Lights Out

29

Eddie parked Jack’s car outside 434 Collins Avenue. He remembered the address, remembered word for word the letter that had lain in his locker for almost fifteen years. One third of his accumulated correspondence: not hard to remember.

Four-thirty-four Collins Avenue was a faded-pink office building with a Space Available sign on the roof. Eddie got out of the car, taking the backpack with him. The sky was blue, the sun gold, the air hot. Hot to Eddie, at least, still wearing Jack’s wintertime clothing. He went inside.

The lobby was small and dark. There was a single elevator with graffiti scratched on its steel door, and a black office-directory board with white rubberized letters and numbers, some missing.

Brice and Colon Security, he read, number 417. Eddie took the elevator to the top floor.

“Ring and Enter, Pujar y Entrar,” was written on a plastic strip taped to the door of 417. Eddie rang and entered.

A brassy-haired receptionist looked up from her magazine. She raised what was left of her eyebrows.

“I’d like to see Mr. Brice,” Eddie said.

“Name?”

“Ed Nye.”

The receptionist picked up her phone. “A Mr. Ed Nye to see you.” Eddie heard a voice on the other end: harsh, loud, metallic. The receptionist hung up and said: “Very last door on your right.”

Eddie went past her, into a short corridor. There were only two doors to choose from; perhaps the receptionist fantasized herself part of a big operation. The first was closed and had “Senor Colon” on the front. The second was open. Eddie walked in.

An old man was sitting with his feet up on his desk. The soles of his shoes were worn; so were the carpet, the desk, his face, his eyes. A white-mesh screen covered his throat.

“Mr. Brice?”

The old man took his feet off the desk, tugged at the mesh screen, and replied. At least, his lips moved and sound came from him, harsh, loud, metallic. Eddie understood none of it.

The old man pointed to the white mesh and spoke again. His mouth, lips, tongue, all moved to shape words, but the sound came from whatever was under the mesh screen. This time Eddie caught most of it. “Sawbones took my larynx, Mr. Nye. Got to listen close.”

Eddie nodded.

“Siddown.”

Eddie sat, laying the backpack on the floor.

“What can I do for you?” the old man said. The voice was amplified, mechanical, like a robot’s; at the same time, there was something disembodied about it, which made Eddie think of the oracle in a book of Greek legends he’d read.

“You’re William Brice?”

“I am.”

“My name’s Ed Nye.”

“That’s what she said.”

“Does it mean anything to you?”

“No. Should it?”

“Maybe not,” Eddie said. “It was a long time ago.”

“How long?”

“Fifteen years. My brother hired you to find someone.”

Brice wore thick glasses. Behind them were little brown eyes that watched Eddie’s face. He inhaled sharply, like a singer getting ready for a hard note. “And did I?” he said.

“No. But I’d like to know how far you got.”

“Why?”

“I’m still looking for him.”

“Your brother should have anything like that. I always send a case summary, win or lose.” Brice took a raspy gulp of air, short of breath, as though the machine in his throat was exhausting his supply.

“I’d like a copy of it,” Eddie said, “if your records go back that far.”

“I got records of every case. Thirty-six years.” Brice sucked in another deep breath. “But I don’t give them away.”

“How much?”

The little brown eyes looked Eddie up and down, as though assessing his net worth. Eddie’s net worth was right there on the floor of Brice’s office: $488,220.

“Fifty bucks,” Brice said.

“Okay.”

“What’s your brother’s name?”

“J. M. Nye. Jack.”

Brice picked up his phone, held the speaker halfway between his throat and his mouth. “Rita? Bring me the file on Jack or J. M. Nye.” He hung up, leaned back in his chair. “So who are you looking for?”

“A drug smuggler from the Bahamas.”

“No shortage of those. What’s special about this one?” Another raspy breath.

“He committed a crime that someone else paid for.”

There was a pause, but brief. “Someone else like you?”

Eddie nodded.

“Thought so. Moment you came in.” The words, amplified and mechanical, had an official sound, like an announcement over a loudspeaker. “How much time did you do?”

“All of it.”

“How much was all.”

“Fifteen years.”

This pause was longer. “That means you just got out.”

“Right.”

“Maybe I could take a gander at the fifty bucks.”

“First we’ll see if you’ve got anything,” Eddie said.

“I got something. I got something on every case.” Brice glanced down at the backpack. “What’s this drug smuggler’s name?”

“Kidd,” said Eddie. “But we didn’t know that at the time. All we knew then was his nickname.”

“What was it?”

“JFK.”

Brice sat straighter in his chair, just a little, and lowered his gaze. His hand went to the desk drawer, opened it, took out a pack of cigarettes. He lit one, inhaled deeply, blew smoke. Some came through his nose and mouth, some through the white-mesh screen.

“Now do you remember?” Eddie said.

Brice shook his head. “Kind of a funny nickname, that’s all.”

The brassy-haired woman came through the door carrying a file, stopped dead. “God in heaven,” she said. “Look what you’re doing.”

Brice glanced down at the cigarette in his hand, then glared at her. “I got a client in here, Rita.” A blue wisp curled through the mesh screen. She dropped the file on the desk and left without another word.

“Not married, are you?” Brice asked.

“No.”

“Neither’s Rita, soon as her next divorce goes through.” Eddie didn’t respond. Brice opened the file. There was a single sheet of lined yellow notepad paper inside. Handwriting filled the top third. The rest was blank. It didn’t seem like a lot for Mr. Trimble’s thousand dollars.

“That’s it?” Eddie said.

Brice looked up from the file. “The investigation was unsuccessful, as you said.”

“You must have discovered something.”

Brice closed the file. “Not a thing.”

“Or eliminated some possibilities. Even that could help.” Eddie dug some bills out of his pocket, counted out fifty dollars, laid it on the desk.

Brice put his hand on the file. “Does your brother know you’re here?”

“No.”

“Plan to see him?”

“No.”

“Know where he is?”

“I don’t know what’s on your mind, Brice. My brother’s dead.”

“You kill him?”

The next thing Eddie knew he was on his feet, standing over the old man.

“Don’t,” said Brice. The tone was harsh and commanding, but that was just the machinery; his eyes were full of fear.

Eddie didn’t touch him. He just picked up the file and took it to the window. Down on the street a cop was tucking a parking ticket under the windshield wiper on Jack’s car. Eddie withdrew the single sheet of paper from the file and read it.

The date was on the top line. Then:

Nye, Jack. Intview #1.

Retainer $250-bank check.

Brother-Eddie (Edw. Nicholas) 5-15 drugs (mj)

Atty.-Glenn Weems, Smith amp; Weems, Ft. L. (who $$$?)

Nds. dvlp. new evdnce re: “JFK”

Bahamas-Saint Amour-Galleon Bch.

DEA-tip? Eddie N.-enemies? J. N. says no.

What about “JFK” as poss. enemy? Doesn’t kn.

“JFK” had mj patch.

But

That was all.

“Where’s the rest of it?” Eddie said, moving in front of the desk.

Brice shook his head.

“But these are just your notes from the first meeting. It doesn’t say what you did or where you went.”

“I didn’t do anything, didn’t go anywhere.”

“Why not?” Eddie ran his eyes over the page again. “And I know he paid you a grand, not two-fifty.”

“Maybe I shouldn’t tell you this.”

“But,” Eddie said. The word that closed the file.

“But your brother’s dead, so maybe you have a right to know.”

“Know what?”

“That I was just following his directions.”

Eddie didn’t understand; all the same, the icy feeling crept across his back and up his neck.

“And two-fifty was all he gave me, I don’t know about any grand.”

“Gave you to do what?” Eddie said.

“Nothing. He said money had been raised and it had to be spent”-Brice gasped for air-“but that you and this JFK were partners-he grew it, you ran it-and you were as guilty as he was. So no confession from him would do you”-another gulp of air-“any good.”

Eddie backed into the chair in front of the desk, almost sat down.

“You’re lying,” he said. His legs didn’t want to hold him up. He made them.

Brice shook his head. “When you mentioned JFK it all came back. I couldn’t forget a thing like that.” Pause for breath. “Only time it happened in thirty-six years.” Brice’s gaze went to the fifty dollars on the desk, then to Eddie. “JFK was lying low in Nassau, according to your brother. I guess your fifty buys that much.” He took another deep breath, but said no more.

Eddie folded the sheet of yellow paper, stuck it in his pocket, picked up the backpack. He remembered Brice’s letter-“our best efforts to locate the individual known as JFK have to this point in time been unsuccessful”-and didn’t think he owed Brice a penny, but he left the money where it was. He didn’t want to touch it.

Rita looked up from her magazine as he went by.

“Can you believe him?” she said. “I tell him, ‘Pa, how can you still smoke after everything that happened to you?’ He just ignores me. He’s such an idiot, sometimes.”

“That’s one of his minor flaws,” Eddie said.

30

Do most lives turn on one crucial event? Eddie didn’t think so. But some did-the Mariner’s for one, and his own for another. Now, after talking to Brice, Eddie knew that he didn’t understand his own crucial event any better than he did the Mariner’s. His imprisonment wasn’t simply the result of bad luck and a twisted chain of circumstance, as he had always thought. That left a lot of questions, questions that Jack could have answered.

The twin-engine Piper followed its shadow southeast across a sea smooth as Jell-O. Blue marked deep water, green the sandy shallows, red-brown the coral heads. A long white cruiser cut across the surface on the same course as the plane, like a tab opening a zipper. The shadow of the plane darkened the boat and left it behind.

