Loot the Moon

by Mark Arsenault

  “Are heirlooms really hard to sell?” Billy asked. “Or just too dangerous?” He stared a hole in Scratch’s forehead.

  “Put it this way, there’s a buyer for everything if you dare to take the risk. I was the cautious one, remember?”

  Billy pulled items from the chest, announcing what they were as he tossed them aside:

  “Polarized sunglasses, missing one lens,” he said. “Scented candle, blackened wick, smells like a Christmas wreath.”

  “I told him to pitch that thing,” Scratch said. “If I wanted to breathe the forest at night, I’d sleep in the park.”

  “One brass doorknob.”

  Scratch explained, “He was going to learn to pick locks.”

  “One Frommer’s Chicago. One mini walkie-talkie, no batteries. One petrified Snickers bar with a bite out of it. One DVD copy of Horny Hawaiian Homemakers, part two, the Block Party Diaries, in high definition.”

  Scratch raised his hand. “Over here,” he called. Billy flipped the movie to him.

  “One hardbound Bible, abridged version. Looks like agate type on tissue paper. Still has the price tag on it.”

  “Jesus Christ,” Kit muttered. “He thought enough to shoplift it; he should have tried reading the thing once in a while. I wonder what’s the cosmic penalty for stealing a Bible?”

  “Hmmm,” Billy said. “One unmarked eight-by-eleven envelope, sealed with a spot of wax on the flap.”

  Scratch leaned in for a closer inspection. “That little shithead,” he growled. “He was afraid I would snoop in his personal papers? I’m insulted.”

  “You sold his wristwatch,” Kit reminded him.

  Scratch snapped his fingers sharply. “That was my inheritance.”

  Billy slid his thumb under the wax and popped open the envelope. Inside he found another envelope—business-sized, and addressed in typewritten letters to Adam Rackers, at this apartment address. The top had been slit with a letter opener.

  “Postmark is Providence,” Billy noted. “There’s no return address.”

  Inside, Billy found a single newspaper clipping, undated. The clipping showed a photo from a charity ball. The handsome couple centered in the frame looked into each other’s eyes as they danced together on a parquet floor, next to a twisting interpretive ice sculpture as tall as the people.

  Billy read the caption silently to himself and felt his blood pressure spike. He said to Scratch, “The good ship Anonymous just got torpedoed in the bow.”

  He held up the clipping and read the caption aloud:

  “Judge Gilbert Harmony and his wife, June, ruled last evening’s festivities a big success from gavel to gavel, as they danced the waltz at the International Ballroom. June looked marvelous as usual in a platinum Vera Wang mermaid gown. And everyone was checking out her new bling: a pair of ferociously sparkling, perfect diamond studs, whispered to reside in the friendly neighborhood of four carats. We plead guilty to envy.”

  Scratch’s face paled. He rubbed his scalp nervously and asked, “Who writes that crap?”

  “Where did Rackers get this?” Billy demanded.

  “I dunno. Somebody mailed it to him. What’s the date?”

  Billy checked the postmark. He looked blankly to Kit. “This was mailed two weeks before Rackers shot the judge.”

  “That confirms it!” she shouted. “Billy—you were right!”

  “I never seen this before,” Scratch interjected. “Um, in case anybody was beginning to suspect me of anything.” He clutched his head and muttered, “I should set sail on the good ship Get the Fuck Out of Town.”

  “These diamonds were supposed to be Rackers’s payment for killing the judge,” Billy said. “Whoever mailed this clipping wanted to prove June really had these amazing stones, which Rackers thought were worth doing murder. After he shot Harmony, your wingman searched the house for a wall safe. My guess is, the person who sent this clipping offered Rackers the combination to the safe, in exchange for killing the judge.”

  “But there was no wall safe,” Kit said. “Your friend, the con man, got conned.”

  Scratch’s head ping-ponged between Billy and Kit. He fingered the wound in his arm.

  “Whoever mailed this letter is as guilty as Adam Rackers,” Billy continued. “You listening, Gary? That’s why Adam bought the loupe—to inspect the earrings before he sold them to a shady ice dealer on the Internet. He probably didn’t want to get cheated.”

