Benchley, Peter (16 page)

Hall smiled and said, “What’s the problem?” His accent was East Coast American.

Sanders said, “What do you know about a shipwreck off Orange Grove-Goliath?”

Hall thought for a moment.

“Goliath.

Mid-forties, right? British ship, I think.”

They told Hall their story, eliminating both the clinical details of the assault on Gail and Treece’s suspicions about the existence of a Spanish ship. As they were finishing, Gail looked at David and said, “Treece was against our coming to the government.”

“I’m not surprised,” Hall said. “He’s had some run-ins with the government.”

“What kind?” Sanders asked.

“Nothing serious. And it’s all pretty long ago.

Anyway, I’m glad you did come. Even if nothing else happens, you’ve had more than your share of unpleasantness. I’m sorry, and I know the director would want me to extend his apologies, too.”

“Mr. Hall,” Sanders said, “that’s very nice. But we didn’t come here for apologies.”

“No, of course.”

“What can you do?”

“I’ll talk to the director this evening. I’m sure he’ll want to confer with the Minister, when he returns.”

“Where is he?”

“Jamaica … a regional conference. But he’ll be back in a few days. Meanwhile, we’ll check with the police and see if they know anything about this fellow Cloche.”

“The police?” Sanders said. “I told you, Cloche said he has friends in the police. I know he does.”

“We’ll do it all very quietly. I’ll call you as soon as we know anything.” Hall stood up.

“I do want to thank you for coming by. How long will you be here?”

“Why?”

“Because if it will make you more comfortable, I’ll be happy to have a policeman assigned to you.”

“No,” Sanders said. “Thanks. We’ll be all right.”

They shook hands, and the Sanderses left Hall’s office.

Outside, they walked along Front Street. The sidewalk was crowded with window shoppers from the Sea Venture,

who peered at the Irish linen and Scottish cashmere and French perfume in the window of Trimingham’s, and calculated the savings on the duty-free liquor advertised in the spirit shops.

“Do you think he believed us?” Gail said.

“I think so, but I think if we wait for him to do anything, we’ll die of old age.”

A few doors ahead, Sanders saw the Pan American ticket office. When they were abreast of the door, he touched Gail’s arm and pointed.

She stopped and looked at the foot-high blue letters “Pan Am” painted on the window. “We’re damned if we do and damned if we don’t,” she said. “I don’t know if I could live with the pressure at home; the threat, the not knowing, always wondering: What if … ?”

David gazed at the lettering for a few seconds more, then said, “Let’s go see Treece.”

“I’ll not say ‘I told you so,”” Treece said. “Bloody fools have to be scorched before they’ll admit there’s a fire.”

Sanders said, “Did you register the Spanish ship?”

“Aye. You didn’t tell the noble Mr. Hall about it, did you?”

“No.”

“He was pretty… reserved … about you,”

said Gail.

“Reserved?” Treece laughed. “That’s not the word for it. Paper-pushers can’t figure me out. All they understand is bullshit and politics, which amount to the same thing.”

“You think they’ll do anything?”

“Maybe, around the turn of the century.” Treece shook his head, as if to dismiss the government from his mind. “So,” he said, “now that you’ve a half interest in what may turn out to be nothing, what are you going to do?”

“Stay,” Gail said, “we don’t really have a choice.”

“You’ve figured your risks?”

Sanders said, “We have.”

“All right. A few ground rules, then. From this moment on, you’re to do what I tell you. You can question all you want, when there’s time. But when there’s not, you jump first and ask questions later.”

Gail looked at David. “Leader of the pack.”

“What’s that?” Treece said.

“Nothing, really. When we were diving, David got annoyed at me for not obeying him.”

“And rightly, too. We could get through without a bruise, but there’ll be times when getting through at all may depend on how quick you respond. Any time you’re tempted to buck me, know this: I’ll kick your ass out of here in a trice. I’ll not have you getting killed on my account.”

“We’re not out to fight you,” Sanders said.

“Fine. Now”-Treece smiled-“bad-ass

decision number one: Go back to Orange Grove and turn in your mobilettes. Pack your gear, check out, and call a cab to bring you out here.”

“What?”

“See? You’re bucking me already. If we’re going to get into this mess, I want you where I can keep an eye on you, and where Cloche’s people can’t. Back there, Christ knows who-all will have you in their sights.”

