The last minute provisioning of the Diogenes helped get my mind off the Ashton debacle, and the wasted two months of effort. At 5:30 in the afternoon, Rebecca appeared at the fuel dock where I had temporarily tied up. She grimaced as she strained to carry a zippered diving bag full of books. Her lighthearted mood immediately rubbed off on me.

     I noted some nods of approval from Dinner Key salts tied up in neighboring slips as I hefted down the bag and helped Rebecca on board. With the push of a button, my 24-horse Yanmar diesel snorted to life. With some pride, I strode the dock, casting off lines and pushing off, finally hopping on board and throwing the motor into gear. The Diogenes cut through the water nicely as we made our way through the marina. The boat rocked gently as we slipped between the spoil islands and into Biscayne Bay. As my body became attuned to the throbbing of the engine, it felt like I’d left my problems sitting on the dock.

     Outside the channel, I headed the Diogenes straight into the 10-knot easterly wind and asked Rebecca to steer according to my hand signals. Stepping lively around the boat, I removed sail covers, attached halyards and hoisted main and jib. An active body can nurse back to health a damaged soul. Dropping back into the cockpit, I took the wheel, setting course for a starboard tack and pulling in the flapping jib. Throttling the Yanmar down to idle RPM, I pulled the decompression knob. The motor died with a shudder. Now it was just us and the wind. With the wheel clamped down and the boat sailing as steady as a lifelong friend, I hoisted the mizzen and moved around on the deck, optimizing the set of the three sails — with a touch of understated theatricality.

     We made good a true course for Elliott Key at about four knots. I told Rebecca to take the V berth up front and that I would take the main salon. She unpacked her bag below, reemerging in time to enjoy with me a beautiful sunset slightly to starboard. As the sky slowly darkened, Coconut Grove glowed in a thousand points of light to our stern. The wind picked up to 15 knots, and the boat swished through the water at five knots. I asked Rebecca to go to the galley and pull out some sandwiches. I ate mine standing at the wheel. Rebecca sat on the port bench. As Coconut Grove fell away to stern, darkened Biscayne Bay seemed incredibly vast.

     "How do you know where to go, Ben," Rebecca asked with curiosity and a touch of disquietude.

     "I’ve got the compass. The charts tell me that the course is ‘one ninety-three.’ Another mile and we should pick up marker number two. It’s a four-second red flashing. We have to stay slightly to the left of it, because to the right is a shoal called Black Ledge. The next marker after that will bring us to the Featherbed entrance of the Biscayne National Monument. It’s really an underwater park. That’s where we’re dropping anchor tonight."

     "Can you see the red marker now?"

     "No, it’s still below the horizon. It’s only sixteen feet high and can be seen for four and one-half miles. Right now it’s about six miles away. We should start to make it out in about twenty minutes."

     "Then how do you know that you’re going to it right? Right now, that is," Rebecca asked with a trace of distress.

     "I plotted my course, and I have stayed my compass course. So I know that the marker will come."

     "And what if it doesn’t?"

     I told her what you do if rotten weather degrades your visibility. I explained how you favor the safe side if you can’t find the marker. I told her about triangulating on landmarks, and how we could fall back on the Loran if everything else failed.

     Rebecca asked nothing more for long time. How ironic. What I’d just been telling Rebecca was so similar to Dr. Westley’s "take another tack" advice of an evening ago. After a few moments, Rebecca touched my elbow.

     "It’s so beautiful. Trusting a weak magnetic force to steer you in the right direction, keeping track of your progress and looking for a light you can’t always see."

     "That’s the story of my last twelve years, Rebecca."

     Ten minutes went by silently but for the gentle swishing of the water on the hull and the wind in the sails.

     "Ben, show me how you find the light."

     "The chart says the light flashes every four seconds. You look until you think you see a flash. It might be ever so faint. At the instant you think you see it, you count ‘two, three, four, one.’ If it keeps appearing on ‘one,’ you mark its direction and steer for it. If it’s real, it will get stronger the longer you run towards it. When you really have it, no storm cloud can take it away from you as long as you trust your compass."

     Rebecca stood silently next to me for several minutes, peering into the distance: a dark and empty universe — except for the light of a half-moon, the constant pressure of the wind, a gentle rocking and the streaming of the water along the Diogenes’ hull, sounding like a forest brook. I felt so in love with her.

     "Ben, finding the marker in the dark is like me leaving NYU as a bright biology and anthropology major — and heading down to a medical school in Miami. I have a weak background in math — I’m getting deep in debt and rained on with course work — and sometimes I wonder how I’ll make it to my senior year."

     "Yes, Rebecca. I understand. But you’ve got charts. And a lot of people have done it before — you know what direction to head in — and you are good and solid in biology and anthropology. So you can steer a little to the safe side and give yourself some leeway with the math and chemistry. Then if things do get stormy, you’ll still have some sea room to spare."

     "I’m glad I met you," she said softly.

     Rebecca stood silently by me at the wheel, looking off into the distance for a long time. The binnacle compass before the wheel gave off a gentle, red glow, revealing a beautiful face in a meditative mood. Her hand rested on mine, and she nudged the wheel to the right, shifting our course slightly to starboard and downwind.

