Another special thing is, there are no fixings.”
“Fixings?”
“Holding it together. It wasn’t cast in one piece; they didn’t have the equipment. And there aren’t any pins or nails or pegs. It’s like one of those Chinese puzzles: a lot of pieces that fit together only if you assemble ’em in the right order. Look close, you can see little hairlines where the pieces join. Our friend E.f. was either very rich or very dear to someone very rich.”
Coffin split the end of the strip of gauze and tied a knot.
Treece flexed his hand, grimaced. “Cumbersome bugger.”
“Shouldn’t you see a doctor?” Gail asked.
“Only if I see the red horrors creeping up my arm.” Treece pushed off the gunwale and stood up. He raised his bandaged hand and said to Sanders, “Guess you’re not the only stupid sonofabitch on this vessel. If that’d been Percy, he’d be munching on my neck by now.”
Sanders said, “I thought of that.”
“Adam,” Treece said, “you and David go get the last of the glass and the gun. We’ll take a holiday till nighttime.”
“You’re gonna dive again?” Coffin said. “With that hand?”
Treece nodded. “I’ll go home and rig up something to keep it dry. It’ll do to hold the gun; that’s all it was doing down there anyway.”
They brought up three more bags of ampules, raised the anchor, and crossed the reefs to take Coffin to the beach.
“I’ll stay if you want,” Coffin said to Treece. “You can’t put the glass in the cave with her head messed and your hand messed.”
“No. Get your rest. I’ll call Kevin and have him help.”
“Kevin! You’d trust him?”
“Aye. He’ll take the pennies off the eyes of the dead, but he’s loyal to me.”
“He is, is he?”
“Don’t you start, too. It’s enough I’ve got to worry about old David challenging me every time I draw bloody breath.” Treece saw that Sanders had overheard him, and he smiled. “Sorry. But you are a contentious bugger. Getting better every day, though, I’ll give you that.”
Treece stopped the boat about fifty yards off the beach. “That’s it, Adam. Don’t want to beach her in the surf.”
“No problem.” Coffin looked at the waves. “Still blowin” pretty good.”
“Aye, but she’s swinging around to the west. Ought to be a right nice evening to take a plunge.”
“What time?”
“Say seven. This time we’ll be punctual.”
“Okay.” Coffin peeled off the wet suit and dove into the water.
On the way back to St. David’s, David and Gail counted ampules. She had already bagged a hundred lots of fifty, but two or three times that amount remained, piled on the bunks, wrapped in towels, filling the rusty sink. To keep the ampules from smashing, Treece drove slowly, letting the boat wallow in the rolling seas.
They were still counting and bagging ampules an hour and a half later when Treece nosed
When they had tied off the last bag, Sanders said, “That’s it: twenty-three thousand two hundred and seventy.”
“So about twenty-eight thousand, all told.”
Treece looked at the heaps of plastic bags on the deck. “We’re going to make the Baggie company rich.”
Gail calculated figures in her head. “At this rate, even if we up it to fifty thousand a day, we’ve got nine or ten days to go.”
“Aye, and that time we do not have.”
After lunch, Treece left the house and walked down the hill. Gail stood at the sink, washing the dishes. Sanders came up behind her, wrapped his arms around her waist, and nuzzled her neck. “It’ll take him at least twenty minutes, down and back,” he said. “We could accomplish a lot in twenty minutes.”
She leaned back against him. “You think?”
“Come on.” He took her arm and led her to the bedroom.
They made love, with quiet, gentle passion. When they were finished, Gail saw that David’s eyes were moist. “What’s the matter?” she said.
“Nothing.”
“Then why are you crying?”
“I’m not crying.”
“All right, you’re not crying. Why are your eyes wet?”
Sanders started to deny that his eyes were wet, but, instead, he rolled onto his back and said, “I was thinking how lucky I am… what it would be like if you died and I knew I’d never ever be able to hold you again. I wonder how he can live with that.”
Gail touched his lips. “I guess you live with memories.”
They heard the kitchen door open. Sanders got out of bed and pulled on his bathing suit.
Kevin stood in the kitchen with Treece. His huge brown belly spilled over his tight tank suit, concealing it almost entirely. The only other clothing he wore was a pair of dusty old wing-tipped brown shoes without laces. The look on his face radiated intense dislike for everything.
Treece patted Kevin’s fleshy shoulder and said to Sanders, “He can’t wait to plunge all this lard into the briny. A regular sea horse. When was your last dip, Kevin? Fifty-five, was it?”
Kevin grunted sullenly.
They walked down the path to the dock. When he saw the ampules in the boat, Kevin’s eyes widened.
“Shit,” he said. “That the lot?”
“No. That’s what we got so far. There’s a whole pisspot left.”
“How many?”
“Who knows?” Treece said, smiling. “This here’s all concerns you.” He started the compressor.
Sanders put on his wet suit. It was clammy and cold. “What about your friend down there… percy?”
“He’ll be in his hole asleep, probably. But you might drop him a fish anyway.”
Sanders looked at Treece’s bandaged hand. “I don’t have to feed it to him, do I?”
“No, just lay it over his hole, or nearby.
He’ll smell it out.”
It took Sanders and Kevin two hours to place the ampules in the cave. Sanders was cold and tired, but Kevin, who wore nothing but bathing suit and weight belt-no wet suit, no flippers-seemed unaffected by the water or the work.
Gripping the diving platform and resting on the surface for a moment before hauling himself aboard the boat, Sanders saw Kevin take the last bag of ampules from Treece and, without a word, submerge.
“I thought he didn’t like the water. He’s a machine.”
“Hates it,” Treece said, “but you give him a task to do and that’s what he is, a machine. If I have heavy salvage work, he’s the one I take; got about ten horsepower inside him, and so much lard that he never gets cold. He’s something of a paradox: greedy as hell, but so surly he can’t work with the people who’ve got the money to pay him.”
“You’ll pay him for this?”
“Aye. He’ll want a hundred dollars, I’ll offer twenty, and we’ll settle for fifty.”
“Not bad wages.”
“No, but he’s good. I could get all manner of idiots for five an hour, but they’d take all bloody day at it, then go drink up the proceeds and blab all over the island about what they’ve been doing. Besides, Kevin doesn’t get much work. I like to do what I can.”
Sanders climbed into the boat and unzipped his wet suit. His chest and arms were goose flesh.
“Go on up and have a shower,” Treece said. “Kevin and I’ll finish up.”
Sanders shivered. “Okay.”
