The Buck Passes Flynn

by Gregory Mcdonald

  He looked at Flynn.

  Flynn smiled at him.

  “She was really looking forward to comin’ over to Boston this year, to go to school. She wanted to be a nurse. She’d been accepted and everything. She’d been working in the drugstore since she was fifteen, saving money.”

  Spray came over the bow and landed at their feet.

  “All of a sudden … well, I don’t know. I went over to see her one day. This was just after the riot. She had no time for me. She was there at the house, with her brother. She had fancy new clothes. We were in the kitchen. Her brother was drinkin’ beer. They kept lookin’ at each other and winkin’ and laughin’. They never did let me in on what was so funny. He kept sayin’ things like, ‘Maybe I’ll buy a Corvette. Maybe I’ll buy a Porsche.’ And she’d go, ‘Maybe we’ll go halves and buy a Rolls.’ This kid, her brother, did lousy in school. Mostly he worked in the fish house. Well, he wasn’t workin’ in the fish house that Tuesday. And he did buy a fancy car—a Datsun 280-Z. I saw him with it in Frampton a few weeks later. She was with him, laughin’, hair blowin’ in the wind. Neither one of them saw me.” The young man averted his head slightly and looked across the sea. “I think somethin’ funny’s goin’ on between her and her brother. There’s a nasty word for it.”

  Flynn waited a moment, for the charge to evaporate in the air.

  “She never did come over to the mainland for school, eh?”

  The young skipper shook his head, “No.” He laughed. “One day, in September, I stopped in East Frampton, and was just walkin’ down their shoppin’ street. This guy—he’s been on this ferry a hundred times—stops me in the street and just says, ‘Get outta here, Tom.’ ”

  “Did you get?”

  “Sure. Who cares?”

  “So what’s going on in that small corner of the universe?” Flynn asked.

  “I don’t know. The F.B.I. man from New Bedford’s been down a half a dozen times. I’ve talked to him, just like I’m talkin’ to you. He admits the people in East Frampton have a lot of money, now. At least, they’re spendin’ a lot of money. No one’s workin’ for a livin’ over there. East Frampton’s three draggers didn’t go out all summer. The fish house is closed. I’ve talked to the coast guard guys, too.”

  “What do you think happened?” Flynn asked.

  “Your guess is as good as mine.”

  “No, it’s not.”

  The young captain smiled at him. “Well, we all know the drug ships from South America have been comin’ farther north the last few years.”

  “Have you ever seen ’em yourself?”

  “Well, I’ve seen some small ships, not built for these waters, flying foreign flags hangin’ around out here, seemin’ to go nowhere.”

  “Doesn’t the coast guard see them?”

  “They pick one up once in a while. The coast guard watches ‘em to try and see where they’re goin’. But they never seem to be goin’ anywhere. If a cutter goes for them on the open sea, you can see little splashes off the freighter’s stern. If you get my drift.”

  “So you think East Frampton’s the place the stuff finally comes ashore.”

  The young skipper said, “It’s my best guess.”

  “Sure, a whole town wouldn’t give in to such a thing. Smugglin’ drugs.”

  “There’s a lot of money in it,” the captain said. “A lot of muscle behind it, I suspect.”

  “But a whole town,” said Flynn. “Conspirin’…”

  “My granddad tells me that during Prohibition—you know, back in the twenties?—liquor used to come ashore here.”

  “East Frampton?”

  “East Frampton and lots of places.”

  “There’s a difference, lad. Rum’s one thing, heroin’s another.”

  The skipper said, “They’re both drugs.”

  “That they are, lad. That they are.”

  “You with the F.B.I.?”

  “Is that why you’re talkin’ with me?”

  “Well, you’re not a tourist this time of year. And you don’t look like a businessman.”

  “And why don’t I?”

  “You’re too… burly.”

  “Burly, is it? There’s a word and a half.”

  “You haven’t spent your life sittin’ in an office—any more’n I intend to.”

