Frik turned and grinned through the shade under the brim of his battered Panama hat. Barefoot, in white slacks and white shirt, he looked every inch the patrician yachtsman. “The busier the better,” he said.
“Do I take that to mean you own a piece of the action?”
Another grin. “A big piece.”
Just what Frikkie needs, Simon thought, looking around at the tankers and container-laden freighters that clogged the harbor and dwarfed the yacht. Another revenue stream.
In contrast to his host, Simon wore torn sneakers, raggedy cutoffs, and a profoundly ugly red-and-orange Hawaiian shirt—the uglier the better was his rule. With his bull frame and short silver hair, he’d been mistaken all over the world for Brian Keith by people blithely unaware that the actor had killed himself back in 1997. Thanks in large part to satellite TV, old shows and old stars seemed to live forever. He never disabused these folk of their mistaken notion, especially if they were female. Amazing how free women became with their favors in the presence of celebrity.
Simon tipped up the brim of his olive drab boonie cap, a concession to the skin of his face and ears, which was proving a gold mine for the dermatological profession, some of whose members were putting their kids through school as a result of all the little cancers they’d carved from his hide. Well, what could you expect after a lifetime in the tropical sun?
That sun hung hot and bright in the immaculate morning sky; the water lay calm below; a gentle briny breeze kept them cool on the afterdeck: a day to savor. But then, every day was a day to be savored when you’d been told time and again that you wouldn’t have too many left unless you changed your ways. And what changes were those? Oh, not many, simply eliminate everything that elevated daily life from mere existence to something worth looking forward to.
Simon caught the eye of Frik’s man Friday and held up his glass, rattling the cubes. “Another Bloody, if you please, Saaliim. There’s a good lad, and make this one light…onthe tomato juice, if you get my drift.”
Saaliim grinned as he took the glass. “I hear you clear, Mr. Brousseau.”
“How many is that?” Frik said, staring at Simon.
“I haven’t been counting.”
“Aren’t you supposed to be cutting down?”
“Where’d you hear that?”
Frik pursed his lips. “I have my sources.”
“Find new ones,” Simon grumbled. “Yours are full of shit.” He hid his annoyance by accepting the fresh Bloody Mary from the silver tray Saaliim proffered. He sipped, savoring the tang of the beef bouillon Saaliim always added to his pepper-laden tomato juice, and toasted the Honduran. “My compliments to the chef.”
Three doctors now, four if you counted Peta, had told him the same thing: Take your prescriptions, cut the booze to two drinks a day, watch the saturated fats, drop thirty pounds, limit yourself to less energetic sex, and substitute snorkeling—which Simon had always thought of assnore keling—for scuba.
In other words, live small.
Simon didn’t know how, nor did he wish to learn. Unless medical science took several giant leaps, he was going to die anyway, so why not go the way he had lived.
“Hell, Frikkie, just because I’m fifty-eight doesn’t mean I’m ready for a nursing home.”
“You’re sixty-two, Simon, and I didn’t mean—”
“I’m fine,” he said, taking another gulp of his drink. “Fit as a fiddle—a frigging Stradivarius.”
Yeah. One that’s been run over by a truck.
According to the docs, he might be in his early sixties, but he had the heart of a man in his early eighties, and had to act accordingly—not run around like a guy in his thirties. He was suffering from a bad case of the ups and downs, with everything going in the wrong direction: his cholesterol, blood sugar, and blood pressure all up, his erections down. If he took his nitroglycerin on schedule, he could get through most activities, even sex, without chest pain; trouble was he couldn’t get it up for sex without a dose of Viagra, but mixing Viagra and nitro will kill you. So what he’d do was skip the nitro and pay for an orgasm with the sensation of a bull elephant camping on his chest.
Getting old sucked.
“At least you stopped smoking.”
Simon nodded. “Wasn’t easy, but it got so every time I lit up it felt like the Marlboro cowboy’s horse was taking a dump in my lungs, so I tossed them.”
Frik laughed. “Simon Brousseau, ever the epitome of earthy.”
“Yes, well, I’ve always believed in calling a spade a shit shovel,” Simon responded, though he wasn’t entirely sure how to take Frik’s comment. At times like this he wished he’d had a little more education. Not that he regretted for an instant dropping out of Florida State, but when he was around people like Frik and Arthur and even Peta, and they’d mention the title of a book or recite a line from a play or a poem that he’d never read, he felt left out. He’d been boning up on Shakespeare—had a book of the Bard’s plays in his duffel, in fact—but he was a long way from feeling comfortable with the strange sound of centuries-old English.
Maybe that was why he found the underwater world so alluring, and kept returning to it as often as he could. No subtexts with undersea life: if you’re not looking for a meal you’re trying to avoid becoming one.
He guessed growing up in Key West was a contributing factor too. He’d spent his youth living half a dozen feet above sea level, surrounded by reefs teeming with a mind-boggling array of life in a dazzling variety of shapes and colors that drew people from all over the world. Graduating from snorkeling to scuba at age eight, he was guiding tourists on a dive boat by the time he was twelve. Working as a salvage diver between his frosh and sophomore year, he along with a buddy found the wreck of theSanta Clara . The long-forgotten galleon wasn’t a treasure ship, but Simon’s share of the salvaged jewelry and doubloons was enough to set him up in his own salvage business and make returning to college seem like a waste of time.
He’d kept going after deeper and deeper wrecks, and when the available equipment and gas mixes weren’t up to the job, he made his own modifications. Over the years the income from the patents on those innovations had left him a wealthy man. At age thirty he’d sold his business to become a scuba bum, hiring out for diving jobs that challenged his equipment and his nerve, and exploring the diving meccas of the world: off Yap, in the South Pacific, he’d gazed up in wonder from the sea floor at the schools of manta rays parading above; he’d hitched rides on the whale sharks of Ningaloo Bay; and, until two years ago, he’d held the deep-sea depth and endurance records.
Along the years he’d done a number of extreme dives for Frik, which eventually led to his induction into the club.
“Okay, down to business,” Simon said, placing his empty glass on Saaliim’s silver tray. “What haven’t you told me about these doodads and the contraption they’re part of?”
“Not much. And I think you’ll better appreciate them if I show you rather than simply tell you.”
As Frik led the way down the dock toward the parking lot, Simon heard quick footsteps padding up behind him.
“Excuse me?”
He turned to find a thirtyish brunette wearing a well-stuffed CCNY T-shirt and a bikini bottom.
“Mr. Keith,” she said, smiling as she thrust her right hand forward; she held a pen and a cocktail napkin in her left. “I’msuch a big fan of yours. Would it be too much to ask you for your autograph?”
Simon glanced around as he shook her hand. He leaned close and spoke in a half whisper. “I’d appreciate it if you didn’t let this get around. I’m here scouting locations for a hush-hush project.”
She lowered her voice to his level. “Really?”