by E H Davis
“Oh ... okay, sorry I mentioned it.”
The silence was palpable.
“Did you see Teddy today at the house?” he blurted. “Was Vivian there?”
“You like fish?” she asked with a sigh, ignoring his questions.
He started to answer but she cut him off.
“The Dolphin Club. One hour. I’ll reschedule my dinner.”
Jens wanted to tell her no, not to, not for him, but she’d hung up.
Chapter Forty-Eight
The Dolphin Club was packed when Jens arrived. He stopped at the reception desk on street level and confirmed that Trooper Morrison had made a reservation, but there was a seating delay and Jens was directed to join her at the bar until their table was ready.
Jens took the stairway down to the bar, with its windows giving onto Ceres Street, dense with tourist foot traffic at this hour. His eyes adjusted to the room’s dim lighting, which stood in stark contrast to the Klieg spotlights over the veneered bar; here local seacoast players made their moves, dates displayed their “catches,” and local celebrities held court.
Ferdie apparently fell into the latter category, noted Jens. Dressed in civvies — a dark blue pant suit over a white silk blouse open at the neck, showing her décolletage to advantage — she was perched in the pivotal seat at the “L” of the bar. Like a reigning queen.
Jens almost felt underdressed in an Oxford shirt and Docker trousers, all he could muster from his limited clothing supply in Jackson.
He pushed through the boisterous crowd to the place Ferdie had reserved for him with a rocks glass on a cocktail napkin. He slid onto his stool, taking in the discrete row of diamonds set in one of Ferdie’s ears. On her wrist she wore an elegant bracelet which he recognized as an expensive Swarovski, with its trademark gold-plating and inlaid onyx. He’d bought something like it for Vivian, though less masculine, for one of their anniversaries.
“You look fantastic,” he said, facing her and noticing for the first time two women watching her from a nearby high table, a blonde and a brunette, both in their late twenties.
They, like Ferdie, were costumed to fit in while standing apart. They seemed tuned into him, warned of his arrival no doubt by Ferdie.
They were beautiful, thought Jens, who was fascinated by Ferdie’s generation — as it made him aware of just how out of touch he was with Cassie, the youthful heroine of his novel, and what made her tick.
Ferdie seemed to sense his appraisal, blushed.
“Oh, am I not supposed to say that you look great?”
He noticed she was wearing a touch of lipstick, adding to her allure.
Her smile seemed to say she didn’t mind.
“What are you drinking?” She had to raise her voice above the din.
“Black Label and soda.” Jens mimed a twist for the attentive bartender, summoned with a nod from Ferdie.
Ferdie pointed a finger to her own near-empty martini glass and ordered a round for the two women, who returned her smile with ingratiating looks. When the drinks arrived, Ferdie stepped to their table and clinked glasses with them, exchanging a few words sotto voce that set them tittering, and eyeing Jens. Ferdie then led Jens to a high table against the wall.
“Old friends?” asked Jens, when she returned.
Ferdie sipped her drink. “New. Like you.”
“How’d you meet?” he asked, realizing his impertinence.
“Tinder.” Her eyes sparkled with amusement.
“Nice,” he answered, not knowing what else to say. He raised his drink glass in a salute. “I appreciate what you’re doing — ”
Ferdie stopped him with an upraised hand.
“We’re friends, despite your brusqueness on the phone.”
“We are, aren’t we?”
________
On the other side of town, Laurent was stealing a car. Not just any car — Warren’s black pickup truck, parked curbside outside his house.
Having spotted Corbin as he entered the Dolphin, Laurent knew he had a short window in which to steal Warren’s truck and get back to town, so that he could follow Corbin and run him off the road. Thereby killing two birds with one stone: get Corbin and implicate Warren for the murder, his truck the weapon.
Brilliant, he congratulated himself.
He bloodied his fingers tearing at the panel under the dash housing the wires connecting the ignition to the battery and starter motor.
He had to vamoose! Hopefully, before Warren looked out his front window, caught him in the act, and blew his brains out.
