Over fifty years, St. Julien Perlmutter had accumulated the finest and most extensive collection of historical ship literature ever assembled in one place. His library was the envy of every maritime archive in the world and second to none. What books and ship records he could not possess, he painstakingly copied. Fearful of fire or destruction, his fellow researchers pleaded with him to put his immense archive on-line, but he preferred to leave his collection in bound paper.

He generously shared it all without cost to anyone who came to his front door seeking information on a particular shipwreck. As long as Pitt had known him, Perlmutter had never turned down anyone who sought his extensive knowledge.

If the staggering hoard of books wasn't a colossal sight, Perlmutter was. Julia gazed openly at him. His face, turned crimson from a lifetime of excessive good food and drink, barely showed under a curly mass of gray hair and a thick, heavy beard. His nose under the sky-blue eyes was a little red knob. His lips were lost under a mustache twisted at the ends. He was obese but not sloppy-fat. No flab hung. He was solid as a massive wood sculpture. Most people who first met him thought he was probably much younger than he looked. But St. Julien Perlmutter was a year past seventy and as hearty as they came.

A close friend of Pitt's father, Senator George Pitt, Perlmutter had known Dirk almost from the time he was born. Over the years they had formed a close bond to the point where Perlmutter was like a favorite uncle. He sat Pitt and Julia down around a huge latticed hatch cover, reconstructed and lacquered to as high a sheen as a dining table's. He offered them crystal glasses that had once graced the first-class dining room of the former Italian luxury liner the Andrea Doria.

Julia studied the etched image of the ship on her glass as Perlmutter poured the aged port. "I thought the Andrea Doria rested on the bottom of the sea."

"She still does," said Perlmutter, twisting one end of the gray hair flowing from his lips. "Dirk here brought up a rack of wineglasses during a dive he made on the wreck five years ago and graciously gave them to me. Please tell what you think of the port."

Julia was flattered that such a gourmet would want her opinion. She sipped the ruby contents of the glass and made an expression of delight. "It tastes wonderful."

"Good, good." He gave Pitt a look reserved for a derelict on a park bench. "You I won't ask, since your taste runs to the mundane."

Pitt acted as if he was insulted. "You wouldn't know good port if you drowned in it. While I, on the other hand, was weaned on it."

"I hate myself for ever letting you through the front door," Perlmutter moaned.

Julia saw through the charade. "Do you two always go on like this?"