Lights Out

4

Eddie, with Prof’s cardboard mailing tube in his hand and $105.05 in his pocket, stepped down onto the bus-station platform in his old hometown. The wind tore through his khaki windbreaker and green short-sleeved shirt. Snow was blowing, but not in the form of flakes: they were too small, too hard, too gray.

Eddie had forgotten that wind. It made him think again of shrimp boats on the Gulf, and getting back on the bus. This, after all, was the town he had always wanted to get out of, wasn’t it? The door of the bus jerked shut behind him.

Eddie went into the station, thinking, I’ll sit in here where it’s warm, order a sandwich and coffee, eat all by myself: luxury. But the station was not as he recalled: the coffee shop, newsstand, drugstore, were all gone. Time changes everything, as El Rojo had said. There was nothing inside but vending machines, a ticket counter with no one behind it, and a stubble-faced man mopping the floor.

Eddie examined the vending machines. Coffee cost sixty-five cents. He had the hundred-dollar bill, a five, and a nickel. “Got change for a five-dollar bill?” he called to the man. Maybe he should have just said, “Got change for a five?” Was that more natural? He needed a phrase book.

Not looking up, the man replied, “Change machine makes change.” He spoke with the accent of the town, of the whole river valley, a sound Eddie hadn’t consciously associated with his childhood until that moment. It didn’t warm him.

Eddie found the changer at the end of the row of vending machines. “Insert one or five dollar bill,” read the instructions. “This way up.” He took out the five and was about to stick it in the slot when he noticed that someone had written in lipstick on the wall, “Does not work you assholes.” He didn’t chance it.

Eddie went outside. He remembered that wind but didn’t remember it bothering him like this. Had he been weakened by fifteen years spent indoors? Or was it just his shaven skull that gave the wind its bite?

Hunched inside the khaki windbreaker, Eddie walked down Main Street. Downtown had been decaying when he left. Now it had decayed more. Shop windows were dusty, the goods in them yellowed, nothing had been painted in years. He moved on toward Weisner’s Department Store, maybe to buy a hat, at least to have a sandwich at the U-shaped lunch counter. But Weisner’s, with that U-shaped lunch counter, faded hardwood floors, scrawny-necked clerks in jackets and ties, was gone; just an empty lot, covered in crusty brown snow, littered with broken glass and windblown scraps.

Eddie turned onto River. A dog came trotting his way, a little spotted mongrel with pointed ears. Eddie remembered he liked dogs and made a clicking sound, hoping to draw it closer, maybe within patting distance. The dog heard the sound and without changing speed cut across the street. Eddie noticed the bone sticking out of its mouth; maybe the dog thought he was after it.

He walked onto the bridge and started across the river toward New Town. The river was frozen over, except for a narrow band in the middle where water ran black and fast. As Eddie watched, a mattress-size slab of ice broke loose from the New Town bank, spun slowly into the stream, picked up speed, came surging closer, vanished under the bridge. Eddie crossed to the other side and watched the ice slab bob down the river, past the limits of the town to where the woods began, and out of sight.

Two boys, Eddie and Jack, on a mattress in a darkened room. The mattress was the good ship Fearless, the room a storm-toss’d sea. Eddie was Sir Wentworth Staples, captain in the British Navy, on a mission to exterminate pirates on the Spanish Main, and Jack was One-Eye Staples, king of the buccaneers. Through a series of efficient coincidences, the long-separated brothers now found themselves alone on the Fearless, sailors and pirates all drowned, the ship sundered and foundering. The situation and characters came from a book the boys had found in a trunk in the basement of one of the rooming houses they’d lived in after their mother got fired: Muskets and Doubloons. They made up their own endings.

“By thunder,” said One-Eye, because One-Eye had a salty way of talking, “we’re in a tight one now.”

“Aye, matey,” said Sir Wentworth.

A mighty wave struck amidships. The brothers clung to the sheets to keep from being washed away. The wind moaned all around. After a while the brothers realized it was a real moaning, the moaning of a woman: Mom, to be precise. The sound came through the thin partition.

Then they heard Mel: “You like that, don’t you, babe,” he said.

No answer. The boys clung to the sheets.

“Say you like it. Then maybe I’ll do it again.”

Pause. “You know I like it.”

“Say you like when I do that to you because you’re such a hot slut.”

Sir Wentworth tugged on One-Eye’s pajama sleeve. “We’ll have to make a raft,” he whispered. “She’s sinking.” One-Eye didn’t move.

“Say it,” said Mel, on the far side of the wall.

“I like when you do that because I’m just a slut,” said Mom.

“Good enough.”

Sir Wentworth tugged again at One-Eye’s sleeve. “Help me,” he said.

“Help you what?” asked One-Eye.

“Build a raft. The good ship Fearless is going to Davy Jones’s locker.”

One-Eye pushed him away. “Stop being a jerk,” he said. He rolled over and closed his eyes.

Sir Wentworth built a raft out of pillows. The Fearless went down. The storm moaned and moaned all around them, with two voices now, male and female. Sir Wentworth lay silent on the pillow raft until it passed, the body of One-Eye motionless beside him.

There had been a succession of Mels, each one harder to live with than the last. Maybe their own father had been just another Mel too; the boys didn’t know. He’d checked out early, and Mom didn’t talk about him. The last Mel liked to slap the boys around a bit. One day Jack slapped back. The scene that followed prompted Mom to farm the boys out to Uncle Vic, on the New Town side. She and the last Mel moved to California a few months later. That was that.

Eddie stood in front of 23 Turk Street, Uncle Vic’s house in New Town. It wasn’t much of a place; they’d known that even then: a shotgun house with wavy floors, depressing wallpaper, grimy trim. But Uncle Vic wasn’t even their uncle, just some old friend of Mom’s. He didn’t have to do it. That was a plus. Another plus was that he kept his fists to himself.

Uncle Vic worked the night shift at Falardeau Metal and Iron. In the afternoons, he coached the high-school swim team. That had been the biggest plus of all: he had taught Jack and Eddie how to swim, really swim, and they had swum their way out of town.

Twenty-three Turk hadn’t been much of a house then. Now, like the rest of the town, it was past saving. Eddie walked across the sagging porch and knocked on the door. No one came. He knocked a few more times, then put his ear to the door, listening for movement inside. Someone said, “Tonight at seven-nudist camp murders.” Then came a Coke commercial.

Eddie knocked once more, harder. He was ready to do it again when the door opened. A tiny man with a matted beard and stringy white hair looked out, blinking. He shrank back a bit when he saw Eddie’s hand, in knocking position. Eddie lowered it.

“Whatever you’re sellin’ I’m not buyin’,” the old man said. Alcohol fumes drifted into the space between them.

Eddie didn’t recognize the man at all, but he knew the voice. “Vic,” he said.

The old man peered up at him. “Do I know you?”

“Uncle Vic,” Eddie said.

The old man studied his face, then looked him up, down, up. “Shit,” he said. “You still competin’?”

“Competing?”

“Is why you shaved your melon. Unless you’ve gone bald or some-” Vic remembered then, and his face, hard enough, hardened more.

“I got out yesterday,” Eddie said.

“Just yesterday?” said Vic, puzzled. “Well, if it’s money you want, I got none. Don’t need no jailbirds around here. No offense.”

The wind gusted across the porch, spinning a white cone before it like a seal toying with a ball. Vic, in a sleeveless undershirt and long johns, shivered.

“I don’t want money,” Eddie said. This wasn’t what he’d expected. But what had he expected? An embrace? No; but a handshake, maybe.

“Good,” said Vic. “ ’Cause I got none. Those fucking Falardeaus laid me off, laid off half the town. I suppose you didn’t know that.”

“I didn’t.”

Vic snorted. “Restructuring.”

“What’s that?”

“You tell me.” Vic glanced up and down Turk Street. No one was out. He looked again at Eddie. “You don’t want money?”

“No.”

Vic opened the door wider. “Might as well come on in.” Another gust ripped up the porch, blowing a tiny white storm inside before Vic got the door closed.

Same house, same layout: front room, stairs on the left, bathroom down the hall, but much smaller than in memory, and all comfort gone. The shag carpet, Vic’s La-Z-Boy, framed photos of Johnny Weissmuller: gone. There was just the TV and a stained sofa sagging crooked on the warped floor. On the screen, a man in a party hat was jumping up and down. Is this the hill? is this the kirk? Eddie thought. Is this mine own countree?

“Bank’s got the place now,” Vic said, watching him. “So who gives a shit?”

They sat at opposite ends of the sofa. There was a half-full jug of wine on the floor. Vic pushed it around the side, where Eddie couldn’t see. He gave Eddie a sidelong look, then fastened his eyes on the TV. The man in the party hat was laughing till it hurt.

“You were something in the pool,” Vic said.

“Not that good.”

“Yes you were. One hell of a swimmer.” He turned to Eddie. “Not as good as Jack, but one hell of a swimmer.”

Eddie said nothing.

“Go ahead. Say it.”

“Say what?”

“That you were better.”

“I wasn’t.”

“You beat him in the fly. Why don’t you say it?”

The same old shit: trying to get him to rise to the challenge of Jack. A cheap coach’s trick, and so long ago, stupid then, meaningless now. They’d already fallen into their old pattern. Eddie kept silent.

Vic began his rebuttal anyway. “So what if you did beat him in the fly? What does it prove? The fly is for animals. Freestylers need finesse.”

The next moment Eddie was on his feet, standing over Vic. Just a stupid and meaningless trick, but he had a fistful of that stringy hair, slick and oily, in one hand and his other hand was cocked.

“I’m not an animal.”

“Jesus,” said Vic, “what did I say?” The good part was the lack of fear in Vic’s eyes. Eddie realized that was as close as he was going to get to a homecoming. “I was talking about swimming, for Christ’s sake. I didn’t mean nothin’.”

Eddie let go. Sorry. He almost said it. Vic was drunk. Eddie had seen him drunk before. Fifteen years had passed and now Vic was one, that was all. Eddie walked to the window. Wind and snow. Nice. He could just stroll out into it if he wanted.

Behind him, Vic reached for the bottle, took a swig. His hair stood up like a cock’s crest. He held the jug out to Eddie. Eddie shook his head. He’d thought a lot about his first drink on the outside. He wanted a drink, but he wasn’t sure he could stop at one, and that meant not now.

Vic took another drink, a long one. “It’s all fucked up, isn’t it?” he said.

“What is?”

Vic waved the jug around. “This town. Everything. You guys were great. Coulda gone to the Olympics, anything.”

“We weren’t that good.”

“Good enough for USC.” Vic’s voice rose. “After that, who knows? You never gave it a chance.” Vic rubbed his forehead with the back of his hand, hard enough to redden the skin. “Ah, hell,” he said. “What’s it matter anyway?” He picked up the remote control and snapped off the TV. When he spoke again his voice was quieter. “You never wrote, or nothin’. Or called. Can you call from a place like that?”

“Yeah.”

“And now you just turn up.” Vic stuck the remote in his shirt pocket. “Jack writes.”

“He does?”

“Sure.” Vic rose, a little stiffly-once his movements had been quick and smooth-and left the room. Eddie heard him go up the stairs, walk along the floor above. He got up, found the wine jug. It had a nice label-vineyard, wagon piled with grapes, setting sun. Eddie sniffed the wine, raised it to his lips, drank. It disgusted him, as though he was too pure or something. A laughable idea. But he spat the wine on the floor anyway.

Vic returned, saw him standing there with the jug. “Left over from a party,” he said.

“I don’t remember you as a party-giver, Vic.”

“People change.” He thrust an envelope in Eddie’s hands. “Jack writes.”

Eddie opened the envelope, unfolded the letter. The first surprise was the letterhead: J. M. Nye and Associates, Investment Consultants, 222 Park Avenue, Suite 2068, New York. The second was the date. The letter was ten years old.

Dear Uncle Vic:

Sorry to hear things aren’t going so well. Here’s fifty. Hope it tides you over. We wouldn’t want to make this a habit, what with being “family” and all. Keep plugging, as you used to say down at the pool.

Jack

JMM/cb

“I told you,” Vic said.

“Told me what?”

“Jack writes.”

“This letter’s ten years old.”

Vic snatched it out of his hands. “That’s a crock.” He stuffed it in his pocket, behind the remote.

Ten years old and a brush-off besides, Eddie thought. But he left it unsaid because of the expression on Vic’s face: pissed off and crazy at the same time. He’d seen that expression often enough, not on Vic’s face, but on plenty of faces inside.

“Sounds like he’s doing all right,” Eddie said.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Two-twenty-two Park Avenue. Investment consultant.”

“I don’t even know what that means,” Vic said.

“Me neither. Maybe not much, or he would have sprung for more than fifty.”

Vic glared up at him, more crazy, more pissed off; with the rooster crest Eddie had raised on his head, he looked like a fighting cock about to do something bloody with his talons.

Shouldn’t have come, Eddie thought. He said, “I wanted to see how you were, that’s all.”

“Broke,” Vic said. “Stony broke.”

“And other than that?”

Vic blinked again. Eddie didn’t remember that blinking. It was a sign of the loser, too slow to keep up. Vic had become a loser.

“Other than that, what?” Vic said.

“Nothing,” Eddie told him. He extended his hand. “Take care of yourself, Vic.” Eddie got his handshake. The old man’s hand was hot and dry. Probably the drinking did that, Eddie thought, although he remembered an inmate whose hand had felt the same way. He’d died of brain cancer a few months later.

“You don’t want any money?” Vic said.

“I answered that.”

“Everyone’s tryin’ to put the touch on these days, with the way this lousy state’s…”

Eddie went to the door, opened it.

“Where are you gonna go?”

“Out.” Eddie stepped into the storm.

Standing behind him, Vic laid his hot, dry hand on Eddie’s shoulder. “You were really something in the pool,” he said.

Eddie walked away. “It’s all psychological, this fuckin’ life,” Vic called after him. Eddie thought he heard the TV snap on just before the door closed.

Eddie walked back, down Turk, left on Mill, right on River, onto the bridge, toward the downtown side. His feet knew the way. It was colder now, snow thicker, blowing harder. Eddie felt the cold, but it no longer bothered him. The ice was spreading, narrowing the black band where the river ran free and fast in the constricted space. The fissure in the ice, bubbling and black, seemed to shrink even as Eddie gazed down into it. He pictured himself falling through the white air into black water, sinking. Why not? He was a free man.

The river was frozen all the way across. Eddie laced on his skates. He could never get them tight enough; they were Jack’s old ones, still too big, and the plastic tips had come off the ends of the laces. He had to lick them, twist them, stick them through the holes, all with bare fingers getting colder.

“Is it safe?” he yelled.

Jack, stickhandling around some beer cans, made chicken noises. He could see Jack’s breath rising in puffs of gray.

“I’m not chicken,” Eddie said, but not loudly, more to himself: let your stick do the talking. If you win, say little, if you lose, say less. And there was another saying the hockey coach had told them, but he couldn’t remember. Eddie tugged hard at the laces, quickly tying a knot, but not quickly enough to keep the laces tight. Then he took his stick, pushed himself off the bank, and skated out. The ice was gray and opaque under his blades, thick and solid. Mrs. Benoit had warned the class, that was all. She was just a worrywart.

“Pass, pass,” he called.

Jack circled in that easy way he had, leaning into the turn, looked right at him, said, “Cluck, cluck,” and fired a slapshot at one of the bridge supports. The puck rang off the steel, bounced back, slid across the ice toward Eddie.

