Anne Bonny's Wake. Dick Elam

started to ask, “In college in the mid-’60s?” but squashed that impulse. If I asked her at what age she went to college, she would ask me for my age. Hell, she had already heard enough details to figure my age was in the mid-forties. The devil with her. She could calculate anything she wanted.

      Silence boxed our conversation. I should have remembered the conversation rule practiced at officer’s mess: don’t discuss religion, politics, or age in the ship’s wardroom. Decided against that prohibition. I wanted to know more about her religion, her politics, and why she clouded details from her past.

      “I didn’t mean to pry.” Her tone sounded apologetic. “I’ve read a lot about how writers work. I majored in English lit in college. I learned that you writers read and collect books. And, Hersh, you have accumulated a similar book investment down in the cabin. Just noticed a lot of crime titles.”

      That was fair. She’d told me something about her scholarly interest. Quid pro quo. I owed her something about my scholarship.

      “I teach criminal justice students how to write arrest reports, how to testify in court. I’m not an attorney, but at the advanced level I teach legal theories. I didn’t bring a copy aboard, but my second book is entitled Or, Give Me Justice.”

      “What’s that all about?”

      “It’s ‘all about’ supporting the law, because without justice, we can’t enjoy liberty.”

      I noticed Maggie’s eyes began to glaze over. Decided not to tell her about my dissertation about drug enforcement cases that I’d turned into my first book.

      “Where do you profess?” Maggie asked.

      “I teach at Henry Campbell Black College. Small, special curriculum college located outside Alexandria.”

      “Oh, yes. I know about Campbell Black. I now live about twenty miles away from the campus. Your college was named for a judge, wasn’t it?”

      Her reply surprised me. Although criminal justice scholars knew Henry Campbell Black’s opinions and scholarly fame, not many people knew about the college endowed by his mother’s family. Should I ask for her street address? But Maggie beat me to the questions:

      “Are you a doctor—a PhD?”

      “Yes.”

      “And are you a tenured professor at Campbell Black?”

      “Well, yes, I am.”

      “All right, Doc. I’m impressed. I’m also glad you’re not reading all those crime books because you’re writing paperback mystery potboilers. Where did you receive your PhD?”

      “From Georgetown,” I answered with some delight—until I realized how much information she had wrung from me with a passing reference to literature. I had intended to conduct this interrogation.

      Asked myself: Dr. Barstow, who’s giving this quiz?

       CHAPTER 8

       Clink.

      When Bill leaned forward, he hit the metal—where his ankle used to be—against his wheelchair. I tried not to react. I knew Havins wanted no sympathy. Besides, when Bill leaned his face closer to yours, you knew a zinger was coming.

      “Gawl dog, Hersh. You’ve found another good-looker. Watched her sway across the lawn to the motel room. Got to hand it to you, Hersh. Twice now you’ve gone to Swan Quarter and come back with a stunning woman.” Havins widened his lecherous leer, lifted himself, pressed his muscular arms against the wheelchair armrests, and waved me toward the visitor’s chair. Bill’s routine demonstrated he didn’t want you to think he was a feeble cripple.

      I dropped into the visitor’s chair, my back to the picture window that framed Oriental Harbor. Bill’s seating arrangement provided him a close-up of his guest and a panorama of the harbor.

      Bill chuckled. I chuckled back. I had, indeed, met a grand woman at Swan Quarter. My Annie.

      Annie and I had met flying to North Carolina, but we didn’t know that we both worked for the Agency. “Survival section” had sent us.

      We sat across the aisle on the Raleigh-Durham flight. Then we sat together on the bus to “Little Washington,” a name natives use to differentiate Washington, North Carolina, from the District of Columbia. We talked around our jobs. Said I was a clinical researcher. She traveled for a copy machine company. We sidestepped job details and instead talked about the Faulkner book she brought. Told her I thought William Faulkner wrote his sentences too long. She suggested I take up speed-reading. That ended the conversation.

      She read. I shut my eyes and pretended to doze.

      We didn’t speak until we reached Little Washington. Then we found ourselves, along with a Hispanic-looking man, standing on the same corner waiting for transportation.

      When Survival’s car met Annie, me, and a Texan named Lupe, Annie and I snickered. We told our story to Tex-Mex Lupe and the driver. That broke the ice. Then everybody told a funny “undercover” story. We drove through Swan Quarter and down a dirt road to a three-story farmhouse located on the east bank of the peninsula.

      That’s where we took our survival instruction from the master in the trade: Bill Havins.

      The Master—before someone crushed Bill’s ankles.

      “Don’t take offense, Hersh. But this one’s as pretty as your last lady. I think Annie would be proud of you.”

      “Slow down, Bill. Nothing going on here.”

      “It’s okay, Hersh. You don’t have to marry ’em before we pass out a motel key. You don’t even have to sign ‘Mr. and Mrs.’ It’s agin the law for me to even ask if you’re living in sin.”

      “I’m sleeping on the Anne Bonny. She’s using the motel room. I’m showering in your dressing room cesspool, not with her. Dammit, Bill, quit reading those dirty paperbacks before you sell ’em to your customers.”

      “Okay, Pilgrim. But you can be sure that Min will question you. She’s still old-fashioned, but frankly, son, I’m a little disappointed in you. Like I told you when I stood up with you, this ole Bill was indeed the best man when you married Annie.”

      Bill hadn’t dropped the wedding ring and let it roll across the church as he’d threatened. But he’d squeezed the bridesmaid, drunk most of the hooch, told the preacher an obscene story, and jacked our car up, the rear wheels spinning, while he laughed. Lifted our car down, chased after us in his pickup truck, and even crowded a couple of local football players off the road when they joined the car chase. That’s the rearview mirror sight that my Annie and I saw as we fled from that wedding reception.

      Losing two feet on his CIA assignment had changed Bill. He couldn’t air his professional past. Central Intelligence Agency employment agreement wouldn’t allow him to write a book about his narrow escapes.

      When Bill recovered from losing his feet, he left the Agency. With his disability and severance pay, and a mortgage, Bill bought Oriental Dockside Marina, but not the restaurant. The Oriental Restaurant stayed with Andy, a redhead, like me, who cooked catch-of-the-day in eastern North Carolina.

      When Bill lost his feet, Oriental people heard that Bill’s automobile had collided with two diesel trucks on Interstate 85. I never heard the true story, but knew I-85 wasn’t located in Central America.

      One night, near the bottom of the wine bottle, Annie had let their Central America assignment slip. My best guess was Nicaragua, where I knew the Agency worried about the Sandinistas.

      Bill recovered in a Virginia hospital. Min confided that they’d outfitted Bill with prostheses that would let him attach shoes and walk. But after he learned to walk with his artificial feet, Bill didn’t bother.

      Min explained, “Bill will attach swim fins to those metal connections and swim. He could