Billingsgate Shoal (14 page)

"I'm kind of interested," he said, because
his company, Wheel-Lock, is about to go into receivership."

I was stunned. "Why" I asked, "when
the company even supports a foundation? Besides, I have just been to
the headquarters, and it reeks of affluence."

"Well it's a funny thing, Doc. . . sometimes the
companies that appear to be doing best are actually on the skids. Now
I take Wheel-Lock. Five years ago, maybe six, it was doing very well.
Privately owned. Nice profitability. A lot of Kincaid's business was
with the government, supplying them with locks and security systems
for military installations, arsenals, armories, bureau offices, and
such. But then the contracts ran out—or at least diminished
considerably as the Vietnam thing dwindled—and profits shrank. The
foundation I know about, but hell, it's tiny. It's just a tax
write-off, nothing more. . ."

"What's going to happen to Wheel-Lock now that
the founder and owner is dead?"

As we talked, we reeled in the lines and switched to
Rapala and Rebel plugs, put a strip of squid on the rear treble hooks
and let them out again. We had Jim rev up a wee bit so the lipped
plugs would wiggle and dance in the wake.

Tom Costello shrugged his shoulders and gave his Penn
reel a few cranks. He sipped his beer and put it down.

"Dunno. I don't know of the arrangements he
would have made in the event of his death. Surely he made some. . ."

"And you say the corporation is privately owned,
or by a limited number of shareholders?"

"Right. I don't know how many but I can check.
Anyway, rumor has it that when the board meets next they're going to
file for bankruptcy unless some giant conglomerate will bail them out
and take Wheel-Lock under it wings. But it's a little company. Only
loose change, you understand? The only reason a bunch of us were
talking about it is because of the story of Kincaid's death."

"Tom, if Kincaid saw his company was going
under, would feigning his death make sense?"

"Not usually, unless he had some hidden angle.
The best thing to check would be corporate cash flow. Was any large
sum drawn from company funds—for any stated purpose within the last
few months or so that looks suspicious? If so, your theory could hold
some water. I think though that—hey! wait. . .oh shit, I
thought—hey, there it is again!"

He flipped his rod backward over his head hard,
reeled in fast and furiously as he lowered the tip again, then yanked
back again, setting the hook. I saw his rod tip tremble. DeGroot
looked back and cut speed a tiny bit. When the fish headed in, he'd
turn the boat slightly to follow it. But there wasn't much to do
really but wait and watch Tom work the fish. The blue made three runs
before Tom had it up alongside, and we gaffed it. Eleven pounds. A
keeper, but nothing spectacular.

But ten minutes later Jim tied into one from the
bridge, and I went up to man the wheel while he cranked it in. Nine
pounds. We searched some more, and came up with nothing. Moving over
to Halibut Point, Jim and I hooked two at once and Tom had to mind
the helm. Then Tom came down and he and I tied into two more. They
were running a little bigger, between twelve and fourteen pounds. As
we hauled them in over the side they flip-flopped and slid all over
the cockpit, trailing slime and thin bright streaks of blood. The
blood is hell to clean up, and Jim, a true Dutchman, is fastidious. I
grabbed the nearest blue and whapped him smartly on the top of the
head with the billy. Nothing. He continued to flip and work his mean
jaws at me.
Whap!
Nothing.
Whap!

"Jesus Christ!"

"Hard-headed little devils aren't they?"

I whapped him twice more hard and he went limp. I
plopped him in the well and went after the others. The bluefish is
shaped like a torpedo, black and silver with shades of blue. They say
the blue can see well out of water, and go for you. I believe it.
Their heads are pointy, with a lot of mouth that's long, but not wide
like a bass's mouth. You see a lot of teeth. Their heads are solid
bone and thick carapace. A few minutes later we had all the stunned
monsters in the commenced flipping around again. I killed them the
same way I killed the lobsters, a quick thrust of knifeblade downward
behind the head.

"You say look for suspicious cash flow in
Wheel-Lock?" I asked Tom, returning to our earlier conversation.
"I can't do that. . .but could you?"

