by Jon Loomis
“So the mother ship would have to be big enough to land a chopper on,” Coffin said.
“Right,” Dogfish said, exhaling smoke from his nose. “A big motherfucker of a yacht, probably parked outside the territorial limit, where the Coasties can’t get ’em. Small chopper—runs in low and fast. They’ve got all this stealth shit now that makes ’em pretty quiet. Make the drop in the dunes or on the beach—you don’t even have to land, just throw the merchandise out the door and boom, you’re gone. Nothing but a streak of light in the night sky.”
Coffin nodded. “That would explain Tony’s UFOs, maybe.”
Dogfish pointed, cigarette between his fingers. “The UFOs!” he said. “Over Pilgrim Lake. I never thought of that.” He laughed, a dry cackle. “All this time it was choppers full of smack.”
“You’ve seen them?”
“No, but my buddy Leroy has. He thought he was losing his mind. Wait ’til I tell him.” Pants had fallen asleep in Dogfish’s lap, and was snoring loudly.
Lola pursed her lips. “You said Branstool was just a clerk. How did you know him?”
“He tried to recruit me, like I said. He didn’t say so, but I knew he had to be skimming, and I wanted no part of it. The only way I survive in this town is to stay under the radar—strictly small-time. You know why they left his head in that tank, right?”
“It sure looked like a warning,” Coffin said.
“Bingo,” Dogfish said. “To every dealer on the Cape that was part of his network. I can tell you for a fact that the two guys he was working with here in town packed up and left the next day. Poof! Gone.”
“So who’s running the operation?” Coffin said. “Who killed Branstool?”
“Like I said, it’s hazy. But I’ve got a theory—and you’re not gonna like it.”
Coffin sneezed. Pants woke up and growled.
Dogfish patted his head. “Good boy,” he said. “Attaboy, Pants.”
“Okay,” Coffin said. “I won’t like it. What’s the theory?”
Dogfish lowered is voice. “It sounds completely fucking nuts,” he said, “but we were talking about those contractors—the mercenaries? That’s who I’d be looking at if I was you. They’ve got the equipment, the logistics, and the muscle. If things go to shit and somebody gets killed, they blame it on the Latin Kings or MS 13 or whatever. Or what was it you said? Bulgarians?”
“Ukrainians,” Coffin said. “Posing as Chechens.”
Dogfish cackled, a high falsetto laugh. Pants wagged his stumpy tail. “I love that, man. Ukrainians.”
“So what did they need Branstool for?” Coffin said.
Dogfish rolled his eyes. “Cover. Somebody had to handle the distribution, but even more important, somebody had to launder the cash. You need a legitimate business to do that—but a nursing home will work in a pinch. It was a sweet operation, I gotta say. While it lasted.”
Lola frowned, shook her head. “I just don’t understand how a guy like Branstool could get mixed up with something like this. He was so—beige.”
Dogfish tapped a fresh cigarette from his pack, lit it from the smoldering butt of the old one. “He was a customer for years,” he said, squinting through blue smoke. “No joke. I sold to that guy since I first got into the business, almost. He had a nice little habit going, nothing unmanageable on his income. But then his wife left him and things changed. He started using a lot more—wanted me to give him credit. Then he stopped buying altogether and I figured he’d gone with another dealer, which was fine. Next thing I know, he wants me to deal for him.”
“You think you know somebody,” Coffin said.
Dogfish shook his head. “Nobody really knows anybody, man. We’re all just these walking bags of meat and chemicals. What’s to fucking know?”
“Okay,” Coffin said, standing. “I guess that’s it. Sergeant Winters, our friend Dogfish here is under arrest.”
“Whoa whoa whoa!” Dogfish said, as Lola cuffed his hands behind his back. “What the fuck, dude?” Pants jumped from Dogfish’s lap and growled.
“You’re holding out,” Coffin said. “Look at you—you’re sweaty.”
“I’m a heroin addict, man—I’m always sweaty.”
“We had a deal,” Coffin said. He patted Pants on the head. Pants drooled and wiggled his stump of a tail.
“Son of a bitch. You know I don’t do well in jail. I got needs.”
“Tell me about the Chechens,” Coffin said.
