Third Strike (9 page)

Men were raking for quahogs in the pond, fishermen were casting from the stone jetties, and kids were diving off the big bridge into the channel as they had done for as long as I could remember. I'd done it myself when I'd been a kid, and it wouldn't be long until Joshua and Diana would be doing it. Adults were always worried that some kid would hit a boat as it passed under the bridge, but I'd never heard of that happening.

It looked like what it was: summer on Martha's Vineyard.

In Oak Bluffs I eased through mobs of pedestrians, passed the crowded little harbor, and continued on to the state-police headquarters. I parked in back of the office, went inside, and found Officer Olive Otero at the desk reading reports. Olive and I had once been fire and ice, but we had managed to leave that behind us, much to the relief of her boss, Dom Agganis.

“Now, let me guess,” said Olive, pushing her reading glasses up into her hair. “You've been hired to figure out who blew up the
Trident,
and you're here to learn if we already know who done it and if we'll tell you so you can tell your employer and collect a bonus for being quick.”

“Close, but no cigar,” I said. “I've been asked by Eduardo Alvarez's wife and, worse yet, by my own wife, to clear Eduardo's name. The ladies are positive that Eduardo would never do anything violent. And there isn't any bonus.”

“Ah, so if I can assure you that Eduardo absolutely, positively had nothing to do with the explosion, you'll take that information back to the widow and to Zee and you'll go away and leave me alone?”

“Sounds good. It's a deal.”

“Well,” she said, “I can't do it, because we're still investigating, and Eduardo is still what they call a person of interest.” She stretched and looked down at the papers on her desk. “If that's all you wanted, I've got quite a bit of work here.”

“I've talked to half a dozen people who'll swear Eduardo sits at the right hand of God.”

“We've heard that, too,” said Olive, putting her specs back on her nose, “but there are people who expect King Arthur to return when Britain needs him.”

“I don't suppose you have anyone else on your list of suspects.”

“Nobody we're ready to identify to you.”

“Where's Dom?” I said. “Maybe he'll be more talkative.”

She laughed. “Don't bet the farm on that fantasy. Anyway, he's out earning his pay. Up-island, someplace, I think.”

“I figured he'd be nosing around the docks in Vineyard Haven.”

She shook her head. “This isn't the only crime we have on Martha's Vineyard, you know. Maybe they didn't have cops in the original Eden, but we need them here in this one. Come to think of it, if they'd had one guarding the orchard, Eve might not have stolen that apple.”

“Oh, I don't know,” I said. “She'd probably have slipped the guard one for himself just so she could have one of her own. You know how women are.”

“I know more about it than you do, for sure,” she said, “although that's not saying much. If you learn anything that might get Eduardo off the suspect list, let us know. He'll be one less guy for us to investigate. Now, if you'll just be on your way, I can get back to these important papers.” She wiggled her fingers good-bye, and I left.

I was no smarter than when I'd gone in. Maybe I should try prayer and meditation or fasting. If I had a bo tree, maybe I could sit under it and resist temptations until I achieved enlightenment.

I hoped that Brady was having better luck with his client's problems than I was having with mine.

It was still an hour before noon, but it was a warm day and I felt like having a beer or two, so I drove back into town, where, to my surprise, I found a parking place in the Fireside parking lot, off Kennebec Ave. Some of the cars already there bore bumper and window stickers proclaiming their owners as union men and their cause as just.

I went past the trash barrels and into the bar through the back door. It was semidark inside as usual, and the smells of beer, booze, bodies, and pub food filled the air, as usual. There were a couple of dozen customers lounging at tables, in booths, and on the stools in front of the bar. They looked a bit rougher than the usual college and tourist crowd, and conversation, for the most part, had to do with hostile observations about the strike and the August swoon of the Red Sox. When I entered, the voices slowed, and eyes turned toward me.

The only people I recognized were Jake the bartender and Bonzo, my gentle, dim-witted friend, who was man-of-all-work in the Fireside, where he labored on the cusp of his mental skills, serving beer from the bar and food from the kitchen, wiping tables, cleaning the floor, and carrying supplies between the basement and the barroom. Long before I met him, it was said, he'd blown out a good brain with an overdose of bad acid and had thereby transformed himself into a sweet, bird-loving, eternal child. I was very fond of him.

Now he waved, and I went right over and took an empty booth.

“Hi, J.W.,” said Bonzo. “How you been? I ain't seen you for a while.”

