The Nautical Chart Part 5

"No, a miser. Bob Cratchit's boss." "Never heard of him."

"It doesn't matter," she continued. "I "I saved every cent so I could go to the bookstore and come out with one of these in my hands, holding my breath, loving the feel of the hard covers, the colors of the splendid ill.u.s.trations. And then, all by myself, I would open the pages and smell the paper and the ink before I dived into the story. So I collected all twenty-three, one by one. A lot of time has gone by since then, but to this day, when I open a Tintin I can smell the smell that I have a.s.sociated with adventure and life ever since. Along with the movies of John Ford and John Huston, Rich-mal Compton's saved every cent so I could go to the bookstore and come out with one of these in my hands, holding my breath, loving the feel of the hard covers, the colors of the splendid ill.u.s.trations. And then, all by myself, I would open the pages and smell the paper and the ink before I dived into the story. So I collected all twenty-three, one by one. A lot of time has gone by since then, but to this day, when I open a Tintin I can smell the smell that I have a.s.sociated with adventure and life ever since. Along with the movies of John Ford and John Huston, Rich-mal Compton's Adventures ofWilliam, Adventures ofWilliam, and a few other books, these shaped my childhood." and a few other books, these shaped my childhood."

She had opened Red Rackham's Treasure Red Rackham's Treasure to page 40. In a large ill.u.s.tration in the middle of the page, Tintin, dressed in a diving suit, was walking along the bottom of the sea toward the impressive wreck of the sunken to page 40. In a large ill.u.s.tration in the middle of the page, Tintin, dressed in a diving suit, was walking along the bottom of the sea toward the impressive wreck of the sunken Unicorn. Unicorn.

"Look carefully," she said in a solemn voice. "That one picture marked my life."

With extreme delicacy she touched the page with her fingertips, as if she feared she might alter the colors. Coy was looking at her, not the book; she was still smiling absently, with an expression that made her seem as young as the girl in the framed snapshot, leaning back in her father's arms. A happy expression, he thought. From a time when the counter is still at zero. Later would come the dented silver cup with the missing handle. Junior swimming champions.h.i.+p. First prize.

"I imagine," she said after a while, without looking up from the book, "that you had a dream too."

"Of course."

He could understand her. Not the books of the silver cup or the photo, not anything connected with things in her memory, but there was a point of contact, a territory where it was easy for him to recognize her. Maybe Tanger wasn't all that different after all. Maybe, he thought, in some way she's one of ours, even though by definition every one of ours sails, hunts, fights, and sinks alone. s.h.i.+ps that pa.s.s in the night. Lights in the distance, visible for a brief while, often going in the opposite direction. Sometimes a distant sound, the throb of engines. Then silence again when it pa.s.ses, and darkness, and the glow extinguished in the empty blackness of the sea.

"Sure," he repeated.

