My Name is Legion Page 10

  While this made it even more obvious to me that things were not what they had seemed at the time of the killings, it also caused me once again to consider the apparent nature of the attack. I thought of the photos I had seen of the bodies, of the medical reports I had read.

  Bitten. Chewed. Slashed.

  Arterial bleeding, right carotid ...

  Severed jugular; numerous lacerations of shoulders and chest ...

  According to Martha Millay, a dolphin would not go about it that way. Still, as I recalled, their many teeth, while not enormous, were needle-sharp. I began paging through the books, looking for photographs of the jaws and teeth.

  Then the thought came to me, with dark, more than informational overtones to it: there is a dolphin skeleton in the next room.

  Mashing out my cigarette, I rose then, passed through the doorway into the museum, and began looking about for the light switch. It was not readily apparent As I sought it, I heard the door on the other side of the room open.

  Turning, I saw Linda Cashel stepping across the threshold. With her next step, she looked in my direction, froze, and muffled the beginning of a shriek.

  It's me. Madison, I said. Sorry I alarmed you. I'm looking for the light switch.

  Several seconds passed. Then, Oh, she said. It's down in back of the display. I'll show you.

  She crossed to the front door, groped behind a component model.

  The lights came on, and she gave a nervous laugh.

  You startled me, she said. I was working late. An unusual thing, but I got backed up. I stepped out for a breath of air and didn't see you come in.

  I've got the books I was looking for, I said, but thanks for finding me the switch.

  I'll be glad to sign them out for you.

  I already did that, I said, but I left them inside because I wanted to take another look at the display before I went home.

  Oh. Well, I was just going to close up. If you want to stay awhile, I'll let you do it.

  What does it consist of?

  Just turning out the lights and closing the doors, we don't lock them around here. I've already shut the windows.

  Sure, I'll do that ... I'm sorry I frightened you.

  That's all right. No harm done.

  She moved to the front door, turned when she reached it, and smiled again, a better job this time.

  Well, good night.

  Good night.

  My first thought was that there were no signs of any extra work having come in since the last time I had been around, my second one was that she had been trying a little too hard to get me to believe her, and my third thought was ignoble.

  But the proof of the pudding would keep. I turned my attention to the dolphin skeleton.

  The lower jaw, with its neat, sharp teeth, fascinated me, and its size came close to being its most interesting feature. Almost, but not quite. The most interesting thing about it had to be the fact that the wires which held it in place were clean, untarnished, bright and gleaming at their ends, as if they had just recently been cut, unlike their more oxidized brethren everyplace else where the specimen had been wired.

  The thing I found interesting about the size was that it was just about right to make it a dandy hand weapon.

  And that was all. That was enough. But I fingered the maxillary and premaxillary bones, running my hand back toward the blowhole; I traced the rostrum; I gripped the jaw once more. Why, I did not really know for a moment, until a grotesque vision of Hamlet filtered into my mind. Or was it really that incongruous? A phrase out of Loren Eiseley came to me then: ... We are all potential fossils still carrying within our bodies the crudities of former existences, the marks of a world in which living creatures flow with little more consistency than clouds from age to age. We came from the water. This fellow I gripped had spent his life there. But both our skulls were built of calcium, a sea product chosen in our earlier days and irrevocably part of us now; both were housings for large brains, similar, yet different; both seemed to contain a center of consciousness, awareness, sensitivity, with all the concomitant pleasures, woes, and available varieties of conclusions concerning existence which that entailed, passing at some time or other within these small, rigid pieces of carbonate of lime. The only really significant difference, I suddenly felt, was not that this fellow had been born a dolphin and I a man, but only, rather, that I still lived, a very minor point in terms of the time scale onto which I had wandered. I withdrew my hand, wondering uncomfortably whether my remains would ever be used as a murder weapon.

  Having no further reason for being there, I collected my books, closed up, and cleared out.

  Returning to my cottage, I deposited the books on my bed table and left the small light burning there. I departed again by means of the back door, which let upon a small, relatively private patio, pleasantly situated right at the edge of the islet with an unobstructed view of the sea. But I did not pause to admire the prospect just then. If other people might step out for a breath of air, so could I.

