by Joss Cordero
“It’s a good deal,” said the other.
“So how much by the month?”
“The best-kept secret is to sign on for a year. Then it’s only five thousand dollars.”
“It’s an incredible bargain,” his friend agreed.
“It’s the economy.”
Zach didn’t want to think about the economy and how hard it would be to get another job in a funeral home. He waved a hand in the direction of the longest pier. “You ever get really big boats?”
“From time to time.”
“What’s the biggest you get?”
“There’s a fifty-meter charter moors here sometimes. Lady Blue. You got three-hundred thou a week to spare?”
Zach replied with a laugh. He didn’t have what was called a contagious laugh. From his readings, he suspected it was more of the hollow variety.
“Ever get private yachts that big?” he asked.
“You just missed one,” said the shorter guy. He glanced toward the harbormaster, who was trying to sell dock space, and lowered his voice. “King Rat had a security problem here.”
“What happened?”
“A girl got attacked. She almost died.”
At this mention of his crime, Zach remained completely calm. It had no effect on him.
“They don’t want bad publicity,” the guy confided.
Zach asked, “Did she go with the boat when they left?”
“No. They had to get another first mate.”
“She was the first mate?”
He was answered with a nod. “Pretty good, huh? Her first job out of the Coast Guard.”
“I bet she wishes she’d reenlisted,” said the taller of the two.
So she wasn’t headed for Fort Lauderdale, thought Zach. But he would find her. He always did.
He said, “My brother’s in the Coast Guard. Where was she stationed?”
“I heard Cape Charles.”
“That’s where my brother is,” exclaimed Zach. “What’s her name?”
“Tara.”
“I’ll ask my brother if he knew her. What’s her last name?”
They looked at each other, but neither seemed to know.
The jerk with the guitar was singing, “My love for you will still be strong, After the boys of summer have gone . . .”
When Zach got home to his trailer he turned on his laptop, bought secondhand from a pair of tweakers, and looked up Cape Charles. It was in Virginia.
Then he phoned the Coast Guard station there.
The clerk who answered sounded about fifteen years old.
“Sorry to bother you, sir,” said Zach, “but I came across something that I think belongs to one of your people. A sweater with stripes on the shoulder. It washed up on the beach, so it might’ve been lost awhile ago, but it’s in perfect condition, and I’d like to return it to the owner. There’s a name inside. Tara. Do you have a Tara there?”
“What’s her last name?”
“It just says Tara,” said Zach.
“I can’t take a message if I don’t know who it’s for.”
“I don’t want to leave a message. I just want to get her sweater to her. Like I said, it could’ve been in the water for a while. She might not even be there anymore.”
“Do you know any Tara here?” the kid asked someone, and after a moment got back on the phone. “There was Tara Stevens, but she left.”
“Do you have an address for her?”
“We’re not allowed to give out that kind of information,” said the kid, deepening his voice as if suddenly remembering to sound official.
“If I drop it off, you can get it to her, right?”
“I’ll see what I can do.”
“Then I’ll drop it off,” answered Zach, and hung up.
He stared at the screen. He wished he could’ve discovered his angel’s name some other way without returning to Seafarers Landing, because now he had two women preying on his mind. Tara Stevens and . . .
He took her card out of his pocket. Courtney Borkowski.
PART TWO
The Courteous Killer
After driving through some dodgy neighborhoods, Tara felt she was entering the pages of a children’s book of perfect little old stucco houses framed in flowers. Each house was unique, if only the color, the curves of a roof, the pillars of a porch. Even the front gardens were filled with individuality.
Sports bras, white or skin tone, six. That was life in the Coast Guard, everything spelled out. It was one of the things she’d liked most about it. After bouncing around foster homes, she’d figured regimentation would suit her. And it had, for eight years. But now that she never wanted to see a boat again, she realized how little she knew about anything else.
The Honda’s navigation screen indicated Matthew’s house ahead on the right—a two-story pink-and-turquoise cottage set back behind palm trees. Parked outside was a matching van, which she assumed he used in his antiques business.
As she stepped from her car, the cottage door pulled open and he was strolling toward her with the easy grace he’d already perfected in high school. All the girls used to want to dance with him; no other boy could dance so well. He was a work of art, and he’d done it all himself, his solution to the conflict between what he was supposed to be and what he was.
His sun-streaked hair was complemented by a Hawaiian shirt of muted browns and beige in a pattern of old trunk travel labels that said vintage, which was what he dealt in. Everything he wore was chosen with a flare she would never have. The soft rayon shirt and pants followed the lines of his body as if he’d been dressed by the Michelangelo of tropic wear.
“That scarf is simply dreadful.” His words were medicine, and she knew she’d made the right choice coming here to him and not hiding out in some five-star hotel.
She drew one finger across her neck as Smoker had done. “You wouldn’t want to see what I look like underneath.”
“Let’s have our hug.”
“Careful, I’m like a patchwork quilt.”
