Lifeguard

by James Patterson

  Growing up, people said Brockton’s a quarter black, a quarter Italian, a quarter Irish, a quarter Swedish and Polish, and another “quarter” no one wanted to mess with. Hardscrabble neighborhoods of run-down row houses, churches, the ruins of closed-up factories.

  And the Bush was the toughest. We had gangs. We got into fights every day. You didn’t even call it a fight unless someone broke a bone. Half the kids I knew ended up in reform schools or juvie detention programs. The good ones took a few courses at the junior college or commuted to Northeastern for a year before they went into their father’s restaurant or went to work for the city. Cops and firefighters, that’s what Brockton seems to breed. Along with fighters.

  Oh yeah, and crooks.

  It wasn’t like they were bad people. They paid for their homes. They got married and took the family out for birthdays and Communions like everyone else. They owned bars and joined the Rotary. They had barbecues on Sundays and screamed bloody hell for the Sox and the Pats. They just ran some bets at the same time. Or fenced a few stolen cars. Or cracked open some poor sucker’s head now and then.

  My father was that kind of guy. Spent more time up in the Souz in Shirley than he did around our dinner table. Every Sunday we’d throw on a tie and pile into the Dodge and make the trip up to see him in his orange prison suit. I’ve known a hundred guys like that. Still do.

  Which brings me to Mickey, Bobby, Barney, and Dee.

  I’d known them as long as I can remember. We lived within about four blocks of one another. Between Leyden and Edson and Snell. We knew everything about one another. Mickey was my cousin, my uncle Charlie’s son. He was built like a wire hanger with curly red hair, but as tough a sonuvabitch as ever came out of Brockton. He was older than me by six weeks but made it seem as if it were six years. Got me into trouble more times than I can count—and got me out of it a whole lot more. Bobby was Mickey’s cousin, but not mine. He’d been like a big brother to me, ever since my own big brother died—in a shoot-out. Dee was Bobby’s wife, and they’d been together since before anybody could remember. Barney was about the funniest human being I had ever met; he’d also been my protector all through high school.

  Every year we’d spend the summer working the Vineyard: tending bar, waiting tables, doing a “job” now and then to pay the bills. Winters, we came down here. We parked cars at the clubs, crewed tourist boats, bellhopped, joined catering teams.

  Maybe someone who lived a conventional life would say we were a bad lot. But he’d be wrong. You can’t choose your family, people always say, but you can choose the people you love. And they were more of a family to me than my own. Proved it a hundred times.

  There are two types of people who come from Brockton. The ones who try to make it by putting away pennies every week. What the government doesn’t take, the church will.

  And the ones who keep on waiting, watching, keeping their eyes peeled for that one big score.

  Once in a while they actually came around. The one you couldn’t pass up. The one that could get you out of the life.

  And that’s where I was headed when I left Tess’s suite at the Brazilian Court.

  My cousin Mickey had found it.

  The perfect score.

  Chapter 5

  AS SOON AS Ned left, Tess threw herself back on the bed with an exhalation of joy and disbelief. “You must be crazy, Tess! You are crazy, Tess.”

  Crazy, to be opening herself to someone like Ned, especially with everything else going on in her life.

  But something about Ned wouldn’t let her stop. Maybe his eyes, his charm, his boyish good looks. His innocence. The way he had just come up to her on the beach like that, like she was a damsel in distress. It had been a long time since anyone had treated her that way. Wanted. And she liked it. What woman didn’t? If only he knew.

  She was still cozied up on the sheets, reliving every detail of the delicious afternoon, when she heard the voice.

  “Next.” He stood there—leaning, smirking—against the bedroom door.

  Tess almost jumped out of her skin. She never even heard the key open the door to the suite.

  “You scared me,” she said, then covered herself up.

  “Poor Tess.” He shook his head and tossed the room key in an ashtray on the desk. “I can see the lunches at Boulud and Ta-boó have started to bore you. You’ve taken to going around to the high schools, picking up guys after SAT practice.”

  “You were watching?” Tess shot up. That would be just like the bastard. Thinking he could do that. “It just happened,” she said, backing off, a little ashamed. And a lot ashamed that she had to justify herself. “He thinks I’m something. Not like you . . .”

