Vineyard Prey

by Philip R. Craig

  “No, because we really aren’t too sure what the Bunny looks like. We have some fuzzy photos and some supposedly eyewitness descriptions, but about all we know is that he’s not too tall, is on the skinny side, and is probably of European descent. We can’t even be sure he’s not a woman. The point is that, like Carlos, the Bunny works as an assassin for organizations the U.S.A. doesn’t like at all, and has been at it for a long time, very successfully.” Begay paused, then added, “Too successfully, in my book.”

  “European descent?”

  “Apparently, according to the eyewitnesses I mentioned. I doubt if they really know, but maybe one of them heard the Bunny talk about his childhood or his school, or something like that. Anyway, the Scarecrow and Rudolph worked mostly, but not always, in the Middle East and Africa, but the Easter Bunny almost always worked north of the Med, probably because he has European looks. The Scarecrow and Rudolph were both darker-skinned.”

  “And now he’s in America? Does he speak English?”

  “He speaks a dozen languages, they say.”

  “Any accent?”

  “I don’t know. He probably doesn’t talk like an American since as far as we know he has never lived in the States.”

  “Until now.”

  “Maybe not even now. Maybe he flew in and out to do the two Stateside jobs.”

  “In spite of Homeland Security?”

  Begay smiled a small, grim smile. “In spite of that. The homeland isn’t as secure as Washington wishes it was. The Bunny can probably get in and out and move around pretty freely without being noticed.”

  That was no doubt true. Americans are amazingly free of police surveillance in spite of what civil libertarians currently see as intrusions into private lives by the authorities. Not that a lot of those authorities aren’t glad to intrude and will continue to try to do so on the grounds that security is more important than freedom. People like that are scarier to me than are most professional criminals.

  “Does he know where you live?” I asked.

  “My address here isn’t top secret,” said Begay. “But before I sent Toni and the kids out to Third Mesa, I talked to some of my family there and they said nobody had been around asking questions. If someone had, he wouldn’t have gotten a very clear answer.”

  I’d read once that the Hopi language was of such a nature that for its speakers, time and space are perceived differently than they are for English speakers; that the language has no words for small segments of time, but only indications that events are not happening anymore, are still happening, or may happen in the future, and that people, too, are no longer here or are here or may be here in the future. It was a good language to hide in with perfect honesty.

  “But the Bunny knows you’re here on the island.”

  “I think he could find out,” said Begay. “Like I say, it’s not a secret. Some people in Washington know. Other people know. And I’m probably listed on some computer site.”

  “Does the Bunny have access to military records?” I asked.

  “Probably, because those records really aren’t too secure.” Then he surprised me by saying, “That’s why I played this little Hyannis airport game. I want him to think I’m here, but that I tried to fool him into thinking I left. If he’s as smart as he’s supposed to be, he’ll come for me here while Toni and the kids are gone and I’ll be waiting for him.”

  Wives and children have never been off-limits to killers, in spite of the myth of honor among warriors. Joe was wise to send his family away.

  I took South Road through Chilmark. During the summer, the island’s roads are filled with cars and bikes, but now they were almost free of traffic and none of the few drivers we saw seemed at all interested in us.

  We passed the Chilmark graveyard, site of the island’s second most popular tourist attraction: the grave of an entertainer who had taken a shortcut to the afterlife via an overdose of illegal chemical additives. His pilgrim followers still came to meditate and decorate his grave with roaches, roach clips, beer bottles, needles, and other memorabilia. Only the famous bridge on Chappaquiddick attracted more visitors.

  I said, “You mentioned five people on the trade mission. Three are dead. That leaves you and one other person. Does that person know about what you think is going on?”

  “I left a communication, but I don’t know if it was needed. Three dead people is a pretty clear message, and like I said, a lot of people in our business are thinking that the Bunny is responsible.”

  At Bettlebung Corner we took a left. The Chilmark store wasn’t doing too much business and the Chocolate Factory was closed. Over us the clear December sky was pale blue. I felt as though an early winter was coming.

