His brother calls, “Julie, come say hello to Phil Parker,” which dashed all hopes that Parker was maybe in the crapper and nowhere near Jimmy's wire.
Now having no choice, Julie crossed and shook hands with him. He asked him how long he's been there. Parker says about an hour. He asked Parker if he would care to go sit at his private table, over there by the fish tank. Julie would be with him in five minutes. First he needs to have a little talk with his brother here.
Parker says yeah, sure. He goes over and sits.
“That was just getting interesting,” said Johnny G. “He was explaining how the FDA works.”
“Hey, can we cool it here?” This is still in front of Jimmy. Johnny doesn't seem to notice.
“They got moles inside,” he says. “You know, like spies? They know everything the FDA's going to do before they do it.”
“Johnny . . . will you shut your fucking mouth.”
“You want to know something else? The FDA kills more people than bad drugs ever did. You know how many people die because the FDA—”
He grabbed his brother by the arm, gestured toward the men's room. “In there,” he said.
Johnny G. resisted. ”I know what you're going to tell me. I think Jimmy should hear it, too.”
Julie looked at him. He looked at Jimmy. “He's jerking me off, right? You're both jerking me off.”
”Um . . .” A helpless shrug from the young bartender. “Mr. Giordano, I'm not real sure myself.”
“What you're going to tell me,” said Johnny G. “is that our family has never dealt drugs and that you wouldn't touch this shit with gloves on.”
Dumbfounded, he again looked at Jimmy. Jimmy is mouthing, “Good idea. Say it.” He's practically pleading.
Julie's eye was drawn to the bar at Jimmy's elbow. On it was a pad of bar checks, several sheets of which were filled with notes and Jimmy's still holding a pencil. He's taking notes? thought Julie. What, he had technical difficulties? His microphone went on the blink?
Julie pulled his brother off the stool. He dragged him ten feet away to the big potted fern by the entrance. The entrance reminded him of something else.
“Those vans outside,” he said. “What's the story with them?”
“Not just the vans,” said Johnny G. pleasantly. “They're up on the roof, they have chase cars both ends, and they also have two in here.” He hooked a thumb toward two men at a window table. They had ordered iced tea and were nursing it.
Julie didn't bother to look. “And Parker walked into this?”
“He thinks they're ours.”
He told his brother about the two o'clock meeting, which he invented—although he had a hunch that Julie had just come from a real one—and which he told Parker about from the bar phone. He did that, he said, to make sure he got their attention.
“Johnny . . . whose attention?”
“Whoever's been listening,” he said patiently. “My guess is it's strictly FBI. If there were any Brooklyn cops outside, someone we know would have called us.”
Julie could see what his brother had done. Believing it was another story.
“What about the cab? Parker brought shooters in a cab.”
”I suggested it.”
“So the Fed would know what they look like?”
“So I'd know.”
“Yeah, well, Yahya's out there. You even set up Yahya?”
Johnny grimaced. It was like, “Oops. Forgot.” But no problem, he says. We'll handle that with Jimmy.
An exasperated sigh. “You know I'm going to kill you for this, right?”
“Behave yourself. You're going to thank me. Moon will kill you, you get into this shit.”
Fat Julie stared. “You heard from him?”
“Yesterday. We sat by Pop's grave.”
Julie was silent for a long moment.
“Which is near Jake's grave,” his brother reminded him.
A deep breath. Julie blew it out slowly.
“So what now?” he asked quietly.
“Go have your lunch with Parker. Show him some money. Take it out of mine if it'll make you feel better.”
“You're damned right it will. But what's the point?”
“Just find out all you can about how this works.”
“Johnny ... you've blown this. It's gone.”
“We need to know. Trust me.”
Julie shook his head slowly. “Jesus, Johnny.”
“Hey . . .” His brother touched his chest. ”I said trust me. This isn't all bad.”
“What's good? Tell me one thing good.”
“For openers? The FBI will owe us.”
A pained expression. “You're serious, right?”
“They will. Wait and see.”
“How? We're now FBI approved? We're going to put that on business cards like the fucking Good Housekeeping seal?”
Johnny ignored the sarcasm. ”I have an idea. But I need to talk to Mike first.”
At this point, Julie didn't even want to hear it. He peered over the fern toward the table by the fish tank. Parker wasn't looking. He was busy annoying a flounder. Julie glanced back toward the bar. Jimmy's looking at him like, “No hard feelings, okay?”
“Does he leave with the Feds now? Or will he at least finish the weekend?”
“Who? You mean Jimmy?”
“It's a holiday weekend. If they owe us so much, the least they can do is not leave us short.”
Chapter 37
Michael and Megan stowed their things on the ketch, which was tied up at the Edgartown dock. That done, they made the ten-minute drive to the airport where they waited for Lena Mayfield's flight.
