Sheridan had waited for me outside, away from the reporters and television crews. As I came out a cameraman thrust a microphone under my nose. Had I seen the disaster, what did I think of it—all the inane questions television reporters ask in the wake of a disaster. “Unparalleled tragedy,” I said. “Mr. Grafalk will give you the details.”

Sheridan grinned as I ducked away from the mike. “You’re quicker on your feet than I am—I couldn’t think of a snappy remark on the spur of the moment.”

We walked down the pier to the parking lot where his Capri sat. As he backed it out of the lot he asked if Grafalk had told me what I wanted to know.

“Yeah. He was pretty gracious about it.” Overwhelmingly gracious. I wondered if he were bent on erasing any unfavorable ideas I might have picked up as a result of his interchange with Bledsoe. “Why did Grafalk’s remark about where Bledsoe went to school upset him so much?” I asked abruptly.

“Was that what set him off? I couldn’t remember.”

“Grafalk said: ‘At Martin’s school they went in for a lot of memorizing.’ Then something about his being a gentleman and not needing to know anything. Even if Bledsoe went to some tacky place like West Schaumburg Tech, that’s scarcely a reason to shatter a wineglass in your fist.”

Sheridan braked at a light at 103rd and Torrence. A Howard Johnson’s on our left struggled ineffectually with prairie grass and a junkyard. Sheridan turned right. “I don’t think Martin went to school at all. He grew up in Cleveland and started sailing when he was sixteen by lying about his age. Maybe he doesn’t like a Northwestern man reminding him he’s self-educated.”

That didn’t make sense—self-educated people are usually proud of the fact. “Well, why is there so much animosity between him and Grafalk?”

“Oh, that’s easy to explain. Niels looks on Grafalk Steamship as a fiefdom. He’s filthy rich, has lots of other holdings, but the shipping company’s the only thing he cares about. If you work for him, he thinks it’s a lifelong contract, just like a baron swearing loyalty to William the Conqueror or something.

“I know: I started my career at Grafalk. He was sore as hell when I left. John Bemis too—the captain of the Lucella. But our going never bugged him when we left the way it did with Martin. He regarded that as the ultimate betrayal, maybe because Martin was the best dispatcher on the lakes. Which is why Pole Star’s done as well as it has. Martin has that sixth sense that tells him what fraction of a dollar he can offer to be the low bidder and still make a profit.”