Cape Cod

by William Martin

  If he bought wisely and took advantage of the fear and greed that drove any deal, he couldn’t lose. If the seashore proposal failed, he would own enormous tracts of land, purchased at bargain prices. If it succeeded, he would control commercial property along the main roads and profit from that.

  In the newspapers, officials were warning of “business interests outside of your communities who know what this development is going to mean…. They are among you, acquiring land in anticipation of the establishment of the Area. They know that there will be a large influx of people and that land values will rise…. Hold your lands within your communities; don’t let outside speculators come in and take over.”

  Much better, thought Dickerson, for an Old Corner to do the speculating, a member of a local planning board, a Cape Cod businessman whose family had owned property in the target area since… well, since Jeremiah Hilyard sold his Eastham farm to Ezekiel Bigelow in 1717.

  “What’s this, Pa?” Douglas had a baseball glove on one hand, a ball in the other.

  “A battle plan, son.” Dickerson stood over his desk. “A map of every piece of property and every property owner on the Lower Cape.”

  “What are you going to do?” Doug tossed the ball into the glove.

  “I’m looking for the weak links—people who might sell because they’re overextended or undercapitalized or just plain scared.”

  “Oh.” Smack, smack. The ball hit the glove a few more times. “I thought you said this National Seashore was a bad idea.” Smack, smack.

  “It is, but like I’ve told you, when everyone’s runnin’ away, think about jumpin’ in.”

  “Right.” Smack, smack. “And when the goin’ gets tough, the tough get goin’.”

  Dickerson was proud of his son’s curiosity. Douglas was twelve now and as bright a boy as a man could want. He liked the usual things that boys liked—baseball, bubble gum, Steve Reeves movies, his uncle Blue’s bulldozer—but he also liked real estate. Maybe he liked it because any boy was interested in what his father did. But maybe he had a future, to go with his family’s illustrious Cape Cod past.

  Dickerson’s target was John M. Nance. He knew nothing of his family’s history with the Nance family. He knew only that Nance’s father had loudly played one of his son’s aces on a Provincetown wharf two years before, and a man who wanted to sell could be schooled into thinking he had to sell.

  On a bright June day, Dickerson had lunch with Nance at the Orleans Inn, overlooking Town Cove. Dickerson ordered chowder, Nance the fried clam plate.

  For all his barrel-chested bulk, Dickerson ate carefully, in small spoonfuls, and never let a dribble sit on his beard for more than a moment. Nance covered everything with ketchup and ate with both hands.

  Nance wore a crew cut, the button-down collar, his Harvard tie, and tweed. He never became ruffled, never got mad, and carried himself with the air of a summer tourist, smug and condescending to the locals. But at heart, thought Dickerson, he was just a Cape Cod boy who ate as though he was afraid someone might snatch the plate away.

  Which gave Dickerson his approach pattern: snatch at nothing until you gain his trust… then take it all.

  So they talked about the seashore.

  A land grab, Nance called it.

  Absolutely, agreed Dickerson. Sip the chowder.

  Terrible for the economy, too.

  And don’t believe that stuff about boom times outside the park. The Feds’ll find a way to control commercial development from here to P-town. Dab your napkin at your lips after a lie like that.

  You own land north of Nauset Harbor. What will you do?

  Put down the spoon and sit back. Seem resigned. I have to. It’s the Bigelow heritage. I’d like to bail out and leave entirely, but I’ll hold on and think about buying more land, so I can influence policy, however it goes.

  Nance’s eyes lit up, as though he had found a sucker washed up on the wrack line. So you want to stay when a lot of people want to sell?

  After three centuries here, I have no choice.

  I guess not.

  He wants out. He hasn’t bought anything since the Mayflower came back and America claimed her for its own. Now America is going to claim Cape Cod, too. Let the frightened Mr. Nance believe it. Pick up the check. “It’s good to know that you’re on my side in this, John.”

  “Oh, yes.”

  “Like Ben Franklin once said, if we don’t hang together, we will surely hang separately.”

