by Gerry Boyle
Dark. Silent. A faint whiff of Mia’s shampoo, her clothes. Brandon went to the storage cupboard in the bow cabin, unlocked it, took out his Glock. He pulled the magazine, snapped it back in. Put the gun in the waistband of his jeans and went back out and up to the helm. Slipped the key in and started the engine, the rumble sweeping over the sleeping marina.
The motor lapsed into a smooth idle and Brandon slipped out and unhooked the shore power. He went to the dinghy, overturned on the float, flipped it over and slipped it into the water, fastened the painter to a stern cleat. Then he jumped aboard, undid the stern line, slipped along to the bow and threw that dockline clear.
As Bay Witch started to drift, he hurried to the helm, put the boat in gear and, hitting the nav lights, eased out. The boat idled past the slips, nightlights glowing at helms, cabin lights below. In front of him the Portland skyline glowed in the fog, like the city was on fire again, just like in 1775. Bay Witch moved through the passage between the moored boats, bows pointed into the breeze. The tide was incoming, swinging the boat to port, and he adjusted, moved out into the dark harbor, red channel markers showing under the bridge. Brandon made a quick loop and turned back.
There were three guest moorings, empty on a weeknight. Brandon turned the bow spotlight on, picked up the white buoy, eased back on the throttle, kept the buoy just to the port side. He pulled his gun out, laid it on the console, then slipped the boat into neutral, felt it start to drift back on the current as he hurried to the bow. He was down the side deck and out, grabbing a boat hook on the way. Kneeling at the bow, he leaned over, snagged the mooring line, lifted it on board, cold and dripping. He made it fast to the cleat, slipped the line through the chock. Then he moved quickly back to the helm, shut off the lights and the motor, felt Bay Witch pull against the mooring, the bow swinging, the boat creaking.
Brandon looked out from the darkened helm at the black moat of water between the boat and the marina. A shot from a dock? From the bridge, above and to his right? From the abandoned pier that abutted the boatyard?
Better here. Not perfect.
Brandon picked up his gun, tucked it back in his jeans, moved to the stern, where the dinghy was swinging. He reached back and armed the alarm, then pulled the dinghy close, eased aboard, and, in the darkness, rowed in to the docks. He tied the dinghy up in an empty slip, not his own. No need to advertise that he’d moved Bay Witch only rowing distance away, that he was still here.
The floats creaked and rattled as he made his way to the ramp and up to the yard. But nobody showed, and he paused as he crossed the yard. He listened, crossed to the office, pulled a couple of notes from the bulletin board by the door. Let them think he was on the job, when really he was—
He was what?
On the hunt.
The gate clanged shut behind him. He walked along the edge of the lot, staying in the shadows, then crossed behind the Saab and got in. He laid his gun and radio on the passenger seat, sat in the dark. He watched the lot. Listened. Bugs. Traffic. Scurrying in the brush behind the car.
He picked up the gun, heavy and cold. Slipped the safety off. Watched the mirrors. A cat slipped out, a rat hanging from its mouth, rattail swinging.
The safety back on. The gun on the seat. The lot quiet.
Eleven-forty. A South Portland cruiser swung in, pulled up to the gate. The cop got out, rattled it. Stood for a moment and looked across the boatyard, then got back in. Brandon heard him on the radio, reporting in, all secure. The cruiser turned around, Brandon sliding down in the seat just before the headlights swept past. He heard the sound of gravel spraying, the motor revving, the cruiser speeding away.
Quiet again. The sound of bugs. A diesel idling somewhere out on the water. Brandon picked up the phone, texted Mia again. THINKING OF YOU. Put it back down, waited. This time a response. One word.
Thanks.
Then headlights on the road, swinging in, raking the lot, short of the Saab. A Honda, primer black, exhaust throbbing. The driver rolled along the vine-covered fence. Killed the lights. In the yellow wash of the streetlight, three heads showed, one in back, leaning forward to talk. The driver killed the motor.
