Southampton Spectacular

by M. C. Soutter

  Both of her parents frowned. Or would have frowned, if they had not both been keeping such tight control over themselves. But Devon saw the twitch in both of them, and she made a mental note to involve her mother in these questions, too. The other questions. About the names up on the wall in the Racquet Club. Later on, when all of this stuff was under control.

  “I can try,” Peter Hall said. “Can you tell me what’s going on? Other than his child being in intensive care, that is.” He gave Devon a knowing look. “What kind of friend do you want me to be?”

  Devon smiled. She seldom gave her father much credit for perception of unspoken things, but now she reminded herself that he was not so far behind her mother in this respect. “The ‘strong family’ kind of friend,” Devon said. “The kind that reminds him what’s really important.”

  Her father looked confused. “He needs to be reminded of that now? Didn’t he just go through almost losing his eldest son? As we speak, I believe he’s standing at his bedside.”

  “Right, which is why this might turn out to be sort of a long-term assignment.” Devon rocked her head back and forth slowly, like a star witness debating how much to reveal. “It can’t hurt to have somebody on your side,” she said finally. “Somebody sensible,” she added. “In case anything else happens.”

  Her father sighed. “Okay,” he said. “I’ll give it a shot.” He stood and put his magazine back on the pile on the table. Then he lowered his head for a second, as if trying to remember what one said to a scared, grief-stricken, alcoholic, adulterous father when one wanted to strike up a conversation.

  He seemed to think of something, and he headed for the E.R. doors.

  The nurse at the window tried to say something to him as he passed, but Peter Hall didn’t seem to hear her. He continued through.

  The Departure

  Ned and Frankie were finally both secured in the Honda, and Nina took a moment to lock up her own car. Pauline was waiting in the Volkswagen. As Nina climbed into the Honda’s driver’s seat, Barnes came over. She looked up at him with concern.

  He looks strange, she thought.

  He was nervous, which was to be expected. But Nina thought he looked keyed-up, too. As if he were about to play in one of his beloved soccer matches, but against a team he wasn’t sure he could beat. “Ready?” she asked.

  “Yup.” He stood there for another moment, not saying anything else. Nina began to wonder what was going on. Maybe Barnes was simply too nervous to go through with it. But then he spoke up again. “See you in a little while,” he said. And then he did something that she found very odd. He bent at the waist like a waiter and planted a little kiss on top of her head. Like a parent saying goodnight.

  She smiled. “Don’t worry, honey,” she said, once Barnes had stepped away. “I won’t think less of you. This is just business.”

  But Barnes didn’t smile back. He looked at her silently for another minute, and then he said, “Hands.”

  Nina held the steering wheel, and Barnes shut the Honda’s door and jogged over to the Volkswagen.

  The Honda’s motor was already running, and the doors and windows were all closed, but Nina could still hear the Condor’s over-charged engine snarl to life when Barnes started it up. She listened to him wrestle with the standard transmission for a minute, and then they pulled out of the Dunn driveway together, a little two-car convoy headed for the hospital. Nina was in the lead with the children. She was already trying to get a conversation going with Ned, who was responding well. Any environment without Pauline was a good one, and he began telling Nina about an especially exciting story his mother had been reading to him the day before.

  Nina checked her rearview mirror as they started out, wondering absently how Barnes would proceed. Maybe today he would do no more than break the ice.

  Get to know your friendly neighborhood psycho. Learn her hometown. Exchange a few pleasantries. Surely you have a number of things in common. Sew the seeds for a relationship that’s bound to flourish later on.

  Except that she didn’t think Pauline would want to talk to Barnes at all in her current mood, no matter how charming he tried to be. Their car was so noisy that he would have to shout to be heard.

  Nina checked in her rearview mirror again, and the Volkswagen was no longer behind them. She didn’t think anything of it. She told herself that Barnes was probably just taking a longer route. Stalling for time, planning his big move.

  Which he was, of course. But not the way Nina thought.

