Nantucket Five-Spot (13 page)

“Great.”

“I don't mean to share Doug's business. But he wants to help.”

“He'll testify against these people?”

“He'll do whatever you want him to do.”

I let out a breath, squeezed the tough old carpenter's shoulder one last time and released him. This was a huge break if it was true, if Doug would really go through with it. “Have him come in to the station on Monday, Pat. We'll work out a plan.”

Pat nodded. “Get these bastards, Chief. Just—get them.”

“We will.” He stuck out his hand and I shook it. Then we both went back to the party, to the rich insular, entitled Nantucket I served, where the drugs of choice were Chopin Vodka and Macallan eighteen-year-old single malt.

Ecliff started their set, playing an old Jimmy Buffet song. I walked over to the wall of windows as the fireworks began, blooming in the dark, illuminating their own spider-legged trails of smoke in the flash of light against the stars. Rockets and roman candles, bouquets and brocades, lovely but pointless, extravagant but ephemeral, conspicuous consumption etching its temporary fossil into the soft stone of the summer night.

“Sounds like artillery fire.”

Tyler Gibson stood alone nearby. Had he already broken up with that striking blonde from Cru? I wasn't surprised. If she had dumped him, he was taking it hard. He looked pale and feverish.

“Having a good season, Mr. Gibson?”

“You remember my name? I'm impressed.”

“Being a police chief around here is a lot like being the headwaiter at an expensive restaurant. Remembering names is part of the job description.”

“Smile!” It was Gene Mahon, taking pictures for the Nantucket Foggy Sheet society photo gallery that ran every month in
N Magazine.
The camera ratcheted as Gene pushed the auto-advance button.

“Hey” Gibson shouted. “What the hell you think you're doing with that?” He pushed his palm at the camera: the classic defensive block of the harassed celebrity.

“Don't worry,” Gene said cheerfully. “You look great. Move a little closer together—put your arm around him, Chief.”

“Get out of here. I mean it.” Gibson sidestepped me and advanced on the tall, slouching photographer. I couldn't imagine a more benign target for his anger. Gene stepped back.

“Hey, no problem. Chill.”

I grabbed Gibson's arm. “That's enough,” I said.

Gibson was locked on Gene. “You need permission to print a photograph. You don't have mine.”

“Okay, okay—no problem.”

Gene backed away. Gibson let out a breath through clenched teeth.

“How do you stand that? People jamming cameras in your face.”

“Gene's okay. And people like to see themselves on the Mahon About Town website.”

I could see he had no idea what I was talking about. But before he could ask me anything, another round of fireworks went off—pinwheels and fountains changing color halfway down. The last one sent off no sparks, just a deep echoing bang, a high-caliber gunshot like the bomb at the Steamship Authority.

Gibson flinched. “Jesus Christ. No one who actually served in a war zone—I mean, no one who actually lived through a fire fight—could stand listening to this shit.”

“I think it's supposed to evoke the sensation of being at war. Bombs bursting in air. All that.”

“Well, they do a great job. Very realistic. Which is wonderful, because we wouldn't want to forget what it's like to have our eardrums ruptured and our friends blown apart in front of us. Excuse me for not being more grateful, but I'm outta here.”

He shoved and stumbled to the front door, bumping people, leaving a wake of annoyed faces and spilled drinks. I felt bad for him. I wasn't a veteran. I had no idea what war felt like, and I was glad I didn't. I'd been shot at a couple of times, working for the LAPD. That was more than enough for me. Haden Krakauer was the only vet I knew. He might have been able to help this guy, but he was supervising the fireworks security detail at Jetties Beach, and he hated parties anyway. No way would he show up here, despite the free booze. He did his drinking at home.

I had more or less given up on Franny when I finally saw her at the other side of the room. She must have just come in, looking around, trying to spot me. I couldn't catch her eye, so I excused myself across the floor to slip my arm around her waist. I buried my head in her hair for a second and kissed her neck, just below her ear. “Glad you could make it.”

She twisted away. This wasn't the moment for kissing. She looked exhausted, the skin pulled pale and dry against the bones of her face. “Can we go somewhere? We have to get out of here.”

“What is it?”

