Maniac Drifter

by Laura Marello

  I set out across the dunes with the skin-suit man cupped in my arm. When I reached the shoreline I followed it toward Hatches Harbor, glancing down now and then at the little man’s mournful expression, his open mouth and hollow eyes. I wondered what kind of predicament he was in, why he had this peculiar outfit on. I thought if I stared at him long enough, or kept him with me, the reason would come clear. But that was an excuse to keep him. The truth was I had grown attached to him, sitting there cross-legged on the crate lid, watching me in his outrageous skin suit, while I dug out the other figures. I wondered if they were Etruscan, Minoan, Babylonian, or Indian; if they were ancient or modern, real or fake. Perhaps they were decoys to divert attention from drug smuggling and gun running, or the drugs — heroin and cocaine — were stashed inside the skeleton man and the two-faced woman, and the whistling couple. I asked myself why, if all he were smuggling were these hand-sized figures, why he had so many crates. I tried to gauge how many figurines he could have acquired. I wondered if he had looted a gravesite, robbed a palace, or retrieved the treasure in a sunken ship.

  ***

  When I got home I lay on my side in bed holding the skin-suit man, and looked out the window at the roof tops of the east end, the bay, the outline of the coast going up-Cape. Everything looked so sweet, so dear — the light coming up, the quaint rooftops, the water shimmering, the tiny boats, the gulls. Everything looked so precious, the way it must seem to a person who has had a long illness, who might have died even, and one day he wakes up, there are fresh sheets on the bed, he is wearing a clean flannel nightshirt, and the girl next to the bed tells him he is going to pull through.

  I watched a van pull up out front that had Compton Moving and Storage written on the side. Two young men got out of the van, and with very big wire clippers, cut through the bike cables that strapped my bike to the fence. I watched one young man pick up my bike, the cherished red three-speed Columbia I rarely rode, and hoist it into the van. I jumped off the bed. Those bastards, they were stealing my bike. Gangs from up-Cape were known to come down at dawn with their big vans and cart off as many bikes as they could get. The junkier the bike, the hipper it was, so I knew my old Columbia was a rare prize for them. Funky bikes were a valuable commodity in Key West, where the robbers took the contraband and sold it. What was hip in Provincetown was usually hip there. It was a circuit.

  I felt in my jeans pocket for my car keys. I crept downstairs, opened the car door, climbed in, and peered at the thieves over the dashboard. I looked around for something to copy down the license plate with, but the bike thieves were blocking my view. Finally, they threw my neighbor’s green ten-speed into the van, and I caught a glimpse of the inside. It was so full they were throwing bikes on their sides, over the tops of the bikes that were standing. The two young men jumped into the front of the van and sped off. I started the car and pulled out after them.

  When they were speeding along the Cape Highway I realized my mistake. I should have called the police first, and then followed them so they would not get away. Now I would have to follow these jerks all the way to their first stop. I wondered if they were driving to Palm Beach. Perhaps the van held tons of gas. Maybe they had prearranged stop-off points where friends were waiting. This was dangerous business. I beat on the steering wheel and turned the radio on. I was going to catch these bicycle thieves once and for all. I would be the new Town Hero.

  They were approaching the rotary at Orleans. I thought I was going to lose them on the rotary. But there was no traffic to dodge, and they did not speed up and try to shake me. They probably did not even notice I was following them, in this bland mid-sized American sedan. I looked around; no other cars were on the highway. Then I spotted a Highway Patrol car parked on the side of the road ahead of me. I pulled up next to it. “Bike Thieves! Bike Thieves!” I said.

  The patrolmen looked up from their clipboards. “Calm down, lady, “ the driver said.

  “That van stole my bike!” I said. “I saw them! The van’s full of stolen bikes!”

  The patrolman started his car. “You better follow me, lady,” he said. He pulled out very fast, without turning on his lights or siren.

