18mm Blues Page 27

  The fragment of a sharp shell he stepped on snapped him back to proper relativity and he said Grady Bowman to himself four times, like it was the prominent chord in a vast orchestration. The breeze was for him, the sun was for him, the hoochie-koochie of the air above the baking beach ahead was for him. As also were Kumura’s words at that moment. “How much do you actually know about pearls, Grady?”

  “Not all that much,” Grady believed he was tactically right in admitting. “Anyway, not as much as I pretend.”

  “How about the market?”

  “I keep up.”

  “I’m sure you do,” Kumura said, inferring that was another facet of Grady he knew about, his ability to overview.

  “Strong market right now,” Grady said.

  “Yes, the demand for pearls has never been so great, however … the situation for pearls has never been worse. Quite a paradox.”

  “Because of pollution?”

  “That, but not only that. Sure, industrial waste, chemical fertilizers and so on are spoiling the pearl-growing waters, but the pearl farmers themselves are also to blame.”

  “How’s that?”

  “Ever heard of the Japan Pearl Exporters Association?”

  Grady had but he sensed it best that he ought to just let Kumura go on.

  “It’s a government agency established in the early sixties,” Kumura said, “to oversee the pearl industry. I happened to be among those who pushed to form it. Its purpose was to set standards of quality and make sure they were lived up to by the pearl farmers. All pearls intended for export had to be inspected and approved. If a batch wasn’t good enough in one way or another, it wasn’t allowed to be shipped. Instead it was confiscated and destroyed. You thirsty?”

  “Yeah.”

  “So am I. We should have brought along a thermos of orange squash or something. Thoughtless of me.”

  Kumura went to the water and cupped a double handful. Didn’t drink it, just took some into his mouth, swished it around and spat it out. He continued walking and talking. “Although the standards were high and rigidly enforced the pearl farmers for the most part realized it was for their own good and went along with it. Sure, there was some grumbling and disputes and incidents involving corruption, but the export inspections prevailed. For about ten years. That is, until pearls became such a staple of fashion and the demand heated up.”

  Kumura stopped again, this time to hitch up his shorts. He took a couple of Callard and Bowser licorice toffees from his pocket. “Forgot I had these,” he said. Didn’t ask if Grady wanted one, just assumed and tossed it. They remained stopped while they unwrapped and put the toffees in their mouths. Grady watched Kumura take the time to fold the silver and black foil wrapper into a tiny triangle, sort of origamilike. He put it to pocket for discard elsewhere. Grady crushed his, rolled it into a ball and had it for his fingers to play with as they went on down the beach.

  “Last year, how many pearls do you think were exported to the United States from Japan?” Kumura asked.

  Grady knew roughly how many but said he wouldn’t even venture a guess.

  “Thirty million mommes were officially shipped. Two hundred and fifty thousand pounds.”

  “A lot of pearls,” Grady commented, trying to visualize such a heap.

  “Worth a lot of money,” Kumura echoed. “Close to a billion dollars.”

  Another unimaginable heap for Grady.

  “The demand is actually too strong,” Kumura said. “In order to meet it, or, I should say, take advantage of it, the majority of pearl farmers have said to hell with standards. They’ve overcrowded the waters of their farms, drastically shortened the culturing periods. At the same time the pearl export inspection agency has become accommodatingly myopic. Batches of pearls that would never have passed inspection before are now getting a mere glance and an approving wink. Even trash pearls, the most inferior quality, have a market. Instead of being destroyed as regulations stipulate, they’re being shipped to Hong Kong and sold on from there. It pains me to think of it.”

  “But prices are up,” Grady reasoned.

  “Not across the board, only the prices of better goods, and that’s because better goods are scarce, and getting scarcer. When I was last in New York I dropped in at a retail store on Madison Avenue. Didn’t introduce myself. Asked to see pearls and was shown some medium-grade strands. When I seemed reluctant the saleperson took that to mean my concern was the price and proceeded to show me some that were less expensive. I examined those closely. They were not only blemished in various ways, they had such little nacre I could, with my bare eyes, make out the beads implanted in them. It infuriated me.”

