Riptide

by Douglas Preston

  As he approached the pavilion, Hatch could make out the table of honor, already occupied by prominent town citizens and Thalassa officials. A small podium and microphone had been placed behind it. Beyond, townspeople and expedition members were milling around, drinking lemonade or beer, and lining up to get their lobsters.

  As he ducked inside, he heard a familiar nasal shout. Kerry Wopner was carrying a paper plate groaning under the weight of twin lobsters, potato salad, and corn on the cob. A huge draft beer was balanced in his other hand. The cryptanalyst walked gingerly along, arms straight ahead, trying to keep the food and beer from dripping on his trademark Hawaiian shirt, Bermuda shorts, high white socks, and black sneakers.

  "How do you eat these things?" Wopner cried, buttonholing a confused lobsterman.

  "What's that?" the lobsterman said, inclining his head as if he hadn't heard properly.

  "We didn't have lobsters where I grew up."

  "No lobsters?" the man said, as if considering this.

  "Yeah. In Brooklyn. It's part of America. You should visit the country some time. Anyway, I never learned how to eat one." Wopner's loud drawl echoed up and down the pavilion. "I mean, how do you open the shells?"

  With a stolid face, the lobsterman replied. "You sit on 'em real hard."

  There was a guffaw of laughter from nearby townspeople.

  "Very funny," said Wopner.

  "Well, now," the lobsterman said in a gentler tone. "You need crackers."

  "I got crackers," Wopner replied eagerly, waving the plate heaped with oyster crackers under the man's nose. There was another round of laughter from the locals.

  "Crackers to crack the shells, see?" the lobsterman said. "Or you can use a hammer." He held up a boat hammer, covered with lobster juice, tomalley, and bits of pink shell.

  "Eat with a dirty hammer?" Wopner cried. "Hepatitis city, here we come."

  Hatch moved in. "I'll give him a hand," he said to the lobsterman, who went off shaking his head. Hatch ushered Wopner to one of the tables, sat him down, and gave him a quick lesson in lobster consumption: how to crack open the shells, what to eat, what not to eat. Then he went off to get some food himself, stopping along the way to fill a pint cup at an enormous keg. The beer, from a small brewery in Camden, was cold and malty; he gulped it down, feeling the tightness in his chest unraveling, and refilled the cup before getting in line.

  The lobsters and corn had been steamed in piles of seaweed heaped over burning oak, sending clouds of fragrant smoke spiraling into the blue sky. Three cooks were busily at work behind the mounds of seaweed, checking the fires, dumping bright red lobsters onto paper plates.

  "Dr. Hatch!" came a voice. Hatch turned to see Doris Bowditch, another splendid muumuu billowing behind her like a purple parachute. Her husband stood to one side, small, razor-burned, and silent. "How did you find the house?"

  "Wonderful," said Hatch with genuine warmth. "Thanks for tuning the piano."

  "You're certainly welcome. No problems with the power or the water, I expect? Good. You know, I wondered if you'd had a chance to think about that nice couple from Manchester—"

  "Yes," said Hatch quickly, ready now. "I won't be selling."

  "Oh," said Doris, her face falling. "They were so counting on—"

  "Yes, but Doris, it's the house I grew up in," Hatch said gently but firmly.

  The woman gave a start, as if remembering the circumstances of Hatch's childhood and departure from the town. "Of course," she said, with an attempt at a smile, laying her hand on his arm.

  "I understand. It's hard to give up the family home. We'll say no more about it." She gave his arm a squeeze. "For now."

  Hatch reached the front of the line, and turned his attention to the enormous, steaming piles of seaweed. The nearest cook flipped over one of the piles, exposing a row of red lobsters, some ears of corn, and a scattering of eggs. He picked up an egg with a mitted hand, chopped it in half with a knife, and peered inside to see if it was hard. That, Hatch remembered, was how they judged when the lobsters were cooked.

  "Perfecto!" the cook said. The voice was distantly familiar, and Hatch suddenly recognized his old high-school classmate Donny Truitt. He braced himself.

  "Why, if it ain't Mally Hatch!" said Truitt, recognizing him. "I was wondering when I'd run into you. Damn it to hell, how are you?"

  "Donny," Hatch cried, grasping his hand. "I'm not bad. You?"