  When the patrol car got close enough behind the van, its lights began to flash. The van pulled over, the highway patrol car pulled over behind them, and I followed the patrol car. By the time I was parked, the patrolman who had been driving was already questioning the driver of the van and inspecting his license. The other patrolman had circled around to the passenger side. The patrolman pointed to my car. The first bike thief leaned his head out the window and looked back at me. I smiled ruefully. I had caught that bastard.

  When the two bike thieves were handcuffed in the back of the patrol car and the highway patrolman had called in the arrest on his CB radio, he walked over to my car. “Would you mind approaching the back of the van and pointing out which bikes you believe you saw the two men steal?” He had the invoices in his hand.

  I walked around to the open doors of the van. “That’s my bike,” I said, pointing to the red one lying on its side over the top.

  “And you saw them steal that one? Was it locked up?”

  “To a fence,” I said. “Then they stole the green one across the street.” I pointed out the ten-speed. The highway patrolman could not tell which one I was pointing to, so I climbed into the van and put my hand on it. When I was about to turn around and climb down again I noticed the crates — a whole stack of them ran along the back of the van, behind the bikes. They had a tarp thrown over them. My own bike lay on top of the crates, not on the other bikes, as I had imagined, looking into the van from a distance. I recognized the crates. They were Harper’s, from Hatches Harbor Light. There was no mistaking them. Even the tarp was the same. If I had left the lighthouse any later I would have met the bike thieves as they were coming in to pick up the crates.

  “That’s a consignment load,” the highway patrolman said. I turned around. He waved the invoice in the air. “From Provincetown. It might be legit. We’ll have to check it out.” He wrote down my name and address while I stared into the back of the van and tried desperately to think of something to say that would prevent them from holding the crates, but I did not know what I could do. I had nowhere to put them, the van was already confiscated and the drivers arrested. What a mess I had made. The hero. Caught the bike thieves, and got Harper in a lot of trouble. The highway patrolman asked me to follow them to the station in Orleans, where I would need to fill out a report.

  It was already nine in the morning when I drove from Orleans back to Provincetown, wondering how I was going to break the news to Harper. I did not want to admit I had spied on him at Hatches Harbor, but I had to warn him his crates had been confiscated. I would not admit I had opened one of the crates, or knew what was inside, or had stolen the skin-suit man.

  ***

  Five minutes before midnight I stood at the gate in front of Raphael Souza’s house and plucked a honeysuckle blossom off the vine that was intertwined in the wire fence, crushed the blossom in my fingers and smelled it. The flags had been taken down from the mast. The sheepdog Zac stood on the porch and barked perfunctorily, but did not run at me or jump on me when I approached him, whispering and cooing the way Lydia did her parrot Sydney Greenstreet. I looked up at the windows to see which ones were lit. The house looked just as mysterious from inside the gate as it had from outside.

  I walked up the stairs to the front entrance and patted Zac on the head. “Good dog,” I said. When I had convinced Zac that I was someone he had known for years, I started around to the back of the house. Zac trotted after me. I slipped through some bushes, passed underneath a plaster of a woman carrying an urn on her shoulder, and an archer pulling his bow taut, ready to let an arrow fly. The kitchen door was unlocked. Zac climbed up the stairs with me and whimpered to be let in. “You have to stay outside and guard the house,” I said to him. “Go on, get back.” Zac trotted down the stairs and sat on the lawn whining. I let
myself in.

  The house was dark, so I felt my way through the kitchen into the entrance hall, which was lit. Except for the hardwood floors, which had ornate Persian rugs thrown over them, the house was just as white inside as out. The entrance hall gave way to a large living room beyond it and a vast window on the back wall made of diamond-shaped beveled panes. On either side of the entryway a white staircase led up to the second floor. I searched the walls under the stairways for any doors that might lead to the cupola.

  The upstairs hallway was narrow and gloomy, lit only by a few dim candelabra lights on the walls. A series of shut doors faced the balcony railing. I was convinced that one of them must lead to the cupola. A waist high mahogany credenza with glass doors and a malachite top sat against the wall between the first and second doors. A ceramic vase with raised images of a woman’s back, and imitation red and black Attica vases of naked men wrestling were displayed inside the credenza. I continued down the hallway, passing a copy of The Repulse of Atilla in an arched frame.

