Lincoln decided to try one more time. “But again, why tell me all this, Mr.Coffin? What am I supposed to take from it? That if something bad happened to Jacy back in seventy-one, the cops might’ve known who did it and closed ranks? Engaged in a cover-up?”
“No, Lincoln, that’s not remotely what I’m saying.”
“This hypothetical guy of yours who beats up women? Are we talking about Troyer?”
Now Coffin started massaging his temples with his thumbs. “Jeez, Lincoln, I have to say this is really discouraging. No, we’re talking about men in general. As a species. Was I unclear about that? Troyer’s a man, so sure we’re talking about him, but also about you and me and your pal Mickey.”
“Yeah, okay, but—”
“And there’s one other person we’re talking about.”
Here we go, Lincoln thought, back down the rabbit hole. “Who would that be?”
“My own son, Lincoln. We’re also talking about him.”
Lincoln wasn’t sure what he’d been expecting, but this wasn’t it. Suddenly the man looked ill, his pallor dark gray, and his breathing had become ragged. Then it finally occurred to Lincoln that this was where they’d been headed all along. “Beverly’s husband?”
“Ex-husband. Tell me something, Lincoln. Can you imagine raising your hand to a woman like her?”
“Mr.Coffin?” Lincoln said. “I know it’s none of my business, but you don’t look well. How about I give you a lift home? You’re having surgery tomorrow, right?”
“That surgery’s elective, Lincoln. I’m electing not to have it. I just decided.”
“Is that a good idea?”
“Search me,” he said. He was regarding Lincoln with increased interest now, apparently puzzled about something. “You said earlier that your life has pretty much worked out?”
“Yes,” Lincoln told him, feeling in this admission both its truth and something akin to shame. Like most blessed people, he probably didn’t count his blessings nearly often enough, but he was keenly aware of them and aware, too, that good fortune in general and his own in particular had little to do with virtue. In this he was different from Wolfgang Amadeus, and it might well have been the main difference between them. Dub-Yay was a Calvinist. Wherever he looked he saw signs not just of his own election but also of Lincoln’s. Other people, not so much. He’d taken one look at Teddy and seen no evidence of godly favor. Was he wrong? Earlier tonight, as he’d followed the gurney that wheeled Teddy into surgery, Lincoln couldn’t help wondering if what had happened back at Rockers was best viewed as an isolated incident or as part of a long-established pattern, one that could be summed up as Teddy’s life not, to borrow Coffin’s term, working out. Even back at Minerva, Teddy had seemed resigned to the likelihood that it wouldn’t. Which begged a question: was such resignation a cause or an effect? Had Teddy meekly accepted what he saw as the inevitable trajectory of his life, or had he courageously accepted what he couldn’t possibly change?
And what of Mickey? Had life worked out for him? Earlier, watching him play his beloved rock and roll at very high volume, Lincoln would’ve said yes. Wasn’t that what he’d told Anita? That of the three of them Mickey seemed to be the one who was living the life he was supposed to? Now, a few short hours later, he wasn’t so sure. Thanks in large part to the philosophical ramblings of a world-weary drunk, doubts about his old friend, however hard Lincoln was trying to resist them, were emerging, and he again recalled the expression on Mickey’s face this morning as he sat astride his Harley and stared off into the distance, his face a mask of … what? Disillusionment? Sorrow? Regret? Was music his life, or his escape from it?
“Well, I’m glad it did,” Coffin said, without apparent irony or bitterness. “Maybe you’ll stay lucky. In my experience lucky people usually do.”
More Calvinism. The elect stayed elected, the damned, damned. Having once made up his mind, God never wavered in his judgment, which was just fine with Wolfgang Amadeus Mosher, convinced as he was that he’d somehow merited his election and that others had somehow failed a crucial test, possibly in utero. By contrast, Coffin seemed exhausted by a lifetime of attempting to alter a foregone conclusion.
“Mr.Coffin?” Lincoln said.
“Yes, Lincoln?”
“I really have to pee.”
“You don’t need my permission.”
“Somehow I was under the impression I did.”