     She whispered, "Two, three, four. One, two, three, four. One." Her tentative whisper grew to a clearly spoken count. "I think I have it. Yes, I am sure I have it. We’re right on course. I know I’m on the right course with you, Mr. Ben Candidi."

     "So do I. And you are now certified for the midnight watch."

     Rebecca’s musical laugh was interrupted by a fluttering noise. We’d just surprised a floating cormorant. We could barely make it out in the weak light of the half-moon as it splashed and flapped its wings in an amphibious take off. The cormorant flew to port, its wing tips almost touching the wavelets, using ground effect to get the most out of each wing beat.

     "Ben, this reminds me of the song the violinist was playing at the South Beach. The song where a seagull sails across the cove." She sang the first verse in a clear voice with just a trace of vibrato. For some reason she ended a trifle self-consciously. But inspiration was at hand, and I improvised and sang a new verse in my warbling sophomoric tenor. I made up something about a flashing marker leading us there and our compass casting a reddish light — which I rhymed with "sultry night."

     Rebecca squeezed my hand ever so gently and said, "This Jewish girl from New York is becoming strongly attracted to you, Mr. Ben Candidi."

     I started to mutter something about it being mutual, but Rebecca interrupted me with a kiss. I clamped down the wheel, braced myself and slipped my arms around her. Moonlight played on her hair and danced between our cheeks, as her mouth melted into mine and we infused each other with passion. For a magical hour, the polite and discrete Diogenes held a course five degrees upwind of ‘193,’ making no demands on us as we quenched our thirst for each other. Four-second flashing Red Marker #2 glided by to the starboard. The compass card assured us our course was true.

     As flashing Green Marker #2 rose before our bow, it came time to loosen our embrace and tack to the Featherbed Channel. I gave Rebecca the helm. The single flashing marker for the narrow channel grew large before us. The three unlighted markers defining the channel were barely visible. Impassable shoals lurked unseen on either side.

     "Ben, is the flashing green one the forward left one? Is there one unlit marker in front and two in back?"

     "Yes, darling."

     "Then we must be lined up straight with the channel."

     "Yes, darling, and I love you," I said.

     "Falling in love with you is like the channel markers. The closer I get to you, the more I know I’m in the right place." Rebecca steered a true course through the Featherbed Channel, and we glided into the first anchorage by Sands Key, north of Elliott Key. I dropped the sails as she steered. The wavelets lapped gently on the side of the boat as I folded the last sail on the boom. My two anchors caught quickly and firmly. The splash of each anchor triggered a bioluminescent reaction, with thousands of tiny organisms adding their luminous green magic to the enchanted evening. Soon we were below deck, captured in each other’s arms, sharing whispers and sensations rendered no less intimate by the thin layer of latex between us, as we declared our love in moans and gasps of rapture that seemed to last an eternity.

     Awaking 15 minutes before sunrise, I lit the alcohol burner and put on some water. While waiting for it to boil, I went topside and sat on the deck, leaning against the main mast. A lazy five-knot breeze out of the east gently rippled over my naked chest. The Diogenes tugged insistently on its two anchor lines. Except for two boats anchored a few miles to the south, the Key was ours alone.

     But my head was not mine alone. The Ashton debacle kept creeping back into my thoughts. Did I have any chance to solve this case?

     The pan rattled, and I went below to pour the boiling water over the coffee filter setup bought especially for the occasion. I boiled a half-dozen eggs with the remaining water.

     An arm’s length away, slumbered the new love of my life, stretched so gracefully under a sheet on the double berth we’d hastily transformed from a dinette cove the evening before. She was like a sleeping princess from a fairy tale — delicately beautiful, peacefully smiling, lightly breathing, uttering an occasional faint, high-pitched sigh — the princess whose kiss transformed Frog Candidi into a prince.

     As I daydreamed about Rebecca as a princess, she yawned melodiously and opened her eyes. "Ben, did I smell coffee?" She cast off the sheet and stretched her arms to me in invitation.

     The exciting view of her slender, naked body confirmed a princess as charming by day as magical by night. We shared a brief, gentle embrace. Then Rebecca took a quick sip of coffee, then danced up the companionway ladder to the cockpit. A second later, I heard a gentle splash.

     "You come in too, Ben!" her voice echoed over the starboard gunwale.

     "But — "

     "But nothing! Come on. The water’s fine, and we’ve got it all to ourselves."

     "But — "

     "But you’re just looking for an excuse to not dive in."

     "But — "

     "Come on, scaredy-cat! Right now."

     "But if I jump in before setting the swim ladder, we’ll never get back on board!"

     "I can just see it in the newspapers. ‘Catholic altarboy graduate student and Jewish girl med student arrested for indecent exposure in Biscayne Bay. Their crime was discovered by the Florida Marine Patrol whom they flagged down for assistance reboarding their yacht. It seems that they forgot to set the swim ladder.’"

     I quickly wrapped the jib line around a portside cleat and let it dangle over the side. Tossing off my swimming trunks, I dove from the far side of the boat, swam under the rudder and launched a submarine attack on Rebecca. We splashed around for some time until she decided to get out.

     "Ben, you didn’t set the swim ladder."

     "No, you said that we would get the Florida Marine Patrol to help us."

     "But, Ben, how are we going to get up?"

     "Well, we can climb one of the anchor lines."

     "But, Ben, the front of the boat is so high and pointy."

