by Jay Giles
He got it under control, the two talking in Portuguese as she led the way, her cane thump, thump, thumping with each step, to a long, narrow room that extended along the building’s water side. The floors were covered in worn blue carpeting, the walls in knotty-pine paneling. A large picture window overlooked the work area. Wooden chairs were scattered in random groupings. With a wave of her hand, she indicated we should take seats around a large wooden conference table.
“She said Pena’s on the phone,” Wullenwebber explained, settling gratefully into a seat. “He’ll be here in a minute.”
I nodded and used the time to get documents out of my FedEx box. I had things organized in tidy stacks by the time he arrived.
Pena was older than I expected. He might have been pushing 85. He was a slight man, stooped, with a lined, weathered face. What hair he had left was silver, cut short. His sparse but neatly trimmed beard still retained a little of its original black. It was his eyebrows that were out of control. They were a jumble that stuck-out an inch from his forehead. Under those massive brows, were deeply set, very intelligent looking eyes. It was a face that was saved from looking foreboding by a mouth that seemed to always be on the verge of a smile. He wore workman’s clothes—a blue chambray work shirt with the sleeves rolled-up, khaki pants, and brown hard-toed work boots. He extended his hand in greeting. His grip was strong; his hand hard and calloused.
Wullenwebber started merrily jabbering, nodding every so often at me.
I smiled knowingly.
Pena’s face was serene, his voice soft and resonate.
After one back and forth with Pena, Wullenwebber popped up explosively from his seat. “Sure,” he said excitedly. He looked over at me still sitting, a little startled by his sudden exuberance. “He’s offered to take us on a tour of the Venetian.”
Had my attention. I wanted to learn what all the fuss was about.
Chapter 9
What a letdown. The Venetian was old and no matter how much refurbishment she’d received, she looked it. She was 155-feet in length with a long main deck featuring dated square windows and a large open aft deck. Atop the main deck, she had a blocky bridge with a spacious sun deck aft. New yachts were sleeker, glossier, sexier. It was like looking at a 50-year-old Ferrari. A classic, sure. But not in the same league as today’s Ferraris.
However, one of the things I’d learned from going on appraisals with Tiff was that if something was old and high quality, it was valuable. So I gave the Venetian the benefit of the doubt and studied Pena’s exterior refurbishments. Her brightwork had been newly varnished and her hull and superstructure painted gloss white with tasteful red and beige accents. All her metal trim looked new.
Beside me, Wullenwebber’s mouth hung open. “Wow.”
Did he know something about boats? “You think so?”
“Well, yeah. She’s stately, really stately.”
Stately?
I turned my attention back to the Venetian. He wasn’t wrong. She was old, but there was something elegant about her.
“You know, stately,” Wullenwebber said enthusiastically, “as in having a white-tie dinner party on the aft deck with canapés on silver serving trays and everybody drinking Martinis from long-stemmed glasses.”
That so caught me by surprise, I turned to stare at him. “You go to those often?”
A rosy flush started at his neck and rose to his chubby cheeks. “No. But if this was my boat, I’d be having them every weekend.” He grinned slyly. “I’d make partner in no time. Heck, serve ‘em enough Martinis and they might make me managing partner on the spot.”
Wullenwebber’s fantasy had me chuckling. Pena, took that as a sign our side conversation was over and stepped off the dock onto the Venetian’s aft deck, motioning for us to follow. As soon as he had the two of us on the boat, he launched into her history.
Seems a boat broker in Buenos Aries, Ari Katzman, discovered her languishing in a commercial boat salvage yard hidden between an auto ferry and a decommissioned navel frigate. For Katzman, it was like finding a work by a Renaissance master at a yard sale stacked between two paintings of dogs playing poker. He didn’t quite know what he had, but he knew it was valuable. Katzman negotiated a pittance of a price, extracted her from the inmates on nautical death row, photographed her, and sent the photos to a number of ship restoration companies.
