Black Tide

by Brendan DuBois

  He kept shaking his head. "Tony Russo. Someone just whacked out Tony Russo. Man, that takes so much balls ---"

  "Stop it!" I nearly yelled, conscious that we were near a family park that had a lot of cops working in it tonight. "Will you for once in your life start speaking in English, and leave that damn slang back in Boston?"

  Felix turned, glaring. "English? You want English, Lewis? Okay, here it is. Straight English. Someone just murdered Tony Russo tonight, murdered him in a public way, in a goddamn it restaurant parking lot. You and me were his guests. Word will be getting back to Boston pretty quick that Felix Tinios was with Tony Russo when he got killed. You think his friends in Boston aren't going to believe that I was involved, that I knew the shooter, that I set the whole thing up? And how long before his friends start coming up here, looking for me and looking for you for good measure?"

  There was some laughter coming from the people in the park, people sitting in lawn chairs and on blankets, sipping wine or cola, eating from picnic dinners. It seemed too peaceful to be true.

  "No danger, you said," I pointed out to him. "Remember that day, the day they found the diver and you tried to get me to help you out? You said no danger. You were going to be the lightning rod, I was just going to be an adviser. No problem. Just lies, right, Felix? Jesus, you couldn't even tell me something straight about your cousin."

  His voice was dull. "What do you want to know?"

  "Why in hell he got picked as a message would be a good start. "

  He shook his head and said in a sharp tone, "My cousin Sal is from Boston. He was up for a week, wanted to get away from the big city. Slept on my couch. Did some drinking and screwing and he was into diving, so he did that, too. Then one day he was gone. I didn't think much about it. Sal wasn't one for making big departure scenes. Even when the body came ashore, I didn't put it together, until his mother started calling me, saying he never came back home, and I got that call this morning."

  More laughter came from the park. It seemed like a foreign sound. "Felix. Your own cousin? You knew that the diver --- God, the diver I hauled in to shore --- was your own cousin, and you still came here tonight? All that stuff about family and honor --- I'd think the first thing on your agenda would involve firearms, not the paintings. Why didn't you give up the paintings after your cousin was killed?"

  His hands still gripped the wooden railing of the pier. "There's a time and place for everything. Those paintings are one matter, and my cousin Sal is another. Tony and his friends probably thought that by taking care of Sal they would impress me and scare me into giving everything up without a price. It didn't work. I just agreed to talk, that's all. Sal is personal, and one of these days I'll take care of it. But the paintings are business."

  I was walking in a tight circle on the pier, trying to work off the nervous energy, the artificial high that had come from all of the chemicals being dumped into my bloodstream at the sights and sounds of Tony Russo being shot. "Oh, that sounds so nice and logical, Felix. So continue with your logic. What in hell just happened here tonight? We were meeting with Tony Russo, trying to work out a deal to get the safe house to him, and someone else jumps into the picture with a pistol and silencer. Who the hell was that? Competition? Or the buyer trying to cut Tony out of the deal?"

  He bent his head for a moment, as if he was checking on the condition of his shoes. "Probably the buyer. Tony's job was to get me on board, and now that Tony's job was done, he was killed. No percentage for him. Now it's just me and the buyer."

  Felix stood up, rubbing his face with both hands. "Or maybe it was someone trying to move in on Tony, who found out about the paintings and wanted to take the matter away from him."

  I took another deep breath, trying to control the trembling in my chest. "Don't be so fancy, Felix. The man was set up by the buyer. Tony came with the buyer and when we got out to the car, the buyer was gone and the shooter was waiting for him."

  Felix looked over at me. "Remember the old story about the farmer and the mule? Before he went to work, the farmer got the mule's attention by hitting him over the head with a two-by-four. The same has just happened to me. Remember, the shooter said he’d be in touch. This isn't over, Lewis. There's still work to be done.”

  Another siren wailed away in Porter, and I felt sorry for the cops and detectives and reporters whose Saturday night had just been ruined. "Maybe so, but you're going to be doing it alone for a while, Felix."

