The Water's Edge

by Daniel Judson

  “Nice face,” Bechet said.

  “What the hell happened?”

  “It doesn’t matter. Just take me out to the end of Ox Pasture Road.”

  Falcetti shook his head from side to side, as if to say what the hell for?

  Bechet remembered then the gambling debt Falcetti owed to Scarcella, Sr., that this whole nightmare, really, had begun when Falcetti swerved to avoid some dog and crashed his cab but didn’t want to call Scarcella for a tow, didn’t want to have to face him. A long way to go, then, Bechet thought, to end up exactly where one didn’t want to be. Once they found Scarcella’s son, Bechet would need Falcetti to drive him to the salvage yard, but there was no way around that, no one else Bechet could call. And anyway, one could only, it seemed, expect to run from one’s debts for just so long, particularly out here.

  “I just need to check something out,” Bechet said.

  “What?” Falcetti asked. He didn’t get an answer, though. He waited a moment, watching his friend, his eyes on the cut on the left side of Bechet’s head. Finally, though, Falcetti shifted into gear and pulled away from the station.

  Bechet felt gravity tugging at him as the Camaro made a U-turn, felt it pulling him deeper into the bucket seat as Falcetti drove just a little faster than the posted speed limit toward North Main Street. Once there, Falcetti turned left and headed toward the village, on the other side of which was Ox Pasture Road.

  Inside the warmth of the Camaro, its dull wipers dragging noisily across the windshield, the two old friends began their last ride together.

  A long, wide boulevard one block south of Hill Street and three blocks north of the ocean, running for a little more than a mile from Agawam Lake in the village to the edge of Heady Creek. A different world, this part of town, always has been, always would be. In the summertime Ox Pasture was usually lined from early morning to dusk with trucks and trailers—landscapers, roofers, painters, tradesmen of every kind. Driving down it meant having to weave from one side to the other. Now, though, the street was empty—only those who lived on it had any reason to use it—and the Camaro rode between the towering hedges and ancient trees. A shady road in the summertime, it was almost gloomy now within the valley of the tall hedges, the battleship clouds crowded above. This being Tuesday morning—a rainy one at that, and in the last days of winter—it was unlikely that there would be anyone around, either here at the end of Ox Pasture or across the inlet, in that unused stretch of Indian land. No one, then, to hear anything, no one to see anything.

  Bechet suddenly wasn’t so sure if he liked this.

  As they approached Lee Avenue, the last road off of Ox Pasture before it curved sharply and came to its abrupt end at Pennies Landing, they drove into a bank of ground fog, visibility instantly down to just several feet in any direction. Bechet told Falcetti to pull over, but even without the fog the landing wouldn’t have been visible from where they were, only the sharp turn itself and the water beyond it and the reservation beyond that. With the fog, though, they could barely see past the nose of the Camaro.

  “So what the hell are we doing out here?” Falcetti said.

  Bechet didn’t answer, just sat there, looking into the slowly churning mist ahead.

  “Jake?”

  “I don’t like this,” Bechet muttered. He thought for a moment, said finally, “Do you have a flashlight, Bobby?”

  “What for?”

  “Do you have one?”

  “Yeah.” Falcetti reached under the driver’s seat, removed a heavy eighteen-inch Maglite, handed it over.

  Bechet knew it was probably his condition—the paranoia that always came with not being at one’s best, to say the least—that was causing his mind to see the potential for an ambush here. He could see the potential—even without the ground fog this would have been a private enough place for one—but he could not see who would do such a thing, nor could he see a reason, what someone could possibly gain by it. He’d been drawn out the night before by a similar ruse, lured to a secluded place on the pretext of a friend in need. But that was Falcetti, hardly a match for Castello and his thug. This was Scarcella, Sr., and Scarcella, Sr., had nothing to do with this, had no allegiance or affiliation with Castello. More than that, he wasn’t at all the kind of man who could be persuaded to do something he didn’t want to do, never mind bait someone for Castello, never mind that someone being Bechet. And why would Castello even want to bait Bechet if Bechet was doing what Castello wanted him to do, what Castello had gone to such trouble to make sure Bechet had no choice but to do? How could Castello possibly know what was in Bechet’s mind?

