Trouble in Paradise

Two

By the time Macklin was out of jail for a week, he had acquired a brown Mercedes sedan, which he stole from the Alewife Station parking garage, and a 9-mm semiautomatic pistol that he got from a guy he’d done time with named Desmond. Macklin used the nine to knock over a liquor store near Wellington Circle. With the money from the liquor store, he paid Desmond’s cousin Chick, who worked at the Registry of Motor Vehicles, to fix up a registration in the name of Harry Smith and scam a legitimate license plate. He had the car painted British racing green. Then he bought a fifth of Belvedere vodka and a bottle of Stock vermouth and drove over to see Faye.

As soon as he walked in the apartment, she slipped out of the bathrobe she was wearing and in five minutes they were making love. When it was over, Faye got up and made them each a martini and brought the drinks back to bed.

“Saved that up for a year and a half,” Macklin said.

“I could tell,” Faye said.

They were propped among the pink and lavender pillows on Faye’s king-sized bed with the martinis next to Macklin’s pistol on the bedside table. The bedroom walls were lavender, and the ceiling was mirrored. The condominium was in the old Charlestown Navy Yard, and through the second floor windows they could see the Boston skyline across the harbor.

“You too?” Macklin said.

“Me too what?” Faye said.

She had a rose tattooed at the top of her right thigh.

“You been saving it for a year and a half?”

“Of course,” she said.

Macklin drank some of his martini. The sheets on Faye’s bed were lavender.

“Nobody else?”

“Nobody,” Faye said.

Staring up at the mirrored ceiling, she liked the way they looked. He was slim and smooth. He was so blond that his hair was nearly white. He looked a little pale now, but she knew he’d get his tan back. She loved the contrast of his white-blond hair and his tan skin. She examined herself carefully. Boobs still good. Legs still good. They ought to be. Forty-five minutes every day on the goddamned StairMaster. She rolled onto her side, and looked at her butt. Tight. StairMaster does it again.

“Checking out the equipment?” Macklin said.

“Uh-huh.”

“Seems to be working okay,” Macklin said.

She giggled.

“How about yours?” she said.

“Pretty soon.”

They finished their martinis in silence.

“What are we going to do?” Faye said.

“The same thing mostly,” Macklin said, “but I was thinking maybe we could try it in the chair.”

Faye giggled again. “I don’t mean that,” she said. “I mean what are we going to do, you know, like with our life?”

“Besides this?”

“Besides this.”

Macklin smiled. He sat up higher in the bed and poured another martini for himself and one for Faye.

“Well, tomorrow,” Macklin said, “we’re going up to Paradise and look at real estate on Stiles Island.”

“What’s Stiles Island?”

“Island in Paradise Harbor. It’s connected to the rest of the town by a little bridge. Bridge is gated and there’s a guard shack and a private security patrol. Everybody lives there is rich. They got a branch bank out there just for them.”

“How do you know about this place?”

“Guy I was in jail with, Lester Lang, kept talking about it, called it the mother lode.”

“You ever seen it?”

“Nope.”

“We going to buy property out there?” Faye said.

“Nope.”

“So why we going up there to look at real estate?”

“We’re scoping the place.”

“For what?”

“For the mother of all stickups,” Macklin said.

Faye put her head against his shoulder and laughed. “I’ll drink to that,” she said, touching the rim of her glass to the rim of his.