Flood Tide (Dirk Pitt 14)

"I think it's called Pancho Villa."

"If I know my tequilas, Pancho Villa comes in a plastic bottle."

The waiter twisted his lips as if trying to dredge up a vision seen many years previously. Then his face lit up. "Yeah, you're right. It does come in a plastic bottle. Great medicine for what ails you."

"Nothing ails me at the moment," said Pitt.

Giordino came as close to a smirk as he could get. "How much residue lies on the bottom of the bottle, and how much does it cost?"

"I bought a bottle in the Sonoran Desert during the Inca Gold project for a dollar sixty-seven," said Pitt.

"Is it safe to drink?"

Pitt held his glass up to the light before taking a healthy swallow. Then he jokingly crossed his eyes and said, "Any port in a storm."

The waiter returned from the kitchen with Giordino's oysters along with Pitt's gumbo. They decided on a main course of jambalaya and catfish. The Gulf oysters were so large that Giordino had to cut them apart as he would a steak. Pitt's bowl of gumbo would have satisfied a hungry lion. After stuffing their stomachs with a heaping platter of jambalaya, then ordering another Dixie beer and Pancho Villa tequila, they sat at the table and loosened their belts.

All during dinner, Pitt had rarely taken his eyes off the old man observing the poker players. "Who's the old fellow over there straddling the chair?" he asked the waiter. "I know him but can't place

where we met."

The waiter swiveled his eyes around the bar, stopping them on the old man. "Oh, him. He owns a fleet of fishing boats. Mostly trawls for crab and shrimp. Owns a big catfish farm, too. Wouldn't know it to look at him, but he's a wealthy man."

"Do you know if he charters boats?"

"Dunno. You'll have to ask him."

Pitt looked at Giordino. "Why don't you work the bar and see if you can learn where Qin Shang Maritime's towboats dump their trash?"

"And you?"

"I'll ask about the dredging operations upriver."

Giordino nodded silently and rose from the table. Soon he was laughing amid several fishermen, regaling them with inflated stories of his fishing days off California. Pitt moved over to the old fisherman and stood beside him.

"Excuse me, sir, but I wonder if I might have a word with you."

The gray-bearded man's blue-green eyes slowly examined Pitt from his belt buckle to his black curly hair. Then he nodded slowly, rose from his chair and motioned Pitt to a booth in one corner of the bar. After he settled in and ordered another beer, the fisherman said, "What can I do for you Mr...."

"Pitt."

"Mr. Pitt. You're not from around the bayou country."

"No, I'm with the National Underwater and Marine Agency out of Washington."

"You doing marine research?"

"Not this trip," said Pitt. "My colleagues and I are cooperating with the Immigration Service in trying to stop the illegal smuggling of aliens."

The old man pulled a cigar stub from the pocket of an old wind-breaker and lit it. "How can I help?"

"I would like to charter a boat to investigate an excavation upriver-"

"The canal dug by Qin Shang Maritime for landfill at Sungari?" the fisherman interrupted knowledgeably.

"The same."

"Not much to see," said the fisherman. "Except a big ditch where the Mystic Bayou used to be. Folks call it the Mystic Canal now."