by Jon Loomis
“You hungry?” Coffin said as they climbed into Lola’s Camaro.
“Starved.” Lola turned the key, and the engine roared to life.
Coffin looked at his watch. “Who’s still serving at 12:53 A.M.?”
“E Pluribus,” Lola said. “World’s greasiest.”
Coffin grimaced. “It’ll be mobbed. How about Billy’s?”
“The Ptomaine Palace?” Lola said. “Pretty scary, if you ask me.”
“Oh, come on. It’s a relic—practically the last remnant of old Provincetown. It ought to have one of those historic markers out front.”
“It’s a dump. Do they have anything besides oysters?”
“Sure. Billy can fry up a burger for you, if you want, and the lobster rolls are good.”
“Okay,” Lola said, “but I’d better not regret this in the morning.”
Standing at the window, Phipps watched Coffin and Lola climb into her ridiculous muscle car. After a minute or two the car’s lights flicked on and they drove away.
Phipps sat in Louie’s chair and picked up the phone. He dialed 9, then the number for Billy’s Oyster Shack. The phone rang three times before Billy picked it up.
“They know,” Phipps said, brushing the bruised side of his face with his fingertips.
“Who the fuck is they?” said Billy.
“Coffin and that what’s-her-name. That dyke. They know about the Project. They have the files. The list of properties. Everything.”
“That’s just great,” Billy said. “What the fuck. How’d they find out?”
“I don’t know. That’s not the point. The point is, you have to get rid of them. They have to disappear.”
“Hold on,” Billy said.
Phipps heard a clunk as he put the phone down. Then Billy shouted, “Closing time! Get the fuck out!” Phipps heard muffled grumbling in the background, and then Billy said, “It’s closing time when I say it’s closing time. Get the fuck out!” There was a brief silence before Billy picked up the phone again.
“Do they know about me?” he said.
“I don’t know. I don’t think so, but we need to make sure they don’t find out.”
“Who’s going to tell them?” Billy said. “You?”
“Your place is on the list,” Phipps said. “How long before they guess that the person responsible for the killings might be an angry homeowner—another nut like that Kotowski? All they have to do is go through the list and check everyone’s alibi. Sooner or later, they come to you.”
Another silence. “Well, what do you know,” Billy said. “You’ll never guess who just pulled into the parking lot.”
“They have to disappear,” Phipps said. “No bodies this time. If you do it right, we’re home free.”
“I can’t believe you let them get their hands on that list,” Billy said. There was a sound like glasses clinking together. “That was not a good thing to do.”
“I couldn’t help it,” Phipps said. His chest felt tight. Beads of sweat had popped out on his forehead.
“You fucked up,” Billy said. “Big time.”
“But—” Phipps said. The line clicked and went dead.
The tub was wonderful—the water was deep and very hot. Jamie felt the muscles in her neck and back unkinking. She’d dimmed the lights and lit a candle. Her glass of chardonnay sat on the toilet seat, within arm’s reach. The bathroom was wreathed in lavender-scented steam. Her apartment only had a shower stall—an amenities disaster of the first order. There could be no civilization, Jamie thought, without the occasional soak. She slid down in the tub until the water came up to her earlobes. She closed her eyes and sighed.
There was a sound. A faint creak from the staircase, beyond the closed bathroom door, at the end of the upstairs hallway. Jamie opened her eyes. It was the kind of sound old houses make on their own—a settling sound, a small groan of contentment or boredom. She closed her eyes and stretched her legs out under the water, and there was the sound again—in the hallway. She sat up.
“Frank?” she called. “Is that you?”
The bathroom door flew open. Jamie shrieked, covered her breasts with her arms, and tried to press herself flat against the tub’s hard curve. Duffy Plotz stood in the doorway. Something slender and bright flicked open in his right hand. “Hi, honey,” he said. “I’m home!”
Chapter 31
Billy’s was empty. The stools had been turned upside down on top of the bar. Billy limped behind a push broom, his crooked body listing to starboard. When the screen door opened, he said “We’re closed. Go home,” without looking up from his work.
“Go home!” shrieked Captain Nickerson, swinging frantically in his cage.
