Black Tide

by Brendan DuBois

  Look," she interrupted. "The Chronicle's just a small town paper, but you should read it more often. Not because I work there --- though that's a good reason --- but because there are times when we report on some interesting stories in spite of ourselves.”

  I knew I was being set up but I didn't care. "Such as?'"

  "Such as the front-page story last month about the annual Fashion Show to benefit the Exonia Hospital. You see, on front page there was a photo and story ---both done by the papers best reporter, yours truly --- and in the photo was a model, the head of the trustees for the Exonia Hospital and one Cameron Briggs. For the last three years the fashion show has been held in Wallis, on the grounds of Mr. Briggs's summer home. So to answer your question, Lewis, yes, I have heard of Cameron Briggs."

  There are times when I have been tempted to tell Paula every detail of my past life, and what I used to do for the Department of Defense, but this was not one of those times. For one thing, I doubt she would believe me, and for another thing, after this I was too embarrassed to even bring up my former job.

  Reading the local newspaper. Not a hard thing to do. It can even prove helpful once in a while. Think you can remember?

  I tried not to look too stupid and I said, "What kind of guy is he?"

  By then she had stopped laughing. "Oh, typical idle rich, up in the rural sticks of New Hampshire every summer, away from the hustle and bustle of Manhattan. The guy who tries to fit in by hosting the year's biggest fashion show every summer and then showing up in tan pants and Dock-Siders with no socks. So rich he can be comfortable anywhere. The society women around just adore him. Without the fashion show, about the only highlight is the occasional golf tournament or sailing party. I've interviewed him a couple of times about the fashion show. If you get a chance to talk to him, good luck."

  "Why's that?"

  She shrugged. "Hard to explain. He's the perfect gentleman, the perfect host. I've talked to him when he had these old society girls hanging off his shoulders, cooing and giving him air kisses. He was smiling and telling me how he enjoyed being up here, giving something back to the community, but there was something wrong with his eyes, Lewis. They weren't looking at me, they weren't looking at the society women, they weren't looking at the models." For just a second Paula's voice turned solemn. "I don't know where his eyes were looking, but it wasn't nice. It was like he wished everybody there was dead and gone, so he could stop with the act of being the nice rich boy, up here to do good. I think there's something very hard inside there, Lewis, and I wouldn't ever want to be alone with him."

  Remembering how I had left Diane Woods the other night, I decided not to press things and I asked her about the latest gossip regarding a selectman in North Tyler and his habit of going to an adult bookstore in Porter. After a few minutes of talking and another bout of laughter, Paula said it was time to go. As she got up and slung her leather purse over her shoulder, she said, "Next time we get together, I'll bring that clipping about the fashion show. If anything, you'll like the model in the picture, She had a nice bod."

  I winked at her. "Oh, I'm doing just fine now, thank you."

  She kissed me on the cheek, not sisterly at all. "Put your eyes away, you brute. And I'll see you later."

  "I'd like that."

  Another smile. "Me too." She walked over to her Escort and I headed to the center of Tyler in my Rover, and though I was stuck in traffic on Route 1 for about fifteen minutes, I couldn't stop smiling.

  After my lunch with Paula, I stopped at the big Shop 'N Save grocery store on Route 1 in the center of Tyler. I do most my eating in restaurants but I do have to get the essentials every now and then --- such as paper towels, trash bags and the odd food item --- and this day seemed to be as good as any.

  I took my time, strolling the clean aisles and enjoying watching the young women with children who seemed driven to load up those wheeled grocery carts with as much food as possible. Me, I don't think I've ever used a wheeled cart in my life. With only a couple of items left to get for the day, I was in the frozen food section picking up six containers of Minute Maid lemonade, when he came up next to me.

  "Been a while, Lewis," the voice said. I recognized the voice right away and finished putting the containers of lemonade away in my grocery basket, covering up a copy of the day's Chronicle in the process. I looked over at Felix Tinios, who had a bag of grapes in one hand. He had on dark khaki shorts with big pockets that looked as if they came from British soldier on the North African front in 1942 and a yellow T-shirt that had some Italian phrase on it I couldn't translate.