  “Just happened.” He stepped into the bedroom and took off his Brioni sport jacket. “Just happened, like, you met on the beach. And then you went back a second time. And you both just happened to meet at lunch at Boulud. A lifeguard. How very romantic, Tess.”

  She sat up, angry. “You were following me? Go fuck yourself.”

  “I thought you knew,” he said, ignoring her response. “I’m the jealous type.” He started to remove his polo shirt. Tess’s skin broke out in goose bumps. She was sure he could sense her alarm as he began to unbuckle his pants.

  “And about fucking myself”—he stepped out of his slacks, smiling—“sorry, Tess, not a chance. Why do you think I buy you all that expensive jewelry?”

  “Look,” Tess said, wrapping herself into the sheet. “Let’s not today. Let’s just talk. . . .”

  “We can talk,” he said with a shrug, folding his shirt neatly on the edge of the bed, slipping off his shorts. “That’s okay with me. Let’s talk about how I treat you like some kind of society princess, how I bought the rings on your fingers, bracelets on your wrist, that diamond lariat around your neck. Hell, I know the girls at Tiffany’s by their first names—Carla, Janet, Katy.”

  “Look . . .” Tess stared at him, nervously. “It just happened. He’s a good guy.”

  “I’m sure he is.” He smiled. “It’s you I can’t figure out. The jewelry and the Mercedes. Then you’re like some horny little cotillion bitch, doing it in the parking lot with the guy who parks the cars.”

  She was starting to get scared. She knew what he was like when he got this way. He moved over to the edge of the bed and sat down. His erection almost made her sick. She pulled away, but he grabbed and squeezed her arm. Then he sort of cradled her diamond lariat. For a second she thought he was going to rip it off her neck. “My turn, cupcake. . . .”

  He yanked away the sheet and threw her down on the bed. Then he grabbed her by the ankles and spread her wide. He rolled her back and thrust himself inside. She didn’t fight him. She couldn’t. Feeling him inside her made her gag. He thought he owned her, and maybe he did. He moved hard against her, the way he always did, something crude and foreign inside her. All she felt was shame. “I’m sorry, Ned,” she whispered to herself. She watched him grunt and sweat like some disgusting animal.

  He made her do everything he liked—all the things she hated. When he was finished, Tess lay there, feeling so dirty, shivering, as if the room had grown cold. She wanted to cry. She had to end this. Now.

  “I need to talk to you,” Tess said. He was up and looping his belt through his fancy Italian golf pants.

  “Sorry, darling, no time for cuddle talk now. I have to get back.”

  “Then I’ll see you later? At the benefit?”

  “Well, that depends.” He smoothed his hair in the mirror.

  “On what?” She didn’t understand.

  He smiled, almost pathetically. “Things have gotten very cozy, haven’t they, Tess? It must feel just like home, right, since you seem to make a habit of shitting where you sleep. You’re very pretty, my love, but you know what I think? The jewelry and the fancy car . . . I’m beginning to think they’ve made you feel like you really belong.” He smiled one more time. “Hope that was as good for you as it was for me.”

  He
turned, tossing the room key in the palm of his hand. “And by the way, you know you really ought to lock the door. You can never tell who might pop in for a quickie.”

  Chapter 6

  IT’S OVER! she screamed to herself.

  Tess kicked at the covers in rage. She felt ashamed, angry, weak. This wasn’t going to happen anymore.

  Some stuff that must’ve fallen out of his pocket jangled on the sheets. Loose change, a golf tee. Tess hurled them with all her might against the wall. It wasn’t worth it anymore. Not for anything.

  She threw on a robe and ran herself a bath, anything to remove the touch of him. That was the last time she would ever feel his hands on her. It would mean giving this up, but he was more than she could take. Like Ned said, they could go anywhere. Go walkabout. He didn’t know just how prophetic he was. A fresh start. Yeah, she’d earned that.

  Tess went into the bedroom closet and laid out a long backless Dolce & Gabbana evening gown. She picked a pair of brown Manolo Blahniks. She would look gorgeous tonight. Give him something to miss for the rest of his life.

