“Always keep the red channel markers on your starboard side when returning to port.”
Jack nodded. Sounded straightforward enough. He didn’t see how Tom could screw that up. Even he could handle that.
Jack scanned the water. The sky was a clear blue dome, the midday sun glinted on the gentle waves. The breeze ruffled his hair. He guesstimated the air temp in the mid-sixties.
And straight ahead, taking up a good chunk of horizon, lay the islands of Bermuda. Islands. Jack had been studying the maps and a tourist guide. He’d always thought of Bermuda as a single island but had learned it was a group—five major and a horde of small ones.
More accurately, Bermuda was the remnant of the rim of a giant, ancient, long-dead, undersea volcano ringed with coral reefs. It ate up a fair number of degrees of their horizon now. Not a desert island—anything but. Its surface undulated with green, pastel-studded hills.
Directly around them lay dark blue water; but not far ahead it changed to a pattern of turquoise interlaced with thick, dark threads: sand and coral.
The maps placed the western reefs about six miles from shore. The Sahbon looked to be about that distance right now.
“Where are the reefs?”
Tom jutted his chin forward. “Dead ahead. Just under the surface… waiting. Five miles deep out here, three feet or so in there where you see those little breakers—that’s the only giveaway. Helps you understand why there’s three hundred fifty wrecks around here. I mean, imagine coming through these waters at night, or during a storm.” He shook his head. “No thanks.”
Jack stared at the water. If Tom hadn’t pointed it out, he wouldn’t have had a hint that a reef lurked below the surface.
“Thar she blows.”
Jack swiveled, searching the water. “What?”
Tom pointed to the left. “Our first channel marker.”
Jack spotted a red triangle fixed to the top of a flimsy pole. He searched and found another a few hundred yards beyond it.
Red-right-return… all right.
“Let’s get those fishing rods in their holders. We need to look like locals.”
* * *
2
On the way in Tom hooked up with two other sport fishers. They all exchanged friendly waves and three boats cruised into Bermuda’s Great Sound as if they all belonged there.
The five major islands are arranged in a rough, irregular, fishhook shape with the convexity of the hook facing west, its barb pointing north. The Great Sound occupies the space inside the hook.
Jack had followed their progress through the reefs on the tide chart. Once they reached the sound he refolded the map and stowed it. No reefs here. This was the deep caldera of the ancient volcano.
A little ways into the sound Tom veered west toward the bulkheaded shoreline. He pointed to a squat box of a building on their right.
“There’s the island prison.”
“Swell,” Jack said. “Let’s hope this is as close as we ever get to it.”
He noticed Tom’s attention was fixed more on the houses lining the shore than on the water. Pastels, especially turquoise and coral pink, seemed to be the local favorites—but only their walls. The roofs were a uniformly dazzling white.
Tom must have noticed his interest.
“The white roofs are traditional but not just decorative. See those slanted ridges? Rainwater runs along them and down into a cistern below each house. Not much rainfall here, so every drop is precious. This island is called Somerset Parish, by the way. Bermuda is divided up into parishes. Don’t ask me to explain. I don’t know.”
Jack watched Tom’s attention drift back to the shoreline.
“What’re you looking for?”
“An empty dock.”
“Lots of them along here.”
“Maybe I should have said, An empty dock belonging to an empty house flanked by a couple of other empty houses.”
“Sounds like a tall order.”
“In season, yeah. But this is off-season. People who have second homes here are elsewhere, and even native Bermudians tend to leave the islands for shopping sprees in the U.S. All we—” He pointed to an orange-sherbet house. “There. That looks like a possibility.”
Tom cut the engine to near idle and drifted toward the dock jutting from the bulkhead in front of the brightly colored two-story house. A sign on the dock proclaimed THE BERESFORD’s. Jack shook his head. The world seemed full of superfluous apostrophes. He didn’t know why they irritated him. Lots more serious problems around.
Focusing on the house he noticed the corrugated steel storm shutters rolled down over all the windows. Definitely looked like someone was away for a while.
A twenty-foot speedboat, partially sealed in some bright blue material and suspended from a pair of davits, took up half the yard.
Jack said, “It’s got a boat…”
“Yes, but notice that the outboard engine has been removed, and the open area is sealed in shrink-wrap tarp. Definitely winterized. I can’t see these folks coming back till spring.”
Jack checked right and left. The neighboring houses looked equally deserted.
“So what’s the plan? Tie up like we belong here?”
Tom smiled. “Exactly. Like I said: Hide in plain sight.”
He turned the Sahbon so that its stern faced the bulkhead, then tried to maneuver it into the dock. The wind and current did their best to frustrate his attempts.
After the third failure Jack said, “Wouldn’t it be a lot easier to go in nose first?”
