Port City Black and White

by Gerry Boyle

  “I thought that was what they did at workshops.”

  “You think?”

  “And he had the hots for you?”

  “I guess. A crush or something.”

  “Infatuated,” Brandon said.

  “But now he really dislikes me. And that means he dislikes you.”

  “Of course. Dangerous?”

  “I didn’t think so,” Mia said. “Just a bad drunk.”

  They were quiet as darkness fell and the sky turned from blue to black. Above them stars emerged, east to west. On the water, navigation lights floated, the ships and boats behind them showing as vague shadows.

  “Winston,” Brandon said.

  “Yeah?”

  “Tell me his story again.”

  Mia tucked her feet under her blanket, reached over and took his hand. They squeezed.

  “Well, he came here from Barbados. Owned a restaurant there. I think maybe he sold it, or his share in it or whatever. Has Rendezvous now, on Exchange Street. Lily says he has this idea that he could open a restaurant back home again, maybe go back and forth. Things are pretty dead in the Caribbean in the summer, so it would work out.”

  “Why Portland, Maine?”

  “I think he’d been here once before—I don’t remember why. But I guess he liked it. And then there was that story in the Times about the Portland restaurant scene, how hot it was.”

  “He saw that?”

  “Lily said he carried it around with him when he first got here. Went to all of the restaurants in the story, to see how he could fit in.”

  “So he’s got some cash?”

  “From the sale.”

  “Maybe he hit up her family,” Brandon said.

  “I got the impression he wouldn’t have to, but I don’t know.”

  They were quiet again. A woman on one of the boats broke into laughter. It echoed across the water like a loon’s call on a lake.

  “When Winston went at it with your friend there . . .”

  “He’s not my friend. I hope I never see him again.”

  “Okay, but when he hit him—it wasn’t the first time.”

  “That Winston hit Crane?” Mia said.

  “No, that he hit somebody.”

  “Really? He didn’t even punch him.”

  “I know, but that was somebody who can fight. Somebody in control. Bang, bang, bang, like a blur. He was totally calm. Didn’t lose his temper, just took three steps, slapped the guy’s face, whipped him around, and marched him out. And this Crane guy looked pretty strong.”

  “Maybe he was a bouncer or something. In Barbados.”

  “Maybe,” Brandon said.

  They sat, Mia kneading his hand in hers.

  “I like him,” she said. “He’s really good for Lily.”

  “I didn’t like the stockbroker.”

  “No,” Mia said. “You didn’t.”

  She looked out on the water, sparkling like a sea of black diamonds. The wail of a siren wafted across the harbor, a glimmer of blue lights.

  “Early for the bar fights,” Brandon said.

  Mia felt her contentment slipping away. She took a deep breath, said, “Is this the way it’s always going to be?”

  Brandon turned to her.

  “What?”

  “You always working.”

  “We were talking,” Brandon said.

  “Part of you was talking; the other part was someplace else.”

  She nodded toward the lights across the water.

  “Over there.”

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “Hard day.”

  She looked at him.

  “It’s okay, baby,” Mia said. “I’m just trying to figure out what I signed up for.” Another siren rose from the city, weaving with the first like jazz. Brandon glanced over, caught himself, looked back at Mia.

  “Sorry. It’s the baby,” he said. “I mean, he’s out there some-where.”

  Mia squeezed his hand.

  In the morning, they got up, brushed their teeth, slipped back into the berth. Their lovemaking was slow and steady and relentless, no rush and no turning back, the two of them oblivious to the rain drumming on the deck above. Mia held him tightly, held him down, then clenched him close to her, pressing herself tightly against him so he couldn’t slip a hand in between, could only return her embrace. When they were finished, she continued to hold him, gathering him against her, as if to keep him from slipping away.

  The boat rocked gently. The rain continued to drum on the deck.

  “I’m not going anywhere,” Brandon said.

  “I know,” Mia said.

  “Are you worried?”

  “A little. I don’t want to lose you. Cops, they’re always splitting up.”

  “Not all of them.”

  “Some of them.”

