Vineyard Chill (21 page)

“The little drunk man was furious and called him all sorts of bad names, but John L. just ignored him and drank his beer until finally the little man gave up and left the bar. When the other people asked John L. why he hadn't just flattened the guy, John L. said, ‘Because I didn't have to.'”

There was a silence for a long moment, then Joshua nodded. “I understand,” he said. “John L. didn't have to prove anything so he didn't get in a fight.”

I rubbed his head. “That's right. Supper's in the oven. It'll be ready in about half an hour. Do you have any homework?”

“A little.”

“You'd better get at it. I'll call you when it's time to eat.”

Zee kissed her damp-eyed son and we went back to the kitchen.

“Is that a true story?” she asked.

“I don't know. I heard it a long time ago.”

“Well, it's a good one and I hope it helps.”

After supper, as Zee was washing dishes, the phone rang. It was Joe Begay. “I have some information for you,” he said. “Some of it's kind of interesting.”

The next morning I picked up Clay and we drove to Aquinnah. “Jeez,” said Clay, as we shivered our way up-island. “You need either a new truck or a new heater.”

“I thought you were going to fix it. You're the one with the magic hands.”

“Icicle hands are more like it this morning.”

“You've been spending too much time in warm climates,” I said. “Truly manly men are impervious to the cold.”

“Spoken like a guy wearing gloves.”

We fetched Joe Begay's house in time to wave good-bye to his wife, Toni, who was turning out of the driveway as we were turning in. Inside the house, Clay curled his hands appreciatively around a hot cup of coffee as we sat at the dining room table. Joe plucked a doughnut from a plate that he then pushed toward us. “I've made a few calls,” he said. “Maybe what I learned will interest you; maybe it won't.” He pulled a small notebook from his shirt pocket and gave it to Clay. “This is yours.” Then he looked at some scribbles he'd made on another sheet of paper. “Here's what I've been told. I think it's probably true, but you can't be sure because people don't always know the truth or tell it if they do know it. My sources mostly work for federal agencies, for what that's worth. Anyway, here's the scoop:

“First, a guy named Mark Briggs, who used to own a fair-sized spread in Montana before he sold it to a guy named Lewis Farquahar and moved to Palm Springs, seems to have disappeared. Those in the know think he's in Rio, which is not a bad place for him to be since the U.S. doesn't have an extradition treaty with Brazil. Not that he needs to be worried about being arrested because our narcs don't have any proof that he ever did anything to deserve jail time. They have their suspicions and they worked pretty hard over the years to nail him, but he outfoxed them. The smart money says he's really there to get away from the people who took over his business.”

“I thought that Lewis Farquahar took over his business,” said Clay, chewing on a doughnut.

“That's apparently what Lewis thought, too,” said Joe. “He supposedly paid Mark Briggs cash money up front for the ranch and the connections that went with it. That would be the cash that you took down to San Diego, if it really existed. Did you ever actually see what was in those suitcases you flew down there?”

“Actually,” said Clay, “no. I saw other money in other suitcases at other times, but those two were already closed when I got them from Farquahar. Are you telling me that there was no money inside?”

Joe shook his head. “No, but since you didn't see the contents, we're only guessing that the money was there. I think it probably was, mind you, but we can't be absolutely sure. Now, about the guy in the bank. You said he wasn't the guy you usually did business with. His name is Rodriguez. He replaced the usual clerk about a week before. You should be glad you decided not to deal with him because Rodriguez is a narc. If you'd handed over the suitcases you'd probably be in jail now instead of here enjoying the pleasures of a winter on Martha's Vineyard. He was one of the agents following the money trail, hoping it would lead back to your friend Mark, whose bank account, by the way, was in the name of Johnson. The idea was that they'd arrest you and you'd tell them about Briggs and that they'd nail Briggs and his network and thereby help save America from reefer madness. But you left the bank before you handed over the suitcases and never came back, and since Mr. Johnson had a policy of transferring earlier deposits to other banks and finally overseas, they didn't even get their hands on very much of his capital. All they had was a bank clerk who was trying to stretch his salary by accepting cash deposits, no questions asked, for a guy named Johnson, first name Jeremiah, and getting a medium-sized fee for his efforts.”

