Manny Fonseca showed up a half hour later and looked at the front-door damage with interest. I told him what had happened.
“Guy who came through here must have been a real horse,” he said. “That frame was solid oak.”
“He’s some kind of animal, all right.” I took Manny upstairs to look at the bedroom door.
He read the words slashed in the wood and shook his head. “Jesus. You read about this stuff, but you never expect to see it.”
“Can you fix these things up?”
“Oh, sure. I’ll have to take this door back to the shop, but I’ll have it back by tonight. I’ll take care of the frame downstairs first. They know who did this?”
“They’ve got a suspect, but so far there’s no proof.”
Manny nodded, since he had friends who were cops and knew that lack of proof was a common problem for them. In most small towns and in some big ones, as soon as a crime is reported, the police have a pretty good idea who did it, since the same few people tend to be involved in most of the crimes; but proof is often lacking, so all the police can do is watch and wait and hope for a break. As the chief down in Edgartown had remarked on more than one occasion, if two or three families moved off Martha’s Vineyard, his work would be cut in half.
Manny took the bedroom door off its hinges, and the two of us carried it downstairs and out to his truck. Then he went to work on the front-door frame. It wasn’t long before the noise roused Ivy and Julia.
They came downstairs looking swollen-eyed and tired; and who could blame them, considering the night they’d had? I introduced them to Manny, who, after the quick, hormonally induced stare that men can’t seem to prevent when sighting beautiful women, even the swollen-eyed, tired kind, recovered himself and showed them what he was doing with the door.
“Have this thing fixed better than new in no time,” he said. “You won’t be able to tell that anything ever happened. Be stronger than before, too.”
“Thank you,” said Julia. “Can we get you something? Coffee?”
“Coffee black. I didn’t get my usual gallon this morning, so I’m only at half speed.”
I followed the women into the kitchen.
“Coffee?” asked Ivy.
“Black. While you’ve been wandering around town, did either of you happen to notice a guy, maybe two guys, built sort of like King Kong, eyeing you?”
They exchanged glances, and Ivy shrugged. “Guys look. That’s the way they are. We don’t pay much attention.”
“You’d have noticed this guy, and if his brother was with him, you’d have noticed them for sure. Together they take up a whole sidewalk.”
“I saw a great big guy like a gorilla,” said Ivy. “Outside that bar. What do you call it . . . ?”
“The Fireside?”
“That’s it. He came out and stood there, looking at us. He was wearing those camouflage clothes you see.”
“He do anything or say anything?”
She gestured angrily. “We were across the street, but he put his hand on his crotch and rubbed himself. Then he gave me the finger. Another jerk!”
“You didn’t tell me that,” said Julia, glancing at Ivy while turning on the coffeemaker.
Ivy shrugged. “He was just another freak. There are a lot of them.” Unlike Julia, I thought, Ivy’s passions ran more to anger than to fear, and her performance at the Academy Awards ceremony became suddenly more understandable to me.
“I think you saw a guy named Alexandro Vegas,” I said, “and he’s not just another jerk. He may have been the guy who broke in here last night. He’s a racist and a sexist and strong-arm man and maybe an extortionist. You stay clear of him. If he gives you any trouble, scream long and loud. The local cops would love to arrest him if they can find a reason.”
“My God,” said Julia. “What’s with men like that?”
“His brother, Alberto, is supposed to be worse than Alexandro. They have a history of hurting people, including women, so don’t try to be tough with them. Stay away from them, and yell for help if they even begin to give you trouble.”
“That’s the man who broke into the house last night?” asked Ivy.
“There’s no proof, but he’s at the top of the list of candidates.”
“I hate this,” said Julia, rubbing her hands together. “It’s awful having to be afraid all of the time.”
“Who’s afraid?” snapped Ivy.
“You don’t have to be afraid,” I said to Julia. “You just have to be careful.”
Her voice was angry. “You don’t know what it’s like. You’re big and you’re a man. Nobody is going to give you any trouble.”
Zee had said the same thing, but I thought of Alexandro’s size and comments earlier in the morning. He was willing and able to give me plenty of trouble. Anxious to do it, even. And I remembered the fear I’d felt.
“Maybe you’re right. But be careful.” I told them Manny’s plan to take the bedroom door home with him. “He’ll bring the door back this evening, so the house will be good as new by then.”
“Maybe we should just leave,” said Julia. “Go someplace else.”
“No!” said Ivy. “Your family’s been coming here for a hundred years. We’re not going to let anybody run us off!”
“You can talk with Lisa Goldman,” I said. “Maybe she can put somebody on the house at night. At least for a while.”
“We will,” Julia said. “But we can’t expect her to delegate somebody to watch over us twenty-four hours a day.”
True. “Maybe not, but she can have her people keep a special eye on you. She’d like nothing better than to catch the Vegas brothers breaking the law. It would give her a chance to put both of them away again.”
Julia’s eyes suddenly widened. “You don’t suppose these Vegas brothers are working for Mackenzie Reed, do you?”
“Oh, no,” said Ivy, pouring coffee. “That couldn’t be. There’s no way that could be.”
“Maybe they met in jail or something.”
“Mackenzie Reed is in jail in California,” I said, “and the Vegas boys were up at Cedar Junction, here in Massachusetts. I can’t see how there could be much of a link.”
