High Season (31 page)

“Shit,” Billy said. “That's only eight. I forgot one. I must be losing it.” He waved a hand in front of Coffin's face. Coffin's eyes followed it for a moment, then drifted off.

“Whoa,” Lola said. “The colors.”

Billy shook his head, swabbing at the bar with the greasy rag. “I'll forget my own ass if things get any worse.” He refilled Lola's glass, grinning with his big yellow teeth. “Drink up, honey,” he said.

“No,” Lola said.

“Now, be a good girl,” Billy said, holding the glass to Lola's lips. “Drink up.”

Lola clamped her lips shut, and the whiskey spilled down her chin.

“Fine,” Billy said. “You want to do it the hard way, that's okay by me.” He went into the kitchen. The back door opened. Lola
tried to get up from the stool, but her feet got tangled and she and the stool fell sideways onto the floor. She struggled to her knees and was trying to pull herself upright with both hands on the bar when Billy returned, carrying a length of two-by-four.

“And where do you think
you're
going, young lady?” Billy said, swinging the two-by-four hard at Lola's head. It struck squarely and made a hollow cracking sound, like a bowling ball dropped onto a concrete floor. Lola collapsed, arms and legs sprawled out. Billy left again and came back a minute later, pushing a wheelbarrow.

Coffin's tunnel turned and looped, and then he felt himself falling headfirst into darkness, falling at great speed. He wanted to cry out but couldn't open his mouth—couldn't produce a sound. He was no longer godlike, no longer a shimmering column of pale magenta light. He looked back at his body, slumped on its bar stool; beside him, Billy was standing over Lola. Coffin felt hugely dizzy—his head had filled with buzzing snow. The room began to spin and warp, and then something very hard hit him in the nose.

 

The bathroom was small. Duffy Plotz seemed to take up most of it. There was only one door, opposite a small frosted-glass window that was twenty feet above the backyard.

“Jesus, Duffy,” Jamie said, fanning herself with one hand. “You scared the crap out of me.”

“Good,” Duffy said. “I meant to.”

“Well, nice going, then.” Jamie tried not to look at the gun, gleaming dully on the countertop. She wondered how badly she'd be cut if she tried to grab it. The bright blade in Plotz's hand appeared to belong to an old-fashioned straight razor.

“You want me,” Duffy said. “I know you do.” He picked up the gun almost absently and stuck it in his belt.

Jamie looked up at him from the bathtub. Her heart was racing
wildly. “Yes,” she said. “Yes, I do. Why don't you take your clothes off and get in here with me?”

“No,” Plotz said. “You get out. I want to look at you.”

“Great,” Jamie said. Her legs felt weak and quivery as she climbed out of the tub. “I was getting all pruney anyway.” She stood on the bath mat, naked and dripping.

Plotz stared wide-eyed and said nothing.

“Look, I don't mean to break the spell or anything, but could you hand me a towel? I'm getting a little cold.”

Duffy leaned to reach for a towel, and Jamie lunged against him, slamming her hip into his groin and grabbing his right wrist with both hands. Plotz grunted, stumbled back against the door-frame. He tried to slap her away with his free hand, but she twisted and ducked. Then she pulled the hand that held the razor close to her face and bit him as hard as she could.

Plotz screamed and dropped the bright blade. Jamie shoved him, pulled the gun from his belt, and ran down the hallway. She tasted blood in her mouth. She was still dripping wet, and the wooden floor was slick—if she fell, Plotz would be on her in an instant. She took the stairs as fast as she could, Plotz's big shoes clattering behind her.

 

“It's a damn shame it has to come to this, Frankie,” Billy said, breathing hard as he shoved Coffin into the passenger seat of his pickup truck. “A damn shame. We go back a long ways, your family and me.” He slammed the door and pushed the wheelbarrow back toward the restaurant. Coffin fell and fell down an endless hole, unable to speak or move.

Billy went into the restaurant and stood for a minute, looking at Lola and thinking. He bent down and pulled up the hem of her T-shirt. No gun in her waistband—but there was a pair of
handcuffs. He checked her pockets and found the key. Then he pulled up her pant legs, and there it was—a .38-caliber snub-nose, tucked into her boot. He pulled the gun out, checked the safety, and stuck it in his pocket. He felt Lola's pulse at her neck—it seemed steady, a little fast. A trickle of blood oozed from her scalp. He rolled her over and handcuffed her wrists behind her back.