  "The same. Four kids. Looking for a new job since Martin's Marine went under."

  "Four kids?" Hatch whistled. "You've been busy."

  "Busier than you think. Divorced twice, too. What the hell. You hitched?"

  "Not yet," Hatch said.

  Donny smirked. "Seen Claire yet?"

  "No." Hatch felt a sudden swell of irritation.

  As Donny slipped a lobster onto his plate, Hatch looked at his old classmate. He'd grown paunchy, a little slow. But otherwise, they'd picked up right where they left off, twenty-five years before. The talkative kid with few brains but a big heart had obviously grown up into the adult equivalent.

  Donny gave Hatch a suggestive leer.

  "Come on, Donny," Hatch said. "Claire and I were just friends."

  "Oh, yeah. Friends. I didn't think friends were caught kissing in Squeaker's Glen. It was just kissing, Mal... wasn't it?"

  "That was a long time ago. I don't remember every detail of my every romance."

  "Nothing like first love, though, eh, Mal?" Donny chuckled, one goggle eye winking below the mop of carrot-colored hair. "She's around here somewhere. Anyway, you'll have to look elsewhere, 'cause she ended up—"

  Suddenly Hatch had heard enough about Claire. "I'm holding up the line," he interrupted.

  "You sure are. I'll see you later." Donny waved his fork with another grin, expertly flipping open more layers of seaweed to expose another row of gleaming red lobsters.

  So Donny needs a job, Hatch thought as he headed back toward the table of honor. Wouldn't hurt for Thalassa to hire a few locals.

  He found a seat at the table between Bill Banns, the editor of the paper, and Bud Rowell. Captain Neidelman was two seats down, next to Mayor Jasper Fitzgerald and the local Congregational minister, Woody Clay. On the far side of Clay sat Lyle Streeter.

  Hatch looked at the two locals curiously. Jasper Fitzgerald's father had run the local funeral home, and no doubt the son had inherited it. Fitzgerald was in his early fifties, a florid man with handlebar mustaches, alligator-clip suspenders, and a baritone voice that carried like a contrabassoon.

  Hatch's eyes traveled to Woody Clay. He's obviously an outsider, he thought. Clay was, in almost every way, the opposite of Fitzgerald. He had the spare frame of an ascetic, coupled with the hollow, spiritual face of a saint just in from the desert. But there was also a crabbed, narrow intensity to his gaze. Hatch could see he was ill at ease being part of the table of honor; he was one of those people who spoke to you in a low voice, as if he didn't want anyone else to overhear, evident from his low-pitched conversation with Streeter. Hatch wondered what the minister was saying that was making the team leader look so uncomfortable.

  "Seen the paper, Malin?" Bill Banns interrupted Hatch's thoughts with his characteristic lazy drawl. As a young man, Banns had seen The Front Page at the local cinema. Ever since, his views of what a newsman should look like had never altered. His sleeves were always rolled, even on the coldest day, and he'd worn a green visor so long that today his forehead seemed lonely without it.

  "No, I haven't," Hatch replied. "I didn't know it was out."

  "Just this morning," Banns answered. "Yup, think you'll like it. Wrote the lead article myself. With your help, of course." He touched a finger to his nose, as if to say, you keep me in the pipeline, and I'll keep the good words flowing. Hatch made a mental note to stop by the Superette that evening for a copy.

  Various instruments for lobster dissection lay on the table: hammers, crackers, and wooden mallets, all slick with lobster gore. Two great bowls i
n the center were heaped with broken shells and split carapaces. Everyone was pounding, cracking, and eating. Glancing around the pavilion, Hatch could see that Wopner had somehow ended up at the table with the workers from the local Lobsterman's Co-op. He could just catch Wopner's abrasive voice drifting on the wind. "Did you know," the cryptanalyst was saying, "that, biologically speaking, lobsters are basically insects? When you really get down to it, they're big red underwater cockroaches...."

  Hatch turned away and took another generous pull on his beer. This was turning out to be bearable, after all; perhaps more than bearable. He was sure that everyone in town knew his story, word for word. Yet—perhaps out of politeness, perhaps out of pure rural bashfulness—not a word had been said. For that, he was grateful.