  It was possible now, Bechet realized, that he wasn’t thinking as clearly as he had believed he was back in Miller’s apartment. Or maybe this last half hour of activity and thought were just too much for him, were wearing him down. Maybe he had finally reached his limit, physically and intellectually and every other way possible, had passed it and was now in a realm that was far beyond his abilities, beyond anything he’d ever known before.

  The only thing that was for certain was the fact that there was no way of determining what, if anything, was going on at the landing from inside this Camaro. Bechet reached for the door handle, pulled up, wincing as he did so. The door swung open a few inches by its own weight, and Bechet nudged it with his shoulder to open it the rest of the way. He wanted to wince then, too, but didn’t.

  “Where are you going?” Falcetti said.

  “I’m just taking a little walk. Wait here.”

  “What the hell’s going on, man?”

  “Just wait here, Bobby, okay,” Bechet said calmly. “I’ll be right back.”

  Outside, the rain fell on Bechet’s bare head. He thought of his bloodied sweatshirt in the bag with the videotape back in the Camaro, that if he was wearing that sweatshirt now he could have pulled the hood up and saved himself from getting rained on. But as he stepped away from the Camaro, the drops landing on his head actually had the effect of soothing his pains. Cool, soft, like brushing fingertips in summer, Gabrielle’s fingertips. Bechet wondered then if he had a fever, if that was why his thoughts were so muddled and the rain so comforting. Or was the cut in his scalp simply radiating heat, the way cuts sometimes did? Either way, he almost felt good, felt his agonies washing away. There was something, too, about the sound of the rain pattering on the thick fabric of his mechanic’s jacket. It gave him something other than those endless echoes to listen to.

  On him and around, then, a steady, soft hissing, just enough to drown out his own chaotic inner world.

  He was maybe ten steps from the Camaro when he stopped. The sense that this was somehow wrong returned suddenly, overriding whatever sense of well-being the rain had created in him. The feeling ran deeper now, deeper even than the one he’d had moments ago. How could he ignore that? He wasn’t used to doubting himself, but he wasn’t himself now, was he? So maybe this wasn’t a feeling that was to be trusted, was instead one that had to be doubted, born as it was from that inner chaos.

  Bechet moved again, walking slowly. He passed Lee Avenue, looked down it, saw no houses, no cars, nothing but just a few feet of glistening pavement disappearing abruptly into fog. He had walked for close to a minute, was approaching finally the sharp turn at the end of the road, when something began to emerge out of the mist ahead. A glimpse of dulled chrome. After a few more steps Bechet saw a shape that could only be the bumper of a vehicle. It wasn’t more then twenty feet ahead of him now. He knew by the sight of it, by its height and size, that this was Scarcella’s wrecker. It had to be. As he closed the remaining distance, he was able to determine that the large truck was parked with its nose, not its back end, toward the water. Its back end toward the water was the position the truck would have been in had its operator been preparing to tow someone from the muddy bank of the narrow boat launch. Maybe Scarcella, Jr., had parked there with his lady friend, Bechet thought, had taken her there for the privacy this spot offered. No traffic, certainly no one launch
ing a boat on a day like today. Scarcella, Sr., had said that the woman his son was seeing was married, so maybe her place wasn’t safe and there just wasn’t anywhere else for them to go. Maybe this was, in fact, their spot, the place where they often met.

  Bechet reached the back bumper, stopped. The wrecker was large enough, the fog by the water thick enough, that Bechet was barely able to see the entirety of the vehicle. The back window of its cab was visible, though, and Bechet saw no one in it. He looked around quickly, saw nothing within the limits of the fog but the wrecker, the tall, thick hedge that bordered the property to the left of the launch, and the short reach of shoreline to the right of it. From what he could see and hear, he was completely alone here at the water’s edge.

