Fire Season (33 page)

Jamie sprawled in a lawn chair in the empty living room, her little bookshelf stereo on the floor. She was listening to Etta James sing “Li'l Red Rooster”—an acoustic arrangement that always made the hair on Coffin's arms stand on end. The goat stared down from the mantel, left eye catching the slanted light through the window.

Jamie stood, hugged him. “I'm so sorry, Frank,” she said.

Coffin shook his head. “I know it doesn't make sense, but it was … sudden. She was sick for so long, but then she was just gone.”

Jamie patted his back, kissed his cheek. She was warm and round. She felt good. “It makes total sense. You can absolutely get that someone is sick, that sooner or later they're going to die, but that doesn't really prepare you for when it finally happens. It's still a shock.”

“She was there, and then she was gone,” Coffin said. “I sat with her for a long time—she was conscious, seemed to know what was going on, sort of. Then she dozed off, so I figured I should check in at work. I didn't even make it to the front door.”

Jamie held him tight. Pregnant, her skin smelled faintly of bread. She looked up at Coffin, her wide-set eyes a little misty. “Now I feel bad about getting rid of her furniture,” she said.

“Don't,” Coffin said. “She wasn't in those chairs—she turned into a crow.”

“A crow?”

He told her about the crow he'd seen in the graveyard. “It had this
look
in its eye,” Coffin said. “And it almost said something. You know how crows sound like they're talking sometimes?”

“A crow. She could have done a lot worse.” Jamie squeezed Coffin again, kissed his cheek. “How are you, Frank? Can I get you a drink?”

“I'm tired,” Coffin said, following her into the kitchen. “And sad. You would have really liked her, before the Alzheimer's.”

Jamie opened the liquor cabinet, revealing its array of bottles, looked at Coffin over her shoulder, eyebrow raised.

“Maybe one of each,” Coffin said.

“Don't go overboard,” Jamie said. “I'm going to give you a healthy, life-affirming blow job as soon as you've had a chance to relax a little. I owe you.”

“Great!” Coffin said. “But you don't owe me.”

“Oh, yes I do,” Jamie said. “Check this out.” She handed Coffin a four-inch square of slick paper. It had a dark background with a truncated cone of light in the middle, Jamie's name and the date along the top in computer type. Lying at the bottom of the light cone was the outline of a baby—its head disproportionally large, its arms and legs slightly blurred, one hand clear and exact, cupped below the chin. The umbilical coiled from its belly like the cord from an electric guitar to an amplifier. The baby was looking out at Coffin, as though it could hear the ultrasound wand passing back and forth over Jamie's belly. The spinal column, ribs, and skull glowed in sharp relief against the dark background—the baby grinned out at Coffin, all cheekbones and eye sockets.

“Yah!” Coffin said, laying the printout on the counter. “Ghost baby!”

“I know, right?” Jamie said, dropping ice into a rocks glass. “Is that not the creepiest thing ever? But it's
our
ghost baby, Frank. And for that you get a blow job. Maybe two. Maker's Mark, Stoli, or Walker Red?”

“Maker's,” Coffin said. He tapped the printout. “Am I seeing what I think I'm seeing?”

Jamie glugged three fingers of bourbon into the glass, handed it to Coffin. “Yep. If you think you're seeing girl parts.”

“Whoa,” Coffin said. “Ghost baby is a girl.”

“We should be thinking about names,” Jamie said.

“How about Spooketta?”

“How about Sarah, after your mother?”

“Almost the same thing,” Coffin said.

“Come on,” Jamie said. “It's the great circle of life! The old pass on, the new generation takes their place. That's totally what's going on here, Frank.”

Coffin took a long sip of bourbon, then another. “I'm not such a fan of those strict old Yankee names,” he said. “There's a lot of them in my family—Sarah, Abigail, Elizabeth, Hannah—they sound like straight-backed chairs. How about Lucinda?”

“As in Lucinda Williams?”

“Sure. Or maybe Etta. Etta James Coffin. It's got a nice ring to it.”

Jamie looked at him, gray eyes slightly narrowed. “Here, or upstairs?”

“Sorry?”

“Do you want it here, or upstairs on the bed? I'm happy either way, but I'm not sure how long I can kneel on this hard floor in my present condition.”