  He turned and looked at me sharply. "What do you mean by that?”

  I held up a hand and started walking off the pier. "I mean this has gotten too weird and too complex. I'm taking a break."

  Felix said, his voice straining with disbelief, "What do you mean, you're taking a break?"

  I turned. "Just what I said. Some time off, Felix. You're dealing with familiar territory. I'm not. And 1 need to catch my breath.”

  So I walked off the pier, half expecting Felix to come after me or to stand there and yell Italian curses my way, but it didn't happen. I gave him one more glance and I saw him standing at the end of the pier, hunched over as in concentration or despair, looking out into the rolling waters of the Piscassic River and Porter Harbor. There was a twinge of sorrow there, and maybe a bit of regret. Felix looked quite alone, with some very bad things out there for him. I almost walked back.

  But I thought again of Tony Russo, slumped against his car, the spray of blood like a red-brown peacock's tail on the car's windows, and I thought of how dark and huge the silencer looked as it stared at my skull, and I kept on walking.

  Just a break. Honest.

  I got home about a half hour later and got a bad case of the shakes once the locked door closed behind me. I took a long shower, letting the hot water race across the sweat and stench of fear on my body, and it took a great effort of will to leave that glass-and-tile cocoon. When I got dressed I went back downstairs and disconnected the phone, and then made a quick survey of my weapons. Not that I expected anything untoward to happen within the next several hours, but it was comforting, even for a small moment, to have the weapons within easy reach, and I was taking any moment I could get.

  After unlocking the sliding-glass door to the deck I went outside and breathed deeply of the night air. I looked up at the stars. In less than two weeks the mighty Perseids would start, three or four nights of great meteor showers, with meteorite trails racing almost halfway across the sky. It was something I had never seen before, because of the weather or the lack of a great night sky where I lived before, back in Virginia. But it would be different in two weeks' time.

  On this night, before me was the great constellation of Pegasus, the winged horse, rising up into the dark sky. Within Pegasus are four stars that form a rectangle, and as I gazed up at them I named them in sequence with a whisper, ''Alpheratz, Scheat, Algenib, Markab." Four stars, named by Arab astronomers centuries ago, during the Dark Ages of Europe, when Arabs were known for their culture and their learning, and before they were defamed as being nothing more than ignorant car bombers and oil drillers.

  Usually the stars give me a sense of peace, of belonging, but in looking up at those lights on this evening, so soon after seeing Tony Russo snuffed out, the stars weren't working. I felt no peace.

  I went back inside and reconnected the phone and dialed a number from memory, and when she answered, I said, "I need to see you tomorrow."

  There was a pause, and then she said yes.

  On a late Sunday afternoon the sun was beginning to sink beyond the marshes and low buildings of Tyler Beach, and I leaned back against the gunwale as Diane Woods maneuvered her sailboat, the Miranda, to catch the breeze. The boom snapped back and the wind filled out the mainsail, and we were off, heading to the west, back to the safety of Tyler Harbor. It had been a long and good day, leaving Tyler Harbor soon after a stand-up breakfast at Diane's condo and getting the Miranda underway for a run out to Cape Ann in Massachusetts. We both wore T-shirts and shorts and slathered a lot of sunscreen
on each other, and even with the slippery goop on my skin, I felt the familiar tightening and coolness on my skin that signified sunburn on its way. Lunch had been sandwiches and lemonade, balanced in our laps, and Diane was promising me a steak dinner when we got back to the harbor. The only foul part of the day was a stretch when we tan through a mini-slick of oil, and though it was possible that it wasn't left over from the Petro Star, the reminder of that past disaster didn't help matters.

  "Damn mess," she had cursed. ''And you know what's going to happen. Whoever did it will just pay a fine or do a couple of weeks in the can --- if that --- and next summer the dumping will still be going on."