“There’s beer in the cooler,” the pilot called from the cockpit.

“No, thanks,” Eddie said.

“Mind grabbing one for me?” Pause. “Little joke.”

The pilot looked back at Eddie to see if he got it. He had watery eyes and a puffy face; perhaps the cooler was for the return trip, solo.

“Good thing,” Eddie said. “I’m with the National Safety Board.”

There was no talk after that. The Bahamas appeared like emeralds on blue velvet, and soon came Saint Amour, as he remembered it, banana shaped and outlined in white. The pilot descended, banked, flew so low that Eddie could see a manta ray gliding below the surface, then skimmed down over pine tops and touched down on the strip, now paved, bounced a few times, and rolled to a stop.

Taking the backpack, Eddie got out. He felt the heat right away. It opened his pores, worked itself deep inside, slowed him down. You on island time now.

He looked around. Except for the pavement on the strip, nothing had changed, not the scrub forest, the still air, the floral smells. The strip was deserted but for a single crab sidestepping down the center. Eddie hoisted the pack on his back, crossed the strip, and started down the dirt road. Behind him, the plane gathered speed, roaring as it rose into the sky, then throbbing, then buzzing, then making no sound at all. A big brown bird rose from the trees, orange legs tucked up against its tail. Eddie could hear the heavy wings beating the air.

In five or ten minutes, he came to the flamboyant tree that marked the path leading to JFK’s marijuana patch. The path was gone, lost in a coiling growth of creeper and bush. But the flamboyant tree seemed much bigger, its red-flowered branches now reaching across the road, dappling the sun. He had a strange thought: This would be the place to bury Jack.

Eddie walked on, and a verse of the poem came to him, as though his mind were a CD player programmed on shuffle.

The many men, so beautiful!

And they all dead did lie:

And a thousand thousand slimy things

Lived on; and so did I.

But Jack, it turned out, hadn’t been beautiful, and he himself didn’t feel slimy. Where were all these beautiful dead people? Louie? The Ozark brothers? Paz’s driver? All dead, none beautiful. Killing might be wrong, but not because of some inherent beauty in the species. Where was it? In Tiffany? Sookray? Paz? El Rojo? No. Not in Gaucho either. Childhood and beauty were not the same; he remembered how he had fallen through the ice in his hockey skates. Then he thought of Karen, how she had kissed him and said, “I’m attracted to you, and I haven’t been attracted to anyone in a long time. Remember that, no matter what happens.” And despite what had happened, despite the fact that she’d been working to bring his brother down, Eddie couldn’t fit her into this new and dismal scheme of things.

The road swung right, toward the sea. He could see patches of it framed by the trees, flashing shapes of blue and gold, like abstract art on the move. He was sweating now; it dripped off his chin the way it had the last time he’d walked this road. The dead pig had weighed much more than $488,220, but he hadn’t been wearing Jack’s winter clothes. He stopped, took off the sweater, rolled up the shirt-sleeves, kept going.

A salty breeze curled across the road. Eddie still hadn’t seen anyone. The island might have been deserted and he a real-life equivalent of Sir Wentworth Staples, watching for a galleon through the trees. The illusion grew stronger and stronger, and with it came the idea of making a life here. Then he heard the thwack of tennis balls.

Eddie shifted the pack on his back, walked a little faster, recalling the red clay court that lay ahead, with its sun-bleached backboard and damp and dark equipment shed. Just ahead: behind that line of scrub pines.

But as Eddie drew closer he saw they were all gone: the dried-out clay court, the cracked backboard, the tumbledown shed. Instead there was an arched gate with a sign: “Pleasure Island Tennis Club”; and through it the sight of a dozen green all-weather courts, a clubhouse with a deck, and suntanned people in tennis outfits. Lots of them: lounging on the deck with drinks, drilling with the pros on the center courts, playing doubles on the side courts.

Eddie didn’t enter the gate. He stayed on the road, paved now and hot under his shoes, as it angled closer to the sea. He knew he was near the old fish camp, close enough, he thought, to hear the ocean. But all he heard was the whine of high-pitched engines. Then he came to the row of casuarinas that shielded the fish camp from the road. He walked through them and saw that the fish camp too was gone. In its place was a go-cart track. Three white kids fishtailed around the far turn, not far from the spot where Jack’s cabin had stood. A black man gassing carts at the side of the track glanced up at Eddie.

Eddie followed the road to its end at Galleon Beach. The beach itself was the same, if you ignored the ranks of glistening bodies flopped on chaises longues. But where the six waterfront cottages, thatch-roofed bar and central building with office, kitchen, dining room, and the Packers’ suite had been, there now stood a slab hotel eight stories high. Behind the hotel Eddie saw fairways, sand traps, greens, and in the distance clusters of white squared-off villas like a hard-shelled growth on the hillsides. Brad Packer’s blueprint had come to life.

“Take your bag, suh?”

A boy in a blue polo shirt with the words “Pleasure Island” on the chest was beside him.

“I’m not staying,” Eddie said.

“Land-crab race tonight, suh.” The boy looked up at him with unblinking eyes.

Eddie smiled. “Who owns this place?”

“Big, big company.” The boy spread his hands.

“What’s it called?”

The boy thought. “United States company,” he said.

“You from this island?” Eddie said.

The boy nodded.

“Know a man named JFK?”

The boy took a step back.

“He’s an old friend,” Eddie said. “I’d like to see him.”

“Ol’ frien’?” said the boy, backing away some more.

“What’s wrong?” Eddie said.

“He got AIDS.”

“I know.”

“You got it too?”

“No.”

The boy relaxed a little.

“Where is he?” Eddie said.

“Down to Cotton Town.” The boy pointed south.

“How far is that?”

“Far,” said the boy, “except when the jitney carry you.”

“Where do I get the jitney?”

The boy pointed his chin at the hotel.

Eddie went inside. There was a newsstand, a gift shop, a bar. A big-bellied man wearing nothing but a bathing suit and a straw hat sat on a stool with a drink in his hand. “I’m gettin’ smashed on Goombay smash,” he said to the bartender. “Is that funny or what?”

The bartender smiled, but her eyes were expressionless.

The big-bellied man leaned over the bar. “What’s your name, sweetheart?”

Eddie, walking to the reception counter, missed her reply.

No one was at the counter. Eddie rang the bell. A door opened and a woman came out. She was a big woman, perhaps twenty pounds overweight, with short frosted hair, plucked eyebrows, and a face that had spent too long in the sun. She wore a name pin on her white blouse: “Amanda,” it said, “Assistant Manager.”

“Checking in?” she asked, noticing the backpack.

“No,” Eddie replied. “When’s the next jitney to Cotton Town?”

The woman didn’t answer. She was staring at his face. “You look like someone I used to know,” she said.

“Yeah?” Eddie said, feeling in his pocket for money to pay the fare.

“And sound like him too.” She tilted her head to one side, revealing a wrinkled line at the base of her neck. “I couldn’t forget those eyes. You’re Eddie Nye, aren’t you? Jack’s brother.”

“That’s right,” he said, looking at her face again, hardened and thickened by the sun, and not placing her.

“Have I changed that much?” the woman said.

His eyes went to her name pin: Amanda. “Mandy?”

“The one and only.” They looked at each other. “My God,” she said, “isn’t this something? I mean, what goes around comes around.”

“I’ve got a bad memory for faces,” Eddie said, thinking that a chivalrous phrase might be required but doubting that that was it. He searched her face for the features of the Mandy he had known, and found some; but smudged, blunted, coarsened. Like the others-Jack, Evelyn, Bobby Falardeau-she had aged more quickly than he, as though prison, with its bad food that kept him from eating too much, and its absence of sunlight, which had kept his skin unwrinkled, had slowed the life clock inside him. A nice thought; but it left out his hair, growing in gray.

“Of course I remember you-I never forget anyone I sleep with,” Mandy said, verifying Eddie’s doubt. “There haven’t been all that many, considering.”

The office door opened again and a little man came out, carrying a briefcase. “Not all that many what, dear?” he said.

“Requests for the Cotton Town jitney,” said Mandy. “Say hi to Eddie, an old acquaintance of mine. Eddie-my husband, Farouz.”

They shook hands. Farouz’s name pin read “Manager.”

“Gotta run,” he said, and went out.

Mandy’s eyes were on him again. “You’re lookin’ good,” she said. “Stayed in shape, unlike yours truly. I don’t have the discipline.” She raised her arms hopelessly. “That’s my sad story. What have you been up to?”

A routine question for most people, but not for him. Had he heard it right? “What have I been up to?”

His tone surprised her. “Since I wimped out on you that time up in Lauderdale,” she explained.

“Wimped out?”

She lowered her voice. “When the cops came. You don’t have much of a memory for anything, do you? I heard them come aboard and just grabbed some gear and jumped off. I didn’t mean to leave you hanging and all, but what could I do? Especially since I was hip to what was on board and you weren’t. I just knew you’d be okay.”

“Okay?”

Mandy glanced around to see if anyone was watching. “I know you were pissed off. But you could have answered my letters. After all, there was no harm done.” Eddie was silent, but something in his expression made her say, “What? What is it?”

“You’d better explain,” Eddie said.

“About what?”

“About no harm done.”

Mandy shrugged. “You know. Nothing came of it.”

“Nothing came of it?”

