“I just want to ask you some questions about compressors.”
“Do you want to use it for tank fills or for hookah diving?”
“I don’t want to buy one. But I saw a compressor on a boat, and I’m trying to figure out what it might have been used for.” I reached into my shoulder bag and pulled out the info I had copied off the side of the compressor. I showed it to him.
“That’s not a dive compressor. See, right here it says ‘contractor.’ That unit would be used for running air tools. On a boat, you don’t need to keep the air like they do. We put it right into the scuba tanks, so we don’t use the big accumulators.”
“What kind of air tools?”
“Could be anything: air hammers, nailers, impact drivers. Mechanics use them a lot. You know, like the tools you’ve seen when they change your tires in a garage.”
I nodded. The older woman from the front of the store walked back carrying a Divers Do It Deeper T-shirt and asked if she could try it on. He pointed to the back of the store, then went back to his magazine.
“Do you have any idea what someone would use that compressor for on board a ninety-two-foot Broward?”
He raised his eyebrows and looked out the window across the parking lot. “Not a clue,” he said. “But he sure as hell wasn’t using it to breathe.” He went back to his magazine.
Neal had done enough work in boatyards over the years to know his way around tools. What was he planning? Was he going to build something? I wished I’d had more time to look around on the boat. Maybe the tools themselves would have told me what it was he had in mind.
I wandered over to the glass case the diver guy was leaning on and examined the books and charts on display there. One book, Diving Locations, particularly caught my eye.
“Could I see a copy of this?” I asked him.
He sighed, moved behind the counter, and handed me the book. I flipped through the pages. It was a collection of all the coordinates of the major wrecks and reefs off the South Florida coast.
“They’re not all in there. That’s over a year old now. Been some sunk since then.”
“Some what?”
“Ships, barges, whatever. You know, artificial reefs.” His voice took on a different quality as he launched into this well-rehearsed explanation. “We have some coral off our coast here, but mostly it’s just a sand bottom. In order to have fish, there have to be places for the fish to hide. You take an old abandoned shipwreck, and after it’s been on the bottom awhile, it will be full of little fish—and where there are little fish, there will soon be big fish trying to eat them. Divers love to dive on shipwrecks, and since these days ships just don’t sink often enough, we make our own. They’re sinking new shit out there nearly every other month. Keeps me happy—more places to dive, more people will go diving. It’s good for business. You interested in going out for a dive?”
“No, just curious, that’s all.”
He tapped a newspaper clipping pinned to a bulletin board on the wall behind the counter. “You’d like this one here—she’s new, the Bahama Belle, a nice little freighter. She’s going to be real rich when she gets a little more growth on her. It takes a while, you know. They sink this stuff so the fish will have hiding places, but they also need the food source. Right now, there’s not enough coral or algae growth there to support much of a fish population.”
I squinted at the blurry black-and-white photo of a vessel surrounded by puffs of white smoke.
“So that’s all people are interested in, huh, fish? Do you think somebody could find anything of value on any of these wrecks?”
He laughed. “Are you kidding? First of all, the Coasties have guys strip these ships clean of everything before they sink ’em. Then they blow holes in every single compartment to make sure that divers can’t get caught in any little holes. Then there’s hundreds of divers a week exploring all over these things. Honey, you couldn’t find diddly-squat on one of these wrecks.”
I handed him back his book. “Hmmm. Okay, well, thanks for all your help. See ya.”
I paused on the sidewalk outside the store and took a last look at the hookah equipment in the dive store window. The hand on my arm was totally unexpected because I had not heard the slightest sound of his approach.
“Hey, lady,” he said, and I jumped, yanked my arm from his grasp, and backed off, ready to run. James Long was staring at me, equally startled by my reaction. “I didn’t mean to scare you.” He held his hands up in the air and I noticed he was wearing a white martial- arts getup, and even that outfit was ironed, with sharp creases on the sleeves. “It seems every time I touch you, you bolt like a startled deer.”
I laughed. “Geez, James, I was a million miles away. I didn’t even hear you come up on me.” I didn’t go into the fact that somebody had tried to kill me last night, and that does tend to make one a little jumpy.
He looked at the name of the store written across the top of the window and raised one eyebrow. “So the lady captain is a diver, too?”
I tried, unsuccessfully, to raise one eyebrow as well. “And the gentleman executive is a kung fu artist?”
He flashed those incredibly white teeth of his at me again, and I felt like an idiot grinning back at him. “Tai chi, actually. I like the study of the Taoist philosophy, and it keeps me in shape, teaches me things about the body. I try to come for classes here several times a week.” He pointed a few doors down to a storefront with Chinese characters across the front window and the words Florida Kung Fu and Tai Chi Chuan. “Don’t suppose you’d be willing to join me for a late lunch?”
Truth be told, I was starving. My eating habits these last few days would have had Red steaming mad. He was always trying to get me to eat more regularly. He claimed I preferred to graze, eating only when I was hungry. The thing was, though, I needed to get back to the cottage and call Jeannie. I’d promised B.J.
“James, I’m tempted, but I’ve really got to get back. If you’ve got a second, though, there is something I’d like to talk to you about.”
“Certainly, Seychelle. How can I help you?”
“I went by Harbor House yesterday.” I decided not to get into his little deception about Sunny/Sonya when I’d first met him on Saturday. “When I was leaving, I heard Minerva on the phone with somebody named Burns. Do you know Hamilton Burns, an attorney?”
“Of course. We’ve been involved in legal matters with Mr. Burns on several occasions. He is very well known in this town.”
“What kind of legal matters?”
“I’m sorry, Seychelle, I really can’t discuss that with you. You realize, of course, that there is a very sensitive side to what I do. Sometimes these runaways come from families that would rather not let it be known that their little darlings ended up on the streets. They want to make any criminal charges go away and whisk them back to their former lives. Burns helps them with that.”
“That’s not right.”
“It’s not a bad thing. What about the ones no one ever misses? Look, are you sure you won’t join me?” he went on. “We could continue this conversation over margaritas over at Carlos and Pepe’s?” He pointed to the restaurant across the parking lot.
I sighed and looked at him and came real close to giving in and going. James Long was damned likable. Some other day, when all this is over I thought, if we are both left standing when the dust clears, I would really like to get to know him better.