Diving Deep

by P D Singer

  “What I see is you’re the guy most likely to need his body retrieved from the wreck.” Rafe’s eyes went hard, like he was calculating how many float bags he’d need to get a muscular, six-foot-tall man back to the surface. “And I am not gonna be the one to do it, Bobby. We aren’t diving the Andrea Doria together ever again.”

  The words came like a gut punch. “You aren’t going to need to, Rafe.” Bobby had captured his hard-won treasure. “I’m done with the Doria. It’s like Everest. It’s big, hard, technical, and so well-traveled there might as well be a Starbucks in there. I got the last thing I wanted from that ship.”

  But his brave words covered the clench in his gut—Rafe was the diver everyone wanted to be, or be with. With the skill, the brass balls, and the reputation. With his name on videos and articles, in books that let the armchair divers dream of having gone where only a handful went and fewer returned.

  “It’s a rare man who gets what he wants.” Rafe took a step back to stay upright when a wave higher than most rocked the seventy-five-foot-long dive boat. “What I want is to not dive with you again. You fucking scare me.”

  This from the man who’d done more dangerous dives than anyone else, who’d made history and held records, who’d… gone second farthest into the most desirable wreck in the diving world.

  “Don’t crap your dry suit on my account, Rafe.” Bobby pushed his partly sodden locks out of his eyes, and the wind promptly pushed them back. “I’ll be okay.”

  “Glad to hear it.” The captain spoke over the wind. “Let me know which boat you’re schlepping your gear to, and I’ll help. If you can find one. Not a captain around wants to take a man out on a trip he’s not likely to come home from.”

  “I’ll let you know.” Bobby finished rinsing his gear and stumbled below to huddle in his bunk. Let everyone else talk about the trip, show off the china and knickknacks they’d brought back. Let them tell the tales of dives past, of pranks pulled. Rafe could tell the gang about chaining a grate to the most desirable passage into the Doria’s guts just to keep a rival boat from getting divers through a hole he’d sweated to create. Bobby had shaken that grate, fought with the lock, and gone back up top to tell the Bottom Hunter they’d been skunked.

  He should be there too, telling his stories. But somehow every story he could think of had some element of dumb fuckery to it. Like one bad decision, probably his own, made the tale.

  He’d dozed off when Rafe came into the divers’ quarters, lit from behind by a single bulb. “You okay?”

  “Yeah,” Bobby lied.

  A dip at the edge of his narrow bunk varied the up and down of the waves. “I shouldn’t have lit into you in front of the others. Should have told you privately. Maybe I should have let you have the applause, but then one of those dumb shits would try for the next plaque down. I don’t want to lose another friend.” Rafe’s voice barely pierced the purr of the big diesel engines that drove them back toward land.

  “Didn’t know you’d lost anyone on the Andrea Doria.” Bobby threw an arm over his eyes. “Sorry.”

  “You, asshole. I meant you.” Rafe shifted uneasily beside him, the bunk creaking against the other squeaks, rattles, and hums of the dive boat. “I figure you’re only talking to me now because it’s less effort than telling me to go fuck myself.”

  “Nah. You were right.” Only after that admission could Bobby come out from behind his arm. He laced his fingers across his empty belly and noticed Rafe was holding a mug of soup. He sat up and took the peace offering. “Wish I could say it was narcosis doing the thinking, but I wanted that plaque. Proof. One last hurrah and then done. I needed….” He couldn’t say what he needed, not to someone who couldn’t provide.

  “You need something, all right.” Rafe watched him drain the mug of chicken noodle restoration. “Ever since you left the Bottom Hunter, you’ve been… off. You always took chances, but now…? It’s like that one next thing is all that’s keeping you going.”

  Damn Rafe for noticing. Damn Rafe for being right. “I need a different kind of challenge.”

  “Maybe.” Rafe retrieved the empty mug. “Maybe you just need to get laid.”

  Like that was going to happen, on this boat or any other. “Why, are you offering?”

  That got a bark of laughter. “I’m your friend. I’m not that good a friend.” The slow uppercut he bounced off Bobby’s chin was too gentle to be anything but affectionate. “But do something with all that restlessness before you get yourself killed.”

