CHAPTER FIFTEEN
The dive shop didn’t have much of a sound system, just a small radio set on one of the shelves behind the front counter, and an MP3 player dock in the office. Ilya supposed Alicia must’ve listened to music through her computer, but that was nowhere near loud enough for what he wanted right now.
The heavy equipment had come in this morning while he was working on setting up another trip. The constant crashing and noise were making him crazy. That, and watching them destroy everything.
He wanted to listen to some music to drown out all the noise, but the best he could do was tune in to a scratchy soft-rock station that wasn’t loud enough to cover up the sound of a squirrel farting, much less three dump trucks and a bulldozer. Muttering curses, Ilya went to the front door to watch. It didn’t take long for them to clear away the pavilions and the bathhouse, neither of which had been in the greatest shape to begin with. Still, it stung to see them go down in a clatter of splintered wood that barely filled the back of one truck. The spaces left behind seemed so bare, especially with all the ground torn up. So far they hadn’t started taking down any trees, but that would be next, he thought, with another string of under-his-breath curses.
Back inside, Ilya pulled up his computer browser again to check confirmation e-mails. He had sent out the usual e-mail blast and put something up on the shop’s Connex page, but of the two dozen or so divers who usually made the trips with him, only four had responded with interest in the one he was planning now. One of the more popular dives was in Belize, a more expensive trip, to be sure, but always well attended. At least it always had been in the past.
Idly, he opened his phone to look at his messages. Specifically, the last from Theresa, which was a simple K. He swiped to delete it before he could stop himself, although he didn’t go so far as to also delete her from his contacts. He might want to talk to her again, he thought. He might need a ride home.
He might need . . . something.
He scrolled through other messages, deleting most of them. Some had no contact information, others a simple word-or-two description. Very few had both a first and last name, and the sight of so many hopeful or desperate or angry or dismissive messages connected to nothing, barely even memories, disgusted him. When had he gotten so casual about all this? he wondered. Swipe, delete, swipe, and delete. Why did it seem to matter so much that he wasn’t that guy anymore?
It had nothing to do with long, dark, curly hair, golden-amber eyes, and a sharp wit, he told himself. Nothing to do with those kisses at the foot of the stairs. And absolutely not related at all to the fact that Theresa had been there for him when he needed her, something he didn’t want to trust but could not make himself forget.
He was so caught up in his phone that Ilya didn’t hear the bell over the shop’s front door jingle, but at the sound of a hollered greeting, he went out front to greet a familiar face. “Hey, Deke. Good to see you.”
Deke had been coming to Go Deep since they’d opened it. Today he wore a pair of battered board shorts, flip-flops, and a tank top, even though the temperature outside couldn’t have been higher than the low sixties. He gave Ilya a grin and two thumbs-up.
“Hey, man. Patty’s supposed to be meeting me here. We figured we’d get in a dive today, but what the hell’s going on over there?”
Ilya went around the back of the counter to pull out the standard release forms divers had to fill out every time they went under. “Someone’s going to build some condos over there.”
“No shit, man, really? I mean, I thought I heard something like that, but wow, it’s really happening? The hotel, too?” Deke scrawled his signature on the form and ran a hand through his shaggy hair. “Get out.”
“Alicia sold her part of the business. Yeah. So it’s just me hanging on.” Ilya punched a few numbers into the register. “You want a daily pass or another season pass?”
Deke shrugged. “I dunno, man. You tell me.”
“Shit,” Ilya said wearily, thinking ahead to the very real possibility that there wasn’t going to be any season. “Tell you what. Dive’s on me today. I need to get in the water.”
“You sure? Me and Patty, we don’t mind paying. I mean, free’s good, too,” Deke said with a smile, “but I’m not trying to jack you out of the daily rate.”
“You guys have been coming to Go Deep since the beginning. And it’s just me now, so I get to be generous.”
Behind Deke, the door opened again. Patty was already wearing her wet suit, unzipped and folded down to the waist. She carried her tank with her. “Hey, Ilya. I’m gonna need a fill.”
“On the house,” Ilya said. “Along with the dive.”