  And now take two paths. Rouse opposition to the National Seashore, but learn what you can about the government’s payment plans. Buy cheap and sell at… a small profit.

  v.

  That summer brought Mary Muldowney to the Falmouth Playhouse in a stock production of Oklahoma!, and Mary drew Rake to Falmouth, as pretty a town as there was, with white churches, fine old Victorian homes built for rich vacationers before the turn of the century, warm-water beaches at the foot of every street, an atmosphere that seemed more settled and established than the windswept Lower Cape.

  In Falmouth, the National Seashore entered the conversation only after people had talked about Ted Williams’s batting average, the doings at the Falmouth Zoo—a row of Victorians rented by fraternities who moved in lock, stock, and beer barrel on Memorial Day and stayed until September—and the star at the Falmouth Playhouse.

  “As Mae West says, “ ‘Is that a gun in your pocket or are you just glad to see me?’ ”

  Rake knew a lot of women. Most of them just wanted to talk. But Mary, when she kissed you, she pressed herself against you and made you feel young again.

  And she always brought a present. Like last summer, that funny lacquered log. Well, this summer, he had a present for her—cocktails at the home of the senator who had come within a whisker of the Democratic nomination for vice president in 1956.

  They took Route 28 from Falmouth to Hyannis Port. This was the main road along the south coast, in some places running for miles through scrub pine forests, but in others a strip of plastic and neon junk shops, just the kind of thing that the National Seashore would stop.

  Kennedy came ambling across the lawns between his father’s house and his own. It was the lawns that impressed Rake most when he visited the Gold Coast. In Brewster and beyond, the sandy soil and salt air did not make for the best fertilizer. Here they could truck in the fertilizer, truck in the loam, truck in the air if they had to. They had already trucked in the money.

  There were few Cape-made fortunes in Cotuit, Osterville, Wianno, Centerville, or Hyannis Port—not that there were many anywhere else. The men who summered here brought their money from Wall Street or oil fields or manufacturing in the heartland and settled on the Cape’s south coast, where the waters were warmed by the Gulf Stream rather than chilled by the Labrador Current, where the majesty of great white houses gazing out at the yachts replaced the drama of the Great Beach and the Atlantic.

  They had drinks on the veranda. Rake took a beer. Kennedy suggested that Mary have a daiquiri, his own favorite drink. “I only suggest it to special people.”

  As smooth as ever, thought Rake. Part of his charm was that he could say something flattering and slightly silly at the same time, and a woman would hear whatever she wanted.

  “Nice of you to ask us down here,” Rake said.

  “A lot of people are going to take credit for this National Seashore”—Kennedy sipped his drink—“but as far as I’m concerned, it was your idea first, back in ’46.”

  “The idea don’t matter a damn ’less we get somethin’ that makes people happy.”

  “You can’t always make people happy. The trick is to make them less mad.” Then he talked about the bill he planned to file in September, a joint effort with Republican Senator Saltonstall. “This one will settle a lot of stomachs.”

  The bill would allow people to retain their houses and three acres of land to sell or bequeath. The towns would be protected against tax losses. And there would be a local Advisory Commission wit
h influence in park policy. The plan was going to be made to work, one way or the other.

  “Guess you were listenin’ after all,” said Rake.

  Kennedy looked out at the Sound, sparkling and blue in the afternoon sun. “The story of this Cape is the story of America, Rake. I want my kids to be able to read it, too.”

  Afterward Mary told Rake she was more impressed than she had been the night she met Eugene O’Neill.

  So Rake suggested they go skinny-dipping.

  vi.

  A good commander kept spies in every camp. Dickerson Bigelow had learned that as an OSS functionary in 1945.

  One of his Cape Cod spies was Arnie Burr, whose family had intermarried with the Hilyards once and was about to do it again.

  Arnie had gotten himself engaged to Rake’s niece, Emily Hartwig. It was known that Rake loved Emily like the daughter he never had. She was no beauty. Her nose took care of that. And she had reached twenty-seven without a single marriage proposal. But Rake had urged her not to accept Arnie Burr.

