Dark Nantucket Noon (22 page)

“Wow,” said Homer. “Do you really need all that gear?”

“Oh, sure, if you're going to go into this thing seriously.” Ensign Hawkins was a clean-cut muscular fellow with black eyebrows that met in the middle. “How old did you say you were? Hmm, is that all? You don't look in very good shape. Did you do much with athletics in college?”

“College?” said Homer. “ ‘A whale-ship was my Yale College and my Harvard.'” He was quoting Melville. “No, no, I never went to college.” Well, that was a lie, but he certainly hadn't been to the kind of college Ensign Hawkins was talking about. “And anyway, I can hardly swim; I can just barely stay afloat.”

“You can't
swim?
Then why …?”

“Well, I mean I haven't got down to all the fine points. I'll just pick 'em up as I go along.” This artifice was proving harder to keep up than Homer had thought it would be, but what he wanted from Ensign Hawkins was a nice natural demonstration, not one that was all mucked up with amateur crime detection. “I'm paying you for this demonstration, aren't I? Just show me what all this stuff is.”

“Well, okay, sure. You're the boss. We'll begin with the suit. Its principal function is to keep you warm. Here's your gloves. They're partly for warmth and partly to keep your hands protected from sharp objects or stinging organisms of any kind. This here is your diving knife, in case you get tangled up in something under water. These of course are your swim fins so you can really go places without working hard at it. The main rule under water is to just
relaaaaax
and take it easy, so you don't use up too much oxygen.”

“Relaaaaax,”
echoed Homer, nodding his head.

“That's right. And that brings us to the breathing equipment. Here's your snorkel. That's for using right at the surface, so you can float with your face under water. But here's the real McCoy. This is your scuba-diving gear. With these things you can go anywhere under water, because you don't have to keep coming up for air. But before you use scuba equipment you really have to know what you're doing, or you can get into real trouble, man.”

“Trouble,” agreed Homer.

“You said it. You have to wear this depth gauge so you know where you're at, and this watch so you know how long you've been down. And then of course you have to know how to come up from way down deep so you don't get the bends.”

The bends. Homer found himself remembering the anguished face in the newspaper clipping in the library of the Whaling Museum, and he winced. Maybe it was the bends that had killed that poor kid who had been diving down to the wreck of the
Andrea Doria.
“What about this stuff over here?” he said, turning to the Ping-Pong table, where Ensign Hawkins had laid out a neat row of weapons with pistol handles and long shafts ending in sharp steel tips.

“Those are your spear guns. Different types for different situations, different sizes of fish.”

“What are these rubber things for on this one? Oh, wait a minute, I know. They're slingshots. Right?”

“That is correct. Under water the density is a whole lot greater than in air, so you need extra force to get anything going fast enough to hit a fish with enough impact to kill it. That's what all these devices do. They've all got a spring of a rubber sling or a CO2 cartridge or something like that to dart the spear into the fish.”

“I notice the points are different. Some of them have toggles, like the harpoons in the Whaling Museum. Some of 'em don't. What's the difference?”

“Well, it's just the opposite of what you might think. The big fish take a straight tip. The toggle thing with the swinging barb is for the smaller fish. It punches a big hole in the fish, so with the kind of force a big fish can exert on it, it would pull right out. So you use this straight tip here on a big fish.”

“How big is big?”

“Oh, you get a really big fish of one hundred pounds or more, then you need this straight tip. But you don't get them around here much. I'm going to take this gun to California with me on my next leave, go after tuna.”

“So for a hundred-and-twenty-pounder you'd probably use a straight tip?”

“What kind of fish do you mean?”

“Angelfish,” mumbled Homer, after a moment's thought.

“Angelfish? Go on. They don't come any bigger than my hand.”

“Well, anyway, for this big fish you'd use a straight tip? Could you pull it out from far away?”

“Pull it out? No, of course not. You're trying to land the fish, aren't you? What good would it do just to kill it and leave it there?”

“Well, heh heh, in case you weren't hungry or something.”

“Well, I certainly don't think it would be very sportsmanlike to go around killing fish just for the hell of it, and then leave the carcasses around to rot. What kind of freak are you anyway?”

