Beach Road (24 page)

A week later, he took me to Nick and Tony’s and picked out a three-hundred-dollar bottle of wine that he
barely touched. He kept filling mine though, and on the ride home, when I could barely sit up, he made
what he called “a modest little proposal.” I should leave the high school kids to the amateurs and instead
help him take over the whole Hampton drug trade. “It’s nothing but funny money to these assholes,” he
said. “Besides, we’ve been staring at rich people our whole lives. It’s time to join the country club.”
I was all of seventeen at the time, a high school junior. What did I know? But the Boy Wonder knew
exactly what he was about, and with him doing the thinking and me the heavy lifting, it wasn’t long before
the money arrived in sacks.

Boy Wonder was smart about that too. Said that if we started living like pimps, the cops would be sniffing
around us in months. So for eight years we lived like monks, nothing changing in our lives except the
number in the bank accounts he’d opened in Antigua and Barbados.

Since then, it’s just been a matter of hanging on to what we took, or what Boy Wonder calls “our
franchise.”
That’s been no problem either. Ruthlessness is one of Boy Wonder’s strong suits, right up there with cagey
thinking, and I guess I’m no slouch in that department either. But I’ll tell you, it’s impossible to figure out
what BW is thinking-always has been.

It’s coming down in buckets now, but BW ambles through the rain like it’s exactly what he needs to wash
him clean. Maybe it is. I know better than anyone what he is capable of doing and living with. I stood next
to him as he put a bullet in Feifer, Walco, and Rochie, them bawling for their moms until the last second.

And for what? Stealing a thousand dollars’ worth of crack. Doing some small-time dealing. That’s all it
was. More of a prank than stealing, since the next day Feif and Rochie came around with the cash, plus
interest.

But BW wouldn’t let me take the money. He said we had to send a message. A strong message. It was
psycho but cunning too, because he waits until after that fight at Smitty’s court where Walker pulls his
piece on Feifer. That way we can pin the whole thing on the brothers, and I think, okay, maybe we can get
away with this just like everything else.

But as Boy Wonder opens the door of the car, he seems so transformed and remote, his old name doesn’t
seem to fit anymore. And when he slides behind the wheel and gives me his chilly “What’s up?” I fall back
on what I called him for fifteen years before he showed up that night at the police station.

“Hell if I know,” I say. “What’s up with you, Tom?”
That gets his attention. Never using real names is even stricter with us than not spending money, and
before he can catch it, he flashes the same hard look he gave Feifer, Walco, and Rochie right before he
shot them through the eyes. Then he covers it with a smile and asks, “Why you calling me Tom, Sean?”
“Because the party’s over, Uncle. We’re done.”

Tom
“MAYBE WE CAN still figure a way out,” I say, starting up Kate’s Jetta and carefully backing out of the
muddy driveway. With every neighbor within miles celebrating at Marie’s, the street is deserted, and in the
heavy rain, it looks more desolate than usual. “What makes you so sure it’s over, Nephew? What
happened?”

”
Raiborne
happened,” says Sean. “Soon as the verdict came down, I bolted out of there, but when I get to my
car, Raiborne is standing right next to it. The son of a bitch is waiting for me. He must have sprinted to
get there first, but if he was breathing hard, he didn’t let me see it. He introduced himself. Said that as
of three minutes ago the murder cases of Eric Feifer, Patrick Roche, Robert Walco, and Michael
Walker were wide open again, along with the never-solved murder of Señor Manny Rodriguez. Then
he smiles and says the only suspect he’s got for all five is a psychopathic drug dealer named Loco.

“When I ask him why he’s telling me, Raiborne looks at me cute and says, ‘Because I’m pretty sure you’re
him, Sean. You’re Loco!’”
I’m on Route 41 now, but it’s raining so hard, I’m doing less than thirty. I slow down even more when I see
the boarded-up Citgo, and just past it, I turn off onto another depressed little street.

I look over at Sean-and I smile. “Well, you don’t have to worry about Detective Raiborne anymore.”
“Really?”
“Really. He came to see me too. This afternoon at my place, just after Clarence picked up Kate and took
her to Marie’s. He said he couldn’t figure out how I knew so much about the murders-that the gun was a
plant, the prints and the call from Feifer staged, that Lindgren was dirty. Then he realized I must have been
involved too.”
“So what’d you do?”
“I was going to ask if he’d ever been to Antigua, any of the islands. Had he ever thought of taking early
retirement? But I knew it would be a waste of my time.”

