18mm Blues Page 5

  Setsu’s insides leaped. All her internal organs felt as though they were cowering against her rib cage and spine. Nevertheless she managed to keep her limbs in control, maintained her upward progress, which out of another necessity now was practically a slow float. She was close enough to see the scales of the snake, their symmetry, and to some extent, its eyes, small and black. Unreadable eyes because of their blackness, however Setsu was certain they were on her, and that she was at the mercy of those eyes, depending on what messages it was at that moment transmitting to the snake’s brain, hostility, apathy or who knew what.

  Within seconds she was up past that ledge and the snake. Except for her feet and lower legs. Her feet and lower legs seemed like laggards, vulnerable, inviting attack. But then they caught up and were also above the snake’s immediate close range.

  More snakes about halfway up.

  They were all around, folded into niches, fitted into cracks, swagged over outcroppings. There were lemon-yellows but also some that were as green as an unripe apple and others a pinkish, feminine color.

  Any moment Setsu expected one to shoot out at her with its lethal bite. If one did, all might. One would get them started.

  From a seemingly unoccupied horizontal crevice, one did emerge. But sinuously, slowly, came right at her, directly to the space between her upper arm and her side. A pink snake. With a swift purposeful spin it wound itself three turns around her upper arm. Brought its head up so its eyes were level with hers. Stared curiously into her fright. Opened its jaws as wide as the hinges would allow, displaying its long, curved fangs.

  More like a yawn, though, than a threat, the way it closed its mouth. More like a parting embrace than an antagonistic squeeze the way it tightened a degree around her arm before gracefully unwinding from it.

  She continued upward, glanced down. Saw that a swarm of tiny shrimp, a translucent, pastel cloud of creatures, was directly below her. The snakes began feeding upon the shrimp, whipping up the water as they gorged. A frenzy with swift slashes of lemon-yellow, sudden bolts of brilliant green, muscular belly-up roils of pink. The snakes no longer had interest of any sort in her.

  However, a lot of her breath time had been spent. She didn’t know how much. The danger had disoriented her sense of time, that stopwatch in her head, and now she’d have to go by what her body told her. Especially her lungs. Already they were signaling her with some burning. At fourteen fathoms, the depth from which she’d started up, her lungs were contracted to about a third of their normal size—an involuntary reaction to the pressure. Now they were still only about half the size of what they should be. They were demanding that she hurry and let out the breath she was holding.

  She couldn’t. Not and survive. If she expelled her breath her buoyancy would be lost. And there’d be nothing in her with which to fight against sinking. She’d known of amas, the best of swimmers, who, for one reason or another, had given up their breath while still deep down. If someone hadn’t gone down quickly and brought them up they would have drowned. But here, there was no one above to help her. She still had six or seven fathoms to go.

  Her legs were also complaining, some of their strength leaving her. Better she should use them while she still had them, she thought, and did four successive propelling kicks. Made her arms help, kept her fingers tight together, her hands cupped to get all she could out of them. She knew she shouldn’t go up so quickly, but the pain across her chest was intense now, the breath crowding her windpipe, some of it coming up into her mouth, swelling her cheeks. She clamped her hand over her mouth and pinched her nostrils to keep it from escaping.

  Her head broke through the patch of calm surface as though shattering it, the old, used breath exploded from her and a deep fresh one relieved. She floated in place a long moment to allow the replenishment to reach all of her. She had an intense headache from having ascended too rapidly, but that was a common ailment with amas, and she knew an ama way of dealing with it. Merely dipped down, held her head underwater for a minute.

  She was inside the lagoon. It was about three-quarters of a mile at its widest point, otherwise a little less.

  The water there was disturbed only enough to cause geometric reflections on the sandy bottom. Not deep. At the edge Setsu could stand and walk. The deepest area was along the reef, just inside it. As much as five to six fathoms there.

