A Fatal Vineyard Season (9 page)

I went out of the office feeling her eyes in my back. Down on the street again, I walked up to Eddie's Pizza, where a sign claimed that the Vineyard's finest Italian food was served. I went through an empty dining room to the kitchen.

Eddie was there, talking to a man slicing vegetables. Eddie looked at me with surprised eyes. Then, as he saw something in my face, the surprise became wary worry.

I nodded toward the small office at the far end of the room. “I'd like to talk to you, Eddie.”

He hesitated.

I smiled. “I won't take up much of your time.”

Eddie rubbed his jaw, then said, “I think we're going to need more onions, Mark.”

“Okay,” said Mark.

I stood there.

“All right,” said Eddie, and led the way to his office.

“What can I do for you?” asked Eddie, shutting the door behind us and putting a smile on his face.

I got right to it. “Can I see that receipt you got from Sylvia Vegas?”

Eddie's smile went away. “Hell no. That's my private business.”

“You have a contract with Enterprise Management?”

“That's more of my business and none of yours! Jesus . . .”

“Eddie, I was there, remember? You came in and paid your bill and got a receipt and went out again. You weren't there to buy pizza dough.”

Eddie pushed some papers around on his desk. “J.W., I got work to do. So I got a contract with Enterprise Management. So what? Half the businesses on this street got contracts with Enterprise, for God's sake.”

“What do they do for you?”

“What do they do?”

“Yeah. What do they do for the money they get?”

He glanced at the door. “You know. It's a contract. They help people manage their businesses. Security, money management, making sure the health board is happy. That sort of thing. How to stay in business and make some money.”

“How'd you make this month's payment? By check?”

“Of course by check. It's the only way to do business. Ask my accountant.”

“Who's your accountant?”

He spread his hands. “Jesus, J.W., why are you asking me
all this stuff? You working for Lisa Goldman, or something?”

“Why do you think that, Eddie?”

Eddie ran a hand over his head. There wasn't much hair up there. “All these damn questions you're asking. Who you working for, J.W.?” He tried a laugh. “Maybe I ought to call my lawyer.”

I narrowed my eyes. “I saw the envelope you gave to Sylvia Vegas. It was a pretty fat envelope. There was something in there besides a check.”

He gave his head a small, violent shake. “No,” he said in a rising voice, “it was just a check. I got to go back to work. Lunch people will be coming in. I don't have time to talk about this. Besides, none of it is anybody's business but mine! It sure as hell ain't any of yours, J.W.”

He reached for the doorknob, then paused and took a lungful of air. “Look, J.W., I don't want any trouble with you or anybody else. I ain't no tough guy like Pete Warner. I want to be friends with everybody. But business is business and I don't want you putting your nose in mine. You understand?”

“Sure, I understand.”

He nodded and put on a smile. “Good, good. No hard feelings, then. You come by one of these days with your wife and kids and have yourself a pizza on me. Okay?”

“Sure.”

We went out through the kitchen, where Mark was slicing onions. At the door to the dining room we paused and I put my face close to Eddie's.

“You may be paying Enterprise Management by check so your official books will look okay, but you're also paying extra cash to Alberto Vegas. The payments will start getting bigger, and when you can't afford to make them, he'll give you credit. And when you can't pay that, he'll put a lien on the business. He'll own this place before he's through. Then what'll you do, Eddie?”

Eddie's face was thin and hot looking. “Get out. Get out of here.”

I went out into the street, thinking about why Eddie had called Pete Warner tough. I thought I'd ask Pete.

Warner Electronics, out near the intersection of Circuit Avenue and Pennacook, was housed in an old wooden building. The main room was filled with electronic supplies and gear. There was an office to one side and a back room where Pete had a small repair shop. The repair shop was a sure sign that Pete was an old-timer. These days, most places that sold electric gadgets didn't fix broken items or, if they did, sent them away for repairs that took so long and cost so much that it was easier and cheaper to buy a new whatever-it-was than to have the old one fixed. Pete, on the other hand, would fix it if he could—and do it for a reasonable price.

