Death Dives Deep

by Michael Avallone

  I scooped up the metal tank and strapped it on. I took special care with the buckles and straps. When you're way down you don't want any air pockets on any part of you where the sea can come in and ruin you.

  From a big box stowed in the stern, I removed a speargun and checked it thoroughly for correct function. The speargun fires underwater, operated by trigger release, with a lanyard so you won't lose the spear or the target you hit. Shark territory makes the weapon a must. Skeleton Key has its share of shark and barracuda. And all kinds of marine life that aren't exactly guppies. The sharks will leave you alone if you steer clear of them and don't cut yourself to leave a blood spoor. Skin diving has its occupational hazards.

  With a full quiver of arrows slung over my back I was all ready for some underwater Sherwood Forest. I bit my hose mouthpiece to clear it, making sure it wasn't clogged up with any obstructions. Air hoses are like ears. The least bit of wax or foreign particle and the passage of air is affected.

  All set, I went to the starboard railing and threw a leg over the side to ease myself into the deep.

  I got the surprise of my life.

  I had to fight an urge to rub my eyes.

  Skeleton Key is a good many miles from civilization. A rocky mass of coral in the middle of nowhere. It's not what you'd call a beach resort. You just don't expect to find anybody hanging around enjoying the sun and the water.

  But forty yards off starboard four dames were swimming. Just swimming. They had long flowing hair like mermaids and sleek brown bodies like seals. And they were having a ball. Like the kids at Coney Island or like four women who are only yards from the Riviera beach line.

  There wasn't another vessel in sight for as far as the eye could see. Not so much as a life raft.

  It was insane, all right.

  I could see the dames all wore the same type of green bikini, even seemed to swim the same way. Like some aquatic number in a watery ballet. It was like seeing the same dame four times. And none of them were talking. Just swimming.

  Swimming serenely, stroking the water, basking in the sea and the sunlight like mermaids.

  Mermaids?

  I was convinced was losing what was left of my mind. . . .

  At that point in the story, I got restless. For one thing, I was in a hurry to get to the heart of the matter. To find that single particular item that would make it worth the President's attention. Hell, it was interesting but what was the point? So I cheated. I raced on, skipping a little, and when I got to the bottom of page number sixty-two, I was a bit buffaloed.

  All that happened between Harry Healey and his four Esther Williams characters might just have come out of the same lousy gin that he shared with his Constant Smith. It seems the dames don't pay any attention to his yelling and hollering at them to come on board. That is, until one sneaks up on board behind him, shoves him off the deck of The Naked Lady. And then—hold onto your hats—they all try to drown him by dragging him under and holding him under until he blacks out. It seems the dames all have green eyes like the mysterious Serena and it begins to look like this is the way Artie Sothern was drowned also. By four swimming mermaids off the beach of Skeleton Key.

  But wait a minute. Harry Healey wakes up on shore. Salt water in his chest, nose and ears and doesn't know why he's still alive. The dames have vanished but The Naked Lady is still bobbing in the water, as always. So Harry hauls himself back on board, more dead than alive, to hear him tell it, and hurries back to Key Alma. He finds Constant Smith waiting for him who tells him that Artie's remains are in the hands of the local law, Doc Ponto's diagonsis is death by drowning and why you look so funny, Seenor Harry?

  So Harry tells him nothing and flies to Doc Ponto's office in Melona to get a physical check-up to find out what's really wrong with his hearing and his eyesight and just about everything. That's where the manuscript came to a halt. With Ponto giving Harry the news of the day.

  I went back over that part again. The key, if any, had to be in there somewhere. I read the section three times to see if it added up to anything.

  Somebody could just have too much imagination.

  Harry Healey, to name one.

  "That's it, Harry. Put your shirt back on."

  Doc Ponto took his stethoscope out of his ears and let it dangle while he filled his pipe. Doc would look like Santa Claus except for the missing whiskers and the fact that he seldom smiled. But he was just as round and just as fat and the red in his face didn't come from his soul. It had come from a bottle. He didn't get it from there anymore but the red remained. And Doc was the resident physician of a dirty little beach town that had no other doctor.

