Naked Moon

by Domenic Stansberry

  “It’s a desirable property.”

  They hiked up along the ridge, and Marilyn took out her basket and spread the blanket on the ground. He did not know how to broach what he had to say. He did not know if he wanted to. They talked about nothing. About the eucalyptus trees and how the park service was working to eliminate them in favor of native species, live oak and wild junca. About the color of the water down there in the shallows where the last boatload of tourists stood waiting to be hauled back.

  “We’re being left behind.”

  “Yes.”

  “We’re on the island alone.”

  “It’s not so bad.”

  “No.”

  “Do you want to see it?”

  “What?”

  “The place in Marin. I’m hosting an open house tomorrow afternoon.”

  “What about your clients? Those two you’ve been showing around.”

  “They’ll be looking at it, too.”

  They walked down the rest of the way now, headed for the dock, bumping shoulders where the path narrowed. I have to leave town. The moment was slipping away. He had to end things some way or the other, because to do otherwise was to put her at risk. She would want an explanation, but he could not tell her why, because the knowledge itself would increase her danger. Go with David Lake. Though that alone, he knew, would not make her safe. Not so long as he himself were alive. Nor so long as they could get to him by going after her.

  They headed across the gangway into the boat.

  She went down into the hold, to put on warmer clothes, and he watched her dark form as she pulled the sweater over her head.

  He stepped toward her. “My cousin,” he said.

  “Not now.”

  She pulled him into an embrace.

  They lay in darkness belowdecks, but the darkness was not yet complete. He could see through the windows the hulking shape of the island, the dark lines of the eucalyptus, and also the white shimmering of the horizon, the edge of the sea and the sky, where the darker masses merged. There was the rocking of the boat, and the sound of the sea slapping against the hull, and the slow moan of the dock as it rolled and creaked with the evening breeze. The wind had picked up at dusk but then settled after the darkness fell. They talked about his cousin.

  “What do the police think?”

  “They’re investigating. Gary was involved in some things.”

  “He was headed for a bad end.”

  “It looks that way.”

  “You talked to him?”

  “A couple days before he died.”

  She looked uneasy, but he could not say he blamed her. Just weeks before, she had been down to Cabo with David Lake. They stayed at a place along the coast there. A better choice, Lake.

  Things might have been different, he told himself … if not for the company … if not for his cousin’s foolishness … but this was not altogether true…. He’d had his chance to take her away…. They’d had their opportunities….

  Come with me.

  He leaned over then and ran his fingers over her face. In the darkness of the hold, he could not see the scars, but they were still there. He could feel the mottling along her back and her thighs and her shoulders.

  My fault.

  Despite her flirtation with Lake, her growing attachment, she had kept coming to him. But this situation could not go on any longer.

  Sometimes, in close quarters with her, he thought he could smell the other man’s scent. He could smell the big house in Pacific Heights and the inside of the Mercedes and the polo shirts and the seat up in the opera box and the sweat in the guy’s sand-colored hair. He could smell the other man as she moved toward him in the dark, under the white sheet—as she took his hand and put it down between her legs—as she wrapped herself around him and he buried his head into the hollow of her neck, and she herself started to sweat and labor, head tilted back, eyes toward the ceiling. Then he pulled her closer. Wanting just the smell of her body and her perfume and their clothes and those streets they had both known when they were kids. The scent of the two of them lying together in his father’s house among all the boxes.

  The boat rocked. The night rushed in. There was the quiet of the island behind them and the sound of the city in the distance.

  “We could stay here tonight,” she said.

  “The space is tight.”

  “I don’t want to go back.”

  “We have to.”

  Dante went above deck, looking toward the military prison. The Chinese immigrants there had been beaten and starved: by the Irish guards, the Germans, the Italians. But it was the tongs that had transported their kinsmen across the sea. Getting a fee from both sides—the laborers themselves and the employers who wanted them. It was the same business now, more or less.

  Marilyn stood on the deck with the dark water behind her and the glittering city in the distance. She motioned toward the other shore. “It’s over there.”

  “What?”

  “The little house I was telling you about.”