Tom nodded. “Damn straight, but I don’t want the transom visible to everyone who cruises by.”
On the fourth try he maneuvered the stern close enough to the dock for Jack to jump to it with a rope. While he quick-tied to a piling, Tom hurried forward along the narrow port deck to the bow where he grabbed a rope and threw it to Jack. With the bow and stern tied, they were docked.
“Not pretty,” Tom said, “but we made it.”
Jack stepped off the dock planks onto the yard. He ground his sneakers into the sandy soil.
“Guess what?”
Tom turned to him with a worried look. “What? No surprises, please.”
Jack spread his arms. “This is the first time I’ve set foot on foreign soil.”
Tom stared at him. “You’re kidding.”
“Nope. You might say I’m a homebody.”
A homebody without a passport. Can’t get too far without one of those.
“Welcome to the rest of the world. How’s it feel?”
“Pretty much like anyplace else I’ve been.”
Why should it feel different? With no official identity, he didn’t officially belong anywhere. He was a man without a country.
Not such a great position in these times.
* * *
3
After Tom had adjusted the securing ropes to his satisfaction, they hurried north along a narrow asphalt road toward the ferry stop. Jack had his new backup strapped to his ankle, and carried a small duffel with clean clothes. Tom had his backpack and nothing more.
Jack knew from the tourist guide that the Ferry Authority cut the number of runs in the off season, and the next could be the last of the day.
He hadn’t been able to call Gia from the boat—Tom had insisted that absolute radio silence was necessary—but he’d take care of that as soon as they got to town.
The ferry wait was less than twenty minutes. Not much to see at first as they plowed across the open water of the Great Sound, so he sat inside on the lower deck and nursed one of the beers Tom had brought along. When the shoreline began to close in, Jack climbed to the upper deck and took in the view.
A range of dark green hills rose from the water to the south. The pastel colors and white roofs of the houses clinging to their flanks reminded him of a grassy mound studded with mushrooms. Here and there a Nelson pine or a narrow cedar jutted dark green fingers above the surrounding vegetation.
But the smaller
islands, clumps of palm and pine-encrusted lava rock scattered throughout the eastern half of the sound, caught his attention. Many were too small for habitation, while others supported compact neighborhoods. But the in-between size, the ones with only a single house, captured his imagination.
What would it be like to live on one of those? Like owning your own country, or an island fortress protected on all sides by deep water. The isolation appealed to him: He, Gia, Vicky, and the baby, living apart from the world, making their own rules for their own tiny sovereign state.
An impossibility, of course. A wild, absurd fantasy. But still… no law against dreaming. At least not yet.
The ferry wove a path through the islands, stopping here and there among them, then veered north toward a crowded shore—Bermuda’s business, entertainment, and cultural center, Hamilton.
As soon as they docked Tom led him down Front Street. It ran along the waterfront; the arcaded sidewalk sported a wide array of tony shops, but few pedestrians. Definitely the off season around here.
“Where are we going?”
“Well, the bank’s closed, so that’ll have to wait till tomorrow. Eventually we’ll get to a place called Flanagan’s, but I’ve got a few stops I want to make along the way.”
“So do I.”
Jack meant to call Gia before he did another thing.
* * *
4
Joey Castles sat in a rear-corner window booth of the Empire Diner. He watched the traffic on Tenth Avenue and marveled at the power of a phone call from the right people.
Joey used to love diners. Mainly because he used to love breakfast. Used to be he could eat bacon and eggs or a ham-and-cheese omelet—American, never Swiss—three times a day. And the only place you could do that was a diner.
Trouble was, he hadn’t been feeling very hungry since Frankie bought it. He ate maybe once a day, if that. He was losing weight. He had to pull in his belt an extra notch yesterday morning, and the way things were going, it’d be two notches soon. He’d never been fat or even chubby, but Christ, he’d be a scarecrow soon.
He and Frankie had been more than brothers. They’d been like one person. Half of him was gone. Had to get a grip or this would eat him alive.
The man across from him snapped his phone closed and smiled apologetically.
“Business. Always business.”
Joey nodded. “I hear you.”
This was their second meeting. The first had been in a Coney Island merdaio that served them tea and some mix of black bread, sour cream, and onions that had made his breath stink into the next day. That meeting had been precall, and a waste of time.
This guy was Valentin Vorobev but everyone called him Valya. He had no license to sell guns but that hadn’t stopped him from supplying factions of the Russian mob in Brighton Beach for years. He’d agreed to meet with Joey, but only on his home turf. But as soon as Joey mentioned the Tavor-2, Valya had developed a sudden case of amnesia.
