The waiter brought the drinks, no tray, a glass in one hand and a bottle in the other. Pitt looked up and asked, “What brand of tequila did the bartender have?”
“I think it's called Pancho Villa.”
“If I know my tequilas, Pancho Villa comes in a plastic bottle.”
The waiter twisted his lips as if trying to dredge up a vision seen many years previously. Then his face lit up. “Yeah, you're right. It does come in a plastic bottle. Great medicine for what ails you.”
“Nothing ails me at the moment,” said Pitt.
Giordino came as close to a smirk as he could get. “How much residue lies on the bottom of the bottle, and how much does it cost?”
“I bought a bottle in the Sonoran Desert during the Inca Gold project for a dollar sixty-seven,” said Pitt.
“Is it safe to drink?”
Pitt held his glass up to the light before taking a healthy swallow. Then he jokingly crossed his eyes and said, “Any port in a storm.”
The waiter returned from the kitchen with Giordino's oysters along with Pitt's gumbo. They decided on a main course of jambalaya and catfish. The Gulf oysters were so large that Giordino had to cut them apart as he would a steak. Pitt's bowl of gumbo would have satisfied a hungry lion. After stuffing their stomachs with a heaping platter of jambalaya, then ordering another Dixie beer and Pancho Villa tequila, they sat at the table and loosened their belts.
All during dinner, Pitt had rarely taken his eyes off the old man observing the poker players. “Who's the old fellow over there straddling the chair?” he asked the waiter. “I know him but can't place where we met.”
The waiter swiveled his eyes around the bar, stopping them on the old man. "Oh, him. He owns a fleet of fishing boats.
Mostly trawls for crab and shrimp. Owns a big catfish farm, too. Wouldn't know it to look at him, but he's a wealthy man."
“Do you know if he charters boats?”
“Dunno. You'll have to ask him.”
Pitt looked at Giordino. “Why don't you work the bar and see if you can learn where Qin Shang Maritime's towboats dump their trash?”
“And you?”
“I'll ask about the dredging operations upriver.”
Giordino nodded silently and rose from the table. Soon he was laughing amid several fishermen, regaling them with inflated stories of his fishing days off California. Pitt moved over to the old fisherman and stood beside him.
“Excuse me, sir, but I wonder if I might have a word with you.”
The gray-bearded man's blue-green eyes slowly examined Pitt from his belt buckle to his black curly hair. Then he nodded slowly, rose from his chair and motioned Pitt to a booth in one corner of the bar. After he settled in and ordered another beer, the fisherman said, “What can I do for you Mr....”
“Pitt.”
“Mr. Pitt. You're not from around the bayou country.”
“No, I'm with the National Underwater and Marine Agency out of Washington.”
“You doing marine research?”
“Not this trip,” said Pitt. “My colleagues and I are cooperating with the Immigration Service in trying to stop the illegal smuggling of aliens.”
The old man pulled a cigar stub from the pocket of an old windbreaker and lit it. “How can I help?”
“I would like to charter a boat to investigate an excavation upriver—”
“The canal dug by Qin Shang Maritime for landfill at Sung-ari?” the fisherman interrupted knowledgeably.
“The same.”
“Not much to see,” said the fisherman. “Except a big ditch where the Mystic Bayou used to be. Folks call it the Mystic Canal now.”
“I can't believe it took that much fill to build the port,” said Pitt.
“What muck dredged from the canal that wasn't used for landfill was barged out to sea and dumped out in the Gulf,” answered the fisherman.
“Is there a nearby community?” asked Pitt.
“Used to be a town called Calzas that sat at the end of the bayou a short ways off the Mississippi River. But it's gone.”
“Calzas no longer exists?” asked Pitt.
“The Chinese spread the word that they was doing the townspeople a service by providing them with boating access to the Atchafalaya. The truth is, they bought out the landowners. Paid them three times what the property was worth. What's left standing is a ghost town. The rest was bulldozed into the marsh.”
Pitt was confused. “Then what was the purpose of excavating a dead-end canal when they could have just as easily dug fill anywhere in the Atchafalaya Valley?”
“Everybody up and down the river is curious about that, too,” said the fisherman. “The problem is that friends of mine who have fished that bayou for thirty years are no longer welcome. The Chinese have run a chain across their new canal and no longer give access to fishermen. Nor hunters either.”
“Do they use the canal for barge traffic?”
The fisherman shook his head. “If you're thinking they smuggle illegal aliens up the canal, you can forget it. The only towboats and barges that come upriver out of Sungari turn northwest up Bayou Teche and stop at a landing beside an old abandoned sugar mill about ten miles from Morgan City. Qin Shang Maritime bought it when they was building Sungari. A rail yard that used to run alongside the mill was restored by the Chinese.”
“Where does it connect?”
“To the main Southern Pacific line.”
The muddy waters were beginning to clear. Pitt didn't say anything for several moments as he sat there, staring off into space. The wake he had observed behind the Sung Lien Star showed an unusual, yet defined roll beneath the churned surface that was not normal for the basic hull design of a cargo ship. It seemed to him the hull either displaced more water than was consistent with the ship's design, or carried a second, outer hull. In his mind he began to visualize a separate vessel, perhaps a submarine, attached to the keel of the container ship. Finally he asked, “Is there a name for the landing?”
“Used to be called Bartholomeaux after the man who built the mill back in nineteen-oh-nine.”
“In order to get close enough to check out Bartholomeaux without raising suspicion, I'll need to charter some type of fishing boat.”
The old fisherman stared across the table at Pitt and then he gave a little shrug and smiled. “I can do better than that. What you fellows need is a shantyboat.”
“A shantyboat?”
“Some call them campboats. People use them to wander up and down the waterways, mooring in the bayous beside towns or farms before moving on again. Often they're left moored in the same location and used as vacation cabins. Not many people live full-time on them anymore.”
“A shantyboat must be like a houseboat,” said Pitt.
“Except a houseboat doesn't usually travel about under its own power,” said the gray-bearded fisherman. “But I have a boat that's livable and has a good engine tucked away inside the hull. It's yours if you think it's suitable. And since you intend to use it for the good of the country, you can have it at no charge. Just so long as you bring it back as good as you found it.”
“I think the man has made us an offer we can't refuse,” said Giordino, who had wandered over from the bar and was eavesdropping on the conversation.