“B… ,” Gail protested. “This is your-was

“It may not have all the amenities of your hundred-dollar-a-day bungalow, but it’ll do. And you won’t have to worry about some tomcat planting voodoo dolls in your bed.”

When the taxi had departed, leaving the Sanderses and their luggage outside Treece’s house, Gail said, “You think we’ll sleep in the kitchen?”

“What do you mean?”

“That’s the only room in the house we’ve ever seen.

He’s never even let us in the front door.”

The screen door flew open, and the dog bounded down the path toward them. She stood inside the gate, wagging her tail and whining.

Treece appeared in the doorway. “It’s okay, Charlotte.” The dog backed away a few feet and sat down. “Need any help?”

“We can manage.” Sanders opened the gate, hefted the two large suitcases, and, with Gail following him, walked along the path to the door. Gail had an air tank slung over each shoulder.

“You have meat on you,” Treece told her. “Those aren’t light.”

He held the screen door for them and ushered them into the house. The doorway opened onto a narrow hall. The floor was bare-wide, polished cedar boards. An old Spanish map of Bermuda, the parchment cracked and yellow-brown, hung in a frame on the wall. Beneath the map was a mahogany case with glass doors, full of antique bottles, musket balls, silver coins, and shoe buckles.

“In there,” Treece said, pointing to a door at the end of the hall. “Here, give me those bottles.

Are they empty or full?”

“Empty,” Gail said.

“I’ll set “em out by the compressor.”

Sanders said, “You have your own compressor?”

“Sure. Can’t dash into Hamilton every time I need a tank of breeze.”

David and Gail went into the bedroom. It was small, nearly filled by a chest of drawers and an oversize double bed. The bed was at least seven feet square, and obviously handmade: cedar boards pegged together and rubbed with an oil that gave them a deep, rich shine.

“This is his room,” Gail whispered.

“Looks like it. What do you think that was?” Sanders pointed to a spot on the wall above the bed.

A painting or photograph had hung there until recently: a rectangle of

clean white was clearly visible against the aged white of the wall. They heard Treece’s footsteps in the hall. Sanders dropped their suitcases on the bed.

“We can’t take your room,” Gail said to Treece, who stood in the doorway. “Where will you sleep?”

“In there,” Treece said, cocking his head toward the living room. “I made a couch big enough for monsters like me.”

“B…”

“It’s better I sleep there. I’m a fitful sleeper. Besides, I was told I snore like a grizzly bear.” He led them toward the kitchen.

As they passed through the living room, Gail decided that a woman had lived in the house and had decorated it, though how recently she couldn’t tell. Most of the decor reflected Treece: gimbaled lanterns from a ship, brass shell casings, old weapons, maps, and stacks of books. But there were feminine touches, such as a needlepoint rug and a gay, flower-pattern fabric on the couch and chairs.

The paintings on the walls were mostly sea scenes.

There were two empty spots, from which pictures had been removed.

In the kitchen, Treece said, “I might’s well show you where things are.” He looked out the window.

“It’s that time of day.” He opened a cabinet filled with liquor bottles. “Make yourself a charge if you like. I’ll have a spot of rum.”

Sanders made drinks, while Treece guided Gail through the other cabinets.

“Can’t we contribute something?” Gail said.

“By and by. Food’s not much of a burden.” Treece smiled. “Feel you’ve been asked to a house party?”

“Sort of. Show me what you want to have for dinner, and I’ll get to work.”

“Supper’ll be along. I’ll take care of it.”

Treece took a glass of rum from Sanders.

“We’ll start tomorrow; pick Adam up on the beach.”

“Coffin?” Sanders said. “He’s going to dive?”

“Aye. I tried to put him off, but he wouldn’t have it. He still thinks it’s his ship, and he’s hot to stick it to Cloche.”

“Is he good?”

“Good enough. He’s a pair of hands, and we’ll need all the hands we can get. We’ll have to work like bloody lightning, ‘cause Cloche will get on to what we’re doing fast, and then it’ll be dicey as hell. Another thing about Adam: He has a zipper on his mouth. Once he shuts it, nobody’ll open it. He learned a lesson from that beating.”

“Once we have the drugs,” Gail said, “what will you do with them? Destroy them?”

“Aye, but not till we’ve got every last ampule.

