Anne Bonny's Wake. Dick Elam

to tell me what really happened, but my Annie died without telling me.

      I asked a few Agency people I knew, but they didn’t have another story. Our Latino computer expert said he’d seen Havins at Latin-American Intelligence after the “accident.” He’d speculated that Bill had been recalled for a Spanish-speaking assignment, but he didn’t know.

      “You’re an old lecher,” I said. “That’s what you are, Bill Havins. I don’t know how Min keeps up with you.”

      “Min carries around a stick, and she clogs the spokes of my wheelchair when she can’t keep up.

      “Okay, now. Come on, Hersh. Tell me where you found this good-looker. Last week you passed through doing the all-alone, widower’s solo sail to Swan Quarter. When you left, Min informed me that she needed to find you a wife.”

      “Minerva the Matchmaker,” I said.

      “Yeah, Hersh. Married women can’t stand to see an unmarried man on the loose. But she will be happy now that you’re back with this lovely. Gawl dog, I like the way she fills out that Bon Ami T-shirt.”

      I looked to see if any customers shopped Bill’s stock of sailboat hardware, orange life preservers, black and red wet suits, fishing poles, paint cans, boat shoes, hats, and other items marked up twice the wholesale price. No customers, so I told the Maggie Moore story, including data from our afternoon conversation.

      Bill interrupted me only once. When I told him about the cockfight, he pulled two nautical charts from under the ship-to-shore radio table. He looked at the first chart, then spread the second chart across his lap. He traced his way down the Intracoastal Waterway from Hobucken.

      “Cock-and-bull fight. Go ahead, Hersh. I’ll fill in later.”

      Bill listened attentively. No one in the “spook” trade doubted Bill’s steel-trap memory. To survive losing two feet, Bill must have needed rescue. What other agent was mutilated? You never knew what body parts remained when the coffin stayed closed—or you only received ashes. Bill said he’d kept all of him that counted: “You could ask Min.”

      Bill called up his most lecherous grin.

      “Hell of a story. Can’t wait to see Min’s face when she hears about this babe swimming topless.”

      “Bill, do you think Min should hear? You can get pretty lascivious talking about bare breasts.”

      Bill laughed. “‘Lascivious’—that’s a fancy Pilgrim preacher word. But you’re right, Hersh. If your Maggie Moore shows up barefoot in her wet cut-offs and Bon Ami T-shirt, imagine what Min will say: ‘You shouldn’t have dressed up for dinner, honey; we’re informal here,’ or, if Min’s feeling charitable, she may just ask, ‘That all you got to wear?’ When Min wants to, she knows how to put a hurt on another woman.”

      I envisioned that likelihood. I intended to buy stretch cord from Bill, but also some “etc. for MM” that I’d noted in the logbook.

      “Hell, pardner, we can head Min off at the pass. Your mermaid probably would prefer to pick her own wardrobe, but we don’t have time to take her shopping before dinner. Just follow ole Bill.”

      Havins rolled around his chart table, spun the chair to miss a pile of anchors and galvanized chain, and wheeled to show me hats, foul-weather gear, and some sports clothing. I saw a book titled Sailing Words for Lubbers.

      “Tell you one thing, Havins. This lady doesn’t need that book. Don’t have to tell her that we call ropes ‘lines.’ Or that I’m not putting down women when I tell them to ‘man the winch.’ She whips the lines around a winch with a flip of her wrist.”

      Bill wheeled to the clothing rack. “She wears a size 8 dress, and, I guess, a 7 in a Top-Sider shoe.”

      “Bill, how would you know that?”

      “Powers of observation. I sized this girl up pretty close.”

      From one shelf, Bill took a box of shoes. Then he rolled to a hanging rack and selected a navy-blue wraparound skirt.

      “This will fit because it wraps around, but I’m telling you the lady wears a size 8. Also, I’m picking a dark skirt ’cause we don’t sell slips.”

      Bill took a yellow T-shirt off one shelf.

      “We sell red, and we sell yellow,” Bill said. “She gets yellow, because we got no red in stock. You get a discount. We marked them down to $15.44. Only two left.”

      Bill wheeled to where he sold the “Bikini-in-a-Bag.”

      “Your Maggie will stop a few Waterway eyes wearing this green bikini. Looks good on women with black hair.”

      The two-piece bathing suit package was barely a handful. I read the attached specifications: “Lycra stretch . . . one size fits all . . . perfect for unexpected swim guest. Matching bag that seconds as a purse. Ties eight different ways and blots dry in a towel.” Diagrams showed how to tie different versions of the bikini.

      I reminded Bill about the putty in Maggie’s hair. Bill found some scarves and chose both green and white. Maggie could wear the scarf around her waist or her neck, as well as put up her hair, Bill explained.

      “Let’s get these delivered, and then you come back and I’ll tell you what I think about your Maggie the Mermaid.”

      I knocked on room six, the last door on the one-floor motel. The rooms faced the harbor, and room six also offered a view of the Neuse River and the concrete bridge that spanned Smith Creek.

      Maggie pulled back a corner of the blinds, saw me, and cracked the door. I saw she was wrapped in towels, one for her body and another for her hair.

      “While you showered, Bill Havins helped me buy some things for you to wear to dinner. Bill doesn’t sell underwear, but he found you a green substitute. Good luck on the fitting.”

      Maggie took the clothes. She examined the skirt and T-shirt, remarked “Nice,” and placed the clothing on the bed. Next, she slipped on the shoes. “Fit perfectly,” she said. Last, she pulled the bikini-in-a-bag out of the sack. She laughed.

      “I’ve seen how these work before. I can tie it.”

      “Bill and I will meet you on the second level of the Oriental Restaurant,” I said. “Come over whenever you’re ready. We’ll have a drink, watch the sun go down, and then go down to the dining room and eat some seafood. See you there, whenever . . .”

      “I’ll be about forty-five minutes. Thanks, Hersh. And thank Bill, too.”

      Maggie smiled. Her towel slipped, and Maggie had to grab the towel to keep from exposing more of her breasts.

      If a forty-six-year-old widower can still blush, I did. Excused myself, and returned to the Chandlery.

      Bill went for the jugular. He’d established a reputation for no-nonsense analysis before Annie and I joined the Agency.

      “The cockfight story doesn’t ring true. They don’t fight cocks in this part of the state. Could believe that what I call the ‘Noose and Obscurer’ wanted to expose a modern Ku Klux Klan or a Swastika crazies meeting. There’s still some of that kind around here. If the newspaper caught a city dumping sewage in the Neuse River, or the university making a dollar using state equipment, or one of the governor’s men driving around drunk, then you couldn’t keep up with all their stories. But a cockfight? They wouldn’t send one of their reporters across Raleigh to cover a chicken fight.”

      “You don’t think there’s anything in this area that would attract their attention?” I wanted to believe Maggie Moore.

      Bill answered, “Yes. Smuggling. Josephus Daniels’s boys worry about the seacoast, the fishing industry, and dope smuggling. The editors like to front-page a dope bust at a high school. The paper complains that marijuana smokers only get a slap on the hand.”

      He leaned forward in his wheelchair.