Port City Black and White

by Gerry Boyle

  The computers were on the first floor, lines of them, most of them taken, a place for street people to get out of the rain. Brandon sat between a man on genealogy.com and a giggling girl on G-Chat. He googled Ocean Princess and Portland, Maine, and saw the schedules pop up.

  The coming fall. Last year. He put in the year before and waited and a port schedule came up, two years old.

  Ocean Princess had stopped in Portland twice that September, once on the way north, and a week later, on the way back south. Northbound, it had stopped in Bar Harbor for two days before sailing to St. John, docking at the Marco Polo Cruise Terminal on 15 September, 0800 hours. The ship had left that night at 2000 hours, 8 p.m.

  The newspaper was the St. John Telegram, a weird mix of local and national news, car accidents and Parliament. Brandon searched the newspaper archives for Ocean Princess, got the schedules, a story about a new terminal facility, which was then “state of the art” and expected to attract more ships and money to the city. And a fourth story, from the police news.

  Cruise Ship Crewman Killed in Prince Street Fire

  Authorities have identified the third body found in the rubble of a Prince Street fire as Alston Kelley, 31, of Kingston, Jamaica. Kelley was a crewman on the visiting cruise ship Ocean Princess and did not return to the ship after taking a day’s leave Sept. 8, said spokesman Margaret Leighton of the St. John Police Force.

  Five people were killed in the fast-moving blaze. Previously indentified were Cargill McDonald, 28, of Toronto, and Delton Luton, 40, of St. John. Two others were burned beyond recognition and remain unidentified.

  Authorities continue to investigate the cause of the fire, which destroyed the wood-frame house on Prince Street West. Sources say the home, rented by Luton, was in an area frequented by drug users. McDonald and Luton, both recently moved to Canada from Jamaica, had criminal records with convictions for drug possession and trafficking.

  Leighton said the cause of death had not been positively established for the three men because of the intensity of the blaze. Fire investigators believe the fire started in a room where McDonald and Luton were using a gas stove for drug processing, turning cocaine into its crystalline or “crack” form. Kelley, police said, was found in an adjoining room. The crewman “may have been incapacitated by drugs” and was unable to flee the blaze.

  Brandon said softly, “Looking for some blow for the cruise home.”

  The girl on G-Chat looked over at him. Brandon glanced at her and smiled. She looked away quickly and he hit print, walked down the row of cubicles to the printer, took the piece of paper, folded it, and put it in his pocket.

  He waved to the librarians on the way out, had just turned down the sidewalk when he heard someone call, “Hey, Blake.”

  Brandon turned. It was Big Liz, pushing her grocery cart, which was bulging like an overloaded pack mule. He walked over to her and she grinned, put her hand on his arm. Her fingernails were blackened with crud, and there were notes scrawled on the hand, running up her wrist, under the tattered and stained sleeve of her sodden sweatshirt.

  “Been doing some serious writing there, Liz,” Brandon said.

  Big Liz looked at her hand like it belonged to someone else. She looked back at him. “You gotta keep track,” she said.

  “Of what?” Brandon said.

  “Them. Because they’re down there.”

  “Who’s that, Liz?”

  “The undergrounders.”

  “They’re down there? Down where?”

  “Under us,” Big Liz snapped, tightening her grip on his arm. “You gotta be on your toes, Blake. They’ll grab you.”

  She shuffled her feet in their unlaced basketball shoes. Yanked on his arm, still held on.

  “So what are you writing down, Lizzie?”

  “Their secret holes, Blake. They don’t know I’m keepin’ track.”

  “Good for you, Lizzie.”

  “I can hear ’em. Most people can’t. Too bad for them. ’Cause they get hold of you, they pull you down the sewers. They get you down there, you ain’t never gettin’ out. Not once they start torturin’ you. Learned from the Iraqis. Put needles in your eyes, Blake. Stick ’em in slow.”

  Brandon started to pull away but Big Liz hung on, shuffled after him, pulling the cart, the wheels squeaking.

  “I don’t want them to get you, Blake.” She held out her arm with the writing.

  “What’s that?”