  Grady understood. He also hated seeing such bad goods.

  “How long do you think farmers used to allow their oysters to grow pearls?” Kumura asked.

  Grady figured it was about time he admitted to knowing something like that. “Three years.”

  “Yes, but nowadays many are putting a crop into the water in June and harvesting it in December. The pearls they’re getting have only about two-tenths of a millimeter of nacre. Compared to the full millimeter a term of three years would bring. As you no doubt know, the more layers of nacre the greater the luster.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Pity the poor lady who buys for herself or receives as a gift such inferior thin-skinned pearls. At first they appear all right to her, lustrous and gleaming, but within a year or less they start to die. They go dull, and, when she wonders why, she’s told the cause is her perspiration and the perfume she’s been spritzing.”

  “Pity,” Grady agreed, meaning it.

  “Pearls for the masses,” Kumura verbally shrugged.

  By then they were a mile up the beach and the Kumura facility was in view. It consisted of two similar structures of black steel and reflecting glass. There was nothing architecturally attractive or unusual about them, and Grady’s initial reaction was they didn’t belong here, Silicon Valley maybe, but here they were spoilers. Not until he got closer did he realize how gigantic one of the buildings was. Not tall, four stories at most, but plenty long and wide. It extended from the shoulder of the beach out into the bay, sort of like a contemporary office building that had toppled over and landed in the water just right. The second, smaller building was oppositely situated. It ran inland from the shoulder of the beach. It wasn’t landscaped, and tropical growth, banana trees and such, concealed much of it.

  Grady and Kumura put on their sneakers and entered the inland building. At once they were in a spacious area bathed in softened sunlight. The roof was made up of diffusing glass panels. Also overhead was an irregular lattice, a confusion really, of white PVC pipes. They ran in every direction, were numerously elbowed and, as well, accented with red valves and green levers.

  Vertical pipes, connected to certain of the horizontal ones above, extended down to vats. Heavy-gauge, extruded plastic vats, about six feet square, four feet deep. The floor was smooth concrete inset with steel grate drains. Although the place was very clean it smelled strongly of the sea and sea creatures. There were twenty or so workers about. Kumura acknowledged them with what could pass as a bow or merely a deep nod.

  He explained to Grady that half the vats here were for holding mature oysters ready to be nucleated. The other half for holding spat, newborn oysters, that needed looking after for a couple of months before being placed in the bay, where, he hoped, they too would mature in two or three years. “By the way,” Kumura said, “as you probably know oysters are hermaphroditic.”

  Another bit of information Grady knew but let Kumura have the enjoyment of imparting.

  “Oysters have both male and female sexual organs. They go through phases during which they apparently prefer one over the other. Marine biologists have all sorts of theories about why they switch as they do. I like to believe it’s a matter of whim. Anyway, the oyster that was a mother last month may be around spreading sperm this month,” Kumura grinned. “Quite a fucking arrangement.
”

  “Yeah.”

  “Can’t help but envy it, considering our human plight. I mean the difference between the genders when it comes to the allocation of potential passion.”

  It was a lighthearted gripe, but Grady didn’t miss its acrid under-edge.

  They proceeded to an adjacent area, where, Kumura said, the implanting was performed. The concrete floor there was enameled a stark white, helping the impression that it was cleaner, even sanitary. Twenty workbenches were precisely lined up in rows of five. Their top surfaces were stainless steel and they were rib cage height to make it easier for the workers, so they wouldn’t have to stoop.

  The workers, one to each bench, were wearing green medical-type smocks and had their hair contained in the sort of unflattering caps used in hospital operating rooms. Nearly all the workers were women, Thais and Malays and Japanese.

  Kumura stopped at the workbench of a Japanese woman he introduced simply as Naomi and in the same breath said she was one of the best at implantation. Naomi didn’t have much of a nose and a crowd of unfortunate, tea-stained teeth. She smiled unselfconsciously and waited for Kumura to gesture that she should continue her work.