  I strolled until I located a suitable spot, a small bench in the shadow of the dispensary. I seated myself there, fairly well hidden, yet commanding a full view of the complex I had but recently quitted. For a long while I waited, feeling ignoble, but watching anyway.

  As the minutes continued their parade, I came near to deciding that I had been mistaken, that the margin of caution had elapsed, that nothing would occur.

  But then the door at the far end of the office, the one through which I had entered on my initial tour of the place, opened, and the figure of a man emerged. He headed toward the nearest shore of the islet, then commenced what would have seemed but the continuance of a stroll along its edge to anyone just noticing him there. He was tall, around my height, which narrowed the field considerably, so that it was really almost unnecessary for me to wait and see him enter the cottage that was assigned to Paul Vallons, and after a moment see the light go on within.

  A little while later, I was in bed with my dolphin books, reflecting that some guys seem to have it made all the way around; and pumling and wondering, with the pied typecase Don had handed me, that I was ever born to set it right.

  The following morning, during the ambulatory, coffee-tropism phase of preconsciousness, I stumbled across the most damnable, frightening, item in the entire case. Or rather, I stepped over it, perhaps even on it, before its existence registered itself. There followed an appreciable time lag, and then its possible significance occurred to me.

  I stooped and picked it up: an oblong of stiff paper, an envelope, which had apparently been pushed in beneath the back door. At least, it lay near to it.

  I took it with me to the kitchenette table, tore it open, extracted and unfolded the paper it contained. Sipping my coffee, I read over the block-printed message several times;

  AFFIXED TO THE MAINMAST OF THE WRECK, ABOUT A FOOT BENEATH THE MUD

  That was all. That was it.

  But I was suddenly fully awake. It was not just the message, as intriguing as I naturally found it, but the fact that someone had selected me as its recipient. Who? And why?

  Whatever it was, and I was certain there was something, I was most disturbed by the implication that someone was aware of my extraordinary reasons for being there, with the necessary corollary that that person knew too much about me. My hackles rose, and the adrenaline tingles came into my extremities. No man knew my name; a knowledge of it jeopardized my existence. In the past, I had even killed to protect my identity.

  My first impulse was to flee, to throw over the case, dispose of this identity and lose myself in the manner in which I had become adept. But then I would never know, would never know when, where, how, why, and in what fashion I had been tripped up, found out. And most important, by whom.

  Also, considering the message again, I had no assurance that flight would be the end of things for me. For was there not an element of coercion here? Of tacit blackmail in me implied imperative? It was as if the sender were saying,
I know. I will assist. I will keep silent. For there is a thing you will do for me.

  Of course I would go and inspect the wreck, though I would have to wait until the day's work was done. No use speculating as to what I would find, although I would handle it most gingerly. That gave me the entire day in which to consider what I might have done wrong, and to decide upon the best means of defending myself. I rubbed my ring, where the death spores slept, then rose and went to shave.

  Paul and I were sent over to Station Five that day. Standard inspection and maintenance work. Dull, safe, routine. We scarcely got wet.

  He gave no indication of knowing that I was on to anything. In fact, he even started several conversations. In one, he asked me, Did you get over to the Chickcharny?

  Yes, I said.

  What did you think of it?

  You were right. A dive.

  He smiled and nodded, then, Try any of their specialities? he asked.

  Just had a few beers.

  That was safest, he said. Mike, my friend who died, used to go there a lot.

  Oh?

  I used to go with him at first. He'd take something and I'd sit around and drink and wait for him to come down.

  You didn't go in for it yourself?

  He shook his head.

  Had a bad experience when I was younger. Scared me. Anyway, so did he, there, I mean, several times, at the Chickcharny. He used to go in back, it's a sort of ashram back there. Did you see it?

  No.

