Bermuda Schwartz (30 page)

He looks at me, tormented and torn.

“He died. He died because of me.”

“No,” I say. “He died because someone killed him. You can't blame yourself for that.”

He sloughs it off, won't hear it.

“That night at dinner, at the Mid Ocean Club, when you told me the way he died, about his eyes, same as the others, I decided right then that I could wait no longer, that if someone wanted that reliquary so badly that they would kill for it, over and again, that I would give it to them. Or at least trick them into thinking they had what they were looking for.

“And then, after I got it set in place at the wreck site, my intent was to keep a vigil on
Miss Peg,
at safe distance, of course, monitor who came and went from the spot where I had put it until …”

“Hold on,” I say. “You're telling me that you took the replica out there to the wreck site?”

Teddy looks at me.

“You can be a thick one sometimes,” he says. “I didn't really care to go out there alone, thought there might be safety in numbers. It was good to have you and Boggy with me that morning at Sock 'Em Dog. And why else do you think I suited up and saw to it that you lagged so far behind me?”

“Your dive bag,” I say. “You had the replica in it. That's when you put it out there.”

Teddy smiles, nods.

“Yeah, put it right where I found the original. Near the hub of the
Victory's
paddle wheel.”

Before I can muster a reply, the door swings open, the two guards come in. One of them takes Teddy by the arm.

“Time's up,” the other one says.

They start to lead him away.

“Wait,” I say. “Just a few more minutes.”

“Sorry, sir. Superintendent's orders,” says the guard. “This is all for today.”

 

All hell breaks loose bright and early the next morning at Cutfoot Estate. I'm out with Boggy and the gardening crew, preparing the hole for the final Bismarck, when the auger seizes up in the limestone. The backhoe operator tries to free it and succeeds not only in snapping the bit, but rupturing a hydraulic hose. It flails like some furious serpent, spewing fluid in every direction, coating the lawn in an oily sheen.

A perfect time for Aunt Trula to step down from the terrace to investigate the commotion. She strides onto a slick spot and spills ass over teakettle onto the grass.

The only thing hurt is pride, which in her case is a whole lot of hurt.

“Where is Barbara?” she demands as I help her to her feet. “I need her out here this instant!”

“I'll find her,” I say. “By the way …”

“What?” Aunt Trula snaps.

“Happy birthday.”

Turns out, Barbara is still in bed, where I'd left her a couple of hours earlier. Not like her, not like her at all. I give her a kiss and rouse her awake.

“You OK?” I ask as she stretches and yawns.

“Oh, fine, just fine.” She smiles. “Just needed to catch up on my sleep, that's all, get ready for the big day.”

A few minutes later we are standing on the terrace, surveying the scene, plotting damage control.

“We'll get bags of white sand, spread it in the grass,” Barbara says. “That should solve the problem of people slipping or tracking oil on their shoes.”

“I suppose, but I am more concerned with that thing,” says Aunt Trula, nodding at the auger. “We can't very well have a giant metal rod poking out of the ground like that.”

“We could always get some brightly colored streamers, have the guests make a circle and pretend it's a maypole,” I say.

Aunt Trula and Barbara look at me. They don't say anything. They don't need to.

“I'll get to work on it,” I say.

“You absolutely must get that last palm tree planted,” Aunt Trula calls after me. “Four on one side, three on the other. That simply will not do. There must be symmetry!”

I walk to the scene of the disaster. I'm thinking that from this day forward, whenever I'm off-center and seeking balance in my life, I shall rally myself by hearkening the words of dear Aunt Trula: “There must be symmetry!”

Boggy and Cedric have rounded up a sledgehammer and chisel. The hole is only big enough for one person at a time, and so we take turns, pounding away at the limestone. It is slow, slow going.

By early afternoon, the tent people have arrived and are putting tables and chairs in place. The caterer has brought three trucks and a troupe of chefs has taken over the kitchen. The floral designer and a half-dozen assistants are fretting over bouquets and wreaths and table arrangements.