  "Which has meant some peace and quiet for me," I said. “How about you?"

  He had a big smile on his face and said, "You're getting sloppy. I've been following you since you had lunch with that writer chick of yours, all the way up to the store. If I had been anybody else, you might have been in a load of trouble."

  "Somebody else, like certain nameless wonders?" I asked, remembering Felix's own phrases. "Nameless and gutless wonders who've been sending you postcards?"

  He nodded. "Maybe so. Look, let's talk, just for a moment."

  I followed him to a wide area of the store, which had rows of videotapes for rent. The way these large grocery stores have expanded has always amazed me. From developing your film to having a pharmacy indoors and now a landscaping section and movie section, well, it made me think about what would offer next. A car dealership next to the produce section? Oral surgery next to the juice aisle?

  By the ranks of the videotapes there were a couple of park benches for the older set, and while I'm sure Felix wouldn't like lumped into that category, I was also sure the young cashiers and bag boys wouldn't have any objection at all. I rested my light load of groceries on my lap and said, "What's going on?"

  He handed over a postcard to me. "This is the latest contact.”

  The postcard was an aerial shot of Tyler Beach, showing Weymouth's Point and just catching the southern end of the Samson State Wildlife Preserve. With a magnifying glass I would have been able to make out my house. I flipped the card over. Felix's address --- a post office box in North Tyler ---- was typed, along with yesterday's date and the message. It said in capital letters:

  YOUR COUSIN AND RUSSO WERE MESSAGES. DON'T IGNORE THIS ONE. THE MAINE HOUSE IN ONE WEEK OR WE VISIT 1201 CENTENNIAL.

  "What's at 1201 Centennial?" I asked.

  Felix hunched forward as he took the card back from me. His voice was firm. "That's where my father lives, Lewis. In Brockton. "

  I thought for a moment, just looking at the tensed-up figure of Felix. Around us people were shopping and the cashiers were busy bleeping groceries through the scanners, and it struck me how loud a grocery store is. Couldn't someone just come in and shop in peace?

  "This is going places you didn't expect, Felix."

  He rubbed at his forehead. "I guess that's about the smartest thing I've heard in weeks. Yeah, this one has gone to some very strange places." He looked over at me, his face grim. "It's been a very long time since I've been concerned about anything I’ve been involved with. I've always thought that I was slick enough so that I could never be caught, never be bothered, never be hurt. This one's changing that, and I don't like it."

  "Who do you think they are, Felix?" I asked. "People from Boston with a grudge against Russo? Someone back there that you angered, somebody with a long memory?"

  He shook his head. "I wish I knew. I've been asking some discreet questions and I've heard nothing, nothing at all. That's surprising. And what surprises me more is the fallout from the hit on Tony Russo last week."

  "The surprise being?"

  "The surprise being that no one's asked me anything about it, nothing at all. Which makes me think that Tony was doing a little freelance work and wasn't talking much to anyone. Which makes me think it was someone working with Tony who killed him off, all for my benefit. Either the buyer or someone connected to the buyer.

  I handed the postcard back to Felix.
"So what's your next step? Suggest another meet? Continue negotiating?"

  He took the card and rubbed at its slick surface for a moment, as though he was trying to sense the identity of the person or persons who had sent it to him, and then he crushed the postcard in his hands. "Lewis, I'll always deny saying this, but I'm getting the hell out of this one. I don't care about the money anymore. These guys… well, they're just too loony. They have no sense of business. Something more than business is going on and I don't want to find out what it is. I think I'm going to give everything up, but I need one favor, just one. And before you say no, remember Christy. Last time I saw her with you, you were smiling."

  I wondered if I looked flushed at the memory and said, ''Are you still looking for help?"

  Felix nodded. "Still looking for information. I know you had started looking into some things about that museum theft. If you could just finish and pass it along, well, I'll appreciate it. And tell you what, I'll give you a finder's fee. About half of what I offered earlier on. Then it's over and you and I can go down to Boston and see a Red Sox game and I'll take you to an Italian restaurant you could only dream about."

  I moved my hands against the smooth plastic of the grocery basket. "Information, then. No more face-to-face negotiations with me there holding your hand."

