The Barbed-Wire Kiss (11 page)

“Nobody did any pulling.”

“Maybe not, but now you’re in it, aren’t you? And I’m worried that you’re in it more than either of you are telling me.”

He put down the bottle.

“Bobby screwed up,” he said. “I’m sure if he could go back in time, he’d do things differently. But right now he’s in a jam, and I might be able to help him get out of it. It would be hard to turn away from that.”

“It’s you I’m worried about.”

He leaned back against the railing, looked up at her.

“I know,” he said. “But you don’t need to be.”

“You’ve been through a lot.”

He looked off across the yard, watched a rabbit nose through the grass beneath the willows.

“I’ve known Bobby a long time,” he said.

“I know.”

“Longer than I’ve known anyone else in my life. Anyone.”

She didn’t respond.

“He crossed a line with this thing, a big one. But I have no desire to see him get screwed over as a result, either, especially by people like those. He made a mistake and he realizes that. You guys have been together for, what, fifteen years?”

“Sixteen next month.”

“And you’ve got the baby to think about as well now. You don’t need this hanging over you. Now, I can rag on Bobby for being a screwup, walk away from him, or I can do my best to help him out. And I can help him, it’s in my power. One mistake shouldn’t doom people for life. That’s not fair, either.”

“I guess what it comes down to is I’m scared. By this whole thing.”

“I know.”

“And angry too. If he had come to me first …”

“You’d have told him not to do it.”

“Absolutely.”

“That’s why he didn’t. He knew what you’d say.”

“Then why did he go through with it?”

“He told me you needed the money.”

“Of course, we needed the money. We
always
need the money. But not like this. Jesus, Harry, he’s pushing forty. He’s going to be a father. He’s not a kid anymore. This isn’t a game.”

“He knows that.”

“And when it comes to money, there are things we could do. My parents …”

“I doubt Bobby would have gone for that.”

“… or worse comes to worst, we could go down to North Carolina and live with my sister. There were other options.”

“Maybe he wanted to be the one to provide, no matter what it took.”

“Excuse me, Harry, but that’s male bullshit.”

“Maybe.”

“It is. And maybe I’m not being fair to him, I don’t know. But when I think about it, this whole thing just makes me so goddamn mad. Mad that he would get involved with someone like that, even madder that he would endanger what we’ve got. It feels like we’ve worked so hard for so long, and he’s risking it all. And now you’re in it as well.”

“Slow down,” he said. “What’s going on in your relationship is between you two. But this issue right now, it’s a money question, that’s all. It can be dealt with. I already talked to Fallon.”

“You did? What did he say?”

“Not a lot. But I think we can deal with him, if that’s what you’re asking. We already have some money to give him. It will keep him quiet long enough for Bobby to work on the rest.”

“You sound sure of that.”

“For Fallon to do anything else would be counterproductive at this point. And whatever he is, he’s no fool. He wants his money, that’s all.”

“You’re trying to make me feel better,” she said. “But I don’t know if you believe all this yourself.”

She sipped water, watched him. They sat in silence for a moment.

“Forgive me for saying this, Harry. But you know what I think?”

“What?”

“It’s not just Bobby, is it?”

“What do you mean?”

“You don’t have a family of your own anymore. So you’re trying to protect ours.”

He looked away. A light wind had sprung up, stirring the willows. The rabbit was gone.

“And bless you for that,” she said. “But you can’t solve all our problems. You shouldn’t try to.”

“I’m not.”

“There’s something else about Bobby too. The way he is; he always thought he could lean out over the edge as far as he wanted, that somebody would always be there to pull him back. He’s been that way since he was a kid. It used to be me he relied on, to catch him before he fell.”

“I know.”

“This time it’s you.”

He had no answer for that.

Later, after she left, he brought the bottles in from the trunk, put them in the refrigerator. But he didn’t open them.

Around eleven, he took the Mustang keys, went out to the car. The restlessness was on him, a feeling he couldn’t name or satisfy. He headed east on 537, dark fields stretching away on both sides. He noticed a slight roughness to the engine, an erratic cough in the exhaust. When he reached Tinton Falls the streets narrowed and the farms gave way to houses with warm second-floor lights, the occasional blue glow of a television in a downstairs window.

He picked up Route 36, drove east to the ocean, pushing fifty, the wind whipping through the car. He thought of Lynn Pettimore and her two children, of the emptiness of Jimmy’s apartment. He thought of Cristina and Fallon, of his bulk on her, moving in the dark.

The Sand Castle was a sprawling two-story restaurant on the inlet in Manasquan. Nestled in the shadow of a highway bridge, it sat on a pier that extended out over the water and into the sunlight. On the far end of the pier were tables beneath umbrellas. Though the tables were empty, Harry could see gulls perched on the railings as if waiting for the diners to return. Gray wooden steps stretched from the gravel parking lot to the front door.

There was a two-lane access ramp that curved down to the restaurant from the bridge, the only way in and out. Just before the turnoff was a small strip mall with a pizza parlor, video store, and Laundromat. From where he’d parked alongside the Laundromat, he had an unobstructed view of the ramp and restaurant. He looked at his watch. Three-thirty.