Megan's ketch had no name on the transom. It had tax and registration stamps and a Coast Guard serial number but no name. Michael passed the time suggesting a few. He thought Wraith might be good. It had just the right touch of mystery.
No reaction from Megan. She said, “Here comes her plane.”
“Okay . . . How about Sorceress? Tell me that's not a perfect name for—”
She asked him if he wanted a Tic-Tac.
“Something more classic, then. How about Sibyl? Sibyls were these women in ancient Rome who—”
”I know what a Sibyl is, Michael.”
“Maybe Sibyls had boats named Megan.”
“Michael . . .”
“Get off it, right?”
“You know how some people have unlisted numbers? I have an unlisted boat.”
Oh, yeah. Too bad. Sorceress would be a gas but she's right. It would be like hanging out a sign. So Great Lay, he supposed, was probably out of the question.
She laughed aloud. She gave him an elbow.
“Okay.” He stepped out of range. “Tell me you didn't hear that. Tell me you can't read minds.”
“You mumbled it.”
“The heck I did.” Did I?
“You mumble all the time, Michael. You talk to yourself all the time. Do you want to hear an imitation of you?”
He didn't, but she launched into one anyway. First there was Michael sailing. “Um . . . we're pinching . . . fall off, fall off ... wind line over there . . . look out, lobster pot . . . come on, baby, you can go faster . . .” Next, there was Michael driving out here. “Ah . . . which way? ... oh ... says Airport Road ... do we need gas? . . . nuts, I meant to get fresh flowers.” .
”I get the picture,” he said. Enough. Before we get into Michael making love.
“And in bed, you . . .”
He clapped his hands to his ears and screamed. People looked. Megan reached for him, grinning, and threw her arms around his neck.
“Here's how you stop mumbling,” she told him. She kissed him. He kissed her back. They were still in an embrace when Lena Mayfield's plane taxied to a stop.
“Saw you two,” said Lena. She pointed to the sky, indicating where from. “You sure you want company just now?”
Megan liked her from the start. And she liked Megan. She didn't seem so sure about Edgartown, though. They gave her a to
ur in the Mercedes.
“Pretty,” she said. “No argument there.”
“It's, um, fairly multicultural, I think.”
“That mean you got darkies who ain't maids?”
Megan guffawed from the backseat.
Lena smiled with Megan and punched Michael's arm. He could only grin. She had told him to call her Lena. “Hasn't been a Mr. Mayfield since '83. The Lord took him. Emphysema.”
She waved off their sympathy and reached into the canvas shopping bag which she'd carried on the plane. “Happy birthday,” she said to Michael. “Got you some presents here.”
Megan blinked and leaned forward. “When is your birthday?” she demanded.
Settles that, thought Fallon. She can't read minds after all.
“Beg pardon, Michael?” asked Lena.
“Um . . . what?”
“You said, ‘Settles that.’ ”
“No, I didn't.”
“You did plain as day. Settles what?”
He glanced at Megan in the mirror. She was looking out the side window, biting her fist to keep from laughing. She got a grip, decided to be stern again.
“Michael . . . damn it...is today your birthday?”
“Now that you mention it.”
“And you never told me?”
He shrugged. “Loved your presents, though.”
“What presents?”
“Last night and this morning.”
“Maybe I should go for a walk,” said Lena.
“No, no. We're almost there.”
She produced a small package. “This is from Mr. Doyle. He said give you a kiss with it. Think I'll leave that chore for Megan.”
“Forget it,” she sulked. “He's been a creep.”
“Megan . . .”
“What did you get?” she asked.
I'm a creep, he thought, but she's peering over the seat like a six-year-old wondering what's in the box. He made her wait until they were back at the Taylor House.
Doyle had sent him three watches, all Seikos, nice but not expensive. The card said, ' ‘With care, these might last you through June.”
Mrs. Mayfield—Lena—had baked him some Toll House cookies which she said don't eat now because she's going to fix a special birthday brunch so everyone go wash up and sit. Everyone included Harold and Myra Lovelace, who had stocked up on what she needed because she'd called them and said she planned to do some cooking this weekend. Harold and Myra, made aware of his birthday by Lena, gave him a Gary Larson birthday card and an antique brass telescope with tripod that had belonged to Myra's grandfather.
“Doesn't do much good in a trailer,” she told him. “Here you got a widow's walk. Meant to set it up there anyhow.”
The Taylor House had never served meals, only continental breakfast and afternoon tea, but it had a well-equipped kitchen and the captain's original dining room furniture, which Michael thought was a crime not to use. Maybe next year. Myra, meantime, produced a pitcher of Bloody Marys and poured them as Lena went to work.
He was not sure what he expected from her, ham and eggs with grits, maybe, but she was back in half an hour with a classic New England brunch, some of which she'd brought with her in her big canvas bag. On a platter in the shape of a fish, she brought out kippers, smoked finnan haddie in cream, pan-fried potatoes with onions, scrambled eggs with sun-dried tomatoes and chives, and a basket of fresh-baked blueberry muffins.