I went in and found Pete. He was a leathery old guy who I'd first met at Wasque one day when we were the only ones there and there weren't any fish so we'd had time to drink coffee and gab. Later, when I needed what he had to sell, I'd done some business at his store.

“You need any help finding what you're looking for?” he now asked.

“I'm looking for you.”

“Well, you've found me. What can I do for you?”

“I have a question I want to ask you. You don't want to answer it, don't. But I'd like to know.”

“Now you got me curious. Shoot.”

“How come Eddie Francis says you're tough?”

“Come again?”

“I was just talking to Eddie about his contract with Enterprise Management. He said he's not tough like you. Said he wants to be friends with everybody.”

“Oh.” A grim little smile lined Pete's face. “Well, I guess he says that because I've decided not to sign up with Enterprise. I guess that makes me tough. At least as far as Eddie is
concerned, anyway.” He looked at me over the glasses that had slipped down his nose. “Eddie is a nervous young feller, and there are a lot like him in town. Me, I'm not the nervous type. I never needed no help running this place so far, and I don't figure I will in the future.” He paused. “Besides, I don't care for them Vegas boys. Didn't like their daddy, neither, for that matter.”

A woman came up asking where he kept the extension cords, so he went off with her and I went home. I was glad we still had a few old guys like Pete around.

At home, silence rang through the empty rooms of our house. There had been a time when I hadn't minded such quiet at all, but that had been before I'd met Zee, and long before Joshua and Diana had arrived on the scene. Now, the quiet seemed cold and lifeless, as though I were living alone on the moon. Oliver Underfoot and Velcro rubbed against my legs, unaware that they were moon cats. Only a few more days and my family would be home again. Maybe I'd go over to the mainland and join them there. Maybe I'd go right now.

But instead I listened to the radio weather report and learned that Hurricane Elmer was still deciding which way to go, then opened the Yellow Pages and began to telephone accountants in alphabetical order. To each one of them I introduced myself as John Walker Appleseed and said that I was opening a business in Oak Bluffs. I said that Eddie Francis had mentioned this firm to me, that I was rushed at the moment, but that I'd like to call again tomorrow and make an appointment. They all said fine.

When I got to the
K
's, I found Krane and Company and knew I should have gone there first. The woman who answered the phone said, “Oh, of course. Mr. Francis is one of our customers. We'll be glad to make an appointment with you, Mr. Appleseed.”

I thanked her, then got a Sam Adams out of the fridge and took it up to the balcony. Out beyond the fall remains of
the garden, across Sengekontacket Pond, and on the far side of the barrier beach, Nantucket Sound was dark blue against a pale blue sky. The water looked cold, although I knew it wasn't. Everything looked a little cold, in fact.

Fishermen were out there in boats, and surf casters were roaming the beaches, practicing for the Derby. None of them but Roger Goldman knew about what had happened and was still happening in Oak Bluffs. Their biggest worry, if they were worrying at all, was probably about Elmer. The fishermen didn't want a hurricane coming up this way because it would stir up the waters and mess up the Derby. The competition was tough enough without a storm making it worse.

There were, of course, contrary predictions about what Elmer was going to do. Since the Vineyard hadn't been hit by a really bad hurricane for quite a while, the glass-is-half-full people were pretty sure that Elmer wouldn't hit them this time either; the glass-is-half-empty people figured just the opposite, since in their view we were overdue to get smacked.

The
Shirley J.
was on her stake, and I was looking after John Skye's catboat, the
Mattie,
as well, so I didn't want any hurricanes visiting Edgartown. But not being into prophecy, I hadn't taken sides in any arguments about where Elmer might go. I was, however, keeping an eye on him, as were most other people who lived on the Atlantic Coast. When you live on the edge of the sea, you learn to keep a weather eye open.

But Elmer was far away, and Julia, Ivy, and the Vegas brothers were right here, so my priorities were pretty clear. I finished my beer, went downstairs, and got out my telephone book again. Sure enough, both Vegas brothers were listed there, just like normal people, complete with addresses. There was a third Vegas who also lived in Oak Bluffs: Cora. A relative? Mom, maybe?