“There’s always a market for quality folk quilts,” he said in the languid tones that had enchanted her in high school, teleporting her from Muncie, Indiana, to an imaginary land of sophistication.
He took her in his arms, and her body responded to him as it had since they were teens, the same confusion of delirious signals leading only to friendship. He drew back, untied her scarf, and delicately removed it. “Looks like you’ve had a head transplant. It won’t fall off on the carpet, will it?”
“I’ll try not to sneeze.”
They carried her bags inside, and he flung her scarf across the piano lid. Feeling naked, she reached out to retrieve it, but he pulled it away. “Flowers just aren’t you.”
A life-size antique Santa stood in an antique sleigh. Around Santa sat a troop of elves making toys. An elf sat at a child’s desk as if answering letters to the North Pole.
“Are they taking orders for next year?” she asked.
He nodded toward Santa. “Put her down for a new scarf.”
“Where did you get such a beautiful Santa?”
“I shot him when he was flying over the house, and had him tastefully stuffed.”
“Where are the reindeer?”
“We already ate them.”
Along one wall were floor-to-ceiling shelves filled with translucent bowls, vases, lamps, and figurines, the colored glass glowing in the light of hidden bulbs.
“Is everything for sale?”
“Including me. What’s your best offer?”
He walked over to one of three vintage bars, complete with vintage shakers and tumblers, and began mixing drinks. “You had your throat cut. What else is new?”
“You know I left the Coast Guard.”
“I should think so.”
; “It didn’t happen to me in the line of duty. I was working on a private yacht.”
“I adore the sexy new voice. I gather the gentleman who’s responsible for it is still at large.”
“That’s something we have to discuss. I might be putting you in danger. Maybe I shouldn’t be here.”
He reached beneath the bar and presented her with a Colt .380. “I carry irreplaceable items through iffy neighborhoods. As you may’ve noticed, Flamingo Park is an oasis in the midst of urban rot.”
She pulled back the Colt’s slide and emptied the chamber. “Why hollow points?”
“When someone’s coming at you, darling, you want to change the situation.” He placed the pistol back beneath the bar. “This is where it’ll be as long as you’re here.”
“Is Donny around?”
“Donny’s long gone.”
“As in dead?”
“Heavens, no. Just gone with the wind.”
“I hope you don’t mind if I say I’m relieved. I’m always nervous around liars.”
“Yes, Donny tended to exaggerate. And yes, he made off with a certain amount of my money.”
“Where did he make off to?”
“I don’t know, nor do I want to . . .” He turned, and she followed his gaze.
Faith was making a gracious entrance down the stairs, wearing a flowing caftan, her hair perfectly coiffed. She was still a stunning woman, but her eyes were as vacant as a doll’s.
“Mother, you remember Tara. She practically lived with us in high school.”
Mother turned to Tara courteously, but without any sign of recognition. “Do you like rutabaga?”
“Very much,” Tara stammered, staring at the bland-faced ghost of the glamorous woman who’d been so kind to her in her teenage years.
There was no follow-up. That seemed to have depleted Faith’s interest. She glided silently by, and took her seat on a circular velvet couch next to the sleigh. Glancing up at Santa she asked, “Do you like rutabaga?”
Tara thought that of all the places for Faith’s mind to have been frozen in, a root vegetable seemed especially grotesque, considering her former gentility.
“I’m going to show Tara her room,” Matthew told his mother. Whether or not Faith heard or understood him, he clearly didn’t want to treat her as if she couldn’t, or as if she were any less than the charming woman she used to be.
Following him upstairs with the drinks, Tara asked, “What happened to her?”
“Santa gave her a stroke for Christmas, and life appears to have boiled down to rutabagas.”
He pushed open a door. “You’ll be sharing your room with some exquisite things, but don’t get attached to any of them because, like everything else, they’re for sale.”
The furniture was honey colored and intricately carved—a rococo bed, chests of drawers, commodes of various heights, and a vanity with three tall mirrors swooping down around a low table sparkling with jewel-like atomizers. “I’ll feel like the heroine of a black-and-white movie.”
“So appropriate for your new voice. Wasn’t there a film noir star who talked like that? Or am I thinking of Miles Davis?” He set down the bags and took his drink from her.
Outside the multipaned windows, the sun was setting, the sky dark red above the palms. “The color of a slit throat,” he observed. “Now tell me about the gentleman who attacked you.”
“I keep obsessing about him, the way I used to obsess over boyfriends who broke off with me.”
“When somebody breaks off with me, I just buy some outrageously expensive antique. Depending on the depth of my obsession, it can get very expensive.”
“But you can always sell it.”
“I recently bought a nineteenth-century epergne with an entire wedding procession of the gods embossed on it. I’ll have to sell it to a Saudi prince.”
“What’s an epergne?”
“Such innocence. It’s a centerpiece with branches to be filled with fruit, flowers, and romping boys. But what about your obsession? How did you two meet?”
“I was alone at night on the boat . . . I guess I should mention I sleep without clothes on. He jumped on top of me.
