Having been warned against speech, Lincoln just shook his head.
“You think, Not the girl I fell for. Sloppy fat now, hair all straggly. You never forgot how slim and sexy she used to be and it makes you want to punch her right in her fat, ugly face. Which you’ll eventually do, Lincoln. Not tonight, but no question, that’s where you’re headed. You know it and she knows it and finally it happens and this time when you tell her to get up off the floor, she doesn’t because she can’t. She just lays there, blinking, dazed. And even though you’ve known for a while this was inevitable, it still surprises you that you actually hit her, how quick it happened, and what surprises you even more is that you feel bad about it, because you can’t remember the last time you had any tender feelings for this fucking bitch. But there it is: shame. Shame…on…you. So you think, No more. Tell yourself it’s a one-and-done deal and you got it all out of your system. But in your heart of hearts you know better, Lincoln. You know you’ve got a lot more where this came from. She knows it, too, which is why the next time she sees it coming, sees that look in your eye and your hand balling into a fist, she doesn’t wait around. She locks herself in the bathroom with her cell phone and calls 911. That’s when we show up.”
Lincoln decided to risk asking the obvious question. “What happens then?” Because now that he was down the rabbit hole, he had to admit he was interested. Also, thanks to all this you-ing, he felt personally vested. What would happen to him?
“These days? I don’t know. I’m talking about how it used to be.” A subtle change had come over the man, with his earlier menace mostly dissipated and leaving him almost forlorn. “There’s more female officers now. Everybody gets more training. Back in the day, though, you and your partner would just take the guy outside.” Thank God, Lincoln thought. Coffin was still you-ing him, but at least now he was a cop, not a perp. “Not out on the front porch, where the neighbors can see. Out back, Lincoln, where it’s dark and private. You tell the guy: If you keep this up you’re going to hurt her bad. Whole thing’ll be in the newspaper. You don’t want that, do you? Everybody knowin’ you beat the shit out of your wife? By this time the guy’s drifted into a fugue state, so you can’t really be sure how much is getting through. He’s just standing there looking at you, like he’s waiting for this to be over, for you to stop talking and go away, which he knows you will, eventually. If you were going to arrest him, you’d have done it already. You tell him, Next time, maybe you kill her. That happens, you go to prison. You don’t think your life can get any worse, but it sure the fuck can. That gets through, because even this dumb son of a bitch knows that much. Life’s always getting worse. You can see how conflicted he is, Lincoln. Part of him would like to explain how this all came to be, but he resents having to. I mean, we’re all guys, right? The three of us? Why should he have to explain about women to another guy? It’s just that sometimes…he just gets so fucking angry. You gotta know what that’s like, right? How women make you feel? Fucking cunts, all of ’em.”
Coffin paused here, studying Lincoln and looking perplexed. “What I fear, Lincoln, is that you’re not really following me here.”
“I am, though.”
“Then tell me. What’s my point?”
“That we don’t do right by girls?”
The other man cocked his head, his eyes narrowing dangerously, and Lincoln could read his mind: Are you making fun of me, Lincoln? And he did his best, wordlessly, to convey that nothing could be further from the truth.
“No, Lincoln, that would be my…my overarching theme. My point is that when we take this jerk-off outside, it’s really him we’re trying to protect, not her. If he keeps this up, something bad is going to happen to him, and we don’t want that. We don’t want him to lose his job, if he’s got one, or his kids, if he’s got any.”
“Right,” Lincoln said. “I’m with you.”
“I’m glad to hear it, Lincoln, but ask me why we even care about this asshole. You gotta be at least a little curious.”
“Why do you care about him, Mr. Coffin?” Lincoln said, because, yeah, he did want to know.
“Well, probably back in high school we knew him, or somebody like him. If we’re the same age, maybe we were teammates.”
“Like you and Troyer, playing for the Island Cup?”