That was all he said. His image, the vignette in his memory alb.u.m, was of a Mediterranean port with three thousand years of history in its ancient stones, surrounded by mountains and castles with embrasures where once guns were mounted. Names like Navidad fort, de Curra jetty, San Pedro lighthouse. The smell of still water, of damp hawsers, and the lebeche, lebeche, that south-southwest wind fluttering the flags of moored s.h.i.+ps and the pennants on the trawl lines of the fis.h.i.+ng boats. Idle men, men with nothing to do in retirement, facing the sea, sitting on old iron bollards. Nets in the sun, the rusting sides of merchant s.h.i.+ps nestling against the docks, and that unique odor of salt, tar, and the age-old sea, of ports that have seen many s.h.i.+ps and many lives come and go. In Coy's memory there was a boy moving through all that, a thin, dark-skinned boy with his schoolbag on his back, who had played hooky to gaze at the sea, to walk past the s.h.i.+ps and watch the blond, tattooed men come ash.o.r.e speaking incomprehensible languages. To see them cast off mooring lines that fell with a splash and were hauled on board before the iron hull moved away from the quay and the s.h.i.+p steered toward the harbor entrance, between the lighthouses, soon nothing but a strip of foamy wake, moving out toward the open sea in search of those unmarked highways to a place the boy was certain that he was going to go too. That had been his dream, the image that marked his life forever; early, before-the-fact nostalgia for a sea reached through old and wise ports peopled with ghosts that rested among the cranes huddled in the shade of the sheds. Iron worn away by the friction of cables. Men who sat quietly, motionless for hours, and for whom the fis.h.i.+ng rod or the rum or the cigarette was only an excuse, who seemed not to care for anything in the world but to stare at the sea. Grandfathers who led their grandsons by the hand and, while the young ones asked questions or pointed to gulls, they, the old ones, turned their eyes toward the moored s.h.i.+ps and the line of the horizon beyond the lighthouses, as if searching for some lost memory; a recollection, a word, an explanation of something that happened too long ago, or something mat may never have happened at all. that south-southwest wind fluttering the flags of moored s.h.i.+ps and the pennants on the trawl lines of the fis.h.i.+ng boats. Idle men, men with nothing to do in retirement, facing the sea, sitting on old iron bollards. Nets in the sun, the rusting sides of merchant s.h.i.+ps nestling against the docks, and that unique odor of salt, tar, and the age-old sea, of ports that have seen many s.h.i.+ps and many lives come and go. In Coy's memory there was a boy moving through all that, a thin, dark-skinned boy with his schoolbag on his back, who had played hooky to gaze at the sea, to walk past the s.h.i.+ps and watch the blond, tattooed men come ash.o.r.e speaking incomprehensible languages. To see them cast off mooring lines that fell with a splash and were hauled on board before the iron hull moved away from the quay and the s.h.i.+p steered toward the harbor entrance, between the lighthouses, soon nothing but a strip of foamy wake, moving out toward the open sea in search of those unmarked highways to a place the boy was certain that he was going to go too. That had been his dream, the image that marked his life forever; early, before-the-fact nostalgia for a sea reached through old and wise ports peopled with ghosts that rested among the cranes huddled in the shade of the sheds. Iron worn away by the friction of cables. Men who sat quietly, motionless for hours, and for whom the fis.h.i.+ng rod or the rum or the cigarette was only an excuse, who seemed not to care for anything in the world but to stare at the sea. Grandfathers who led their grandsons by the hand and, while the young ones asked questions or pointed to gulls, they, the old ones, turned their eyes toward the moored s.h.i.+ps and the line of the horizon beyond the lighthouses, as if searching for some lost memory; a recollection, a word, an explanation of something that happened too long ago, or something mat may never have happened at all.

"PEOPLE are so stupid," Tanger was saying. "Their dreams are limited to things they see on TV" are so stupid," Tanger was saying. "Their dreams are limited to things they see on TV"

She had returned the Tin tins to the shelf and was standing, hands in the pockets of her jeans, looking at him. Now everything about her was softer, from the expression in her eyes to the smile on her lips. Coy nodded, not knowing why. Maybe to encourage her to keep talking, or to indicate that he understood.

"What do you want to find on the Dei Gloria, Dei Gloria, really?" really?"

She came toward him, slowly, and for a moment, caught off guard, he thought that she was going to touch his face.

"I don't know. I swear to you, I don't know." Now she was standing, right beside him, studying the nautical chart on the table. "But when I read the boy's testimony, transcribed in the dry language of a clerk, I felt... That s.h.i.+p fleeing under full sail, and the corsair giving chase... Why didn't they take refuge in Aguilas? The atlases of the time showed a castle there, and a tower with two guns on Cabo Cope, where they could have sought protection."

Coy glanced at the chart. Aguilas was beyond its boundaries, southwest of Cope.

