Pressure Drop (10 page)

“Numbers okay?” Krio asked.

Matthias looked up. They were both watching him, Krio's face bony, ascetic; Moxie's fuller, more like a choirboy's: he was thirty, but he looked eighteen. Matthias knew Krio wasn't asking about the numbers: he was asking about the future.

“Good enough,” Matthias said. “We'll be fine as long as the weather holds.”

They all glanced outside, past the palm fronds which fringed the roof of the open bar, past the patio, the pool and the beach, and saw curls foaming on the inner reef and a sky sparkling with stars. “Nothing wrong with the weather,” Krio said. He laid his guitar on a shelf behind the bar and took off his apron.

“What's tomorrow night?” Matthias asked.

“Conch fritter. Grouper, if Nottage gets me some. Guava duff.”

“Sounds good.”

Krio, knowing it would be good, nodded. He offered Chick a pretzel, which was ignored, and went off. They heard the engine of his old car fire, heard it clank and rumble south on the dirt road that led to his tiny house on the edge of Conchtown, clanking and rumbling down the decibel scale.

Then out of the darkness appeared Mrs. Loring; her bare feet had made no sound on the patio. Mrs. Loring was wearing a filmy top that covered her hips as long as she made no sudden movements. Chick shifted on his perch and turned his hard yellow eyes on her.

Between Mrs. Loring's eyebrows were two vertical frown lines Matthias didn't remember noticing before. “I don't suppose you've got any calamine lotion,” she said.

“In the office,” Matthias said, getting up. He left the bar, cut across the corner of the patio and opened the office door. Mrs. Loring followed him; he heard the soft padding of her bare feet close behind.

Matthias turned on the light, then felt around on the top shelf along the back wall, where the first-aid supplies were kept. “It's not for me,” said Mrs. Loring. “It's for El Kabong. He's got himself a rash in a very peculiar place.”

Plain aloe would do a better job on Mr. Loring's fire coral stings and some grew right outside the door; it would have been a simple matter to break off a piece and give it to her. But Matthias didn't want to get into the nature-boy routine with Mrs. Loring.

“He's my third,” said Mrs. Loring, as Matthias's hand closed around the jar of lotion. All at once she was very close behind him; he smelled wine on her breath and as he turned her breast touched his forearm.

“Here you go,” he said, handing her the lotion.

She took it. Her hand managed to make a lot of contact with his during the exchange. She looked up at him, eyes filling with hot promise, the way eyes do in boy-meets-girl movies.

“Best to keep your hands off any coral, Mrs. Loring,” Matthias said, “until you're sure you know what stings.”

“Sometimes I like to be stung,” said Mrs. Loring. She reached for his chest and stroked it in a way that left no doubt about the contents of any movie they might make. “And call me Rhoda,” she said.

Matthias backed away. “Good night, Rhoda,” he told her. “I hope your husband feels better in the morning.”

The temperature dropped in her eyes. “How kind,” she said, and turning abruptly—a movement that raised the hem of her top, exposing her buttocks in a way that made her seem vulnerable rather than sexual to Matthias, and so made him feel badly—she walked out into the darkness. There was a gulf between men and women, all right, and he wanted to bridge it, just once. But it took more than a penis; he'd learned that in his marriage and in his early years at the club, with other Rhodas. Matthias returned to the bar.

“Drink?” said Moxie.

“Sure.”

Moxie poured half a glass of Mount Gay, added ice cubes and slices of lime. Matthias crossed the room to get it; he had never overcome his aversion to being waited on by the employees, especially by Moxie, who was a diver and filled in at the bar only when they were short-staffed.

Matthias sat on a stool. “Have something, Mox.”

Moxie opened a Pauli Girl and tilted it to his lips, draining the contents in two gulps. Matthias wrapped his hand around the tumbler, found himself staring into it, where capsized green boats floated on a golden sea. Feeling Moxie's eyes on him, he raised the glass, swallowed some rum, then some more. Moxie poured more. Matthias drank more. “Open another, Mox,” he said. Why keep costs down now? “Don't have to ask.”

Matthias waited for Moxie's laugh, a musical giggle that he never tired of. Moxie didn't laugh. He stared at the busty fraulein on the beer bottle for a while then drank the contents down. “Danny comin' soon?” Moxie said.