  Finally, I opened the last door. The bedroom walls were covered with bronze mirrors. In one corner of the room a wooden armoire reached the ceiling. Its doors were decorated with griffins inlaid in cherry wood, brandishing their claws at each other, like lions in an old family crest. The bed was covered with a down quilt. A W.C. Fields doll was pinned to the wall over the bed where the crucifix should have hung; a box of cigars sat on the floor underneath it. Across from the bed sat a simple walnut dresser with models of schooners displayed on top.

  I searched the room for the stairs to the cupola. I did not see them, so I started opening doors. The first one went to the bathroom. I opened another door; it was a closet full of jeans, shirts and leather jackets that gave off a lemony scent of Yves Saint Laurent cologne.

  Since there were no more doors, I opened the armoire. The clothes in there were bigger and darker colored, and smelled of cigars and Paco Rabanne. I pushed some hangers down the rack so I could inspect a leather flight jacket. The guys looked good in these. When I pushed the clothes away I noticed the armoire did not have a back, and there was no bronze mirrored wall behind it. When I stepped through the opening and stood up, like Alice, stepping through the rabbit hole into Wonderland, I was at the bottom of a steep, narrow stairway, the kind that led up to an attic — or a cupola.

  I slid my hands along the walls to keep my balance while I climbed the steep stairs. When I reached the top I was in a little box, with windows on all four sides, and wooden benches built in beneath the windows. I sat down on the nearest bench. Harper was sitting across from me, dressed in his usual outfit: the beige chinos, white shirt, string tie, leather jacket, fedora, and wing tips. He had a letter-sized envelope in his hand. “How did you expect me to find this place?” I said.

  “You can see it from the street,” he said, pointing over his shoulder. I looked out the windows. Crowds of people on the street wandered in and out of bars, beyond them lay the shiny expanse of bay, the lighthouses and breakwater, the moored boats.

  “Listen, babe,” he said. “The cops picked up the last load of merchandise for my company. The movers I hired turned out to be bicycle thieves. Anyway, the cops are suspicious about the merchandise, and they’re sore they can’t find me so — ”

  “Why don’t you talk to them? Is the merchandise stolen?”

  “No, it’s all completely on the level. But I’m afraid they’ll throw me in the slammer anyway. So listen, this is what you have to do. Take this envelope down to New York City. There’s a driver waiting for you outside. If the cops here give my merchandise to the Feds then you — ”

  “But why would they give your merchandise to the Feds if it’s not stolen?”

  “It didn’t go through Customs, that’s why. Now listen, if the cops here give my merchandise to the Feds, my art dealer will contact you in New York, and then you deliver this envelope to Dan Rather at the CBS Evening News.” He handed me the envelope. It was sealed and on the front was typed, DAN RATHER, MANAGING EDITOR, THE CBS EVENING NEWS.

  “You have to deliver it in person,” he said. “Straight to Dan Rather. No intermediaries. Your hands to his hands. Is it a deal?”

  “But Harper, we’re talking about Dan Rather. They’re not going to let me in to see Dan Rather. Are you kidding? That’s like making an appointment with the President, or requesting an audience with the Pope.”

  “Don’t be a sucker. Dan Rather is a regular guy, like you and me. He has a wife and kids; he plays golf on the weekends. Now be a sport. Give him the envelope. Just tell them you have confidential information on the Federal customs inspection case in Hyannis, and they’ll let you see him. Trust me.”

  “Jesus Christ Harper, we’re talking about Dan Rather,” I repeated.

  “Go on down now. Don’t be a dope. I haven’t got much time, and the driver’s waiting for you. And thanks, babe.”

  I walked halfway down the stairs and came back again. “Harper, if it’s just a Customs violation, why don’t you turn yourself in?”

  “It might escalate. I’ve got other people to protect. I want them to agree to some terms first.”

  “You sound like a hijacker.”

  “That’s right. Now get out of here. We’re running late.”

  “But why would it escalate if the merchandise isn’t stolen?”