“So what’d you
do.

” asks Sean, looking away because he already knows the answer.

“What I had to. And I’ll tell you, the guy’s an easy two hundred thirty pounds. I barely got him in the
trunk.”
“Now you’re killing cops, Tom?”
“Didn’t have much choice,” I say as we hear the siren of an East Hampton cruiser racing north on Route
41 toward Marie’s place.

“How about letting Dante find his own lawyer? Or if you had to be the big star again, be in the
spotlight with your girlfriend, how about letting him
lose.

”

The road, barely visible through the pounding rain, climbs past an abandoned trailer home.

“I guess you never heard of something called redemption, Nephew.”
“Guess not.”
“A chance to undo mistakes like mine comes once in a lifetime, Sean.”
“Isn’t it a little late for that, Uncle?”
“What do you mean?”
“To undo the past? Start over?”
“Oh, it’s never too late for redemption, Sean.”

Tom
NOW IT’S RAINING so hard that even with the wipers flapping on the highest setting, I can hardly see the
road. If I thought I could risk it, I’d pull over and wait for the rain to let up.

“So what are we doing with Raiborne?” asks Sean, trying not to look at me, the way I’ve seen people look
away from born-agains.

“Bury him,” I say. “At that old nigger cemetery up on the hill. Only seems right.”
The paved road becomes a dirt one. I know it well. Somehow I make out the half-grown-over opening in
the bushes and beside it what’s left of a sign for the Heavenly Baptist Burial Grounds.

I push through the opening, the bushes flailing against the car windows, and up a dirt driveway. It’s rutted
and soft, but going real slow and avoiding the worst parts, I get the car to the top of the rise, where it opens
on a clearing lined with dozens of modest limestone headstones and markers.

I park beside a rotting bench, nod to Sean, and we step reluctantly into the downpour. With the soggy mud
sucking at our shoes, we walk to the rear of the car. Heavy drops ping off the roof and trunk as Sean
pushes the chrome lock and then steps out of the way as the chipped blue lid slowly lifts open, but of
course, the only thing inside is Kate’s bald old spare and some gardening tools she uses around Macklin’s
place.

“What the fuck?” says Sean, turning toward me and quickly pinning my arms.

But by then my gun is tight against his side, and as he stares at me with the same shocked expression the
mortician had to wipe off Feif, Walco, and Rochie, I shoot him.

I’ll say one thing. Sean doesn’t cry for his mother like those other boys did. He must think I’m his mom the
way he reaches for me and says, “Tom? What are you doing, Tom?”
I fire three more times, the barrel of the gun so tight against Sean’s big chest it works like a flesh-and-blood
silencer, and the sound of the muffled shots barely reaches the soggy woods. That shuts him up, but his
eyes are still wide open and it feels as if they’re staring at me. I feel Sean’s eyes on me until I get a small
shovel from the trunk and dig a shallow grave. Then I start throwing dirt over his face. I find another spot
to bury the gun; then I get back into the car.

I love being in a parked car when the rain is tap-dancing on the roof, and for a while I just sit there and
watch it wash the grime off the windshield, just like I washed Sean off of me. And you know what? I still
feel redeemed.

Kate
MARIE’S TINY LIVING room is so crowded it’s kind of like swimming in the ocean. You go where the
waves take you. One minute I’m listening to the very good-looking George Clooney rant about the
American criminal justice system, the next I’m having an emotional heart-to-heart with Tom’s brother,
Jeff, who tells me he’s been worried about Sean.

“He’s not been himself since the trial started,” says Jeff. “Anxious, depressed or something. And he never
said a thing to me about a girl.”
“It’s a tough age,” I say, and try to reassure him, but before I have much of a chance, I’m pulled away as
if by an undertow to a spot in a corner beside Lucinda Walker, Michael Walker’s mom. It’s awful standing
in such a jubilant crowd with the mother of a murdered child, but Lucinda takes my hand.

“God bless you, Miss Costello,” she says. “You kept another innocent life from being destroyed. I never
believed Dante killed my son or those others. Maybe now the police will concentrate on finding the real
killers.”
As Lucinda talks about Dante and Marie, the front door opens and Tom wedges himself back into the
packed party, and when he smiles at me across the room, my heart flies out to him. It scares me to think
how close I came to not giving him a second chance. If not for this case, I might have never talked to him
again.