  Brandon looked at the scrawl on her wrinkled skin. Lizzie took a Sharpie from her other pocket and thrust it at him.

  “The list.”

  “You’re running out of room there,” Brandon said, smiling.

  “Want me to write it on you?” Lizzie said. She looked up at him, eyes wide, odor rising from her like steam. Brandon looked at the wizened arm, speckled and striped with scars and scrapes and bug bites. She’d scrawled streets and numbers: 770 State, 138 Bramhall, 87 Charles, up by the hospital, 223 Mellen.

  Then, 317 Granite.

  Brandon took hold of her arm, the flesh hanging loose like cloth draped on a stick. He held it closer.

  “What’s with Granite Street, Liz? That’s where the Ottos live. The baby.”

  Lizzie’s eyes narrowed as she looked at her own arm, put a finger on the address. “Yeah. Yeah. They got the baby, all right.”

  “These underground people.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  She looked up at him. He could see the grit in the corner of her eyes, flakes of dried mucus on her cheekbone. “They like babies. They like ’em cause they’re so innocent.” Her eyes widened.

  “I’ve heard it, Blake. I’ve heard ’em screamin’. The head one, he tells ’em what to do. Stick the knife in here. Hold the candle there.”

  She dug her filthy nails into his arm. “Peel the blister back,” she hissed.

  “So you’ve heard this, Lizzie?”

  “Oh, yeah. Heard it like I hear you talkin’ right now. People sayin’, ‘No, please, no.’ Little baby screamin’. Babies can’t talk, but they’re thinkin’ it. Nothin’ I can do, Blake. I try to save him, they pull me down, too.”

  Brandon felt a chill rattle his spine.

  “Hear ’em all the time, Blake. And they know I can hear. That’s why I gotta keep movin’. They know I’m onto ’em. They’re lookin’ for me. If I stop too long, they can reach up and”—she lunged at him, grabbed his arm—“get me,” she snarled.

  He stepped back. Lizzie turned to her cart, shoved and prodded the bags and blankets and empty bottles. “Stayed here too long, Elizabeth,” she muttered. “Can’t screw up. You know better than that.”

  “Lizzie,” Brandon said. “Lizzie.”

  She looked up at him like they’d never met.

  “Where’d you hear the baby? The baby crying? I mean, where at 317 Granite was it?”

  Lizzie smiled slyly. “If I told you that I’d have to kill you,” she said.

  “I won’t tell anyone.” He smiled back. “Our secret.”

  Lizzie looked up and down the block. A bus passed and splashed a puddle up, a near miss. Lizzie looked up at the passengers in the windows. She muttered, not looking at him: “The gutter, Blake. You only hear the cellar people when you’re in the gutter.”

  The Land Rover was gone. Brandon parked behind Mia’s Saab, took the cold coffees upstairs, let himself in.

  “Hey, Mia,” he called.

  He walked through the apartment, the air stale and close, and into the kitchen. He heard a rattle out on the deck. He stepped outside. She was sitting in a plastic lawn chair, Starbucks cup in her hand.

  “Hi, Brandon,” Lily said, a sad face like someone had died.

  “Oh. I thought you’d left.”

  “Mia went to the store to get something for her trip. I was blocking her in so she took my car.”

  “Oh.”

  He stood. She patted the chair beside hers.

  “Sit.”

  Brandon did. Sipped the cold coffee. Lily crossed her legs.
She was wearing yoga pants, flip-flops, a loose camisole over a sports bra. Leaning forward, she put a hand on his knee. Her expression was somber, but her eyes glittered.

  “You’re losing a good one,” Lily said.

  “I don’t think I’m losing anyone. She’s going to see her mother.”

  “Brandon.”

  “What?”

  “You’re losing her, bro. You’re making a big mistake.”

  Mind your own goddamn business, he thought. He sipped the coffee, looked over the rooftops toward the bay, a pale hazy blue. A lighter was leaving the harbor, smoke trailing from its stack.

  “We’ll work it out,” he said.

  “You have to work at it,” Lily said, taking her hand away, reaching for her coffee.

  “Yes,” Brandon said. “Sometimes you do.”

  “Before Winston I was with Geoff, G-E-O-F-F.”

