Cradle. Part 3

Carol put on her flippers and mask. Then she picked up her underwater camera by the strap and threw it over her neck and shoulder. Troy helped her tighten the strap in the back. Nick was sitting on the side of the boat at a break in the railing, right next to a crude ladder that Troy had just dropped overboard. "I've checked the water already," Nick said, "and there's quite a current up here. Let's go down the anchor rope until we reach the ocean floor. Then you can pick the direction from there."

Nick rolled backward off the boat. In a moment he surfaced, treading water. Carol returned his thumbs-up sign (the signal between divers that everything's all right) and sat down herself on the side of the boat. Troy helped her make one last comfort adjustment to her vest. "Good luck, angel," Troy said. "I hope you find what you're looking for. And be careful."

Carol put the regulator in her mouth, took a breath, and then repeated Nick's backward roll maneuver. The ocean water felt cool against her sunbaked back. In a few seconds she joined Nick over at the anchor rope and the two of them repeated the thumbs up sign. Nick led the way down. He went hand over hand, cautiously, never completely releasing the rope. Carol followed carefully. She could feel the strong current that Nick had mentioned. It pulled at her, trying to take her away from the rope, but she managed to hold on. Every six to eight feet in the descent, Nick stopped to equalize the pressure in his ears and looked up to see both that Carol was following and that she was all right. Then he continued his descent.

There was nothing much to see until they reached the reef beneath them. The telescope pictures had been so sharp that they had been misleading. The reef with its riot of color and its surfeit of plant and animal life had seemed to be right underneath them because of the automatic focusing action of the optical system. But thirty-five feet is a long way down. Any normal three-story building could have been sitting on the ocean floor underneath the Florida Queen and it would not have touched her hull.

When they finally reached the top of the reef where the anchor was implanted, Carol realized she had made a mistake. She did not recognize her surroundings and therefore did not know which direction to take to find the whales. She reproached herself briefly for not having spent a few more moments studying the monitor to make sure that she knew where all the landmarks were. Oh well, Carol then thought, It's too late for that now. I'll just pick a direction and go. Besides, I don't have any idea where the alarm object is anyway.

Visibility in the water was fair to good, maybe fifty to sixty feet in all directions. Carol adjusted her buoyancy slightly and then pointed to a gap between two reef structures, both of which were covered with kelp, sea anemones, and the ubiquitous coral. Nick nodded his head. Tucking her arms to her side to streamline her movement, Carol kicked up and down with her flippers and swam toward the gap.

Behind her, Nick watched Carol swim with appreciation and admiration. She moved through the water as gracefully as the school of yellow and black angelfish beside her. Nick had not interrogated Carol very much about her diving experience and had not known exactly what to expect. He had suspected from her ease and familiarity with the equipment that she was a seasoned diver; but he had not prepared himself for an underwater peer. Except for Greta, Nick had not encountered a woman before who was as comfortable under the water as he was.

Nick absolutely loved the peace and serenity of the rich and vibrant world beneath the ocean surface. The only sound he ever heard down there was his own breathing. All around him the coral reefs teemed with life of unimaginable beauty and complexity. There, underneath him now, was a grouper taking a bath by sitting at the bottom of a natural hole and letting dozens of tiny cleaner fish eat away all the acc.u.mulated parasites. A moment earlier, Nick's downward excursion toward the ocean floor had scared up a manta ray hidden in the sand. This large ray, called a devilfish by the cognoscenti, had undulated out of its hiding place at the last moment and just missed Nick with its powerful and dangerous tail.

Nick Williams felt at home down in this watery world at the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico. It was his recreation and his refuge. Whenever he was distressed or disturbed by events on the surface, he knew that he could dive and find relaxation and escape. Except on this particular dive he was aware of an ineffable emotion, a beginning perhaps, a longing that was barely defined, possibly mixed up with a memory of years ago. He was following a beautiful mermaid as she swam along the reef and the sight stirred him. I have acted like a schoolboy, he thought, and a bore. Or worse. And why? Because she is pretty? No. Because she is so alive. So much more alive than I am Carol and Nick made two different excursions, each time starting from the anchor rope, without finding the whales or anything else unusual. When they returned to the anchor after the second unsuccessful foray, Nick pointed at his watch. They had been under the water for almost half an hour already. Carol wagged her head up and down and then held up her index finger, indicating that she would try one more direction.

They found the whales right after they crossed over a big upward bulge in the reef that came within fifteen feet of the surface. Nick saw them first and pointed down. The three whales were about twenty feet below them and maybe thirty yards ahead. They were still swimming slowly, more or less together, in the same directionless, near circular pattern that Nick and Carol had watched on the screen. Carol waved Nick out of the way and pointed at her camera. She then swam toward the whales, taking pictures as she approached them while carefully monitoring her depth and equalizing the pressure in her ears.