I take my turn in the hole. I put chisel in place, pick up the sledgehammer, and swing. Chips of limestone fly every which way. The auger remains locked in rock. I reset the chisel and pound it again. And again and again.

It's hot in the hole. I'm sweating. The work is mindless. Still, vagrant thoughts fall into place, of salvage permits and sunken ships, ancient glass gewgaws in the shapes of beetles …

I swing the sledgehammer, hit home, and the auger is free. I help the backhoe operator reset the bit.

And then I crawl out of the hole.

“I'll be right back,” I tell Boggy.

I hurry up to the bedroom, find the sheet of paper that Polly gave me,
the one with her phone numbers on it. I call the first number, Deep Water Discoveries, and she answers. I ask her a few questions, and she tells me what I need to know.

I call the Oxford House and ask for Fiona McHugh.

“I'm sorry,” says the desk clerk. “But Miss McHugh just stepped out.”

“Did she say where she was going?”

“No, but the same gentleman who called on her yesterday arrived here again to pick her up. The way they were dressed it appeared as if they might be going boating.”

I call Westgate Prison and ask for the superintendent's office. I get his secretary and after a few minutes of wrangling I get the superintendent himself.

“There is absolutely no way that I can allow you to speak with Mr. Schwartz,” the superintendent says.

“But it's urgent. I have to …”

“Then take it up with Mr. Schwartz's attorney. He found out about your coming here yesterday and demanded that I not let it happen again. So I suggest …”

I hang up the phone. I call Inspector Worley's office. He's not there.

“He accompanied the commissioner to a subcommittee meeting at Parliament regarding the police service budget,” says a secretary. “I expect he will be tied up the rest of the afternoon.”

There's no one left to call.

I hurry to the backyard. The auger is out of the hole. Cedric and Boggy are putting a sling around the eighth and last Bismarck so it can be set in place.

I pull Boggy aside.

“Come with me,” I say.

 

As we wait for a gap in traffic so we can pull out of Cutfoot Estate, I spot a blue Toyota parked near the entry gate of the place next door. I can't tell how many people are in it. Too far away.

I turn onto the road, heading for Somerset and Teddy Schwartz's house. The blue Toyota zips into traffic a few cars behind us.

I tell Boggy where we're going and why we're going there. I tell him about the phone calls, what I learned and what I didn't learn and what I think it all means. It only takes a few minutes. By the time I'm done, the Toyota has moved up a slot or two.

I see a sign for Heron Loop Road. It's a scenic detour that reconnects with the main road about a mile ahead. Barbara and I drove it on our moped outing.

I whip onto Heron Loop Road. I've only gone fifty yards or so when I see the blue Toyota in my rearview mirror.

“Looks like we've got a friend,” I say.

Boggy adjusts the side mirror. He looks in it, says: “It is only one person.”

“Can you make out who it is?”

“No, too far.”

The Toyota keeps its distance as we follow Heron Loop Road back to the main road. It hangs back even as we stop and wait to turn. Once
we're about a quarter mile down the main road, I spot it again in the rearview mirror.

I slow down. Cars pass me. Soon the Toyota is the only car behind me, but still it hangs back.

I pass the driveway to Teddy Schwartz's house. I go a hundred yards or so, then veer onto the shoulder. The crunch of gravel, a storm of dust. The blue Toyota keeps going past us, its driver looking straight ahead.

I say, “You see who it was?”

Boggy nods.

“Yes, the one who works with Michael Frazer,” he says.

“That's what I thought, too. The same one we keep seeing at Papi Ferreira's house.”

We talk about what it could mean as I turn us around and park in the driveway at Teddy Schwartz's house. As we get out, the Toyota passes slowly on the road. The driver sees us. I give him a big friendly wave. He keeps going.

The same police crew from the day before is back at it again at Teddy's place. They've apparently committed themselves to scouring every inch of the grounds to find anything else that might seal the case against Teddy.

Boggy heads straight for the dock, begins untying the lines on
Miss Peg.
I step into the boathouse. Three cops, including the young guy who found me snooping around the day before, are sifting through the pile of lumber that sits at the far end of the room.

