AllFreeNovel
Share Us
With Eric at his side, Juan reached for the front door’s anchor-shaped knocker, but before he could use it the door flew open, revealing a man who could have been Saint Nick’s larger brother, dressed in a regal purple robe and matching paisley pajamas. His twinkling blue eyes were framed by shaggy gray hair, a full beard with a twisting mustache, and a tulip nose. Although he loomed at a gargantuan six foot four and four hundred pounds, Perlmutter was solid, without a jiggle of flab visible. A tiny dachshund gamboled around their feet, yapping happily.
“Juan Cabrillo!” he cried, grabbing Juan’s hand and giving it a vigorous shake. “What a true pleasure it is to finally meet you!”
“It’s an honor to be invited to your home, Mr. Perlmutter. I only wish I had brought something with me to share. I know you treasure regional delicacies.”
“Where is the Oregon now? Not docked nearby?” Perlmutter was one of the few privy to the Oregon’s true nature and his discretion was unquestioned.
“No, it’s currently in the Dominican Republic.”
“Well, then send me some fresh conch and plantain when you get back. I have a fricassee recipe I’ve been dying to try. And this must be Eric Stone making friends with Fritz.”
Eric was on his knees, rubbing the dog’s belly. He rose and offered a hand. “Sorry. That’s one thing I miss with shipboard life. We had a beagle when I was a child and he had just as much energy as your dog.”
“Not to worry, Mr. Stone.” With the attention gone, Fritz’s barking restarted. “Fritz, behave! Or I will get a cat to set you straight.”
“Please excuse our last-minute call,” Juan said.
“Not at all. You’re just in time to help me try my newest creation, a truffled lobster risotto and Precoce d’Argenteuil asparagus tips served with a bottle of Condrieu Viognier.”
Perlmutter led them through hallways and rooms stacked with books and papers on every available flat surface. Juan knew that administrators in libraries and museums the world over salivated at the thought of acquiring the incredible trove of marine history that made up his unparalleled collection.
Eric gaped at the ancient maps and weathered tomes that seemed to be haphazardly strewn about. “It must be quite a task to catalog all of this. I’d love to see your database.”
Perlmutter tapped his temple. “This is my database, young man. I don’t think in computer language. I don’t even have one.”
Juan was amused to see Stoney’s jaw drop even lower. “You keep track of all this in your head?”
“My boy, I can find any piece of information I want in sixty seconds. Like any good treasure hunter, you just have to know where to look.”
They were escorted into an elegant sandalwood-paneled dining room, which looked decidedly bare as it was the sole room without a single book. They sat down at a thick, round dining table carved from the rudder of the famed ghost ship Mary Celeste and enjoyed the early-afternoon repast while Juan and Eric regaled Perlmutter with sea stories from their adventures, leaving out details that would compromise any classified information. Fritz was kept happy and quiet with regular pieces of lobster fed to him by Perlmutter.
When they were finished, Juan swirled the last of his wine. “Your reputation as an epicure is well deserved. I couldn’t imagine a better lunch.”
Eric nodded in agreement. “Maybe we can convince Mr. Perlmutter to share the recipe with the Oregon’s chef.”
“Happy to! And perhaps he can send me one of his favorites in return.”
“Done,” Juan said.
“Excellent! Now, my cooking is not the only reason you came to see me, is it?”
Juan told Perlmutter about the missing physicist, the German diary he supposedly inherited, the mention of Oz and the Roraima. “Flimsy, I know,” Juan said, “but we were hoping you could point us in the right direction.”
Perlmutter patted his cheek with one finger for a few moments and then leaped up with startling agility and dashed into another room. He returned not thirty seconds later, thumbing through a thick book titled Cyclone of Fire: The Wreckage of St. Pierre.
“The eruption of Mount Pelée was the deadliest volcanic eruption of the twentieth century and it happened on May 8, 1902,” Perlmutter said. “It’s also unique in that we have such a rich historical record of the ships that were sunk in the disaster. I know of no other volcano that resulted in so many wrecked ships that can still be explored. Only one ship survived, the Roddam. Sixteen ships were sunk that day, including the Roraima. Many of them settled upright on the bottom and can still be dived on to this day.”
“Do you think that’s the Roraima we’re looking for?” Juan asked.
“I know it is. This is the only remaining copy of a book that went out of print a hundred years ago. Remember that this was the biggest catastrophe in the Western Hemisphere. All but two people in a town of thirty thousand perished. Scores of books were rushed out about the subject. To take a different angle from the dozens that recounted the horrors visited on the city of Saint-Pierre itself, this one focused on the ships that were in the harbor that day. It was written by a newspaper reporter who took great care in interviewing shipboard survivors and relatives of those who died. Unfortunately, his journalistic thoroughness resulted in a publishing delay, so by the time the book came out the market was saturated. Most of them were pulped.”
“Does it say something about Oz?” Eric asked, incredulous.
“Indeed it does,” Perlmutter said, tapping the page. He read the relevant passage to them.
“Ingrid Lutzen, a German émigré to the United States, lost her brother, Gunther, in the disaster. She sobbed as she recounted how excited he sounded in his final letter to her, sent from the ship’s previous stop in Guadeloupe. He was searching for evidence in the Caribb
ean to support his postdoctoral research in physics that he was carrying on from his work at Berlin University and had made a recent breakthrough in the new field of radioactivity. Gunther was an avid photographer, even going so far as to convert his stateroom into a makeshift darkroom, and was planning to show her the photos documenting his work. The only keepsake she received was a diary of his scientific research given to her by the Roraima’s first officer, Ellery Scott. He told Ms. Lutzen that her brother’s last words were ‘I found Oz,’ a reference to a favorite story of Gunther’s when she was teaching him English during his last visit with her. It gave her some peace knowing that he died thinking of their shared memory.”
