Keighley jumped down at him. “Where is it? Will it take a line o’ hose in?”
“Sure,” “Shine” said. “It’ll take a bunch o’ bananas in.”
“Where is it?”
“It’s—it’s about there.” He pointed down the pier. “It’s ’n under water at high tide.”
Keighley ran his fingers up the buttons of his rubber coat, and it fell off him like sleight-of-hand. His helmet dropped beside it. “Get me a heavin’-line,” he said. And “Shine” gasped excitedly, “Say, cap, you can’t find it. Yuh have to dive. It’s where the ‘club’ ust to hide the stuff we swiped—till the cop got next t’ it. I c’u’d make it in the dark. We fixed up a reg’lar joint in there.”
The captain said, “Peel off, then. Hi, there! Bring us a heavin’-line”—and ran back to get it.
“Shine” dropped to the deck with a chuckle and began a race for “first in,” gurgling an excited profanity as he kicked off his rubber boots. Diving on the water-front, on a midsummer night, was a way of earning a living that appealed to him.
“Beat y’ in, Turk,” he challenged. “Come on. Saturday’s wash-day.”
“Turk” asked cautiously, “What’s on?” He had an instinctive distrust of “Shine” as a type, as well as an acquired distrust of him as a “Jigger.”
“Nuthin’ ’s on,” “Shine” said as he came out of his blue flannel shirt and stood up, grinning, naked. “Where’s the rope?”