There was no shower in the bathroom—what would be the point, anyway, with the water pressure as bad as it was?—so Cal took a bath, needed to scrub away the smell of oil and gasoline from his face and body so he could relax for the few hours that he had. Normally, prior to going out, he would shave, was definitely in need of one, but there wasn’t any reason for him to bother with that now.
In his bedroom he put on a clean pair of jeans and a T-shirt; he would wait till he was about to go back downstairs to put on the same coveralls he had worn all day. Combing his hair, he looked at himself in the mirror above his bureau. The glass was smudged, his reflection hazy, but he could see himself well enough. A lesser version of his brother, in more or less every way, but he’d always be that, wouldn’t he? Nothing at all of his father—of what he remembered of his father—so his looks had certainly come from his mother. Not much that could be done about that, though. Unshaven, as he was, only seemed somehow to emphasize the boyishness of his looks—a youth in a man’s mask of scruff. His only recourse was to wear his hair just a little long, let it hang into his eyes and hide his ears. This was a look, of course, that actually required a degree of effort, and he was working on that, trying to find that fine line between carefree and mess, when he heard the sound of Heather’s cell phone ringing.
She hadn’t gotten a single call since arriving, had, as part of her careful escape from her husband, she’d told Cal, secured a new cell phone without her husband’s knowledge, opting for paperless billing and having the monthly charges paid automatically by an account she had set up for herself just prior to fleeing. By the way she carried the phone everywhere she went—from one room to another, keeping it near during her bath and as she slept—Cal had always assumed she was expecting it to ring at any moment.
And now it had.
His first thought was to step out of his bedroom, and he moved toward his door with that in mind, but then he decided he’d better not—they were, the two of them, after all, about privacies and boundaries. Maybe the call she had been hoping for was from a long-lost lover, and, if so, that was her business, had nothing at all to do with him. Returning to the mirror, tending to his appearance, he tried not to listen, but Sheetrock wasn’t much of a barricade to the sound of a voice, particularly one that quickly escalated to urgent.
He waited, feeling a sense of dread move through him. Could it be her husband? Could he have somehow, despite all her efforts, finally tracked her down? If he was calling from outside, he would not get in, that much was certain, and a call to the police would easily take care of him—but then what? Cal suddenly realized that calling the police was something of a problem since the business wasn’t exactly aboveboard. Carver dealt only in cash, the apartment was illegal, and the building itself didn’t come anywhere near being up to code. Bringing the existence of this place to the attention to the police was to risk the setup Cal had for himself coming to an abrupt end.
Yet anything for Heatherlicious. Right?
A moment passed—Heather said only a few more things—and then Cal heard nothing else. Tossing his comb onto the bureau top, he walked to his bedroom door.
She had, as she always did, settled into the living room for the night—her glass of wine, her playing cards and tarot cards, all within reach on the table at the end of the old couch. Normally her cell phone was among those items, but she was holding it in her hand, tight. Standing by the couch, facing Cal, she said, “I need to go to Shelter Island.”
Her concern was impossible to miss.
“What?”
“I need to go out to Shelter Island. Right now.”
“What’s going on?”
“Someone spotted Amanda.”
“Wait. What do you mean?”
“At a party, someone spotted her. I need to go get her and bring her here.”
“Hang on a second,” Cal said. “I’m lost.”
Amanda was her half sister. Not much older than Cal, she had worked as a waitress during Cal’s last summer as dishwasher. Heather had mentioned shortly after arriving that she didn’t know where Amanda was, but Cal hadn’t thought too much of that; Amanda did that now and again, disappeared for weeks or months on end, staying with friends or some guy she thought loved her, always, though, showing up again eventually, either heartbroken or broke—or both. Cal hadn’t realized till now that this was the reason why Heather carried her cell phone with her everywhere she went.
“A few years ago she fell in with a bad crowd,” Heather said. “She started using all kinds of drugs. When she used to disappear, it meant she was with a new boyfriend or had taken off with some friends to India or Thailand or something like that to study yoga. Those days are over, it seems.”
“Jesus, Heather. I didn’t know.”
“I figured we had enough to worry about. When I knew I was about to bolt and got my new number, I tracked down the one friend of hers I could find, told him to call me if he ever saw her again. Other than you, he’s the only other person who has my new number.”
“Who is he?”
“Just some guy. I don’t know if she dated him or what. I have a feeling he was her dealer. I’ll tell you, I was lucky to be able to find him.”
“And he lives out on Shelter Island?”
“No, he lives in the city. That’s where she was, last I knew. Living somewhere in the East Village. He was my only possible connection to her once I took off. I mean, if something terrible happened to her, if she overdosed and died, no one would know how to reach me, not even the police. She wouldn’t even know how to reach me.”
“You should have told me this.”
“Like I said, we had enough to worry about.”
Cal thought about that, then said, “What’s an East Village drug dealer doing way the hell out on Shelter Island?”
“He said it was some kind of party. A Halloween thing. I told him I’d be there as soon as I could.”
Cal looked at her. Her wrist in a cast, six months pregnant, dressed at this moment in a cheap kimono. Then he glanced at the glass of red wine.
