A Fatal Vineyard Season (18 page)

Alexandro got to me and grabbed my collar. With his other hand, he swatted my bad arm. A bolt of pain shot through me. He grinned and yanked me up as though I weighed nothing. “So long, girly girl. Accident time for you.” He jerked me toward the door.

“Hold it, Alex,” said Alberto.

Alexandro kept going.

“I said hold it,” said Alberto, stepping in front of him.

Alberto was about six-five and weighed around 250, all of it muscle, but he was small compared with Alexandro, who was pro lineman size. Still, when Alberto put up his hand, Alexandro stopped.

“Let go of him, Alex,” said Alberto.

Alexandro hesitated, then gave me a push. I went backward and almost fell. “Fuck you, girly girl. I ain't through with you yet, you fucker.”

My left arm hurt so much that the world was gray. I leaned against the wall, weak and sick, and tried to will the pain away.

Alberto nodded toward the door. “You get out of here, Jackson. Right now, on your own. You don't go, I'll give you back to Alex.”

“I came up here to talk to you. If you're smart, you'll listen.”

Alberto studied me with his empty, wily, animal eyes. He had no aura that I could see. Some people believe that if you have no aura, you have no soul.

“All right. You want to talk, talk. I don't like what you say, then you go back to Alex. And cops or no cops, we got three witnesses to say that after you left here, you must have fainted because of that arm of yours and fell downstairs and killed yourself.”

“You've been hanging around your little brother too long. You're beginning to think like he does. You're dumbing down, Alberto.”

“You're using up what little time you got,” said Alberto.

“You sure you want to talk in front of these two? You let people like these know everything you know, pretty soon you may not be the boss any longer. You'll have a committee.”

Perhaps he frowned just a little, but all Alberto said was “You got about thirty seconds. You use them any way you want.”

I shrugged. “Have it your way.” I leaned on the wall and gently rubbed my bad arm. “Like I said, you've got yourself a pretty good thing going for you. Protection racket, but disguised as a legit operation, complete with written contracts and everything. Hell, it's not much different than a legit business fraternity asking members to join up for the common good. Hard for the cops to nail you, if everybody stays happy, and so far nobody has complained. Not too much, at least. And business is good.

“But everybody's not going to be happy much longer.” I jabbed a thumb in Alexandro's direction. “Because you got yourself a loose cannon. It was probably okay when little Alex, here, was still in line, doing what he was told. Torching a place here and there, beating somebody up in some alley, stuff like that, but always for the good of the company. You know what I mean? But now Alex is doing other stuff on his own, and he's attracting a lot of attention that isn't going to do your business any good.”

I figured my thirty seconds were about up, but Alberto wasn't looking at his watch. He was looking at me. I took that as a good sign.

“Think about it,” I said. “Actually, I imagine you've already thought about it. Alexandro broke into the Crandels' house and tried to rape the women in there. I don't think you told him to do that as part of company policy, since all it did was draw attention to him and, indirectly, to you. I think he did it all by himself because he's a racist pig and a woman hater who can't control himself. And then he nearly killed that young cop. Maybe you told him to, and maybe you didn't, but in any case it was a stupid move because cops take care of their own and now you've got every one on the island and some from off-island on your case, watching every move you make, checking every document Enterprise Management has ever filed, just waiting for you to make the mistake you're sure as hell going to make as long as Alexandro, here, is out there causing trouble for you.” I paused.

“And then there's me,” I said. “Little Alex there, with the bean for a brain, decided to take me out with a crowbar. And for what? I was only a bit player who probably never would have gotten more involved if he hadn't tried to kill me like he tried to kill Larry Curtis. But now I am involved, thanks to him. And I'm no easy mark. I popped a cap or two that night, and if I get harried, I may pop some more, only this time I'll be looking at what's in front of me. If you told him to try to kack me, I'm wasting my time talking to you because you're just as stupid as he is. But if he did it by himself, just for laughs because he's a psycho punk, then maybe you should think about reining him in before he sinks you and your whole damned ship. You don't need the enemies he'll bring to you.”