     "Well, we could braid the two lines together and make a rope ladder out of them."

     "But the rope is too high to tie knots. Oh! Here’s a line that you left hanging over the side. And it’s lower."

     "Wait, that’s the jib sheet." I got one of my flashes of inspiration. "No, you can’t touch that line! It’s for controlling the jib. It isn’t supposed to get salt water on it."

     "But it’s the only . . . wait, Ben!"

     I swam up to it and threw the bitter end inboard.

     "Ben!" she half-screamed. "Now how are we going to get back on board?"

     "Well, I’m not so sure."

     "But, Ben!"

     Concentrating on treading water gracefully, I took a deep breath and launched into a mini-dissertation.

     "It seems that I saw a TV piece on the U.S. Marine Corps Officer Leadership Course where they had a problem like this. The officer had to figure how to get across a mud pit with two men using a ladder without touching the wire, and — "

     "But, Ben!"

     "And seeing how you’re so aquatic and daring, I just figured — "

     "Ben, you are a tease!"

     I carried on like this until we both got tired of it. I made her play the officer, while I played the enlisted man. She determined that I didn’t have enough upper body strength to haul myself three feet up the negatively-sloping hull near the cockpit. And she didn’t have enough "swim energy" to push me up. We finally settled on me hanging on the rail and her climbing me and stepping on my shoulders. This worked very well on the second try, but the timing was a little off: One of the yachts had weighed anchor and was just gliding past our stern as Rebecca hauled herself into the cockpit. She received some loud wolf whistles and Rebel Yells. There are a lot of Southerners among the boaters down here. I yelled back at them that sailors do not ‘yahoo,’ only power boaters.

     "Okay, Bosun Candidi," Rebecca said, putting a loop in the end of the jib sheet and tossing it back over board. "You have ten seconds to get yourself on board under your own power, or I’ll cut this rope. And that yacht also has women on board."

     She stood in the cockpit, hands on hips, giving both me and the yachtsmen a full frontal view — defiant towards me and oblivious to them. In the allotted ten seconds, I pulled myself up the jib line, hooked my heel over the winch and clumsily wrestled myself aboard to the accompaniment of female catcalls from the other boat.

     By the time the boat full of Good Ole Boys and Girls was half a mile away, we were eating breakfast in the morning sun. Afterward, Rebecca went below and reemerged wearing sunglasses and carrying a four-inch-thick book titled Goodman and Gilman’s The Pharmaceutical Basis of Therapeutics. She searched through the pages, marked her place with her index finger and got my attention with a winning smile.

     "I thought my new captain and navigator could help me work up some ‘leeway.’ It’s this damned pharmacokinetics. All these equations. And the lecturer was a perfect ass. We’ve got a test two days after we get back. You said you were good in math," she said, half demanding, half pleading.

     "Sure, I’ll take a look at it. Specifically, what’s the problem?"

     "They have the drug going into body compartments that are three times as big as a man! And then these alpha constants and beta constants. It’s enough to drive me to tears."

     I sat down and started to skim the chapter. Rebecca sunned herself on the other side of the cockpit, looking off into the distance and occasionally glancing at me through her shades. It was distracting, trying to interpret equations with a topless girl sitting across from me. Rebecca’s breasts were small but infinitely charming. After 10 minutes of deliberation, I had it figured out.

     "Rebecca, there’s only one problem with the volume of distribution. The concept is counterintuitive."

     "You can say that again!"

     "But, mathematically, it checks out. Look at this equation," I said, turning the book around and leaning forward. "ThisC term is the concentration of drug that you would measure in the blood after you inject x grams of drug into the blood and after the drug distributes throughout the body. And the equation says C is equal to x divided by Vd , the volume of distribution."

     "Okay," she said, leaning forward herself.

     Topless is not the best format for a scientific discussion. We worked the equation, assuming a blood concentration of 0.01 grams per liter and 7.0 grams of injected drug. The Vd came out to a ridiculous-sounding 700 liters, a volume ten times as large as a man. Then I assured her that the math is correct but the concept of volume of distribution is awkward and counterintuitive. The trick was recognizing that not all the drug was dissolved in the body’s water. In this case the drug had to be hydrophobic, with ninety percent of it bound to fat and muscle.

     Rebecca pursed her lips and thought for a minute or two. Sensing a struggle between logic and intuition, I waited patiently.

     "You’re right, Ben! It’s just that — " Then Rebecca smiled as she realized that she understood.

     "It’s just that you have to be a real stickler for definitions and trust the math." My Swarthmore physics and chemistry had taught me that.

     "Well, thanks. You’re a good teacher. You didn’t seem to have any trouble explaining it to me, Ben."

     "Well, I actually did have a little trouble explaining it to you."

     "Why?" Rebecca asked, pretending to be offended.

     "It’s hard to explain this dry stuff to a topless girl!"

     "Ben, you’ve probably had lots of topless girls on this yacht!"

     "But none as charming and intelligent as you."

     Rebecca smiled.

     "Well, now that the white knight has rescued his charming, intelligent and topless damsel from the ivory tower of pharmacokinetics, perhaps he could show her a real coral reef." She had such verve. "My last reef dive was our family vacation in Jamaica, three years ago."

     "Sure, Rebecca, but it will cost us a day’s sail."

