Bad Moon Rising

by Tom Shepherd

  “Fine, okay. Nothing broken.”

  “Solomon Rightmeir,” Tanella told me. “Dad’s friend from Tel Aviv. Member of the Israeli Knesset.”

  “The what?” I said.

  “Knesset. It’s their Congress. Meets in Jerusalem.”

  The silver-haired one, whom I now guessed was also an Israeli, watched the fight from the middle of the startled crowd.

  “I’ll kill you, Zionist pig!” Abdu'l flailed at his quarry through the tight grip of two hotel cops. Hector Bennett followed the security men as they dragged Abdu’l away.

  “Are you all right, Sol?” The silver-haired Israeli’s voice sounded like warm honey.

  “That’s Mordecai Wechtel, Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister,” Tanella whispered. “World-class diplomat.”

  “How do you know all this drit?”

  “Don’t cuss.”

  “What cuss word—drit?”

  “Norwegian for excrement.”

  “For real? My grandma—”

  “Hush.”

  Mr. Wechtel was a darker man, deeply tanned from the baking-hot summers in the Holy Land. His silver hair looked like a wig, only it had to be his real hair because nobody would buy a fake with so much color. Too platinum, too much contrast with his bronze skin. Wechtel didn’t have a typical Middle Eastern nose. It was neither bulbous nor hawk-like, but a rather thin nose, tipping up slightly.

  “I think so, Mordecai.” Rightmeir plucked glass slivers from his suit. “Nathaniel, you still think we can negotiate with these people?”

  “You have no choice.”

  “We can fight.” Rightmeir took off his glasses to inspect for breakage.

  “Too many of them,” Uncle Bob said. “You’ll lose, eventually.”

  “We haven’t lost yet. Arabs are all talk.”

  Dr. Blake shook his head. “Sol, when we were in the Navy together, you fought in the Golden Gloves Championship for the Far East. Sure, it was a long time ago, but you could have easily decked that big Arab. Sometimes you fight; sometimes you talk. This is a talking situation, my friend. You’re a diplomat now.”

  Rightmeir pulled his glasses over his nose. “Wrong. I’m an Israeli now. That’s the difference. We haven’t lost a fight with them yet, because we choose our battles. And now we have their secret weapon.”

  “Too many Israeli children have died,” Tanella’s dad said. “Do you want more killing?”

  “We want what every Jew wants,” Mordecai Wechtel said. “To be left alone, to live our lives according to our beliefs. You know, Dr. Blake, I sometimes wonder why, of all God’s children, the Jew alone is required to explain why he wants to go on existing. Our enemies announce their intention to exterminate us, and we’re still considered the evil ones in the eyes of the world. If an Arab loves his country, he’s a patriot. An Israeli who loves Israel is called Zionist, racist. I’m mystified.”

  “My point exactly,” Rightmeier said. “We should pack up and leave tonight. There’s a hurricane coming.”

  “Gentlemen, the Knesset sent you here to talk with the delegation from Utaybah,” Dr. Blake reminded them. “Your first encounter is tomorrow. Why not stay for at least one meeting?”

  Uncle Bob and Dr. Blake strolled away with Wechtel and Rightmeir in the general direction of J.P.’s Lounge. They were probably headed for a few hours of “liquid diplomacy,” which is what my uncle called cocktails and politics. Sometimes, I worry about Bob’s drinking habits, even though I’ve never seen him drunk. Tanella’s dad doesn’t drink alcohol. Like I told you, he’s the smartest man I know.

  Their voices faded as they turned the corner.

  Eric glanced at the smashed table. “This junk is getting serious.”

  “I wonder what Arab ‘secret weapon’ the Israelis have,” Tanella said. She headed for the door. “Let’s bike for the beach.”

  Ten

  Twenty minutes later we’re pedaling along a paved trail that skirted the dunes. The night was warm and breezy and clouds played peek-a-boo with the full moon. Barrier Island by night offered a rich menu of aromas. Winds off the ocean sprinkled sea salt by air, tickling my nose, and the occasional pine grove on the landward side of the trail dusted the air with musty scent like a night creature rising from dark woods. Bugs were out, too. And hungry.

