THIRTEEN

I SET OFF early on the Great Crossing of Cabot Strait after performing the sniff test. This was no half-assed embarkation by my dog and me. I’d lain awake last night thinking about how ludicrous it would be to die in a boating accident on the way to pick up my lover. She’d wait on the dock at Micmac, hours, days passing, until they brought my body ashore in a rubber bag. Jellyroll, too, only the bag would be shaped differently. No, wait, I’d forgotten: these waters never gave up their dead, due to the absence of bloating gasses. But the day was perfect, bright and crisp, and I was prepared. I had charts, extra gas, water, dogfood. I’d just follow the smoke from the cement factory. I couldn’t go wrong. Hawley’s boat was not on his mooring as I passed. Maybe I’d see him out urchining. The tide was ebbing. I let us drift in it for a few boat lengths toward the mouth of the cove.

I also had thought about Crystal herself as I lay awake thinking about the voyage, about the turn of her ankle when she wears these particular open-toed shoes. I thought about fondling her ankles. Not all my thoughts of her were lewd. I thought about the way her face lights up when she’s enjoying herself. I mused, for example, on her nine-ball break, that full-bodied snap, all her weight behind it, arm extended…Well, I guess that one was a little lewd, too. Actually, I believe I was grinning with delight as we left the cove to pick up Crystal. I seldom grin with delight on a day-to-day basis, especially when I’m alone.

There was barely any wind. We rounded the point, and Jellyroll took his place in the bow where the wind would flap his ears. There, he could throw up without it sloshing underfoot. Everything seemed shipshape. I turned around the point, and we stepped off into the unknown—

The white smoke, my landmark, hung against the cloudless blue sky. The horizon was empty. I was offshore. The compass said we were heading due west. Okay. That seemed fine. The engine ran with a determined, steady sound. I relaxed, had a swig of water and—Wait a minute, the water was moving.

It took me a long time to recognize the meaning of those lobster trap floats lying flat on their sides with water running around them so fast it made a wake. The current ran from right to left. That had to affect my plans. I looked back at the smoke. We were still heading straight for it. I decided to observe for a while.

I thought about the old man I’d seen dead on the subway. Shortly after I’d moved to New York, learning the urban ropes, I was waiting for the downtown local at 103rd Street. I was late, I needed a train—and here it came. Perfect. Not such a hard town after all. Only the train didn’t stop. It slowed down, but it didn’t stop. The cars were all empty. It slowed still more, and at walking pace passed through the station, car by car. Until the very last car. That’s where the dead guy sat, absolutely alone on the Number 1 local. He was old, frail, and bony in a threadbare herringbone sport coat. His bald head bobbed against his chest with the movement of the train. His hands lay in his lap palms up. A violin case leaned against his legs.

I needed to do something about this moving water. I still headed for the smoke, but I was moving sideways as well. I had to compensate. By turning right. Turn right how much? I tried to make the boat go faster, but it wouldn’t. I pondered the problem. Jellyroll looked over his shoulder at me a little skeptically, I thought. After all the sea miles we’d covered together…

So I decided the thing to do was to keep pointing at the smoke until I arrived at the coast—then I would know I had to turn right to get to Micmac. But what about going back, without smoke? I’d worry about that later. Besides, Crystal knew about boats; she grew up on Sheepshead Bay. With her aboard, I could share the loneliness of command.

Land. I first saw a wooded hill with a cone of bare rock at the top. Soon I saw the shoreline itself. It was wild and stern, rocky shelves that offered no safety, but it was beautiful and serene. As I turned right, I began to see white frame houses overlooking the water, and soon I came to Round Island. My first trip was over. I’d crossed. I was grinning, but I still needed to dock without making a spectacle of myself.

There was plenty of room at the dock forward of the Belgian’s boat. I turned around and came up dead slow beside it, caught hold of its rail, and carefully walked us hand over hand along its side. That was a conservative way of getting to the dock, but there I was without incident. I stepped ashore and tied us on.

There were twice as many people on the hillside as when I left. They sat or stood in clots, idly. Some were cooking breakfast over outdoor stoves, others were eating out of bags with their fingers. Many, apparently, had slept up there. Some were still doing it on foldout cots, cameras dangling on lanyards from their limp wrists. A few kids were trying to play, but now the hill was too crowded for frivolity. The kids tripped over supine adults. Had they lost hope?