  Even Quitsa, the loveliest part of the Vineyard, and where I’d live if I had as much money as the island’s castle builders, seemed wintery to me. The coldness, I realized, was inside of me, but it seemed to flow out of my eyes and chilled the landscape that was unrolling before us.

  As we approached Aquinnah I took note of the slash of white high on a hill north of the road. It was the only visible sign of the huge, mostly underground house where Toni Begay’s uncle Bill Vanderbeck now lived with his bride, the widow of a rich man who, after a dangerous life, had died of natural causes, much to the surprise of many people. For the first time I consciously realized that Uncle Bill was, by marriage, a relative of Joe Begay’s.

  “Maybe you should go live up there with Uncle Bill until all this dust settles,” I said. “There’s no way anybody can sneak up on that fortress.”

  “I’m not too proud to do that,” said Begay, “but I don’t think I need to do it yet, although it might be handy to live with an invisible man.”

  Uncle Bill Vanderbeck had been considered by his young nieces, Toni and her sister, to be a shaman because he spoke sometimes in amused riddles and because he had the unusual ability of not being seen when he should have been in plain sight. You could be standing there, apparently alone, when suddenly Uncle Bill Vanderbeck would be at your side, seemingly having appeared from nowhere. Uncle Bill claimed it was because he was so insignificant that no one paid any attention to him, but the two little girls had been sure it was because he was a shaman. Now grown up, the sisters still thought so. I’d wondered about it myself.

  Joe Begay lived in Aquinnah, in a small neat house just beyond the north end of the famous colored clay cliffs that marked the westernmost point of Martha’s Vineyard. During tourist season his wife ran one of the souvenir shops at the top of the cliffs where the tour buses stopped and for years had unloaded elderly visitors who, before shopping, often immediately set off down the hill to the pay toilets, which charged fifty cents a sit.

  Because Aquinnah’s roads were lined with No Parking signs where once fishermen had parked for free, and because the town parking lot charged an arm and a leg to anyone who wanted to loll on Aquinnah’s lovely beaches, I took every opportunity to bad-mouth the town and its politics.

  However, recently I had been obliged to abandon one of my favorite complaints: Aquinnah’s overpriced pay toilets, which I considered an abomination in the eyes of man and God. For reasons unknown, the town had stopped charging for use of their johns. I had been astonished when I heard the news! Who’d have thunk it?

  Maybe there was more civic morality in Aquinnah than I had thought. Maybe someday it would even manifest itself in new parking regulations. Until such time, though, I planned to limit my visits to the town to when I was visiting friends and could park for free in their yards while I fished.

  As we approached the Begay driveway, Joe tapped my shoulder. “Why don’t you just pull over here and let me out. I’ll walk in.”

  I pulled over. “Better yet,” I said, “you get out and I’ll drive in. If nobody’s there, so much the better. If somebody’s waiting for you, I’ll play innocent and wonder where you are, then drive out and let you know you have company. It won’t be dangerous for me because the Bunny, if he’s there, won’t have any
idea who I am or any reason not to believe me. He can pretend to be a friend in waiting and I’ll pretend to believe him. Are you dressed?”

  Begay’s hand moved and a medium-size pistol appeared in it. “How about you?” he asked.

  “I won’t need a gun,” I said. “I’ll just be a guy wondering if you want to try for some cod off the north shore.”

  He didn’t like it but couldn’t come up with a reason not to do it. If the Easter Bunny was waiting for him, it would be a nice thing to know.

  “If you don’t see anybody,” he said, “look at the bottom of the front and back doors. I put a bit of cellophane tape between the doors and the frames.”

  He got out and I drove down his sandy driveway into his yard. Toni’s car was there, parked off to the right in its usual place.

  I whistled a happy tune as I parked and got out and looked around casually.

  Nobody.

  I walked to the house and knocked briskly on the door.

  No answer.

  I looked at the bottom of the door and then knelt and finally saw the cellophane tape still in place between the door and its frame.