Nick swam down beside her. He was certain the whales had seen the two of them, but for some reason they had made no attempt to flee. In all his years as a diver, Nick had only once seen a whale in the open ocean accept the nearby presence of a human. And that had been a calfing mother, in a Pacific Ocean lagoon off of Baja California, whose birth pangs were a more powerful force than her instinctive fear of humans. Here even when Carol approached to within twenty feet or so the whales continued their indolent drift. They appeared to be lost, or maybe even drugged.

Carol slowed her approach when the whales made no attempt to get away. She took some more photographs. Close-up pictures of whales in their natural habitat were still uncommon, so her trip had already been a journalistic success. But she too was puzzled by their behavior. Why were they ignoring her presence? And what were they doing hanging around this particular spot? She remembered being surprised by the solitary whale during her morning swim and wondered again if somehow all these strange events were related.

Nick was off to her right, about twenty yards away. He was pointing at something on the other side of the whales and gesturing for Carol to come toward him. She swam away from the great mammals and headed in Nick's direction. She saw immediately what had attracted his attention. Below the whales, just above the ocean floor, there was a large dark hole in the bottom of an imposing reef structure. At first glance it appeared to be the entrance to an underground cave of some kind. But Carol's sharp eyes noticed that the lip-shaped fissure was extremely smooth and symmetric, almost suggesting to her that it was an engineering construction of some kind. She laughed at herself as she swam up beside Nick. The amazing underwater world and the bizarre behavior of these whales were playing tricks with her mind.

Nick pointed down at the hole and then at himself, indicating that he was going down to check it out more closely. When he started to leave, Carol had a sudden impulse to reach for his foot and pull him back. A moment later, as she watched Nick swim away, a powerful fear of unknown origin swept over her. She began to tremble as she struggled gamely with this strange emotion. Goose b.u.mps appeared on her arms and legs and Carol felt an overwhelming desire to get away, to escape before something terrible happened.

An instant later she saw one of the whales move toward Nick. If Carol had been on land she could have yelled, but fifty feet deep in the ocean there was no way to warn someone from afar. As Nick drew near the opening, unaware of any danger, he was brushed to the side by one of the whales with such force that he bounced against the reef and then caromed off. He fell down onto a small spot of sand on the ocean floor. Carol swam toward him quickly while keeping a careful eye on the whales. Nick had lost his regulator and did not seem to be making any attempt to replace it. She drew up beside him and flashed the thumbs-up sign. There was no response. Nick's eyes were closed.

Carol felt a surge of adrenaline as she reached for Nick's regulator and thrust it into his mouth. She beat against his mask with her fist. After a few painfully long seconds, Nick opened his eyes. Carol tried thumbs up again. Nick shook his head, as if he were clearing out the cobwebs, smiled, and then returned the okay signal. He started to move but Carol restrained him. She indicated with gestures for him to sit still while she hurriedly looked him over. From the force with which Nick had hit the reef, Carol feared the worst. Even if his diving gear was all right, certainly his skin would have been ripped and torn by the sharp coral and the impact. But incredibly, there did not appear to be significant damage to either Nick or the equipment. All she could find were a couple of small sc.r.a.pes.

The three whales remained in the same area where they had been before. Looking up at them from below, Carol thought that they looked like sentinels guarding a particular piece of ocean territory. Back and forth they swam, inscribing a total composite arc of maybe two hundred yards. Whatever it had been that had caused one of the whales to vary its swimming pattern and run into Nick was certainly unclear. But Carol did not want to risk another encounter. She motioned for Nick to follow her and they swam about thirty yards away, to a sandy trench between the reefs.

Carol planned to return to the surface as soon as it was clear that Nick was not seriously hurt. But while Carol was thoroughly surveying his body to make certain that she had not overlooked any serious lacerations in her hurried check, Nick discovered two parallel indentations in the sand below him. He grabbed Carol's arm to show her what he had found. The indentations were grooved like tank tracks and were about three inches deep. They appeared to be fresh. In one direction the tracks ran toward the reef fissure underneath the three whales. In the other direction the parallel lines extended as far as Nick and Carol could see, running along the sandy trench between the two major reefs in the area.

Nick pointed up the trench and then swam away in that direction, following the tracks with fascination. He did not turn around to see if Carol were following. Carol quickly backtracked as close to the fissure as she dared (was she imagining again or were the three whales watching her as she crept along the ocean floor?) to take some pictures and to verify that the tracks did indeed emanate from the opening in the reef. She thought she saw a network of similar indentations converging just in front of the fissure, but she did not tarry long. She didn't want to be separated from Nick in this spooky place. When she turned around, he was just barely in sight. But he had fortunately stopped when he realized that Carol was not behind him. Nick made an apologetic gesture when she finally caught up with him.

At one point the parallel lines disappeared as the sandy trench turned to rock, but Nick and Carol located the continuation of the same tracks some fifty yards farther along. The trench eventually became so narrow that they were forced to swim six feet or so above it to keep from banging against the rocks and coral on either side. Soon thereafter the tracks and the trench made a left turn and disappeared under an overhang. Carol and Nick stopped and floated in the water facing each other. They carried on a conversation with hand gestures. At length, they decided that Carol would go down first to see if anything was under the overhang, since she wanted a close-up photograph of the disappearance of the tracks anyway.