I climbed up on the dock. Jellyroll hopped up behind me. “Hey, Jellyroll,” I said in a special voice. He snapped around to attention, his lip caught on a canine. “Do you want to see Crystal?”

His head spun, looking for her. I leaned down to pat his side. “Later,” I said quietly. Later is a hard concept for dogs. Expectancy. Maybe it’s hard for all creatures. I always feel guilty when I do that, but I love to see his delight. I hauled out the disguise one more time, and he rolled his eyes as I put it on him.

We walked out to the road. Pilgrims were still coming, but they were coming by foot, because the road was now closed. Approaching, couples lugged blue plastic coolers while their children stumbled along behind with stuffed animals trailing. Where would Crystal have to park? I sat down on a planter box in front of the Cod End to wait. Jellyroll sat beside me. By the time I straightened out my legs, somebody had recognized him.

As usual in crowds, it began with a twitter of recognition. One person over here recognizes him, another over there independently recognizes him, and they make eye contact.

“Huh? Am I right?”

“Naww—”

“It is!”

“…You’re right! It is!”

Soon everybody knows.

“It’s the goddamn R-r-ruff Dog!”

That opens the gates to a crowd. Crowds like that make me edgy. My smile gets tired as I scan the crowd for the one—or more—with crazy eyes.

“Hey, what’s that on his back?”

“Some kind of pelt.”

“Some kind of coat.”

“Must be hot in a pelt coat in goddamn August.”

“Yeah, look how hot he is—panting, even.”

They began to compress in on us. I stood up. Jellyroll, who was not panting, didn’t mind a bit that his fans had gathered. Jellyroll was wagging his rump and smiling—but then suddenly without warning or direct provocation, he began to retch. His tail plunged down as if that were the lever that started the hooping machine. His whole body began to heave. When the effluvient reached his throat, he seemed to yawn. He then curled back his lips and expelled a gob of yellow bile.

The crowd gave out a collective “Ugghhh—” and recoiled. The last of the bile hung in a string from his lower lip. I wondered if I could teach him to do that as a method of crowd control.

A large woman with thick ankles snapped his picture, though she didn’t reapproach us.

I retreated into the marine hardware store and shut the door, but I knew that would never stop them, not after they got over the initial shock of seeing the R-r-ruff Dog blow lunch right before their very eyes. They hesitated for a little while, gathering at the door, peering in. I pretended to examine some enormous anchors.

The door opened. They were coming in.

But someone behind me, someone I hadn’t seen, planted his foot in front of it. The crowd came up hard against it. As they recoiled, the stranger footed the door shut, locked it, and turned the sign on a string from OPEN to CLOSED—

It was the guy from the sportfisherman—His face was odd. I hadn’t just imagined it out in the boat. It really was odd. It was elongated, as if drawn on a balloon and stretched. He looked like a caricature of himself. Even his eyebrows arched like upside down V’s. I had seen that face before yesterday. Where?

He was tall and lanky, and he had an expensive haircut. He wore fresh khakis, a crisp denim shirt, a maroon pullover draped around his shoulders with the arms tied together at his sternum. He looked like an aging Gap model on location. There were streaks of gray at his sideburns.

He offered me his hand. “Richard,” he said. He had a sonorous voice.

Richard? I peered into his eyes for a sign, for some knowing glance between us, but he introduced himself like a boring guy named Richard.

“Artie,” I said.

He turned to the owner, who sat on his stool behind the glass counter. “You don’t mind closing for a few minutes, let this man catch his breath.”

“They weren’t buyin’ anyhow,” said the owner. “ ’Mornin’, Cap’n,” he said to me. “How do you like them binoculars?”

“Excellent binoculars,” I said.

“You’ve been buying, too?” said Richard to me. “That’s the fact of life afloat. Buy, buy, buy.” He chuckled, shook the shopping bag he held.

“Where’s your boat?” I asked, still watching him closely for some indication of something.

“Out at the end of the dock. My son’s taking some local-color footage in the village. How about that murder? Happened right out here, you know. I guess it doesn’t only happen in your large metropolitan areas these days. Violent death happens everywhere, I guess. But senseless, really senseless.”