“I'm a married man, Bonzo. I don't hang out in bars so much anymore.” I asked for a Sam, and he went to the bar and brought it back. I knew better than to offer to buy him one, because Bonzo took his job seriously and never had a beer until closing time.

“Here you go,” he said, putting down my glass. “Whatcha doing these days, J.W.? You doing any fishing?” His eyes widened at the thought, because Bonzo loved fishing better than anything except watching and listening to birds and recording their songs, and his schoolteacher mother, who was growing older with a child who never aged. I took Bonzo fishing several times a year, sometimes when I knew no fish would be there, just because he loved to cast his line.

“I'm not doing any fishing right now,” I said. “I'm trying to learn about the man who was killed in that explosion on the boat in Vineyard Haven. I see that some of the men in the union are here, and I want to talk with any of them who knew Eduardo Alvarez. Do you know if he was ever in here?”

The happy look went away from Bonzo's face. “Oh, I heard about that explosion, J.W. That was bad. You know what it made me think?”

“What?”

“It made me think of that saying that only the good die young. Because Eduardo was young and he was good, too. You ever hear that saying, J.W.?”

“I've heard it, Bonzo. Are you telling me that Eduardo came into this bar? Did you talk with him?”

Bonzo's head nodded like a bobble head. “Oh, sure. We was friends. He was friends with lots of people, and I was one of them. Almost everybody was his friend.” He waved a thin-wristed hand in a gesture that took in most of the room. Then the hand stopped, and I followed its line to a man at the bar who was looking at us with an unfriendly face. “Except, maybe Steve, there,” said Bonzo, lowering his voice and dropping his arm. “Steve and Eduardo used to argue and almost fight.”

“Almost?”

“Oh, Eduardo would never fight,” said Bonzo, apparently surprised that I didn't understand that obvious characteristic. “He'd just put up his hands and move back, and then somebody would always step between them, and Steve might hit that guy before the other guys would stop him and give him a beer and quiet him down.” He put his face close to mine. “Once, though, the police had to come and take Steve and another guy away because they wouldn't stop fighting.”

Whiskey warriors are commonplace, unfortunately. If you give certain normally mild people enough alcohol to get drunk, they become nasty. On the other hand, if you get some normally obnoxious people drunk, they might become sentimental and burst into song.
In vino veritas
.

I looked at Steve and found him staring at me beneath frowning brows. I brought my eyes back to Bonzo. “What were they fighting about?” I asked.

“Oh, about the strike. You know, there's some guys who want it to stay peaceful and others who want to get tougher about it.”

“Is that what Eduardo and Steve argued about?”

Bonzo's head bobbed some more. “Yeah. I'll tell you something, J.W. We don't mind people arguing when they keep their voices down, you know what I mean? But we don't like it when they get mad and loud, and we don't like fights at all. It's bad for business.”

I finished my beer. It had tasted good enough to have another one, and Bonzo said he'd be glad to get it. I watched him go to the bar and saw Steve's big hand grab his shirt when he got there. Steve's voice reached across the room. “You talking about me, you half-wit?”

Bonzo was his height but half his weight. He pushed at Steve's hand. “I'm just getting a beer for my friend. Lemme go.”

Jake, the bartender, moved closer. “Now take it easy, Steve,” he said. Other voices said the same.

But Steve's hand didn't let go. He gave Bonzo a shake. “Fuck your friend. You keep your mouth shut about what you hear, you brainless idiot, or I'll punch you even sillier than you already are.”

I was halfway to the bar before I realized I'd left the booth.

Steve, however, had seen me from the start, and he was smiling. He shoved Bonzo away so hard that he'd have fallen if a couple of men hadn't caught him as he stumbled back.

“Bonzo's not quite your size,” I said to Steve, trying to control a little flicker of primeval red madness that was rising in the blackness of my psyche. I looked at Bonzo. “You okay, Bonzo?”

He nodded. “I'm okay, J.W.”

I stopped myself two yards from Steve and took a deep breath. “All right,” I said. “It's over.”

“The hell it is,” said Steve, coming toward me.

I stepped back, willing down that feral fire within me. “You've already been in jail once,” I said. “That should be enough.”

Steve's eyes were full of fury. “I'll be in jail, but you'll be in the hospital, you fuck!” He came after me as I backed away, then with surprising speed he kicked toward my crotch.