  “After he stole the diamonds,” Kit said.

  “What we still need to figure out,” Billy said as he withdrew into his own thoughts, “is why Rackers upheld his half of the bargain, but didn’t take the stones.”

  twenty-one

  Cool autumn wind swept three-pronged sycamore leaves across the parade ground, in waves of tan and deep brown. He tested the park bench with his hand to be sure its wooden slats were dry, then settled onto it. Though he was taking a calculated risk, he felt safe: anonymous behind wraparound sunglasses, a baseball cap pulled low on his head, and his jacket collar turned up.

  The sun rising above the giant armory building felt warm on his face. The morning light gave the yellow-brick castle a buttery look, against a background of blue and stirring white clouds. The Little League baseball field at the foot of the castle—with a muddy infield peppered with footprints, and three brown patches on the grass that marked where the outfielders always stood—was abandoned.

  Across the street, fifty pigeons sunned themselves on the sloping slate roof of an old Victorian house. Why that house and no other? he wondered. A few birds pecked aimlessly at the slate. He imagined tossing a rock up there to scare them all into the sky at the same time. A homeless man in mismatched winter clothing paused on the great granite steps of a nearby apartment house and furiously scratched a lottery ticket. A jogger in striped tights wheezed down the paved path at the edge of the parade field, on the far side of two rows of immature American sycamores, which stood at attention like twin columns of guards. The wind carried bursts of pop music and Spanish lyrics from a boombox surrounded by ten teenage girls on the other side of the park. He craned his neck to watch the girls for a moment. He decided they were too far away to bother worrying about.

  Here, at the intersection of two narrow asphalt walkways that wound through the park, he had found the Povich boy.

  Such a sweet child. He played with an Albert Einstein doll. Who had ever heard of such a thing?

  He didn’t want to harm the boy. Who wanted to do things such as that? Just crazy people. He was pragmatic, not crazy. But he needed information. This information was for his personal survival, and if the child withheld such critical data, then the child was a threat. It would be no different than if the boy had attacked him.

  Who could blame me for acting in self-defense?

  “So which house is yours?” he asked the boy, sounding breezy and friendly.

  The child pointed across the parade ground, past the empty tot park, past a clump of gnarled pine and the stone memorial to the scholar who had donated this land to the public, to a boxy red and black Victorian with a long, distinguished black awning that covered the front stairs and stretched across the sidewalk, to the street.

  “But that’s a funeral home.”

  “We live upstairs,” the boy said. His attention was on the micro-cassette recorder in his hands. “Mr. Metts runs the funerals. He’s my friend. He lets me use his telescope.”

  “Isn’t that swell!”

  The boy offered the tape recorder and two batteries. “Do you know how to put these batteries in?”

  The child placed the recorder into an outstretched hand.

  After a glance to the funeral home, some two hundred yards across the field and partly screened by trees, he questioned the child: “Does your dad know you’re out here in the park by yourself?”

  “Billy ain’t home. Grandpa’s watching me. Are these the right batteries?”

  “Double-A, yes they are. And they fit in here like this—you match up t
he plus signs. See? Plus means positive. One faces up, one faces down. It’s important they go in the right way.” He snapped the battery cover back onto the little machine and returned it to the boy. “So where’s your grandpa?”

  “In his room,” the boy said. “He can’t go down the stairs by himself. I’m not supposed to go past the jungle gym, but I’m on a mission.”

  Trying to sound awestruck, he leaned toward the child and whispered, “Really? Well, can you tell me your mission? I promise I won’t tell anybody.” He traced an X over his heart.

  The boy tugged the bottom of his windbreaker and peeked at his house. He whispered, “I think Grandpa has been making tapes for me. I can hear him talking through the wall. He says my name all the time.”

  A golden leaf suddenly blew between them, and the little boy grinned and stomped it. The child continued, “I think the tapes are supposed to be a secret. He made six of them already.”