“You’re gonna get me fucking killed, Coffin,” Dogfish said, shaking his skinny head. “Do you care, even a little? No, you do not.”
“You’ve got ten seconds.”
“Okay, Jesus. I’ve heard things, all right? Young guys—Russians is what I heard. I think they’re out of Providence, or maybe New Bedford, but lately they’ve been trying to move in on the Cape. Lots of guns and tattoos. Extremely violent.”
“Like what?” Coffin said.
“Like home invasion, rape your girlfriend, burn your house down violent. Ever seen Scarface, where they cut that guy up with the chain saw? Like that.”
“Go on.”
Dogfish grimaced. “Jesus. I’m dead. Just shoot me now.”
Coffin turned to Lola. “Do you feel like shooting him?”
Lola shook her head. “Nah,” she said. “Who’d take care of Pants?”
“Sorry,” Coffin said. “I’m not carrying a gun.”
Dogfish looked up at Coffin with something like pity in his eyes. “You’re going to feel guilty about this, man. This is going to fucking haunt you.”
“Keep talking.”
“This is all hearsay, okay? I haven’t met these guys myself, but people are talking. The one in charge is named Ygor—you know, like Dr. Frankenstein and shit. You don’t want to fuck with him.”
“No? How come?”
“Because he’ll turn his buddy Vladi loose on your ass, that’s how come. Mr. Chain Saw. I got no fucking idea how or if they’re connected to Branstool, but nothing would surprise me. And that’s all I know, I swear on my poor dead mother’s grave.”
“Russians?” Coffin said. “Are you sure?” He wagged an index finger and Lola unlocked the handcuffs.
Dogfish shrugged. “That’s what I hear. They all sound like Boris and Natasha to me.”
* * *
“Well,” Lola said, after Teddy Goulet had dropped them off at the pier. “That was interesting.”
Coffin’s knees were wobbly. Goulet waved from the deck of PPD 2, but Coffin kept walking and didn’t wave back. “That’s a good word for it,” he said, when the worst of the dizziness had passed.
“You okay there, Frank?” Lola said, peering at Coffin from under the brim of her uniform hat.
“Awesome, dude,” Coffin said. He took a deep breath, then another.
“Good call on the Chechens.”
Coffin shrugged. “The more Dogfish acts like something’s far-fetched or ridiculous, the more likely it is to be true.”
“He has that in common with Mancini,” Lola said. “But for different reasons.”
They stood at the corner of Commercial and Standish streets, waiting to cross as a slow caravan of weekend traffic rolled slowly toward the west end, impeded here and there by small knots of pedestrians, a mix of Tall Ships and day-tripping tourists.
“Say what you want about Pinsky,” Lola said, tilting her head at a pair of drag queens as they strode down the sidewalk in matching Daisy Duke outfits. “He’s not afraid to follow his heart.”
“If that’s the applicable body part,” Coffin said.
Lola grinned. “Good point,” she said.
“Speaking of misty-eyed romantics,” Coffin said, as they crossed the street, “how’d the meeting with the Realtor go?”
“Not great. She’s worried we won’t be able to get a loan.”
“Bad credit?”
“Great credit—not enough income. She said we’d probably both have to take second jobs, and even then it might not be enough
.”
“That sucks,” Coffin said. “Sorry.”
“How about you? When’s your furniture arriving?”
Coffin laughed. “I’m not sure. We have to order it first.”
“Well, so—what’re you getting? Where’s it coming from?”
Coffin paused across the street from the Portuguese Bakery, his stomach growling. “I figured it was best not to ask,” he said. “The nesting thing is fraught with danger, where the mate’s concerned. I just do what I’m told.”
Lola nodded. “Probably safer that way.”
“You hungry?” Coffin said.
“Nope, had a big breakfast after the gym this morning.”
“Hang on a second—I’ll be right back.”
Coffin stepped into the street and was nearly run down by a man on a moped. The man was dressed as a glittering, blue Lucifer, complete with large, batlike wings. He swerved, squeezed the brakes, tires squealing. He turned to glare at Coffin, baring enormous vampire fangs. “Almost got another soul,” he said, before putting off toward the west end. “Your time will come, sinner!”