“Brad lost everything to the bank, of course, but I meant nothing came of it in terms of you. I was back at my parents’ in Wisconsin by that time-classic move, right? — but when they dropped the charges I wrote you, more than once, and you didn’t write back.”

“Wrote me where?”

“Care of your brother in Lauderdale. I kept in touch with him for a while. That’s how I knew you got off.”

Eddie leaned on the counter, not trusting his legs to hold him up. “Jack told you I got off?”

“In a postcard or something. That’s when I started writing you. I gave up after a few months. I’m the kind who carries a torch, but not forever.”

Eddie didn’t say anything. He just stared at her, looking for some sign that she was lying. He saw none.

She misread whatever expression was on his face. “Hey! You really couldn’t expect me to, now could you? I mean, you didn’t even answer my letters.”

“It’s all right,” Eddie said. His legs felt a little stronger now; he stepped back from the counter.

“Whew,” said Mandy. “I thought you were going ballistic there for a second.” She looked him up and down. “How about a drink?” she said. “On me.”

“I’ve got to get going.”

She reached across the counter, touched his forearm. “What’s the rush? You’re on vacation, right?”

They went into an air-conditioned bar overlooking a heart-shaped swimming pool. It had green-glass floats hanging from the ceiling, fishnets and harpoons on the walls, and a neon name glowing over the rows of bottles: “Mongo’s.” Jack’s suggestion, outliving him like the work of some great author.

“Do you own this place?”

Mandy laughed. “Are you kidding? It’s owned by AB Gesselschaft. They bought it from the bank, way back.” A waiter arrived. “What’ll it be?” Mandy said. “Cecil makes the best damn planter’s punch in the Bahamas.”

Two planter’s punches arrived, in tall frosted glasses with pineapple wedges stuck on the rims. Mandy raised her glass. “To old times,” she said, taking a big drink.

Eddie drank too; the glass trembled in his hand. It was too bitter.

“We were so young,” Mandy said. “And what a place. Undeveloped then, but still. Irrestistible, I guess. At least, I couldn’t resist it.”

“When did you come back?”

“After the bank took over. I kind of drifted down. It was closed, but they needed someone who knew the history. When the Germans took over I stuck around, answering the phone, working my way up. Then Farouz arrived.” She took another drink. “Jesus, that’s good. You like?”

Eddie made himself drink some more. She watched him, watched his face, his hand, his throat as the liquid went down. “I’ve got a confession to make,” she said. “Promise you won’t tell a soul?”

Eddie smiled. It was such a childish idea. “Promise,” he said.

Mandy smiled too. “Remember that shed by the old tennis court?”

He nodded.

“I still think about it.” Her voice grew husky. “I mean a lot. When I’m in bed, kind of thing.” She tried to meet his gaze boldly, but couldn’t. “With Farouz, I mean. As soon as I start getting all hot, or if I’m not, I just think of that time, and then I do.” Her face, dark and leathery as it was, reddened. She gulped her drink. There was a pause. She leaned toward him. “Are you married?”

“No.”

“Girlfriend?”

“No.”

“I find that hard to believe.” She leaned a little closer. “Do you think about it?” she asked.

She didn’t have to say the shed. He knew. In his cell in F-Block he’d thought about it a lot, not as a hormone booster to get him in the mood for someone else, but just because it was one of the best memories he had. Now he knew he would never think about the shed again, not in the same way. “It’s gone now, isn’t it?”

She leaned back. “What’s gone?”

“The shed.”

She looked at him. Her eyes grew cooler, businesslike. “We’ve got twelve Deco-Turf courts and an outstanding program, if you’d like a lesson sometime.” She glanced at his drink. “You don’t like Cecil’s creation?”

“I do.” He took another sip. “But I’ve got to get going.”

The jitney left from the dock. Eddie sat alone at the back, waiting for the driver to finish saying good-bye to his girlfriend and climb aboard. He kissed her, patted her shoulder, patted her rump, kissed her again, answered a question, then another. Out on the water, a cruiser slowly approached the dock: long, white, multidecked, topped with rotating antennae and satellite dishes; possibly the boat he had flown over. It was much too big to cross the reef. Even as Eddie had the thought, the cruiser swung round, slowed some more, dropped a bow anchor. Eddie could read the name on the stern: El Liberador. Men appeared on deck, began winching down a Boston Whaler.

The driver hopped on the jitney, cranked up his boom box, shot away from the dock. “Cotton Town and all points in between,” he said. “Which is nowhere. Va va voom.”

31

Cotton Town was an hour away. In that hour, the road degenerated to a rutted track, and Western civilization, except for flattened beer cans flashing in the sun, disappeared. Eddie caught a glimpse of one house along the route, standing on a bluff over a quiet bay. It was white with closed shutters, a verandah, and a peace sign painted large on the slanted roof.

“Who lives there?” Eddie asked.

“In the old gin house?” said the driver, turning down his boom box. “Nobody now. The hippies they crash in it when there was hippies.”

“Does anyone own it?”

“Everything be owned,” said the driver, “even the mangoes hanging from the trees.” He glanced at Eddie in his mirror. “You in the market for a house?”

Eddie looked down at the bay, sheltered by two curving arms that ended in sandy points about half a mile apart. He could picture himself swimming back and forth between them. “How much would it cost?”

“The old gin house? Thousands and thousands.”

He had thousands and thousands. Why not? Then he thought of Mandy. Would he want to settle in so close to her? There were other islands, with other bays perfect for swimming.

“That be the problem, man,” said the driver. “Where to get those thousands and thousands.”

The road ended in front of a pink church the size of a two-car garage. “Cotton Town Tabernacle Kirk of Redemption,” read big blue letters on the wall.

“End of the line,” said the driver. “Tipping permitted.”

Eddie gave him five dollars-too much? he didn’t know, not having been in many tipping situations-and got off the jitney, carrying the backpack. The jitney backed, turned, departed. That left Eddie alone with a brown chicken, pecking at the dirt outside the open door of the church.

Music came through the doorway, one of those familiar pieces that appear on classical-highlight records not sold in stores. Eddie went inside.

A little girl with a bow in her hair sat at an upright piano, her back to the door, her eyes on the sheet music. She sensed his presence; her hands flew off the yellowed keys and her head snapped around.

“I didn’t mean to interrupt,” Eddie said.

She stared at him.

“I’m looking for a man named JFK.”

“You the doctor?” Her voice was so soft he could barely hear her.

“Just a friend.”

The girl stared at him. It was quiet in the church; he heard something land with a thump outside, a coconut perhaps. Just when he’d decided she wasn’t going to respond, the girl said, “The house after the Fantastic.”

“Where’s that?”

She pointed with her skinny arm.

Eddie went outside, slipped on the backpack, and set off on a path that led beyond the church, in the direction the girl had pointed. He went past an overgrown garden, a half-built cinder-block house with weeds growing through the holes in the blocks, and a lopsided dwelling with an open window through which he saw a woman slumped forward at a table, her head in her arms. He came to an unpainted wooden structure with a sign over the door in big childish letters: “Fantastic Bar and Club.” He heard a man hawking inside, saw a gob of spit fly out a side window.

The path led through a grove of four or five sawtooth-leaved palms to a small house painted in broad vertical stripes of red, green, and black. A curtain hung where the door should have been. Eddie knocked on the doorjamb.

The house was silent. Eddie knocked again. “Hello?” he called. “Anyone here?”

No answer. He brushed the curtain aside and went in.

He was in a small room with a cement floor and unfinished wooden walls. There was nothing in it but an icebox, a card table, two card-table chairs, and a rusty bicycle leaning against the wall. “Hello?” he called again. Silence. He opened the icebox. It was empty except for an oblong yellow-green fruit of a kind he didn’t know.

Eddie crossed the room, entered a short hall with two doors off it, both closed. He opened the first. A bathroom; he shut the door, but not before the smell reached him. A ball of nausea rose up inside him. He stood in the hall, took a few deep breaths, kept it down. Then he opened the second door.

He looked into a darkened room. A strip of tar paper hung over the single window, but there were coin-sized holes in it, and golden rays of sunshine poked through, spotlighting a Bob Marley poster taped to the wall, an L.A. Lakers sweatshirt rumpled on the floor, and a man lying on a bare mattress, eyes closed. A fly buzzed in the shadows.

Eddie had seen AIDS before. There was lots of it inside, although the victims were usually removed by the time they reached the point that the man on the mattress had come to. Eddie went a little closer, gazed down at him.

Was it JFK? Eddie couldn’t tell. The image of JFK in his memory was blurred, and what was left of this man bore it no resemblance, other than in race and sex. The man wore only a pair of white briefs; on the mattress near his still hand lay another oblong yellow-green fruit, with one piece bitten out. As Eddie watched, a shudder went through the man. The expression on his face, which had been peaceful, grew anxious. His eyes opened.

He saw Eddie. “I in a dream about L.A., doctor,” he said. “Universal Studio, Disneyland, Knott’s Berry Farm-I be knowing all these places in my past traveling life.”

It was JFK.

“I’m not a doctor,” Eddie said.

JFK looked him over. “No problem,” he said. “Intern? Resident? Fellow? I got it all down, toute that jive, the hospital jive, man. Fellow the best. You looks like a fellow.”

“You don’t remember me?”

The eyes, big as a child’s in that hollow face, gazed up at Eddie. “What hospital you be from?”

“No hospital,” Eddie said.

“No hospital?”

Eddie shook his head. “Maybe you remember the wild pig.”

