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you settled down?”
    “What do you mean?”
    “Made peace with yourself.”
    “About what?”
    “What you’re doing here.”
    “I’m earning a living.”
    “And in return?”
    “I do my job.”
    “I agree,” said Hiller. “But that’s all.”
    “What do you want?”
    “I want you to give me something extra, an enthusiasm, a commitment.”
    “You want me to be enthusiastic about fall fashions? You want me to commit myself to TV Tennis, pinball machines?”
    “Blair, look . . .” Hiller paused. “Christ, this may sound patronizing, but listen anyway. There’s a time when everybody has to come to terms with himself, has to say to himself, ‘This is what I’m good at, I’m not gonna be President of the United States or win the Pulitzer Prize. I’m gonna be the best damn newsmagazine writer there is.’ Or whatever.”
    “Yeah. I’m still looking for ‘whatever.’ ”
    “You’ve found it, and you know it, but you won’t admit it. Something inside you knew it when you turned down this job.” Hiller slapped his desk. “You’re a newsmagazine writer. That’s what you’re good at, and that’s all you’re good at. Maybe ten years from now you’ll win a talent contest and be a movie star, but—”
    Maynard interrupted. “You mean I’m mediocre and I might as well learn to live with it.”
    “No! I mean you’ve found something you can do well, and you should be happy with it, just for what it is. Don’t overreach. You’ll screw everything up.”
    “Yeah. I might even lose my dental plan.” Maynard stood up. “I’m going to Washington.”
    “What’s in Washington?”
    “A Coast Guard guy who looked into this boat business. They pulled him off the job and put him in charge of a bunch of lighthouses. They called him a fear-monger. I want to talk to him.”
    Hiller said, “You were the one who told me the bureau guys think they’re Woodward and Bernstein. What does this make you?”
    “It’s the weekend. I can do what I want.”
    “Okay. But think about what I said, will you?”
    “You mean about accepting the fact that I’m a loser?”
    “Blair, for Christ’s sake . . .”
    Maynard walked to the door. “I may be a loser, Leonard,” he said. “But if I’m gonna fall on my ass, I might as well make a big splash.”

C H A P T E R

3
    T hey had sailed together, in tandem, for protection as well as company.
    They were partners in an accounting firm in Montclair, New Jersey, one a tax expert, one a specialist in corporate audits. They had been roommates at Wharton, taken their CPA training at the same firm, and worked together for twenty-five years. They had had their boats built by the same man, to identical specifications: a single mast that would carry a main and a jib; two comfortable bunks amidships and two cramped ones forward; a dry cockpit; a simple, reliable auxiliary engine, state-of-the-art communications equipment. The only difference between Burt Lazlo’s Penzance and Walter Burguis’ Pinafore was in interior headroom. Lazlo’s wife, Bella, was six feet tall, while neither Ellen nor Walter Burguis was over five-ten.
    The Burguises and the Lazlos had sailed together every vacation since 1965. They spent weeks selecting a course, learning about port facilities—where you could get ice and water and fuel, where there were showers open to the public, where decent restaurants were—planning side trips to inland historical sites. They tried, as best they could, to leave nothing to chance.
    This year’s trip was their most ambitious, from Miami to Haiti, island-hopping through the Bahamas on the way. As an extra precaution, each boat carried—broken down and hidden in the food locker when they cleared Bahamas customs—a 12-gauge shotgun and fifty rounds of number-four buckshot.
    Twice—once at Eleuthera, once at Crooked Island—they had been approached by wharf rats, young, excessively charming Americans who pleaded for passage south (anywhere south) in return for