Yesterday's News

possible that I might be getting a telephone call from Vip. Emil reminded me that he wasn’t no goddam message center and that he hadn’t gone goddam senile since the first time I’d mentioned it.
    I found a decent bottle of Sauvignon Blanc at my friendly liquor store. Heading downtown, I cruised Main Street till it intersected with Armory, and took Armory to The Quay. More a cobblestoned walkway than a street, The Quay led downhill, wrapping around the perimeter of the harbor before dead-ending at an old dock with a big tug and some runabouts snugged against it. No house in sight. I got out of the car with the wine and tried the last building before the water, a supply shop called Joe’s Marine. Murky fluorescents made the place look ghostly. The reversible sign, on a triangle of twine inside the glass door, said CLOSED. I stepped back to check the windows on the second floor. No lights on, but the reflection from a streetlight suggested the upper level was used by Joe for storage, not by Liz for residence. I could hear some music coming from the direction of the tug, and a lantern shimmered in its wheelhouse as the boat rode ugly over the chop of the waves. I decided it was time to ask for corrective directions.
    The tug, pointing in toward land, looked brand-new. The hull appeared to be wooden, though, and I couldn’t imagine they still made them that way. Stenciled along the bow was the word Shepherd. A metal gangplank successively barred by two tined gates spanned the water from dock to deck.
    I said, “Ahoy the Shepherd! Anyone aboard?”
    A small black door at deck level opened, and Liz Rendall came out with a spatula in her hand and a short apron over even shorter shorts. “Welcome to paradise. Surprised?”
    I moved my eyes from stem to stem. “A little.” She reached back inside the door with her free hand, and a grating sound rose from the locks on the gates. “All the modem conveniences. Come aboard.” Pushing through the gates, I was struck by how heavy the second one was. “Who was your security consultant?”
    Liz cocked her head at me.
    I said, “This second gate. Electrified, right?”
    She nodded slowly. “They said you were good.”
    “Who did?”
    “The people I called about you. Let me just turn down dinner and then I’ll give you the tour. Come in.” I gave her the wine, accepted her compliment on it, and took in the galley as she iced the bottle. Jenn-Air double stove, butcher-block counters and preparation island, all copper pots and pans. "Better Homes and Gardens been by yet?”
    “Let me show you the rest of it.”
    I followed as Rendall moved aft through an opening that seemed about twice as wide as a working tug would have. “This is the dining room.”
    The table was Danish modem, four chairs around it. She continued to a balustrade. “And this is the living room.”
    I joined her at the rail and looked down a full set of steps into a cavernous space. Elaborately casual sectional furniture, complemented by some rattan chairs and matching tables. Stereo and television consoles mounted in recesses at just above head height from the floor. Or hull. On the opposite wall, a halfstaircase led up to a door. Draped between the portholes were tapestries whose country of origin I couldn’t even guess.
    I said, “Liz, this is spectacular.”
    She beamed. “It wasn’t as hard as it might look. I bought this beauty from an offshore oil company for four thousand bucks when she couldn’t pass inspection anymore.” Liz moved her hand in an arc. “They’d already lifted the deck and pulled the twin diesels. I had my people remove the old boilers and put in a 3,500-watt generator. Joe—he’s the guy who owns the marine shop at the end of the dock—Joe and the utilities let me tie into his lines, so I really don’t need the generator except as a fail-safe.”
    “Must have cost a fortune.”
    “Not as much as a studio condo in Boston . Since the basic structure was only four, the rest came in under a hundred thousand.”
    “That’s still pretty steep for a reporter.”
    “I was married once. He was close to rich. When we got divorced, the property settlement was enough for this, the Alfa, and a sixteen-footer lashed down the dock aways.”
    “Those other stairs lead to the porch?”
    “Yes, but let’s go out and around.”
    Rendall retraced her steps back through the dining room and galley, then outside and around to the ten-by-fifteen porch, facing southwest toward