The Barbed-Wire Kiss (36 page)

“Where?”

She took a brown plastic bottle out of the robe pocket, tossed it. He caught it in front of his chest. Suntan lotion.

“Beach,” she said. “Now.”

“I don’t have a suit.”

“Improvise. There’s no one around.”

Before he could answer, she was out the door.

The sun was so bright on the water that it hurt to look at it for too long. He lay on the blanket, naked, almost dry now. He had gone in up to his waist, keeping the cast out of the water, watched her swim out farther, wishing he could follow her. Now she sat beside him, knees pulled up, her suit dark and wet.

He rolled onto his side, felt the sun begin to loosen the muscles in his neck and shoulders, dissolving the tension that had seemed part of him for so long. He closed his eyes and let the feeling take him.

He woke to the sound of gulls squawking. The sun was lower on the horizon, a coolness in the air. He shifted, saw her propped on one elbow beside him, looking down. She touched his cheek, ran a finger across the line of his jaw.

“I love you,” she said.

She leaned down, touched her lips to his. He put his arm around her, pulled her close, rolled onto his knees.

“What are you doing?” she said.

He slipped his cast behind her thighs.

“Don’t hurt yourself,” she said.

He stood, hauled her up with him. She laughed as he stumbled, got his balance again.

“Don’t drop me.”

“I won’t.”

She slipped her arms around his neck, and he carried her up the sand to the house.

Later, while she showered, he went out to the station wagon, opened the tailgate. He peeled back the piece of thin carpeting that covered the wheel well, levered up the spare tire. There was a hard plastic briefcase beneath it. He took it out, let the tire fall.

He set the case on the tailgate, popped the latches. Inside was a lightweight Kevlar vest, folded in half. Beneath it was a small black automatic, a Grendel .380, a backup gun. It was unloaded, but two full eleven-round clips were tucked into a leather pouch beside it. Under that was a white business envelope with four new hundred-dollar bills inside. He put everything back in the case, stowed it beneath the tire again.

It was early evening now, the sun a red ball over the water. He walked around to the back of the house, sat down on the steps. Through the open bathroom window, he could hear the shower running. He looked out at the blood-red water and, for the first time in years, he felt like he was home.

The moon was up over the bay, filling the room with a blue and silver glow. They lay on the big bed with the windows open and the lights out.

“I was going to leave him, you know.”

He turned toward her silhouette.

“What you said before, about being able to leave anytime I wanted, I guess that was true. But I was scared of him, of what he might do. Then, about two months ago, I decided I couldn’t go on like that anymore. I told him.”

“What happened?”

“He pleaded with me. Told me how much I meant to him. Finally, he agreed it might be a good idea to spend a little time apart. He offered to rent me a condo in Brielle. I guess he thought five miles away was far enough.”

“You didn’t do it?”

“I was going to, and then … This is going to sound stupid, but it’s true. We were getting ready to go through with it and then all of these other things started to happen—the drugs, the people from North Jersey, Mickey Dunleavy. He wouldn’t admit it, but I knew he was in way over his head and there was trouble coming. I didn’t love him anymore, but I couldn’t run out on him in the middle of all that. Crazy, isn’t it?”

“Not really.”

“I guess I felt that I owed him something. I don’t know why. It’s like I told you. He was good for me at first. He was strong and I needed that. But after a while that’s all he was—strong. There was nothing else there. He didn’t care about me, he just didn’t want me to leave. He’d get violent sometimes, unpredictable. It scared me because I never knew what would set him off. It got to the point where being with him was like kissing barbed wire.”

“What do you mean?”

“I never knew when I was going to come away with blood on my lips.”

They watched the moonlight on the water, and neither of them said a word.

Into their second week they had something of a schedule. They’d get up around eleven, make breakfast, then hit the beach. He’d lie in the sun or wade out into the shallows, watch her swim. Back at the house they’d shower, change, then inevitably end up in the bedroom. After dinner, they’d walk through the woods or along the edge of the bay. Slowly, he felt the last month falling away from him.

That Wednesday, she took a pair of steaks from the basement freezer and set them out to thaw on the kitchen counter. She wore the beach robe and, beneath it, the black one-piece bathing suit he’d taken her to buy.

