Storm Tide (40 page)

“I’ve always come through for you, Johnny, you know I have. What’s this town coming to? I grew up here, and so did my dad and my mother and my granddaddy before them. There’s been Sparkses in this town since Adam and Eve. We come over from Devon almost two hunnert years and we been here ever since.” Donkey was spread across the whole Naugahyde couch, his arms and legs splayed wide. He was not a big man but occupied a lot of space.

“You’re a part of this town for sure,” Johnny said soothingly. He would like Donkey to calm down and get off his back. He intended to fight for the man’s reappointment, not only for Donkey’s sake, but because controlling the Department of Roads, Bridges and Waterways was damned useful. Johnny had controlled it for thirty-five years, and he wasn’t about to lose his grip on it now.

“This is good whiskey,” Donkey said admiringly. “Smooth as a young girl’s behind.”

“I wouldn’t give you less than my best,” Johnny said.

When Donkey finally went home, Johnny tilted the BarcaLounger
upright and sat with a big yellow legal pad on his lap planning his campaign. He had two selectmen but he needed a third. He would draw up a list of people willing to write a letter or make a phone call, put up a fight for a hardworking local boy. Shouldn’t Davey Greene himself be owing him something? For that lot they’d be building on? Crystal hadn’t got back to him about that. Just what did the boy say? Did he bite like a fish or was he coy? The latter, most likely, but he’d come around—once he realized how much his pride would cost him. Johnny would make sure there was enough public pressure to make it easy for David to vote for Donkey.

Johnny arrived at the office Monday morning with his lists. Maria was working on the books, so he had Tina and Crystal start putting in the calls. He’d take each one, of course, but they could run the people down first, leave messages, get whoever they could. By noon he had talked with eleven people. Then he had lunch with Ralph Petersen, but not at the Binnacle. He ordered up roast beef sandwiches and soup and a bit of salad—not that the Binnacle normally did takeout, but this was for him. He’d seen their expansion through the Zoning Board of Appeals; convinced the Board of Health to grant them a variance on their septic system. And why not? If you wanted an evening meal in this town after Labor Day, it was the Binnacle or pizza. They ran a necessary year-round business. Good for the town.

Johnny and Ralph had a private lunch in the office. Johnny liked to watch Ralph eat. Ralph was what they used to call a string bean, tall and skinny with a shiny dome and a white mustache, but he ate as daintily as a fastidious miss in lace gloves. It was his mustache. He was vain about it (the only hair he had left above his chin) and dreaded getting something caught in it. It had happened to him publicly maybe fifteen years ago. Palmer Compton, it was—the father of that one-armed idiot—stood up in a selectmen’s meeting and said, “You have tomato sauce for suppah, Chairman Petersen? Or’d you get that punch in the mouth you deserve?” Ralph’s skin was as thin as the finest silk. He never again appeared in public with a speck of food in his mustache.

“So how is our new kid selectman doing, Ralph?”

Ralph made a noise in his throat. “Going to be trouble.”

“He grew up here, Ralph. Not like our ex-professor and Miss Nursery School. I think we can get to him.”

“You gonna fight for Donkey?”

Johnny spoke slowly, because he was about to give Ralph his line: “Donkey Sparks knows the men and they trust him. By the way, we should call him Sparks from now on, not Donkey when we refer to him. Sure, Sparks may lack computer skills and the ability to go out and get
grants from the state, but he keeps a firm hand on a difficult department. He’s a hands-on manager of the old school.”

“Hands-on manager of the old school,” Ralph repeated with satisfaction. “That’s one I can use.”

“Sparks grew up here and he loves this place and is loyal to it, not some careerist passing through to a bigger town with a bigger budget.”

Ralph put up another finger. “Not using us as a stepping-stone.”

“A son of this town, Sparks knows the people and the land.” Johnny paused for Ralph’s full attention, “Yes, the people and the land of Saltash.”

