by Jack Getze
“What?”
“I don’t know.”
“How you know any of these things, huh? Vic tell you?”
“No,” Tommy says.
“Then you know one of these guys in Vegas?”
“No. The only guy I know from Vegas is Santo Vargas.”
“So you know this guy Vargas? You contacted him for Vic?”
“No, no, Mama Bones. I would have told you, asked your permission. Vic used someone else to contact them, maybe that ex-cop Mallory. I know they had a meeting.”
Mama Bones glances at Gianni. “My Vic didn’t talk to you anymore, I know. How come you know so much? How you know about Santo Vargas?”
Tommy swallows hard. His Adam’s apple looks like a stuffed baby chicken. “I bugged Vic’s office.”
FIFTEEN
The clock says 9:50 AM when I plop down at the sales desk Monday morning. Carr Securities buzzes with activity. Stocks are crashing. Pink message slips cover the space around my black desk model telephone like plastic flamingos washed up after a hurricane. One of the pink notes is from Beth’s school. I snatch the telephone, jam the receiver against my left ear and dial. “This is Austin Carr. I’m returning Mrs. Osborne’s call.”
“Oh, yes, Mr. Carr. Can you hold one second?”
Carmela’s watching me, attracted to my conversation I suppose by the tone of my voice. Yes, I’m worried. The change in my daughter’s attitudes and appearance troubles me, not to mention making out half-naked with Mike the Muscleman on my couch.
I stand up, spin my back on the sales floor to face the green chalkboard where our trading department advertises our product specials to the floor salesmen. We have a first-rate hot issue today, a fast-dwindling block of tax-free bonds from the State of Jersey. The bonds are a safe haven during stock market crashes.
“Mr. Carr?”
“Is my daughter okay?” I say.
Ms. Osborne clears her throat. Hesitating. I want to scream at her.
“Your daughter ran out of English class this morning, and I’m afraid no one’s seen her since.”
My gut wiggles and squirms. “Why would she run out of class? What happened?”
“The teacher asked two of her friends. They had no explanation.”
“I don’t understand, Ms. Osborne. Something must have happened. Beth’s never done anything like this before.”
“Well...actually...”
“What?”
“She cut two morning classes last week. She tried to claim she was sick and had a doctor’s appointment, but later she admitted she had been smoking in the park with another student.”
“Mike Branigan?”
“No, it wasn’t Michael.”
“Okay, Ms. Osborne. Thanks. You’ll call me if you see her?”
“Of course.”
I hold down the button, then let go to punch up Susan’s number. The ex-wife’s stopped working now that Bob the Dentist moved in. I reach her at their home.
“Have you heard from Beth?” I ask.
“She stumbled in here ten minutes ago,” she says.
Thank God. Oh, thank God. “Is she all right?”
“Your daughter is high as a kite. She admitted she’s been drinking and smoking pot since eight this morning at some girl’s house. They’ve started a band.”
“Great.”
“Nice job, Dad. How long did you have her, a week?”
“Excuse me?”
“She never did anything like this with me.”
“Yeah? Well, she didn’t start dyeing her hair and dressing wild at my house.”
“I think I’ll be keeping Beth here with me for the foreseeable future. And Bob wanted me to ask, did you hire a private detective to watch our house?”
“No need. I get detailed reports from Ryan.”
“There’s been a black SUV parked across the street all day.”
“Probably the FBI,” I say. “They have a few questions about Bob’s overactive prescription pad.”
“Very funny. But you’d better cut back on the jokes and ramp up the father act, Austin. Our daughter is floundering in the deep end.”
I hate it when Susan’s right. My day becomes dark and cloudy.
“Can I talk to her?” I say.
“She lying down.”
“Put her on the phone. You’re the one who wants me to act like a father.”
“All right. Hang on.”
Below me on the sales floor, Bobby G pulls off his one-ear headset and hoots like a hockey fan. “A hundred of the Jersey G.O.s,” he says.
Bobby’s just sold one hundred thousand dollars face value of those Jersey bonds, part of a new issue to help finance the state’s unfunded pension liabilities. I hear Beth pick up the telephone. Bobby’s gross commission will be seven hundred and fifty bucks. The house gets forty percent of that.