  Chapter 3

  WHEN HAD he had this much gear packed into his living space? Bobby surveyed the basement bedroom that had been his land quarters for the past year. If he didn’t have so much diving equipment, he could have spent his infrequent nights ashore in an Airbnb instead of taking a sixth share in a ramshackle saltbox house. What little he owned that didn’t go underwater with him fit into a sealed carton, a large suitcase, and a laptop bag. A whole life, or the parts of it that mattered, didn’t take up much space to speak of when it was pictures on a hard drive.

  The regulators, winged buoyancy vests, and other dive gear that had remained aboard the Tech Tach for weekend dives now crowded into the one available corner between the double bed and the wall. Bobby hadn’t made the bed before he left on his last trip; the tumbled sheets and worn comforter mocked him for their neglect. He debated pulling everything off the bed and shoving it into the communal washer.

  Why bother? It was only his own sweat, and nobody’d be coming over to get repulsed.

  Well, hell, if he couldn’t remember the last time he’d washed the bedding, it was time. New life, new start, start clean. No more charters on the Tech Tach, no more diving with Rafe, no more of a lot of things.

  That he’d also shed Lee Preston needed an extra sprinkle of soap powder shaken into the washer. Old tear stains might be hard to get out.

  So fuck it all, what was he supposed to do now? He had no more idea what to do with a free weekend than he knew what to do with a pair of skis. Maybe it was time to take up a hobby—something nice and safe, like knitting. And then yarn-bomb the Tech Tach.

  Nope, maybe something with more of a rush to it, like hunting. He and a horse could go sailing over fences in pursuit of something furry and inedible. Would help if he knew more about riding than wrapping his legs around a big, warm body, and the last time he’d tried that was in the captain’s cabin of the Bottom Hunter. The constant possibility of falling off the horse and onto his cement-filled head ought to compensate for not slipping under the surface of the ocean with only the sound of his own augmented breathing and the taps, snaps, and rumble of the boat.

  Not like his commercial gigs had any intrinsic excitement. Yeah, he’d spent four days this week twenty-five feet down in full gear, but a broken something or other to be attacked with an underwater cutting torch was a matter of calm, skill, and getting paid. Where was the thrill?

  He might as well read a book.

  Well, if Bobby couldn’t be on a boat, he’d read about boats. He opened the heavy volume marked Jane’s Fighting Ships of World War II, skipping past the inscription on the flyleaf. No, he didn’t want to see Merry Christmas with all my love, Lee.

  TWO WEEKENDS of rattling around on land had gotten him up to page 145. Jane’s covered ships by country, and he’d reached the German Navy. The Prinz Eugen and the Antilla he ought to go back and memorize—they were wrecks he could expect to dive one day, especially if he got off his ass and relocated north. Base out of New Jersey, and then he wouldn’t have to see the Bottom Hunter in the Clive Bay harbor, or hear her name on the Coast Guard message list. A skilled commercial diver never had to dry off up there, unless he wanted to. Which wasn’t why Bobby said, “Thanks, but no thanks,” to the three captains who’d called since Bert and Rafe gave him the heave-ho.

  What he was waiting for here, he didn’t know. He wasn’t going to get any call that soothed his heart. Next captain to offer had himself a diver.

  DAMN BU
T he hated breaking promises to himself. Shoulda fucking looked at the caller ID before he poked the phone and said his name. Because “Hey, Bobby, how’s it going?” in the voice that haunted his dreams and sometimes his nightmares couldn’t be allowed to lure him back on board. Not unless…. Quit dreaming. It’s not impossible, but it hasn’t happened yet.

  “Not too shabby. Land based for the moment.” Good, his voice was steady, one man to another, not the man who’d broken his own heart to the man he’d broken it for. Had the sacrifice made Lee even think? Bobby knew where his own rock bottom was: had Lee ever found his?

  “If you hear the salt water calling, I know the place you want to answer.”

  “Do you, now?” He answered the gambit noncommittally—too much else should have come first. Lee offered a dive. Not “Hey, Bobby-boy, I missed you.” Not “Good news, I’ve been sober for six months.” Not any of the things that would have been water to his parched heart.