Ralph nodded sagely. “Remember the last big snowstorm, when the old people couldn’t get out? Donkey Sparks plowed his way into the back woods with the meals-on-wheels right behind.”

“That’s it.” Johnny nodded. Ralph was a good man if you gave him some direction. He didn’t need everything spelled out, just the outline and he’d be ready to take on the foe. “Talk to Davey Greene. Try to get him on our side. Take him under your wing, Ralph. You can do it.”

Ralph shrugged. “I’m not so sure of that.”

“He’s a local boy. What does he have in common with the Gordon Stone gang? He got recruited in bed. Now that’s over and he’s going to wake up and see where his true alliances are. We can get him to come over. I know it.” Johnny opened his office door. “Crystal, dear, could you put on a pot of coffee for two old gentlemen?” He winked at Ralph.

“You’ve got his girlfriend in your pocket.”

“Just about. And I suspect he’ll be marrying her soon enough.”

Ralph nodded, seeing which way the land lay.

“He doesn’t want to build a house,” Crystal said.

He had asked her to stay a little late for one more letter. “Why wouldn’t he jump at the chance?”

“He said it was a bribe. And now he’s moving out!” Crystal’s face collapsed and two fat tears rolled down her cheek.

He was glad he had waited till the girls left to broach the subject. He patted her shoulder. “Moving out where?”

“He’s staying half the time in that barn behind his mother’s.”

“Where his uncle Georgie used to live? It’s barely an attic. Did he say why?”

“He said he can’t keep his mother off her feet. You know, her ankle swelled all up. But I was taking care of her fine before he hired Mrs. Falco. He’s moved his selectman papers there. I think he suspects I told you about the letter—before the election?—and other stuff. I just
tell you what I think you need to know. I know you want what’s best for all of us.”

“But why does he suspect you? Has he ever tried to get you to quit?”

She shook her head no. “I think he’s too glad I’m working to argue about where.”

“Well, that’s a blessing. You know how the girls and I depend on you in the office. There’s not one of us knows those computers the way you do. Nothing would get done around here without you …”

She sniffed and he handed her a crisp white handkerchief, the sort he always carried, Irish linen and monogrammed. “You make me feel important. Nobody else does.” Crystal rubbed at her eyes. “I just don’t know what’s happening with him or what he’s feeling.”

“What does your little boy think of all this?”

“He’s scared. He doesn’t say anything. But he watches and he listens and he knows that I’m in trouble.”

“So Davey Greene doesn’t want to build a house. There could be forty reasons for that, dear. Perhaps he doesn’t want to go into debt right now with his mother injured and disabled. You mustn’t panic.”

She had the air of someone about to burst into hysterics, which he definitely did not want. He kept talking in a soothing voice. “He cares for your son, you’ve seen that, and obviously he cares about you. Give it time. Perhaps things moved too fast and you need to wait for him to settle down and settle in. Men often get balky, take my word for it, when things get serious. A man needs time to get himself around to thinking it’s his idea, not the woman’s.”

“I just can’t believe he moved into that drafty barn to get away from me! It’s so unfair.”

“Do you think something instigated this move? Something triggered it?”

She wiped her face in his handkerchief and sat down, frowning. She was in control again, a fragile patched-together control, but no longer verging on hysteria. “I know he’s stewing about that head of the roads and bridges department.”

“Donkey Sparks? Stewing about what, exactly?”

“I’m telling you, two things made him run for office. One was that bitch Judith Silver and the other was Donkey Sparks.”

“So that’s why he ran?”

“I think that had a lot to do with it. He said Donkey made him feel invisible.” Crystal shook her head sadly. “He felt like they ran over him instead of just his fence.”

Johnny needed time to think about this.

Crystal was still talking, slowly, her brows drawn together in thought. “He says that Judith Silver broke up with him, but I’m sure she has
something to do with this. I know he’s sneaking in some evenings to see her, I just know it. That’s why he moved over there.”

