North of Boston (13 page)

“What are you trying to say?”

“I need you, too. That's what I'm trying to say.”

“I never said I needed you.”

“I never believe what I don't hear.”

“You're wasting your time, Johnny. It's not going to happen.”

“No one would have to know. Just you and me, babe, our own private thing.”

Some little tug occurs inside me. It could be lust, the automatic kind that happens when you randomly hear someone talking about sex, or when your eye happens to fall on a very handsome man or a billboard of a very handsome man. Or it could be something far more dangerous: the need for love.

Goddamn. I plunk my sorry ass on one of the benches along the boardwalk and try to figure myself out. But, no, it's not the raging need I used to feel; it's just a tattered little hope like the one that lives stubbornly in the bottom of Pandora's box—still there after the war, famine, and pestilence fly out. There's no way in hell I'm going to let that little ghost of hope attach itself to any part of John Oster. That would be sick.

“If things are so bad at home, why don't you get a divorce?” I say.

“Not that easy. Kids and shit.”

“Yeah, I've heard that before.” I shift the phone to the other ear.

“Hey, don't hang up. There's something I want to ask you. That guy ever get in touch with you? That Larry guy?”

Funny you should ask.
“You mean the one we talked about?”

“Yeah. Has he tried to get in touch with you?”

“You're pretty interested in him, huh?”

“Did he call?”

“No. What's going on?”

“I just want to have a little talk with him. The dude's hard to find. Let me know if you hear from him, OK?”

“Sure, Johnny. Hey, how'd you know I was at the harbor?”

“Seagulls.”

“Right. Take care.”

“You, too, Pirio. Misdial that phone again real soon.”

I stuff my phone in my pocket and watch waves of Bostonians striding by. They look normal and pleasantly busy. Most of them are probably married. I have to face the facts: I'm thirty and alone. A subtle fear that has started to haunt me recently is that I'm quietly going invisible, inconsequential in the world's eyes.

Don't think too much; just live,
I tell myself.

A teenage boy streaks by on a skateboard. Reckless, wearing headphones, plaid shirttail flapping in the breeze. I stand up and walk briskly after him toward the city. Come to think of it, I'm pretty sure that Larry What's-his-name's phone number is still in the pocket of the coat I wore to the funeral.

—

Wozniak
.
That's the name scrawled on the slip of paper.

He answers on the second ring.

“Why didn't you tell me you're an investigator for Jackson Hartwell Marine Insurance?”

A pause. “Who's this?”

“Pirio Kasparov. The woman you met at Ned Rizzo's funeral. The survivor.”

“Oh, yeah. I remember. How're you doing?” He speaks slowly, the way people do when they're thinking fast.

“I'm curious. I'd like to know why you wanted to talk to me about the sinking of the
Molly Jones
that day.”

A longer pause. “How'd you find out I'm an insurance investigator?”

“A little bird told me.”

The pause is so long this time that I start wondering whether he's still on the line. “Maybe we ought to talk.”

“I thought that's what we were doing.”

“In person, I mean.” All in a rush now, he gives me the address of a coffee shop, and tells me he'll be there in half an hour.

I'm impressed. This is the fastest, most personalized service I've ever had from an insurance company.

—

Everyone in Café La Roche on Beacon Street looks like either a spy or a wannabe creative genius. It's the kind of place where the cups are small and no one eats cake, where even the children are absorbed in serious-looking books.

Larry Wozniak's already there, sitting at a table along the wall. He's wearing an old gray sweater and black jeans, and he's got the hip black glasses on. His curly hair is combed back, graying at the temples. He stands as I approach and asks what I'd like. I request a large latte, double shot of espresso, unsweetened.

He goes to the counter to place the order, and I take a seat. He stands and waits for the coffee. He tries not to stare at me. I try not to stare at him. It's all rather arduous.

“How'd you find out I'm an investigator?” he asks, placing two cups on the table.

“I'll tell you how I found out you're an insurance investigator if you tell me why you wanted to hide the fact,” I say.

