Like his older brother’s, his clothes felt like layers of dead epidermis shed but clinging to the living tissue beneath; added weight being dragged around, made heavier by the rain. His clothes had absorbed Hurricane Boris; his mind conjured images of sea sponges. He didn’t feel sexy or in the mood for sex, and so he plodded over to a revolving display filled with sunglasses. His big feet tromped over wet linoleum.
The rich aroma drifting up from the Here and Now’s self-serve coffee bar tempted him to fork over some of the very limited funds in his billfold. While checking out his reflection in the little mirror above the wire rack, the black shades with the grasshopper-green stripe above the lenses looking sick atop his baby-blues, an internal argument waged between the side of him that counted pennies and beat him up over job hunts and dwindling finances, and the one that, with increasing frequency, didn’t give two shits.
Boris broke apart more with every instant, but the sun was still a long way from making an appearance. Aaron peeled off those sick shades and returned them to the rack. Sure, they looked great on him, but it was the rest of his reflection he didn’t like, and couldn’t face for more than a second before deflecting his gaze away.
Captain Thomas Laighton marched up the deck of the Avello, passing plastic signs soaked in rain, recent additions on the Hyannis-side of the ferry’s run identifying various forms of life found in the tidal pools and the dangers to their existence. Images of Cancer Borealis, the Jonah Crab; the Atlantic Dogwinkle, Nucella Capillus; the Knotted Wrack; the American Lobster; the Southern Kelp—Laminaria Agarahii—were depicted beside representations of common threats posed by discarded trash. How long does it take to go away? one sign posed. Glass bottles held the notorious top spot, at an estimated one million years. Aluminum cans, eighty up to a hundred. At one to five years, cigarette butts seemed a bargain by comparison.
The Avello towered above him, three full decks, its colors blanched by the surrounding grayness. American flag bunting draped across the bow lay smeared by rain against the safety rails. He didn’t figure that any of the souls booking passage from Cardigan Island to the mainland would be out on the open top deck this night. Given the weather, he also doubted the ferry would reach its maximum capacity of 101 passengers.
The captain wore sneakers, no socks, tan khaki shorts, and a crisp white button-down shirt with black and gold shoulder chevrons. His crew of four was outfitted in red polo shirts and khaki pants.
“Mister Rading.” Captain Laighton extended his hand to a tall, trim man with a receding hairline.
First Mate Domenic Rading accepted the gesture and shook. “Sir.”
“Drop all lines. Radio ahead to Cardigan and let them know the nightmare of Boris is almost over.”
Slowly, the Avello chugged away from port and turned toward open water, cutting through the agitated surf. Past buoys and the treacherous crags of timeworn rock that had scuttled the hulls of so many boats throughout the harbor’s past and sometimes still fed upon unsuspecting and unprepared pleasure cruisers.
Avello cut across the whitecaps, headed for Cardigan Island. Captain Laighton entered the pilothouse and closed the door. The wind protested, its anger tangible. Laighton latched the door; the wind complained at a lower volume.
Erin Wanamaker, one of the three hands qualified for the wheel and throttle, greeted him with a nod.
“How’re we doing, Lieutenant?”
“Not smooth at all, sir.”
That much was clear, given the Avello’s pitches and dips. The metal floor was tattooed in damp footprints. A rusty smell worked its way up through the brine.
The captain tipped a glance at the sonar-radar instruments, the only ones of their kind and sophistication between Cardigan and Hyannis. Or so he thought.
The monster, dragged along a thousand miles of ocean by the storm, grew angrier and more confused by the unfamiliar seascape. Hunger fueled its rage.
It listened, turning its attention toward the flap of fins and the roll of mass through the waves. Something big, not far away, cut across the water. The predator darted deeper beneath the chop and tracked its prey.
“Good news,” the girl behind the counter announced. She’d been on the café’s landline and hung up the phone. “Any and all of you waiting for Boris to be gone so you can leave our lovely island are in luck. The ferry’s on her way in. One run, six o’clock. Those of you who need tickets, F.Y.I., you’ve still got plenty of time to purchase them at our front counter.”