“Just to be on the safe side, honey pie,” Billy said. He picked her up and heaved her into the wheelbarrow. She was surprisingly heavy.

Billy dumped the lady cop into the bed of the pickup, covered her with a ratty blue tarp, and pinned the corners of the tarp with concrete blocks. She lay very still. He flipped the wheelbarrow over and slid it into the truck, handles first, next to Lola. Then he went to the shed behind the restaurant and came back with a coil of thick nylon rope. He tossed the rope into the truck bed, slammed the tailgate shut, climbed into the cab, and started the engine.

“This hurts me, Frankie,” Billy said, lighting a cigarette. “It truly does. I always liked you, and you know how I felt about your old man. But there's just a couple of loose ends, Frankie. And one of them's you.” Billy turned left out of the parking lot, onto Shank Painter Road. The A&P and the liquor store were closed. The big asphalt parking lot was deserted.

Coffin was a point of energy in a vast, rotating universe of color and light. Other entities were there, too—pure fireflies of being, adrift in a metaphysical milky way. They were trying to communicate with him telepathically. They were trying to tell him something important.

There was hardly any traffic. Billy turned right onto Bradford Street and headed up the hill. Muscle Beach—the men's gym—was still open. Through the big front window, Billy could see a single devoted soul chugging away on a treadmill. Billy cranked the wheel at the top of the hill and made a left on Pleasant Street.

On the harbor side of Commercial, Pleasant Street became a
narrow alley between two shops, then petered out altogether, stopping at a rusting gate in a fence made of sheet metal and steel bars. Billy got out of the truck, keyed open the gate's heavy padlock, drove the truck through, got out again, closed the gate, and snapped the lock shut.

The moon was high. Souza's Boatyard was a maze of rusting engine blocks and the hulls of a half-dozen fishing boats, all in various stages of disrepair, all slowly subsiding into the earth. In the moonlight the place was ghostly; a chill ran down Billy's neck as he parked at the foot of a small, dilapidated wharf. He took a pint of whiskey from his pocket, uncapped it, and drank.

 

Jamie made the living room three steps ahead of Plotz, who stumbled and cursed as he chased her down the narrow staircase. She sprinted for the front door, past the leering goat's head, dodging through the dark living room with its maze of straight-backed chairs and occasional tables.

Plotz paused at the bottom of the stairs and tilted his head, as if he were listening.

The front door wouldn't open. The key was stuck in the stubborn old lock. “Fuck,” Jamie said, desperately rattling the key. “Fuck!”

She turned; Plotz was barreling toward her, his face twisted with rage. She raised the gun and fired just as Plotz crashed into a spindly Victorian table occupied by two ceramic rabbits and a silver music box shaped like a toad. The gunshot was colossally loud in the low-ceilinged room. Half of the stuffed goat's face exploded into drifting hair and sawdust.

“You shot me!” Plotz said, sprawled in the wreckage of the table, the rabbits, and the toad. “You bitch!”

“No I didn't,” Jamie said. Her ears were ringing. “But I wish I had. And I
will
shoot you, if you don't get the fuck out of here.”

Plotz raised his hands, palms out. “Jesus Christ,” he said. “Why are all the cute ones psycho?” He struggled to his feet.

Jamie pointed the gun at Plotz's head. “Less talking, more leaving.”

Plotz slowly edged past her while she kept the gun aimed at his forehead. He unlocked the door, crossed the screen porch, and stepped onto the walk. She followed him, naked, out into the street, holding the gun in both hands. He climbed into his borrowed Toyota and started the engine. The beige sedan pulled away from the curb, then accelerated down the street. Jamie leveled the Colt and fired, punching a dime-sized hole in the trunk. Applause and raucous laughter erupted from a house across the street.

A group of women dressed in shorts and T-shirts stood on the big front porch, around a keg of beer.

“You go, girl,” one of them called.

“Nice shootin', honey,” said a heavyset redhead.

Jamie waved away the gunsmoke and dropped a little curtsy. Another round of cheering and applause broke out. “Want a beer?” one of the women said. “Want to take a hot tub?” said the redhead.

“Thanks,” said Jamie, trotting back to Coffin's house. “Maybe some other time!”