“People think that all insurance companies want to do is find reasons to deny a claim.” A bit of woundedness has sneaked into his eye. The poor, misunderstood insurance man.

“Forgive me, but that's true.”

He reacts with a sharp blink and continues as if he didn't hear. “If people know you're investigating a claim, they clam up. Like you did.”

“I didn't know that's what you were doing. You didn't tell me, remember? I didn't discuss the collision with you because I was emotionally exhausted after the funeral and didn't feel like dragging out my personal trauma to satisfy a stranger's curiosity.”

“I thought we'd gotten to know each other a bit.”

“You mean you were chatting me up, hoping to get me to talk.”

He produces a suitably embarrassed expression. “Sorry.”

“
Sorry?
You crash a funeral, hit on a woman to get information to deny an insurance claim, and all you have to say is
sorry
?”

He shrugs. “What are my choices?”

“I can think of a few. Like you telling me who's filing the claim in the first place since the owner of the boat, the likely policyholder, is too dead to do it.”

“I can't tell you that.”

“Bullshit. Why should that be private?”

“Sorry. Again. See? Not that many choices.”

I sip the coffee. I wonder whether Phyllis is trying to collect on the policy, presenting herself as nearest of kin, doing an end run around Thomasina and Noah. I wouldn't put it past her. “Are you aware that Ned Rizzo has a ten-year-old son? If somebody's going to be getting a payout for the loss of the
Molly Jones
, it ought to be that child. Be careful you're not participating in a fraud.”

Larry Wozniak looks away, purses his lips. Finally he says, “We have more in common than you realize. You could help me a lot if you let me ask you a few questions.”

“Like what?”

“Like why Rizzo left Ocean Catch.”

“Funny, I'd like to know the same thing. I know why
I
want to know, but why would that information be useful to an insurance company?”

“Did he ever say anything to you about why he left? Ever mention what he was doing there?” He's had practice interviewing: it's nothing to him to answer a question with a question.

“If I had that information, I'd want to know what it would be used for before I passed it on to anyone.”

“
Do
you have that information?” His eyes seem to have grown smaller, harder to read.

“No. I don't have a clue why Ned Rizzo left his job.”

He looks down at his cup, frowning.

I take a closer look at his wide face. Dark eyebrows, nicely arched. A blunt nose, the kind a child might make with clay. A tense, strong mouth; a forgettable chin. It's the kind of face that slides by in a crowd but gets more interesting the longer you sit across from it.

“I do have
some
information that might interest you,” I say. “But the only way you'll get it from me is if you tell me what I want to know first. If we have interests in common, why hold back?”

He wags his head a little. Not a no, not a yes. He seems to be at a loss, as if he didn't expect the conversation to go this way and doesn't have a backup. Then he picks his lame hand out of his lap and drops it on the table. It lies there looking like a sorry plastic replica of a hand. If this is a play for sympathy, he's got the wrong woman. But I am curious.

“What happened?” I ask.

“Accident,” he says.

“Boating?”

“Motorcycle. I was a stupid kid.”

“Is that why you got into the insurance biz?”

He laughs awkwardly. “Never thought of that.” But he's not giving up on getting what he wants from me, only circling for another try. “Look, if I told you that all the information you gave me would be used for good purposes, and promised to disclose in due time what those purposes are, would you consider telling me everything you know about Rizzo and the
Molly Jones
, and every detail you can remember about what happened out there?”

“I told you: either it's an even exchange of information, or it's nothing. But I'm willing to compromise a little. You can keep your client's identity secret if you tell me why you were looking at the
Sea Wolf
in drydock last week.”

He looks startled. “You know about the
Sea Wolf
?”

“I asked you first.”

“How much do you know?” He's turning white.

“A lot,” I lie.

His eyes are piercing, quizzical, disturbed.

I blink, swallow. I've never made it past a few hands of poker—the minute I get scared it shows up on my face, and I'm scared now, suddenly. Because he's scared. I realize I'm sticking my toe into some kind of slimy pool, that I'm half afraid of getting pulled in and half afraid of being left alone on the muddy bank, and that either eventuality is bad.

