WHATEVER JEDDY TOLD HIS FATHER ABOUT the gunmen on Coulter’s Point, it didn’t come to anything. As far as I could see, nobody heard about it. Chief McKenzie never went down to investigate. I know he didn’t because I began keeping an eye on Tom Morrison after that.
Jeddy and I weren’t on speaking terms, and even if we had been, he was working at Fancher’s chicken farm and I was working at the store and there was no time for us to be together. It got to be a habit of mine that if I had an afternoon off, usually on weekends, I’d go see Tom. I’d bring him a newspaper and a pound of coffee or a loaf of store bread, something to give me a reason for the visit. We wouldn’t do much, just sit around and shoot the breeze, but I got to like him and I believe he liked me.
He never complained about anything, not the weather or his lost eye or any of the bad luck that had befallen him. If you started him telling stories about his fishing days, he could be very entertaining. I asked him if he didn’t want to get another dog to keep him company, and he shook his head. He said any dog that wanted to come find him, he’d take it in, the way he had Viola. Otherwise, he wasn’t looking for one at this late date.
“How did Viola come to you?” I asked.
“Swam in,” Tom said, his good eye brightening. He loved to talk about her. “She were a long-distance swimmer in her day. What I believe is, she come over from Newport.”
“Swam over? Impossible! She’d have to go five miles or more.”
“That’s what I believe she did. The reason I say so, I have a friend with a boat who came across a dog swimming off Land’s End over there. He didn’t think nothing of it till he came to visit me one day. And he says: ‘I swear if that isn’t the dog I saw swimming.’ I already knew she was good in the water, so I didn’t doubt it. She’d swim alongside my raft while I was out crabbing, be in the water for a couple of hours and never get tired. This was a while back when she was a younger dog, of course.”
After a story like this, he’d get quiet. His beard would go into the chewing motion that meant he was working something through. He wasn’t a man easy in his own skin. He had days of darkness and bad humor, though he did his best not to show it. He told me once that his battles in life were as much against himself as any other demon. “Weather and women included,” he added, with a wink.
He was a character, all right, and fascinating to me for his determination to follow his own path and take orders from no one, lonely as that was.
As the days passed, I wondered why Chief McKenzie wouldn’t show more interest in what had happened to him, if in fact Jeddy had told his father, which I didn’t doubt. But I let it ride. Tom wasn’t complaining and, at that time, there was so much going on of a cloak-and-dagger nature around the area that two goons with machine guns probably didn’t amount to much. Chief McKenzie soon had his hands full in another direction anyway.
A couple of gaming men arrived from Massachusetts and began running cockfights out in the woods. This was a matter of putting two long-taloned roosters together in a ring and watching to see which one would tear the other apart. It was a grisly amusement that tended to attract bad types. Soon roughnecks from all over were showing up to bet on the cocks. They were drinking and carousing and getting into fights themselves. Chief McKenzie wasn’t about to tolerate that kind of behavior. One night, he and Charlie went out and broke up the party. They ended by arresting a good number of outsiders.
There was a small jail in town connected to the town hall that mostly went unoccupied. All the week after Viola got killed and all the week after that, it was full of spitting, cursing, riffraff cockfighters waiting for their court dates to come up in Providence. The judges had gotten behind with all the smuggling cases that were coming in and a backlog had developed.
People in town went by to get a look at the outsiders, then they’d saunter over and buy a soda at Riley’s store and talk about it. I was hauling stock like a mule there every afternoon, building up some capital in case my father ever heard about the day I took off. One afternoon, Marina dropped by to get a few groceries and she came out back to talk to me.
“I hear you and Jed aren’t getting along,” she said. It’d been over two weeks by then.
I just nodded. I felt sore enough about our falling-out that I didn’t want to talk about it, and anyhow, the way she looked was taking its usual toll on me. She had her dark hair pulled straight back in a ponytail that went halfway down her back. This was to show she meant business, I guess, but a few strands she didn’t know about had come loose and were bouncing around on her neck. I was trying not to look at them. I could see how a guy like Charlie Pope might go after her, crazy as that was. In my eyes, and maybe in his eyes, too, Marina was a natural: beautiful without trying and without caring about it, either. That was a mistake, of course. I still had a lot to learn about girls. The truth was, she just hadn’t yet met the person who would make her care.
Strangely enough, Charlie Pope was what Marina had come to speak to me about.
“Has he been over here bothering you?” she asked.
I shook my head.
“Well, he’s been at Jed.”
“About what?”
“The dead man you found. He thinks you and Jeddy might’ve taken something off the body.”
“A wallet.”
