Port City Shakedown

by Boyle, Gerry

  She wondered what her lawyer dad would think of Brandon, a part-time student, drives a beat-up truck, lives on an old boat.

  Like writing, just another of Mia’s phases.

  “Did she leave on these trips very often?” she said.

  A long pause. The boat slid on another wake, this one from nowhere, out of the darkness.

  “Nessa says Nikki was an optimist. There was always a guy she hoped would be the one. One time she went to Belgium with this sculptor, except he didn’t really sculpt anything. I remember he smoked these dark brown cigarettes. Another time she rode to Utah on the back of some guy’s motorcycle. We had a picture, them in front of these big stacks of rocks. It was a Moto Guzzi. He had a pony tail.”

  “So every—”

  “Every few months she’d take off for a week or two. I’d stay with my grandmother. I think my grandmother, she just kept hoping the guy would be the one, too.”

  “Not knowing,” she said. “That must’ve been hard on your grandmother.”

  “Still is,” Brandon said. “She started drinking hard back then, hasn’t stopped.”

  They were quiet for a minute, Brandon thinking of Nessa and her drunken rants, Mia thinking about this young woman who chased her dream to the bottom of the sea and left a little boy behind. He flicked an oar in the water, turned the dinghy so she could see the lights of the Portland skyline.

  “Pretty,” she said.

  “Yes,” he said.

  “So all of that didn’t keep you away from boats, the water?”

  “No,” Brandon said.

  He hesitated, then kept going. “It’s weird, but in a way I guess I feel closer to her here. When she was going—I still remember this—she got down on her knees, said, ‘Listen, Mister B.’ She called me that. ‘This is a dream for me, sailing away to a beautiful place. And you have to chase your dreams or they never come true.’”

  Mia watched him, waited, knew he wasn’t done.

  “It’s my way of kind of staying with her, I guess. And—”

  He paused. “The ocean doesn’t make any promises. It doesn’t owe you anything. I know that sounds weird.”

  “No,” Mia said. “It doesn’t.” She looked at him, said, “This was her boat, wasn’t it?”

  Brandon nodded, thought to himself that she had him figured. The boat rocked, as if in agreement.

  “So I want to write great novels,” Mia said. “What dream are you chasing?”

  He thought for a moment, about how to answer, why he felt that with Mia he could reveal anything. “I want to be a detective,” Brandon said.

  “Create order from the disorder?” Mia said. “Punish people who break the rules?”

  He looked at her, startled at how much she knew about him. “Yeah,” he said.

  Mia was still looking away, the spray of lights against the sky. She said, “Can I say something?”

  “Last time a girl asked me that she said I was way too spooky,” Brandon said. “She said she never really knew what I was thinking.”

  “I feel like I do know,” Mia said. “When I don’t, I want to know.”

  “You understand,” Brandon said. He flicked the oar, the boat turned. Mia leaned forward, toward him.

  “It’s the weirdest thing, Brandon. I mean, I don’t know you that well. We’ve had coffee what? Five times?”

  “Six,” Brandon said.

  “It’s like I feel like I really know you. I feel—”

  She hesitated. Reached out and covered his hand, still on the oar.

  “I feel like I’m falling in love with you. Maybe already have. And it’s not like I want to. It’s like I can’t help it. It’s just—”

  “Meant to be,” Brandon said.

  He spun the boat toward shore and started to row.

  In the vee berth in the bow, they made love tenderly, neither wanting to tip whatever delicate balance they had achieved. He was strong, muscled, and lean, but at the same time gentle, his touch like some big animal’s caress. She was perfect, he thought, one graceful curve and slope leading to another, her skin softer than anything he’d ever felt, yet her kisses determined and intense.

  They rolled over and over in the berth, at one point feeling the boat rocking gently beneath them.

  “Was that from us?” Mia said, breathless.

  Brandon knew it was a wake, probably from a passing oil barge, but he only said, “Yes.”

  And she laughed, like it was some sort of triumph, to have rocked the boat.