Finally, the screw holding the panel by a thread let go, and he pulled the bundled wires free. His hands shaking, he separated out the yellow, red, and green leads.
Please be green for ignition.
With his knife, a sling blade, he scraped ¼” bare spots on all three leads, careful to keep them apart. Then he attached double-ended alligator clips to the exposed wires.
He risked a look at Warren’s front window — sensing more than seeing him — as he clipped the red lead to the green.
Is that him at the curtain?
Warren’s front door banged open, followed by the clonking of his boots down the front steps and onto the sidewalk.
Fuck! He’s coming!
Laurent touched the two leads to the yellow one from the starter. Sparks flew! He’d gotten it right!
Almost here! Oh, God!
“Motherfucker!” shouted Warren, his voice coming closer, louder. “I’ll kill you!”
Motherfucker is right!
He touched them again! Tzzt! Tzzt! More sparks!
“Kill you, bitch!”
Oh, God! I’m dead!
Sparks flew from the contact. The engine cranked over, roared to life. Laurent sat up, jammed the shift into gear, stomped the gas pedal, and burned rubber.
He glanced in the rearview mirror just in time to see Warren taking aim. He ducked.
Blam! Blam! The rear window exploded.
Laurent flew around the corner — engine squealing, gears grinding.
“You’re a dead man!” Warren shouted.
The wind roared through the shattered window, drowning out Warren’s curses, filling the cab with cool night air and the promise of freedom.
Laurent barely heard him above his own disembodied laughter.
Warren, you’re the dead man.
But tonight was Corbin’s turn. With the divorce hearing tomorrow, a timely accident was just what was needed to get rid of him. Even if Vivian had told him it was over between her and Laurent. Even if she’d been cheating with Warren.
Didn’t she deserve his forgiveness?
Unlike that bastard Warren!
He tore onto Islington, picking up speed, racing hell-bent for his appointment with death.
_______
Jens and Ferdie sipped their drinks. Jens pushed his lemon twist around with a finger, waiting for Ferdie to report on her visit to the house in Lee.
“So,” said Ferdie, taking her cue. “Teddy’s fine. He’s been working out a lot. He’s a good kid. Funny, too.”
“Did he talk about the trouble at school?”
Ferdie seemed to be weighing her words.
“Remember up in Conway, at the hospital, when I told you about the Asian gangs coming into the seacoast?”
Jens nodded, his anxiety rising.
“They’re here, at his school, giving him a hard time. Maybe because he’s new and doesn’t have a lot of friends.”
“Is this what the principal wants to talk to me about?”
“He got into a little scrape —”
“What?”
“Calm down, Dad. Nothing’s happened. He can take care of himself in that department, rest assured.”
“I’m gone a month, I come back and find out my kid, my boy, is in a turf war with the Yakuza.” Jens took a pull on his scotch. “What kind of scrape?”
“Phuket, you mean.”
Jens cocked his head, thinking she’d said the “F-w
ord”.
“Excuse me?”
“The Thai Mafia — they’re called Phuket. Yakuza is Japanese,” added Ferdie pedantically. “And no, they’re not in a war — at least not yet.”
Ferdie took a thoughtful sip of her martini, puckering her mouth at the drink’s astringency.
“They planted some pot in his locker and some pills, which turned out to be cold capsules, to make it look like he was dealing. I believe him when he tells me they aren’t his, but he’s having a hard time convincing the principal they’re not.”
Jens shook his head. “I’ve got a meeting at the school tomorrow — I’ll straighten him out.” He took a breath. “I don’t get it. Why him?”
Ferdie shrugged. “He’s new, he’s from a private school, and his dad’s a famous author.”
Jens scoffed. “The sun’s setting on that dream.”
“Not to the locals.”
“Ferdie, I’ve got to get him out of there.”
“What are the chances you’ll get custody?”
“I’ll know tomorrow.”
“Look, I’ll vouch for him with the principal — say I’m a friend of the family.”
“Thanks — you are.”
