Eric Lustbader - The Testament

At the marina office, a grizzled old-timer with a cigarette between his bloodless lips told him that there was no boat registered in the name of Dexter Shaw or anyone named Shaw for that matter.

Thanking the old-timer, Bravo walked down to the water and out onto the slips. The day was overspread with a glare of haze that reduced the visible spectrum of light, leveled everything to the dull colors of old laundry. He inhaled the sharp, almost rotten mineral smell of the water as he passed one boat after another. He didn't yet know what he was looking for, but there must be something here-his father's message told him so. Then, on the third slip over, he saw a dark blue and white thirty-seven-foot Cobalt 343. Steffi was stenciled across its stern plate in gold. Steffi, his father's pet name for Bravo's mother. He stood very still, his aspect tense and watchful. It could be a coincidence, but he didn't think so. He didn't believe in coincidence.

He glanced down at the mysterious Medeco key. The more he thought of it, the more it seemed likely that his father would not have kept a boat registered under his own name, especially in light of what had happened to the contents of his apartment after his death. The boat meant something, he suspected, something vitally important, otherwise Dexter wouldn't have named it Steffi, then hidden it so that only his son would find it.

All at once, the marina appeared bleached out, the skyline of DC receding to some other reality. He was alone on the wooden slip, feeling the last remnant of his father he'd been searching vainly for in the apartment. A connection had been established through the boat, a kind of umbilical that drew him ever closer.

It was with this profoundly altered sensibility that Bravo went aboard. He was looking for clues now, the part of his father that remained after his death: an elaborate set of clues and codes that would guide him-and only him-to what his father wanted him to know. He paused, considering this notion for a moment. What if there were others after whatever it was Dexter wanted his son to find, others he was wary of, even afraid of? Bravo thought of the blond couple, the man's incongruous shoes, the woman's feline smile that now seemed to him sinister, a sign not of a flirtation but of a secret she knew and he didn't.

Once again, he felt that peculiar prickling between his shoulder blades, and with an eerie sense of foreboding, he looked around, abruptly fearful that his inattention would lead to sudden disaster. What if they were here, what if he was being watched as he had been in New York? But no, he saw no one suspicious in the general vicinity. The marina was quiet, virtually deserted. Anyone trying to spy on him would have been revealed in an instant. And yet, as he looked farther afield, he saw high-rises whose dizzying banks of windows faced him. Behind any one of them someone could be standing with high-powered binoculars or a telescope, recording his every movement.

With an acute and uncomfortable sense of his own helplessness, he turned and, with equal parts resignation and determination, concentrated on what had to be done now. He began his search in the crescent high-tech cabin with its cream-colored seating-area storage compartment and head, but found nothing there. Returning deckside, he spotted a compartment door just to the left of the wheel, below the array of dials. In its center was set a Medeco lock. With his heart beating fast, he fitted the key into the lock, turned it. The door popped open.

Inside, he discovered a rat-eared address book, a pair of cubic gold cuff links, an enamel American flag lapel pin, a pair of eyeglasses, two packs of cigarettes, a gunmetal Zippo lighter. That was it. Taking this assortment of everyday items, he returned to the cabin, where he slit both packs of cigarettes down the sides, spilled out the contents. To his disappointment, he found only cigarettes. These he slit, too, pawing carefully and vainly through the tobacco.

He held the cuff links in the palm of his hand, as if he could feel in their considerable weight the lingering presence of his father. Flipping open the Zippo, he lit the flame and almost immediately extinguished it. His vision went blurry as he peered through the glasses. They weren't magnifying lenses that could be picked up at any drug or convenience store, they were prescription lenses.

He held the glasses at arm's length, wondering, because so far as he knew Dexter Shaw had perfect vision, he'd never needed glasses.

But perhaps he was wrong, perhaps this was one other thing his father had kept from him. There was only one way to find out. He leafed through the address book, found the number of his father's opthamologist and called him. He was busy with a patient, but when Bravo told his receptionist who he was, she retrieved Dexter Shaw's file.

"Glasses?" she said when she came back on the line. "Why would Dr. Miller prescribe glasses for Mr. Shaw? His vision was exceptional. He had no need for glasses, even reading glasses."

And yet, here he was holding glasses with prescription lenses. Another clue? What other hypothesis was there? He decided that he'd have to go with that one until it proved incorrect.

Now he examined the glasses more closely. On the inside of the right temple was the manufacturer and the model. On the inside of the left was stamped the name and address of an optician. He phoned a taxi service, then carefully gathered up everything he'd found and left the boat.

Walking briskly back down the slip and out of the marina, he kept an eye out for anyone loitering or seeming to work when he actually wasn't. Two teens on bikes sped past him, and a middle-aged man carrying a six-pack of beer and a too-large gut strode by. Bravo turned and watched him walk out onto the slip, climb aboard a boat named TimeGoesBy. Then he resumed walking, hurrying up the street to where the red and white taxi was waiting, engine idling. He got in, gave the driver an address in Georgetown.

Twelve minutes later, he got out in front of the Four Seasons Hotel, an elegant low-rise brick building at 2800 Pennsylvania Avenue. Without looking around, he strode into the lobby, then turned right and stood, shoulder against a column, peering through one of the huge windows at the avenue. The atmosphere was cool, hushed, serene, a perfect sanctuary to gaze out upon the world and once again wonder whether he was being vigilant or paranoid. For a time, he watched taxis and Town Cars pulling up, disgorging fashionable women in stiletto heels and expensive coifs, festooned with shopping bags. Two businessmen stood smoking and chatting, then moved off. He saw no one suspicious, yet he had to wonder whether he knew what to look for.

Exiting via the side entrance, he walked a dozen blocks, turning at length onto P Street where, a block further on, he came upon Trefoil Opticians. The owner's name-Terrence Markand-was stenciled in discreet gold letters on the window. It was a clean, well-lighted store in an old brownstone Federalist building. While the man behind the counter adjusted a pair of sunglasses on a woman, Bravo perused the displays of high-tech, fashionable frames with heart-stopping prices. Behind him, the woman walked out of the store. The man at the counter was tall and gaunt, with sunken cheeks and the complexion of an avocado. He gave Bravo a narrow smile along with his attention.

"How can I help you, sir?"

"Are you Mr. Markand?"

"I am, indeed." The smile stretched a bit.

"My name is Braverman Shaw," Bravo said, holding out the glasses. "I found these among my late father's effects. Your name is on them so I assume you made them for him."

"You're Dexter Shaw's son?" Markand said with an odd brittleness. "I read about his untimely death. I'm so sorry for your loss." He seemed on the verge of saying something more, then thought better of it, biting his lip.