  He looked across the crowd, scanning for familiar faces. He saw Christopher St. John, sandwiched at a table between two overweight locals, apparently contemplating how to dismantle his lobster while making the least degree of mess. Hatch's eyes roved farther, and he picked out Kai Estenson, proprietor of the hardware store, and Tyra Thompson, commandant of the Free Library, not looking a day older than when she used to shoo him and Johnny out of the building for telling jokes and giggling too loudly. Guess it's true what they say about vinegar being a preservative, he thought. Then, in a flash of recognition, he saw the white head and stooped shoulders of Dr. Horn, his old biology teacher, standing on the outskirts of the pavilion as if not deigning to soil his hands with lobster ruin. Dr. Horn, who'd graded him more toughly than any graduate school professor ever did; who told him he'd seen roadkill that was better dissected than the frogs Hatch worked on. The intimidating, yet fiercely supportive Dr. Horn, who more than any other person had fired Hatch's interest in science and medicine. Hatch was surprised and relieved to see him still among the living.

  Looking away, Hatch turned toward Bud, who was sucking lobster meat out of a leg. "Tell me about Woody Clay," Hatch said.

  Bud tossed the leg into the nearest bowl. "Reverend Clay? He's the minister. Used to be a hippie, I hear."

  "Where'd he come from?" asked Hatch.

  "Somewhere down around Boston. Came up here twenty years ago to do some preaching, decided to stay. They say he gave away a big inheritance when he took the cloth."

  Bud sliced open the tail with an expert hand and extracted it in one piece. There was a hesitant note in his voice that puzzled Hatch.

  "Why'd he stay?" Hatch asked.

  "Oh, liked the place, prob'ly. You know how it goes." Bud fell silent as he polished off the tail.

  Hatch glanced over at Clay, who was no longer talking to Streeter. As he examined the intense face curiously, the man suddenly looked up and met his gaze. Hatch looked away awkwardly, turning back toward Bud Rowell, only to find that the grocer had gone off in search of more lobster. Out of the corner of his eye he could see the minister rise from the table and approach.

  "Malin Hatch?" the man said, extending his hand. "I'm Reverend Clay."

  "Nice to meet you, Reverend." Hatch stood up and took the cold, tentative hand.

  Clay hesitated a moment, then gestured at the empty chair. "May I?"

  "If Bud doesn't mind, I don't," Hatch said.

  The minister awkwardly eased his angular frame into the small chair, his bony knees sticking up almost to the level of the table, and turned a pair of large, intense eyes on Hatch.

  "I've seen all the activity out at Ragged Island," he began in a low voice. "I've heard it, too. Banging and clanging, by night as well as by day."

  "Guess we're a little like the post office," Hatch said, trying to sound lighthearted, uncertain of where this was heading. "We never sleep."

  If Clay was amused, he didn't show it. "This operation must be costing somebody a good deal," he said, raising his eyebrows to make it a question.

  "We've got investors," Hatch said.

  "Investors," Clay repeated. "That's when somebody gives you ten dollars and hopes you'll give back twenty."

  "You could put it that way."

  Clay nodded. "My father loved money, too. Not that it made him a happier man, or prolonged his life by even an hour. When he died, I inherited his stocks and bonds. The accountant called it a portfolio. When I got to looking into it, I found tobacco companies, mining companies tearing open whole mountains, timber companies that were clear-cutting virgin forests."

  As he spoke, his eyes never strayed from Hatch's. "I see," Hatch said at last.

  "Here my father had given money to these people, hoping they'd give back twice as much. And that's just what had happened. They'd given back two, three, or four times more. And now all these immoral gains were mine."

  Hatch nodded.

  Clay lowered his head and his voice. "May I ask how much wealth, exactly, you and your investors hope to gain from all this?"

  Something in the way the minister pronounced wealth made Hatch more wary. But to refuse to answer the question would be a mistake. "Let's just say it's well into seven figures," he replied.

  Clay nodded slowly. "I'm a direct man," he began. "And I'm not good at small talk. I never learned how to say things gracefully, so I just say them the best way I can. I don't like this treasure hunt."

  "I'm sorry to hear that," Hatch replied.

  Clay blinked back at him intently. "I don't like all these people coming into our town and throwing their money around."

