Seen from behind, she was a lean-hipped woman with silver hair, in a dress that clung. Nice.
“I hope you don’t mind, but I keep the lights dim this time of year. It’s because of turtles nesting. From May to October, they bury their eggs on the beach, and if the baby turtles see lights they crawl away from the ocean and die—” She stopped, catching herself. I heard her alto laughter once again. “Listen to me—telling a marine biologist his business. It would be like telling Charles LaBuff, someone who’s studied turtles forever.”
“Not quite the same. I’m a fish guy, mostly.” I was looking around the room, seeing the kitchen to my left, photos on walls and mantelpiece, a grand piano in the next room, its lid a glossy black ramp beneath the crystal chandelier. On a nearby desk, a single framed photo was visible, black-and-white. A woman.
I said, “You didn’t get much storm damage. You’re lucky.”
“Lucky, and good. This house, anyway. It was built by one of my relatives, Victor Dorn, in the late eighteen hundreds. How many hurricanes do you think it’s weathered in a century? I hope I’m as solid as this old dame when I’m a hundred.” She bent to dim a lamp, then stood, and turned.
For the first time, I got a clear look at her face. Tomlinson had described her as extraordinarily beautiful. She undoubtedly had been—two or more decades ago. Skin looses elasticity as we age, desiccated wrinkles multiply, and it hangs from our bones as we shrink.
The disappointment I felt was immediately replaced by guilt. Dismissing a person because of age? I’m not so shallow that I don’t recognize my own shallowness.
If Chestra Engle noticed, she was amused, not hurt. “Don’t you look dapper tonight. Here—let me turn the light brighter, so I can get a better look.”
She did. I stood there in my khaki slacks and black sport coat, face bandaged, and watched the woman age another five years.
“May I get you something to drink, Dr. Ford?”
“Please, Ms. Engle, just Ford. Or Marion.”
“Our friend Tomlinson always refers to you as Doc.”
I nodded. Fine.
“In that case, I’m Chess, or Chessie, short for Chestra. It’s an old family name that has something to do with music in one of those silly Norse languages no one understands anymore. As in orchestra?”
I smiled at her self-deprecating manner. “All right, Chess, I’d like a beer, if you have it.”
“A beer? Just a beer?” Her disappointment was sincere. “I so rarely get a chance to make a drink for a man. A real drink. May I? Scotch on the rocks? A highball?”
I hadn’t heard the term in years; didn’t know what it was, so I said, “A highball. That sounds good.” It seemed like the right thing to do: Please this nice lady who was eager to do what she’d done for men when she was younger.
S he had a dated, jazzy way of talking: “this old dame”…“guys and gals”…“we had a ball”…“this takes the cake!” Mostly, it was in her intonation—“That’s enchanting”—and sentence patterns that shifted abruptly from formal to Hollywood wiseguy—“A delightful man, but I told him, ‘Hey, kiddo, shake a leg.’”
Irony and amusement were there, too, a consistent subtext from a person who paid attention, had seen some places…her sharp eyes still saying, Show me. Prove it. A young woman, drop-dead gorgeous, was still alive inside Chestra Engle, looking out.
For the first ten minutes, it was a struggle not to check my watch. There were more interesting things to do than spend an evening with a woman her age. The highball helped. Turned out to be whiskey and ginger ale. I don’t drink either one, but I drank this. Gradually, her speech patterns began to sound stylish. The accent was Austrian, she told me, and she had a fun, straightforward view of the world that was charming.
I liked her. Understood why Tomlinson—Tommy, she called him—had been spending time here, but I didn’t understand why he’d been reluctant to discuss her. The age difference, maybe? No one has ever called the man shallow.
“Would you like another highball, Doc?”
“No, thanks. Water’s fine.” I’d mentioned the wreck a couple of times, thinking she’d want to discuss it. So far, no luck, and I tried again. “Chessie, I’m still not clear about your interest in the artifacts our pal found.”
