“You’re right,” Max said. He sounded stunned. Shaking his head, dropping the imaginary cigar in an imaginary ashtray, he said, “I’m not used to innocence, it clouded my judgment. You saved me, Stan,” he went on, his agitation pushing him up onto his feet. “I owe you on that. I owe you a big one.”

Stan looked interested. “You do?”

Max spread his hands. “Name it. I know you come here to sell me a vehicle, but that—”

“Well, kinda, yeah,” Stan said, shifting gears, moving straight into plan B. “A beauty, actually, better than—”

“But that can wait,” Max said firmly. “I can see you got something in mind. What is it?”

“Well, as a matter of fact, Max,” Stan said, “I was gonna ask your advice.”

“Ask.”

“You see, I need a car, and—”

“You need a car?”

“This is a special car,” Stan explained, “with special kinds of modifications on it. I was thinking, the guys in your body shop—”

“Can do anything,” Max finished. “So long as you don’t need a vehicle more than, say, two, three weeks, my boys can give you whatever you want.”

“This is short-term,” Stan promised.

“Everything I do here is short-term,” Max said. “That’s what the customers refuse to accept. Whadda they want for fifteen ninety-five? Would they buy a TV set as old as these cars?”

“A good point,” Stan said. “Maybe you should put it in the advertising.”

“There are fine points of business, Stanley,” Max told him, “you’ll never understand. Tell me about this car you need. Fix up the engine? High speed?”

“Well, no,” Stan said. “The fact is, one thing we need is the engine taken out.”

Max looked at him. “Is this humor?” he asked. “Harriet keeps telling me about this stuff, humor; is that what this is?”

“Absolutely not,” Stan told him, and took the specifications out of his pocket. “Now, the most important thing is, the dimension side-to-side between the tires has got to be four feet, eight and a half inches, from the middle of the tread to the middle of the tread. The front tires got to be that wide apart, and the back tires.”

“Sure,” Max said.

“Then,” Stan said, “no engine. And either a convertible, or we cut the top off the car.”

“Cut the top off the car,” Max said.

“Well, here’s the list,” Stan said, and gave it to him. “You want to see the creampuff I brought?”

“In a minute.” Max studied the list, nodding slowly. “My boys are gonna laugh and laugh,” he said.

“But can they do it?”

“They can do anything,” Max repeated. “When do you need it?”

“In a hurry,” Stan said.

“How did I know?” Max put the list in his pocket. “So let’s see this creampuff you brought me.”

“And in appreciation for what you and your boys are doing,” Stan said as they went through Harriet’s office and out the back to go look at the Aston Martin, “I’m gonna let you call your own price on this one. Max, I’m almost giving it away!”

FORTY-TWO

“What time is it?” Judy murmured in his ear.

Doug Berry reared up on his elbows, rested his wrist on Judy’s nose, and looked at his waterproof, shockproof, glow-in-the-dark watch/compass/calendar. “Five to three,” he said.

“Oh!” she cried, suddenly moving beneath him on the life jackets spread on the bottom of his Boston Whaler much more enthusiastically than at any point before this. “Damn! The lesson’s over! Let’s go!”

“Judy Judy Judy,” Doug said, holding on to her bare shoulders. “I didn’t know I was finished.”

“It doesn’t matter when you’re finished,” she told him. “I pay for the lessons. And I have a waxing appointment this afternoon. Off, big boy.”

“Wait a second!” Doug stared around; all he needed was half a minute, less, he was sure of it. “Your hair’s stuck!” he announced, leaning his weight back down on her, lowering his face beside hers as though to help. “Stuck in this buckle here, be careful, you’ll h-h-h-hurt yourself, I’ll just get it-it-it-it loose, and you’re all-l-l-l-l-l-l, oh, buhbuhbuhbuh, AH!”

When the shivering stopped, he raised himself onto his elbows again, grinned down into her skeptical eyes, and said, “There. It’s loose now.”

He rolled off her, and they both sat up in the sunlight, Doug looking off toward the distant shore of Long Island, out across the Great South Bay, as Judy said caustically, “Are you satisfied now?”

“If you are, Judy,” he told her, grinning, not giving a shit anymore. “You’re paying for the lessons.”

She was. Judy was the wife of an ophthalmologist in Syosset, and this was the third year she’d come to Doug for diving lessons. All kinds of diving lessons. Each May first she’d appear, regular as clockwork, and would help pay his rent and divert his hours three days a week until the fifteenth of July, when she and her husband would go off for their month on St. Croix.

She was a good-looking woman in her late thirties, Judy, whose hard body was severely kept in trim with aerobics, jogging, Nautilus machines, and pitiless diets. The ruthlessness showed in her face, though, in the sharpness of her nose and the coldness of her dark eyes and the thinness of her lips, so it was unlikely anyone other than the ophthalmologist—who had no choice—would have willingly hung out with her over an extended period without something more than her companionship to be gotten out of it. Who salted her restless tail the rest of the year Doug had no idea, but his annual two-and-a-half months of the pleasure of her company was just about all he’d be able to stand.

May was still a little early for most water traffic on the bay, especially in midweek, except for the ubiquitous clammers and the occasional ferries over to Fire Island. It was easy at this time of year to find an anchorage in the shallow water of the bay away from other boaters, dive a bit, screw a bit, and thus while away the two hours of each lesson. Doug would have been happy to give her extra time today for free, since he had nothing else at all on his plate this afternoon, but, as usual, Judy’s self-maintenance program came first. Leg waxing. Right.

Doug started the motor and steered the small boat toward Islip, soon making out his own shack and dock straight ahead. Judy wasn’t much given to small talk, particularly over the roar of a 235 horse Johnson outboard, so they rode in silence—not particularly companionable—all the way to shore, and were almost there when Doug spotted, beyond the shack, a silver Jaguar V12 in his parking area, next to Judy’s black Porsche.

A customer! And a rich one, at that, judging from the car. So Judy’s wax job was a blessing in disguise, after all, and Doug was feeling almost kindly toward the bitch as he tied up at his dock and offered his hand to help her ashore. “See you Wednesday,” he said, smiling his professional smile.

“Mm,” she said, already thinking of other things. Off she marched while Doug finished tying up and removed the spent tanks from the boat.

She was already gone, in a cloud of dust, when Doug walked around to the front of the shack and looked at the two customers he’d least expected ever to see again. And particularly driving a car like that Jag.

Oh; MD plates.

“There you are,” said Andy.

John pointed accusingly at the door. “Your note says back by three.”

“And here I am,” Doug said as he unlocked his shop door. Leading the way inside, he said, “You two decided not to make the dive?”

“Oh, we made it,” John said, sounding disgusted, while Andy shut the door.

Doug was astonished. “You did?” He’d taken it for granted these two, no matter how much expert professional training he’d given them, would never survive a real dive in the actual world under uncontrolled conditions. But they’d done it, by golly, and they’d lived through it.

And now what? Hoping they weren’t here to try to sell the equipment back, Doug said, “Everything worked out real good, huh?”