Carol swam carefully down to the floor of the trench, skillfully avoiding contact with the edges of the reef on both sides. Where it disappeared under the overhang, the trench was just wide enough for her to put one of her flippered feet down lengthwise. The overhang was about eighteen inches above the floor, but there was no way she could bend down and look underneath without sc.r.a.ping her face or hands against the reef. Carol gingerly slid her hand under the overhang in the last direction of the tracks. Nothing. She would have to brace herself against the rocks and coral and stick her hand deeper into the area.

While Carol was trying to move herself into a better position, she momentarily lost her balance and felt the sting of coral on the back of her left thigh. Ouch, she thought as she put her right hand back under the overhang, that's one for me. One physical reminder of an amazing day. Weird even. Bizarre whales. Tank tracks on the bottom of the ocean . . . what is this? Carol's hand closed around what felt like a metallic rod about an inch thick. It was such a surprising touch, she immediately withdrew her hand and a shudder raced down her spine. Her heart rate accelerated and she tried to breathe slowly to calm herself. Then she purposefully put her hand back and found the object again. Or was it another object? This time she felt something metallic all right, but it seemed to be wider and to have four tines like a fork. Carol slid her hand along the object and refound the rod portion.

From his vantage point above her, Nick could tell that Carol had discovered something. Now it was his turn to be excited. He swam down to her as she struggled unsuccessfully to retrieve the object. They changed positions and Nick reached under the projecting rock. He first touched something that felt like a smooth sphere about the size of the palm of his hand. Nick could tell that the bottom of the sphere rested on the sand and that the rod attached to it was elevated by several inches. Nick steadied himself and jerked on the rod. It moved a little. He moved his grip sideways on the rod and heaved again. Several more pulls and the object was out from under the overhang.

For almost a minute Nick and Carol hovered over the gold-metallic object lying beneath them on the sand. Its surface was smooth to the eye as well as to the touch and altogether it was about eighteen inches long. Nothing but the polished, reflecting surface could be seen, suggesting that the object was indeed made from some kind of metal. The long axis of the object was an inch-thick rod that was, at one end, tapered and worked into a kind of a hook. Four inches back from the hook was the center of a small sphere, symmetrically constructed around the rod, whose radius was a little over two inches. The larger sphere that Nick had felt when he first put his hand under the overhang had a radius of four inches or so and it was right in the middle of the rod. This sphere was also perfectly symmetric around the rod axis. Beyond the two spheres the object was unadorned until the rod broke into four smaller branches, the tines that Carol had felt, at its other end.

Carol carefully took photographs of the object as it lay exposed in front of the overhang. Before she was finished, Nick pointed at his watch. They had been underwater almost an hour. Carol checked her air gauge and found that she was almost into the red. She waved a sign at Nick and he swam down to pick up the object. It was extremely heavy, weighing an astonis.h.i.+ng twenty pounds or so in Nick's estimation. Then it wasn't caught on anything when I was trying to pull it out, Nick thought, it's just that heavy.

The weight of the object only increased Nick's excitement that had begun when he had first seen the gold color. Although he had never seen anything quite like this hook and fork with spheres, he remembered that the heaviest pieces from the wreck of the Santa Rosa had all been made of gold. And this piece was far heavier than anything he had ever touched. Jesus, he thought to himself as he discarded some of the lead weights in his belt to make it easier for him to carry the object up to the boat, if there's even ten pounds of pure gold here, at current market value of a thousand dollars an ounce, that's $160,000, and this may just be the beginning. Wherever this thing came from, there must be more. All right, Williams. This may be your lucky day.

Carol's thoughts raced at a mile a minute as she swam in tandem with Nick toward the anchor rope. She was busy trying to integrate everything she had seen in the last hour. She was already convinced that everything was somehow a.s.sociated with the errant Navy missile - the behavior of the whales, the golden fork with the hook, the tank tracks on the bottom of the ocean. But at first Carol had no clue about what the connections were.

During the swim back Carol suddenly remembered reading some years before a story about Russian submarine tracks being found on the ocean floor outside a Swedish naval yard. In her journalistic mind she began to concoct a wild but plausible scenario to explain everything that she had seen. Maybe the missile crashed near here and continued to send out data even when it was underwater, she thought to herself. Its electronic signals somehow confused the whales. And maybe those same signals were picked up by Russian submarines. And American. Her thoughts came to a temporary dead end for a moment. So there are at least two choices, Carol thought again after swimming a few more strokes and watching Nick approach the anchor rope with the golden object still firmly in his hand. Either I've found a Russian plot to locate and steal an American missile. Or the tracks and goldenfork are somehow part of an American effort to find the missile without alerting the public. It doesn't matter. Either way it's a big story. But I must take that golden thing to Dale and MOI to a.n.a.lyze.