“Hi, Daddy. Do you want to yell at me, too?”
Beth sounds tired.
“This behavior is going to get you in big trouble,” I say. “To me it shows how immature you are.”
“I’m not the little girl you think.”
“Ditching school to smoke pot proves you are, toots. More important, sixteen is still a child in the eyes of the law.”
“Only because of a criminally corrupt political system.”
“Excuse me?”
“Don’t pretend you’re not aware of the NSA’s spying, the CIA’s interest in heroin to finance their secret assassinations, subjugation of the poor by corporate warlords, and the—”
“Whoa, whoa, honey. I’m talking about sixteen-year-old children—kids making decisions they might not be mature enough to make.”
“What would you know? Stockbrokers are bottom feeders of a greedy capitalist structure.”
To most people, she has a point. Robbers like Bernie Madoff grab all the headlines by ripping off the wealthy and famous, while the rest of us investment guys do the best we can helping manage money for the retirement plans of cops, health aides, social workers, and teachers. People the media doesn’t honestly care about.
Having Beth back at her mother’s is no solution for my daughter’s problems, but selfishly, her absence does have a positive side: Patricia and I can now explore our new relationship with more privacy and intimacy. I head home from the office hoping Patricia might cook me my favorite dinner.
My front door ajar, I push inside. One of the living room table lamps lies on the carpet, and the black lacquered Asian coffee table rests on its side. My pulse jumps as the crash of breaking glass rattles down the hall from the spare bedroom. Beth is safe at home with her mom. But Patricia...
My coat slides off my arm as I run through the living room, Florsheims thudding on the carpet. Thinking Santo Vargas could be waiting for me, I hit the not-quite-shut, spare bedroom doorway running. The slab of wood flies open, bangs the wall. The bedroom-office is empty, but the sliding glass door is cracked, the frame off its slider. Outside, my patio flowers and plants have been trampled. The gate is wide open.
I reach the sidewalk to see the ex-cop James Mallory stuffing Patricia into the back seat of a black Ford Explorer. Her hands and mouth are bound in silver tape. Why did I let Patricia stay with me? I knew it wasn’t safe. And why the hell is Mallory taking her? He must be Mr. Hoodie, or maybe the older man who also visited TV Hut.
Mallory takes off. My keys are still in my hand. I jog thirty-five yards to my Camry and fire up. I get lucky at the first intersection, glimpsing Mallory’s Explorer wheeling right onto Front Street. There’s a car coming. I have to wait. And while a bright crimson Mercedes whizzes past me, while my Camry’s engine hums patiently, I realize I am in love with Patricia Willis. I know this because my heart is pounding and my skin is wet with perspiration. I am about to chase a man who might harm me, and though I fully experience the fear, I am resolute to the task. I will risk life and limb for Patricia Willis. With no hesitation. I do this easily and naturally because I love her.
Pretty sure, anyway.<
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SIXTEEN
Keeping the red Mercedes between my Camry and the black Explorer, I chase Mallory east through Fair Haven and Rumson toward the ocean. Only the two of us turn left at the Sea Bright bridge, however, and quickly I’m too close going north on Ocean Avenue. If Mallory sees me, loses me, I might never see Patricia again. Mallory kidnapping Patricia has to be about that ruby and Vic being shot.
Of course, why a stockbroker like me is chasing bad guys remains a mystery. Is there a badge on my chest? A cape on my back? A weapon of any kind with which to defend myself or rescue Patricia? No. Maybe I’m not in love. Maybe I’m nuts. The thought has occurred to me. How can I love someone I’ve just met? Infatuation, for sure. The whole thing is shiny and wonderful and hot red. But love? I wonder if we could trust each other with our lives, should the situation call for it. Or put the other one first in our thoughts for a time during sickness.
But if this feels like love, to the point of risking bodily harm, then what’s the difference? What is real love? All sensations share a problem of durability.