* * *
The bakery was crowded. A group of tall German tourists had taken all the seats, while others were milling around the glass display cases, pointing at the cakes and cookies, the croissants and breads, the turnovers, rolls, and scones. Malasadas—flat Portuguese donuts—fried in bubbling vats of oil in the front window. A half-dozen men in identical white sailor suits filed in behind Coffin, the smell of their mingled cologne competing with the scent of warm baked goods and coffee.
“Yo, Frankie,” the counterman called, waving Coffin up to the front of the line. “What can I get you?”
“Just a couple of ham and cheese buns, Ernie,” Coffin said. “And a large coffee.”
“Excuse me,” one of the Germans said, his consonants crisp with outrage. “Why is this man being served before us?”
Ernie scowled. He was about Coffin’s age, but he kept his hair and mustache dyed jet-black. He wore white pants, a white T-shirt, a white apron, and a white paper hat. He had an anchor tattooed on his right bicep, with the name of a ship scrolled across it: S.S. Charles S. Goodnight.
“It’s okay, Ernie,” Coffin said. “I can wait my turn.”
Ernie glared at the German. “Do you know who this man is?” he said, aiming a pair of pastry tongs at Coffin’s heart.
“No,” the German said. “I do not.”
“This man is a goddamn hero,” Ernie said. “This man puts his life on the line for the people of this town every goddamn day. Did you know that, Mr. Goddamn German tourist?”
The German blanched. “I did not know that,” he said. “No.”
Coffin shook his head. “Ernie, for Christ’s sake.” He turned to the German. “Sorry,” he said. “We’re Portuguese. We’re very emotional people.”
Ernie dropped four ham and cheese buns into a white paper bag and filled a large foam cup with coffee. “On the house, Frankie,” he said. “How’s your ma?”
“Still causing trouble, Ernie,” Coffin said. “Still causing trouble.”
“Atta girl,” Ernie said. “You see her, you tell her Cousin Ernie said hello.”
* * *
When Coffin had safely recrossed the street, Lola pointed at the grease-spotted bag. “I hope you’re not actually planning to eat that,” she said. “Whatever it is.”
“Oh, hell yes,” Coffin said, sipping his coffee. “You don’t know what you’re missing.”
“Heart attack? Stroke? Early death?”
They passed the very fat man with the blue guitar who often sat on one of the wooden benches in front of Town Hall, and a man dressed as a scarecrow making surreal balloon animals, and the little shrine of flowers and votive candles on the spot where Miss Ellie had stood for years with her karaoke machine, singing “My Way” and “The Impossible Dream” in her warbly contralto. “There was about ten years when I worked out a lot,” Coffin said. “Mid-twenties to mid-thirties. I was under a lot of stress, though, and I started having palpitations, so I went to see a cardiologist. He couldn’t find anything wrong with my heart, but given the fact that I smoked, drank, and ate a lot of fast food he was kind of surprised that my resting heart rate was so low—about fifty beats per minute. I was spending a lot of time on the treadmill, I said—mostly to deal with the stress.”
They climbed the broad stone steps in front of Town Hall. The painters were almost done with the exterior: it was a cool mint green with yellow trim. It looked, Coffin thought, more like an elaborate guesthouse than a government building.
“Okay, so?”
“So he asked me, ‘Do you like working out on the treadmill?’ And I said, ‘No, not really.’ And he said, ‘That’s funny, because I just read a study that says that you really can extend your life with exercise—by roughly the amount of time you spend exercising.’”
Coffin paused at the top of the stairs, slightly out of breath.
“Your face is kind of pink,” Lola said.
Coffin looked at the grease-stained bag, then looked at Lola. “You are such a killjoy,” he said.
Lola patted him on the back. “Somebody’s got to watch out for you,” she said. “You’re a person of very little self-control.”
Coffin thought of Jemma, her remarkable ass sliding into a tight pair of jeans. “It depends.” He held up the bag. “What am I going to do with this?”
Lola took the bag, trotted down the stairs, handed the bag to a skinny, deeply sunburned man sitting on one of the wooden benches, then trotted back up. “Problem solved,” she said.
“So you care about my health, but not his?” Coffin said.
“Ticky?” Lola said. “We’re talking about a guy who huffs metallic paint under the Dick Dock. Whatever was in that bag is not the thing that’s going to kill him.”
