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Authors: Philip R. Craig

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BOOK: A Fatal Vineyard Season
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Probably. But every time I felt a pain in that area, I wondered.

It was early, but I thought Manny Fonseca would be up and around, so I called his house. He answered on the second ring, and I told him the situation and where to find the house. He said he'd be up right after breakfast and take care of things.

“Bring the strongest lock you have,” I said.

“Sure,” said Manny. “See you in an hour.”

I went to the window and looked out. The cruiser was still at the curb, and the cop was sitting in the front seat. He was looking in his rearview mirror. I moved until I could see what he was looking at.

He was looking at a huge man who stood on the sidewalk at the edge of the lawn like something that time had forgotten, staring at the house. He wore a camouflage coat as big
as a pup tent but none too big for him, and his face was the face of a creature that had not evolved from an age before humans could really be called that. His head seemed set in his wide, thick shoulders. He had no neck. His arms were huge and long, and hands the size of baseball gloves were knotted by his sides. His forehead was that of a giant Neanderthal, short and slanted over protruding, bony brows that shadowed eyes I could not see.

I felt the way I sometimes felt when I was a little boy, alone in our house with my sister when my father was out fighting a fire, and I heard the stairs creak at midnight. A monster was after me.

The cop spoke into his radio, then got out of the cruiser and faced the huge man, who, in turn, looked at him, then walked toward him. The cop, who was half his size, touched his holster, then took his hand away as the man seemed to laugh. I felt a chill of fear and pulled back from the window so as not to be seen or see what was going to happen.

Then contempt for that impulse stopped my retreat. I went to the front door and slid back the bolt and walked across the porch and down the walk to the street. The man turned his head and saw me and stopped and turned toward me.

I could see his eyes now. They were small and gray and merciless.

“You get some of that pussy in there?” asked the man. “How was it? You leave any for the rest of us?” His voice was something out of darkness. I thought of Grendel, the cannibal, who was descended from Cain and was doomed to hate and be miserable forever.

I looked at the cop. “You know this guy?” I asked him.

“Fucking piggy knows who I am all right,” said the man. “Don't you, piggy? But who are you, little boy? Or maybe you're not a little boy at all; maybe you're a girly girl just like those two whores inside. You want a good fuck, girly girl? I bet you'd love it.” He clutched his crotch with a huge hand. “Come to daddy.” He rubbed himself and laughed.

“His name's Alexandro Vegas,” said the cop, never taking his eyes off the man. “Don't worry about him. I've called backup.”

“Backup.” Vegas stared at me with his tiger's eyes. “Fucking backup won't do nobody no good here. We don't need no fucking backup here. Nigger bitches don't need no fucking backup. Not when I got a piece of ass like girly girl, here. She wants me to fuck her, don't you, girly girl? Come on, girly girl, we'll go someplace where we can have some, you know, privacy.”

“You're not my type,” I said.

“Oh, a dyke, eh? A tough dyke, are you? That's even better. I like to make a dyke beg for more cock. The tougher they are, the more I make them like it. Come on, dykie, we'll go home together.”

“They took him and his brother into the station last night and questioned them,” said the cop. “I don't know when he left there, but he just came here.”

“What the hell do you know, piggy?” Vegas kept his eyes on me. “I could have been here all night and you wouldn't know. Fucking pigs don't see worth a fuck in the dark. What do you say, dykie? Let's go have a good time.” He took a step forward.

The cop put a hand to his holster.

“You pull that piece, I'll shove it up your ass,” said Vegas, not even looking at him as he took another step. “Come on, dykie. Let's go have some fun.”

The sound of a siren came from the direction of the harbor. Vegas stopped.

“Looks like you get to go back to your cage alone, Alexandro,” I said. “I guess you'll just have to screw yourself.”

Hatred flared from him like a flame, but he didn't move. “You just made a mistake, asshole.” He flicked his little eyes to my left hand. “You got a wifey, don't you, dykie? You got little kiddies, too, maybe? You got a house where you and
wifey fuck all night and she stays with the brats all day while you go off to work? Save me some trouble and tell me who you are, so I can find them when I want to.”