     So, we weighed anchor and headed down the length of Elliott Key, transiting Angelfish Creek, out past the Ocean Reef Yacht Club and into the Atlantic. Navigating around shoals cost us some time, but kept me from mulling over the Ashton debacle. By four o’clock we were hooked up to a mooring ring 100 yards to the lee of Turtle Reef. The wind died down just as we arrived. Although the November water is not as pristine as in the summer, the visibility was good, and we had the whole reef to ourselves.

     After asking whether we were securely moored and extracting a promise to set the swim ladder, Rebecca jumped in au naturel except for the mask, snorkel and flippers. This left me no choice but to follow her example, although I’m always squeamish about dangling my most tender parts for fish bait. Once a five-foot barracuda, with fish hooks piercing his nasty jutting jaws, stalked me back to my boat, said jaws often coming within two feet of my flittering fins. Under such circumstances I feel more comfortable presenting a smooth dolphin-like "tank-suit" surface to the sea creatures. But later, Rebecca told me she knew all about ’cuda, and that I was just suffering from a male "castration complex."

     Reef snorkeling is a vivid experience, fulfilling our childhood Peter Pan dream of flapping our arms and flying out the bedroom window over familiar houses and around the church spire. The reef offers a landscape of mountains overgrown with forests of coral, canyons populated with fish and plains of waving sea fans.

     In the nursery tale, the secret to flying was "to really believe." In reef snorkeling, it’s holding your breath. Rebecca must have learned a lot about that on her Jamaica trip, because she made one-minute dives. An Aquarius. What a beautiful sight it was, to see my mermaid passing under a coral arch 25 feet below and then rising, fins fluttering, breasts gently dancing in a thin stream of bubbles, ascending and readying her snorkel and jackknifing at the waist as she broke the surface, transmitting a pattern of concentric ripples playing with the rays of the sun, sending the vibrant message that life is fascinating, limited only by your imagination and love for it.

     This ecstasy lasted for an hour, before impending darkness forced us to return to the boat. The wind was gone, and the weather radio predicted calm, so I decided to stay tied to the mooring ring. The icebox was stocked with 30 pounds of ice and 10 pounds of shrimp from a place on the Miami River. Together with some precooked rice and vegetables, and a little help from my alcohol stove, I was able to create a very presentable dinner. El Sol put on a most incredible dunking performance in orange and red.

     Soon it was dark. A blinking white marker became prominent, two miles out to sea. To our stern was a narrow patch of glow from the Ocean Reef Yacht Club. I imagined 100 people representing several hundred million dollars net worth sequestered individually in their condos, watching football games and docu-dramas. We were wealthier and better entertained. Sipping a French wine, sitting on the port side of the cockpit, my back against the wall of the cabin, with Rebecca on the starboard side, our hands linked across the companionway. I felt peaceful, contented and fulfilled.

     "Ben, you’re so lucky to be able to come down here for a weekend and be so close to Nature."

     "Yes, but it’s never been so nice as with you."

     "Oh, I bet you say that to all your girls."

     "I don’t have any others, and there haven’t been that many."

     "Oh, I bet you had a lot. Tell me now," she coaxed.

     "There was one that I sailed the Bahamas with a couple of years ago. But it didn’t work out. She wanted flash and glitz. I wanted peaceful nights out on the water. She made me put in at a lot of places so we could go dancing."

     Rebecca clicked her tongue and shook her head.

     "Too bad for her. Quiet nights are just fine. Growing up in New York, I never got away from the honking horns. The City is lit up all night. All those people walking outside while I slept. It still feels so unnatural. I’ve probably not spent more than fifteen days with Nature in my whole life! Human beings were made to be close to Nature. Take them away from Nature, and you get socio-pathology."

     "I agree."

     We passed a few minutes in silence, just us and the gentle tugging of the tide on the hull. Rebecca turned around and looked over the bow.

     "Ben, what is that red light and green light?" she asked with some agitation.

     My heart skipped a beat. An oncoming boat that I didn’t hear? Grab signal flashlight from side pocket. Anchor light on? Yes, burning nicely atop our mast. Rapid scan. Where’s the boat? Not anywhere close.

     My adrenaline level slowly went back to normal, and my pulse followed suit. Scanning the horizon, I finally saw what Rebecca was asking about: A red light on the right and a green light on the left. But they were coming closer together.

     "It’s two freighters out in the Gulf Stream. The one showing the red navigation light is going northeast, probably up to New York. The one showing green is going Southwest, probably to New Orleans. They’ll pass each other in a minute."

     "‘Two ships passing in the night.’ How lonely."

     "They may say a few words on Channel Sixteen."

     "Channel Sixteen?"

     "The hailing channel. You can say a few words on it."

     "Only a few words?"

     "If you have more to say, you can arrange to switch to another channel, but not too many do."

     "Like daily life. You can say a few words to people on an official channel. But if you want to say more, you have to find a special channel. And most people don’t want to switch to it." She paused for a long time, looking at the floor of the cockpit. "Like talking with my mother or father. I can’t talk to them both on the same channel. They are both wrapped up in different things. I have to find special ways to talk to each of them in their own way."

     It was hard for me to reply to this, so I said nothing.

     "Ben," she continued, "do you talk much with your mother and father?"

     "We haven’t talked much since I was eighteen."

     "Do they talk much with each other?"