  NINETEEN

  Later, Dante would curse himself. He could have done things differently. He could have thought more clearly. He had known Greene was in the neighborhood, and he could have been more vigilant.

  Instead, when they’d gotten back to the Beach that evening, he allowed himself to be carried away in the pleasure of walking beside her, down Grant, as he’d walked often enough before, lost in the scent of her so close to him, not wanting, not yet, to break the illusion. Marilyn had wanted to walk to a small grocery, a specialty place of sorts—high-end produce, imported chocolate and coffee, eggs from free-range chickens. It had seemed better to go with her than to let her go alone, but his attention had been on Marilyn herself, on her presence beside him, so he did not see Greene catty-corner across the way, nor did he see Greene enter the store behind them. He did not notice the other man’s presence at all, in fact, until he heard a male voice the next aisle over.

  “This here?”

  “No. These …”

  “I have those every morning.”

  “These are much better. See the skin … the color …”

  Dante turned in the aisle, and there was Dominick Greene, talking to Marilyn, flirting over the produce. Greene had dark eyes, high cheekbones, and a sinuous smile. He gave Dante a nod of recognition. In that nod, that smile, the almost familial glance, Dante saw, he thought, the man’s insidious intentions.

  “We’ve met,” Greene said.

  “Yes,” Dante said.

  “I’m staying close by.”

  “At the Wong. I know.”

  “How did you know?” Greene asked. “My cousin.”

  “I just came in for some cigarettes.”

  Greene stuck with them through the cashier and out into the street. He stuck with them to the corner as well. He took some matches from his pocket, lighting his cigarette, and stayed with them down Grant, walking smartly now. He took one pull from his cigarette, then another. His free hand returned to the pocket, jiggling, as if Greene carried something else in that pocket as well. Dante himself carried a retractable blade—the stiletto the cops had missed, with a push mechanism, specially designed.

  “Your cousin, he seems to have vanished.” The man’s voice was sly, hard to read. “I’ve called him a couple times. He doesn’t return.”

  Marilyn glanced at Dante, waiting perhaps for him to reveal the truth about Gary’s death, but Dante said nothing. Greene, he suspected, already knew; the man was playing a game.

  “You’re in fabrics?”

  “Textiles. Italian.”

  “Made in China, I assume.”

  “What isn’t?”

  Greene’s eyes were on Marilyn. He had a charming manner as far as it went, and started talking about the new line and its many uses—upholstery, fabrics, women’s clothing—and something about that chatter suggested a conversation he’d employed, more than once, to gain the attention of women.

  “You’ve travel
ed widely,” Dante said.

  “Not so much.”

  “Luzon?”

  Greene acted as if he did not heard. It was there, in Manila, where the diplomat had been found hanging in his cell. The man’s son had been murdered first, though. Then the wife.

  “I’ve noticed you,” Greene said to Marilyn. “I’ve seen you around.”

  “Oh.”

  “At Moe’s. In the square.”

  “I grab coffee there, in the morning.”

  “Dressed for work.”

  She smiled, flattered. “Yes, I work at Prospero’s.”

  “The real estate firm?”

  Dante did not want Greene accompanying them farther. The man sensed his uneasiness, and was enjoying it in the way some men enjoyed such things, sneaking glances at the other man, flashing him over as he flirted with the girl. Possibly it was only happenstance, their running into Greene: a bored salesman, horny, out for a stroll. There was a challenge in the way the man stood there, hands in his pockets, groin first.

  “We get off here.”

  “Up Union?”

  “Yes.”

  Greene kept his eyes on Marilyn. “Well, I’ll see you again,” he said.