“Upstairs,” Coffin said. “Definitely.”

*   *   *

Rudy and Loverboy arrived at the Herring Cove parking lot early—to scout, Rudy said. He knew the location like the back of his hand—the long, narrow lot, closed to automobile traffic at its far end where the dunes took over, the only entrance a narrow opening that turned hard left, past a park service booth where summer tourists could purchase a day pass for parking, and then out to a larger lot, and then the Province Lands Road, that ran through the dunes and scrub pines, connecting Herring Cove with Race Point to the west, and the end of Commercial Street to the east. It was as good a place as any, Rudy figured, to sell almost three million dollars' worth of smack back to the people it belonged to.

As usual for October, the few scattered sunset watchers had gotten back in their cars and split the moment the sun had disappeared into the bay. There were a couple of parked Winnebagos (one containing four people, the other five), and a couple of bonfires (National Seashore permit required) maybe a hundred yards apart, about as distant from each other as it was possible to get without being too far from the comforts of the RV—a bathroom, a few cold beers in the fridge. Rudy had observed both groups for twenty minutes or so through a pair of binoculars as he and Loverboy pretended to watch the sunset: The group at the east end of the lot was comprised of two overweight, late middle-aged couples. The men were trying to surf cast, hoping, Rudy guessed, to get lucky and land a late-running bluefish. The women were drinking beer, smoking cigarettes, and laughing at the men. The group at the west end was comprised of a somewhat younger couple—in their forties, as opposed to their sixties—and three skinny, sulky teenaged girls. No Chechens.

Rudy checked his watch—about twenty minutes to nine. “They'll get here early,” he said. “They'll want to check it out before they expose themselves. Make sure there's no cops. Make sure it's not a setup.”

“Just like us,” Loverboy said, drumming his fingers slowly on the Town Car's steering wheel.

“Exactly. Except these Chechen motherfuckers have no intention of just doing the deal and going home with their smack. You can bet your Tongan ass they're planning to leave here with the smack
and
the money.”

“Just like us.”

“Exactly. But we wouldn't cut a guy's head off with a table saw, even for two million bucks.”

Loverboy pursed his lips, nodded. “True,” he said. “We take the high road.”

“Of course we do,” Rudy said. “It goes without saying.”

“Company,” Loverboy said. A car was making the turn at the mouth of the lot. At first Rudy could only see the headlights—they were bright, and seemed to be on high beam. The car moved slowly. After a minute or so, when the headlights were no longer pointing directly at them, Rudy could see that it was an SUV; a big Cadillac Escalade, fully pimped with underlighting and fancy rims. Even at a range of seventy yards or so, Rudy could hear the bass thumping out of the Escalade's subwoofers.

“Two thousand and five called,” Loverboy said. “It wants its automotive aesthetic back.”

“Why not just hire a fucking marching band?” Rudy said. “People got no discretion.”

Loverboy had parked near the middle of the lot—roughly halfway between the two RVs. The Escalade swung in beside them. Its headlights went dark, and the music stopped. Then all four doors swung open at once, and four skinny young men jumped out. They all appeared to be in their late teens or early twenties. They all had pistols jammed into the waistbands of their jeans.

“Here we go,” Rudy said, touching the butt of the Glock 21 in his coat pocket. The two men climbed out of the Town Car.

“Yo,” said the first Chechen. He had tattoos up and down both arms. He stuck out a hand—Cyrillic lettering tattooed across his knuckles—and Rudy shook it.

“I am Ygor,” the Chechen said.

“Where's Dr. Frankenstein?” Rudy said.

Ygor nodded, lit a cigarette. “You said you were coming alone, homes.”

Rudy shrugged. “So did you. Call it a misunderstanding.”

The second Chechen pulled up his pants, which had been dragged dangerously low by the weight of his gun. He pointed at Loverboy with his first two fingers, thumb extended. “Where'd you get the fucking Wookiee, man?”

Loverboy made a low rumbling sound in his chest: a lion annoyed by a fly.

Rudy sighed. “You don't want to call him that. He doesn't like it.”

A third Chechen, taller and even skinnier than the rest, smacked the second Chechen's skinny chest with the back of his hand. “Vladi,” he said. “For fuck's sake. Show some respect. Is business.”