     "No. Not at all. They’re divorced."

     "Oh, I’m so sorry."

     "When I graduated from high school, they gave me two presents: College at Swarthmore and a divorce. Mom got herself transferred to Phoenix, and Dad sold the house and moved into a condominium with his girlfriend. I felt pretty lost, and there wasn’t much to talk about."

     "You probably felt betrayed."

     I loved Rebecca’s understanding and empathy.

     "I probably did," I understated.

     "Do you have any brothers or sisters?"

     "No, just me. Found out later they’d been sticking it out for my sake. Four years so Ben could finish high school and get off to a good start. Overheard them once worrying about my ‘socialization.’"

     "Ben, I’m so sorry."

     She squeezed my hand.

     "I’ve had quite a few years to come to grips with it, Rebecca."

     This time there was a long pause on her side.

     "What made you so idealistic? I mean you’re really not the normal American guy! You think about things. You ride a bicycle to work when you could afford a car. You live on a boat when most people would live in an apartment. You learned all about Miami, and all the different people that live there. Why are you doing this instead of . . . watching television at night?"

     "Because I want to see things as they really are and not the way the advertising people want to make me see them."

     "I agree. What people do that is really important, not what they say or try to fool other people into believing. Man-made things have become more powerful than things of Nature."

     I squeezed Rebecca’s hand.

     "Ben, that’s why I’m so interested in anthropology. In anthropology we try to find the things that are common to all men and women. In Africa, they might sit around the fire and the old men tell stories of the hunt. In America we have TV shows about Texas oil millionaires."

     "Where did you get your idealism?"

     "Oh, I don’t know, Ben. When I was growing up, everything was so narrow and competitive. One summer, when I was fourteen and the other girls were chasing boys, I took up psychiatry as a hobby. Wanted to be a doctor, anyway. Started reading Freud. But I saw through him right away — that stuffy, secretive old stinker. But Freud led me into Jung, who was very deep. That led me into anthropology, and I’ve been hooked ever since."

     "But you are not going to be a psychiatrist."

     "No, I’m going straight into family medicine. Phooey to the specialties! You should use what you know — what you can see with your own eyes. Like seeing how the mothers treat their kids when they bring them in and how husbands relate to their wives. There are lots of cues you can observe. It doesn’t make much difference whether they are East Indian, Latin American, Catholic or Jewish. A doctor should observe and find out what her patients hold dear, what they are afraid of, and show them how to take care of their children and themselves. The doctor should recognize their misperceptions and readjust them. Sometimes she can do it with gentle persuasion, sometimes the patient needs a fast twist, like from a chiropractor. Sometimes a good metaphor or a good story might help."

     I’d never known a girl with such depth of understanding and feeling.

     "But, Rebecca, you just described a psychiatrist."

     "That’s right, Ben. But that used to be part of the job description of a GP, back when people used to live in small towns. Like the doctor in the Norman Rockwell painting. Now the doctors don’t know their patients. By the time the patients get to the psychiatrist, they’re all messed up — the kids are all messed up and they can’t afford the bill anyway. It’s like not taking care of your heart for forty years, and then going in for triple bypass surgery."

     I couldn’t stand it any longer. I crossed over, took her in my arms and kissed her.

     "You’re the most wonderful girl in the world," I whispered.

     "That’s a real compliment, coming from you, Ben," she whispered back, "knowing all those intellectual people in Coconut Grove."

     "The Grove is lower-brainstem."

     "Hero to las muchachas in Little Havana?" she teased, snapping her fingers like castanets.

     "Most of them called me El Anglo."

     "I’ll bet you knew a lot of nice Jewish girls from New York," she said coyly.

      "I liked them all, but none as much as you," I whispered in her ear.

     Whispers became moans, and our bodies entwined in a constant but ever-evolving knot, which would not be untied until deep in the night.

     Once again, I woke up first and fixed breakfast. Friday morning. Three more days to live as man and wife in a state of natural grace. In a slack tide we languidly re-explored the reef. Around eleven o’clock Rebecca swam back and opened her books. She worked hard for about three hours making charts and shuffling flash cards.

     Memories of the Ashton fiasco kept welling up. I pulled out some papers on nerve action potential and tried to study. Rebecca ate the lunch I brought her without looking up from her books. She was engrossed in rote memorization of drugs, their effects and side effects and therapeutic concentrations. Around two o’clock she shook her head and uttered a definitive sigh.

     "Well, I guess I’ve packed my cranium with everything it can hold today."

     I was in the mood for some fun.

     "Now’s time for a pop quiz! Can you name a drug which blocks presynaptic alpha-2 adrenergic receptors, inhibiting their down-regulation of norepinephrine release?"

     Rebecca looked at me quizzically and then answered, "Yohimbine."

     "Right! Now for two additional points, can you tell me whether this drug has any abuse potential? And, if so, what abuse?"

     "Ben, you were looking over my shoulder!"

     "Well, are you going for the two extra points or not?"

     "Do you think that the instructor would ask that question on a test?"

     "I don’t know who the instructor was. But you must have memorized it because I saw it on your flash card."

     "Ben, you’ve got a dirty mind!"

     "Well?"

     "The answer is ‘Increasing the local norepinephrine concentration at certain nerves innervating certain smooth muscles, serving certain organs. The abuse potential lies in increasing the blood supply to the male organ.’"