I nodded, looking to extricate myself—

“So this is the R-r-ruff Dog—” He knelt face-to-face with Jellyroll. Jellyroll licked his cheek.

“Are you the cutest dog in the world? Yes, you are. Are you the most famous dog in the world? Hmm? I didn’t mean to disturb you about the stalker out there in our boats,” said Richard without looking up, as if he were talking to Jellyroll.

“Oh, that’s all right. You didn’t.” I turned to the man behind the counter. “Excuse me, but do you have a back way out?”

He pointed over his shoulder with his thumb—“Out that way’ll put you on the Cod End porch or the dock. Depends which way you turn. The Cod End’s closed, of course.”

“What is this,” said Richard, “a disguise?”

“He gets cold. Chilly out on the water. Well, listen, thanks a lot, and take care. Boat’ll leave without me.” I headed for the back exit, whistled, and Jellyroll trotted behind me. The door opened onto a catwalk. The porch was empty, but there it was—the cubicle-like john where the young woman was chopped. Several strands of yellow crime-scene tape were wrapped around it.

I hurried down the ramp toward the Hampton boat. I nodded at a small convocation of old salts dressed exactly alike.

“Say, Cap’n,” said one in a friendly manner.

“Say, Captains,” I said.

I climbed aboard my boat and sat on the engine box to wait. So did Jellyroll. I poured him some water in a bowl I’d brought, and I had a cup of lukewarm coffee from the thermos.

A man appeared above me at the dock dressed entirely in black. His long hair was slicked back and tied in a stubby ponytail. This guy looked like an East Village club hopper. What the hell was he doing here? He had a hard set to his face behind black Ray-Bans. He just stood there staring down at me.

“What?” I demanded.

“Is that the R-r-ruff Dog?”

“No.”

“That’s what I thought,” he said slowly. Then he walked away.

My hands were trembling. Jellyroll was watching me nervously.

“Artie—”

“Crystal!”

I generally try to avoid the mushy, but I felt mushy at that moment, choked up at the sight of her standing up there on the edge of the dock where an instant ago a possible psycho had stood. She blew me a kiss. She looked tired from travel, but I could tell she was glad to see me, too. Jellyroll and I sprinted slowly up the steep ramp. He was yapping in frustration at the delay this ramp was causing him.

Crystal and I hugged while Jellyroll hopped about on his hind legs to be noticed. I didn’t see the man in black anywhere on the dock.

“I’ve been feeling very funny since I got out of the car back there,” she said in my ear.

“Funny? What do you mean, funny?”

“You know, funny.”

“Really!” She felt it, too! Hurray! “Let’s go, then. I’ve got a very fast boat.” I wanted to hear some whoop-dido songs. Or maybe sing some.

“I remember feeling like this in seventh grade.”

I imagined the raw carnality of Crystal lowering a refrigerator to the deck. Panting, I shouldered up her stuff. She was traveling light compared to Jellyroll and me. Reduced weight would aid in speed to coitus.

“Is this where it happened, Artie? The killing?”

“You heard about that already?”

“I had to park way down the road, and people were talking about it as we walked.”

“It happened in the rest room on that porch right over there.”

We paused a moment to look before going down the ramp.

“Was it political?”

“What? Political?” I looked at her profile. She was looking at the Cod End rest room.

“I walked from the car with two women, sociologists from UCLA, who came to study this whole thing.”

“What thing? The murder?”

“No, the expectation. That’s what they call them. Expectations. Remember when all those people gathered in somebody’s backyard in New Jersey? That was an expectation, as opposed to a visitation. I’m just telling you what they told me. They said if the expectation doesn’t become a visitation in a reasonable length of time, people begin to factionalize. That was the word. Factionalize.”

“You mean like left and right?”

“I guess. Conservatives and liberals. Sometimes they turn violent. But nobody’s ever been murdered before.”

“What would the factions want? I mean what’s their objective?”’

“That’s not clear.”

We went down the ramp to my new boat. “How do you like her?” I asked proudly.

“It’s wonderful!”

“Got to have a boat if you live on an island.”

“Okay, Captain.”

I gave her a hand coming aboard. She kissed me. “I don’t think we’ll factionalize, do you?”