Coffin held up his hands, palms out—you win. “You busy right now? Other than watching out for my cholesterol?”
Lola shrugged. “Other than arson and severed heads, I got nothing all day.”
* * *
In the Crown Vic, headed out Route 6 toward Orleans, Lola squinted in the autumn glare, took her sunglasses from the pocket of her uniform shirt and put them on. “Who are we going to see, again? Maurice somebody?”
“Maurice from Yaya’s, remember? The kid who took care of the seals.”
“The seals? We’re back on the seals again? I don’t get it.”
Coffin sighed, looked out the window. “You’re going to think I’m crazy.”
“Crazier,” Lola said.
They were passing through Eastham’s narrow strip of clam shacks, tourist motels, gift shops, and gas stations. “I’ve been having these recurring dreams.”
“Uh-oh,” Lola said. “First Tony, now you. Genetics, or something in the water?”
Coffin grinned. “I know,” he said. “It’s stupid, right? We’re going to show up at this kid’s house and freak him out for nothing.”
Lola shot him a look through her sunglasses. “So you dreamed about this Maurice guy?”
“Not at first. I’ve been having these dreams about fire. In the dream I’d wake up and there’d be smoke and flames everywhere. Jamie had had the baby already, and I had to save it. The baby was crying, so I’d run down the hall through all the fire and smoke and reach into the crib, and that’s where the dream would end.”
“Nothing too weird about that,” Lola said, pursing her lips. “Pretty much your basic anxiety dream. Were you wearing any pants?”
Coffin laughed. “After a week or so it got a lot weirder. I’d reach into the crib and the baby would be a seal. The Seal Baby. I had to save the Seal Baby, and not let it die in the fire.”
“Yep,” Lola said. “That’s definitely weird.”
“And then last night the Seal Baby turned into Maurice. It looked at me, and it had Maurice’s face.”
“Dude. Paging Dr. Freud.”
“Exactly. So then I started wondering if my subconsc
ious hadn’t made some kind of connection, you know?”
“Okay, like what?”
“Fuck if I know.” Coffin shrugged. “He seemed like a nice young guy. No apparent motive. Early twenties. Not real bright. Lives with his mother…”
Lola turned and stared at him for a second, then fixed her gaze on the road again. “So he fits the profile, is what you’re saying. Am I remembering right? Would he bit a bit less than medium height, thick through the chest and shoulders?”
Coffin nodded. “He would indeed.”
* * *
Maurice Duval’s mother lived in Orleans, her run-down cottage stuck in the middle of a strip of small businesses along the Cranberry Highway: Captain Elmer’s Seafood on one side, JoMama’s New York Bagels on the other. Her yard was scraggly and brown; a rusted rake lay on top of a loose pile of leaves. A dirt brown pickup truck was parked crookedly in the driveway: it looked to Coffin as though it had been painted with a brush, sometime around 1990. As Lola pulled up behind the truck, a black and white Orleans police cruiser slid silently up to the curb. The door swung open and a uniformed officer popped out: a square-jawed, barrel-chested young man who appeared to be about five feet tall.
“Bangs,” the officer said, sticking out his hand. “You must be Chief Coffin.”
Bangs’s hand was small, almost like a child’s. Coffin shook it. “This is Sergeant Winters. Thanks for meeting us.”
“Thanks for calling ahead,” Bangs said. “Chief likes it when our neighbors observe the standard protocol.”
“Who doesn’t?” Coffin said. “I’m the same way. Watch the back, would you, Bangs? And try to keep out of sight.”
“That’s why I’m here,” Bangs said. He picked his way through the tufted, unmowed yard to the back of the house.
Coffin knocked lightly on the front door. Over time, he’d learned that the heavy cop knock almost never produced good results: People panicked, jumped out the windows, went to the bedroom to fetch their guns. Keep the uniforms out of sight and knock softly—that was almost always the way to go.
A woman answered the door. She was around Coffin’s age, stocky, not very tall. Her hair looked slept in: It was cropped very short, dyed an odd, artificial auburn color. She wore a pale green bathrobe and bright red lipstick, freshly applied. Her eyes were bagged, the lids reptilian. She was smoking a cigarette. Coffin showed her his shield. “Mrs. Duval? May we come in and talk for a minute?”