  "Give it to me straight, Doc."

  "Get out, Harry. Sell your diving gear and go back to New York."

  "Meaning?"

  "You've got a heart murmur." Doc clamped his pipe between his teeth. "Nothing too serious. But it won't stand up if you keep on skin diving. Sorry, Harry. You've had it."

  I didn't light the cigarette I had taken from my pocket.

  "Anything else wrong with me?"

  He wafted smoke at me.

  "No. Normally you add up pretty good. But it's happened before. Bigger and healthier men than you get these things. What they call 'athlete's heart'. It's not too bad. Nature's telling you, real ladylike, to slow down and take it easy."

  "What about my ears?"

  He shrugged. Little wax in them. Not as clean as they could be. But nothing wrong with them."

  "I see."

  I stared at the calendar on his office wall. It wasn't the Monroe one but the blonde on it was just as naked. Doc Ponto got the wrong idea.

  "Heart murmurs won't interfere with your sex life, Harry."

  I should have grinned but I couldn't.

  "What about Artie, Doc?"

  He put his pipe down in a glass tray on the cluttered desk.

  "I was about to ask you that. How did he drown? I thought he was too good a swimmer to die that way. And you haven't had any bad weather down your way. That I know of." He peered at me closely. "Harry, my death certificate is made out and the police are satisfied. Water in the lungs, death by suffocation. The indications are all what they should be. But if there's anything you want to tell me, off the record. . .?"

  "Doc." I couldn't take it anymore. "Is there any possibility that people can live underwater?"

  It was a record day for Doc Ponto. He smiled.

  "What does that mean?"

  "Just what I said. Can people live underwater?"

  "Not according to the laws of nature. We haven't been equipped with gills, you know."

  "I know, dammit. I know, but—— "

  "Maybe you better tell me what's eating you, Harry. Your nerves are all shot."

  I did. The whole whale of a yam. All of it. Doc listened, puffing on his pipe. When I finished I stared at him. But he was staring at me. He was from Seattle and that's a swinging town.

  "Harry," he sighed. "Give up the business. Sell out to somebody like Constant Smith and go back to New York."

  "You think I've lost all my marbles? Flipped my lid, is that it?"

  "No, Harry. But hallucinosis is not uncommon in a man who spends most of his time down below."

  "You can talk plainer than that, Doc."

  I saw him picking his words very carefully then.

  "You're seeing things, Harry. And hearing things. Artie's death has affected you strongly. More than you realize, obviously. You'd better take my advice and——"

  "Forget I mentioned it, Doc. I'll take care of myself." I headed for the door. And Out.

  Doc jumped away from his desk. I had worried the hell out of him. That was a switch, too. I'd never seen him looking scared.

  "Harry, where are you going?"

  "Back. To Skeleton Key."

  "Why, for God's sake?"

  "To prove you're wrong. To prove that I'm not crazy. To prove that Artie wasn't accidentally drowned. To prove that somebody killed him."

  Doc Pa
nto's eyes opened wide.

  "Are you really mad, Harry? Why should anyone kill Artier?"

  Before I slammed the door in his face, I had a question for him. One that I knew he couldn't answer either.

  "Why should four mermaids try to drown me?"

  So there it ended. On page sixty-two with a possibly sick Harry Healey asking Doc Ponto a loaded question.

  And where did that leave me?

  I couldn't say until I talked once more with the President of the United States on the red-white-and-blue phone.

  Who had played his cards very very carefully.

  READER'S REPORT

  I WAS reaching for the hot-line phone when the front door of the office started to shake, rattle and roll on its hinges. Somebody wanted in, real bad. The thumping and battering sounded like a police raid.

  With my best .45 forward, I scooted out to the connecting office where Melissa Mercer usually parks her handbag. The glass door fronting the agency framed the shadow of a man. A tall man with a short hat. I swung the door wide, keeping my lip buttoned, and took a giant step back, aiming the .45.