He skated toward it, heard Jack’s blades cutting snick-snick across the ice, skated faster, reached with his stick, lost his balance, touched the puck, tried to pull it into his skates; then Jack came swooping down, lifted Eddie’s stick with his own, stole the puck, and whirled away, fast enough to flutter his Bruins sweater. Eddie saw that fluttering sweater just as he fell, hard, onto his back, losing his stick. He got up, picked up the stick, skated after Jack, out across the river, toward the New Town side.

“Pass, pass.”

Jack slowed down, turned, skated backward, still stickhandling the puck. Eddie caught up to him. Jack smiled, pushed the puck toward him on the outside edge of his blade.

“Here you go, Chicken Little.”

Eddie reached for the puck, but it wasn’t there. It was sliding between his own skates; and before he could get his stick on it, Jack had skated around him, cradled the puck, snick-snicked away. Eddie’s right skate slipped out from under him; he fought for balance like a cartoon character, almost stayed up. He rose, got his stick, skated after Jack.

“Pass, pass.” He loved playing hockey.

Far ahead, Jack wheeled around, leaned into a figure eight, gathered speed, wound up, and passed the puck. Not a pass, really, more like a shot, but in his direction. Eddie took off, trying to intercept it.

He wasn’t fast enough and the puck got by him. He chased it toward the New Town side, skating as fast as he could, expecting the snick-snick of Jack’s blades at any moment, expecting the flash of that billowing Bruins sweater. But there was no snick-snick, no black-and-gold flash. Eddie caught up to the puck, out in the middle of the river, tucked it into the blade of his stick, and wheeled around like a defenseman gathering speed in his own end. His head was up in proper style. He didn’t notice that the ice had changed from gray and opaque to black and translucent. He just heard a crack, and then he was in the water.

Eddie went right under, all the way to the bottom. First came the terror, then the shock of the cold, then the thrashing. One of his thrashing skates touched something. The bottom. Eddie pushed off. He must have, because the next moment he was on the surface. But only for that moment: the weight of his skates, the water saturating his thick clothes, pulled him back down. His eyes were open: he saw black, and silver bubbles, his own silver bubbles, bubbling out of him. He kicked his way up, got his hands on the edge of the ice, kicked, pulled. The ice broke off.

“Jack,” he screamed, went under, swallowed icy water, came up gasping. “Jack.”

He saw Jack. Jack saw him. Jack was standing still, his mouth open, a tiny breath cloud over his head. That was all Eddie had time to take in before he went under again.

Eddie hit bottom, pushed off, came up, looked for Jack. Jack was skating away, skating in a clumsy way he had never seen before. Eddie had that thought. Then he thought: he’s going for help, and getting his frozen hands on the ice again, he kicked with his legs and tried to push himself up with his hands. The ice broke away, and Eddie started to go down again. Then something hit him in the face. His stick. He reached for it, got it in his hands. His hands were awkward things now, barely able to grip, and his shivers were beyond control.

Eddie took the stick, reached out as far as he could, scissored his legs with all his strength, tried to dig the blade into the ice. Pull. Kick. Pull kick. He flopped onto the ice, up to his chest. Some of it broke off beneath him, but not all. He kicked, pulled, wriggled, flopped up a little higher; and finally right out of the water. Eddie didn’t get up, didn’t skate, but crawled all the way to the river bank, frantic.

He was crying now, crawling and crying. “Jack, Jack.” But Jack wasn’t there. No one was there. He came to the bank on the downtown side, pulled himself up. The house was a block from the river. Eddie walked there in his skates. He didn’t know what else to do.

The back door was always unlocked. Eddie pushed it open, called, “Mom, Mom.” The house was silent. He had to tell someone, but there was no one to tell.

Eddie poured a steaming bath, lay in it, wearing his clothes and his skates; lay there until the shivering stopped. After that, he felt sleepy. He got out of the bath, unlaced his skates-that took a long time because of the wet laces and his sausage fingers-stripped, dried himself.

Eddie went down the hall to the bedroom he shared with Jack. The door was closed. He opened it. Jack lay in the bed, still in his Bruins sweater. He was doing the shivering now.

“I got scared,” he said.

Jack was eight, Eddie seven.

Eddie, leaning on the bridge rail, looking down at the water, didn’t hear the squad car stop beside him, didn’t hear the door open and close. The wind was blowing harder, drowning out other sound, and his attention was elsewhere.

The ice was here, the ice was there,

The ice was all around:

It cracked and growled, and-

A voice said: “You Eddie Nye?”

Eddie turned. A cop was standing there, all bundled up except for the bare right hand on his gun butt.

“Yeah,” Eddie said.

“Just saying hi,” the cop said. “Wouldn’t want you to feel all-what’s the word? — anonymous, or nothing.” He waited, perhaps for Eddie to say something. When he realized it might be a long wait, too long in weather like that, he said, “Enjoy your visit,” got in the car and drove off.

Eddie stood on the bridge. Snow collected in his collar and the tops of his shoes, and on his bald head. After a while he laughed, a little sound, lost in the wind. Vic had dropped a dime on him. Who else could it be?

Eddie walked quickly off the bridge, into downtown, amused. Good old Uncle Vic.

It was time for that steam bath.

5

“You a member?” asked the man behind the counter at the Y. He had the valley accent too.

“No,” said Eddie.

“Then it’s three bucks. Plus fifty cents for a towel.”

Eddie handed over the five, received lock, key, towel, change.

“Locker room’s down the hall, second on the left,” the man said. But Eddie knew that.

In the locker room Eddie stripped, stowed his clothes, his money, Prof’s cardboard tube, and locked up. Hanging the key around his neck he went through the showers toward the steam room at the end. He hadn’t thought about swimming; a steam bath was all he wanted. But the door to the pool was propped open with a bucket, and he couldn’t help seeing the still, blue quadrilateral in the door frame. He went back to his locker, dressed, returned to the counter.

“Rent swimsuits?”

“Used to. No demand now, not with this AIDS business. You can try the lost-and-found if you want.” He pointed to a box by the scales.

Eddie looked through the box, found a faded Speedo that would fit. If AIDS spread through the lost-and-found, no one had a chance anyway.

A few minutes later he was standing by the pool at the deep end. Same pool. Twenty-five yards, eight lanes, no springboard. Eddie had it all to himself, except for a man sitting in a chair at the other end with a towel around his neck, talking on a portable phone.

Eddie stepped up to the edge in lane five. Lane five had always been his favorite, he couldn’t remember why. Maybe there hadn’t been a reason. Jack in four, Bobby Falardeau in three. Two high-school state championships, athletic scholarships for him and Jack-Bobby hadn’t been quite good enough, hadn’t needed the money anyway-if he had to sum it up, that would be it. But that left out the swimming itself.

Eddie stood by the pool, motionless, toes curled over the edge. He smelled the chlorine, felt cool air rising from the water. The man at the other end raised his voice, said: “Three is the final offer. They can take it or leave it.”

Eddie dove in. Almost not registering on his consciousness was the impression that there was something familiar about the man’s voice.

Eddie glided. The glide went on and on, slowed to the point of swimming speed. But Eddie didn’t want to start swimming. He wanted to keep gliding through that cool blue, to feel it all around him. That was it: not so much the swimming itself as just being in the water. If there was a heaven, it must be a watery place.

“First time in the islands?” asked Mrs. Packer.

Eddie turned from the window of the little plane, turned from the sight of that clear blue-green sea with coral growing like forests on the bottom. First time in the islands, first time on a plane, first time he’d met a woman like Mrs. Packer.

“That’s right, Mrs. Packer.”

“Evelyn, please.”

“Okay.” But he didn’t say her name. She was older, for one thing. Then there were her painted nails, her makeup, the smell of her perfume, her long tanned legs, her self-confidence.

“I could tell by the way you were making big eyes at the scenery,” Mrs. Packer said. “Sometimes I think the planes should just turn back right about here and not bother landing.”

“Why is that?”

Mrs. Packer laughed, laid her fingertips on his forearm. “I’m just being cynical.”

She took her hand away, but he continued to feel the spot she’d touched, hot, like a local infection.

“Are you talking about the poverty?” Eddie asked, remembering something Bobby Falardeau had said; the Falardeaus went to the Caribbean every Christmas.

“There’s worse poverty in Miami. I just meant tropic isles.”

“Tropic isles?”

“And all that goes with them.”

The plane rose suddenly, bumped back down like a car running over something in the road. Not a hard jolt, but enough to throw Mrs. Packer, half turning, onto his chest, with her hair, full of smells, all good, in his face.

“Sorry,” Eddie said, disentangling himself. The infection began to spread all over.

“For what?” said Mrs. Packer, straightening, patting her hair.

Eddie could think of no reply, no way to resume the conversation. He gazed out the window again. The sea changed from opaque blue to translucent turquoise to transparent green. Then a round island went by and the sea colors passed under the wing in reverse order.

“You look like your brother,” Mrs. Packer said.

“People say that,” Eddie said, turning toward her. Face people when they talk to you: the job-hunting advice of Mrs. Botelho, guidance counselor.

Mrs. Packer took off her sunglasses for a better view. “Maybe not so… I don’t know what the word is. Hard?”

“Jack’s not hard.”

Mrs. Packer put her sunglasses back on.

The plane banked, descended on an island shaped like a banana, a green island outlined in white sand. “Saint Amour,” said Mrs. Packer. “You’re going to have a great summer, if you do something about that hair. My husband has a thing about long hair.”

The plane swooped down over treetops, so close Eddie saw a black bird, perhaps a buzzard or a vulture, on a branch, and touched ground, much too fast, Eddie thought, on a dirt strip. Only when the plane rolled to a stop did he glance at Mrs. Packer’s unconcerned face and realize it must have been a smooth landing.

A jeep was parked beside the plane. Jack and another man got out, rolled stairs up to the door. Eddie opened it, followed Mrs. Packer out. The air hit him right away: hot, still, full of floral smells. The blue of the sky was so deep and saturated it looked unnatural. He was going to love it.

“Good news?” said the second man, helping Mrs. Packer off the last step. He was as tall as Jack but broader: thick necked, barrel chested, with wiry hairs curling up around the opening of his short-sleeved shirt.

“I’ll tell you all about it,” said Mrs. Packer.

The thick-necked man held onto her arm. “Tell me now.”

She didn’t speak until he let go. “If their coming for a look is good news, then it’s good news,” she said.

“It’s great news.” He tried to kiss her mouth, but she turned her face and he got her cheek instead.

Jack threw his arm around Eddie’s neck, gave him a hug. “Bro,” he said. Jack looked great: browned, barefoot, strong: saturated too, in some way. “Brad,” he said, “this is Eddie, I’ve been telling you about. Eddie-Brad Packer.”

They shook hands. Packer’s hand was huge, his grip powerful. He squeezed hard, in case there was any doubt. Then he noticed Eddie’s hair. The grip softened; the hand withdrew.

“You didn’t tell me he was a goddamn hippie.”

Jack laughed. “Hippie? He’s starting USC on full scholarship in the fall. He’s no hippie.”

“What about that mop?”

“Needs a haircut, that’s all. No objection to a haircut, is there, Eddie?”

Eddie liked his hair the way it was. On the other hand, he would have to cut it for swimming in a few months anyway. He nodded, barely.

From the frown on Packer’s face he could see that another antihair remark was forming, but Evelyn cut it off. “That’s settled, then,” she said. “Welcome to Galleon Beach.”

“Resort, development, dive club, and time share,” added her husband, sticking out his hand. Eddie found himself shaking hands with Packer once more. This time he was ready, or Packer’s grip had lost some of its power. “Dive club,” said Packer: “That’s your line, correct?”

“Correct,” said Eddie, smiling. He couldn’t help smiling, not with that air, that sky.

“Remember Muskets and Doubloons?” he said to Jack as they got in the jeep.

“Huh?”

Galleon Beach, resort, development, dive club, and time share: six cottages on the water, one with a broken window; a central building with office, kitchen, dining room, and the Packers’ suite; a thatch-roofed bar; a floating dock; a fat folder of blueprints and architectural drawings. That afternoon, Jack opened it and showed Eddie the plans.

On paper, Galleon Beach had a two-hundred-room hotel, eight stories high; three restaurants-Fingers, the Blue Parrot, Le Soleil; two nightclubs-Mongo’s and Voodoo Rock; box on box of time-share villas spreading back from the hotel, up into the hills and halfway across the island; an eighteen-hole championship golf course, tennis courts, two swimming pools; a fleet of boats on the water.

Jack was watching him, waiting for his opinion. Eddie leafed through them once more. “Mongo’s-that’s you.”

“And Fingers. Evelyn came up with the rest.”

Eddie studied an artist’s rendition, not to scale. It showed a pink pavilion cut into the side of the hill. Pastel-dressed white people were dancing to the music of a bare-chested black steel band. Eddie said: “If someone has the money to build all this, why bother doing it?”

Jack put down his beer bottle. “No one uses their own money, Eddie. This is all about leverage. Leverage and operating in a tax haven with no unions and no bullshit. Brad’s going to make a fortune. He’s just lining up one more investor. We could break ground by the end of July, which is pretty quick considering we just got title three months ago.”

Eddie said: “I thought you were in anthropology.”

“What do you mean?”

“You sound like a business major.”

Jack took a long pull from the bottle, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “Fact is,” he said, “I’m not going back.”

“Not going back where?”

“USC. I’m staying here. It’s a chance to get in on the ground floor of something really big.”

“What about your degree?”

“It’s just a stepping stone to something like this. I’m already here.”

“You want to work in a hotel?”

“I want to make money, jerk. You’ll see when you get out there.”

“See what?”

“How some people live.”

A white bird dove out of the sky, splashed on the water, rose with something silver in its beak. “What’s he paying you?” Eddie asked. He himself was supposed to get a hundred dollars a week, plus room and board.

“It’s not what I’m getting now. It’s what I’ll be getting in the future-I’ve got a piece of the action.”

“You bought into his company, or whatever it is?”

“GB Devco. Buying in was out of the question. That takes money, and we don’t have money, you and I. It just hasn’t hit you yet, that’s all.” Jack lowered his voice, although no one was around. “I own seven and a half percent of everything, all legal and binding. At least it will be in a few weeks.”

“How did you manage that?”

Jack glanced around. “It’s all part of the deal. That doesn’t mean I won’t have to work like a son of a bitch.”

“Doing what?”

“Whatever it takes. Selling time shares, setting up the waterfront program-you’ll be helping with that-romancing travel agents, busting my ass.”

There was a long silence. The sea shone like beaten gold. Eddie remembered that image from English class, but he couldn’t place it. English was his worst subject. “What about swimming?” he said.

“Four hours a day in the pool? Who’s gonna miss that?” Jack took another drink; his eyes rested on the dancing pastel people. “So: what do you think?”

Eddie didn’t look again at the plans. He swiveled around on his stool. The bar had no walls, just a roof that seemed to be made of nothing but palm fronds. Up in the hills, a red-flowering tree blazed like the start of a forest fire.

“I like it the way it is,” he said.

Jack snorted. “It’s a dump the way it is. The last owner’s selling pencils on the street.”

Eddie looked into his brother’s eyes for some sign that he was joking. All he saw was the shimmering of beaten gold.

Eddie gestured toward the hills. “Does Packer own all that land?”

“Not yet.”

“But he can afford to buy it.”

“Hell, no. I told you. He’s got no money.”

“Then how did he pay for the hotel?”

“Borrowed, except for the five percent that came from Evelyn’s old man. And he got the place for a song.”

“He tells you all this?”

“All what?”

“Borrowing from Evelyn’s father. Isn’t that embarrassing?”

“You’ve gone dainty on me, Eddie. There’s nothing embarrassing about it. Got to have money in business. You get it where you can, at the lowest price.”

“Did the plane come from Evelyn’s father too?”

“Every dickhead developer in South Florida’s got a plane, Eddie.” Jack rose. “Enough theory. I’ll show you the main attraction.”