“Jeremiah Johnson, eh?” Clay smiled. “Mark had that movie on a disc. We used to watch it in his living room. He had one of those big-screen TVs.”

“The real Jeremiah probably didn't look like Robert Redford,” said Joe. “They called him Crow Killer because he hated the Crows for killing his wife, and Liver Eating Johnson because he supposedly ate the livers of the men he killed.”

“Crow livers?”

“So they said back then in the Wild West. You boys ever eat liver up there in Montana?”

“Only beef. No Crow.”

“On with my story, then. The narcs missed getting you and the money you supposedly had. How did they know you were coming with a deposit? The best guess is that somebody in either Briggs's or Farquahar's outfit told somebody who told somebody who tipped off the narcs. It was only a rumor but it was enough for them to put Rodriguez in the bank.”

“I thought the guy was probably working for Farquahar,” said Clay.

“No,” said Begay. “He wasn't working for Lewis. In fact, about a week later nobody was working for Lewis because Lewis was dead. Shot in Billings by person or persons unknown, along with a couple of guys presumed to be his bodyguards. You never heard about it because it was local news in Billings. Big news, but local.”

“Lewis dead? Who did it?” Clay seemed more interested than surprised.

“The smart guys think it was somebody who wanted his business. I'd guess that's probably right. I remember when pot smokers and dealers were making love not war. No longer, at least not on the big-business end of things.”

“The times they are a-changing.”

“Which brings us to your would-be visitors here on the Blessed Isle: Jack Blume and Mickey Monroe. You said they worked for Farquahar, but they don't anymore, and they know you and they know about the suitcases.”

“Who are they working for now?”

“They're a couple of fairly small-time West Coast hoods who don't seem to be working for anybody at the moment. It's my contact's guess that they knew about the money shipment going wrong. Probably because when you told Mark about it, Mark called Lewis to complain and Lewis told Blume and Monroe to get their hands on the missing money if they could. He may even have told them about you leaving your tools in Sausalito, or maybe they learned that later, after they'd set out on the road trip. The rest, as they say, is history.”

“So,” I said, “Blume and Monroe are working for themselves now. Their old boss is dead and they're out of a job, but they think that Clay has two suitcases full of cash, so they followed him here in their California car and their California clothes.” Then I had another thought. “Or do you think they're working for whoever kacked Lewis Farquahar?”

“There's some disagreement in narc circles about who did Lewis in. The favorite is a local grower who aspires to rise in the trade, but no one can prove that yet. I doubt if he's even heard of Blume and Monroe.”

Clay made a small sound indicating thought and nibbled pensively on his second or third doughnut. “Interestinger and interestinger,” he said. “Is the law after Blume and Monroe for anything?”

“They're what they call persons of interest in L.A. but there aren't any warrants out.”

“And they're not working for someone a lot bigger? A Mexican cartel or some such thing?”

“Not that my people know of. But, of course, they don't know everything. If they did, Blume and Monroe and you might all be in jail.”

Clay smiled agreeably. “If I'd been caught doing some of the things I've done, I'd have been in jail instead of junior high. But I wasn't.”

I thought the same thing was true for a lot of us.

“That's about all I can tell you about your West Coast friends,” said Joe. “Anything else you want to know?”

“If you can find out how I can get in touch with Mark Briggs, that would be nice.”

“I imagine I could, with time. But then I'd owe a lot of people more than they owe me.”

“Do you know who's at the ranch these days?”

“I believe the ranch is unoccupied at the moment.”

“Who's taking care of the livestock?”

“That I cannot say.”

“Does Mark still have his place in Palm Springs?”

“I believe he still owns it but that it's been empty for some time. Since shortly after you phoned him from San Diego, in fact.”

“Do you know who swiped the plane in San Diego?”