  “Not much of it, anyway.”

  “So are you?”

  “F.B.I.? No, I’m not.”

  “You’re mighty interested in East Frampton.”

  “You noticed the gentle questionin’, did you?”

  “Well, I don’t know who you are, but I don’t mind tellin’ you what I think about East Frampton. The place has gone nuts.”

  “And you think it’s drug smugglin’ they’re into.”

  “Yeah.”

  “But I gather from what you know, talkin’ to the F.B.I. man and the coast guard, they can’t find any evidence of such a thing.”

  “I guess not.”

  “But it’s your opinion suddenly everyone in East Frampton has a lot of money.”

  “Two things,” the young skipper said. “First is: they have a lot of money. Second is: the people in that town want to keep everyone else away from them.” He frowned. “To the point where a girl I thought I liked… I think has gone to incest.”

  “Ah,” said Flynn. “And that’s always the part that hurts. The human part.”

  The entrance to Frampton Harbor wasn’t far off the bow.

  “Are you going to return to the mainland tonight?”

  “Yes,” said Flynn, “I expect so.”

  “We pull out at four-thirty sharp,” the young skipper said. “Whoever you are, it’s real important you do whatever you can for the people of that crazy town. They’ve got a bad case of degeneracy, I’d say.”

  16

  “HOW do I get service?” Flynn finally asked in his mildest voice.

  He had taxied to East Frampton. (The old driver had said, “My sister-in-law lives over here”—he even pointed out the little white house as they passed it—“seventy-two years old and gone cranky. Wife can’t even talk to her on the phone anymore. Always spends Christmas with us, but doubt she will this year. Funny what happens to people sometimes. Never saw anyone who acts so much like the cat who swallowed the parakeet.”) Flynn had ambled up and down Reardon Street, six blocks long, curved around the narrow harbor. The souvenir and clothing shops, and the one or two good restaurants were closed, for the winter. So were the grocery store, hardware store, and drug store. Flynn stared at the restaurant where he had taken his family two summers before. The baked, stuffed lobster had been delicious. Now the restaurant’s sign was lopsided, hanging by a single nail. The window near the main door was smashed. Back down Reardon Street, near the center of East Frampton, the grass around the Congregational church looked as if it had not been cut all summer. The church’s signboard said, JOY! HE IS RISEN!, which Flynn guessed had been the message since Easter. No one answered the door at the parish house. He could not find anything identified as the priest’s house in the vicinity of the Catholic church. The sign on the door of the police station said, OUT TO LUNCH with the word lunch crossed out and the words LYNCH FOREIGNERS written in. The door was locked. The few people in the street had stared through him from a distance. The one or two he began to approach crossed the street to avoid him. “Sure,” said Flynn to himself. “And didn’t I take a shower this morning?”

  He had also walked up and down the beach near the town, studying the harbor, which could be better described as a long, narrow inlet, and inspecting the town wharf. No one was on the wharf. The one fishing boat docked against it (two others rode at moorings in the harbor) was low in the water. Bilge water must be skirting her engines.

  The only place in town he could find open was a bar-restaurant, low-ceilinged, dark, with hewn wooden beams. The floor was filthy.

  Two groups of men were sitting in back booths, drinking beer and playing backgammon. They ignored Flynn when he ent
ered.

  A jukebox was playing music with a heavy, thumping beat.

  Again Flynn said, “How do I get service?”

  A fat man at the edge of one of the booths said, “What do you want?”

  “I was thinking a shrimp salad sandwich and a glass of milk?”

  “You got two hundred dollars?” the man said.

  “What for?”

  “A shrimp salad sandwich and a glass of milk.”

  “Costs that much, does it?”

  “It ain’t worth my time to move for less.”

  There was low laughter from the booths.

  Flynn rose and walked slowly over to the booths.

  The men’s jocosity left them as they stared up at Flynn’s full chest and shoulders, which appeared even bigger in comparison to his small head.

