by Todd Borg
“Hardly,” I said. “But no tender garage?”
“Oh! I forgot to tell you. You’re exactly right. The tender has its own bay, and it’s the cutest little thing. I saw on the computer how it works. If you’re looking at the stern, the tender deck has two stairways, starboard and port, that lead up to the lounge and cockpit and sundeck. And right between the stairways, pretty much hidden like a secret door, is the garage door. It lifts up, and inside is the tender and your various boat toys, scuba gear and such. Close that baby, and no one knows it’s there.” Shirl finally stopped to breathe.
“Any idea whose boat it is?” I asked.
“Nope. I even asked some of the yachting types who’ve come in since. They’ve never heard of it. I mean, sure, this lake is big, but how you gonna hide a yacht like that? You’d think most people in those circles would know about it. It’s kind of a phantom lux-yacht, probably hiding in some boathouse most of the time. And with the black hull, it look’s like something in a movie, like a vampire yacht. Hey, that would be a cool idea for a movie, huh? A vampire yacht?”
“Yeah,” I said. “That would be cool. Thanks so much for your time. And Shirl?”
“Yeah?”
“I don’t know how much you like your current job, but I’m betting that Sunseeker Yachts would hire you as a salesperson.”
“Oh, my God, are you serious? That would be, like, a dream job! Wouldn’t that be a dream job?”
“Yeah, Shirl, it would definitely be a dream job. Keep it in mind.”
I hung up.
Like Shirl, I found the Predator 54 on my computer, and her over-the-top description was perfectly apt for the futuristic, floating, speed machine.
Armed with the name of a boat model, I renewed my online search, typing all the stuff I tried before but with the addition of the words Predator 54.
Fifteen minutes later, I found what I was looking for.
It was on a woman’s personal blog dated the previous July.
Roughing It in Tahoe – Boat Camping!
Last week, Jim and I were at an outdoor party at Jarrett and Suzanne’s in Los Altos Hills, but it was so hot that you had to either be in the pool or, as soon as you dried off, you had to go inside. So the conversation turned to going up to Tahoe to cool off. Then Bob (RKS Properties for those of you who aren’t up on the happening crowd) said he was going up that weekend, and he invited all of us to come up and ride on his new boat. Of course, most people had plans. But Jim and I went along with Jarrett and Suzanne. Bob and Tricia were the perfect hosts, and so was their dog Pretty Girl! And their new Predator 54 – named Beats Working – is the perfect boat!
The blog showed a bunch of pictures of the three happy couples on the boat. Some had been taken from way down a dock and showed the entire boat. In two of the pictures, the prominent subject was a beautiful Greyhound, its leash held by a middle-aged man who was dressed like a model, his clothes freshly-pressed and looking very suave.
As Shirl, the marina lady, had described, the boat had a black hull and white topsides, and it looked very fast. I wasn’t certain that it was the boat I’d seen in the dark, but it looked like it. Mostly, the connection to RKS Properties and the Steven’s Peak Resort was too much of a coincidence, so I assumed it was the boat I’d seen.
Most people leave their boats in dry dock over the winter because winter in Tahoe is brutal on boats. The snow melts on the warm days and runs into pieces of equipment and into drainage channels. When it refreezes and expands, it can cause major damage. And if you have a boat with indoor heating, that exacerbates the problem. The only way a boat can be out and about in the winter is if it is out of the snow during storms. The “Beats Working” was too big for most dry dock storage. So either it was kept in covered wet storage by a marina, or it had its own boathouse to keep it free from the onslaught of winter weather.
I’d just spoken to nearly every marina, and I felt like someone would have mentioned it if the boat was in their care. The reasonable conclusion was that the boat was kept in its own boathouse.
If I could find that boathouse, I could find Bob. At least, when he was in town. If I could find Bob, I could learn what Ned’s spymaster was doing.
So I began another internet search, looking for Bob Somebody of RKS Properties. Real estate records are public. I spent some time searching online databases. I was looking for a lake shore address owned by Bob and Tricia, but with no last name, I had no luck.
Although not all Tahoe property records are online, they can all be obtained by personal visits to the county courthouses. That would take a lot of time. Another more likely problem was that Bob and Tricia’s Tahoe home might be owned by a Limited Liability Corporation. Sometimes people do that for tax purposes. Sometimes they do it to keep their addresses out of the public eye. It would be difficult and time-consuming for me to find Bob’s house if it was owned by an LLC, even if he owned the LLC. And Bob and Tricia might keep the Beats Working in the boathouse of a friend, in which case I might never find it.
Now that I knew that RKS Properties was run by a guy named Bob, I thought I’d give the phone approach another try.
So once again I went through the multiple voice menus at RKS, got to an actual human secretary, and did my best performance of a guy who was one of Bob’s old friends. Best old buddy. I was at his wedding. We got drunk together in college.
It didn’t work. At the end, the secretary was so frustrated that he threatened to hang up on me.
So I hung up first just to show that, like Bob, I was a guy who was used to being in charge.