He ignored this. “Or if we were younger, maybe we watched him play and wanted to be like him when it was our turn. Okay, sure, now he’s this pathetic fuckwad, but we knew him when. In our opinion what he needs to do is remember who he used to be and become that guy again. It’s that guy, the one we used to know, that we’re really trying to get through to out there in the dark. What we’re hoping is that he’s still in there somewhere. That’s where we’re not too bright, Lincoln, because he’s long gone.”
Gone as in long, Lincoln thought, the phrase Mickey had used that morning to describe Jacy. “Mr. Coffin—”
“Whoever the fuck we’re talking to, we need him to say he understands what we’re telling him, because those are the magic words that’ll make us disappear: I understand. As soon as he says that, poof, we’re outta there.”
“Mr. Coffin—”
Now he held up a cautionary index finger. “You’ve been a good boy, Lincoln, and we’re almost done. This is the home stretch we’re in.”
Lincoln nodded, took a swig of shitty warm beer.
“Here’s something else you’ve got to be wondering, Lincoln. After he says those magic words, do we go back inside and check on the woman before leaving?”
“I’m going to guess no.”
“And you’d be right. We do not. Why? Well, to be honest, we don’t want to see her sitting at the kitchen table holding a sock full of ice cubes on her eye or lip. What would we say to her then? You know this guy’s not going to stop, right? She knows that already, or part of her does. You’d be better off leaving him? Maybe she would and maybe she wouldn’t. The next guy could be even worse. Damned if she knows how, but she always seems to attract the bad ones. There’s a safe place you can go? Yeah, we could say that. And maybe there is someplace safer than where she’s at right now. But eventually, unless she goes off island, he’s gonna find her. That’s a given. In fact she’ll probably call him herself, tell him right where she is. So no, Lincoln, we don’t want to talk to her. We’re a couple of big, husky guys, but you know what? We’re scared of her. Afraid that if we go back in that house, she might actually thank us. Thank us for coming out and calming him down. Because that’s all he really needed to do. Sitting there bleeding into a paper towel, that’s what she wants us to understand—that deep down he’s a good man. Give her half a chance and that’s the lie she’ll tell you.”
At this point Coffin unexpectedly exploded into laughter, causing Kevin and the men at the other end of the bar to glance over. “See, Lincoln, if I was to write that book my daughter-in-law wants me to, about my experiences as an island cop? What I’ve been telling you would be that book.”
Lincoln decided to try one more time. “But again, why tell me all this, Mr. Coffin? What am I supposed to take from it? That if something bad happened to Jacy back in seventy-one, the cops might’ve known who did it and closed ranks? Engaged in a cover-up?”
“No, Lincoln, that’s not remotely what I’m saying.”
“This hypothetical guy of yours who beats up women? Are we talking about Troyer?”
Now Coffin started massaging his temples with his thumbs. “Jeez, Lincoln, I have to say this is really discouraging. No, we’re talking about men in general. As a species. Was I unclear about that? Troyer’s a man, so sure we’re talking about him, but also about you and me and your pal Mickey.”
“Yeah, okay, but—”
“And there’s one other person we’re talking about.”
Here we go, Lincoln thought, back down the rabbit hole. “Who would that be?”
“My own so
n, Lincoln. We’re also talking about him.”
Lincoln wasn’t sure what he’d been expecting, but this wasn’t it. Suddenly the man looked ill, his pallor dark gray, and his breathing had become ragged. Then it finally occurred to Lincoln that this was where they’d been headed all along. “Beverly’s husband?”
“Ex-husband. Tell me something, Lincoln. Can you imagine raising your hand to a woman like her?”
“Mr. Coffin?” Lincoln said. “I know it’s none of my business, but you don’t look well. How about I give you a lift home? You’re having surgery tomorrow, right?”
“That surgery’s elective, Lincoln. I’m electing not to have it. I just decided.”
“Is that a good idea?”
“Search me,” he said. He was regarding Lincoln with increased interest now, apparently puzzled about something. “You said earlier that your life has pretty much worked out?”