Both Nick and Carol were dangerously low on air by the time they reached the surface beside the Florida Queen. They called Troy to give them a hand with their prize from the deep. Carol and Nick were exhausted when they finally crawled into the boat. But they were also both on emotional highs, thrilled with the discoveries of the afternoon. Everyone started talking at once. Troy had a story to tell too, for he had seen something unusual on the monitor while Nick and Carol were following the tracks in the trench. Nick pulled some beer and sandwiches out of the refrigerator and Carol tended her coral cuts. The laughing trio sat down on the deck chairs together as the sun was setting. They had much to share during the ninety-minute trip back to Key West.

8.

THE camaraderie lasted most of the way back to the marina. Nick was no longer taciturn. Excited by what he believed was the initial find of a major sunken treasure, he was positively a chatterbox. At least twice he retold his version of the whale encounter. Nick was certain that the collision was accidental, that the whale simply happened to be moving in that direction for some other reason and just paid no attention to the fact that Nick was there.

"Impossible," Nick had scoffed when Carol had initially suggested that the whale might have deliberately hit him because he was heading for the fissure in the reef. "Whoever heard of whales guarding a spot in the ocean. Besides, if your theory's right, then why didn't the whale really smack me, and finish me off? You're asking me to accept that the whales were protecting an underground cave? And then that they were warning me to stay away with that gentle push?" He laughed good-naturedly. "Let me ask you something, Miss Dawson," he said, "do you believe in elves and fairies?"

"From where I was watching," Carol replied, "it sure looked as if the whole thing was planned. "She did not pursue the subject further. In fact, after her initial outbursts, Carol did not talk very much about anything on the trip back to Key West. She too was excited and she was worried that if she talked too much she might inadvertently give away her thoughts about the possible connection between what they had seen and the lost Navy missile. So she didn't mention either her eerie fear just before the whale hit Nick or the network of tracks she thought she saw converging just under the base of the fissure.

As far as Nick was concerned, the object they had retrieved was definitely part of a treasure. It didn't bother him that it was hidden under an overhang at the end of some strange tracks. He shrugged it off by suggesting that maybe somebody had found the sunken treasure several years earlier and then tried to hide a few of the better pieces. (But why were the tracks fresh? And what had made them? Carol wanted to ask these questions but realized it was in her best interest for Nick to remain convinced that he had found treasure.) Nick was blind to all arguments and even facts that didn't support his treasure theory. It was emotionally vital to Nick for the gold fork thing to be the first piece of a great discovery. And like many people, Nick was capable of suspending his normally sharp critical faculties when he had a vested emotional involvement in an issue.

When Nick and Carol finally quieted down enough to listen, Troy had a chance to tell his own story. "After you guys left the area underneath the boat, I guess to follow your trench, I became worried about you and started watching the screen more often. Now, angel, by this time those three whales had been swimming about in that same dumb pattern for over an hour. So I wasn't checking them real close."

Troy was up out of his deck chair, walking back and forth in front of Carol and Nick. It was a dark night; low clouds had rolled in from the north to block the moon and obscure most of the stars. The spotlight from the top of the canopy occasionally caught Troy's chiseled features as he moved in and out of the shadows. "Because I wanted to find you guys, I lifted the alarm suppression the way you showed me and was regularly serenaded by the ding-dong-ding from the three whales. Now listen to this. After a couple of minutes, I heard a fourth alarm. I looked down at the monitor, expecting to see one of you, and I saw another whale, same species, swimming underneath the other three and in the opposite direction. Within ten seconds the original whales turned, breaking their long pattern, and followed the new whale off the monitor to the left. They never returned."

Troy wound up the story with a dramatic inflection and Nick laughed out loud, "Jesus, Jefferson, you do have a way of telling a story. I suppose you're going to tell me now that these whales were stationed there and the new guy came along with different orders. Or something like that. Christ, between you and Carol, you'll have me believe that the whales are organized into covens of whatever." Nick stopped for a moment. Troy was disappointed that Carol didn't say anything.

"Now," Nick continued, dismissing Troy's story and getting to the subject he had been thinking about for almost an hour, "we have an important issue to discuss. We have brought back something from the ocean that could conceivably be worth a lot of money. If n.o.body else can prove conclusively that it is theirs, then it will belong to the finders." Nick looked first at Carol and then at Troy. "Even though I'm captain and owner of this boat and I carried the thing up from the ocean floor, I'm prepared to offer that we split the proceeds in thirds. Does that sound fair enough to the two of you?"

There was a moderately long silence before Troy answered. "Sure, Nick, that sounds fine to me." Nick smiled and reached across to shake Troy's hand. He then extended his hand to Carol.

"Just a minute," she said quietly, looking directly at Nick and not taking his hand. "Since you've decided to start this conversation, there are several more items that must be discussed. It's not simply a question of money for this object. There's also the issue of possession. Who keeps the golden trident? Who determines when we've been offered a fair price? What do we agree to say, or not to say, to others? And what if other objects are found down there by one or more of us? Do we all share? There's an entire agreement that must be worked out before we dock."