 

It was nearly high tide. A forty-foot lobster boat was tied to a cleat near the end of the wharf, nose pointed out, rising and falling on the slight swell. It had a small, boxy pilot house near the bow and a low, open stern, designed to allow the strings of lobster pots to pay out, one after another, into the sea. On the starboard side, there was a tall winch for retrieving the catch.

Billy climbed out of the truck and dropped the tailgate. He moved the concrete blocks aside and looked under the tarp. The lesbo-cop was still breathing, but she was pale and lay very still.
He pulled the wheelbarrow out and flipped it right way up. He dragged Lola out of the truck and into the wheelbarrow and pushed her out onto the wharf. When he got to the boat, he tipped the wheelbarrow up and dumped her onto the deck. He made another trip back to the truck for the four concrete blocks and the rope. Then, on the third trip, he pulled Coffin out of the cab and into the wheelbarrow.

“It's a hell of a note, Frankie,” he said, blowing hard as he wheeled Coffin down the sagging wharf. “I guess the Coffin jinx is the real deal. All your life you tried to avoid it, but here it is, jumping up to bite you in the ass.” He dumped Coffin a few feet from Lola. Then he climbed in, untied the bow line from the cleat, and pushed the boat away from the wharf.

“Jesus Christ,” Billy said, standing at the wheel in the small pilot house, trying to catch his breath. “This serial murder thing is killing me.” He turned the key. The big inboard throbbed to life.

 

Lola felt the vibration of an engine. She heard its low mutter and the sound of rushing water. She opened her eyes. She was on a boat. Her vision blurred; she could just make out the pilot house and the man at the boat's wheel. A squat, broad-shouldered man. Billy. He took a bottle from his pocket, screwed off the cap, and took a long drink.

She lay on her right side. Her head throbbed; the pain centered at a point behind her ear. Her mouth tasted like she'd been chewing a latex glove. When she closed her eyes, she still saw swirls of color, but they were faint. She watched them awhile, then opened her eyes again. She turned her head a few degrees, afraid that Billy might notice even a slight movement. She could feel the cool stainless steel jaws of handcuffs circling her wrists, pinning her arms behind her back.

Three wire-mesh lobster pots were stacked behind her. Frank lay just beyond them, his eyes and mouth open. She couldn't tell whether he was breathing or not.

The boat turned, a long slow sweep. Lola heard the plastic honk of the Long Point foghorn. They were rounding the outer breakwater, she realized—leaving the harbor. The boat straightened its course, then seemed to shift gears; the engine got louder, the bow lifted, and spray blew wet and cold across the deck.

Lola flexed her left hand. She made a fist, let it go. She closed her eyes and watched the colors slowly fade to black. She wasn't sure how much time passed before the engine stopped and the boat began to drift in relative silence—the only sounds were the wind and the waves slapping against the hull. Billy stepped out of the pilot house. Lola watched him loop the coil of rope around his shoulder, then pick up a concrete block in each hand. She closed her eyes, heart beating fast. He stopped at her feet.

“Just look at Sleepin' Beauty,” he said. He poked her leg with his toe. “Still out like a light. I'm gonna take care of Frankie here, and then it's your turn for a swim, honey pie.” He walked on, moving easily with the motion of the boat. Lola exhaled as quietly as she could.

Billy set the concrete blocks near the winch. Then he came for Coffin and dragged him across the spray-slicked deck. Billy uncoiled the rope and measured off a few arm-lengths. He took a Buck knife from his pocket, opened the blade, and sawed at the rope.

Lola flexed her wrists. The cuffs were fairly loose, which was good. She bent a little, trying to reach for the gun in her boot, but it was no good with her hands behind her back. The effort was exhausting—she rested a minute, breathing deeply. She'd seen more than one arrested suspect slide their handcuffed wrists under their butts and pull their feet through the loops of their arms,
bringing their hands from back to front; as an MP, she once watched a young soldier hop through his own cuffed arms as if they were a jump rope and run away. She rolled onto her back, got her feet under her, and lifted her butt off the deck. It wasn't easy, sliding her wrists under her buttocks—her arms weren't that long, and the cuffs cut her flesh; she felt something wet running down her fingers and knew she was bleeding.

Billy was intent on his work. He looped one end of the cut length of rope several times through the center holes of the two concrete blocks before tying it off in a double square knot. Then he tied the other end around Coffin's ankles.