  I peeked through a window and called Joe’s name, then walked around in back of the house and peeked through another window. I called his name again, then knelt in front of the rear door.

  The cellophane tape was still there.

  As I rose, I heard a small sound and felt cold metal against the back of my neck.

  “Put your hands behind your back,” said an icy voice, “or I’ll blow your spine out through your face.”

  4

  It was a woman’s voice, mechanical and cold.

  I played innocence assaulted, and trembled as best I could. It wasn’t hard. I babbled contradictory ideas together. “Don’t shoot! Where are Joe and Toni? I’m not a robber! Take my wallet! Don’t kill me! I’ll shut my eyes! I won’t look at you! Please don’t shoot me!” I thrust my hands over my head as I thought a frightened man would do in spite of orders to do otherwise.

  The metal pressed harder into my neck.

  “Down on your knees. Hands behind your back. Now!”

  I got down on my knees and made my voice into a wail. “Who are you? What do you want? My wallet’s in my back pocket. The keys are in my car. I won’t look at you, I swear!”

  “Who are you?”

  “J. W. Jackson. I’m a friend of Joe’s. My ID’s in my wallet. Don’t shoot me!”

  Fingers fumbled at my back pocket and I wondered if the woman might be distracted by the wallet she removed. But the pressure of the metal didn’t lessen.

  “Hands behind your back!”

  “Jesus! Sure! Anything you say!” I put my hands behind my back. It wasn’t a good position from which to attack a person with a gun.

  The cold steel against my neck went away and I guessed that the woman had stepped backward, probably carefully beyond any kick I might have in mind, as she went through my wallet.

  “Why were you kneeling there at the door? What are you up to?”

  I’d anticipated the question. After all, why would any honest, innocent, ordinary person be on his knees staring at the bottom of the locked back door of someone else’s house?

  “Joe leaves a spare door key down around the back step somewhere. I was looking for it. I couldn’t find it. I wanted to leave him a note but I don’t have a pen. I wasn’t going to rob him, for God’s sake! We’re friends.”

  The latter claim might be dangerous since, if the woman was an enemy of Joe’s—the Easter Bunny herself, perhaps—she might not mind knocking off one of Joe’s friends while she waited for her real prey to show up. On the other hand, it was the best excuse I could think of for my being there and behaving so oddly; besides, if the woman wasn’t the Easter Bunny or a Bunny cohort, she might be less inclined to shoot a friend of Joe’s even though she had her suspicions about me.

  In either case, the ice felt thin beneath my feet. It felt even thinner when her arctic voice said, “Get on your face and spread your legs. I’m going to pat you down. If you give me any grief or if you’re carrying a gun, I’ll kill you where you lie.”

  “Jesus!” I squeaked. “I’m not armed. All I wanted to do is borrow a pen so I can leave Joe a note!”

  “Shut up. Get down and spread out!”

  I did as she said and a moment later the metal was again pressed against my neck. It stayed there as a hand began to pass over me and hook under me. The metal left my neck suddenly and pressed against my lower spine, just below the place where a bullet still snuggled close to my backbone, a souvenir of my long-passed days on the Boston PD. My irrational response to the pressure on my lower back was greater fear than when the gun had been on my neck. I lay very still while she ran a fast hand over and between my legs.

  The metal left my back. “Roll over very slowly.”

  I did that, and saw the woman for the first time. She was much younger than I’d imagined. Slim, pale of skin, dark of hair and arctic eye, with high cheekbones and forehead, a firm chin, and wide mouth. A snow queen; an empress of ice. Eurasian, I thought.

  From just beyond my best kick she pointed a black semiautomatic pistol at my eyes and said, “Stay spread.”

  “Yes!” I stretched arms and legs as far apart as they would go and she stepped quickly to me and put the pistol under my chin.

  “Don’t move.”

  Her free hand roamed over me, finding my pocketknife, which she tossed aside, and then lingering at my crotch. It wasn’t sex; it was a search of a popular spot for a hidden weapon. When she was satisfied that the knife was my only armament, she flowed to her feet and stepped away.