  Of course, Brandon thought.

  “Geoff was a fund manager. Worked, like, eighty hours a week. Up in the middle of the night checking the Asian markets, always on his BlackBerry.”

  “Good for him.”

  “One night we’re in bed—we’re, you know . . . I mean, we’re not sleeping.” She smiled. “And the damn BlackBerry buzzes and he reaches for it. I say, ‘Geoff, what are you doing?’ ”

  “What’d he say?”

  “ ‘Market’s tanking in Tokyo,’ or something like that. Didn’t even look up. Starts texting. It was the job, twenty-four seven. We didn’t talk. Our sex life sucked.”

  Brandon smiled sympathetically. Lily said, “I’m not saying you’re like Geoff, but you’ve got to give the other person priority. Not all the time, but at least some of the time.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “A relationship is an investment, two ways. Winston and I, we work hard, but we take time to step back, remember what’s important.”

  Brandon, wondering what Lily worked hard at, said, “And what’s important is—”

  “Our relationship. When Winston is with me, he’s with me.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “You guys should go away. Just the two of you. Go to New York. Or Paris. Or maybe Tuscany. I love Tuscany. One time we rented this farmhouse outside of Volterra. It was fantastic. That’s what you need. Someplace romantic where the relationship is your raison d’être.”

  She said it with a heavy French accent.

  “Or we could go on a cruise,” Brandon said.

  Lily looked at him, mouth open. Recovered.

  “Ick,” she said.

  “What?”

  “My God, Brandon. Cruises are for old people. You see the cruise ship people here. Guidebooks and fanny packs.”

  “I don’t know. They look happy. And maybe it would be fun—put your feet up and watch the ocean go by.”

  “Like watching paint dry,” Lily said.

  “And then you go to the floor show. Magicians and karaoke.”

  “Brandon, you aren’t serious.”

  “Maybe not. But I was just looking into it. The route they go. New York, Portland, Bar Harbor, St. John.”

  “Oh, boy. All the hot spots.”

  “It’s a work thing.”

  “What did I just tell you, Brandon? Life is more than a job. It’s—”

  “But I did find out one thing. You know the woman in the restaurant. The one who thought Winston was the Jamaican guy from the cruise ship?”

  “He gets that, being big and black,” Lily said. “One time somebody thought he was some NBA basketball player, asked for his autograph. So Winston, he’s so funny, he just goes along. Signs the name on a napkin—”

  “The guy, Alston Kelley. I googled him. He worked on a cruise ship, but he died. In Canada. In a fire.”

  “Ohhh, the poor man.”

  “It was some drug thing. So you know, this Gayle guy from New York, he was into drugs, too. Maybe Winston really does resemble this Alston Kelley, and that’s why Gayle picked him out. Thought he was a drug trafficker, or whatever Kelley was.”

  Lily frowned, thinking. “Gayle didn’t say anything about drugs. He just said he wanted the money.”

  “From drugs,” Brandon said. “Makes more sense than money from a restaurant.”

  “I suppose.”

  “And the ship Kelley was on stopped in New York. Gayle was from New York, and he’s Jamaican.”

  “But this guy is dead. The one in Canada.”

  “Maybe Gayle didn’t know that. Drug people probably come and go.”

  Lily was looking away. She lifted her Starbucks cup and sipped. “So,” she said, dribbling coffee, wiping her chin with her hand, “is this part of your investigation? Of our shooting thing?”

  “It has to be, don’t you think? It would answer the question, Why does a New York drug runner pick out some random guy in Portland, Maine, to rob?”

  Lily considered it. “Because the Portland guy looks just like a drug dealer he knew?” she said.

  “Right. Could have been a rival gang. Whatever. I’ll check out that end of it. Shouldn’t be too hard to find out. I’ll call the Brooklyn detective back tomorrow.”

  “And we almost got killed for it?”

  “You know how close you came.”

  “My God, Brandon. It’s so random.”

  “Life is mostly random,” he said. “We just convince ourselves it makes sense.”

  “And it’s all because Winston maybe looks like some dead guy? It’s kind of unbelievable.”