Brandon drew in a deep breath. The odor of wood aged by salt water that infected all of Cardigan Island from the wedding chapel at the yacht club to Claudia’s parents’ place was present here as well, but the mouthwatering aromas from burgers and hand-cut fries disabled most of its power. The ferry was on its way to put the weekend where it belonged—in the past, like Claudia, a footnote he couldn’t wait to move forward from. Home…or his apartment, which he normally only thought of as a place to crash…once there, he planned to peel off his clothes. Hell, throw them in the goddamn trash. And shower—not the usual five-minute spit bath, either. Brandon didn’t care that he paid for the natural gas that heated the water that washed away not only his grime but that of his knucklehead kid brother, presently jobless and, yes, homeless if not for the home of that grubby two-bedroom apartment where they and everything in the whole world they owned was sheltered.
“How much?” he asked.
The cute girl said forty. Forty bucks to escape Cardigan Island on the ferryboat Avello. Coming over had been a bargain, thanks to Claudia’s little gift of a pair of free passes to get their wedding gift—a card with a crisp hundred-dollar bill inside an envelope, with raised bells and roses embossed in gold leaf.
On this day of your marriage, he remembered the words on the cover, but not what was written inside the card.
“Two,” he said, and sighed.
Lately, Brandon had found himself feeding Aaron, paying out wholes instead of halves—the rent, the gas bill, and now ferry rides. He fished four twenties out of his wallet. The girl from Here and Now handed back two red tickets, the kind you get at amusement parks that are bought in huge rolls at big box stores. Made in China, with no identifiable marks other than numbers that mean nothing; a ticket to ride. A permission slip to finally exit the island.
“Thanks,” he said, and pocketed one of the red tickets.
“You enjoy your time on Cardigan?” she asked.
Brandon forced a smile. “Sure,” he lied. “But I’m eager to get home.”
There it was again. Not ‘the apartment’ or even his brother’s latest term for it—‘that shitty dump’—but home. It hadn’t felt like one, because he’d never wanted to be there this intensely. He wanted to think he wouldn’t take it for granted again after this date, this footnote.
His smile sagged, so Brandon answered with his eyes. Those, too, drooped. He turned, the awkwardness short, sharp. Brandon approached his brother, who stood admiring himself in the small mirror at the top of a revolving wire rack filled with sunglasses.
“Hey, sexy, here you go.” He handed over the second ferry ticket between the knuckles of two sealed fingers.
“What’s this?”
“Your Christmas present.”
Aaron took the ticket, thanked him. That, too, was part of a farce they both had known would play out. Aaron would cry poverty in the scenario Brandon had envisioned and he’d fork over, because that’s what big brothers were supposed to do. It dawned on Brandon during his slow march back to the men’s head that he was more dad than sibling now. He didn’t really want a son, let along an adult one.
Home.
He approached the window located halfway between the café and rear exit. The rain had let up some, enough for him to at least make out the rudimentary lines of the surrounding street through the falling ripples soaking the other side of the glass. As Brandon looked out, alerted to a flash of movement, a shadow swept past. It darted quickly to the exit door, entered the hall, and sh
ot into the men’s head a step ahead of him. In that abbreviated moment, Brandon recorded the man’s image at the center of the gust of wind and rain that blew him into the Here and Now: short, balding, trench coat and loafers soaked completely through. He carried a backpack, and his face had been smashed up, looking like he’d gone a round or two with a fearless, seasoned prizefighter.
Brandon heard the click of the bathroom door’s lock. Truly, he thought and punctuated the idea with a humorless chuckle, there was no place like home.
Fucker had clocked him good. Bad, really, since he was the one who’d taken the brunt of the collision to his nose, which throbbed with exquisite agony. The act of moving alone kept Lester from collapsing. He’d never known such pain. Only the eyeballs were closer to the brain, center of all nerve bunches, endings, and misery, hence why his nose cried out in brutal red pulses, he reasoned. Those waves threatened to knock him down. Once on the floor, he knew he wouldn’t get back up.