I was sick about the ring on my finger.

Two cruisers came up the street and pulled alongside.

“I'll find you,” said Vegas. “I'll find out who you are.” He turned away.

Lisa Goldman got out of the first cruiser. Three other police officers got out, too. “Hold it, Alexandro,” said Lisa.

Vegas stopped.

Lisa looked at the young cop who'd been there all night. “What's going on, Larry? Trouble?”

“No trouble,” said Vegas.

The young cop looked at me.

“Just talk,” I said. “Alexandro likes to talk.”

“He make any threats?” asked Lisa.

“He proposed marriage. I said I was already taken. He wanted to know who I was and where my family and I live. I didn't tell him.”

“He didn't threaten you?”

I looked at Vegas. “He didn't say anything you can arrest him for, if that's what you mean.”

Vegas grinned and spit on Lisa's shoe. “Oh, sorry, Chief. I didn't see your fucking foot there.”

“Oh, that's all right, Alexandro,” said Lisa. “Just hold it there for a minute.” She wiped her shoe on Vegas's pant leg. “There. See? No problem.” She looked at me. “You're sure he didn't say anything or do anything?”

“Well, he's smelling up the front yard, but I don't think you can arrest him for that.”

Vegas stared at me with his animal eyes.

“Okay, Alexandro,” said Lisa. “I guess you can go. And you and Alberto stay away from here.”

Vegas looked at me a moment longer, and I felt poison enter my soul. “So long, dykie,” he said, and walked away down the street.

Lisa looked at the young cop and said, “What happened, Larry?”

The cop told her, and when he was through, Lisa said, “You did right to call for backup.”

“Yes, ma' am,” said the cop.

Then Lisa looked at me. “And you did wrong. You just made yourself as bad an enemy as you can have. In fact, you made two enemies, because Alberto is worse than Alexandro. You should have stayed in the house.”

My wedding ring caught the light of the early-morning sun and glowed against my skin. It was a bitter sight.

“Too late now,” I said.

“Start being very careful,” said Lisa. “And tell your wife to be careful, too.”

I nodded. “Yes.” My heart was pounding in my chest.

— 7 —

Manny Fonseca showed up a half hour later and looked at the front-door damage with interest. I told him what had happened.

“Guy who came through here must have been a real horse,” he said. “That frame was solid oak.”

“He's some kind of animal, all right.” I took Manny upstairs to look at the bedroom door.

He read the words slashed in the wood and shook his head. “Jesus. You read about this stuff, but you never expect to see it.”

“Can you fix these things up?”

“Oh, sure. I'll have to take this door back to the shop, but I'll have it back by tonight. I'll take care of the frame downstairs first. They know who did this?”

“They've got a suspect, but so far there's no proof.”

Manny nodded, since he had friends who were cops and knew that lack of proof was a common problem for them. In most small towns and in some big ones, as soon as a crime is reported, the police have a pretty good idea who did it, since the same few people tend to be involved in most of the crimes; but proof is often lacking, so all the police can do is watch and wait and hope for a break. As the chief down in Edgartown had remarked on more than one occasion, if two or three families moved off Martha's Vineyard, his work would be cut in half.

Manny took the bedroom door off its hinges, and the two
of us carried it downstairs and out to his truck. Then he went to work on the front-door frame. It wasn't long before the noise roused Ivy and Julia.

They came downstairs looking swollen-eyed and tired; and who could blame them, considering the night they'd had? I introduced them to Manny, who, after the quick, hormonally induced stare that men can't seem to prevent when sighting beautiful women, even the swollen-eyed, tired kind, recovered himself and showed them what he was doing with the door.

“Have this thing fixed better than new in no time,” he said. “You won't be able to tell that anything ever happened. Be stronger than before, too.”

“Thank you,” said Julia. “Can we get you something? Coffee?”

“Coffee black. I didn't get my usual gallon this morning, so I'm only at half speed.”

I followed the women into the kitchen.

“Coffee?” asked Ivy.