Nick frowned. "Now I understand why you've been so quiet these last few minutes. You've been thinking about your share. I misjudged you. I thought you might decide not to create any more trouble - "

"Who said anything about trouble?" Carol interrupted him abruptly, her voice rising slightly. "If you must know, I'm not that interested in the d.a.m.n money. I will gladly take my one-third if any dollars are forthcoming from the trident there, for I certainly deserve it. But if any more such treasures are down there and you and Troy can find them without me, then be my guest. I want something else."

Both men were now listening intently. "First and foremost, I want exclusive rights to this story, and that means absolute secrecy about what we have found, when and where we found it, and anything else a.s.sociated with it - at least until we're certain there's nothing more to learn. Second, I want immediate possession of the object for forty-eight hours, before anyone else knows that it exists. After that you can have it to take to the authorities for evaluation."

Uh oh, Carol thought to herself as she saw the searching looks she had elicited from Nick and Troy. I overdid it. They suspect something. Better back off just a bit. "Of course," she smiled disarmingly, "I've just given my initial position. I expect that some negotiations may be necessary."

"Wow, angel," Troy said with a laugh, "that was some speech. For just a minute there, I thought that maybe there was a whole other game going on here and you were the only one playing. Of course the professor and I will be delighted to discuss an agreement with you, won't we, Nick?"

Nick nodded. But he had also been alerted by the careful organization and unmistakable intensity of Carol's response. It seemed out of proportion to the journalistic value of their find. Is she trying to make this some kind of a contest between us? he thought to himself. Or am I missing something altogether?

They had worked out a compromise agreement by the time the Florida Queen reached the dock in Key West. Nick would take the golden trident (both of the men liked Carol's name for the object) with him on Friday morning. There was an elderly woman in Key West who was a compendium of treasure knowledge and she would be able to a.s.sess its value and to give its probable place and date of origin. The woman would also be a witness to their find in case the trident were ever misplaced. On Friday afternoon, the three of them would meet on the boat or in the marina parking lot at four o'clock. Nick would give the object to Carol and she would keep it over the weekend. After she returned it to Nick on Monday morning, he would be responsible for its care and eventual sale. The three of them had joint owners.h.i.+p of the trident, but Carol waived any interest in future discoveries. Carol wrote the terms of the simple agreement on the back of a restaurant menu from her purse, they all signed it, and she promised to bring copies back the next day.

Troy was quiet and subdued while he was loading all Carol's equipment back into the footlocker. He lifted the locker onto the cart and then pulled the cart along the jetty. Carol walked beside him. It was about nine o'clock and very quiet at the marina. The tall fluorescent lights created a strange reflection on the wooden jetties. "Well, angel," Troy said as Carol and he approached the marina headquarters, "it's been quite a day. I've really enjoyed your company." He stopped and turned to look at her. Her black hair had dried unevenly and looked a bit disheveled, but her face was beautiful in the reflected light.

Troy looked away, out at the water and the boats. "You know, it's a shame sometimes the way life works. You meet somebody by chance, you strike up a friends.h.i.+p, and then poof, they're gone. It's all so . . . so transient."

Carol came over beside him and stretched to kiss his cheek. "And you know I like you, too," she said, lightening up the conversation with a grin and making certain that Troy understood what kind of a friends.h.i.+p they could have. "But cheer up. All is not lost. You'll see me tomorrow for a while and then maybe when I return the golden thing on Monday."

She hooked her arm through his as they momentarily walked back down the Jetty, away from the loaded cart. "And who knows," Carol laughed, "I'm down in the Keys from time to time. We could have a drink together and you could tell me some more stories. "They could just barely make out the spotlight above the canopy on the Florida Queen some hundred yards in the distance. "I see your friend the professor is still at work. He's not strong on good-byes. Or any other area of manners as far as I can tell."

She turned, switching locked arms, and they walked back to the loaded cart. They moved through the apparently deserted headquarters without speaking. When the footlocker had been replaced in the station wagon, Carol gave Troy a hug. "You're a good man, Troy Jefferson," she said. "I wish you well."

Nick was almost ready to leave by the time Troy returned to the boat. He was packing a small exercise bag. "Looks innocent enough, doesn't it, Troy? n.o.body will ever suspect that one of the great treasures of the ocean is in here." He paused a moment and changed the subject. "You put her safely in her car? Good. She's a strange one, isn't she, all feisty and aggressive but still pretty at the same time. I wonder what makes her tick."

Nick zipped up the bag and walked around to the side of the canopy. "Just finish up with the diving gear tonight. Don't worry about the rest of the boat - we'll fix it up tomorrow. I'm going to go home and dream of riches."

"Speaking of riches, Professor," Troy said with a smile, "how about that hundred-dollar loan I asked you for on Tuesday. You never answered me and just said we'll see."