“Some fresh vegetables would be nice for a change,” she said. “Something that hasn’t been frozen for six months.”

“I’ll go up to the stand, see what they’ve got. What do you want?”

“Anything green. Lettuce, celery. Tomatoes if they have them. I think I can manage to make a salad without ruining it.”

“I have to make a call anyway. I’ll stop on the way back.”

“Beach first.”

“I’ll meet you there later.”

He called Ray from the phone outside the liquor store. He wore cutoff jeans and a T-shirt, sandals he’d found in an upstairs closet. His skin was red and stiff from the sun, and he could feel the heat of the pavement through the soles of the sandals.

“Anything new?” he said.

“Not much. They’re still looking for Dunleavy. And Wesniak’s looking for you. He stopped by here yesterday. I lied pretty well, told him I had no idea where you were, but I don’t think he bought it. You need to talk to him at some point.”

“I will. I’ll call him. A week or so more down here and we’re going to see about making some plans to go away for a while. Not sure where yet. When we get back we have to sort some things out. She needs to talk to a lawyer, settle some issues.”

“I can imagine. You should be thinking about that yourself. You might need one.”

“I’ll take my chances.”

“Yeah, I know. You always do.”

After he hung up he went into the liquor store, bought a bottle of red wine and a half gallon of spring water. He put the bag in the rear of the wagon, headed back to the house. He drove past the farm stand before he remembered he was supposed to stop, then had to K-turn on the narrow road to go back.

There were only two other cars in the gravel lot. Under the awning, a middle-aged woman was stripping corn husks to check the ears. An elderly black man frowned at her from alongside an ancient register behind a plywood counter.

Harry put tomatoes, peppers, and cucumbers into separate plastic bags, passed on the lettuce, which was already browning around the edges. He brought the bags to the register, saw that the old man had a skin condition that had left the right side of his neck a bright, mottled pink.

Harry handed him a twenty and the old man rang him up.

“Cooking for company, eh?” he said. He put the plastic bags into a single paper sack.

“What do you mean?” Harry said.

“Figured you had visitors, that’s all.”

He handed Harry his change. “Have a good one.”

“Wait a minute.” For the first time, it occurred to him what the old man had said. “What do you mean, visitors?”

“None of my business,” the old man said and turned away.

“No, hold on,” Harry said, and the old man turned to face him again, wary, not coming any closer.

“Please,” Harry said. “Tell me. What did you mean?”

The old man shrugged. “Visitors. That road don’t go but one place. I see a car head down there, don’t come back, I figure you got visitors.”

He felt the ground shift slightly beneath his feet.

“How long ago?” he said.

“I don’t know. Two, three hours, I guess.”

“And you’re sure it didn’t come back.”

“I been here all day, just looking out at that road, and I know it ain’t come back. ‘Course, they could have taken one of those fire roads when they left, come out near Point Creek.”

“What kind of car?”

The old man frowned at him. “You in some kind of trouble?”

He sprinted for the wagon, pulling the keys from his pocket. He heard the old man call after him that he’d left his bag behind. He started the engine, spun the wagon around, spraying dust and gravel as he pulled back onto the road.

It might be nothing, he told himself. Someone who got lost. Or someone heading out into the woods. A ranger or a fire marshal. It could be anything.

He got the wagon up to forty-five, the springs bouncing on the dirt road, twice nearly steering into a ditch. He sideswiped bushes turning into the driveway, gave it gas as he went up the hill and had to brake quickly on the far side as the house loomed up in front of him.

He skidded to a stop in the front yard, turned off the engine, and was out of the car before it stopped rocking.

“Cristina!”

He hit the front door hard, sent it bouncing against the wall. The living room was empty.

He looked quickly in the kitchen, saw the steaks still on the counter, flies buzzing around them. He took the stairs two at a time up to the bedroom. There were clothes scattered on the floor, bureau drawers had been pulled out and emptied. He crouched beside the bed, reached underneath, and dragged out her suitcase, threw it open. The Glock was where he’d left it, folded inside a sweater along with the leather pack. He took it out, checked the clip, then pulled out the pack, unzipped it, saw the bills inside, untouched. Whoever had searched the room had done it quickly.

