Fire Ice

22

WASHINGTON, D.C.

ST. JULIAN PERLMUTTER had spent most of his day researching a twin-hulled Civil War ironclad for the Smithsonian Institution, and the work had made him hungry. But then, practically everything made Perlmutter hungry. An ordinary human faced with this state of affairs would have satisfied his needs by slapping a wad of cold cuts between two slabs of bread. Not so Perlmutter. He indulged his addiction for German cooking with a plate of pig's knuckles and sauerkraut, paired with a light-bodied Reisling Kabinett plucked from his four-thousand-bottle wine cellar. He dined using silver and china from the French liner Normandie. He was sublimely happy. The mood persisted even when his telephone gave off a ring like a ship's bell.

He patted his mouth and thick gray beard with a monogrammed linen napkin, and reached with a plump hand for the phone. "St. Julian Perlmutter here," he said pleasantly. "State your business in a brief manner."

"I'm sorry. I must have the wrong number," the voice on the phone said. "The gentleman I'm trying to reach would never answer the phone so politely."

"Ah ha!" Perlmutter's voice ratcheted up the decibel scale to a supersonic boom. "You should be sorry, Kurt. What happened to imam?"

"Can't say I know anyone by that name. Have you tried Istanbul missing persons?"

"Don't toy with me over such an important matter, you impertinent young snit," Perlmutter boomed, his sky blue eyes twinkling in the ruddy face. "You know perfectly well you promised to get me an authentic recipe for imam bayidi. Translated loosely as 'the imam fainted,' because the old boy was overcome with delight when he tasted the dish. You did remember, didn't you?"

Austin kept on Perlmutter's good side by searching out authentic recipes on his travels around the world. "Of course I remembered. I've been trying to persuade one of the finest chefs in Istanbul to part with his recipe and will send it to you forthwith. I wouldn't want you to waste away to nothing."

Perlmutter roared with laughter, the belly laugh amplified by the nearly four hundred pounds of flesh adhering to his sturdy frame. "There's not much danger of that happening. Are you still in Turkey?"

"In the neighborhood. I'm on a NUMA ship in the Black Sea."

"Still on your vacation cruise?"

"Vacation's over. I'm back at work and need a favor. Could you dig up something on an old cargo ship named the Odessa Star? It went down in the Black Sea, but I don't know when. That's all I can tell you for now."

"Tracking down your ship should be no problem, not with such a helpful description," Perlmutter responded with dry humor. "Please tell me what you do know about it." Perlmuttecr jotted down the sparse information Austin was able to give. "I'll do my best, although I may be weak with hunger, a condition easily remedied by the receipt of a certain Turkish recipe."

Austin again assured Perlmutter that the recipe was in the pipeline, and hung up. He felt guilty for shading the truth somewhat. With all that was going on, he had forgotten Perlmutter's request. He turned to Captain Atwood. "Does anybody in the galley know anything about Turkish cooking?"

While Austin tried to track down the imam, thousands of miles away in his N Street carriage house behind two vine-encrusted Georgetown town houses, Perlmutter was grinning with pleasure. Despite his bluster, he enjoyed a challenge. The Smithsonian would have to wait, although the concept of an obscure twin-hulled ironclad was intriguing. He glanced around the huge combination living room, bedroom and study at the stacks of books occupying every square inch. Although the space looked like a librarian's nightmare, Perlmutter's apartment contained the finest collection of historical ship literature ever assembled.

Perlmutter had read every volume he owned at least twice. His encyclopedic mind had absorbed a numbing number of facts, each connected like the links of a Web site to related caches. He could pluck a book from a dusty pile, run his finger down the spine and remember practically every page.

He knitted his brow in thought; something was eluding him, lurking in a shadowed comer of his mind beyond the periphery of consciousness. He was sure he'd heard of the Odessa Star before Austin mentioned it. He would find it in five minutes or not at all. He dug through his piles of books and periodicals, mumbling under his breath. Damned if he could remember. Must be getting old. He rummaged for an hour before giving up. He picked a card out of his telephone number file and dialed the international code for London and a number.

A moment later, a clipped British accent answered, "Guildhall Library."

Perlmutter gave his name and asked for an assistant cataloger he had dealt with on previous calls. Like many English institutions, the Guildhall Library had been around for centuries. The original library dated back to 1423 and was acknowledged worldwide for a history collection that went back to the eleventh century.

The library also had the finest collection of wine and food books in the United Kingdom, a fact that had not escaped Perlmutter's attention. But it was the Guildhall's extensive maritime records that Perlmutter often drew upon in his research. England's naval tradition, and the wide reach of the British Empire colonies and trade, made the collection a treasure trove of information about practically every sea-girt country in the world.