  “Not this one, Mia,” Brandon said, and he kissed her forehead. “I’ll bet they all think that,” Mia said, “before it happens.”

  “You don’t have to worry.”

  She kissed him on the cheekbone and rolled off. They intertwined arms, clasped hands. And Brandon’s phone rang. Three rings. A pause. One ring.

  “It’s Sarge,” he said, and Mia let his hand go. He slipped out from under the comforter and, naked, got the phone off the folding table. Mia looked at him, his strong back, his butt. She still wanted him but she knew he was gone.

  “Blake,” Brandon said. “Yeah, Sarge. . . . Sure. . . . Gimme forty-five.”

  He rang off, climbed back under. Mia lay there, the two of them naked but apart. “OT today. Powers that be want all out on the baby.”

  “So is there anything new?”

  “Gonna round up everybody that was at Chantelle’s party. Let the detectives have at ’em. Squeeze ’em, see what pops out.”

  “Bunch of druggies?” Mia said. “Think they’ll even remember anything?”

  “Won’t know until we ask. And Toby’s coming back.”

  “The dad?”

  “Boat turned around. They want to meet him as he steps onto the dock.”

  “In case he knows something?” Mia said.

  “Or in case he doesn’t and wants to go kill somebody.”

  “Like the ex or her boyfriend?”

  “Or both,” Brandon said.

  Mia was quiet for a moment.

  “Maybe you should go,” she said.

  The Marie G had left port at six on Thursday night, twelve hours before the police had converged on Granite Street. A day later it came down the harbor fast, the seventy-foot trawler looming out of the rain, throwing up a big, rolling wake. Brandon and Kat stood on the pier by the cruiser, watched as the boat approached. They could see somebody in the wheelhouse, another guy in yellow oilskins on deck, on the starboard side.

  The boat was a hundred yards off when a battered, jacked-up pickup rolled in behind the cruiser and stopped. A big barrel-chested guy got out of the passenger side, reached back in the bed for a tattered brown duffel. There was a woman behind the wheel, a child in a car seat in the middle, a gun rack behind the kid. The woman was smoking, blowing the smoke out the open driver’s window in big puffs like she was sending smoke signals. The kid was gnawing on a pacifier.

  It was a girl, brunette hair, pink hat. Brandon and Kat both checked.

  The guy leaned in the truck window, said something to the woman, reached out and bumped the child’s fist. The kid grinned and reached to do it again but the guy had stood, looked out at the approaching boat. The woman put the truck in reverse, backed down the pier. The guy came over and stood. He nodded.

  “You Toby’s replacement?” Brandon said.

  “Bad for him,” the guy said, staring out at the trawler. “Good for me. Serious cash, lobstering offshore.”

  “I’m Brandon. This is Kat.”

  “Booker,” the guy said.

  “You heard about the baby, Booker?” Kat said.

  “Oh, yeah. On the news. Sucks.”

  “What do you think happened?” Brandon s
aid.

  “Shit if I know,” the guy said.

  He reached into the front pocket of his flannel shirt, dug out a cigarette. He lit it with a lighter from his jeans, sucked a long drag. They waited.

  “Crowd Chantelle runs with, anything’s possible,” the guy said.

  “Not Toby’s crowd?”

  “You kidding?”

  “Never met him,” Brandon said.

  “Toby, he’ll have a few beers, we get off the boat. Maybe get in a ruckus, you know what I’m saying? I mean, he was in friggin’ Afghanistan. You can’t just stop fighting.”

  “No?” Kat said.

  “Gotta ease off’n it.”

  “That’s right,” Brandon said.

  “Toby ain’t like them, those wasted fucks.”

  He looked at Kat.

  “Sorry.”

  “It’s okay,” she said.

  “Crackheads,” he said.

  “Then why’d he hook up with Chantelle?” Kat said.

  “You can ask him, but I know for a fact that she was a lot better-looking two, three years ago. The drugs, man—just eat you up.” Booker shook his head.

  The boat was close, rusted patches showing like scabs on the black-painted hull. There were orange buoys stacked in the stern like missiles, big wire traps.

  “Musta killed him to leave his baby with somebody like that,” Brandon said.

