thirty-one

At one time, Revere Beach was the place to be. That time was 1908. Revere Beach was, as is usual for Boston, America’s first public beach. It was established in 1896, and in ten years it became a hot tourist attraction. The beach thronged with people who came up from Boston to enjoy the Wonderland amusement park, dance at Ocean Pier Ballroom, and watch the thirty-foot-tall smoking volcano that had been built into the sand of the smooth, curving shoreline.

That was a long time ago. The amusement parks went out of business, and today “Wonderland” is the name of a train station. The beach still curves gracefully toward Nahant, but the only noted attraction is Kelly’s Roast Beef, which is “World Famous,” according to its sign. I’d once asked some folks from Budapest if they had heard of Kelly’s Roast Beef in Revere and they had not. It was very disappointing.

I was standing on the sand, holding a Kelly’s milkshake and wearing an orange Worcester Tornadoes hat, black polo shirt, and blue jeans. The hat was the only one on the beach, which was the idea. Wearing a Red Sox cap would have only blended me into the crowd.

The sun was setting. The beach crowd had dwindled with the onset of evening. I was alone on the warm sand looking out toward Graves Light, watching its blink-blink-pause pattern as the sun descended behind me.

“Enjoying the view, baby?”

Carol was standing next to me, looking out into the sea.

“This place reminds me of the Cape,” I said.

“I loved the Cape,” she said. “We decided to get married down there.”

“Yeah, after that camping trip at the Audubon place. If there’s one test for marriage, it has to be camping,” I said.

“It rained for three days. We couldn’t leave the tent.”

“That was a good three days.”

“Then we went to Coast Guard Beach and got sunburned. We couldn’t touch each other for the rest of trip.”

“I seem to remember that we could touch each other. Thank God for tan lines.”

Carol blushed.

“Are you blushing?” I asked.

“No.” It wasn’t Carol.

Carol was gone, replaced by a woman with black hair, high cheekbones, and an olive complexion. She had a trim form, high breasts, and long legs. A pair of black sunglasses rested on a hawkish nose. She carried a black leather purse. I looked at her and followed Bobby’s instructions to say nothing. She was supposed to make the first contact.

“Are you Mr. Tucker?” she asked.

“Yes,” I said. “Can’t you tell by the Worcester Tornadoes hat?”

She cocked her head and looked at me. She said, “The hat could be wrong. I have never heard of Worcester.” She had an accent I couldn’t place.

“You’re not from around here, are you?”

“No.”

I stuck out my hand. “Please, just call me Tucker. What’s your name?”

The woman ignored my hand, and I put it back by my side. She asked, “Agent Miller didn’t give you my name?”

“No. He said you had a thing about that.”

The corner of the woman’s mouth twitched up. A smile?

She said, “From what Agent Miller told me, I am not certain that I want to have my name involved with you.”

“Because of my reputation?”

“Because you may be dead soon.”

“Well, that’s a cheery thought. What makes you think I’ll be dead?”

“You are very bad at this sort of work.”

“What? Detective work?”

“Dangerous work.”

“How do you know?”

“Earlier today, an amateur tried to garrote you. One would expect you to be nervous. What do they say, ‘Have your neck in a swivel?’”

“Head on a swivel,” I corrected.

“Yet you are so distracted that I was able to surprise you on an open beach.”

I could have blamed Carol, but that didn’t seem like it would help my cause. I changed the subject.

“Why do you say he was an amateur?”

“Because if he were a professional, you would be dead. The garrote is very effective.”

“I cut him with my Mr. Coffee.”

“You should have been on the floor.”

“Well, I fought him.”

She stepped forward and pushed my chest. I was surprised and tried to step back, but her left foot was in my way. I fell on my ass in the sand.

She said, “You see how easy it should have been. He was an amateur.”

I looked up and said, “All right, Mata Hari, I get your point.”

The woman turned and started walking back up the beach.

I got up and ran after her.

I said, “Hey, wait.” She kept walking.

If I lost her, I was doomed. I caught up with her. “Wait a second.”

She walked on and I put my hand on her upper arm to get her attention. She stopped and looked at my hand, then into my eyes. A chill ran through me. I put up my hands in surrender.

I looked around the beach. The setting sun was still hot and the air smelled of fried food and seaweed. I felt the familiar feeling of helplessness that came just after I had spoken hastily and my words were still floating around doing damage.

I said, “I’m sorry. I spoke without thinking.”

“It seems to me, Mr. Tucker, that you do many things without thinking.”

“I know. Look, I really need your help.”

“Why?”

“Well, you said it. That amateur is trying to kill me. He already killed Kevin.”

“You should run away. The man who tried to kill you is a criminal and a bully. He is not an assassin. Once you are out of his sight, he will forget about you. His kind does not have the attention span for a long hunt. You would be safe if you went overseas for a year.”

“Yeah, but here’s the thing. I want to catch him.”

“Why?”

Why? Why did I want to risk my life to catch some killer? I didn’t know, but an image formed in my mind. It was a movie of Carol fighting for her life as this bastard cut her open in our kitchen. I thought about how frightened she must have been as she lay there, trying to stop the bleeding with her hand and thrashing.

I felt a burning in my throat, different from the pain from the garrote. It was a familiar knot that I usually washed away with Scotch. I looked at the woman in gray, and my lip quivered. This absolutely wouldn’t do. I turned and walked back down the beach, toward the ocean. Sobs began worming their way past my chest, and my lower lip contorted. I didn’t want to break down in front of her.

I walked into the water. My sneakers filled. Dead seaweed made the ocean into a broth. Brown waves slapped at my knees and I knelt, taking dirty seawater and splashing it onto my face. It worked. The cold water, wet shoes, and salty smell pulled me away from the abyss. I turned to go back up the beach and … dammit! There she was, standing in the water right behind me.

“Why?” she repeated.

I took a deep breath and talked past the subsiding constriction in my throat. It was time for the truth.

“You were able to sneak up on me today because I was talking to my wife.”

“Your wife? Detective Miller told me that she is dead.”

“She is.”

“I see.”

“She haunts me. She’s haunted me ever since she died. She comes when I’m alone. We were talking when you arrived. Am I crazy?”

Her eyebrow notched up. I probably was crazy.

I had made a fool of myself. I stood, waiting for this hard woman to leave. She wouldn’t. She just kept looking at me with her gray eyes as scummy water slapped around our legs.

“I miss my wife,” I said. “I want to find out who killed her. I want revenge.”

The woman put out her hand.

She said, “Mr. Tucker, I am Jael Navas. I will help you. We will get your revenge.”

I shook her hand and said, “Please call me Tucker.”