  “Season’s over, mister,” said the fat man.

  “Yeah,” said a younger man sitting nearest the wall. “Come back in four or five years.”

  “Or never,” muttered another man.

  “Well, now,” said Flynn. “You haven’t asked me the exact nature of my business.”

  “Not open for business,” said the fat man.

  The younger man said, “What business?”

  “If it hasn’t to do with backgammon,” a toothless old man said, “we’re not interested.”

  The only man in the booths wearing a necktie said, “You’re not the scout, are you? From the Paradise Island Backgammon Tournament? We sent in applications.”

  Flynn said, in honesty, “My name’s Flynn….”

  “You’re Mister Flynn?” said the necktie.

  The men looked at him with new interest.

  “Yes,” said Flynn. “I am Flynn.”

  “Someone was here looking for you,” the young man said. “Yesterday. She asked all over town for you.”

  “Oh?”

  “The most beautiful girl in the world,” the young man said. “Weird eyes, though.”

  “The cockeyed beauty,” said the toothless one.

  “Said her name was Ducey Webb. She was sure you were here, or had been here. But she made a big mystery out of what you’d be doing here.”

  “Should have guessed you’re the scout for Paradise Island,” asserted a whiskey-soaked voice.

  The man in the necktie stood up, which wasn’t all that easy, as he had been in a middle seat of the booth. “Will you play backgammon with us, Mister Flynn? Manny is the undisputed town champion.” He indicated the man across the table from him.

  Manny was a thirty-year-old, cow-eyed fisherman whose face seemed incapable of expression.

  “Well, now,” said Flynn. “I wouldn’t mind watching while the game is being played….”

  “Who should play for you?” asked the necktie.

  “Why, the number-one and number-two player, seeing you’ve ranked yourselves so formally.” Flynn sat on the seat at the edge of the booth vacated for him by the fat man. “You’ve been running tournaments yourselves, have you?”

  “That’s all they ever do,” said the toothless one.

  “However,” said Flynn, “seeing you asked, I do admit to being a trifle hungry…”

  “Anything you want, Mister Flynn,” said the fat man. “Whiskey?”

  “Ach, no.” The man in the necktie—apparently the number-two player—sat down again. He and Manny were busy arranging the board for a new game. “I must keep my head clear to observe the play.”

  “A beer?”

  “Oddly enough,” said Flynn, “my mind was runnin’ more toward a shrimp salad sandwich and a glass of milk. Is such a thing possible, do you suppose?”

  “Anything you want,” said the fat man.

  “And for a price marginally less than two hundred dollars, I would hope?”

  “We can afford to buy you lunch, Mister Flynn.” Chuckling, the fat man went into the kitchen area.

  “You came all the way up here from Paradise Island,” observed the youngest man. “We only sent in the applications two weeks ago.”

  Flynn neither confirmed nor denied. He observed the superstructure of lies people build for themselves.

  “How did you hear”—the toothless man spoke slowly—“this town has developed some pretty good backgammon players?”

  “Word gets around,” said Flynn. “It travels slowly but, sooner or later, it gets around. My, my. The things I’ve heard about East Frampton, Massachusetts.”

  A shrimp salad sandwich, a bowl of clam chowder, and a tall glass of milk were placed in front of him.

  “Now that’s what I call bein’ out to lunch,” said Flynn.

  He did not insult his hosts by hesitating to eat.

  Even though the dice were thrown, the whiskey-voiced man, staring at Flynn, said, “What else have you heard about this town?”

  “Well …” Flynn had three spoonfuls of chowder, “I’ve heard that during Prohibition more rum passed through East Frampton in the dark of the night than has even yet passed through the bellies of the whole Cuban government.”

  “True,” grinned the toothless man. “I was in charge of samplin’ it, before the rest of it was sent to the mainland.”

  The men resumed their game.

  Flynn had five spoonfuls of chowder. “I hear the ships carrying drugs from Latin America are now coming up into these waters.”