  He shook his head. "Just info gathering. That's it. Then it's over."

  Shoppers milled about us on the shiny tile flooring. Hundreds of food and grocery items were freshly wrapped in their protective and sanitary packaging and the baggers and cashiers moved everyone along, and a man from the North End of Boston was sitting patiently at my side, waiting for my answer in his quest to save himself and his father.

  "You got it," I said. "But then it's over."

  He nodded. ''Agreed. Then it's over. Thanks, Lewis."

  As he got up to leave, I asked, "If you intend to give the paintings up, Felix, then why the info gathering? What's the point?"

  While for a brief moment earlier his face had looked troubled, now it looked determined. "When I know who they are and when they get their paintings, then I intend to hunt them down. Nobody threatens my father, Lewis. Nobody."

  After leaving Felix at the grocery store, I drove through a number of side streets and one shopping-center parking lot, and by doing so I managed to avoid most of the traffic on my way home. The parking lot of the Lafayette House was full, but I slid through with no fuss and went down the bumpy and ill-maintained-for-a-purpose driveway and before I parked my Rover in the sagging shed that serves as my garage, I saw a surprise waiting for me. A woman in a two-piece bathing suit was sunbathing on my front lawn, lying on her back on a folding lounge chair.

  I stopped and the woman sat up, shielding her eyes with her hand. She waved at me and I half-waved back, and then I parked the Rover in the garage. After grabbing the plastic bag of groceries, I walked outside. The grass on the lawn was sparse as always but the sight was overwhelmed by the lawn furniture and the woman sitting there. One Cassie Fuller.

  "Hi there," she said, smiling widely. Her bathing suit looked as if it was made out of some thin wet-suit material, and her tanned and full skin was slick with either baby oil or suntan lotion. The bathing suit didn't leave much to my imagination, and her legs were quite long and flawless. I was suddenly aware the sun was very hot and that I was growing thirstier with each passing minute.

  "Hi yourself," I said, feeling self-conscious with the grocery bag swinging from my hand. "How the hell did you find out where I lived?"

  The smile barely faltered. "Some welcome, Lewis Cole. I thought you might enjoy a surprise, of having me show up at your doorstep on a day off. All it took was a few phone calls to your magazine and the Chamber of Commerce people here at the beach. You're fairly well known around here. You should be flattered.”

  I tried to smile back. ''Actually, I'm not. And I'm sorry for my initial rudeness. I don't often get uninvited guests."

  She was sitting up and leaning forward, showing me some fine square centimeters of tanned skin, and she said, "Well, this looks like your lucky day."

  Jesus. "Maybe so. Feel like a drink?"

  ''Absolutely,'' she said, and she spun off the chair in what looked like a well-practiced move. She picked up a small white towel and wiped her hands and dropped it on the lounge chair, and she followed me up the steps as I unlocked the front door. "

  Inside I threw open the sliding-glass doors to the deck and sounds of the waves were louder as I put away my meager groceries. Cassie looked around the rooms and made approving noises, and she joined me out on the deck with a glass of lemonade and ice. I had been quiet as I moved around the house, putting things away and making the drinks. Cassie was the first woman other than Paula Quinn or Diane Woods that had been in my home this summer. She was a bit overwhelming, from the exotic scent of her body oil to her skimpy bathing suit and her bright eyes, which seemed to be equal parts laughing and mocking.

  Outside she leaned against a railing and said, "Hell of a view. At my house, all I have is a tiny backyard and a couple of squirrels that raise hell, and an old man next door who says he's a bird watcher, but his binoculars always seem to be pointing in my direction. I’m jealous of what you've got here." “

  Thanks," I said. "I've lived here a couple of years and I've never gotten used to it."

  “Mmm," she said, sipping from her drink. A bead of ice water came off the glass and rolled down her wrist, and a quick snapshot of an image came to me, of touching the bead of water and wiping it away with my fingers. I looked away and out to the ocean.

  "How goes the magazine article about the museum?" she said, and I paused for a moment before replying. In all the times I've worked on "articles" that never appeared, I had uttered the Great Lie without qualms or guilt, but this time there was something about her look that made me stop for a moment.