I realized that the easiest approach for me to find Bob might simply be to drive a boat around the shore of the lake and look for the Beats Working. The boat might be locked up in a boathouse. But because the water level was down several feet from the high-level mark, I could look under the lower walls of most boathouses. A black hull wasn’t easy to see in the shadows. But it was unusual, so it would be relatively easy to identify the correct boat. Unfortunately, it was a 75-mile trip around the lake. But maybe I’d get lucky and find it before I had to make the entire trip.
And I knew someone who would loan me a boat, my patron Jennifer Salazar.
THIRTY-THREE
I dialed Jennifer’s cell number.
After four rings, she answered, excited and breathless as only a kid can be.
“Owen!” she said, “I’m so glad you called! Where are you? How is Street? Is his largeness still catching bad guys? Is it snowing in Tahoe? Do you need a boat or something?”
“Jennifer, such enthusiasm makes me think you were expecting a boyfriend to call.”
“Actually, I was. But I’m glad to hear from you, too!”
“You have a boyfriend? But I wasn’t consulted. Don’t I have approval privileges? If not, I still have approval responsibility.”
“Well, I want your approval, but I’m almost seventeen years old. I have to grow up sometime.”
“You grew up in the brain department about eight years ago. You’re not allowed to grow up in the sex department for another six years. There are rules about these things.”
“More of Owen’s precepts?” she said. “And who said anything about sex, anyway?”
“Where I come from, a boyfriend means sex.”
“Owen, you’re so parochial.”
“Parochial precepts might save you. And shouldn’t you be in school instead of talking to me on the phone?” I added. “That’s the first thing boyfriends do, you know, convince you to skip school and change your major to amore.”
“I am in school. I was in a lecture class on Descartes when you called. Anything for a break from that. Of course, he’s pretty important, but to call him the father of philosophy... gimme a break. Your call is a welcome relief. I sit in the back of that class hoping for a reason to leave prematurely.”
“Why would you want a break?”
“The class is boring. Tedious. It stretches credulity to attach so much importance to this guy. It’s
not like he’s the Einstein of philosophy. Not even the Newton. He’s like the Jiffy Lube of philosophy. He came up with a couple of good concepts and wrapped it up in a clever marketing package. To ascribe all future philosophical insights to a Descartes foundation would be like saying that the robot missions to Mars were only possible because of the lubrication business model laid down by Jiffy.”
“But I thought all classes at Harvard were exciting.”
Jennifer burst into guffaws and shrieks and giggles. “That’s good. That’s funny. Wait ’til I tell that to my friends.”
“You will of course exclude my name when you quote any of my pronouncements that they might think dumb?”
“Ha! The marquee at the Harvard Comedy Club will read, ‘Jennifer Salazar performs Owen McKenna, Boston Native And Harvard Apologist.’ I’m going to change my major to performance art. There’s money in standup comedy, you know.”
“But you already have four hundred million.”
“Not if I keep lending you boats, which then get destroyed.”
“Speaking of which...”
“You DO want a boat! I knew it!”
“I just need to make a little trip around the lake and look for a certain boat that’s involved in a spy network.”
“Spies in Tahoe! Wow! The most excitement we ever get at Harvard is when someone is late returning a library book.”
“Libraries are a critical part of the foremost learning institution in the world,” I said.
More guffaws and giggles. “Okay, do you want to use the runabout or the cruiser or the sailboat? Oh, wait, the sailboat is the one you sunk.”
“Ouch, that hurts,” I said.
“So the cruiser it is, then. Do you remember her name?”
“I don’t think I ever knew.”
“Babar’s Mistress,” she said.
“Because of your elephant project. I like it.”
“I thought you would.”
“How are the elephants, by the way?” I asked.
“Not good. Habitat destruction is still rampant. But worse, ivory poaching remains so severe that elephant survival in the wild is very tenuous. When I was young and naïve, I thought I could just use my money to buy more land in India and Africa and set up protected wildlife havens.”
“But now that you’re old and wise?”
“Now I know that bad people will come onto land, private or not, and kill the elephants anyway. And do you know what terrible euphemism the sympathizers use to minimize public perception of elephant poaching? Resource extraction. Can you believe it?”
“That is disgusting,” I said. “What are you going to do?”
“The key is worldwide education. People need to understand that to buy something made of ivory is to kill more elephants. We’re looking at the very real possibility of the extinction of elephants. It’s so heartbreaking that I sometimes lose hope.”
“Hang in there, Jennifer. The elephants need you.”
I heard a sniffle and cough on the line, and I realized that Jennifer was losing her innocence at a deep level.
“I’ll call my caretaker and let him know you’re coming,” she said, her voice a bit brighter. “When shall I say?”
“Tomorrow morning?”
“Will do. Just one question,” she said.
“Yeah?”
“Not that I can’t afford it, but what are the chances that this spy mission will result in Babar’s Mistress being blown up or sunk or riddled with fifty-caliber bullet holes?”
“Less than ten percent for any single one of those. Chances of all three happening at once are miniscule.”
“Okay. And one request?”