  This surprised no one. “More selfish than a he-lobster in matin’ season” was the way one old fisherman described Arnie Burr.

  Arnie was an independent who followed the seasons. He took Pleasant Bay scallops in the winter, set trawls on the back shore in spring, and chartered from summer through the big bass runs of fall.

  “Jig, damn you, jig the line,” Arnie growled at vacationers who were paying him for the privilege of fishing. And he cursed them when they lost fish, because he said a charter captain built a reputation on how many fish he boated, nothing more. And in summer there were new customers every two weeks.

  Off-season, it was different. He couldn’t keep a trawling partner when he trawled or a shucker when he scalloped. Married scallopers usually relied on their wives to clean their catch while they went after more. Bachelors came home to barrels of cold shells, knuckle-slicer knives, and slimy little squares of scallop flesh. Or they hired women at four cents a cleaned quart.

  Emily Hartwig was one of the best shuckers in Brewster, and one winter, when Rake put off scalloping, she took on Arnie Burr’s catch.

  She might have heard about his temper and his reputation as a “soaker” who put scallops in fresh water and cornmeal to make them swell. But she must have found some good in Arnie, too, because pretty soon they were cleaning scallops together. She didn’t mind when he sneezed on the shells; he didn’t care if she left a trail of ash in the bucket. Amid scallops, sneezes, and cigarette ashes, they fell in love.

  But if love softened Arnie, Rake hardened him right up again. And he was willing to give out information to Rake’s enemies for nothing.

  “Hello there, Arnie.” Dickerson came down to the wharf in Sesuit Harbor. Where the Shivericks had built their clippers, day boaters and charter captains now held sway.

  Arnie was scrubbing fish blood from the deck.

  “Any luck?”

  “Hit a school of bluefish. Chopped ’em up real good. Sent the landlubbers home happy.”

  That was enough small talk. “Any news?”

  Arnie sprayed the hose onto the deck. “Rake had a invitation to Hyannis Port yesterday. When he came back, he told Clara that the good guys were going to win.”

  For Dickerson, this was reason enough to look Rake in the eye. He drove to Jack’s Island. He parked at his mother’s house, took off his shoes, and headed out onto the flats.

  It didn’t take him long to reach the clam digger picking along near the tide line. “Hello, young feller.”

  Rake scooped up a big quahaug with his rake and dropped it into the bucket. “Be careful, Dicker. The tide’s turnin’.”

  Dickerson pressed his feet into the mud and watched it ooze through his toes. “You mean the Feds are floodin’ us?”

  “Can’t stop the tide.”

  “You can’t stop the tide of people who want to come here. Everybody wants to see this”—he swept his arm at the land and sea around him—“but take twenty-eight thousand acres out of circulation, and that tide may swamp you, Rake. It may even swamp Jack’s Island.”

  “That’ll be the day.” Rake pressed his foot into the sand and turned up a big rock.

  “People have to live somewhere. Builders build because there’s buyers. The federal government can’t stop that, not Eisenhower, not the National Park Service, not even Kennedy of Hyannis Port.”

  Rake dug into the sand again and turned up a few squirming seaworms.

  “Of course, Kennedy hasn’t done you much good, has he?” said Dickerson.

  “Come September.”

  “Come September, what?”

  “Introducin’ a bill to make everyone happy.”

  This was what Dickerson had feared all along. At least he had come to the right place to hear about it. He looked out at the terns working the waterline. “That can’t be done, Rake Hilyard.”

  “Sure can. Come September.”

  Dickerson pumped reticent Rake for every detail Kennedy had given him. And Rake was no different from any other man. He had won a victory and he would gloat.

  When he had learned what he wanted, Dickerson gloated back. “What’ll happen when the world finds out that Cape Cod’s most famous rumrunner is giving old man Kennedy’s kid advice on this bill?”

  “No threats, Dicker.”

  “Half the country thinks that mick bastard’s fortune came from booze, and here you are, helpin’ his son to steal some of the most beautiful real estate in America. A thief to a thief.”

  “Old man Kennedy and rum-runnin’—that story’s nothin’ but chum. And it don’t draw fish.”

