“And a little of this …” Pinion whirled his right around in a tight hook.
“And one of these,” said Oscar, hopping backward ridiculously on one foot and screwing up his face into an appropriate grimace.
“Then late in the third,” said Pinion, undaunted by Oscar’s performance, “Pritchard made what we fighters call the ‘fatal pause.’”
“Sure he did,” said Oscar, mimicking what seemed to him to constitute the fatal pause.
“And I jumped up and yelled, ‘Cut loose, Miller!’ and O’Riley cut loose!”
At the utterance of this revelation, Oscar could contain himself no longer, and he erupted in a wild howl of laughter, the term “cut loose” having certain slang connotations that Pinion didn’t intend. Oscar immediately acted out Stud Pritchard’s horror at Irish O’Riley’s cutting loose, and then went on to act out the cutting loose process itself with such grim majesty that Jim burst into uncontrollable laughter. Pinion wasn’t half so impressed.
He stepped back a pace, stiffened up as rigid as he could manage, and tapped himself on the stomach. “Punch me,” he gasped, squinting at Oscar. “Right there. Hard as nails.” And he thumped his stomach again, ready to weather the punch of O’Riley the swinging Irish Miller.
Oscar huffed himself up and let fly at Pinion’s abdomen, to the horror of both Jim and Gill. Pinion deflated like a sprung balloon. There was a shout from the direction of Pete’s Blue Chip. Pinion doubled over and whistled into the dirt, his lips turning a sudden shade of pale blue and his eyes rolling up into his head.
For the space of three seconds Jim stood transfixed with honor, but when Oscar, screaming with laughter, broke and ran down Hubbard Road, Jim snatched Giles’ arm and dragged him along in Oscar’s wake. Gill watched over his shoulder for some sign that Pinion wasn’t, as both of them feared, dead. When a half dozen cheeseburger-clutching bystanders emptied out of Pete’s into the street, Giles forgot about Pinion and ran along at Jim’s heels, both of them cutting away down the first available alley, losing Oscar in the process and leaping out onto Stickley Street where they forced themselves to slow up and walk along at a disinterested pace until they reached the safe port of Jim’s house. There they found Uncle Edward, Professor Latzarel, and Roycroft Squires messing with an unlikely looking diving bell perched on the back of a flatbed truck. Jim sailed past as if it weren’t there, still half expecting a mob, perhaps waving hayforks and lit torches, to round the corner with a shout. He worked at convincing himself that he and Gill had merely been bystanders and were in no way responsible for the crippling of Pinion. But then he pictured himself laughing aloud and cheering Oscar on an instant before Pinion’s collapse. They’d find him as guilty as Oscar. Giles they wouldn’t touch. Pinion, after all, wouldn’t press charges — not against Gill. He’d be full of fatherly concern — if he was still alive. But he’d chase Jim and Oscar down. There was no doubt about that. Pinion was vicious and obviously jealous of Professor Latzarel and Uncle Edward.
Jim peered out of the front window at the street. Mrs. Pembly skulked along on the sidewalk, pretending to inspect a little bed of begonias. She was obviously watching the house. Jim’s blood raced. Was she in league with Frosticos, with Pinion? She wandered along the sidewalk and peered down the driveway, oblivious to being spied on. It was the diving bell she was watching. Jim turned to Giles who sat silent as a heap of stones in the green chair, looking dismal.
“Well what about that,” said Jim, affecting a smirk. “That took care of old Pinion nut, didn’t it?”
He intended the remark to carry a tone of bravado, but he, was immediately sorry for it when he saw Giles’ reaction. He shook himself out of his heap, slammed a hand onto the arm of the chair, and tried to speak. “P … p … p … poor Pinion!” he stuttered out. Then he said, “Oscar!” with such a startling hiss that Jim spun around, expecting to see Oscar himself standing behind him. Giles shook his head. His mouth trembled. It seemed to Jim that Gill had something terrible to say, something horrific, something that, finally, couldn’t be uttered. Gill stood up abruptly, walked past Jim without a word, and slammed out the back door. The sight of the diving bell arrested him, however, and in seconds his anger appeared to have evaporated, replaced by scientific curiosity. He stood with his hands in his pockets gaping at the machine. Jim wandered out behind him.
The diving bell itself, borrowed by Professor Latzarel from the Gaviota Oceanographic Laboratory, was round as a ball. It was almost an antique. Hoses led away out of it into great coils, and in a ring around the bell, within the upper one third or so, were a line of portholes riveted shut. There was a hatch at the top, screwed down with what looked like an immense brass valve. The whole thing was etched with corrosion and flaked with blue-green verdigris. It looked to Jim like something out of Jules Verne.
Roycroft Squires fiddled with the air hoses, running down the length of them, inch by inch, looking for leaks, perhaps. He nodded at Jim, paused, and scratched at a little bump on the hose.
“Weak spot?” asked Jim.
“Not really,” said Squires, resuming his inspection. “Just a lump of rubber.” He glanced back up at Jim. “You look pale. Feeling okay?”
Jim wiped sweat off his nose, certain for one impossible moment that Squires had seen through him, had somehow worked out that he and Oscar had just beaten up John Pinion. “I’m fine,” Jim said. “Really. It’s this wind. Makes me feel sticky.”
“It’s positive ions that does it. Make people act crazy. The local Indians used to throw themselves into the sea when the Santa Ana blew.”
“With any luck we’ll do the same,” shouted Latzarel from within the bell. He grinned out at Jim. The inch-thick glass of the porthole blew his face up like a balloon.
“I’ve been thinking of buying a bicycle,” Jim said idly.
Squires took a pull at a half empty bottle of beer. “Mmmm?” he said.
“You know anything about bicycles?”
“Not a bit, actually. I’m not much on bicycles.”
“I could have sworn I saw you ride past not too long ago.” Jim pretended to rub at the brass wall of the diving bell.
“Not on a bicycle you didn’t. I haven’t ridden one in forty years. Treacherous things. The last one I had lost its chain every sixty or eighty feet.”
Jim said he must have been mistaken and let the matter chop. Squires’ assurance hadn’t done anything to solve the riddle.
Giles Peach had scrambled onto the bell and was peering in at Latzarel. “What is the purpose of these hoses?” asked Giles.
“Air and pressure,” said Latzarel. “Red one’s air; black one’s pressure.”
Gill nodded as if he’d known what they were all along, and then he sniffed and scratched his ear, screwing up his face a little with the look of someone at once condescending and a bit amazed at the inadequacy of the devices. “Fairly primitive,” he said — a statement which, under the circumstances, irritated Jim unspeakably.
“It gets the job done,” Latzarel assured him.
Giles squeezed at the air hose. “Wouldn’t an oxygenator be more efficient?” Then without waiting for an answer, he poked his head in to have a look at the controls. “No motivators?”
“None whatsoever.”
“You’re limited, then, by the length of the hoses?”
“That’s correct,” said Latzarel, humming to himself.
“How deep will she go?”
“Two hundred fifty feet, in a pinch. Deep enough to take some soundings. If I’m not mistaken, though, we shouldn’t have to go too deep on this run. The walls of the pool are probably littered with artifacts. I’d stake my reputation on it. John Pinion’s fishing in the wrong hole.” Latzarel laughed, satisfied with the pun.