“We’re getting Salvage 101 up there. This is a waste of time.”
“Why did you come?”
“Because we all know there’s a problem but nobody here’s really talking about it.”
The panelists continued to talk, but I tuned them out and looked around the room. I guessed there were about fifty people, and I knew, or at least recognized, most of them. There were quite a few captains from Sea Tow. They generally owned their own boats and bought into a franchise agreement with that company. Neville Pinder was present with a large entourage of local Ocean Towing captains wearing neon green shirts, ocean towing stitched over their pockets. In his case, Pinder owned all the gear—including the monster truck out front—and the boat drivers worked for him. Compared with the other captains, they were a scruffy-looking group with shirttails untucked, baseball caps worn backward, and tufts of hair sprouting from under their caps. The slouching postures of the Ocean Towing group seemed to signal a contempt for the proceedings. I saw Tia sitting at the Offshore Marine table. Their group looked shipshape in white shirts and blue shorts, the typical captain’s uniform. I even saw a group from the Water Taxis and Dania Harbor Tugs. All the players were sitting there in that room.
So, I thought, if it’s true that somebody’s up to no good in the salvage business, odds are that someone is sitting in this room.
After another fifteen minutes of presentation from a maritime attorney, the Coast Guard officer, with a placard in front of him that read lieutenant A. J. Gunnar, asked the audience if they had any questions for the panel. Several hands shot up. The first fellow started in on a long story about a particular case where an inexperienced salvage crew caused even more damage to the stricken vessel, which eventually sank. For an instant, I feared he was going to tell the whole gathering the story about me and Melvin Burke and Seas the Day.
As the questioner continued, Perry groaned. Finally, the moderator interrupted the man and asked him to ask a question. Turned out he was a boat owner who had been towed off the beach by Perry and before he could get pumps on her, she sank. The Coast Guard guy cut him off saying that they were not there to comment on individual cases. The next question was about whether a tow could become a salvage operation if the owner never signed a form.
Cassidy was right. Nobody was talking about the real problems in our business. I raised my hand. After a couple of minutes, Lieutenant Gunnar called on me.
“I don’t know about you guys, but I’m sick and tired of hearing salvage called piracy. And the folks doing the name-calling have good reasons sometimes. Something stinks in this business these days. Some of you in here are telling customers that your work is salvage when it really should be a tow. You’re ripping people off. People out there are getting afraid to take a line from us. And now there’s a new wrinkle. I know that it’s just like in prison—everyone who puts his boat on the beach cries innocent. Says it wasn’t his fault. But lately, some of those cries have been ringing true. I know one guy who said it—Nestor Frias—and most of you knew him, too. And now he’s dead. Instead of sitting around here politely discussing maritime law, somebody needs to figure out who and what is going on.” I turned around to make sure my chair was still lined up behind me and saw a face at the back of the room. Quentin was sitting in a chair against the back wall. He smiled and lifted a hand. I nodded at him, then sat down and faced front again.
The crowd stayed quiet for several seconds. Then the noise level rose as dozens of conversations broke out at the tables all around the room. Lieutenant Gunnar started shouting, “Could I have your attention, please?” but he’d lost them. This group had sat still just about as long as they could stand it. Chairs scraped as people got up. The formal part of this meeting was over.
Along one wall there was a long table with brochures and information, as well as plates of cookies, bags of chips, soda, and a coffeepot, and most of the captains in the room got up and headed for the free food. A lady took the microphone from the Coastie, thanked everyone for attending, and insisted that everybody sign the attendance sheet on the table by the coffeepot.
I was watching some very thick-looking coffee trickle into my Styrofoam cup when Neville Pinder appeared at my side.
“I see you and Mr. Berger’s boat made it home okay.” I blew on the liquid in my cup and watched him over the Styrofoam rim. He was helping himself to a cup, but the corners of his mouth turned up and his eyes kept glancing to the side. He knew I was watching him, and he was enjoying it.