  I just nodded, not wanting to talk about the Petro Star. In fact, we hadn't talked much during the day, just worked in unison in keeping the Miranda underway and on a good tack. I'm not up on the nomenclature of what types of sails do what, but I can take orders and know when to draw in a line or just to sit down and shut up. Diane, however, could probably sail the Miranda to Dover, England, and back, and she delighted in heeling the Miranda over so far that the water was kissing the gunwales, which made me clamber up on the other side and gently inquire about what to do if she were to roll over.

  As we settled in a steady run, I sat next to Diane and she looked me up and down and said, "You've got things bothering you today, Lewis."

  I know better than to try to be the strong, silent and steady type around Diane. She knows me too well.

  ''A lot of things, I guess. You're a good one, Diane."

  She stuck out her tongue for a moment. "That's my job. Being a cop and being nosy. What's the bother?"

  The bother? A variety of items. Tony Russo, slumped against his car. Paula Quinn, bitter about me and what I can't do. And dead Sal Grillo, in the morgue at the county hospital in Bretton, and me not wanting to tell Diane a single word about it, though she would be happy to have progress on that case.

  "Secrets," I finally said. "Secrets that are running things, I guess. "

  She nodded and made an adjustment to the tiller. "Something about you and that reporter, Paula Quinn?"

  I was surprised. "You know?"

  She smiled. "I guessed. You just confirmed. A couple of times, down at the station, when she's been doing a story about something, Paula would stop and just look at me and say, 'How's Lewis?' Or 'What do you know about Lewis?' Very casual, but in a self-conscious way. So. What happened?"

  "Stuff happened," I said. The boat heeled over and some spray slapped up on the deck, hitting my bare legs with the water. "The night I learned I was sick, back in June, she was with me. I was upset and she was concerned and I couldn't tell her anything, Diane. Couldn't tell her a single thing. She was mad. Who could blame her? Since then, it just hasn't been that right between us, and I'm not sure if! want it to be right. I think I want it back before, before it went that far."

  "That night, was it the first time?"

  "Yeah. And you'll remember what was going on here last June. It was tense, quite tense, and when I got through with that mess, I guess I needed some reaffirmation. Paula and I spent the night and things were fine until I found that damn lump on my side. Ever since then, well, I wonder if I had spent that time with Paula, not because it was her, but because it was something I had to do to prove I was still breathing."

  "You think too much."

  "Curse of being a writer."

  "Hah." Diane made another motion with the tiller and said quietly, the wind blowing her hair about, "1 know what you're talking about. Secrets. Both in my work and in my home, Lewis, sometimes I keep too many secrets and they're like a chain of locks hanging around my neck. There are a couple of investigations going on right now in town that people would love to know more about, especially your friend Paula, but I'm keeping shut. And then there's my personal life. You know, it would be great, just once, if I could bring in Kara and show her where I work, show her my friends at the station and be proud of our relationship, instead of skulking around all the time."

  "How does she feel about that?"

  "Hah." Diane took off her sunglasses for a moment, rubbed at her eyes. "She works for Digital in Massachusetts, and they're a bit more open there. Her friends at work know she's gay and it's no big deal. Sometimes Kara doesn't quite understand the politics of a small town. If I came out, Jesus, could you imagine the fuss? The fool selectmen would probably demand that I be fired and I would, and it would take years and tons of lawyer money to win a suit. No, not this year. Not worth it. Some secrets you have to keep, no matter how distasteful the process."

  Distasteful. Good word for secrets. I knew the circumstances of Tony Russo's death and I knew the identity of the headless and handless diver, yet I could not say one thing. It would cause too much trouble and publicity, and those were two things I could easily live without. We stayed silent for a few minutes as we got closer to Tyler Harbor. There were a few seagulls out on the ocean air, most of them following the fishing charter boats, looking for a free meal. As the Felch Memorial Bridge ---- which spans Tyler Harbor ---- got nearer, Diane said, “Get ready to take down the sails."

  “Aye, aye, captain.” She stretched out a bare foot and gently touched my shin and I was startled. Diane was not one for random touches. "Yes?"

  "How are you feeling, otherwise? Your incision healing all right?”

  "It's doing fine," I said, which was true. The fresh red of a couple of weeks ago was continuing to fade away to a dull pink.