  “It could hurt the seashore plan and those presidential fantasies everybody talks about.” Dickerson was toying now, a dangerous thing to do with Rake Hilyard. But if an idle threat could make him quit the fight, fine. It would serve him right for the trouble he’d caused. “So long, Rake.”

  “Don’t try to use rum-runnin’ against me, you son of a bitch,” Rake’s voice came rolling across the flats, “because there’s people who think the Bigelows burned a hotel to destroy one of the most valuable books in history. I can spread that around.”

  Dickerson stopped in his footprints and turned. He knew nothing about this. And Rake just looked small and ridiculous, his pants rolled up to his knees. “You’re standin’ on the flats, Rake, but you’re off the deep end. See ya.”

  Dickerson no longer cared about the seashore fight. Kennedy had made the end inevitable. His job was to use his new information to improve his position before Kennedy introduced his bill. But he still had to keep up appearances. And he always appeared to Rake Hilyard as a son of a bitch.

  vii.

  “Back to you, David, in Washington.”

  “Thank you, Chet. President Kennedy today signed into law the Cape Cod National Seashore Bill, which puts much of the outer arm of Cape Cod under federal protection….”

  John M. Nance sat in his Boston apartment, watched the Huntley-Brinkley Report for August 8, 1961, and seethed. He had seethed many times over the land he had sold, at distressed prices, to Dickerson Bigelow. They had played poker, and Nance had lost.

  But until now, he had never known if he had been outsmarted, outguessed, or beaten by an insider who knew that the government would allow landowners to keep as much land as they did.

  Now, as Kennedy signed the bill and handed out souvenir pens, Nance saw a face he remembered among the grinning congressional leaders. He almost didn’t recognize him in necktie and ill-fitting shirt. It was his father’s old friend and his new enemy, Rake Hilyard.

  Nance had vowed that he would make Dickerson Bigelow pay. His accomplice Hilyard would pay as well. Someday.

  But first, there were other matters: the blonde he was meeting for supper, the new idea he had been discussing with a few investors—something called a shopping mall. And then there was his long-range project: developing the town of Mashpee. What money he had made from his Lower Cape lands he had invested in the old Indian town, wh
ere the federal government had had no interest, where nobody had much money, where they had nothing but some of the prettiest ponds and pine woods around.

  He was not finished yet with Cape Cod.

  CHAPTER 35

  July 16

  The Lost Log of the Mayflower

  “Nance could have people there right now.” Geoff leaned on the throttle of Rake Hilyard’s Boston Whaler and pointed toward Eastham. “I wish I borrowed Arnie Burr’s bow and arrow.”

  Taking the boat had been the right idea. And with the tide rising, they would have plenty of time to get in and get out. In fifteen minutes, they were anchored innocently among several moorings on the Eastham flats.

  Geoff filled a bucket with mortar mixture, threw the tools in after it, and they slipped into the knee-deep water like three commandos.

  George said they couldn’t be far from where the Pilgrims anchored their shallop before the First Encounter.

  “And started all the trouble,” added Jimmy.

  Geoff said, “Forget the history lesson. Let’s just get across the beach…” and up through the parking lot, across the yards, around the great sleeping bulldozer, to the back door of the Billingsgate house.

  “Nobody home,” whispered Jimmy.

  “Lights out,” said George.

  Geoff looked into the street. Nobody out front. Then he opened the screen door, which squeaked like a tire on wet pavement. All three froze, waited, heard nothing, went inside.

  Geoff scuttled through the kitchen. At the living room door he paused, listened, heard a gentle brushing sound.

  “What’s that?” asked George.

  “Roaches.”

  “Roaches… I can’t stand roaches.”

  Geoff went straight to the chimney. He fitted the chisel against the smooth mortar, raised the hammer. No thoughts about what might be in there… how it might change his life… how it already had. Just clink, clink. The mortar flew into little pebbles.

  “One more hit,” said Jimmy.

  Clink! The brick came loose. Geoff told Jimmy, “Shine the flashlight. There should be a second course of brick behind this. If there isn’t—”