My impatience received a wave of dismissal, and a smoky chuckle. “There’s time for that. Do you mind? I’d like to get to know each other better.”
It struck me that she was eager for company and didn’t want to let me go. I found it mildly irritating: She’d invited me to discuss a specific subject, but was behaving as if I’d accepted a social invitation. We seemed to perceive time differently.
The age difference maybe?
W e were on the balcony, now, where I’d watched her dance with Tomlinson. She stood at the rail. I sat in a deck chair, listening to the Gulf of Mexico pound the beach below. Clouds scudded overhead, reflecting pale starbursts from Sanibel Lighthouse.
Heavy seas out there in the darkness. We would not be diving tomorrow.
“I was dying to ask before but didn’t. What happened to your face?”
“I’m surprised you waited this long.”
“It would have been impolite. We didn’t know each other. Indelicate—it’s a word one seldom hears these days.”
I said, “During the hurricane, I got hit by something. Debris—something in the wind.”
The woman replied, “Really.” Not a question. She didn’t believe me, and it took me aback.
We’d exchanged the sort of information people trade when they’ve met. Her family had owned this house forever—called Southwind because that’s the direction it faced. Some of her happiest childhood memories had been here. She’d been in her Manhattan apartment when the hurricane hit. October was when she normally returned to Florida, but she came early because of the storm. Yes, the damage was terrible, and the aftereffects: homeless people; islanders out of work. Tomlinson? She met him on the beach a few days after the storm.
“Another lost soul wandering,” she told me. “It’s unusual for me to talk to anyone because I go out only at night. Even on an island like Sanibel, I suppose it’s dangerous for a woman alone. But…the storm was a reason to be friendlier, somehow. Or am I being a sap?”
She couldn’t go out during the day, she told me, because of a skin condition. Doctor’s orders. First she freckled, and then the freckles quickly turned to skin cancers. She didn’t say it, but I suspected the malady was xeroderma, a condition first documented in Guatemala, where I’ve spent a fair amount of time.
“You’re not a sap,” I told her. Then I glanced at my watch for the first time. She noticed.
“The wreck your friend found,” she said immediately, “how far off-shore is it?”
It took me a moment to react. “Shouldn’t you first tell me why you’re interested? I don’t have a lot of experience, but I’ve heard that treasure hunters try to keep their secrets secret.”
The woman turned, saying, “Fair enough,” her voice a forbearing smile. Above her shoulder, I could see the new moon magnified by the horizon’s curvature. It was huge, an orange scimitar, as pointed as a cat’s pupil.
“Tommy described some of the things you found. German war medals, one with diamonds, I think he said.”
“Nazi war medals, yes. That’s right.”
“Do you think there’s more to be found?”
“I have no idea. There’s wreckage. We plan to dive it and have a look.”
“When?”
“We wanted to go tomorrow, but”—I nodded as the wind stirred the bare tree canopy, and motioned toward the beach where collapsing waves made a waterfall rumble—“the weather’s terrible, so maybe the day after. It’s supposed to be calmer on Saturday, then it’s going to get bad again.”
She used both hands to hold her glass, a heavy crystal tumbler. She lifted it to her lips. “Do you really believe the wreck was buried by a hurricane?”
“I think you misunderstood Tomlins
on. I believe it’s possible that it was uncovered by the recent hurricane. In this area, the Gulf of Mexico is sand bottom. Picture a desert hidden by water.”
She smiled, head tilted, thinking about it. “What a lovely image. Sand dunes. Sheiks riding sea horses. Turtles paddling around the Sphinx.”
“You’re right about the sand dunes,” I said, trying not to show my impatience. “Wind creates underwater currents that are proportional in strength. Dunes shift; the bottom changes.”
“Then your wreck could have also been buried by a hurricane.”
“Yes,” I said. I stood and looked at my watch again. “I suppose so.”
“Dr. Ford”—her tone was instantly businesslike—“I have a proposition to make you. You and your friends. I would like to finance your…? What would you call it—your ‘recovery expedition’? You yourself told me that the man who found the wreck is out of work. And what you’re proposing to do—excavate and salvage—sounds as if it could take weeks, even months, to finish properly.”