“You gents got the cash?” Rudy said. “Let's get this done.”

“What's with fucking family hour?” Vladi said, pointing his two fingers at the bonfires. “We said we should meet in secluded location. You call this secluded?”

“I call it insurance,” Rudy said. “After what happened to Branstool, I thought, why take unnecessary chances?”

“That was Vladi,” Ygor said. “He gets little bit excited sometimes.”

“That beige-wearing motherfucker was ripping us off,” Vladi said. “Are you ripping us off, old man?”

“Look,” Rudy said. “We're out of earshot. We're in the shadows. What's the problem?”

“No problem,” Ygor said. He pushed a button on his key fob and the Escalade's lift gate opened with a faint hydraulic whoosh. He reached inside and pulled out a large aluminum briefcase.

“Here is money,” he said. “One million dollars finder's fee. Let's see the jones.”

Rudy reached into the Town Car's backseat and pulled out the gym bag. “It's all here,” he said. “Five kilos.”

“Five kilos?” Ygor said. He had a tattoo of a black widow spider on his neck. “You said six.”

“You said a million two,” Rudy said. “You say potato, I say potahto.”

“Potahto?” Vladi said, squinting like Gary Cooper about to go for his gun. “What the fuck is potahto?”

“It's a song,” Loverboy said. “Gershwin. ‘Let's Call the Whole Thing Off.' It's very famous.”

Vladi scowled. “Potahto. That's some fucked-up shit. Who is this Gershwin? Some kind of faggot?”

Loverboy growled. A deep rumbling. A temblor.

“A million for five keys,” Ygor said. He took a meditative drag on his cigarette, let the smoke leak from his nose. “Okay. Deal. You open yours, I'll open mine. Count of three.”

“Fine,” Rudy said.

“One,” Ygor said. “Two—”

Vladi pulled his gun out of his pants and pointed it at Loverboy. It was a big nickel-plated Colt semiauto. He held it sideways, like a movie gangsta. “Don't be giving me no fish-eye, Sasquatch,” he said.

“Oh, shit,” Rudy said. “Here we go.”

“Three!” Ygor said, throwing open the briefcase.

*   *   *

Something hit Coffin lightly in the chest. His eyes fluttered halfway open, but after a few seconds he decided he'd dreamed it and closed them again. A few seconds later, whatever it was hit him again—this time on the shoulder. It was Jamie—she was lying with her back to him. She reached back and whacked him a third time, perilously close to his groin.

“Fire,” she said.

“What?”

“
Fire
.”

Coffin opened his eyes, sat up. It was dark. He smelled smoke.

“Jamie,” he said. “You need to wake up.”

“Hmm?”

“You need to wake up. You're right—there's smoke.”

Coffin climbed out of bed—the mattress and box spring still on the floor—reached for his pants, pulled them on. The bedroom door was open; he flipped on the light. The hallway was filling with smoke. “Jamie,” he said. “You need to get up. The house is on fire.”

Then the smoke alarms went off—first in the living room, then a second or two later at the top of the stairs. The shrieking was deafening. Coffin covered his ears.

Jamie sat up, eyes wide. “Holy shit,” she said. “The house is on fire!”

*   *   *

The Glock was in the old man's hand so quickly that Ygor thought for a moment it had simply appeared there—a magic pistol, suddenly pointed at his left eye. He grinned, raised his hands slowly, knowing the two Americans were outnumbered, knowing his boys were fast and brutal.

Still, it was hard to think clearly when someone was pointing a gun at your eye, hard to look away from the bore of the old man's pistol, which, he had to admit, was impressively large. But something violent was happening just past the edge of his peripheral vision, so he turned. The Wookiee had crossed the two meters of parking lot between himself and Vladi with such speed that he might as well have flown, Ygor thought. Vladi wheeled, but before he could bring his pistol around and pull the trigger the Wookiee slapped the gun loose with one enormous hand and punched him in the face with the other. There was a splattering crunch, and Ygor was showered with blood and broken teeth. The thoroughly unconscious Vladi toppled backward into Dmitri. Dmitri, howling with rage and encumbered by the limp weight of Vladi's body, yanked at his pistol, which had gotten tangled in his jockey shorts.

“Careful,” the old man said. “You're gonna shoot your—”