  “Eric!” I called, trying to pedal and scratch fresh bites at the same time. “Are you sure that Legoland science kit of yours isn’t sending us the wrong way?”

  He held up a flat device that looked like a calculator. “Two lights—red and green. If the signal’s getting stronger, the green flashes. See?”

  “Yeah,” I puffed, pushing hard to catch up with him. “But how do you know if it’s working?”

  “It’s working, okay? God! You make me sick.”

  “You make me—”

  “Stop it,” Tanella said from behind us. “Any drug smugglers nearby will hear you arguing.”

  “Yeah, stupid,” Eric said. “Gonna get us killed.”

  “Shut up!”

  “You shut up!” I looked over my shoulder at Tanella. She lowered her head to the handlebars and rode in silence.

  We rounded a curve and ducked Spanish moss that draped like gray-green armpit hair from outstretched limbs of pignut hickory trees. To the left of the bike path a blacktop highway paralleled the shrub zone rimming the dunes. I sniffed wood smoke and cooking oil, and soon we spotted the lights of a two-story hotel nestled among bushes and small trees. A lighted sign announced The Gray Ghost of the Islands.

  Eric pointed at the black tongue of asphalt licking the highway from a mouth of magnolias. “Bingo!”

  “Antonucci’s in there?” I said.

  “His car is.” Eric pumped his bike down the dark throat of trees.

  “What’s he doing at Clancey Beaumont’s place?” I said.

  “Betcha they’re in it together,” Eric said. “We caught ‘em in the act.”

  “The act of what?” Tanella said. Eric just frowned.

  We stashed our bikes among the shrubs and found Antonucci’s green, 4-wheer-drive pickup parked under an antique lamp post. The ring of light attracted so many moths it looked like a summer blizzard. His pickup still brimmed with sand, but now he’d added a pair of shovels and half a dozen wicker baskets. Totally weird. I tucked my backpack under a bush and joined Tanella and Eric under the lighted bug storm.

  “He’s digging up drugs.” Eric peek into the sandy bed of Antonucci’s mini-truck. “I'll bet he has half a dozen machine guns, grenade launchers, land mines—”

  “Look for facts,” she said. “This isn’t a video game.”

  “Tanella,” Eric said sourly, “let me enjoy this.”

  “That’s actually a good idea.” She shook her head and mumbled something, then marched across the parking lot.

  “You can’t just stomp in there,” I said, pacing her.

  “Why not?”

  “For openers, if Beaumont and Antonucci are drug runners, they’ll kill us.”

  “And ruin my whole vacation,” Eric added.

  “Kill us, for playing video games?” Tanella nodded toward a pair of booths inside a small room to the left of the lobby. An old fashioned, coin-operated video arcade, like they had at the BP station on Windsor Spring Road back home.

  “All right!” Eric said, digging in his pockets for change. “Golden oldies—Tomb Raider, Donkey Kong, and Pac-Man!” Previously, these public pay-to-play galleries dominated the gaming market. You rarely find them anymore, but a few years ago Eric got caught at the Augusta Mall, up to his elbows in the water fountain, fishing for coins to feed his habit.

  Tanella handed me a few quarters. “It’s our best excuse for loitering here while we watch for Antonucci. So, play.”

  “Don’t want to play,” I said. “You play.” I gave back the money.

  “I don’t know how.”

  “Read the instructions.”

  I wandered away from the game zone to the cozy set of chairs and sofas acr
oss from the front desk. Figured I could watch for any suspicious characters while pretending to read a newspaper or something. Sooner or later, Peter Antonucci had to come through this lobby.

  There were no newspapers, but I found someone who worked for the media. Red hair and hazel-golden eyes, wearing a dark blue business suit, Elya-Karoo from Miyos sat on a large white sofa and worked a laptop on the coffee table. She smiled when I approached.

  “Hi, Elya. You staying here?”

  “Sally Ann! Come, sit with me.” She moved over and slid the laptop down the coffee table. “I like this lounge. It’s relaxing.”

  I was glad to get off my feet for a moment, and the sofa felt soft as a bale of cotton. “Writing your story. Got a deadline?”

  “Something like that. May I order you a drink?” She folded the laptop and slipped it in a canvas bag by her feet.

  “Whiskey,” I said, joking.