  Tess knotted up her hair and sank naked into the large tub. The scent of the lavender bath oil made her feel good, clean. She lay back and rested her head on the smooth porcelain rim. The water lapped up over her shoulders. She shut her eyes.

  Ned’s face and his laugh crept into her mind. Whatever shame she felt, it wasn’t enough to erase what had been a very good day. Ned Kelly. Like the outlaw. She smiled again. More like the pussycat. It was about time she had a go with someone who treated her well—make that great. He actually looked up to her.

  She heard the bathroom fan go on. For a second Tess just lay back with her eyes closed. Then she heard humming.

  Her eyes bolted open. Someone huge was standing over her. Tess’s heart leaped into her throat. “What’re you doing here?”

  He had a sullen, cold look in his eye, dark hair tied in a ponytail. She thought she’d seen him somewhere before.

  “A shame,” he said with a shrug.

  Suddenly he had Tess by the throat with his thick hands. He forced her head underwater. What’re you doing?

  Tess held her breath as long as possible, but as she opened her mouth, water rushed into her lungs, making her cough and gag, letting more water in. She was thrashing and kicking against the porcelain tub. She tried to force herself up, but Ponytail had her by the shoulders and head. He was incredibly strong, probably outweighed her by a hundred pounds.

  Panic took hold, more water pouring into her lungs. She was clawing for the man’s face, trying to scratch him, anything. Through the soapy water she could see his thick arms holding her down. Too much time going by. She stopped kicking. Stopped flailing. She wasn’t coughing anymore. This can’t be happening, a voice said inside her.

  Then another voice, afraid—far more accepting than Tess ever imagined. Yes, yes, it can. This is what it’s like to die.

  Chapter 7

  “HEY, OUTLAW!” Bobby exclaimed as I stepped into the kitchen of the run-down, canary yellow house in a seedy area just off 95 in Lake Worth.

  “Neddie.” Dee got up and came over and gave me a kiss on the cheek. A dream in jeans and long honey blond hair, every time Dee wrapped her arms around me, I flashed to how I’d had a crush on her since I was fifteen. Everyone in the neighborhood did. But she fell for Bobby and his Bon Jovi looks in the ninth grade.

  “Where you been?” My cousin Mickey looked up. He was wearing a black T-shirt that read, YOU AIN’T REALLY BAD, TILL YOU BEEN BROCKTON BAD.

  “Where do you think he’s been?” Barney rolled back in his chair and grinned under the kind of black-framed glasses Elvis Costello wears. “Look at the kid’s face. Biggest day of his life, and he’s out romancing the ladies.”

  “Please,” Dee scowled at him reprovingly. Then she shrugged with an inquisitive glint. “So?”

  “So . . .” I looked around the table. “She showed.”

  A little cheer went up. “Thank God,” said Bobby. “I was wondering how we were going to pull this off with Neddie-boy having a panic attack every five minutes. Here, you deserve this. . . .” He slid me a beer.

  “Judging by the time, and that shit-eating grin on your face,” Mickey said, looking at his watch, “I’d say it was the best lunch of your life.”

  “You wouldn’t even believe me.” I shook my head.

  “Hey, we’ve got all the time in the world,” Mickey said, the sarcasm running thick. “What the hell else we have going on here today? Oh, yeah, just that little matter of the five million dollars.”

  “Relax,” Barney said, winking at me, “he’s just pissed ’cause the only thing that’ll lay down with him just got euthanized by the ASPCA.”

  Some laughter trickled around the table. Mickey picked up a black canvas bag. He removed five legal-type manila envelopes. “So, what’s her name?”

  “Tess,” I said.

  “Tess.” Mickey pursed his lips, then curled them into a little smile. “You think this Tess will still love you if you come back with a million bucks?”

  Everyone pulled up to the table. Tonight, things were going to change for us. For all of us. It was exhilarating. But it was business, too.

  Mickey handed out the envelopes.

  Chapter 8

  IT WAS MICKEY’S PLAN, down to the last detail. Only he knew it. And how it all fit together.

  There was this fabulous house on South Ocean Boulevard. On Billionaire’s Row in Palm Beach. It even had a name. Casa Del Océano.

  Ocean House.

