He stroked his stubby beard, and stared at the two of us. “We’ll get to that in a minute.”
Em and Mrs. T. were back at the resort. Four of us descending on a small one-man shop like this seemed a little much to take.
“Now you’ll be needin’ a small boat.”
He stepped around the worn plank-wood counter and motioned for us to follow. We went through the main room with an air compressor and tanks to a dark backroom that smelled of grease, gasoline, and oil. He pulled on a rope, and a garage door opened onto some old gray wooden docks and the bright blue Florida sky.
What had once been white paint peeled from the old boards and several of the docks leaned as if pushed by a giant wave or wind. I was reminded what waves and wind can do in the Keys.
Five small boats floated in the water as we walked out onto the rotting wood. A seagull lazily lifted off a post and landed on a dock forty feet away. The old man stepped up to a bobbing dinghy, big enough for four people and a couple of extra tanks and that was about it.
“Said you just needed maybe a quarter of a mile, right?”
“Yeah.”
“This would do the trick.”
James gave it a suspect glance. “It doesn’t leak, does it?”
“Leak?” He almost shrieked the word. “Good Lord, son, I personally check each boat when it comes in.”
James bit his tongue and kept quiet.
Sun beat down on the bleached wood and I inhaled the odor of rotting seaweed and washed up marine life. I hadn’t been diving since college, and most of the training took place in a safe pool. This was going to be an experience.
“Now, you boys can obviously go somewhere else, but you’re gonna pay a lot more. I’ll make ya a really good offer. We’ll do this boat-nothin’ fancy you understand-then we’ll rent you the mask, the tank, and all the divin’ gear and then you want a metal detector, am I right?”
“And you rent those too?”
“Well, I have one here. I’ll let you rent it, although I can’t speak to its ability.”
“Never tried it?” I asked.
“No. You see, I found it. Sort of.”
“Found it?”
“Came back in one of my boats. Must have belonged to this guy who rented the boat. I had to hire a kid to take me to the boat, ’cause the diver left it about a mile out.”
“I don’t understand. Somebody rented a boat from you, then just left the boat and the metal detector a mile offshore?”
“Didn’t exactly just leave it. This guy ran out of oxygen and died out there.”
“Oh, shit.” I turned to James. “Do not say anything about that to Em. Or anybody. You got that? She’ll freak.”
“Trust me, pard, I got it.”
“So, you got yourself a boat, diving gear, and the dead guy’s metal detector.”
“How much?”
“How long?”
“Half a day.” I figured we weren’t going to dig it up and bring it home the first trip out. We just needed to see if there were crates of gold. Then we could make our plans on how to haul it out. One thing at a time.
“Three hundred fifty dollars. Payable in advance on account of-”
“Yeah,” James said, “you pretty much told us. On account of-”
We’d decided on the next morning. Go out at seven thirty before the scheduled dives and plan on coming in between ten thirty and one in the afternoon.
“James, you’re driving the boat, right?”
“I am.”
“Em, you’re kind of the lookout. If things get strange, if someone shows up who looks like there might be trouble, you’re going to figure out how to get rid of them.”
“And if I can’t?”
“I don’t have the answer, but for God’s sake don’t leave me down there by myself.”
We sat in Mrs. T.’s room, sharing a pepperoni and mushroom pizza from Boardwalk Pizza. When James heard that Boardwalk Pizza was right in front of the sheriff’s office, he almost refused to eat it. But the pizza was pretty good, and again, the lady was paying.
“My question is this.” Mrs. T. sipped from a can of caffeine-free diet Pepsi. “How are you going to know if there’s gold down there? We’ve already discussed the fact that it may be overgrown with coral. Lots of coral and seaweed. So even if you’re lucky enough to actually find the spot, how will you be able to tell through the coral and everything else?”
I had the answer.
“Skeeter has a JW Fishers Pulse eight K metal detector.”
“Skeeter?”
“Skeeter,” said James.
“And just what exactly is a Fisher Pulse thing?” She threw her hands up, obviously confused. I understood.
James grabbed at the last piece of pepperoni and mushroom.
“We looked it up on the Internet.”
“And?”
“And, it’s a gold detector equipped for use underwater as well as on land. It can find gold and silver six feet from where it detects the metal. So if there were six feet of coral or silt or whatever, this baby should find it. It’s got an underwater earphone that I can listen to and it’s weighted so it will stay in one spot and not drift around in the water. I think we lucked out on this one.”
She appeared to be significantly impressed. “So this expedition is an additional three hundred fifty dollars, right?”
“Gotta spend it to make it.” James smiled.
“I want to say that you boys, and you too, Emily, you have shown me a great deal of ingenuity. I was skeptical at first, but you’ve found the letter, you made arrangements to have it put back together, and now you’re set for the dive tomorrow.” She smiled, a smug look on her face. “Emily, despite my initial concern, I think you were an excellent addition to the team.”
James glared at Mrs. T.
I would have felt a whole lot better if the event had been set with a more high-profile dive shop, but the consensus was that using this little hole-in-the-wall guy, it would remain more secret. The fewer people who knew about it, the better.
“So it’s all set. Tomorrow morning you’ll make the dive and we’ll see what we can find.” Mrs. T. stood up and basically herded us out the door.
The three of us walked down the stairs to the beach, hearing the loud laughs and music coming from Holiday Isle and Rumrunners.
“You’re supposed to dive with someone else.” Em eased into a lounge chair, looking across the water at the world famous tiki hut bar. “I’ve read enough to know that it’s stupid to dive alone.”
“Buddy diving would be the safest thing to do,” I had to agree, “but hey, no one here dives, Em. Besides, it’s two feet to twenty feet. Hardly a depth that I should have a problem with.” Considering I hadn’t dived in three years, any depth could cause a problem. But my macho instinct had kicked in.
My instructor used to dive solo. However, I will always remember her instructions. “Wait until you’ve had at least a hundred dives before you try it. And even then, remember that when you’re solo, no one has your back. No one.”
“Pard, I know this may be a stretch, but we’ve already told Skeeter that you’re going down to look for coins. No big deal about that, right?”
“It’s our cover, James. That’s what we decided.”
“Right. So what if we tell that cover story to someone else?”
