Hide and Seek (4 page)

around for another set of chocks, I damn near took her head off with the lift blades. If the manager had seen her there that close to me I'd have lost the job then and there. I turned the thing off and climbed off it.

"They fire you for disemboweling a customer."

"What customer? I'm your cousin from New Paltz. Your aunt my mother-is over at the house and probably she's dying. Her last wish is to see her sister and her favorite nephew. You've got the day off. It's all fixed. I didn't even have to ask for it."

"Huh?"

"He said I could tell you just to go home for the day."

"You assume a lot, you know that?"

"Sure I do. You mad at me?"

The way she asked me, it was a serious question, nothing coy about it.

If I thought she'd gone too far, then she wanted to know. I liked that. Even though I had the feeling that my answer was not going to make or break her afternoon either way.

"I'm not mad. It's too hot for this stuff anyway. Let's go."

We walked through the store and I said thanks to Mr. McGregor, and I was glad he was with a customer just then, because I could see Kim and Steven right out front sitting in the Chevy, waiting for us with the top down. A suspicious-looking bunch of New Paltz cousins.

"Clan Thomas, Steven Lynch and Kimberley Palmer."

"Kimberley."

She wiped her hand on her shorts, a nervous, birdlike movement. Then she held it out to me and I took it. It was tiny and delicate, and very smooth and dry.

Steven smiled at me and nodded and gave me a slightly too-firm handshake. We got into the car. It was a tight squeeze. I glanced back over my shoulder at Mr. McGregor.

"Could we get out of here, please? Fast?"

"Sure thing."

He floored it. I couldn't help wincing. I pictured Mr. McGregor You had to yell over the howl of the wind.

"Whereto?" I asked them.

Casey's breath was warm in my ear. "The beach. But first we want to stop at Shop "N' Save. Pick up a few things."

"Fine."

Steven switched the radio on and turned up the volume, and after that there was no possibility of talking at all. His long slim fingers beat time against the steering wheel. I could smell Casey's perfume in sudden gusts, a clean smell, with nothing sweet or musky about it. Kim looked back at us from the front seat and smiled. The smile was crooked, but the teeth were white and dazzling.

We pulled into the Shop "N' Save lot, and all of us piled out. Casey reached under the driver's seat and pulled out a green book bag with a long strap and slung it over her shoulder.

"Get us a couple six-packs, will you, Clan? Steve, see if you can find some decent crackers this time, okay?"

Steven held the door for us, smiling, then flinched at the blast of cold air. I was the only one dressed for the air-conditioning. They always overdo it in these chain stores. You could keep corpses back there and they'd never decompose. Both girls were wearing shorts and halters, and Steve had on what I came to know as his usual gaudy Hawaiian-type short-sleeve shirt. With the thin white linen slacks he looked prosperous and trendy and very cold.

I went for the beer.

I had to do some digging for the Heineken dark, so by the time I had that and the two six-packs of Bud to the checkout stand, Steve was already there ahead of me, paying for two boxes of crackers. "See you outside," he said, shivering.

I paid for the beer, and as the girl was packing it up for me I saw Kim step into line in back of the woman behind me. She had a large loaf of french bread under her arm and some butter and was smiling And there was Casey, walking out the front door easy as you please. From the look of the green book bag, she'd stuffed it with apples and watermelon.

I lifted my own bag and walked outside. Casey had already gotten in the back, and Steven was starting her up. I handed her my bag and she looked at me. The pale blue eyes were sly and humorous.

"You don't approve."

"I don't disapprove, either."

"We only steal from chain stores."

"I suppose they can afford it."

"And we only steal delicacies. Look."

She dumped the book bag onto the seat. There were two big jars of Icelandic caviar. Smoked sausages. Pates, liver and foisgras.

Cheeses. Oysters. Squid.

"We've got lunch, anyway."

"We sure do. It doesn't bother you?"

"Why should it bother me?"

"It's your town."

"But not my chain store."

She seemed to relax a bit. I wondered if I'd just passed some sort of test with her. I wondered how many more to expect, and how many more I'd want to deal with. She stared at me a long moment more than was comfortable. Then Kim came out to the car, giggling. She glanced at the backseat.

"Good haul?"

"The best. Hop in."

There was something in the tone of it. "Hop in." The words were addressed to Kimberley, but I thought they were meant for me. I guessed I was along for the ride. Something did a little two-step across my spine.

"To the beach!"

"Ever go skinny-dipping out this way?"

Steven was doing an unhealthy seventy along the narrow, winding road, but he still thought he had enough control to be able to shout at me over his shoulder. He didn't. I leaned in close so he wouldn't have to do it again.

"Not here. Over at Echo Beach maybe. There's a couple places at Bar Harbor."

"Why not here?"

"Police. They frown on it."

"Fuck that."

He turned completely around to face me again, half-smiling, half-scowling. His wicked look.

Odd guy, I thought. I wondered what his connection was to the women.

There was the obvious urge to impress them. The loud colors. The fast driving. He had a peculiar way of glancing at Casey no matter who he was speaking to It wasn't just a matter of including her. It seemed to have something to do with approval. He was a good-looking guy, with dark, even features, sort of Latin and WASP combined. But there was something insecure about him. I had the feeling that in a way he was just as much a stranger to all this as I was.

You could make an educated guess that he was a bit hung up on Casey.

That would account for the sidelong glances. But then what was he doing paired up to Kimberley? Certainly she thought they were an item, even if he didn't. Her blond downy arm draped itself gracefully over his shoulders as he drove. Every now and then her hand would move up to play with the hair along the back of his neck or behind his ears.