In the men’s room Lincoln took out his phone and scrolled through his RECENTS log until he found the number Beverly had called from that morning. When a groggy female voice answered, he said, “Beverly? It’s Lincoln Moser. Remember me?”
“Ummm. Yes?”
“I’m sorry to call so late. It’s about your father-in-law.”
“Is he all right? I’ve been trying to reach him.”
“He’s at a club called Rockers in Oak Bluffs.”
“Has he been drinking?”
“Quite a lot, I’d say.”
“He’s supposed to have surgery tomorrow.”
“He told me he’s decided against it.”
When she didn’t respond immediately, it took him a moment to realize it was because she was crying. Finally she said, “It’ll take me fifteen minutes to get there. Can you keep him talking?”
“I don’t think that’ll be a problem.”
When Lincoln slid back onto his barstool, Coffin said, “Okay, here’s what’s going to happen, Lincoln. The chief of police in Edgartown is a friend of mine. Tomorrow, I’m going to go see him. Tell him what I suspect.”
“Which is?”
“That girl never left this island.”
“You’ve changed your mind, then.”
“Yes.”
“Okay, but again, why tell me?”
His chuckle was entirely devoid of mirth. “Because, Lincoln, I’m offering you an opportunity to join the We Don’t Do Right by Girls Club. As a charter member, I can do that. You want to warn your friend Mickey? Let him make a run for it? Be my guest.”
“Look, Mr.Coffin, I respect your professional instincts, but Mickey didn’t have anything to do with Jacy’s disappearance.”
The other man just shook his head at this. “But you don’t know that. You believe it. Take it from me, knowledge and belief are two completely different animals.”
“Have it your way.”
“No, Lincoln. It’s not about me having it my way or you having it yours. It’s about facing facts. Like the fact that your friend Mickey has a criminal record in the state of Connecticut, where he was arrested for beating a man into a coma with his bare hands. Two hours ago you didn’t know that. Now you do.”
“Except I don’t know any such thing, because, no disrespect intended, I don’t really know you. We only met today—well, yesterday—and you just spent the last half hour telling me about all the wife beaters you tried to protect when you were a cop. You and Troyer are old friends. Why wouldn’t I believe you’re protecting him?”
“Well, reason it out. You’re a Minerva College graduate. Why would I tell you something about your friend that you could easily disprove if I’m lying.”
“Because I might just believe you.”
“But you don’t.”
“No, it doesn’t track. If Mickey’s got a criminal record … if he assaulted Jacy’s father like you say, how come he never went to jail?”
“Ah, Lincoln, I feel sorry for you. I really do. He did go to jail. It’s all part of the public record. He spent a full week in the county lockup. Where he didn’t go was prison. Because when the guy he beat the shit out of finally came to, he refused to press charges.”
“Why?”
“Well, if Mickey was my friend, I’d ask him.”
“Is that why you drove out to Chilmark today? To ask your friend if he was involved in Jacy’s disappearance?”
“That was the reason.”
“And he denied it?”
“Correct.”
“And you believed him.�
��
“I’ll put it this way, Lincoln. I didn’t disbelieve him.”
“Okay, so how did he convince you?”
“Well, that day your friend punched him? Mason’s got a different version of what went down. The version you tell, when your gentle, good-natured pal came upon the two of them in the kitchen, Troyer had the girl backed into a corner and was groping her. So it’s Mickey to the rescue.”
“That’s what happened.”
“Not the way Mason tells it. According to him, the girl didn’t exactly mind getting groped.”
“That’s bullshit.”
Coffin ignored this. “The way he tells it, he stepped in front of the girl because he thought your friend meant to hit her, not him.”
“That’s—”
“Were you there in the room?” When Lincoln hesitated, Coffin continued, “No, I didn’t think so. Which means you don’t know, Lincoln. You believe. And like all true believers, you reject out of hand anything that undermines your belief.”
“Okay, but doesn’t that same logic apply to you? Neither of us wants to disbelieve a friend.”
