The Liquidator

One

It’s not a long drive from Washington down to the Outer Banks; it just seems that way. Since this was a vacation, we backtracked a little and took the Annapolis-Bay Bridge across the Chesapeake to the Eastern Shore, then snaked down the highway through countryside as exciting as the stretch between Indianapolis and Terre Haute. There used to be a great ferry ride from Cape Charles across to Norfolk — long enough to relax, have a meal in the dining salon, and watch the seagoing traffic between the Atlantic and the bay. But no more. Now there’s a complex of bridges, like concrete strips across the water, and a couple of shocking plunges into the tunnels that supposedly allow the ships to pass without disrupting traffic. The trouble is, it seems as though every time a storm blows up, a barge breaks loose from its moorings, smashes some bridge pilings, and closes down the whole works for weeks at a time. I sometimes wonder how those people who commute from the Cape to Norfolk manage, but that’s their problem.

The best thing to do when passing through Norfolk is close your eyes. Then, heading south, forget the Great Dismal Swamp off to the right and concentrate on that great chain of islands that make up the northern half of the coast of North Carolina. Once you hit the Outer Banks around Kitty Hawk, you get the feeling you’re far out at sea with just a skinny strip of sand dunes and motels to keep you out of the water. As a matter of fact, you are pretty far at sea, but don’t believe that tourist-bureau nonsense about Cape Hatteras being the easternmost point of the U.S.; Philadelphia’s got it beat by a good hundred miles, just for starters.

But we weren’t stopping at Hatteras. Too many tourists, and Monica and I hadn’t taken this long weekend to mingle with a bunch of camera-toters. After driving forever along the straight, monotonous highway we reached the ferry to Ocracoke, the last stop on the Outer Banks. The late spring day was bright but sullen, with a light overcast that made the sun almost oppressive.

When we were underway, we got out of the rented yellow Mustang and stood at the blunt bow of the boat; there was enough of a breeze to toss stormlets of spray in our faces, but it was more refreshing than annoying. Monica was the kind of girl who didn’t worry about her makeup — or anything else — which was one of the reasons I’d brought her along on this little jaunt.

My boss back in Washington wasn’t happy about my choice for a long weekend; I couldn’t even tell him where I’d be staying because I’d never been to Ocracoke before; it’s not exactly on the tourist beat. I’d more or less promised I’d let him know once we found a motel, but we both knew I’d be likely to forget. It’s nice to know you’re needed, but somewhere you have to draw the line.

We settled for a place just outside what passes for a town on Ocracoke, a group of houses and shops arranged around a harbor that forms a perfect circle. I was pleased to find there was no telephone in the room, but we had an ice machine just outside. Some years ago a friend of mine wrote an article about this little out-of-the-way island, and since it stressed his major interest in life, I knew Ocracoke was not only bone dry but that there wasn’t even a man who could get you an odd bottle or two. But we had come well supplied, and Monica and I had no worries as we began our strenuous business of relaxing for a few days.

Monica worked at a health spa in Bethesda, and one look at that small but splendidly vibrant body was all the advertising the place would ever need. At twenty-five, with a couple of ruined marriages behind her, she had the naive high spirits of a teenager, but there was a streak of shrewdness in her that I appreciated. She never asked about my scars, the nasty ones not even the AXE supersurgeons could entirely remove. The place where she worked catered to that kind of Washington clientele — military brass, diplomats and their satellites, men and women in various governmental departments with titles that say nothing about their true functions. In other words, questions were discouraged, which was the main reason my boss had sent me to the place after one of my assignments left me in pretty bad shape.

Monica and I took a short swim in the chilly Atlantic, followed by a long, leisurely bake in the sun, then another brief dip and a hasty return to the motel as the sun started plummeting toward Pamlico Sound on the other side of the island. After showers we spent a fabulous hour in bed, then got up to find a place for dinner. There wasn’t much of a choice, but the fresh fish at the place we decided on was well prepared if not exciting, and we couldn’t honestly complain.

It went like that for a couple of days; we wandered the beaches, stopped to talk to surfcasters now and then, checked the souvenir shops, and agreed there didn’t seem to be anything worth buying at any of them. The weather never changed, always the mild haze that turned the blue sky a milky gray, and after a short while, it began to depress us both. By noon on the third day we agreed it was time to start heading back; we would stop somewhere else along the Banks for the night — no hurry, but we just wanted to get moving.

We’d heard about the Ocracoke ponies, a wild breed similar to those on Chincoteague Island, off Virginia, but hadn’t spotted any until we were on our way to the ferry. Then, as we were driving along the narrow two-lane blacktop, through the rolling dunes, Monica suddenly pointed across my nose to the left.

“Look!” she squealed. “Ponies! A whole herd of them!”

I turned my head just in time to see a couple sets of equine hindquarters disappear behind a towering, scrub-covered dune. “They’re gone,” I said.

“Oh, please stop, Nick,” the girl insisted. “Let’s See if we can find them again.”

“They’re wild; they won’t let you get anywhere near them.” I knew Monica was crazy about horses; she went riding regularly at a stable out in Maryland. To me horses are just a faster way to cover ground than walking if those are the only choices you have.

“Let’s try anyway.” She put her hand on my knee and gave me that little gamin grin of hers that says she knows damned well she’s going to get her way. “We’re not in any hurry, and we’ve never even looked at this part of the island.”