  So far he hadn’t encountered anything to justify his belief that this was some kind of trap. If anything, he was close to being convinced now that this was nothing more than what it seemed: a young man compulsively stealing an hour with his lover. Bechet wanted to turn around and head back to the Camaro, call Scarcella and tell him that he had found the wrecker, that Scarcella could come out here if he wanted and chide his son. But that would mean a delay in the sedan being made ready for Bechet’s escape. He decided, considering what he’d been through in the past few hours, that the embarrassment of interrupting a tryst was nothing. He walked along the left side of the wrecker, came to the driver’s door. High up as the truck was on its industrial-sized tires, Bechet couldn’t see into the truck’s cab through the window. In a way, he was grateful for that. He knocked on the door with the heavy knuckle of his middle finger. The younger Scarcella was certainly inside, he and his lover more than likely lying together across the seat. When Scarcella responded, Bechet would tell him to call his father and that would be it, Bechet’s part would be done. But Scarcella didn’t respond, didn’t appear in the window above, to see who was there. Bechet knocked a second time. Again, nothing. He stepped back a little, to see if he could see into the cab, and it was then that there was a brief break in the churning fog, a break that allowed something to his left to catch his eye, something beyond the nose of the wrecker, in the mud alongside the boat launch.

  Boots, angled in a way that told Bechet that whoever was wearing them was facedown.

  He took a few steps toward the front of the wrecker, stopped when he saw someone sprawled out on the edge of the shore, one side of his body on land, the other in the shallow water.

  Bechet hesitated, but only for a few seconds, tucked the end of the Maglite into the back pocket of his jeans as he hurried toward the body. He was leaving his boot prints in the mud as he approached the water, but there was no time to waste, no time to be careful. He grabbed the arm drifting in the water with his good hand and pulled as he stepped back onto land, rolling the body out of the water and turning it onto its back.

  Scarcella’s lifeless face—eyes and mouth opened, mud-smeared—lay before Bechet. Bechet took a few steps back, leaving even more tracks in the mud, but there was no avoiding that, either. He knew enough about death to know that Scarcella had been dead for a while, so there was no point in trying to resuscitate him, no reason for Bechet to have rushed to him and moved him like he did. But how could he have known that at the time? The last detail Bechet saw before stepping away from the only son of his friend—a face so passive yet staring at him—were the two puncture wounds in Scarcella’s chest, one right beside the other. Bechet knew the weapon that had made them. An ice pick. Scarcella’s shirt and jacket, where they had been punctured, were only slightly bloodied, and the water where he had lain facedown was clear. Bechet knew that Scarcella’s heart had been stopped instantly by the long shaft of the ice pick, and because of that very little blood at all had run from the tiny wounds. What had come out of him had only done so by the force of gravity as he lay facedown.

  But that didn’t really matter to Bechet. All that mattered was that he get out of there, now. He left the body on the shore, hurried toward the wrecker. There was a radio inside, and he thought of using it to contact Scarcella, Sr., felt compelled to tell the man as soon as possible what had happened. But that would only have delayed Bechet’s departure from the scene, and no good would come of that. He ran, as best he could, past the wrecker, turned the corner onto Ox Pasture Road, couldn’t see the Camaro but knew it had to be there in the fog, headed toward where his rattled memory said it should be waiting for him. As he did, he saw a figure coming toward him, just the vague shape of a man in the mist. Bechet had, of course, told Falcetti to stay in the car, but what reason, really, did he have to expect Falcetti to listen? The figure was still only a featureless shape directly ahead, moving swiftly, when Bechet said, “We have to get out of here.” But before there was a chance to say another word, the figure emerged from the fog and Bechet saw suddenly who it was approaching him with such directness, saw that this face was no less than the face of the man, he realized, too late, that he should have expected to now see.

  The younger LeCur. The man who had bruised and cut Falcetti’s face, bearing the very bruises and cuts Bechet had made on his. More than that, though, the man whose father Bechet had killed to keep Gabrielle safe. Certainly LeCur knew that, or had, like Castello, assumed it by now, because here he was, coming at Bechet with everything he had, moving with the swiftness of a sudden storm, intent—and there was no mistaking this—on killing Bechet right there where he stood.

  One could only expect to outrun one’s debts for so long.

