Benchley, Peter (4 page)

As the waiter turned and left, Gail glanced after him and said quietly, “That must be a lousy job.”

“Why?”

“What’s he have to look forward to? Maybe, if he’s really good, he’ll become a headwaiter.”

“What’s wrong with that?” said Sanders. “It’s better than being out of work.”

“Did you notice his name? Slake. That doesn’t sound Bermudian.”

“I don’t think there’s any such thing as a Bermudian-sounding anything. There are black people with names like Bascomb who speak Saville Row British, and there are white folks who sound like they came out of a ghetto in Jamaica. I remember checking a

Geographic

caption with a guy, a fisherman, who was quoted as saying, “Holiday tomorrow. There’s going to be a tempest.” I thought, nobody says “tempest” any more. But by God, the man really talked that way. Ethnically, this place is a mess.”

When their drinks came, they sat in silence, listening to the waves below them, looking out at the few patches of reef visible on the windless evening.

Sanders reached into his pocket and took out the ampule he had found.

“In the morning, let’s see if anyone around here can analyze this for us. I’ll bet you a dime it’s penicillin-from the sick bay. All ships carry that kind of stuff.”

“I don’t think penicillin was that common till after the war. It looks more like a vaccine. Anyway, you’re on for a dime.”

He started to hand the ampule to Gail to put in her purse when a voice behind them said, “Where did you get that?”

They turned and saw the waiter. Slake had menus in his hand. “I beg your pardon?” Gail said.

He seemed embarrassed by the abruptness of his question.

“I’m sorry. I saw the little glass, and I wondered where you found it.” Slake spoke in a musical accent that sounded Jamaican.

Sanders said, “On the wreck right off there.”

“Goliath?”

“Yes.” Gail held up the ampule so Slake could see it more clearly. “Do you know what it is?”

Slake took the ampule and held it between his finger tips. A gas lamp burned behind him, and he twirled the ampule before the light. He gave it back to Gail and said, “I have no idea.”

Sanders said, “Then why are you so interested?”

“I am interested in glass. It looked old. It is pretty. Excuse me.” Slake put the menus on the table and walked toward the kitchen.

After dinner, the Sanderses walked, hand in hand, along the path back to their cottage. A quarter moon had risen, casting golden light on the leaves and flowers. The bushes were alive with the croaking of frogs.

Sanders unlocked the door to the cottage and said, “Let’s have a brandy on the porch.”

“We’ll be eaten alive.”

“I don’t think so.” He pointed to a yellow light above the door. “These things are supposed to keep the bugs away.”

He poured brandy into the two bathroom glasses and carried them out to the porch. Gail was sitting in one of the two rattan chairs that flanked a small table.

“It’s nice,” she said, sniffing the air. “There are a thousand different smells.”

For several minutes, they sat and gazed at the sky and listened to the rustle of the breeze in the trees.

“Are you ready for another thrilling fact from the files of the

Geographic?”

Sanders said.

“Sure.”

“Back in the seventeenth century, this place was known as the Isle of Devils.”

“Why?”

“How would I know? My contract only calls for me to give you the “whats.” Someone else is paid to find out the “whys.””

Gail said, “I’m going to yawn now.”

“Feel free.”

“It will be the most sensual and suggestive yawn you have ever heard. It will promise wild, unimagined pleasures that will make me forget that you are a suicidal maniac. In short, it will be a real turn-on.”

“Do it,” said Sanders. He closed his eyes and listened. He heard her embark on a low, moaning, feline yawn. It stopped-as suddenly as if someone had jammed a cork in her throat. “What’s the matter?” he said. “Swallow your tongue?” He opened his eyes and saw her staring out into the darkness.

“What?”

“Someone’s out there.”

“It’s the wind.”

“No, it isn’t.”

Sanders walked to the edge of the patio. The path was empty. He turned back to Gail and said, “Nobody.”

“Look.” Gail was pointing to something behind him.

When Sanders looked again, he saw a man stepping out of the bushes onto the path. He walked toward them, stopped a few yards from the porch, and said, “Excuse me.” He was a black man, dressed in a black suit. All Sanders could see were his eyes and a patch of white shirt.

“How long have you been there?” Sanders said.

“Sir? I arrived this very moment.”

“From the bushes?”

The man smiled. “That is the shortest way.