“Name it,” I said.
“Will you take Street and Spot? I’d like to have that image in my mind. You’re like the perfect family.”
“Except that Street doesn’t eat brats. She even disapproves of me and Spot eating brats. What kind of perfect family can we be with such a bratwurst divide?”
“Okay, she’s flawed but she’s worth it,” Jennifer said.
THIRTY-FOUR
The next morning, Street and Spot and I drove down the East Shore and turned in at the big gate with the Tiffany lamps. I pressed the button and identified myself to the caretaker. The gate opened, and I drove the Jeep along the winding drive through the Jeffrey pine forest. The snow-covered ground looked clean and spare and uncluttered white. The tall trees had all been trimmed of dead branches up to about 60 feet, which made the landscape look like an abstract, high-mountain version of a Roman colonnade with huge columns of wood instead of marble, arrayed in a random layout instead of in regular rows.
I pulled around the curve at the end and parked in front of the 40-room, French Renaissance mansion, the personal lake estate that Jennifer Salazar called the Mausoleum ever since she was nearly murdered two and a half years ago. Although she was and still is a minor, the courts and state legislature took note of her excessive precociousness – and the sizable chunk of her inheritance that she decided to invest in Nevada – and made an exception to the laws. Ever since, Jennifer is the only Nevada resident under 18 who is considered an adult and doesn’t need a legal guardian.
Street and I got out, and I let Spot out just as the caretaker walked out of the garage, which looked large enough to hold ten vehicles. As Spot ran up to him, he raised his arms in the air and froze. He didn’t project fear as he held his arms up, but simple practicality. He didn’t want his hands mangled by a dog.
“Spot, no,” I said. Spot ignored me and sniffed the motionless man all over. I had to walk up and pull Spot away from him.
“Sorry,” I said.
The man lowered his arms. “Dog’s bigger than a mountain lion,” he said, glaring at Spot. The man had a grizzled face, hard edge of jaw and nose, and red gray hair the texture of wire.
“Randall, right?” I said.
“Wow, good memory.”
When I got close to the caretaker, I understood Spot’s interest. The man smelled of fish.
The caretaker must have seen me sniffing the air.
“I’ve been cleaning fish in the garage. Miss Salazar allows me to fish off the dock when I have the time. Our arrangement is that half of my catch goes into the freezer for her, and I get to eat the other half.”
“I wouldn’t think that she’s home enough to eat her share,” Street said.
“No, she’s not. So she has me drive her share to the local kitchen for the homeless, and she gives it to them. Let me give these mitts another go in the wash, and then I can take you to the boathouse. I’ll be right back.”
He went back into the garage. In a minute he returned, drying his hands on a towel, smelling no different. “You’ll be taking out the big boat, then?” he said as we walked around the house on a flagstone path.
“Yes, please,” I said.
He looked up at the sunny sky. “Nice day for a winter ride.”
“Actually, we’re just looking for a boat. Maybe you’ve seen it. A fifty-nine foot cruiser called a Predator Fifty-Four.”
“White top, black hull?” he said.
“Yeah,” I said, surprised that he would know it.
“I’m a bit of a boat fancier. Sometimes I use the binoculars to watch boats. After my chores, of course.”
“Of course,” I said.
“I’ve seen the Predator several times since it first appeared last summer. A standout craft by any measure. I think her home port is someplace a few miles north of here. She always comes and goes at an angle that indicates where she usually docks. I’d guess Cave Rock or thereabouts.”
“Thanks. Good tip.”
He took us into the boathouse. Babar’s Mistress rocked gently. Lapping sounds filled the space as small waves bounced off the boat’s side.
“Didn’t there used to be two slips in here?” I asked, thinking back to the time Street and Spot and I rescued Jennifer from her would-be killer.
“Yes. The runabout was here,” the caretaker said, p
ointing. “But Babar’s Mistress is too big for easy dry dock, so Miss Salazar had the boathouse renovated and the roof raised to fit it. The runabout is in dry dock instead. In the summer, the runabout goes onto the boat hoist.”
“Hey, Spot, wanna go for a ride?”
Spot has been on many boats, so it was familiar territory. He followed Street onto the boat, wagging with enthusiasm even though some of his boating experiences had ended badly.
The caretaker followed us onboard and gave us a quick tour. The boat had features similar to the Predator 54 but without such slick styling. I suffered a brief pang of envy when I saw that Jennifer’s cruiser was two staterooms bigger than my log cabin, and it had an automatic dishwasher.
We went up to the upper cockpit, and the caretaker gave us basic instructions on running the bilge pump, starting the engine, shifting and steering and working the lines, running the computer and the radio.
“You’ve piloted big boats before, right?”
“Sure,” I said, thinking back on the time I got in a canoe and remarked on how much bigger it was than the kayak I’d ridden in a year before. “What’s the displacement on this ride?” I had to look away from Street who was distracting me by rolling her eyes as if they were loose in her skull.
“Forty-eight thousand pounds,” he said. “So you have to go slow when you ease up to a dock or bring her back into this boathouse.”