“Just ignorant,” said Homer humbly, “and I want to know more. Tell me which of these spear points you would use if you didn't want to make a big gaping hole in the fish, this big hun-dred-and-twenty-pound fish, and you just wanted to kill it and then pull your spear point back again?”

“Jesus. Well, I guess if you were dumb enough to want to do that, you'd maybe use this one here, this little one. It's for small game, close-up, but it would probably kill a big fish. You'd never bag it, though.” He was looking at Homer thoughtfully.

“Say,” said Homer, “it just occurs to me—what if you were using a spear gun in the air instead of in the water? Suppose you were aiming at a hundred-and-twenty-pound fish that was up there out of the water, say about ten or twenty yards away—what kind of spear gun would you use then? The thing would be a lot more powerful and deadly in the air, wouldn't it?”

“This hundred-and-twenty-pound fish is out of the water?”

“You know,” said Homer insanely, “like a porpoise! Jumping up out of the water!”

“Porpoises are protected by the state,” said Ensign Hawkins. His manner was becoming hostile.

“Well, then, suppose I used it against some land animal, like a deer or something. What would I use to kill it and then be able to pull the spearhead out again?”

“Are you sure you're not talking about a
human being?”
guessed Ensign Hawkins shrewdly, his breath beginning to come fast. “I think you are planning the murder of a human being, and I'm not going to be a party to it. If you think I'm going to answer any more questions, you've got another think coming, brother.”

Homer sighed. “Look, you jerk, I'm trying to figure out how a murder was done, not how to do one.” Then he explained what he was up to. Ensign Hawkins was extremely doubtful at first, but when he was finally won over, his eyes lit up.

“Well,” he said, “why didn't you say so right away? Yes, of course I remember. That woman that was killed at the lighthouse during the eclipse. You mean you think somebody might have done it from the water with a spear gun?”

“That's one possibility I'm exploring.”

“Well, say, now! I tell you what I would have used, if it was me.” Ensign Hawkins's one long eyebrow was rising with excitement. “This spear gun here—this one with the spring action and the plain tip. Only I'd practice for a while on a target that had about the same holding capacity as the human body and the same density and everything, and I'd figure out the distance, and how hard to cock it and so on, and I'd really practice—because if you were only accustomed to underwater shooting you might get your aim all wrong. Say, these things would be really deadly, I'm telling you. They're bad enough under water.”

Homer picked up the spear gun Ensign Hawkins was talking about and hefted it in his hand. It was light and strong, with a sharply honed steel tip.

“The big problem would be getting it to go straight in air,” said Hawkins. “You know what else I'd do? I'd get a big huge roast beef and use it for a target, because it would have more or less the same density as the body, wouldn't you think? Or do you think a woman's body might be more, like, soft and spongy?”

Ensign Hawkins patted his rib cage inquisitively, and Homer could feel the fatty muscle overlying his own stomach flinch. He wrote out a check for a full course of scuba-diving lessons and said good-bye.

But Ensign Hawkins hated to see him go. He accompanied Homer outside, happily describing various gruesome accidents of spearfishing history, until he saw Homer's car. “My God, man,” he said, “how long have you been driving around with that soft tire? Want me to pump it up for you? It's a long way back to town.”

Homer was desperate to get away. “No, no,” he said, “I'll stop at a place I saw on the road, a couple of gas pumps, not far from here. They'll have an air hose there.”

“Oh, you mean Boozer Brown's place. He's illegal. Not even supposed to be there. Pretty crummy place, if you ask me. Crummy guy too, you know what I mean? I wouldn't go there if I was you. And you ought to do something about that little muffler problem you've got there.”

“I know, I know,” said Homer. He made his engine roar loud enough to drown out Ensign Hawkins, who was still shouting at him cheerfully, and drove noisily away.

The car did feel funny. Now that Homer knew about his soft tire, the car felt funnier and funnier. By the time he had driven back to the place on Milestone Road where the wrecked cars and the gas pumps were, he was limping along slowly, hoping he didn't have a flat. He turned in and parked beside the air pump, squeezing into a narrow space between the pump and one of the wrecked cars, a station wagon with a splintered windshield and a bashed-in door. Clumsily he connected the hose to the tire and watched the pressure gauge.

