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had eaten the previous evening, then sought the mouth of the stream
Vallons had sketched for me.
It took me about ten minutes to locate it, and I throttled down and made
my way slowly up its twisting course. Occasionally, I caught a glimpse of a
rough roadway running along the bank to my left. The foliage grew denser,
however, and I finally lost sight of it completely. Eventually, the boughs
met overhead, locking me for several minutes into an alley of premature
twilight, before the stream widened again, took me around a corner, and
showed me the place as it had been described.
I headed to the pier, where several other boats were moored, tied up,
climbed out, and looked around. The building to my right, the only building,
outside of a small shed, did extend out over the water, was a wood-frame
job, and was so patched that I doubted any of its original materials
remained. There were half a dozen vehicles parked beside it, and a faded
sign named the place THE CHICKCHARNY. Looking to my left as I advanced,
I could see that the road which had accompanied me was in better shape
than I would have guessed.
Entering, I discovered a beautiful mahogany bar about fifteen feet ahead of
me, looking as if it might have come from some ship. There were eight or
ten tables here and there, several of them occupied, and a curtained
doorway lay to the right of the bar. Someone had painted a crude halo of
clouds above it.
I moved up to the bar, becoming its only occupant. The bartender, a fat
man who had needed a shave yesterday as well as the day before, put
down his newspaper and came over.
"What'll it be?"
"Give me a beer," I said. "And can I get something to eat?"
"Wait a minute."
He moved farther down, checked a small refrigerator.
"Fish-salad sandwich?" he said.
"Okay."
"Good. Because that's all we've got."
He put it together, brought it over, drew me my beer.
"That was your boat I heard, wasn't it?" he asked.
"That's right."
"Vacationing?"
"No. I just started work over at Station One."
"Oh. Diver?"
"Yes."
He sighed.
"You're Mike Thomley's replacement, then. Poor guy."
I prefer the word "successor" to "replacement" in these situations, because
it makes people seem less like spark plugs. But I nodded.
"Yeah, I heard all about it," I said. "Too bad."
"He used to come here a lot."
"I heard that, too, and that the guy he was with worked here."
He nodded.
"Rudy. Rudy Myers," he said. "Worked here a couple years."
"They were pretty good friends, huh?"
He shook his head.
"Not especially," he said. "They just knew each other ... Rudy worked in
back." He glanced at the curtain.
"You know."
I nodded.
"Chief guide, high medical officer, and head bottle washer," he said, with
rehearsed levity. "You interested ... ?"
"What's the specialty of the house?"
"Pink Paradise," he said. "It's nice."
"What's it got?"
"Bit of a drift, bit of an up, the pretty lights."
"Maybe next time," I said. "Did he and Rudy go swimming together often?"
"No, that was the only time ... You worried?"
"I am not exactly happy about it. When I took this job nobody told me I
might get eaten. Did Mike ever say anything about unusual marine activity
or anything like that?"
"No, not that I can recall."
"What about Rudy? Did he like the water?"
He peered at me, working at the beginnings of a frown.
"Why do you ask?"
"Because it occurs to me that it might make a difference. If he was
interested in things like that and Mike came across something unusual, he
might take him out to see it."
"Like what?"
"Beats the hell out of me ... But if he found something and it was
dangerous, I'd like to know about it."
The frown went away.
"No," he said. "Rudy wouldn't have been interested. He wouldn't have
walked outside to look if the Loch Ness monster was swimming by."
"Wonder why he went, then?"
He shrugged.
"I have no idea."
I had a hunch that if I asked him anything else I just might ruin our
beautiful rapport. So I ate up, drank up, paid up, and left.
I followed the stream out to the open water again and ran south along the
coast. Deems had said it was about four miles that way, figuring from the
restaurant, and that it was a long, low building right on the water. All right.
I hoped she had returned for that trip Don had mentioned. The worst she
could do was tell me to go away. But she knew an awful lot that might be
worth hearing. She knew the area and she knew dolphins. I wanted her
opinion, if she had one.
There was still a lot of daylight left in the sky, though the air seemed to
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