Nick walked deliberately over to Troy and stood right in front of him. He spoke very slowly. "I should have made my Polonius speech to both of us when you asked me for a loan the first time. But here we are now, borrower and lender, and I don't like it. I will lend you a hundred dollars but, Mister Troy Jefferson, this is positively the last time. Please don't ever ask me again. These loans for your so-called inventions are making it hard for me to work with you."

Troy was a little surprised by the unexpected harshness in Nick's tone. But he was also angered by the connotation of the last sentence. "Are you suggesting," Troy said softly, suppressing his temper, "that I'm not telling the truth, that the money is not being spent on electronics? Or are you telling that you don't believe an uneducated black man could possibly invent anything worth having?"

Nick faced Troy again. "Spare me your righteous racial indignation. This is not a question of prejudice or lies. It's money, pure and simple. My lending you money is f.u.c.king up our friends.h.i.+p." Troy started to speak but Nick waved him off. "Now it's been a long day. And a fascinating one at that. I've said all I want to say on the subject of the loan and I consider the issue finished."

Nick picked up his bag, said good night, and left the Florida Queen. Troy went behind the canopy to organize the diving gear. About ten minutes later, just as he was finis.h.i.+ng, he heard someone calling his name. "Troy . . . Troy, is that you?" an accented voice said.

Troy leaned around the canopy and saw Greta standing on the jetty under the fluorescent light. Even though there was now a slight chill in the air, she was wearing her usual skimpy bikini that showed off her marvelous physique. Troy broke into a grand smile, "Well, well, if it isn't superkraut! How the h.e.l.l are you? I can see you're still taking care of that wondrous body."

Greta managed the beginnings of a smile. "Homer and Ellen and I are having a small party tonight. We noticed that you were working late and thought that maybe you'd like to join us when you're done."

"Just might do that," Troy said, nodding his head up and down. "Just might do that."

9.

"OH, G.o.d, can't we stop now? Finally? Please let us. It's so quiet here, now." She was speaking to the stars and the sky. The old man's head slumped forward in the wheelchair as he drew his last breath. Hannah Jelkes knelt beside him to see if he was indeed gone and then, after kissing him on the crown of the head, she looked up again with a peaceful smile. The curtain fell and rose again in a few seconds. The cast a.s.sembled quickly on stage.

"Okay, that's it for tonight, good job." The director, a man in his early sixties, gray hair thinning on the top, approached the stage with a bounce. "Great performance, Henrietta, try to can that one for the opening tomorrow night. Just the right combination of strength and vulnerability." Melvin Burton nimbly jumped up on the stage. "And you, Jessie, if you make Maxine any l.u.s.tier they'll close us down." He spun around with a flourish and laughed along with two other people at the front of the theater.

"Okay, gang," Melvin turned back to address the cast, "now go home and get lots of rest. It was better tonight, looked good Oh, Commander, can you and Tiffani stay around for a moment after you change? I have a couple more pointers for you."

He jumped back down from the stage and walked back to the fourth row of the theater where his two a.s.sociates were sitting. One was a woman, even older than Melvin but with twinkling green eyes behind her granny gla.s.ses. She was wearing a bright print dress full of spring colors. The other person was a man, about forty, with a studious face and a warm, open manner. Melvin fretted as he sat down beside them. "I worried when we picked Night of the Iquana that it might be too difficult for Key West. It's not as well known as Streetcar or Gla.s.s Menagerie. And in some ways the characters are just as foreign as those in Suddenly, Last Summer. But it looks almost okay. If we can just fix the scenes between Shannon and Charlotte."

"Are you sorry now you added the prologue?" the woman asked. Amanda Winchester was an inst.i.tution in Key West. Among other things, she was the doyenne of the theatrical entrepreneurs in the revitalized city. She owned two of the new theaters near the marina and had been responsible for the formation of at least three different local repertory groups. She loved plays and theater people. And Melvin Burton was her favorite director.

"No, I'm not, Amanda. It clearly adds to the play to get some kind of initial feeling for how frustrating it would be to lead a group of Baptist women on a tour of Mexico in the summer. And without the s.e.x scene between Charlotte and Shannon in that small, stuffy hotel room, I'm not sure their affair is believable to the audience." He paused a moment, reflecting. "Huston did the same thing with the movie."

"Right now that s.e.x scene doesn't play at all," the other man said. "In fact it's almost comical. The hugs they exchange are like the ones my brother gives his daughters."

"Patience, Marc," Melvin answered.

"Something has to be done or we should take the prologue out altogether," Amanda agreed. "Marc's right, the scene tonight was almost comical. Part of the problem is that Charlotte looks like a child in that scene." She paused a moment before continuing. "You know, the girl has gorgeous long hair and we have it stacked on top of her head to look prim and proper. Clearly she wouldn't wear it down all day in the heat of a Mexican summer. But what if she took it down when she went to Shannon's room?"