"Not unless there was a special reason, like an
investigation, or they wanted to let me. Wheel-Lock is a privately
owned corporation. That stuff is private, and since they have no
stockholders to account to, they can keep the information to
themselves. The only people who can know it all—in a case like
this—is the IRS."

"Have you ever heard of a firm called A. J.
Liebnitz?"

Costello turned and looked at me, giving a low
whistle. He thumbed the line through his fingers and thumb, feeling
it play out.

"Uh huh. Was Kincaid involved with A. J.
Liebnitz?"

"Don't know. Let's just say it's a guy who
hasn't answered his mail in quite a while. Where's the company
located and what does it do?"

"Adolph Jacob Liebnitz and Associates is located
on Grand Cayman Island in the Caribbean. I think it's just south of
Jamaica. Tax haven."

"I've seen the ads. It's a place where the very
rich go to bury their funds."

"Yeah, and pay nothing. They can just sit around
down there and sip zombies and pina coladas and collect interest. A.
J. Liebnitz is a commodities broker. Precious commodities. I think he
owns half the gold and silver in the free world."

"That's fairly interesting."

"Old A. J. is quite a guy. There was an article
about him not long ago in one of the financial rags. Jewish refugee
from the Nazis. Both parents wiped out. Brothers and sisters wiped
out. Arrived is Lisbon without a cent. Now he's worth—who the hell
knows?"

"And his firm deals mostly in precious metals?"

"I think now he's branching out more and more
into gems and art treasures. If it's precious—sought after—A. J.
has a hand in it. But he made his name in gold and silver, yes. His
name crops up wherever they're traded: Geneva, Zürich, Brussels,
Antwerp, London, New York, Paris. If the subject's gold, the name
Liebnitz will surface before long. He knows all the big deals: who's
buying and who's selling and where and when. At all the big deals and
auctions one of his representatives is there. They've got branch
offices in all the big money centers."

"I'm wondering if I could write the head office
for information about this guy. . ."

"Forget it. Liebnitz is as tight as a Swiss
bank. Confidentiality of all clients' holdings is absolute."

He turned the reel handle, watching the line making
thin swirl marks in the ocean, and squinted in concentration.
"Ab-so-lute," he repeated with finality.

Disappointed, I gazed at the sea haze. Was there any
way to pierce the shield of anonymity that surrounded Wallace
Kinchloe?

"What if I were from a law enforcement agency?"

"No dice. Interpol, the FBI, and all the secret
service organizations have been after Liebnitz and the Swiss banks
for decades. They're tighter than clams. I'll tell you one thing
though, whoever the guy is you have in mind, he's loaded: Liebnitz
likes to brag privately that he only handles millionaires. His outfit
is definitely not the minor leagues. Even to do business with him,
you've got to be a heavyweight."

"What kind of minimum deal are you talking
about?"

"I honestly don't know, Doc. But I know Liebnitz
and clan pick and choose carefully. They have a minimum staff and
want minimum overhead and bookkeeping. If you're not promising, they
don't take you on."

The line jerked and ran. I hauled and cranked. I was
rewarded with what I was searching for: a ten-pound striped bass.

"You're dribbling at the mouth. You OK?"

I told him I was just salivating. A normal reaction
to catching a big, plump sniper. I was rewarded twice more, with nice
bass.

It was a perfect day. The sun sank low in the west,
silhouetting the twin lighthouses of Gloucester. The tide was swelled
to it fullest and
Whimsea
rolled and yawed lazily in the broad troughs. The exhaust noise
wafted up to my ears in a faint and peaceful burble. To the east the
sky was dark bluish purple—to the west, brilliant red-gold. We
broke out the steaming chowder as Jim swung around for the trip back.
We eased back, taking our time. We passed the twin breakwaters of
Rockport, which are man-made piles of granite a mile offshore. They
lay dim, huge, ghostlike in the gathering dark, like mined hulks.

I sat on the bridge, downing chowder and beer and
watching for lights and buoys as we entered the channel. My watch
said quarter to nine.

"My cast stinks."

"What?"

