“I don’t think that was his houseboat,” said Roberto. “I think Jim and Huck just found him in it.”
“Only Jim found him. He told Huck about it later.”
“Yeah I know.”
“But why was Pap there if it wasn’t his?”
“I don’t know, I don’t think we’ve been told. Maybe later in the story.”
“Maybe. Meanwhile, we got a problem here. We got to tell the old man the place is too dangerous.”
“But is it? I think we should take a look and see.”
“What do you mean? You can see it from here!”
“I’m not so sure.”
“Come on. Don’t be like that Tom Sawyer.”
“What a jerk! I’m not like that fool.”
“Well then don’t be.”
With some of his possessions around him, the hotello had come to resemble Hexter’s old quarters, being a maze of boxes and books in piles.
“Bless you boys,” he said that night. “I’ll pay you when I can. Maybe you can help me move this stuff back when I move back, and I’ll pay you twice. Meanwhile, I suppose you might want to be getting back to your excavation in the Bronx?”
“Exactly, we were thinking that ourselves.”
So the next day they dashed into the Met’s kitchen and snatched a loaf of bread fresh out of the oven, Vlade looking the other way, as he did all the time now. They were definitely eating more regularly these days. Vlade did the same thing for the bacino’s cats. Then they were out in the chill of a fine November day, weaving a route north past drowned buildings and aquaculture pens and over the Turtle Bay oyster beds.
Crossing the Harlem River under the RFK Bridge and then the old rail bridge, the monster that people said would last a thousand years, they cut up over the east part of Ward Island to their spot in the south Bronx. They found their little marker buoy and cheered. Once moored to it they prepped the diving bell and dropped it over the side. Roberto clawed into his wetsuit and Stefan helped him get the diving gear on. All was good when Stefan said, “I still don’t see how we’re going to dig down far enough.”
“We’ll just keep at it,” Roberto said. “I can put the mud on the east side of the hole, and between digs the tides will move it upstream and down, but not back into the hole. So each time it’ll get deeper, until we hit the Hussar.”
Stefan shook his head. “I hope so,” he said. “But look, since we can’t do it in one go, you’ve gotta come up when I tell you.”
“Yep. Three tugs on the air hose, and up we go.”
Roberto hopped over the side and Stefan lifted the bell over the side and onto him. He could just see Roberto under the clear plastic, rocking the bell to the side to let a little air out from under it. A fart of bubbles burst the surface, and then Roberto and the bell were drifting to the bottom. High tide again, so quite a ways down there, which worried Stefan. He watched his friend disappear into the murk and began to monitor the oxygen tank. It was the only thing he could do to stay occupied, so he watched the dial until he saw it move, then looked around to make sure no one was approaching while they were doing their business. The sun was out, low in the south and blazing a strip of mirrored light across the slack river, which was otherwise a dark handsome blue. There were some barges in a line midchannel, but nothing smaller was anywhere near them.
Then a cat’s-paw spun across the water and struck, scoring the water with a twirl of teeny wavelets. Their boat swung around until the rope tied to the top of the diving bell was taut over the side, and the air hose likewise. Suddenly Stefan saw that the oxygen tube was taut but the rope was slack. He tugged on the rope and cried out involuntarily when it gave. There was no resistance; the rope was no longer tied to the bell! He pulled up to make sure, and it came up all the way, its end curled in the way plastic rope curled when it came untied after being tied for a long time. It made no sense, but there it was. Roberto was down there and there was no way to pull him back up. “Oh no!” Stefan shouted.
The air hose extended under the edge of the bell, its end curving up into the cone of trapped air. Stefan tugged on it three times, then shouted down it, though he knew it wasn’t going to convey the sound of his voice to the bottom. For now Roberto had air, but when the gas bottle ran out (and the spare bottle too, there under the thwart) there would still be no way to raise the bell. Possibly Roberto could push up one edge of it, duck under the side and swim up to the surface. Yes, that might work, if he could do it. If he knew that he should do it. Again Stefan shouted Roberto’s name, again he tugged three times on the tube, but now gently, as he was scared of pulling it out from under the edge down there. The bell was heavy, heavier than its cone of trapped air could lift, and the water would be pushing down on it, a high tide’s worth of water. Very likely he would not be able to lift the bell from below enough to slip out from under it.
The wind was blowing Stefan upstream hard enough that the oxygen tube was stretching flat over the side of the boat. The flow of gas could get cut off, or the tube pulled out. Stefan started the motor and hummed back to the buoy, reached over the side and grabbed it. Hanging on to it, he rested elbows on the side, breathing hard, shaking even though the sun was out; he was terrified.
He tapped their wristpad and called Vlade.
Vlade picked up, thank God, and Stefan quickly explained the situation to him.
“A diving bell?” Vlade repeated, catching the essence of the problem. “Why?”
“No time for that,” Stefan pleaded, “we’ll tell you later, but can you come and help pull him up? He’s only got about an hour’s air in the air tank, and then I’ll have to change tanks, and I’ve only got one spare.”
“You can’t tell him to swim up?”
“No, and I don’t think he can push the bell up by himself from below! We usually pull it up, whoever’s in the boat. Even using a crank it’s hard.”
“How deep is he?”
“About twenty-five feet.”
“You kids!” Vlade said sharply. “I can’t believe you.”
“But can you come help please?”
“Where are you again?”
Stefan told him.
Again Vlade was incredulous. “What the fuck!” he said. “Why?”
“Just come help and we’ll tell you,” Stefan promised. He was sitting now, head over the side looking down into the opaque water, seeing nothing, feeling like he was going to throw up. “Please hurry!”
In January 1925, when New York City passed under a total eclipse of the sun, people said it looked like a city risen from the bottom of the sea.
h) Vlade
Vlade hustled up the stairs to the boathouse dock thinking about what he might need. Just deep enough to want scuba; he was no great free diver. What he needed most was a fast boat, and right as he reached the dock he saw Franklin Garr waiting there for Su to drop his little hydrofoil out of the rafters where Vlade had stashed it. He was looking impatient as always.
“Hey,” Vlade said, “I need your boat.”
“Say what?”
“Sorry, but those kids Roberto and Stefan are in trouble up in the south Bronx.”
“Not them again!”
“Yes, and one of them could drown if I don’t get there real fast to pull him out of the drink. You’ve got the fastest boat here by a long shot, so how about we trade for today, or you come with me.”
“Ah for fuck’s sake,” Garr said, looking suddenly ferocious.
Vlade shrugged, wondering how he would do it if he had to grab this guy’s boat from him. This was already a real-world version of a nightmare he had suffered all too many times in the last fifteen years, dreams in which the chance to save Marko stood there before him, only to be blocked by various crazy obstacles. So he was sick with fear, and ready to just slug the guy and go, and possibly this was apparent on his face, because the man cursed again but added, “I’ll come too. Where are they again?”