“Listen, why don’t I go for you?” he said.
“You have to work.”
“It’s only a half hour to Shelter Island and a half hour back. Anyway, I don’t really feel right letting you make that drive the way you are.”
“I’m pregnant, Cal, not fragile.”
“I mean the wine.”
“I’ve only had a couple of sips.”
He shrugged. “I know. Just let me do this for you, okay?”
“You’re going to protect me from the big, bad drug dealer?” she teased.
“I guess that’s it, yeah. Besides, I’m sure your husband canceled the insurance on your X3. You get pulled over driving without insurance, he’ll be able to find you, right? I mean, if he’s that determined, he probably has someone checking the police blotter, just in case. All he needs is to know your court date, have someone wait outside the courthouse and tail you back here.”
“That’s very smart of you, Cal,” she said. Teasing again, or half teasing—but half proud, too.
He shrugged a second time. What could he say? He knew how criminals thought, knew the compulsions that drove them. In fact, everything he did in his life was designed to prevent such compulsions from ever finding him.
Certainly, a tendency toward criminality was hereditary, no?
“Let me do this for you,” he said. “Okay?”
She nodded. “Okay. But how are you going to get there? I mean, you’re not going to get her on your motorcycle, are you?”
Cal didn’t own a car, only a motorcycle, an old Triumph Bonneville that had belonged to—had been stolen by—his brother. He didn’t really need anything more than that because he was a year-round rider, and if the weather didn’t permit going somewhere on his bike, and Lebell wasn’t around to take him, then he simply didn’t go. Whenever he needed groceries or supplies, he waited till he test-drove one of the vehicles he was working on, ran his errands a
s he did that. There were cabs, too, and, if it came to it, the trains. It was only a fifteen-minute walk from the garage to the Bridgehampton train station.
“All right, so maybe I’m not as smart as you think I am,” he said. He hadn’t thought this far ahead. If her BMW was out of the question, and his motorcycle not an option, then how was he going to make the run to Shelter Island? He thought for a moment, then said, “I could call a cab.”
“It’ll cost a fortune.”
“I don’t mind.”
“Actually, that brings up something I need to ask you.”
“What?”
“I told Amanda’s friend that I’d pay him five hundred dollars. I needed to give him a reason to actually call me if he saw her. I don’t have that much here. Do you think maybe you could loan it to me? Or hit my ATM on the way back for me, if you don’t have it.”
“I can give you that,” Cal said.
“I’ll pay you back, of course.”
“I’m not worried. I know where you live.”
“Thanks.”
“No problem.”
“Anyway, aside from the money, a cab isn’t a good idea,” Heather said.
Cal, of course, knew why. There needed to be no record of her sister being brought here, no trail that could be followed.
“So what do we do?” Heather said. “How do we get you out there and back?”
From his closet he removed his old wool peacoat and Sidi Canyon boots. The boots were leather but had a thick waterproof lining—he could stand in a cold river with those things on and his feet would remain warm and dry—and what was better for a night as blustery as tonight than a peacoat?
Boots and coat on, he stepped to the back of the closet, knelt down and removed a loose floorboard. Reaching down into the dark gap, he pulled out a small metal cashier’s box.
Opening it, he took out one of the stacks of bills, counted out five hundred dollars, then put the stack back, closed the box again, and returned it to its hiding place, carefully replacing the board so it looked no different from all the others.
On last count he had saved close to two hundred grand. He made, on average, sixty grand a year, all of it off the books, which was why he didn’t bother to use a bank. He had no real living expenses beyond food—and detergent to clean his coveralls. Since he lived where he worked and didn’t own a car, the only gasoline he burned was what his old Triumph consumed during the handful of joyrides he took in a week. Unregistered and uninsured, so no additional cost there, beyond the occasional oil and tire change, which naturally he did himself. His only other expense was what he gave to various bartenders on his Friday nights out with Lebell.
Where else, then, would most of his money go except into this fireproof box hidden beneath his closet floor?
A compulsion, saving his money in this way, but, as far as compulsions went, not such a bad one.
Heather was waiting in the kitchen, her cell phone in her hand. As he approached, crossing through the open and chilly living room, she said, “The guy you’re meeting is named Angstrom. I don’t know his first name, but Amanda always referred to him as Rabbit. I already called him back and told him a friend of mine is coming to meet him instead.”
She tore a piece of paper off a pad, folded it once, and handed it to Cal. “These are the directions. It’s just two left turns off the ferry. You know how to get to the landing, right? It’s out in North Haven.”
“Yeah.” He slipped the paper into the pocket of his peacoat.
“Take this, too.” She handed him her cell phone. The landline to the garage, with an extension in the apartment above, was all the contact with the outside world that he usually needed.
“You sure?”
She nodded. “That way you can call me if there’s a problem. Or I can call you if I think it’s taking too long.”
Cal took the phone and pocketed it.
“Be careful,” Heather said.
It was just a run to Shelter Island and back. Like he had said, a half hour to get there and a half hour to get home again.
Still, he appreciated the concern. Who didn’t want, at least, that?
“No problem,” he said.