I looked at Alexandro. “You're a complete fool, Alex. You're stupid and psychotic at the same time. What little sense you might have had as a kid got fucked out of you up there in Cedar Junction. All you are now is an ape with a sore asshole.” I looked back at Alberto. “Watch. You'll see what I mean.”

And I was right. Alexandro gave a roar and leaped toward me. I slipped to the right as Alberto shouted, “Hold it, Alex!” and stepped between us. But Alexandro came right on. It was linebacker against lineman, and they met with a crash. I ducked around them and got to the door as the room seemed to rock and roll.

“You control him, Alberto!” I shouted. “Or he'll ruin you!”

Alexandro and Alberto wrestled and filled the air with invectives, and I turned and hurried downstairs and out into the street.

I didn't know how long Alberto could hold Alexandro back, so I walked quickly down the street to the Land Cruiser and got inside. From there I could see the door at the foot of the stairs. I wondered who would come out first. I wondered if one of them would kill the other upstairs. It was Alberto's will against Alexandro's muscles, and I didn't know who would win if they went all the way to the wall.

I waited awhile, but no one showed. Then, thinking that I had given Alberto enough to brood about, I drove to the police station and went in to see Lisa Goldman. Dominic Agganis and a cop from Vineyard Haven were with her in the office. Since I had no secrets, I told them what had happened.

“Oh, very bright,” said Dom. “Now you've really made them mad. Up to now, they were probably only annoyed, but now they're pissed to a fare-thee-well.”

“So what?” I asked. “What are they going to do that they weren't going to do anyway?”

“How about break the rest of your bones?”

“I can take care of myself.”

Dom shook his head. “Sure you can. You did a great job protecting your arm.”

“And what about Zee and your kids?” said Lisa. “Can you take care of them, too?”

“Yes.”

She looked at me.

“No,” I said. “I'm not sure. But right now they're all over on the mainland, so they're okay.”

“But they'll be back sometime.”

True. Had I made things better or worse? If Alexandro had been angry before, he was a lot angrier now, and if I was right about him, he was apt to go off the deep end and do God knew what. That was bad. But it was possible that I'd gotten Alberto to put a noose on him and hold him back so he wouldn't do anything else to imperil Alberto's grand plans. A loose cannon like Alexandro could be more trouble than he was worth in an organization such as Alberto apparently had in mind.

I offered this theory to Lisa and Agganis. Neither of them seemed impressed by it.

“They're brothers,” said Dom. “They ain't kissing kin, but they've been together all their lives. They even went to the pen together. They're close. Alberto isn't going to break with Alexandro.”

“Not even if it costs him his protection racket?”

Lisa's elbows were on her desk. She put her hands together, fingertip to fingertip, thumb to thumb, and looked at me with her intelligent cop's eyes.

“It hasn't cost him yet, and maybe it won't. But Dom is right. You've made yourself some real enemies this time. Up to now, you were just a nuisance. Now you've made it personal. You be very careful, because you're right about Alexandro. He's a psycho case.”

“I plan to be careful.”

She nodded. “Good. And there's another thing.”

“What?”

“Alexandro might deserve killing, but he's got the same rights as anybody else. If anything happens to him, you'd better be sure that you're innocent as a lamb, because you'll be high on the suspect list.”

I had been expecting just such a warning. “Have you heard me threaten him?”

“No.”

“Or anybody else?”

“No.”

“Have I ever killed anybody?”

“I know you still carry a bullet from a perp you shot when you were on the Boston PD, but that happened in the line of duty. You never killed anybody else that I know of.”

“That shooting was one reason I hung up my badge. I don't plan on killing anybody else.”

“Okay, J.W. As long as we're clear about this. You leave the Vegas brothers to the police. They're our job.”

“And welcome to it. How's Larry Curtis?”

“He's alive.”

I remembered Curtis's face. He was a good-looking lad. He hadn't deserved what had happened to him. Or maybe I was wrong. Maybe we all deserve what happens to us.