"You made that point yesterday, when you told me the story," he said. "Maybe the corsair was between them and Aguilas, and the Dei Gloria Dei Gloria had to keep sailing east. The wind could have veered. Or maybe the captain feared the risk of putting into port at night. There's a stack of explanations for that. The fact is that she ended up sinking in the cove at Mazarron. Maybe he wanted to take shelter under the tower at La Azohia. That tower is still standing." had to keep sailing east. The wind could have veered. Or maybe the captain feared the risk of putting into port at night. There's a stack of explanations for that. The fact is that she ended up sinking in the cove at Mazarron. Maybe he wanted to take shelter under the tower at La Azohia. That tower is still standing."

Tanger shook her head. She didn't seem convinced.

"Maybe. In any case, she was a merchant brigantine, and yet when she saw all was lost, she engaged in combat. Why didn't she strike her colors? Was the captain a stubborn man, or was there something on board that was too important to hand over without a fight? Something worth the lives of all the crew, something not even the sole survivor said one word about?"

"Maybe he didn't know about it."

"Maybe. But who were those two pa.s.sengers the manifest identified only with the initials N.E. and J.L.T?"

Coy rubbed his neck, amazed. "You have the manifest from the Dei Gloria?' Dei Gloria?'

"Not the original, no. But I have a copy. I got it from the naval archives at Viso del Marques. I have a good friend, a woman, who works there."

She gave no more details, but it was obvious that something was going through her head. Her lip twisted, and her expression was no longer soft. Tintin had exited the scene.

"Besides, there's something else."

She said that and again stopped, as if that "something else" was information he was never going to hear. Quiet, silence, for a long while.

"The s.h.i.+p," she said finally, "belonged to the Jesuits, remember? To Fornet Palau, a s.h.i.+powner from Valencia who was their straw man. And another thing. Valencia was the destination. All this happens on February 4, 1767, two months before the royal decree of Charles III ordering 'the banishment of the Jesuits from Spanish domains and the appropriation of their temporalities___ ' Do you have any idea what that meant?"

Coy said he didn't, that eighteenth-century history and Charles III were not his forte. So she elaborated. She did so very well, with few words, quoting key dates and facts without getting mired in superfluous details. The popular uprising of 1766 in Madrid against minister Esquilache, which shook the security of the monarchy and was said to have been instigated by the Society of Jesus. The Ignatian order's resistance to enlightened ideas spreading through Europe. The enmity of the monarch and his desire to rid himself of them. The creation of a secret council presided over by the Conde de Aranda, which prepared the decree of expulsion, and the unexpected coup of April 2,1767, the immediate expulsion of the Jesuits, the seizure of their wealth, and the subsequent dissolution of the Order by Pope Clement XIV That was the historical context in which the voyage and tragedy of the Dei Gloria Dei Gloria had taken place. Of course, there was no proof of a direct connection between one thing and the other. But Tanger was a historian, she was trained to evaluate events and to find relations.h.i.+ps among them, to formulate hypotheses and develop them. There could be a connection, or perhaps not. In any case, the had taken place. Of course, there was no proof of a direct connection between one thing and the other. But Tanger was a historian, she was trained to evaluate events and to find relations.h.i.+ps among them, to formulate hypotheses and develop them. There could be a connection, or perhaps not. In any case, the Dei Gloria Dei Gloria had gone to the bottom. At the very least, to sum it up, a sunken s.h.i.+p was a sunken s.h.i.+p- had gone to the bottom. At the very least, to sum it up, a sunken s.h.i.+p was a sunken s.h.i.+p-stat rosa pristina nomine, she recited cryptically. And she knew where. she recited cryptically. And she knew where.

"That," she concluded, "is justification enough to look for it."

Her expression had hardened as she spoke, as if at the hour of dealing with facts the ghost of the girl that had emerged as she looked at the pages of Tintin had faded away. Now the smile had disappeared from her lips and her eyes were s.h.i.+ning resolutely, not provocatively. She was no longer the girl in the snapshot. She was becoming distant again, and Coy was annoyed.

"Tell me about the others."

"What others?"

