Doug Berry, twenty-seven years old. He used to have a hobby; now, the hobby has him.
Movement beyond the rain-streaked front window made him look up from Aruba—tan sand, pale blue sky, aquamarine sea, no rain—to see a vaguely familiar car coming to a stop out there next to his pickup. It was a Chevy Impala, the color of a diseased lime. Its windshield wipers stopped, and then three of its four doors opened and three men wearing hats and raincoats climbed out, flinching as though water were poisonous.
Squinting through the streaky window, Doug finally recognized one of the three: the driver, a bent-nose type named Mikey Donelli. Or maybe Mikey Donnelly. Doug had never been certain if the accent was on the first syllable or the second, so he couldn’t be sure if Mikey were Irish or Italian. Not that it mattered, really; Doug and Mikey had a business-only relationship, and the business would be the same wherever Mikey’s forebears hailed from.
Mikey was, in fact, the provider of those stolen goods Doug was alleged to have received, and of a lot of other stolen goods as well. Given the realities of the South Shore Dive Shop, Mikey was just about the company’s most important supplier.
But who were the other two? Doug had never met any of Mikey’s associates and was just as glad of it. This pair walked with their hands in their raincoat pockets, chins tucked in low, hat brims pulled down over their eyes as though they were extras in a Prohibition movie. Mikey led the way from the car to the door as Doug got to his feet, closed the Caribbean brochure, and tried to put a ready-for-business expression on his face. But what was Mikey doing here? And who were the two guys with him?
Doug spent most of his life just slightly afraid. At the moment, it was up one notch above normal.
Mikey came into the shop first, followed by his friends. “Whadaya say, Dougie?” Mikey said.
“Hi, Mikey,” Doug said. No one else on Earth had ever even thought to call him Dougie. He hated it, but how can you tell somebody named Mikey—particularly a tough somebody named Mikey—that you don’t like to be called Dougie? You can’t.
All three of his visitors looked around at the shelves, the two strangers with the curiosity of people who’d never been in a dive shop in their lives before—which Doug could well believe—and Mikey with a kind of professional interest. “Gee, Dougie,” he said, “you haven’t moved much product, have you, kid?” He was probably the same age as Doug, within a year or two, but he called him Dougie and “kid.”
“It’s just the beginning of the season,” Doug explained. “Things’ll pick up.”
“You know, kid,” Mikey said, “it could be, what you could use is a nice burglary. You gotta be insured, huh?”
Oh, no. Doug was living on the edge of disaster as it was, and he knew it. False burglaries for the insurance were exactly the way to integrate a state prison, a goal Doug had never held for himself. “Not just yet, Mikey,” he said, trying to produce a cool and untroubled grin. “If I ever need anything like that, you’ll be the guy I call. You know that.”
“Sure, kid,” Mikey said and grinned, spreading his hands as though to say naturally you’ll come to me. With that round tough face and lumpy nose and curly black hair and those penetrating dark eyes, Mikey could be just as easily Italian or Irish, Irish or Italian. Doug had no idea why it mattered to him to know what Mikey was, but it did. Maybe because the question was essentially unanswerable.
Now Mikey turned to his companions, saying, “I wanna introduce you a couple guys. This is John and this is Andy. That’s Dougie. He runs this place.”
“How are you,” said Doug, nodding at them, not liking the flat emotionless way they both studied him.
“Fine,” said the one called John. “You got the certification, huh?”
That was a surprising question. “Sure,” Doug said. “I couldn’t run the dive shop unless I did.” And he gestured to the sticker in the bottom right of the front window: DIPS.
“Dips,” said the one called Andy in a thoughtful tone of voice. “I don’t think I know that one.”
Surprised that somebody like Andy would know any of diving’s professional associations, Doug said defensively, “It’s a new group, very lively, very forward-looking. The best, I think. That’s why I went with them.”
With a raucous laugh, Mikey said, “Also, Dougie, they’d take you, don’t forget.”
Doug was offended, and for the moment forgot his fear. Looking hard at Mikey, he said, “It wasn’t exactly that way, Mikey. What have you been telling these friends of yours, anyway?”
“Hey, take it easy, Dougie,” Mikey said, laughing again, but putting his hands up mock defensively. He’s afraid! Doug thought with astonishment, as Mikey went on, saying, “All I said to Andy and John, maybe you were the guy could help with a little problem they got. I’m not in it at all, okay? It’s strictly between you and them.”
Doug, pushing his unexpected advantage, said, “What’s between me and them?”
“Why don’t you guys talk it over?” Mikey said, backing toward the door, grinning at everybody. “I’m just John Alden here, right? Dougie, I can guarantee these guys, Andy and John’ll treat you straight. Guys, Dougie here is a hundred percent.” Waving generally, he said, “I gotta couple calls to make in the neighborhood. Be back in fifteen, twenty minutes, okay?”
“Sure, that’s good,” the one called John said. He nodded at Mikey, but his brooding eyes were on Doug.
“See you, guys,” Mikey said, and reached for the doorknob. But then he pointed playfully at Andy and said, “Remember, if it works out…”
Andy nodded as though this reminder was unnecessary. “Don’t worry, Mikey,” he said. “You’ve got your finder’s fee.”
“Great,” Mikey said. His grin was bigger and bigger. “I love to get friends together,” he said, and pulled open the door at last and left.
They all watched out through the window as Mikey slogged through the rain to his diseased-lime Impala and climbed in. After a few seconds, the windshield wipers started, and then the Impala backed away in a semicircle and drove out toward Merrick Road. And they were alone.
Doug looked at his unexpected visitors, wondering what this was all about. More stolen goods? He had to be very careful here, dealing with strangers; there was such a thing as entrapment.
My God, yes! Suppose the cops had the goods on Mikey for something or other—Doug had no idea what Mikey’s activities were beyond the finding of goods that had fallen off trucks, but he was sure those activities must be wide-ranging and far from legal—suppose Mikey had got himself caught, and the cops had offered him a deal if he’d turn somebody else in. Didn’t they do that all the time? They did.