“Nothing is out of the question,” Dexter said amiably, “as long as there’s someone to ask the question.”
The Negro watched the bubbles. Dexter waited, knowing the man was too polite to ignore him for long. Sure enough, he resumed in a gently reasoning tone, “We had two weeks of training before we went down.”
“And yet there was a first time,” Dexter said. “You hadn’t done it, and then one day you had.”
The Negro cocked his head, trying to read him.
“Today is that day for me.”
The white diver watched the air machine gauges, giving no indication that he’d heard this exchange. Dexter moved closer to him and cleared his throat. He spoke softly, so that the diver could hear him but the boys turning the flywheels could not. “I’d like to take that suit off your hands and go down myself.”
“That’s not the way these things are done,” the diver muttered, eyes on the dials.
“They can be done any number of ways,” Dexter said. “Like all things.”
The man didn’t glance at him.
“I’d like to help, is all. It will save her time. And you’re needed up here.”
“You’d be no help whatsoever.”
“Say, now, that hurts my feelings.”
“Just a risk and a distraction.”
“Is it air you’re worried about? Having the one machine supply two people?”
“Among other things.”
“If there’s trouble, cut me loose,” Dexter said. “I’ll float to the top. I’d have eight minutes, right?”
Now he had both divers’ attention. “Your size?” the Negro said. “Less.”
“Do it anyway.”
The white diver made a dismissive noise. “That’s no favor to us if we end up with your body on our hands.”
“There wouldn’t be a body.”
The men exchanged a glance. “How do you figure?” asked the Negro.
“Skipper,” Dexter barked. The mariner jolted as if a pan of water had been tossed in his face. “Come on over here, would you?”
The skipper hobbled over painfully, like a squashed insect.
“I need you to reassure these gentlemen of something,” Dexter said. “If I should happen to croak while diving in this harbor, can you guarantee that they would be free and clear to walk away? No entanglements with the law, the coroner, or the postman?”
The skipper nodded, breathing hard. Dexter wasn’t entirely sure he’d understood.
“With all due respect,” the Negro said, “bodies can’t just disappear.”
“Ah, but they can,” Dexter said. “They do. You’re in a different world right now, my friend. It may look like the one you know, may smell like it, sound like it, but what goes on here doesn’t carry over. When you wake up tomorrow, none of this will have happened.”
They were staring at him as if he’d gone unhinged. How to explain the workings of the shadow world in a way that would persuade them? He didn’t have to, of course, but Dexter always preferred argument to brute force. “I’m saying we’ve different rules,” he said. “Different practices. What can’t happen in your world can in mine. Including bodies disappearing.”
“Where does our diver fit in?” the Negro asked. “What if something happens to her?”
“Nothing happens to her,” Dexter said. “That we all agree on. But I’m different. I’m like . . . a reflection. A shadow.” He was reaching for something he’d not articulated before and didn’t fully understand.
“That’s a lot of pretty talk,” the white diver said, looking at Dexter head-on for the first time. A hard face, tipped inward. “In my book, there’s but one world, and without oxygen, none of us lasts in it for long. Amateurs trying to play hero are a pain in the neck, but the chumps who let ’em muck things up are to blame for whatever goes wrong. I’m telling you no, pal. I will not equip you to dive in that harbor.”
Dexter took a long breath. “I’ve tried reasoning with you,” he said. “But it doesn’t seem to work.”
“Ain’t a word of reason in what I’ve been hearing.”
“I’m giving you an order: take off that diving suit.”
“I answer to the U.S. Navy. Not to you.”
A burst of rage made Dexter’s nerves fizz. “The U.S. Navy isn’t here right now,” he said softly. “At least I don’t see them.”
“Oh, they’re here. They control this harbor. They’re all around us.”
Dexter turned to the Negro. “Does your friend have a screw loose?” he asked just loudly enough for the towhead to hear. “Does he not understand that my boys will shoot him through the head and throw him overboard for fish food as soon as they’d step on a cockroach?”
Though he hadn’t raised his voice, a charge passed over the boat, distinct even through the wind. Enzo loped over eagerly. “We got trouble, boss?”
“I don’t know,” Dexter said, watching the Negro. “Have we?”
Who better than a Negro to recognize when the world had cut him off at the knees? Calmly, he went to his partner’s side and spoke into his ear. Dexter caught phrases: “. . . not that hard if he . . .”
“. . . fact that Savino could . . .”
“. . . navy does it routinely . . .”
Dexter knew he’d won; the Negro was in charge. Sure enough, he returned to Dexter’s side and said, “We don’t want trouble, sir. Not at all.”
“Neither do I,” Dexter said. “That’s why I’m giving your partner one last chance to sidestep the part where I scare him so badly he shits his pants. I assure you, it’s not pleasant.”
The color had drained from the white diver’s face. Reflexively, he glanced at the dials on the air machine. Dexter imagined he was inside the man’s mind, undergoing the compression on his skull that he must feel. He disliked knowing what another man felt.
“Holy Christ,” the white diver said to his partner, his voice dry with horror.
“I don’t see him here, either,” Dexter said.
*
When Anna received a signal that a second diver was coming down, she wondered if she’d mistakenly requested him. Then it occurred to her that something had gone wrong—beyond the obvious fact that the descending line had been moved three times (the last around to the lighter’s other side), and she’d found only a broken barrel and a tree stump. She kept crawling while he descended, then felt him lift the circling line and follow it toward her, forcing her to rise. Instinctively, she opened her eyes, but of course saw nothing.
She recalled having learned in class that two divers could hear each other underwater if their helmets touched. Bascombe was taller than she’d expected, and she had to tug a little on his arm to make him stoop. She pressed her helmet against his and said, “Why are you here?”
The reply was distant, tinny, like a radio playing under a blanket. “Dexter,” she heard.
“What about Dexter?”
“That’s me. I’m Dexter.”
She thought fleetingly that Bascombe was playing a trick, but couldn’t imagine him joking at such a time. “That’s impossible.”
“Apparently not.”
“It’s—dangerous,” she sputtered.
“The gentlemen above made that clear.”