Patty gave Deke a look. “Huh? You sure?”
“Yeah. Special appreciation gift for longtime customers.” Ilya’s smile felt like it was going to crack the corners of his mouth. “Consider it a bonus for making it past all the construction.”
Patty nodded, expression serious. “Yeah, I heard about the hotel. I wondered if that was going to affect you at all.”
“They said it wasn’t. But it will,” Ilya said.
“Could be good?” Deke asked. “Bring more people in?”
Ilya didn’t want to get into all the ways this deal could end up being bad for the business. He didn’t want to think about it, to be honest. He wanted to slip into chilly waters and float with nothing but the sound of his heartbeat in his ears.
Less than an hour later, they were all suited up, tanks filled. Go Deep did not permit solo diving. The liability insurance on that had always been far more than they could justify, and even Ilya, who admitted he could be a bit of a bastard when it came to playing by the rules, knew how easily a solo dive could go bad. Still, Deke and Patty had come to do their own thing, so as soon as they were in the water, he held back and waved them toward the sunken helicopter while he went a little lower to let himself drift along his personal favorite attractions.
The 1987 Volkswagen Golf was nothing exciting. It had been Ilya’s first car, inherited from Babulya when she decided she no longer felt comfortable driving. He’d driven it for years before no amount of spit or prayers could keep it running. It had become the first attraction he and Alicia sank.
He pushed himself toward it now. The stream of silver bubbles rippled around him as he ran a gloved hand along the pitted metal. At one time, the car had been a deep navy blue, but time had worn it to a dull, deep gray. They’d taken out the seats before sinking it, stripped the insides to bare metal, and taken out the glass to prevent divers from ever accidentally or on purpose putting a fist through it and cutting themselves open to bleed to death in eighty feet of spring-fed water. Now he ran his hands along the side of the car as he swam around it. If he turned slightly, he’d be able to see the looming form of the helicopter where Deke and Patty were exploring. He wasn’t expecting to see anything in the opposite direction, and certainly not a flash of orange and black on the car’s other side.
He wasn’t expecting the push of water being displaced by something swimming close to him. Close and big. Really big.
Ilya had been confronted with sharks, barracuda, and stingrays as big as his entire body. Ugly, aggressive electric eels. But all those creatures were in the ocean, where you’d expect to run into them, where you’d be on guard for them. Nothing like that should be down here. There were quarries that supported fish. Carp, pike, perch, and bass. In the plans he’d looked over from this development corporation, there’d been information in there about seeding the quarry with “fishable wildlife,” but he and Alicia had never done that.
Another push of water swirled around him. Something flickered just out of view on the other side of the car. Impossibly, the car itself vibrated, like something was rubbing against it. Something big enough to shift it.
Ilya had been diving for years. He’d taught hundreds of classes, certified hundreds of divers. He knew the dangers of panicking and how to avoid it, but here he was with his breath coming swift and shallow as he flailed in the water, trying to get away from the car. Another thrum came from the Golf. A looming dark form showed itself through the windows, unclear but shimmering.
Nothing that big should be down here. Nothing that could swim or move, nothing that could start toward him. Ilya heard the rush and swoosh of blood in his ears. He knew to stay calm, but right then, all he could think about was getting away.
Despite himself, a shout lurched out of his mouth around his mouthpiece. Bubbles. The feeling he could not breathe. He spun in the water, kicking.
In seconds, firm hands gripped him, and he was pulled gently to the surface, where they broke the water, and he tore away his mouthpiece to gasp in gulps of air. Something brushed his legs, and he screamed hoarsely, jerking them upward while Deke shouted in response. Patty had not surfaced with them but broke a second or so later.
He was going to drown, Ilya thought. He was going to get pulled under and eaten by it. The stories he’d been telling for years were true.
“Chester . . . ,” he managed to say.
“C’mon, man.” Deke took him under one arm and got him swimming toward the end of the dock. It was only a few feet, a few minutes, and by the time they got there, Ilya was already remembering how to breathe.