  In the tray on her left were several oysters, South Sea silver lips, each about twelve inches in diameter and four inches where they were thickest. Their gray to black and dun to brown exteriors were concentrically but roughly ridged, not in any way attractive.

  Naomi randomly chose one of the oysters. She placed it before her on an especially constructed metal stand so it was braced and positioned in such a way that its valves, that is, its upper and lower shells, were diagonally in line with her eyes.

  It first appeared to Grady that the oyster was firmly closed and that it would probably take some hurt and damage to get it open. However, now he realized a slight slit.

  “Oysters are gregarious creatures,” Kumura said. “When not in a gang and, as well, a bit hungry like this one, it expresses its discontent by opening up to the world.”

  Naomi took advantage of the oyster’s sparse opening, inserted a little hardwood wedge. The oyster responded by opening a degree wider. Naomi inserted another, thicker wedge and removed the first. When the oyster opened still wider, in place of the wedge, she inserted a stainless steel protractor. She squeezed the protractor firmly, very gradually increasing pressure.

  “The trick,” Kumura explained, “is not to put too sudden or too great a strain on the adductor muscle.” He indicated where the shells were hinged. “That’s just about the worst trauma one can inflict on an oyster. It’s like breaking its spine. When that happens it gives up completely.”

  The oyster was now open enough for Grady to see its black, brown and pumpkin-hued mantle, the flimsier somewhat gathered edging of flesh nearest the lip of the shell. Farther in were its other glistening components, stomach and feet and all, slickly and comfortably arranged on the iridescent inner surface of the shell.

  Naomi worked swiftly, not wasting a motion. The procedure was obviously one she’d performed countless times.

  She took up a scalpel from her instrument stand. Made a three-quarter-inch-deep, three-quarter-inch-long incision in the oyster’s mantle, precisely where its ambivalent gonads were located.

  “Care must be taken not to make the incision too close to the lip,” Kumura commented, “or else the pearl we get will be misshapen.”

  Next, using a special thin instrument with a cup on its end, Naomi reached into a little bin labeled 14mm. Chose one white head from the identical many that were in the bin.

  “Those are from the Mississippi River, right?” Grady said.

  “Yes,” Kumura replied, having just had words taken out of his mouth.

  “Shaped from the shell of the washboard mussel,” Grady added before reminding himself not to be a know-it-all, in fact, to remain a catcher not a pitcher.

  With a steady hand, Naomi extended the instrument cupping the bead into the oyster, inverted it and dropped the bead precisely where she wanted. Pressed the bead gently into the incision she’d made, making sure it was well in and snug.

  She turned her attention to an oyster in a shallow tray to her right. Its upper shell had been intentionally broken away, so it lay there entirely exposed, still alive but about to be sacrificed. Using the scalpel and a pair of surgical scissors, Naomi amputated a portion of its mantle, a cube-shaped piece that she trimmed to correct size before transporting it with tweezers to the incision of the first, more fortunate oyster. She tucked that snip of flesh into the incision, adjusted it neatly around the bead.

  Removed the protractor.

  The oyster closed immediately, as though irritated at having been put through such torment. Naomi dropped it into the oxygenated and salinated water of a nearby tank to recuperate along with the other oysters she’d implanted that afternoon.

  Grady had never expected to witness an implantation. He’d been fascinated.

  Kumura thanked Naomi. “Three years from now,” he said, “God, Allah, Buddha and everyone else willing, we may be blessed with another sixteen-millimeter beauty.”

  The tour continued.

  They left that part of the facility for the other building, the larger one on the bay. Grady at once saw the reason for its dimensions. It included a pair of slips, each plenty wide enough for two good-size vessels to pass or lay side by side. For most intents and purposes the structure served as a huge docking shed. It was where the various sorts of boats needed by the pearl farm were serviced and maintained. It was where the rafts were constructed. It was where the boat crews and other workers were quartered. Four stories up along each side were steel grate ramps that gave access to the rooms in which they lived.