“Wanshum gash?” A big slob of a man in filthy pants and a torn greasy T-shirt had come up behind him and was looking on genially. It was Boozer Brown, obviously. No wonder he had not appealed to the fastidious ensign. Homer was delighted to observe a smooth curved shape in Boozer's pocket. He must be carrying a hip flask like a gangster in an old movie.

“Sure, I need some gas,” said Homer, feeling he ought to pay the man back for the use of his hose, since the place certainly didn't seem to be a regular gas station at all. There was a sort of shack behind the gas pumps, but it was more like a house than a gas station, and not much like a house at that. Homer backed his car around to the gas pumps and leaned out the window making conversation, while Boozer filled him up. “Nasty little keepsakes you've got there,” said Homer, nodding at the wrecked cars.

“Oh, yeah, I'm in lotsha trouble becuzha them. That woman Min Magee, she wantsh me tarred and feathered. She shezh I'm deshtroying the najural bewdy of the island. Wanzh me to put up a fensh. Cosh me a thouzhand bucksh. Old battleaxsh, why doezhn't she juzh look the other way? Shmy playzhe, I oughta be able to do what I want.”

Homer studied the nearest car, the station wagon with the shattered windshield and the twisted door. “Well, I think maybe it's a good idea to have these things around where people can see them,” he said. “Cautionary sculpture. A lesson to us all.”

“Thash what I shaid. A lesshun. Shpeshly for the kidzh. Show 'em shpeed killzh. Coursh, that one wazhn't shpeed, exzhackly. That one wazh shomebody'zh dirty lil practical joke.”

“Practical joke?” said Homer, looking at the wreck. “Some sense of humor. Was anybody hurt?”

“No. Wazh a miracle.” Boozer leaned in the front window, and Homer, gasping for air, leaned back as far as he could. “Belonged to that novelisht, whashizname, Jozheph Green. Only he wazhn't driving. Car hit a telephone pole on the shide away from the driver, sho nobody wazh hurt.”

Homer gaped at Boozer's bleary eyes and inhaled his suffocating breath. “It was Joe Green's car? What—do you mean somebody did something to his car? For a joke?”

“I'll show you. Come on in. Took it inshide for a keepshake. Here, come right on in.”

Homer walked through the open garage door that was the entrance to Boozer's house and looked around in pleased surprise. The inside was half garage, half bachelor's quarters, with a sink, a grubby refrigerator, a shower stall, a toilet, a sofa, a desk, a stove and a Coke machine arranged around a grease pit.

“Here it izh on the wall. Shee thizh thing? Itzha tie rod. Keepsha front wheelzh connected. You know. Well, I shuppozhe itsh pozhible the adjushment link could work looshe by itshelf, but take a look at that bolt there. Shee how clean the fredzh are?”

“Freds?”

“Zhredzh. Threadzh. You know.”

“Oh, the threads!”

“Shomebody loozhened the cashle nut, sho the bolt would fall out. It mushta been loozhened all at onshe. Thash why itsh sho shiny. If it had worked looshe by itshelf, it'd be moshly rushty.”

Homer felt a surge of something like joy. “Who was driving?” he said, trying not to sound too eager, too interested.

“Fella named Tillinghasht, neighbor of Green'zh. Green muzhta had a grudge againsht Tillinghasht, that'zh my opinion. Green loozhened the cashle nut and loaned Tillinghasht hizh car, and pretty shoon there wazh Tillinghasht driving along the Polpish Road with the shteering all gone to hell.”

“When did it happen? Do you remember when the accident happened?”

“Sure I do. It wazha night the Boshton Bruinzh beat the Red Wingzh for the Shtanley Cup. I wazh watching on TV. I wazh mad azh hell. All the other guyzh with wreckerzh were buzhy, they shaid. They couldn't go pick up the car. Well, you know azh well azh I do why they were buzhy—they were watching the playoffsh too—sho I had to go. Mished the besh game of the sheazhon.”

Homer drove home rejoicing, after promising to come back and have a new muffler installed and his transmission and differential checked and his oil filter changed and his chassis lubricated and his radiator drained and flushed. The man was a genius, an automotive genius. His illegal garage was sacred as a church.