Downstairs, in the garage, he deactivated the security system and opened the second bay door, then paused to look at the Citroën. It was, of the three vehicles there, the only one currently roadworthy. The fact that it was a ’58 DS19 meant, too, that it was the rarest and therefore most valuable. Not the wisest thing, then, taking it on an errand such as this, but there was no other choice.
He backed out onto the gravel, then exited the vehicle and reentered the garage, closing the bay door behind him. Sliding in the locking pins and spinning the lever, he exited through the office and reactivated the security system from the outside keypad. He hurried toward the waiting Citroën, looking around as he went, not really sure what he expected to see. He saw, in fact, nothing but the dark back road and the empty fields bordered by swaying trees. Still, he looked and listened; something told him to be on his toes.
He thought of his brother, the last time he’d seen him: at sundown, on a cold spring night, rushing off to meet up with a friend—or so Aaron had told him. Nothing to worry about, be back soon. Before Heather had given him a shot and hired him to work in her kitchen, Aaron had been a small-time criminal—stealing vehicles and breaking into homes, even running drugs now and then, whatever it took to make rent and buy food for himself and his kid brother. According to the police, though, Aaron had been killed only a few hours after leaving Cal—a drug deal gone bad, the cops had called it. Even so, his body, or what was left of it, hadn’t been found for close to two days. A long time for Cal to sit and wait, to look out the window of their apartment for any sign of the only family he had left.
He knew he was thinking of this now as a reminder to himself of what he already knew so well: One’s life can quickly change, and the last words spoken can easily become the last words ever spoken.
A ritual of his that he obeyed, one way or another, every time he left the safety of this place.
Climbing in behind the wheel, he pulled the door closed, pushed in the clutch and shifted into gear, then paused to look up. In one of his windows stood Heather, watching him. He knew that she would be there. Backlit by all the candles, she was nothing but a silhouette. He waved to her, and she waved back.
He took off then, crossing from the loose gravel of the driveway onto the solidness of the paved road. Above him, the Long Island sky—crowded with dark and fast-moving clouds as big as ships—was like chaos.
He kept to the posted speed limit, heading east along Scuttlehole Road.
Four
The Shelter Island ferry disembarked from Tyndal Point in North Haven. Fifteen minutes after leaving the garage, Cal passed through the village of Sag Harbor, lit up but empty tonight, then crossed the bridge that spanned the wide inlet and turned right onto North Haven Road. He followed the dark straightaway that led down to the water’s edge—a mile-long decline, gradual at first, then steep, the lights of the landing dead ahead.
Shelter Island was, at the most, a mile from North Haven; Cal could see it clearly across the choppy water, a dark shape holding steady against the rushing current and the windy night. Once he reached the end of North Haven Road he shut off the lights and the motor and waited as the ferry made its return trip from the island. For several long minutes the Citroën was the only automobile in sight, but as the ferry began to dock, the headlights of another vehicle appeared behind Cal. He watched in the mirror mounted on the driver’s door as these headlights approached, eventually lighting up the Citroën’s interior and reflecting off the rearview mirror on the windshield, all but blinding him.
A pickup truck, he concluded by the height of the lights from the road, blue-white halogen bulbs set on high. The lights remained on even as the truck came to a stop in line directly behind Cal. Turning the rearview mirror away to keep this light from straining his eyes, he looked forward, wa
tching as the two vehicles on board the ferry disembarked.
A shiny black Town Car with New York state taxi plates and an E-type Jaguar with New Jersey plates. Once past the two waiting vehicles, the Jaguar accelerated suddenly, pulling out of its lane and rocketing past the Town Car. Gunning up the dark incline, the sound of its screaming exhaust was quickly swallowed up by the night.
The ferrymen—two of them, in their early twenties, dressed for the damp cold in hooded sweatshirts and down jackets—waved Cal aboard, guiding him with minimal, almost lazy hand gestures to a spot on what would be, upon the trip back to the island, the bow of the ferry. The pickup pulled in beside Cal, its lights finally darkening.
Looking over, he saw that were three people in its cab—a girl behind the wheel and two guys beside her, all of them in their late teens at the most. The guy closest to the passenger window studied the Citroën before looking at its driver, then was nudged by the one beside him. He turned away, accepted what looked to Cal to be a joint, then took a long drag from it, its tip a speck of glowing red in the dark cab.
One of the ferrymen stepped to the Citroën. Cal lowered the window, held up a ten-dollar bill, and asked for a two-way ticket. Just as the guy in the truck had, the ferryman studied the Citroën from nose to tail and only then looked at its driver.
“Where’s your costume?”
Cal shrugged, thought for a moment, then said, “Don’t have one.”
“You’re going to that party, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Every fancy car we take over, the people inside are all dressed up in costumes.”
“A lot of cars tonight?”
“Yeah. Busiest night I’ve ever seen.”
The ferryman handed Cal the two-way ticket and change. His gloves were wool, the tips of the thumbs and index fingers cut off so he could better handle cash. Cal could tell by the ferryman’s accent that he was a native East Ender, just like Cal was, a descendant of the fishermen who had worked this island for generations long before it had become the playground of the rich.
[2010] The Violet Hour Page 5
