Home again, we were well clammed and feeling warm and good. While Zee used the outdoor shower, the one we use three seasons of the year, I drove down to the Sengekontacket boat landing, got a five-gallon bucket full of salt water, and brought it back. I put the clams into it to spit out their sand overnight, and took my turn in the shower. I could hear the pop-pop of firing down at the club. Manny or someone else was already at the range. I looked at my nine-dollar waterproof watch. Almost five-thirty.
Zee came around the corner of the house, carrying her paper bag of shooting stuff.
“Blasting time,” I said, drying off naked in the yard.
She paused. “You don’t mind, do you?”
It was one of those questions women ask, but men usually don’t. I was pretty sure that if I said I did mind, she would cancel the session with Manny.
I put my wet hands on her shoulders and kissed her forehead. “I don’t mind,” I said.
“Good.” I got a kiss back.
She climbed into her little Jeep, and drove away. The Rod and Gun Club was only a few hundred yards from our house through the woods, but the woods were full of poison ivy, thorns, and the grabbing branches of scrub oak, so when we went there we usually drove: up our long sandy driveway, along the Edgartown-Vineyard Haven Road, back down Third or Seventh street to the boulevard and then into the club.
As I was getting supper ready a little later, I heard the sounds of bigger and then smaller guns firing from the range, and guessed that it was Manny with his .45 and Zee with her .380 popping away.
I had just finished setting the table, when I heard a car coming down the driveway. Our driveway is a narrow one, and clearly not a public road. On the other hand, I don’t like signs that say “PRIVATE PROPERTY,” “NO TRESPASSING,” and the like, so sometimes a stranger comes motoring into our yard, discovers his mistake, turns around and leaves. Since Zee and I occasionally work on perfecting our all-over tans in the yard, now and then our visitors encounter sights they perhaps did not expect to see.
Generally, however, things being as they were, the few people who came down our driveway were not strangers at all, but people who knew us and wanted to see us.
Thus, I was not too surprised when a police cruiser came into the yard and turned around. Through the open living room door and the screened porch door beyond it, I saw the chief turn off the cruiser’s engine, open the door, and step out. He closed the car door, and put an arm on the top of the car while he looked around and listened to the shooting from the club.
I went out onto the porch. “You on duty, or do you want a beer?” Not to my surprise, he declined the beer. When the chief is in uniform, he will rarely have a drink, so it was safe offering one to him. You got brownie points for free, just for appearing generous.
He came up onto the porch and took a chair. The wind was blowing down the driveway, making the porch the coolest place in Edgartown on this warm July evening. I went into the kitchen and came back out with iced tea. He sipped and nodded his head. “Nice place. Always was, still is. If I owned this place, I’d do like you do: hang out all summer and never go downtown till after Labor Day.”
He dug out his pipe and lit up, then waved toward the Rod and Gun Club. “Just down there. Zee and Manny are popping a lot of caps. I’m sort of surprised, knowing Zee.”
“Zee is sort of surprised herself,” I said.
“She isn’t doing too bad.”
“So she tells me.”
“Just talked with that detective, Gordon Sullivan, up in Boston. They think they’ve found the car. In a tow company storage lot. Stolen, of course, then abandoned and towed away. Found a box of double-aught shells under the seat. Just like the ones in the gun you took away from the guy.”
“Any prints?”
“Too many. The owners, the tow company guys, the cops who finally found it, you name it.”
“Our guy was wearing gloves.”
“Just our luck.”
I told him my theory that the shootist was an amateur, since a pro, having the time to do it, would probably have killed the bodyguard first, then killed Marcus at his leisure.
The chief grunted. “I’ll drop that bug into Sullivan’s ear, for what it’s worth.” He glanced around the yard. “Anybody hanging around here? Any odd phone calls? Anything like that?”
“Nothing.”
“You see anything of Fred Souza?”
“No. They ever trace that sweatshirt?”
“You have any idea how many places there are in Boston that sell sweatshirts? More than there are tee-shirt shops in Edgartown, even.”