I turned and caught the blow on my thigh. A spear of pain pierced my leg, and a red film fell over my eyes, turning the world crimson. I caught his foot with both hands, twisted as hard as I could, and heard his ankle bones grind and crack. I heard his scream as I twisted harder then threw him back onto the floor. As he went down, I went after him, knocking aside his defending arms and slamming his head on the floor.

My hands were hard around his throat when Bonzo's head was suddenly between my face and Steve's, looking up at me while his thin hands pushed vainly against my chest, and I heard his voice, saying, “No, no, J.W.! No, no! Stop! Stop! Don't hurt him anymore! Don't!”

Slowly the red veil fell from my eyes, and I saw that Bonzo had thrown himself on his back between us and was making himself a barrier between Steve and me.

Steve was coughing and sucking in huge gulps of air. I took my hands away and saw Bonzo smile up at me as he patted me the way you pat a dog for obeying a command.

“That's good, J.W., that's good,” he said, scrambling to his feet and pulling on my shoulders. “Here, let's go back to your booth and I'll get you that beer.”

I got up. On the floor, Steve was moaning. Around me men were wearing frightened faces. I felt my fangs become teeth again, my claws become hands. I looked at Jake, who was still behind the bar. “You'd better call an ambulance,” I told him.

Jake nodded and reached for the phone.

Bonzo led me back to my booth. “You okay now, J.W.?”

My hands were shaking. “I'm okay,” I said.

He brought me a Sam. “You got to try never to get mad,” he said.

“I know.”

I drank some beer.

By and by a couple of cops came in with two EMTs.

“What happened here?” asked a cop.

“Steve, here, was dancing on a table,” said one of the guys at the bar. “He fell off.”

“Yeah,” said another man. “That's what happened.”

Heads nodded all around the room.

The second cop leaned over Steve. “You're too old to be dancing on tables, Steve. Look what you've done to yourself.”

Steve gritted his teeth. “I guess it could have been worse. I could have broken my neck.”

The cop scribbled on his report pad. “You know what they say. If you're gonna dance, don't drink. If you're gonna drink, don't dance.”

Steve groaned. “I'll try to remember that.”

Our eyes met as they carried him out of the room. I had another name to put on my list of people I wanted to talk to.

I
woke up sometime in the middle of the night. It took me a minute to remember where I was and why my head hurt and my stomach was jumpy. The darkness outside the window in Larry Bucyck's little house was a couple of shades lighter than the darkness inside. I guessed I'd only been asleep for an hour or so. A lot of alcohol, for me, always means a rough night of sleeping.

Living in the city, I wasn't used to the quiet of the Vineyard woods. The only sound was the almost subaudible hiss of the Vineyard breeze sifting through the trees. The silence was almost spooky.

I lay there staring up into the darkness, imagining Evie's sleek body next to mine and wondering what the hell Larry had gotten me into, and after a while, I went back to sleep.

The next time I opened my eyes, gray light was seeping in through the windows. The sun had not yet cracked the eastern horizon, but it soon would.

I rolled over, but it was no use. I was awake. I got up, shut my eyes against a sudden wave of dizziness, and went outside to pee. The first rays of morning sunshine were just touching the treetops, and the air was full of birdsong.

I went back inside and got dressed, then prowled around Larry's kitchen area for coffee. After Larry's wine, I really needed coffee.

All I came up with was a plastic container with a few Lipton tea bags in it. It would take gallons of tea to give me the caffeine I needed. There was no substitute for morning coffee, and Larry didn't have any.

I went out back. Larry's hammock hung between a pair of oak trees off to the side of the yard. He was lying there with his arms crossed over his chest like a corpse, and if he hadn't been snoring, I might've thought he was dead. Like Poor Jud, he looked peaceful and serene, and I decided not to wake him up yet.

Rocket was lying directly under Larry's hammock. When he lifted his head and looked at me, I snapped my fingers, and he got up and followed me back into the house. I found a piece of paper and a pencil, and wrote, “Seven o'clock. Looking for coffee. Back in a while. Brady.”

Then Rocket and I went outside. When I got into Zee's Wrangler, Rocket sat there on the ground and looked at me.

“You want to come?” I said to him.

He stood up and wagged his tail.

I reached over and opened the passenger door, and he clambered in. I guessed if Larry woke up before we got back, he'd see that my car was gone and would figure out that Rocket was with me.

I drove out the dirt roads to the main road, then through Menemsha and Chilmark without any luck, and I ended up going all the way to Edgartown before I found an open gas station with a coffee urn. I got an extra-large, black. I thought about buying one for Larry, but I figured if he drank coffee, he'd've had some in his house. He probably preferred tea, or more likely some vile homemade concoction made from roots and twigs and dirt.