Jens’ innards churned. Hadn’t he always defended his son, fiercely and foolishly, perhaps, sheltering him from all the knocks and scrapes of childhood? But now that he was in real danger, caught up in a complex social situation, Jens’ instinct to charge in like a bull wouldn’t work.
Ferdie clinked her martini glass against Jens’.
“I’ll check up on the Thai kids. He’ll be okay.”
“He’ll be okay when I get custody.” Jens looked away.
“Trooper,” interrupted a willowy blonde hostess, “your table is ready.” She shot Ferdie an appraising look over her shoulder. Ferdie, as she passed her Tinder friends’ table, signaled that she’d catch up with them after dinner.
________
Ferdie insisted on paying the bill for the excellent dinner, for which Jens was grateful, as his credit card was starting to max out.
He invited Ferdie for an ice cream at Danielle’s on Ceres St. As they were leaving the crowded shop with their napkin-wrapped cones, Jens began talking about Vivian’s marriage to Laurent.
“Victor thinks she may have tried to sell her testimony about Laurent to his defense team, and extort his parents.”
They licked their cones as they walked along Market, gazing absently into window displays of souvenirs, nautical knick knacks, and art glass.
“So if you’re not going to help me trap him, at least tell me what I can do to protect my son.” Jens, hiding his anxiety, peered into a window display.
“Forewarned is forearmed,” Ferdie answered. “You opposed to carrying?”
Jens looked away. “Me and guns — don’t mix.”
She nodded, waiting for him to go on.
“It’s a long story — another time.” Apparently, not everyone knew about his childhood trauma. Or maybe Ferdie knew but thought it best if he broached it.
They were approaching the public garage on Hanover St. where Jens had parked his Subaru. They finished their cones.
“You writing?” asked Ferdie.
“Always.”
“Seriously, are you?”
“Seriously? Too many distractions. Not until I get back to Conway. My deadline is coming due.”
“How’s Nola?”
“Another kind of distraction,” Jens said, with a touch of irony. “By the way, I got something for you.”
He reached into his sport jacket.
“You still interested in Daniel’s identity?”
He handed Ferdie the black & white snapshot he’d found in Daniel’s wallet on Black Mountain.
“A face to go with the inscription on the back of his Rolex— ‘With love, always, Leah.’”
Ferdie scowled. “Now you give it to me?”
Jens shrugged. He felt like he ought to give her a hug. Instead, they shook hands awkwardly, sticky from their ice cream cones, and went their separate ways — Jens to his car on the second level, Ferdie back to the bar and her Tinder friends, of whom Jens was jealous, sort of.
He drove down to the gate and paid his parking ticket.
After tomorrow he’d know where he stood on the matter of his son’s custody. Maybe he could take him to live with him in Jackson. They must have good schools where a kid could get a decent education without having to fight off gangs.
He swung left onto Market toward the Sarah Mildred Long Bridge, which would take him to Kittery and the inn where he was staying. His thoughts drifted back to Laurent and the danger he’d brought to his family. This was a man who had nothing left to lose.
In his mind’s eye, he pictured Laurent walking Teddy into the woods, a gun stuck in his back, readying to execute him.
In his scenario, Jens had no problem picturing himself with a shotgun aimed at the killer’s heart.
Maybe it was time, as Ferdie suggested, to arm himself.
Chapter Forty-Nine
Parked in Warren’s black pickup truck on Hanover Street, lights off, Laurent ducked down as Jens pulled out of the municipal garage and drove past. Laurent put the truck in gear and followed at a discreet distance.
Accelerating onto Market, Jens waved to Ferdie, a solitary incongruous figure — at once formidable and romantic. Jens was certain she would go back to the bar and enjoy drinks with her Tinder friends, maybe take one of them home, or both, bless her. Everyone needs someone to love, he conceded. He felt oddly protective of her.