“Yes,” Lincoln told him, feeling in this admission both its truth and something akin to shame. Like most blessed people, he probably didn’t count his blessings nearly often enough, but he was keenly aware of them and aware, too, that good fortune in general and his own in particular had little to do with virtue. In this he was different from Wolfgang Amadeus, and it might well have been the main difference between them. Dub-Yay was a Calvinist. Wherever he looked he saw signs not just of his own election but also of Lincoln’s. Other people, not so much. He’d taken one look at Teddy and seen no evidence of godly favor. Was he wrong? Earlier tonight, as he’d followed the gurney that wheeled Teddy into surgery, Lincoln couldn’t help wondering if what had happened back at Rockers was best viewed as an isolated incident or as part of a long-established pattern, one that could be summed up as Teddy’s life not, to borrow Coffin’s term, working out. Even back at Minerva, Teddy had seemed resigned to the likelihood that it wouldn’t. Which begged a question: was such resignation a cause or an effect? Had Teddy meekly accepted what he saw as the inevitable trajectory of his life, or had he courageously accepted what he couldn’t possibly change?
And what of Mickey? Had life worked out for him? Earlier, watching him play his beloved rock and roll at very high volume, Lincoln would’ve said yes. Wasn’t that what he’d told Anita? That of the three of them Mickey seemed to be the one who was living the life he was supposed to? Now, a few short hours later, he wasn’t so sure. Thanks in large part to the philosophical ramblings of a world-weary drunk, doubts about his old friend, however hard Lincoln was trying to resist them, were emerging, and he again recalled the expression on Mickey’s face this morning as he sat astride his Harley and stared off into the distance, his face a mask of…what? Disillusionment? Sorrow? Regret? Was music his life, or his escape from it?
“Well, I’m glad it did,” Coffin said, without apparent irony or bitterness. “Maybe you’ll stay lucky. In my experience lucky people usually do.”
More Calvinism. The elect stayed elected, the damned, damned. Having once made up his mind, God never wavered in his judgment, which was just fine with Wolfgang Amadeus Mosher, convinced as he was that he’d somehow merited his election and that others had somehow failed a crucial test, possibly in utero. By contrast, Coffin seemed exhausted by a lifetime of attempting to alter a foregone conclusion.
“Mr. Coffin?” Lincoln said.
“Yes, Lincoln?”
“I really have to pee.”
“You don’t need my permission.”
“Somehow I was under the impression I did.”
In the men’s room Lincoln took out his phone and scrolled through his RECENTS log until he found the number Beverly had called from that morning. When a groggy female voice answered, he said, “Beverly? It’s Lincoln Moser. Remember me?”
“Ummm. Yes?”
“I’m sorry to call so late. It’s about your father-in-law.”
“Is he all right? I’ve been trying to reach him.”
“He’s at a club called Rockers in Oak Bluffs.”
“Has he been drinking?”
“Quite a lot, I’d say.”
“He’s supposed to have surgery tomorrow.”
“He told me he’s decided against it.”
When she didn’t respond immediately, it took him a moment to realize it was because she was crying. Finally she said, “It’ll take me fifteen minutes to get there. Can you keep him talking?”
“I don’t think that’ll be a problem.”
When Lincoln slid back onto his barstool, Coffin said, “Okay, here’s what’s going to happen, Lincoln. The chief of police in Edgartown is a friend of mine. Tomorrow, I’m going to go see him. Tell him what I suspect.”
“Which is?”
“That girl never left this island.”
“You’ve changed your mind, then.”
“Yes.”
“Okay, but again, why tell me?”
His chuckle was entirely devoid of mirth. “Because, Lincoln, I’m offering you an opportunity to join the We Don’t Do Right by Girls Club. As a charter member, I can do that. You want to warn your friend Mickey? Let him make a run for it? Be my guest.”
“Look, Mr. Coffin, I respect your professional instincts, but Mickey didn’t have anything to do with Jacy’s disappearance.”
