He turned to the dockmaster. “Tell you what, Charlie,” he said, setting down his coffee cup and starting to unbutton his shirt. “I’ll go down there and check out Hotshot.”
“Whatever,” Charlie said, hardly looking up from his computer.
Jake took off his uniform shirt and his cap and hung them on a coat rack beside the door of the office. Now he was just a guy in a white T-shirt and khaki pants. He pulled the tail of his T-shirt out and pulled it down over his gunbelt, then he left the office and walked down the ramp to the docks, moving slowly, as was his wont. He strolled down to dock 3 and turned right. Long lines of yachts stretched out for many yards on both sides of the walkway.
Jake counted out the berths as he walked, not actually using his fingers, but moving his lips as he read the numbers. He came to berth 14. Two young men were lounging in the cockpit, drinking beer. Neither fit the description of the suspects. Jake walked down the catwalk alongside the yacht and stood next to the cockpit, maybe eight feet from where the two boys sat. They glanced at him, then went back to their conversation, dismissing any importance he might have.
They think I’m just another tourist, Jake thought with satisfaction. “Ahoy, there,” he said.
One of the boys looked up at him. “Ahoy?” He chuckled. “What can we do for you, Popeye?”
“I’m looking for two twins,” he consulted his notebook, “named Edwin and Elmer Stone?”
“Eben and Enos,” the boy corrected.
“Yeah, them. Are they aboard?”
The boy waved a hand. “You see them?”
“Are they downstairs?”
“Downstairs?”
“Down there,” Jake said, pointing at the cabin. He hated these Boston pups, the arrogant little sons of bitches.
“There’s just us,” the boy said.
“Where can I find, uh…”
“Eben and Enos?”
“Yeah.”
“They went ashore a few minutes ago.”
“Where ashore?”
“They had some stuff to buy, beer and stuff.”
“When are they coming back?”
“Who knows? We don’t sail until tomorrow.”
“They got a phone call up at the dockmaster’s office.”
The boy shrugged. “What can I tell you?”
“They got a cell phone number I can send the call to?”
“Yeah.” The boy made a little face to show he was trying to remember, then he spat out a number. “Try them on that.”
“Got it,” Jake said, scribbling the number in his notebook. “Thanks, guys.” He turned and walked back up the dock.
THE TWO BOYS WAITED until he was twenty feet away before they burst out laughing. One of them took a cell phone from his pocket and tapped in a number.
“Hello?”
“Which one is this?”