Chapter 21
September 30
A Salesman Calls
I EXPECTED the dredge to be gone when I walked out onto the porch. It wasn’t. I think I was relieved, but I was also disappointed, and although I am not quite certain about my being relieved, I am quite certain about my being disappointed. Dexter’s skiff was just visible in the distance, and I could hear the hum of its outboard motor. Dexter was on his way, and as he drew nearer I could see that he looked eager to get to work. What had gotten into that guy?
Artie came out onto the porch carrying a cup of coffee. He perched on the railing, drank his coffee, and observed Dexter. There was something about the intense, precise, entirely unemotional way he regarded Dexter that made my palms sweat and my blood run cold. I was going to become an accessory to an act that I couldn’t condone, however much I might desire it.
“Look — Artie,” I said, “I know that Lou asked you to come out here and — ah — take care of this problem we’ve got, but I think — well — I may have a problem with the way you’re going to take care of the problem.”
“Really? What do you want me to do — sink it? Blow it up?”
“I — um — I thought — ”
“I know. The Demolition Man. Lou’s got a name for everybody, but sometimes they’re, let’s say, inaccurate.”
“You mean you’re not — ”
“Not what?”
I might have said, “ — you’re not Rockwell Kingman,” but I said,
“ — you’re not going to actually — ”
“Actually what?”
“Actually, you know, remove it.”
“Remove it myself?”
“Yes. Sink it. Blow it up. Demolish it.”
“Nah. My buddy Hamlet, calls me the Demolition Man because I was in underwater demolition in the service and because I’ve engineered a few corporate takeovers of the buy-and-destroy type — which have made us both some money, by the way.”
“Oh,” I said. “I see.” I must have sounded relieved, because he laughed. “So now I know why he calls you the Demolition Man, but why do you call him Hamlet?”
“Oh — because he’s made a career out of wringing his hands over things in a Hamlet kind of way, you know what I mean?”
“Yeah,” I said, though I didn’t, and I hadn’t seen any evidence of Lou’s being much of a handwringer, but I was glad to hear him confirm my original impression of Lou as a grumpy guy, since the continued shortage of obvious, external evidence of grumpiness had threatened to force me to modify my belief that he really was a grumpy guy who was hiding his essential grumpiness behind a smile. Hamlet? Well, well.
“Listen,” he said, in a no-worries-no-kidding tone. “I’m not going to do anything but make a few phone calls. That’s all. I know some people. They know some people. I’ll make some requests. I’ll ask some questions. I’ll call in some favors.”
“Okay,” I said, and I have to admit that at that moment I was very disappointed. Blowing the damned dredge up seemed a far more certain cure than making a few phone calls.
“Don’t worry about it,” he said.
“No worries, no kidding,” I said.
“What?”
“That’s our motto.”
[to be continued]
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