“Look, I can’t be here all day waiting for Stu,” he said to a man in coveralls and a filthy ski jacket.
“We could haul Bo’s butt in here, Cap’n,” was the reply.
“No way Jose,” Green said, and he seemed quite familiar with these shipyard men. “No point in calling that boy.”
Hell,” said another man with a long tangled beard.
We all know he ain’t gonna be sober this late in the morning.”
“Well, now if that isn’t the pot calling the kettle black,” Green said, and all of them laughed.
The bearded man had a complexion like raw hamburger.
He slyly eyed me as he lit a cigarette, shielding it from the wind in rough bare hands.
“I hadn’t had a drink since yesterday. Not even water,” he swore as his mates laughed some more. “Damn, it’s cold as a witch’s titty.” He hugged himself. “I should’a wore a better coat.”
“I tell you what’s cold is that one over yonder.” Another worker spoke, dentures clicking as he talked about what I realized was the dead diver. “Now that boy’s cold.”
“He don’t feel it now.”
I controlled my mounting irritation as I said to Green, “I know you’re eager to get started, and so am I. But I don’t see any rescuers or police. I haven’t seen the johnboat or the area of the river where the body is located.”
I felt half a dozen pairs of eyes on me, and I scanned the eroded faces of what easily could have been a small band of pirates dressed for modern times. I was not invited into their secret club and was reminded of those early years when rudeness and isolation could still make me cry.
Green finally answered, “The police are inside using the phones. In the main building there, the one with the big anchor in front. The divers are probably in there too staying warm. The rescue squad is at a landing on the other side of the river where they’ve been waiting for you to get here.
And you might be interested in knowing that this same landing is where the police just found a truck and trailer they believe belonged to the deceased. If you follow me.”
He began walking. “I’ll show you the location you’re interested in. I understand you plan on going in with the other divers.”
“That’s right.” I walked with him along the pier.
“I sure as hell don’t know what you expect to see.”
“I learned long ago to have no expectations, Captain Green.”
As we passed old, tired ships, I noticed many fine metal lines leading from them into the water. “What are those?” I asked.
“CPs-cathodic protectors,” he answered. “They’re electrically charged to reduce corrosion.”
“I certainly hope someone has turned them off.”
“An electrician’s on the way. He’ll turn off the whole pier.”
“So the diver could have run into CPs. I doubt it would have been easy to see them.”
“It wouldn’t matter. The charge is very mild,” he said as if anyone should know that. “It’s like getting zapped with a nine-volt battery. CPs didn’t kill him. You can already mark that one off your list.”
We had stopped at the end of the pier where the rear of the partially submerged submarine was in plain view. Anchored no more than twenty feet from it was the dark green aluminum johnboat with its long black hose leading from the compressor, which was nestled in an inner tube on the passenger’s side. The floor of the boat was scattered with tools, scuba equipment and other objects that I suspected had been rather carelessly gone through by someone. My chest tightened, for I was angrier than I would show.
“He probably just drowned,” Green was saying. “Almost every diving death I’ve seen was a drowning. You die in water as shallow as this, that’s what it’s going to be.”
“I certainly find his equipment unusual.” I ignored his medical pontifications.
He stared at the johnboat barely stirred by the current.
“A hookah. Yeah, it’s unusual for around here.”
“Was it running when the boat was found?”
“Out of gas.”
“What can you tell me about it? Homemade?”