Black Swan

by Chris Knopf

  "The gal's psycho mumbo-jumbo. It's my test."

  Chris Knopf 175

  "So let's make a deal. You stop pestering me and I'll stop screwing up your bell curve."

  If the HR lady was one of those patsies who said they were afraid of me, she didn't act like it. She smirked instead, a soft glow welling up from those weary eyes.

  "You don't always have to say what's on your mind," she said.

  Decades later, Anika said to me, "You don't always have to say what's on your mind."

  "Yes I do. All I have is what's on my mind. If you don't want to hear it, don't talk to me," repeating what I'd told the HR lady.

  "You're a lot better at stuff like finding my brother than I am." she said. "I know because I've studied you."

  "Did he take a laptop with him?"

  She took a few beats to answer.

  "Yes."

  "Has he emailed you?"

  She waited even longer this time.

  "Yes. And no, he didn't tell me where he is. Just that he's safe."

  "From what?" I asked.

  "I don't know. The elements. Wild beasts. Muggers."

  "Why won't he tell you where he is?"

  "He doesn't want to be found," she said.

  "Do you want to find him?"

  "Yes. He can't be alone. It'll kill him."

  "When are you going to tell me what's really going on?"

  "When I can trust you with my life. Your girlfriend is very pretty. I don't blame you for being faithful to her. In fact, it makes me like you more. Even though you don't pay proper attention to me and you've killed people."

  176 BLACK SWAN

  "I told you, I was acquitted," I said.

  "You killed two Venezuelans who were trying to kill you. So it was legal, and you got off. But you still did it. I have your whole police file on my hard drive. I think God brought you to me. Even though I don't believe in God."

  "Forward Axel's email to Amanda. I'll take it from there."

  Even with the age difference I could translate her expression into the words, "Oh, please."

  "No offence, Sam, but if Axel doesn't want to be tracked, he's not going to be tracked."

  "You're probably right. But what can it hurt?" I asked. "Unless you don't want me to find him, in which case, we need to change this conversation."

  The disdain on her face shifted toward frustration.

  "Fine. I'll send it to you. Without the text. That's private."

  "Don't need the text," I said, and was about to say more when a clap of thunder filled the air. We both looked up at the blackening sky.

  "Not again," she said.

  "It's October. The weather's very unstable."

  The sky wasn't just turning dark, it was the brownish grey dark that felt so foreboding, with good reason. I'd seen it before. I realized that with all the terrestrial commotion of the last few days, I'd completely neglected checking the skies above, a dangerous lapse at that time of year, in that place. I asked Anika what she knew.

  "With all the hub-bub lately, I haven't checked," she said.

  With no further discussion, we went into the Swan and up the three flights of stairs to her artist's garret where she kept her computer. She logged on and in a few minutes we had the official NOAA forecast.

  A named hurricane, Jillanne, was moving north about eighty miles off the coast, but close enough for the East End of Long Island and Southern Connecticut to feel some major effects. Today would see increasing winds. The next

  Chris Knopf 177

  day a steady degeneration in conditions, with some rain, but mostly building wind and seas. The day after that, fullout gale force winds, small boats get to port, double-up dock and mooring lines, batten down the hatches, put in water, batteries and canned food, fuel up the generators, tape up the windows, and pay insurance bills and debts to God in full.

  "Not again," said Anika.

  "Another reminder who's in charge here."

  Without taking her eyes off the screen, she reached up and gripped my shoulder.

  "If we lose power again, Axel will be offline and helpless. That won't work," she said.

  I shook her hand off.

  "Help me bring him in or let him fend for himself. You can't have it both ways," I said, and then left the loft, finding my way downstairs to the breezy world outside, where I went out onto the docks to watch for signs of whatever was coming. The air felt uneasy, heavy and wind-whipped at the same time. I'd felt this before, years ago as I waited for a cyclone to smash into the oil rig I was optimizing in the tepid waters off Malaysia.

  I realized with a start that what we'd experienced a few days before was just a prelude, a sneak preview of the main event. A tease. A feint. A cruel diversion.

  I plucked my cell phone out of its holster and called Amanda.

  "Keep your eye on your mailbox," I said. "You should be getting a forwarded email that Axel wrote to Anika. As soon as it arrives I'd like you to forward it on to Randall Dodge."

  "Okay, sure. Is that all?"

  "No. We have a decision to make," I said.

  "Not another one."

  "There's a big storm on the way. Maybe a lot bigger than the last one."

  178 BLACK SWAN

  She didn't answer right away.

  "Maybe I'm not up for that," she said, finally.

