The Deep

“He’ll be in his hole asleep, probably. But you might drop him a fish anyway.”

Sanders looked at Treece’s bandaged hand. “I don’t have to feed it to him, do I?”

“No, just lay it over his hole, or nearby.

He’ll smell it out.”

It took Sanders and Kevin two hours to place the ampules in the cave. Sanders was cold and tired, but Kevin, who wore nothing but bathing suit and weight belt-no wet suit, no flippers-seemed unaffected by the water or the work.

Gripping the diving platform and resting on the surface for a moment before hauling himself aboard the boat, Sanders saw Kevin take the last bag of ampules from Treece and, without a word, submerge.

“I thought he didn’t like the water. He’s a machine.”

“Hates it,” Treece said, “but you give him a task to do and that’s what he is, a machine. If I have heavy salvage work, he’s the one I take; got about ten horsepower inside him, and so much lard that he never gets cold. He’s something of a paradox: greedy as hell, but so surly he can’t work with the people who’ve got the money to pay him.”

“You’ll pay him for this?”

“Aye. He’ll want a hundred dollars, I’ll offer twenty, and we’ll settle for fifty.”

“Not bad wages.”

“No, but he’s good. I could get all manner of idiots for five an hour, but they’d take all bloody day at it, then go drink up the proceeds and blab all over the island about what they’ve been doing. Besides, Kevin doesn’t get much work. I like to do what I can.”

Sanders climbed into the boat and unzipped his wet suit. His chest and arms were goose flesh.

“Go on up and have a shower,” Treece said. “Kevin and I’ll finish up.”

Sanders shivered. “Okay.”

Treece took Sanders’ wet-suit jacket and hung it from a corner of the deckhouse roof.

“Sun’ll bake it warm before tonight.”

The walk up the hill warmed Sanders some, but not enough; he was still shivering when he reached the house. He poured himself a scotch and took it with him to the shower.

When he finished showering, he went to the bedroom. On the way, he caught a glimpse of Treece in the kitchen. He opened the bedroom door quietly-Gail was asleep-pulled on a pair of trousers, and put his wallet in a hip pocket.

Treece sat at the kitchen table, a glass of rum to his right, a pile of papers to his left, and the gold crucifix in front of him.

Sanders poured himself another drink. “Was it what you said? Fifty?”

“Aye.”

Sanders took two tens and a five from his wallet and put them on the table. “Our share.”

Treece contemplated the bills and said, “All right.” He tapped the crucifix with his finger.

“You’ve got that and a hell of a lot more, from your share of this.”

“What’s it worth?” Sanders had no idea of the value of Spanish gold. In metal value alone, there were probably seven or eight ounces of gold-maybe twelve hundred dollars’ worth. The gems were tiny.

“Roughly? If we wanted to sell it, if we could sell it, if we had an open market for it-roughly a hundred thousand dollars.”

“Jesus Christ!” Sanders’ hand jumped, and he spilled scotch on the table.

“Don’t go spending it, “cause more’n likely you’ll never see it. Before there’s a farthing, we’ll have to get the lot up, have it appraised, report it to the bloody government, decide if we want to sell any or all of it, negotiate with the bastards-which can take months-and then, maybe…”

“Still, a hundred thousand! Where’s the value?”

“Premium, mostly, and that’s another problem. Premium’s hard to set; it’s subjective. What’s workmanship worth?” Treece cradled the crucifix in his palm. “Damn, but those Dutch Jews were craftsmen!”

“Dutch Jews? I thought this came from South America.”

“It did. But most of the fine jewelry-the stuff for royalty-was made by Dutch Jews hired by the Spaniards and shipped over to the New World. The Spaniards and the Indians couldn’t do this kind of work. The other thing you pay for is provenance.

That’s what I’ve got to keep looking for, the bloody provenance.”

“Why?”

“Like I told you before, folks are manufacturing stuff left and right and passing it off as Spanish. You have to be able to prove, really prove, where it came from.” Treece slapped the pile of papers. “So it’s back to the bloody documents.”

“E.f. is a name, right? It has to be.”

Treece looked at Sanders as if he had uttered a remark of monumental stupidity.

Sanders flushed. “I mean… it’s not like the ‘D.g.” on the coin, or the other stuff, “King of Spain and the Indies.” E.f. is a person.”

“Aye, it’s a name. And in here I have the names of all the Spanish nobility in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. It’s not much help, but it’s a start.”

“Can I help?”

“No. It takes a practiced eye to know what to look for.” Treece handed the crucifix to Sanders. “Here’s a task for you: Figure out how Mr. Jesus comes apart.”

Sanders held the crucifix close to his face.

There was a faint hairline between the Christ’s neck and shoulders, and Sanders tried to turn the head. It didn’t budge. “I don’t know where to begin.” He took a sip of scotch, then failed to disguise a yawn.