  Well, he had a couple bad ones in there and we got in an argument about it. He knew the damn place wasn't licensed, but he didn't care. I finally told him he ought to keep a safe supply at the station, but he was worried about the damn company regulations against it. Which I think was silly. Anyhow, I finally told him he could go by himself if he wanted to go that badly and couldn't wait till the weekend to go someplace else. I stopped going.

  Did he?

  Only recently, he said. The hard way.

  Oh.

  So if you do go in for it, I'm telling you the same thing I told him: Keep your own around if you can't wait to go someplace farther and cleaner than that.

  I'll remember, I said, wondering then whether he might, perhaps, be on to something about me and be encouraging my breaking the company rules for purposes of getting rid of me. That seemed kind of far-out, though, a little too paranoiac a reaction on my part. So I dismissed it.

  Did he have any more bad ones? I asked.

  I think so, he said. I don't really know. And that was all he had to say on the subject. I wanted to ask him more things, of course, but our acquaintanceship was still such that I knew I would need an opening to get through, and he didn't give me any.

  So we finished up, returned to Station One, went our separate ways. I stopped by and told Davies I wanted a boat later. He assigned me one, and I returned to my cottage and waited until I saw him leave for dinner. Then I want back to the docks, threw my diving gear into the boat, and took off. This elaboration was necessary because of the fact that solo-diving was against the rules, and also because of the safety precautions Barthelme had enunciated to me that first day ... True, they applied only inside the area and the ship lay outside it, but I did not care to explain where I was going either.

  The thought had of course occurred to me that it might be a trap, set to spring in any of a number of ways. While I hoped my friend in the museum still had his lower jaw in place, I did not discount the possibility of an underwater ambush. In fact, I had one of the little death rods along with me, all loaded and primed. The photos had been quite clear. I did not forget. Nor did I discount the possibility of a booby trap. I would simply have to be very careful in my poking about.

  While I did not know what would happen if I were spotted solo-diving with company gear. I would have to count on my ability to talk or lie my way out of it, if catching me in this breach of domestic tranquility was what the note's author had had in mind.

  I came to what I thought to be the spot, anchored there, slipped into my gear, went over the side and down.

  The cool smoothness held me and I did my dance of descent, curious, wary, with a heightened feeling of fragility. Toward the bottom then, with steady, sweeping movements down, I passed from cool to cold and light to dark. I switched on my torch, shot the beam about.

  Minutes later, I found it, circled it, hunting about the vicinity for signs of fellow intruders. But no, nothing. I seemed to be alone. I made my way toward the hulk then, casting my light down the splintered length of the short-snapped mainmast. Small fish appeared, staging an unruly demonstration in the neighborhood of the gunwale. My light fell upon the layer of ooze at the base of the mast. It appeared undisturbed, but then I have no idea as to how long it takes ooze to settle.

  Coming up beside/above it then, I probed it with a thin rod I had brought along. After several moments, I was satisfied that there was a small, oblong object, probably metallic, about eight inches beneath the surface.

  Drawing nearer, I scooped away a layer. The water muddied, fresh material moving to fill the site of my excavation. Cursing mentally, I extended my left hand, fingers at full flex, slowly, carefully, down into the mud.

  I encountered no obstacles until I reached the box itself. No wires, strings, foreign objects. It was definitely metal, and I traced its outline: about six by ten by three inches. It was upended and held in place against the mast by a double strand of wire. I felt no connections with anything else, so I uncovered it, at least momentarily, for a better look.

  It was a small, standard-looking strongbox, handles on both ends and on the top. The wires ran through two of these loops. I shook out a coil of plastic cord and knotted it through the nearest one. After paying out a considerable length of it, I leaned down and used the pliers I had carried with me to sever the wires that held the box to the mast. Upward then, playing out the rest of the line behind me.

  Back in the boat and out of my gear, I hauled it, hand over hand, up from the depths. The movement, the pressure changes did not serve to set anything off, so I felt a little safer in handling it when I finally brought it aboard. I set it on the deck and thought about it as I unfastened and recoiled the line.

  The box was locked, and whatever was inside shifted around when I moved it. I sprung the lock with a screwdriver. Then I went over the side into the water, and holding on, reaching from there, I used the rod to flip back the lid.