"The Dalmatian with the gray ponytail. And the melancholy dwarf who was watching your house last night. They didn't look like historians, not by a long shot. I don't think the expulsion of old Charles III and the Jesuits would ever raise their limp p.r.i.c.ks."

She seemed to be taken aback by his vulgarity. Or maybe she was just searching for an adequate response.

"That has nothing to do with you," she said slowly.

"You're wrong."

"Listen, I'm paying you for this job."

For the love of G.o.d, he said to himself. That's a serious mistake, beautiful. That is a really serious mistake, one that's unworthy of you-coming out with s.h.i.+t like that at this point in the game.

"Pay? What the f.u.c.k are you talking about?"

He saw clearly that Tanger was fl.u.s.tered. She lifted a hand. Take it easy, cool down, I was wrong. Come on, let's talk. But he was furious.

"Do you really believe I'm sitting here because you intend to pay me?"

He immediately felt ridiculous, because in fact he was. He stood up, overturning his chair so abruptly that Zas retreated, unsettled. "You misunderstood," she said. "Really. I'm only saying that those men have nothing to do with it.

"Nothing to do with it," she repeated. to do with it," she repeated.

She seemed frightened, as if all of a sudden she was afraid she would see him jerk open the door and stalk out, as if until that moment she had never considered the possibility. That gave Coy a twisted kind of satisfaction. After all, even if it was just self-interest, she was afraid she might lose him. That made him enjoy the situation. A crumb is a crumb.

"They have enough to do with it that I want you to clarify it for me or you'll have to look for someone else."

It was like a nightmare, but a nightmare that was strengthening his self-esteem. All very bitter, treading on the verge of rupture, of an end to it all, but he couldn't turn back.

"You aren't serious," she said.

"You bet I'm serious."

He heard himself as if he were a stranger speaking, an enemy willing to toss everything overboard and say good-bye to Tanger forever. His problem was that the only way he could go along was by being towed. As when the Torpedoman began to break things, and Coy had no choice but to gulp air, grab the neck of a broken bottle, and prepare for a battle royal.

"Look," he added. "I can understand that I seem a little simple- minded to you___ You may even take me for an imbecile. I'm not much on land, it's true. Clumsy as a duck. But you mink I'm mentally r.e.t.a.r.ded."

"You're here..."

"You know perfectly well why I'm here. But that isn't the question, and we can talk about that calmly another day if you want. In fact, I hope hope to be able to talk about it calmly another day. For the moment though, I'll limit myself to demanding that you tell me what I'm getting myself into." to be able to talk about it calmly another day. For the moment though, I'll limit myself to demanding that you tell me what I'm getting myself into."

"Demand?" She looked at him with sudden contempt. "Don't tell me what I should or shouldn't do. Every man I ever met wants to tell me what I must or I mustn't do."

She laughed quietly, humorlessly, as if exhausted, and Coy decided that she laughed with a European ennui. Something indefinable that had a lot to do with old whitewashed walls, churches with cracked frescoes, and black-clad women staring at the sea past grapevines and olive trees. Few North American women, he thought suddenly, could laugh like that.

"I'm not telling you what to do. I just want to know what you expect of me."

"I've offered you a job___ "

"Oh, s.h.i.+t. A job."

Saddened, he rocked on his toes as if he were on the deck of a s.h.i.+p and about to leap to land. Then he picked up his jacket and took a few steps toward the door, with Zas happily trotting at his heels. His soul turned to ice.

'A job," he repeated sarcastically.

She was standing between him and the window. He thought he saw another flash of fear in her eyes. Difficult to tell against the light.

"Maybe they think," she said, and she seemed to be choosing her words with care, "that it's about treasure and things like that. But it isn't a treasure, it's a secret. A secret that may not have any importance today, but that fascinates me. That's why I got into this."

"Who are they?' they?'

"I don't know." don't know."

Coy took the last steps toward the door. His eyes paused for an instant on the small dented cup.

"It's been a pleasure knowing you." "Wait."

He had her complete attention. She reminded him, he concluded, of a gambler with mediocre cards, trying to calculate what the other player held.