  “Sit up. Put your hands behind your neck.”

  I did that. “Don’t shoot me! What do you want?”

  “Where’s Joe Begay?”

  “I don’t know. I came here looking for him.”

  “You’re lying!”

  “No! Don’t shoot me! If I knew where he was I’d tell you. Honest to God. Point that gun somewhere else! Please!”

  “Who do you work for?”

  “I don’t work for anybody! I’m retired! I do odd jobs!” I could hear the exclamation marks in my voice. They were real.

  A small movement caught my eye. It was behind her, at the far corner of the house. Joe Begay was peeking around the corner. Then he pointed a long arm at the woman. The hand at the end of the arm held the pistol he’d showed me earlier. I flicked my eyes this way and that, just in case I’d let them linger on Joe a moment too long.

  “You only get this one chance,” said the woman, straightening her shooting arm. “I don’t have time to coddle you. Where is Joe Begay?”

  Behind her, Begay cocked his pistol. It was a sound you don’t forget when you’ve heard it once. The woman’s body froze in place, but her eyes widened first then were instantly filled with calculation.

  “No, don’t move,” said Begay, as if he could see her face, “don’t do anything at all unless I tell you to. Now, drop the gun on the ground.” He’d done something with his voice that had changed it in some small way, and I wondered if he did that often in his mysterious line of work.

  She hesitated then dropped the pistol.

  “That’s it,” said Begay. “Now, step away. J.W., get the gun.”

  I did that and Begay said, “Good. Now you can turn.”

  The woman turned and Begay said, “Well, hello, Kate. Haven’t seen you for a while.”

  “Joe!” The woman stepped toward him and I saw Joe’s pistol disappear. She glanced at me and saw her gun in my hand, then looked back at him again. “Joe. I didn’t recognize your voice.”

  “And I wasn’t sure that was your back I was looking at. You’re a long way from home.”

  She paused and gestured at me. “Is this man really a friend of yours?”

  “He is, but he’s not in our line of work. A long time ago we spent a little time together in ’Nam, but now he’s a fisherman. What brings you here, Kate?”

 
; “I need to talk with you in private.”

  “About what?”

  “Something’s come up.”

  “Rabbit ears, by any chance?” I asked.

  She looked at me again, then turned back to Joe. “I don’t know this guy. Are you sure you do?”

  “I know him,” said Joe. “Now, Kate, speak up. You can tell J.W. anything you can tell me.”

  She allowed herself a thin smile. “I’ll have to shoot him afterwards, according to the rules.”

  “Obscenity the rules. Besides, you tried that once and it didn’t work.”

  “Only because of you. You’re sure about him?”

  “Was Kate part of the trade mission?” I asked Joe.

  He nodded and she frowned slightly.

  “Yes,” he said. “Is that why you’re up here?” he asked her.

  “The less he knows, the better for everyone,” said stubborn Kate. “He can’t tell anyone what he doesn’t know, and we’ll all be safer, including him.”

  “Maybe, maybe not,” said Joe. “He didn’t tell you anything but you almost shot him anyway, remember?”

  “He was lying,” said Kate.

  “But you didn’t know that.”

  The fencing made me impatient. “I know about the Easter Bunny,” I said to Kate. “I think you must be the other living member of the trade mission. I think you’re here because you think it’s dangerous to be at home, wherever that may be, and because you want to hook up with Joe in a common front. How did you know where he lives?”

  “I told you that some people know,” said Joe. “Kate is one of them.”

  “You trust her.”

  He shrugged his wide shoulders. “Even in our business you have to trust some people.”

  I’d have thought that just the opposite would be the general rule; that in the gray and black ops business you’d be better off trusting no one. Or at least not trusting anyone completely.

  Still, Kate hesitated.

  I could hear the irritation in my voice when I said, “Joe, if your pal here won’t talk with me around and if you think she has anything important to say, I’ll be on my way. My car is right out there in front of the house.”