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thoughts, as Ingo waited silently. “Think about this. Why should a commercial craft be anchored here? There are nothing but porgies in this part of the bay, and commercial boats don’t bother with them. It was slack tide, anyway. The fishing slows up when the tide stops running. He wasn’t after fish.”
    “Maybe he had engine problems. Maybe he was cleaning his catch. Maybe he stopped to urinate.”
    “None of the above,” I said. “Look down there. There’s my boat in the slip on the right. See the windshield? A bullet did that. The guy on the boat was still here when I motored up, and he started shooting at me. I chased him east toward the Sound, but he outran me. He knocked out one of my engines, and I was no match for him with just the other one.” A narrowing sliver of sun remained above the horizon, and now I felt the October chill distinctly. “So, are my concerns far-fetched?”
    “I don’t know who shot at you, but it wasn’t anyone in the boat out there during the accident.”
    “How do you know that?”
    “Because I remember seeing that boat leave when we pulled Kenny ashore. It went off to the west, toward Southold.”
    “Are you sure? Did you catch the name of the boat?”
    “I was occupied trying to start a man’s breathing. I wasn’t looking for something painted on the side of a boat.”
    “On the stern, actually. You did say you saw the boat leave.”
    “You’re cross-examining me again, Seidenberg.”
    “Was it Lulu? Because that’s the name of the boat I tangled with.”
    “Asked and answered,” Julian said brusquely. “I can’t confirm what I don’t know for a fact.”
    Client or no, Ingo Julian was being more difficult than he had a right to be. It was clear he’d rather I went away, but that wasn’t an option now, not for me. “Somebody shot at me,” I said. “I find that irritating. I also think it’s not much of a leap from my skirmish on the bay to some kind of connection to the drowning. So I think maybe we ought to take a long look into the circumstances of just how poor Kenny expired. That’s what I think. What do you think, Ingo?”
    Again, Julian sidestepped. “I regret the damage to your boat. Have it fixed and I’ll pay for it,” he said. “It’s getting dark. Let’s go in. Yes?” He moved back into the great-room, waiting for me to follow before sliding the glass doors shut.
    Ingo was stonewalling me, and I felt my disposition heating up. Any more of this exchange, and I’d be saying things to the chief executive officer of Julian Communications that could put my financial future into jeopardy. Thus I was not at all unhappy to recognize the voice of Hector Alzarez as he strode through the archway into the room. “You honor us, Ben.”
    His attire was, as always, flawless. His dark gray pin-stripes from Paul Stuart on Madison Avenue were miraculously wrinkle-free, despite Hector’s two-and-a-half hour ride from Manhattan on the Long Island Expressway. Inevitably he looked too good to be real, but he was real, all right. Better than real. He was incisive and shrewd and more than a little canny. If he felt there was a need for me, I knew he had reasons.
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
    CHAPTER III
     
     
    “I come when you call,” I said to Hector. “Now tell me why you called.”
    “I think you’re a skilled man in a crisis. You have a way of dealing with situations before they become unpleasant. You make people feel secure,” he said. “I thought you’d be flattered. Did I disturb your retirement?” He started to slip out of his suit jacket, then stopped and looked to Ingo, as if to ask permission. Ingo replied silently as well, with a strained smile and a scarcely perceptible why-should-I-care shrug. Hector slid the jacket off, gracefully, slowly, folded it meticulously and laid it across the back of a chair.
    I said, “Yes, I was flattered. And yes, you did disturb my retirement. ”
    “I’m trying to be gracious,” Hector said.