Two other guests, following the smell, looked into the dining room on their way out the door. Lena snapped her fingers and pointed to two chairs. “Plenty to go around,” she said. It was an order. They sat.
Megan's pout did not affect her appetite, she went nuts over the finnan haddie, but it didn't stop her from making cracks.
“He's a Gemini . . . might have known . . . two-faced.”
She wanted Lena to tell everyone how they met, what happened in that New York subway. Lena declined. “Over and done with,” she said. “Boy does need lookin' after, though.”
The phone rang. Harold rose to answer it. Megan started gathering the dishes. She paused and cocked an ear toward Harold, who was only listening, but she shook it off and turned toward the kitchen.
“Michael,” Harold waved a finger. “It's a doctor at the hospital.”
“What hospital?”
“Ain't but one, over to Oak Bluffs. Doctor's asking do you know a Montague Mullins?”
“Me? I don't think so.”
“Says the police found him staggerin' around up by Lighthouse Beach. Said your name and address was in his pocket.”
The man who called about the ghosts came to mind. But no, his name was Peabody. “Did he say what's wrong with him?”
“This Mullens thinks he's having a stroke. Doctor's not so sure.”
Stroke. Michael felt as if slapped. ”A black man? Late fifties?”
Harold asked the doctor. “Says that's him,” he said.
FalIon's chair toppled backward as he rose. Megan set her dishes down.
“I'll drive you,” she said.
“You never knew his real name?” asked Megan. She turned onto Beach Road. The sign said three miles to the hospital.
“Not Montague. I never heard Montague.”
In fact, the last time he heard Mullen—not Mullens, Mullen—was when he asked what room he was in at Mount Sinai and Michael had to stop and think that he had a name besides Moon.
“Michael? When did he come here?”
“Last night, I guess.”
“Last evening? On the ferry from Woods Hole?”
”I don't know. Why?”
“Nothing.” She reached for his hand and squeezed it. “I'll have you there in five minutes.”
Chapter 38
Special Agents Mowbray and Phipps, driving separate cars, had followed the taxi to Oyster Bay. The order to tail it had been a disappointment. They would rather have stayed at the restaurant for when all the top dagos showed up.
The taxi proceeded toward Long Island Sound where it entered the grounds of the Corinthian Yacht Club. The sign outside said Members Only.
No amount of wardrobe advice, thought Agent Phipps, would pass this bunch off as members or even as acceptable guests. Agent Mowbray shared this view. He thought that they were obviously here for a meeting but with whom? Who would want to meet them at a chi-chi club like Corinthian? They realized, too late, that such a meeting would only be held on a boat, preferably out on the water, possibly a rendezvous with a second boat, possibly a pickup of smuggled contraband.
The four men, two of them carrying camera bags, one with a price tag still hanging from his warm-up suit, were seen to board a Grady-White sport fisherman named Child's Play. They cast off the lines immediately. It bumped its way out of the slip.
Agent Phipps radioed a request for a helicopter a/though he knew that it was probably useless. From where he stood, it seemed that every boat ever made was already out on Long Island Sound. Agent Mowbray, who had noted the registration number through binoculars, radioed the Coast Guard. The Coast Guard quickly identified the owner as a Mr. Frampton Childress of Oyster Bay, New York.
Childress . . . Child's Play. Cute, thought Mowbray.
The name rang a bell. He'd heard it before. He'd heard it, he was fairly sure, in connection with that Iranian a few years back who was peddling all those bogus pills. His memory was vague on the subject because either it never amounted to anything or...no... now he remembered. He had been ordered not to pursue it. But that was then.
Mowbray placed another call. He asked that a file be pulled on one Frampton Childress II.
Chapter 39
The hospital was good-sized but no Mount Sinai. Fallon found Moon right away.
He was still in ER, in a small treatment room. A nurse showed them in. She said that his signs were stable, he's in no immediate danger, but that Michael must not leave without speaking to the doctor who called him.
Moon's eyes cracked open at the sound of their voices. He was propped up i
n a bed, an oxygen tube at his nose and a glucose drip in his arm. The arm was bandaged where they had taken blood. It was badly discolored as well.
The eyes, when they recognized Michael, showed a flicker of displeasure. They had not yet focused on Megan. She stayed back by the door where she made no sound. Moon forced a smile. He reached out with his free hand and Michael took it. But then he felt Megan's cold stare. He looked at her past Michael's shoulder. He blinked twice as if confused, then suddenly his eyes opened wide. Moon wet his lips.
“Friend of yours?” he asked Michael.
Megan had moved. She had stepped to a rack where Moon's clothing had been hung. She was fingering his shirt.
“This is Megan Cole,” said Michael. “She's more than a friend. She's—”
The Shadow Box Page 31