  Setsu swam out a ways on the surface, then dove and investigated the bottom. After only a dozen or so strokes she came upon an oyster. The same sort William had found, a max, with a thick shell large as a dinner plate, blue-flecked radial ridges. It shut its shell abruptly as she reached for it. She put it in her sack and searched around for others.

  Came upon them.

  An entire bed of them. So many she didn’t try to count. Large as they were, her sack couldn’t hold more than five, and after gathering that many she placed her sack down and swam over the bed, allowing the possibilities of what she’d found to register. From now on, she thought, she would be a notable ama, one whom others spoke about often and admiringly. They would, no doubt, exaggerate her exploits. Exaggeration always flavored such devotion. They would tell of the snakes and put in bizarre underwater dragons, whirlpools and masses of tiny voracious sharks. She would become the venerated name Setsu as her great-grandmother had become the name Amira, a legend to be recited. It would be told how she returned home to Hegurajima with great wealth to build her mother an elegant house, one of several she would pay to have built within a walled compound to be occupied by Yoshidas. There would be enough money for generations. Silk on their bodies, television sets and visits to foreign places for their eyes. William, in beautiful shoes, would go with her to San Francisco.

  To confirm such wonderful prospects, Setsu looked for an oyster that had, so to speak, gotten out of bed, one apart from the rest. She located such a loner and approached it more stealthily, stayed close as possible to the bottom while almost imperceptibly moving toward it. The oyster was feeding, had its shells open about two inches. Setsu cocked her head and hardly disturbed a grain as she pressed her cheek to the sand within three feet of the oyster. Peered into it and saw the sphere of brilliant blue it contained.

  Oh hai! The numbers of this day would be long remembered.

  She retrieved her sack. Instead of returning the perilous way she’d come, the snake way, she swam to the reef and over it to the open sea. Swam against the wind, through the sudden drops of swells and hoisting crests, all the way around the point to finally reach the boat.

  Bertin was pleased to see the oysters and elated when he’d opened them. The five yielded four pearls: two of about eighteen millimeters, two only a couple of millimeters smaller. All of remarkable perfection and all blue. Bertin invited Setsu, Michiko and William to the stern and allowed a quick pot of tea and nibbles of sweet rice cookies. Setsu related what she’d gone through. Bertin did sympathetic clucks and he made his eyes wide when he thought amazement was called for. When Setsu said where the oysters were, he was sincerely interested. She told him it would be better, easier if he moved the boat around the point and anchored close to the reef.

  He agreed. The danger of being seen by a Burmese patrol still existed, however an exceptional pearler such as he had to take chances, Bertin told himself.

  The boat’s new position allowed both Setsu and Michiko to work the lagoon. They slid over the reef and gathered into their sacks. Swam back and handed their catches up to William, who dragged them to the stern. Bertin had repealed his territorial restriction and was also demonstrating his better nature to the boy, sharing with him the very first sight of another pearl and exaggerating disappointment when an oyster was barren. There was even some encouraging back patting and a couple of covert swigs of wine from a bottle, and William, susceptible to such camaraderie, truly enjoyed doing his part, handling the sixty-pound sacks.

  As quickly as the oysters were brought aboard, Bertin opened them. The black lacquer bowl, now a more worthy repository, held only the l
arger pearls, those of superb quality and eighteen-millimeter dimension. Others of lesser size and of a quality that Bertin would have been overjoyed with just yesterday were relegated to a glass tumbler that hadn’t been washed since Miller.

  Bertin was so caught up with accumulating pearls and the certain wealth that followed that he forgot about the barometer, and when about midafternoon he went in to look at it he loathed what it indicated. His plan had been to pearl until dark, remain anchored there and pearl the entire following day. Clean out the lagoon, even if it took a week. However, the barometer had fallen one and a half degrees since he’d noticed it near a reassuring 29.50 that morning.