I had about enough time to scout their places before getting in touch with Julie and Ivy, so I got into the Land Cruiser and went back to OB.

Big brother Alberto lived in a new house by the Lagoon, off Barnes Road. Pretty posh, I thought, and for sure not the house he'd grown up in. I drove past and took a good look. As I admired the manicured lawns and shrubbery, I realized that I was looking at the house on the bluff above the dock where I'd seen the
Invictus
tie up. Whatever Alberto did for a living, he got paid better than I did. Another American success story.

Alexandro's place, not too far away in a new development off County Road, was almost as big and just as new as Alberto's, but sported an unkempt lawn, a broken windowpane covered with cardboard, and an overflowing trash barrel out at the end of the driveway. Neatness was not Alexandro's specialty, apparently, nor was he concerned with maintaining neighborhood property values. As I eased by, a curtain moved in a window as someone eyed me from inside. Mrs. Vegas? Alexandro himself? The maid? I felt the eyes on my back as I drove away.

Cora Vegas lived in a hovel beside a dirt track that wound between other hovels that were surrounded by the unmistakable signs of poverty and despair: ruined mattresses, paper scraps, rusty pieces of machines, broken tools, worn-out tires, and soggy piles of unidentifiable stuff long since tossed out but never carried farther than the front yard. TV antennas were on top of most of the houses since cable had never made it this far, and there were cars and trucks as rusty as my own in driveways. It wasn't a scene found in the Chamber of Commerce's handouts or mentioned by the gossip columnists who recorded the comings and goings of the island's rich and famous.

I drove past Cora's house, found my way back to paved road, and went on to East Chop. There, after being eyed through the front-door peephole, I was let inside the Crandel house by Ivy, who looked quite smashing in shorts and a denim shirt.

“Oh, good,” she said. “We were just going to call you.
We've talked to the detective agency and to my lawyer and they're expecting your calls. And here's Buddy's number, too. Maybe he can help you.” She gave me a piece of paper with names and telephone numbers and looked up at me with those dark, evaluating eyes. “You know that I don't think much is going to come of this.”

“You're probably right.”

“We've decided to go up-island for the rest of the day. We're going to walk the Menemsha Hills trail, if we can find it. I know your wife's away. Would you like to come along?” A little smile played on her face, and I decided that Ivy liked men in her life.

“I'm afraid I can't make it. But I can tell you where to find the trail.”

I told her that and wished them a fine day. I thought it was a good idea for the women to get out of town, where Alexandro wouldn't be likely to run into them, but I kept that thought to myself.

“Sorry you can't come along,” said Ivy with perhaps a touch of annoyance in her voice.

I guessed that not many men said no to Ivy Holiday.

I drove to the police station.

“We're spending so much time together, people are beginning to talk,” said Lisa Goldman when I poked my head into her office.

“If I divorce Zee and you divorce Roger, maybe we can get married and put a stop to all the gossip,” I said. “Tell me: Is Cora Vegas any relation to Alexandro and Alberto?”

She cocked her head to one side. “The queen mother. Why do you ask?”

“I take it there's no king father?”

She shook her head. “Old Dino died some years back, and not a tear was shed by the law enforcement community. The boys inherited his genes, and just to make sure they grew up as rotten as he was, he beat them every day until they got big enough to beat him up instead. Nature and
nurture working together to produce Alex and Albert. What a family.”

“What kind of a person is Cora?”

“Cora is a sick old woman. Let it go at that. Why are you so interested in Cora?”

“I'm not interested in her. I just wanted to know how many Vegases I may have to put up with.”

She leaned forward on her desk. “You stay away from all of them. They'll make mincemeat out of you.”

“Maybe.”

She pointed a trigger finger at me and shook it slowly back and forth. “Don't make any mistakes here, J.W. These guys do not care about anything. They will get you if you mess with them. If they can't get to you personally, they'll get to your house. They'll burn it down. They'll kill your dog, they'll torture your cat. They'll rape your wife and your children. These boys are very, very bad. Look what happened to Larry, for God's sake.”