She was facing me. There was a percussion flare of lighthouse and clouds behind her, as she continued, “I would pay him a salary—whatever you say is fair—plus all related expenses. There was another man you mentioned, a fishing guide.”
“Javier Castillo.”
“That’s right. We could hire him, too. You put in your time and expertise, organize a team, and I’ll fund it…within reasonable limits, of course. Would you also expect a salary?”
“No. I have my own work, but I find this interesting.”
“Wonderful! An even better deal for me.”
I was looking into her face, lips still full, those dark eyes, thinking: Yes, at one time an extraordinary beauty. I asked, “What would you expect in return, Chestra? Odds are slim we’ll find anything else valuable.”
Her laughter was unexpectedly theatrical. “Are you asking what share of the profit I expect? I don’t know…whatever’s fair, I suppose. But that’s not why I want to be involved. It’s so exciting—shipwrecks and treasure. I want to be part of it. Show me what you’ve found; what you find. Stories to take back to New York—that’s what I’ll get in return. I want to finance stories that will keep me warm all winter.”
Theatrical. Yes, that described her.
I said slowly, as a statement: “You don’t want anything in return? No matter what we find, it’s ours?”
“Well,” she said, turning away, “I would expect to at least see what you brought up. There might be one or two small items that I’d want to keep…as mementos.”
“The diamond war medal, for instance?”
“No,” she replied immediately. “Not that. You and your team can sell it, split the money, I don’t care. One or two small things…” Her voice drifted for a moment before she caught herself, and smiled. “I wouldn’t take anything of value. Just mementos. And the fun of it!”
Theatrical—my impression hadn’t changed. I placed my glass on a table, looked at her, and said, “Really.” Using the same word, the same tone that she had before, to let her know I thought she was lying.
I checked my watch: 11:25 P.M. I told her I had to leave.
12
It was nearly midnight. Bern Heller could still hear the bulldozer as he sat in his condo. He was going through his grandfather’s papers, taking a few at a time from the briefcase, then moving them to a file, or the trash.
The photo of the unidentified woman, though, remained on the table. The woman with her film-star face, full lips, hair brushed glossy onto her shoulder, dark eyes smoldering through cigarette smoke.
Idiotic, to keep the picture out. The woman had to be—what?—in her late sixties. Maybe seventies. An old hag, if she wasn’t already dead.
Even so…
Her eyes. Mostly, it was her face and eyes. Beautiful, that wasn’t the word. Sexy—she was, but that didn’t say it, either. Looking at her gave Bern a strange feeling. It was a swelling sort of feeling, but an emptiness, too. Like there were things he could want and work for all his life, it didn’t matter because they would never, ever be his.
This woman—just another example.
It created an emptiness. Anger, too.
He left her photo at his elbow, and turned his attention to the briefcase.
There were three passports—not one—he’d discovered. One German, one U.S., both issued to Bern’s grandfather, the same young man in the photos with Henry Ford and Charles Lindbergh.
The third was also U.S. but newer, issued July 1956. The photo was nearly twenty years older, and it at least resembled the old man. The blond hair almost gone, but the vicious smile unmistakable.
Bern had the passports on the table, comparing them, the woman’s photo nearby, Moe and the bulldozer still out there rumbling and beeping, forward and reverse.
His grandfather’s German passport had a green cover. Bern took it into his hand. There was a Nazi eagle embossed on the front, the eagle holding a swastika in its talons.
It was the same eagle he’d seen on the medal that Moe had handed over to the cops.
Bern wiggled in his chair. He opened the passport, finally getting somewhere.
The inside pages were yellowish. His grandfather’s photo—in his late teens—was on the right, his signature beneath, written with an old-timey flourish.
On the left was the Nazi eagle again, and REISPASS printed in bold script. Next to the eagle, but twice its size, was a faded red J. The J had been stamped over words in German, a language that Bern never bothered to learn because so many people in his family spoke it it was the best way to ignore their constant bickering.