Embarrassed, he shook off Deke’s help getting up the ladder. He tossed off his mask and sat on the edge of the dock, looking over the edge, convinced he was going to see the gaping maw of an overgrown, mutant goldfish devour Patty. He didn’t breathe easy until she was up the ladder, too, kneeling next to him and squeezing his shoulder.
“You okay?”
“I saw it.” Ilya looked at her confused expression and started to laugh. “All these years, all the stories—hell, I made most of ’em up. But I saw it.”
Patty looked confused. “You saw what?”
“The goldfish. Chester.”
Patty snorted laughter. “You’re full of it. That was just something you spread around to get people to dive here.”
“No. I saw it. It’s enormous. It’s almost as big as I am. It was behind the Golf.” Ilya turned his head and spat. “Shit. I think I almost blacked out.”
Patty sat back. “That’s crazy.”
“I saw it once,” Deke said seriously. “Oh, back about seven years ago. I was out with one of the night classes you guys used to run. I was over by the copter. Had my flashlight. I shone it down, you know, just to see if I could get a glimpse of the bottom, but you can’t there—it’s what, seventy, eighty feet?”
“Something like that,” Ilya said.
“What the hell are you both talking about?” Patty asked.
“Back in high school, we all went to the carnival together,” Ilya said. “Played that game with the Ping-Pong balls and the goldfish, you know? Jenni Harrison won a fish. A big, fat orange one. She named it Chester. But she got tired of taking care of it, right, because goldfish are dirty. Their tanks are always gross. So she brought it out to the quarry, and she threw it in. And he’s been here ever since. Growing.”
Patty pursed her lips. “Hmmm.”
“There was a dude in France,” Deke said solemnly. “Pulled a thirty-pound goldfish out of a lake.”
Patty rolled her eyes. “You’re both so full of it.”
“I saw it on the Internet, it’s true,” Deke said again. “And I totally saw the one Ilya’s talking about once, right in my flashlight beam. Huge goldfish, swimming away like it didn’t give one good goddamn.”
“It was a story we told people, but I’ve never . . . I never saw him. I mean, I didn’t really think . . .” Ilya let himself fall back onto the dock, staring up at the sky.
“Now the goldfish on your logo makes a lot more sense,” Patty said. “I always figured it was just a fish because, well, water.”
“No, it’s the carnival goldfish named Chester that Jenni threw in the quarry.” Ilya shuddered and ran both hands through his hair. “It was huge. It was real. I didn’t imagine it.”
Jennilynn had gone and died, changing everything, and the fish had lived.
“I believe you,” Deke said. “But next time, do me a favor and don’t lose your shit over it, man. You scared me. Even if it’s really big, it’s still only a goldfish. Right?”
It was more than that, not that he’d ever be able to explain it to Deke. Or to anyone. Not even to himself.
“I was stupid,” Ilya agreed. “Sorry.”
“It can happen to anyone. That’s why you don’t dive alone.” Patty slapped her thighs with both hands and then shaded her eyes to look across the water and the parking lot to the construction. “That’s where they’re going to build the condos, huh?”
Ilya had taken enough deep breaths by now that he was a little calmer, at least about the goldfish. The idea of the condos had his chest going tight again. “That’s the plan, apparently. They don’t have to ask my permission.”
Patty gave him a sympathetic smile. “It might turn out okay, Ilya. I mean, maybe seeing Chester after all these years when you thought he was just a story . . . maybe that’s a sign, right? It’s all going to be okay?”
“Sure. Maybe.” Ilya had been raised by two women superstitious enough to have put the belief of signs into him. The question was, What did it mean? “You guys going back in?”
“Nah. I gotta get going. But hey, man, about the Belize trip.” Deke hesitated. “I know I said I was interested, but I can’t make it. It’s a lot of money, and I’m trying to save up for a new truck. And umm, well . . .”
“We’re getting married,” Patty said matter-of-factly. “So I told him that maybe we can go next year, but this year we have a lot of bills. Sorry, Ilya.”
There went two of the four who’d expressed an interest. That was it. He was screwed.
“Mazel tov,” Ilya said anyway. Just because he could be a dick didn’t mean he always had to be.
Far out in the water, something splashed. A glint of orange flashed. They all looked, but nothing was there.