  "You should head for New London now. Tie her up as well as you can and get back to Oak Point. I'll meet you when I can."

  Another pregnant pause.

  "Most of me wants to do that, but a stupid little part of me wants to stay here to be near to you. One for all and all of that."

  "I want to know you're safe," I said.

  "You can't always get what you want. I think we agreed on that."

  When I was married, I never got what I wanted, which was mostly my fault. I didn't know what I wanted, and even if I had, I lacked the stomach to assert my will. Instead, over the years my heart simply slipped away, a few degrees at a time, until what remained was a corporeal form representing Abby's husband Sam, but not much else.

  "Okay, stay put for now if you want," I said. "I'll figure something out."

  "Are you going to tell me what that is?"

  "When I figure it out."

  I turned around and looked overhead at the ruffled tree limbs, then back down at the Swan. I had a lot more to figure out than what to do with Amanda. Something I'd never do with a mind so evenly divided against itself. Since Hammon and company drove into the hotel's parking lot, my instincts for trouble had been on high alert. I'd seen a lot of trouble, so those instincts I could trust. But I had a deeper desire to be done with trouble altogether, to leave it for someone else to grapple with. Somebody younger and not yet burnished over with wrenching experience. That was the argument of my conscious mind, the part that was desperate to be back home, to see the opening of the harbor inside of which was a small private marina, with young dockhands cast by Ralph

  Chris Knopf 179

  Lauren and a jolly red-faced harbormaster awaiting his new charge, Burton Lewis's Carpe Mañana.

  This should have been enough to motivate the obvious behavior, to set forth with the necessary action. To drive me off that island while there was still time to beat the next storm and elude other tempests not born of natural forces.

  But for some idiotic reason, it wasn't.

  chapter

  16

  T his time, when I saw the Town Car pull into the parking lot, it was followed by a Ford Excursion SUV, out of which stepped two guys in polo shirts and sport jackets carrying duffle bags and briefcases. No golf clubs.

  They spoke with 't Hooft and Hammon for a moment, then all four went into the Swan. I saw this from across the street, where I was headed up the short hill toward the interior of the island. I wanted to go back down and meet the new guests, but that would have looked too eager. So I kept walking.

  I made it to Gwyneth Jones' place in brisk time and was happy to see her tending her store. />
  "How's business this time of year?" I asked her as I walked through the door.

  "It sucks. Though other times of the year aren't much better."

  "Not even the high season?"

  "Funny, no. I'm wondering if it's the inventory. Maybe I should get in some new lines."

  "Just keep the computers."

  "Have at it," she said, pointing in their direction.

  180

  Chris Knopf 181

  I wrote Amanda and asked if she'd received the forwarded email from Anika. She wrote back that she had, and immediately after, forwarded it to Randall Dodge. As promised, Anika had deleted the text, but as far as my technical knowledge allowed, it looked like she'd left what Randall needed to dig around for clues to its origins. I wrote her back with thanks, and asked her to stay tuned for further emails and phone calls. And to keep monitoring channel sixteen.

  She wrote that she and Eddie missed me and signed off, "Central Communications."

  I called Randall.

  "I assumed an explanation was on the way," he said when I told him who was on the line.

  "What are the chances of tracing where this email came from?" I asked.

  There was a long silence while Randall perused the technical information that lay behind the email.

  "Connecticut," he said.

  "Not Fishers Island?"

  "Could be. The island's a lot closer to New London than Southold. Have to keep digging. I might be able to get to a neighborhood, but maybe not the exact house. Though there's a lot of data here. Might be easier than it looks."

  "Do what you can. We're getting another storm, so I'm not sure how long the power and cell service will hold up."

  "You're wanting this ASAP," he said.

  "I am. I'm in your debt."

  "I'm in Jackie's debt, so I think that makes us even."

  "If you can't get through any other way, give the info to Joe Sullivan and ask him to relay it here over VHF to the state police barracks. He'll do it after giving you a hard time. Pretend you can't hear him."

  After we signed off I looked around for Gwyneth, who'd disappeared. I found the door behind the counter from whence she'd once emerged, and knocked.

  182 BLACK SWAN

  "I need to pay you," I called through the door.

  It whipped open, startling me.

  "I like the pay part," she said. "Not everybody does it."

  "Makes it hard to stay in business."

  "Who cares about that?" she said. "I only charge so people won't disrespect me."

  "I like a little philanthropy myself sometimes," I said.

  "My father owned most of the copper deposits in Montana," she said. "What's your excuse?"