Pause. Then JFK smiled. “Boar, not pig,” he said. “Hemingway himself, he come to hunt the wild boar on this very island.” JFK’s teeth, probably just normal teeth, looked extrabig, extra-healthy. That they would long survive him, Eddie knew, was only a function of the hardness of teeth; but there was something macabre about that smile, as though JFK’s teeth were mocking the body they lived in.

The smile faded. When JFK spoke again, his voice was quiet. “I remember that creature. Cook him up real nice. Onions, garlic, pineapple, herb. The herb what does it.” He paused, then spoke again, quieter still. “I remember you. You done lost all that hippie hair, but I remember you.”

JFK turned his head away, toward the tar-papered window with the rays shining through like the blades of gold swords. The room was silent, except for the buzzing of the fly. Then JFK spoke: “Don’t be having the idea JFK is a gay man. Needles. Needles be the source of my disease.”

“I don’t see what difference it makes,” Eddie said.

Slowly his head turned back. “No difference?” he said.

“No.”

There was another card-table chair in the corner. Eddie pulled it up, sat by the mattress. The big child-eyes watched him. “You lose your trial, man. That right?”

Eddie nodded.

“Same thing be happening to my brothers. Dime he die in Fox Hill. Franco he get shot in Miami. And me… soon I shuffle off this earthly skin.” His eyes went to the Bob Marley poster, lit with golden rays. The words on the poster read: “One World.” There was a long silence. JFK’s eyes closed.

“Can I get you anything?” Eddie said.

“Water,” JFK replied. “For my thirst.”

Eddie went into the stinking bathroom. A dirty glass sat on a shelf above the sink. Eddie turned on the tap. Rusty water trickled out. After a minute or so it cleared slightly. Eddie washed the glass, rubbing it clean inside and out with his fingers, then filled it.

He returned to the bedroom. JFK’s eyes were still closed.

“Water,” Eddie said.

Not opening his eyes, JFK said, “You know we all ninety-nine percent water? All humanity? So it be the water have this disease, not me. All I be needing to do is piss out that sick water and fill up with clean. Abracadabra-problem solve.” His eyes opened. “You believe there truth in that?” he said.

“I’m not a doctor,” Eddie replied, coming to the side of the mattress and extending the glass.

JFK tried to sit up, could not. He raised his hand. It shook. “So weak, man,” he said. “I was never in this life a big strong white hunter like you, but…” His hand flopped down at his side.

Eddie sat on the mattress. He put his hand behind JFK’s head, feeling the dampness in his tightly curled hair and the fever in the scalp beneath. He raised the glass to JFK’s mouth. JFK’s lips parted. Eddie poured in the water, slowly. JFK’s Adam’s apple, prominent in his fleshless neck, bobbed up and down. He drank half the glass, then grunted and shook his head. Eddie lowered him back down.

JFK breathed rapid, shallow breaths. “Down to ninety-eight percent now, man. Maybe ninety-seven.” His breathing slowed. “Water, water everywhere,” he said. “How true it be, those things they say in church.”

“Water, water everywhere’s not from church,” Eddie said.

“Sure it is,” said JFK, “sure it is. The gospel truth I strayed away from all my born days. Like my brothers, Franco and Dime.” His eyes shifted to Eddie. “You be different from your own brother.”

“In what way?”

“Not the same.” He licked his lips.

“More water?”

JFK shook his head. “Too hard,” he said. His eyes closed.

“You were in New York,” Eddie said.

JFK nodded, barely.

“You saw Jack.”

He nodded again.

Why?”

“Old times,” said JFK. “And him so rich, I be wondering if he could spare a little material advance for old JFK.”

“Did he?”

“Fifty dollars. U.S.” A faint smile appeared on JFK’s face.

Fifty dollars: exactly what Uncle Vic had got. It must have been Jack’s standard handout. “When was this?” Eddie asked.

The smile vanished. “Two years ago. Maybe three. The sickness already have me in its coils then, but not so strong.” He opened his eyes, looked at the Marley poster, then at Eddie. “You be in Switzerland at the time.”

“Switzerland?”

“Doing finance.”

“Who told you that?” said Eddie, rising.

JFK shrank back on the mattress. “Your brother. I aks about you. Feeling bad about how you lose your trial in the distant past. And that what he say. Switzerland.”

Eddie reached down and took JFK’s head in his hands; not hard-at least, he didn’t think it was hard. “Are you listening to me?” he said. “I want you to listen carefully.”

JFK licked his lips. “I be listening,” he said, almost too softly to hear.

“Then get this straight. I just got out. I did fifteen years for a crime I knew nothing about. Your crime.”

“Fifteen years?”

Eddie took his hands off JFK, rose, walked to the tarpapered window, peered through one of the coin-sized holes. He saw a goat straining its tether to get to the leaves of a dusty bush just out of reach.

There was a noise behind him. Eddie turned, saw JFK crawling desperately off the mattress. He got hold of the chair, pulled himself up, his movements weak and agitated at the same time; trying to reach eye level with Eddie. He gasped for breath: “But I tries to warn you, man. On the boat radio.”

“Warn me about what?”

“Mr. Packer he call ahead to the harbor police in Lauderdale, man. For reporting a stolen boat. No problem, except I know what be on this stolen boat, man. I get on the radio in the bar, to be warning you don’ go to no Lauderdale. But Mr. Packer he come in the bar, see me, shut off the radio.”

“Did he know what was on board?”

“No, man. It be just the three of us know.”

“The three of you?”

JFK held up three fingers, long and delicate, counted them off one at a time.

“Me.”

Eddie nodded.

“Mandy.”

Eddie nodded again.

JFK touched his third finger. “And Jack.”

“Jack?”

“Jack your brother.”

“Jack was in on it?” An image came to him, lit by a beach fire: Jack’s hands and forearms, scratched as if by heavy gardening.

“Equal partners,” said JFK. “I the owner of the ganja, Mandy she have the buyer in Miami, Jack have the boat. I be aksing you first, but you was saying no to me.” JFK’s body, supported by his grip on the card-table chair, began to tremble. The feet of the chair rattled on the floor.

Jack had been in on it. That explained why the search for JFK had been a sham-a real investigation would have implicated him too-but it didn’t explain everything. “Did Jack know Packer called the harbor cops?”

“Sure he know. We all right there in the bar-me, Packer, Jack.”

“And Jack didn’t try to stop him?”

“He try. He say why be making it police matters? Packer he say to teach you respect for property. Not just the boat-the girl too, that be his system of thinking. They argue back and forth.”

“But Jack didn’t tell him about the dope?”

“How he do that without he incriminating hisself? Instead he tell Mr. Packer come out on the beach, for talking private. That give me the chance to call you. But Mr. Packer he smart. He come running back in, rip the plug out of the wall.”

“That was all?” Eddie said.

“All?”

“All it took to stop my brother?”

JFK thought for a moment. “Like he could hit Mr. Packer on the head or thing like that?”

“If he had to.”

JFK shook his head. “No way,” he said. “Mr. Packer he use his hold on your brother.”

“What hold?”

“He say one more trick and you don’ be gettin’ the seven and a half percent.”

“That stopped him?”

“Seven and a half percent of everyt’ing, man. The hotel, the time share, the golf, the marina. Could have been millions, maybe. Millions. You understand the forces of the situation?”

Eddie understood. Understanding had a physical component; at first it was all physical: a light-headedness, as though he were much too tall, and fragile, like some strange bird. Then came the mental part, the fact of what Jack had done to him and the way it had happened. But not how Jack could have done it to him. He wanted one thing: to ask Jack that question.

Eddie stood motionless in JFK’s hot room, unconscious of passing time. His mind was far away, in a cold northern place of pirate games, of hockey, of falling through the ice. He thought of all that, and more, but failed to find the reason why. Just the MacGuffin, the bookstore boy had said, a device. There was no explanation. Would he have to accept that, in the poem and in his own life? Silence thickened, tangible, immobilizing. JFK broke it by saying, “Hey! You all right?”

Eddie grew aware of JFK leaning on the card-table chair across the room, separated from him by golden bars of light. The light burnished all his bony parts, as though they were already exposed.

“You better lie down,” Eddie said.

JFK nodded, made his way to the mattress, sat, used his hands to pull up his legs, lay down. Eddie could hear him breathing, fast and shallow. After a few minutes he groaned, then breathed more slowly. He looked at Eddie.

“Too weak, man. But I be wanting you to know.”

“Know what?”

“That it wasn’t me.”

Eddie nodded. “More water?”

“Not a drop to drink.”

“Why not?”

“Too far to go, all the way down from ninety-seven percent. Nine or ten, maybe. I could reach it from there. But not ninety-seven.”

Eddie opened the backpack, took out a wad of bills, put them in JFK’s hand.

“What this?” said JFK.

“For medicine, the doctor, whatever you need.”

“Your brother’s money?”

“Mine.”

“You got money? That be something, anyway.” JFK’s eyes went to the Marley poster: “One World.”

“I be wanting to make a little confession,” he said.

Eddie waited.

“JFK no be a gay man.”

“You said that.”

“But he be doing some gay things at one time, despite his own self.”

“So what?” Eddie said.

There were no buses in Cotton Town, no jitneys, no taxis. Eddie borrowed JFK’s rusty bicycle, promising to send it back from Galleon Beach. In fifteen years he had made no plans other than to quit smoking, to take nothing with him, to have a steam bath. He had realized all of them, not hard to do. The hard part was knowing what you wanted. And now Eddie knew. He wanted a house on a bluff and a bay for swimming. There were other islands. He bicycled north, toward the airstrip and a flight to the next one in the chain.