“We had a nice trip—except for Thursday night off Marathon. Heard the calls on the VHF—some poor guy put his boat on the stones. A big sailboat, Rendezvous. Your guys sure were quick to get out there.”
“Oh yeah, my guys are good,” he said, and when he turned to face me, I noticed for the first time that the pale green of his eyes appeared nearly as unnatural as the neon shade of his shirt. “They floated him free the next day. Almost no damage to the boat.”
The coffee wasn’t as bad as it looked. I took another sip. “I guess that means you’ll be able to buy another new boat pretty soon. Or maybe another truck like that monster out front.”
He smiled. “You know, I just might do that.”
“So, I was wondering, how is it that you showed up on the scene about a year ago and suddenly you’re the biggest thing in salvage in this town?”
“I tell you what it is. You’re old school, Sullivan. The times have passed you by. You’re like an old dog, not good for much but eatin’ and shittin’. Time to let go of the little piece of this business you still got.” He held his thumb and forefinger up about two inches apart—and I couldn’t take my eyes off the scarred stubs that had once been his fingers.
Tia walked up and said, “Seychelle, I haven’t met your friend.”
The way he smiled at her, it was clear he thought of himself as the rock star of the towing business. He didn’t realize Tia was no groupie.
I introduced her to Pinder and took the opportunity to slip away. I wanted to put distance between the big Bahamian and myself. And I wanted to catch more of the gossip in the room. Captain Cassidy was standing with a group of guys who worked with him. When I walked up, they all started congratulating me for speaking up.
“After what I’ve been through this week, I’m tired of being polite and talking around things.”
“Yeah, we all heard about Nestor,” Cassidy said. “Is it true you found him?”
I didn’t want to have to talk about that again, but in fact, Nestor was really the reason I was there. I just nodded, then said, “I don’t get it. Who called this get-together and what did they think they were going to accomplish?”
“It was the Marine Industries Association. I guess they’ve been hearing the complaints. It seems there was one really blatant case of taking advantage of a poor schmuck who didn’t know any better. Like typical boat people, the guys who did it had to brag about it.”
“Are you naming names?”
“Let me just say the amount of money they made could make you green with envy.” The two other captains laughed at Cassidy, but what he said didn’t surprise me.
“Just that truck out front must have cost him over fifty grand,” I said. “I wondered where he was getting the money.”
Cassidy squinted as he watched Pinder having an animated discussion with Tia. “Lots of us have been wondering about our friend Neville. From what I hear, he started with one crappy little boat in Key West and suddenly, a year later, he’s got new boats in every major port from Key West to Stuart. He’s also picking up the lion’s share of the emergency calls. He’s had an amazing run of luck—his boats have been first on hand to more than half the wrecks in the last six months.”
I thought of Nestor. Maybe he was right about the what, just wrong about the who. “You sure it’s luck?”
“What else could it be?”
“I don’t know—but I intend to find out.”
Cassidy shrugged and patted me on the shoulder. “Keep me posted.”
I saw Quentin standing alone and hurried over to him. “How’s it going?”
“Good to see you, skipper. I’m doing okay. Jeremy let me stay on Power Play—I’m doing some brightwork for him, but I’m looking to be on a boat that will move. Took the bus here hoping to find a job.”
“I saw you talking to one of the green shirt guys.”
“Yes, that is Brian. I have an interview with his boss tomorrow.”
“Be careful. I don’t like that bunch.”
“Brian’s okay. He has an interesting story about a boat he just pulled off the reef here in Fort Lauderdale.”
Perry Greene joined us then and interrupted me before I could find out more. “Hey, you guys headed to the Downtowner? I heard Neville Pinder’s buying drinks.”
“You’re kidding,” I said.
“Yeah, I am,” Perry said, and he threw back his head and let loose with his high-pitched cackle. “Everybody is heading over there, though.” He rubbed up against my arm. “How about you, sweet cheeks?”