The cataloger, a pleasant young woman named Elizabeth Bosworth, came on the line. "Julian. How nice to hear from you again."

"Thank you, Elizabeth. All goes well with you, I trust."

"Very well, thank you. I've been quite busy indexing agreements of colonial registered vessels dating back to the seventeen hundreds."

"I hope I'm not calling at a bad time."

"Of course not, Julian. The material is fascinating, but the work does get a bit tedious at times. What can I do for you?"

"I'm trying to track down some information on an old cargo ship named the Odessa Star and wondered if you could tickle the Lloyd's file for me."

The Guildhall Library held all the shipping records for the giant international marine insurance underwriter prior to 1985. Lloyd's of London had been established in 1811 to provide a universal system of "intelligence and superintendence" in all the principal ports of the world. To accomplish this goal, Lloyd's had set up a network of agents. By the turn of the century, the agency had more than four hundred agents and five hundred subagents scattered around the globe. Their reports on marine casualties, shipowners, shipping movements and voyages were contained in the library's files, where they were accessible to historians like Perlmutter.

"I'd be happy to look into it for you," Bosworth replied. Her enthusiasm was due only in part to the generous contributions, far and above the usual research fee, that Perlmutter consistently made to the library. She shared his love of sea history and admired his book collection. More than once, she had gone to him with queries of her own.

Apologizing for providing so little information, Perlmutter relayed the facts outlined by Austin. Bosworth said she would get back to him as soon as she could. Perlmutter hung up and returned to his research for the Smithsonian. With bulldog perseverance, he unearthed a rough sketch of the Confederate twin-hulled ironclad and was typing out a report on his computer when the phone rang. It was Bosworth.

"Julian, I've found some references to the Odessa Star: I'll fax them to you."

"Thank you so much, Elizabeth. In return, the next time I'm in town I'll take you to lunch at Simpson's on the Strand."

"It's a date," she said. "You know where to find me." They said their good-byes and, a minute later, the fax buzzed and spat out several sheets of paper. Perlmutter examined the top sheet. It was the report of the Lloyd's agent in Novorossiysk, a Mr. A. Zubrin. It was dated April of 1917.

"This is to report that the Odessa Stat; freighter of ten thousand tons, carrying a cargo of coal from Caucasus, enroute from Odessa to Constantinople 1917, February, did not arrive at its destination and is presumed lost. Have confirmed such with G. Bozdag, Lloyd's agent, Constantinople. No report of ship at any Black Sea port. Vessel owned by Fauchet, Ltd., of Marseilles, France, which has put in a claim. Last survey, June 1916, showed ship in desperate need of repair. Please advise as to claim."

The other papers included a three-way correspondence among the agent, the central office in London and the French owners. The French were insisting on full payment of the claim. Lloyd's resisted, citing the perilous condition of the ship, but eventually settled for a third, most of it the value of the cargo.

Perlmutter turned to a ceiling-to-floor bookcase and extracted a thick volume whose burgundy cloth cover was worn with use. He leafed through the registry of French shipping companies. Fauchet had gone out of business in 1922. Perlmutter grunted. Small wonder, the way they neglected their ships. He replaced the registry and picked up another document Bosworth had sent him. It was a copy of a book review from the London Times dating to the thirties.

The headline read: VETERAN SEA CAPTAIN REVEALS SECRETS OF THE BLACK SEA. He put the review aside and turned to the note from Bosworth.

"Dear Julian. Hope this material is of help. I found a reference to your mystery ship in a summary of archival material bequeathed to the library by the estate of Lord Dodson, who served for many years in the Foreign Office. It was a manuscript containing Dodson's memoirs, but it seems to have been withdrawn by the family. There was also mention of the Odessa Star in a book called Life on the Black Sea. We have a copy here and I can FedEx it to you if you wish."

Perlmutter put the note down and went over to a shelf crammed to the gills with volumes of every size and description. He ran his pudgy fingers along a row of books and pulled out a small, slim volume with a leather cover handsomely embossed in gold leaf.

"Hah!" Perlmutter exclaimed in triumph. If he could have danced, he would have done a two-step; No longer worried about his temporary lapse of memory, he scribbled a note on a piece of paper and inserted it in the fax machine. "No need to send book. Have it in my collection. Thanks." As the message flew across the Atlantic, Perlmutter settled into a comfortable chair with a tumbler of iced hibiscus tea, a plate of crackers and white truffle paste by his side, and began to read.

A Russian ship captain named Popov had written the book in 1936. The captain had an eye for detail and a sense of humor, and Perlmutter found himself smiling frequently as Popov related his adventures with waterspouts and storms, leaky vessels, pirates and bandits, thievish merchants, knavish bureaucrats and mutinous crews.