“Black. While you've been wandering around town, did either of you happen to notice a guy, maybe two guys, built sort of like King Kong, eyeing you?”

They exchanged glances, and Ivy shrugged. “Guys look. That's the way they are. We don't pay much attention.”

“You'd have noticed this guy, and if his brother was with him, you'd have noticed them for sure. Together they take up a whole sidewalk.”

“I saw a great big guy like a gorilla,” said Ivy. “Outside that bar. What do you call it . . . ?”

“The Fireside?”

“That's it. He came out and stood there, looking at us. He was wearing those camouflage clothes you see.”

“He do anything or say anything?”

She gestured angrily. “We were across the street, but he put his hand on his crotch and rubbed himself. Then he gave me the finger. Another jerk!”

“You didn't tell me that,” said Julia, glancing at Ivy while turning on the coffeemaker.

Ivy shrugged. “He was just another freak. There are a lot of them.” Unlike Julia, I thought, Ivy's passions ran more to anger than to fear, and her performance at the Academy Awards ceremony became suddenly more understandable to me.

“I think you saw a guy named Alexandro Vegas,” I said, “and he's not just another jerk. He may have been the guy who broke in here last night. He's a racist and a sexist and strong-arm man and maybe an extortionist. You stay clear of him. If he gives you any trouble, scream long and loud. The local cops would love to arrest him if they can find a reason.”

“My God,” said Julia. “What's with men like that?”

“His brother, Alberto, is supposed to be worse than Alexandro. They have a history of hurting people, including women, so don't try to be tough with them. Stay away from them, and yell for help if they even begin to give you trouble.”

“That's the man who broke into the house last night?” asked Ivy.

“There's no proof, but he's at the top of the list of candidates.”

“I hate this,” said Julia, rubbing her hands together. “It's awful having to be afraid all of the time.”

“Who's afraid?” snapped Ivy.

“You don't have to be afraid,” I said to Julia. “You just have to be careful.”

Her voice was angry. “You don't know what it's like. You're big and you're a man. Nobody is going to give you any trouble.”

Zee had said the same thing, but I thought of Alexandro's size and comments earlier in the morning. He was willing and able to give me plenty of trouble. Anxious to do it, even. And I remembered the fear I'd felt.

“Maybe you're right. But be careful.” I told them Manny's plan to take the bedroom door home with him. “He'll bring the door back this evening, so the house will be good as new by then.”

“Maybe we should just leave,” said Julia. “Go someplace else.”

“No!” said Ivy. “Your family's been coming here for a hundred years. We're not going to let anybody run us off!”

“You can talk with Lisa Goldman,” I said. “Maybe she can put somebody on the house at night. At least for a while.”

“We will,” Julia said. “But we can't expect her to delegate somebody to watch over us twenty-four hours a day.”

True. “Maybe not, but she can have her people keep a special eye on you. She'd like nothing better than to catch the Vegas brothers breaking the law. It would give her a chance to put both of them away again.”

Julia's eyes suddenly widened. “You don't suppose these Vegas brothers are working for Mackenzie Reed, do you?”

“Oh, no,” said Ivy, pouring coffee. “That couldn't be. There's no way that could be.”

“Maybe they met in jail or something.”

“Mackenzie Reed is in jail in California,” I said, “and the Vegas boys were up at Cedar Junction, here in Massachusetts. I can't see how there could be much of a link.”

Julia was stubborn. “Maybe they're all on-line or something like that. Maybe prisoners have chats on the Internet, like other people do.”

I had no idea what she was saying and told her so.

“Computers,” she said, surprised. “You know, the Internet. The Web. All that stuff. They have ways to have chats when they're on-line. People all over the world can talk to each other. Didn't you ever do that?”

“I am the last person on earth without a computer. I just got a TV in the house a couple of years ago. You're talking to a Jurassic man.”

“Oh. Well, people can do that. They can talk to each
other on the Internet, using computers. And I imagine that prisoners can talk to each other just like other people do. So maybe that's how Mackenzie Reed and these Vegas brothers got together. Maybe he hired them.”

BOOK: A Fatal Vineyard Season
3.12Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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