Pressure Drop by Peter Abrahams

morning, they take them.
    PLAINTIFF : Is this one of the tanks in question?
    WITNESS : What question?
    PLAINTIFF : Is this one of the tanks you filled? The stenographer is unable to record a nod. Answer aloud. Is this one of the tanks?
    WITNESS : Yeah.
    PLAINTIFF : Note that the air tank, bearing the Zombie Bay Club logo—this ZB with the silhouette of a descending scuba diver—and numbered 27, is entered into evidence as Exhibit D. Now then, Mr. Wickham, can you recall the number of the other tank?
    WITNESS : 28.
    PLAINTIFF : And where is tank number 28?
    WITNESS : I don’t know.
    PLAINTIFF : You don’t know? Isn’t it true that number 28, filled, like number 27, with poisoned air, went to the bottom of the ocean on the back of the man who showed you the French dive card? The stenographer cannot record a shrug, Mr. Wickham. Did the tank go to the bottom?
    MR . RAVOUKIAN : Objection. The witness is being asked for speculation.
    JUDGE : Sustained.
    The judge had sustained many of Ravoukian’s objections, allowing him to lop off this or that appendage of the plaintiff’s case. But he hadn’t been able to touch the core of the lawsuit: that tank number 27, belonging to the Zombie Bay Club and last filled on the Zombie Bay compressor, then rented to Mr. Hiram Standish, Jr., of New York for twenty-five dollars, had contained, according to laboratory analysis, a 7 percent level of carbon monoxide, which, because of the effect of submersion on the partial pressures of gases, had caused Mr. Standish to fall into a coma from which he would never emerge.
    How had it happened? Ravoukian had asked that again and again. The compressor was tested and found to be working perfectly, although as plaintiff’s counsel had observed, there was no proof that it hadn’t been repaired between the time of the accident and the test. Moxie swore that he had followed the usual procedure—the doors and windows of the compressor room had been opened during the fill, allowing the circulation of air. But there was only Moxie’s word for it. It was also possible that a car with its engine running might have been parked outside while the tank was being filled, and that the prevailing wind could have blown the exhaust gases into the compressor room. None of this mattered, according to the plaintiff’s attorney—it wasn’t necessary for him to show exactly how the negligence had occurred, only that it had. The judge had agreed.
    One million one hundred thousand. U.S.
    Matthias closed the file and replaced it in the drawer. He sat for a while looking at nothing. Then he turned off the light and looked at nothing in the dark.
    Later he rose and found the bottle of Mount Gay. He took it out to the deck. A front was moving in from the east. The sea breezes blew harder, merged, became a strong wind. A solid line of thick pearly edged cloud slid over the stars. Soon the only lights left were Hew’s, at the top of the Bluff, and a faint yellow flicker from the direction of Two-Head Cay. Two-Head Cay was owned by Hiram Standish’s family, a fact that Matthias hadn’t known until the trial, but Ravoukian had discovered that no one except the caretakers, Gene Albury and his wife, had lived there for many years, and that Standish hadn’t been there before his arrival at Zombie Bay.
    The wind blew. Hew’s light went out. Clouds covered Two-Head-Cay. Matthias threw the empty bottle into the darkness. It arced out of sight and made no splash that he could hear.
    Something rustled in the sea grapes; a bent form moved unsteadily on the path up the Bluff. “Nottage?”
    The shadow was still. “Don’ scare me like dat,” said Nottage in his deep, ragged voice. After a long pause he asked: “You got a drink?”
    â€œAll gone. Maybe you should get some sleep. Krio wants grouper tomorrow.”
    â€œI ain’ sleepy. An’ I got my own drink.” Liquid gurgled.