  From the beginning, Hatch had steeled himself against the possibility of such a response. Now that he was hearing it at last, he felt strangely relaxed. "I'm not sure that the other townspeople share your disdain of money," he said evenly. "Many of these people have been poor all their lives. They didn't have the luxury of choosing poverty, as you did."

  Clay's face tightened, and Hatch could see he'd hit a nerve. "Money isn't the panacea people think it is," the minister continued. "You know that as well as I. These people have their dignity. Money will ruin this town. It'll spoil the lobstering, spoil the tranquility, spoil everything. And the poorest people won't see any of that money, anyway. They'll be pushed out by development. By progress."

  Hatch did not reply. On one level, he understood what Clay was saying. It would be a tragedy if Stormhaven turned into another overdeveloped, overpriced summer playground like Booth-bay Harbor, down the coast. But that didn't seem likely, whether or not Thalassa succeeded.

  "There's not much I can say," Hatch said. "The operation will be over in a matter of weeks."

  "How long it takes isn't the point," Clay said, a strident note entering his voice. "The point is the motivation behind it. This treasure hunt is about greed—pure, naked greed. Already, a man lost his legs. No good will come of this. That island is a bad place, cursed, if you care to call it that. I'm not superstitious, but God has a way of punishing those with impure motives."

  Hatch's feeling of calm suddenly dissolved in a flood of anger. Our town? Impure motives? "If you'd grown up in this town, you'd know why I'm doing this," he snapped. "Don't presume to know what my motives are."

  "I don't presume anything," Clay said, his lanky body stiffening like a spring. "I know. I may not have grown up in this town, but I at least know what's in its best interests. Everyone here's been seduced by this treasure hunt, by the promise of easy money. But not me, by the Lord God, not me. I'm going to protect this town. Protect it from you, and from itself."

  "Reverend Clay, I think you should read your Bible before you start throwing around accusations like that: Judge not, that ye he not judged."

  Hatch realized he was shouting, voice shaking with anger. The surrounding tables had fallen silent, the people staring down at their plates. Abruptly he rose, strode past the silent, white-faced Clay, and made for the dark ruins of the fort across the meadow.

  Chapter 17

  The fort was dark and chill with damp. Swallows flitted about the interior of the granite tower, whipping back and forth like bullets in the sunlight that angled sharply through the ancient gunports.

  Hatch entered throu
gh the stone archway and paused, breathing heavily, trying to recover his composure. Despite himself, he'd allowed the minister to provoke him. Half the town had seen it, and the half that hadn't would soon know about it.

  He took a seat on an outcropping of the stone foundation. No doubt Clay had been talking to others. Hatch doubted most people would listen, except perhaps the lobstermen. They could be a superstitious lot, and talk about curses might weigh heavily. And then that remark about the dig ruining the lobstering... Hatch just hoped it was going to be a good season.

  Slowly he calmed down, letting the peace of the fort wash away his anger, listening to the faint clamor of the festival across the meadow. He really had to control himself better. The man was an obnoxious prig, but he wasn't worth flying off the handle over.

  It was a tranquil, womblike space, and Hatch felt he could stay there, enjoying the coolness, for hours. But he knew he should be returning to the festival, putting up a nonchalant front, smoothing things over. In any case, he needed to be back before the inevitable speeches began. He stood up and turned to go, and saw with surprise a stooped figure waiting in the shadows of the archway. It stepped forward into a shaft of light.

  "Professor Horn!" Hatch cried.

  The man's canny old face crinkled with delight. "I wondered when you'd notice me," he said, advancing with his cane. He shook Hatch's hand warmly. "That was quite a little scene back there."

  Hatch shook his head. "I lost my temper, like an idiot. What is it about that man that gets my goat?"

  "No mystery there. Clay is awkward, socially inept, morally rigid. But beneath that bitter exterior there beats a heart as big and generous as the ocean. As violent and unknowable, too, I'll bet. He's a complex man, Malin; don't underestimate him." The professor grasped Hatch's shoulder. "Enough about the reverend. By God, Malin, you're looking well. I'm prodigiously proud of you. Harvard Medical School, research position at Mount Auburn. You were always a smart boy. Too bad it didn't always equate to being a good student."