  He sighted through the binoculars at those clouds to the south. They were definitely closer and, it appeared to him, coming on fast. What kind of storm was that? The clouds of it were huge and dark on the bottom, flat on top. All the way across the southern horizon. Now he was able to make out the way they were churning, getting worked up. He lowered his binoculars, listened intently. Heard a distant deviating rumble followed by a sharp clap. It was trying to talk to him, this storm, he thought, telling him watch out, asshole, here I come. And hear the wind? It had picked up, playing the part of precursor, whistling around the mast.

  He went back to opening oysters and getting pearls.

  But couldn’t keep his eyes off those clouds.

  Possibly they were a baby tropical cyclone, he thought, and perhaps not so much of a baby. It would be just his luck, now that he had so much, never to live to enjoy it because of the boat getting swamped and he drowned or bashed to death up against the reef.

  Fuck that, he said aloud.

  He went forward as Setsu and Michiko were arriving again, each with another sackful of oysters. They had been working the lagoon simultaneously, going and coming together, enjoying the task more because of that. This time as Bertin and William lifted the sacks aboard, Bertin complained with an agreeable grin that they were too efficient for him, were bringing too many at a time, so the unopened oysters were piling up on him. It was a compliment the way he said it. He suggested they stagger their trips, coordinate so when one was returning the other would be going.

  Michiko climbed aboard to rest on the foredeck while Setsu swam back over the reef to the lagoon. William dragged one of the full sacks to the stern. Bertin lugged the other.

  William was removing the oysters from the sacks and arranging them neatly so they could be systematically opened when Bertin struck him. William was about to look up and perhaps he had somewhat, perhaps he got a glimpse of the blow just before it landed. A snapping, back-handed blow to the side of his head, huge right-hand knuckles against boy cheekbone. Such force it lifted William off his feet, sent him flying into the wheelhouse and against the bulkhead there, transformed into a limp, contorted heap.

  Bertin went to the foredeck. Michiko was sitting with her legs drawn up, hands clasped at her ankles, her head resting on her knees. She seemed unaware of Bertin there, or at least she wasn’t aware of the danger of him.

  He looked down upon her from behind. Saw the definition of her bowed spine, her black hair wet tendrils against the skin of the back of her neck. He thought from her position she was practically offering herself.

  He grabbed her throat with both hands, hands so large and throat so small his thumbs and fingers overlapped. Gave her no chance to cry out, applied more than enough sudden pressure to prevent that, and what resistance she put up was no match for his hold, merely some futile flails and twists and kicks. He enjoyed killing by hand, had done it twice before, felt the spasms, the voice box crush, the cartilages and vital passages compact.

  He didn’t release until she was surely dead. He picked her up and dumped her over the outboard side.

  It wasn’t only that he didn’t want to share the blue pearls and their worth with the Japs. Just as important, perhaps more so, he didn’t want anyone else knowing the source, this island. He was confident that he’d be able to find it again, and if he could, certainly so could they. Typically, they’d return and load up on these blues, might bring other people as well, and before long there’d be who knew how many on it. Killing, as Bertin saw it, was justifiable, in fact, called for.

  The body of Michiko floated for a few minutes alongside the boat, eerily banged against it some, then sank. At about a fathom down a current caught it, carried it beneath the boat and in the direction of the reef.

  Thus, as Setsu was returning with a full sack, had swum over the reef and was proceeding to the boat, for a moment the body of Michiko was directly under her. Her kicks came within inches of hitting upon it.

  Bertin awaited Setsu, extended his hand to receive the sack. He tossed it on the deck, turned away and feigned being busy with it for a long moment, then turned back.

  Setsu had climbed aboard and removed her mask. As she took off her cap she looked around for Michiko.

  Bertin got her by the hair, from behind. His right leg wrapped around the front of her legs to clamp her in place. It happened so swiftly she didn’t have a chance to struggle. Bertin jerked her head far back, so her long neck was stretched, arched up. In practically the same motion he drew the dah-she, that Burmese knife, across her throat from just below her left ear to just below her right. Not even so much as half a scream from her as her carotid arteries were severed and her jugulars and facial veins. Her windpipe and esophagus sliced clear through.