  Bechet reached back for the Maglite with his good hand, had just enough time to pull it free and take a wild swing at the opponent before him. It was just by luck that Bechet struck with the heavy end of the metal flashlight the hand that was lunging for his chest, fast, striking the knuckles of LeCur’s left hand, connecting with it as though it were a baseball and Bechet a major-league hitter. The blow landed with a solid crack, and the force alone, never mind the damage to LeCur’s many small bones, was enough to send the foot-long ice pick flying. But LeCur hardly registered the pain at all, made no sound and changed in no way the expression on his face, which was that of pure, focused rage. He continued toward Bechet, closing the little distance there was left between them, grabbing the back of Bechet’s right forearm with his own right hand before Bechet could counterattack with a backswing. He threw himself into Bechet, or tried to; Bechet, despite his battered upper body—bruised sternum, gashed scalp, useless left hand—still had his strong legs, his boxer’s footwork. He retreated, but not in a straight line, moving instead in a circular motion, giving no place for LeCur’s tackle to land, while at the same time keeping LeCur within range of Bechet’s favorite weapon, a looping overhand right.

  He swung, all his weight and body mechanics behind the motion, slamming his large fist into LeCur’s face, catching his nose squarely. Bechet heard the fine bone break, saw the blood coming instantly from LeCur’s nostrils. Without wasting any time, Bechet followed up with a left hook to LeCur’s head, a punch he intended on missing because his left hand was of course lame and by missing with it but still following through his left elbow would strike LeCur, an old and dirty trick. An elbow, if it hit right, was like a razor, would open skin up, and it did so as it grazed just above LeCur’s right eye, in that narrow space below the eyebrow. Blood seeped from the cut, rolled fast into LeCur’s eye, but by then Bechet was well into his third blow, a shovel punch—a half hook, half uppercut—with his right that landed as LeCur began to cower in an attempt to avoid more blows. It hit him flush in the solar plexus, and Bechet would have done more, wanted to do more, was feeling no pain now, feeling nothing at all but the desire to remain standing at all costs while causing as much damage as he could, as often as he could, to his opponent. The old, brutal Bechet, the savage peekaboo boxer he had once been, was after all these years back, had been unleashed for one more time.

  But LeCur was already on his way down to the pavement, so Bechet did what he could to keep the brutal savage in check; this wasn’t the time to become reckless. He s
tuck close to LeCur but held back his punches, scooting around his opponent as the man began to fall, moving with him as though they were partners in some strange dance, which, of course, they were. This restraint took all Bechet had, and because of this he knew it wouldn’t last for long, couldn’t last for long; a decade as a fighter, cultivating the killer instinct, the ability to hurt while ignoring being hurt was just too much to keep down. LeCur hit the pavement, was out when he had begun to fall, lay now unconscious at Bechet’s feet. Bechet looked down at him for just a moment, then ran to where the ice pick had landed, grabbed it and picked it up. He felt the too familiar shape of its handle against his palm but ignored what that made him remember. He turned to start back toward LeCur, to finish this once and for all, couldn’t have stopped himself if he wanted to, he was all savage now, the old Bechet again, conditioned for violence, but it was too late; LeCur, his face bloodied, flat on his back on the wet pavement, had come to, or close enough to it, and was drawing a handgun from the holster under his jacket. Not the Desert Eagle Bechet had taken from him, not even close to that, but it was still enough to make Bechet stop in his tracks when LeCur, through tearing, barely focused eyes, held it up and pointed it toward him.

  “Drop it,” LeCur said. Between his thick French accent and his slurring speech, the words were barely audible. But Bechet understood them well enough. He lowered his hand, then let go of the ice pick. It hit the pavement with a clanking noise.

  LeCur sat up, slowly, then got to his feet, moved faster as he did that—faster but with less control. He staggered as he stood, but somehow that only served to make him more dangerous in Bechet’s mind. The broken nose was causing LeCur’s eyes to water, already had caused, too, dark bruises, like the black smears athletes wore, to appear above his cheekbones. Most men, Bechet knew, wouldn’t have stood up after a beating like that. As tough as his old man, then, this Algerian was. LeCur’s right arm was fully extended, his grip on the gun tight, his knuckles bloodless-white. Bechet’s good work had only seemed to increase LeCur’s rage, but that just might be a good thing since, when pissed off, LeCur obviously tossed all his training out the window. The extended arm, the gun held in Bechet’s face, the fact that LeCur’s weight was shifted back on his heels and not on the balls of his feet where it belonged—these were the mistakes of an amateur, mistakes Bechet was looking now to exploit.