  “I think so. Got something to take a gander at for sure.”

  Intrigued in spite of himself, Bobby had to ask, “What? And where?”

  “Oh, ’bout sixty miles offshore, not more than 150 feet down by the charts.” Was Lee fighting to keep his voice even as hard as Bobby had to? “Good fishing in the area.”

  “Neither one of us likes more fish than fits on the plate.” Bobby bought himself some distance, but his heart beat faster all the same. Had to be because he knew what good fishing meant: something on the bottom made a home for the itty bitty critters of the ocean, the ones that stayed in one place or didn’t much leave the area, which got eaten up by the little fish, which got eaten by the bigger fish, which got eaten up by the biggest fish that got eaten up by people. Nope, his pulse couldn’t be pounding because Lee Preston had picked up the phone to tell him about a place with good fishing. “What is it?”

  “Now that’s what I don’t know.” Lee had to be smiling—he always got that warm tone when he smiled. “It’s not on the charts.”

  “Not on the charts,” Bobby repeated stupidly. Damn, what had Lee come up with? “And you want to go take a look?”

  “Johnny Ray Slidell thought it might be worth my time. And if it’s something unknown, might be worth yours. Rafe Chatham mentioned you were looking for a new challenge.”

  What else had Rafe mentioned, and who’d he mention it to? Just Lee, or the entire diving community?

  “Might be. Depends.” Bobby’s heart thudded faster—everything depended on Lee’s next answer. “How sober is the dive-boat captain?”

  “Sorry to have wasted your time.” And Lee was gone.

  DAMN IT all to hell. He’d been so sure he could lure Bobby aboard with the promise of a mystery. He wouldn’t have even tried baiting his gambit with sex, or with lies.

  And the one thing that would have brought Bobby back aboard was the one thing he couldn’t offer. He was sober right now, he could have said, and it would have been perfectly true. That moment. But not in twenty minutes or an hour, when Bobby might turn up to see for himself. Lee stared into the glass, swishing some comfort out of the liquor. He could have Alford pour a second and a third, soothe himself with the amber haze.

  Well, fuck him.

  Fuck me.

  With one question, he’d bolted. Why exactly had he given up that easily? One long fucking lonely year, with only his sweetheart Ethyl Alcohol for a companion, a challenge tailor-made to entice, and he’d let one question chase him away? That one question he never wanted to answer, and for Bobby, only one answer would bring him back.

  Lee set the glass down—at least he still drank from the glass like a civilized man—and didn’t play the game of “hit the condensation ring.” He wasn’t all right. He hadn’t been all right in more years than he could remember, and trying to prove his coordination wasn’t going to change that. His grip on the glass tightened.

  The barman hovered on the edge of hailing distance, saying nothing. Lee stared at his own whitening knuckles, choking back the request he wanted to make.

  The glass shattered in his hand. Shards sliced through his palm. Blood and liquor pooled around his clenched fist.

  Didn’t hurt. Or didn’t hurt yet. It would. Eventually. He gripped harder. Make his hand match his heart.

  “Damn, Lee!” Alford materialized with his bar towel, swiping away the pieces. “Lemme look at that.”

  Lee forced his fingers to unclench. He had to let go. Not just of the glass. Of needing the glass. Of needing what the glass held. Or it would finish draining his heart’s blood just as surely as it dripped from his slashed palm.

  He said nothing, letting the barman pluck away the glittering daggers he’d driven into his own skin. The blood welled. The booze burned in the cuts. Let it. Maybe nothing else would cleanse him. The white bar cloth he clenched grew crimson with the stains while his heart bled.

  “I need….” His head bent, his eyes closed, he choked on the words he had to say. “One more for the road” would be so much easier. “Where….”

  The barman who’d watched gallons of Kentucky’s most mediocre slide down Lee’s throat returned with a glass of water and an answer to the question Lee hadn’t entirely asked. “Basement of the Methodist church on Harriman Avenue and Seventh. Started a few minutes ago.”

  He’d be a sorrier excuse for a human being if he didn’t go than he was right now. Lee stumbled out, blinded by his desperation. He had a ten-minute walk to practice what he needed to say next. “My name is Lee, and I am an alcoholic….”