They were looking at the yard, the gate, that direction. Brandon reached up, flicked the interior light switch to off. Picked up the Glock and popped the door open. He eased out, moved behind the car. Stayed low, on the edge of the brush, and moved slowly across to the fence. He waited, motionless, watching. The three heads were moving back and forth, muffled voices carrying. Brandon took a step, then another, the gun down. Two more steps, laying his feet down. Forty feet back now.
Music, Jay-Z, a cell phone.
“I told you to shut that fucking thing off.”
“Thought I did,” the guy in the back said, the rapper getting louder with each ring, I will never tell, even if it means sittin’ in a cell . . . I ain’t never ran, never will.
“Fuckin’ A, Mario,” the guy said.
Mario? Mario, the guy in the car with Lance the day after Lincoln Anthony had gone missing. Mario, the guy who had bought the diapers?
And then Jay-Z was gone, the phone glow illuminating the side of a face. A white guy. Chantelle’s brother, Jason.
“Let’s just get outta here,” the driver said, and the motor revved, lights glared on, the car kicking gravel as it spun around, swung around as Brandon stepped out into the lot. He held up his police ID.
“Police,” he shouted.
Mario braked, the car slid to a stop. He floored it and the car leapt forward, Brandon leaping aside like a bullfighter. The car brushed him on the way by, the guys hunched inside. The Honda spun around, motor revving, started back. Brandon trotted backwards, the car staying with him. He pulled his gun, pointed it at the windshield.
The car slid to a halt.
Mario was trying to get the car into reverse when Brandon put the gun through the window, shoved him over onto Lance, in the passenger seat, reached in and shut the car off. Brandon yanked the door open, shouted, “Hands on the dash, hands on the dash!”
In the back seat, Jason was moving and Brandon shouted, “Show your hands!” Mario had his hands by his side. Brandon reached in, dragged him out. Mario staggered, said, “What the fuck?” He started to slip one hand into the waistband of his shorts.
“Hands up, hands up!,” Brandon shouted. “Get ’em out now.”
Mario took his hand from his shorts, said, “Guy can’t scratch his balls?” But the hands were still at his sides and Brandon took three steps, pushed him back into the side of the car, spun him, and jerked his arm up, pushed his face down onto the car roof.
“Fuckin’ A, dude. Calm the fuck down.”
Brandon had the gun trained on Jason in the back, Lance still in the front seat. “Hands on the dash, Lance,” Brandon shouted. “Hands on the dash.” Lance slapped them down, and Brandon told Jason, “Hands where I can see ’em. Get out, on the ground, face down. Hands behind your neck.”
Jason heaved himself out of the car, started to stand, and Brandon moved over, put a foot to his ankle, yanked him to the ground, jammed his arm up to his neck. “I said on the ground.”
“Killed my sister—gonna kill me, too, Blake?”
“Shut up,” Brandon said, and he trained the gun on Lance, said, “Now you—out of the car!” Lance swung out, his feet on the ground, faced bruised, Brandon running to the front of the car, motioning him over with the others, saying, “On the fucking ground.” Lance dropped to his knees in his basketball shorts, knelt there until Brandon put him down.
Then he leapt to Mario, still against the car, searched him, too, the gun in one hand. Mario had a clasp knife in his left Air Jordan, and Brandon pulled it out and slid it into the back pocket of his jeans. Lance lifted himself to his elbows and Brandon said, “On your face,” and pushed him flat, patting him down, one side, then the other.
He reached for his radio, nothing there, the portable left on the seat of the Saab. He said, “Stay right there—don’t b
e stupid,” and sprinted to the car, yanked the door open, grabbed the radio, and trotted back.
“I ain’t done nothin’,” Mario was saying, lifting up again. Brandon had the radio to his mouth, lowered it as he slammed Mario back down, said, “Shut the hell up,” and called in.
“Blake, he’s fucking nuts,” Lance was saying as they cuffed him, marched him to a South Portland cruiser. “He’s gonna fucking kill somebody else, I’m telling you.”
More cops, some of the same faces. They searched the car and found a nugget of crack stuffed into the back seat, four papers of heroin in the passenger-side vent. Trunk smelled like gasoline but Mario said it was because the gas tank leaked if you filled it more than halfway, and sometimes he forgot. All three were asked where they were earlier that night, and all three gave the same answer: “Just chillin’.”
