Peter Benchley - The Deep

“He is, is he?”

“Don’t you start, too. It’s enough I’ve got to worry about old David challenging me every time I draw bloody breath.” Treece saw that Sanders had overheard him, and he smiled. “Sorry. But you are a contentious bugger. Getting better every day, though, I’ll give you that.”

Treece stopped the boat about fifty yards off the beach. “That’s it, Adam. Don’t want to beach her in the surf.”

“No problem.” Coffin looked at the waves. “Still blowin” pretty good.”

“Aye, but she’s swinging around to the west. Ought to be a right nice evening to take a plunge.”

“What time?”

“Say seven. This time we’ll be punctual.”

“Okay.” Coffin peeled off the wet suit and dove into the water.

On the way back to St. David’s, David and Gail counted ampules. She had already bagged a hundred lots of fifty, but two or three times that amount remained, piled on the bunks, wrapped in towels, filling the rusty sink. To keep the ampules from smashing, Treece drove slowly, letting the boat wallow in the rolling seas.

They were still counting and bagging ampules an hour and a half later when Treece nosed Corsair up to the dock.

When they had tied off the last bag, Sanders said, “That’s it: twenty-three thousand two hundred and seventy.”

“So about twenty-eight thousand, all told.”

Treece looked at the heaps of plastic bags on the deck. “We’re going to make the Baggie company rich.”

Gail calculated figures in her head. “At this rate, even if we up it to fifty thousand a day, we’ve got nine or ten days to go.”

“Aye, and that time we do not have.”

After lunch, Treece left the house and walked down the hill. Gail stood at the sink, washing the dishes. Sanders came up behind her, wrapped his arms around her waist, and nuzzled her neck. “It’ll take him at least twenty minutes, down and back,” he said. “We could accomplish a lot in twenty minutes.”

She leaned back against him. “You think?”

“Come on.” He took her arm and led her to the bedroom.

They made love, with quiet, gentle passion. When they were finished, Gail saw that David’s eyes were moist. “What’s the matter?” she said.

“Nothing.”

“Then why are you crying?”

“I’m not crying.”

“All right, you’re not crying. Why are your eyes wet?”

Sanders started to deny that his eyes were wet, but, instead, he rolled onto his back and said, “I was thinking how lucky I am… what it would be like if you died and I knew I’d never ever be able to hold you again. I wonder how he can live with that.”

Gail touched his lips. “I guess you live with memories.”

They heard the kitchen door open. Sanders got out of bed and pulled on his bathing suit.

Kevin stood in the kitchen with Treece. His huge brown belly spilled over his tight tank suit, concealing it almost entirely. The only other clothing he wore was a pair of dusty old wing-tipped brown shoes without laces. The look on his face radiated intense dislike for everything.

Treece patted Kevin’s fleshy shoulder and said to Sanders, “He can’t wait to plunge all this lard into the briny. A regular sea horse. When was your last dip, Kevin? Fifty-five, was it?”

Kevin grunted sullenly.

They walked down the path to the dock. When he saw the ampules in the boat, Kevin’s eyes widened.

“Shit,” he said. “That the lot?”

“No. That’s what we got so far. There’s a whole pisspot left.”

“How many?”

“Who knows?” Treece said, smiling. “This here’s all concerns you.” He started the compressor.

Sanders put on his wet suit. It was clammy and cold. “What about your friend down there… percy?”

“He’ll be in his hole asleep, probably. But you might drop him a fish anyway.”

Sanders looked at Treece’s bandaged hand. “I don’t have to feed it to him, do I?”

“No, just lay it over his hole, or nearby.

He’ll smell it out.”

It took Sanders and Kevin two hours to place the ampules in the cave. Sanders was cold and tired, but Kevin, who wore nothing but bathing suit and weight belt-no wet suit, no flippers-seemed unaffected by the water or the work.

Gripping the diving platform and resting on the surface for a moment before hauling himself aboard the boat, Sanders saw Kevin take the last bag of ampules from Treece and, without a word, submerge.

“I thought he didn’t like the water. He’s a machine.”

“Hates it,” Treece said, “but you give him a task to do and that’s what he is, a machine. If I have heavy salvage work, he’s the one I take; got about ten horsepower inside him, and so much lard that he never gets cold. He’s something of a paradox: greedy as hell, but so surly he can’t work with the people who’ve got the money to pay him.”

“You’ll pay him for this?”

“Aye. He’ll want a hundred dollars, I’ll offer twenty, and we’ll settle for fifty.”

“Not bad wages.”

“No, but he’s good. I could get all manner of idiots for five an hour, but they’d take all bloody day at it, then go drink up the proceeds and blab all over the island about what they’ve been doing. Besides, Kevin doesn’t get much work. I like to do what I can.”

Sanders climbed into the boat and unzipped his wet suit. His chest and arms were goose flesh.

“Go on up and have a shower,” Treece said. “Kevin and I’ll finish up.”

Sanders shivered. “Okay.”

Treece took Sanders’ wet-suit jacket and hung it from a corner of the deckhouse roof.

“Sun’ll bake it warm before tonight.”

The walk up the hill warmed Sanders some, but not enough; he was still shivering when he reached the house. He poured himself a scotch and took it with him to the shower.

When he finished showering, he went to the bedroom. On the way, he caught a glimpse of Treece in the kitchen. He opened the bedroom door quietly-Gail was asleep-pulled on a pair of trousers, and put his wallet in a hip pocket.

Treece sat at the kitchen table, a glass of rum to his right, a pile of papers to his left, and the gold crucifix in front of him.

Sanders poured himself another drink. “Was it what you said? Fifty?”

“Aye.”

Sanders took two tens and a five from his wallet and put them on the table. “Our share.”

Treece contemplated the bills and said, “All right.” He tapped the crucifix with his finger.

“You’ve got that and a hell of a lot more, from your share of this.”

“What’s it worth?” Sanders had no idea of the value of Spanish gold. In metal value alone, there were probably seven or eight ounces of gold-maybe twelve hundred dollars’ worth. The gems were tiny.

“Roughly? If we wanted to sell it, if we could sell it, if we had an open market for it-roughly a hundred thousand dollars.”

“Jesus Christ!” Sanders’ hand jumped, and he spilled scotch on the table.

“Don’t go spending it, “cause more’n likely you’ll never see it. Before there’s a farthing, we’ll have to get the lot up, have it appraised, report it to the bloody government, decide if we want to sell any or all of it, negotiate with the bastards-which can take months-and then, maybe…”

“Still, a hundred thousand! Where’s the value?”

“Premium, mostly, and that’s another problem. Premium’s hard to set; it’s subjective. What’s workmanship worth?” Treece cradled the crucifix in his palm. “Damn, but those Dutch Jews were craftsmen!”

“Dutch Jews? I thought this came from South America.”

“It did. But most of the fine jewelry-the stuff for royalty-was made by Dutch Jews hired by the Spaniards and shipped over to the New World. The Spaniards and the Indians couldn’t do this kind of work. The other thing you pay for is provenance.