“Our circumstances are similar, Lincoln, but not identical. Mason and I do go back a long time. He’s needed my help now and then, it’s true, and in the spirit of full disclosure I’ll admit there was a time when I bottomed out and it was Mason who pulled me back from the brink. So, yeah, I do want to believe he’s telling the truth. But I’m under no illusions. He’s always been ten different kinds of jerk, especially where women are concerned. So yeah, I’ve considered the possibility that he’s gaslighting me. Can you honestly say the same when it comes to your pal Mickey?”
Just then a cheer went up at the other end of the bar. “Jesus,” somebody said, “I gotta see that again.”
“I get it, Lincoln,” Coffin went on. “Loyalty. Faith. You think I didn’t want to believe my son when he told me how his wife kept getting those bruises? And her always backing him up? Explaining how she’d been born a klutz?”
“I’m sorry—”
“There’s no reason for you to be sorry, Lincoln. Like I said, I’m glad your life has worked out. I’m glad you never staked out your own kid’s house because deep down you suspected he was a lying sack of shit. Suspected it because you’d seen how other women came by injuries like hers, and I’m really glad you weren’t peering in the window the night a son of yours grabbed his wife by the throat and flung her clear across the room. Because that’s where I was, Lincoln. Outside their house, looking in the window. I could’ve prevented the concussion she got when the back of her head hit the wall, because I saw what was coming plain as day, but until he actually did it I didn’t know. Until that moment? Until I fucking cuffed him? I could still believe.”
If Lincoln hadn’t been expecting her, he wouldn’t have recognized the woman who entered Rockers then as Beverly. At the Vineyard Gazette, nicely dressed and made-up, she’d been attractive enough to make Lincoln feel guilty for noticing. Now, sans makeup and wearing baggy shorts and a threadbare sweatshirt, she looked every one of her years and then some. Given what he’d just been told, it was hard not to see her as a woman who’d once been thrown across the room by an abusive husband. Only when she placed a hand on Coffin’s shoulder did he look up from the dregs of his beer and locate his daughter-in-law in the backbar’s mirror, his expression inexpressibly sad, as if their speaking of her had conjured the woman up in her current, diminished state. Then, all too quickly, his expression darkened. “Kevin,” he called, the dark malice that Lincoln had glimpsed earlier back in force.
Lincoln took a deep breath. If things were going to go really, really bad, it would happen right now. “I was the one who called her, Mr.Coffin, not him.”
If Coffin heard this, he gave no sign. Having put a twenty on the bar earlier, he now pushed it toward the approaching bartender. Kevin nodded hello at Beverly, then pushed it back. “On me, Joey. Be real good, though, if you didn’t come in here anymore.”
Coffin, leaving the bill right where it was, turned to Lincoln. “You know what happens to bodybuilders who eat steroids?” he said. “And don’t say they get stupid, because they’re already that or they wouldn’t be bodybuilders.”
“Joe,” Beverly implored him. He still hadn’t acknowledged her presence. “Come on, let’s get you home.”
“They get this bright red rash up their spine. Looks like a strawberry patch.”
“Mr.Coffin—“ Lincoln began.
“Am I right, Kevin? You got a rash like that up your back? This twenty says you do.”
Kevin shook his head. “You really want me to come around this bar, Joey?”
“No, I just want you to show my new friend Lincoln your rash. He’s never seen one, and he’s the kind of guy who doesn’t believe what you tell him unless he sees it with his own two eyes.”
“Because if I do come around there, Joey, I’m not going to be gentle with you. I know you used to be a tough guy, but you’re old now and those days are gone.”
“Please?” Beverly pleaded. “Joe?”
“This isn’t necessary, Mr.Coffin,” Lincoln assured him. “I believe you, okay?” He was trying to diffuse the situation, of course, but when he said the words they didn’t feel like a lie.
“You’re not just blowin’ smoke, Lincoln? I wouldn’t want you to say that just to save Kevin a beating.”
“That’s hilarious,” Kevin told him.
“No. I believe you,” Lincoln repeated, and it didn’t feel like a lie this time, either.
Coffin studied him drunkenly, deciding. Finally, he said, “All righty then. I guess we can all go home.” Again he pushed the twenty toward the bartender. “Put this in your tip jar. Use it to buy some medicated cream for that rash.”