  The man standing in the entranceway, big hands raised for another pounding, stopped. But he wasn't confused. His face collapsed with a disgusted expression and he charged into the office, past me and the .45, and walked to the center of the room where he turned and looked me up and down as if I was something for sale.

  "You Noon?" he barked.

  "Guilty. What the hell do you want?"

  "I got a book of matches and ten thousand dollars. You get the money if you use the matches."

  I sized him up. Apart from his cool customer attitude, he was something less than appetizing to look at and something more than nondescript. It was like the good old days when the clients came in all sizes, shapes and dispositions. This one was a grade-A sample of my curious attraction for oddballs.

  He was six feet tall and just as wide. Gristle showed on lumpy hands and a lumpy face. Not even a rather fashionable three-button Ivy League suit with a tie thin enough to strain through a keyhole could make him look like the Brooks Brothers type. He was your friendly neighborhood mug, variations bartender, bouncer and roughneck, all dressed up for a funeral or a night club. His hat was a ludicrous porkpie fedora not big enough to accommodate his massive head. A trenchcoat was slung over one long arm.

  I didn't lower the .45. I was a little amused, I must admit. The guy's technique went out with the last Victor McGlaglen movie I saw.

  "You want me to burn something?"

  "Yeah." He looked around the office, saw the door to my inner sanctum. "In there, huh? Your reading room?"

  "Could be. Before I throw you out on your ear, who are you, buddy?"

  "Killy," he snapped. "Jesus Killy. You going to take me up on my offer? Ten thou if you burn up all those papers you got delivered from Xerox this morning."

  He didn't say Hay-sooz the way he was supposed to if his name was Jesus Killy. I didn't argue with him. I was trying to think fast. It isn't easy with a two-hundred-and-fifty-pound giant making unfriendly noises about five feet away from you.

  "Killy," I said, "you talking about a manuscript all about the sun and the sea and mermaids?"

  His eyes, small and black above a formidable schnozz, got smaller.

  "Read it already, huh? Well, no harm done. Can I reach into my inside pocket for the money?"

  "Let's take it by easy stages. Why do you want me to burn the stuff and how are you so sure I've got it?"

  He snorted. "Don't horse me, Noon. I saw the delivery kid, I got my reasons. Well? Do we deal?"

  I gaped at him. "Is that all you think you're going to tell me? How do I know that I'm not taking ten thousand when I might be burning something worth ten times that much? Sorry, Killy. Turn around. You don't talk some more, you get a frisk. Over to the wall and put your hands against it."

  "Jeezis," he sighed. "You are a chump. One more time. Yes or no?"

  "No. Over to the wall."

  He shook his head. He was on the verge of laughing his head off. He pawed at his eyes. Deep, chesty mirth made his barn-door shoulders shake.

  "Dummy," he muttered. "In spades. You think I waltzed in here without being covered? Look behind you."

  "You'll have to do better than that, Killy."

  "If you say so." He shrugged and turned around, going to the wall. He lifted his big arms and started to lean against the small open area between the water cooler and the door to my office. "Your funeral, Noon."

  It was one time I should have looked behind me. Old times, indeed. All the way. That old familiar something, like the nose of a gun, rammed into the formal arrangement of discs that make up my spine. A woman's voice, softer than a May breeze in Vermont, wafted into my ear.

  "Please." The woman's voice had a begging note in it.

  I froze in one place. Jesus Killy turned around and laughed out loud. He took one giant step of his own toward me. I couldn't get out of the way. His big right hand, knotted into a fist, crashed into my face. I went down to one knee. He plucked the .45 from my hand as if it was a toy. The bells were ringing, my eyes were tearing and I tasted blood in my mouth.

  "Wise guy," Killy snarled, leaning over me. "Now you get no money, no nothing, and maybe you fall six floors to the street. Keep him on ice, baby. The damn papers should be on his desk. . . ." He was going away from me. His big body was kaleidoscoping. I was seeing two of him. Behind me, the woman said something. It sounded like something affirmative. Killy disappeared into my office, sounding like a big clumsy bear.