     "Good, Rebecca. Absolutely erect! You get two points," I said, mimicking a quiz show announcer’s voice. "Now, for an additional point and a comfortable pair of operating room shoe covers, which of the Pharmacology profs was embellishing his lecture with this sexy information?"

     "Let me see. It was smooth muscle, but it wasn’t Dr. Stampawicz. No it was . . . Dr. Grant Johnson."

     "Oh, yes! The laser jock from Ohio. Did he tell you how he loads the cell up with a calcium-binding dye and then ‘blasts the fuck’ out of the dye to release the calcium?"

     "No, he didn’t tell us that, but he was very colorful and knew what he was talking about."

     This led to a discussion of the profs, whom we compared one by one. We agreed that Dr. Gunnison was pretentious. Rebecca said that Dr. Moore didn’t make enough effort in teaching pharmacokinetics.

     "He didn’t help us to understand it. I don’t think he had enough self-confidence to be really honest with us. He probably doesn’t understand it intuitively."

     "I had the same feeling. When Dr. Ledbetter gave a seminar on distribution of a lymphocyte protein called selectin, Dr. Moore asked about its ‘alpha’ rate constant for redistribution and its volume of distribution, as if it were a drug."

     "Who gave the seminar?"

     "Dr. Ledbetter. Did he lecture to you?"

     "Yes, it was on nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs. You know, Tylenol and aspirin, inflammation and arthritis. Wow, was he a character!"

     "How so?"

     "Well, he was supposed to be talking about these drugs, but he kept getting off on his protein. What did you call it?"

     "Selectin?"

     "He said he’d developed a diagnostic test using selectins. He hinted that it was going to make a lot of money. The more he talked about it, the more excited he got. It was like one of these old movies about a mad scientist. Then he said he’d discovered how to use selectins to deliver drugs and how it was going to revolutionize medicine."

     I sat up with a jolt.

     "I’m telling you, Ben, some of us thought that he was going off the deep end! And he let on that none of his colleagues were capable of understanding the implications of his great discovery!"

     "What did he say was his new principle of drug delivery using the selectins?" I asked, trying not to be too interested.

     "He didn’t say. But he did say that he had a patent application on it. He said that the biotech industry has a lot of protein drugs that they can’t deliver. It was something about oral delivery. Whatever it was, it would revolutionize medicine."

     I was pacing the cockpit. This was just the sort of thing I’d been looking for and couldn’t find — drug delivery for proteins — proteins as drugs.

     "Did he say that he was going to use his selectins for oral delivery of proteins as drugs?"

     "I don’t know, Ben. I don’t exactly remember him saying that. But you see, it was all going so fast, and I wasn’t taking notes because we knew that he wouldn’t use this personal stuff on the test. We just sat back and listened to his performance."

     "You said he was kind of strung-out. Kind of weird."

     "He was like . . . one of those weird atomic-bomb scientists. Like Dr. Strangelove."

     My brain was racing. Rebecca, please don’t stop now. Give me all the information, while it’s fresh in your mind. Quick, Ben, quick! What’s the next most important question?

     "Did any other professors attend Dr. Ledbetter’s lecture?"

     "No, I don’t think so, Ben, but I wasn’t looking around."

     "But it would have been embarrassing if another prof had been there."

     "Yes, he made it pretty clear that he didn’t think they were real pharmacologists. He couldn’t have any real friends in your department. I doubt that he was ever properly socialized. Maybe he had an anxiously avoidant relationship with his mother — and competed with his father. What sort of reputation does he have in your department, Ben?"

     "All I know is what I saw when he gave a seminar. He seemed to hate the younger half of the faculty and tolerate the older half. Does he really take the Dr. Strangelove prize for my department?"

     "Yes, Ben. There was no one weirder than him teaching the Pharm course up to now."

     "No one more ready to blow up a whole country to prove a point?"

     "You’ve described Ledbetter to a tee, Ben."

     We were red hot, but I needed one final confirmation of it.

     "What about Dr. Ashton?"

     "He taught us the central nervous system. He’s okay, once you get over his stuffiness. He went to some Ivy League medical school and still can’t get over it. He lectured us in a blue blazer and a yellow bow tie."

     "And hand-tied! I saw it at close range. I was in his lab for six weeks on rotation. Who hasn’t lectured yet?"

     "Dr. Kozinski is going to do most of what’s left of the course. Anti-psychotic, anti-Parkinson drugs, antibiotics, diuretics and anticoagulants. It’s a catch-all collection starting after the exam next Tuesday."

     "You’ll like Kozinski. He’s a ‘mensch.’ He worries a lot about the students’ welfare."

     "Well, that’s just what this Levis girl needs after those other characters."

     Rebecca stowed her books and notes and we went diving again. Except, this time, I wasn’t thinking about the fish. I was thinking about Dr. Ledbetter. Motive: McGregor told me he hated Cooper’s guts. Concealment: Westley told me that protein toxins would be the most clever murder weapon because they were so hard to find by purely chemical means. Method: Rebecca had told me that Ledbetter bragged to the medical students on what seemed to be a method for oral delivery of proteins to the blood stream. Corroboration: He bragged about it to the med students but kept quiet about it in front of his colleagues at the Departmental seminar.