“No.”

“Rafer he always aks me.”

“How is Rafer?”

Moxie looked down at his blurred reflection on the polished bar. “Okay,” Moxie said. A few moments later he added, “I guess.” Moxie's boy was with his wife in Nassau. It didn't look as if she were coming back.

Matthias had another glass of Mount Gay. Moxie had another Pauli Girl. “What you say about the numbers …”

“Yeah?”

“It be the trut', mahn?”

“Sure.”

Moxie nodded. His eyes moved toward the sea. “So what means that about the … accident?”

“Nothing new.” That was true. What Moxie didn't know was that they had less than eight weeks to file the appeal. Matthias hadn't told him, not because he didn't want Moxie to know; he just didn't want to say it out loud. Now he hoped Moxie would talk about something else.

But once started, Moxie couldn't. “It happen just like I say,” he said, as he had many times before.

“I know that.”

“They come, they show the dive card, Brock say okay, I fill the tanks. Like always, with the door open.”

“I know.”

“Then how it happen, mahn?”

That was the question Matthias couldn't answer and Ravoukian hadn't been able to finesse.

“Give me a kiss,” said Chick.

Moxie swept the room and went to bed. Matthias put the account books in the office and started up the path to the Bluff, taking the bottle of Mount Gay with him. The half-wild dogs that roamed the night heard him coming and began their savage barking; their low shadows glided through the scrub.

There were two houses on the Bluff: Hew's big one, where a light still shone, at the top, and Matthias's little one halfway up. Matthias climbed the stairs to the deck, slid open the screen and went inside. Without turning on the lights, he poured a drink and sat in the small living room, looking east. His view was all sky and sea: two magic cloths stitched invisibly at the horizon. Here, at its narrowest point, the Tongue of the Ocean hooked south, extending the length of the island. On the other side of the underwater canyon, Two-Head Cay, an eroded H with the legs cut off, was the only land in sight.

Matthias finished his drink, went into the bedroom and lay down. He felt sand on the sheets, but didn't bother to brush it off. He was used to it. He closed his eyes. The image of Mrs. Loring's white buttocks was the first thing he saw, now no longer vulnerable, but sexual. He opened his eyes and watched the ceiling change from black to charcoal gray.

There was no need for the fan. Sea breezes blew around the Bluff every night. He could hear them slipping through the louvers, hear the surf pawing at the coral cliff below. These were the sounds that always prefaced sleep, but tonight sleep didn't come. The wind and surf sounds just grew louder instead, until there was nothing soporific about them. Matthias got up.

He sat at his desk, switched on the light and removed the file he kept in the top drawer. He took out the transcript. It opened by itself to Moxie's testimony.

PLAINTIFF
: Describe, if you will, the events of September 2.

WITNESS
: When the two men come?

PLAINTIFF
: Correct.

WITNESS
: They ask for air. I say I need to see a dive card. Mr. Matthias, he say no card, no air. The man had a kind of card, but not PADI, not NAUI. Brock say—

PLAINTIFF
: Brock?

WITNESS
: Brock McGillivray. The divemaster. He say it be a French card, so fill the tanks. I fill them that night. Next morning, they take them.

PLAINTIFF
: Is this one of the tanks in question?

WITNESS
: What question?

PLAINTIFF
: Is this one of the tanks you filled? The stenographer is unable to record a nod. Answer aloud. Is this one of the tanks?

WITNESS
: Yeah.

PLAINTIFF
: Note that the air tank, bearing the Zombie Bay Club logo—this ZB with the silhouette of a descending scuba diver—and numbered 27, is entered into evidence as Exhibit D. Now then, Mr. Wickham, can you recall the number of the other tank?

WITNESS
: 28.

PLAINTIFF
: And where is tank number 28?

WITNESS
: I don't know.

PLAINTIFF
: You don't know? Isn't it true that number 28, filled, like number 27, with poisoned air, went to the bottom of the ocean on the back of the man who showed you the French dive card? The stenographer cannot record a shrug, Mr. Wickham. Did the tank go to the bottom?

MR
.
RAVOUKIAN
: Objection. The witness is being asked for speculation.

JUDGE
: Sustained.