  "Baby," I said, without turning around.

  "Don't talk to me," the voice begged. "Please."

  I straightened up. My jaw ached. The big bruiser's fist was a granite block. I took in a deep breath through my nose. Held it. It helps clear away the cobwebs. Killy would do just about anything. That was clear. It was also obvious that his female partner, whoever she was, would not. Who has to say Please when they've got the gun?

  I could hear Killy thumping around the office, going to the desk, riffling pages. Suddenly, he was back, his big paws closed around Harry Healey's sixty-two sheets of sudden dynamite. He flung a worried glance at the girl. He motioned with his head. The nose of the gun left my spine. His partner came into view, walking around my left end, joining him near the inner-office door. The woman was more of an eye-opener than even Jesus Killy was on a clear day.

  Woman. That was a laugh.

  She was a girl. Somewhere in that adolescent suspension between twelve and nineteen. It was impossible to tell her exact age. It was easier to know that she was as rounded and grown up and developed as any dame has a right to be. But the body, for all its endowments and curves, showed the telltale signs of gawkiness, unsureness, and all the reading in the world could not have made the face older than it was. The blond hair was long and untrained, the green eyes were two pools of innocent bewilderment. Sophistication and experience had not yet had a chance to move in. Even the way the girl held a dark, ugly .32 Smith & Wesson revolver was a giveaway. I had the impression that if the gun went off accidentally, she would scream as if a mouse had run up her dress. Or, at the very least, scream and put her hands over her eyes. The woods were full of green-eyed blondes, it seemed.

  Killy was waving the manuscript pages in her face.

  "That it?" he growled.

  The girl took a quick look and nodded. Her head jerked like a frightened doe. She was wearing an unbuttoned leather jacket.

  "Good," Killy grunted. "Damn you and your old man both. Come on—we're finished here."

  "Your gun," she said in a low baby voice. "Please take it back. You hold it now. I don't want to anymore."

  "Sure. Give it here." She handed it to him and he pointed it at me, picking a spot just above my nose. His tiny eyes had lights in them. Bughouse lights.

  "So," I said, keeping the sarcasm out of my voice. "Child labor, huh? What did you bring the kid along for? Don't tell me you can't read, Killy. And while we're on th
e subject, what's your real name? Nobody named Hay-Sooz says it like Christ. Or don't you know any Puerto Ricans or Spaniards?"

  His teeth came together. "Real live snoop, aren't you? Get over to the window. I want you to see how nice the street looks from here, Noon."

  "Dandy!" the girl let out in a low cry of fear. For a moment I thought she thought it was a fine idea. But only for a moment.

  "Dummy," he gritted at her. "Now I gotta drop him. All the way. You told him my name."

  I shook my head and laughed. He glared at me, a little surprised I was acting so calm.

  "Funny? You think it's funny, mister?"

  "No, I think it's dandy. Dandy what? You come here with a ten-grand offer to burn a story I was reading, bring a teen-ager along for muscle and now you seem to have another name besides Jesus Killy. And on top of that you seem to be making some noises about killing me. Funny? No, I wouldn't say it was funny. I'd say it was ridiculous. What the hell is in Harry Healey's story anyway? A buried code that leads to King Solomon's mines?"

  My patter was confusing him. He didn't like that. I could see he had a hard time thinking altogether. His brows furrowed into a ridge of face muscle and he shot another angry scowl at the girl. He cocked the .32 at me. He waved his arm, motioning me to the big window. I moved very slowly but I moved all the same.

  "Dandy," the girl said in a fierce whisper. "If you kill this man, I'll never forgive you. It isn't necessary—it isn't! Oh, Dandy, please be reasonable. We didn't find him finally to do this——"

  "Shut up, Arvis. You don't know nothing. There's big people in this. Big people. If this snooper isn't around to mess things up, we'll all be better off. You leave it to me, baby. You don't wanta look, you don't have to. Wait for me in the hall."

  "Dandy, please."

  "Do like I tell you. This is my kinda game, kid. I know what the odds are. What I gotta do. Now get out of here."