What did the J mean?
He leafed through the passport, seeing that the old man had done some traveling. France, Switzerland, Denmark, some other countries with names that Bern didn’t recognize. Probably places that no longer existed. The Nazi swastika was stamped in black upon each return.
The last stamp, though, was U.S. customs, New York. It was dated February 1939.
The pages were empty after that.
Bern opened his grandfather’s first U.S. passport. It had a blue cover, and had been issued five years later, 1944—his grandfather a citizen by then, already a nickel-dime hoarder, and owner of several thousand acres of Florida land that was supposedly worthless, sometimes a buck an acre.
Not a customs stamp in the book.
Hmmm…
Bern opened the third passport, also U.S., issued in ’56, Miami. There were trips to South America, Europe, Africa documented, the late 1950s being a fun time to travel, apparently. Or maybe it was a way for the old man to avoid his daughter, and the oversized baby she never stopped bitching about—Bern. Even in his teens, she’d say to him, “I’ve never been the same, you tore up my insides so bad.” Or: “You know why you hate Grandy so much? ’Cause you two’re alike. You even look alike.”
The thought of that made Bern want to spew.
Was it true?
He opened the German passport, then the newest American passport. Bern held the photos side by side, trying to imagine himself at similar ages. Studied his grandfather’s nose, the eyes, the shape of the jaw and head…then stopped, puzzled, as he compared one photo with the other.
There were similarities: the hair, the prominent nose, the light colored eyes. But could age change a jawline? The width of a forehead?
These are photos of the same person?
In a little more than a decade, the old man had changed from a decent-looking guy into a pig.
Was that possible?
Bern imagined himself as a football player, five years college, two and a half in the NFL. They’d taken tons of pictures. He’d never been great looking, but, yeah, his face had changed over the years. Maybe a lot.
It scared him. One day, he’d be as nasty looking as his grandfather?
The photo of the woman was at his elbow.
Hard to believe, a girl this pretty. She’d let the old pig touch her?
Bern touched his huge i
ndex finger to the woman’s photo. He looked into her face, feeling her eyes.
In the photo, there were details he’d missed. Each time he looked, he noticed something different. It was fun.
The lighting was fancy. It took awhile to figure it out. The photographer had set up the shot so that the woman’s eyes were shaded, staring through smoke from shadows, but her hair was glossy blond. There had to be lights to her left, but also behind her because the smoke from her cigarette was backlit, a translucent curling haze.
Bern smiled. There was more.
In the sequined dress, the woman’s hip was canted because she was leaning against a grand piano, a black one. There was a silver cigarette case in her left hand. The silver case was partially hidden because the hand was on her hip. Her right hand was at ear level, cigarette between her fingers, nails polished but clear.
The cigarette case, that was interesting.
Were those engraved initials showing above her fingers?
He wished he had a magnifying glass; decided he’d get one. Maybe take this picture to one of those camera places, and have it blown up. Why not?
Had he had even touched a woman as beautiful as this? Or seen a woman who came close? In movies, sure. A few. But not in person. Not where he could reach out and put his fingers on her flesh.
The woman’s face. She had the fullest, most sensual lips. Those eyes…
Bern stared until he began to experience the strange swelling sort of feeling that had become familiar over the years. The feeling that there were things in life that were out of his reach, no matter how badly he wanted them. It created an emptiness in him…then anger. A woman who looked like this would never come to him willingly. Was that fair? No. Did he have a right to resent it? Yes.
One way to deal with the feeling was to go ahead and take what he wanted. It was something Bern had done before. Never around home, but if he was on a trip…Meet a woman who lived alone, don’t give her a name, but follow her. Or spot someone attractive in a parking lot, walk up and smile.
It was justifiable, as long as he didn’t overdo it—which had happened only twice, both mistakes recent, both here in Florida. Both times, buying garbage bags at convenience stores afterward, then driving half the night to a place he knew was safe.
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