They walked down a path lined with sun-bleached conch shells to a shed by the beach. Jack came out with masks, fins, snorkels, tossed a set to Eddie, led him onto the dock. A silver-and-blue cruiser was tied up along one side; thirty-five feet or so, with tuna tower, portable compressor, dive platform. Eddie absorbed all that without really looking. What caught his eye was the name written on the stern in fresh black paint: Fearless.

Jack put his arm around Eddie’s neck, squeezed hard. “Of course I remember, asshole. What do you take me for?”

Eddie put his arm around his brother, squeezed back.

They boarded Fearless. Jack led him below, pointing out the electronics, the tank racks, the twin Westerbeke diesels. Then they rode out half a mile and anchored. “Wait till you see this,” Jack said. Eddie had done a lot of diving, but all in lakes and ponds. He donned his gear and followed Jack over the side.

First time in the islands, first time on a plane, first time on a coral reef. It lay on a bed of white sand about fifty feet below and sprouted up almost to the surface. Eddie took a breath and dove down, reached the bottom in eight or nine kicks. Even at fifty feet, the water was warm and shining with light. Tiny fish darted over the coral, wearing camouflage that would work only in a jewel box. Eddie took in a mouthful of salt water and realized he was smiling. He bit down on the mouthpiece.

They dove: two land creatures as at home in the water as land creatures can be. They didn’t stop until the sun sank toward the horizon, first reddening the sea, then darkening it. After, in the boat, they watched the sun disappear, leaving radiant traces on the surface of the water, in the sky, on their retinas. Then, quite suddenly, it was night.

“Not bad, huh?” said Jack.

“Not bad.”

“It goes on for miles up and down the shore. Sometimes better. Brad’s got a big New York outfit handling the advertising. Every diver in the world’s going to know about this place in six months. Nondivers, too. We’re designing an underwater observatory-you won’t even have to get wet.”

Was this another joke? Eddie looked at his brother. It was too dark to tell.

The radio crackled. “Galleon Beach to Fearless. Come in, Fearless. Over.” It was Evelyn.

Jack spoke. “Fearless here.”

“You forgot to say over. Over.”

“Over,” said Jack, laughing.

Evelyn was laughing too. “Dinner is almost over. Over.”

They ate sandwiches in the bar, Eddie and Jack at one table, the Packers at another. Baloney and cheese slices on white: the cook was arriving the next day. It didn’t matter. Eddie ate until there was nothing left.

“Stay for a drink?” said Evelyn. The Packers had a bottle of Wild Turkey on their table.

“Or two,” added Packer. “Then maybe Evelyn’ll get out her scissors.”

“Thanks,” said Eddie. “Some other time.”

Jack stayed for a drink. Eddie walked up the beach to the old fish camp-a go-cart track in the plan-where the previous staff had lived. There were a number of cabins but only two were habitable, Jack’s on the beach, the other under a tall spreading tree farther inland. A light was on in the second cabin, and a human silhouette moved behind the shade. Eddie entered the cabin on the beach.

He felt for the light switch, switched on an unshaded ceiling bulb. It spread a weak yellow glow, almost brown at the edges but strong enough to illuminate the peeling paint on the walls, the pile of laundry on the floor, and the two beds, one with a bare mattress, the other unmade. Eddie went into the bathroom-sink, toilet, rusty shower stall-and splashed cold water on his face. He looked around for a towel and in looking glanced down at the wastebasket. There were crumpled papers inside. One crumpled paper with a USC letterhead caught his eye. Thinking, if at all, that it might have something to do with him, he picked it out, smoothed it.

Eddie recrumpled the letter, dropped it in the wastebasket. He sat on the bare mattress. After a while he shut off the light and lay down.

Through the window, Eddie could see the other cabin. From time to time, a human figure, female, moved behind the shade. Later something small and quick ran across his roof. Then there was silence, except for the quiet crashing of the waves on the beach.

The light in the other cabin went out.

6

Thudding sounds, heavy and rhythmic. They grew louder and louder, then ceased with a slap like the closing of a screen door.

Eddie awoke. He opened his eyes and saw: the sun, glaring in the window over Jack’s bed; Jack asleep in a beam of light, his forearm thrown over his eyes; a cockroach crawling through the laundry pile. He listened to the sea, quiet, yet making too many sounds to catalogue.

Eddie got up, went out the door, crossed the beach, already warm under his feet, and dove in. The sea bubbled around his body; he rolled in it a few times, swam a few lazy strokes, drifted. Waves bobbed him, up and down. He almost sank back into sleep.

A few minutes later, as he stood on the hard, furrowed bottom, making little whirlpools on the surface with his hands, a thought hit him: forget about USC. A crazy thought, and self-destructive. He knew it right away and was marshaling all the obvious counterarguments when the door of the second cabin opened.

Brad Packer came out. He wore running shorts and running shoes and carried a bottle of water, but none of that made him look like a runner. Packer didn’t even glance at the ocean and so didn’t see Eddie; he just walked quickly away on a path that led into the trees. Between their trunks, Eddie could see a dirt road that paralleled the beach. Packer turned onto it and began jogging, heavy-footed and slow, in a direction that would lead him to the hotel. He left behind dust clouds, brassy in the sunlight, and thudding sounds, heavy and rhythmic, that carried through the still air after he was out of sight.

Eddie stood at the waterline, back to the sea. Each retreating wave sucked his feet deeper in the sand. He was up to his calves when the cabin door opened again. A woman in bikini bottoms and nothing else came out, a woman of about his own age, perhaps a few years older. She was tall and muscular, with smooth round breasts, tanned as the rest of her. She closed her eyes, stretched in the sun, made a little sighing sound. Eddie stayed where he was, rooted. The woman opened her eyes, shook out her hair, took a step toward the beach, saw Eddie.

“Oh,” she said, covering her breasts. At the same time her eyes looked him up and down, and it hit him only then that he wasn’t wearing anything. Now, finally and too late, he was wide awake. Blockhead, he thought, found that his mouth was open, anticipating speech, the easy line that the situation demanded. The easy line didn’t come. His only idea was to move deeper into the water, to waist level, say. Eddie tried, but his feet were stuck in the sand; he lost his balance, started to fall, caught himself, then decided that falling would be the best thing; and fell. He heard laughter as he went under, came up in time to see her diving into the water, arched like a dolphin.

The woman swam straight out, passing close enough to splash him with her kicks. She swam energetically, even powerfully, but not efficiently. Eddie, watching, had a notion to swim after her, to simply flash by; but realized just in time that it would not be cool. He was considering various lines of conversation, or perhaps going back to the cabin before conversation became necessary, when she circled, swam back, and stopped a few yards farther out, treading water.

The woman smiled. With her hair plastered to her head she looked younger, almost like a kid.

“Another nature boy,” she said.

None of Eddie’s lines adapted to that opening. He heard himself making some sound; she took it for incomprehension.

“Jack’s brother, right?” she said.

“Right.”

“Freddie?”

“Eddie.”

“Much better. You don’t look like a Freddie.”

“What does a Freddie look like?”

“Stick-out ears. Goofy grin. Not you.”

Something in the way she spoke those last two words, a deepening in the tone of her voice perhaps, unsettled him, delaying the arrival of the next obvious remark.

“What’s your name?” It came at last.

“Mandy,” she said. “Short for Amanda.”

He nodded. Short for Amanda. Great. We could move on to surnames, he thought, or…

“What’s Eddie short for?”

“Edward the Seventh.”

She started to laugh, that same unrestrained laugh he had provoked by falling in. Eddie laughed too. Then came a silence, as though their conversation had run out of supplies, like an army advancing too rapidly into unknown territory.

“Going to be here long?” Mandy asked.

“The summer,” Eddie said, thinking: maybe much longer. “What about you?”

“On and off. I work for Mr. Packer.”

“What as?”

“What as?” Her voice was sharper.

“Your job.”

“I’m his secretary.” A wave came in, raised her above him. “Did you meet him yet?” she asked. The wave lowered her back down, a little closer to Eddie.

“Last night. I flew over with Mrs. Packer.”

“What fun.”

Eddie didn’t know how to take that. He was forming a reply when another wave rose, bigger than the others, lifted Mandy up and threw her forward, against him; a lot like the way Mrs. Packer had fallen on him on the plane. Sea and air were conspiring to hurl women at him. For a moment he felt Mandy trying to squirm away. Then her body relaxed around his. She made a sound in his ear, much like the sigh he’d heard before, except now it was full of promise, like the introductory chord of a beautiful piece of music.

The plug was pulled at once.

“I see you two have already met.”

Eddie jerked around, saw Jack standing on the beach.

“Adios,” said Mandy, and slipped away.

Eddie swam in. Jack was smiling. “I’ve been waiting all my life to say that.” He put his arm around Eddie’s shoulders, walked him toward the cabin. Eddie glanced back, saw Mandy about twenty yards out, swimming parallel to the beach.

Jack said: “Bro?”

“Yeah?”

“Can I give you some advice?”

“Sure.”

“Stay away from her.”

Eddie didn’t say anything: he wondered if Jack was interested in her himself.

“You weren’t with her last night or anything, were you?” Jack said as they entered the cabin. The cockroach, or another one, was feeling its way across Eddie’s pillow. He flicked it on the floor, raised his foot to stamp on it. The cockroach was too quick: it skittered under his bed, out of sight.

“Of course not,” Eddie said. “We just went for a swim at the same time, that’s all.”

“Good,” said Jack.

“Why good? Is there something wrong with her?”

“Far from it. She’s taken, that’s all.”

“By you?”

“I’m not that dumb. She belongs to Brad.”

That should have been obvious as soon as he’d seen them come out of the same cabin; for some reason the thought hadn’t occurred to him.

“Don’t look so surprised, Eddie. This is the grown-up world.”

“You mean Mrs. Packer knows?”

“Not that grown-up,” Jack said. He smiled to himself. “But close. The fact is, Evelyn doesn’t know Mandy’s here. Brad’s careful. He hides her at the fish camp when Evelyn’s on the island, moves her down to cottage six as soon as she’s back on the plane to Lauderdale.”

“How can he hide her? She’s the secretary.”

“Was. Evelyn fired her two months ago.”

“Because she was suspicious?”

“Because she found a better typist. She said. The new one looks like that funny little actor. You know.”

“Peter Lorre?”

“Yeah. Except Peter Lorre didn’t have a mustache, did he?”

Outside, Mandy was still swimming, farther out now, probably pulled by the tide. Eddie watched until she looked up, saw where she was, swam in closer.

“Packer’s not as careful as he thinks,” Eddie said.

“No?”

“He wasn’t careful this morning.”

Jack’s eyes narrowed. “Did he go jogging?”

Eddie nodded.

“One day Evelyn’ll start wondering why he never gets in shape. That’s the way this whole thing’s going to unravel.”

“What whole thing?”

“Galleon Beach. The treasure of.”

“What treasure?”

“You saw the plans.” Jack gazed out the window at Mandy. “No feel for the water,” he said.

“She could be all right.”

Jack turned, gave him a look. “He didn’t see you, did he?”

“No. But what difference would it make? Does he know you know?”

The expression in Jack’s eyes changed, as though he was thinking about something. “I don’t know what he knows.”

“How can he expect to keep it a secret, in a little place like this?” Eddie asked. “What happens when the staff gets here?”

“I guess he’ll worry about that when he has to.”

“That’s tomorrow.”

“Why tomorrow?”

“Isn’t that when the cook arrives?”

“The cook won’t be a problem.”

“Why not?”

Jack didn’t answer. Out on the water, Mandy kept swimming.

7

“Interested in herb, man?”

Eddie, screwing new planks on Fearless’s dive platform, looked up at the dock. A man on a bicycle was watching him, keeping his balance with one bare foot.

“No, thanks.”

“With your hair like that, I could only aks myself.”

“I’m not in the market.”

“Market? Who be speaking of market? I just want to show you somet’ing interesting, man, if you be interested in herb. In the most friendliest way, since you and me be colleagues.”

“Colleagues?”

“Sure. Meet JFK, the new cook.”

JFK leaned down, extended his hand, fingers pointing up for a black handshake. They shook hands.

“I didn’t hear your plane.”

“Was no plane. I carry myself on this fine made-in-Japan bicycle.”

“From where?”

“All the way down to Cotton Town, on the very tip of this earthly paradise,” said JFK, waving toward the south. “The famous Cotton Town Hotel and Villas. Diving. Tennis. Sailing. Happy hour. Goombay smash. Push-push. When there be guests. Not now.”

“You work there?”

“Formerly, man. Now Mr. Packer has sweetened my pot.” He chuckled. “You Jack’s brother.”

“Right.”

“I have two brothers. They both’s in jail. Franco in Miami, Dime in Fox Hill.”

“What did they do?”

“Lost their trials.” There was a pause while JFK stared out to sea and Eddie waited for elaboration. Then JFK spoke: “Destiny, man. Destiny be rulin’ the fates of humanity.” He raised his hands slightly, as though summoning divine forces.

A black dot appeared in the northwestern sky, grew, formed the shape of a plane, turned white. It flew overhead, lost its whiteness, lost its shape, became a black dot again and disappeared.

“Don’t trust no planes,” said JFK. “Boats for me.” He scanned the shoreline, taking in the six cottages, the thatched bar, the main building, the overgrown shuffleboard court.

“This place gonna make it, man?”

“It’s a nice spot,” Eddie said.

“Nice spot. These islands is not’ing but nice spots. Except no one be making it.” He took a penny from his pocket, flicked it in the air, caught it. “Takes luck, man,” he said. “Make a wish.”

“You make it.”

JFK shook his head. “You look lucky to me.”

Eddie thought. He knew there must be things he should wish for, but all he could think was: fun in the sun.

“Ready?” asked JFK.

Eddie nodded. He wished for fun in the sun.

JFK spun the penny off the dock. It made a coppery arc and a tiny splash, then vanished.

JFK smiled. He had a big smile, with gaps here and there. “Maybe I can make your wish come true,” he said.

“How?”

“Come. I show you.”

Eddie tightened the last screw, climbed onto the dock. JFK made a wobbly circle on his bike-he had a big suitcase, tied with twine, on the rear carrier-and pedaled away. Eddie followed.

JFK rode at a walking pace, up the conch-lined path, past the cottages and the main building, onto the dusty road linking Galleon Beach to Cotton Town. “Feel the heat,” he said. “We got nice spots. We got heat.”

Eddie felt the heat on his bare shoulders, felt how it made him conscious of every breath.

“We got the heat here, that’s for sure,” said JFK after a while. “You got heat like this where you come from?”

“No.”

“Where is that you come from?”

Eddie named the town.

“That be near L.A.?”

“No.”

“I want to go to L.A. That my number-one goal in this earthly life.”

“I’ll be there in the fall.”

The bike wobbled. “Whoa. You tellin’ me the trut’?”

“I’m starting college-USC,” Eddie said. He added: “That’s the plan.”

“Then what you be makin’ wishes for? You already got everyt’ing a heart desires.”

The road went past the fish camp, past a cracked, dried-out red-clay tennis court and its sun-bleached backboard, partly screened by scrub pines, then swung inland. The temperature rose at once; in seconds, a drop of sweat rolled off Eddie’s chin, landed on his dusty sneaker, making a damp star.

“Easy, man,” said JFK, pedaling more slowly; so slowly Eddie was surprised he could keep the bicycle steady. “You on island time now.”

They came to a flamboyant tree-Eddie knew the name now-by the side of the road. Not far ahead lay the turnoff to the airstrip. JFK leaned his bike against the tree, set off on a narrow path through the bush. Eddie followed. Something bit him on the ankle. He slapped at it, received bites on the other ankle, back, and face.