I give them a nod, say: “How you doing?”

Then I reach for the key rack. There are at least a dozen key chains hanging from it, and I can't remember which one Teddy used on our previous trips. But four of them are the kind you buy at nautical stores, with foam floats attached. I grab all four of them and head out the door.

Behind me, I hear the young cop saying: “He was here yesterday. Knows the Chief Inspector.”

I hop on
Miss Peg
and Boggy pushes us off from the dock. Not standard boating procedure—you always wait until the engine starts, just in case it doesn't—but the cops are hurrying out of the boathouse.

“Hold it right there!” shouts one of them.

I try the first key. Doesn't work. Try the second. It doesn't work either.

The cops are on the dock.

“Where do you think you're going?” says the one who seems to be in charge.

“Just out for a little boat ride,” I say, as I fiddle with the third key. It doesn't work.

The cop reaches for a cell phone.

“I need to clear that,” he says.

The fourth key works. The engine fires. I throttle up and we pull away.

I point
Miss Peg
out to open water, then let Boggy take the wheel while I busy myself with the GPS.

It's not one of the newer models and, even if it were, I am no great hand with electronic gizmos. The GPS flashes on, gives our present coordinates. I punch buttons, see if I can luck out and punch up something that might be a log of previously visited sites, then figure out which one of them might be Sock 'Em Dog. But nothing works.

I open a compartment in the console, find the weathered logbook that Teddy had consulted the day we went to Sock 'Em Dog. I flip through pages. There are dozens of coordinates. And, as I feared, they are listed by Teddy's private code rather than any common name that I can recognize. At any rate, there's nothing in the book that says Sock 'Em Dog.

I sling the logbook back into the compartment and slam it shut.

Boggy looks at me.

“What is it, Zachary?”

“We're screwed. I can't locate the coordinates, either on the GPS or in Teddy's logbook.”

“They are the same as the numbers on the GPS that Fiona had?”

“Yes, probably the same. Near enough anyway. But we don't have that GPS either.”

Boggy reaches for the GPS on the console. He punches in the coordinates: N32° 18.024/W064° 52.622.

I look at him.

“Where did you pull that from?”

“You forget, Zachary. I fixed Fiona's GPS. I found that number for her.”

“And you remember it?”

Boggy shrugs.

“Just a number,” he says.

 

An hour later …

The wind has come up from the southeast and a rising swell, straight out of Africa, churns the water as we near Sock 'Em Dog. Things are getting knocked all around in the cabin. I go below and stow fallen gear in its racks. The fire extinguisher rolls on the floor. I put it back in its holder. I try my best to fasten down everything that needs fastening down.

When I come back out, I can see a boat just ahead of us, cresting and falling with the waves. Sleek profile, red hull—Michael Frazer's boat.

We draw closer. There's no one on it.

We put out bumpers and tie off
Miss Peg
alongside the other boat. I find a full tank, suit up. There's a mesh dive bag in one of the gear lockers. I tie its drawstrings to an eyelet on my vest and shuffle to the transom.

On the ride out, Boggy and I talked over how this whole thing might go down. Lots of variables. A shitstorm waiting to happen.

Not to worry. We've come up with a plan. Or what might pass for a plan if it didn't have so many goddamn holes in it.

But there's no way to fix it now. And not much that needs saying.

“See you when I see you,” I tell Boggy.

“And you, Zachary,” he says.

Then I take a giant stride and hit the water.

Maybe it's the adrenaline of the moment. Or maybe Boggy slipped
some of his pig's bile tea into my coffee at breakfast. In any event, I don't have my typical difficulty equalizing the pressure on my ears. I drop down, down, down.

And as I drop, I angle toward the seamount, that predatory spire of rock and coral with the benign face of a friendly dog.

I check my gauges—60 feet, 2,800 psi in the tank.

I swim over the first scattering of wreckage. It's the bow of the
Victory,
I'm assuming, since the paddlewheel, attached to its stern, went down on the other side of the seamount.