“Where?”
“Here and there.”
The three of them saying they wanted their lawyers, Mario saying his neck was hurt, his left arm was numb, Jason pointing to a gash on his cheekbone, a rock under his face when Brandon had put him down on the gravel. “Your officer pistol-whipped me,” he said. “I am gonna sue his ass—yours, too. And I want medical attention.”
They had Lance in the back of the cruiser, South Portland and Portland both questioning him, first one, then the other. Perry did the initial round, the sergeant in this one because it was a cop who was targeted, his cop. They pulled Lance out, leaned him against the side of the car. Perry leaned beside him.
“You in South Portland all night?”
“Nah. Just came over a little while ago. To see if Blake was around.”
“What for?”
“To talk things out.”
“What things?”
“Chantelle dying.”
“Why Officer Blake?”
“He made her feel like shit, so then she goes off the bridge.”
“Her baby was missing. Was she supposed to feel good?”
“ ’Course she was gonna feel bad about Lincoln, but he made her blame herself. He wasn’t supportive.”
“Supportive?”
“Right. I mean, Chantelle—she didn’t kidnap her own baby.”
“Who do you think did?”
“I have no fucking idea. Wasn’t my kid.”
“You think he’s dead? The baby, I mean.”
“I don’t know.”
“Then it’s present tense. Isn’t your kid.”
“What?”
“Never mind. Were you going to kill Officer Blake? Beat him up?”
“No, just gonna talk to him.”
“Don’t bullshit me, Lance.”
“I’m not.”
“What’s your probation hold for?”
“Two years.”
“There was crack in the car.”
“Wasn’t mine. Wasn’t my car.”
“I gotta assign it to somebody.”
“Yeah, well—”
“So you were going to assault Officer Blake?”
“No. No way.”
“What were you going to do.”
“Talk to him, like I said.”
“In his boat.”
“I guess.”
“Which you tried to burn up, with him in it.”
“No friggin’ way.”
“You said you were getting even. Buddy there, Jason, saying what goes around, comes around. Your girlfriend’s dead, but you were just going to talk to Officer Blake? What’s even about that?”
“I don’t know.”
“You bring a gun along tonight, Lance?”
“Nope, don’t own one.”
“None of you did?”
“No way, Sergeant. You know we can’t have guns.” Lance smiled. “We’re all convicted felons.”
Brandon saw Lance’s smile from Kat’s cruiser as he sat in the driver’s seat, typing his report onto the computer.
I recognized the subjects in the vehicle as Jason Anthony, Lance McCabe, and a third subject, the driver, a subject named Mario. Anthony and McCabe have been heard to have threatened me, are known to carry weapons, and therefore, their presence in the private parking lot of the marina was seen as threatening. I showed my police ID, identified myself as a police officer, and ordered the driver to stop the car. Upon being ordered to stop the car, driver Mario accelerated toward me in what I believed was an attempt to run me over. I evaded the car but he turned around and came back, driving straight at me. I drew my weapon and he stopped and I disabled the vehicle by taking the keys out. Anthony and McCabe were moving within the vehicle, in what could have been an attempt to secure weapons. I ordered all three subjects to exit the vehicle. Upon being ordered to show their hands, they did not do so, continuing with movements in the car that appeared threatening and caused me to continue to train my weapon. They then exited the vehicle and were ordered to the ground. Jason Anthony refused to comply with the order and was placed in that position. This resulted in a scrape to his cheekbone, apparently from a stone in the gravel of the parking lot. The same circumstances resulted in abrasions to the forehead of Lance McCabe.
A search of their persons resulted in seizure of two knives, which they had concealed. Subsequent search of the vehicle resulted in discovery and seizure of a quantity of crack cocaine and heroin, approximately five grams.
He stopped typing, reread it.
“Let me see that,” Kat said, “make sure you have all the bases covered.”
Brandon swiveled the laptop toward the driver’s seat. Kat peered at the screen.
“The vehicle was coming at you in the lot and that’s why you drew your weapon?”
“Right. They were trying to leave and I jumped out in front of them.”
“With your badge out.”
“Right.”