"Don't go," she said after a moment. "You're bluffing."

Coy put on his jacket.

"Maybe. Try me." "I need you."

"There are sailors on every corner. And divers. Many as stupid as me."

"I need you." you."

"Well, you know where I live. So it's up to you."

He opened the door slowly, with death in his heart. All the while, until he closed it behind him, he was hoping she would come take his arm, force him to look her in the eye, tell him anything to keep him from going. Hoping she would take his face in her hands and press her lips to his with a long, sincere kiss, after which, d.a.m.n the Dalmatian and the melancholy dwarf! He would be willing to dive with her and her Captain Haddock and the devil himself to look for the Unicorn Unicorn or the or the Dei Gloria, Dei Gloria, or the impossible dream. But she stood there with the golden light behind her, and did nothing and said nothing. Coy found himself going down the stairs, hearing the whimpering of Zas, who missed him. He went with a frightening void in his breast and his stomach, with his throat dry and an irritating tickle in his groin. With nausea that made him stop on the first landing, lean against the wall, and cover his mouth with trembling hands. or the impossible dream. But she stood there with the golden light behind her, and did nothing and said nothing. Coy found himself going down the stairs, hearing the whimpering of Zas, who missed him. He went with a frightening void in his breast and his stomach, with his throat dry and an irritating tickle in his groin. With nausea that made him stop on the first landing, lean against the wall, and cover his mouth with trembling hands.

TERRA firma, he concluded after long deliberation, was nothing more than a vast conspiracy determined to hara.s.s the sailor. It had underwater peaks that didn't show on the charts, and reefs, sandbars, and capes with treacherous shoals; and besides, it was peopled by a mult.i.tude of officials, customs officers, s.h.i.+powners, port captains, police, judges, and women with freckles. Sunk in such gloomy thoughts, Coy wandered around Madrid all afternoon. Wandered like the wounded heroes of films and books, like Orson Welles in firma, he concluded after long deliberation, was nothing more than a vast conspiracy determined to hara.s.s the sailor. It had underwater peaks that didn't show on the charts, and reefs, sandbars, and capes with treacherous shoals; and besides, it was peopled by a mult.i.tude of officials, customs officers, s.h.i.+powners, port captains, police, judges, and women with freckles. Sunk in such gloomy thoughts, Coy wandered around Madrid all afternoon. Wandered like the wounded heroes of films and books, like Orson Welles in Lady from. Shanghai, Lady from. Shanghai, like Gary Cooper in like Gary Cooper in The Wreck of the Mary Deare, The Wreck of the Mary Deare, like Jim pursued from port to port by the ghost of the like Jim pursued from port to port by the ghost of the Patna. Patna. The difference lay in the feet that no Rita Hayworth or The difference lay in the feet that no Rita Hayworth or Marlow spoke to him, and he wandered unnoticed and silent among the crowd, hands in the pockets of his bluejacket, stopping at red lights and crossing on green, as insipid and gray as everyone else. He felt insecure, displaced, miserable. He walked on, desperately searching for the docks, for the port, where at least in the smell of the sea and splas.h.i.+ng of water beneath iron hulls he would find the consolation of the familiar, and it took a while- when he stopped indecisively on the Plaza de las Cibeles without knowing what direction to take-to get it through his head that this huge and noisy city didn't have a port. That reality hit him with all the force of an unpleasant revelation, and he slowed, almost stumbled, so weak in the knees that he sat down on a bench across from the gate of a garden by which two soldiers with aigu-illettes, red berets, and rifles across their chests, observed him with suspicion. Later, when he resumed his walk and the sky in the west was beginning to grow red at the far end of the avenues, and then somber and gray on the opposite side of the city, silhouetting the buildings where the first lights were being turned on, his desolation gave way to a growing exasperation, a contained fury composed of contempt for the image pursuing him in the reflection of the shop windows, and of anger toward all the people brus.h.i.+ng against him as they pa.s.sed, crowding and pus.h.i.+ng when he stopped at crosswalks, waving their arms idiotically as they babbled into their cell phones, blocking his way with their huge shopping bags, ambling erratically in front of him, and stopping to engage in conversation. Once or twice he returned the shoves, rabid with rage, and once the indignant expression of a pedestrian turned to confusion and surprise when he glimpsed Coy's rock-hard expression, the malicious, menacing look in eyes dark as death. Never in his life, not even the morning the investigating commission sentenced him to two years without a s.h.i.+p, had he felt such empathy with the pain of the Flying Dutchman.