  On the way up, Marilyn sauntered a little more slowly than Dante might have liked. They lingered together on her stoop. A car engine misfired up the hill somewhere. A couple sat talking in a vehicle two houses up, and a woman pulled down a shade across the way. There were small movements in the dark. None of these movements meant anything in and of themselves, but it was only a matter of time. Greene had been in town awhile. If he was with the company, probably he already knew where Marilyn lived. Probably he knew Dante’s habits as well. Meanwhile Marilyn was waiting for Dante to say something. Lake had let his feelings be known, and now it was Dante’s turn. Still, the thing Marilyn wanted him to say, and the thing Dante needed to say, they were not the same. Instead, he thought of Greene and his silk suit coat and the taunting smile. Dante felt a blind certainty about Greene, the kind of feeling—based in jealousy—that he knew he shouldn’t trust, but it was irresistible nonetheless. He and Marilyn kissed, but it was different now, with a message from David Lake flashing on the phone inside, more likely than not, and Greene roaming around out here in the dark.

  “What do you want to do?” she asked.

  They’d been to this place before, more than once. They’d circled around each other for years. There’d been other men, other women, but there was only so long this kind of thing could go on.

  “It’s not fair. To any of us.”

  “There’s something else,” Dante said.

  “What?”

  Her eyes glimmered expectantly in the dark. Nearby, parrots cawed in the palms. The cathedral sounded down on the square, its bells muted in the fog. Yet he could not say what he had to say, not now. He touched the stiletto in his pocket.

  “The little house,” he said. “Tomorrow, I’ll come take a look.”

  She kissed him. It was a sweet kiss, full of promise, and he believed for a moment that everything would turn out all right.

  TWENTY

  Dante found Greene at the Melody Lounge—a hotel bar adjacent to the Sam Wong Hotel. It was a place where young people came to sit and drink and flirt after work, though that group had pretty much cleared out by this time and it was the hotel crowd now: downscale business travelers and tourists on a budget. There were some locals, too, of course, but there were always locals.

  Greene sat drinking. The man’s attention was focused a couple seats down the counter on a pair of divorcées, on vacation, judging from the looks of them, midforties, traveling together. They were all laughing it up pretty good. Dante remembered these kinds of moments with the company, waiting. He remembered the hunger hollowing him out.

  Dante took the empty seat between Greene and the women. The man’s face showed his surprise. “This is a coincidence. Twice in one night.”

  “Not entirely.”

  “You’re interrupting our conversation.”

  “It’s okay,” said the blonde. She was full of cheer. “There are four of us now. We can take a booth.”

  “You two do that,” said Dante. “My friend and I, we’ll be along in just a minute.”

  “I don’t believe you.” She pouted.

  “Maybe they want to be with each other,” said her girlfriend. “Maybe they are that kind.”

  “That’s the way it is in this city. So I hear,” said the blonde. The women were taunting them now, the pair of them. “How’s a girl supposed to have any fun?”

  “We’ll be along,” Dante repeated.

  Greene moved to follow, but Dante stopped him with a hand on his forearm. A look of confusion passed over Greene’s face, though there was still the smirk and the silk suit coat and the good looks.

  “What can I do for you?” he said.

  “You’ve met with my cousin.”

  “I didn’t know you were involved with the warehouse.”

  What he had to say next, Dante felt as if he were back with homicide, making the same announcement to each new witness, each new suspect, waiting for their reaction. Meanwhile, Greene glanced into his drink. He had a look of naïveté about him, that little-boy look not too different from his cousin’s. The dark eyes, almost beseeching, but with that light way down in the center. It could be he was exactly what he presented himself to be: a go-between man trying to figure the best way to bring his goods to port.

  “Have you talked to Gary lately?” Dante asked.

  “Did he send you?”

  “No.”

  “Then what’s your point?”

  “I’ve seen you about a lot lately. Do you usually spend so much time in one port?”

  “There are other parties. Other warehouses.”

  “I can make things a mess for you,” Dante said.

  “I really don’t understand.”

  “I think you do.”

  “No.”

  “Gary’s dead.”

  The polarity in the man’s eyes disappeared. They were all black now, with no more reflection. At the same time, though, Greene seemed to shrink into himself, as if he really were the role he played, a two-bit scammer in a silk suit who had nothing to do with the matter at hand. He thrummed his fingers on his cigarette pack.

  “I need a smoke.”

  “I’ll go with you.”

  “I’d rather smoke alone,” he said.

  “Why?”

  “You seem a little off.”

  “The feeling’s mutual.”

  “The girls are waiting.”