  “Guys always get the shaft,” Booker said. “You can bet on it.”

  They could see the skipper now, standing at the wheel. Above him the roof of the wheelhouse bristled with antennas and radar dishes. Exhaust fumes pumped into the air, mingling with the odor of cigarettes and fish.

  Booker picked up his duffel, walked to the top of a ladder at the edge of the wharf. He flipped his cigarette into the space over the water.

  “Serious business,” he said, not looking at either of them. “Messin’ with a guy’s kid.”

  And then Toby appeared at the top of the ladder, tossed his duffel on the pavement, and pulled himself over. He was tall and broad, dark and bearded like the Taliban. He and the big guy clenched fists. “Dude,” the big guy said. “I get back. Anything you need. Anything.”

  Their eyes locked. Toby nodded. The guy went down the ladder as Toby started for the cruiser. Kat opened the back door and he tossed his duffel across, slid onto the seat. Brandon and Kat got in, and Brandon put the cruiser in gear.

  “Well?” Toby said.

  “No,” Kat said. “Not yet.”

  “He’s gotta be fucking somewhere.”

  “Yes,” Kat said.

  “I mean, a kid doesn’t just disappear into thin air.”

  “No,” Brandon said. “Not usually.”

  Brandon drove up Commercial Street, went slow. They passed sailmakers, paint shops, a sushi place leading the way for the other restaurants to follow. A young couple coming from the yacht harbor, shoulders wrapped in sweaters, started to cross and Brandon stopped. They waved. He waved back. Sarge had said go slow with the guy, see what pops out, before we get him at a table.

  Now Toby was staring straight ahead, lips jammed together hard. They could smell him, diesel and salt.

  “You were in Afghanistan, right?” Brandon said, turning toward him.

  “Eight months,” Toby said.

  “And you’ve been back—”

  “Two.”

  “So Lincoln was born—”

  “While I was in Helmand Province. I’m chasing Afghans around mud huts. She’s barely popped him out, starts screwing around, the coke, the Oxy.”

  Brandon eased along, like they were out for a cruise. Kat turned and looked sympathetic.

  “So how’d she get custody?” she said. “A veteran, you’d think—”

  “I’d get a fair fucking shake? Fat chance. Send you over there to get shot at, you get home, you get shit on. I mean, there sure as hell weren’t no parade.”

  “But the baby?”

  “Went to court. Chantelle can act, I’ll give her that. Did all the plays in high school, up there on the stage, strutting around.”

  “So she said what?” Brandon said.

  He turned onto Milk Street, waited for three old drunks, headed out to cadge beers from tourists at the bar up the block.

  “Said I was violent. Had PTSD. She’s all afraid for her son’s safety. She even cried.”

  “And they bought it?” Kat said.

  “Hey, my head wasn’t screwed on tight when I got back. You try it. You shoot somebody, what do you get? As a cop, I mean?”

  Kat glanced at Brandon.

  “Administrative leave,” she said. “Time with the shrink. Don’t go back until they sign you off, FFD. Fit for duty.”

  “Okay, you try shooting people every day, them shooting back at you. You’re cutting them in half with a freakin’ fifty on a Humvee. Their bombs are blowing your buddy’s legs off, maybe his arms, too. He’s a fucking stump with a head, and the head is screaming.”

  “And the next day you do it again,” Brandon said.

  “If you’re lucky. If you aren’t, you’re in a box. Or you’re a quad. Or you’re fucking blind. Or both.”

  “Huh,” Kat said.

  “So the judge there, maybe he shouldn’t’ve been so surprised, I punch some guy’s lights out in the Port. You shitting me? Some douche bag starts shoving me around? Those first few days, I didn’t care if you was ten feet tall—I was gonna cut you down.”

  They pulled into the lot behind the PD. Brandon parked, let the motor run.

  “So she got custody?” Kat said.

  “I got supervised only. My own son. Fought in a fucking war, gotta have my mommy with me I want to hold my kid.” He paused, his eyes starting to water. “I want to hold my boy again,” Toby said.

  Kat and Brandon looked at each other.