“I believe the authorities determined that it was parked in a spot that endangered other air traffic, so it was removed to a hangar.”

“It was parked where I always parked it.”

“All I can tell you is what I was told. Now, perhaps you'll tell me something.”

“What might that be?”

“Are the suitcases still in a San Diego storage locker?”

“Of course.” Clay glanced at his fingernails. “Who wants to know?”

“A lot of people,” said Joe in an amused voice. “More coffee?”

Before we left we'd finished both the coffee and the doughnuts and I was feeling full and good. I had no intention of telling Zee about my midmorning snack since she had, of late, made a few comments about my weight.
Winter fat
was the phrase she'd used, and I didn't want to hear it again.

Beside me as we drove back to Edgartown, Clay was deep in his thoughts and I was soon trying to organize my own. Joe's report had altered my perception of the situation involving Clay, Jack Blume, and Mickey Monroe, and as I followed the narrow, winding road out of Aquinnah and past the Chilmark Store, a plan began to form in my mind. As we approached Abel's Hill, the plan took shape.

At the top of the hill, on South Road, you can turn north into the cemetery and, without getting out of your car, view the gravestone that is the Vineyard's second most popular tourist site, the grave of a once famous comedian who died of an overdose of illegal chemical additives. In the years since his death, aficionados of both his life and his mode of passing have made pilgrimages to the site and left behind mementos of their faith and respect in the form of empty wine bottles, beer cans, roaches, needles, and flowers. The cemetery workers patiently clean the area every now and then, but always have to return before too long.

Across the road from the cemetery a number of driveways lead south, down toward the ocean. Along these sandy byways are houses great and small. Once, there were only a few, mostly modest homes, but increasingly mansions are being erected, some by people who are quick to make it clear that they want nothing at all to do with their neighbors. There was a time when such snobbery was rare on the Vineyard but that is no longer the case, as thousands of new No Trespassing signs give clear indication.

Down one of these narrow drives is a house owned by a friend of mine who uses it only in the summer and who pays me a reasonable sum to close it in the fall, open it in the spring, and care for it during the winter. When we came to his driveway, I took a right and drove down into his yard.

It was a pleasant summer cottage with a wide porch on the ocean side and a balcony on top of that where many a cocktail had been drunk (some by me) as the sun settled over Aquinnah. Between the house and the ocean was a narrow section of one of the many brackish ponds that line the Vineyard's southern shore, separated from the sea by a thin barrier beach. Between the pond and the house was a grove of evergreens and oaks. Between the front of the cottage and South Road was a tree-and brush-covered hillside that gave the place a feeling of splendid isolation. The nearest house wasn't really too far away but could barely be seen even through the largely leafless winter undergrowth. Besides, it was, like many of the homes in the area, inhabited only during the summer.

I led Clay up onto the balcony and waved my arm at the ocean. “The next land if you sail south is Hispaniola.”

“Beautiful view,” he said. “Haiti is beautiful, too. I knew a girl from there once. Too bad about the politics.”

“I have a key to this place,” I said. “Let me show you around.”

We went down and I showed him through the house. It was simple and clean and, once the water and electricity were turned on and there was food in the pantry, it offered everything a half dozen people would need for a pleasant stay.

“Not bad at all,” said Clay. “It wouldn't take much to winterize it.” He ran a hand over the carved wooden mantel. “Maybe I'll buy it.” He grinned.

“It'll probably cost you one of those suitcases,” I said.

“No problem. I have two.”

“I've been thinking about what Joe told us,” I said.

“Me, too.”

“And I have a plan.”

“What is it?”

I told him.

He thought for a while, then said, “How far away is the nearest neighbor?”

“Maybe a quarter of a mile.”

He thought some more and then said, “You're pretty sure Mickey is dressed?”

“I'm pretty sure. He had something fairly heavy in the pocket of his coat.”

“How about Jack?”

“I don't know about Jack. Just to be on the safe side, I guess I'd think he was carrying, too.”

“When do you want to do it?”