cruise. They can handle the boat themselves on the Inland Waterway, but when they get to Florida and want to go to the Caribbean, they need an extra hand. They stop somewhere and hire a crew—one, maybe two guys, who say they’ll work for free if they can get passage to one of the islands. A couple of days out of Florida, they kill Mom and Pop, dump them overboard, and take the boat.”
“What for?”
“Two reasons. They can go up north and sell the boat, forge a bill of sale that says they bought it, or fence it to someone who’ll change the numbers and the papers and resell it. Even if they get a fifth of its value, that could be ten or fifteen thousand bucks. Or they take the boat south and use it for running drugs up from Colombia. They’re known as grasshoppers. Some cruddy old Colombian boat could never get into an East Coast port without being searched, but a clean, U.S.-registered boat returning to its home port—nobody’d stop it. Once they make the drop, these guys take the boat offshore, scuttle it, come back to shore in a dinghy, and wait for another sucker.”
Hiller said, “Drugs bore the piss out of me.”
“It isn’t just drugs,” Maynard pressed. “That’s only a dozen boats. Make it a hundred boats! Add that to fifty they think sank by themselves, that still leaves more than 450 boats that have simply vanished. Gone!”
“The Bermuda Triangle,” Hiller said. “Bigfoot got ’em.”
“Leonard . . .” Maynard suppressed an impulse to swear. “. . . whatever this thing is, it has screwed up the ethic of the sea. Nobody goes to help a boat in distress any more, because they’re scared they’ll get boarded and Christ-knows-what. A sailboat with two kids on it went down in sight of three fishing boats last July, because no one would help.”
“So, you tell me. What’s the answer?”
“I don’t know. All I ask is, let me have a look at it.”
“I told you: Send a query.”
“That’s not good enough.”
Hiller said nothing. He fixed his gaze on Maynard, leaned back in his chair, and formed a tent with his fingertips, making a sucking sound with his teeth.
Maynard thought, He’s trying to look like Clarence Darrow.
Still without a word, Hiller got up, walked across the room, and shut the door. Returning to his desk, he looked somber. “I suppose this is as good a time as any,” he said, sitting down again.
“Now what?”
“Don’t you think it’s time
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