An hour later he was drunk, without any insistence on Sapphire blue or any other color. He had gone into a bar near the Plaza de Santa Ana, and after pointing toward an old bottle of Centenario Terry that must have been sleeping the sleep of the just on that shelf for at least half a century, retired to a corner supplied with it and a gla.s.s. Having a cognac hangover is exactly like being poleaxed, the Torpedoman had said one time when he had dropped to his knees and vomited up his guts after having put away enough to speak knowingly on the subject. Prognosis: terminal. Once, in Puerto Limon, the Torpedoman had got soused on Duque de Alba and pa.s.sed out on top of a tiny little wh.o.r.e who'd had to yell for help to move the two hundred pounds that were about to squeeze the life out of her. And later, when he awoke in his berth-they'd had to find a van to take him back to the s.h.i.+p -he spent three days lightening ballast in the form of bile, in between bouts of the cold sweats and begging at the top of his lungs for some friend to put him out of his misery. Coy didn't have anyone to pa.s.s out on top of that night, or a s.h.i.+p to go back to, or even friends to carry him-the Torpedoman was G.o.d knows where, and Gallego Neira had ruptured his liver and his spleen when he fell from the Jacob's ladder of a tanker a month after earning a pilot's spot in Santander. But Coy did the honors to his cognac, letting it slide down his throat again and again, until everything began to fade into the distance, and his tongue and hands and heart and groin stopped hurting, and Tanger Soto was just one more among the thousands of women who every day are born, live, and the in this wide, wide world, and he observed that the hand going and coming between the gla.s.s and the bottle was beginning to move in slow motion.

The bottle was half empty, just a little below the Plimsoll line, when Coy, calling on one last scintilla of good sense, stopped drinking and took a look around. Everything seemed to be listing badly, until he realized that his head was resting on the table and he was the one off plumb. Nothing more grotesque, he thought, than some jerk all alone getting smashed in public. Slowly, he got up and went outside. Trying to disguise his condition, he proceeded very carefully, shoulder touching the walls of buildings to help keep to a straight line and parallel to the curb. When he crossed the plaza, the air did him good. He stopped and sat down on a bench beneath the statue of Calderon de la Barca. From there, with the palms of his hands on his knees, Coy observed the people pa.s.sing before his unfocused eyes. He saw the beggars who'd shared the wine bottle, the three men and a woman who had been sitting on the ground drinking with their little mutt the other day, watched by RoboCop from the door of the Hotel Victoria. He shook his head when a Moroccan from the Magreb offered him some has.h.i.+sh-a joints about the last thing I want, man-and finally, a little clearer of head, he started toward his lodging. Now that the Centenario Terry had been sufficiently diluted in his lungs, his urine, or wherever it might have made its way, things were a little less hazy. And as a consequence, he saw that the Dalmatian, that is, the guy from Barcelona with the gray ponytail and the one green and one brown eye, was sitting at a table in the bar, by the door, a gla.s.s of whisky in his hands, legs crossed, waiting for him.

"TAKE my word for it," the man concluded. "They want us to take them to bed. That is, they want us to want to take them to bed. But most of all they want us to pay for it. With our money, our freedom, our mind... In their world, believe me, there's no such word as my word for it," the man concluded. "They want us to take them to bed. That is, they want us to want to take them to bed. But most of all they want us to pay for it. With our money, our freedom, our mind... In their world, believe me, there's no such word as gratis." gratis."

