Fear Nothing

out, slide along the face straight into the cathedral, get totally zip-locked in the green room, walk the board all the way through the barrel, hooting, showing no fear. That's not only cool: It's classic.

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    22
        
        With a gentle and even tender sound, like flesh on flesh in a honeymoon bed, low waves slipped between the pilings and slapped against the sea wall. The damp air offered a faint and pleasant aromatic melange of brine, fresh kelp, creosote, rusting iron, and other fragrances I couldn't quite identify.
        The marina, tucked into the sheltered northeast corner of the bay, offers docking for fewer than three hundred vessels, only six of which are full-time residences for their owners. Although social life in Moonlight Bay does not center around boating, there is a long waiting list for any slip that becomes available.
        I walked my bike toward the west end of the main pier, which ran parallel to shore. The tires swished and bumped softly across the dew-wet, uneven planks. Only one boat in the marina had lights in its windows at that hour. Dock lamps, though dim, showed me the way through the fog.
        Because the fishing fleet ties up farther out along the northern horn of the bay, the comparatively sheltered marina is reserved for pleasure craft. There are sloops and ketches and yawls ranging from modest to impressive - although more of the former than the latter - motor yachts mostly of manageable length and price, a few Boston Whalers, and even two houseboats. The largest sailing yacht - in fact, the largest boat - docked here is currently Sunset Dancer , a sixty-foot Windship cutter. Of the motor yachts, the largest is Nostromo , a fifty-six-foot Bluewater coastal cruiser; and it was to this boat that I was headed.
        At the west end of the pier, I took a ninety-degree turn onto a subsidiary pier that featured docking slips on both sides. The Nostromo was in the last berth on the right.
         I have been one acquainted with the night.
        That was the code Sasha had used to identify the man who had come to the radio station seeking me, who hadn't wanted his name used on the phone, and who had been reluctant to come to Bobby's house to talk with me. It was a line from a poem by Robert Frost, one that most eavesdroppers would be unlikely to recognize, and I had assumed that it referred to Roosevelt Frost, who owned the Nostromo .
        As I leaned my bicycle against the dock railing near the gangway to Roosevelt 's slip, tidal action caused the boats to wallow in their berths. They creaked and groaned like arthritic old men murmuring feeble complaints in their sleep.
        I had never bothered to chain my bike when I left it unattended, because until this night Moonlight Bay had been a refuge from the crime that infected the modern world. By the time this weekend passed, our picturesque town might lead the country in murders, mutilations, and priest beatings, per capita, but we probably didn't have to worry about a dramatic increase in bicycle theft.
        The gangway was steep because the tide was not high, and it was slippery with condensation. Orson descended as carefully as I did.
        We were two-thirds of the way down to the port-side finger of the slip when a low voice, hardly more than a gruff whisper, seeming to originate magically from the fog directly over my head, demanded, “ Who goes there?”
        Startled, I almost fell, but I clutched the dripping gangway handrail and kept my feet under me.
        The Bluewater 563 is a sleek, white, low-profile, double-deck cruiser with an upper helm station that is enclosed by a hard top and canvas walls. The only light aboard came from behind the curtained windows of the aft stateroom and the main cabin amidships, on the lower deck. The open upper deck and the helm station were dark and fog-wrapped, and I couldn't see who had spoken.
        “Who goes there?” the man whispered again, louder but with a harder edge in his voice.
        I recognized the voice now as that of Roosevelt Frost.
        Taking my cue from him, I whispered: “It's me, Chris Snow.”
        “Shield your eyes, son.”
        I made a visor of my hand and squinted as a flashlight blazed, pinning me where I stood on the gangway. It switched off almost at once, and Roosevelt said, still in a whisper, “Is that your dog with you?”
        “Yes, sir.”
        “And nothing else?”
        “I'm