“One can hardly blame him.”
“I keep trying to understand the expression on his face.” She saw it in her mind again and repressed a shudder. “It wasn’t exactly a maniacal smile. I told the investigator it was loving, but that doesn’t capture it either. There was a crazed sweetness about him . . . as if he thought he was helping me at the same time he was slitting my throat.”
“I’ve encountered sweet smiles and maniacal smiles, and I’ve been naked for many of them.”
“What a rich life you lead.”
“Is your obsession good-looking?”
“If you like the murderous type.”
“You met Donny.”
“Donny’s the reason I hesitated to get in touch with you. I thought about you every day since we arrived in Florida, but whenever I was about to call, the idea of Donny put me off.”
“Dear Donny.” A wistful look came to Matthew’s eyes. “His mistake was going into business for himself. With my antiques. Things kept vanishing, and the bitter pill was I knew he was practically giving them away. I was quite willing to support him, but that wasn’t what he wanted. He wanted to support himself. He thought what I did was easy and that he could do it just as well.”
“Do you miss him?”
“There are hundreds of Donnys out there. Donnys aren’t hard to find. They’re just hard to get rid of.”
She took a seat at the movie star vanity, and was confronted by her neck from three different angles.
“They sewed your head on very neatly. Now let me get you a more deserving scarf.”
He left the room, and she examined the antique necklaces hanging on the vanity. The prettiest was a large black oval pendant with tiny hinges. She opened it up and found a photo of Matthew’s father. It was a mourning locket, she realized.
She quickly closed it and stared at herself in the mirror. The oval frame around the mirror echoed that of the mourning locket. I’ve got to stop mourning for myself. Trying to change her expression, she spent several minutes practicing a big smile.
Matthew came up behind her. “What? Did you find the vibrator?”
“I was practicing for you, so I won’t be the only ugly thing among your beautiful objects.”
“Fear and rage are honest expressions. The expression that irritated me was the sulky one Donny used to wear, as if he was always posing for a Calvin Klein ad. He used to lounge around the house in forty-dollar underpants. What did he have to be sulky about?”
“Was Faith here when he was lounging around?”
“Mother was not a big Donny fan.”
He handed her a thick satin scarf that felt cool against her hot neck. “Mother’s incorrigibly loyal to Chanel. Would you believe she still has her original quilted chain bags? If you ever require a vintage quilted chain bag . . .”
He stooped to carefully rearrange the folds of the scarf. “The question is—why did Mr. Wrong choose you? Of course I know the answer. You were the most ravishing basketball player our school ever had.”
“You think he went after me because I’m tall?”
“I’ve cruised all night looking for a certain size and shape, a face, an expression, whatever will trigger that old black magic. I rarely find it, but when I do, I’ll risk everything. I think he caught one sight of you, and that was it.”
“Why do I feel he’s still after me?”
“You can put him behind bars.”
“I’d like to put him away for the rest of his life. Not that he will get life, unless he kills someone, and if the someone is me I won’t be testifying.”
“You’re safe chez moi, my sweet.”
“He left
a clue. A string of Christmas lights.”
“Just another of Santa’s little helpers.” Matthew downed the last of his drink. “Shall we get a refill?”
They went back to the living room where Santa stood in his sleigh, Faith sitting beside him like Mrs. Claus.
“To think,” said Matthew, “you could’ve been here with us and the elves on Christmas Eve, making toys and writing letters instead of getting your throat slit.” He mixed fresh drinks. “Mother, would you like to join us outside?”
The Christmas lights in the back garden were hidden in tropical foliage around the pool. Tara walked toward the trees that screened the walls enclosing the property, and saw orchids of every shape and color springing as if by magic from the bark.
A fan whose blades looked like banana leaves slowly revolved on the patio ceiling. As Tara took her seat, little lizards scrambled off into the darkness. “He was wearing snake bracelets,” she remarked. “One on each arm.”
“I feel an inspiration coming on.” Matthew went inside and left her with Faith, who sat in her high-backed rattan chair like a mannequin in a store window. The balmy air was filled with flowery scents on which the mannequin seemed to be drifting.
He returned with two small coiled bracelets, each snake ending in a pair of overlapping heads. “Countermagic. Your snakes against his.”
He lit a candle on the table to show her the colors. The snakes’ backs were deep rose with a black-and-white pinstripe at the edges. The undersides were a warm yellow like the yolk of an egg. She put them on with care over her scratched hands and wrists.
“Designed by Lea Stein, a Frenchwoman who came out of the concentration camps. She certainly knew about evil. So, her snakes against his. You believe in magic, I hope.”
“I believe in omens.” And she told him how she’d dropped Mickey Zaratzian’s handheld VHF overboard the first day of the cruise.
“Tell me about this yacht you were on.”
“A fifty-meter trideck. It has to be that big because he takes his ’fifty-nine Cadillac along. You know the model with the fins? Everything with Zaratzian is over the top, but he’s wonderful to work for.”