     In an excellent mood, I served Rebecca a shrimp dinner and then uncorked a second bottle of wine — a German one this time. As sun set and as the sky, between the silver-lined clouds, transmuted through shades of reddish-orange, violet and blue, we settled down to a second evening of talk.

     She told me about NYU; I told her about Swarthmore. I told her about my blue-water experience as a crew member on an Annapolis-to-Bermuda run, the months I’d spent as hand on a charter operation in the Bahamas, the salvage of the Diogenes and my lifestyle as a live-aboard yachtsman. She said it was beautiful, silently gliding from one place to another using only the power of your mind and the wind. I offered to take her across the Gulf Stream and cruise the Bahamas next summer. She liked the idea.

     When she asked me about my friends, the Mensa Society had to come out. After you tell someone you’re in Mensa, they’ll never look at you the same. It’s like saying you’re a shrink or an intellectual snob. Not that it’s wrong to be snobbish about money, luxury cars, membership in exclusive clubs, good breeding, good looks or even the size of your pectoral muscles. It’s just considered bad form to be proud of your intellect.

     "Had you ever thought of studying medicine, Ben?"

     "Yes, I did, but I didn’t think that it was for me. Firstly, I’m not personable enough to be a good doctor. Secondly, rote memorization of other people’s ‘facts’ goes against my grain. I like to think things out for myself. Thirdly, a medical education is somewhat out of my price range. Fourthly, I don’t like pompous doctors."

     "Well, I can agree with you about the ‘facts,’ the expense and the pomposity. Especially the expense. How did you decide to go for your Ph.D.?"

     So there it was: "If you’re so smart why aren’t you rich?" If you’re so smart, why aren’t you getting an M.D.? Most med students considered biomedical graduate students to have made a second-best choice. The M.D. is the power degree that will guarantee you $80,000 per year and can easily get you $180,000. I swallowed and answered honestly and politely.

     "Rebecca, for six years I was knocking around trying to find myself and what I really liked. It was suggested to me that my real aptitude was science and that now was the time for me to jump into it."

     "Who suggested it to you?"

     She probed so softly and gently, yet relentlessly.

     "My boss at the Medical Examiner’s Office."

     The truth wouldn’t hurt.

     "And was he right?"

     I told her how biomedical science gives you a real intellectual workout and how it lets you explore questions in depth. I do my best thinking on systems that can be understood like clockwork, with no slippage, no fudge factors. I can’t stand Rube Goldberg mechanisms. Rebecca told me a saying: "A medical education is like a Western river — two miles wide and two inches deep." I laughed and said that education for a biomedical Ph.D. is like an Oklahoma oil well — two feet wide and two miles deep. We laughed.

     But then Rebecca resumed her gentle probing. She noted that a lot of the graduate students are foreign-born Chinese. I answered that Chinese and Japanese are overrepresented in the hard sciences because it’s "dirty work," requiring hard work and patience. And correct answers are hard to come by in hard science. My head began to fill with ugly thoughts of Jake Brown with his how-to books on climbing the corporate ladder, and of Steve Burk with his 200-word executive summaries.

     Rebecca tactfully pursued the question of what I would do with my Ph.D. degree. I didn’t have any quick, enthusiastic answers.

     A female Diogenes on board — holding a lantern to my face — blinding me by the light. What did the light reveal? A cowering teenage boy sickened by the thought that he has to fight tooth and nail for everything good in life — including the girl he loves? That evening our bodies did not entwine in magical knots. I had my own knots to unravel.

     The next day was Saturday. We explored another reef, did some studying and then took the Diogenes back through Angelfish Creek to the Biscayne Bay side. The wind had picked up, and we made a rapid passage. We anchored in the lee of Long Arseniker Key.

     After a glorious sunset, darkness descended and Venus became prominent. The nuclear power plant at Turkey Point, four miles away, emerged as a glowing seven-story high, mile-wide scaffold of yellow lights, whose glow obscured all the minor-magnitude stars in the sky. It’s a fact of life: Power speaks loudly, drowning out the weak. Twenty miles behind the power plant was the city glow of Miami, the consumer of its electricity. A dozen of the tallest buildings blazed in a white, glowing cluster of gaudy self-advertisement.

     But to the west remained the large black patch of the Everglades, God’s reminder of what Florida was created to be. Stacked in three dimensions over the silent garden by unseen air controllers were five jetliners. The big birds descended on Miami International Airport like a small band of hikers with lanterns, descending a mountain trail. Would the spoonbills and anhingas living on the fringe of human activity perceive a disturbing roar or a gentle whine?

     Was it the Everglades or Miami which exerted the greater attraction on the compass needle of my soul? Yes, I had been living on the fringe of human activity, sitting in the Diogenes for several years, a few hundred yards off of Coconut Grove, hovering there in a neurotic approach-avoidance reaction trap. Westley had said it, and Rebecca’s questioning had affirmed it. But now I could focus my intellect and passion.

     As we sat silently in the cockpit of the Diogenes, sheltered in the lee of Long Arseniker Key, we talked from the heart. Rebecca’s hand found mine. The Diogenes rocked us in the cradle of love. Thesis, antithesis and synthesis.