He had to give it to the Mary-painter holed up in that colony for queers, clucking women, and other delicate blossoms who pranced about in ballet tutus with brushes in their limp grips—fucker had surprised him with so ballsy a move. The gun was gone. Lester laughed. Fire raked his face. Mouth, he thought as black dots invaded his eyes—close to nose, close to brain, ergo…
He made it into the men’s head and locked the door before the dick moseying toward the bathroom for a piss could follow. Gravity and the waves of pain slammed fully into him. For a terrible instant, the floor and ceiling switched places, and Lester wasn’t sure if he was still vertical or horizontal. He drew in a breath through his mouth, held it, exhaled. The room stabilized.
His reflection threatened to rob the strength from his legs. A fine crust of blood had brûléed both of his nostrils shut; a shadow of purple had built beneath both eyes. Before long, the bruises would deepen to form black eyes, unmistakable, and a dead giveaway sure to get him pulled out of lines, swept aside, questioned. He tipped a look at the backpack. He could dump some of its contents. One of them, anyway. Not the money or the bitch’s jewels. Lester reached for the zipper and opened the top pocket.
Rona’s cold, dead eyes gazed back; the thin filter of plastic from the bag he’d dumped her severed head into did little to temper that imperious expression he’d so hated in her expression. Even in death, she was a spiteful, entitled snatch.
Lester zipped up the bag. That trophy meant more to him than the antique pearls, the stacks of Benjamins pilfered from her hiding places, cash boxes, and the safe. No, it would be all or nothing.
Mustering what remained of his energy, he ran the cold water and washed his face, removing sweat and whatever blood neglected by the rain. The little cock-smooch back at the cottage had still been on the floor when he’d fled. He only hoped the homo-prick suffered equal misery and was swooning in a theatrical manner; still on the floor, at least long enough for Lester to get away and vanish from the map forever.
First, the ferry. Then the life he should have lived, long last.
The threat of Boris continued. Not in the brutal ferocity of the wind that had torn east from the coast of Africa, gained strength over the Sargasso Sea, flattened parts of Haiti before spinning north, striking the Carolinas and unleashing tornados in its wake before charging the same deadly course as its previous siblings Edith, Bob, and Irene. By the time Boris reached Massachusetts, he was more roar than bite, though he still had a bit of tooth left and, as Cary reached for the door to the main house, Boris showed his staying power in a vibrant crackle of red-tinged white. Thunder chased the lightning bolt almost instantly. A cannonade shook the world, its echo traveling past the cottages and out to sea where, the young artist noticed, putting his newly embraced skills of observation to use, a pale, giant ghost had appeared.
The ferry to the mainland.
The image froze Cary. Another sharp thunderclap on the heels of the effulgence drove out the palsy. He entered the main house to the sound of dripping water, further proof that Hurricane Boris wasn’t yet done with the good folks of Cardigan Island, even following its tantrums already forced upon untold millions south and in faraway lands.
The front desk of the Sugar Beach Artists’ Colony sat unattended. The cluster of salt marsh roses picked by some brave soul had drooped and dropped all but a spare few petals, leaving a vase filled with yellowing leaves and thorns thirsty for human blood.
“Hello?” Cary called.
The only answer came in the heavy dripping cadence of raindrops striking plastic or metal or any other suitable bucket. Cary rounded the desk. Given his emergency, the usual protocols no longer mattered. Besides, the paid and volunteer staff clearly had their own crises to attend to, thanks to the leaky old roof at the top of their wish list during fundraiser season. He picked up the phone and dialed ‘9’ for an outside line, and then ‘911.’ The line rang. And rang.
Finally, a female voice said, “Hold, please.”
Seconds gonged with the weight of hours. He could walk to the Cardigan Island’s sheriff station quicker. Could have been there and back with the cavalry in those long, laborious sips of time, his inner voice griped.
The urge to act, to fight, sent him pacing in the tight corridor between desk and wall. Each click of the antique clock centered among the framed photographs of the artists’ colony’s most illustrious faces of the past—Ida Caruthers and Georgia O’Keefe among them—meant the dick who’d bullied him, had attempted to end his life, was getting farther away.