I bought a doughnut, too, and shared it with Rocket as we headed back to Larry's house.

By the time I got there, I figured I'd been gone a little over an hour. The sun had fully risen, and I'd drunk some of my coffee, and it had turned into a bright new day, full of hope and promise after all.

I parked in the front yard, and Rocket followed me into the house, his purpose transparently obvious. I found a bag of dog food in a cabinet and an empty bowl on the floor beside a water dish. I dumped a few cups of dogfood into the bowl, added a little water, and put it on the floor.

Rocket gobbled it down.

The note I'd left for Larry was right where I'd put it. I assumed he hadn't yet come inside. I didn't know what his sleeping habits were, or how tolerant he was of that awful wine of his, but we hadn't gotten to bed until after two in the morning. There was no reason to wake him up.

So I went out into the front yard, found a rock in a patch of sunlight to sit on, and finished my coffee.

An hour or so later, when Larry still hadn't appeared, I went around back to wake him up.

I went over to the hammock to shake him awake, but Larry was not in the hammock.

I stood there for a minute, looking around. I did not spot him. “Hey,” I called. “Hey, Larry?”

No answer.

I waited a minute, then called again.

What the hell?

My first thought was that while I was out trying to track down coffee, Larry had gone off to buy bagels or muffins for us. But surely he would have left a note when he found me gone. Anyway, his bicycle was still leaning against the side of the house, exactly where it had been when I arrived the previous afternoon.

It took me a minute, but then I got it. Larry had chickened out. He had decided not to go to the police or the Coast Guard with me to report the ominous boat with the Uzi-toting men aboard. He was hoping that if he wasn't around, I'd do it without him.

Okay, he was scared. I understood that. I'd probably be scared, too, if I'd seen what he claimed he saw, and if those men with Uzis had spotted me.

But, damn it, he'd called me, begged me to come down here to help him. There were a million things I'd rather be doing, like sipping morning coffee and reading the Saturday
Globe
and watching the chickadees in the feeders in my walled-in patio garden on Beacon Hill with Evie and my own dog for company.

Instead, here I was in the woods on the far end of Martha's Vineyard, and I had to drive all the way to Edgartown for my morning coffee.

I scanned the woods that surrounded the little clearing in Larry's backyard. I imagined him lurking behind a tree, watching me, waiting to see what I was going to do.

“If you're out there,” I said loudly, “you better show yourself.” I paused. “Damn it, Larry. You are pissing me off. I swear I'm gonna wring your scrawny neck.”

Nothing happened.

“If you think I'm going to talk to the police without you,” I said, “you can forget about it. No way. We made a deal.”

No response.

“Larry,” I said, “God damn it, I had to hitch a ride on a fucking catboat to get here. What the hell is wrong with you?”

There was no movement in the woods, and I was beginning to doubt if Larry was hearing what I was saying.

“I'm warning you, man.” I wasn't quite yelling. But almost. “This is it. I'm ready to pack up and go home, and I promise you, if you try to call me again, ever, for anything, I don't care what, I'll hang up on you.”

I blew out a breath. If Larry was lurking in the woods, he wasn't going to show himself, no matter what I said.

Maybe he had gone for muffins. Maybe he always took a long walk in the morning. Maybe…

Whatever. I'd wait for a while. If Larry didn't come back, I'd go talk to J.W. and see if he wanted to give me a catboat ride back to Woods Hole.

It didn't take my thoughts long to shift from anger to worry. I didn't really know Larry very well. He certainly wasn't the same man he'd been when he was a big-time athlete. I didn't quite know what to make of his story, what he'd really seen in the darkness that night and what his imagination had embellished for him, but I did believe he was afraid.

Maybe he hadn't just chickened out. Maybe something had happened to him.

I waited around while the sun rose in the sky and the air grew warm. I thought about Evie. When we were apart, we usually talked before bedtime. Whoever was away called to say good night, I love you, all is well.

Between Larry's storytelling and his wine, I'd forgotten.

I took my cell phone out of my pocket and pressed the On button. When the screen lit up, it read: “New message.”

Oh, shit. Evie, no doubt. Very few people have my cell phone number. She gave the thing to me for occasions exactly like this one, to encourage me to call and reassure her that I was okay when I was off on some quest.

