Pressure Drop (17 page)

“I noted that,” Sergeant Cuthbertson said.

“Brock's highly qualified,” Matthias pointed out, trying to forestall any immigration problem. “He's brought Moxie up to instructor level and he's working with some teenagers from Conchtown.”

“Fine, fine,” said Sergeant Cuthbertson. “But as I explained, I haven't come about Mr. McGillivray's work permit. I'm here at the behest of the French government to learn more about the identity of the missing man.”

“The Frenchman?” said Brock. “I already told the other sergeant, the one who came at the time, that—”

“Sergeant Morse?”

“I guess so. I told him I didn't remember the name on the card. See, I don't really look much at the name. It's the card itself that's important.”

“And this card was a …” Sergeant Cuthbertson turned the pages of his notebook.

“An FFSA card,” Brock said. “Fédération Française des Sports Aquatiques.” The words ran together fluently.

“An FFSA card,” the sergeant repeated. “And how did you recognize it as genuine?”

“I've seen lots of them. I dove out of Ajaccio for a year.” Sergeant Cuthbertson regarded Brock with the same sort of look he had given Matthias. “That's in Corsica,” Brock added, which Matthias would not have done. Brock was fifteen years younger and had never been to the Isle of Pines.

“Is it?” said Sergeant Cuthbertson.

“Yes. So I've had experience with French divers, you see. I also worked with Cousteau's people one summer. I've got a letter from them in my résumé, if you want to see it.”

“That won't be necessary. Enough to establish that you were familiar with this particular card. Are there registration numbers on these cards, by the way?”

“I'm not sure,” Brock said. “I think so.”

Sergeant Cuthbertson turned to Matthias. “The number wouldn't have been recorded on the tank rental bill?”

“No. The bill just says ‘Cottage Six.' But the police have already looked into all this. The bill was part of the evidence—the court still has it, as far as I know.”

“This is not a criminal investigation, Mr. Matthias. The case has never been a criminal one. It was a civil suit, now concluded, barring appeal, as I understand it. I am merely cooperating with French authorities. Initial efforts to trace the missing man through relatives and friends of Mr. Standish failed. He had no French acquaintances that anyone knew of. So, whatever facts you can supply will be helpful.”

Brock supplied the facts, as he had supplied them to Sergeant Morse. Fact: He had been in charge of the club the day Standish and his companion arrived; Matthias was in Miami on business. Fact: Standish and his companion flew in on a chartered plane from Nassau late in the afternoon. They arranged to go diving the next morning. The Frenchman, he recalled, was short and thin, forty or forty-five years old. Brock had no clear memory of his features. Moxie filled the tanks that night. Fact: The next morning, the two men went out before breakfast in
Who Cares
, as arranged. Fact: Noticing they were overdue, Moxie had gone out and found Standish floating face-down in the water and no sign of the other man. He had begun CPR.

Sergeant Cuthbertson wrote the facts in his notebook. “How long had you been working here at the time, Mr. McGillivray?”

“About a month. Right, Matt?”

“Yes.” Brock had walked into the bar, duffel bag over his shoulder, on a hot afternoon in early August. Matthias had hired him before dinner.

Sergeant Cuthbertson wrote that down too. Then he flipped to another page, studied it and said: “And what about the luggage, Mr. McGillivray?”

“Luggage?”

“Didn't one of the maids report seeing luggage in Cottage Six when she turned down the sheets?”

Brock shrugged. “I never saw any.”

Sergeant Cuthbertson closed the notebook. “Thank you, Mr. McGillivray,” he said.

“That's it?”

“That's it.”

Brock left to prepare the afternoon trip. Sergeant Cuthbertson watched him go. “How tall is he, Mr. Matthias?”

“Six-six, I think. How about that beer, Sergeant?”

“Not just now.”

Matthias walked Sergeant Cuthbertson to the dock. Weathered seashells covered the path; the sergeant's polished black shoes crunched them as he passed, making a sound like an army on the march. “What is this wall that everyone talks about, Mr. Matthias?”

“It's just the edge of the continental shelf, really. But here it starts in shallow water and drops almost straight down. You can see a wide range of marine life without going very deep.”

“So that's the attraction?”

“Yes.”

