Death on a Vineyard Beach (6 page)

“Excellent. It will be a very informal evening, so please wear casual dress. Our driver will pick you up at seven.”

“You know where we live?”

“It's a small island, Mr. Jackson. Until Saturday, then. And thank you for accepting the invitation. Mr. and Mrs. Marcus look forward to seeing you.”

The phone clicked and hummed in my ear. The Vineyard was, indeed, a small island, but not so small that most people in Gay Head knew where we lived, down island in the woods of Edgartown. Not that our location was a secret. The mailbox on the Edgartown-Vineyard Haven Road identified our driveway for anyone who cared to find us. And Luciano Marcus, or at least Thomas Decker, apparently cared enough to have done that.

I went back out to the Land Cruiser, completed loading my fishing and quahogging gear, and drove south, inching through the not yet too bad traffic jam in front of the A & P, passing Cannon Ball Park and the cemetery, taking a right on Pease Point Way, and driving on to Katama. There, early-morning arrivals on South Beach were already spreading their blankets, setting up their umbrellas, and getting their kites into the air, their cars filling the tiny parking lot and lining Atlantic Drive.

In earlier years, there were parking lots all along the beach, inland from the sand dunes, but these were, for reasons which eluded me, no longer available, being fenced off from the road. Some ecological theory rooted in the notion of the fragility of island beaches was no doubt behind the decision to block off the parking lots. Probably it
included the argument that parked cars hastened the eroding of the beach, a popular notion that ignored the fact that the beach had steadily been eaten away since records had been kept, long before there were cars on the island. As early maps attest, South Beach was once a barrier beach at least a half mile farther out to sea than it is now, and the great ponds on the south coast of the island were connected by water passages that would allow you to row a boat from Edgartown to Chilmark inside that barrier beach.

But that was then and this is now, and the authorities, like God, work in mysterious ways their wonders to perform. So things go.

Not that it really made much difference to me, since I never went to the part of the beach populated by the drivers of two-wheel-drive cars. Like other four-by-four owners, I now left the pavement and headed for the less populated sands of Norton's Point Beach, which separates the Atlantic Ocean on the south from Katama Bay on the north and leads finally to Chappaquiddick.

I was bound for the shell-fishing grounds along the southern edge of Katama Bay in search of the wily little-neck.

A recent hurricane, another of nature's tools to keep man mindful of his real status on the earth, had broken over the beach and deposited much sand in Katama Bay, once again changing its shape and depth, as so often had happened in the past and would happen again. One result of this latest storm was that some of my favorite grounds for raking littlenecks had become barren deserts, and I was still hunting for a dependable spot to capture, cajole, or otherwise entrap those most tender of quahogs.

But I didn't mind the search, since the joys of quahogging do not consist entirely of finding and harvesting them, but also include the lonely pleasure of exploration and occasional discovery, accompanied by a simultaneous and wonderful freeing of the mind to play with subjects other than catching hard-shell clams.

So while I raked, and raked some more, first finding nothing but seed quahogs, too small to keep, then, finally, finding a promising spot on a flat out beyond the channel
that parallels the beach, I waded in thigh-deep water, basked in the warm July sun, and thought about Luciano Marcus.

Who was he? Why did he need a bodyguard? No, I knew why he needed a bodyguard: Somebody wanted to kill him. But why? Was he a criminal? Mafia, maybe, or whatever those guys are called these days? An organized crime lord? Or was he a good guy that the bad guys wanted dead? Or was he none of the above?

In any case, he lived in Gay Head. Did gang lords live in Gay Head? My chief knowledge of that westernmost of island townships, famed for the colorful cliffs that gave it its name, was that it was the home of one group of the Wampanoags—“a federally recognized tribe,” as more than one sign attested—that it was surrounded by some of the best bass and bluefishing waters on the east coast, and that its government seemed intent on making things difficult for fishermen and other visitors by banning parking almost everywhere, overcharging in the town's one central parking lot, and, worst of all, charging money to use the town toilets. Obviously a money-grubbing bunch of bloodsuckers. Would a rich gang lord live in such a town?

Could be. Jackie Onassis had owned a place there, not far from Squibnocket Pond, and there were surely other much moneyed people in the town. So why not a gangster? Maybe he got a cut from the town's ill-gotten gains. No wonder he was rich.

If, indeed, Luciano Marcus was a gangster. Maybe he was just a regular guy with an armed bodyguard and a chauffeur. Maybe he wasn't even rich. Maybe the chauffeur and bodyguard belonged to somebody else, and he had just borrowed them for the trip to Boston. When you went to Boston, after all, you could do worse than to let somebody else drive and to take along a bodyguard.

I found a mother lode of quahogs and my basket began to fill. A mixed colony of littlenecks, cherrystones, and stuffers. This was more like it. I took sightings on the beach to the south, on Chappaquiddick, off to the east, and on the western shore, triangulating my location. In the future, I wanted to be able to find this spot again.

The sun rose higher and grew hotter. I was wearing my Tevas, my baseball cap with “H-S 9” on the front, and my daring bikini bathing suit (fashionable, I'm told, on the Riviera, but not quite kosher on the Vineyard, which allows its sweet young things to wear tiny bathing suits, but prefers its men to wear boxer trunks). So now I luxuriated in the contrasting warmth of the July sun on my body and the cool waters around my legs. Life could be worse.

I thought about Marcus some more, and recalled Balzac's saying. Behind every great fortune is a great crime. Was the opposite true? Was there great virtue behind poverty? If so, maybe I had a halo. I looked up but saw none. Oh well.