Sliding off his stool, Coffin lost his balance and probably would’ve fallen if Beverly hadn’t been there to steady him. Something about how she managed this suggested it wasn’t the first occasion she’d had to. For his part, Coffin seemed emptied out, not just of energy but even of a pulse, as if talking to Lincoln had drained him completely. Lincoln hoped that wasn’t the case, because there was something he needed to ask. “Before you go?” he said.
“Yes, Lincoln?”
“That incident you told me about earlier? Involving my friend Mickey? You wouldn’t happen to remember when that took place?”
Coffin stared into the middle distance. “I want to say 1974, but like I said, you can look it up.”
“Okay, thanks. Can I give you a hand outside?”
It was really Beverly he was asking, but Coffin answered, “No, I think the evening has been humiliating enough without that.”
Nineteen seventy-four, Lincoln thought when the door finally swung shut behind them. If memory served, that fall was when Gerald Ford declared amnesty for draft resisters, and when Mickey, like so many others, returned home. While he was in Canada, except for a single postcard, they hadn’t been in touch. The card had arrived care of his parents in Dunbar in October of ’71, by which time Mickey had been gone several months. It pictured the magnificent Château Frontenac in Quebec City, and on the back Mickey had scrawled: Thought you might like to see my new digs. He’d signed it Big Mick on Pots. Excited, Lincoln had called Teddy, only to learn that his parents had received the identical card and message. “I guess he must not have heard about Jacy,” Teddy speculated, “or he would have asked if she’d been in touch.” Only later did it occur to Lincoln that his friend’s logic was flawed. If Mickey’d wanted to know about that, he would’ve needed to provide a return address, which of course he wouldn’t have, lest the information fall into the wrong hands.
It wasn’t until early ’75, after the amnesty, that Lincoln heard from him again, this in the form of a belated Christmas card letting him know that he was back and would contact them all again once he was settled. For now he was in West Haven, living with his mother while he looked for work and an apartment. He knew a couple guys who were looking to form a band, so he mig
ht do that. This time he did mention her: I guess nobody’s heard from Jacy? A month or two after that they spoke on the phone and he explained that his mother, with whom he’d been in touch while he was in Canada, had told him Jacy had evidently run off rather than get married, which Mickey accepted as the most likely reason for her disappearance. When Lincoln expressed his own doubts on this score, Mickey waved them away. “Mark my words,” he said. “She’ll turn up one of these days with a European husband and brag about being a foreign correspondent based in Singapore or some fucking place.” When asked how he was doing, he claimed things were coming together, but Lincoln heard something in his voice that made him wonder if he might be struggling more than he was admitting. Now that he was back home, did he regret having gone to Canada? Was he being treated like a pariah? You should come see us in Arizona, Lincoln told him, and Mickey said he definitely would, once he got settled, but that visit never happened.
So if what Coffin was telling him now was true, most of this had been at best an evasion and at worst outright deception. His friend’s first order of business hadn’t been to find a job or an apartment or to form a new band. Nor had he really been sanguine about Jacy’s disappearance. No, Job One had apparently been to locate her father. But why? Did he think Donald Calloway would know his daughter’s whereabouts? Most of the time Mickey was in Canada the man had been in jail. The person more likely to have heard from Jacy during this period was her mother. Wouldn’t it have made more sense to track her down? Lincoln tried to understand all this, but it was like coming across an old jigsaw puzzle in the back of a closet, with half its pieces missing.
Taking out his cell, he considered trying Mickey again. If he’d hauled this Delia person home by water taxi, he’d surely have arrived on the mainland by now and would have reception. But if he answered, Lincoln would need to decide whether he was calling as friend or inquisitor, as a member of the We Don’t Do Right by Girls Club, urging him to flee while he had the chance, or as Jacy’s avenger, determined to know the truth regardless of the cost. He hated to admit it, but Coffin was right. Belief and knowledge were different animals. It was the latter he’d been after when he first Googled Troyer and again when he visited the Vineyard Gazette. When he went to see Coffin in Vineyard Haven, it was still information, answers, he’d been looking for. Why hadn’t it occurred to him that asking questions about the past might disturb the present, that in the end he might want to unlearn what he’d found out?
Chances Are Page 22