Julia was stubborn. “Maybe they’re all on-line or something like that. Maybe prisoners have chats on the Internet, like other people do.”
I had no idea what she was saying and told her so.
“Computers,” she said, surprised. “You know, the Internet. The Web. All that stuff. They have ways to have chats when they’re on-line. People all over the world can talk to each other. Didn’t you ever do that?”
“I am the last person on earth without a computer. I just got a TV in the house a couple of years ago. You’re talking to a Jurassic man.”
“Oh. Well, people can do that. They can talk to each other on the Internet, using computers. And I imagine that prisoners can talk to each other just like other people do. So maybe that’s how Mackenzie Reed and these Vegas brothers got together. Maybe he hired them.”
It sounded improbable but possible. What a world.
“I’ll have a talk with Lisa Goldman,” I said. “Maybe she can find out if something like that could have happened. But even if it didn’t, and it probably didn’t, you two keep away from Alexandro and his brother. They are all the bad news anybody needs, all by themselves. They don’t need Mackenzie Reed or anybody else telling them to be mean.”
I accepted my cup of coffee and we went out into the living room, where Julia gave Manny his cup. “How long are you going to be here?” I asked him.
“Should have this done in another hour or so.”
“And you’ll be back again this afternoon?”
“You got it.”
“Good.” I drank my coffee and turned to the two women. “You heard the man. He’ll be here now and later, so you can relax. You look like you could use some more sleep, in fact, so you might try a nap. I’ll stop by the station and have a chat with Lisa Goldman on my way home. Check out your on-line chat theory, among other things, and see if she’s got enough people to put an officer up here nights.”
“We can pay for a policeman, if that makes any difference,” said Julia.
“I think that might make all the difference,” I said. “In fact, the boys and girls may be standing in line for the job. It’s the kind of work that’s called a ‘detail,’ by the way. Like when you see a cop directing traffic in front of the Edgartown A & P. Cops love details because they make good money above and beyond their salaries. It’ll cost you, though.”
“We can afford it,” said Julia.
And I bet myself that they could.
I got into the Land Cruiser and felt the Beretta against my back, where I’d been carrying it in my belt under my T-shirt. I took it out and put it under the seat. Then I drove to the police station, which is right across the street from the ferry dock.
Unlike the almost brand-new Edgartown police station, which was big and roomy and modern and the envy of all the other town forces, the OB station was a pretty modest affair. I found Lisa Goldman, who looked a bit worn.
“I’ve been up all night,” she said, “and I’m headed home to try to catch a glimpse of my husband and daughter before I go to bed. This business is playing hell with my family life.”
“Cops don’t have family lives,” I said, “but Roger and Kayla will be glad to see you.”
When his wife had gotten the OB job, Roger Goldman had happily abandoned his law practice and had become a charter boat captain. He worked out of Edgartown on the Kayla, a nice twenty-eight-footer named after their daughter, so he wouldn’t present any possible conflict of interest for Lisa, who, as chief of police, might be obliged to take sides in some controversy regarding the use of the Oak Bluffs docks. In OB, controversy was the rule, so Roger kept his own business out of town.
Smart Roger.
“What can I do for you in the next five minutes?” asked Lisa, yawning.
I told her of the offer to pay an officer to keep watch over the house at night.
“No problem,” said Lisa. “I’ll take care of it.”
Then I told her the on-line chat theory, and about the Mackenzie Reed situation, which she hadn’t heard of before.
“I don’t know enough about computers or about Cedar Junction to know if the guests up there in the gray-bar hotel can talk with their fellow felons in other parts of this great land of ours, but I’ll check it out.” She shook her head. “I’m way behind the times, I guess.”
“Aren’t we all. Another thing: some protection racketeers set up legit businesses and use legal contracts to collect money from their customers after they’ve scared them into paying up. Do the Vegas boys have an office?”
She leaned back in her chair and put her hands behind her neck. “But of course. They learned a lot up there in stir, especially Alberto. Their outfit is called Enterprise Management Corporation. They have an office about two doors up from the Fireside. Alberto’s wife sits there all day, reading paperback romances. She opens up at nine and goes home at five so her husband can beat her up again if he feels like it. The kids run in the streets.”
“They have a lawyer?”
“Of course they have a lawyer. Ben Krane.”
Of course it would be Ben Krane. Ben Krane lived off the island’s criminal minority, representing them in court and filing endless appeals, suits and countersuits, and whatever other paperwork lawyers use to clog up the local judicial system. In his spare time, he was a slumlord who owned several filthy and disintegrating houses that he rented to college students each summer for outrageous prices. He was thin and gray and totally immune to criticism. He was also very sharp.
I left the station and drove up Circuit Avenue. There, sure enough, was a door with the words Enterprise Management Corporation written on it in black letters edged with gold. It looked like the door led to stairs that went to an office above one of OB’s cheapest gift shops. Ben Krane probably owned that, too.
I went on home. Oliver Underfoot and Velcro said they were glad to see me, but the house felt empty. I didn’t mind, because I had a bad feeling about Alexandro Vegas and was glad that Zee and the kids were out of town.
The next morning, as I was eating breakfast, the phone rang. It was Manny Fonseca.
“You hear?” he asked.
“Somebody beat a cop nearly to death in Oak Bluffs last night. Kid named Larry something-or-other. You know him?”