My basket was full, and I waded ashore, passing off the flat, down into the chin-deep water of the channel, and back up onto the sandy beach. I put the basket and rake in the Land Cruiser and looked at my watch. Not yet noon, but somewhere or other the sun was over the yardarm. I got a Sam Adams out of the cooler and popped it open. Ahhh. Still America's best bottled beer, although there are more and more contenders every day.

It was not a good time of day for bluefishing, but you don't know if you don't go, so I went to Wasque Point, where the bluefish love to eat anything moving. There, although others were before me and not a rod was bent, I parked and got my eleven-foot graphite rod off the roof. I put a redheaded Ballistic Missile on the leader, walked down to the rip, and made my cast.

The many fishermen leaning on their trucks with coffee cups in their hands watched me with lazy, mildly ironic looks, and the few still making desultory casts into a sea that apparently had been fishless for a long time continued their sleepy work, with no hope of actually catching anything, but simply because making casts was better than not making casts.

Then came a rare joy. I'd reeled about halfway in when I got a hit. What could be better than to arrive just before noon, make one cast, and nail the only bluefish caught all morning? It's one of life's finest moments, and you have a duty to make the most of it when it happens. While the
coffee-drinking fishermen abandoned their cups, grabbed their rods, and rushed down to the surf, I reeled in a nice eight-pound blue, cut its throat, put it into the fish box, waved to a couple of fellow fishing friends, and drove away.

At home, I filleted the fish on the table out in back of my shed, and tossed the bones into the woods for the bugs, birds, and other denizens of the wild to enjoy—the smell, until the bones were clean, would only come back to me if the wind came around to the northeast, an occurrence that was not foretold by my radio weatherman. I put one fillet in the freezer, and the other in the fridge. Then I rinsed and sorted the quahogs. I put two dozen littlenecks in the fridge for the evening's hors d'oeuvres, and the rest, bagged, into the freezer. I also bagged and froze the cherrystones for future clams casino. Then I steamed the stuffers.

When the shells opened, I cooled and ground the meat, mixed in minced onion, chopped celery, chopped green pepper, bread crumbs, and a few doses of Dos Gringos hot sauce to pep things up, and put the mixture back into the shells. I put a bit of bacon on top of each shell, and put the shells into the fridge. Stuffed quahogs would follow the evening's littlenecks on the half shell and precede the baked bluefish with dill sauce.

I had a ham and cheese sandwich, washed down with a couple of bottles of Sam Adams, then, abandoning my bathing suit so as to ensure the quality of my all-over tan, and clad only in Tevas and dark glasses, I mowed the lawn, filled the bird feeders, and washed a couple of loads of clothes, hanging them afterward on the line of the solar dryer.

By the time Zee got home from work, I was dressed again, and had the littlenecks open and the Lukusowa waiting. She got out of her uniform and into shirt and shorts, and we went up on the balcony, where we sipped and nibbled and I told her about the telephone call.

“I said we'd go, but I can change my mind if you don't want to.”

“I've been thinking about that whole business,” said Zee. “I can't decide whether this Marcus guy is some sort
of crook, or what. I mean, why would he need a bodyguard? Who needs a bodyguard?”

“I don't mind guarding your body,” I said, leering.

“How sweet.” She fluttered her long, dark lashes and patted my thigh. “Anyway, I think I do want to go. Just to see what kind of a man he is. How about you?”

“Me, too. For the same reasons.”

“Then let's do it.”

Like many casual decisions, this one had unanticipated consequences.

  
6
  

Shortly before seven that Saturday, a dark-windowed Cherokee came down our driveway and turned around in the yard. The driver's door opened and Vinnie got out. I recognized him as the driver of the Cadillac I'd seen at the Wang Center. We left the screened porch and went out to the car.

“Good evening,” said Zee.

Vinnie thought about that. It didn't look easy for him. “Good evening,” he said, as he opened a rear door for us.

Vinnie drove efficiently. He took a right at the end of our driveway, a left at the blinker onto the Airport Road, another right onto the West Tisbury Road, and drove on through West Tisbury and Chilmark to Gay Head. There, he turned off into one of those unobtrusive dirt driveways that lead away from the island's paved roads. There was a mailbox beside the driveway with the name Gubatose written on it.

Tangled trees and undergrowth were on both sides of the driveway. About fifty yards from the pavement we came to a gate. There was a weathered sign on it saying
PRIVATE PROPERTY
, and forbidding hunting, fishing, and trespassing. On this side of the gate was a space where cars could turn around and go back. On the other side of the gate, about
halfway up a tree, the evening light glinted momentarily on a partially hidden object that appeared to me to be a camera of some sort, aimed at the gate.

Vinnie touched a button on his dashboard, and the gate swung open. We passed through, and it swung shut again. We drove another fifty yards, and the narrow, dirt driveway widened and became paved. It wound up through increasingly manicured grounds until it emerged onto a rolling lawn that rose to the top of a hill. The road curved up toward a white slash just below the ridge, and as we approached the white slash, I saw that it was the front of an astonishing house.

Vinnie stopped in front of the house, and we got out. The front door opened, and the older man we'd seen in Boston came out, accompanied by a woman who was a few years younger. The man appeared to be in his late seventies, and although he was tanned and apparently fit, there was something fragile about him. The woman, by contrast, struck me as strong and healthy. They were wearing casual summer clothes. The man spread his arms, smiled, and came to meet us.