Deep Six

She possessed an air of breezy sophistication, yet underneath one could sense a tomboyish daring. A representative elected from the state of Colorado, Loren was serving her second term. She loved her job; it was her life. Feminine and softspoken, she could be an unleashed tiger on the floor of Congress when she tackled an issue. Her colleagues respected her for her shrewdness as well as her beauty. She was a private woman, shu

She approached him and kissed him lightly on the mouth. “Welcome home, voyager.”

He put his arm around her and they set off toward the baggage claim. “Thank you for meeting me.”

“I borrowed one of your cars. I hope you don’t mind.”

“Depends,” he said. “Which one?”

“My favorite, the blue Talbot-Lago.”

“The coupe with the Saoutchik coachwork? You have expensive taste. That’s a $200,000 car.”

“Oh, dear, I hope it doesn’t get dented in the parking lot.”

Pitt gave her a solemn look. “If it does, the sovereign state of Colorado will have a vacant seat in Congress.”

She clutched his arm and laughed. “You think more of your cars than you do your women.”

“Cars never nag and complain.”

“I can think of a few other things they never do,” she said with a girlish smile.

They threaded their way through the crowded terminal and waited at the baggage claim. Finally the conveyor belt hummed into motion and Pitt retrieved his two suitcases. They passed outside into a gray, sticky morning and found the blue 1948 Talbot-Lago sitting peacefully under the watchful eye of an airport security guard. Pitt relaxed in the passenger’s seat as Loren slipped behind the wheel. The rakish car was a right-hand drive, and it always struck Pitt odd to sit and stare out the left side of the windshield at the approaching traffic with nothing to do.

“Did you call Perlmutter?” he asked.

“About an hour before you landed,” she answered. “He was quite agreeable, for someone who was jolted out of a sound sleep. He said he’d go through his library for data on the ships you asked about.”

“If anyone knows ships, it’s St. Julien Perlmutter.”

“He sounds like a character over the phone.”

“An understatement. Wait till you meet him.”

Pitt watched the passing scenery for a few moments without speaking. He stared at the Potomac River as Loren drove north along the George Washington Memorial Parkway and cut over the Francis Scott Key Bridge to Georgetown.

Pitt was not fond of Georgetown; “Phonyville,” he called it. The drab brick town houses looked like they had all been popped from the same biscuit mold. Loren steered the Talbot onto N Street. Parked cars jammed the curbs, trash lay in the gutters, little of the sidewalk shrubbery was trimmed, and yet it was perhaps four blocks of the most overpriced real estate in the country. Tiny houses, Pitt mused, filled with gigantic egos generously coated with megadoses of forged veneer.

Loren squeezed into a vacant parking space and turned off the ignition. They locked the car and walked between two vine-encrusted homes to a carriage house in the rear. Before Pitt could lift a bronze knocker shaped like a ship’s anchor, the door was thrown open by a great monster of a man who mashed the scales at nearly four hundred pounds. His sky-blue eyes twinkled and his crimson face was mostly hidden under a thick forest of gray hair and beard. Except for his small tulip nose, he looked like Santa Claus gone to seed.

“Dirk,” he fairly boomed. “Where’ve you been hiding?”

St. Julien Perlmutter was dressed in purple silk pajamas under a red and gold paisley robe. He encompassed Pitt with his chunky arms and lifted him off the doorstep in a bear hug, without a hint of strain. Loren’s eyes widened in astonishment. She’d never met Perlmutter in person and wasn’t prepared.

“You kiss me, Julien,” said Pitt sternly, “and I’ll kick you in the crotch.”

Perlmutter gave a belly laugh and released Pitt’s 180 pounds. “Come in, come in. I’ve made breakfast. You must be starved after your travels.”

Pitt introduced Loren. Perlmutter kissed her hand with a Continental flourish and then led them into a huge combination living room, bedroom and study. Shelves supporting the weight of thousands of books sagged from floor to ceiling on every wall. There were books on tables, books on chairs. They were even stacked on a king-size water bed that rippled in an alcove.

Perlmutter possessed what was acknowledged by experts as the finest collection of historical ship literature ever assembled. At least twenty marine museums were constantly angling to have it donated to their libraries after a lifetime of excess calories sent him to a mortuary.

He motioned Pitt and Loren to sit at a hatch-cover table laid with an elegant silver and china service bearing the emblem of a French transatlantic steamship line.

“It’s all so lovely,” said Loren admiringly.

“From the famous French liner Normandie,” Perlmutter explained. “Found it all in a warehouse where it had been packed away since before the ship burned and rolled over in New York harbor.”

He served them a German breakfast, begi

“Tastes marvelous,” said Loren. “I love eating something besides eggs and bacon for a change.”

“I’m addicted to German cooking.” Perlmutter laughed, patting his ample stomach. “Lots more substance than that candy-ass French fare, which is nothing but an exotic way to prepare garbage.”

“Did you find any information on the San Marino and the Pilottown?” asked Pitt, turning the conversation to the subject on his mind.

“Yes, as a matter of fact, I did.” Perlmutter hefted his bulk from the table and soon returned with a large dusty volume on Liberty ships. He do

“Here we are. The San Marino, launched by the Georgia Shipbuilding Corporation, July of 1943. Hull number 2356, classed as a cargo carrier. Sailed Atlantic convoys until the end of the war. Damaged by submarine torpedo from the U-573. Reached Liverpool under her own power and was repaired. Sold after the war to the Bristol Steamship Company of Bristol, England. Sold 1956 to the Manx Steamship Company of New York, Panamanian registry. Vanished with all hands, north Pacific, 1966.

“So that was the end of her.”

“Maybe, maybe not,” said Perlmutter. “There’s a postscript. I found a report in another reference source. About three years after the ship was posted missing, a Mr. Rodney Dewhurst, who was a marine insurance underwriter for the Lloyd’s office in Singapore, noticed a ship moored in the harbor that struck him as vaguely familiar. There was an unusual design to the cargo booms, one he’d seen on only one other Liberty-class ship. He managed to talk his way on board and after a brief search smelled a rat. Unfortunately, it was a holiday and it took him several hours to round up the harbor authorities and convince them to arrest the ship in port and hold it for an investigation. By the time they reached the dock, the vessel was long gone, steaming somewhere out to sea. A check of custom records showed her to be the Belle Chasse, Korean registry, owned by the Sosan Trading Company of Inchon, Korea. Her next destination was Seattle. Dewhurst cabled an alert to the Seattle Harbor Police, but the Belle Chasse never arrived.”

“Why was Dewhurst suspicious of her?” Pitt asked.

“He had inspected the San Marino before underwriting the insurance on her and was dead certain she and the Belle Chasse were one and the same.”