  “Well, that’s the idea,” Brandon said, and they got out, let Toby out, too.

  They left him inside with O’Farrell, him an Iraq vet, the two of them talking units and regiments and battalions. Brandon and Kat were on their way down the hall on the second floor when Perry stopped them.

  “What do you think?” he said.

  “If he took his own kid, he’s a damn good actor,” Kat said.

  “Coulda grabbed him, handed him off to a relative, got him squirreled away someplace,” Perry said. “Deeking us.”

  She looked at Brandon.

  “What do you think, Blake?”

  “I think he lets you look all the way inside his head,” Brandon said.

  “What you see?” Perry said.

  “Is what you get,” Brandon said.

  “Or maybe that’s what he wants us to think,” Kat said.

  “My gut says no,” Brandon said.

  “And if you’re wrong?”

  Kat and Perry looked at him, eyebrows flickering. Perry headed for the interview room. The patrol cops didn’t.

  They had a list of everybody Chantelle and Lance thought had been at the party. Detective division didn’t have the manpower, so patrol was dividing it up. The list had eight full names; fourteen, nicknames only; a half-dozen people designated only by description: guy from Lewiston, one eye doesn’t move. Asian woman from Riverton Park, tattoo on her neck of a dragonfly. Or a butterfly. Some bug.

  Brandon and Kat had one of each, all locals, including the woman with the bug tattoo. Back in the cruiser, Brandon looked at the list, handed it to Kat in the passenger seat. He started to type in the first name on the laptop, but Kat reached over and took his arm.

  “Just a sec,” she said.

  He looked at her.

  “Back there,” she said, looking away.

  “What?”

  “You can’t take sides,” Kat said.

  “I know.”

  “Nope. You think this baby’s better off with the dad.”

  “Than with the crackhead mom or the totally whacked-out, violent, crackhead boyfriend?” Brandon said.

  “Not our job, Blake,” Kat said. �
��Our job is to find the kid, figure out who grabbed him. Let the courts decide where he ends up.”

  “I know that.”

  “You gotta be cool,” Kat said. “Professional, not emotional. Remember at the apartment, getting on Chantelle’s case?”

  “High as a kite. She has responsibilities,” Brandon said.

  “Brandon,” Kat said.

  “Okay,” he said.

  “Okay,” Kat said.

  He put the cruiser in gear, drove out of the lot. They were turning onto Congress when Kat said, “Somebody oughta be talking to Toby’s mother.”

  They started with the Asian woman first, figuring Riverton Park Housing Project was small enough, somebody would know about the dragonfly tattoo. This was an Asian woman who hung out with Lance’s crew, so probably she’d done time, most likely for drugs. How many could there be?

  Riverton was out past the interstate off Forest Avenue. Two-story units surrounded central parking lots like walled cities, summer-nights kids hanging out on the sidewalks, crowding the basketball court like the game was over and they’d spilled out of the stands.

  It was morning so only old people and little kids were up, anybody between fifteen and fifty still in bed, listening to the rain. They pulled alongside a Cambodian woman, fortyish, slim in skinny jeans and a green slicker, pushing a stroller, an umbrella over the baby. Kat got out, went up to the stroller and crouched. Brandon stood by the cruiser.

  “Oh, your daughter’s beautiful,” Kat said.

  “Grandchild,” the woman said. “This is my daughter’s child.”

  “You must be so proud,” Brandon said.

  The woman smiled. Kat bore in.

  “We’re looking for a young woman. We need to talk to her, see if she can help us. It’s about a lost baby, a little older than yours.”

  The woman frowned.

  “They lose baby?”

  “Yes. It just sort of disappeared.”

  “Neak ta,” the woman said. “Spirits. They will take a baby.”

  “Could be. But we need to find one of the mother’s friends. We don’t know her name, but she has a tattoo of a dragonfly on her neck. The right side.”

  Brandon touched his neck.

  “Here.”

  Suddenly the woman looked afraid, then nothing at all, a pale mask.

  “I don’t know this girl,” she said. She clenched the handle of the stroller. Kat reached for the baby, let it grab her finger, pinning the stroller in place.