“That’s no way to treat the regulars,” Coffin said, taking an upside-down stool from the bar, setting it on the floor, sitting down.
“Fuck the regulars,” said Billy, grinning and leaning on his broom. “What brings you two out at this hour?”
“Starvation,” Lola said.
“If we’re not too late,” Coffin said.
“Of course you’re too late.” Billy locked the door, turned out the overhead lights, and unplugged the neon beer signs in the front window. “But nothing’s too big a pain in the ass for Provincetown’s finest. What’ll it be?”
“Can I get a cheeseburger?” Lola said. “Onion and tomato?”
“Want it bloody or burnt?” Billy said. “I can’t promise anything in between.”
“Burnt.”
“Frankie?”
“Shot of the monster,” Coffin said, “and one for my friend here.”
Billy retrieved the bottle of Old Loch Ness and poured two hefty shots.
“Not imbibing?” Coffin said.
“Let me cook the lady’s burger,” Billy said. “Then I’ll have a drink with you.” He disappeared into the kitchen.
Lola sipped her scotch. “Hoo-wah. That’s potent.”
Coffin told her the story about his grandfather’s last run. Then he poured himself another shot.
“What do you think the odds are,” Lola said, “that our killer lives in one of the highlighted sections of the map?”
“Overwhelming,” Coffin said. “Unless it’s Phipps, trying to cut himself a bigger piece of the pie.”
Lola sipped her scotch, made a face. “You don’t believe he was just working for a salary?”
“No way. If he knew about ED, they had no choice. They had to make him a partner, just to shut him up.”
“Do you think he killed them?”
Coffin shrugged. “Maybe. He’d have to be crazy, or the greediest man in history. He was going to get extremely rich anyway, if things worked out.”
“Maybe he didn’t want to take a chance it wouldn’t work out,” Lola said. “Maybe he just wanted to take the partners’ money and run.”
“Maybe,” Coffin said, “but does Phipps seem like a guy that would crucify someone?”
Lola shook her head. “I don’t know. I mean, does anybody? Assuming they’re not actually foaming at the mouth?”
“Show us your tits,” muttered Captain Nickerson.
“This parrot obviously hangs around a lot of sensitive intellectual types,” Lola said.
“It was my father’s.”
“Sorry,” Lola said.
Coffin waved the apology away. “Ready?” he said, holding the bottle over Lola’s glass.
She covered the glass with her hand. “I’m good,” she said. “Shouldn’t drink too much on an empty stomach. I already feel a little woozy.”
Coffin nodded. “Me, too,” he said, downing his shot. “But when don’t I?” He fished a cigarette from the pack in his shirt pocket. He tried to light it, but the cigarette slipped from his fingers and fell on the bar. “Weird,” he said, looking at his hands. “My fingers are kind of numb.”
Billy came back from the kitchen and refilled Coffin’s glass. “Food’ll be out in a minute. Thought you quit,” he said, holding a match while Coffin puffed at the ci
garette.
“There’s quitting, and then there’s quitting,” Coffin said.
“I feel funny,” Lola said.
“Better drink up,” Billy said, filling her glass with scotch. “It’ll fix what ails you.”
Coffin felt as though he were slowly rising out of his body. The room glowed a soft magenta. “I can’t feel my legs,” he said. The lit cigarette fell from his fingers.
“So,” Billy said. “A priest, a rabbi, two lawyers, a midget, a lesbian, and a talking dog walk into a bar. Bartender says, ‘What is this—a joke?’ ”
“I feel really weird,” Lola said.
“I got another one,” Billy said. “How many Republicans does it take to screw in a lightbulb?”
Coffin felt himself rising. The smoke-yellowed ceiling tiles warped into a long vertical tunnel, and Coffin levitated toward it. He looked back and saw his body sitting on its stool, next to Lola. Billy was talking.
“Nine. One to blame Clinton for not changing the lightbulb before it burned out. One to deregulate the lightbulb industry. One to claim that anyone who doesn’t support changing the light-bulb is in league with the terrorists. One to go on Meet the Press and say that the lightbulb changers will be greeted as liberators. One to give Halliburton a billion-dollar contract to change the lightbulb. And three to explain to Bush that you don’t really screw in the lightbulb.”
