Stephen Coonts - Combat

“If you knew, you might. But that would more likely be the job of the Ras Ormara’s skipper,” Norm replied. “You’re better at those names than I am.”

Mike shook his head in mock censure. “If you worked at it as I do, you’d get along better with them,” he said. “Captain Hassan al-Nadwi, you mean.” As Norm nodded, Mike Kaplan went on, “And what do we need from that worthy?”

I told him, and admitted we needed to look at the engineer’s effects as soon as possible — meaning the next day.

Mike allowed as how al-Nadwi would put up a pro forma bitch, but it shouldn’t really be a problem if I didn’t mind a lot of silent stares, and people on board who suddenly seemed to know no English at all. He said he’d call the skipper, stroke him a little, lean on him a little. Al-Nadwi knew who held the face cards. Piece of cake, he said.

Norm said he gathered I wasn’t working alone, and I told him about Quentin Kim, apologizing for the oversight. “If Park Soon left any notes in Hangul,” I said, “it’d be Quent who could read them. He speaks Korean, of course; that’s probably why he got the case. I’d be just as useful chasing down other leads.”

Norm donated a quizzical look. “I didn’t realize there were other leads.”

New friend or not, there are times when you see you’re about to step over the line. That can reach around and bite you or your friend sometimes in ways you can’t predict. I said, “There may not be. If there were, I couldn’t discuss them. ’Course, if Quent stumbled on one, it wouldn’t surprise me if you got wind of it later.” I let my expression say, the game’s a bastard but rules are rules .

“I respect that. Can’t say I understand it, but I respect it,” said Norm.

“Good,” I said. “So for all I know, Quent may come alone to the ship and send me off in another direction.”

Norm’s reaction warmed my heart. “But — I was going to go along because you were,” he said. “Spring for lunch, pick your brains about racing, — uh-unh; you’ve got to go along, Harve.”

“I’ll try, but it’s Quent’s call. He’s my boss,” I said.

A sly half smile, and one lifted brow, from Norm. “Well,” he said softly, reasonably, “just tell him the real call is Norm Goldman’s. And Goldman is an unreasonable asshole.”

Mike Kaplan laughed out loud and jerked his head toward Norm while looking at me. “I’ve been saying that for ages,” he said.

After Kaplan promised to set up a visit to the ship for me and Quent, he left us. I told Norm that just about cleared my decks for the day, and said I’d take one of those Czech beers if the offer was still open. We jawed about our tastes in racing — I couldn’t see his fascination with dragsters; he thought karts were kid stuff. He showed me around his place while we discussed Norm’s good luck in falling heir to a floor of rooms that split so nicely into three apartments. Whatever Sonmiani paid their seamen, Norm and his staff obviously were in no fiscal pain. Finally, we bonded a little closer over the fact that both of us placed high value in working with people we liked.

I promised Norm he’d like Quent because they shared a subdued sense of humor, though he might find my old pal oddly conservative considering the career he chose. That was the chief way, I said, that Quent’s ethnicity showed.

Norm said believe it or not, I’d find Kaplan had a touch of the prude. He added that it couldn’t be the man’s Liverpool upbringing, so maybe it was the Sephardic Jew surfacing in him. It was a comfort, he said, to know he could be gone a week and feel confident that the office was secure in the hands of Mike Kaplan. I’d find Ira Meltzer a frank Manhattan skirt-chaser, he said, which could get a bit wearing but Ira was a real mensch for hard work.

I tried to call Quent about the good news, but got his tape. I didn’t call Dana Martin because I didn’t want to seem secretive, and I sure wasn’t going to talk with a Fed in front of Norm.

And when he suggested we go looking for dinner-on him, or rather on Sonmiani, he reminded me — I said it might be better if we called a pizza in because I was tired of people looking at me funny. I was catching on to his dry humor by then, and laughed when he said with a straight face that he couldn’t imagine why they might.

“Pizza’s a good idea,” he said, “but we could order it from anywhere. How about from your workshop?”

He was as serious about it as most race-car freaks, and the idea of a forty-minute drive didn’t dismay him. It was long odds against a deliveryman finding my place, I said, but we could pick that pizza up on the way. He’d be driving back alone for the first few miles on dark country roads, I cautioned. He said he had a decent Sony mapper, so he was up for it if I was, but if I had any objection we could do it another time.

Objection? Hell, this would be the first time I could recall that I’d had two guests in one week, and I said as much while we rode the rocking old elevator down.

Eventually, using our phones while he followed me out of town in his enviable, cherried-out classic black Porsche Turbo, I suggested we save time by my cobbling up a couple of reubens on my woodstove. He agreed, and when we hit the country roads I tried Quent again without success.

Now I could call our pet Feeb, who sounded slightly impressed that I was still at work. She liked it even better that Sonmiani’s people were receptive to our private search and would help us snoop aboard ship, the next day.

Quent, she said, had taken the Loc-8 with its hidden spectral analyzer after playing with it under lab tutelage. She thought he might be cruising around Richmond trying to find crewman Hong Chee. Reception, especially in some of the popular basement dives, wasn’t all that reliable. I told myself Quent could cruise the ethnic bars better as a singleton and besides, I was working in a way, schmoozing with a guy who could hinder or help us. No doubt Quent would call me when he was ready.

Dana wasn’t so happy with my suggestion that the Feds canvass airline reservation lists scheduled for the next few days, just to see if they got any hits on the Ras Ormara’s crewlist. Did she think it was pointless? Maybe not entirely, she admitted, before she hung up. I still think Dana was simply pissed because she hadn’t already gotten around to it.

No need to worry about Norm Goldman’s ability to keep my pickup in sight. He stayed glued to my back bumper, perhaps to prove that he had a racer’s soul. But Jesus! A Pooch Turbo tailing an old Toyota trash hauler? My sister Shar could’ve done it. Even so, he must’ve bottomed his pan following me up the lane to my place. A moment later my phone chirped.

I hoped it was Quent, but, “Harve? Is this a gag? How much farther is it,” asked a slightly subdued Norm.

I asked if he could spot the old white clapboard farmhouse past the orchard ahead, and he said yes. “That’s it. We’re on my acreage now,” I said. With hindsight, I think he had started to wonder whether his new friend had something unfriendly in mind for him.

My workshop was still more than half smithy then, a short walk from the house, and we parked beside it. I toggled a key-ring button that unlocked the side door, and its sensor lit the shop up for us as I approached.

Norm stepped inside with the diffidence of an acolyte in a cathedral, ready to be awed by a genuine racing-car shop. It may have been a disappointment. The most significant stuff I had on hand was the specialized running gear, protectively bagged in inert argon gas, but he spent more time studying my half-sized chassis drawings and the swoopy lines I had lofted to show the body shells I hadn’t molded yet. When I saw him rubbing his upper arms I realized it was chilly for him. “You might enjoy looking at some recent off-road race videos,” I said, “while I get the kitchen stove warmed. Or you could sit on top of the stove,” I cracked. “Takes about ten minutes to get that cast-iron woodhog of mine up to correct temperature.”