  Most of the men were watching the game with obsessive interest.

  It was a moment before the men listening to Flynn realized what he meant.

  The man with the whiskey voice answered him with narrow eyes. “Listen, mister: anyone who tries to land any of that stuff in East Frampton is going to get himself filleted and thrown back into the sea.”

  Flynn considered the image while he chewed his sandwich, and watched the game.

  He knew very little about backgammon. Once, on a long, boring train trip through Rumania, he had read a book about the game by Alexis Obolensky. Flynn never played it.

  Flynn’s life, at its happiest, included a running game of chess with Lieutenant Walter (Cocky) Concannon. Games of chance did not make him happy.

  He pretended to put a professional eye on the game, being sure not to commit himself to an opinion by either facial or verbal expression.

  The two men played with baffling speed. They passed the dice back and forth, threw them, and adjusted the backgammon men on the board almost faster than the eye could track.

  Flynn felt a wholly irrelevant theory nudging his mind. It had something to do with the obsessive behavior adopted by some people who enjoy financial freedom. He’d have to leave that speculation until after he retired.

  Necktie’s eyes darted about the board. Manny’s eyes saw everything without appearing to move.

  Knowing little about the game, Flynn soon concluded Manny would be the winner.

  “Tell me,” Flynn said, “just to keep up the chatter and distract the players, mind you—not many tournaments enjoy the luxury of such silence—doesn’t George Udine have something to do with East Frampton?”

  “Who?” said a voice absently.

  “George Udine. Of the Udine Corporation. Maybe you know him better as George Lewis.” “No.”

  “Yeah,” said the youngest man. “He came by a couple of summers ago.”

  “He did,” confirmed another.

  “He did?” Flynn said by way of encouragement.

  “In this humungous yacht,” the youngest man said. “Barely fit in the harbor. Had to anchor way out.”

  “Never came ashore,” said the toothless one.

  “He had a senator and an actress on board,” said the youngest man. “They came ashore.”

  “But Udine himself never came ashore, is that it?” Flynn asked lazily.

  “They were only here overnight,” said the youngest.

  Flynn finished his chowder, his sandwich, and his milk. He waited for the game to get into its final stages before springing his big question—in his own way.

  “ ’Course, I also heard what ha
ppened to this town last spring. April, was it?”

  Again, only a few of the obsessed men gave him a quick glance.

  “Now, that was a remarkable thing,” Flynn said.

  Others gave him a quick glance, but no one said anything.

  “Just think of it,” Flynn said.

  There was no answer.

  “That such a thing should happen to a town.”

  No answer.

  “Every man, woman, and child of you.”

  No answer.

  Flynn glanced around and saw faces reddening and jaws tightening. It seemed to him the action on the backgammon board had slowed. Their obsession with the game had diminished.

  “Marvelous thing, that,” mused Flynn.

  No answer. But three were sitting back staring at him.

  “Every man, woman, and child of you waking up one fine day and finding one hundred thousand dollars in cash in your laps.”

  The game stopped.

  Everyone, including the players, was watching Flynn.

  He was glad he had eaten.

  Flynn said, mildly, “Hell of a place to leave the game. Do you mean to declare a winner at this point?”

  The man in the necktie said, “What are you talking about, mister?”

  “Backgammon,” asserted Flynn.

  After a long pause, the man in the necktie said, “You said something about everyone in this town receiving some money last spring.”

  “Ach, sure,” said Flynn. “Everyone knows that.”

  “What do you mean, ‘everyone knows that,’ ” said whiskey voice.

  “Didn’t I read about it in the Wall Street Journal?” said Flynn. “Or was it about some other town?” He looked from staring face to staring face. Pulses throbbed in their temples. “Ach, no. I’m sure it said East Frampton, Massachusetts.”

  Two men in the booth behind Flynn got up and left the building.

  The man with the necktie said, “What do you want, mister?”