  And in it, 50 to 60 million dollars’ worth of world-class art. A Picasso. A Cézanne. A Jackson Pollock. Probably other valuable stuff, too. But Mickey was clear: only these three were to be taken.

  There was a mastermind behind the job. Went by the name of Dr. Gachet. Mickey wouldn’t tell us who it was. The whipped cream and cherry on top was we didn’t even have to fence the stuff. Just a textbook B and E. Our cut was 10 percent in cash. Five million. The next day. Just like the old days, split five ways. I was risking everything on this. A clean record. The life I’d been leading, whatever that was.

  “Bobby, Barney, and me, we’ll be the ones going in,” Mickey explained. “Dee’s outside on the walkie-talkie. Ned, I’ve saved the really cushy job for you.”

  All I had to do was zip around Palm Beach and trigger the alarms in several expensive homes. All the owners would be at some posh charity ball at the Breakers. There were pictures of the houses and a sheet with the addresses. The local police force was small, and with alarms going off all over town, they’d be like the Keystone Kops going in fifteen different directions. Mickey knew how to get into the target house and disable the alarm. There might be a housekeeper or two to worry about, but that was it. The hardest part would be not dropping the paintings when we took them off the walls.

  “You’re sure?” I flipped through the house photos and turned to Mickey. “You know I’ll go in with you.”

  “You don’t have anything to prove,” he replied, shaking his head. “You’ve never been arrested since you were a kid. Besides, for the rest of us, what’s a little conviction for grand robbery and interstate traffic of stolen goods gonna matter? If you’re caught, whadda they get you for—petty vandalism?”

  “If you’re caught, don’t even come back here.” Barney laughed, then downed a swig of beer. “We’ll hold back half your stake.”

  “We all voted,” Dee said. “It’s not up for discussion. We want to keep you safe and sound. For your little Tess,” she giggled.

  I looked at the addresses. El Bravo, Clarke, Wells Road. Some of the nicest streets in Palm Beach. The “core people” lived there—the Old Guard.

  “We meet back here at half past nine,” Mickey said. “We should have the money in our accounts tomorrow. Any questions?”

  Mickey looked around the table. The people I’d known all my life, my best friends. He tilted his beer. “This one’s it. After this, we’re done. Dee, you and Bobby can bu
y that restaurant you’re always talking about. Barney’s got a car dealership in Natick with his name on it. Neddie, you can go write the Great American Novel or buy a hockey team, whatever. I always told you I’d get you this one chance, and here it is. Five million. I’m happy we’re all here to share it. So . . . hands on the table. . . . This is what we’ve been working for since we were thirteen years old.” He looked from face to face. “Last chance to bow out now. Guys . . . Neddie, are we in?”

  My stomach was churning. This was bigger than anything I’d ever done before. Truth was, I was actually happy living a regular life down there. But would something like this ever come my way again? Life had taken a few things from me up North. It seemed this was my way of grabbing back a piece.

  “In,” said Bobby, Barney, Dee.

  I took a breath. Five million. I knew I was crossing the line. But I wanted this. Like Tess said, maybe my luck was changing. I was starting to dream again, and a million dollars buys a lot of dreams.

  I put my hand on top of the pile.

  “In,” I said.

  Chapter 9

  IT DOESN’T RAIN in Palm Beach, it Perriers. Some asshole told me that line once, but there was an element of truth to it. This was definitely the place for the perfect score.

  An hour and a half after the meeting in Lake Worth, I parked the Bonneville down the block from an impressive stucco-and-glass contemporary behind a tall hedge on Wells Road. I was dressed in a baseball cap and jeans, and a dark T-shirt that blended into the dusky light.

  Reidenouer, the mailbox read. I was wondering if this was the same Reidenouer who’d been all over the news for running a Florida health-care company into the ground. If so, it hurt a little less.

  A Mercedes SUV was parked in the circular tiled driveway. I crept around the driveway and lifted the latch on a metal gate that led to the back. I was praying that no one was in the house and that the alarm would be set. The interior was dark, except for a single dim light that seemed to be coming from deep inside. Kitchen, maybe. The Reidenouers were supposed to be at the Breakers. Everything seemed perfect. Except maybe the ten thousand butterflies fluttering in my stomach.