“Weird . . .” whispered Lola.
“Frankie! Frankie! Frankie!” yelled Captain Nickerson.
Coffin felt himself being drawn into the tunnel. It was dark and very long, but at its end Coffin could see a brilliant magenta light. He felt as though he might have died—he wasn’t sure he was breathing. The thought of his death did not alarm him. He was serene. He was the essence of being. He was love. He was godlike.
“Shit,” Billy said. “That’s only eight. I forgot one. I must be losing it.” He waved a hand in front of Coffin’s face. Coffin’s eyes followed it for a moment, then drifted off.
“Whoa,” Lola said. “The colors.”
Billy shook his head, swabbing at the bar with the greasy rag. “I’ll forget my own ass if things get any worse.” He refilled Lola’s glass, grinning with his big yellow teeth. “Drink up, honey,” he said.
“No,” Lola said.
“Now, be a good girl,” Billy said, holding the glass to Lola’s lips. “Drink up.”
Lola clamped her lips shut, and the whiskey spilled down her chin.
“Fine,” Billy said. “You want to do it the hard way, that’s okay by me.” He went into the kitchen. The back door opened. Lola tried to get up from the stool, but her feet got tangled and she and the stool fell sideways onto the floor. She struggled to her knees and was trying to pull herself upright with both hands on the bar when Billy returned, carrying a length of two-by-four.
“And where do you think you’re going, young lady?” Billy said, swinging the two-by-four hard at Lola’s head. It struck squarely and made a hollow cracking sound, like a bowling ball dropped onto a concrete floor. Lola collapsed, arms and legs sprawled out. Billy left again and came back a minute later, pushing a wheelbarrow.
Coffin’s tunnel turned and looped, and then he felt himself falling headfirst into darkness, falling at great speed. He wanted to cry out but couldn’t open his mouth—couldn’t produce a sound. He was no longer godlike, no longer a shimmering column of pale magenta light. He looked back at his body, slumped on its bar stool; beside him, Billy was standing over Lola. Coffin felt hugely dizzy—his head had filled with buzzing snow. The room began to spin and warp, and then something very hard hit him in the nose.
The bathroom was small. Duffy Plotz seemed to take up most of it. There was only one door, opposite a small frosted-glass window that was twenty feet above the backyard.
“Jesus, Duffy,” Jamie said, fanning herself with one hand. “You scared the crap out of me.”
“Good,” Duffy said. “I meant to.”
“Well, nice going, then.” Jamie tried not to look at the gun, gleaming dully on the countertop. She wondered how badly she’d be cut if she tried to grab it. The bright blade in Plotz’s hand appeared to belong to an old-fashioned straight razor.
“You want me,” Duffy said. “I know you do.” He picked up the gun almost absently and stuck it in his belt.
Jamie looked up at him from the bathtub. Her heart was racing wildly. “Yes,” she said. “Yes, I do. Why don’t you take your clothes off and get in here with me?”
“No,” Plotz said. “You get out. I want to look at you.”
“Great,” Jamie said. Her legs felt weak and quivery as she climbed out of the tub. “I was getting all pruney anyway.” She stood on the bath mat, naked and dripping.
Plotz stared wide-eyed and said nothing.
“Look, I don’t mean to break the spell or anything, but could you hand me a towel? I’m getting a little cold.”
Duffy leaned to reach for a towel, and Jamie lunged against him, slamming her hip into his groin and grabbing his right wrist with both hands. Plotz grunted, stumbled back against the door-frame. He tried to slap her away with his free hand, but she twisted and ducked. Then she pulled the hand that held the razor close to her face and bit him as hard as she could.
Plotz screamed and dropped the bright blade. Jamie shoved him, pulled the gun from his belt, and ran down the hallway. She tasted blood in her mouth. She was still dripping wet, and the wooden floor was slick—if she fell, Plotz would be on her in an instant. She took the stairs as fast as she could, Plotz’s big shoes clattering behind her.