“No-see-ums,” said JFK. “Not’ing to be done.”

The path narrowed; vegetation brushed Eddie’s skin at every step. He began to itch all over. The sweat was dripping off him now. He thought of Muskets and Doubloons. Hadn’t there been a scene where One-Eye’s band of buccaneers chopped through the bush with cutlasses in search of buried treasure? The treasure chest had contained nothing but the severed head of Captain Something-or-other.

Ahead, JFK seemed to be moving faster. His thin calves knotted and lengthened in smooth motions, like water going back and forth in a tube. He began to sing.

Gonna get some goombay goombay lovin’

Gonna find a goombay goombay girl.

A no-see-um bit Eddie on the nose.

They mounted a long rise, came down in a clearing. It was filled with head-high plants growing in rows. JFK stopped, laid a hand on Eddie’s arm. JFK wasn’t sweating at all, hardly seemed to be breathing, but his pulse beat fast and shallow, like faraway tom-toms.

“You understandin’ what you see?” he said.

“Marijuana,” Eddie replied.

“You got a smart brain. A college brain. Only here we say herb. That’s the friendly name.”

A slow, heavy breeze blew through the clearing. The herb leaves rustled and then were still. The sun was high overhead. It seemed to have lost its shape, expanding to fill the sky, the way stars were supposed to do, Eddie recalled, at some point in their evolution. There wasn’t a sound until JFK spoke again.

“I don’t like no planes,” he said. “Give me a boat every time.”

“You said that before. Give you a boat for what?”

“A boat like Fearless. Best name I ever heard for a boat. Except maybe Lot-O-Bucks, and she be sinking off Bimini last year.”

“Fearless belongs to Mr. Packer. Jack and I just have the use of it.”

“Perfecto,” said JFK. “If you want to be earnin’ a little extra bonus.”

“What do you mean?”

JFK smiled. He laid his hand on Eddie’s arm again and was about to answer when something brown burst out of the clearing and crashed by. Too big for a dog: Eddie had time to think that thought. Then there was a blast that knocked the top off the marijuana plant beside him. JFK yanked him to the ground.

Eddie looked up in time to see the tall green plants part and Brad Packer stumble out in front of them, a rifle in his hands. He saw them, saw, that is, living animals, and raised the gun.

“Boss!” said JFK.

Packer checked himself, lowered the gun. “Christ,” he said, “I thought you were a fucking pig. What the hell are you two doing here? You’re supposed to be working.”

JFK picked himself up. “Looking for guava, boss. I be plannin’ guava duff for dessert.”

Packer glanced around the clearing. “There’s probably some around. This island’s a goddamn greenhouse.”

“Plenty around boss, plenty,” said JFK. “Mrs. Packer, I know she like it.”

“She doesn’t need it, not with those thighs. Neither do I, for that matter.” Packer turned to Eddie. “Him I pay to look for guava. You I don’t.”

“He be helping me, boss,” said JFK.

“Yeah? Well, he can help me now. There’s a dead pig the other side of this clearing. They like it in here, fuck knows why. You can carry him back to the hotel while I go after the other one.” He started for the path, stopped, indicated Eddie with the muzzle of his gun. “And get a haircut.” Packer disappeared in the bush.

Eddie and JFK found the dead pig. It lay on its stomach in a circle of marijuana plants, legs splayed, bleeding from a hole in the side of its flattened snout.

“He be tense, man,” said JFK.

“Rigor mortis,” Eddie told him. “It’s normal.”

JFK laughed softly. “Too soon for rigor mortis. We know all about rigor mortis in these islands, my friend. But I be talkin’ about Mr. Packer. He the tense one.”

“Why?” asked Eddie. An ant crawled across the bared eyeball of the pig.

“The investor, man. Big investor coming from the giant to the north.”

“To buy the place?”

“To supply the cash, man. Some friend of Mrs. Packer’s daddy. Gonna make Mr. Packer’s dream come true. The hotel eight stories, the restaurants, the condos, the time shares. Golf, tennis, a waterfall. Maybe Shecky Greene.”

“Who’s Shecky Greene?”

“You never been to Vegas, man?”

“Have you?”

“Not the question. The question be is I hip to Shecky Greene? And I most surely be. I plugged into the happenings of the world, man.”

The ant stopped in the center of the eyeball, antennae trembling. JFK gazed down at the animal and sighed.

“I could handle it, man, but not on the bike.”

“I’ll do it,” Eddie said, realizing that there was some presumption that if heavy work awaited, the black man was expected to do it. He squatted down, got a grip on one front and one rear foot, and rose, swinging the animal onto his shoulders.

“Ooo,” said JFK. “Great white hunter.”

“Packer’s the great white hunter.”

“He be white, white as white can be. No offense.”

They walked back through the marijuana plants, Eddie carrying the pig. The coarse hairs of its underbelly prickled his bare skin; blood dripped down on his chest, diluting itself with his sweat. They found the path, mounted the rise. Eddie felt the burden now, not so much the weight of the pig, but the weight of anything in that heat. By the time they reached the flamboyant tree by the side of the road, his heart was beating the way it would in the last length of the four-hundred free.

JFK got on his bike. “Don’t be calling it a pig if you run into any tourists. That be the famous wild boar of the islands. Ernest Hemingway he come to hunt them.”

“Bullshit,” Eddie said.

JFK laughed and started pedaling. Not slowly this time. Eddie realized that JFK wasn’t intending that he keep up. “Where do I take it?” Eddie called.

The answer came back, faint: “The kitchen, man. You be bringin’ home the bacon.” JFK was soon out of sight.

Eddie started walking. There were no tourists, no people at all. There was just the sun, the dust, the pig, still warm. After a while it stopped bleeding and Eddie stopped thinking about how soon he could be in the shower. On that empty road on the edge of the banana-shaped island he lost his revulsion for the touch of the pig and began to enjoy what he was doing, began to feel strong-absurdly strong, like a white hunter, he supposed, master of the wild. He ceased to feel the weight of the beast at all; by the time he approached the desiccated clay court he was striding.

Eddie heard the thump of a tennis ball and looked through the row of scrub pines. He saw a ball hit the backboard, bounce back, saw a racket swing and meet it, saw a tanned arm. A tree blocked his view of the rest of the tennis player’s body, but he knew who it was. He moved a little closer.

Mandy was working on her backhand. Eddie had played some tennis, enough to know she was good. She wore a white T-shirt and white shorts, both soaked, and white sneakers, reddened by the clay. She grunted softly with every stroke. Without realizing it, Eddie had drawn closer still. Soon he was standing at the side of the court.

The ball took a bad bounce. Mandy stretched for it, saw him as she swung. The ball flew over the backboard.

“Oh, my God,” she said. “Look at you.”

“Don’t call him a pig,” Eddie said. “He’d be insulted.”

“I know what it is. Where’s your gun?”

“I didn’t shoot it,” Eddie said, surprised. He’d never shot anything, didn’t want to.

“Who did? Br-Mr. Packer?”

“Yeah.”

“Where is he?”

“Stalking another one.”

Her gaze slid down to his chest, moved back up. “You made me lose the ball.”

“It’s the pig’s fault.”

“You could help me find it. It’s my last one.”

Eddie hefted the animal off his shoulders and laid it on the side of the court. They walked around the backboard, into a thicket of sea grapes and low bushes. No ball in sight. Eddie raised a branch to search the undergrowth, pricking his hand on a thorn. The bugs, the thorns, the heat-Muskets and Doubloons had left all that out.

“Forget it,” said Mandy. “There might be balls in the shed.”

The shed stood at the end of a short path that began on the far side of the court. It had a window glazed with cobwebs and a doorway with hinges but no door. Mandy walked ahead, her sweaty T-shirt and shorts clinging to her body. Her calves, like JFK’s, bunched and lengthened with every step, but Eddie couldn’t watch them in the same detached way. He felt a tightness in his chest that had nothing to do with the heat.

They went inside, out of the sun now, but Eddie felt no cooler. At first he couldn’t see anything. He could hear Mandy breathing close by, and smell her too: fresh sweat, in no way repellent. His eyes adjusted to the darkness. The shed had an earthen floor; there was a heavy steel roller in one corner, a wheelbarrow and a mound of red clay in the other. On the walls hung wide brushes and wooden tennis rackets, warped in a way that reminded him of a bent pocket-watch in a painting he had seen somewhere.

“Don’t see any,” he said.

“No?”

There was a silence. Then her hand was between his legs, soft and gentle, but there. Eddie had had a few girlfriends, but none of them had ever reached for him quite like that, not even after they’d been going together for months.

No one said a word. Their mouths came together. They began to make a little world for themselves where the elements-their bodies, their sweat, pig blood-were hot and wet. It was a world dominated by rhythm but quiet, where sounds were moist and speech was monosyllabic and unrehearsed; a world full of irresistible animal smells. Eddie didn’t resist. He sank down with Mandy on the mound of red clay.

After, they just lay there, bodies together but minds drifting apart. Their minds had to be drifting apart, because Eddie was thinking about Muskets and Doubloons, and how could she have read it? Today was a day for learning how much it had omitted about tropic isles. Then Mandy said, “I knew it would be like this,” and Eddie thought that maybe their minds hadn’t diverged very much after all: they were both thinking about what had happened and that it was good. He was trying to think of a way to convey this to her, to tell her about Muskets and Doubloons and maybe even other things from his childhood, when there was a tremendous boom in the sky, followed by the screaming of a low-flying jet.

“Jets can’t land here, can they?” Eddie said.

“They’d better, nature boy,” said Mandy. “That’s the money man.”

8

The wild boar, now minus its coarse hair and internal organs, turned on a battery-powered spit over a driftwood beach fire. JFK basted it with a paintbrush he dipped into a kettle of lava-colored liquid. His hands were long and delicate. Eddie stood beside him, tossing wood on the fire whenever JFK gave the signal. JFK was singing under his breath.

Gonna get some goombay goombay lovin’

Gonna find a goombay goombay girl.

Over the flames and across the beach, Eddie could see the dinner party, sitting in the thatch-roofed bar. They looked good, all fresh tans and white cotton, linen, silk. The dinner party: Packer, Evelyn, Jack; and Mr. and Mrs. Trimble, moneyman and wife. Their voices carried in the still air.

Packer said: “You’ve never seen it?”

Mrs. Trimble said: “No, but I’m looking forward to it, aren’t you, Perry?”

Mr. Trimble replied inaudibly.

Packer said: “You’ve come to the right place, Mrs. T.” He refilled their glasses from a chilled pitcher of planter’s punch.

“They be talking about the green flash,” JFK said to Eddie. “Biggest lie in the islands. Bigger than we gonna have jobs for everybody or I won’t come in your mouth, baby.”

“There’s no green flash?”

“I be raised in this country, man. Seen so many sunsets to make me sick. But never not one time the notorious green flash.”

The sun set. Colors appeared and disappeared, but there was no flash, green or otherwise, not that Eddie saw. He heard Packer.

“There! Right then! Did you see it?” He was on the steps of the bar, gesturing with his cocktail glass. Planter’s punch slopped over the side, staining his white trousers; he didn’t seem to notice.

“I–I think I did,” said Mrs. Trimble, standing beside him. “I certainly saw something.” She turned to her husband, watching behind them. Mr. Trimble: tall, beaky nose, concave chest, crewcut. “Did you, Perry?”

Mr. Trimble shook his head.

“Oh, come on now, Mr. T,” said Packer. “Right there-” He pointed and slopped again. “As plain as the…”

Evelyn appeared. “I don’t think so, Brad.” Her voice was cold. “Not tonight.”

“Jesus Christ, Ev, what do you-”

She cut him off. “Why don’t you freshen our drinks, Brad.”

“No more for me, thank you,” said Mr. Trimble. He came down off the steps, over to the fire.

“Hello, gentlemen,” he said. “Perry Trimble.”

They shook hands with him, identified themselves.

“JFK,” Trimble said. “An interesting name.”

“That be my first name only,” said JFK.

“And your last name?” asked Trimble.

“Never be usin’ it,” said JFK, and turned to baste the pig.

Trimble gazed at it. Overhead the sky was darkening quickly; the reflection of the fire danced in the lenses of Trimble’s thick glasses. “Pig, I believe.”

“Wild boar,” said JFK. “Last of the big-game animals found in these islands. Ceptin’ for in the water, of course. Down there we got more creatures than my wife got excuses.”

“You’re married?” said Eddie.

“Formerly,” JFK replied, his eyes blank. “In the distant long long time ago.”

Trimble was still examining the pig. “You don’t mean to tell me someone shot it, do you?”

“Sure I do,” said JFK. “Ernesto Hemingway himself the great white hunter came to this very Galleon Beach fish camp to hunt the wild boar.”

“But this particular pig. Did someone shoot it?”

“The boss. He did shoot it. Mr. Packer he a sportsman, and a dead shot with the three-oh-three.”

“I don’t call that sport.”

“No?” said JFK. “What you be callin’ it then?”

“Butchery.”

JFK laughed. “Butchery be my job, man. Don’t need no three-oh-three for that. Just a cutlass and a dog to lick up all the lickins.” Still laughing, he dipped the brush in the kettle and swabbed lava-colored baste on the glistening carcass. The baste smelled of onions, garlic, pineapple, and something sweet and smokey that Eddie couldn’t identify. He was going to ask what it was when he noticed that Trimble was staring at him; at least, the twin reflections of the fire were angled his way.

“You’re Jack’s brother.”

“Yes, sir.”

“He seems like a take-charge type. Not afraid of getting his hands dirty.”

Eddie nodded.

“A project of this magnitude needs someone like that. Although a little seasoning doesn’t hurt either.”

Meaning he liked Jack or he didn’t? Eddie wasn’t sure and didn’t know enough about the project, or any kind of business for that matter, to know whether Trimble’s remark made sense. He said nothing.

“And how about you?” asked Trimble. “What do you think of it?”

“It’s a beautiful place.”

“I’ve seen better,” said Trimble. “And worse. Beauty isn’t really that high on the list of prerequisites. Ever been to Cancun?”

“No.”

“Or Florida, for that matter. Complete absence of beauty. But I wasn’t asking about the site. I was asking what you thought of the project.”

“I’m no expert.”

“I realize that. I don’t need an expert. I was interested in your opinion.”

“I’ve only seen the plans.”

“And?”

“It looks very… grand.”

There was a silence. Then Trimble nodded, the twin fires blurring in the darkness like taillights in a time-exposure photograph.

“In a well-chosen word,” said Trimble. “And what’s your involvement in all this grandeur?”

“I’m just here for the summer, helping Jack set up the waterfront program,” Eddie replied. He had an idea. “Do you have time for a trip to the reef?”

“I wasn’t planning on it. Should I?”

“I would.”

“Why?”

“Hard to put in words. You really have to see it. Then the answer’s sort of obvious.”

The twin fires blurred again. “And after the summer?”

“I’m supposed to start college, at USC.”

“Very wise,” said Trimble.

A breeze stirred. The pig sizzled.

Eddie joined the others for dinner. They ate in the bar, sitting at a round wicker table. In the middle was a big glass bowl filled with sea water. Hibiscus blossoms floated on top and tropical fish netted by Eddie a few hours before-tangs, sergeant majors, royal grammas-swam below. Candlelight sparkled on the scales of the fish, the cutlery, the jewels on Mrs. Trimble’s fingers. Packer poured champagne, then raised his glass.

“A toast,” he said. “To our guests, Perry and the beauteous Mrs. T.”

“Hear, hear,” said Jack.

“And to this beauteous place,” Packer added. “To the Galleon Beach Club, Hotel, and Villas.”

“I’ll drink to that,” Jack said.