  “Let me guess—you took one of your grandfather’s tapes, and came way, way out here into the park so he can’t hear you listening to it.”

  The boy grimaced as his plan was laid bare. “Is that bad?”

  “Nah. We can listen together, if you’d like. Would you like me to work the tape player?” He gave the boy a sly, sideways look. “That way, if your father or your grandpa asks if you played one of the tapes, you can say no and it won’t be a lie.” He smiled at the boy and pumped his eyebrows.

  The boy’s brow bunched above the bridge of his nose as he considered this amendment to his plan. The computations took several seconds. Then his face relaxed. The boy nodded and handed over the device. The kid suddenly hopped on the bench and sat on his own little hands.

  How shocking!

  He’s sharing the bench with me.

  How marvelous to find a human being completely without guile. In this cynical world? Had it been so long that he, too, was without cunning? What a shame that this boy was destined to outgrow his instinct to trust.

  What a crime that I am hastening this child’s cruel transition to grown-up.

  “The tape is cued and it looks all set, so I’m just going to play it. Okay?”

  The boy nodded.

  Click.

  The tape hummed for a few seconds, and then a whispery old man’s voice cut in:

  “Hiyah Bo! This is Grandpa again. If you’re listening to this particular tape, then you’re turning sixteen years old! Happy birthday, my boy! I hope you remember your grandpa. Remember me? Hmmm? By now I been dead quite a while.

  “You’re probably looking forward to getting your license soon. Don’t stand for your pop telling you to wait till you’re eighteen. That’s no way to meet girls. You gotta have wheels, boy! I don’t know what kind of cars they’re gonna be making in the future, but here’s another tip: don’t fall for the trap of automatic transmission! Learn to drive a standard shift. The fillies will think you’re the big man on campus.

  “Heh-heh.

  “And this brings us to the lesson for today. The stick shift is frustrating to learn to operate, but keep in mind that depressing the clutch simply disconnects the wheels from the engine, so you’re just coasting , okay? Then you can safely change gears. The trick is finding the sweet spot on the clutch and hesitating there a fraction of a second when you let it up. Every clutch is different. You’ll get it. Just be patient.

  “And then, well, maybe you can drive by the old boneyard and say hi to your grandpa? Okay? Good-bye for now. I got another tape for when you’re old enough to vote. So we’ll talk again soon.

  “Ahhhhh, I sure miss you, boy. I’m looking down at you right now … . Heh-heh. Or maybe looking up! Either way, you know that your grandpa loved you.”

  The words seemed to confuse and upset the child. “Click it off, please,” the boy begged.

  “Okay.”

  The boy looked away, wrapped both arms around the Einstein doll, and kicked his little sneakers in the air. His grandfather was preparing to die. How sad for this little boy, yet how beautiful for the old man to leave him messages from beyond the grave.

  What profound sadness I feel for this child, for what he has heard and cannot possibly understand.

  The jogger in the striped tights shuffled along, completing another lap around the park. He was pleased that the jogger made his revolutions, and that those teenage girls still danced and smoked cigarettes across the park. They would stop him if he tried to take this child against the boy’s will. They made it too dangerous to steal this child away.

  Good!

  Though he trembled over what the boy might know, he wanted the child to live … to someday learn to drive a standard shift.

  “How’s your father doing?”

  “He’s okay,” the boy replied. The kid slapped the lamppost beside the bench and rattled its glass globe. “Look at all those birds on that roof!”

  Gently, gently.

  “Has your father been real busy? Is that why he’s not home today?”

  “He’s doing a case with Mr. Smothers. That’s his friend. He’s a lawyer. He don’t eat meat.”

  “Hmmm, that must be interesting work. Does your father say how the case is going?”

  “Can I have my recorder back?”

  “How’s the case, Bo? The case! Does he have any leads?”

  Keep your voice low, give him the smile, a thousand watts.

  “He told Grandpa he found somebody he was looking for.”

  “Huh. That’s soooooo interesting. Who might that be? The person that he found?”

  “Some guy.”

  “His name, Bo.” Smile, smile, sweat gushing down the inside of his shirt. Deep breath. Bulging vein in temple pulsing like a quasar. “What … is … his … name?”