  But for the lapping of the waves and the sounds of my breathing, there was silence. So I reboarded and took a look inside.

  It contained a canvas bag with a fold-down flap that snapped closed. I unsnapped it.

  Stones. It was filled with dozens of rather undistinguished-looking stones. But since people generally have a reason for going to that much trouble, there had to be a decent intrinsic value involved. I dried off several of them, rubbing them vigorously with my towel. Then I turned them around every which way. Yes, there were a few glints, here and there.

  I had not been lying to Cashel when he had asked what I knew about minerals and I had said, A little. Only a little. But in this instance it seemed that it might be enough. Selecting the most promising specimen for the experiment, I chipped away at the dirty minerals that sheathed the stone. Several minutes later, an edge of the material I had exposed exhibited great scratching abilities with the various materials on which I tested it.

  Someone was smuggling diamonds and someone else wanted me to know about it. What did my informant expect me to do with this information? Obviously, if he had simply wanted the authorities informed he would have done it himself.

  Knowing that I was being used for purposes I did not yet understand, I decided to do what was probably expected of me, inasmuch as it coincided with what I would have done anyhow.

  I was able to dock and unload the gear without encountering any problems. I kept the bag of stones wrapped in my towel until I was back in my cottage. No more messages had been slipped beneath the door. I repaired to the shower sta
ll and cleaned myself up.

  I couldn't think of anyplace really clever to hide the stones, so I stuffed the bag down into the garbage-disposal unit and replaced the drain cover. That would have to do. Before stashing it, though, I removed four of the ugly ducklings. Then I dressed and took a walk.

  Strolling near, I saw that Frank and Linda were eating out on their patio, so I returned to my place and made myself a quick, prefabricated meal. Afterward, I watched the sun in its descending for perhaps twenty minutes. Then, what seemed an adequate period having passed, I made my way back again.

  It was even better than I had hoped for. Frank sat alone, reading, on the now-cleared patio. I moved up and said, Hello.

  He turned toward me, smiled, nodded, lowered his book.

  Hello, Jim, he said. Now that you've been here a few days, how do you like it?

  Oh, fine, I said. Just fine. How is everything with you?

  He shrugged.

  Can't complain ... We were going to ask you over to dinner. Perhaps tomorrow?

  Sounds great. Thanks.

  Come by about six?

  All right.

  Have you found any interesting diversions yet?

  Yes. As a matter of fact, I took your advice and resurrected my old rock-hounding habits.

  Oh? Come across any interesting specimens?

  It just happens that I did, I said. It was really an amazing accident. I doubt whether anybody would have located them except by accident. Here. I'll show you.

  I dug them out of my pocket and dumped them into his hand.

  He stared. He fingered them. He shifted them around. For perhaps half a minute.

  Then, You want to know what they are, is that it? he asked.

  No. I already know that

  I see.

  He looked at me and smiled. Where did you find them? I smiled, very slowly. Are there more? he asked. I nodded.

  He moistened his lips. He returned the stones. Well, tell me this, if you will, what sort of deposit was it?

  Then I thought faster than I had at any time since my arrival. It was something about the way he had asked it that put my mind to spinning. I had been thinking purely in terms of a diamond-smuggling operation, with him as the natural disposer of the contraband stones. Now, though, I reviewed what scanty knowledge I did possess on the subject. The largest mines in the world were those of South Africa, where diamonds were found embedded in that rock known as kimberlite, or blue ground. But how did they get there in the first place? Through volcanic action, as bits of carbon that had been trapped in streams of molten lava, subjected to intense heat and pressure that altered their structure to the hard, crystalline form of a girl's best friend. But there were also alluvial deposits, diamonds that had been cut free from their resting places by the actions of ancient streams, often borne great distances from their points of origin, and accumulated in offshore pockets. That was Africa, of course, and while I did not know much offhand as to New World deposits, much of the Caribbean island system had been built up by means of volcanic activity. The possibility of local deposits, of the volcanic-pipe variety or alluvial, was not precluded.