  And then I said, "It's going," and I wondered if she sensed my lie. I tried to cover it up by asking, "How are things at the Scribner?”

  She shrugged her bare shoulders. "Nothing much going on. Papers come to my desk and leave my desk. Typing and dictation get done. It can get extremely dull in Manchester."

  "How's Justin doing?"

  "Justin?" she asked. "He's busy being Justin. A dreary security man who works every day to try to make up for something bad that happened years ago, and who probably doesn't know that most people don't give a shit. It's done. It's over. Finished. He's not much fun to be around."

  "In what way?"

  Again, that cool shrug. ''All work and no play will make anyone a dull boy. All he talks about is the job and the museum, and nothing else. Politics, society, gossip, and I've tried it all." '

  'And why won't he talk?"

  Cassie finished her glass of lemonade and carefully placed it on the railing. She turned to me, reached up and gently grabbed my ears, leaned forward and gave me a quick kiss on the lips. She tasted salty, and then she moved back and shook her head.

  "Lewis, one of my many faults is that I'm a quick study, and at this moment I think I like you," she said, her voice a bit rueful. ''And I know that if I stay here longer and get to know you more, I'm going to start disliking you. I came here for a friendly visit and to rattle your cage a bit, and to see what might happen with the two of us, and all you've done since I've been here is to interrogate me. You've not once asked a question that's not related to your job or Justin Dix. You've not once asked a question about me. And if you're going to do that for the first ten minutes of my visit your home, then there's not much to look forward to and I'm going to leave now and keep on liking you."

  A number of arguments came to me, sentences that would try to convince her to stay. I gave up. Sometimes being truthful the best course.

  "You're a sharp one, and I won't disagree with anything you said, Cassie," I said. "I think I like you, too. It's just that ---" "

  Hush," she said, holding up a hand and moving away from the railing. "We'll just leave it at that. I'll see my own
way out, and maybe, if you stop doing whatever you're doing, you might me back to the museum for a visit."

  "I might do that," I said, but by then, she was already through the sliding-glass door, and I fought the urge to follow her out and to see her walk back up my driveway.

  Instead I stayed out on the deck for a while, until I was sure that she was gone, and I finished my own drink and picked up her glass and smelled her scent for the last time. I went inside and did much of nothing for the rest of the afternoon. Seeing yourself perfectly in a mirror, warts and faults and all, tends to take the energy out of one's day.

  Chapter Seventeen

  On Friday morning I had a quick breakfast of tea and toast, and then drove into town to pick up the morning Boston Globe and my mail at the Tyler post office. I tossed the mail on the seat, threw the Globe on top, and drove back home. I got a glass of orange juice, grabbed the sheaf of mail and went outside. I sat on a fake-redwood chair and propped up my feet on the wooden railing. The morning was sunny and it looked like a good beach day. I felt sure that within a mile radius of my home, there were probably a couple of thousand people who were in a better mood than me.

  I flipped through the mail quickly. A postcard from Dr. Ludlow, reminding me of a follow-up appointment, scheduled for this Sunday afternoon. A flyer from Sears and one from J. C. Penney, a bill from the local cable company, a request for money from the Nature Conservancy that I saved for later and an ivory colored envelope that almost froze me to the chair, it surprised me so. My name and post office box in Tyler were neatly typed the center of the envelope. In the upper left-hand corner, there was the embossed logo for Shoreline magazine, and between the magazine's name and its address in Boston was this line: Admiral Seamus A. Holbrook (Ret.), Editor.

  The admiral. Writing to me. I've worked as the New Hampshire columnist for Shoreline magazine for a couple of years now, and I've only met the admiral once, when I visited the editorial offices and he hired me. Since then my contacts with Shoreline have been brief and infrequent. Every two weeks a rather substantial paycheck is deposited electronically from Shoreline into my account at the First Porter National Bank. I never go to their offices, I never get any phone calls from anybody in the editorial department and I never go to their annual Christmas party ---- which I understand from the society pages of the Boston Herald and the Boston Globe is quite magnificent, since it's held in their brick office building overlooking the slowly improving Boston Harbor.