Deadout

by Jon McGoran

  “Where are you going?” Moose asked, the two of them looking at me, waiting for an answer.

  “Nowhere,” I said, stepping toward the Jeep. “I have to see somebody. I’ll call you later, okay?”

  Neither of them said anything, and I got the impression I was in trouble with them both. I waved as I drove away, but they just watched me go, their faces stern and worried.

  38

  Most of the security contingent was gone from Renfrew’s house, replaced by a series of deep tire tracks in the grass. The sky was still light, but on the east side of West Chop it felt like night had already fallen.

  Two black SUVs remained parked out front. One had a massive guy who looked to be of Viking descent sitting in the driver’s seat. The other had two guys leaning against it, looking out on the water and smoking. I hoped they weren’t getting combat pay.

  The same guy who had led me in before came down the driveway, shaking his head. “You’re relentless.”

  I considered relenting, just to confuse him. “Is he here?”

  “Yeah, all right. Come on.” He turned, and I followed him. He gave me a look over his shoulder. “He’s enjoying his post-party glow.”

  A cool breeze was picking up. Renfrew was standing out on his front lawn amid the semi-disassembled jumble of tents and furniture and temporary flooring. He had what looked like a Manhattan in one hand, and he was looking out over the harbor. Archibald Pearce’s yacht was still there but farther out, hazy in the distance, like a ghost ship. The Mary Celeste, I thought. Renfrew didn’t seem all that perturbed by it.

  “Carrick,” he said without turning around. He gestured with his glass out at the harbor, the yacht in the distance. “Looks like I have him on the run, wouldn’t you say?”

  If anything, shrouded in mist, the boat looked even more sinister. “Did you have a nice party?” I asked.

  He turned and gave me a smirk, his eyes slightly bloodshot, a faint blush on his cheeks. “I did indeed,” he said, turning to look back at the yacht. “And thanks in part to you, I believe.”

  “How’s that?”

  “I’m pretty sure Teddy and his hippie trickster friends were planning to disrupt it. I don’t know what he was going to pull to disrupt the motorcade, but you foiled it.” He winked at me as he said it, but quickly turned back away.

  “Well, I think you’re right that his friends are up to something, but from what I saw, they weren’t tricky hipsters, or whatever. They looked like serious trouble to me.”

  He smiled indulgently. “Well, they were no match for you, were they, Carrick?”

  The lights on Pearce’s yacht were just visible in the gathering darkness.

  “I wouldn’t be so sure they’re finished trying whatever it is they have in mind.”

  “Well, if they try anything else, I’m sure you’ll alert me to it and help me prevent it.” He seemed almost giddy, and I thought I detected a slur in his voice.

  “I’m alerting you to it now. But I won’t be around to help prevent anything. I’m out.”

  “Really, Mr. Carrick?” He seemed genuinely surprised, his eyes staying on me for a good three seconds before turning back to look out over the water. “Easy money, an outmatched foe, a chance to keep an eye on your girlfriend as she gallivants around on our lovely island with my good-for-nothing son. I would have thought this was an ideal arrangement for you.”

  I could feel my mood souring. He flashed me a smug smile. “I’m surprised. I thought you’d be tougher than this.” He shrugged. “Maybe your experiences in Dunston took more of a toll on you than I had realized.”

  I could feel the calm smile tightening on my face.

  “Maybe that’s got nothing to do with it,” he said, waving his hands away. “Look, Carrick, obviously it’s up to you. My offer is generous enough, so I’m not going to sweeten it. But this company is on the brink of something big. There could be a very lucrative place in it for a man like you.”

  “Not for a man like me.”

  “Suit yourself, Mr. Carrick.”

  I turned to go and he looked back at me, one eyebrow raised. “Last chance.”

  * * *

  There wasn’t anyone around to show me out. The security types were gone and the place seemed somehow vulnerable. I briefly thought how easy it would be to walk back up the driveway and kill Mr. Renfrew. I wondered how many people were out there who would want to.