  “If you don’t want to talk, I can go to the police.”

  “I need a cigarette.”

  Dante followed Greene outside. If Greene was the businessman he seemed—if he had nothing to do with his cousin’s death—he’d turn tail right now, Dante thought. He’d get the hell away from me. His cousin, however, dealt with a lot of people who were on the borderline. So it was possible this man had nothing to do with the company, or with the Wus: that he was an independent operator with whom his cousin had considered making a deal. Dante transferred the stiletto from his jacket pocket to his hand.

  They walked down the alley, and Serafina’s was just ahead. Dante had been out there the other day, watching Stella’s son load the mechanical lift that rose up out of the walk.

  “I don’t know anything about your cousin,” Greene said. “He was recommended to me, that’s all.”

  “For what?”

  The man started to talk about his business, something about fabrics, about container size and wholesale distribution patterns, the kind of talk Dante had engaged in himself once upon a time, as part of sting operations, or what masqueraded as such, because as often as not the company was making deals of the sort that facilitated the passage of goods in exchange for certain kinds of information.

  There was something disjointed about Greene, something off in the small pinpoint of light way back in his eyes. Dante suspected the man w
as fucking with him, one way or the other.

  “Which one you want?” Greene asked.

  “Which one?”

  “Inside, the blonde or the brunette. Which one?”

  “Neither.”

  “That’s not very nice.”

  “This isn’t about them.”

  “Then what’s it about?”

  “You.”

  “Me? Listen,” he said. “It isn’t smart for you to talk to the police—you know that as well I do. I talked with your cousin, true, about running some shipments, but there’s no use talking about it now. With all the heat, there’s no way.” Greene threw his cigarette on the ground and put it out with his foot. “I think I am done with this,” he said, but stood there nonetheless, as if waiting for Dante to make the first move: to turn around and go ahead of him inside the bar. The man bent down to tie his shoe, taking his time about it, eyes on Dante the whole while.

  “Your girl, Marilyn, she’s a nice-looking one,” the man said. Dante didn’t like the sound of her name in his mouth. “She’s not the type that stays tucked away, though, is she?”

  Dante had seen a picture of the diplomat’s wife. A good-looking woman. He remembered how Marlilyn had preened under Greene’s attention. There was a softness in the man’s menace, something likeable and foolish in the turn of the lips, the sidewise smirk. They were at stalemate now, each waiting for the other to go on ahead.

  “Things have changed,” Greene said. “Sorry your cousin is dead. Truth is, I didn’t need him in the first place. And I don’t need you.”

  A fresh cigarette hung from the man’s mouth. He made a move then, jerking his hand down into his pocket. It was a sudden move, like a man stumbling, just clumsiness, too much to drink, but at the same time his eyes gleamed and his lips pulled back into a grin, and there was something deliberate, too deliberate, about the way his hand grasped down into the fabric. Dante pummeled forward. It was an instinctive move. Too late to do anything else. The shot is coming. He would take it in the kidney. He drove one palm down, hoping to deflect what was coming, the quick burst of fire out of the man’s pocket—and with the other hand he gripped the stiletto. There was an instant when he considered his impulse might be wrong—when he understood there might be no shot coming, when perhaps he could have stopped himself—but then he was already in motion, his hand on the slide button. Whether what happened next was out of volition or the sheer force of the mechanism, or the anger inside himself, the result was the same. The blade sprang out as it hit the man’s chest, and he pushed it through in a single thrust, through the rib cage, the cartilage, into the heart. It was something he’d done before, self-defense, but he’d accomplished it too adroitly to doubt his skill in such matters. He had his own training, his own instincts. He pushed Greene into the wall, into a cranny in the brick, legs against legs, staring into his eyes and watching the tiny prick of light fade, glass over, as the man’s mouth fell open and his body jerked and then jerked some more and the air hissed out and the fluids gushed. Some people passed at the mouth of the alley, but they kept going, not seeing, or not wanting to see. Thinking what they glimpsed was something else altogether, the way the one man held the other so tight, face-to-face, chest to chest, thrusting him fiercely against the alley wall.