  At once there was a great deal of blood, a lot of it on Bertin. He didn’t mind. He picked up Setsu and dropped her overboard like so much waste.

  Went aft then to finish up with the boy.

  The boy wasn’t where he’d been in the wheelhouse. Hiding, Bertin thought, but the boat didn’t offer many places for that. He searched the cabin thoroughly, even looked into the cupboards and other storage spaces obviously too small to contain anyone. The engine compartment too, which was crowded with engine. He went over the boat systematically stem to stern, searching again where he’d already searched. He concluded that the boy had come conscious and dived overboard. That had to be it, and in that case, the boy was as good as dead.

  Bertin started the engine.

  Hoisted the anchor and pulled in the drogue.

  Glanced hard at the storm and the descending mercury in the barometer. Swung the boat around sharply to an easterly course and said a prayer on behalf of the engine.

  CHAPTER ONE

  Grady Bowman caught on a thought and paused about halfway through his shave. He looked out the bathroom, through the dressing room to Gayle’s unmade bed. It had been unmade when he’d arrived home at three A.M., and although he’d about 98 percent expected Gayle wouldn’t be there, the bed bothered him.

  He’d been making the circuit for the past sixteen days. Starting with Denver, then Houston, New Orleans, Atlanta, Boston, New York, and, finally, Chicago. At least twice a year, some years three times, he traveled around and met in person with clients of the firm he worked for, the Harold Havermeyer Company. Havermeyer himself used to go on such trips, and so had the Havermeyer before him, but it had been left up to Grady since he joined the firm nearly ten years ago. Some of those trips had been successful, others not so. This one fell somewhere in between, would have been really good had Lawler in Boston been able to decide on that lot of emeralds. There’d been no way for Grady to sell him. All Grady could do was stand there and watch Lawler sell and unsell himself and finally end up unsold.

  Last night’s flight in from Chicago was one of those evidently destined to misfortune. It was an hour and a half late taking off, and after a half hour in the air had to return because of a mechanical problem. Then there was the hour and some wait for another plane to be readied and the problem Grady had had with his pistol. As usual when he flew with goods, he’d turned in his pistol to airport security for safekeeping in the plane’s control cabin. However, with the switch of planes and crews the pistol was forgotten in the copilot’s flight case, which was finally located but was locked and had to be broken in
to.

  So, altogether, the last leg of the journey had been everything but good for Grady and a measure of amend was surely called for. Gayle’s bed, however, was unmade and empty. Grady believed he was too exhausted to think about it. He let his clothes drop anywhere, vetoed a shower and got into his own bed. Eyes shut, Grady felt sinking and drifting, but then the emptiness in the bed turned his mind back on, and his mind did the same to the rest of him.

  He switched on the bedstand light. How long was it that she hadn’t been there? he wondered. Got up to perhaps find out. Went nude out to the landing and downstairs to see if there was a dated note from her where she usually left them whenever it occurred to her. Nothing was on the hall table nor propped against the black-and-white photograph of them framed in ornate English silver. It was an enlarged version of the submitted flash shot that had appeared seven years ago on the wedding page of Town & Country.

  In his semisomnambulant state it was easy for Grady’s attention to get held by something. Such as Gayle as she’d appeared that day, well tanned, slick lipped, haloed by a white floral headpiece, no claim of chastity in that audaciously beautiful face. He doing the mild hug, sort of smiling, certainly not his best smile, dazed really, trying to nonchalant it.

  He went into the study and played back the messages on the answering machine. Days and days of them, including the six or seven long-distance that were him and his wordless disconnects. Otherwise only trivial calls such as from the pesticide service a week ago and some woman friend of Gayle’s miffed because Gayle hadn’t shown up for a dinner party last week, hadn’t even called with excuse or apology.

  The kitchen. It was clean, the sink was dry, the counters a bit dusty. The coffee left in the coffee maker had evaporated three inches and was scummed blue-white.