  I thought about the money I was giving up by not getting in deeper with him, and what I had taken already, what I had hoped to do with it. The vivid pictures I’d had of my future, Nola and me, our little house, they were fuzzy now, like Mungo’s ghost ship out there in the mist.

  I didn’t know what Renfrew was up to, and I didn’t want to know. He seemed pretty happy with the way things were going, but I had the strong sense they were not actually going the way he’d planned.

  All I knew was that I couldn’t put enough distance between me and him, between me and the fact that I had taken his money. Between me and whatever shit storm was about to break over him. I was glad to be rid of Darren Renfrew and his douchebag son. As the road curved and Renfrew’s house disappeared behind the trees, I felt an odd sense of lightness, and I realized I was happy.

  When my phone buzzed, I felt even better, because it was Nola.

  “Hi,” I said, trying hard not to sound surprised or happy or angry or pissy or relieved or anything else.

  “Doyle, I need to see you. Can you come over?”

  Everything seemed to be coming together. “I’ll be there in ten minutes.”

  39

  “I’m concerned about Teddy,” she said when I arrived. I must have succeeded at keeping my face expressionless, because Nola didn’t seem to pick up on what I was thinking. Or maybe she didn’t care.

  She’d been sitting on the front steps of the cabin when I drove up, looking scared and vulnerable, but at the same time strong and resolute. She stood as I walked up to her, but there was no tentative step forward, no, “How are you?”

  “I think you were right, Doyle,” she said. “I think Teddy’s involved in something over his head. I want you to talk him out of it.”

  “I tried talking with him, Nola. After you told me you wanted me to leave. I knew it wouldn’t do any good, and it didn’t.”

  She looked up at me, almost defiant. “I want you to try again,” she said. “For me.”

  The situation between us was tense, maybe even past tense, but “for me” still counted. I wondered what that meant about me and her, about us. I’d have to think about it. In the meantime, all I could do was sigh and say “okay,” instead of “I told you so.”

  “I asked him about it after you left,” she said. We were inside the cabin now, sitting on the bed. I’d been reluctant to sit on it, afraid of what it wouldn’t mean, but she had sat down and patted the space next to her. And there was nowhere else to sit.

  “He was already pretty worked up after talking to you,” she said, her eyes flickering up at me.

  I shrugged. I’d been pretty worked up, too.

  “But when I asked him if he was up to something, he went off. He seemed manic, talking about making a statement, then saying it would be more than a statement. Saying he was going to strike a blow, and it would be just the beginning. Actually, he said ‘we’ are going to strike a blow.”

  “‘We’ meaning who?”

  “I don’t know. I asked him who he meant, and he said I’d see soon enough.”

  “Did he say anything else?”

  “He said Stoma was planning on moving their GMO bees. Hiding them or something.”

  “Anything else?”

  “He said a bunch of things about what to do if something ‘happened to him.’ Just logistical stuff to do with the farm, the chickens, that sort of thing.”

  “So, what do you want me to do?”

  She stood up. “I want you to stop him before he does something incredibly stupid.”

  “What makes you think he’s
going to listen to me?”

  “So don’t talk to him. Just stop him.”

  I looked up at her. “I wouldn’t even know where to look.”

  “I don’t know what he’s doing there, but he said he was going to the old Thompson Company place. It’s a tiny place on Edgartown Road, just off Barnes. It’s where the family business started, back when it was a farm supply company and not a chemical corporation.”

  “Okay.”

  “But you need to leave right now.”

  Her eyes looked into mine. For me, they said. This is important to me. And as much as it bothered me that what was important to her was Teddy, I knew I wasn’t going to refuse her.

  I nodded and as I turned to go she said, “Doyle,” stepping up close enough that I could smell her—lemon verbena and lavender and whatever else it was, maybe her DNA. It felt like weeks since we’d been this close, and I almost staggered from the sudden sense of longing.