  “It’s all in the statement. You’ll hear it on the CBS Evening News. Maybe in a special report. Now get lost. Blow this joint.”

  I started down the stairs and came back again. “Harper?” I said. “I have to tell you something before you go.”

  “Quick then.”

  “I was the one who arrested the bike thieves.”

  Harper started laughing. “You?”

  “I didn’t know your merchandise was in there. I was up all night, in the morning I saw this van parked outside my house, and they were stealing my bike, so I jumped into my car and I — ”

  “Kate, Kate, tell me some other time.”

  “I’m really sorry Harper, I had no idea — ”

  “It’s not your fault, Kate, really.”

  I went down the stairs. I stopped at the bottom and turned around to go up again. I wanted to confess everything, that I had been spying on him at the Ice House, that I had found the crates at Hatches Harbor Light and opened one, that I had stolen the skin-suit man. But the room seemed to be vibrating and I felt like I needed air, so I pushed my way through the armoire, ran downstairs and let myself out the kitchen door. I crept past the statues, through the bushes and across the lawn. When I reached the gate I looked around to see if anyone noticed me, but the wind gusted suddenly and the humming and shuddering intensified like the ominous noise before an earthquake. Everyone on Commercial Street had stopped and was looking up at the sky. I looked up too. A helicopter hovered above Raphael Souza’s house, and a man was climbing up a rope ladder hanging from the helicopter down to Souza’s roof. It was Harper of course — I recognized the fedora. Two men in the body of the helicopter crouched down over the door and pulled him in. They brought up the rope and shut the door. The helicopter flew away.

  “It’s like Apocalypse Now,” a bystander said.

  Someone pulled on my arm. “I’m the driver,” a voice said. I wheeled around. It was Gabriel Paradise.

  Chapter Two

  Monday — one week later

  All of Provincetown was in an uproar. The Law Offices of Ruth Allen Esq. had established the Harper Martin Defense Fund, and everyone in town was planning benefits or parties, contests or shows, to raise money for the Fund. Raphael Souza had announced a costume party at the White Sands, all proceeds from liquor sales and cover charges would go to the Harper Martin Defense Fund. Paradiso’s was sponsoring a New Wave Night for Harper; Paula and Christianne’s show that evening would also be a benefit for the Fund. Dominic was planning to stage a windsurfing regatta off the wharf at Cosmo’s restaurant; all entry fees and liquor sales that afternoon would be donated to the Harper Martin Defense Fund. Ant
aeus had authorized Joe Houston to give a benefit screening of The Rocky Horror Picture Show at the Bad Attitude Cinema. Edward the real estate agent planned to give a tour of all the Historical Plaque Houses in town, and donate the fees to the Defense Fund. Grace was raffling off a djellaba from her store, in conjunction with Slashette’s Fashion Espionage Show, held at the Djellaba store, in which Slashette and the other cocktail waitresses at the Bad Attitude would be the models. All raffle and ticket money would be donated to the Harper Martin Defense Fund. Animus Pizza was sponsoring a Bocce Tournament, all entry fees and concession money that day to be donated. Joshua was organizing a Karate show to be staged in front of Town Hall. Angelo was sponsoring a benefit Whale watch, all ticket sales would go to the fund. And finally, the opening of Antaeus’ gallery, featuring Cosmo’s new paintings, would be a benefit for the Harper Martin Defense Fund. All liquor sales would be donated to the fund. Antaeus’ appeal for a liquor license for the new gallery had been granted, swept along on a wave of community solidarity engendered by the Harper Martin Defense.

  Harper Martin was not in jail yet; he was still at large. The Federal subpoena issued for his arrest was for questioning only, in regard to possible U.S. Trade and Customs violations on imported goods. But after everyone heard Dan Rather read Harper’s statement on the CBS Evening News, Ruth and the investors for Maniac Drifter Inc. thought it would be wise to start the Defense Fund right away, to cultivate community spirit and participation during the upcoming media coverage, and to have the money ready at a moment’s notice, if Harper did turn himself in, and the Federal government did decide to prosecute.