It was hot, the road bumpy, the pack increasingly heavy on his back. Eddie was aware of all those things, but they didn’t bother him. He was alive, he was free, he had money, all he would ever need. He tried dividing fifteen into $488,220. Thirty-two thousand and something per annum, as though he had spent those years teaching high school: not an excessive return.

Eddie pedaled JFK’s bike. The track widened slightly, grew smoother. Soon he would see the white house on the bluff, the hippie house with the peace sign on the roof. Five or ten minutes had passed without a single thought of Jack. That was good. That was the way it would have to be. He came to the bluff, saw a lane leading up to the house, paused.

A dust cloud rose in the distance, over the treetops. It drew closer, like a small approaching storm. A car appeared beneath the dust cloud, sunlight glinting off the windshield. It topped a rise a few hundred yards from Eddie, going fast, much too fast for the road. He pulled to the side, got off the bike.

The car roared by, so quickly and spewing so much dust that Eddie didn’t see the driver at all. He pushed JFK’s bike back on the road, adjusted the backpack, got ready to remount. Then the car made a shrieking sound. Eddie looked in time to see it skidding sideways, wheels locked, on the edge of control. But not out of it: the car spun around and came toward him, slower now. The dust began to settle, leaving a little smudged dome across the sky.

The car stopped beside him. The door opened. Karen got out.

32

“The world is much smaller than you think,” Karen said.

They stood on the Cotton Town road, Karen beside her car, Eddie at the head of the lane leading to the hippie house.

“I’m familiar with the concept,” Eddie replied.

Karen laughed, a complex sound and not particularly friendly. “Maybe it’s Jack who’s not.”

He saw himself reflected in her sunglasses, two uncertain little Eddies, leaning on their bikes.

“I’m going to disappoint you this time,” Eddie said.

“In what way?”

“If you’ve come to pump me about my brother.”

Karen took off her sunglasses. There were shadows under her eyes and her face was pale. “We’re just like an old couple,” she said, “picking up the conversation in mid-fight.”

A breeze stirred in the trees, clearing away the dust, blueing the sky. Karen looked up at the hippie house. “Why don’t we just go up and talk to him?”

“He’s not there.”

Her eyes went to Eddie, and then to the backpack. “Aren’t you the loyal little brother.”

There was no reason to be loyal, now that he knew what Jack had done. Still, Eddie replied: “You’re a cop.”

“Not exactly,” Karen said. “And he’s no longer the subject of an investigation.”

“Why is that?” Was it simply the returning of the $230,000, or did she know Jack was dead? Had his body been found and identified? Eddie couldn’t think of any reason why Senor Paz would let that happen.

“Lack of evidence,” Karen replied.

“And you’ve come to dig up more.”

“I told you-the investigation is over.”

“Then why are you here?”

“I just want to talk to him.”

“About what?”

Karen didn’t answer right away. Her eyes weren’t quite the same now. Same shade of blue, of course, but because of her fatigue, or the heat, or something else, not as cool as before.

“You,” she said.

“You’re investigating me?”

“In a sense.”

“Meaning what?”

“In the broadest sense. I’m interested in you. In what happened to you.”

“For your thesis?”

“If you like.” Karen put her sunglasses back on. “I’ve read the transcript of your trial. You denied knowing the marijuana was on board. I found myself inclined to believe you.”

“That’s nice.”

There was a long pause. Then Karen said: “They executed Willie Boggs last night.” She waited for Eddie to speak. He watched his close-mouthed reflection in her sunglasses and said nothing. “Some odd things happened,” Karen went on. “First I spoke to a man named Messer. He seemed very curious to know your whereabouts. Not long after that, not long after Willie died, in fact, Messer died too. Bullet in the head. I found him in the ambulance that should have been carrying Willie. Willie’s body bag was empty. They counted the inmates. One was missing. Can you guess who?”

“No.” But he could.

“Angel Cruz. The one they call El Rojo. Did you know him?”

“We’d met.”

“And?”

“And what? Are you suggesting I helped him escape?”

“No. I’m just wondering if you can explain what happened.”

“Why would I be able to do that?” Eddie said, and Karen didn’t answer. But he could explain it, all right. He understood everything: how El Rojo must have gotten to Messer, how, fearing surveillance, he had tried to set up the payoff rendezvous using the hundred-dollar bill, how Eddie had interfered with the plan, first by not giving the bill to Sookray in the Dunkin’ Donuts lot, later by handing her the wrong one. El Rojo had found another method, proving his resourcefulness and Messer’s naivete. He’d be in Colombia by now, lying low on one of his ranches.

“Come up with it yet?” said Karen.

Eddie saw that her face had paled more, wondered if she was running a fever. “What does your friend with the gun think?”

“Forget him. Max errs on the side of error.” The angle of her sunglasses dipped, as though she was looking him over. “Your appearance made him cautious.”

Caution; not a bad idea. Eddie moved closer to the car, checked inside, saw no one lying on the backseat or crouched on the floor.

“Want me to open the trunk?” Karen said.

Eddie shook his head.

Tiny beads of sweat appeared on her upper lip. She brushed them off with the back of her hand. “You won’t mind if I see for myself,” she said.

“See what?”

“If Jack’s up there.” She got in the car, waited for Eddie to join her. When he did not, she turned the key and drove up the lane. Eddie stood for a minute or two by the side of the road. Then he mounted JFK’s bike and followed.

The lane rose steeply up the bluff, so steeply that Eddie had to get off and walk the bike most of the way. He rounded a bend, passed another tree bearing the small yellow-green fruit, and came to her car, parked beside the house. From there, at the top of the bluff, he could see to the horizon where an invisible line segregated sky-blue from sea-blue. Closer in, perhaps a mile offshore, waves broke over the reef. Not far beyond them the long white cruiser he had seen at Galleon Beach glided south.

There was no sign of Karen. Eddie walked to the screen door at the side of the house. Near the handle the screen was bent back from the frame, leaving a fist-sized hole. Eddie opened the door and went in.

Kitchen. Discolored rectangles imprinted on the linoleum marked the spots where the appliances had rested. Nothing remained but a wine bottle with a candle in it, upright on the floor, and a simple wooden table, painted yellow. An enormous toad squatted on it like a centerpiece in a restaurant destined to fail. For a moment Eddie wasn’t sure whether it was alive. Then its long tongue flicked out and caught an ant crawling across the table.

Eddie went through the kitchen to the living room, the toad’s eyes following him the whole way. The living room had a fraying sisal carpet on the floor but no furniture. A screened porch with a rusted kettle barbecue and another endless view ran the length of the room. The long white cruiser had moved farther south. As Eddie watched, it turned out to sea, away from the reef, circled, and started coming back.

At the far end of the room was a narrow staircase. Eddie went up. There were words on the wall, painted in faded rainbow colors:

Whoever loved that loved not at first sight?

The stairs led to the single room on the top floor. A bedroom, with bed still in place. Too hard to move: an ancient and massive four-poster, probably shipped from Europe generations ago, carved with roses and hung with mosquito netting. What the bed might have implied the walls and ceiling clearly stated. Every inch of whitewashed space was covered with rainbow-painted inscriptions:

Forever wilt thou love, and she be fair!

And this maiden she lived with no other thought Than to love and be loved by me.

’Tis better to have loved and lost Than never to have loved at all.

I wonder by my troth, what thou, and I Did, till we lov’d? were we not wean’d till then? But suck’d on country pleasures, childishly? Or snorted in the seven sleepers’ den?

They do not love that do not show their love.

Is it, in Heav’n, a crime to love too well? To bear too tender or too firm a heart, To act a lover’s or a Roman’s part? Is there no bright reversion in the sky For those who greatly think, or bravely die?

Western wind, when wilt thou blow? The small rain down can rain, — Christ, if my love were in my arms And I in my bed again!

Cross that rules the Southern Sky! Stars that sweep, and turn, and fly, Hear the Lovers’ Litany:-“Love like ours can never die!”

That out of sight is out of mind Is true of most we leave behind; It is not sure, nor can be true, My own and only love, of you.

And dozens, perhaps hundreds more, crowding out any blank space. Karen stood with her back to him, head tilted to read the one about out of sight and out of mind, written on the ceiling.

“Arthur Hugh Clough,” she said without turning: “the Leo Buscaglia of Romantic poetry.”

“Never heard of him,” Eddie said. “Either of them.”

“You’re not missing anything.” She faced him. “Coleridge is your man, isn’t he? Or have you chucked him?”

“Why do you say that?”

She reached into her bag, removed a charred red scrap. He recognized it: the remains of the Monarch he had thrown in the fire at the Palazzo. He didn’t reply.

Karen glanced around the walls. “Nothing here from your Mariner. I guess he doesn’t fit the theme of the room.”

“ ‘A spring of love gushed from my heart,’ ” Eddie said, the words coming of their own accord. “ ‘And I blessed them unaware.’ ”

Karen smiled. “You’re something, you know that? But whoever wrote all this didn’t have that kind of love in mind.” She looked out the window. The sun was low in the sky now, flabby and red. The long white cruiser lay at anchor, outside the reef.

She gazed at it for a few moments, then said: “No Jack.”

“That’s right.”