  The walk back to the Swan took the customary fifteen minutes. I went in through the front door, checked the bar and the restaurant, then went through the French doors in the back and found Hammon and his crew seated around a circular table, feeding off a wheeled cart loaded down with pastries and bowls of sodden, colorful fruit. Anika was leaning against the service bar at the edge of the patio, and Del Rey was out on the docks, on a chaise longue, either resting her eyes or sound asleep.

  I approached the table.

  "Reinforcements?" I asked Hammon.

  His gaze would have been reptilian if not slightly warmed by annoyance. 't Hooft's face was blank. He cupped his right fist in his left hand, rotating it like a ball and socket joint.

  Both the new guys were big and muscled. The older, maybe forty, had a mashed in nose, not unlike mine, and high cheekbones that had seen a lot of sun. His curly grey hair was neatly combed, offering a nearly feminine contrast to his hammered-out face. The other guy was probably late twenties, with a cleaner, paler complexion and a coat of black stubble on his scalp. His face was fleshier, almost fatty around the eyes, which were set in his cheeks like black marbles.

  Chris Knopf 183

  Surrounded by all that human mass, Hammon looked almost delicate, like a finely crafted doll.

  "Gentlemen," he said, "this is Sam Acquillo. Sam, meet Jock and Pierre," he said, pointing first to the younger guy, then the older.

  "Allo," said Pierre, offering his hand. Not surprisingly, we got into a brief contest of mash-the-other-guy's knuckles. It was his idea, though he made a quick retreat when I squeezed back. I was unsure about my overall physical abilities, but the last few years swinging a hammer had done wonders for my grip.

  Jock just nodded, so I did the same.

  "I just thought we could use some assistance," said Hammon.

  "Finding the boy?" I asked.

  "That's right. Jock and Pierre are old associates of my good friend 't Hooft. Nigeria, Colombia, Iraq. You know."

  "I don't, but I'll take your word for it," I said.

  "We were wondering when you were heading back to Long Island," said 't Hooft. "It seems like now would be a good time."

  "Really?" I said. "I was just starting to get settled in. I like it here. Friendly place. Nice weather. Affordable real estate."

  Hammon smiled at me, though I'm not sure which part of the conversation sparked the response. Jock and Pierre were quiet, studying me, their eyes fixed and unblinking. Assessing. Pierre's shoulders were slumped, but his head was thrust forward, alert. His eyes were wide in their sockets. His right hand rested on his thigh. I wondered where the gun was stowed; his pockets looked flat and the sport coat showed no obvious bulges.

  "We hear the weather's going to get nasty," said Hammon. "What does that really mean?"

  184 BLACK SWAN

  "Who knows. Happens this time of year. Nothing's perfect. Don't let it scare you. The Swan made it through '38 and everything after that. Built like a tank. There might be some thunder and lightning and a little wind. You guys worried about that?" I asked, looking from face to face.

  "Oui," said Pierre. "Shaking in our undershorts."

  They laughed at this, so I laughed with them

  I got the general sense that the conversation they wanted to have would be difficult with me sitting there. So I decided to hang around for a while. I brought us all fresh coffee, commented on the fall in barometric pressure, which I could feel, but doubted any of them could, surveyed the group on loyalty to the New York Yankees, asked if anyone knew how to balance a stock portfolio, and otherwise kept them happily engaged until Jock, the silent one, said, "Listen, pal, love to talk all night, but we have some private things to discuss."

  "I didn't know we were pals," I said. "So what're we talking about?"

  "I said it was private."

  "About finding Axel Fey? Your plan of attack? I thought we were working on this together. One for all and all that."

  "If I thought you could help I wouldn't have invited Jock and Pierre," said Hammon, agreeably.

  "Pretty impressive people."

  Nobody wanted to comment on that, so it lay where it fell.

  "Okay," I said, getting up to leave. "Suit yourself."

  "Oh, Sam," said Hammon before I had a chance to move away. "I seriously recommend that you let us handle everything going forward. It would be better for everybody."

  "I bet it would," I said, heading back over to the bar.

  Anika was wearing a sleeveless white shirt over a short denim skirt. I noticed for the first time a tattoo on her left shoulder. It was the number twenty-five in a deep burgundy.

  Chris Knopf 185

  "I didn't know tats came in that color," I said.

  "Got it for my twenty-fifth birthday. Special order. Though now it's more like eighty-six. They warn you about how the stupid things evolve."

  "I think the stupid part is getting one in the first place," I said.

  "That's the kind of thing a father would say."

  "Not surprising. I am one."

  "No daughters, I hope."

  "One daughter. My only kid. About your age, and even more aggravating. So who're the new boys in town?" I asked, jerking my head in that direction.