"My cast and bandage. They're al1 full of fish
slime. One of the biggest pains in the ass about this damn thing is I
can't wash it. Hey, isn't Thursday night a good night for bar
drinking? When I was in college we always used to go drinking
Thursday nights."

Jim replied that to his knowledge the bars were
usually pretty packed Thursdays , especially during the summer
months.

"Instead of heading back with you guys I think
I'll hoist a few in,Gloucester tonight."

He looked at me in disbelief.

"I thought you hated bars."

"I do. But there's one here I want to pay a
visit to. I'm told a certain boatbuilder hangs out there and I'd like
to meet him."

"Well, you should stay out of all of 'em.
They're for commercial fishermen and all pretty rough, so I'm told.
They're not for the likes of us, Doc."

"I was going to buy you guys dinner there. I
just want to see a guy—"

"I'm not interested, Doc. Don't know about Tom.
I'm going home. Listen: I want you to give me your fish too, in case
you don't come back."

I thought this was in“poor taste, and so informed
him. Tom declined also. We reached the harbor and made
Whimsea
fast and shipshape and parted_company on the dock. I told Jim to
please call Mary and have her proceed with dinner without me. I knew
this wouldn't make me popular, but I had to speak with Danny Murdock.
And according to his wife, the Schooner Race was his second home.
 

CHAPTER NINE

I CLIMBED ABOARD the Scout, which I had relearned how
to drive with my cast, dumped the thermos bottles in the back along
with my fishing gear, and nudged my way out of the crowded marina
parking lot. I headed into the center of New England's most famous
fishing city, home of the indomitable fisherman, clad in his
sou'wester, who stands watch over the harbor. He is cast in bronze,
his hands on the ship's wheel, his eyes level and steadfast. He is
probably looking directly into the teeth of a sixty-foot wave that is
only seconds away from swallowing up his ship. On the statue's base
are the words "Those That Go Down to the Sea in Ships." It
is a memorial to all Gloucester fishermen lost at sea. It still
happens, and every year the people still come to the harborside and
throw wreaths into the water as the list of the dead is read. And
then they sing beautiful hymns while the tide carries the wreaths out
to sea.

The Schooner Race and the other maritime bars are
located on Main Street across from Gloucester's inner harbor. This
small body of water is always jammed full with trawlers and
freighters. The big boats are stuck together like cars in a crowded
lot. I pulled the car up across the street from the bar right over
the water just behind some collapsed piers. It was dark as I got out.
I smelled fish stink. It was lobster bait. Lobstermen take fish
offal, let it ripen in old tubs until you can smell it a mile away,
then put it in little plastic baggies. They tie these baggies inside
the trap. Just before they dump the traps overboard they punch little
holes all over the baggie to let out the stink and fish slime. That
brings in the lobsters, which are bottom dwelling scavengers. Anyway,
you show me a lobster port and I'll show you odors that will stay in
your memory a long, long time. I glanced at the dirty harbor water
that oozed eight feet below me. Thank God at least for the huge tides
of the Northeast; they douched the filthy place twice a day. The
rotting fish guts were getting to me; I couldn't wait to get inside.

I walked across the sandy parking lot that led up to
the concrete walkway where I'd parked. I heard shouting down the
street, and the rumble and blast of a big Harley chopper as it tore
off and away. There was a knot of men standing around the entranceway
of a small bar down there. It was the infamous House of Mitch.
Compared to it the Schooner Race was your regular family pub.

I thought again of the bronze statue of the
fisherman, and the men who still risked their lives in the small
boats out in the North Atlantic. Some boats went out for one or two
weeks at a time. The men got four or five hours' sleep a day. They
lived on coffee, cigarettes, beer, and candy bars. When they got
back, either flushed with success or bitter with failure, they got
bombed. Sometimes a man could make five or six grand in one trip as
his share of the take, after the skipper's expenses. But sometimes
two weeks of hell resulted in nothing. And sometimes the boat didn't
come back at all. I'd heard stories of boats going out in the winter
and getting so loaded up with ice that they simply turned upside down
and slid under. And there's not a damn thing you can do about the
icing; you just can't chip it off fast enough.