“I feel like a salmon fighting his way upriver to spawn,” says Tom, sweat dripping off his nose.

“Hold that thought. How’s Sean?”
“More down than I’ve ever seen him. It’s sad, but I gave him my spiel and your hug. How about you,
Kate? How’s my girl?”
“I had no idea being happy could be this exhausting.”
“What do you say the two of us get lost for a little while?”
“You got a place in mind?”
“Actually, I do. But that’s the surprise I told you about before.”
He leads me across the room toward Mack and Marie, and Marie hugs me so tight I laugh.

“Look at you two,” she says, her eyes dancing with joy. “You showed everyone.

E-ver-y-one!
The whole world!”

“Us? How about you two?” says Tom, and clinks his beer bottle against Mack’s glass.

“To twos,” says Macklin, putting his arm around Marie.

“Well, this couple’s heading home,” says Tom. “It’s been a great day but a really long one. We can barely
stand up.”
The guest of honor is in the kitchen surrounded by high school buddies who beam at him in awe. Although
around the same age as Dante, they seem five years younger. Dante won’t let us leave the house until he’s
introduced them all.

“This big fella,” says Dante, pointing to a heavyset kid on his left, “is Charles Hall, C-H. These are the
Cutty brothers, and this is Buford, but we call him Boo. They’re my boys.”
Tom and I give Dante one more hug, and then we’re out of there. Actually, the more I think about it, I am
in the mood for a surprise.

Kate
OUTSIDE THE HOUSE, where it’s twenty degrees cooler, the rain feels like a warm, sweet shower. Tom
puts an arm around me and leads me across the yard to my car. As I look down at the muddy tires, Tom
pulls me to him hard and says, “I just have to kiss you, Kate.”
“Works for me.”
We kiss in the rain, then climb soaked into the car. Tom buckles me in and heads for home, but at Route
27, he turns west instead of east, and if you grew up out here like us, that’s not something you can do by
accident no matter how hard it’s raining or how tired you are. When I look over for an explanation, Tom
responds with a shit-eating grin.

“I told you I had a surprise.”
“Let me guess,” I say, almost too exhausted to care. “A weekend at the Peninsula?”
“Way better.”

“Really. You sure you can’t tell me? That way I’ll just be surprised
now.

”

“Kate, have we been working our butts off for like
decades.

” asks Tom, still smiling as he peers through the driving rain.

“Approximately.”
“Have we done well by our client?”
“You could say that.”
“And do you trust me?”
“You know I do,” I say, touching Tom’s shoulder and suddenly overcome by such warm feelings, I’m
choking up for the umpteenth time today.

“Then sit back and relax. You’ve earned it, Counselor.”
Like a good girl, I do as I’m told, and after a while I even manage to doze off. When I open my eyes,
Tom’s turned off 495 and is driving down a dark side road past overgrown lots and boarded-up houses.
Where are we now? I’m disoriented and lost.

Then I see the sign for Kennedy Airport.

“Tom?”
Tom offers nothing but that same silly smile as he swerves into the lane for international departures and
pulls up in front of the Air France terminal.

“Ever been to Paris, Kate?”
“No.”
“Me neither.”
I’m feeling so many different things, but all I can say is “Who’s taking care of Wingo?”
“Macklin,” he says. “How do you think I got this?” And he hands me my passport with an e-ticket inside.

“I’m going to drop off the car,” says Tom as if it’s the most normal thing in the world. “I’ll meet you at the
gate.” But I can’t move or stop looking at him because it’s as though I’m seeing him for the first time.

Tom
THE OVERNIGHT AIR France flight touches down at 1:00 p.m. local time, and we hustle through the
chaos of Charles de Gaulle Airport. With no luggage to wait for, we’re first in line at immigration and pass
effortlessly through customs. I’ve never felt so free and easy in my life.

Eleven hours ago, I was driving through Queens. Now we’re in the back of a black Fiat speeding past
French road signs. We leave the drab motorway for the tree-lined postcard streets of Paris proper. The cab
pulls off a grand boulevard, chatters briefly over cobblestones, and stops in front of the small hotel on the
Left Bank I booked online this afternoon.