Generation Loss (26 page)

"I—"

"You
said there was some guy up here you knew."

Silence.
Car engines droned into the bass thump of a radio.

"Phil!
Who was it?'

"The
guy I used to do business with," he said at last. "Guy named Denny
Ahearn."

"Denny
Ahearn." I stared across the room at the shelf with the bowling trophy and
the turtle shell. "Did you ever talk to her at all? Aphrodite?"

Another
silence.

Then,
"No. I mean, I couldn't, I didn't have her number or anything. I emailed
Denny, we went back and forth a few times. We started batting around names of
people who might go up there to see her, and I mentioned I knew you, and
suddenly he got all hepped up. So I figured I'd do you a favor."

"Goddam
it, Phil! Why'd you fucking lie to me?"

"Listen,
Cassie." He sounded aggrieved. "I woulda suggested you anyway—"

"I
don't care about that! I don't know who this guy is! Why did he ask for me?
What did he say?"

Phil
sighed. "Well, okay, let me think. He said he liked your book—he said you
were very simpatico. I guess he's an artist or something these days. And he
knows her—Aphrodite. He just wanted you, that's all. I thought he was like
doing you a favor, huh? He said he wanted you to see his work. He said he
thought you'd see eye to eye."

Eye
to eye.

"Fuck,"
I said. I hung up.

"Hey,
Cass?" I turned and saw Suze's face framed in the doorway. "You okay?
I need the phone."

"Yeah,
sure." I handed it to her. "I'll be right down."

She
left. I dug out the Jack Daniel's and drank until my hands steadied, walked
over and picked up the turtle shell.

S.P.O.T.
That crudely carved eye.

And,
on the other side, the letters ICU.

Not
a set of initials, not the intensive care unit.

"I
see you too," I whispered, and put it back.

I
went downstairs. Suze was alone again.

"Why
doesn't he go off that island?" I knew I sounded wired and drunk, but I
didn't care. "Denny. And how would anyone know if he did or not?"

Suze
stared at me curiously. "I hardly see him. Once or twice a year, he'll
come over to get supplies. Toby always brings him. Toby says he's gotten kind
of, I dunno, just weird, I guess. Like an agoraphobe. And he and Aphrodite,
they kind of hate each other. So in a place as small as this, you just keep
your distance, you know? But I don't think Denny could hurt someone.

"I
have one word for you, Suze: Unabomber."

"Really,
that's not Denny." She sounded pissed off. "He's more like—"

"Charles
Manson? John Wayne Gacy?"

"No!
He's more—well, spiritual. The commune, it wasn't just smoking dope and stuff.
After it busted up, I was, what, sixteen? Denny organized this guerrilla street
theater, we'd go around and protest. Down to Bath Iron Works where they built
those battleships; we threw pig blood on them and got on TV After that Denny
really got into the mystical shit. He was reading all these books, eating a lot
of acid. You're about my age, you remember what it was like, right? He was
playing the mirror game once, he thought he had a vision or something. Like a
vision quest."

She
turned to shove a carton of cigarettes onto a shelf. "So then we all had
to get spirit guides. Totem animals. We made these beautiful masks out of
papier-mache—they were amazing. I still have mine, up there—"

She
looked at the ceiling. "In my apartment. You want to see it?'

"Maybe
another time." I started for the door. "I really have to find
Toby."

"Boy,
you're suddenly in a hurry." She cocked her head. "You think you
might be back?"

I
doubt it. I couldn't afford the taxes." Cheaper if you share," she
said and grinned.

At
the door I paused. "So what was your spirit animal?"

"A
dolphin. Fun in the sun, endless summer. What about you? DeeDee Ramone," I
said, and left.

I
took a few steps toward the harbor, then stopped. I searched the road until I
found the sea urchin I'd set down the day before. I looked around, saw no one,
put my boot on top of the shell and pressed until it cracked.

The
keys were there, glinting in the drab light. I nudged them with my boot's
pointed toe then kicked them so they landed near the Island Store's stoop.

"Be
more careful next time, Tyler," I said. I headed for the water.

20

It
was late—past noon. A ragged cloudbank hung above the mainland. The wind
shifted, smelling more of smoke than the sea. I turned down the narrow alley
that led toward the Mercantile Building.

It
was like a northern ghost town. Dead
ivy
covered a wall made of granite.
Near the water stood three clapboard houses, abandoned and falling into
disrepair. All had for sale signs on them. Abutting them was a wooden
structure, shingles flaking off like fish scales, bouldry's chandlery was
painted in white letters on the side. It had high, narrow windows, most of them
broken, empty doorways that opened onto a cavernous space that smelled of
turpentine. Next to this was the Mercantile Building.

I
walked quickly, bent against the wind. The alley was so narrow it seemed like a
building might fall on me, if someone gave it a good shove.

"Junkie
bitch."

Two
figures stood in an empty doorway of the Chandlery. Robert's cronies. One took
a drag on his cigarette then tossed it at me. I flinched as it struck my arm.

You're
going the wrong way," he said. "If you're leaving."

I
had no time to run before they surrounded me.

"Did
you hear that?" said the guy who spoke first. "You're going the wrong
way."

They
weren't much taller than me, but they were heavier. And there were two of them.
The bigger one, a guy whose Carhart jacket read Dewey's Garage, pointed at my
bag.

"That
your stash in there?" He reached for it.

I
stared at him, holding his gaze; drew my foot back and with all my strength
smashed it into his shin. My boot's steel tip connected with something hard as
he shouted then crumpled, yelling.

"Oh
shit oh shit oh shit."

"What
the fuck!" His friend stooped beside him.