He was sitting there, whisky in hand, as if he owned the place, and Coy was sitting across from him, listening. He had stopped being surprised a long time ago, and was taking it in with interest now, an untouched gla.s.s of tonic, ice, and lemon in front of him.

The cognac was still slipping smoothly through his blood. From time to time the Dalmatian rattled the ice in his gla.s.s, regarded the contents pensively, then lifted it to his lips and took a sip before continuing his monologue. Coy had confirmed that the man's Spanish did have a touch of a foreign accent-say Andalusian overlaid with British.

'And let me tell you something. When one of them decides to bully her way forward, there's no one... I'm here to tell you. When they finally come to a decision, whatever it is, they're hard as steel. I swear to you. I've seen them lie____ G.o.d almighty. I swear I've seen them lie... right there on my own pillow, talk to their husband on the phone... lie in cold blood. Incredible."

Next door there was a store that sold mannequins, and occasionally Coy glanced toward the window. Naked bodies in a.s.sorted postures-sitting, standing, men and women with no genital ident.i.ty, some with wigs, others whose craniums were bare, synthetic flesh gleaming in the strong lights. Several severed heads smiled on a shelf. The female dummies had b.r.e.a.s.t.s with jutting nipples. A window dresser with a sense of humor, affecting prudery, an accidental or conscious cla.s.sical reference, had positioned the arm of one of the mannequins modestly across its b.r.e.a.s.t.s and placed the other hand to cover its supposed s.e.x. Venus rising directly from her sh.e.l.l, the transvest.i.te Pris Nexus 6 in Blade Runner. Blade Runner.

"Has she been on your pillow, then?" she been on your pillow, then?"

The Dalmatian looked at Coy almost reproachfully. His hair was clean and combed straight back, fastened with black elastic. His s.h.i.+rt was white, with a b.u.t.ton-down collar he was wearing open, without a tie. Tan, but not excessively so. Impeccable shoes, comfortable, good leather. The expensive, heavy gold watch on the left wrist. Gold rings. Very carefully manicured fingernails. Another ring on the little finger of the right hand, wide, also gold. Gold chains visible at the neck, with medallions and an antique Spanish doubloon. Gold cuff links flas.h.i.+ng at the wrist. This guy, thought Coy, looks like a Carrier display case. You could cast a couple of ingots with what he had on.

"No___ Of course not!" The Dalmatian seemed sincerely scandalized. "I don't know why you say that. My relations.h.i.+p with her..."

He stopped as if the connection, whatever it might be, was obvious. A second later he must have realized that it wasn't, because he rattled the ice in his gla.s.s and, this time without taking a sip, brought Coy up to date on the story. At least, he brought him up to date on his version of the story. He was, after all, Nino Palermo, and that gave his tale only relative value. But this individual was the one person who seemed willing to tell Coy anything. He had no source for another, more authentic version, and he doubted very much that he ever would. So he sat very still, attentive, turning his eyes toward the window with the mannequins only when his tablemate fixed first the green, and then the brown, eye on him for too long a time-an uncomfortable ocular duality to sit across from. So he learned that Nino Palermo was the owner of Deadman's Chest, an enterprise devoted to recovering sunken s.h.i.+ps and maritime salvage with a home base in Gibraltar. Maybe Coy, since Palermo understood that he was a sailor, had heard of Deadman's Chest when they were working on refloating the Punta Europa, Punta Europa, a ferry that had sunk the year before in the bay of Algeciras with fifty pa.s.sengers on board? Or-he added after a brief pause-at the time of the recovery of the a ferry that had sunk the year before in the bay of Algeciras with fifty pa.s.sengers on board? Or-he added after a brief pause-at the time of the recovery of the San Esteban, San Esteban, a galleon carrying a cargo of Mexican silver salvaged five years ago in the Florida Keys? Or perhaps the most recent case, a Roman s.h.i.+pload of statues and pottery off Ifach rock, at Calpe? a galleon carrying a cargo of Mexican silver salvaged five years ago in the Florida Keys? Or perhaps the most recent case, a Roman s.h.i.+pload of statues and pottery off Ifach rock, at Calpe?

