Charon's Landing

Miami, Florida

Widowed for so many years that getting to work at ungodly hours was the norm, David Saulman moved through the maze-like warrens of his office like a lord, turning on lights and grabbing express mail envelopes from the desks of his associates as he made his way to his personal suite. A coffeemaker slaved to the light switch in the reception area had started making a potent brew as soon as he’d entered the offices that took up an entire floor of a Miami bank building.

By the time Saulman got to his desk, there was a full pot of coffee waiting. Filling a mug the size of an oil can, he ignored the first salmon hint of daylight peeking over the watery horizon. Twenty-seven floors below, the city slumbered, eking out its last moments of quiet before the day seized it in another scorching session of existence.

The first thing associates learned when they joined Berkowitz, Saulman & Little was that there was no Berkowitz or Little, never had been. The names were figments of Dave Saulman’s imagination, weighty names to give his firm a solid feel when he’d first started out three decades ago. The second thing they learned was that no matter how early they arrived at the law firm, their boss would be there before them — and he’d be going through their mail.

Dave Saulman was a benevolent dictator who was once quoted as saying, “If it’s delivered to my office, it’s mine.” During the mideighties, when bicycle messengers routinely delivered drugs to some of the younger lawyers, he came to possess almost as much cocaine as Metro Dade Police. He never chastised those lawyers who used it, knowing that normal people couldn’t put in the hundred-hour workweeks lawyering demanded. Saulman figured there were some very happy fish in Biscayne Harbor because of him.

Only a dozen red, white, and blue priority envelopes had been delivered last night, distributed through the offices by the firm’s utility service. He opened and read them all in just a few minutes, categorizing most as hyped-up client anxiety. It was amazing how a few million dollars, when it was hanging out in the open, could panic a client.

Saulman wore a dark suit, faint chalk lines accenting his spreading figure. His silk tie had not been fully knotted, its juncture hanging an inch below the unbuttoned top of his starched shirt. Because he had a meeting at eight-thirty, he wore a prosthetic limb to compensate for his missing arm. Given his choice, he kept his empty sleeve hanging limply, but the sight seemed to bother many of the clients. The straps holding the plastic arm in place were already chafing.

Only a half dozen inches above five feet and starting to paunch, Saulman appeared taller because of the tremendous amount of nervous energy his body demanded he expend. He was never still. His right leg bounced constantly, whether he was seated or standing, his one good arm and his stump always in motion. Even his eyebrows, dark intimidating slashes, leaped and danced as he spoke. There was no deliberation to his movements, only an innate sense to move, and it served him well. He could intimidate almost everyone he met despite his stature.

Seated behind the broad expanse of his ash desk, his leg juddering like a palsy victim, he finished with the letters sent to his associates and turned his mind to the new London office he’d opened. It was midmorning there and they should be doing a brisk business. Most of the London people were involved with a leveraged buyout of a Dutch tug firm by a group of Germans, but there were enough lawyers left over to pursue more mundane if less lucrative ventures.

He was just reaching for the phone to put the fear of God into them when an apparition staggered into his office. Saulman recognized him immediately, but the man’s tattered appearance shocked him more than he cared to admit. Bud Finley slumped into one of the high-backed oxblood chairs facing Saulman’s desk. He was a private investigator.

Finley looked like a waste of space, his suit cheaply put together, his haircut not much better, a few greasy strands combed over a red, weeping scalp. He was heavily built, his shoulders like the crossarms of a gallows, his arms as menacing as an executioner’s rope. His gut, though ponderous and straining against his discount store shirt, was solid. Finley’s face was florid, widened by the years and pummeled by the experience, but his eyes were quick and intelligent. He had the look of a sewer rat and twice the cunning.

Although he’d expected Finley, the lack of self-respect the man showed himself still dumbfounded Saulman. Finley, never a neat man, looked like he’d just come from an industrial accident. “You’re early,” Saulman said to cover himself. He distinctly remembered relocking the outer office doors, a fact that seemed not to have slowed Finley.

Finley flared a match off his thumbnail, and as it burned toward his fingers, he calmly pulled a pack of generic cigarettes from a suit coat pocket and torched one before speaking. His voice was pure Deep South, garbled by a family tree without enough branches. “Ah donnit think you’d a wanted ta wait ta hear what Ah got to say.”

Ever since Mercer had called him requesting information about tankers in the Gulf of Alaska and most specifically Petromax Oil vessels, Dave Saulman had been hooked, sensing one of those challenges that Mercer was famous for stumbling into. At his own expense, Saulman sent his best investigator, Bud Finley, to Petromax’s main offices in Delaware and then to Louisiana, where Southern Coasting and Lightering had established their headquarters.

While they’d known each other for years, Mercer never failed to fascinate Dave Saulman. He could produce the easy solution to a complex problem, or find the obscure pattern buried in a simple issue. Mercer’s instincts were uncanny. Saulman was well aware that when Mercer called for a favor, it was just the beginning of something a lot more intricate.

So when he’d called a few days ago asking about vessels in the Gulf of Alaska, Saulman knew that there would be much more buried under such an easily answered question. If there was something dangerous behind the Petromax Arctica’s delayed arrival at the port of Valdez, an investigator of Finley’s expertise would find it. And while Saulman himself had casually asked around about the strange provisions of the sale of the Petromax fleet to Southern Coasting and Lightering with little result, he was confident that Finley would uncover the real truth behind the deal.

Saulman hadn’t expected Finley until late that evening at the earliest; the man had had only about forty-eight hours to gather information. He couldn’t imagine Finley getting anything out of a slick corporation like Petromax, let alone the shadowy SC&L, so quickly. None of Saulman’s contacts, even when pressed, could tell him anything more than SC&L had themselves been bought recently by an unknown party. Saulman was appalled that anyone could move within the labyrinthine but somewhat closed world of maritime commerce without his knowledge.

“Ever heard of a Arab named Hasaan bin-Rufti?” Finley invited.

Twenty minutes later, after having heard the full story from Finley, Dave Saulman was on the phone with Mercer’s answering machine. “You know who this is. Give me a call ASAP or sooner. Finding that the Petromax Arctica was late for her latest run is only the tip of the iceberg. Call me at home. After what I’ve heard this morning, I’m taking the rest of the day off.”