  Diane nodded. "Something bad happened to you years ago. Isn't that true?"

  I thought of all the fancy dance steps I had used in the past to avoid this subject, and this time, all I said was, "Yes."

  She looked satisfied, yet troubled. "Few years back, when we first met, I was intrigued by you, Lewis. A magazine writer who happens to move into a prime piece of real estate, one formerly owned by the Department of the Interior. That made my cop bones tingle. I thought you were someone in the Witness Protection Program, or some drug dealer who was trying to lead a new life in my town. Didn't particularly like those thoughts, of someone with a nasty past moving into Tyler without me knowing about it."

  Good God. "What did you do then?"

  “Did the normal tracing, and came back with crap. I got your early life, all right, but then the only thing after you got out of college was you entering employment with the Department of Defense and then leaving some years later. Period. I was going to do some more but then the chief called me into his office and in polite terms told me to cut the shit and get back to work. I guess some people from D.C. rattled his cage, and that was that. So. I know that and I know something bad happened to you, and let me tell you, I wouldn't trade my secrets for yours for the best sailboat on this side of the Atlantic."

  I looked up ahead, at the white sands of the beaches and the tiny dots that each meant a person, a human life, enjoying his or her day in the sun. For a moment I wished I was there, lost in that great anonymous crowd, blending in and not being bothered, just content to be warm and safe. Not much of a fantasy, but there it was.

  "Have you done any more traces on me since then?" I asked.

  "Nope. Satisfied my curiosity. To a point."

  "Good. Diane, please don't do that again."

  She nodded. "You can count on that. But speaking of tracing, well, you remember our agreement?"

  "What agreement?"

  "Well, Roger Krohn has set up Wednesday night for a double date, with a friend of his from Massachusetts. Remember that? And you said you'd do it if I'd do some traces for you. It's a deal, right?"

  Again, that awful scene, of Tony Russo slumped against his car. I hadn't bothered with the local Sunday papers today because I did not want to be reminded of it, not for a second. I folded my arms and said, "No, it's not a deal."

  "Lewis! Cut it out, you promised!"

  I turned away and sighed and said, "Look, I didn't mean it that way. I'll still go out with you and pretend you're my true love so that Roger Krohn stops sniffing around
you at work, but don't need that trace anymore."

  "Hmmph." She kicked me with her bare foot. ''A deal's a deal, Lewis Cole. I don't want you thinking that I owe you anything from this Wednesday night. We made an agreement, a promise, and I take those kinds of things seriously, as you should, too. Give me those names and we'll be even, all right?"

  I didn't feel like arguing, so I said, ''All right."

  She smiled sweetly at me and said, "Now haul ass up forward and start bringing in the jib, or I'll keelhaul you, sailor."

  "Promises, promises," I muttered as I went forward, and though I felt I was being stampeded into something, it was still nice to hear her laugh.

  Later that evening I was back home, comfortably full after a dinner of barbecued steak and rice at Diane's. I had an ice I water in my hands and I was sitting on my deck, just thinking. A few minutes earlier I had gotten off the phone with Diane, having passed along the birth dates and Social Security numbers of Justin Dix, Craig Dummer and Ben Martin. Diane said she would have the trace completed in a couple of days. Always keep our promises, Diane had said, and well, I had promised to do that. Maybe Felix could do something with that information. I didn't particularly care that much at this moment. He hadn't called and I was glad. The answering machine light glowed a steady green. That also meant no phone calls from Paula Quinn, and I decided that she and I would have to talk soon. Not tomorrow or the next day, but soon.

  The breeze was soft against my sunburned skin and with the quiet winds came something else, a reminder of an earlier promise: the scent of oil, still powerful and ruling after many weeks since the Petro Star disaster. I tried to ignore the smell, tried to look at the stars and at the running lights of the ships out there on the lonely Atlantic, but the hydrocarbons would not let me go.

  I leaned back, rubbed the cold glass against my face. It felt good against the sunburn. "Promises," I said. "Secrets."

  Then I went inside and upstairs and began to pack.