The pilot of the seaplane opened the door. Sergeant Cuthbertson stepped on the pontoon and climbed into the cockpit. As he was strapping in he said: “We looked into Mr. Standish's PADI card. He qualified for it through a dive shop in Fort Lauderdale. The day before he arrived here.”

“What dive shop?” Matthias said.

Sergeant Cuthbertson reached out and handed him a sheet of paper: a photocopy of Hiram Standish's card. The pilot started the engines, swung around and accelerated across Zombie Bay. The plane rose from blue up into lighter blue and soon shrank out of sight.

Matthias walked back up the path. He met Krio coming the other way, dreadlocks dangling all around his head and a bloody cleaver in his hand.

“Phone,” Krio said.

The only phone at Zombie Bay was in the office. “Matthias speaking,” Matthias said into it.

No one responded.

“Hello?” Matthias said. “Anyone there?” He was just about to hang up when a voice said:

“I'm not happy.”

It was Danny.

17

Lauderdale. Dockside Dive Supply was three blocks inland from the public marina, sharing side walls with a liquor store and a used books shop, all three in need of a fresh coat of paint. Matthias parked and checked the photocopy of Hiram Standish's dive card, front and back, which Sergeant Cuthbertson had given him. The card certified that Hiram Standish had completed a basic course in skin and scuba diving which included twenty-two hours of instruction. It was signed on the back by Hiram Standish, diver, and Wendell Minns, instructor.

Matthias went inside. He'd been in a lot of dive shops. He could grade them at a glance. Dockside Dive Supply had the usual gear: tanks, regs, BCs, masks, fins, snorkels, backpacks, gauges, watches, wet suits, but not much of any of them, and nothing of the best: D. But the prices could have been higher, and a yellowed photograph of Valerie Taylor, mask pushed up on her forehead, hung on the wall: D plus.

A man came through a back door, wiping his hands on the sides of his jeans. “Hey there,” he said. He went behind the counter, eyed the open cash register drawer and closed it. “Looking for something in particular?”

“Someone in particular,” said Matthias. “A diving instructor named Wendell Minns.”

“You in the market for a course?”

“No. I just want to talk to Wendell Minns.”

“About anything special?”

“Hiram Standish, Junior.”

The man's crinkly little eyes crinkled some more. “Who's he?”

“Mr. Minns will know.”

“Why is that?”

“Because Sergeant Cuthbertson of the Bahamas CID discussed his case with him.”

The man grunted. Then he seemed to concentrate on some mental activity. At last he said: “You a lawyer, or something?”

“Do I look like a lawyer?”

The man studied him. “Nope.”

“I'm a diver on Andros. I just want to find out more about him, that's all.”

More mental activity. Then the man said: “I'm Wendell Minns. But I already told that nigger all I knowed.”

“Do you mean Sergeant Cuthbertson?” Matthias asked, very softly.

“Huh?”

“Nothing.”

Wendell Minns was one of those instructors who proved that you didn't have to be fit to be a scuba diver. He had a flabby face, narrow shoulders, a small frame and a potbelly that looked as hard as a basketball.

“Hang on,” Wendell Minns said, locking the cash register. “The compressor.”

He went out the back door. Matthias followed him. Minns had an old Worthington with a couple of tanks hooked to it. He checked the pressure gauges, then shut off the machine, bled the hoses and unhooked the tanks. The tanks had a 3000 p.s.i. capacity. Matthias had been close enough to read the gauges: 2400 and 2350. Cheating his customers of air could hardly be very profitable for Wendell Minns; it might even be dangerous. Perhaps he was simply the kind of man who cheats whenever the opportunity arises.

Wendell Minns heaved the tanks out of the cooling tub, banging one of them against his knee. “Fuckin' shit,” he said. He swung them into line with some other tanks along the wall, allowing them to strike the cement hard, as though he were paying them back for his knee.

“I'd hate for one of those to turn into a bomb,” Matthias said.

Minns turned and squinted at him. “What'd you say you had to do with this Hiram fella?”

Matthias looked once more into the crinkly eyes; the eyes of a not-very-smart man who had spent too much time on the water, but who also cheated for the sake of cheating and might be crafty for the sake of being crafty.

“I'm from the Andros Hotel Association,” Matthias said. He liked the sound of it. “They've sent me over here to find out what I can about Mr. Standish, in order to minimize any bad publicity.”