They raised their glasses, drank. Eddie, looking up, saw the moon over the water. He had never seen it so white, so defined, so clearly not a disc but a ball, massive, powerful, even dangerous in some way.

Mrs. Trimble, sitting beside him, followed his gaze. “Beauteous, isn’t it?” she said, too quietly for anyone to hear but him.

Eddie smiled. Mrs. Trimble smiled back. She had platinum hair, an unlined face, plucked eyebrows, dark brown eyes. He couldn’t guess her age. Her husband looked about sixty.

“I hear you’re quite a swimmer,” she said.

“Jack’s the swimmer.”

She studied his face for a moment, then glanced across the table at Jack. He was draining his glass. JFK, wearing a white shirt and black vest, arrived with the first course-spiny lobster tails, an hour out of the water.

“Richesse de la mer,” he announced, in what sounded to Eddie like perfect, unaccented French.

They drank champagne. They ate lobster tails, conch salad, roast pig.

“The sauce is delicious, Evelyn,” said Mrs. Trimble. “Do you mind telling me the ingredients?”

JFK was summoned. “Onions, garlic, pineapple, herb.”

“Herbs?” said Mrs. Trimble. “What ones?”

Jack spoke before JFK could answer. “Lots of different herbs grow on the island. They’ve all got local names.”

“How interesting.” She turned to JFK. “Have you got an herb garden?”

“Many many,” said JFK. “I could be carryin’ you to one in the morning.”

“Wonderful. Let’s plan on it.”

“Mind slicing me some more?” said Jack. JFK moved off to the cutting board.

Packer poured more champagne. Eddie noticed that Mr. Trimble laid his hand over his glass, wondered whether Packer might leave his own empty. But he filled it to the brim, gulped, said, “Evelyn’s old man tells me you’re quite the world traveler, Perry-if you don’t mind me calling you Perry…”

Trimble nodded; now it was the candlelight that was reflected in his glasses.

“So tell me, Perry, in all your travels, have you ever come across a setting like the one we’ve got here at Galleon Beach?”

Trimble laid his fork and knife on his plate in the all-finished position. “I’ve seen some nice places, B-Brad. But as I was telling your able employee here-” He nodded across the table toward Eddie; Packer’s eyebrows rose. “-it takes a lot more than setting to make a project like this work.”

“He’d be a lot more able if he got a haircut,” Packer said with a loud laugh. No one joined in. Eddie saw that Evelyn’s fingers were wrapped tight around the stem of her glass, as though she were choking it.

“What does it take, Mr. Trimble?” Jack asked, pushing his own glass away.

“In a word? People. It all depends on the people.”

“Christ, I’m glad to hear you say that,” Packer said. “Hasn’t that been my code since day one, Ev?”

Evelyn said: “What do you look for in people, Mr. Trimble?”

“Perry, please.”

“Perry.”

He gazed down at his plate. There was still a lot of roast pig on it, untouched. “Values, Evelyn. I look for values.”

“Values?” said Packer.

“Honesty. Integrity. Loyalty. Reliability. Faith-in spouse, in family, in God.” There was a silence, followed by a loud pop from the driftwood fire. Trimble looked up. “That’s all. It’s simple.”

“What about imagination?” Jack asked. “Drive, determination, education, shrewdness, brains?”

Trimble smiled. He had big, uneven teeth, angled, jagged. “That’s my end,” he said. “The question was what do I look for in my people.”

Packer checked his watch. “How about a snort of V.S.O.P.? Then we can take a gander at the plans, if that suits you, Perr.”

“I’m anxious to see them.”

Not long after, Packer and Trimble were sitting at the cleared table with the plans and a bottle of Remy. Evelyn and Mrs. Trimble had gone for a walk on the beach. JFK was in the kitchen. Eddie and Jack stood by the fire, cognac glasses in hand.

“What do you think?” Jack said.

“About what?”

“Everything. So far.”

Everything was a lot: Fearless, JFK’s herb garden, Packer’s.303, the letter in the wastebasket, Mandy. “Unreal,” he said.

Jack laughed. “That’s what we’re pitching, all right.” He glanced up at the bar. Packer was leaning over the table, pointing out something in the plans. Trimble wasn’t looking at whatever it was; he watched Packer’s animated profile. “He’s worth twenty mill, bro,” Jack said.

“How do you know?”

“Evelyn. Her dad was Trimble’s lawyer, when he was just starting out. Evelyn’s dad is a very useful guy.”

Something made a loud splash in the water, not far out.

“Fifteen footer,” Jack said.

“Shark?”

“That’s where they live. I’ve seen a dozen since I got here.”

“You’re going to need a special kind of tourist.”

Jack checked the bar again. “We don’t have to worry about it yet. Our worry is the shark over there.” Trimble had his hand over his glass.

“How did you meet them?” Eddie asked.

“The Packers? It’s a long story. And boring.” Jack sipped some cognac. “I’m starting to like this stuff.”

“Tell me about SC.”

“What about it?”

“What was it like?”

“Hard to say. In a word.”

“Did you like it?”

“Sure.”

Down the beach, Evelyn and Mrs. Packer emerged from the darkness; or rather, their white dresses did, floating over the sand. Their legs, arms, heads, were invisible.

“Then why did you leave?” Eddie said.

“I told you already.”

“That was it?” Eddie said, giving Jack a chance to bring up the letter.

“Sure. What else?”

There was another splash in the water, bigger, closer.

“But what if this doesn’t work out?”

“It will.”

“But what if it doesn’t? What if Trimble turns him down?”

“Trimble’s not our only shot.”

“But what if everyone turns him down? What will you have to fall back on?”

“This island has a lot of resources.”

“You mean you’d stay here?”

“Why not?”

“What kind of future is that?”

“You can be pretty dumb sometimes, Eddie.” Jack took another drink. There were scratches on his hand and forearm.

Eddie walked away for a moment; he had to, when Jack made him mad. Soon he had a thought, came back.

“Jack?”

“Yeah?”

“Did you meet the Packers there?”

“Where?”

“SC.”

Jack’s voice rose. “You’re full of questions all of a sudden. Like the caring mom we never had. Is that what your role’s going to be?”

“Lay off,” Eddie said. Packer and Trimble were watching them. “Why shouldn’t I be interested in SC? I’m going to be there for four years.”

An inward look appeared in Jack’s eyes. “That’s true,” he said, quietly now. He took another drink. “I met Brad through SC, if you must know. It’s not a secret.”

“What’s he got to do with SC?”

“He’s an alum. Swim-team booster. Okay?”

Eddie nodded.

“He’s not a bad guy, Eddie.” Eddie said nothing. Jack punched him in the ribs, not hard. “Why don’t you just cut your fucking hair?”

“You’re joking, right?”

“Yeah, I’m joking.”

The women were closer now; their legs, arms, faces took shape in the moonlight.

“Can you go back?” Eddie said.

“Back where?”

“SC.”

“There’s more than one bore here tonight. What’s the matter? Scared to go away to school all by your lonesome?”

Now Eddie’s voice rose. “I didn’t mean now. Someday. Would you still have your scholarship?”

Jack looked up at the bar. Packer and Trimble were watching them again. “You don’t get it, do you?” said Jack, keeping his voice down. “I’ve outgrown all that nickel-and-diming. School is a means to an end. I’m at the end already.”

9

Champagne and cognac: a destablizing combination, new to Eddie. It made him restless, made him want to move, to disconnect from the grown-up world. He didn’t bother to say good night to the dinner guests; as soon as Jack returned to the bar, he just backed out of the fire’s glow into the darkness and started down the beach, shoes in hand.

The moon was higher and smaller now, but still a massive ball circling close by. It shone on the surf, breaking in orderly lines along the shore like waves of white-horsed cavalry in one of his history textbooks. Eddie came to the fish camp, went by his cabin, paused outside Mandy’s. It was dark and silent. He walked on, taking the path to the road, following it to the tennis court.

The backboard loomed in the silvery light, making Eddie think for a moment of JFK’s imprisoned brothers, jailed for losing their trials. Dime and Franco. Eddie crossed the court, damp with dew under his bare feet. He found the beginning of the short path, kept going to the shed.

He looked in. Moonlight flowed through the cobweb window, gleaming on the steel roller. Eddie sniffed the air, smelled red clay. All the other smells were gone.

Eddie stood there for a moment, thinking about what had happened in that shed, confirming the details to himself. Under the influence of champagne, cognac, the night, its importance grew.

Eddie went back to the road. He could have turned left; that was the way to the fish camp, to bed. But he wasn’t sleepy. He turned right instead and walked all the way to the flamboyant tree. For some reason-maybe it was simply the brightness of the moon-Eddie felt no unease at all about the night, as though he were in a place he knew well. He started up the path to JFK’s herb garden.

The walk was easier this time, partly because it was cooler, partly because the path seemed wider: no plants brushed his skin, nothing made him itch. Eddie mounted the long rise, came down toward the clearing, singing to himself:

Gonna get some goombay goombay lovin’

Gonna find a goombay goombay girl.

He couldn’t remember feeling like this, so elevated, so full of his own possibilities. Champagne, cognac, moonlight, banana-shaped tropic isle, Mandy. It was perfect. Then he saw that JFK’s herb garden was gone. Not a stalk remained.

Something rustled in the bushes. The first pulse of adrenaline went through Eddie. A little form darted from the bushes, scuttled across his bare feet. Not a pig this time-just a crab, but the realization didn’t come in time to block the second pulse. It washed the restlessness out of him. He wondered what crimes had sent Dime and Franco to jail.

Eddie returned to the fish camp, no longer singing. Both cabins were dark. He entered his. Jack’s bed was empty. Eddie undressed, lay down. A breeze curled through the screen window above his head, soft and smelling of the sea, sleep-inducing as the strongest potion.

Eddie dreamed of wild pigs swimming on a coral reef. Red bubbles streamed from their mouths. Something unpleasant was about to happen, but it never did. Instead there was a scraping sound, insistent. Eddie awoke, heard fingernails on the screen. He raised his head, saw Mandy’s face, obscure on the other side of the screen. She didn’t say a word. Eddie looked across the room, saw Jack’s still form in the other bed, got up. He went outside, closed the door without making a sound, felt Mandy’s hand in his.

Then her lips were at his ear. He heard her say, “I couldn’t sleep without you.” So quietly, she might have just mouthed the words.

Mandy led him into her cabin. He smelled ripe pineapple. Her body was a white glow in the darkness. She pushed him gently on the bed. The sheets were sandy. “So many things I want to do to you,” she said. “I don’t know where to start.”

She found a place. Soon Eddie stopped having clear thoughts. He entered a sensory world, where surfaces were liquid and the atmosphere was full of breathing. She entered it too. He was sure she did; he could feel her doing it.

The moon sank behind the trees. In the darkness, almost complete, that followed, the bed seemed to move, to drift away, taking them on a journey, the way he and Jack had once sailed the Spanish Main.

After, they lay in twisted sheets, her head on his chest.

“I’ve died and gone to heaven,” she said.

He stroked her hair, damp and grainy with sand. “No one’s going to die.”

“The pig died,” Mandy said. “Just to impress a big shot.”

There was a silence.

“What did it taste like?” she asked.

“Pork chops a la cannabis.”

“Are you stoned?”

“Yes and no. Mostly no.”

“Me too.”

A breeze rose again, cooling them. They abandoned their bodies to it; this was luxury.

Then Eddie thought: Evelyn will be flying back to Florida soon; when she’s gone, Mandy moves down to cottage six. Questions began forming in his mind. Why was she with someone like Packer? How did they meet? Did he pay her? He realized he didn’t even know her last name. Eddie shuffled the questions, searching for a good way to begin. Finally, he said: “Where did you meet Brad?”

No answer.

“Mandy?”

She was asleep.

Eddie closed his eyes. There would be time for questions later.

Something thudded through his dream, heavy and rhythmic. The dream began reshaping itself to incorporate the sound. Then the screen door opened with a snick and slapped shut, snick slap, and Eddie awoke, too late.

Packer said: “You up, babe? We’re gonna have to be quick.”

There wasn’t time for jumping under the bed, or into a suit of armor, or onto a greenhouse roof, or any of the other places they think of in funny movies. There was only time for Eddie to raise his head, time for Mandy to make a sleepy complaint into his shoulder. Then Packer, in singlet and jogging shorts, was standing in the middle of the room with his mouth open. Packer didn’t say anything. He backed away, to the door, out.

“Oh, God,” Mandy said, sitting up, covering her breasts although there was no one to see but him. “With those people here. I can’t believe-”

The door burst open. Packer had found his voice, a yelling one. “You fuckin’ little hoor.” He came toward the bed, hands squared into fists, shaking. “You fuckin’ little hoor.”

Mandy sat there, covering her breasts.

“Don’t say that,” Eddie said, getting up.

Packer ran a furtive glance down Eddie’s body, almost as though he couldn’t help himself, then said: “You don’t tell me anything, boy.” He took a swing at Eddie, powerful, but long and slow. Eddie had been in a few fistfights: where he came from that was part of growing up. He leaned back. Packer’s knuckles grazed his shoulder.

“Don’t do that again,” Eddie said.

“Who’s going to stop me?” said Packer, getting ready to throw another one. But the way Eddie had moved made him pause. His eyes darted around the room, perhaps searching for a weapon. There was nothing obvious. That left his yelling voice.

“You’re dead.” Packer stormed out, banging the screen door shut behind him.

Mandy was up, tugging a T-shirt over her head. “You’ve got to get out of here,” she said.

“Why?”

“Why? He’s coming back with his gun, that’s why.”

“Over something like this?”

“What else?” She was looking at him in a way he didn’t like, as though seeing him from a new angle.

“What about you?” he asked.

Mandy didn’t answer. She went out the door; Eddie followed. Jack came hurrying out of the other cabin, zipping up his shorts. He saw them, glanced down the beach where Packer was running as fast as he could, ungainly, almost stumbling, toward the cottages; and understood at once.

Jack strode up to Eddie. Jack was looking at him in a new way too.

“Didn’t I tell you?” he said. He said it again, louder. Then he hit Eddie across the face with the back of his hand. Eddie fell, partly because of the force of the blow, partly because it was Jack.

His brother stood over him. “You’re a fuckup, you know that? You couldn’t even cut your goddamn hair.”

“Leave him alone,” Mandy said.

Jack turned on her, raised his hand again, maybe to strike her, maybe just to threaten. At that moment the Trimbles walked out of the bush. They wore bermuda shorts and polo shirts, carried binoculars and butterfly nets.

“Oh, my goodness,” said Mrs. Trimble, taking in the scene: Jack and Mandy, half dressed, Eddie, naked and bleeding on the ground.

Trimble stepped in front of his wife, raising his butterfly net like a symbol of office. “What’s the trouble?”

Jack wiped his hands on the sides of his shorts, managed a smile. “No trouble, Mr. Trimble. Just a little roughhousing, that’s all.”

Trimble frowned. “Looks like trouble to me.” He offered his hand to Eddie, helped him to his feet. “Get dressed.”

Eddie went inside his cabin, threw on clothes. When he came out, Jack was saying, “Lepidoptery, isn’t that the word?”

Trimble ignored him. He was looking at Mandy. “I’ve seen you before.”

“Have you?”

“At the Pelican Club. You were waiting in the car for Packer after lunch. He said you worked for him, I don’t recall in what capacity.”

Mandy started to reply, but Jack interrupted. “She’s no longer with the company.”

“Then what’s she doing here?”

Jack was still forming his answer when the sound of a revving engine came from the beach. Everyone turned, saw the jeep racing toward them, spewing rooster tails of sand. Packer was at the wheel, brandishing his rifle like a dervish.

“Run,” Mandy said.