  It was also where Kumura and Lesage kept their personal vessels. Such as Kumura’s 130-foot power yacht. There it was, with the name Zephyr in gold and black lettering on its stern along with its port of registry, Singapore. So white, impeccable and polished it appeared brand-new.

  Grady asked if it was.

  Kumura told him it wasn’t. He’d had it designed in England and built in Rotterdam ten years ago. “But that ketch there is a Hinckley that was delivered just last month,” he said, calling Grady’s attention to a fifty-foot motor sailor named Sea Cloud that was tied up a short ways farther on. “It has everything.” They paused to look it over. “Personally, I think I’m going to prefer it over Zephyr. When out on the water I enjoy not striving for total comfort.”

  Grady appreciated the ketch. And coveted it. Like most guys he carried the someday desire to own such a boat, and also like most, that space in him was shared by the squelching realization that chances were he never would. Cost as much as a house, such a boat, and on top of that would be the bruising expense of upkeep. Substantial, wanted things were like that, turned on you with encumbrances before you even owned them, Grady thought.

  He gazed across the shed to the other slip, where there was another power yacht. This one larger and newer and with sleeker lines. Italian design, Grady guessed and then guessed aloud it belonged to Lesage.

  Kumura told him it did.

  “What about that sloop over there?” A really handsome motor sailer with a blue hull.

  “Also Lesage’s.”

  Grady thought, a bit jaundiced, that the limited partner did all right for himself.

  They went on along the slip, past where a crane had a motor-boat lifted and was placing it upon a scaffold so its hull could be worked on, past where there was the clanging staccato of metal being hammered and the shouting of various languages, past where the acetylene blue sparks were popping about and the air smelled of hot metal and Thai cooking.

  Grady, taking it all in, noticed three young men leaning upon the rail of the steel grate ramp forty feet above. They were observing him and Kumura, but especially him. The three were bare to the waist, deeply tanned. Their blond hair was nearly shaved on the sides and in back but long on top. Acorn shaped. They were staring down. Grady stared right back up at them and t
hought how much they resembled the young thieves who’d given him a hard time on the river. They might very well be, except it didn’t make sense. That had been in the combat zone of Bangkok, this was Bang Wan, peaceful place of pearls. Because of the angle and distance Grady couldn’t see their faces distinctly enough, tried for a long moment more before deciding to chalk up the resemblance to coincidence. No, style, that’s all there was to it, a matter of style. Guys that age were always into a trend.

  At the far end of the shed the two slips gave to the open water of the bay. Several speedboats and some wide-beamed, clumsy-looking vessels were tied up there. Maintenance boats.

  “We’ll take one of these tenders,” Kumura said and stepped aboard. Grady followed and, in moments, with a dark-skinned Thai at the helm, the tender chugged from the shed, headed out into the bay.

  The channel, Grady saw, was well marked by green-striped and red-striped buoys. The buoys had strobe lights on them for negotiating the channel at night. It wasn’t a straight channel but ran through a maze of bamboo rafts all the way across the bay.

  There were many more rafts than Grady had thought when he’d noticed them from the terrace. A hundred was now his estimate. Each raft was twenty feet by twenty feet, and, joined as many were, they formed long, rectangular sections.

  Kumura had the Thai stop the tender at one such section where work was in progress. That allowed Grady to see that the rafts were constructed of twenty-foot lengths of bamboo six to eight inches in diameter. Two layers of these runners, the top layer at a right angle to the bottom, latticelike. Spaced four feet apart, they formed individual openings. Wire mesh cages of dimensions that allowed clearance were suspended from the openings to below the surface of the water.

  At that moment a cage was being manually hoisted up through one of the spaces. The cage had no top, was really more like a square, sharp-cornered basket.

  Grady counted the eight oysters it contained. A worker removed one, handled it as though it had no more prospect than a common hunk of rock. He propped it up on the edge and chopped at it with a cleaver, hacking away the crusty material that had attached to the shell. Another worker used a hose to wash off algae.