Pena recognized her as an early Feadship, the company created by Dutch shipyards after World War II to build and export luxury craft. He began researching her provenance and found a ship matching her photo had been designed for Feadship by the famous Naval Architect, Henri de Voogt. According to Feadship’s records, that yacht had been commissioned in 1950 by an Argentinean listed on the documents only as J. Peron. Considering the cost of the yacht, the J. Peron in question could only be Juan Peron, Argentina’s President. To be sure, Pena compared signatures and found them to be a close match. Peron apparently ordered the yacht midway through his first term as President, perhaps as a present to his wife, Evita. Pena knew Peronist sentiment still ran strong in South America. The mere thought this might have been Evita’s yacht made it beyond valuable.
Pena immediately offered to buy the boat from Katzman only to learn it had already been sold to Nina Cabrera. Pena contacted Cabrera and tried to buy the boat, ultimately offering three times what Cabrera had paid for it. When Cabrera refused, Pena made the case for letting him restore the yacht. Cabrera agreed, and the boat was towed to the Pena Boatworks from Buenos Aires.
I’d only been half-listening to Wullenwebber’s translation until he mentioned Juan Peron and Evita. That was the trifecta. Tiff used to say if it was old and high quality, it was valuable, but if it was old, high quality, and had been owned by someone famous it was priceless. My imagination went crazy. At auction, I bet this boat could be worth 50 or 60 million. I wondered if Sloane even knew what he had.
Wullenwebber caught my eye, smiled and with pinkie extended pantomimed taking a drink from a long-stemmed martini glass.
You have no idea, I thought.
Pena, finished with his history lesson, was moving about the aft deck, talking and pointing out things of interest.
Wullenwebber translated. “He’s saying much of the decking had to be replaced, and the all metal work—railings, latches, knobs—is new.”
Finished with the aft deck, Pena held a door open for us. We stepped into the salon.
Wullenwebber listened to Pena, then said. “All of the woodwork in this room was replaced to give the room an Art Deco feel.”
The space looked like something that should have been in Architectural Digest, with richly appointed sofas, handsome leather club chairs, elegant Turkish rugs, wooden chests and tables. “Ask him about the furniture.”
Wullenwebber did and translated, “All of the furniture was created by local craftsmen. Each piece is an original.”
Great. That was going to make the settlement cost higher.
We moved on to the kitchen. I’d expected a small galley kitchen. After all, this was a ship. It’s where the term originated. This kitchen, however, was spacious with plenty of room for multiple cooks. The counters were dark granite, the cabinets light grained wood. The appliances were all stainless: huge Sub-Zero fridge, walk-in wine fridge, double ovens, commercial six-burner cook top with a flume hood, double two-drawer dishwashers, and two prep sinks as well as the main sink.
In comparison, my condo had a toaster oven.
Pena opened a cabinet drawer, gave a little push to close it. The drawer closed the rest of the way on its own.
“Self-closing doors,” Wullenwebber explained, mimicking Pena’s actions on a drawer of his own.
It was a nice kitchen, sure. But the more I looked at it, the more it reminded me of up-scale Florida kitchens. “Ask him who planned this kitchen?”
Wullenwebber’s brows knitted. “Who what?”
“Who designed this kitchen?”
“Oh, yeah, yeah,” he said quickly and posed the
question to Pena.
I didn’t need to wait for the translation. I heard Pena say, “Mrs. Cabrera.”
To Wullenwebber: “Ask him about the furniture in the salon?”
“That was Mr. and Mrs. Cabrera. Both were involved,” Wullenwebber translated.
We moved on to the dining room, where two workmen in dark blue overalls were unwinding protective paper padding from the legs of a large circular table with Art Deco inlay.
Pena spoke to the workmen, then to Wullenwebber.
“The table was custom made for the boat,” Wullenwebber said. “It was supposed to be delivered a week ago, but they had trouble with the lacquer drying.”
The wood did have a deep luster to it. I wondered how many coats of lacquer it took to achieve that effect as one of the workers used a rubber mallet to carefully tap the top of one of the legs into a fitted groove in the bottom of the tabletop.