“It’s a damn shame it has to come to this, Frankie,” Billy said, breathing hard as he shoved Coffin into the passenger seat of his pickup truck. “A damn shame. We go back a long ways, your family and me.” He slammed the door and pushed the wheelbarrow back toward the restaurant. Coffin fell and fell down an endless hole, unable to speak or move.
Billy went into the restaurant and stood for a minute, looking at Lola and thinking. He bent down and pulled up the hem of her T-shirt. No gun in her waistband—but there was a pair of handcuffs. He checked her pockets and found the key. Then he pulled up her pant legs, and there it was—a .38-caliber snub-nose, tucked into her boot. He pulled the gun out, checked the safety, and stuck it in his pocket. He felt Lola’s pulse at her neck—it seemed steady, a little fast. A trickle of blood oozed from her scalp. He rolled her over and handcuffed her wrists behind her back.
“Just to be on the safe side, honey pie,” Billy said. He picked her up and heaved her into the wheelbarrow. She was surprisingly heavy.
Billy dumped the lady cop into the bed of the pickup, covered her with a ratty blue tarp, and pinned the corners of the tarp with concrete blocks. She lay very still. He flipped the wheelbarrow over and slid it into the truck, handles first, next to Lola. Then he went to the shed behind the restaurant and came back with a coil of thick nylon rope. He tossed the rope into the truck bed, slammed the tailgate shut, climbed into the cab, and started the engine.
“This hurts me, Frankie,” Billy said, lighting a cigarette. “It truly does. I always liked you, and you know how I felt about your old man. But there’s just a couple of loose ends, Frankie. And one of them’s you.” Billy turned left out of the parking lot, onto Shank Painter Road. The A&P and the liquor store were closed. The big asphalt parking lot was deserted.
Coffin was a point of energy in a vast, rotating universe of color and light. Other entities were there, too—pure fireflies of being, adrift in a metaphysical milky way. They were trying to communicate with him telepathically. They were trying to tell him something important.
There was hardly any traffic. Billy turned right onto Bradford Street and headed up the hill. Muscle Beach—the men’s gym—was still open. Through the big front window, Billy could see a single devoted soul chugging away on a treadmill. Billy cranked the wheel at the top of the hill and made a left on Pleasant Street.
On the harbor side of Commercial, Pleasant Street became a narr
ow alley between two shops, then petered out altogether, stopping at a rusting gate in a fence made of sheet metal and steel bars. Billy got out of the truck, keyed open the gate’s heavy padlock, drove the truck through, got out again, closed the gate, and snapped the lock shut.
The moon was high. Souza’s Boatyard was a maze of rusting engine blocks and the hulls of a half-dozen fishing boats, all in various stages of disrepair, all slowly subsiding into the earth. In the moonlight the place was ghostly; a chill ran down Billy’s neck as he parked at the foot of a small, dilapidated wharf. He took a pint of whiskey from his pocket, uncapped it, and drank.
Jamie made the living room three steps ahead of Plotz, who stumbled and cursed as he chased her down the narrow staircase. She sprinted for the front door, past the leering goat’s head, dodging through the dark living room with its maze of straight-backed chairs and occasional tables.
Plotz paused at the bottom of the stairs and tilted his head, as if he were listening.
The front door wouldn’t open. The key was stuck in the stubborn old lock. “Fuck,” Jamie said, desperately rattling the key. “Fuck!”
She turned; Plotz was barreling toward her, his face twisted with rage. She raised the gun and fired just as Plotz crashed into a spindly Victorian table occupied by two ceramic rabbits and a silver music box shaped like a toad. The gunshot was colossally loud in the low-ceilinged room. Half of the stuffed goat’s face exploded into drifting hair and sawdust.
“You shot me!” Plotz said, sprawled in the wreckage of the table, the rabbits, and the toad. “You bitch!”
“No I didn’t,” Jamie said. Her ears were ringing. “But I wish I had. And I will shoot you, if you don’t get the fuck out of here.”
Plotz raised his hands, palms out. “Jesus Christ,” he said. “Why are all the cute ones psycho?” He struggled to his feet.