  The Arrival

  Devon and Cynthia were waiting silently now, the two of them alone in the waiting room except for a scattering of relatives of other patients. Devon’s head was too full of doubts and possibilities and questions to do anything but sit, and her mother knew enough simply to stay next to her, one hand on the back of her neck, rubbing occasionally, as if searching for knots of bunched nerves and muscle. Saying nothing.

  They looked up at the sound of the outside doors opening, and there was Nina. She came into the waiting room like a breeze on a hot day, Frankie in one arm and Ned holding onto the other, all three of them grinning like sweepstakes winners. The kids had put Nina in a good mood. She felt now as if things were going to work out. Somehow.

  “These boys are pretty cool,” she said, and handed Frankie to Devon's mother without being asked. It seemed the most natural thing to do. Cynthia accepted the ten-month-old without argument and immediately began bouncing him on her knee. Frankie giggled appreciatively. As so often happened in Frankie’s world, today was turning out to be yet another extraordinarily funny and delightful day.

  Bouncing on a knee?

  My God, you’ve got to try this.

  Ned was still talking eagerly to Nina, telling her story after story, and it was difficult to tell which tales had come from books or from his own experiences. The two worlds overlapped more often than not. He was speaking so quickly that he seemed to be in a race against some sort of impossible deadline.

  “And then Danny said you better not and I said or else what? And then Danny…”

  “Nice going,” Devon said to Nina when Ned paused for breath. He quickly resumed, but then Cynthia Hall swooped in with the practiced technique of an old hand. And without any pause in Frankie’s bouncing. “What were you telling her?” she demanded of Ned, with wide-eyed wonder. “Can you tell me?”

  Ned obliged her with renewed enthusiasm, and Nina and Devon were allowed to talk.

  “No problem with the nanny?”

  Nina made a see-saw motion with one hand. “At first. But we wore her down.”

  Devon glanced at the exit doors in case anyone else might be about to come walking through. “So where are they now?”

  “No idea. They went another way. I assume they’ll be here pretty soon. She wasn’t in a very good mood.”

  “They took the Condor?”

  Nina nodded. “That thing is a mess.”

  “All right. I’m going to go talk to the admitting nurse. Pauline shouldn’t be allowed onto the main floor.”

  “You think she’ll even want to?”

  “She might try to go see Mr. Dunn. I don’t know. I want to be ready either way.”

  Cynthia Hall glanced up from the children, and she put a hand on Ned’s arm to hold him in mid-sentence for a moment. “Can I do anything else?”

  Devon shook her head as she walked away. “You’re perfect right there,” she said over her shoulder. “We need to be prepared to handle that woman when she arrives. You cover the kids, and we’ll make sure she stays away from James. She’ll probably just sit quietly.” Devon smiled humorlessly at Nina. “Maybe that’ll give Barnes a little more time to work on her. Nothing like a little hospital waiting room romance, right?”

  Nina followed Devon to the admitting station. “He looked weird to me,” she said.

  “Barnes?”

  Nina nodded.

  Devon looked unconcerned. “He’s pissed about James. It’s his best friend. You said i
t yourself.”

  “I guess.”

  Nina looked back at the exit and then glanced at her watch. As if Barnes had promised to arrive by a certain time, and was now unforgivably overdue. She looked at the exit again. Willing the doors to open. But no, still no Barnes.

  She told herself that he would be there in five minutes. Ten, at the most.

  But it was another hour before he arrived.

  When Barnes finally did reach the hospital, it was not under his own power.

  Plan B

  Pauline wasn’t going to talk to him. Barnes could see it as soon as he sat down in the little red car, could see the way she was twisted just enough in her seat to show him a piece of her back. She was clutching her daypack in her lap and looking out the front windshield with a fixed, stony expression.

  Which was fine. Barnes wasn’t planning on a lot of chitchat.