Behind Karen, the sun kept sinking, reddening, fattening. She ran her finger through the dust on the sill. “What is this place?” she said, turning to him.

“They call it the hippie house.”

“Hippies with a Ph.D. in literature.”

“Or dropouts with a Bartlett’s.”

Karen laughed. “Does it matter?” She looked around. “They were besotted, that’s what counts.” He stared at her.

“That surprises you, doesn’t it, coming from me?” she said. She waved her hand at the room. “Can’t you just picture it? The candles, the dope, the long-haired boy and girl, the moon shining through on all this poetry?” She swallowed.

He could picture it. The image brought to mind another: the tennis shed, damp and dark, with the warped racquets on the wall and the mound of red clay. Perhaps the hippies had been on the island at the same time, just miles down the Cotton Town road.

Karen moved away from the window, took a step toward him. “I was wrong, Eddie.”

“About what?”

“The world. It’s not small. It’s a big, big place, and right now we’re far away.”

“From where?”

She came nearer. “From anywhere.” She was close enough to touch him. She did, resting her fingertips on the side of his face. Behind her, the sun sank into the sea, filling the room with garish light. There was even a flash of green.

Eddie thought: What does she want? Jack? The money? Evidence to tie him to Messer, El Rojo?

Those were important questions, but Karen’s breasts pressed against him, and her tongue was searching out his, and his mind refused to deal with questions, refused to acknowledge them, threatened to forget them entirely. He let the backpack slip off his shoulders. It fell on the floor and he put his arms around her. She moaned.

Soon they were on the four-poster bed, inside the mosquito-net cocoon. Outside the netting bloomed the last rays of the sun, lighting all the words of love in pulses of wild color. Inside Karen moaned and didn’t stop. Eddie lost himself in her sounds, her rhythms, her smells. Pressure built inside him, built and built, passed the point of explosion, kept building, demanding his all, forcing him to abandon self-consciousness, self-control, self-defense. She called his name. Not Nails, his prison name, his animal name, but Eddie; him. At that moment he would have done anything she wanted, but all she wanted was to call his name.

Darkness fell.

Some time later a breeze sprang up, blew through the hippie house, stirred the mosquito net. “Jack’s dead,” Eddie said.

There was no answer. Karen was asleep. He felt her beside him, still hot, damp with sweat.

Her body cooled. The sweat dried. Eddie got up, went to the window, saw the lights of the cruiser, yellow and white, glowing in the air, sparkling on the water. Two other lights, much duller, one red, one green, separated themselves from the cruiser, grew bigger and brighter.

Eddie returned to the bed, lay down. Karen rolled over, her arm falling heavily across his chest. He liked the feel of it. The night made soothing sounds-insect sounds, bird sounds, wave sounds. Soon he was sleeping too.

Something crashed. Eddie sat up, not sure if he had heard a noise or dreamed it. Karen’s arm slipped off his chest. She made a sighing sound and lay still. Eddie listened, heard nothing. His mind, still half asleep, offered a dreamy explanation from the two known elements, toad and wine bottle. He almost accepted it.

Eddie drew back the mosquito netting and rose quietly, without disturbing Karen. There was moonlight, enough to differentiate the shadows. Eddie entered the square shadow that marked the top of the stairs, went down. The last footboard creaked beneath him. The moon shone through the window on his face.

There were more shadows in the living room. One was bigger than the rest. The big shadow moved, eclipsing the moon. A man spoke.

“Surprise.”

Jack.

33

A surprise? Not really.

Eddie had buried deep in his subconscious the idea that Jack might have survived, too deep for his thoughts to reach, but not deep enough to keep it from giving off a faint miasma of anxiety, anxiety that had stayed with him all the way to Saint Amour. Now unfettered it ballooned inside him. He had abandoned not a dead body but his brother, bleeding on the chicken-farm road.

“Say something, bro.”

A horrible betrayal. But since that night on the chicken-farm road, he had learned what Jack had done to him. That was the first complicating factor. The second was that Jack couldn’t have survived alone, couldn’t have gotten away by himself: who had helped him? The third complicating factor was Karen, sleeping upstairs.

“Eddie? You awake?”

“Yeah,” Eddie said in a low voice. “I’m awake.”

“Got a babe upstairs? The jitney boy said something about that.”

“She’s gone,” Eddie said, moving toward the screened porch. He saw the overgrown lawn, trees, more shadows. They could have been the normal shadows of night. Out on the water, the lights of the cruiser still shone. El Liberador. His real name is Simon, after the Liberator.

Eddie went into the kitchen, looked out the door. There was a shadow in the front seat of Karen’s car.

“Gave me up for dead, didn’t you?” Jack said, following him. “But I’m a tough old nut. They fixed me up real good.”

“Who is they?”

A geometry problem, as on the chicken-farm road: Jack down here, Karen upstairs, something else outside. This one he couldn’t solve.

“The doc, of course,” Jack said.

“What doc?”

“It was just superficial. Lots of blood, but once they stopped it I was fine.” Jack’s voice broke, as though he was about to sob.

Eddie went past him, to the foot of the stairs.

“Where’re you going?”

“Getting my stuff,” Eddie said.

“Why?”

Without replying, Eddie climbed the stairs, opened the netting, leaned in. His lips touched Karen’s ear. “Karen,” he said, barely mouthing the words: “Don’t speak. Don’t move until you hear noise. Then climb out the window and run.”

Karen lay still, but he sensed the sudden tension in her body, knew she was awake.

Eddie picked up the backpack, started down. Jack was waiting at the bottom. He wore something white around his neck.

“Wouldn’t have a gun in there?” he said. Eddie brushed past him. “You don’t seem happy to see me,” Jack said. “I’m happy you’re alive. But it gives you the chance to do it to me again, doesn’t it, Jack?”

“Do what?”

“Your seven-and-a-half-percent trick.” Pause. “You lost me.”

“You can stop lying to me now,” Eddie said. “I’ve talked to a few people-JFK and the detective, Brice. I know everything. I just don’t know how you could have done it.”

Eddie stepped onto the screened-in porch. A massive, silver-edged cloud slid over the moon, darkening the night. The wind was rising. He picked up the rusted kettle barbecue. There wasn’t going to be a better moment.

Jack came closer. “Don’t be like this, bro. I was just a kid. I got scared. I panicked.”

Panic. That had been Mandy’s excuse. Did panic justify anything that came after? Eddie turned on him. “What about Switzerland?” His voice shook.

“Switzerland?” But Jack knew what he meant.

“You weren’t a kid then.”

Jack was silent. There was just enough light to illuminate his teeth and the bandage around his neck.

“But that’s history now,” Eddie said. “What’s your reason this time?”

“This time?”

Something thumped outside. It could have been another coconut falling; it could have been someone stubbing his toe. Eddie said: “And don’t call me bro.” Then he hurled the barbecue through the screen and dove out after it, the backpack in his hand.

He hit the ground hard, lost his grip on the backpack, lay there for a moment waiting for the sound of gunfire, running men, clubs swishing through the air at his head. All he heard was his own heart, beating against the earth. He got up, shouldered the pack, and started running.

Eddie ran away from the house, away from the lane. He came to the edge of the bluff, saw the road, a faint charcoal strip in the blackness below. No lights shone on the water. That didn’t mean El Liberador was gone. Eddie turned and crawled feet first over the edge.

The bluff was steep but not sheer; Eddie found tree roots and toeholds in its face. He could hear nothing but the wind, blowing harder now, and the falling pebbles he dislodged. No gunfire, no shouting, no running men. Maybe he was wrong, maybe Jack had escaped somehow and come to the island by himself, and El Liberador was just a businessman’s pleasure boat. He was beginning to consider going back when he heard a woman scream, somewhere above.

Eddie lost his grip on the face of the bluff, fell ten or fifteen feet to the road. He got up, took a first running step in the direction of the lane that led back up to the house. Just one step: then a light glared in his eyes, blinding him, and a heavy collar landed on his shoulders. He ripped off the backpack, swung it toward the light, hit nothing. The collar tightened around his neck, hard and itchy, tightened and tightened more. He dropped the pack, clawed at the rope cutting off his air. He could do nothing.

A voice spoke. “Be very careful with this one.” Eddie knew that voice, a cultured voice that reminded him of maple syrup.

“Believe me, I know,” said another voice. Senor Paz. The rope tightened more around Eddie’s neck.

The first man laughed. There was nothing cultured about that sound, harsh and crowlike: El Rojo’s laugh. Be seeing you. A joke after all; too late, Eddie got it.

He lay on his back in wet sand. He could feel it in his hair, feel windblown grains against his face. Jack was crying. “You promised I could go. You gave your word.”

No one answered him. Eddie couldn’t see. He realized his eyes were closed, and opened them.

Flashlight beams shone at different angles in the night. Eddie caught glimpses of men standing above him: several big olive-skinned ones he didn’t know; Paz, holding the rope; El Rojo, wearing the backpack; Jack, with tears on his face.

“Where the hell is Julio?” Paz said to one of the olive-skinned men.

The man pointed to the bluff.

Karen was up there somewhere. Eddie started to rise.

“Jesus,” said Paz, “he’s come to already.” The rope tightened around Eddie’s neck, then jerked him back down, flat on the sand.

“You don’t have to do that,” Jack said.

No one answered him. The rope remained tight around Eddie’s neck. Jack moved closer, loomed over him, looked down. A light shone on his face, exposing every line, making him look much older, old enough to be Eddie’s father.

