While we talked Phillips kept darting glances at his watch and muttering, “Uh, Niels,” in his tight voice. He reminded me of a child tugging at its mother’s skirts while she’s absorbed in conversation—Grafalk gave him about the same amount of attention. Finally Phillips stood up. “Uh, Niels, I’d better leave now. I have a meeting with, uh, Rodriguez.”

Grafalk looked at his watch. “We’d all better be going, I guess. Miss Warshawski, let me take you over to Percy MacKelvy and get the Bertha Krupnik’s location for you.” He got a bill from the waiter and signed it without looking at the amount, politely waiting for me to finish. I dug the heart out of my artichoke and cut it into four pieces, savoring each one, before putting my napkin to one side and getting up.

Phillips lingered with us in the doorway, despite his meeting. He seemed to be waiting for some sign from Grafalk, a recognition of who he was, perhaps, that would enable him to leave in peace. The power of the rich to bestow meaning on people seemed as though it might work with Phillips.

“Don’t you have a meeting, Clayton?” Grafalk asked.

“Uh, yes. Yes.” Phillips turned at that and walked back across the tarmac to his Alfa.

Sheridan accompanied me over to Grafalk’s office. “I want you to come back to the Lucella and talk to Captain Bemis when you’re finished here,” he said. “We need to know if you can tell us anything about what your cousin wanted to say.”

I couldn’t, of course, but I wanted to know what they could tell me about Boom Boom, so I agreed.

Our visit to Grafalk’s office was interrupted by reporters, a television crew, and an anxious phone call from the chairman of Ajax Insurance, which covered Grafalk Steamship.

Grafalk handled all of these with genial urbanity. Treating me like a treasured guest, he asked the NBC television crew to wait while he answered a question for me. He took the call from Ajax chairman Gordon Firth in MacKelvy’s office.

“Just a minute, Gordon. I have an attractive young lady here who needs some information.” He put Firth on hold and asked MacKelvy to dig up the Bertha’s location. She was making a tour of the Great Lakes, picking up coal in Cleveland to drop in Detroit, then steaming up to Thunder Bay. She’d be back in Chicago in two weeks. MacKelvy was to instruct the captain to place himself and the crew at my disposal. Grafalk brushed my thanks aside: Boom Boom had been an impressive young man, just the kind of person the shipping industry needed to attract. Whatever they could do to help, just let him know. He returned to Firth and I found my way out alone.