“Perry, did you see that lagoon outside the door of this place? You rub that body of yours up against me one more time and I’ll reach into your drawers, rip off your privates, and feed them to the gators in the pond out there.”
Perry grinned so wide I could see his receding gums. “I love it when you talk dirty, girlfriend.” And then he took off at a run before I could catch him.
XVIII
I’d barely reached my Jeep before fat raindrops began to splat against the windshield. When I parked in the lot behind the Downtowner, I pulled an old rain poncho out from under the backseat and ran from the parking lot to the covered walkway that faced the river. The temperature had dropped into the low sixties again, and only the die-hard smokers were sitting, huddled together, at the outside bar.
Stepping inside, my ears were assaulted by the volume of the music, conversation, and general revelry, and the warmth came not only from all the bodies packed into that small space but also from the sense of homecoming I felt. The place was a throwback to another era. No marketing firm had decorated the interior, and the menu didn’t have pictures of plastic food. The main bar was built of wood and fitted together as though by shipwrights, while the windows at the bartender’s back opened via shutters onto an outside bar and the view of the river beyond. Small brass plaques affixed to the bar marked the stools of the regular customers, and each strange item hanging from the walls had its own story. There was the name board off a wartime hospital ship, the life ring from a former judge’s yacht, and the outboard once confiscated by the Fort Lauderdale police when a mayor’s son had been caught joyriding. Black-and-white photos hanging on the walls showed a Fort Lauderdale from the early days when the river out front was a supply highway for the town and the docks offloaded vegetables from the farms around Lake Okeechobee. To most of the people in the bar tonight, the river was still the main artery keeping their careers alive.
A group of the towboat captains had pushed three tables together and they had been joined by some of the regulars like Captain Kaos and Wally. I considered pulling up a chair, but instead I made my way left to the side bar and asked Pete for a Corona. When he set the bottle in front of me, he leaned over the ice bin and said, “That sucks about Nestor. How’s his wife doing?”
“How do you expect her to be doing?” After I said it and saw the hurt look on his face, I felt bad. “Sorry, Pete. I’m just frustrated. Something’s not right and I can’t even figure out what it is.”
“You want to talk about it?”
“No, I’d just get myself more confused. I came tonight to talk to some people and see if I couldn’t make some of these things gel, but when I walked in here just now I realized I don’t really feel like talking to anybody.” I took a long drink; even the cold beer didn’t taste particularly good. “You know, Pete, I think I need to get out of this business. It’s just not fun anymore.”
“You think this job’s fun?” He waved his hand to include the whole bar.
“Pete, you like to bitch, but I can see it. You love what you do.”
“Well ...” He pulled the towel off his shoulder and wiped his hands. “Some days are better than others.”
“You are a part of this place, you know.”
“And things wouldn’t be the same on the river without Gorda.”
“That’s true, but it doesn’t have to be me running the boat.”
“Are you serious? You’re thinking about selling?”
The direct question stopped me for a minute. This was the end result of what I’d been talking about, but I hadn’t really thought it through to that point. “Yeah, Pete, I guess I am. Thinking about it, anyway.”
Pete shook his head and headed down the bar to get the orders from two couples who looked like they were in the wrong bar. The men wore dark suits, and the women’s dresses sparkled with sequins. My guess was the guys had talked the ladies into some adventurous slumming before walking across the bridge and going to the theater—when, in fact, it was a way for the guys to score free parking.
The door at the end of the bar opened and a gust of cold air blew in around Neville Pinder and two other Ocean Towing captains. Pinder was in the middle of a story. Despite the bar’s noise, his voice rose above the interior volume. “And then she said, ‘I’ve never seen anything that size in my fuckin’ life.’ ” The two guys in the matching green shirts roared their approval. “Gimme three Kaliks,” Pinder shouted over the tops of the heads of the folks at the bar. The bartender on that side jumped to bring him the three Bahamian beers, and all the heads that had turned to watch his entrance, returned to their former conversations.