  The old car started easily and loudly. Barnes knew very little about the actual mechanisms in motors, but he wondered what would make an engine this noisy. The windows were vibrating and the rpm needle was jumpy, and he was barely touching the accelerator. He waited thirty seconds to see if the noise level would go down as the engine warmed up, but no. Nina was pulling out of the driveway in the Honda with the kids now, and Barnes gave himself one more second to glance at the gearshift, in case reverse might be located somewhere strange in the transmission pattern.

  But everything was as expected, and he shifted into first and pulled out, following the Honda.

  He stayed behind Nina for the first half-mile, letting himself get a feel for the Condor’s engine. It was as strong as it sounded, and every time he shifted gears the car gave a little lurch. Pauline glanced over at him once, to let him know that she was conscious of his imperfect driving skills. But he didn’t pay any attention. He worked his way through the gears once more, letting the Honda pull away. When he was satisfied he knew what he was doing, he made a quick right-hand turn.

  Pauline looked at him questioningly, and Barnes gave her a dismissive shake of his head. “They’re going the long way,” he shouted over the din of the engine. “Plus, she has to go slow with the kids in the car.”

  He was aware even as he was talking that his explanations made no sense, but he didn’t care. What was she going to do, jump out of the car? Pauline seemed to come to the same conclusion, because she sat back in her seat with a shrug like a weary parent enduring a child’s lies. She didn’t care how they got there.

  They looped right and then right again, and Barnes began to get the feel of the car. They had come full-circle now, and they sped past the Dunn driveway on their left. In another minute they were passing the Beach Club, and now they were coming to the intersection at Dune Road and First Neck Lane. Barnes slowed to an almost-stop, and then he made a quick left.

  They were heading down Dune Road. Away from town.

  Pauline shot another glance at him, and this time Barnes looked back at her with an expression he hoped would pass for eager excitement. He pointed ahead of them and nodded, as if they were on their way to see something exciting. Something they had agreed upon beforehand. Pauline frowned and shook her head at him. “What the hell are you doing?” she yelled over the engine noise, but Barnes just kept smiling. “This will only take a second,” he yelled back, still pointing ahead. “It’s great, you’ll see.”

  “No, you jackass,” she shouted. “To the hospital.” As if she were using a word that less-intelligent people often confused with something else. “The hospital, where the kids are going.”

  He nodded in a way he hoped was reassuring. Stalling her. As quickly as he could, he shifted up through the gears again, and now they were passing through 40 mph, and now 50, and now they were traveling on the main Dune Road straightaway. For the first time, Barnes was able to make it all the way to fifth gear, and the Volkswagen’s engine finally began to quiet down. As if its only complaint all this time had simply been that they were moving too slowly. That what the Condor needed, what it really craved, was some clean, straightaway speed. They were still accelerating, and the car began to actually hum. As though it were singing to them. Pauline’s mouth twitched at the edges, whether out of anger or nerves it would have been difficult to say.

  She turned to him again. “Turn this car around now,” she yelled, in a voice that was only a few decibels short of screaming. “I don’t know where you think we’re going, but I’m not coming along. I’ll get Jerry to beat the snot out of you.”

  This time Barnes didn’t even bother looking at her.

  They flashed by Cooper’s Beach on the left and Cooper’s Neck Lane on the right, and Barnes had a momentary vision of the night before. Of that very morning, actually. Only six or seven hours ago, when he and James had been sitting in the Navigator together up on the Cooper’s Beach lookout. Just the two of them this time, because they had dropped off all the girls already, first Devon and Nina and then Florin, and now they could sit and look at the ocean in the night together, and Barnes could wait patiently, to see if James would talk about what had happened. About why he had bruises on his face and arms. Or about anything else.

  It might have been the alcohol, or the late hour, or maybe it was simply that James had already told the truth once, to Devon, a few days ago out on Court 1. Now, having said it all once, he was not so afraid of it. Of telling it. So he told Barnes as well. Barnes listened, and nodded, and assured his friend it was going to be okay. That he loved him and that none of these things mattered. And that James wouldn’t have to worry anymore about Pauline, because they would figure out a way to get rid of her.