  But I didn’t. I kept my chin up and my lip stiff, even as she looked into my eyes, placed her hand softly on my cheek, and said, “Be careful.”

  I left in a hurry.

  We hadn’t made up, that much was clear. But we were back on the table, and that threw me. The way things had been going, I’d started to think that by Independence Day, I’d be, well, independent. I’d almost grown used to the idea. I needed to clear my head. I needed to think. My brain was stalling out, and I didn’t want any other parts stepping up and making decisions that my brain might regret once it was back up and running.

  Plus, I had to find Teddy. And stop him. I smiled at the thought that I didn’t have to talk to him.

  It was fully dark by the time my headlights splashed across the yellow “Thompson Farm Supply” sign, with its cartoon logo of a smiling farmer sitting on a tractor. It was at the entrance to a narrow driveway with small buildings and huts on either side, and even smaller roads crossing it. I eased down the middle, slowing at each crossing. The place seemed deserted, and I was approaching the fence at the back when I caught movement out of the corner of my eye.

  I turned toward it, and saw Teddy Renfrew kneeling on the ground next to a corrugated steel shack, between a beat-up old pickup truck and a shiny black van. He jumped when my headlights passed over him, dropping a set of keys and what looked like a black plastic lid. The pickup said Thompson Farm Supply across the side. A big white plastic tank with a Thompson Chemical Company logo took up most of the bed. It had a large black spigot and a thick hose attached to it, half-unfurled, looping onto the ground at Teddy’s feet, then curling up, into a smaller tank, like a five-gallon water container.

  To his credit, Teddy quickly regained enough of his composure to roll his eyes and shake his head in that superior way that made me so want to hit him.

  “Hey, whatcha doing?” I asked in an innocent, singsong voice as I got out of the Jeep.

  “Carrick, go away,” he said wearily. “Can’t you take a hint? Nola doesn’t want you here. No one wants you here.” He laughed, a shrill, staccato burst. “Have a little self-respect and just go home.”

  His eyes were wide, and his skin was shiny. I wondered if he was on something, or if he was in the midst of an anxiety attack.

  “Well, you might be right about Nola not wanting me here on the island, but she does want me here in this industrial park. She told me this is where you’d be.”

  That got his attention.

  “She was afraid you were about to do something stupid.” I laughed, loud. “What are the chances of that, right?”

  Teddy’s eyes smoldered, tight and small. Then they opened up and seemed to focus over my shoulder.

  I opened my mouth to say something. I forget what, but I’m pretty sure it was hilarious and that it started with the letter “M,” because that’s the letter I got stuck on for what seemed like a long time as a shitload of electricity passed through my body.

  I went totally rigid, which didn’t interfere with the whole “Mmmmmmmmmmmmmm,” thing, then I teetered for a moment before slowly falling over onto the ground. Actually, when you fall like that, you start out slow, but by the time you hit you’re going at a pretty decent clip. Luckily, the agony of being electrocuted kind of numbs you to the lesser pain of falling down. But I was pretty sure it was going to hurt later.

  It wasn’t until they cut the juice that I realized I’d been saying “Mmm” the whole time. When they killed the power, I moved onto “Oh.”

  I had a vague sense of someone stepping around me, and the sound of a car driving away. By the time I was able to stand up, I was alone. I staggered for a second, then stumbled over to the center lane as quickly as I could. I got there just in time to see the van’s brake lights flare in the darkness, then twist to the right and disappear.

  40

  On my way back to the Jeep, I staggered and fell, but I managed to get the thing started and turned around without too much difficulty. I drove fast, a straight shot down the center of the lane, slamming on the brakes just before I turned onto the road.

  I drove hard until I caught up with them, but once I did, I gave them plenty of distance.

  They were driving annoyingly, conspicuously slow, and it took considerable effort to stay back as I followed them for several miles. For a while, I turned on the fog lights, hoping to look like a different vehicle. I considered whistling nonchalantly, but I didn’t want to be too obvious.