  When the boat was still and they were, too, they huddled under the blankets and comforter as the chill night fell. Brandon apologized that he didn’t have wine and Mia said she’d ask for more tea but that would mean getting up.

  He got up, naked, and went across the cabin to the stove and put the kettle on. When he came back, they settled into each other, like boats coming to a stop. Brandon kissed her forehead and she said, “It was meant to be, wasn’t it?”

  “Yes,” he said, still a little stunned, overwhelmed.

  “You alright?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Because this is supposed to make us happy.”

  “I know.”

  “Bring us closer,” Mia said, “but now you’re far away”

  Brandon leaned to her.

  “No. I’m not. It’s just—”

  “Just what?”

  “Just that, I don’t know, all of a sudden I’m breaking all my rules.”

  “Like don’t ever love anyone?”

  Brandon looked away, realizing he’d never recited them out loud.

  “Don’t need anyone. Don’t let yourself need anybody. Never ask for help.”

  He took a deep breath.

  “Don’t love anyone. Don’t let yourself be loved.”

  She kissed his cheek, hovered there, her breath warm and soft. “Have you broken those, too?”

  Brandon didn’t answer.

  CHAPTER 11

  Brandon pulled the truck through the gate, parked by the garages. He went in through the back door, into the kitchen, and called: “Nessa. You ready?”

  “I’m coming,” she called. He heard the click of switches as she turned off the lamps, a drunk’s frugality, why spend money on electricity when you could spend it on wine. The shuffle of her shoes on the hardwood floor.

  “You don’t have to do this,” she said, coming into the kitchen, sweater on, hair brushed. “I can just stay home.”

  “You’ve got to get out,” Brandon said. “It’s good for you.”

  He held the door for her and they went out to the truck. He held her by the arm as he helped her climb in, smelled the cologne, then the whiff of alcohol. It was the smell he had been so ashamed of as a kid, sitting beside her in the old Volvo wagon as she wove her way to the grocery store.

  Always another few bottles in the bag.

  The same Volvo wagon was still in the garage, coated with dust. The store delivered the wine now, mailed Nessa a monthly bill. It was the one she paid first.

  Nessa looked out, said again, “It’s a pretty house, don’t you think?”

  It was, a big shingled cottage on the bay, a little shabby. A reverse mortgage kept Nessa going as she drank up the equity; the bank knew it could always count on waterfront.

  He backed up and drove out of the gate and headed for the city. Through the back streets, up to the bridge, over the harbor, the marina to their right.

  “I don’t see how you can live on that boat,” Nessa said, for the thousandth time.

  “I like it there,” Brandon said.

  “Damp and cramped and dark,” Nessa said, and then they were off the bridge, driving through the city. They moved down Congress, Nessa turned toward the sidewalk, watching the people: business types, the pierced-up art-school kids, Thai, Cambodian, Somali immigrants.

  “You’d think they’d freeze in the winter,” Nessa said. “Their blood is thinner than ours, you know.”

  A Portland P.D. cruiser passed and Brandon watched
it, glancing up at the rearview mirror as it receded. Nessa, sharp-eyed and critical, noticed.

  “Is that really what you want to do? Ride around all day in a police car, sweeping up after these people?”

  “Maybe,” Brandon said. “It’d be interesting, the problems you’d have to fix, bad guys you’d arrest.”

  “Leave it to the roughnecks,” Nessa said. “Used to be the police were all Irish, big and tough and you know how they love to drink and fight, the Irish. You should be a teacher. Doesn’t pay much, but you’ve always liked history.”

  Brandon sighed inwardly, turned off at Monument Square, headed down toward the harbor. Nessa would talk about the Old Port, how it used to be a dump, then about how the harbor used to be full of fishing boats. When her husband was alive, starting out in Portland, one of his patients had been a fisherman and a foul-mouthed old cuss he was, too. Brandon turned onto one of the narrow cobblestoned streets, got ready to listen to her take on the new chi-chi restaurants.

  “Oh, my God,” Nessa said.