"I'm
not a junkie," I said.

I
took off for the Mercantile Building. The back door was off the alley. Tacked
to the wall was a yellowed index card with Toby's name on it.

I
hammered on the door. "Toby!"

The
guy I'd kicked had gotten to his feet. He clung to his friend, both of them staring
at his leg.

"Toby!"
My knuckles hurt from pounding. "Open the door!"

I
could outrun these guys, but could I outrun the whole town if they got their
friends after me? "Toby, goddam it—"

The
door swung open. I pushed past a bleary-eyed figure and shoved it closed.

"Two
guys just jumped me out there. Can you lock that?"

Toby
turned a deadbolt and looked at me. He wore a Motorola T-shirt and wool pants,
a pair of slippers.

"Good
morning." He rubbed his eyes, yawning. "Is it early?"

It
would be hard to tell if it was—we might have been in a cave, or a subway
tunnel. There were no windows that I could see, nothing but stacks of lumber
and old furniture.

"Noonish,"
I said. "Thanks for letting me in."

"No
problem." He regarded me curiously. "Somebody tried to beat you
up?"

"Yeah."

"Did
you do something to annoy them?"

"Besides
walk down the street? No."

"That's
a bit unusual. Did you know them?"

"I
saw them earlier at the general store. I think they think I kidnapped that girl
or something."

Toby
raised an eyebrow. "Really? Why would they think that?"

"Who
the hell knows? Everyone here is paranoid. Including me, now."

He
tugged at his beard. "Well, my apartment's down by the boiler room."
He pointed at a stairway. "This is all just storage up here."

The
stairway was dark. The room we emerged into was even darker, until Toby pulled
a string and an overhead bulb flared to life.

"Boiler
room," said Toby. He walked past a contraption that looked like something
out of
Metropolis.
"My apartment's there."

He
pointed at a door covered with a pirate flag. "Welcome."

There
was something very different about his apartment, and it took me a minute to
figure out what it was. It was warm. It was
hot.
I unzipped my jacket,
plucking at Toby's sweater.

"That's
one of the good things about living by the boiler room," he said. "In
the summer, I just switch it off and the whole place is so cool you wouldn't
believe it—those brick walls are a foot thick. It's like what they say about
Maine women."

"Which
is?"

"You
want a big woman with tattoos. Shade in the summer, warm in the winter, and
moving pictures all year long."

His
place was a cross between a machine shop and a roadside museum. There were
boxes everywhere, jars full of nuts, bolts, drillbits. Racks of antique tools
hung from the ceiling, bolts of sailcloth. A vintage Triumph motorcycle peeked
from beneath a Naval Academy Sailing Squadron flag.

Toby
called to me from farther back in the warren. "Come here, I'll show you
something."

I
followed him to his sleeping quarters, a bunk in the back corner. It was like
being inside a submarine captained by Pee-wee Herman. Semaphore flags dangled
from the ceiling. There was a brass hookah and a bunch of old computers and
dozens of empty bottles of Captain Morgan's rum.

I
ducked beneath a chart of Paswegas Bay. "This is amazing."

"Why,
thank you." Toby smiled. "Check this out."

On a
table beside the computers was a black rotary phone, a cheap Radio Shack
microphone attached to its handset. The lunar-landing
ping
of a
satellite connection came through the mike while a laser printer spat out
sheets of paper. Toby bent to peer at one of the computer screens.

"See
that?" He pointed to a grid of lines and numbers, tapped the second
monitor, which showed a series of sine curves, and finally the third, which
displayed a gray-and-white whorl that, when I squinted at it, resolved into a
satellite map of the Atlantic Ocean and Eastern Seaboard. "That's a
northeaster."

He
picked up one of the printed pages and handed it to me. It showed a
higher-definition version of what Id seen onscreen, with classified slashed
across it in white letters.

"Naval
weather satellites," he explained. "I had the Arabian Gulf
earlier."

"You
hacked into this with a rotary phone?"

"It's
not that hard. You want some coffee?"

"Some
water."

He
lit a cigarette and moved methodically about the room. I felt as though my face
was starting to peel back, just above my eyes. When Toby appeared again, I
started.

"Here—"
He moved a roll of charts, revealing a chair, and handed me a glass of water.
"Have a seat."

"Thanks."
I drank gratefully.

Toby
pointed at my boot. "You got some paint there on your shoe." He
tossed me a roll of paper towels, unscrewed the top from a bottle of rum.
"Want some?"

"No
thanks." I cleaned the blood off the tip of my boot and tossed the paper
towel into a wastebasket. "Listen. Things haven't been going so good.
Aphrodite—Gryffin's mother—she died last night."

Toby's
eyes widened. "What happened?"

"I'm
not sure. I think she was drinking and fell and hit her head.'

"Jesus.
How's Gryffin taking it?"

"As
well as can be expected."

"I
better call him."

He
hurried to the front of the apartment. I fidgeted and fought my paranoia with
more Jack Daniel's. It helped, but not much.

"He
doesn't sound too good." Toby returned and sat across from me.
"Coroner or someone's on the way over; they're taking her body to Augusta.
Gryffin's got to do something about a service and cremation. What a
shame."

He
looked upset but not surprised. "She had kind of a drinking problem for a
long time. Like I said, I never knew her that well, but—that whole crowd from
back then, for a while there we were pretty tight. Someone should tell
Denny."

"Are
you going to help Gryffin?"

Toby
sighed. "I wish I could. But that northeaster—I got to get over to
Lucien's place and make sure everything's battened down. Denny's supposed to
have closed everything up for the winter, but Lucien likes me to run
backup."