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time?"
    Jack was patient. "What time in the morning do we have to be out?"
    The bartender gaped. "You mean you're staying all night?"
    For the first time Jack looked a little wary. "That was the idea. Is there a problem?"
    "You want a whole room for one whole night?" Jack nodded. "What the hell you going to be doing up there that'll take all night?"
    It was so obviously shock rather than prurient interest that prompted the question that Jack said only, "How about a key?"
    The bartender woke from his self-induced trance. "The whole night'll cost you more than a hundred, I can tell you that, pardner."
    Unmoved, Jack said, "How much more?"
    Taken aback, the bartender glanced around for help.
    "I don't know," he admitted, "no one's ever asked for a whole room for the whole night before."
    Jack reached for his money clip and peeled another hundred off. "That do?" The bartender looked dazedly down at the bills in his outstretched hand, and Jack sighed and added another hundred, The bartender swallowed hard, the bills disappeared into a pocket and he said, "I'll get that key."
    Conversation picked up as they followed him up the gangway bolted to the back wall. Kate's last sight of the bar was of Anatoly's enormous brown eyes, swimming with reproach, following her every step of the way.
    The room wasn't much bigger than the stateroom Kate was sharing with Andy on the Avilda, and but for the bunkbeds looked very similar. The bulkheads were metal and cool to the touch, the bunk was narrow and built in to the wall with drawers beneath it and a porthole above, and the adjoining head was the size of an aspidistra. planter. "Hold it," Kate said when the bartender would have left them. Pulling back the covers on the bed, she sniffed the sheets. They smelled fresh and they looked clean. So did the toilet, and when she pulled back the shower curtain the floor looked fungi-free. It was far more than she'd hoped for. She reentered the room and nodded at Jack, who repeated, "So, when do you want us out of here?"
    The bartender scratched his head. "Hell, I don't know."
    "When's your boat due out?" Jack asked Kate.
    She shrugged. "We're waiting on a part they're flying in from Anchorage. Could be one day. Could be two."
    "But it won't be tomorrow." She shook her head, and Jack looked back at the bartender, who threw up his hands. "The hell with it," he told them, "stay as long as you like. And don't even think about complaining about the noise. This ain't exactly the Holiday Inn, you know."
    "We know," Jack said dryly, and the bartender stamped out.
    "Did you see that line of coke?" Kate demanded as soon as the door slammed shut behind him. Jack nodded.
    "God knows I'm no prude, Jack, but Jesus! There had to be thousands of dollars worth of hits on that bar!"
    He unzipped his jacket and sat down to unlace his boots. "Hundreds of thousands."
    "Enough for Amaknak Island to achieve lift-off," she said, her torn voice outraged. "I'd bet my last dime there wasn't a kid there over twenty-five, and every last one of them due to go back out into the Bering Sea as soon as their boats are refueled. You've got to do something."
    "Look, Kate, I don't mean to sound unfeeling," he said, grunting a little as the first boot came off, "but could we concentrate for a minute on why you're here?"
    "You've got to do something," she reiterated.
    He set the second boot beside the first, lining the two up with meticulous precision. "Kate. I'm an investigator for the Anchorage D.A. I am not a police officer, and even if I were this isn't anywhere remotely near my jurisdiction."
    She told him what he could do with his jurisdiction, and he said, "You want me to wade into that crowd of drunks, most of them just off their boats, thousands of dollars in their pockets, thousands of miles from home and family, roaring to have a good time, and tell them they can't?" He snorted. "There wouldn't be enough of me left to lick up off the floor."
    "Then call the cops! Call the troopers!