      Sunday morning treated us to no glorious sunrise. We awoke to gray overcast sky that merged seamlessly with gray water two miles away. The icebox yielded some eggs and a box of Danish that smelled like shrimp. I scrambled the eggs and made extra-strong instant coffee. No time to mess around filtering gourmet coffee. A 30-knot north wind was kicking up two-foot waves in our anchorage, and the boat was rocking. The open waters of Biscayne Bay would have four-foot waves all the way back to Miami. Feminine sensibilities are fine in good weather, but foul weather demands a masculine response.

     I donned my foul-weather gear and tossed Rebecca my second pair. At 9:30, I fired up the diesel. With Rebecca’s help at the wheel, I pulled up the anchors and hoisted a storm jib, a reefed main and the mizzen. We headed up the channel into Biscayne Bay, slicing water at seven knots on a close-hauled port tack with considerable heel. A southbound "deep V" Bertram had to share the channel with us, but we showed him, hauling ass and barely noticing his bow wake. Seven miles and a little over an hour later, we shot through the central Featherbed Channel and into the open water of Biscayne Bay.

     Our speed impressed Rebecca. The Diogenes galloped through the four-foot seas like a spirited stallion jumping hedgerows on a fox hunt. The upwardly curved bow dove and rose over the waves, deflecting their upward splashes. But the wind picked up the smaller droplets, accelerating them across the deck, producing a nearly continuous spray. And every tenth wave splashed over the bow and doused the cockpit.

     I stood at the helm. Rebecca sat in my lee, protected from the spray, but looking uncomfortable and withdrawn.

     "Concentrate on the horizon, Rebecca. Hang loose like in the New York subway."

     Rocking at the helm with the wind blowing in my face, I started hearing the music of Richard Strauss’ Hero’s Life in the crashing waves. Was I ready to follow the advice of Nietzsche, that crazy eccentric genius, and perform a moral tightrope dance that would transform me from techno-nerd to Wagnerian hero? Yes, I would focus my skills, courage and determination to win the charming damsel and slay the dragon. I would swoop down on Ledbetter, discover his guilty secrets and bring the evidence to Old Wizard Westley up in his ivory tower overlooking the Bay. And he would know what to do with it. Justice would be served. Act Two: I would repeat my prodigy act of high school, finishing a four-year Ph.D. regimen in three years. Then Rebecca and I would graduate together and live happily ever after with our respective degrees.

     But during the 150-minute run up to Miami, my Wagnerian mood subsided into self-examination. What about my moral dilemmas? The future would certainly confront me with more Jake Brown types and tassel-toed lawyers to test my resolve.

     During my philosophical brooding, the high-rises of the downtown Grove grew larger, looming slightly to port. As we approached the Dinner Key Channel, I ordered Rebecca to the helm, turned on the VHF, fired up the engine and took down the canvas.

     "Ben, that was impressive. Taking down all those sails in such strong wind."

     "Ain’t nothing. I’ve often done it single-handed in much stiffer breezes."

     As we passed my mooring place outside of the spoil islands, the VHF crackled:

     "Mon Roi to Diogenes, Mon Roi to Diogenes, please come in."

     I picked up the mike and transmitted, "We read you loud and clear, Frenchie. Over." I waved in the direction of the Mon Roi.

     "You had me worried Wednesday night. I thought for a moment that the Diogenes was being stolen. I hailed you but you didn’t respond. Over."

     "Sorry, Frenchie. I was a little preoccupied. Over."

     "So I see. You’ve got a passenger! Over."

     "Correction: First Mate. Thanks for your concern.

     Diogenes to Mon Roi, WAR 7142 over and out."

     "I copy ‘Mate.’ Wishing you a bon jour. Mon Roi to Diogenes, WK 35087 over and out."

     Sometimes Frenchie was a good guy to have around, sometimes he wasn’t. We passed the spoil islands and bore down on the docks of the Dinner Key yacht harbor.

     "Rebecca, bring up your gear," I said bruskly. "I’m setting you off on the dock. Here’s ten dollars for a taxi. They usually hang out at the parking lot."

     "Ben, you showed me such a lovely time."

     "Yes, it was for me, too. Today I’ve got to secure the boat and do some things. Maybe we can have a quick lunch together tomorrow."

     "Yes, I’d like that — very much."

     "Good, I’ll meet you at twelve noon outside the third floor amphitheater." Our goodbye kiss started tentatively, but quickly grew passionate. I maneuvered the stern along the end of the dock and tossed up Rebecca’s bag. Abandoning the helm, I quickly helped her onto the dock, then threw the Diogenes into gear and headed off to my anchorage, looking back only once. It was a class act, done briskly, accurately and single-handedly. The boat hadn’t even touched the dock. Like in the song on the juke box at Captain Walley’s, I have my ship, and her flags are flying proudly. With or without the perfect girl, a good man will follow his compass needle.

     Hopefully, Rebecca could stay serious about a guy who wasn’t going for the ‘power degree.’

     After mooring the boat, I devoted the day to working out my plans. Then I grabbed a pair of scissors, went to the head, took one last look into the mirror, said goodbye to my moderately hip life and cut off my ponytail. I tossed the hair over the side. A short time later I had to toss myself overboard: While acting out my Humphrey Bogart disembarkation scene, I forgot that my dinghy was ashore, chained to a tree. I swam ashore to retrieve it.

     My next step in the investigation wasn’t any more elegant.