“They’re gonna say that in the dark, they didn’t know you were a cop, thought you were just some robber.”
“They know me. They were there to beat me up, or worse.”
“Is there a light there?”
“Yeah.”
“Let’s say you were under the streetlight and clearly recognizable.”
Kat typed, concentrating.
“Did you identify yourself as a police officer?”
“Yes.”
“Good thing we found the crack. Some leverage,” Kat said. She read the report again, swung the computer back.
“You know they’re claiming excessive force,” Kat said.
“Uh-huh.”
“They also say they came over to talk,” she said.
“Equally preposterous,” Brandon said.
“I gotta say it again, Brandon—”
“Say what?”
“Never a dull moment around you.”
“Actually, I’m pretty boring. Ask Mia.”
“Not lately.”
“No.”
“This is getting to be problematic,” Kat said.
Brandon didn’t answer. Kat looked out her window.
“You’re getting a rep as a cowboy.”
“What was I supposed to do? Let ’em go?”
“Call it in. Let patrol take it, control the stop, not one on three in a dark parking lot. And you off duty, no radio on you—”
“Somebody just took a shot at me. I’m not gonna sit here like a big fat target. Let ’em go so they can try again.”
“You think these guys are the shooters?” Kat said.
“I don’t know.”
“Why not bring a gun for the second try?”
“Maybe this was reconnaissance.”
Kat shrugged. They sat for a minute, then another, not talking, the radio murmuring. People from the boats were standing in clusters at the edge of the yard, watching. Perry was talking to Lance, then to Jason. Jason kept pointing to the cut on his face. An ambulance rolled in, lights flashing.
“Where can you go?”
Brandon thought.
“I’ve got responsibilities here in the marina.”
“No
body here who can do it? No friends you can ask?”
Brandon felt his expression harden, his jaw clench. “I’ll figure it out,” he said.
“Don’t want to lose you, Brandon,” Kat said.
“If I get canned?”
“That, too,” Kat said.
Kat called it. This time Perry flat out ordered Brandon to take a week off, find a place to hole up. “Don’t want you on the field, don’t want you in the clubhouse.” Brandon said okay. Perry said to let Kat know his whereabouts. Brandon said he would. And then the last of the cruisers pulled out. Kat was the last cop to leave.
Brandon stood in the empty lot, the boat owners trickling back down the docks two by two. He walked to Mia’s car, got in and smelled her smell—chai tea and organic shampoo and a hint of the perfume she’d worn for only two types of occasions: when they went to a fancy restaurant, and when they made love.
Brandon started the motor, checked his phone. There was one new text, not from Minnesota.
OMG. SAW THE NEWS. U OK? CALL ASAP. WRRIED ABT U. DOES MIA KNOW? U STAYING ON BOAT? WE’RE @RENDEZVU TIL LATE. STP BY. L & W.
Nice of Lily, Brandon thought. Maybe. He typed THANKS. I’M FINE. He paused, looked up and out at the darkened lot, moths circling the floodlight, bats swooping through the moths. Big fish after smaller fish. Everything preying on something else.
He looked back to the phone, texted SEE YOU SOON.
At Rendezvous, the wait staff, prep cooks, and dishwashers—everyone was around the bar, the last diner gone, the doors locked. At the afternoon meeting, Winston had said he wanted to do something special for his mother’s birthday. She was buried in Barbados, had never seen her son and his restaurant in America.
“To my mama, America was somewhere just this side of Heaven,” Winston said. “And she was right. I thank you all for your hard work and your friendship. So tonight, after close, we have a little party for my mama, let her know we’re thinking of her up in Heaven, that we’re right close by.”
By midnight, the waiters were into the single malt, a bottle of Cragganmore open on the bar. The dishwashers were doing shots of Chinaco tequila, and the waitresses were opening bottles of Cristal. Winston, in tan linen slacks and a white silk shirt, towered over the party, his booming laugh echoing like cannon shots. Lily, in a short, pink, sleeveless slip dress, sipped champagne and looked on like a loyal first lady, admiring Winston and the admiration he engendered. They all talked, laughed, drank, and every little while Winston offered a toast, a snifter of special-occasion Cockspur rum in his big hand.