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, Zurich, 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.