Getting away with only a bloody nose.
Cary slammed down the phone and hurried out the door, back into the maelstrom. The image of the ferry sidewinding its way across the choppy surf again drew his focus. The Avello was closer.
It was where that prick with the backpack and the genie loafers was headed, he was certain. The ferry.
Cary hastened back to his cottage, the O’Keefe, and tossed a few things into a messenger’s bag, including the ticket intended to take him back to Hyannis and his waiting parents. He started toward the French door.
And then Cary saw the gun, sitting under the easel. He picked it up, slipped it into the bag, and ran into the storm. Boris threatened him with one final vibrant flash. In the wake of the effulgence, the world around him bled of color, going gray and somber before once again erupting in a blinding glare of neon-blue.
7.
4:13 p.m., Saturday the Thirteenth
The deed done in that big, bourgeois palace at 342 Ocean Avenue had been dark, ugly, obscene. She’d built the house on his back. The Carrara-marble countertops hadn’t been mined in Italy or wherever the fuck the stuff was supposed to come from, but out of the bones of his spine. The acre of stainless steel appliances originated in his blood, the soaring staircases, two, from the spiral coils of Lester’s goddamn DNA. She’d built herself a palace on the beach, its foundation planted squarely atop his guts. The house was far from paid for, and never would be now.
Rona Lester had to die. Her brother, Jack, wanted to hate all he’d done to her, only he couldn’t. Bitch got all she was due.
With the crusts of blood wiped out of his swelling nostrils the best he could manage, a couple of aspirin from a two-pack packet paid for at the counter, and a tiny red circus ticket in hand, he bid the Here and Now adieu and exited into the rain. Turning, he aimed a middle finger at the café’s sign. Here and Now was There and Then. Time to board the fucking boat. Bon voyage.
He hadn’t traveled far along the sidewalk when the first Crown Vic raced down the street, running silent with its lights lit. A second set of strobing blue joined in. That cop car, too, sped in the direction of the dunes, the stupid artists’ colony—bunch of prissies and pansies—and the million-dollar museums with names like “The Porches” and “Mordekai’s Reef.” His late sister’s place…something airy and full of holes, pretentious. Blue Breezes?
The blues were breezing in that very direction. Lester wanted to hope the panic was over a lightning strike. Oh, yes, in the
name of all that’s holy or unholy or clueless, let it be that! A bolt had struck some unsuspecting Cardigan Island asshole standing on the shore, waving goodbye to Boris. Only that was wishful hoping. If it wasn’t the fairy artist with the hard forehead, the lights and silent sirens could only have originated from one other source.
Someone had discovered Jack Lester’s handiwork.
He didn’t know if his sister had a landscaper, if this hypothetical gardener was also her lover, if that lover had found his love, now lost.
But he sensed it, and hurried toward the windblown white awning, knowing time was running out. On the tromp up the still-sealed gangway, Lester spotted the colossus chugging through the moody palette of gray ocean. For a second, he didn’t see his only method of escape but something monstrous, with a pointed snout and one vast glass eye, a Cyclops moving crocodile-fashion with only its big head poking above the waves.
One monster waited to greet the other.
Brandon held his coat against the rain. His feet made squishing sounds in his shoes. The combination threatened to launch horrible sensations up his legs; little crawling shivers with damp fingers, ones perhaps capped in talons. His toes ached. A glance down showed his pants, never having really dried since leaving the beach house, were wet halfway up to his knees.
“Finally,” Aaron grumbled behind him. The wind whipping in from the ocean attempted to smother his brother’s voice. “Our return to the dump is about to get underway.”
Brandon about-faced. “Don’t call it that.”
“What?”
“A dump,” he barked. “You’re not living in some shanty shack or a root cellar. You’re not Anne Frank.”
Aaron narrowed his eyes and made one of those smug little huffs of breath that conjured forth the dimple responsible for so many lays when, all totaled, amounted to nothing—he’d still gone to Claudia’s wedding stag, like Brandon. He wasn’t nearly as cool as the façade he projected.
New Title 15 Page 3