“Let's just go. I don't want to deal with Jack right now.”

He was huddled with Gould. There was a crowd between us and he was looking the other way. But he could turn around at any second. Franny was tugging me toward the door. Various people greeted me, but it was clear I couldn't talk to them. A man being dragged out of a party by an angry woman usually meant trouble. But for whom?

“What's going on?”

“Not here, Hank. Meet me back at your house. We have a lot of work to do.”

The look on her face gave me the feeling I used to get, looking at a full mail box after a week's procrastination. The bad news was there already.

I just didn't know it yet.

Ezekiel Beaumont: Ten Hours Ago

Vika Avandeyev rolled over onto the American and let her nipples brush his chest. She liked his long lean body against hers and she could feel him stiffen beneath her. He was so responsive, so young and healthy. She had been forced to lie with so many old men before she left Plovdiv to come here, men in their fifties, men in their sixties, men who wheezed and snored and seemed to draw the vitality out of her, ticks feasting on blood. Yes, she knew all about ticks now, after a year on this Nantucket Island.

Grigor had promised there would be young men here, rich American men who were sick of their demanding American women, men who could give her a better life. And he was willing to let her go. This was the wonderful thing about Grigor. He knew all things were temporary, he could not hold you and he didn't want to. There was always a new girl, a younger and prettier one to take your place. That was fine with Vika. She had picked her American, she had made her choice.

Just how catastrophically, tragically, fatally bad that choice had been she was going to learn before the end of this close and humid summer day. Whether she could survive the lesson was another question.

What had Grigor told her? “These fancy men with their Nantucket five-spots—that's what they call the fifty-dollar bills they give you for a tip, because fifty dollars means nothing to them and everything is crazy expensive here and nothing is worth what you pay.” He had touched her face with a rueful smile. “Maybe except you. You are worth every penny, little Vika. But be careful with this American dream you read about. It becomes nightmare if you sleep too long.”

But of course she wasn't thinking about any of this now. She was just sleepy and horny. She wanted coffee and breakfast, but mostly she wanted to feel the American big and urgent inside her. She found his mouth and kissed him. In a moment he was kissing her back, with a deep groan of pleasure. Vika liked to hear that. He was like a cat, purring. She squirmed on him, letting him feel her thighs against his thighs and her stomach against his stomach. The simple pleasure of skin on skin flushed through her nerves like overflowing stream water through new grass.

He ran his hands down her back, stroked her backside the way he knew she liked. Then he grunted and rolled over to pull a condom out of his bedside drawer.

He pulled out a small digital tape instead, and she felt his whole body go rigid. “Goddamn it! God fucking piss shitting damn it! What the hell is wrong with me?”

She rolled off him and sat up. “Tyler? Are you all right? Is everything okay?”

He swung his legs over the side of the bed, pounded his knobby knees with his fists. “No! I'm not all right! Nothing is okay. Goddamn it. I am so fucked. How could I—argghh. Shit! I have to think.”

“Tyler—?”

“Shut up and let me think!”

She flinched away and studied the freckles on his back. At first she had thought he was having a stroke. But he was upset—and with himself, not her. She was frightened, so she made herself very still and small.

Finally he stood. “I have to go,” he said. “I have—something to do. Something I have to do. Right now.”

The anger was gone. He was nervous and scared, unsure of himself. He stood there as if he didn't know which way to move.

“I could come with you,” Vika said.

“No.”

“I could help.”

“I said no.”

She scooched herself over to the edge of the bed, reached out to stroke his leg. “I could be lookout,” she said. Somehow she knew he might need one.

He turned and looked down at her. “Why would you say that? What do you think I am?”

“I don't think. I don't care. This is not who you are. This is something you do. I can do with you. I am with very sharp eyes. And a couple looks like regular people. A man alone, people are wonder about him. What is doing, why is alone? People make call on cell phone, people take picture. Then—poof! Trouble.”

He was shifting from foot to foot. “I don't know.”

“People look at us they think, such pretty lovers. All the world loves a lover, yes? They feel jealous maybe, but not suspect. Who would suspect lovers? Besides, you should not be alone now.”

