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On the pier, he maneuvered around the men unloading the first two boats and their gear and finally made it out to the Stefania.
Her diesel engine was now shut down. The door to the main cabin slid open and out stepped Francisco Nola. He was a tall, solidly built man, with an olive complexion, thick black hair and mustache, and a rather large nose.
“I thought that that was you,” Nola said warmly.
“Frank,” Canidy said with a wave from the pier, “I cannot tell you how good it is to see you.”
Nola looked at him a bit oddly. “I appreciate the kind words, Dick. But…why?”
“I was worried that you—” Canidy paused and looked around cautiously.
Nola noticed that. “Come on board,” he said.
One of the crew members pushed past Nola.
Nola called to him, “Go up there and tell Giuseppe that we have some kind of fuel-flow problem and that I want him to take a look at it now.”
“Yes, sir,” the crew member said and jumped down to the pier.
Canidy caught that. “So that’s why you’re late coming in? Fuel starvation? After we flew over you, I calculated how long it would take you to reach dock and you took twice the time.”
Nola nodded.
“We lost power today more times than I want to count,” Nola explained. “I found that if I kept the RPMs low, all was fine. But anything over nineteen hundred, she’d shut down. Just happened today, which makes me wonder if it’s trash in the fuel from the bottom of the tank. We’re very, very low on diesel.”
Nola motioned toward the cabin.
Canidy stepped up onto the boat, and they went inside the cabin.
Nola left the door open, and, after a moment, Canidy understood why.
Stacked all along the walls of the cabin were cases labeled as containing canned almonds and pistachios. Two crew members came in and each picked up a case and carried it outside to a pallet that had been put on the pier.
Nuts? Wonder if that’s really what’s in there? Canidy thought. But what else could it be?
And all this wasn’t in here when they took us out to meet the submarine.
Then another crew member came up from down below. In his arms were two cases of olive oil—each holding six one-liter bottles, according to the stencil on the side of the boxes—and he, too, went out the door and to the pallet.
Nola settled into the well-worn seat atop the rickety pedestal at the helm. There was a box at his feet labeled OLIVE OIL, its top flaps folded closed.
Canidy noticed that on the helm beyond the wooden spoked wheel was a large cutting board. On it was a knife that was long and thin, its blade sharpened so many times that it was almost picklike. Next to the knife was a slab of fish flesh, about a kilo in weight, and a beautiful, bright ruby red color that was not at all bloody. There were squeezed halves of lime and lemon, an open bottle of olive oil, the skins and an end of what had once been a whole onion, a few finger-shaped red peppers, and some sort of minced green-leaf spice.
He wondered more than idly what the hell that was—he hadn’t eaten anything substantial since breakfast—but pressed on to more-important matters.
“We need to discuss Palermo,” Canidy said. “Especially the cargo ship that I blew up.”
Nola nodded. “What about it?”
“Have you had any word from Palermo?” Canidy asked.
Nola shook his head.
“Nothing since we left?” Canidy pursued.
“No. Why do you ask?”
“Is there any way to get in touch with someone there?”