“She’s a dangerous woman,” Johnny said. “The first time I met her was in court. She lost, and I don’t think she ever forgave me. That is one lady, if I can still call her that, who does not like to lose, Crystal. I’ll keep my ears open. Nobody has any secrets around here, believe me. If he’s seeing her, there’s always someone who notices.” He would do that for Crystal and for himself, to refine his strategy. When Stumpy came by for his monthly check, Johnny would quietly, indirectly, patiently question him.

As Stumpy rowed across the harbor to town, he brought more than an appetite for beer and sausage: he brought news. This would not be the first or the second or the third time Johnny had used Stumpy for intelligence on the doings of the Stones. Who had come by to visit with Gordon? Whose cars were parked overnight? Who came to a particular meeting? Stumpy noticed everything, but he didn’t take sides. He would never understand that information had any value. Day after Labor Day, Stumpy would come in for his check. They’d have a nice long conversation.

D
AVID

    If Johnny Lynch no longer grabbed the headlines, there was no doubt about his ability to draw a crowd. The night of Donkey Sparks’s reappointment hearing, Johnny stood at the door shaking hands, guiding people to their seats like a night club maitre d’. He sat Donkey’s family in the first three rows, wife, children, grandchildren; Donkey’s loyal crew and their families in the rows behind. All three local reporters had been alerted. The cable news people were setting up lights and cameras. When the seats were all taken, the aisles filled; late arrivals were peering through the doors. Since four of the five votes were set in stone, it appeared that Johnny went to all this trouble to influence me.

The hearing was scheduled to begin at seven-thirty, but at seven, during the open session, Johnny Lynch slowly lumbered to the microphone. “I want to know where we stand on the issue of home-based contractors and parking,” he demanded. “You people are holding an ax over our heads.” Some months ago the legality of local tradesmen working out of their garages had been questioned. It was an emotional issue for them; an equally excitable one for their neighbors, who didn’t want their quiet streets turning into little industrial parks. Johnny knew perfectly well the board had no intention of changing the rules. But one after another, carpenters, plumbers, house painters, come directly from their day jobs or the bar at Penia’s Pizza, stood up to warn the board not to mess with their rights. This was not the usual crew we saw at selectmen’s meetings, not people accustomed to expressing themselves in a public forum. They were here because Johnny had started a rumor they were about to be screwed—and in so doing had filled the hearing room with people most likely to support Donkey Sparks.

Ralph Petersen called the hearing to order. Ralph had asked after my mother’s health this evening; only last week he had begun to address me by my first name. Not a forceful chair, he used cold efficiency to bull his agenda through, announcing the issue in a dry monotone, calling for debate and as soon as possible thereafter, the vote. Fred Fischel not only made the motion to reappoint Donkey Sparks, he read a prepared speech. Fred waved his arms as he recounted the heroic exploits of Donkey leading an army of meals-on-wheels volunteers through the frozen tundra of the Saltash winter forests. I glanced over at the
progressives on the board, Sandra Powell and Lyle Upham, who were wearing serene and confident smiles, certain we had the votes.

Petersen called on the audience to speak. The people and the land, they kept repeating, as if scripted. “If there’s one thing Donkey knows better than the people of this town, it’s the land itself.” By my second month on the board, I’d perfected the art of looking fascinated while not listening, and the further ability to avoid the stares of those who were obviously contemplating my grisly death. It was clear that the room was packed with Donkey’s supporters, and that the only ones who weren’t here were those who had elected me to get rid of him. But Johnny Lynch understood that an X on a ballot is dead and gone, while influence lives in the anger of the people who show up.

One after another they made points I couldn’t refute. Donkey Sparks did know every road in this town. He was available twenty-four hours a day. He belonged to the Fire Department, which often worked hand in hand with his own. Although he had never graduated college, he knew as much about highway construction as a civil engineer. Moreover, he knew his men. Knew how to keep them from goofing off (when he cared to), how to send them home when they came in drunk and get them to return sober the next day, how to keep them from filing endless petty grievances with the union.