He seemed to decide. He grabbed his pants off a chair and started pulling them on. “All right,” he said. “But you have to do what I say—and keep your mouth shut.”

She widened her eyes and pressed her lips together dramatically. It made him smile.

“Jesus, you're cute. Come on, get dressed. We've got to get moving.”

She slipped into her shorts, t-shirt, and flip-flops, and followed him out to his car. They had slept in—it was nearly ten in the morning and everyone in their quiet neighborhood near the junction of Cliff Road and Madaket Road on this balmy Fourth of July was already out and about, having breakfast in town or setting up at the beach.

They cruised out along Deacon's Way and turned left toward town, past the fat standpipe and the new houses and the open fields at Tupancy Links that had been a golf course a long time ago. Tyler said nothing for a while then out of nowhere, “I hate those flip-flops you wear.”

“Why is that?”

“I don't know. The way they make you walk. Kind of—splay-footed and bow-legged and clumsy.”

“Splay foot? What is that?”

“You walk like a duck in those things. I used to like it when I saw girls wearing them—you know, anything to make the jail bait less attractive. But, now with you…I want you to drive other guys crazy. And it ain't happening in those sandals.”

“Maybe if I make shirt tighter?” She pulled the flimsy cotton against her chest.

“Okay, okay, I get the point. You could wear swim fins and a nun's habit and still make a ten-year-old hit puberty two years early. But high heels look better than flip-flops. That's a fact. Now quiet down. I have to figure things out over here.”

He had started the conversation, but she knew better than to mention it.

They skirted the edge of town, following Sparks Avenue past the old mill and the hospital. Beyond Stop&Shop to the rotary, and then east along the Milestone Road toward 'Sconset. Tyler kept looking around—for the police? For someone he knew? But he seemed to see no one and nothing and no one that concerned him. He was starting to relax.

Vika rolled down her window and enjoyed the breeze.

They drove past the winding driveway that led to the big new golf course and then up into 'Sconset. The road seemed to widen, lined on either side by lawns and maple trees in the pale sunshine. The day called out for romance, for picnics and walks on the beach. But Tyler was all business.

“Nothing's going to go wrong,” he said, turning onto Morey Lane. “But if there's a problem, let me do the talking. Worst case scenario? We both let my friend do the talking.” He lifted his shirt a little to show the gun tucked into his waistband.

Vika felt her stomach lurch. The glint of metal gave her a jolt out of proportion to the glimpse of brushed steel. She had been with men who carried guns before, and it was always bad. Guns made the bad things happen. They had some malignant spirit in them, haunted by the ghosts they waited to make.

But no. America was the land of guns. The NRA and the Second Amendment to the Constitution. Many people carried guns here. It didn't mean what it meant at home.

He pulled the car to the side of the street, beside an unkempt hedge. He cut the engine. “Stay put. Honk if you see a cop. Don't interfere, don't say anything. Just honk.”

“Okay,” she said.

“I'll be right back. Sit tight.”

That meant be patient. Vika had an excellent grasp of American idiomatic usage. But she still made mistakes. She would have said “sit tightly,” and Tyler would have laughed at her.

He disappeared through the arbor in the hedge. The street was empty—no cars, no pedestrians, no police, just the drowsing summer morning. She was restless. She wanted to know what he was doing inside the house. Maybe she could get a glimpse through one of the windows. She'd still be on guard, just not sitting tightly. It would be better to find him than honk and call attention to them.

She slipped out of the car and closed the door quietly. She was still alone on the street. She trotted through the arbor and up to the house. It was a gloomy old house and the windows were dirty. She tried the door. Open. She pushed it a little and listened. Footsteps from the far end of the hall.

She eased inside, closed the door gently behind her, and started up the dark corridor. It smelled of mildew and burned coffee, dust and pine resin bleeding through the wood. The captured heat seemed to push the air out of the hallway. She would suffocate if she had to live in this house. What was Tyler doing in here? What did he want with this place?

She saw him going through a door at the far side of the kitchen to the basement stairs. He'd be able to hear her footsteps above him now. She tiptoed along, sticking to the side of the passageway. Boards didn't creak so much along the edge of the floor.

When she got to the door she heard his voice.