  He braked, turned to her. Her face was ashen, her mouth open.

  “You alright?” he said.

  “Oh God,” she said again. She jerked around in her seat, the shoulder belt stretched tight. Put her hand to her chest and twisted the other way. A heart attack, Brandon thought.

  “Stop,” Nessa gasped.

  He braked, pulled over. Leaned toward her.

  “What’s the matter?”

  Nessa twisted in her seat, peering back.

  “It was him,” she said.

  “Who?” Brandon said, looking at her, then back down the street.

  “It was Lucky,” Nessa said. “Lucky from the boat.”

  CHAPTER 12

  “Where?” Brandon said.

  “Back there,” Nessa said, straining to see. “With a woman. He was walking.”

  “Are you sure? It’s been a long time since that picture—“

  “Yes, it was him.”

  Brandon opened the truck door, said. “What was he wearing?”

  “A dark shirt, blue maybe, and light slacks. And the woman. Tall and dark hair and pretty. Fancy looking. Black slacks and high heels and a red sweater except it was on her shoulders.”

  Brandon rolled out of the truck, started back down the sidewalk at a fast walk. He pictured the guy in the old photograph: wiry and small, no taller than Nikki. Impish sort of smile.

  He broke into a trot, slowed for the first alley, a brick courtyard, a gallery on the corner. Brandon glanced into the gallery window, people there but no woman with the red sweater. He came back out onto the street, continued on, threading his way between people coming out of bars, couples arm in arm, business types with jackets slung over their shoulders.

  No sweater.

  Brandon went down the block to the corner, peered into every store-front. There was a wine bar on the second floor above a bakery and he went up the stairs two at a time, burst in. People looked up from their tables and couches. No Lucky.

  Back on the street, Brandon walked up the block on the opposite side, the truck ahead of him, Nessa still in the passenger seat. He walked by her, up the block in case they’d circled back, just making a loop.

  Nothing.

  Brandon went back to the truck, found Nessa huddled in her seat, her seat belt still on. He got in, shut the door.

  “I didn’t see them,” he said.

  Nessa stared straight ahead, a gray-haired waif.

  “It was really him, from the picture?”

  “It had to be. I mean, it was the same smile, like he was still cute, leftover from being a little boy. That’s what I remember about him.”

  They both were quiet for a moment.

  “And the woman,” Brandon said.

  “Taller than him. Looked like she had money. They both did.”

  “But he’s dead, Nessa.”

  “This means that—”

  “Nessa, don’t. Don’t do this.”

  “If he’s alive, she could be.”

  Brandon looked over, saw tears running down her pale cheeks. She bit her lip, swallowed.

  “Brandon, what if she was hurt? What if she doesn’t remember? What if she was put in jail in some godforsaken place, those filthy little countries, and they wouldn’t let her call.”

  “Nessa, it’s been seventeen years.”

  “You see it on TV.”

  “Nessa.”

  “It’s possible, Brandon. It’s possible.”

  He looked at her, her eyes shining, not just from the tears. He heard her voice filling with hope, felt it seep into him like a virus. He fought it off.

  “Nessa, she’s gone.”

  “We don’t know. We all thought this one was dead and now he’s walking around, alive as can be.”

  Nessa turned to him, her gray-streaked hair askew, moist lines traced on her.

  “In all these years, I’ve never said, ‘There he is.’ Have I?”

  Brandon looked away, up the street, across at the passing people, no red sweater, no shortish guy.

  “Then we’ll find him,” he said.

  He started the truck and pulled out, drove slowly down the street. He and Nessa scanned the sidewalks, slowed for every guy in khakis, every tall woman in heels. At the end of the block they turned, swung around to do the next street. Restaurants here, a pub, a shop that sold kites, a café that was closed. Knots of guys around the pubs, cars slowing, looking for parking.

  A guy in khakis and a dark shirt, inside the entrance to a restaurant. Brandon stopped the truck, left it running, ran inside, past the hostess, who said, “Sir? Can I help—”

  The guy was about to sit at a table with a woman, short blonde hair. Brandon walked by them, turned back. A beard. Glasses. Not Lucky.