“Wow!” I said. “That many?”
He got up. “I’ll be on my way.” He paused. “How do you feel about Manny teaching Zee to shoot?”
I hesitated. “I approve, on balance. I think too many people have guns, but 1 want her to know how to use one.”
He nodded. “Yeah.”
I watched him drive away. Behind me, the guns kept popping down at the Rod and Gun Club range.
Later, in bed, I listened to the sounds of the night: the odd calls of nocturnal creatures, the swish of leaves, the groans of tree limbs rubbing together. One or twice I thought I might be hearing unusual noises in the yard, but when I slipped out of bed for a look, there was no one there.
The next morning, when Zee was home from her graveyard shift and asleep in the bedroom, another car came down our driveway. I didn’t recognize this one, or the two guys who got out of it. They were young, bronze-skinned guys with dark eyes and muscular bodies.
“You Jeff Jackson?” the first asked.
I had the garden hose, and was watering the flowers in the boxes on the front fence.
“That’s me.”
“I have a message for you,” he said, coming up to me. “Stay out of Linda Vanderbeck’s hair!”
And so saying, he hit me in the jaw with his right hand and followed with his left.
17
Real fights don’t look like the ones in the movies. People don’t land those spectacular blows that send their opponents through windows or over tables. Real fights are usually sloppy and badly done. And there are no fair ones.
So when the guy hit me on the jaw, he didn’t do as good a job as he planned. I saw the punch coming and was moving back when it hit, and his following left went whistling through the air. Still, there were two of them, and two guys can usually beat the crap out of one guy, so I didn’t stand my ground.
Instead, I hit the first guy in the eye with the nozzle of the hose I was holding, shot water into the face of the other guy, then dropped the hose, and ran away around the house. They came after me, but I had a good start, and while they were coming round the last corner of the house, back into the driveway, I had the door of the Land Cruiser open and had the paper bag full of .38 in my hands.
As they appeared, so did the pistol.
They stopped, wide-eyed and panting.
“I’m going to tell you something,” I said. “It’s dangerous to pick fights with people you don’t know. It can get you killed. Give me your wallets.”
“Our wallets?”
I cocked the revolver. “Your wallets. Toss them over here.”
The first guy looked at the second.
“Do it,” said the second guy.
They dug into the back pockets of their jeans, and brought out their wallets. They threw them at my feet. I picked them up and looked at the ID’s, then tossed them back. They were two guys from Gay Head. Wampanoags on Linda Vanderbeck’s side, for sure.
“Pick those up and go home. And keep in mind that I know who you are and where you live. If you give me or mine any more hard times, I’ll give it back to you in spades. Does Linda Vanderbeck know about you two coming here?”
They exchanged looks.
“Well, does she? I doubt it.”
They exchanged more uneasy glances. Then the first guy said: “No. But we heard about you and what you think. You keep your nose in your own business, no
t in hers. Not in ours, either.”
I let down the hammer of the pistol, and lowered the gun. “You’re a pair, you are. If Linda Vanderbeck ever finds out you came down here, she’ll have your ears. She doesn’t need the likes of you two defending her. Ye gods. Go home and grow up.”
“You stay out of Gay Head,” said the first guy, braver now that the pistol was pointed at the ground.
I looked at the second guy. “You better have a talk with your friend on the way home. Try to tune him in to planet Earth.”
“Come on, Wally,” said his friend. “Let’s go.”
“And don’t come back,” I said to Wally.
Wally and his friend drove away.
I put the pistol back in its bag and the bag back under the seat of the Land Cruiser.
When my hands stopped trembling, I went in and made phone calls. The first was to detective Gordon R. Sullivan in Boston. He was out, but would call back. Then I called Thornberry Security and asked for Thornberry himself. His cool-voiced secretary wasn’t sure he had time to talk with me. I told her to give him my name. She did, and a moment later he was on the phone.
“Mr. Jackson. Have you decided to accept my offer of employment?”