Joey had wanted to put a few into the cacchio right then and there. He didn’t care who sold the guns to the Arabs—
All right, he did care. After 9/11, anybody who sold anything lethal to a fucking Arab ought to be redesigned so he could join a castrati choir. But Joey was willing to overlook that.
You made a sale. Fine. Okay. That’s just doing business. I’m all for doing business. Just tell me who did the buying.
What he wanted more than life itself was the names of the shits who pulled the trigger on his brother.
He’d contacted three runners before his meet with Jack. Same old story: Nobody was talking. Nobody knew nothin’.
Then he’d called Pop. Soon as he got on the phone the old man went off on a ten-minute half-English, half-Italian rant. His folks had come over on the boat from Palermo, so he’d grown up speaking Italian at home and English on the street. Sometimes when he got upset he spoke both at once. Joey and Frankie had heard a lot of Italian growing up. Frankie had picked it up pretty good. The only thing Joey could do in Italian was curse and swear.
But he knew enough to hurt when Pop dismissed his efforts as minchia del mare. No fucking fair.
But Pop’s attitude did a one-eighty when Joey told him Jack’s idea—except he’d said it was his own. The old man got right down to making calls to people who started making calls to other people, and finally one of those calls had reached out and touched good old Valya. Which had led to this second meeting—not, it was worth noting, at a place of Valya’s choosing, but Joey’s.
Others had called back as well. He’d be doing a round of new meetings during the coming days. Maybe one of them…
“Again, I am sorry for your brother,” the Russian said in a thickly accented voice. “Terrible thing to lose brother.”
He had a broad face, small dark eyes, and a jarhead haircut.
“You got that right.”
Joey wanted a cigarette. Bad. But you couldn’t light up indoors anywhere in this fucking city no more. Normally he might just fire one up and flip the old vaffanculo at anyone who hassled him. But the last thing he needed now was to draw attention to this booth.
So he tried to satisfy himself with coffee.
“I thought long and hard about your sorrow and decided that I, Valya, should share with you what little I know.”
Yeah, right. You got a call telling you to cooperate.
“That’s very kind of you.” Joey leaned forward. “What can you tell me?”
“Only that items you are interested in, they are easy to get, but not easy to sell.”
“What’s that mean?”
A big shrug. “No one wants. Or better to say, no one cares. Not well known. Everyone want other Israeli item. You know what I mean?”
Joey nodded. He knew: Uzis. Every gangbanger and cugine lusted for a Mac-10 or an Uzi.
“Before this happened, who has heard of this item you seek? No one, I think. I have two of them for three years now and no one even ask. Not once.” Another elaborate shrug. “If I have business where I could send back, I would send these back today.”
Joey felt his voice rising with his temperature. “That’s it? You meet with me and that’s it?”
“I do this out of respect for your sorrow. And to save you from waste time.”
Joey found himself talking through his teeth.
“Ay, puttana! Frankie was my brother! This ain’t wasted time!”
Valya held up his hands. “You do not understand. What I say is these items most probably bought not in States. If this Wrath of Allah connects to al-Qaeda, then guns most likely smuggle in.”
That was what Joey had been afraid of all along. He didn’t want to hear it. It meant he’d never track down the bastards.
Joey stood, threw a five on the table to cover the coffee, and walked out. No good-bye. The mamaluke didn’t deserve one. Not like Joey was ever going to see him again.
He lit up as he hit the sidewalk. Then his cell rang.
“Joey?” said a voice. “It’s Jack. What’s up?”
“Ay, goombah. Not a lot, man. Not a whole fucking lot.”
“My idea work?”
“Like a charm as far as getting people to talk. But so far I got oogatz.”
“Afraid of that.”
“Hey, it ain’t over. I’m still on it. Something’s bound to come through sooner or later. And when it does, you gotta number I can reach you?”
“No. Just my voice mail. But I’ll be checking that and I’ll keep checking in with you.”
“Good enough. We’ll have something soon.” I hope.
* * *
5
“Sure you don’t want a cigar?”
It was the third time Tom had asked.
“All right.”
“Good man. Not often you get a chance to smoke a real Havana.”
While Tom had gone cigar shopping, Jack had found a liquor store where he’d bought a prepaid Bermuda calling card. He phoned Gia to let her know he hadn’t been lost at sea. She’d sou
nded relieved. All was fine back home, and Jack had promised to call her again in the morning. Then he’d called Joey.
So now Tom and he sat on the outside deck of Flanagan’s, poised over Front Street and overlooking the quiet harbor. The pub seemed authentically Irish—even had a dartboard—with dark wood, subdued lighting, and lots of regulars calling and waving to each other through the smoky air. Jack knew half a dozen places exactly like it back home. Well, not exactly. Smoky bars were now a thing of the past in New York.
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