Hard News (Rune 3)

"YOU PUT THAT IN A BOTTLE AND YOU'VE GOT YOURSELF something," she said.

Rune had walked into the apartment, right past the elderly man who'd opened the door, and stepped up to a glass case. Inside was an elaborate model of a ship--not a rigged clipper ship or man-of-war but a modern cargo ship. It was four feet long. She said, "Audacious."

"Thank you. I've never made ships in bottles. To tell you the truth, I don't like hobbies."

She introduced herself.

"Bennett Frost," he said. He was about seventy-five years old. He wore a cardigan sweater with a moth hole on the shoulder and cheap gray pants. He was balding and had dark moles on his face and head. He leaned forward, a vestigial bow, as he shook her hand. He held it for a moment longer than one normally would have and looked at her closely. The touch and the examination, though, were not sexual. He was appraising her. When he was done he released her hand and nodded at the glass case.

"The Minnesota Princess. Odd name, don't you think, for a ship that spent most of her time in the Mediterranean and the Atlantic? My very first ship. No, I shouldn't say that. My very first profitable ship. Which is, I suppose, better than my first ship. I named her Minnesota because I was born there."

He walked into the large apartment. Rune followed him. In the cluttered living room she noticed suitcases.

"You going on a trip?"

"I have a place in Bermuda. Haiti was my favorite. The Oloffson--what a hotel that was. Not true any longer, of course. I never used to go to British colonies but you know how things are elsewhere." He looked at her with slits of eyes, a shared secret. She nodded.

His eyes fell on her camera.

"You have a press pass or something?"

She showed him her Network ID. He scanned her up and down again, a CAT scan of her soul. "You're young."

"Younger than some. Older than others."

He gave that a curly smile and said, "I was young when I got started in business."

"What did you do?"

He gazed at the model. "That was my contribution to the shipping industry and the aesthetics of the sea. She isn't beautiful; she isn't a stately ship."

"I think she looks pretty nifty."

Frost said, "'And the stately ships go on/To their haven under the hill/But O for the touch of a vanished hand/And the sound of a voice that is still.' Tennyson. Nobody knows poetry anymore."

Rune knew some nursery rhymes and some Shakespeare but she remained silent.

He continued, "But that ship made money hand over fist for a lot of people." He lifted a heavy decanter and started pouring two glasses of purple liquor, as he asked, "Would you like some port?"

She accepted the glass and sipped. It was cloying as honey and tasted like cough medicine.

"I started out as a ship's chandler. Do you know what that is?"

"A candle maker?" Rune shrugged.

"No, a provisioner. A supplier. Anything a captain wanted, from a ratchet to a side of beef, I would get it. I started when I was seventeen, rowing out to the ships as soon as they dropped anchor, even before the agents arrived or they'd started off-loading. I gave them cut prices, demanded half as a deposit, gave them fancy-looking receipts for the cash and always returned with what they wanted or a substitute that was better or cheaper."

"I was wondering, sir--" she began.

Frost held up a hand. "Listen. This is important. During the thirties I moved into the shipping side of the business."

Rune didn't see what was important but she let him talk.

And talk he did. Fifteen minutes later she'd learned about his growing fortune in the shipping business. He was talking about ship propellers he'd designed himself. "They called them Frost Efficiency Screws. I got such a kick out of that! Efficiency Screws! So my ships could make the run from the Strait of Hormuz around the horn to the Ambrose Light in thirty-three days. I had the fastest oil carriers in the world. Thirty-three days."

Rune said, "If I could ask you a few questions. About the Hopper killing."

"There's a point I'm trying to make."