Thornberry and I had left the Boston PD about the same time, one big difference between our departures being that he was retiring as a captain, to organize a private detective agency, and I was retiring on disability, with a bullet parked near my spine.
“Thanks, but no thanks, Jason. I’ll stay a civilian. As you no doubt know, I’m working for Luciano Marcus, down here on the island, and I thought I’d touch base with you.”
“Mr. Marcus told me he’d hired you. So you are an unlicensed investigator once again, eh? Very well, what base would you prefer to start on?”
I told him about my talks with Linda Vanderbeck, Joe Begay, and Sandy Dings, and about the two Gay Head guys. I gave him their names and addresses. He listened without comment. When I was done, he said: “And what do you want from me?”
“Anything you have. The shotgun is a definite Vineyard tie, so I’m looking for a link between somebody down here and the Boston shooting. I’m looking for motives and opportunities. Check out these two guys, for instance. And there’s Thomas Decker. He carries a gun when he and Luciano travel. Luciano says it’s because he sometimes has a lot of money on him, but that rings a little hollow with me. Why does Decker really feel a need to carry?”
Thornberry’s smooth voice never hesitated. “Mr. Marcus has told you the truth. Many businessmen have bodyguards. Especially these days. And Mr. Marcus does often carry a lot of money. Mr. Decker has been with him for many years.”
“I’m going to be talking to a detective named Sullivan,” I said. “I’ll be asking him the same questions I’m asking you.”
“Detective Sullivan and I have talked to one another already. As you know, the confidentiality between our firm and its clients must be firmly maintained, else we’d soon be out of business. Detective Sullivan is not bound by such rules, so perhaps he’ll be able to tell you something that I cannot.”
I tried again. “What I want to know is whether Marcus has a past that’s putting him in harm’s way—something shady or maybe even criminal—that’s catching up with him.”
Thornberry’s voice was like melting ice. “I can only tell you that our investigations have revealed no such information.”
I decided that if I ever wanted a truly confidential investigation, I would hire Thornberry. His lips were vacuum-sealed. “How about his present business interests?” I asked. “Has he done anything to anyone lately that would inspire somebody to kill him? It might not take too much; a lot of killers have pretty short fuses these days.”
“Indeed they have. I can tell you that so far our investigations have revealed no such evidence. Of course, we’re still making inquiries.”
I changed the subject. “What can you tell me about this guy over on the cape? A PI that Marcus hired named Aristotle Socarides.”
“Mr. Socarides has the reputation of being too independent in his ways to work well with superiors. Thus, he operates alone. Not unlike you yourself if I may say so. Of course, Mr. Socarides has a license, whereas you do not.”
“Is he any good?”
“He has that reputation as well,” acknowledged Thornberry. “I believe that Mr. Socarides is looking into Mr. Marcus’s business interests in Provincetown. I’ve received no reports from him as to his findings, if any. Perhaps he reports directly to Mr. Marcus.” He sighed. “It would be better, I believe, if a single agency, ours in this case, was the recipient of all information from the various people employed by Mr. Marcus. But so far, I have been unable to persuade him of this.”
I thought of how much information I’d given him, and how little I’d gotten in return, and almost smiled. Instead, I said: “If you learn anything that will help me out down here, let me know.”
“Of course.”
Of course.
I rang off and tried Gordon R. Sullivan again. He was still out, and would still call back. I called Aristotle Socarides. No answer. I was having a fine morning. I hung up, and the phone rang. It was Gordon Sullivan.
“You think of something, or come up with something, Mr. Jackson?”
“No. The chief down here tells me that you two have been in touch. I thought I’d tell you what I’ve been up to.”
“Okay. You a licensed PI?”
“No. Strictly a civilian.”
He thought that one over. Cops don’t like to have citizens prowling around criminal cases, messing things up. On the other hand, there wasn’t much I could mess up with this one.
“What do you have?” he asked, finally.