“What about you?”

“He won’t hurt me,” Mandy said, but her eyes weren’t so sure.

Eddie grabbed her hand. “Where?”

“I don’t know. Cotton Town.”

“The commissioner lives there,” Jack said. “That’s all we need.”

“Then what do you suggest?” asked Mandy, her voice rising.

“Anything else.” The jeep fishtailed over the sand. Packer was shouting something at the top of his lungs.

Mandy glanced around wildly. Her eyes fastened on Fearless. “Who’s got the boat keys?”

Eddie answered: “I do.”

“Let’s go.”

“In the boat?” Jack said.

“Why not?” said Mandy.

“What do you mean, why not?”

Mandy looked at Jack. “Relax.” She tugged at Eddie’s hand.

Jack opened his mouth to reply, closed it.

“What the hell is going on?” said Trimble.

Eddie and Mandy started for the path.

“Wait,” Jack said.

At that moment, the jeep came bouncing over a dune and into the fish camp. Packer saw Eddie, swerved in his direction. He roared right by Trimble, recognized him too late, glanced back to be sure, hit the brakes, and lost control of the jeep. It plowed into Mandy’s cabin, flattening it like a doll-house, and came to a stop at the edge of the bush.

Packer staggered out, bloody and dazed, but still holding the gun. He swung it in Eddie’s direction.

“There’s not going to be any violence,” Trimble said, pointing at Packer with the butterfly net.

Mandy took off. It was all happening quickly, and Eddie was only eighteen. He ran too. There was a cracking sound behind him. He ran faster.

The sea was calm, the charts clear, Fearless’s tank filled to the top. They sighted Bimini before noon. By that time, Eddie had the answers to his questions.

Her last name was Delfuego. She’d come to Packer as an office temp, been hired full time, gone out one night for drinks with the boss. He wasn’t as bad as Eddie thought. His wife was a cold bitch, he had lots of worries, but he treated Mandy well and had big dreams that she was part of. Et cetera. The answers to his questions: he could have heard them on afternoon TV, but what did that mean? Packer was out of the picture now, wasn’t he?

“Of course,” Mandy said, wrapping her arms around him.

Fearless skimmed over a glossy blue sea. “I’m supposed to go to USC,” Eddie said after a while.

“I know. You’ll meet Raleigh.”

“Raleigh?”

“Raleigh Packer. Brad and Evelyn’s son. That’s how they met, Jack and Brad.”

“I thought they met through some kind of alumni booster club.”

“Brad? He didn’t graduate high school. That’s what he’s making up for now.”

A voice came over the radio. “Fearless? That you?” It was JFK. “Come in, Fearless. Listen good. Don’ you-” Then nothing.

“What was that?” Eddie asked.

Mandy stared out to sea. Eddie could feel her thinking, but she didn’t answer. He repeated the question.

“I don’t know,” she said.

They waited for JFK to make contact again. He did not.

The sun was still high in the sky when the mainland came in view, at first not land at all, but the high-rises of Lauderdale floating on the horizon.

“Aim to the right of that pointy one,” Mandy said.

Eddie turned the wheel. “What if he’s waiting on the dock?”

“There’re a zillion marinas here,” Mandy said. “But he wouldn’t come anyway.”

“Why not?”

“He’ll be too busy trying to pacify Evelyn.” She was quiet for a moment. Then she said: “He’s in love, you know.”

“With Evelyn?”

“With her connections.” Now they could see the land itself, a low brown hump; other boats appeared on the water. “Have you got connections, Eddie?”

“No.”

“What about Jack?”

“Jack’s not a connection. He’s my brother.”

She gave him a kiss. “I don’t have connections either. But at least we’ll be all right for money. We’re going places, you and me.” She took binoculars from under the console and studied the shoreline. “Make for that little gap.”

Eddie steered for a gap between two buildings. A red, white, and blue cigarette emerged from behind a trawler and swung around in their direction. Mandy watched it through the binoculars for a few seconds, then focused on a seagull flying by with a fish in its beak.

“Going to the head,” she told Eddie. “Back in a flash.” She went below.

Eddie, one hand on the wheel, pulled out his wallet, counted what he had. Sixty-seven dollars. Why would they be all right for money?

When he looked up he saw that the red, white, and blue cigarette was much closer, moving very fast, coming right at him. Eddie was sure he had the right of way but changed course nevertheless. The cigarette changed course too, still coming at him.

Now it was near enough for Eddie to see that there were four figures on board, all dressed in orange. Eddie had heard stories of pirates in the islands, but he wasn’t in the islands now, he was in sight of the mainland. He changed course again; the red, white, and blue boat mirrored his move.

And then it was on him, sweeping around Fearless in tight circles of spray. Four figures in orange jumpsuits: four men, all with deep tans and short haircuts. One was the driver, one had a bullhorn, two had rifles, pointed at him. Friends of Packer, Eddie thought at once: Packer had radioed ahead. Eddie considered turning, making a run for the open sea, but knew Fearless didn’t have the speed.

“Mandy?” he called. No answer.

The cigarette pulled up alongside. The man with the bullhorn called out, “Cut your engine.”

Eddie slowed down, but held his course. One of the riflemen stood up and fired a shot over Eddie’s head. He throttled back to neutral.

“I said cut.”

Eddie switched off.

“Hands behind your head.”

Eddie put his hands behind his head. The two armed men climbed over Fearless’s rail. “Don’t do anything stupid,” one said.

“Packer’s the one being stupid,” Eddie said.

“Say what?” Eddie felt a rifle muzzle in his back, kept silent. “Let’s go below,” said the man.

Eddie twisted around. “You’re going to kill me over something like this?”

“Who said anything about killing? It’s not a capital crime, not yet.”

They went below, Eddie and the four men. The men searched the berths, the engine compartment, the galley, the head. Eddie assumed they were looking for Mandy. She wasn’t there. He noticed that his scuba gear, normally hanging on the wall by the galley, was gone. He said nothing, not wanting to give her away.

The men didn’t seem discouraged. One returned to the cigarette, came back with crowbars and axes. They ripped up the deck boards. Underneath lay densely packed vegetation, tied in bales, looking so incongruous that at first Eddie didn’t know what it was. Then he did.

Herb.

“You’re under arrest,” said one of the men. He took a file card from his pocket and read Eddie his rights.

10

If there was a heaven it was a watery place.

In lane five, his old favorite in the pool of his hometown Y, Eddie kept swimming. At first he’d had no rhythm, no technique at all, and had tired quickly. Weight lifting had made fifteen years go faster; it had also made him clumsy in the water. He thrashed up and down lane five for a dozen lengths, twisting around on the surface after each one like a beginner. His mouth filled with the taste of tobacco, nicotine-stained snot streamed from his nose. He decided to quit after ten laps-if he could swim that far… But on the very last length and without warning, his lungs suddenly cleared, the tobacco taste disappeared, the snot stopped flowing; and his body began to remember. On their own, his hands and forearms found the right angles, sculling, not pushing, and he felt himself rising higher in the water, going faster. He recalled the sensation of just skimming the surface that he’d felt when he’d been racing at his best; he wasn’t skimming now, but he wasn’t thrashing either. As he came to the wall, he piked, even remembering to spread his feet as they came over, touched, pushed off, streamlining himself in the thumb-hook position, then rolled as he slowed to swimming speed.

Flipped the turn, he thought, goddamn; and found himself smiling for a moment underwater. He kept going.

Eddie swam. Length by length, lap by lap, he watched the bottom tiles slide by, and his mind shut down, as though its power source was being diverted elsewhere. He stopped thinking, stopped remembering, stopped counting laps, strokes, breaths. His body took over. It swam him back and forth in the old hometown pool. Time shrank to the vanishing point, at last and too late. If there’d been a pool at the prison everything would have been all right. Eddie lost himself in that cool blue rectangle, and stayed lost until someone swam by him in lane six.

The other swimmer’s body was unfamiliar: pale, thin-legged, with a roll of fat hanging over the drawstring of the swimsuit. But he knew that powerful, big-chested stroke, with its slightly too-strong counterbalancing kick. And now he could place the voice of the man who had been talking into a portable phone by the side of the pool when he’d come in.

Bobby Falardeau was waiting for him at the far end, treading water. Eddie pulled up, shaking droplets off his head. For a moment, Falardeau, studying his face, his shaved head, looked puzzled.

“Eddie?”

“Bobby.”

“Son of a bitch. I knew it. I was watching you and I said to myself there’s only one guy I know swims like that.” There was a buzzing sound. “Just a sec,” Bobby said, and climbed out of the pool. He picked up his phone, lying on a chair, and listened. “Dump it,” he said, clicking off.

Eddie climbed out too. “Christ,” said Bobby, “you’re in shape.” Pause. “That must be the silver lining they don’t tell you about.” He laughed.

“Silver lining to what?” Eddie knew the answer; he just didn’t think it was funny.

“To going to-you know.” Bobby leaned over the pool, blew out his nostrils. “But you’re out now, right?”

“Went over the wall day before yesterday.”

There was another pause; then Bobby laughed again. “That’s a good one.” His face grew solemn. “I got to tell you, Eddie, I feel really sorry-”

“Forget it.”

“Right. Put it behind you. Look to the future.” Bobby nodded to himself. “What’re your plans?”

“Steam bath,” said Eddie. “Take nothing with me. Quit smoking.”

Bobby blinked. “I mean for what you’re gonna do. That kind of thing.”

“I saw Vic.”

“Coach Vic?”

“What other Vic is there?”

“He’s a sad case, Eddie.”

“What do you mean?”

“If you saw him you know.”

“His drinking?”

“He’s a lush.”

“He says you laid him off.”

“Bullshit.”

“You mean he quit?”

“I haven’t got a clue what he did. We sold out in eighty-six. We had nothing to do with anything that happened after that.”

“You sold Falardeau Metal and Iron?”

“BCC bought us out. One of those junk-bond things. You know.”

“I don’t.”

Bobby shrugged. “Doesn’t matter. Turned out they just wanted the railhead anyway. And the equity, of course. They sold off what they could, borrowed to the hilt, the usual.”

“The usual what?”

“Procedure.”

“But what happened to the plant? Vic’s job?”

“I just told you.” The phone buzzed again. Bobby answered it, listened, said, “and an eighth,” clicked off.

“What about your job?” Eddie asked.

Bobby shrugged again. “Gone with the rest. It’s business, Eddie.”

“But what are you doing now?”

“I’m retired.”

“Isn’t it a little soon?”

“I keep busy,” Bobby said. “We’ve got this investment company now. It’s no picnic.”

“You and your dad?”

“Me, actually. The old man’s not really involved anymore.”

“What happened to him?”

“Nothing. He’s in Boca Raton.”

Eddie nodded, but he wasn’t getting it. He glanced at the pool, saw that the waves he’d raised had subsided to ripples; the surface would soon be calm again. He’d always liked that calm surface, liked being the first one in. Now he understood why:

The fair breeze blew, the white foam flew,

The furrow followed free;

We were the first that ever burst

Into that silent sea.

“You all right?” Bobby said.

“Yeah.”

“Had a funny look there.”

“I’m fine.” He was hungry, that was all. When had he last eaten? He remembered: in F-Block. Eddie walked to the other end of the pool to get his towel. Bobby followed.

“We had some times in this pool, didn’t we, Eddie?”

“Yeah,” Eddie said, toweling off.

“You were something. You had a scholarship offer, didn’t you? Clemson?”

“USC.”

Bobby shook his head. “Isn’t that something?” he said. “I ended up swimming for Dartmouth. Just about my speed.”

“That’s nice,” said Eddie, starting toward the locker-room door.

Bobby followed. “Best exercise there is,” he said. “I’m still in here three, four times a week. Nothing strenuous. Long slow distance, keep some of this fucking fat off. But you know something, Eddie, I had an idea, watching you. A crazy idea.”

Eddie stopped and turned.

“What’s that?”

“It’s kind of crazy, like I said.” He looked Eddie in the eye; Eddie didn’t remember Bobby having that look. “Thing is, I think I could beat you now.”

“Do you?”

“Just a hunch,” Bobby said. “You a gambling man, Eddie? I hear a lot of gambling goes on in… those places.”

“I knew a bridge player once,” Eddie said. “He liked to gamble.”

“There you go. What do you say?”

“To what?”

“A little action. One-hundred free. How does that sound?”

“For money?”

“Just to make it interesting.”

“How much?”

“You name it.”

“A hundred,” Eddie said.

“Dollars?”

“Dollar per yard,” Eddie said. “Just for the sake of fearful symmetry.”

Bobby stared at him for a moment, then laughed. “It’s great you didn’t lose your sense of humor,” he said, holding out his hand. Eddie had been wondering when they would shake hands. They shook; in greeting, or simply sealing the bet?

They walked around toward the starting end, Bobby stretching his arms above his head, Eddie trying to remember where he’d read about fearful symmetry. It must have been years ago, long before he’d discovered “The Mariner.”

Bobby took his place in lane six. “Do we need a starter?”

“No.”

“We’ll just use the clock, like in the old days.” A big clock with a red second hand hung on the wall at the other end. “Second hand touches twelve, we go.”

The water was still again, flat blue. The second hand rounded six, ticked up the other side. Eight, nine, ten. Bobby got into his crouch. Eddie had forgotten about that. He bent his knees, trying to find the right position. Eleven. One, two, three, fo-the red hand was a full click away when Bobby sprang off. Eddie followed, a hurried dive so steeply angled he almost touched bottom. By the time Eddie hit the surface, Bobby was half a length ahead. In seven or eight strokes, he stretched it to a full length.

Eddie had forgotten his racing dive. Now he forgot about sculling too, lost his feel for the water, fell into a crude imitation of Bobby’s powerful stroke. He thrashed on, falling farther behind, thinking: What the hell are you doing, jailbird?

Bobby hit the first turn, flipped it well, smoother than in his racing days. That observation threw off Eddie’s timing. He forgot to spread his feet, pushed off crooked, started his roll too soon, forcing himself to stroke too soon. Bobby gained another half length. Two days out of the pen, jailbird, and racing for all the money you’ve got.

Bobby gained another stroke or two by the second turn, flipped it nicely again. Eddie did better on his second turn, not perfect, but better. And in the calm of the glide, he realized he’d been thrashing. Like an animal: a freestyler needs finesse. Feel the water, feel how it gives against the palm, curls around the fingers. Feel it: an obvious psychological trick, but it worked on him. He began to scull, rising up in the water; not yet skimming, but moving faster. Bobby’s big white kicking feet came back to him a little at a time: the one or two strokes he’d lost on the second turn, maybe more. He was about a length and a half behind when Bobby hit the last turn.

Eddie didn’t see how Bobby handled it. No time. He came to the wall, piked, flipped, rolled, glided, stroked twice, breathed. Perfect. He glanced at Bobby. Half a length now, and closing. Stroke stroke stroke stroke breathe. Stroke stroke stroke stroke breathe. Eddie closed a little more, almost skimming now. Bobby glanced back; his eyes widened. Stroke stroke stroke stroke stroke-and then, in mid-pull, his body failed him, all at once, as though someone had switched him off.

How long had he been swimming before Bobby challenged him? He didn’t know. It could have been twenty minutes, it could have been two hours. Enough so that now he was done, just like that. He almost stopped right there in the middle of the pool.

But he knew-there was no time to think, he just knew-that if he stopped it was over for him. So he kept making the motions of swimming; and at the same time a voice in his head, his own voice said: Go, Nails. Not yelling, not screaming, simply saying go, and calling him by that name.

My real name, Eddie thought: me. A surge of something-energy, adrenaline, endorphins, something-pulsed through him, lifted him. And then, at last, he was skimming. He didn’t feel exhaustion, pain, fear, despair. He felt nothing but the cool blue, pushing him forward, helping.

