Bermuda Schwartz by Bob Morris Page A

asks.
    â€œI was.”
    â€œThen I need to take a look at your vest.”
    â€œAnd I need to know who you are.”
    The bearded man looks briefly startled, but he recovers with a smile.
    â€œOh, my apologies,” he says, sticking out a hand. “Dr. Michael Frazer, with the Ministry of Environment. I’m curator of wrecks.”
    â€œCurse of the wrecks is more like it,” says Teddy. “A goddamn plague on us all.”
    Frazer ignores him, shaking his head as if to say he’s grown accustomed to being cussed and it doesn’t really bother him.
    â€œCurator of wrecks?” I say. “Interesting title.”
    Frazer shrugs.
    â€œAnd an interesting job to go with it,” he says. “But you know that old Scottish curse.”
    â€œMay you live in interesting times?”
    â€œThat’s it.” Frazer smiles. “And well applied to what I do.”
    He points to my BCV.
    â€œMay I?”
    â€œKnock yourself out.”
    He goes through all the pockets.
    â€œThank you,” he says when he’s done.
    He steps toward the bench where Teddy’s vest sits.
    â€œMay I, Sir Teddy?”
    â€œWhat is this, some bloody child’s game? Mother, may I?” Teddy says it with a sneer. “Just finish up with it, will you?”
    Frazer goes through Teddy’s vest, finds nothing. Sitting next to it on the bench is Teddy’s dive bag.
    â€œThat your dive bag?” asks Frazer.
    â€œYou saw me climb out of the water with it, didn’t you? And you saw me put it down. Yes, it’s my dive bag.”
    â€œThen I’d like to have a look in it, too.”
    â€œYou’ve arse-ended everything else on my boat,” says Teddy. “Might as well stick your hands in there, too.”
    Frazer picks up the dive bag. He unzips it, removes the ice pick and the Ping-Pong paddle. He casts a suspicious look at Teddy.
    â€œWhat?” says Teddy. “There a law saying I can’t carry the tools of my trade?”
    â€œYou know the law, Sir Teddy. No disturbance of an archaeological site without proper permit.”
    â€œOnly disturbance here is you.”
    Frazer lets it roll. He turns the dive bag inside out. There’s nothing else in it. He puts it back on the bench.
    â€œSatisfied?” says Teddy.
    â€œYes, thank you,” says Frazer. “We’ll be on our way.”
    â€œDamn right you will,” says Teddy.
    Frazer hops aboard his boat and casts off the lines. The young man takes the wheel and fires the engine.
    The boat moves slowly away. When it’s at a distance where its wake won’t rock us, the boat throttles up with a loud
va-room
and hits its planing speed.
    Teddy watches the boat until it becomes just a speck on the water.
    â€œLet’s haul anchor,” he says. “We’re heading in.”

23
    Â 
    By the time we return to shore and load into his car for the drive back to Cutfoot Estate, Teddy Schwartz seems to have shaken his sour mood.
    I ride shotgun. Boggy takes the backseat. And as we bump along, the conversation soon turns to Michael Frazer’s surprise inspection of
Miss
Peg.
    â€œAh, the bastard’s just doing his job, I suppose,” says Teddy. “Still, I don’t see why the government has to interfere with tradition.”
    â€œThe salvaging tradition, you mean?”
    â€œThat exactly,” says Teddy. “Generations of Bermudians have been going out in these waters to find what they can find. There’s hardly an old-time family here on the Rock doesn’t have a little trinket of some sort that was plucked from the sea.”
    â€œIt’s like having your own personal treasure chest out there, huh?”
    â€œHa!” snorts Teddy. “That’s what the world would like to believe, anyway. That we treasure salvors just went out for a nice swim and came back rich men.”
    â€œDidn’t work like that, huh?”
    â€œNo, the way