Trouble in Paradise

Fifty-Five

It was an overcast day, and the water in the harbor was darker than the sky. Jesse was onboard the town boat with Suitcase Simpson, Anthony DeAngelo, and Peter Perkins. Simpson, DeAngelo, and Perkins wore vests and carried shotguns. Jesse had neither. Phil Winslow, the harbor master, held the boat at an angle across the chop. steering for the yacht club landing dock that jutted out into the harbor.

“Only place I can put you ashore, Jesse,” Winslow said. “The rest of the damn island is all rock and surf. I can’t get within a hundred yards.”

“Maybe they don’t know that,” Jesse said.

“No way they would unless they explored it,” Winslow said. “Most people buy onto an island like this, they want beaches, you know? But Stiles Island uses the ocean like a Christly moat.”

“It’s working,” Jesse said.

“Are you guys enough?” Winslow said.

“Have to be,” Jesse said. “Don’t have that many left. Molly’s at the station, Arthur and John Maguire are securing that end of the bridge, and I don’t know where Eddie Cox is.”

“Sears and Pope?” Winslow said.

“Probably dead,” Jesse said.

“Jesus.”

They were in the middle of the harbor now, past the cluster of pleasure boats moored in closer to the dock. Winslow turned the boat north, running parallel with Paradise Neck, heading for Stiles Island. Sound traveled over water, and even this far from the scene Jesse could hear the sirens of the fire and emergency vehicles still arriving at the scene of the explosion, cops from neighboring towns, probably some state cops. Molly would get them organized.

Ahead of them Jesse could see the fanciful cornices of the yacht club, white and pink, with a playful balcony across the second floor and a high-peaked red roof. Stiles Island people were very proud of it. Jesse thought it looked like an eighty-dollar-a-night motel in Flagstaff. The landing dock was actually a kind of catwalk set on pilings that went out nearly the length of a football field into the harbor. At the end of the catwalk, down a short flight of stairs, was a wide float anchored to the bottom and tethered to the catwalk pilings. There was enough play in the anchor chains so that the float rolled gently with the movement of the harbor. There was a resting bottom up on the float. No one was in sight. Winslow aimed the nose of the town boat straight at the float. As Jesse watched, the float began to heave and then it and the catwalk elevated as the sound of the explosion rolled across the water to them. The float turned over twice in midair. The empty drums that helped it float tore loose and scattered across the water. The catwalk disintegrated in midair, and the pieces seemed to hang there, as the float drifted down and landed bottom side up in the suddenly frantic water. The town boat pitched as the waves reached it, and Winslow wrestled the wheel around to stay stable. The silence after the explosion seemed louder than silence could be. It was underscored but not dispelled by the sound of the boat engine and the now turbulent ocean slapping against the hull. Winslow throttled back and held the boat sideways, idling, in the deep swells. No one spoke for a moment.

Then Jesse said, “Bad guys two, cops zip.”

Winslow said, “What do you want me to do now, Jesse?”

“You know anyplace else to land?”

“No.”

“Who would?”

Winslow shrugged.

“Maybe there ain’t a place,” he said.

“There’ll be a place. Who knows the harbor better than you?”

“Can’t say anybody does,” Winslow said.

“Then let’s go back to town,” Jesse said.

The boat made a wide turn, and Winslow throttled up for the run back to the town wharf.

Suitcase said, “Usually get three strikes, don’t you, Jesse?”

“At least,” Jesse said.