Nelson Algren - The New Black Mask Quarterly (№ 1)

“Did you see one hanging around that day?”

“No, but that doesn’t mean anything. I’ve seen them materalize like ghosts, out of nowhere.”

“The cuts in the weight belt looked more like they’d been made by a knife—”

“That’s possible, too. Anixter had a knife and he was out of air. The buckle on the belt was still fastened when I found it. Maybe it got stuck and he panicked and tried to cut it off. I’ve seen divers do screwier things in situations like that.”

“He cut off his trunks, too?”

He said nothing to that, just shrugged.

“Was that his own equipment?”

“No. It was mine.”

“How about his wife? Was she certified too?”

“No. She said she’d been down a couple of times, but didn’t like it. She just went along for the ride.”

“And she never left the boat the entire time you were under?”

“That’s one thing I’m positive about.”

“Did you see any other boats in the area?”

“Not that I remember.”

“You say the current is strong here. Strong enough to carry a man to shore?”

I went on with the train of thought. “Say a diver had been dropped off here earlier. Would it have been possible for him to have been waiting down there without you seeing him?”

“Maybe, if he was careful, and didn’t breathe a lot.” His eyes widened as the idea crystalized in his mind. “You think that’s what happened? You think somebody was waiting down there?”

“I’m just looking at all the possibilities.”

“Then what happened to the body?”

“If there were signs of violence on it, knife wounds, for instance, they would have to keep it from being found,” I speculated. “Who else knew where you were going to dive?”

“My partner, Sonny. But he had a group out that afternoon—”

“Don’t worry, I don’t consider him a suspect.”

He shrugged. “As far as I know, only the four of us knew.”

“How did Mrs. Anixter act when you told her you couldn’t find her husband?”

He looked at me strangely. “That was something that always bothered me.”

“Why?”

“When I came up with his equipment, she got hysterical. Cried and wailed all the way back to shore. She only stopped long enough to ask one question.”

“What was that?”

“She wanted to know what the waiting period was before someone was declared legally dead.”

The entire flight back to L.A. my thoughts drifted as unrelentingly toward the solution as that St. Maarten current ran toward shore. No matter how hard I tried to swim in other directions, I wound up heading the same way.

It was almost ten in the evening when I pulled into my parking slot in front of my apartment, dog-tired and suffering from an intense case of heartburn from the catered cardboard the Eastern stewardess had jokingly referred to as “dinner.” All I wanted was to make myself a strong drink and crawl into bed. I was definitely not in the mood for company; especially the two movie-extra heavies who detached themselves from the shadows and materialized on each side of my car.

They yanked open the doors and the one on the passenger’s side stuck a .45 Browning automatic in my face. He was big and beefy and had a wide, loose face that gravity had gone to work on. The face didn’t smile. “He’ll drive,” was all he said.

The one on the driver’s side nudged me, and I moved over to keep from being sat on. They wedged me in firmly between them and the driver backed my car out of the driveway. The gun was jammed up under my rib cage, making it hard to breathe. The driver turned right onto Pacific and headed toward the Marina. He was slimmer than the other one, with a bony brow and a nose that someone had rearranged onto the side of his face, then decided it looked better where it had been, and moved it back again.

“Where are we going?” I asked, trying to sound calm. I wasn’t calm. I was scared. Very scared. Nobody answered.

He got onto Washington. Longingly, I watched the tall, lighted office buildings of Marina del Rey passing outside the window. I thought about the couples and swinging singles out there in their favorite watering holes, drinking and dancing and performing their birdlike courtship rituals, trying to get the magic going for a night. They weren’t exactly my kind of joints, but I wasn’t so narrow-minded that I wasn’t willing to bend a rule for an evening. “You guys want to pick up some chicks? I know a great place right over here—”

The gun barrel tried to find the seat behind my back and I sucked in some air and shut up. We got onto Lincoln and crossed Ballona Creek and the buildings were gone as we headed into the barren brown hills. The driver turned off onto a dirt road and we churned up dust for a short distance until he pulled up and stopped in front of a fence at the edge of the runway of a private industrial airport. They opened the doors and got out; the driver had a gun now too, a .38. “Out,” the sagging-faced man said.

There were no stars, just a limitless blackness. The red lights bordering the runway blinked in sequence, away from us, beckoning planes from the dark and lonely sky.

“Okay,” Saggy Face asked. “Who are you working for?”

“Truth, justice, and the American way,” I said, I don’t know why.

Nose Job stepped in fast and brought a hook from somewhere south of Tierra del Fuego that sent me to my knees, gasping for air like a sick guppy. He bent down and grabbed me under the arms, hoisted me up easily and leaned me against the car. Saggy Face leaned close, his breath hot and moist in my face. He was chewing a mint; I guess there’s always something to be thankful for, if you just look for it.

He jammed his gun in my crotch. That didn’t feel too good, either, but I couldn’t work up enough breath to tell him. “Now listen, shit-for-brains,” he said, “we can dance all night if you want, but we’ve all got better things to do, including you, I imagine. Now, I’m gonna ask you one more time: Who are you working for?”

I had to admit, he was a hell of a debater. “John Anixter,” I gasped, barely.

He nodded and smiled and stepped back. He nodded at Nose Job, who put away his gun and grabbed my wrist before I had a chance to resist. He yanked my hand out and held it on the hood of my car while Saggy Face brought the barrel of the .45 down on it. I screamed as the pain shot halfway up my arm to my elbow, then I slid down the side of the car.

All I could do was cradle the hand and rock back and forth in the dirt as Saggy Face hovered over me and said: “The nuns used to do that to me in school when I did something I shouldn’ta. You been doing something you shouldn’ta, Asch. You been sticking your nose in other people’s private business. I think we both know who I mean. Now if you keep it up, we’re gonna have to come back and visit, and if we do, it ain’t gonna be a slap on the wrist, it’s gonna be traction-time. You get where I’m coming from?”

I might have said yes, I’m not sure. My hand felt as if it were full of broken glass.

“We’ll leave your car back at your apartment,” he said, and they got into the car and drove away, leaving me there.

I watched my taillights recede down the road and stood up. A cold, damp fog had begun to roll in from the ocean, chilling the sweat on my face and making me shiver. Maybe it would numb my swelling hand. I took a deep breath and started off. It was going to be a long, cold walk home, but I didn’t mind. I kind of enjoyed being by myself.

I woke up groggy from the pain pills the E.R. doctor had given me. I also had a headache, which got worse when I reached up and smacked myself with the cast I’d forgotten about that was holding my two broken metacarpals in place. I swore and rubbed my head with my good hand, then got up and made coffee. I made extra noise doing that, thinking about how I owed those guys and how I would more than likely never get the chance to repay them.