Lisa Scottoline - Killer Smile

“Every day.” Jackmann squinted at her, not unfriendly, merely puzzled. “Do I know you?”

“No. Your secretary told me you’d be here.” Mary sized him up. He looked like a no-nonsense kind of guy and she was sick of lying. “My name’s Mary, and it’s important that I talk to you. I wanted to get some information about Giovanni Saracone.”

“Take this can, would you?” Jackmann handed her a rusty blue Maxwell House coffee can sitting on the deck, next to a pile of other fishing gear and supplies. Mary accepted it, but it emitted such a stench, she had to look inside.

“Argh!” She jumped back in horror, almost dropping the can. Long alien-worms with zillions of legs slithered all over one another. One looked up at her with three little black eyes. “Gross! What are they?”

“Bloodworms. Don’t put your hand in there, hon. They attach right to ya.” Jackmann laughed with a smoker’s throatiness. “Now, whaddaya want to know?”

“I understand you were at Mr. Saracone’s funeral lunch, and your secretary said you two go way back. I was wondering if you could tell me -”

“You want information, you can work for it.” Jackmann handed her a red Playmate cooler, mercifully sealed. “Take this and set it over there.”

“Okay.” Mary set the cooler down as instructed. “So how long did you know Saracone?”

“Long time.” Jackmann locked a white plastic box fixed to the deck of the boat. In front of the box was a blue padded driver’s seat, a blue steering wheel, and over it, a panel of black control switches that read, NAV AFT BILGE WASHDOWN ACC.

“Since the war?”

Jackmann’s eyes flashed a minute, a surprised shot of blue. “Yeah.”

“How did you know him? How did you meet?”

“Everybody knew Gio. I was in college, working part-time with my dad, outta the shipyard. Gio was around all the time, with the lunch truck.” Jackmann handed her a rusty green box with a rusty handle, then pointed to the dock. “Tackle box goes over there.”

Mary set it down with the other stuff, and it rattled. “Did you say lunch truck?” Saracone had a lunch truck? Can you get to Birchrunville on a lunch truck?

“You know, a lunch truck. Sold soda, egg sandwiches, and hoagies to the guys fishing off the docks. That’s how hoagies got its name, you know.” Jackmann went to the front of the boat and pulled a fishing rod from a chrome holder, one of four rods and holders affixed to the roof of a shelter over the driver’s seat. The rods soared so high in the air it looked like they combed the clouds. “Guys sold them to the longshoremen and sailors down the old Navy Yard, off Hog Island. So they called ’em hoagies.”

“Really?” The one thing about Philly that Mary hadn’t known. It was a whole new world down here. She kept looking at the fishing rods. “Why do you have so many rods? You switch ’em around when you fish?”

“No, there’s rod holders. The rods go in there when we drop anchor.” Jackmann pointed to the chrome cups ringing the boat as he brought Mary the fishing rod, which was heavy as hell, with a cork handle and a very wiggly top. She took it, feeling vaguely like those guys who spin plates. Jackmann said, “Gio used to sell sandwiches, drinks, cigarettes, sodas. He charged too much for the smokes, which he boosted anyway.”

Gio . “Did you know anyone named Amadeo Brandolini, from when you worked on the docks? He was older than you or Gio, by about twenty years.”

Jackmann thought a minute, going back and sliding out the next rod. “No. Italian?”

“Yes, an immigrant. He didn’t speak much English. He had a wife and son.”

“Don’t know him.” Jackmann handed Mary the second rod, and she took it, discouraged.

Damn! It was a dry hole. Jackmann didn’t know Amadeo. She set the rod down on the dock with the other one. “You sure? Did you fish in those days? In the late thirties, early forties?”

“Yep. Always did. Born on the water.”

“Amadeo Brandolini was a fisherman, too.”

“You’re a lawyer, right?”

“I didn’t know it showed.”

Jackmann laughed thickly as he handed her the third rod, and Mary set it down, distracted. She couldn’t just give up. It was her last lead.

“But Amadeo started a small fishing business. I don’t know where exactly he fished, since it’s all built up now, but I think it was right off the port.”

“There were plenty of places to fish, then. Still are.”

“Right on the Delaware?”

“Then, sure. Myself, I always fished in the bay, downriver.” Jackmann retrieved the fourth rod, brought it to the back of the boat, and handed it to Mary. “The river takes you to the C amp; D canal, then down to the Chesapeake. But in the bay, you can get weakies, tons a weakies, now that they’re back.”

“Weakies?”

“Weakfish, like a sea trout. No pin bones, my wife grills them.” Jackmann nodded. “I used to know a contractor, his father bought a house on the weakies he sold. There’s stripers in the rips, too. It’s the current from the ocean, and plenty of guys fish in the rocks, for tog.”

Stripers? Rips? Tog? Okay, whatever. Mary set the rod down. “But what about the port? Could you fish off the port? Did people do that, before the war?”

“Sure. Then, you could fish right off the port. Lots of Italians from South Philly did that right off of Washington Avenue. I didn’t know any of those guys. I was a college boy.”

“But Saracone knew Amadeo. I’m thinking they knew each other from fishing together, or the lunch truck.”

Jackmann snorted. “Had to be the truck. Gio didn’t fish.”

Mary blinked. “I saw a stuffed fish on the wall, in his den. It was big.”

“Then he bought it.”

Mary felt sure, now. Jackmann had the ring of authority. “Gio owned boats, though. Fishing boats.”

“Sure. Boats weren’t about fishing, for a guy like him. Boats were about showing off. The kinda boats he had anyway. Gio loved boats. He collected boats. Sold ’em used, kept buyin’ more, until the end when he got sick.” Jackmann closed the lid of the box, with a heavy slam . “His last boat was a Bertram 60. A sixty-footer. Staterooms, master bedroom, unbelievable. Beautiful yacht. The Bella Melania.”

“You went out with him on the boat?”

“Sure.”

“You fished, he watched?”

“I fished, he drank my Bud.”

Mary was trying to piece it together. “You think Saracone and Amadeo could have met because of the lunch truck?”

“Who’s Amadeo?”

“Brandolini.”

“Possible.” Jackmann paused on the deck, resting a hand on his back and stretching it back and forth. “Gio went all along the river with the truck, and he spoke English and Italian. He was the friendly type, always with a big smile. So it’s possible he got to know your friend, Brandolini, that way.”

Mary considered it. It would explain a lot. How they knew each other even though Saracone didn’t fish. She was trying not to be completely discouraged, but she didn’t know much more than when she came. Jackmann stepped down, knelt on the deck, and opened a small hatch in the middle of the boat as Mary watched him, hating life. Then she blinked. The hatch was round and thick, about eight inches in diameter. Where had she seen that before? All of a sudden, she realized.

Amadeo’s drawings. The circles on the papers in his wallet. Mary couldn’t believe her eyes. She had forgotten about them. She pointed at the hatch. “What is that?”

“What’s what?”

“That hatch!” It was Amadeo’s drawing, come to life! Or at least, to plastic! Mary jumped into the boat, which rocked in response, and scrambled to kneel down on the deck over the hatch. Just like on the drawings, there was even a small steel catch on the side. Mary pressed it in and out. “Is this a hatch? What does it do?”