The path is very roundabout.” His accent was crisp, establishment British.

“What can we do for you?”

“I would like a word with you, if I may.”

“Okay. But come up into the light.”

The man, who looked about fifty, stepped onto the porch. His blue-black skin was wrinkled, and there were flecks of gray in his black hair. “My name is Tupper. Basil Tupper. I am the manager of a jewelry store in Hamilton. Drake’s. Perhaps you’ve heard of it. No matter. My hobby is antique glass.”

Sanders looked at Gail. “Lot of glass freaks in Bermuda.”

Tupper said, “I understand you recently acquired a small item of glass from the wreck of the Goliath.

I would like very much to see it.”

“Why?”

“What’s all the curiosity about?” Gail said, reaching for the purse beside her chair. “It’s just a medicine bottle.”

“No curiosity, really,” said Tupper, “except to those of us interested in fine glass. A chap named Reinhardt worked with glass in Norfolk in the mid-1940’s. His work is relatively scarce. It’s not worth much in the open market, but in our small circle it’s quite a coup to have a piece of Reinhardt glass.”

Gail found the ampule and handed it to Tupper. He held it to the light. “A nice piece,” he said.

“Not outstanding, but a nice piece.”

“It’s an ampule,” said Sanders. “You see them all over the place.”

“True, but there is a tiny bubble at one end of the glass. That was Reinhardt’s signature.”

“What’s in it? “Gail asked.

“I have no idea. It could be anything. That’s not my concern.”

Gail smiled. “For someone who doesn’t care what’s inside, you’re studying it awfully carefully.”

“I am studying the container, not the contents. The liquid looks yellow, but it might be quite clear.

Reinhardt glass often imparts its own hue to liquids.” Tupper returned the ampule to Gail. “Very nice. I’m prepared to offer you twenty dollars for it.”

“Twenty dollars!” said Sanders. “But it’s-was “I know, that sounds like a lot. But as I said, in our little coterie there is a certain rivalry. I’d like very much to be the first to have a piece of Reinhardt’s work. Frankly, the piece isn’t worth more than ten dollars, but by offering you twenty I know I’m offering more than most of the others could pay.

Someone like your acquaintance, Slake, couldn’t possibly go higher than ten dollars. I am making what could be called a pre-emptive bid.”

“Would you mind if we draw off some of the liquid?”

Gail said. “We’re interested in knowing what’s inside, even if you’re not.”

“No,” Tupper said. “That’s quite impossible.

To draw off the liquid, you would have to break an end of the piece. That would ruin its value.”

“Then I’m afraid there’s no sale,” Sanders said.

“Thirty dollars,” Tupper said, abandoning his deferential charm.

“No,” said Sanders. “Not even for fifty.”

“You’re making a mistake, you know. No one else will offer you anywhere near that much.”

“Then I guess we’ll just have to keep the piece ourselves,” Sanders said. “After all, you said yourself that it’s quite a coup to have a piece of Reinhardt glass.”

Tupper glared at him, then nodded to Gail, said good night and backed off the porch. A few yards down the path he parted some bushes, stepped into the underbrush, and was gone.

“What the hell do you make of that?” Sanders said.

Gail stood up. “Let’s go inside. If he could hang around in the bushes without our hearing him, God knows what else is creeping around out there.”

They went into the cottage, and Sanders locked the door. “You believe him?”

“No. Do you?”

“Who knows from Reinhardt glass?”

“If there’s such competition between glass nuts,”

Gail said, “why would Slake have told him about the ampule? He’d have offered to buy it himself. No. I bet he isn’t interested in the glass. He’s after what’s inside.”

“I wonder why he didn’t say so.”

“I don’t know. I guess it’s pretty hard to pass yourself off as a liquid-collector.”

“Have you got the rest of the stuff we found?”

“Sure,” Gail said. “Why?”

“Tomorrow, let’s see if we can find someone who knows something about the wreck. Maybe there’s an old manifest; at least that’d tell us what Goliath

was carrying.”

“There were no survivors?” Gail said.

“One,” replied the bell captain, a corpulent, middle-aged Briton, “but he’s about gone by these days.”

“Gone by?”

The bell captain touched his head. “Dotty.

He’d tell you volumes, but two thirds of it would be fancy. There is one man who might be able to help you, Romer Treece. He’s been on every wreck off Bermuda; found half of them himself. If anyone knows these waters, he does.”