When he spoke she listened very attentively. Her gaze was proprietary.

He didn't return it very much, and when he did, it was without heat.

I wondered how deep the bravado ran. I decided to call him on the nudity bit. See how he reacted. I knew a beach where the stones were pretty smooth and the waves rolled in easily somewhat to the north of here. You could do a bit of swimming. It was secluded enough. Nobody bothered with it much except the shell hunters.

"Take your next right," I told him.

To be honest, I wasn't opposed to seeing how the girls reacted, either.

We turned down an old dirt road and drove half a mile through the Guiles farmland, then slowed down as the road turned rougher through the dark pine forest that Van and I used to play in as kids.

Van was my older brother. He died in Nam when I was thirteen. It was two days after my birthday, November 12.

My father and Mr. Guiles were old friends. But we never came out here again after Van died. Maybe that was because his own son, Billy, had the bad grace to survive intact while Van went down in a burning helicopter over Khe Sanh. Maybe it was just too many memories. But we stayed away.

I remembered it, though. It hadn't changed much. Forest roads take a longtime to change. A little rockier, maybe, but just the same. It gave me a pleasant feeling, like coming home.

Steven cursed the road so hard you'd have thought it was his car and not Casey's. But it opened up soon and got smoother, and then there was that familiar little stretch of meadow and the cabin we used to call the Picnic Basket. Steve pulled over and parked, and we took the food from the car. Casey was first to discover the view. I walked over to her.

"Pretty good, isn't it?"

"Wonderful."

We stood thirty feet above as hallow bay with all the Atlantic back dropped behind it. Directly below was a rocky beach. There were boulders and crumbled slate.

When the seas were rough the water rose to maybe fifteen feet from where we were standing. All the contours would seem to change overnight. If you came here as infrequently as I did, it was never the same place twice.

I led them down a path to the sea. We found a spot beside a thick column of slate ten feet from the rock face and deposited our stolen merchandise and our towels. I climbed to the top of the column.

The gulls had been here, as I'd thought they would. They smashed the shells of crabs and clams and oysters against the rock to get at the softer stuff inside. It was littered with tiny corpses^

I saw Casey watching me and waved her up. She was a good climber.

"See this? Seagulls' restaurant."

She stooped to examine the dry empty shell of a blue-claw crab.

"They fly over here and drop them. Their aim is very good. Usually, that does it. If not, it will crack them a little. So they find cracks and do the rest with their beaks. They'd probably be here now if it weren't for us. See?"

We watched them wheel through the blue-gray sky a quarter of a mile away.

"You know about things like that?"

"About the sea? Some."

"What else do you know about? Tell me."

I shrugged.

"Lumber. Wood. Henry Miller. Dostoevsky. I can make a fire with a couple of sticks if I really have to. I build a pretty comfortable campsite. I know about Dead River, what there is of it. I cook a pretty decent fried egg. Not much, actually."

"What about me?"

"What about you?"

"What do you know about me?"

"I can guess some things."

"Yes, but what are you sure of?"

"Nothing."

"Liar."

She stood up and moved her hand around behind her back and saw her halter shudder free. She slipped it off and tossed it away. It drifted down the rock and settled below.

Her breasts were small, firm, with a high lift to them. Beautiful.

She stared at me. There was hard challenge in the blue eyes.

Challenge but no mockery. She stooped a little and drew down the white shorts over her hips. She wore nothing underneath. The pubic hair was sparse and delicate, a light golden brown. She watched me through all this and then smiled.

"Now you know more."

"Now I do."

She turned away and moved easily down the rock, agile as a cat.

She walked toward Steve and Kimberley. I watched her. There was a stupid grin on my face and very little immediate possibility of making it go away. I watched the easy grace of her. There was nothing to do but stand there until the muscles of my face worked again.

The others got out of their clothes.

Kimberley had larger breasts than I'd have expected. They were heavy-nippled, slung low and wide apart but very pretty, very lush.

She had a prominent mound of red-gold pubic hair. A little more in hip and thigh than I'd have asked for in the best of all possible worlds, but very much a green-eyed eyeful. Steven was hung like a ranch animal. And he wasn't shy at all.

I have cheap thoughts sometimes. They just come to me, unbidden. I had one now. I thought I was beginning to understand why Kim kept looking at him so fondly.

But I couldn't keep my eyes off Casey.

She waded into the sea and I watched the frigid water tighten her skin again. I thought I'd never seen anything so beautiful. She looked up at me, and I felt a clear silent summons. The grin was gone by then, so I climbed down off the rock. Compared to her I felt clumsy. A little muscle but no style.

"Come on in."

"You're kidding."

"Oh, come on. It's no big deal."

"Neither is pneumonia."

She swirled the water gently around her calves.

"Now look. Steven doesn't swim and Kim's a chicken. Are you going to make me do this all by myself?"

"I'll get my jeans wet."

"So take them off."

"My shirt, then."

"That too." She laughed.

What the hell, (thought. It was an easy way to get naked in front of them. I needed an excuse.

I let the clothes lie where I dropped them. I saw her watching me and felt two sets of eyes from behind. Hope it's up to snuff, I

thought. But I've never been much for display. So as soon as I moved out of my shorts I ran for the water. She dove in ahead of me. The last thing I saw was a slim pair of legs sliding in the water, toes pointed. A clean, perfect dive.