“Like I said, I already told that nig—”

“Yeah, I know. But this isn't very high on his list and he just hasn't had the time to go over it with us. I was hoping you would.”

Minns looked at his watch. “I'm gettin' ready to close for lunch.”

Matthias searched for the magic words and tried these: “I'll buy.”

“Yeah?” said Minns, withdrawing once more into some mental process. “Well, why not, huh?”

They lunched at Al's. Al's had a bartender, a prostitute and a waitress, all of whom greeted Minns without enthusiasm. Al's: nautical motif—frayed fishnets, rough wood paneling, rusting anchors, harpoons and chains, and air that smelled of the sea, or at least the way the sea smells in Lagos harbor, or somewhere like that. It was the most authentic nautical experience Matthias had ever had in a restaurant, especially if the hold of a slave ship was the specific object of simulation.

The jukebox was playing Duane Eddy's version of “Dixie” as they sat down. The menus came, nice and greasy. Minns ordered two fries, two bacon cheeseburgers and a sixteen-ounce Bud. Matthias made sure that the tuna was canned, then asked for a tuna sandwich.

“Anything to drink?” asked the waitress.

Water was what he wanted, but he guessed that Minns would feel more comfortable if he ordered a beer too, and he wanted Minns to be comfortable. “The same,” Matthias told her.

The beer came first. Minns downed half of his in one gulp, then wiped his mouth on the anchor tattoo decorating his left forearm. “Andros, huh?” he said. “The armpit of the Caribbean.”

First: The armpit as metaphor was a cliché Matthias despised. Second: The Bahamas are in the Atlantic, not the Caribbean. Third: He'd seen many anchor tattoos; Minns' was the worst executed, and much too grandiose for his flaccid little forearm.

Matthias said: “How so?”

“You know,” said Minns. “Ugly. And the fuckin' bugs. Christ.”

“They're not so bad by the water.”

Minns assumed his crafty face. “What else are you gonna say, bein' with the tourist board and all?”

“Got me there.”

Minns laughed graciously, as though such rhetorical coups came easy and often. He ordered another sixteen-ouncer. “Make that two,” he called after the waitress. “I'm thirsty something terrible today,” he confided to Matthias. “Mouth's drier'n popcorn farts.”

“You'd better drink up.”

Minns squinted at him. Then his eyes shifted, and he once more made contact with his interior life, but not for long—maybe beer had already spilled over that domain. “So,” he said, holding the ketchup over the fries and banging the bottom of the bottle, “you want to know about this Hiram fella.”

“That's right.”

The mouth of the ketchup bottle spat out a red glob; then came a flood. This seemed to be what Minns had been trying to achieve. “So ask,” he said, mouth widening to accept a red forkful of fries resembling some bleeding tentacled creature. “It's your dime.”

“What kind of student was he?”

“Student?”

“Diving student. Theory. In the pool. Open water.”

“Open water?”

“You had him for twenty-two hours. You must have gotten him into the water.”

Wendell Minns, one or two mouthfuls from the bottom of his third sixteen-ouncer, failed to pause for reflection over Matthias's information, where it came from, or where it might lead. Instead, he leaned forward confidentially. “You said you're a diver, right?”

“Right.”

“You teach diving?”

“I used to.”

“You ever get somebody who needed a card quick, like just before a holiday or something?”

“Probably.”

Minns leaned forward a little more. An overhead light mounted in a dusty glass fishing float shone on his greasy lips: glistening greenly in a way that drew a nauseating parallel between food and reptiles in Matthias's mind. “Probably, he says,” said Minns. “Every instructor has it happen, sooner or later. Am I right or am I right?”

“You are.”

“So what did you do?”

“What did I do?”

“When some turkey wanted a dive card quick.”

“What everybody else does, I guess.”

Minns laughed again, the laugh that accompanied his debating victories. “Sure as shit you did, buddy, sure as shit you did.” He held out his hand. Matthias shook it: a hot wet hand pulsing with body language—suggesting, so Matthias thought, complicity, dishonesty, theft, perversion. When the handshake was over, Matthias forced himself not to wipe his hand on the napkin and ordered more beer—his second, Minns' fourth. Minns watched closely the arrival of the two big mugs on the tray. Free beer had meaning for some people far beyond the mere saving of money. It saved them from responsibility.