  We were approaching the telltale white picket fences of Edgartown when the van stopped at a stop sign up ahead and stayed there. I tapped the brakes, then harder, slowing almost to a stop.

  I was torn between coasting toward them at half a mile an hour and pulling up like a normal driver and sitting directly behind them. I pictured a knife-in-the-boot paramilitary maniac throwing open the back door and spraying me with machine gun fire, hand grenades, and Chinese throwing stars. Next I pictured Teddy getting out and saying something snotty and hurtful about my relationship with Nola. I wasn’t sure which was worse, so I added an embellishment to the second scenario in which I punched him in the face. Then I liked that one better.

  I was starting to feel conspicuous not honking when they finally moved, turning onto Edgartown’s Main Street. I coasted to a stop at the intersection, and had to wait while another car went by in front of me.

  The street tightened in around us and the picket fences thickened as we drove into town. The van slowed even more, and I was glad to have the other car between us.

  The street continued to constrict, down to a single lane as it turned one way. We were approaching the water, running out of land. The car between us turned off, and I realized there was only one block left before Main Street hit the waterfront and looped tightly around. I didn’t want to get stuck right behind them.

  I made a sharp left and sped up to the next intersection and waited, anxious that I’d lost them after following them for miles. Mercifully, the van appeared at the intersection a block to my right, moving in the same direction as I was. Once it cleared the intersection, I sped up to the next cross street and stopped. And I waited. And waited some more.

  The road narrowed ahead of me, and a car pulled up behind me. I pulled over as far as I could, but there still wasn’t room for him to pass.

  The van had disappeared.

  With a growl in my throat, I made the right turn. I stashed the Jeep in a small parking area halfway down the block and jogged the rest of the way.

  I’d been so sure the van wouldn’t be there, I almost walked right out into the open. But I saw it just in time, pulled over on the side of the road, the engine running.

  I ducked back and watched it, and after a few minutes, it rolled slowly forward sixty feet, stopping between a large seafood restaurant and a small building that backed onto the water. The smaller building had a sign in front that read MARTHA’S VINEYARD SHIPYARD, but it didn’t seem to have any ships, or even much of a yard. It did have a set of what looked like railroad tracks running between the two buildings, out into the darkness a
nd down into the water.

  The back door to the van opened, and Teddy got out. The manic energy was replaced by a grim determination. Or numb determination—apart from the tension in his jaw, his face was blank. He reached back into the van and pulled out the tank he had been filling at the industrial park. He lifted it up, two hands, under his chin, elbows out. Then he turned and fast-walked around to the water side of the building, disappearing into the darkness.

  For a long few seconds, nothing happened. I looked behind me, just for a moment, and when I did, the sky lit up. I could see myself silhouetted against the brick wall behind me, and for an instant, I was confused, immobile, wondering what the hell was happening. Then I was brought back to the moment by the sound of almost-screeching tires as the van sped away.

  I didn’t know if I should run to my car or run to see what was happening on the water. I wondered briefly if while I was distracted, Teddy had gotten into the van before it pulled away.

  But he sprinted into view as I watched, skidding to a stop right where the van had been idling. He looked one way, then the other, then down at his feet, at the street beneath them. I would have felt sorry for him if it wasn’t him.

  The light in the sky was getting brighter, and it occurred to me I needed to be doing something. I took out my phone but before I could dial, I heard a siren rapidly getting louder.

  Teddy was in a daze, but the siren snapped him out of it.

  I called out to him. “Teddy!” I don’t know why. Maybe I was going to tell him not to run, that he would only make it worse. But he took off before I could say anything else. Which was fine with me. I kind of liked the idea of it getting worse.

  A police cruiser screeched as it swerved around the corner, the street exploding in flashing lights. As it sped past me, Jimmy Frank looked right at me and raised one eyebrow.

  I waved.

  Teddy had taken off running straight along the street, which meant the cruiser caught up with him after seventy feet instead of after thirty feet. It also meant that when the cruiser caught up with him, the cop inside it was that much more annoyed.