“Is he in the phone book?” Sanders asked.

“He has no telephone. The only way to contact him is to go out to his home, on St. David’s Island.”

“Okay. I saw some motorbikes out front.

Are they for rent?”

“The little ones-the mobilettes-yes.” The bell captain paused. “Mr. Sanders … do you know about St. David’s?”

“What’s to know? I’ve seen it on the map.”

“They’re not exactly … hospitable … out there. They don’t consider themselves Bermudians; they’re St. David’s Islanders.

There’s a bridge, the Severn Bridge, connecting the island to the rest of Bermuda. They’d as soon it fell down and was never rebuilt.”

Sanders laughed. “What are they, hermits?”

“No, but they’re a proud people, and a bit bitter, too. They make their own rules, and the Bermuda Government looks the other way. There’s a mutual agreement, I guess you could say a recompense for slavery.”

“Slavery?”

“The ancestors of St. David’s Islanders were slaves. Half of them were Mahican Indians, troublemakers sent down by the American colonists.

The other half were unruly Irish, shipped over by the British. Over the years they intermarried, and they created as hard a bloodline as you’d care to see.”

“They sound fascinating,” Gail said.

“In daylight, ma’am. Don’t linger in St.

David’s after dark.”

Sanders said, “Thanks for the advice. I left our air tanks down in the equipment shed. Can we get them filled again?”

The bell captain didn’t answer. He looked uneasy. “I

… I meant to ask you, Mr. Sanders.” He held up two wallet cards. “The cards you gave me. Forgive my ignorance, but I’m not familiar with NIDA.”

“Oh sure,” Sanders said smoothly. “National Independent Divers Association. There are so many divers these days, NAUI and the y can’t handle them all. NIDA’S a new group.”

“Of course.” The bell captain made a note on a pad. “It’s regulations. I hope you understand.”

“No problem.”

Gail and David went outside and ordered motorbikes from the Orange Grove cycle shop.

While the clerk was filling out forms, Gail whispered, “What was that business with the cards?”

Sanders said, “I thought that might happen. They’re getting tighter every year. You can’t get air without a certification card.”

“But we’ve never been certified.”

“I know. I had the cards made in New York.”

“What’s NIDA? Is there such a thing?”

“Not that I know of. Don’t worry. They never check. They just have to have something to put on file.”

“We probably should have taken the y course,” Gail said. “Yesterday was the first time I’ve dived in a year.”

“Who’s got fourteen Tuesday nights to waste in a swimming pool?” Sanders put his arm around her waist. “You’ll be fine.”

“It’s not just me I’m worried about.”

They listened to instructions about how to operate the motorbikes. The clerk pointed to a row of helmets and said, “What are your hat sizes?”

“Forget it,” Sanders said. “I hate those things.”

“It’s the law. You have no choice. The police can confiscate the bikes.”

“It seems to me,” Sanders said irritably, “that I should be able to decide for myself …” He stopped, feeling Gail’s hand on his arm. “Oh, all right.”

Gail put the towel full of artifacts from Goliath

in the basket on the rear fender of her bike and patted her shirt pocket to make sure the ampule was there.

They set off, heading northeast on South Road.

The wind had gone around to the southeast, and as they putted along the road overlooking the south shore, Sanders pointed to the reefs: what yesterday had been a calm anchorage for the Whaler was now a churning boil of foam. Waves crashed on the rocks. Even shoreward of the reefs, the wind-whipped water gathered enough force to make surf on the beach.

The road was crowded with small slow taxicabs, whose drivers-though they had known each other all their lives and saw each other every day-impulsively waved and honked their high-pitched, bleating horns at each other.

There seemed to be no social order, no evident neighborhoods, among the houses they passed.

Generally, the houses on the right side of the road, with spectacular ocean views, were large, well kept, and obviously expensive. Those on the left, nestled close together on hillsides, were smaller. Every puff of breeze was rich with thick aromas, sweet and sour, spicy and fruity.

They passed through Devonshire and Smith’s Parishes, turned left on Harrington Sound Road, and followed the long causeway across Castle Harbour to St. George’s Island. A sign indicated the town of St. George to the left; they went right, across the Severn Bridge, and rode along the narrow road paralleling the airport toward St. David’s.