Go, Nails. Go, Nails. The voice didn’t stop until his hand smacked the wall, hard: he hadn’t even seen it coming. He got his head up in time to see Bobby touch.

Bobby couldn’t say anything at first. He just hung onto the edge of the pool, gasping. After a while he got his breath back. He said: “Fuck.”

Eddie climbed out of the pool. His muscles ached, but he made sure he got out in one smooth motion.

“Very cute,” said Bobby, still in the pool. He was smiling, but too broadly, and his voice was too loud. “The way I paid for you to get into that kind of shape.”

Eddie turned. “How’s that?”

There was a pause while Bobby made an effort to hold the words inside. They tumbled out. “You’ve been sucking at the public tit for the past fifteen years or whatever the hell it is, that’s how, and I’m a taxpayer like you wouldn’t believe.”

Eddie came back to the edge, looked down at Bobby. Bobby’s hair was plastered down on his forehead, his face was red. “If you win, say little,” Eddie said. “If you lose, say less.”

Bobby went redder, but kept his mouth shut.

Eddie walked away, into the locker room, showered, changed. He wrang out the Speedo, dried it under the blower, stuck it in his pocket. Another possession, added to the $1.55 left from the gate money, the $100 bill from El Rojo, and Prof’s cardboard tube, which didn’t belong to him. He went out into the lobby and sat in a chair. It was a wooden chair, hard and uncomfortable, but Eddie was almost asleep when Bobby appeared.

Bobby looked good. His hair, still damp, was slicked back; he wore a dark suit, glossy black shoes with little holes in them-Eddie knew they had a name but didn’t know what it was-and had a glossy black fur coat over one shoulder. He walked over to Eddie. Eddie rose; it took a lot of effort, but he didn’t want Bobby standing over him, not with all that wardrobe.

Bobby had recovered his self-confidence, or at least his composure. He took in Eddie’s wrinkled trousers, the bright green short-sleeved shirt, the dirty prison sneakers. Then he reached in his pocket and pulled out his roll. It was a thick one, jammed into a gold money clip. He peeled off a hundred-dollar bill, one of many, and handed it over. Eddie found himself staring at it, like a bumpkin.

Bobby laughed. “You and Jack couldn’t be more different, you know that?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

Bobby stopped laughing, stepped back. “Nothing. He’s at home with money, that’s all. Big money.”

“He is?”

“Sure. Who do you think sicced BCC on us?”

“Jack did that to you?”

“Hell, yes. It was brilliant. We’re set for life.”

“Who’s we?”

“Dad and me. Who else is there?”

“Vic, for one,” Eddie said. And the whole fucking town. Bobby shrugged himself into his fur coat. “He didn’t have any shares, Eddie. This is America.”

They didn’t shake hands again. Bobby went out. Eddie had a drink from the fountain and left soon after. He was almost at the bus station when he realized he’d forgotten his steam bath.

11

The stubble-faced man had patterned the bus-station floor in dirty whorls and laid the mop aside. Now he sat behind the ticket counter, studying a magazine called HOT! HOT! HOT! He looked up as Eddie approached, spreading his hands over a picture of people having sex while watching a big-screen TV where people were having sex.

“When’s the next bus to New York?” Eddie asked.

“Seven twenty-two, A.M.”

“You mean tomorrow?”

“A.M.,” the stubble-faced man repeated, his fingers stirring impatiently on the magazine.

“Where can I get something to eat?”

“Search me.”

“But you live here.”

The stubble-faced man snorted.

Eddie didn’t like that. He leaned on the counter. The stubble-faced man drew away, dragging HOT! HOT! HOT! with him. Eddie laid his hand on the magazine; a page tore through a fat thigh. “Let’s put it this way,” he said. “Where do you go when you’re hungry?”

The bus-station door opened and a cop came in, stamping snow off his boots; the same cop who had stopped Eddie on the bridge. The stubble-faced man smiled. “I go home, asshole,” he said to Eddie.

“Everything okay, Murray?” asked the cop, looking hard at Eddie.

Eddie backed away from the counter.

“Best day of my life,” said the stubble-faced man. “I just love this job.”

The cop went over to the coffee machine, fed it change, pressed the button. Nothing happened. He slapped the machine with his palm.

“This thing on the fritz, Murray?”

“Guess so.”

“I want my money back.”

“Got no key,” said Murray. “There’s a number to call on the back.”

The cop slapped the machine once more, then turned and walked out the door. Eddie and Murray stared at each other. Murray’s lips twitched, as though he was fighting back a grin. Eddie didn’t like that either. He grabbed HOT! HOT! HOT! and ripped it in half before leaving.

“Asshole,” said Murray, but not too aggressively.

Outside it was colder, windier, snowier. Eddie walked up Main Street to the end, passing two diners on the way, both closed, and stopped where the state highway began. A car approached. Eddie stuck out his thumb. It kept going.

So did others. Time passed. Eddie didn’t know how much time because he’d given his watch to Prof: part of his plan to take nothing with him. He got more tired, more hungry, colder. He wanted a cigarette, to fill his lungs with warmth, to hold a little fire in his hand. No cigarette: that was prong two of his three-pronged plan. But it was better than being inside.

“I’m free,” he said to nobody.

There wasn’t much traffic. After a while Eddie realized he was just watching it go by, without bothering to stick out his thumb. He stuck it out. A white car, pocked with rust, pulled over. Eddie opened the passenger door.

“Destination?” said the driver.

The driver was dressed in white: white trousers and a white tunic that came almost to his knees. Eddie noticed this in passing; his immediate attention was drawn to the man’s head, shaved bald like his.

“New York,” Eddie said.

“You’ve got good karma.”

Eddie paused, his hand on the door, wondering if the man in white was gay and this was a come-on. His mind flashed images of Louie, the Ozark boys; and the man in white, lying by the side of the road while Eddie drove off in the pockmarked car.

The man spoke. “I mean you’re in luck-that’s where I’m going.”

Eddie got in.

The man held out his hand. “Ram Pontoppidan.”

“Nai-Ed Nye.”

Ram checked the rearview mirror-a laminated photograph of an old Indian at a spinning wheel hung from it-and pulled onto the road. “Mind fastening your seat belt, Ed? It’s the law.”

Music played on the sound system, tinkling music full of rests. “Cold out there,” said Ram. “Waiting long?”

“No.”

“Nice and warm in here.”

“Yeah.”

Nice and warm; and smelling of food. The food smell came from an open plastic bag lying in the storage box between the seats. “Holesome Trail Mix,” read the label: “Shiva amp; Co., Burlington, Vt.”

“Try some,” said Ram.

“No, thanks.”

“Really. I’d like your opinion.”

“About what?”

“The product. I’m the New York-New England distributor.”

Eddie hadn’t heard of trail mix, and was sure wholesome was spelled with a w, but he hadn’t eaten since dinner the night before his release, and now the swim had left him ravenous. He dipped into the bag: nuts, and dried fruit in various colors. He tried it.

“Well?”

“Not bad.”

In truth, better than not bad, much better. Eddie hadn’t tasted anything so good since… when? In his case, he could fix the date: the night of spiny lobsters and champagne at Galleon Beach.

“Have some more,” said Ram.

Eddie had another handful-“Don’t be shy”-and another.

“That’s what makes it all so gratifying,” said Ram, handing him the bag: “customer satisfaction.”

Eddie sat there with the bag on his lap.

“It’s a sample,” said Ram. “Enjoy and be blessed.”

Eddie finished the bag.

After that he felt sleepy; his body came down from the swimming high. Outside it was bleak and raw, inside warm, the music soothing sound, with no rhythm or melody that Eddie could hear. He glanced at Ram. His eyes were on the road. Eddie let himself relax a little. He kept his eyes open but began to drift off, drawing out that time between wakefulness and sleep in a way he hadn’t in fifteen years. In his cell, he’d always rushed to unconsciousness at night.

Ram spoke softly: “Have you tried spirituality, Ed?”

Eddie sat up. Ram was watching him from the corner of his eye. “What do you mean?”

“Love, to put it simply.” Again Eddie’s mind flashed images of Louie, the Ozarks, Ram by the side of the road. “The love that impels and compels the universe. The love that stands behind the food you just ate.”

“It wasn’t that good.”

Ram smiled. “I’m talking about the spiritual power of Krishna consciousness, Ed. The path to inner peace and calm. Can you honestly say you are full of inner peace and calm?”

Eddie remembered his state of mind in the pool. “Sometimes.”

The answer surprised Ram. “Then you’ve studied meditation?”

“I tried the F-Block system for a while.”

Ram frowned. He had clear, unwrinkled skin, but suddenly appeared older. “I don’t know that one. I’ve heard of beta blockers, of course.”

“No drugs allowed on F-Block.”

“Good,” said Ram. “Although anything that leads to inner peace can’t be rejected out of hand. It’s so… hard, Ed. I know. I fooled myself into thinking I was at peace for many years. I had a wife, kids, tenure at SUNY, house, car, et cetera. All a sham. I simply wasn’t very evolved at the time.”

“You were a teacher?”

“Tenured professor of English literature. It wasn’t the way.”

Ram talked on, describing his spiritual crisis, how he’d left wife, kids, job, house, car, et cetera and found Shiva amp; Co. and inner peace.

Eddie waited till he finished and said: “What poems did you teach?”

“At SUNY?”

“Yeah.”

“You name it.”

“ ‘The Rime of the Ancient Mariner’?”

Ram wrinkled his brow, looked older; surprised again. “ ‘The Mariner’? Never taught it, per se-wanting to avoid the straitjacket of the dead white male thing-but I know it, naturally. Are you taking an English course?”

“No.”

A mile or two of windblown white scenery went by. Eddie took a chance. “And now there came both mist and snow / And it grew wondrous cold.” He spoke aloud, but quiet, and to his ears dull and insipid too. Maybe it was a lousy poem after all.

“I’m impressed,” said Ram. “You’re not a poet yourself, by any chance?”

“No.”

“What do you do, then, if you don’t mind me asking?”

“I’m looking for work,” Eddie replied, wondering if there was any truth in that reply.

“What kind?”

Eddie thought about that. Another white mile or two went by.

“None of my business,” Ram said.

Eddie turned to him. “Tell me something.”

“I’ll try.”

“Why did the albatross get shot in the first place?”

Ram’s eyes shifted. Eddie realized that this man who’d evolved his way into an Indian outfit and a junk-heap car was beginning to fear he’d picked up a nut. He should have set up the question a little better.

“ ‘The Rime of the Ancient Mariner’ ’s just a trifle, Eddie-like ‘The Cremation of Sam McGee,’ ” Ram said. “I wouldn’t get into it too deeply. Whatever you’re searching for isn’t there. That doesn’t mean it isn’t somewhere.” Ram glanced at him to make sure he was listening. “What do you know about Krishna consciousness?”

Eddie didn’t know much about Krishna consciousness and didn’t want to. He wanted to know about “The Mariner,” and here was someone who probably had the knowledge but wasn’t going to tell. The image of Ram lying by the side of the road rose in his mind again. He made it go away.

They crossed a frozen river. Eddie drifted toward sleep once more. This time he didn’t prolong the drifting but went quickly, like an inmate.

The walls of the visitor’s room were gray and covered with signs. “Wearing of denim clothing by visitors is forbidden,” “Female visitors must wear underwear,” “No sitting on laps,” “No loud talk,” “Removal of any clothing prohibited,” “Violators will be arrested and prosecuted to the full extent of the law.”

There were two steel doors, both guarded by C.O.s. The first led to a strip-search area, a metal detector, and the cell blocks; the second led to a strip-search area, a metal detector, and the outside. Eddie was waiting on a bench when the second door opened and Jack came in.

Eddie hadn’t seen Jack since the trial. He looked good: trim and tanned in a polo shirt and chinos. There were sweat stains under his arms, but that was understandable. Eddie was nervous too. He got up. Jack came to him, eyes filling with emotion. They embraced.

“Jesus, Eddie, you’ve lost weight.”

“The food-” Eddie began, but knew he couldn’t continue in a steady voice. He wouldn’t break down, not in front of Jack, not in front of the four C.O.s sitting in the corners of the room.

They sat on the bench. Jack glanced around, took in the signs, the guards, the prisoner sitting on the other bench with a toothless old woman. He licked his lips. “Is everything okay?”

“Okay?”

“Besides the food, I mean. You’re not being… mistreated, or anything?”

“I’m in jail for something I didn’t do. Is that okay?”

“It’s horrible-worse than horrible,” Jack said, laying a hand on Eddie’s knee. “But aside from that.”

A C.O. got up. “Knock off the fag shit.”

“We’re brothers,” Eddie said, raising his voice slightly, within the acceptable limit.

“So?”

There was no use arguing: Eddie had learned that in the first few weeks. Jack had already removed his hand anyway. He didn’t look quite so good now, and the sweat stains were spreading.

The other prisoner was watching them. Eddie had seen him playing cards in the rec room. His name was Louie. He smiled at Eddie. Eddie ignored him.

Eddie and Jack lost the thread of the conversation, fell silent despite the wall clock ticking away the time they had together. After a while Jack licked his lips again and said: “There’s nothing new, Eddie. I’m sorry.”

Eddie had known that the moment Jack came in the room. Nothing new meant that JFK still hadn’t been found. And finding him was only step one. Without a confession from JFK, without some statement that he was responsible and that Eddie had had nothing to do with the dope on Fearless, there was no hope of a retrial.

“Mandy?”

“Disappeared.” Jack stared at the unpainted cement floor. “We still don’t know if she was in on it anyway.”

“Why else would she go overboard?”

“Maybe she just knew the load was there and took off when she saw trouble coming.”

Without warning me, Eddie thought. The implication of that was clear, had been clear from the beginning, although it meant less and less as time went by.

“We’ve had this discussion,” Jack went on, glancing at the toothless old woman and the prisoner named Louie before looking again at Eddie. “Mandy doesn’t matter. What matters is JFK. No one saw him leave the island. Brice hasn’t even been able to find out what his real name is, if he has one.”

“Why did he try to raise us on the radio?”

“Because you were running off with his investment. We’ve been through this too.”

“But he got cut off.”

“Maybe he changed his mind.”

“Why would he do that?”

Jack shrugged.

“The radio was in the bar. Someone must have seen him. The question is who.”

Jack sighed. “The question is where did he go.”

“Maybe he went to France.”

“France?”

“He speaks French.”

Silence. One of the C.O.s removed his glasses and rubbed his eyes hard. “Brice charges two hundred a day,” Jack said.

“Borrow,” Eddie said, his voice rising over the acceptable limit. “Borrow on your seven and a half percent.”

The C.O. put his glasses back on, gave Eddie a red-eyed glare.

Jack’s voice rose too. “Seven and a half percent of what?”

“Fucking can it,” said the red-eyed C.O.

“Galleon Beach,” Eddie said, more quietly.

Jack shot Eddie a quick and angry glance. “The bank foreclosed last week.” He looked away. “Packer’s finished. Trimble, with his pious little scruples, finished him.”

“He’s a good man.” Trimble had given Jack a thousand dollars to retain Brice.

“He fucked us,” Jack said. “All because…” He went silent.

Eddie leaned forward. Their faces were very close. “Are you blaming me?” he said.

Jack didn’t answer. The prisoner named Louie smiled at Eddie again.

“Are you?”

“Let’s not argue,” Jack said. Eddie smelled alcohol on his brother’s breath.

“Get me out of here,” he said.

“I’m trying, Eddie.” Jack’s voice broke.

They sat together on the bench while the hands on the wall clock circled toward the end of the visiting period. Jack shook his head. “Everything went to shit so fast.”