  “Sure. I’ll get the waiter.” She stood and waved a hand.

  I laughed. “Wait, wait! We’ll both go to jail.”

  “Oh! The drinking age. Of course.” Elya snickered and sat again.

  “Any more visions of the future?” I said.

  “Not really. I’m here to study the present day.” She cast a glance toward Tanella, who was still playing the video game. “I’m writing a story about young people and science.”

  “You should interview Tanella. She’s the freaking genius.”

  “Let me ask you a few questions first?” She took out the laptop again.

  “Sure.” I craned my neck to see if Antonucci had appeared. Nothing.

  “Do you accept the theory of climate change?”

  “Oh, yeah. Totally.”

  “What does global warming mean to you?”

  “It means, we better fix the mess. I don’t want my grandkids asking what happened to the polar bears and why they can’t go to Disney World because Florida is under water.”

  “But aren’t your people working hard on the problems?” she said. “I have seen people here with hats that say Make America Great Again.”

  “Uh… you really are from a foreign country, aren’t you? No offense.”

  Elya wrinkled her nose, like she didn’t get it. “Do you think humanity is alone in the Universe?”

  “What, like are there aliens and stuff? Sure. I mean, no, we’re not alone.” All those sci-fi movies couldn’t be wrong. But I didn’t tell her that.

  “Does your friend, Tanella, agree?”

  I frowned. “That’s a hard question. Me and her got into this conversation on the way down here, because yesterday Aaron Hooper asked Tanella if there might be other life forms out there. She said probably, but we’ll never meet them. She said Einstein set this speed limit that couldn’t be broken. But I go, ‘What the hey, if we can fly to the moon, why not to the stars?’ And she goes, ‘Nothing can travel faster than light.’ She’s a lot smarter than me, but I’m still not certain.”

  “What would you ask an alien if you met one?” Elya said.

  “Is he hot, or a creature feature with six eyes and tentacles?”

  She chuckled warmly. “Your choice.”

  “Hot, definitely hot. So, I’d ask if guys and girls date, and what do they do for fun.”

  “You wouldn’t ask for scientific information?”

  I laughed. “Like I’d understand the answer?”

  “You have a keen mind, but you’re comparing yourself to a once-in-a-century intellect like your friend. Be kind to Sally Ann.”

  Just then, I heard a desk clerk say, “Yes, Mr. Beaumont,” to a gray haired man wearing a rose jacket and camel trousers.

  “Sorry, I gotta go. Can we talk again?” I was starting to like this foreign correspondent. Nobody had ever accused me of being intelligent before Elya.

  “Of course. My research is not complete. Bike carefully.”

  Tanella was still playing Tomb-Raider when I reported my discovery.

  “C’mon! It’s Clancey Beaumont.”

  She bent over the controls, blasting animated mummies and hawk-headed temple guards. “Wait! I’ve got Lara Croft inside the tomb of Tihocan.”

  “Forget the stupid game!” I batted her hands and poor Lara died.

  “I was setting a new record. I almost recovered the second piece of the Scion—”

  “Jeez, Tanella!” I actually felt a little bad about stopping her. It wasn’t often she behaved like a normal kid.

  “Okay, okay. Sorry.” She dragged herself away with a backward glance at the video screen. “Where’s Beaumont?”

  “Over there at the front desk.” The man in the rose jacket was still there, but the white sofa across from the front desk was empty. No Elya-Karoo in sight.

  Eric kept playing while me and Tanella meandered over to the registration counter and waited while the boss signed some discount coupons for the desk clerk to distribute.

  “Mr. Beaumont, do you have a minute?” she said.

  “Lock yourself out of your room?”

  “No, no. I’m Tanella Blake. This is Sally Ann Palmer. We’re staying at the Island Club.”

  “Blake—why do I know that name?”

  “Her father is Dr. Nathaniel Blake,” I said.

  “Of course. Hector Bennett raves about your father.”

  He gestured toward a quadrangle of butterscotch couches facing each other across a massive, wood block coffee table, not far from the sofa and chairs where I’d chatted with Elya. When we sat I crossed my legs, covering bare knees with folded hands. My shorts, perfect for peddling a bike, suddenly felt too brief here in the hotel lobby.