At that point, Coy spoke aloud the words "treasure hunter," and the other man smiled broadly enough to show a tooth or two at the side of his mouth before saying, yes, in a way. Though this matter of treasure was a relative concept, according to, and how....

Besides, my friend, all that glitters is not gold. And sometimes, what doesn't glitter is. is. Then, between more unfinished sentences, Palermo crossed and uncrossed his legs, rattled the ice in his gla.s.s again, and took a long swallow that left the ice cubes beached on the bottom of the gla.s.s. Then, between more unfinished sentences, Palermo crossed and uncrossed his legs, rattled the ice in his gla.s.s again, and took a long swallow that left the ice cubes beached on the bottom of the gla.s.s.

"It isn't adventure, it's work," he said slowly, as if he wanted to offer Coy every opportunity to understand. 'It's one thing to go to the movies, or to live as if you're sitting in row fourteen eating popcorn with your sweetheart, and it's quite another to invest money, do your research, and do your prospecting with professionalism. I work for myself and for my partners; I raise the necessary capital, I obtain results, and I portion out the dividends, rendering to Caesar.... You know. The state, with its laws and taxes. I also make gifts to museums, inst.i.tutions__ Things like that."

"Something must end up in your pocket."

"Of course. I try to make it be... G.o.d almighty. I have money. Listen. I try to risk my partners* money, naturally, but I also risk mine. I have lawyers, researchers, and experienced divers working for me. I'm a professional."

Having said all that, he sat a moment without speaking, his bicolor gaze fixed on Coy, weighing the effect. But Coy, whose expression hadn't changed, must not have seemed very impressed.

"The difficulty," he continued, "is that this work of mine calls for.... A person can't go around telling the story of his life. That's why you have to move with caution. I'm not talking about anything illegal, although sometimes... Oh, well. You take my word for it. The key word is caution." caution."

'And where does she fit into all this?"

As Palermo spoke his amiable air had turned hard, and anger suddenly showed in his eyes and mouth. Coy saw him clench a fist, the one with the wide gold ring on the little finger, and he would have burst out laughing at that fit of choler if he hadn't been so interested in the story his interlocutor was telling in a bitter, surly tone that at times was close to raw aggression. He had stumbled across a lead. The search for ancient s.h.i.+pwrecks always began with some simple, sometimes almost stupid lead, and he had- G.o.d almighty. Chance, in the guise of a man named Corso, a man who liked to dig through libraries, a guy who fed him material having to do with the sea, ancient nautical charts, atlases, things like that-a sort of unscrupulous guy, if he might say so in pa.s.sing, who charged him an arm and a leg-had placed in his hands a book on the maritime activities of the Society of Jesus, published in 1803. It was t.i.tled The Black Fleet: The Jesuits in the East and West Indies, The Black Fleet: The Jesuits in the East and West Indies, and had been written by a Francisco Jose Gonzalez, a librarian at the San Fernando naval observatory, and it was in this book that Palermo had found the and had been written by a Francisco Jose Gonzalez, a librarian at the San Fernando naval observatory, and it was in this book that Palermo had found the Dei Gloria. Dei Gloria.

"Right there it was____ G.o.d almighty. I knew immediately.

You know know when something is there waiting for you." He rubbed his nose with his thumb. "I feel it here." when something is there waiting for you." He rubbed his nose with his thumb. "I feel it here."

"I guess you're referring to treasure."

"I'm referring to a s.h.i.+p. To a good, old, and beautiful sunkens.h.i.+p. The business of any treasure comes later, if it comes at all.

But don't think that__ Imperative isn't the word. No, it isn't."

He lowered his head, staring at his large ring. In that moment Coy took a really good look. Apparently another ancient, authentic coin. Arabic maybe, or Turkish.