  But clearly James had not been comforted by this, because he had tried to kill himself less than an hour later.

  Barnes wondered when his friend had made the decision. Right then, as they sat in the car together? Earlier? Or had it been a spur-of-the-moment thing? A decision he had made only after he had dropped Barnes off, when he had gone driving away?

  It wasn’t important. James had survived, and that was good enough. And even though Barnes appreciated Devon’s efforts, he had decided that her whole “get Pauline to cheat on Mr. Dunn” plan was not nearly good enough.

  Not sure enough.

  The way Barnes saw it, he had one good chance to help his friend. To save his friend. So he would use that chance for all it was worth. He would follow through on the promise he had made to him that morning, just a few hours ago.

  He would get rid of Pauline.

  He looked at the speedometer now, saw that they were passing through 60, and still his foot was only halfway down on the accelerator. Pauline seemed to have given up shouting at him. The anger on her face was giving way to a distinct look of fear. One of her hands reached reflexively for the broken seatbelt, which was hanging uselessly from the slot beside the door. Barnes heard, or thought he heard, the sound of a siren over the rising hum of the Condor’s engine, and he saw Pauline twist around in her seat.

  “Cop was camped out at the corner of Cooper’s,” she yelled. “Show’s over.” There was a clear note of relief in her voice, but Barnes only smiled. He looked over at her once, slowly, and then he looked back at the road in front of him. He thought of James sitting next to him in the Navigator, thought of him talking about unbelievable, unspeakable things. Thought of him talking about Pauline.

  Then Barnes leaned back, lowered his head, and pressed the accelerator all the way down to the floor.

  The Flight Of The Condor

  If Mr. Dunn had been there to see, he would have been proud.

  The Condor leapt forward, all 308 horses straining at the bit, and Barnes and Pauline were pressed back into their seats as though they were sitting in a rocket. Barnes focused on keeping the wheel steady, and he could hear the siren fading quickly into the distance.

  Then, a few seconds later, he heard it coming up again.

  Good cop car, he thought.

  “Stop, you dick!” Pauline shouted. “They’re going to throw you in jail!”

>   Barnes cocked his head to the side.

  Maybe. Or maybe they’re going to save me right after. We’ll see.

  He pressed his foot down even harder onto the floor, as if urging the little car to give him just a few more foot-pounds of torque. The Volkswagen’s frame, which had been designed neither for Autobahn speeds nor for Space-Shuttle-like acceleration, was beginning to vibrate with a heavy, teeth-rattling resonance. The engine noise had returned, but it sounded different now. Instead of a chattering or a rattling, this was a rising wail. A scream of protest.

  Or maybe that’s Pauline, Barnes thought.

  She was screaming now, screaming at him as she realized all at once that this was not simply unpleasant, not simply scary, that she was in trouble here. She screamed first at him and then at the front windshield and then behind her, at the police car, as though urging it to catch them, catch them somehow and get them to stop. Now she was looking around the car frantically, searching for something that could make her safe. Make this car slow down. She looked again at the limply hanging passenger-side seatbelt, but just as quickly looked away.

  The first big turn was approaching.

  Pauline looked desperately at Barnes’s hands, and at the wheel, and appeared briefly to consider grabbing hold. But this, too, she seemed to dismiss as suicide. Then, finally, she looked down. Remembered the emergency break.

  Barnes had been waiting for this, and his fist shot out like a spring-loaded punching glove. He did not try to grab her arm. He just hit her, hard. In the mouth. She pitched backward from the impact, and her head struck the side window with a crack. She winced at the pain in her mouth and the back of her head, and then she glared at Barnes with quickly renewed fear and hatred. As if to say that this insane car ride was bad enough, but hitting her was really inexcusable. She jabbed a finger at him angrily like a furious football coach berating a lazy player, and then she lunged toward him with hands outstretched. Apparently she had decided that enough was enough, and that she would worry about her own safety later. Because now was the time to show this teenaged punk that nobody was allowed to hit her.