True enough, I admitted to myself as I eased over to the side of the road and stopped the car. With the engine silenced, the only sound was the soft sigh of a breeze through the scrubby red-brown shrubbery that somehow managed to thrive in the sandy soil. I looked at Monica, with her turned-up nose and bright eyes, her sunburned cheeks just beginning to peel at the edges. And then I looked at her amazingly full breasts, which were straining against the light knit shirt, and the faded denim shorts that clung to her hips like a lover’s embrace. I took her hand from my knee and kissed it briefly.

“Okay. Let’s start the big roundup,” I said, opening the door on my side.

“Take the camera. I’d love to get some pictures.”

“Got it.”

We walked, both of us barefoot, through the heavy sand in the general direction of the sound. There was a kind of path — or at least a ribbon of sand where no shrubbery grew — between the towering dunes on either side of us. I kept an eye on the spot where the horses had disappeared, but when we broke out into the open on the beach, they were nowhere to be seen.

Monica was racing ahead now, eyes scanning the ground; suddenly she dropped to her knees like an Indian scout. “Look!” she squealed. “Hoofprints!”

“What did you expect?” I asked, shuffling through the hot sand toward her. “Tire tracks?”

“No, silly.” She stood up and gazed down the long, straight strip of beach. “But we could follow them.”

“Sure. From now until next winter. And how much chance do you think we’d have of catching up with them?”

“Well...” She swung her head around, China-blue eyes narrowed. “They must have gone in behind the dunes somewhere.” She grabbed my hand and started to tug. “Come on, Nick.”

I let her haul me along. She headed down the beach, walking where the sand was firm and damp from the mini-wave action of the Sound. She kept a close watch on the jumble of hoofprints, then suddenly stopped and pointed inland.

“Look! They turned in there.” She started to run, and — oh, what the hell — I trotted along with her. Enthusiasm like that can be contagious.

When the tracks disappeared in the dense growth behind the dunes, I managed to keep from telling her “I told you so,” partly because I hadn’t, except in my head. Monica stopped abruptly, put a finger to her lips, then sighed.

“I wonder which way...” she started.

“It’s anybody’s guess.”

She nodded. “You’re probably right.” And then she brightened. “But look! We can climb up to the top of that monster dune and at least take a look around. Maybe we can spot them again!”

It was my turn to sigh, but since I’d come this far with her, there was no point in resisting now. She churned up the steep side of that dune like a fullback getting his legs in shape for the season, and if I’d been a few years younger, I would have felt compelled to show her I could do it too. Instead, I climbed at a more sensible pace; there are enough physical demands in my line of business without my having to show off. And besides, I didn’t have to prove anything to Monica.

She stood on tiptoe, the light breeze ruffling her blonde hair, and slowly turned to scan the stretch of ground below. I didn’t see a thing in the endless tangle of bushes and stunted trees between the two lines of dunes. A Panzer division could have been concealed down there, not to mention a dozen ponies.

“I guess we’ve lost them for sure,” I said.

Monica nodded. “Looks like it Damn! I just wanted to see them up close.”

“Well, next time.” I looked beyond her, over her head to the blacktop road in the distance. I could see the yellow Mustang parked where I had left it, but there wasn’t another vehicle or person in sight, not even a stray seagull. Behind us, out on the sound that stretched endlessly toward the invisible mainland maybe twenty miles away, a couple of toy-sized boats crawled across the water, but they had nothing to do with this remote and isolated spot.

I looked back at Monica, who was regarding me with that look I knew so well. She yawned, stretched, fluffed her hair with her hands. Her full breasts lifted under her shirt, nipples outlined starkly. She smiled sleepily, and I buttoned up the leather camera case so the sand wouldn’t get in it.

The top of the dune was hollowed out, a dish of soft sand that was at first hot against bare flesh. But then, as those hips began their rhythmic movement under me, I forgot all about the heat and everything else except what we were doing. She was a passionate, lusty girl, totally involved; she brought her legs up and wrapped them around my waist, pressing me to her with amazing strength, and then she started to buck violently, trying to pull all of me inside her. Then she gave a long, low howl of agony and delight, then slowly started to come down as I spent myself.

“That was good,” she murmured.

“Terrific,” I agreed, now aware of the sun burning down on me.

“I wish we could stay here all day.” Her arms were still around my neck, and her eyes were at half-mast as she smiled up at me.

“There are other places.” It wasn’t that I didn’t want to stay, but there was a curious kind of urgency in me that I couldn’t understand myself. Until I heard a distant sound drawing closer.

I looked off to my left, toward the end of the island where the ferry landing was. Up in the air, no more than a hundred feet above the ground, a helicopter was moving slowly in our general direction. It swayed gently back and forth, evidently scanning the two-lane blacktop. When it came to my yellow Mustang, it slowed even more, hovered, then dropped a little bit as if for a closer look.

Without ceremony I extricated myself from Monica’s embrace and scrambled to my feet; I was dragging on my pants when the chopper suddenly made a sidewise swoop and headed straight for our dune.

“What is it?” Monica asked, only half-alarmed as she raised herself up on one elbow.

“Yellow Mustang,” I gritted, cursing the rental agency for not supplying me with a less conspicuous car.

“What are you talking about, Nick?” The girl turned over, gazing up at the sky as the helicopter approached. I swear, naked and all, she was about to wave when I yanked her up and toppled her over the steep side of the dune. It wasn’t exactly the way to treat a lady you’ve just made love to, but as I dove after her, that was the last thing on my mind. When a strange aircraft comes looking for me, I don’t wave — I duck.