I went out of the police station and drove to East Chop.

Jack Harley opened the door of the Crandel house. He eyed me with neither rancor nor affection.

“Nobody home but us chickens,” he said. “Everybody else has gone to the beach. Place they call the Inkspot or some such thing. Is that a racist name, or what?”

“You can probably get an argument about that, but you won't get it from me.” I felt a frown on my face. “I don't know if it's smart for you guys to split up like this.”

Harley didn't share my concern. “Well, smart or not, the rest of them are at that beach and I'm the housekeeper today, just in case the house needs keeping.”

“Keep it carefully, then. Alexandro Vegas is in a very bad mood and just might decide to take it out on you if he comes this way.”

“I get paid to handle guys like him,” said Harley in a tough-guy voice.

Spoken like someone who'd never seen Alexandro. Even as I was being irked by his naïveté, I was pretty sure I'd said things just as dumb.

“I hope it's a good salary,” I said, “and that the deal includes insurance.”

Then he gave a little smile. “Don't worry. I was a trackman. He can chase me, but he won't catch me. And if he does, I have six friends who'll help me out.”

I felt instantly better about him. “You're dressed.”

He patted his hip. “Part of the uniform.”

“Good. But don't let him get too close to you. He's very quick.”

“I'll keep distance between us.”

A good idea. Every year cops get killed, sometimes with their own pistols, and usually at close quarters: in doorways, in small rooms, in cars. In fact, I'd once read a study of cops fatally shot while on duty that indicated that none of them had been killed at distances over twenty feet. The best protection against being shot to death was the same as that for avoiding pregnancy: several yards of air between participating parties.

I got back into the Land Cruiser and drove to Sea View Avenue, where I parked and walked down onto the part of the beach that's known as the Inkwell, because of its popularity with the locals of African descent. I'd been told that the people who frequented the spot had given the location its name, so it was up to linguists and social commentators, and not to me, to decide whether it was a racist term.

In the summer, the Oak Bluff beaches are full of sound and bright colors, as visitors and home owners alike loll under beach umbrellas or sop up sun and surf and suds in air filled with laughter, shouts, and the music from boom boxes. Although it's a convivial place and seems to suit OBers just fine, it's too crowded and noisy for Zee and me, so when we want a beach, we drive out to the far shores of Chappaquiddick, where we can be alone with the sand and sea.

Now, in September, most of the summer people had gone back to America, and it wasn't hard to spot Mills, Ivy Holiday, and the cousins. The last three were stretched on bright beach towels, were clothed in minimal, bikini-style bathing suits that revealed more than they concealed, and were shiny with tanning lotion, as they lay in the early-fall sun. They were an eye-grabbing trio, without a doubt, and I ogled Ivy and Julia appreciatively as I approached.

Is there anything more appealing to the eye than a beautiful woman? Well, maybe; Zee would no doubt argue that a hunky man was more interesting, and there were those who favored members of their own gender. But I was male and heterosexual and had no doubt at all about where beauty lay. Right now, it lay on two towels on Inkwell beach.

Mills wasn't in the running for the glamour title. He was sitting in an aluminum beach chair, wearing regular clothing, sans shoes, which were hung around his neck as a concession to the soft, yellow sand. He, too, would be armed, I figured and was glad. As I came up, he watched me.

“What's up?” he asked, and his voice roused the others, who rolled their heads toward me, then sat up.

“Just reporting in,” I said.

“Hi, J.W.,” said Julia. “How's your arm? You never said how you hurt it. I hope it's better.”

I squatted on my heels. To my left, the blue waters of the sound reached toward Cape Cod, and overhead the lighter blue of the sky curved down to the eastern horizon. The bluffs cut off the southwestern wind, so it was warm and summerlike there on the beach, and there was no hint of Elmer even occupying the same earth. What had the weather been like when Cain killed Abel, or David had done in Goliath? Had the days been as fair and beautiful as this one? Or had the winds been raging and the rain blowing flat and cold, and the oceans roaring?