If we were to destroy the ampules bit by bit, as we recover them, and Cloche were to find that’s what we’re doing, we’d be finished. There’d be no reason for him not to have us killed on the spot. Same if we started turning them over to the government lot by lot. Cloche’d see his whole plan going up in smithereens, and he’d kill us just to keep his options open. But if we accumulate them … The best way for us to stay healthy is to keep Cloche hoping, let him think we’re doing all his work for him, gathering them up and

saving them-and when we’ve got the lot he’ll try to pirate them from us.”

Sanders noticed that Gail was eying him quizzically.

At first he didn’t know why; then he realized that he had been smiling as Treece spoke-an unconscious grin that betrayed the strange excitement Sanders felt. He had felt it before: he had a particularly vivid recollection of the sensation as he was about to parachute for the first time. It was a potpourri of feelings-fear made his arms and fingers tingle and his neck and ears flush hot; excitement made his breath come too fast, bringing on lightheadedness; and anticipation (probably at the thrill of being able to say he had actually jumped out of an airplane) made him smile. The fact that he proceeded to sprain his ankle during the jump in no way diminished his glee, nor the fact that he had never jumped again.

Gail frowned at him, and he forced himself to stop smiling.

They heard a muffled thump outside the kitchen door. Treece stood and said, “That’ll be supper.” He opened the door and retrieved a newspaper-wrapped package from the stoop.

“Supper?” Gail said.

“Aye.” Treece set the package on the counter and unwrapped it. Within, still wet and glistening, was a two-foot-long barracuda. “It’s a beauty,”

he said.

Gail looked at the fish, and remembering the barracuda that patrolled the reef and stared at her with vacant menace, her stomach churned.

“You

eat

those things?”

“Why not?”

r

Sanders said, “I thought they were poisonous.”

“You mean ciguatera?”

“I don’t know. What’s that?”

“A neurotoxin, a nasty bastard. Nobody knows much about it, except that it can make you sick as hell and, now and again, put you under.”

“Barracudas have it?”

“Some, but so do about three hundred other kinds of fish. In the Bahamas they throw a silver coin in the pot when they boil a barracuda. They say if the coin turns black, the fish is poisonous. But here in civilization we have a much more scientific test.” Treece picked up the fish, held out his right arm, and measured the fish against it. “We say, ‘If it’s longer than your arm, it’ll do you harm.”

I got a full hand on this one, so it’s obviously safe.”

“That’s a comfort,” Gail said.

“It’s not as stupid as it sounds. Ciguatoxin is more common in bigger fish, and the bigger the fish, the more of the stuff he’s bound to absorb. We figure that in a little brute like this one, even if he is ciguatoxic, chances are pretty good of getting away with nothing more than a bellyache.” Treece reached in a drawer and found a filleting knife and a sharpening stone. “Don’t be put off,” he said. He spat on the stone and rubbed the slim blade in tight circles in the pool of saliva. “I’ve been eating beasts like that for the better part of forty years, and I’ve never been stabbed yet.” With quick, sure sweeps, he began to scale the fish. The silvery scales flew from the knife blade and floated to the floor.

“Where did he come from?” Sanders asked.

“The reef, I imagine.”

“No, I mean how did he get here? I’ve never heard of a fish that rolls itself in newspaper and deposits itself on your doorstep.” Sanders chuckled at his little joke.

“Somebody brought him. They do that. A person catches a few fish, has more than he needs, he’ll drop one

Gail said, “Is this what you mentioned before?

Looking after the keeper of the light?”

“Not really.” Treece flipped the barracuda over and scaled the other side. “We take care of our own. Kids’ mother gets sick, neighbors’ll feed “em and look after ‘em. Ever since …” He seemed to hesitate. “They know I don’t have time to go fishing and have to cook for myself, so they leave a little something.” With two sharp strokes, Treece severed the head and tail. He tossed the tail in the garbage.

“You want the head?”

David and Gail shook their heads, looking-with undisguised revulsion-at the fish head impaled through the eye by the point of Treece’s knife.

“It’s not bad, if you don’t have anything else,”

Treece said, flipping the head into the garbage. “But this fellow has a generous carcass.” He slit the barracuda’s belly from tail to throat and scooped out the innards. Then he turned the fish around and made a slit along its backbone. The whole side of meat came free.