  Back outside, a Jaguar behind the truck, gray-haired man behind the wheel, scowling. Brandon climbed behind the wheel, eased off slowly, Nessa beside him, his partner on patrol.

  “Not here,” Nessa said.

  At the end of the block they turned again. Cruised a third street, this one rougher, younger crowd, more guys in baseball caps. “They wouldn’t come here,” Nessa said. “She was too dressed up.”

  “Maybe they’d be up the hill more,” Brandon said.

  He turned, circled back, the truck motor rumbling. Nessa, normally complaining by now that she was tired, wanted to go home, was erect in her seat, eyes narrowed, vigilant. Again they did the street where she’d seen them, Brandon getting out to check another restaurant, telling the maitre d’ he was looking for friends.

  Nothing.

  Circled and did another block, this one more shops, Brandon peering through the plate-glass storefronts. No red sweater. One guy with a blue shirt and light pants, but way too big. The next block up was giving way to offices, most closed. A few people walking, but not them.

  They started again, both quiet as they scanned the streets, not noticing the old car that followed them from a distance, turning left, right, pulling over when they stopped.

  CHAPTER 13

  Nessa held the photo in one hand, tapped it with a bony finger, cigarette ash falling onto her lap.

  “Maybe I’m wrong,” she said.

  Brandon waited.

  “I mean, he was much older, but it looked like him,” she said, peering at the picture. “I remember when they were leaving. I was down there on the dock and you were giving her a hug goodbye and this one, Lucky, he came over and shook your hand.”

  “Just him?”

  “The other guys were on the boat. Coiling up ropes and things like that.”

  “What did he say?”

  “He said your mom would bring you a present. I remember thinking, Don’t say that ’cause what if she doesn’t? Nikki, we were lucky to get a postcard.”

  “He was the nice one?”

  “The talker. Called me Mrs. Blake.”

  Brandon watched her, her eyes on the photo, letting out a sudden sigh of weariness. “You should sleep,” he said.
>
  “Yes. This has been quite a day.” She said it like it was a good thing, the night after a wedding, a graduation.

  “I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”

  “We’ll look some more?”

  “Sure,” Brandon said. “But you know, Nessa—”

  “What?”

  “People resemble each other.”

  “I know that.”

  “It was from the truck. You didn’t get a good—”

  “But I did.”

  “Still, Nessa—“

  “Four faces I’ve memorized, Brandon. Your mother and these three.”

  She looked again at the picture, then stubbed her cigarette out on the saucer on the table, lifted herself from the chair.

  “You go, dear. I’m tired.”

  She offered her cheek and he kissed it, and she turned, started for the bedroom. Brandon paused, watched her as she tottered toward the door. He said, “Nessa.”

  “What?”

  Brandon was about to say that this wasn’t one of her soap operas where somebody comes back after twenty years with amnesia. But instead he walked to her, took the photo from her hand, and studied it. Lucky’s chipmunk cheeks. The way his eyes narrowed when he smiled. The turned-up nose, the leprechaun look.

  “I’ll need this picture,” Brandon said. “And the clippings.”

  Nessa hesitated, then said, “The closet in the living room. On the top shelf, in my metal box. I put them where I couldn’t get to them.”

  She turned, took an unsteady step, then turned back.

  “Brandon.”

  “Yeah?”

  “You know she loved you. In her own way she loved you very much.”

  Brandon pushed things aside. A cardboard carton of Christmas decorations. A vase with a block of foam in it. The metal box was back there and he took it down, noted that the top was wiped clean of dust. Nessa put it where it wasn’t easily reached, but that didn’t stop her.

  He put the box down on the coffee table, opened it. There were Social Security papers, a registration for a car his grandfather had sold twenty years before, a folded life insurance policy. Brandon opened it; it paid $10,000, enough for the burial. Tucked underneath it all was a manila folder. Printed on the tab were the words, “Nikki’s things.”