Pena was watching, too, and said something Wullenwebber quickly translated. “The table is held together by interlocking wood pieces. No screws or nails were used. Pretty cool, huh?” I think that last part was Wullenwebber.
“Impressive,” I said and ran a hand along the back of one of the eight chairs that went with the table. They appeared to be custom, too, with carved backs and deco fabric on the cushions. “Nice.”
Pena beamed at me. He either knew the words or got the gist.
The master suite was next—bedroom, sitting room, office, and two baths. His and hers, I guess.
“Both baths were completely redone,” Wullenwebber translated.
As we left the suite, I glanced at the bed. King size, undoubtedly. Yet, it felt small in the space.
We walked quickly through four guest staterooms and did an even quicker tour of the crews’ quarters below decks before finishing our tour on the bridge.
Pena sat in the captain’s chair, talked, and reverently touched the ship’s controls. “They’ve installed all the very latest navigation, radar, telco,” Wullenwebber gushed. “Everything’s brand new.”
Pena smiled.
Wullenwebber smiled.
Both of them looked at me.
It had been an impressive tour. Pena’s workmanship appeared to be impeccable. While he’d done a masterful job of reviving the Venetian’s faded glory, I was sure the glory reviving business didn’t come cheap. I wouldn’t have hazarded a guess as to how many hours and how much money Pena had invested in her. Whatever it was, Sloane wasn’t going to want to pay it. The tour had been fun. Now we were to the ugly part where I browbeat the vendor and make him accept pennies on the dollar. I smiled ruefully. “Let’s go back to the conference room and talk.”
When we returned, my stacks of papers were just where I’d left them. I took the top sheets from the left hand stack, handed them to Pena, said to Wullenwebber, “Explain that this is a U.S. Court order giving Inland Bank and Trust ownership of all Mr. and Mrs. Cabrera’s assets—including the Venetian.”
Pena held the papers, his dark eyes looked at them carefully as Wullenwebber talked.
I handed Pena a sheet from the middle pile. “Explain that this document appoints me as Inland Bank and Trust’s representative and authorizes me to take the ship back to the United States.”
I waited while Wullenwebber explained that one. As soon as he finished, I handed him entire right pile, the Brazilian paperwork. “Explain this is the Brazilian court’s recognition of our claim.”
Pena, face serious, studied those documents as Wullenwebber talked him through them. When they finished the last document, Pena held up a finger.
“Does he have a question?” I asked Wullenwebber.
Wullenweber’s mouth opened to ask, but Pena was already talking.
When Pena finished, Wullenwebber shook his head sadly, sending his chipmunk cheeks bouncing. “Well, gosh. In the spirit of good faith, he wants you to know the ship’s not ready to travel. The engines need to be replaced. Seems Mr. Cabrera promised to send a deposit on the work, but the money never came. When Pena asked Mr. Cabrera about it, Cabrera told him he was going to have someone else work on the engines.”
I had trouble reconciling what I’d seen with what I was hearing. Fix the fancy woodwork but leave the junk engines? This made no sense. “Do they work at all?”
I waited while Pena and Wullenwebber went back and forth. Finally, Wullenwebber summoned up a big breath, blew out. “Sort of. He has a mechanic who can keep them running. He’s offered to send the mechanic with you on your trip to keep the engines going.”
I looked at Pena. His face was serene, gaze kind, hands folded respectfully in front of him on the table. He was the very picture of a man of honor, a throwback to an earlier age where your word was your bond and business was done with a handshake. I sensed his offer was genuine. “Thank him for me, will you Chris. I appreciate his offer.”
“Sure, Mr. T.”
I placed the final document in front of him. “Explain this is the vendor release. I need for him to let me know how much money he’s spent refurbishing the Venetian. Once we agree on a settlement figure, I’ll have the money wired to his account and he’ll need to sign this release.”
Wullenwebber recounted all that.
Pena held up an index finger again, got up from table.
“He’s going to get the numbers for you. He says it will only take a couple of minutes.”