  Lily’s gaze fell away. “So, have you talked to them yet? The New York police?”

  “No, I just found out about Kelley this morning.”

  They were quiet for a moment, Lily thinking. “I suppose it doesn’t really matter. The reason, I mean. He’s gone. We go on with our lives.”

  “Not if they send somebody to take you out,” Brandon said.

  “Oh, Brandon,” Lily said. “I think you watch too much TV.”

  Brandon looked at her. “But I don’t even have one,” he said.

  He’d been crying for almost two hours, a frantic wail broken up by gasps when he ran out of breath. It had to be a stomachache, the way he was pulling up his legs and writhing. Maybe something he ate. The pureed peas and carrots. Maybe he had gas.

  Holding him helped for a few minutes, but then he’d start to scream again, his knees yanked up against his little belly. Probably addicted to drugs, poor little thing, going through some sort of withdrawal. What was it they called them—crack babies? Except that was newborns, wasn’t it? Getting the drugs in the womb, in the mother’s blood. Unless she’d been giving him drugs . . . Wouldn’t put it past her, the weak, selfish thing she was. Probably did it to shut him up when he fussed.

  He screamed, thrashed. Yes, maybe it was stomach cramps, but burping him didn’t help, nothing coming up. Maybe some bicarbonate of soda, mix some in his bottle, see if he would take it, even a little. Was that okay for babies?

  Now he was gasping like he was hyperventilating, then seemed to relax, crying still but more like a whimper. When he was put in the bed, he seemed to relax a little, poor exhausted thing. It was a chance to go get the bicarb, while he was sort of quiet. The door slid across, and he chose that moment to let out a wail.

  They heard Mia on the stairs, coming up. Brandon thought Lily might offer to leave them alone but she didn’t. The key turned in the door and Mia came into the kitchen, put a bag on the table, looked at Brandon.

  “Hey.”

  “Just came to wish you a good trip.”

  “Thanks.”

  “I was telling Lily about the cruise ship guy.”

  He ran through it again.

  “So it was mistaken identity?” Mia said. “That’s all?”

  “Looks like it.”

  “Isn’t that just insane?” Lily said.

  “Huh,” Mia said. “So you just tell these criminals that they’ve got the wrong guy, that their guy’s dead.”

  “Hope they don’t still want revenge,” Brandon said.


  “But it wasn’t our fault,” Lily said. “They started it.”

  “When it comes to things like revenge, people aren’t always rational,” Brandon said.

  “Huh,” Mia said again. She turned away, started pulling stuff from the refrigerator, emptied milk into the sink.

  “Well, you don’t think about this. Just have some good quality time with your mum,” Lily said, sliding off the stool. She touched Brandon on the arm, came around the counter and gave Mia a peck on the cheek. “Take good care of yourself,” Lily said. “Call when you get back.”

  She grabbed her bag, swung it over her shoulder, walked down the hallway and out. After the door clicked shut, there was a moment of silence.

  Mia took stuff from the bag: a jar of Maine blueberry jam, a bottle of Maine maple syrup.

  “For your mom?” Brandon said.

  Mia didn’t look at him, didn’t reply.

  “We’re not talking?” Brandon said.

  “I told you I wanted to think,” Mia said. “I can’t think while I’m talking to you.”

  “It’s been hard lately. The job.”

  Mia took juice from the refrigerator, dumped it out.

  “Like it will ever be easy?” she said.

  “Fatima. The Sudanese girl. They found her in the harbor. Drowned.”

  “I’m sorry,” Mia said.

  “It just threw me. First Chantelle, then Fatima.”

  “You liked the Sudanese girl.”

  “I did. There was something about her. Like she was lost. I felt like I knew where she was coming from, not fitting in. Now this New York guy, the guy on the ship, dead in a fire. It’s like it’s all sort of out of control, like—”

  “Brandon,” Mia said.

  “What?”

  “I meant what I said. I need to think.”

  “Okay, but what I wanted to tell you is, I think you should stay in Minnesota for a while,” Brandon said.

  “What?”

  “Until we figure this out. Because they will be back, Mia. They won’t just let it go.”

  “I didn’t shoot that man,” Mia said.