My heart took a leap. It put Charlie in the same ring with Tom Morrison’s gunmen. All of a sudden, Charlie Pope didn’t seem like some small-town cop taking a few dollars to look the other way. He seemed a lot worse.
“There wasn’t anything on him,” I told Marina. “No wallet or ID. Only thing was a pipe and a tobacco pouch.” I didn’t mention the gold wristwatch. That would’ve brought up Tom Morrison, and I couldn’t see the use of it. “What’s Charlie looking for, anyhow?”
“He won’t say.” Marina gave me one of her extra-sharp glances and lowered her voice. “Listen, Ruben. Charlie’s into some rotten business. You watch out for him, all right?”
“Does your dad know?” I asked. “Can’t he do something about it?”
“He has to be careful, too. Charlie’s got connections.”
“What connections? Can’t your dad report it?”
“He’s doing what he can. You just keep an eye on yourself. And get straightened out with Jed,” she added, more lightly. “It’s not the same without you hanging around all the time. Anyway, you’ve got supper coming.”
I knew she was talking about how Chief McKenzie had dis-invited me the afternoon we found the body. I’d been missing their house a lot. It felt good to know one person at least was missing me.
“Thanks!”
She flashed me that fine smile of hers and went back up front to do her shopping.
After that, I couldn’t stop grinning. All the next hour, I was putting on the steam and working twice as hard as usual out of pure happiness. Mr. Riley was there on one of his visits from Boston, and he must’ve noticed. He pulled me aside when Dad was out of the store.
“You’re getting to be a big, strong fellow.”
“Yes, sir,” I said, proud to be complimented but also suspicious of what he wanted.
“I could use a fellow like you. Would you be interested in taking on a job tonight?”
After seeing him on the beach at Tyler’s, I had an idea already of what it might be, so I hedged. “I’d better check with my dad,” I told him. “He might not want me out riding around like that.”
“I believe I could fix it with him,” Mr. Riley said. “If I did, what would you say to this?” He handed me a ten-dollar bill. It bowled me over.
“Well, I guess I could do a job if my dad says so.”
“That’s all right then,” Mr. Riley said. “Your pop’s a good man. Finest manager a man could have. You be down at Brown’s Cove tonight at nine o’clock and there’ll be another ten dollars for you. And a bit of an adventure, as well.”
He gave me a wink and walked off.
I wanted to go down to Brown’s, no doubt about that, but I also wanted to be sure it was all right with my father. It seemed odd to me that he’d agree, since as far as I knew, he’d kept himself clear of the rum-running business. When he came back in the store, I asked if I could speak to him. He said not right then.
Later, I tried to ask him again, but he put me off. It was a busy afternoon, with kegs of molasses and sacks of flour coming in, and egg deliveries from a couple of farms. I didn’t get to speak to him in private until just before I was leaving to go home to supper.
“Tell your ma I’ll be late tonight,” Dad said. “You two go on and eat. I’ll be home for a bite about nine.”
I said I’d tell her. “There’s something else,” I said.
He’d been about to walk off, now he wheeled around on me. He knew what I was going to say. Later, I found out he’d been twice to talk it out with Mr. Riley, and that was why he kept putting me off.
“All right! You do what’s been asked of you,” he snapped, before I could even open my mouth. He was angry. “It’ll be just this once.”
My chin dropped a little. I didn’t like the way he was agreeing to it, like he was being forced to.
“I won’t do it if you say not to,” I told him.
“I’m saying do what’s been asked and keep it to yourself,” my father repeated, as if he couldn’t bring himself to mention what it was. “I’ll deal with your ma when I get back.”
“So, I should just ride my bike down to Brown’s after supper and—”
Dad cut me off right there. “How many times do I have to say it? Now, get on home!”
I went. I had a bad feeling about what might have gone on between Dad and Mr. Riley, but it didn’t last long. Twenty dollars was a small fortune to a kid in those days. The money wasn’t the only thing, either. I’d known other boys, mostly older than me, who’d been hired onto shore gangs. You’d never want to ask them about it, and they wouldn’t be stupid enough to boast, but there was an unspoken awe and mystery that surrounded them and left a big impression on the rest of us. Now I was to be one of those chosen few. Whatever my father might think, that was something I wouldn’t mind.
What he told my mother about where I went that night, I never asked. I know that when I got back from the job, long after midnight, there was a plate of cookies set out in the kitchen, and a note from her telling me to pour myself some milk. Otherwise, my mother never said a word to me and I never said anything to her. I’d come home safe and eaten the cookies and that was all she had to know. Which was a good thing because if she ever had found out what went on that night, she’d never have trusted my father to let me go anywhere again.