Pena returned quickly, followed minutes later by two bubbly, dark-haired young women. One carried a big leather-bound ledger. The other an adding machine, the kind with a spool of paper. The two women quickly took seats at the table, opened the ledger, and began chattering back and forth. Pena watched over them the way a grandfather would his granddaughters, which they might have been.
The adding machine clickity-clacked and paper spooled out. The woman working the machine pulled the paper up to look at it, tore it off, and handed it to Pena. He stared at it a long time. Said something to Wullenwebber and handed him the tape.
Wullenwebber looked at it. “He says the total owed is 907,645 Reais.”
I had no clue how much that was. “What’s that in dollars?”
Wullenwebber relayed the request and one of the woman pulled a cell out of her pocket and made a call.
“She’s calling a Casa de Cambio, a currency exchange, to find out the current rate,” Wullenwebber explained.
She learned what she needed, did the math, wrote the total on a piece of paper, handed it to Wullenwebber.
He slid the paper across the table to me.
Chapter 10
$515,040.
A hefty figure, but considering all the work that had been done, I’d been expecting more. “Ask him if this is correct.” I said to Wullenwebber, “I don’t want him to shortchange himself.”
He relayed the request, and the two women ran the numbers again. Once more, a tape was produced and handed to Pena. He studied it, nodded his approval.
“That’s the number,” Wullenwebber confirmed.
“Explain that I have to call the bank and get authorization to make the payment.”
Wullenwebber nodded, began jabbering away.
I got out the sat phone, called Sloane’s private number. He picked up on the third ring.
“Have you seen the boat?” He asked immediately.
“I have. She’s, uh, stately.”
“And this Pena fellow? What about him? Is he sticking it to us?”
I looked over at the old man. I saw no guile in him. He’d been very straightforward and helpful. “No. He’s been good to deal with. He’s done a beautiful job of restoring this boat. It looks gorgeous. There’s a problem though—”
“What?”
“Apparently, the boats engines are shot. Cabrera didn’t pay to put in new ones.”
“But they work, right?”
He was ignoring the problem. “He says the engines are junk, which means it’s going to be difficult getting the boat to the states. My question to you is do you want him to replace the en
gines before I head back?”
“How much money and time is that going to cost me? Wait, how much do we owe him now?”
I heard Sloane turning into Scrooge and made one of those gut decisions. This was not the time to short Pena. I was going to need his help. I guessed Sloane wouldn’t want to pay more than 50 cents on the dollar. “Round number, we owe him a million.”
Wullenwebber’s head jerked around in surprise at. His eyes went wide, his jaw dropped.
“Ouch,” Sloane groused. “You can get that down, can’t you?”
“Sure. But what do you want to do about the engines?”
“How far down do you think you can get him?”
“Maybe $600-thousand.”
“Too much. $500-thousand tops.”
“I’ll see what I can do. What about the engines?”
“Does he think they can get you to the States?”
“Not without help. He’s offered to send a mechanic with me.”
“Take him up on it. I don’t want to pay out any more than I have to. Call Carrie with the final figure and wire transfer information. Good job, Will.” He rang off.
Wullenwebber wanted to speak so badly he looked like he was going to pop. “You said Mr. Pena was owned a million. Why’d you say that?”
Why had I? A sense of fair play, I guess. Pena hadn’t tried to screw me over by not disclosing the boat’s engine problems. He’d done the right thing by telling me about them—even gone a step further by offering his mechanic. I wouldn’t have felt right repaying that honesty by screwing him over and forcing him to take a loss. A half-million was big money, but paying Pena what was due him wouldn’t flatten Sloan’s wallet. Besides, all he was interested in was rubbing the boat in Cabrera’s face.
“Find out Mr. Pena’s banking information,” I told Wullenwebber, “I’ll have the money wired to his account.”
I called Carrie and made the arrangements. When we’d finished, I said to Wullenwebber, “He’ll have the money tomorrow. Ask him how soon after that the boat will be ready to go.” As an afterthought, I added, “And ask him if he has any recommendations on a crew.” Even with his mechanic along, there was no way I could get that boat back to the states by myself.