  Chapter 4

  WHY DID he have to ask? Bobby kicked himself for saying the words, but he had to know. Of course he had to know. The captain’s sobriety had to underpin any possibility of getting back on board the Bottom Hunter.

  If it had driven him away from the man he’d spent four years loving, he had to get that out close to first thing. Even if it tore the hearts out of them both. Because he could not, would not, go back to the way their lives had been.

  He’d made it clear a year before he left he couldn’t cope with what Lee was becoming. Not when he drank hard all night and planned to head to 180 feet below the next morning. Wrecked a charter, or so Lee claimed….

  “Nope, Lee, don’t even put on the suit.” Bobby refused to throw the red-and-black neoprene one-piece across the staging area. “Stay up top with the crew.”

  “I know the Texas Tower like the back of my hand,” Lee argued, and the set of his jaw didn’t bode well for later discussions in private.

  Damn what would come later. Right now he had a disaster to fend off. Lee had come to bed with a couple drinks on board—less than usual, in fact—and oh sweet Buddha in a BC, he’d been all over Bobby. Lips and hands and cock and skin…. Everything Bobby loved, everything he wanted, more stamina to do it with.

  And then after he screwed Bobby into the mattress, Lee kissed him good-night and went back up top, to come back reeking with the drink on his breath and just as much spilled down his shirt. The dive boat wasn’t rocking that hard in the swell that a sober man of the sea would have splattered all over himself.

  Bobby had plenty of time to consider the motion of the ocean when Lee toppled back into bed, not even managing to get undressed or under the covers. His heavy snores penetrated right through the pillow Bobby wrapped around his head, and being pinned down by the blue and white blankets was a hell of a lot better than having a disgusting drunk under the covers with him. Bobby turned his back and tried to sleep. He’d made love with that? But Lee wasn’t like that two hours earlier. No, he was everything Bobby could ask for, exactly the man he wanted to grow old with. What the hell had gone so wrong?

  A bad night and a worse morning—Lee spruced himself into a captain and a diver again.

  Maybe he wasn’t still impaired, but a bender worse than Bobby had ever seen from his lover had to be making itself felt, in dry throat and scratchy eyes, in a mouth that deserved to taste like a thousand elephants had marched through it. A mouth Bobby turned away from kissing, eve
n after toothpaste. In slowed reflexes and molasses thinking in a man he was supposed to trust with helping him keep a flock of inexperienced wreck divers from doing something fatally stupid.

  Already mostly kitted, in his own fleece and dry suit, with his knife strapped to his forearm, all Bobby needed were fins, gloves, and his tank. Lee should have been up and ready half an hour ago. Probably spent it in the head trying to repair the damages, though Listerine and coffee weren’t nearly enough to undo the damage to Bobby’s trust. Lee couldn’t possibly be ready to dive where stray fishing nets and cables waited to snag the unwary or unlucky, where the current would have you halfway back to the Outer Banks if you left the shelter of the sunken structure.

  “Come on, Bobby, pass my suit.” The gravel in his voice was a gift of the liquor, or a sign of his temper, something he’d never turned on Bobby. Before.

  But he stood in front of the rack, keeping Lee away from gear he absolutely had to have to dive.

  One of the charter divers reached for the suit Bobby wouldn’t hand over. He plucked it from her hand, trying not to see the fear in her eyes as he commandeered the means for Lee to harm—someone.

  “We’re diving. Now.”

  No, not like that. No, not with a snarl and a tremor. Not after a standoff that was steadily draining their charter divers’ confidence. And not when he could be underwater five minutes after the group went in—his boat crew wouldn’t say him nay.

  Whipping the serrated blade from its sheath on his forearm, Bobby jabbed steel into the sturdy foam rubber. He sawed a rent into the neoprene, a three-inch gash that would let the cold seawater in. No, Lee could not go into the chilly Atlantic, and one way or another, Bobby would keep him on deck. Not when the ice in his heart said the man he respected most in the water—once, longer ago than he wanted to acknowledge—wasn’t safe to dive.