Larry gives a long sigh of apparent capitulation. “The
Sea Wolf
came in from a voyage with a fractured hull. I was trying to find out what might have caused it.” It's obvious he's not telling me anything more than what I would have heard from talking to the drydock manager.

“You learn anything?”

“No.”

“Why were you so interested?”

A smirk of impatience. “Come on. Let's stop playing games. You and I both know the fracture could have been caused by a collision at sea. We're both thinking the same thing, aren't we?”

“No. You're thinking that the
Sea Wolf
was the boat that destroyed the
Molly Jones
. But you're wrong.”

“What do you mean?”

“It wasn't the
Sea Wolf
.”

“How do you know?” He's genuinely surprised.

“The boat that hit the
Molly Jones
was bigger. Much bigger. And it wasn't red.”

He frowns. “You can't be sure of that.”

“I'm sure.”

He sits back in his chair, folds his arms, and stares at me like I'm a vexing but predictable problem. “You know how bad eyewitness testimony is? Woman swears the guy who attacked her was five-foot-six and wearing a sweatshirt; turns out the guy was actually six-foot-two and wearing a T-shirt. Happens all the time. No one believes in eyewitness testimony anymore. It's practically a joke. You think you know what hit you? You don't. You were in the middle of the Atlantic, scared shitless, trying to stay alive. How would you know what color the boat was? In the fog, how could you accurately judge its size?”

“I was cold and wet, not blind. I know what I saw. And don't pretend you really think eyewitness testimony is worthless. If I told you it was red, you'd believe me because it's what you want to hear.”

“Come on, Piria.”

“Pirio.”

“Pirio, Pirio. Come on. Listen, I'm not the bad guy here.”

“Really? Who is?”

“You've got to trust me. I promise—”

I hold up a hand to make him stop talking. “Wait. That phrase.
Trust me.
It's almost always a bad sign. And you want to know a phrase that I find just as troubling? It's
I promise.
That one never works out well.” I start to scribble my number on a napkin. “I don't trust you at all, Larry Wozniak. You're mixed up with something not right about the
Molly Jones
, and you're trying to screw Ocean Catch out of a legitimate claim by linking the
Sea Wolf
to a tragedy it wasn't actually involved in. Those are pretty bad things to do.” I slide the napkin over to him. “But I'll tell you what—if you ever want to get honest about why you're so interested in all these things, you can call me. And then we'll see if there's anything we can do for each other.” I walk out.

Beacon Street is noisy with cars. The sky has darkened, and the wind has picked up. A tan car was behind me when I drove over here—a beat-up American model. It followed me through a couple of turns, parked about a block down from the café. It's still there, but there's no one inside. I walk past and see that the meter is paid. My car's across the street, headed in the opposite direction. I've got one eye in the rearview as I drive away. Two blocks down, I make a U-turn on a side street, park on the corner, and watch.

A cop who looks like Danny DeVito is writing a parking ticket. A group of teenage girls jaywalk like stopping traffic is their God-given right. The tan car doesn't pass. There are no suspicious characters anywhere. No baseball caps, no buttoned coats. Nothing, really, to worry about.

—

The next morning finds me at my kitchen table, frowning into my before-work coffee. I'd promised Johnny I'd let him know if I talked to Larry Wozniak. Maybe I should give Johnny a call, describe the crazy conversation I had with the insurance agent. It would be interesting to know why Johnny doesn't like him. It's obviously more than the fact that Larry crashed Ned's funeral.

I hold the mug with two hands, let it warm my fingers.
Think.
I don't know how Johnny connects to the
Sea Wolf
any more than I know how Larry connects to Ned. At this point I'm pretty sure I'm not going to be getting the full story from Johnny, just as I didn't get it from Larry. Maybe there's a way to play one against the other. Maybe if I tell Larry that Johnny's looking for him, and threaten to call Johnny, I can get Larry to open up. It's devious, but what the hell. I have nothing to lose.