As Jens passed the tugboat dock and then the salt piles, images of his misspent youth here on the seacoast crowded out his present anxieties. One winter, after his father had died and he’d cut off from his mother, he’d taken a cottage on the Little Bay in Newington and was trying to write. To make ends meet, he took odd jobs, like unloading the salt that came into Portsmouth on cargo barges, and laying trans-Atlantic cable in the holds of ships, at the cable factory upriver.
By the time he broke from his reverie, he was on the bypass, half-way across the bridge to the Kittery side in Maine. Flickering cones of light from the street lamps lighting up the bridge bounced off the swirling waters of the Piscataqua, rushing past darkly on either side of the two lane bypass. A line of cars came from the opposite direction, headlights glaring.
Suddenly, there was a car behind him, urgently flashing its high beams, trying to pass, despite oncoming traffic. It came closer and closer, nearly bumping him, forcing him to speed up. He took the Subaru up to 65 MPH, faster than he liked on the narrow bridge. There was no breakdown lane for Jens to pull over and let him pass.
Jens was trapped. Was this guy out of his mind?
As though in answer, the driver flashed his high beams and lurched forward, kissing Jens’ bumper with the grille of his vehicle, a black flatbed truck.
Panicking, Jens tapped his brakes to force his assailant to fall back, but instead the driver bore down. In the light of the oncoming traffic, Jens could clearly see the driver’s face in his mirror.
Laurent.
Jens jammed his foot down on the gas until he was doing 85 then 90 MPH, putting a few car lengths between them. There was a hairpin right turn coming up, leading to a rotary that brought cars onto the bridge heading south, back to New Hampshire. Jens risked a look in the rearview mirror.
Laurent kept coming, his face a rictus of hate.
I’ll duck under the bridge and lose him, Jens told himself.
Just before crossing into Maine, Jens spun the wheel sharply to the right. He began a tailspin, gradually braking harder — until he was nearly standing on the pedal, using every trick he had learned so long ago in Hollywood. Hopscotching into the curve, the Subaru’s back end lurched and shuddered clockwise, tires smoking.
Once he felt the brakes lock, he released them and downshifted. He reapplied the brakes, feathering off. Miraculously, he regained control as he flew into the rotary. Meanwhile, Laurent stayed
on him, nearly touching his rear end. At the bottom of the rotary, Jens lost control.
He smashed through the guard rail, caromed over the edge of the embankment, and plunged down, into the black water.
Who would protect Teddy now?
________
When Jens’ Subaru struck the water it had been traveling at 70 MPH. It catapulted off the embankment airborne, tires spinning, flying out over the dark space like a rocket, before plummeting. The rear struck first, cleaving the water violently, followed by the front end.
The sudden impact, metal meeting water hard as concrete, had smashed Jens against the steering wheel, jerking him sideways, delivering the brunt of the collision to his left side, snapping his upper arm like a wishbone on Thanksgiving. Then, the driver’s airbag exploded onto his shattered arm, compounding insult upon injury, pinning him to the seat.
Luckily, the pain was intolerable, for this is what kept him from passing out and drowning in the rising cabin water, as the Subaru came to rest perched on the edge of the channel bed, submerged in ten feet of water. He shrieked with pain as he pounded his damaged arm against the driver’s side door, sending jolts of lightning up his arm and flooding his brain with life-saving adrenalin.
Sucking what might have been his last breath from the diminishing pillow of air trapped in the cabin, he squeezed down under freezing water onto the seat, braced himself against the door, and kicked with all his might at the passenger’s window, first cracking then breaking it free.
Hoisting himself up with his good arm, he pulled and frog-kicked to the opening and backed out, into the pitch-black water. Lungs bursting, he kicked off, lunging upward, but once adrift in the inky depths he lost his orientation. He kicked and kicked, clawing the water with his one good arm. Soon he could not tell if he was alive or dead.
The last thing he remembered was the fear at the very root of his being, which, strangely, was not for himself, but for his son, whose face wavered like a pale rider in the watery depths, beckoning, leading him on, deeper into the darkness.
Later, once over his shock, he would learn that a pair of local sports fishermen had been trawling the riverbank in their Whaler and had seen him sail off the embankment.
