The Deep

“Nothing worth a damn on that scow. Least if there is, no one’s ever found it.” Treece looked beyond them to the gate. “You rode all the way out here on those things?”

“Yes.”

“Well, what’d you find?” Treece unlatched the screen door and stepped out onto the path, closing the door behind him. “Is that the stuff there?” he said, pointing to the bundle in Gail’s hand.

“Yes.” Gail handed him the bundle.

Treece squatted down, set the towel on the path, opened it, and looked at the forks and spoons, the pewter cup, the razor, and the butter plate. “That’s Goliath trash, no question.” He stood up. “You got your answer. Was it worth the ride?”

Sanders said, “There was one other thing.” He motioned to Gail, and she took the ampule from her shirt pocket and passed it to Treece.

Treece let the ampule rest in the palm of his hand. He stared at it, saying nothing. Sanders saw the muscles in his jaw move, as if he were gritting his teeth.

Finally, Treece closed his hand around the ampule.

He raised his head and looked at the sea. “God bloody damn!” he said. “Thirty-two years, and finally the sonofabitch comes true.”

“What—”

Treece spun on Sanders, cutting him off. “Who else has seen this?”

“Well…” Sanders stammered.

“I said

who else!”

“Last night,” he said, “a man tried to buy it from us. A black man. He said he was

interested in the glass. And a waiter at the hotel saw it, too.”

Treece laughed-a laugh of anger and contempt.

“Glass.” He held his fist under Sanders’ face and opened it, forcing him to look at the ampule. “You know what’s in there? Morphine, pure and sweet, enough to give a man a week’s holiday in the stars. It’s no surprise someone tried to buy it from you. It’s proof of the legend.”

“What legend?”

Treece looked at Sanders, at Gail, then back at Sanders. “I’d as soon not tell you, but now they know you found it, they’ll be letting you know soon enough. Come along.”

They followed Treece around to the back of the house.

He led them into the kitchen, a large and airy room with a view of the sea. Bottles and vials of chemicals, Bunson burners and tools—dentist drills, forceps, knives, hammers, chisels—were strewn about everywhere, on the counters and on the one round table. He motioned them to chairs at the table.

Gail’s throat was dry, and she said, “Could I have a glass of water?”

“If I can find a glass,” Treece said, rummaging around in the clutter on a counter.

Gail saw a half-full glass on the table.

“This’ll be fine,” she said, and she reached for the glass. “It doesn’t have to be cold.”

Treece watched her, waiting until the glass was within an inch or two of her mouth. Then he laughed and said, “Jesus, girl, don’t drink that stuff. One sip and you’ll be in the history books.”

Gail was startled. “What is it?”

“Hydrochloric acid. Clean your pipes out, that’s for certain.” He found a glass, filled it with tap water, and handed it to her. “Here. All this’ll do is rust you.”

Sanders heard a growl behind him. He turned, not knowing what to expect, and saw a dog sitting on the window sill. It was a terrier of some kind, medium-size, its muzzle grizzled, and it snarled at Sanders.

Treece said, “It’s all right, Charlotte, you dumb bitch.”

The dog’s eyes did not move from Sanders. She growled again.

“I said it’s all right!” Treece grabbed the glass from Gail and flung the water in the dog’s face. The dog wagged her tail and licked the water from her whiskers. “You be nice. They’re not tourists. At least, not now.”

The dog jumped down from the window sill and sniffed around Sanders’ pants.

“She’s feeling pissy because you got in here without her seeing you,” Treece said. “She likes to get her licks in first.”

“Does she really bite?” Gail asked, as the dog’s cold nose explored Sanders’ ankle.

“I guess so! She’s purebred tourist hound.”

Treece leaned against the wall and said, “What do you know about Goliath?”

“Nothing, really,” Gail said.

“Maybe one thing,” said Sanders. “The lifeguard on the beach said he had heard she was carrying ammunition.”

“Aye,” said Treece. “That, too. Goliath was a cargo vessel, a wooden sailing ship carrying supplies to Europe during World War II. There was a sound purpose to using wooden ships, slow as they were. The hull wouldn’t attract magnetic mines, and, under sail, she made no screw noise for U-boats to home on. Goliath was loaded. Her manifest listed a boodle of munitions and medical supplies. She went down in the fall of 1943, broke her back on the rocks, and dumped her guts all over the place.

For weeks, folks gathered every Christ kind of crap you ever saw off the beach. I went down on her two-three times in the fifties and hauled a ton of brass off her-depth charges and artillery shells.

There were radios all over the bottom. You never saw anything like it. But nobody ever found those medical supplies.”

“What were they supposed to be?” asked Gail.

“Nobody knows for sure. The manifest said medical supplies, period. It could have been anything-sulfa, bandages, iodine, chloroform-anything. A couple of years after the war, though, forty-seven I think it was, a bloody great hurricane beat it all to rubble. Most people forgot about Goliath after that, but some didn’t.”

Sanders said, “The bell captain told us there was a survivor.”

“Aye, one. He was damn near in worse shape than the wreck, but he lived. For a time after he got out of hospital he sold scraps from Goliath, and for drinks he’d tell tales of the wreck. One night, he was in his cups and he spun a web about a fortune in drugs aboard Goliath.

Thousands and thousands of ampules of morphine and opium, he said, carried in cigar boxes. He claimed to have been personally responsible for them, said he knew where they were but he’d tell no man. A day later he was waylaid and thrashed by people wanting to know more about the drugs. He swore he’d forgotten what he’d said, claimed he didn’t know anything about any drugs. He never told that story again. But once was enough. Rumor spread, and before long the rumor was that there were ten million dollars in drugs down there. People looked— Jesus, they did a bloody autopsy on the wreck with everything save tweezers-but they never found a single ampule. Not till now.”

“Why would one turn up now?” Sanders asked.

“The bottom of the sea is a living creature.

She’s whimsical, the sea, a tease. She loves to fool you. She changes all the time. A storm can alter her face; a change in current can cause her to heave her insides out. You can dive on a wreck one day and find nothing. The wind blows that night, and the next day, in the same spot, you find a carpet of gold coins. That’s happened. And we’ve had four juicy blowups in the past six weeks.”

Gail said, “David thought this ampule could have come from the sick bay.”

“Goliath didn’t have a sick bay. They likely carried some medicine for the crew, and if this were any other ship, I’d write the ampule off as from the medicine chest.

But not this one. The best hope is that you found the one and only ampule left.”

“Why?” asked Sanders.

“Because there are people who’d slit your throat for a fraction of what the rumors say is down there. How much did you tell that fellow last night?”

“Nothing. We didn’t know anything, except that we found the ampule in the general area of Goliath.”

Treece looked out the window. Finally he said, “Would you be willing to take another plunge, have another