My Time in the Sewer
you are a murderess or something- “Rouse yourself, my dear girl.”
- I’m afraid that our hunt’s over
- cudgeling his brain for some pretext
- captured by a group of angry citizens
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My time in the sewer does not bear speaking of. Suffice it to say that I made my way through the filthy pipe all the way to its outlet into the sea. I then spent a few minutes scrubbing myself clean with saltwater. Or as clean as one can get that close to raw sewage.
As luck would have it, my flume ride of effluent deposited me only a mile down the beach from the pier I’d been trying to reach anyway. I swam along parallel to the shore, dragging the submersible digging machine along. I arrived at the pier as the sun peeked over the horizon. I’d have to work fast if I wanted to claim my prize without being captured by a group of angry citizens.
The roar of an outboard motor cut through the crashing of the waves and there they were, John and Tessa, in a new zodiac, closing in on the pier. The engine cut out and I heard John say, “Rouse yourself, my dear girl.”
Tessa stretched and yawned as she sat up. With their attention on the pilings and the waves, neither had noticed me yet. I had one chance.
I took a huge breath and dove down to the bottom, the weight of the digging machine making my descent dangerously fast. I embedded its nose into the sandy bottom in the spot where I thought the treasure was most likely to be buried, and turned it on.
Sand and seashells and little bits of pulverized fish flew up in a gory tornado behind the machine, chumming the water and cutting visibility to zero. My lungs ached for air like a man cudgeling his brain for some pretext to explain away his Ashley Madison account.
The light on my underwater digging machine turned from green to red, the signal that it had found something. I shoved it aside and stuck my hands down into the hole it had made. They closed around a metal box. I yanked it free from the seabed and kicked for the surface.
When my head broke through to the air, I took a very noisy breath. Tessa, mere yards away, spotted me immediately and said to John, “I’m afraid that our hunt’s over.” Looking back at me she said, “Is this close enough to the East River for you, you bastard? You should know by now that I’m nobody’s poodle.”
“No Tessa, you’re no poodle. You are a murderess, or something even worse.”
I stared her down as I treaded water, holding the metal box just below the surface of the rolling waves. And then I spotted the dorsal fins. Sharks, attracted, no doubt, by the fresh fish smoothie my digging machine had blended up.
Damn.