  Beaumont smiled. “How soon will you be moving from Hector’s old barn to my up-to-date facility?”

  “As a matter of fact,” Tanella said, “I’d love to stay here. Your rates are more competitive. Mr. Bennett and Dad are old friends, but he’s is a frugal man, so perhaps next time.”

  “Will this help?” He gave us each a discount certificate. “Twenty-five percent off your room, food and bar bill.”

  “Hey, that’s neat!” I said.

  Tanella thanked him and tucked hers in the little black belt bag she always wore around her waist.

  “Any other way I can help?” He glanced at his watch.

  “We just came from a great lecture on John Singleton Mosby,” Tanella said. “Since my father gave some aspects of Mosby’s life a perfunctory treatment, I was wondering if I could ask you a few specific questions about him.”

  “Certainly, but I’m no scholar.”

  “Tanella’s dad loves your book about the Gray Ghost,” I said. She shot me a ‘keep your big mouth shut’ look.

  “That’s very flattering,” Mr. Beaumont said.

  “I was wondering,” Tanella continued, “which of Mosby’s letters to his wife, Paula, is your favorite?”

  He shrugged “Paula Mosby was a remarkable woman. It’s difficult to say which letter I liked best.”

  “When did you become interested in Georgia history?”

  “Years ago.”

  “Is Mosby your favorite Georgian?”

  “Guess so,” Clancey Beaumont said, getting up. “Named this hotel after him.”

  “It was a shame Mosby killed so many civilians during his campaign in Ohio, don’t you think?” Tanella said.

  I frowned. Didn’t Tanella’s father say Mosby avoided civilian casualties if possible? And when did he invade Ohio? He operated in Virginia.

  “Well, war is hell,” Beaumont said.

  “Isn’t that one of Mosby’s best-known sayings?” Tanella said.

  “Yes, of course. Listen, I’m afraid I’ve got a lot of work to do before Hagar the Horrible arrives. If you need anything, tell the desk I said you’re my special guests." He turned to go.

  “Has Mr. Antonucci been here tonight?” Tanella said.

  Beaumont’s eyes swung to Tanella’s face. “You know Peter?”

  “We saw his pickup in the lot,” she said. “I wanted to ask how his beach project
is going.”

  She lost me. I had no idea what project she was talking about.

  Beaumont nodded. “Peter Antonucci is a fanatic. He came by asking for help. He just left. You’ll catch him if you hurry.”

  We pried Eric from the grasp of Space Aliens, but the truck with the sand was gone. Tanella flapped her arms in little circles like a bird learning to fly. “He must have slipped out a side door!”

  “Eric, whip out your tricorder and beam him back here,” I said.

  “If I had a phasers, I’d blast you.” He flipped open the device, and it actually did look like hardware from a Star Trek movie.

  “Do you have the signal?” Tanella said.

  “Too faint. Must be on the far side of the island.”

  “Or he found the bug,” she said grimly.

  “Or,” I said with a smirk, “Eric’s blue-light special needs new batteries.”

  “Hey, this cost more money than you spend on deodorant!”

  “Geek!”

  “Flat-chested fool!”

  “Stop it!” Tanella stepped between us, just as I was about to deck the little dweebe.

  “He lost the signal,” I said.

  “You let Antonucci sneak out the back door,” Eric said.

  “One road follows the beach,” Tanella said. “Let’s get our bikes.”

  * * * *

  Wind rustled the dwarf palms and live oaks, occasionally gusting hard enough to make cycling difficult. The moon skipped in and out of clouds, a pale eye trying on patches. We rounded a bend in the road and crossed under big pines that rose arrow-straight and limbless to the top, where dark arms clutched fistfuls of needles. New scents bombarded me now—like a shower stall with mildew, wet and damp. Hurricane Hagar shoved tropical air ahead of him, and we breathed the mists of Haiti and the Bahamas. I caught up with Tanella, and Eric joined us. We rode three abreast down the center of the dark highway.

  “Explain something you said to Clancey Beaumont back at the hotel. What beach project?”

  “Just fishing.”

  “Did he bite?” Eric said.

  “I’m not sure,” Tanella said.

  “Why did he call Mr. Antonucci a fanatic? And why did you ask Clancey Beaumont all those questions?”