What’s wrong with this world, I asked myself as I sipped my beer. Everybody was looking for the deal, the scam, the few quick bucks. It was one thing to pretend you were eating at a restaurant in order to score free parking; it was something totally different to kill a man to preserve your cushy deal. And yet that was what Catalina insisted someone had done, and the only one making lots of money that I could see at this point was Neville Pinder.
I watched him at the bar, where he had now brought several other patrons into his group and was regaling them all with stories told at a volume that was, like the rest of him, big and rude.
“Hi, skipper, you’re watching my fellow islander.” Quentin had come up behind me and settled on the empty stool. I couldn’t figure out how I hadn’t seen him come in, and I noticed that he sure did get around well without a car.
“Hey, Quentin. That guy’s got nothing in common with you. Can I buy you a beer?”
“No beer, thank you. But I would like an orange juice.”
“Sure,” I said, lifting my hand to signal to Pete. When he made it to our end of the bar, I introduced him to Quentin.
“Pete, this is the guy who crewed for me coming up from Key West. He’s from down-island, Dominica.” The two men shook hands. “He’s a hell of a good crewman and he’s looking for work around here. Keep your ear to the ground for me, okay?”
“Will do,” Pete said. He gave me a little mock salute, then poured Quentin his juice.
I tapped my bottle to Quentin’s glass. “Here’s to us both finding work we love.”
After he drank, Quentin said, “I saw you watching him.” He inclined his head toward Pinder.
“Yeah, it seems to be the Neville Pinder Show.”
“I was starting to tell you that story I heard from Brian this afternoon, about the boat accident that caused that meeting today.”
“Oh yeah, what did he say?”
“Brian works for Ocean Towing in Hillsboro and he got a call to go out and pull off a seventy-five-foot motor yacht that grounded just south of the harbor entrance.”
“Sure, if people try to cut the corner going into Hillsboro from the south, they’ll be aground in a heartbeat.”
“Yeah, that must be the place. Brian said the weather wasn’t bad and it was a soft bottom. He got a phone call on his cell from Ocean Towing. His tow
boat was already offshore on another job. He said it took about an hour to tow the boat off, but his boss filed it as a salvage operation.”
“You’re kidding.”
He shook his head, and his dreads swung around his face. “The owner paid the salvage claim, then filed with his insurance company.”
“I’ll bet they went through the roof when they found it had just been a soft grounding with no damage.”
“Apparently so.”
“What’s the name of the boat?”
“NautiBoy—it’s spelled—”
“Yeah, I got it. I’ve seen that one a few times. Do you know where the boat is now?”
“He said it’s docked at a small marina just inside Hillsboro.”
“I think I might go over there tomorrow and talk to the captain. See if he noticed anything peculiar about his instruments like Nestor did.”
“You have an idea about these groundings?”
“An idea, yeah, but I don’t really know if it’s even scientifically possible.”
“What are you thinking?”
“I don’t know much about electronics, but the thing is, most of these boats that have gone aground have been relying on their GPS for navigation. It’s possible that there’s a certain unit that’s malfunctioning in all these boats. But I’m wondering about something else—if such a thing is possible. I’m thinking about how much money a salver could make if he could make a boat’s nav systems go haywire when he wanted them to.”
“That is a very interesting question.”
“Isn’t it?”
“You have been very good to me. If there is anything more I can do for you, I would like to help.”
“Just keep your ears open and let me know if you hear anything that doesn’t sound quite right. You’ve got an interview with Pinder tomorrow, right?”
“Yes.”
“Well, start there. I don’t mean for you to specifically ask any questions, just listen. And be careful. I’d especially like to know if there was any connection to Ocean Towing before these boats wrecked. If anyone from Ocean Towing went on board for any reason.”
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