I accessed voicemail, hit Send, and was told I had one new message. It had been delivered at twelve thirty-seven that morning. A little after midnight, while Larry and I were lurking around Menemsha Pond.

“Hey,” said Evie's recorded voice. “Are you okay? Call me, will you?”

No “I love you.” Just “Call me.”

She was pissed.

I called our home number. Evie didn't answer. In the shower, maybe. Or maybe she'd hooked up with one of her girlfriends for a day of shopping.

Or maybe she was standing there holding the telephone in her hand, seeing on the caller ID window that it was from me, and giving it the finger.

“Hi, babe,” I said when our voicemail invited me to leave a message. “It's your wayward boy, somewhat hungover here on Saturday morning after a night of drinking Larry Bucyck's homemade wine, which by comparison makes me yearn for a tall, cool glass of rubbing alcohol. Had an uneventful ride over on J.W.'s catboat. He and Zee send their love. Having an interesting visit with Larry. I'll tell you all about it. Anyway, I wanted you to know I'm fine. Sorry I didn't have a chance to call last night. It was thoughtless of me, though I do have an excuse. I'll try you later on. Hope you're having a good day. Love you.”

I doubted if any of that would mollify Evie. I should have called her. She expected me to and would worry if I didn't. She wouldn't've minded if I'd called late and awakened her.

I waited around for another hour or so. When there was still no sign of Larry Bucyck, I filled Rocket's bowl with fresh water and left it by the front door. Then I climbed into Zee's Wrangler and headed back to the Jackson abode.

J.W. would know what to do.

His Land Cruiser wasn't there when I pulled into their driveway, but Zee was inside. She told me that J.W. had gone off to find some people he needed to talk to, and if she knew her husband, I'd have a good chance of finding him at one of his watering holes. “Try the Fireside,” she said. “If he's not there, I bet he's been there and somebody can tell you where he was headed when he left.”

Zee offered to feed me, which I declined, but I did accept a big travel mug full of black coffee, which kept me company as I drove to the Fireside. J.W. had taken me there several times before. I'd always found it a friendly place, but this time after I had found a place to park and was walking to the door, I saw a police cruiser and an emergency vehicle out front. A small crowd had gathered on the sidewalk to watch the EMTs load a man into their wagon.

Inside the restaurant, I spotted J.W. sipping a beer at a table and talking with his friend Bonzo. I went over to their table and said, “Hey.”

J.W. turned and arched his eyebrows at me. “Hey yourself.”

I slid in beside him.

“You remember Bonzo?” he said.

“Of course.” I shook hands with Bonzo. “How's it going?”

Bonzo smiled. “Very good, Mr. Coyne. Thank you.”

J.W. was frowning at me. “Everything okay?”

“Well,” I said, “Larry Bucyck seems to have disappeared, for one thing. What about you? I saw an ambulance out front. I doubt it's a coincidence. You in here, an injured body out there.”

He smiled. “Guy fell off a table, that's all. You want to talk about Larry Bucyck?”

I nodded. “I do. I could use some perspective. And maybe some advice.”

“Okay,” he said. “You want a beer?”

I held up the mug of coffee Zee had given me, which I'd brought into the restaurant without thinking. “I'm good.”

Bonzo stood up. “I got work to do,” he said, “and I bet you've got things to talk about.” He shook hands with both of us and wandered away.

I told J.W. about Larry's encounter with the Uzi-toting men on the boat, how they'd come sneaking into Menemsha Pond in the middle of the night and offloaded mysterious wooden crates into a van, and how they'd caught Larry in their searchlight.

“Uzis?” said J.W.

I shrugged. “Larry wouldn't know an Uzi from a garden rake. Some kind of nasty weapon.”

“You believe this story?”

I shrugged. “Larry believes it. I know he's afraid. I'm not sure what he actually saw, or how much his imagination has colored it. He saw something, all right. Could've been some fishermen unloading their gear, I suppose.”

“Without running lights?”

I shrugged. “If, in fact, that's what Larry saw.”

“I wonder what was in those crates,” J.W. said.

“Nothing good, I wager,” I said. “Nothing legal.”

“You're probably right. And that was Larry's conclusion, too, I gather.”

“He's really scared,” I said. “I made him agree to go to the police or the Coast Guard or somebody with me this morning, but when I got back from fetching coffee, he was gone.”

“He was there when you woke up?”

“Snoring away in his hammock.”

“But gone when you got back from your coffee run.”

I nodded.

“You think something happened to him?”