  The kid rolled his eyes around, and then his whole head. He tucked his bottom lip behind his front teeth, smiled, and said, “Mmmmm …”

  “You can remember, can’t you? I’ll bet you can! A smart boy like you can remember!”

  “Scratch!”

  He gasped.

  Jesus Christ, he fucking found him.

  That goddamn Povich had made the connection. But how? Deep breath. Didn’t matter how. Scratch had proved too slippery the first time he tried to take him out, in the apartment Scratch had shared with Adam Rackers. He had to find the little thief again, to cut off the trail before it led back to him. This was self-defense. Self-defense was permissible. Soldiers and cops who are forced to defend themselves are not murderers. They’re victims.

  “Can I have my recorder back?”

  “Sure, let me wipe it clean on my shirt … okay? Don’t want you taking a dirty recorder back home. There you are! That sure was an interesting tape. I wouldn’t think too much about it. It would be best if you put it back where you found it, and didn’t mention to anyone that you took it. Hmm?”

  The boy looked down in sorrow at the recorder in his hand. Then he looked up, into black sunglasses. “You won’t tell either? Promise?”

  “I promise! Hope to die, stick a needle in my eye.” He drew an imaginary zipper over his mouth. “Let’s both swear to never tell anyone that we met each other in the park today. All right? Then nobody will ever know that you took your grandfather’s tape. Deal?”

  The kid hesitated a second before accepting the outstretched hand. He shook with enthusiasm.

  “Deal,” said the boy. “I promise, hope to die.”

  twenty-two

  Martin ordered a club soda, then changed his mind and asked for beer, then changed his mind again and demanded a malt whiskey, as it was, neither chilled nor mixed. Just put it in a goddamn tumbler. He downed a sip, gasped at the burn, and informed his waitress he would be outside on the patio.

  “It’s awful cold,” she said.

  “I’m awful weird,” he snapped. Her eyes got huge. Martin immediately felt guilty, apologized, tipped her double, grabbed a burning oil lamp from an unoccupied table, and stepped outside to the patio overlooking the river.

  The typewrit
ten note that had been delivered by courier to his office requested that he arrive by seven thirty. Martin was a few minutes early. He set the drink and the lamp on a round pub table, then collapsed into a plastic chair. He was the only customer who dared drink in the cold, and had the outdoor patio to himself.

  Night had fallen. The city blazed in colored lights. The glow scrubbed the night sky of all but the brightest few stars.

  The brick patio ended at a grass slope that slid steeply to the riverwalk. WaterFire, the downtown river festival for which Providence had become renowned spread out below him in Waterplace Park. Bonfires raged in floating braziers, suspended above the water on pontoons. The fires cast red embers like confetti into the night. A trail of floating bonfires led from the basin, down the river, and out of sight. Hidden audio speakers played the hypnotic voices of an all-male chorus, chanting what sounded like the prayers of Gregorian monks. Hundreds of people strolled the riverwalk below Martin, moving as slowly as the placid Providence River, which the city years ago had rerouted into man-made granite trenches and calmed to a slumberous pace. Couples walked arm in arm. Groups of teenagers strolled in clumps. There were no loud voices, and nobody hurried. The fires seemed to infect people with a sense of quiet reflection.

  Martin inhaled a deep breath of woodsmoke. The flames, the music that seemed to come from nowhere, and the smell of burning cedar and soft pine usually combined to drive away whatever stress he carried in his body.

  Not tonight.

  Martin shivered, and not just from the chill. He felt suspicious and guilty, like he was meeting a mistress. That was precisely what he was doing, though she was not his mistress.

  “Hi, Marty.”

  He stood to show his manners, and gestured her into the chair across from him. “Good evening, Nelida. Can I, uh … get you something?”

  “Maybe later.”

  She wore wool pants, a knit turtleneck, fleece mittens, and a puffy down jacket that probably would have gotten her safely to the peak of Denali. “At least you’re dressed for the cold evening,” Martin said as he sat.