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salvage diving. You look like an office man to me. You sure your heart'll take it?"
    "I play a good deal of handball."
    "Oh. Handball."
    Keyes's face tightened. "Look, Galloway. You accepted my money. Officially, you shouldn't take me without a cert. I assure you I know how. But if anything happens to me, just strip the body and leave it out there. You'll be clear, and I certainly won't care. Is that good enough?"
    Galloway stared at him for a moment, then shrugged. "If that's how you want it."
    Hirsch came back aft. "Jack's here with the explosives," she said. "The lines are ready. Tiller, I brought a change of clothes. I'd like to come along, if I may."
    "'If you may.'" Galloway heaved himself off the gunwale. "Why bother asking, Counselor? Is it to make me
    feel better? It doesn't. The law says you can snoop on me wherever I am, whatever I'm doing. I suppose that includes Oregon Inlet. If you've got to come you can help lash down some of this gear. Might be rough out there today."
    He turned from her look, and went below.
    "Cast off," Galloway called, spinning the wheel to the left and gunning the throttle astern with his other hand. The engines rumbled unevenly and oily smoke blew forward over the deck.
    On the dock a boy flipped the bow line off its cleat and stood holding it, poised to spring aboard the departing boat. He stood tense and vital in the sunlight, a freckle-shouldered young man whose summer-bleached hair stuck out at angles as if he had toweled it to air-dry after a swim. He was so slim-hipped it seemed only friction held up his cutoff jeans, the only clothes he wore. He hitched them higher with his free hand as he waited.
    Galloway slammed the engines into neutral, then forward. Gears chattered below, then caught. The screws spewed dirty water and the boat gathered way. As she passed the end of the pier the boy jumped, swinging himself over the gunwale into the cockpit. He dropped a worn Kitty Hawk Kites tote bag to the deck and pushed it under a seat. "Hey, Bern, Tiller," he said, but his eyes were on Keyes.
    Hirsch said, "This is Jack Caffey, the owner. Jack, this is Mr. Keyes."
    "Hello—the oumerT
    "Hi. That's right. Got anything for me to do, Tiller?"
    Galloway, at the wheel, shook his head without looking around. Caffey looked at Bernie, shrugged, and squatted down, bracing himself with a hand on one of the lockers.
    They were out of the basin now, moving out into the wide brackish sound that separated the barrier islands from the mainland. Galloway left the channel markers, sticks topped by black-painted cans and plastic bottles, to starboard. Each bore a brown pelican, wings folded, regarding them as solemnly as a bench of French judges. Beyond them were mud flats, dotted here and there by gray herons. A speedboat ripped past, cutting the sluggish water apart like a ra2or through brown velvet. They rolled heavily to her wake. Behind them the land fell away. When the channel ended at a small buoy Galloway twirled the wheel with one hand, and Pamlico Sound, twenty and more miles wide, opened before them.
    Keyes had been taking in the sound and sky, balancing easily with his arms folded. Now he leaned to Caf-fey. "Say—Jack? Mind if I look around?"
    "Sure. Come on, I'll show you." He jumped to his feet. "Boat tour," he called in Galloway's direction, but the man at the helm made no response.
    Keyes meanwhile had pulled off his shoes, folded his jacket, and rolled his trousers to mid-calf. "Forward first, then," Caffey grinned at him. "Along the side, like this." He vaulted to the gunwale, tanned toes splayed, and held to a corroded aluminum rail as he worked forward. The rail wobbled.
    Keyes followed, more cautiously, but with a sureness that showed this was not his first time afloat. Caffey held out a hand, but he refused it with a shake of his head. A few seconds later they stood on the foredeck.
    "Hang on," they both heard Galloway shout, and the pitch of the engines increased. The deck tilted