“… I moved it behind a bunch of boxes and some big metal shelf full of paint cans. No way, not unless he suddenly decides to clean up the place—or redecorate. No way he's gonna talk his way out of this one. Nobody's gonna care. They'll be too busy counting the bodies. Right. That's what I'm saying. Yeah, yeah, I know. Paper covers rock. For once! Sure, I get it. Now let me go, I gotta finish up in here.”

He was heading for the stairs. Vika raked the kitchen with a desperate glance. The only place to hide was the broom closet. She darted to the little door under a high cabinet and yanked it open: a mop and a vacuum. She squeezed herself in and pulled the door shut, digging her nails into the little gap between the flat surface and the raised edge of the panel. She stood hunched over, one shoulder pressed to a vacuum hose, feet pushed in among the clutter of canister bags, cords, and a plastic dustpan. She held her breath and listened as Tyler crossed the kitchen. Was he going outside again? Was there a back door? Could she get to the car before him?

She disentangled herself from the closet and stepped out. She heard his steps on the stairs to the second floor. She had time. She had to know what Tyler was talking about. What had he hidden in the basement? Something was wrong. There was no time to think about it. She had to move. She stepped to the door and down the bare plank stairs.

She saw the shelf right away, at the far end of the big cement floor, next to the hot water heater.

The big blond-wood box sat behind rows of paint cans, buried under liquor cartons. She moved one of them and saw the stencil: US GOVT. MUNITIONS

The cover moved when she tugged it up. The box wasn't sealed. She moved two of the heaviest boxes to the floor and lifted the lid.

She heard herself gasp—then almost scream a second later, when the water heater kicked on.

The box was packed with some kind of rocket grenades. They gleamed with oil, smelled of it. The stink of death. This man, Tyler, he had put these weapons here. He was hiding them from the owner. She didn't know why, but she knew he was going to use them and these were not the tools of sport or self-defense or even crime.

These were the tools of war.

Tyler was a madman. The thought exploded in her mind. There was no other explanation. Vika had experienced bombs going off. She knew how it felt. She had been walking back to her brother's flat in Sophia, two years ago, a cold clear February night, early morning by then, almost dawn, hurrying past the Galeria offices, shivering under her thin coat and more than a little drunk, when the explosion came. Across the avenue, she had been slapped off her feet as if by a giant hand. The silence afterward was the worst, the reverberating empty silence roaring in her head.

This silence was knowledge. Her charming American with his funny drawl was planning to kill people, many people, and somehow he was going to blame this man who let his coffee burn on the stove and kept old paint in the basement because he had hope for the future. This man who would not be able to ‘talk his way out of' owning these terrible weapons.

Her thoughts surged forward. If these weapons were meant to be found that meant Tyler had more hidden somewhere else, somewhere safe. If these were the decoys, how powerful must the real ones be?

She could not breathe. She had to get back to the car somehow before he knew she was gone. But he might be there already. And if he was still in the house, how could she get out without him seeing her, hearing her? She clenched her fists, raging at herself: she had been given a perfect opportunity, when she saw the American going down the stairs. She could have run away at that moment, and she would be sitting in the car now, smelling the ocean, daydreaming, knowing nothing.

But that was not Vika. Vika had to find out. Vika always had to find out.

And now, Vika had to help. She was the only one who could. She had the chance to save this beautiful island, stop this terrible war the American wanted to wage on his own people. She could be the hero, perhaps become a full citizen and never leave this place, never go back to Plovdiv. She knew what she must do. She must convince Tyler to trust her somehow, she must prove she was on his side, until she could escape and run to the police. She had seen the glorious police building with its red brick façade and its twin flagpoles. She would go there.

She closed the cover and pulled the boxes back on top of the munitions crate. Then she sprinted for the stairs, working out exactly what she was going to say.

Good thing she was ready. He was standing at the top of the stairs.

“Jesus Christ, Vika,” he shouted. “What the hell were you—oh fucking hell, you saw it, I can tell, you fucking snooped around and—”

Vika bounded up the last two steps, and flung herself at him, hugging him tight.

“You are make revolution!” she said into his neck between kisses. “I am strong with that.”