“Brought them to our little island, Jack?”

Tears filled Jack’s eyes, overflowed them. “They made me.”

“You get to keep the money, is that it?”

“Money? They cut off my balls, Eddie.” His voice broke again; this time he couldn’t hold the sob inside.

“For Christ’s sake,” Eddie said. “They were just trying to scare you. It’s a computer trick, like at the nightclub.”

El Rojo stepped onto the beam of light. “Computer trick?” he said. “Show him.”

Jack pulled down his pants. A bloody bandage covered the flatness where his scrotum had been.

A killing urge flooded through Eddie, raw and animal. He rose again, grabbing at El Rojo’s legs. Paz yanked him back down. Then El Rojo came forward and placed his foot on Eddie’s face, slowly increasing the amount of weight he made Eddie take.

“Would a computer trick be adequate punishment for murder and armed robbery?” he said. “You know the way punishment works, Nails. That’s one of the things I liked about you, why I offered my friendship.” He leaned harder on Eddie’s face. “You repaid me by scheming, robbing, killing.”

“That was bad,” said Paz.

“But not the worst.”

“No.”

“The worst was what you did to my little boy. He has dreams about you, every night. He thinks you’re in the closet and wakes up screaming. How can I forgive that?” He peered down at Eddie. “How?” Eddie didn’t make a sound. El Rojo lifted his foot from Eddie’s face. “Answer.”

“He belongs in a nightmare,” Eddie said.

El Rojo’s features-eyes, nostrils, mouth-all seemed to expand at once, replacing his civilized look with something wilder. He stomped back down on Eddie’s face.

“What are we going to do about poor Gaucho?” he said, grinding his heel as though to put out a stubborn little fire.

“Devise a program of therapy for him,” Paz said.

El Rojo smiled, revealing the blank where his canine had been. The wild look faded.

“We’ll have to take him with us for that,” Paz said.

“We’ll take both of them,” El Rojo said. He raised his foot from Eddie’s face. Eddie, finding he couldn’t breathe through his nose, opened his mouth. Blood trickled in.

“You promised I could go free,” Jack said.

No one answered him.

“You gave your word.”

Eddie spat out some blood and said: “Shut up, Jack.”

El Rojo nodded. “Hombre,” he said to Eddie, “explain to your brother here that it’s simply a matter of protecting my business reputation, like filing a suit.”

“Tell him yourself,” Eddie said.

El Rojo laughed his crow laugh. “I feel wonderful.”

Julio moved into the circle, wearing his Harvard sweat shirt, holding a gun.

El Rojo frowned. “What kept you?”

“Sorry, senor,” he said, unable to restrain a smile. “He had a girlfriend up there. I got to know her a little bit.”

Eddie kicked out at Julio, striking him in the side of the knee. Julio cried out, lost his balance, fell. Eddie rolled on top of him, got a hand on Julio’s ponytail, a thumb in Julio’s eye. Then the rope dug deep into his neck and something hit his head. He got lost in a fog.

For a while he was aware of nothing but the wind and the sea, both growing louder. Then Julio was screaming, “I can’t see, I can’t see.”

Paz said: “Quiet. You’re all right.”

Julio screamed: “I can’t see.”

El Rojo said: “Control yourself.”

Julio went silent. Eddie, still in the fog, saw him glaring down, blood seeping from the corners of his eye, saw Julio’s foot draw back, saw the kick coming, waited. It came. The fog went red.

The sea was angry. It put on a spiky face and tried to toss the speedboat away. Eddie, sprawled over the transom between two outboards, with the rope around his neck and his face almost in the water, felt the power of the sea. The sea was his friend. It slapped his face, stinging and cold but friendly, driving away the red fog.

In Spanish, someone shouted, “I don’t see it.”

“They’ve moved farther out,” El Rojo said, “because of the weather.”

“I don’t like it,” said the first man. “How will I find the cut in this?”

“Steer,” said El Rojo.

A wave lifted the boat high, banged it back down. Eddie fell on something hard-edged. The fuel tank. Hoses dug into his chest.

The next wave was bigger still. It raised the propellers out of the water and almost threw Eddie overboard. Only the rope around his neck kept him in place. In the weightless moment before the stern dropped back down, he glimpsed two plugs in it, one above the deck line, for drainage, and the other about a foot below, indicating a double hull.

The boat rose again, swung sideways. The engines stuttered, the props came up, whining in the air, someone heavy fell on Eddie’s back. The rope tightened around his neck. Then the boat crashed down in the trough, the heavy weight slid off, the rope slackened.

“Where the fuck are they?” said the man at the wheel, raising his voice over the storm.

“Radio them,” El Rojo replied. “Tell them to turn on the lights and move in.”

“Liberador, Liberador,” called Paz. “Come in, Liberador.”

Someone moaned, close by. Jack. “It hurts,” he said, but not loudly. “It hurts.”

Double hull. That meant an airspace, didn’t it? Eddie reached one hand below the waterline, felt for the bottom plug. Why not? The sea was his friend, and the alternative was being part of Gaucho’s therapy.

He found the plug. It had a metal-ring handle, snapped tight to the hull. He unsnapped it, pulled. Nothing happened. He tried rotating it, first one way, then another. The ring turned, counterclockwise, releasing tension in the rubber plug, shrinking its volume. It popped out. Eddie let it go.

A wave tossed the boat up again, and he saw the round hole in the stern. Then came the fall into the trough, and the hole sank from view.

“Lights at two o’clock,” shouted Paz.

“Those?” said another. “So far?”

“Steer,” said El Rojo.

“It hurts,” said Jack, close by.

Eddie lay slumped over the transom, waiting for the hull space to fill with water, waiting for the boat to turn heavy and sluggish, to go down. But the boat didn’t turn heavy and sluggish; it pounded on, into the waves. Why? Some time passed before Eddie figured it out, time that took them farther out. It was simple: forward motion kept water from entering the hole. Forward motion would have to be stopped.

Eddie felt for the fuel hose under his chest, ran his hand along it to the coupling with the starboard engine, saw that a second hose connected the starboard engine to the port. The sole feeder of fuel was the hose that ran from the tank, under his chest, to the starboard engine. Eddie reached for the coupling, unsnapped it, and hung the hose over the stern.

The engines roared on. Maybe he had miscalculated, maybe there were factors he knew nothing about. He pushed himself up on hands and knees, and had his hand on the clamps that fastened the starboard engine to the hull, when both engines coughed and died.

There was a moment of quiet. Then sound poured in: the sea, the wind, raised voices from the cockpit. Eddie turned, saw a wave looming over the bow, saw El Rojo, Paz, Julio, and the olive-skinned men, all gazing at the engines, saw Jack sitting doubled up, his back to the hull, saw that the other end of the rope around his neck was tied to a cleat.

The front slope of the wave raised the boat high; the back slope crashed it down. This time cold water swept over the transom, and the stern swung heavily in the wash.

El Rojo said: “Julio.”

Julio made his way to the stern.

“We’re sinking,” cried a man in the cockpit.

“Silence,” said El Rojo.

Water ran across the deck. Julio slipped in it as he reached the stern. He rose, kicked Eddie out of the way, examined the engines.

“The fucking hose,” he said. He looked down at Eddie. The boat rose, fell, crashed, settled lower in the water. “I can’t swim,” Julio yelled to no one in particular. He seized the hose.

Eddie got to his feet. “Anyone can learn to swim,” he said. He lifted up the fuel tank, raised it high over his head, and heaved it overboard. One corner of it caught Julio on the shoulder. He lost his balance, slipped again on the watery deck, now ankle-deep, and fell backward over the transom, sinking out of sight in the black water.

The men in the cockpit froze. El Rojo was the first to move. He reached into his pocket, was still reaching when the boat swung sideways and yawed until the sea slopped over the edge, knocking everyone down.

The boat slowly righted itself; much lower in the water now. Half crawling, half sliding across the flooded deck, which reeked of gasoline, Eddie made his way to the cleat where the noose was tied. Paz arrived first.

Paz unfastened the rope, jerked it hard, cutting off Eddie’s air. But Eddie got his hands on it too, gathered his legs beneath him, and sprang over the side.

Paz was strong enough to keep his hold on the rope but not strong enough to stay on board. He fell in after Eddie. The rope loosened around Eddie’s neck.

They went down together, tangled in rope. Ten, or fifteen, or twenty feet below, the water was almost calm, and not particularly cold. Eddie had no fear of it at all. He felt tugging around his neck, reached out and wrapped his arms around Paz. Paz wriggled, struggled, gouged, but couldn’t get away, couldn’t go up. When the wriggling, struggling, and gouging stopped, Eddie released Paz and kicked his way up to the surface, alone.

He broke through on a rising wave, striking his head on something. The backpack. He slipped the noose off his neck and swam toward it. He was a stroke or two away when it went under.

As the wave carried Eddie higher, the moon shone through a break in the clouds. Eddie looked around. In the southwest he saw the lights of El Liberador, not far away. In the east, much fainter, glimmered the lights of the island. The speedboat was gone. There were only two men in the water, one in the trough beneath him, the other on the crest of the next wave. The man in the trough was Jack; the man on the crest was El Rojo.

El Rojo’s eyes, silver in the moonlight, fastened on Eddie. “You will never be safe.” Then he turned and started swimming toward El Liberador, his stroke smooth and strong.