"That's a great idea, Amanda. As I have often said, you would have made a fabulous director." Melvin looked at Marc and they exchanged a warm smile. Then the director settled back in his seat and started thinking about what he was going to tell his two cast members in a few moments.

Melvin Burton was a happy man. He lived with his room-mate of fifteen years, Marc Adler, in a beach house on Sugarloaf Key, about ten miles east of Key West. Melvin had directed plays on Broadway for almost a decade and had been a.s.sociated with the theater in one capacity or another since the mid-fifties. Always careful with his money, Melvin had managed to save an impressive amount by 1979. Worried about the impact of inflation on his savings, Melvin had sought advice from an accountant who was a friend of a close a.s.sociate. It was almost love at first sight. Marc was twenty-eight at the time, shy, lonely, unsure of himself in the maelstrom of New York City. Melvin's savoir faire and theatrical panache opened Marc up to aspects of life that he had never known.

As the stock market ratcheted upward in the mid-eighties, Melvin watched his net worth near a million dollars. But other factors in his life were not so bullish. The AIDS epidemic hit the theatrical community in New York with a vengeance and both Melvin and Marc lost many of their lifelong friends. And Melvin's career seemed to have peaked; he was no longer in demand as one of the premier directors.

One night on his way home from the theater, Marc was mugged by a group of teenagers. They beat him up, stole his watch and wallet, and left him bleeding in the street. As a saddened Melvin ministered to his friend's wounds, he made a major decision. They would leave New York. He would sell his stocks and convert his fortune to fixed income investments. They would buy a home where it was warm and safe, where they could relax and read and swim together. Maybe they would do some community theater work if it was available, but that was not the most important thing. What was important was that they share Melvin's remaining years.

Melvin ran into Amanda Winchester one day while he and Marc were on vacation in Key West. They had worked together briefly on a project that had never panned out twenty years before. Amanda told him that she had just formed a local amateur repettory group to do two Tennessee Williams plays a year. Would he be interested in directing them?

Melvin and Marc moved to Key West and started to build their house on Sugarloaf Key. Both of them thoroughly enjoyed their work with the Key West Players. The actors were everyday people, dedicated and earnest. Some had had a little acting experience. But for the most part, the secretaries, housewives, and retail clerks, plus officers and enlisted men from the U.S. Naval Air Station, were all novices with one thing in common. Each of them viewed his few days on the stage as his moment of glory, and he wanted to make the best of it.

Commander Winters came out of the dressing room first. He was wearing his uniform (he had come right over to rehearsal from the base) and looked a bit stiff and uncertain. He sat down in one of the theater chairs next to Amanda Winchester. "I was really glad to see you back again," said Amanda, taking his hand. "I thought your Goober last fall was just right."

Winters thanked her politely. Amanda changed the subject. "So how are things out at the base? I read an article the other day in the Miami Herald about all the modern weapons the Navy has these days, pilotless submarines and vertical takeoff fighters and search and destroy torpedoes. There seems to be no limit to our ability to build more powerful and dangerous toys for war. Are you involved with all that?"

"Only in a limited way," Commander Winters answered pleasantly. Then, antic.i.p.ating the discussion with the director, he leaned forward so that he could see Melvin and Marc as well as Amanda. "I apologize if I was a little flat tonight," he began. "We have a couple of big problems out at the base and I may have been a bit distracted, but I'll be ready tomorrow - "

"Oh, no," said Melvin, interrupting him, "that's not what I wanted to talk to you about. It's your first scene with Tiffani . . . Ah, here she comes. Let's go up on the stage."

Tiffani Thomas was almost seventeen years old and a junior at Key West High School. A Navy brat all her life, Tiffani had gone to seven different schools in her eleven years since kindergarten. Her father was a noncommissioned officer who had been a.s.signed to Key West about three months before. She had been recommended to Melvin Burton by the high school drama teacher when it became apparent that Denise Wright simply could not play the role of Charlotte Goodall.

"She hasn't done anything for me yet except rehea.r.s.e," the teacher had said of Tiffani, "but she learns her lines quickly and has a quality, an intensity I guess, that sets her apart from the others. And she's clearly been in plays before. I don't know if she can get ready in three weeks, but she's my first choice by far."

Tiffani probably would not have been called beautiful by her Florida cla.s.smates. Her features were too much out of the ordinary to be be properly appreciated by most high school boys. Her a.s.sets were olive eyes, quiet and brooding, light freckles on a pale complexion, long red eyelashes tinged with brown, and a magnificent head of thick auburn hair. Her carriage was proper and erect, not slumped like most teenagers, so she probably seemed aloof to her peers. "Striking," Amanda called her, accurately, when she first saw Tiffani.

She was standing on the stage alone in her short-sleeved blouse and jeans as the two men approached. Her hair was pulled back in a ponytail the way her father liked it. Tiffani was very nervous. She was worried about what Mr. Burton was going to say to her. She had overheard the buyer who was playing Hannah Jelkes say that Melvin might do away with the part of Charlotte altogether if "the new girl can't hack it. "I have worked so hard for this part, Tiffani thought. Oh please, please, don't let it be bad news.

