knee-length shorts and a coral-colored knit shirt with a Sunrise Scuba logo. She scanned the four of them and asked, “Carter?”
“That’s me,” Virgil said, half-raising a hand.
She looked him over—T-shirt, cargo shorts, worn tennis shoes, hair on his shoulders—and asked, “What’s with . . .” She waved a hand at Lange, Regio, and Rae.
Virgil looked at Lange and said, “I thought you explained all of this?”
“The basics,” Lange said. “Told them that we wanted to check your qualifications.”
Virgil turned back to Andrews. “Here’s the thing. I’m supposed to train this rich guy in the Bahamas. He wants to be sure I can do it, because he doesn’t want to drown.”
“Why didn’t he hire us?” the bald man asked. “We can go to the Bahamas.”
“’Cause he’s my uncle,” Virgil said. “My mom suggested that I could train him. He’s skeptical. These two guys . . .” he tipped his head at Lange and Regio, “. . . are supposed to check out you, before you’re checking out me.”
“Seems a weird way to go about it,” Andrews said.
“Well, it is,” Virgil agreed. “I had a little legal trouble in Montana and my mom wants to get me away from my friends up there. She got Jerry to hire me.”
“Jerry?”
“Uncle Jerry.”
“What do Matt and Marc do . . .”
“They’re, uh, Uncle Jerry’s . . . uh . . .”
“Security team,” Rae said. “Part of it, anyway.”
Andrews looked at Regio and Lange and said, “Okay. I’ll buy that. Still seems strange.”
“You don’t have to jump through your ass trying to figure out who we work for and why, you just gotta take Willy down to the bottom of the ocean and come back up and tell us if he’s a bullshitter,” Regio said, in a voice that approximated a snarl. “That’s all. That’s why we’re renting your whole boat and your whole day and night.”
The bald man said, “We don’t take American Express.”
Regio said, “We’re paying cash. Up front.”
The bald man, quickly: “Let me welcome you to Sunrise Scuba.”
* * *
Regio put a thin stack of fifty-dollar bills on the counter and said to Virgil, “We’ve got rooms across the highway. Got one for you and Ally, since you’ll be out after dark. No point in going back tonight.”
Neither Regio nor Lange wanted to go on a boat ride. Rae inquired about things to do on Key Largo. After a few suggestions from Andrews, she decided that if the local Publix market was a high point, she might as well get some sun.
Sunrise Scuba ran a 36-foot dive boat good for twelve divers; they powered out of the marina at two o’clock, headed to the reefs that paralleled the Key Largo coastline. The water was smooth and warm, crossed by a dozen other boats leaving long, streaming white wakes behind.
“Picked the perfect day for this,” Andrews said. The bald man, who was driving the boat, and whose name was Rolf, said, “We got a cold front coming, two days out. Looks like a rough one. That would have made things interesting.”
“I’m happy with smooth,” Rae said. “Catch a few rays . . . You guys brought some beer and sandwiches, right?”
“Do I look like a teetotaler?” Rolf asked.
* * *
Virgil would dive his twinset all day, while Andrews dove smaller aluminum eighties.
“I’m here to work you out, not lift weights,” she said to Virgil. “I gotta say, I got my doubts about you.”
Rae: “So—how many college courses you took in customer service skills?”
* * *
Rae watched as Virgil suited up. “Like the Speedo, sweetheart,” Rae said.
“So do I, actually,” Virgil said, as he pulled the dive skins up his legs. “I almost bought one of the slingshots, but, you know, I’m kinda body-shy.”
“Right,” Rae said. To Andrews: “Willy’s the least body-shy man you ever met. Not that he necessarily has anything to brag about.”
Virgil: “Hey!”
“I didn’t need to know any of that,” Andrews said. She watched as Virgil set up his equipment. He’d drilled with equipment setup every morning for a month and could do it with his eyes closed, with his toes.
When he was ready, she asked, “Well, at least you checked your pressures first thing. I look for that. When do you start getting narced?”
Virgil said, “At about a hundred and ten, I’m aware it’s in the background. At a hundred and thirty I’m there, but not a problem. I can do a hundred and fifty or a hundred and sixty and get the work done, but I’m narcing. Much deeper than