I told him what I’d told Thornberry, then asked him the same questions.
“Fact is,” said Sullivan, “some state and federal people used to be pretty interested in Luciano Marcus. He is known to them, as they say in the papers. Got his start right after the war, the way I hear the story. He was a young guy then, just back from Europe, and out of the army, like a million other guys. Lots of ambition, and a pretty tough cookie, to boot.
“Started small, but grew fast. Stepped on a lot of toes. A few people disappeared or retired and he took over. A couple of arrests, but nothing stuck. No convictions.
“All that was a long time ago. The older he got, the further away from the rough stuff he got, the more legit. He may still have some ties to shady operations, but if he does, nobody’s been able to nail him for it. Right now he’s probably the deacon of his church.”
“Anybody want him dead?”
“Somebody does, for sure, but we haven’t found him yet.”
I told him my theory that the kid was an amateur, and I could almost see him nod.
“Yeah, I been thinking about that, too. Usually these guys in sweatshirts kill each other over drugs or women or territory, or rob and kill some storekeeper to finance their habits. They don’t hire out to assassinate old men coming out of opera houses. No, this has a different smell to it than most cases. It’s not a professional job, and it’s not robbery. It’s something else. Something personal, I’d guess. The shotgun angle still interests me.”
“You said there’d been a couple of earlier shotgunnings. Who were the targets?”
“Just a couple of toughs trying to be tougher. We won’t miss either one of them, but we want the guys who got them.”
“You have anyone in mind?”
“A lot of people are glad they’re gone. We’ve been asking questions and talking to folks, but so far, nothing.”
The police always have too much to do. “I’ll stay in touch,” I said.
“And I’ll see if those two guys you mentioned are in our records anywhere,” said Sullivan. “If they are, maybe we’ll have something to work on.”
“Maybe,” I said.
I tried Aristotle Socarides again. He didn’t answer again.
Ignoring Wally’s warning, I got into the Land Cruiser and
drove west, running things through my mind. It was a muggy day, with a misty sea, and a warm haze that made things seem more ethereal than usual. In Chilmark, when I crossed the bridge between Nashaquitsa and Stonewall ponds, Stonewall Beach, that thin spit of sand that usually keeps Gay Head from being a separate island, was only a dim line in a gray fog, and farther on the overlook, which on a clear day gives such a fine view of Menemsha and Nashaquitsa ponds, today gave only a fine view of gray mists.
The fog floated over the driveway leading into the Marcus estate, but as the road climbed, the haze thinned and then thinned some more, until it fell away behind me, and I drove into sunshine. The house on its high hill floated like a ship on an ocean of gray-white mist. Priscilla opened the door when I knocked, and waved me toward Luciano’s office.
“He’s in the office, waiting for you.”
Luciano’s cameras worked in the fog, apparently. I went down the hall, and knocked on the office door. When invited to come in, I did.
Marcus was seated at his desk. It was covered with papers. He spread his hands. “It is a paper world we live in, Mr. Jackson. We can do nothing without letters, memos, forms, and bills. What can I do for you today?”
I told him whom I’d been talking to, and what I’d been told, and about the two guys from Gay Head. He listened without interruption, until I was done. His face betrayed nothing.
“So,” he said, when I was through. “Two Wampanoag toughs, eh?”
“Two wanna-be heros, is more like it. Linda Vanderbeck didn’t have anything to do with it. They did it on their own. I don’t think they will again.”
“Do you think they’re the ones who tried for me?”
“I doubt it, but Sullivan is checking to see if they have any Boston connections.”
“Neither you nor detective Sullivan nor Mr. Thornberry see this as having to do with my business affairs?”
I nodded. “Neither past nor present.”
“An amateur effort, you believe?”
“That’s how I see it. It’s worth remembering that most killers are amateurs, and that they can be as deadly as pros.” I brought up the subject he was least likely to appreciate. “I asked you this before: Can you think of anyone in your private life who might be involved in this?”
Death on a Vineyard Beach Page 14