I drop back as our vehicles navigate the three mile straightaway between the Sea Bright bridge and the entrance to Sandy Hook park. On my right, a cemented stone retaining wall keeps back the new, piped-in sand and an ever-hungry Atlantic Ocean. I think about dialing Luis for help, but remember my cell phone rests inside my sport jacket, the coat lying where I dropped it fifteen minutes ago on my living room floor.
I wait until the Explorer crests the top of the off-ramp before following Mallory onto the five-mile sand bar that is Sandy Hook, a unit of the America’s Gateway National Recreation Area. The park charges for automobiles during the summer season, but it’s free access the rest of the year.
I’m worried Mallory brought Patricia here to do her harm. Sandy Hook represents much of Gateway’s twenty-six thousand acres of wilderness, a major rest stop for millions of migrating birds, and the United States’ park system’s only wildlife refuge. Once summer passes and the beaches lose their draw, there are few less populated areas. Like Jersey’s Pine Barrens in the south and Wetlands to the north, Sandy Hook is a terrific place to unofficially and criminally bury your dead.
The road out the Sandy Hook peninsula doesn’t fork until two-thirds of the way to the end. It’s easy to stay back of the Explorer, out of Mallory’s sight, but close enough to follow his SUV’s headlights. His high beams throw a bright shine on the roadside holly and scrub pine. If he’s looking in his mirror, I don’t think he’ll notice my parking lights half a mile behind him. It’s hard to see, but I do okay hugging the double line.
Near the end of the peninsula’s north-south road, we fork to the right, then turn hard right again to approach rows of cement and rusted-iron artillery bunkers. Since the American Revolution, Sandy Hook has been home for serious gun battlements—a major part of New York City’s defense system. These particular ruins, which aimed big guns at the entrance to New York Harbor, date from World War II.
I follow Mallory to the extreme north end of the peninsula and a flat expanse of broken pavement the size of Giant Stadium parking. I flick off my parking lights and stay back a quarter-mile while Mallory weaves across the moonlit asphalt with patches of cement. Weeds grow between the cracks, some four feet tall.
Near the end of the flat pavement Mallory brakes against a row of old telephone poles, a barrier marking the entrance to North Beach’s blocks-long foot trail to the sand and water. The beach path runs along a fenced off U.S. Coast Guard training and living facility that includes the whole northern tip of Sandy Hook. Coast Guard lights let me see the Explorer, the trailhead and another SUV, a Chevy, parked nose-forward next to Mallory.
There’s a familiar shape inside. A man.
I flash back two summers ago when Ryan and I were here with the Cub Scouts. There’s a fork not far up the trail, one path that leads to the beach, a second that heads for a two-story observation platform. Built decades earlier, birders use the tower all year, but particularly in early fall because of migrating birds of prey. Photographers snap shots of the Verrazano Bridge or the heavy ship traffic all year long. Ryan, the Cub Scouts and I mainly killed time so Mom could go shopping.
The interior lights of Mallory’s Explorer flash on and so do the Chevy’s when Mallory rolls outside to greet the other driver: It’s Rags—Tommy Ragsdale—my ex sales manager and newly declared mortal enemy.
What do these guys want with Patricia?
Mama Bones hands Gianni the Nikon binoculars. Her body hurts in certain places. She needs to work out again, exercise more. The busted up World War II cement bunker is a nice place for her and Gianni to watch Sandy’s North Beach parking lot and Rags, but the climb was nasty from where Gianni hid his Jeep. As a place to sit and wait, the rutted broken concrete bites ass.
“That’s two-hundred you owe me,” Mama Bones says. “I asked you, why would Rags sit there quiet if he wasn’t waiting for somebody.”
Gianni takes the binoculars off his eyeballs, stands and offers Mama Bones his hand. “Yeah, you win. I could have sworn he was waiting for dark to get rid of a body. The way he backed against the trail. Want to move closer?”
“Yeah. Let’s see who gets out of that Explorer.”
They’ve been following Rags all day, Mama Bones hoping Carmela’s ex will lead them to the briefcase and Vic’s shooter—if it wasn’t Rags himself.
Gianni adjusts the Nikons. “There’s somebody else in the parking lot. A Camry with its lights off.”