Eddie dipped into a trough. When he rose again El Rojo was out of sight, but Jack was much closer. Eddie swam to him, touched him.

“You all right?”

Jack nodded. The dressing had slipped off his neck, revealing the black stitches across his skin.

Eddie pointed toward the lights of Saint Amour. “It’s nothing, Jack, just a training swim. We’ll be fine.”

“Never.”

The wind whipped off the top of a wave and flung it in their faces. Jack gasped, choked, went under for a moment, came up coughing.

“Let’s go,” Eddie said.

“Sharks are down there.”

“They won’t bother us.”

“They can smell blood, Eddie. For miles and miles.”

“We’ll be fine. Come on.”

To set an example, Eddie turned toward Saint Amour, stretched out, swam. He found his rhythm at once, easy and powerful, slashing through the spikes, climbing the crests, sliding down into the troughs. The ocean might have been rough, but all he felt was its support. He could swim to Saint Amour, or much farther if he had to; as though all those years in the pool had been just for this. Eddie swam, kicking, pushing great handfuls of water aside, riding high, barely breathing; swimming his best. After a while, he stopped to make sure Jack was keeping up. He couldn’t see him.

“Jack?” he shouted over the wind.

No reply.

He swam back, out to sea, pausing once or twice to call, “Jack? Jack?” and heard no answer. He found him among the litter left behind by the speedboat, not swimming.

“Jack. For Christ’s sake.”

“It’s too far.”

“It’s not.”

“The sharks will get me anyway.”

“Swim, Jack. Like in the pool. You were the best.”

“That was a long time ago. I blew it.”

“You didn’t blow it.”

“Then how come we’re here?”

A wave broke over Jack’s head, left him coughing.

“Swim, Jack.”

Jack started swimming, in the right direction, but so clumsy. His arms barely came out of the water, his legs hardly kicked. Eddie stroked along beside him. Twice he looked back. The first time he saw El Liberador moving south. The second time it was out of sight. He raised his head, looked the other way, toward the lights of Saint Amour. They had receded. Either it was his imagination or they were caught in a current. Eddie swam faster, found his rhythm again. The next time he checked, Saint Amour seemed a little closer. He looked around for Jack; and didn’t see him.

“Jack,” he called.

All he heard in reply were the countless sounds of sea and wind. He turned back.

He found Jack again, treading water, rising and falling with the swells, his eyes on the moon.

“Jack. You’re not trying.”

Jack looked at him. “How much did you get away with?”

“It’s on the bottom.”

“You had it all in that pack?”

“Yes.”

Jack shook his head. “Bro. Even an ordinary bank account would have been better.”

“Swim,” Eddie said.

Jack treaded water. “Your plan was good, though,” he said. “I was the one who fucked it up. You’re smart, Eddie. Smarter than me, in some ways.”

“That’s not true. Swim.”

“I’m tapped out, bro.”

“If you’ve got the energy to argue, you’ve got the energy to swim.”

Jack’s lips chattered. As soon as he saw that, Eddie’s lips started chattering too. “I don’t mean tapped out that way,” Jack said. “I mean financially. If the money’s on the bottom, what’s the point?”

“Please.”

But Jack wouldn’t swim. The wind blew harder, driving the sea wild. The moon disappeared. Without moonlight, he wouldn’t be able to find Jack again. “Swim,” he shouted at the top of his lungs, right in Jack’s face.

Jack’s eyes widened. He tried a few strokes, swallowed a mouthful of water, came up coughing, swallowed more, went under. Eddie dove down and got him.

“Swim.”

Jack shook his head.

Eddie rolled onto his back. “Hold onto me,” he said.

Jack put his arms around Eddie’s neck, lay on top of him. The sea absorbed some of his weight, but Jack was heavy all the same.

“Just hold on,” Eddie said. He began paddling toward Saint Amour, Jack’s arms around his neck, Jack’s head on his chest, Jack’s body pushing him under. He had to kick hard just to keep Jack on the surface.

Eddie paddled. He looked up at the sky, moonless, starless, dark. Arms up, dig down, pull; arms up, dig down, pull. How far did they go on each cycle? A yard? Eddie counted five hundred strokes, then said: “How’re we doing, Jack?”

Jack raised his head. The movement drove Eddie under. He swallowed water, came up sputtering, Jack’s arms still tight around his neck. “Gettin’ there,” Jack said.

“You can see the lights?”

“Billions of them.”

Eddie turned toward Saint Amour. He could barely make out the lights at all. They were farther away than ever. He lowered his head, kicked hard, paddled. Arms up, dig down, pull. Arms up, dig down, pull. Jack held on.

Eddie counted two thousand strokes, forced himself not to look, began two thousand more. Jack said something. Eddie could feel Jack’s lips moving against his chest, couldn’t hear him.

“I can’t hear you.”

Jack raised his head, looked into Eddie’s eyes. “I said forget it.”

Eddie stopped paddling. The sea tossed them up and down, the wind sang all around. “Fifteen years, Jack,” Eddie said. “I was jealous.”

“Of me and Mandy?”

“No, no. I didn’t give a shit about Mandy. It was you.”

“Me?”

“Sure. Always so fucking happy. Even now, you’re not really bitter.”

“I’m bitter,” Eddie said.

Jack didn’t hear him. He went still, his arms around Eddie’s neck; Eddie treaded water for both of them. A faraway look appeared in Jack’s eyes. “Remember how I used to hog the puck from you? And you’d be skating around yelling, ‘Pass, pass,’ and not even knowing I was ragging you. Just pleased as punch to be out there. I wasn’t like that, bro. Sorry for calling you bro. I had resentments, like everybody else I’ve ever met.”

“That’s all bullshit,” Eddie said.

“See? You haven’t changed a bit.” Jack laughed, a strange sound out there in the wild night. Then he brought his head up a little and kissed Eddie’s face.

Eddie could have cried, but he didn’t. He leaned back and started paddling. Arms up, dig down, pull. He was on stroke two thousand six hundred and fifty-three when Jack went stiff and said: “Did you feel that?”

“Feel what?” Eddie said; his lips were numb, and the words came out ill-formed.

“That bump.”

“I didn’t feel any bump.” Eddie lost his stroke count but kept paddling.

“A fish,” Jack said. “A big fish. Down there in Davy Jones’s locker. They can smell blood.”

“There’s no blood,” Eddie said.

“Dream on.” Jack tightened his grip on Eddie’s neck.

Eddie paddled. That was all he had to do. Keep them safe from Davy Jones. Paddle and count. His job. Jack’s job was to hold onto his neck. Arms up, dig down, pull.

“Are you doing your job, Jack?”

No answer.

Arms up, dig down, pull.

“I asked you a fucking question.”

No answer.

Arms up, dig down, pull.

“Answer me, bro.”

No answer. But Jack’s arms held him tight. He was doing his job. He just didn’t want to talk about it, that was all.

Eddie paddled. He counted twenty thousand strokes. He refused to stop and look, didn’t want to see Saint Amour slipping farther and farther away. He did his job. He didn’t notice the sky paling, the sea growing gentler, the wind dying down. He paddled and counted. Sometimes he yelled at Jack and called him bad names for not answering. But he had no right to be angry at Jack. Jack was doing his job perfectly, holding on tight. He just didn’t want to talk about it.

Eddie started on a fresh twenty thousand. Arms up, pull, dig down. Was that right? He got mixed up, began again. Pull down, dig up, arms. Arms, arms, arms.

“Jack. I’ve forgotten the stroke.”

No answer.

“What’s the stroke, Jack? I’ve forgotten the goddamn stroke.”

No answer. Eddie started to cry.

He lay motionless in the water, Jack on top of him. He felt something bump the back of his head. Something big and powerful; it wasn’t his imagination.

“Davy Jones is here,” he told Jack, and held his brother close. They were each other’s albatross. Maybe everybody had one.

He heard a voice. “What’s that over there?”

Davy Jones had a strange voice. A woman’s voice. He sounded like a woman, and not just any woman, but a woman Eddie knew.

Maybe he was already dead, or having one of those dying experiences people talked about on TV.

Davy Jones came nearer. “There. Just past those rocks.”

Eddie whispered: “Jack. Do you hear him?” He looked down at his brother. Jack was sleeping.

Davy Jones spoke, very close. “Oh, my God.”

Eddie turned his head. It touched something. Sand. He looked around, saw tiny waves sliding on a beach an arm’s length away. Karen was there, and behind her many black men in snappy uniforms. He was lying in six inches of water.

Karen ran splashing to him. One of her eyes was blackened and closed; the other was damp. He focused on that one and said, “You don’t look like Davy Jones.”

“Oh, my God.”

“My brother here and I, we did our jobs. I know you don’t like him, but he’s brave as a lion. Admit it, Jack.” Jack wouldn’t admit it. “He’s sleeping.”

Karen leaned down, extending her hand. Eddie saw that all the buttons on her shirt were missing.

“Where are your buttons?” he asked.

Karen put her hand on Jack’s shoulder, tried to pull him off.

“It’s okay, One-Eye,” Eddie said. “You can let go. It’s not Davy Jones.”

But Jack wouldn’t let go. It took two of the snappily uniformed men to pry him off.

“God Almighty,” said one of them when he’d had a look at Jack.

Without his brother’s arms around him, Eddie felt free and light, so light he knew he could just bounce right up to his feet. But when he tried, he found he couldn’t move at all. He could only lie where he was, letting the water lap at him.

Overhead helicopters whirred south across a blue sky.