The judge had sustained many of Ravoukian's objections, allowing him to lop off this or that appendage of the plaintiff's case. But he hadn't been able to touch the core of the lawsuit: that tank number 27, belonging to the Zombie Bay Club and last filled on the Zombie Bay compressor, then rented to Mr. Hiram Standish, Jr., of New York for twenty-five dollars, had contained, according to laboratory analysis, a 7 percent level of carbon monoxide, which, because of the effect of submersion on the partial pressures of gases, had caused Mr. Standish to fall into a coma from which he would never emerge.

How had it happened? Ravoukian had asked that again and again. The compressor was tested and found to be working perfectly, although as plaintiff's counsel had observed, there was no proof that it hadn't been repaired between the time of the accident and the test. Moxie swore that he had followed the usual procedure—the doors and windows of the compressor room had been opened during the fill, allowing the circulation of air. But there was only Moxie's word for it. It was also possible that a car with its engine running might have been parked outside while the tank was being filled, and that the prevailing wind could have blown the exhaust gases into the compressor room. None of this mattered, according to the plaintiff's attorney—it wasn't necessary for him to show exactly how the negligence had occurred, only that it had. The judge had agreed.

One million one hundred thousand. U.S.

Matthias closed the file and replaced it in the drawer. He sat for a while looking at nothing. Then he turned off the light and looked at nothing in the dark.

Later he rose and found the bottle of Mount Gay. He took it out to the deck. A front was moving in from the east. The sea breezes blew harder, merged, became a strong wind. A solid line of thick pearly edged cloud slid over the stars. Soon the only lights left were Hew's, at the top of the Bluff, and a faint yellow flicker from the direction of Two-Head Cay. Two-Head Cay was owned by Hiram Standish's family, a fact that Matthias hadn't known until the trial, but Ravoukian had discovered that no one except the caretakers, Gene Albury and his wife, had lived there for many years, and that Standish hadn't been there before his arrival at Zombie Bay.

The wind blew. Hew's light went out. Clouds covered Two-Head-Cay. Matthias threw the empty bottle into the darkness. It arced out of sight and made no splash that he could hear.

Something rustled in the sea grapes; a bent form moved unsteadily on the path up the Bluff. “Nottage?”

The shadow was still. “Don' scare me like dat,” said Nottage in his deep, ragged voice. After a long pause he asked: “You got a drink?”

“All gone. Maybe you should get some sleep. Krio wants grouper tomorrow.”

“I ain' sleepy. An' I got my own drink.” Liquid gurgled. Nottage came closer, close enough for Matthias to distinguish his curly white Afro over the deck railing; the black face remained unseen. “Sea on fire, boss,” Nottage said in a low voice. “Sea on fire.”

“Everything's okay, Nottage. You can sleep on the deck if you like.”

“Don' wan' no deck,” Nottage said. He weaved away up the path, and out of sight.

It was still dark when Matthias walked down the Bluff to the beach. The dogs had gone to sleep, or maybe they couldn't hear him because of the wind. The compressor shed stood in a grove of palm trees at the side of the dirt track leading to the dock. Matthias went inside and switched on the light. The room remained dark. He remembered Hew's light going out. The power was off again.

He knelt in front of the compressor and felt the intake filter. It was clean, if that mattered. This was a new compressor—the old one, Exhibit A, still hadn't been returned—and the case was closed.

Matthias walked out on the dock. The beams creaked under his weight. A shadow moved at the far end. A big shadow.

“G'day, Matt,” said Brock.

“It's night,” Matthias said, sitting beside him.

Brock had a six-pack. They drank it and watched the dawn come up. First it lit the clouds, then the sea, then Brock's long sun-tinted hair and the gold hoop in his ear.

“Let's go to the drop,” Matthias said.

“What part of the drop?”

“You know.”

“You're driving yourself crazy,” Brock said, but he followed Matthias to the slip where
So What
was kept, freed the lines and jumped in, landing lightly, very lightly for such a big man, as Matthias started the engines.

The wind blew harder, disrupting the surface of the ocean with sharp-edged waves that made the bottom unreadable. Matthias didn't need to read it. He turned north a few hundred yards offshore and cut the engines not far beyond the Angel Fingers. Brock tossed the anchor over the side. Line ran out. Brock tugged at it, nodded, let out some slack. Then they spat in their masks, donned fins and snorkels and slipped into the water.