He went back downstairs, gun in hand, then out the back door. He pounded down the slope to the beach, slipped and almost fell headlong. He saw her towel stretched out on the sand, a bottle of suntan lotion beside it.

Sand had been kicked up around the towel. Her sunglasses lay a few feet away, near the dune grass. He picked them up, saw the footprints in the sand there. Bare feet, small, Cristina’s. And around them other prints, bigger ones. Shoes.

He looked out over the water, squinted into the sun.

“Cristina!”

A gull called back from high above him.

He raced back to the house, went from room to room and down into the basement, throwing open doors and calling her name. The house was empty.

Up in the bedroom he dressed quickly—jeans, boots, and sweatshirt. He grabbed the pack, stuffed it inside his sling, and picked up the Glock again. He left the front door unlocked behind him.

He reached New Jersey at dusk, the gas gauge needle hovering in the red. There were lights on in Fallon’s house. He parked across the street, took the Glock from the glove box, got out.

He worked his way around the side of the house, looked in the garage window. The Lexus and BMW were both inside. He went around to the back, saw that one of the French doors leading onto the patio was open, the curtain lifting in the breeze. He went through the door gun first.

The living room was empty. He gave it a long count of ten, listening for any sound in the house, then moved into the hallway. The kitchen was dark, the back door closed and chained.

Upstairs, the hall light was on, open doors on both sides yawning into blackness. The door to Fallon’s office was closed. He moved toward it, poking the gun into each room he passed, looking inside. All were empty.

When he got to the office, he switched the gun to his left hand, tried the knob with his right. Unlocked. He put the toe of his boot against the base of the door, pushed.

The door scraped on thick carpet, cold air swirled out. He shouldered it open, stepped through.

Fallon sat in a halo of light at the wide cherrywood desk in the center of the room. He was facedown on the blotter as if sleeping, lit by a single gooseneck lamp. Harry moved closer, saw the blood. It had pooled on the desk, dripped down the front in two rusty streaks.

He could smell him now, despite the air-conditioning. Fallon’s left cheek was against the desk, his eyes open and staring at a horse-racing print on the far wall. There were spatters of dried blood and flecks of scalp on the bell of the lamp. He’d been shot at least twice in the back of the head—there were teeth on the blotter, blown out by the bullets’ exit. His white linen shirt was stained a deep red.

A fly buzzed in through the open door, flew a slow circle around the desk.

He backed out of the room, left the door open, went into the bathroom and got a hand towel from the rack. He wiped the office doorknob clean, then went back downstairs, trying to remember any surface he’d touched. When he was done, he went out the way he’d come, drove three blocks to the gas station. He dialed 911, gave them the address, and told them what they’d find. When they asked for his name, he hung up.

He drove home to wait.

At eleven o’clock, the phone rang.

He sat at the kitchen table, the Glock in front of him. When the machine started to pick up, he shut it off and brought the receiver to his ear.

“Yeah.”

“Hey, sport,” Mickey Dunleavy said. “I figured I’d given you enough time to get back. There’s somebody here who wants to talk to you.”

He heard the receiver being put down, then the sound of traffic in the background. A pay phone. Her voice came on the line, weak and frightened.

“Harry?”

“I’m here.”

“Harry, don’t let—”

Then she was gone. He heard traffic again. Dunleavy came back on the line.

“Kiss, kiss, smooch, smooch, all that,” he said. “I just wanted to let you know what the deal was, in case you hadn’t figured it out. I imagine you had a lot of time to think on your way back.”

“I did.”

“Good. Then you’ll make this easy for both of us. Were you wondering how I found you?”

“Yes.”

“To tell the truth, Fallon did most of the work for me. He has a lot of contacts, knows a lot of people. Or should I say knew?”

Harry said nothing.

“I guessed you wouldn’t go very far. You’d want to see how this fell out, wouldn’t you? So I started hanging around the places you might have gone. I even wasted a whole afternoon parked outside Ray Washington’s house. Then I started wondering if he had another place somewhere. That’s where Fallon came in. I convinced him to make some calls, do some checking with his real estate connections. He found out about the Delaware house. He was ready to come looking for you himself. I saved him the trouble.”