“A Camry? Oh, Mother Mary.”
“No,” Gianni says. “It’s Austin Carr. He must have been following the Explorer.”
To the right of my Camry, birds squabble for a night’s roost inside a stand of dying pine trees. Low-lying evergreens on the shore were killed or damaged by Hurricane Sandy back in 2012, and this miniature petrified forest nestled on the perimeter of the paved expanse provides a place to stay out of sight, wait for my chance to rescue Patricia.
Say what?
What am I doing? What is there about the stockbroker experience and training that prepares me for physical and mortal combat? I take a deep breath and think one more time. My head and gut agree my genetic duty belongs to my children and their future. I should not be out on deserted Sandy Hook, risking my health for Patricia Willis or anybody else who isn’t family. However; there are times when the head and the gut don’t count. Sometimes you have to go with your heart, see what happens—even if that foolish red organ sends you over Niagara Falls in a barrel.
And there is no denying right now, for better or worse, for richer or poorer, for as long as this love shall last, my heart belongs to Patricia Willis.
I switch off the Camry’s overhead before I slide outside. My fingers shut the car door with the same firm gentleness I guide a woman on the dance floor. A few hundred yards away, the Atlantic breaks and washes against Sandy Hook’s northern shore, a rolling swish against the quiet. Icy wind gusts off the water and stings my skin. The air tastes of salt.
Mallory drags Patricia between the two SUVs. I’m coming, getting closer by the second, crouch-jogging along the perimeter of the park-sized lot. Patricia’s mouth is still taped. Her wrists, too. I slow my gait, then freeze when Rags scans the dark in my direction—as if he’s heard my scuffles on the broken asphalt.
Rags knows about Patricia and the ruby because he eavesdropped on Vic’s telephone conversations. I’m considering if Mallory’s involvement could be anything but the TV Hut—listening device angle, when Rags grabs Patricia’s shoulders and Mallory takes her knees. They lift and carry her like a rug delivery team toward the entrance to the nature trail—the same path I walked two summers ago with Ryan and his Cub Scout Troop.
I’m still thirty yards from the two SUVs, but fence lights from the Coast Guard station let me glimpse Mallory and Rags carry Patricia past the wooden barriers to the trailhead. Among the wild holly and scrub pine, their individual shapes gradually become a single, shifting blob of shadow.
> I jog, my mind mulling over the previous trip here with Ryan: Four or five hundred yards up the same trail Mallory and Rags began to carry Patricia is North Beach, where from the surf you can stare across seven miles of Atlantic Ocean—from Jersey to Coney Island, New York—and the geological entrance to New York Harbor.
The Coast Guard facility helps, but following Rags and Mallory with no flashlight, I’m pretty much in the dark.
The story of my life.
SEVENTEEN
For hopefully the last time, I ask myself what I’m doing, sneaking toward a battle with two grown men. Rags maybe I can handle. But Mallory is an ex-cop and former Marine. In a confrontation with both, my survival could be claimed a major victory. Whether real love or infatuation, this screwball thing I have for Patricia could easily get me killed.
When I reach the fork in the trail—one to the beach, one to the bird platform—the clouds break, and moonlight fades the shadows around me. I stop to listen. Wind hisses in the tree tops. The ocean attacks a sandy shore. Then, to the right—toward the bird tower—whispering and the scratch of shuffling feet begin an all-male conversation that quickly becomes an argument.
The wind makes some words clear, others not, but anger is certain. Rags yells something about “a fake,” and Mallory speaks Vargas’ name in the same breath as ‘‘the aluminum briefcase.” There is more scuffling of feet and Rags yells, his voice moving, falling. A single pair of feet is already clambering noisily down the tower steps.
The bird platform is only two stories tall, but it sounded like Mallory threw Rags off. Did he throw Patricia, too? My fingers close into fists as I jog down the path toward the tower, pulling my knees up high with each stride, an ancient warrior’s technique I learned reading Carlos Castaneda. Reduces the risk of tripping when you can’t see what’s in front of you. Hey, everybody has to believe in something. Faith is always better than fear.