The C.O.s rose the instant the minute hand touched twelve for the second time. “What’s happening?” Jack asked.

“You have to go.”

“God.”

They got up, embraced again. “Hang on,” Jack said. “At the very worst…”

“Say bye-bye,” said a C.O., coming closer.

“At the very worst what?” Eddie said.

“Please take this the right way, Eddie. Five to fifteen, but at the very worst it means you’ll be out in less than four, with time off for good behavior. It’s bad, I know. But you’ll only be-”

Eddie squeezed his brother’s arm as hard as he could. “Get me out of here.”

“I’m trying.”

“Try harder.”

Jack hadn’t known the meaning of the very worst. Brice couldn’t find JFK and sent his letter informing Eddie of the closing of the investigation a month or two later. By that time it didn’t matter. Louie and the Ozark brothers got Eddie in the showers a week after Jack’s visit. Less than four swelled to the full fifteen. Jack never returned to the visitor’s room. He sent food packages at Christmas and Eddie’s birthday for a few years, then just at Christmas, then not at all. That was understandable too.

“Where can I drop you?”

Eddie opened his eyes. Ram was looking at him. They were on a bridge, stuck in traffic. Ahead lay Manhattan. Eddie had never been there, but it couldn’t be anything else. The tops of the towers were hidden in the clouds. The snow had turned to rain, steaming the windows of the cars.

“Two-twenty-two Park Avenue,” Eddie said.

“You live on Park Avenue?”

“That’s where you can drop me.”

“I’m not going uptown.”

“Anywhere’s fine.”

“Washington Square?”

“Sure,” Eddie said, although he had no idea where it was.

Ram drove across the bridge, got stuck in more traffic by a river. “It’s funny,” Ram said, “when I saw you shaved your head and all, I got the idea you’d been with us, maybe not too long ago.”

“With you?”

“A convert.”

“It’s ringworm,” Eddie said.

There was no further discussion until Ram stopped by a grassless park and said, “Okay?”

“Thanks.”

Eddie got out. “Take this,” said Ram, handing him another bag of Holesome Trail Mix. He drove away. There were two bumper stickers on the back of his car. One read: “Krishna amp; Co.-Food for the Soul.” The other: “This car climbed Mt. Washington.”

Rain fell, cold and hard. Eddie crossed the street. A woman was sitting on a scrap of cardboard with a baby and a sign: “Homeless and hungry. Please help.” Eddie handed her the trail mix.

He had walked twenty or thirty blocks and was soaked to the skin before he realized that the description on the cardboard sign applied to him too. The thought had an odd effect: it filled him with a sense of well-being, made him smile. Everything was going to be all right-unlike the woman and her baby, he could always win money in swimming pools.

12

Two-twenty-two Park Avenue might have been one of the towers Eddie had seen from the bridge. It was all steel and glass, joined together at right angles, the top ten or twenty stories disappearing in the clouds. On the sidewalk below lay a man in a soggy blanket. He didn’t have a baby, just a sign: “Please help.” His eyes met Eddie’s. The look in them was as bad as anything Eddie had seen inside. That puzzled him. Out of Holesome Trail Mix, he reached into his pocket and found the $1.55 remaining from his gate money. The man made no move to take it. Eddie laid the money on the blanket, leaving himself with the two hundred-dollar bills, and followed a woman wearing a trench coat and sneakers through a revolving door into the lobby.

The lobby was probably the grandest room he’d ever been in. It had a fountain with water spouting from the mouth of a bearded sea god; a marble floor, marble walls, and a huge chandelier hanging from a ceiling several stories high; and at the far side, gleaming banks of brass elevators. Men and women dressed in suits and carrying briefcases got on and off in a hurry, funneling through a gap between two velvet ropes. Eddie was almost across the lobby when he noticed the two men in chocolate-colored uniforms standing at a desk in the gap between the ropes and realized it was a security check. He stopped dead.

Relax, he told himself. He had passed through thousands of security checks, what was one more? And this one: like a child’s notion of security, with the silly uniforms and velvet ropes. Besides, you’re a free citizen, not an inmate. So: move. But he didn’t want to go through that security check, had to force himself to take those last steps.

“Pass, sir?” said one of the security guards.

“What?”

The security guard’s eyes gave him a quick once-over. Eddie understood how he must have appeared in his soaked windbreaker, chinos, sneakers: much closer to the man in the blanket than to the ones with the suits and briefcases.

“You need a pass,” said the security guard, dropping the sir.

“Don’t have one.”

“Do you work here?”

“No.”

“What’s your business?”

Eddie almost replied, “I’m looking for work,” before he realized the guard wanted to know what business he had in the building.

“I’m here to see my brother,” Eddie said. “He’s got an office. Suite 2068.”

“One moment. Sir.” The guard opened a book. “What name would that be?”

“J. M. Nye,” said Eddie. “And Associates.”

The guard ran his finger down a page, eyes scanning back and forth. “Don’t see it,” he said.

“It might be 2086.”

“That’s not the problem.” The guard turned the page. “The problem is there’s no J. M. Nye, period. Ring a bell?” he asked the other guard.

“Nope.”

The first guard spoke into a portable phone, too quietly for Eddie to hear. He put down the phone, shook his head at Eddie. “Nope.”

“I know he was here at one time,” Eddie said. “Maybe he’s left his new address.”

“We don’t keep information like that,” the guard said, glancing over Eddie’s shoulder. “Everybody’s always moving. This is New York.”

People in suits were jamming up behind Eddie. The chocolate guards, without being aggressive about it, were blocking his way. He wasn’t going to get past this play-school security check.

Eddie went back through the grand lobby, through the revolving door, into the street. The man in the blanket noticed him, tried to make eye contact again. But this was New York, where everyone moved. Eddie would have to move too. He kept going.

Eddie had never been in a tower like 222 Park Avenue before, had seldom been in an office building of any kind, but he’d seen a lot of urban-drama type movies in prison, pseudo-experience he now relied on. He walked around the building until he found a parking garage, as he’d expected. He went down the ramp. A man in a glass booth watched him.

“Forgot my briefcase,” Eddie said without stopping, the way some actor, Lee Marvin maybe, might have done it.

The elevator door opened just as he got there. A good thing, in case the man in the booth was still watching. Eddie stepped in and pressed number twenty. The door slid closed; the elevator rose, but only to G, where it stopped. The door opened. Two women got on. Beyond them, Eddie could see the security check. One of the guards turned and looked his way. He blinked as the door closed.

The women were well dressed, well groomed, angry inside. Eddie was good at knowing things like that; he’d had to be. The door opened at twelve and the women got out.

“The residuals are a joke,” one said.

“No one’s laughing,” answered the other.

Eddie rode the rest of the way by himself, looking at his bald and damp reflection on polished brass.

Bing. Twenty. The door opened, not, as Eddie had expected, into a corridor, but directly into a reception area hung with paintings, full of flowers. Werner, Pratt, Olmsted, Larch and Groot, read a plaque on the wall, but Eddie had no idea what they did.

A man in a gray-flannel suit, yellow tie, and candy-striped shirt sat at the desk, tapping at a keyboard. “Sir?” he said.

“Is this twenty sixty-eight?” Eddie said.

“I’m afraid not.”

“Or maybe twenty eighty-six.”

“They don’t exist,” said the man. “This whole floor is Werner, Pratt. It’s simply two thousand.”

“My brother’s office was here. J. M. Nye. And Associates.”

The man looked blank. A phone buzzed. “Excuse me,” he said, picking it up. He was very polite. Eddie wanted to knock his computer off the desk, not hard, just a polite little toppling. Instead, he picked up a phone book lying on the desk, looked up J. M. Nye and J. M. Nye and Associates, found listings for neither. He closed the book. The man on the phone reached for it and tucked it in a drawer.

Eddie returned to the lobby, hopping over the velvet rope on his way out. The security guards didn’t notice. Anyone already inside was presumed to be safe. That was another thing that differentiated this security check from the ones Eddie knew.

He stood outside the revolving door, lost in thought. He wasn’t aware that he was standing over the man in the blanket until he felt a sharp kick against his ankle. He looked down.

“This is my spot,” said the man, not seeming to recognize Eddie at all. “Fuck off.”

Eddie didn’t like the implication, even though he’d already made the comparison himself, and he didn’t like being kicked. He recalled what he had done to the last man who’d kicked him. But Eddie did nothing this time. The man was protected by his blanket and his sign.

An hour and a half later, Eddie was in Brooklyn, standing outside 367 Parchman Avenue. It was a dirty brick building a few stories high, without a homeless man, revolving door, marble lobby, or security check. There was just an outer door and an inner door, with a row of buzzers in the square hall between them. Eddie checked the label on Prof’s mailing tube and pressed buzzer three. Nothing happened. He pressed it a few more times, then tried the inner door. It opened.

Number three was at one end of the basement corridor. The corridor was dark and full of smells-fried food, spilled beer, cigarette smoke. TV voices came through the door of number three. Eddie knocked.

“Who is it?” A woman’s voice, impatient.

“Ed Nye,” Eddie said, and started to add, “a friend of Prof’s.” The door opened before he could finish.

“I know who you are.” The woman was tall and lean. Eddie didn’t recognize her at first. She wore a red terrycloth robe, not the reindeer sweater she’d had on in Prof’s photograph. She’d also seemed rounder in the photograph, and darker of hair and complexion, at least the way he remembered it. But he wasn’t sure how well he remembered it, especially since there’d been a little mixing in his mind of her image and the image of the woman in the porn shot that had been taped beside it.

“Tiffany?” he said.

“That’s me.” She had dark eyes, intelligent, alert, even excited, he thought, although he didn’t know what there was to be excited about.

Eddie searched for some way to begin, found none, said, “Here,” and handed her the cardboard tube.

“What’s this?”

“From Prof. I said I’d mail it. But I was in New York anyway, so…” He took a step back, delaying his departure only to think of the phrase that would take him to good-bye.

Tiffany put a hand on his forearm, a long white hand, nails painted red. “You’re not running off, are you? You’ve come all this way. At least I can give you coffee.”

“No, thanks.”

She didn’t remove her hand. “Please. Prof would be really pissed if he found out I didn’t even give you coffee.”

“Okay,” Eddie said. She let go.

He followed her inside. She locked the door, slid two bolts into place. That gave Eddie a bad feeling. Cool it, he told himself.

But the apartment did nothing to take the prison feeling away. For one thing, it was small. No hall, just a kitchen he was already in and a bedroom off it. For another, it had no windows. Light came from a fluorescent strip over the stove and the TV glowing by the unmade bed. It could have been midnight. Those reindeer sweaters had led him to expect something better. He glanced around for some sign of the two kids and saw none.

Eddie sat at the kitchen table. Tiffany boiled water, spooned instant coffee into unmatched cups, poured. Through the bedroom doorway he heard the TV voices.

“Milk and sugar?” asked Tiffany.

“No, thanks.”

She came behind him, leaning over to put his cup on the table. He smelled her, felt her breast press lightly against the side of his head. “Back in a sec,” she said.

She went into the bedroom, closed the door. Eddie sipped the coffee. That first sip was good. On the second he realized it tasted like prison coffee, the same brand exactly. He drank it anyway, listening to the TV voices, fainter now. He thought he heard Tiffany’s voice too, maybe on the phone.

The door opened. Tiffany came out, her hair brushed, smelling of something floral.

“How’s the coffee?” she said, sitting down on the other side of the table. It was small, about the size of a cafe table for two.

“Good.”

She added three spoonsful of sugar to her own cup and stirred with her red-tipped finger. “This is great,” she said. “I’m glad you came. Really. Having you here is almost like, having him. Isn’t that weird?”

Eddie nodded.

“How is he?”

“Doing all right.”

“But what’s he doing, what’s he thinking, what’re his plans?”

“He wants to get into politics.”

Tiffany started laughing. Eddie laughed too. He stopped when he got the feeling that she had spent some time behind bars herself.

“He’s afraid, with you gone,” Tiffany said.

“Why?”

“You protected him.”

“I didn’t.”

“Just you being there protected him.”

Eddie was silent.

Tiffany twisted in her chair, reached across to the counter for a pack of cigarettes. “Smoke?” she said.

“No, thanks.”

“Fifteen years in the pen and you don’t smoke?”

“Trying to quit.”

She lit up, exhaled a blue cloud. The smell reached Eddie.

“Maybe I will after all,” he said.

She regarded him without surprise. “Help yourself.”

He lit up too. Big mistake: he knew that right away, but it went so well with the coffee.

“Habits are hard to break,” she said. “I sure as hell hope Prof can break some of his.”

“Like what?” Eddie didn’t want to seem nosy, but he was curious: he’d lived with Prof for a long time. He and Tiffany had Prof in common. He started to feel a little more comfortable in the dark and tiny apartment.

Tiffany took a deep drag, blew smoke through her nose this time. “Like doing stupid things,” she replied.

“You mean the documents and stuff?”

She squinted at him. “I mean getting caught. The documents and stuff are his job. How he supports us in the standard of living to which we’ve become accustomed.” She stabbed her cigarette, still mostly unsmoked, into her coffee, still mostly undrunk. It hissed. Eddie couldn’t imagine Tiffany in the reindeer sweater at all.

“He’s afraid without you,” she said, “but he was afraid of you, too.”

“Prof?”

“He thinks you’re crazy-reading books all the time and killing people.”

Eddie felt his face grow hot.

She gave him that narrow-eyed gaze again. “You don’t look crazy to me.”

Eddie recalled his image in the polished brass of the elevator and realized he probably did look a little crazy. “I’m coming out of it,” he said. “I’ve been in a crazy place for fifteen years.”

“That’s not the record,” she said.

Eddie laughed, tried a joke of his own. “What’s your personal best?”

Tiffany glared at him and didn’t reply. She picked up the cardboard tube, lying on the table. “Let’s see what this is.”

She picked the plastic cap off one end, slipped her fingers inside, and withdrew a sheet of scrolled paper, about two feet long. She unrolled it on the table. He felt her go still.

It was a charcoal drawing of a nude woman. She was gazing right into the eyes of the viewer and was unmistakably Tiffany. She was sitting in a kitchen chair, very like the one she sat in now, legs slightly spread and pinching one of her nipples between forefinger and thumb. The drawing seemed professional to Eddie, even artistic. Prof’s inscription wasn’t in the same class: “To Tiff, from her dirty old man.”

Eddie looked up from the drawing to find Tiffany watching him. Their eyes met. She licked her lips. “He’ll always be an idiot.”

“Is he an idiot?”

“Don’t you think so?” In the silence that followed, Eddie and Tiffany didn’t take their eyes off each other. “Don’t you think so?” she repeated, and opened her robe, just enough to expose one breast. She took the nipple between her red-pointed finger and thumb and pinched, harder than in the drawing, much harder. At the same time she stretched her bare foot underneath that little cafe table and ran it under Eddie’s khaki pants, up his leg.

“Come on, killer.”

Tiffany rose, took him by the hand, led him into the bedroom. Eddie hadn’t been with a woman in a long time, not since Mandy. The sex he had with her seemed so sweetly innocent now, compared to what was about to happen. It was going to happen. He couldn’t stop it. The sight of Tiffany’s breast, in life in color and on paper in black and white, the pinched erect nipple, the red fingernails, the knowledge that the cardboard tube he’d been carrying had had this power the whole time, like an amulet in a story or something: all that, combined with fifteen years of loneliness, the different kinds of loneliness, but especially the loneliness of a man for a woman, added up to much more than he could resist.

He went into the bedroom. She helped him strip off the clothes the state had given him. She looked him over.

“He’s right to be afraid of you,” she said. Even that couldn’t stop him.