Tiffani was looking down at her feet when Melvin Burton and Commander Winters joined her on the stage. "Well, now," Melvin began, "let's get straight to the point. The first scene with you two in the hotel room is not working. In fact, it's a disaster. We must make some changes."

Melvin saw that Tiffani was not looking at him. Gently he put his hand under her chin and lifted it until her eyes met his. "You must look at me, child, for I'm trying to tell you some very important things." He noticed that her eyes were br.i.m.m.i.n.g with water and his years of experience told him immediately what was wrong. He leaned forward and whispered so that n.o.body else could hear, "I said we would make some changes, not do away with the scene. Now get yourself together and listen up."

Burton regained his director's voice and turned toward Winters. "In this scene, Commander, your character Shannon and young Miss Goodall engage in foreplay that leads to intercourse later that night. In the following scene they are discovered, in flagrante delicto, by the confused Miss Fellowes. And that establishes the desperate situation causing Shannon to run to Maxine and Fred at the Costa Verde.

"But our scene does not work right now because n.o.body watching it will recognize what you two are doing as foreplay. Now I can change the movement to make it easier - putting Shannan already on the bed when he discovers Charlotte behind the door would be one way - and I can change Charlotte's clothing so that she looks less like a little girl, but there's one thing that I cannot do . . ." Melvin stopped and looked back and forth from Tiffani to Winters. They were both staring blankly at him.

"Come here, come here, both of you," Melvin said, gesturing impatiently with his right hand. He dropped his voice again. He took Tiffani's hand with his left and Commander Winters' with his right. "You two are lovers for one night in this play. It is essential that the audience believe this or they will not understand completely why Shannon is at the end of his rope, like the iguana. Shannon is desperate because he was originally locked out of his church for giving in to the same l.u.s.t . . ."

They were both listening but Melvin's director's intuition told him he was still not reaching them. He had another idea. He took Tiffani's hand and put it into the commander's, closing his own hand over theirs for emphasis. "Look at each other for a moment. That's right." He turned to Winters. "She's a beautiful young woman, isn't she, Commander?"

Their eyes were in contact. "And he's a handsome man, isn't he, Tiffani? I want you to imagine that you have an uncontrollable desire to touch him, to kiss him, to be naked with him." Tiffani blushed. Winters fidgeted. Melvin was fairly certain that he saw a spark, albeit a fleeting one.

"Now tomorrow night," he continued, looking at Tiffani and taking his hand off theirs, "I want you to capture that feeling when you're hiding in his room. I want it to explode out of you when he notices that you are there. And you, Commander," he looked back at the middle-aged naval officer, "you are torn between an overpowering pa.s.sion to possess this young girl physically and the almost certain knowledge that it will be the final ruination of both your life and your soul. You are hopelessly trapped. Remember, you fear that G.o.d has already forsaken you for your past sins. But, despite that, you finally relinquish yourself to your l.u.s.t and commit another unpardonable sin."

Tiffani and Commander Winters both realized at virtually the same time that their hands were still intertwined. They looked at each other for a moment and then, embarra.s.sed, awkwardly separated them. Melvin Burton slipped between his players and put his arms around their shoulders. "So go on home now and think about what I've said. And come back tomorrow and really break a leg."

Vernon Winters drove the Pontiac into his driveway in suburban Key West just before eleven o'clock. The house was quiet, the only lights were in the garage and the kitchen. As regular as the stars, Vernon thought, Hap to bed at ten, Betty to bed at ten-thirty. In his mind's eye he saw his wife go into his son's bedroom, as she did every night, and fiddle momentarily with his sheets and coverlet. "Did you say your prayers?"

"Yes, ma'am," Hap always answered.

Then she would kiss him good night on the forehead, turn out his light as she left the room, and go into her bedroom. Within ten minutes she would have changed into her pajamas, brushed her teeth, and washed her face. She would then kneel beside her bed, her elbows on the top of the blanket and her hands clasped right in front of her face. "Dear G.o.d," she would say aloud, and then she would pray until exactly ten-thirty, moving her lips silently with her eyes closed. Five minutes later she would be asleep.

Vernon was aware of a vague disquiet as he walked through the living room toward the three bedrooms on the opposite side of the house from the garage. There was something stirring in him, something that he could not identify exactly, but he a.s.sumed it was a.s.sociated with either the nervousness of opening night or the sudden return of Randy Hilliard to his life. He wanted to talk to someone.

He stopped at Hap's bedroom first Commander Winters walked in quietly in the dark and sat on the side of his son's bed. Hap was fast asleep, lying on his side. A tiny nightlight beside his bed illuminated his profile. How like your mother you look, Winters thought. And act. You two are so close. I'm almost a trespa.s.ser in my own home. He put his hand gently against Hap's cheek. The boy did not stir. How can I make up for all the time I was gone?