The other man just shook his head at this. “But you don’t know that. You believe it. Take it from me, knowledge and belief are two completely different animals.”
“Have it your way.”
“No, Lincoln. It’s not about me having it my way or you having it yours. It’s about facing facts. Like the fact that your friend Mickey has a criminal record in the state of Connecticut, where he was arrested for beating a man into a coma with his bare hands. Two hours ago you didn’t know that. Now you do.”
“Except I don’t know any such thing, because, no disrespect intended, I don’t really know you. We only met today—well, yesterday—and you just spent the last half hour telling me about all the wife beaters you tried to protect when you were a cop. You and Troyer are old friends. Why wouldn’t I believe you’re protecting him?”
“Well, reason it out. You’re a Minerva College graduate. Why would I tell you something about your friend that you could easily disprove if I’m lying.”
“Because I might just believe you.”
“But you don’t.”
“No, it doesn’t track. If Mickey’s got a criminal record…if he assaulted Jacy’s father like you say, how come he never went to jail?”
“Ah, Lincoln, I feel sorry for you. I really do. He did go to jail. It’s all part of the public record. He spent a full week in the county lockup. Where he didn’t go was prison. Because when the guy he beat the shit out of finally came to, he refused to press charges.”
“Why?”
“Well, if Mickey was my friend, I’d ask him.”
“Is that why you drove out to Chilmark today? To ask your friend if he was involved in Jacy’s disappearance?”
“That was the reason.”
“And he denied it?”
“Correct.”
“And you believed him.”
“I’ll put it this way, Lincoln. I didn’t disbelieve him.”
“Okay, so how did he convince you?”
“Well, that day your friend punched him? Mason’s got a different version of what went down. The version you tell, when your gentle, good-natured pal came upon the two of them in the kitchen, Troyer had the girl backed into a corner and was groping her. So it’s Mickey to the rescue.”
“That’s what happened.”
“Not the way Mason tells it. According to him, the girl didn’t exactly mind getting groped.”
“That’s bullshit.”
Coffin ignored this. “The way he tells it, he stepped in front of the girl because he thought your friend meant to hit her, not him.”
“That�
�s—”
“Were you there in the room?” When Lincoln hesitated, Coffin continued, “No, I didn’t think so. Which means you don’t know, Lincoln. You believe. And like all true believers, you reject out of hand anything that undermines your belief.”
“Okay, but doesn’t that same logic apply to you? Neither of us wants to disbelieve a friend.”
“Our circumstances are similar, Lincoln, but not identical. Mason and I do go back a long time. He’s needed my help now and then, it’s true, and in the spirit of full disclosure I’ll admit there was a time when I bottomed out and it was Mason who pulled me back from the brink. So, yeah, I do want to believe he’s telling the truth. But I’m under no illusions. He’s always been ten different kinds of jerk, especially where women are concerned. So yeah, I’ve considered the possibility that he’s gaslighting me. Can you honestly say the same when it comes to your pal Mickey?”
Just then a cheer went up at the other end of the bar. “Jesus,” somebody said, “I gotta see that again.”
“I get it, Lincoln,” Coffin went on. “Loyalty. Faith. You think I didn’t want to believe my son when he told me how his wife kept getting those bruises? And her always backing him up? Explaining how she’d been born a klutz?”
“I’m sorry—”
“There’s no reason for you to be sorry, Lincoln. Like I said, I’m glad your life has worked out. I’m glad you never staked out your own kid’s house because deep down you suspected he was a lying sack of shit. Suspected it because you’d seen how other women came by injuries like hers, and I’m really glad you weren’t peering in the window the night a son of yours grabbed his wife by the throat and flung her clear across the room. Because that’s where I was, Lincoln. Outside their house, looking in the window. I could’ve prevented the concussion she got when the back of her head hit the wall, because I saw what was coming plain as day, but until he actually did it I didn’t know. Until that moment? Until I fucking cuffed him? I could still believe.”
Chances Are . . . Page 22