The most poignant chapter was one entitled "The Little Mermaid." Popov had been the skipper of a freighter carrying a cargo of lumber across the Black Sea. One night the lookout saw the flash of lights in the distance and heard what sounded like distant thunder, although the sky was clear. Thinking someone might be in trouble, Popov investigated.

"When my ship arrived several minutes later; we encountered an oil slick, and a cloud of black greasy smoke, hung on the water: There was debris floating everywhere and, more horrifying, burned and mutilated bodies. Despite my entreaties, my crew refused to recover the corpses, saying they were bad luck, and dead and gone in any case. I called for Stop engines and we listened. All was silent. Then came what sounded like the cry of a seabird. I enlisted my loyal first mate and launched a boat. We made our way through the sad flotsam toward the sound. Imagine our surprise when the lamplight fell upon the golden tresses of a young girl. She was clinging to a wooden crate and, had we arrived minutes later; would have frozen to death in the frigid black water: We pulled her into the boat and cleaned the oil from her face. My mate exclaimed: 'Why, she looks like a mermaid!' My crewmen, seeing our lovely burden, put aside their rebellious emotions and ministered to the girl. When she recovered, she proved herself to be quite well-spoken. She conversed easily in French with one of our crew. She said she had been traveling with her family on a ship called the Odessa Star. Although she recalled the ship's name, she could not remember her own but thought it might be Maria. Of her life before the ship went down and the circumstances of its sinking, she could remember nothing. The tough old salts aboard my ship could not have been more tender in their regard and called her 'the little mermaid.' "

The captain reported the incident when he got back to port, but strangely he told the authorities nothing about the girl. His omission was explained in the epilogue.

"Some of my dear readers may have wondered what became of the little mermaid. Now that many years have passed, I feel free to reveal the truth. When I found the girl floating barely alive on the billows, I had been married five years. In all that time, my lovely young wife had been unable to conceive a child. Upon my return to the Caucasus, we adopted Maria as our own. She was a joy to both of us before my wife died, and became a lovely young woman who, in time, married and had children of her own. Now, in my retirement, I feel that it is time to reveal to the world the precious gift the sea gave to me after years of inflicting so many hardships."

Perlmutter put the book down and picked up the Times review. The reviewer had been critical of the writing, but intrigued by the story of the mermaid, which he described at great length. Perlmutter guessed that some sharp-eyed Lloyd's operative had seen the reference to the Odessa Star and attached it to the claim file on the missing ship.

The captain's account had been so fascinating Perlmutter had forgotten his snack. He remedied the situation quickly by slathering twenty dollars' worth of truffle onto a cracker. Back once more in the present, Perlmutter stared out the window as he savored the delicate earthy taste. Then he remembered Bosworth's comment about Lord Dodson. He read her note again and wondered why the Dodson family would have pulled the archives from the library.

Despite his ungainly bulk, Perlmutter was very much a man of action. He picked up the phone and dialed a couple of acquaintances in London. Within minutes, he learned that Lord Dodson's grandson, himself a lord, was alive and living in the Cotswolds. Perlmutter got a phone number, al- though his source made him swear under pain of eating at Burger King not to reveal where he had gotten it. Perlmutter called and identified himself to the man who answered the phone.

"This is Lord Dodson. You say you're a marine historian?" He sounded bemused but pleasant, speaking in the clipped accent of the British upper class.

"That's correct. I came across a reference to your grandfather's memoirs while doing some research on a ship called the Odessa Sta,; The library apparently relinquished the material at the request of your family. I wonder when the material might be going back to Guildhall."

There was a silence on the other end. Then Dodson said, "Never! I mean, some of the material is much too personal in nature. You must understand that, Mr. Perlman." He sounded flustered.

"The name is Perlmutter, if you don't mind, Lord Dodson. Surely the historical material could be made separate from the personal."

"I'm sorry, Mr. Perlmutter," Dodson said, getting his voice under control. "It's all part and parcel. It would do no one any good and cause a great deal of painful embarrassment if this material were made public."

"Forgive me for being obtuse, but I understand that he willed all the material to the library to be put in the archives."

"Yes, that's true. But you have to understand my grandfather. He was a man of towering rectitude." Catching the unintentional comparison to his own character, Dodson said, "What I mean was that he was naive in many ways."

"He couldn't have been too naive to hold a high post in the Foreign Office."

Dodson laughed nervously. "You Americans can be damnably persistent. Look Mr. Perlmutter, I don't wish to be rude, but I must terminate this conversation. Thank you for your interest. Good-bye."

The phone went dead. Perlmutter stared at it for a moment and shook his head. Strange. Why would the old boy be so upset at an innocent query? What secret could be so painful after so many years? Well, he had done his best. He punched out the number Austin had given him. He would let others determine why the Odessa Star could upset someone more than eighty years after the ship had gone to her grave in the Black Sea.