He took the field glasses from the seat beside him. They were hard green plastic, made for jungle use, and he’d paid $200 for them at an army surplus store ten years ago. He took off his sunglasses, hung them on the rearview mirror, and brought the binoculars up. The restaurant sharpened into view as he focused.

The outside was decorated with fishing nets, life preservers, buoys, and fake harpoons—Shore tourist-trap kitsch. He scanned the front of the restaurant, saw the closed sign on the glass door. Through the wide windows he could see empty tables set for dinner.

There were only four cars in the lot, a black Jeep Wrangler, a ten-year-old Plymouth with a Rutgers sticker in the rear window, a tiny Geo Metro, and a dark blue BMW with its top down. It was either the same car he’d parked alongside at the country club or its twin. No Lexus.

He opened the glove box, rooted under papers until he felt the smooth, pocket-sized can of CS spray. He set it on the console, then reached under his seat and drew out the manila envelope full of money. He put it on the passenger seat, picked up the glasses again.

At ten to four, a maroon Buick with New York plates drove past him, turned down the ramp, and pulled into the restaurant lot. Two men got out. The driver was in his midforties, heavy, dark haired, with broad shoulders and a distended gut. He wore a sport jacket over a polo shirt, had a cigarette dangling from his lips.

The passenger was twenty years younger and a hundred pounds lighter, with brush-cut black hair and a feral face. He wore a dark suit jacket over an open shirt, matching pants. Harry could see the glint of a gold chain around his neck.

They stood outside the car for a few moments, talking. Then the heavy man took a final drag on his cigarette, flung it away, put his fist to his mouth, and coughed. They went up the steps and into the restaurant.

Fuck this
, Harry thought.

He waited for another twenty minutes. No more cars arrived. He got out of the Mustang, went to a phone booth outside the pizza place, and dialed the restaurant number.

“Hello?”

“Let me talk to Fallon.”

“Who?”

“Don’t fuck with me. If he’s there, put him on.”

“Who’s this?”

“You’ve got three seconds.”

“Maybe you didn’t hear me. I asked who this is.”

Harry hung up.

He went back to the car, started the engine. As he began to back up, he saw the door to the restaurant swing wide, thrust open by an unseen arm. He braked, waited.

When she came out, her copper hair flashed in the sun. She wore a sleeveless floral print dress, her hair tied in a single elaborate braid that fell down her back. She paused at the door, put on a pair of tortoiseshell sunglasses, then started down the steps. He watched her walk to the BMW, get behind the wheel.

He shifted into neutral. She pulled out of the lot, came up the access ramp faster than she should have. At the top, she turned left, drove past the strip mall. For an instant, he thought he saw her head turn toward him.

He watched as she went up to the next light, stopped briefly at the red signal, and then turned right.

It would be foolish to follow her. At the speed she was going, she would be out of sight before he could even make the light. There was no sense in it. No sense at all.

He reversed the Mustang in a wide arc, knocked the stick into first. He waited for a break in the traffic, then bumped over the curb and into the street, hit the gas. There was a squeal of brakes behind him, an angry horn. He ignored it, ground the gears into second, signaled, and hit the light just as it flashed from yellow to red. He checked for cross traffic, then turned right, foot on the gas again. Far ahead, he saw the BMW brake, turn left onto a side street. He sped after it.

There was a condominium complex on the right side of the street, a supermarket on the left. He braked for a car turning right out of the complex, then passed it, swung back into the right lane. There was no oncoming traffic, so when he reached the side street he turned left without slowing, his tires squealing, the needle at forty, not wanting to lose sight of her. He shifted into third, hit the gas, and saw then that it wasn’t a side street, it was a cul-de-sac—less than a hundred feet of blacktop that ended against a knee-high guardrail. Fifty feet ahead of him, the BMW was sideways across the road, halfway through a three-point turn.

He stood on the brake, yanked the wheel to the right, downshifting at the same time. The Mustang coughed, jerked, and stalled. The front tires hit the curb, climbed slowly, and rolled back down.

She calmly finished her turn, then pulled up so that their driver’s side doors were parallel. She looked across at him, smiling faintly, her eyes unreadable behind the sunglasses.

“Why don’t you park that thing,” she said.

He did, backed up snug against the curb, shut off the ignition, and looked across at her.

“Get in,” she said.

They were driving north along the ocean, the wind blowing around them. Bicyclists raced along the shoulder of the road. The manila envelope lay on the floor at his feet.

Up close, he could see the changes in her. She was too thin, her bones close to the skin, and even though she wore sunglasses, he could see the tight wrinkles of skin around her eyes. But the spray of freckles on her shoulders and collarbone was as he remembered it. Her skin was smooth and slightly tan, and her perfume had the faint scent of lilacs.

“You’re staring,” she said.

It was the first either of them had spoken since he’d gotten into the car.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

“I thought that was you. I wasn’t sure. I had decided to go back and check, and the next thing I knew, you came whipping around that corner behind me.”

“I recognized you right away. I was afraid I was going to lose you.”

“What were you doing back there?”

“I was supposed to meet your husband.”

“At the Sand Castle? He wasn’t there.”

“I figured.”

“He’s up in North Jersey all day. Are you the reason the manager was in such a hurry for me to finish my lunch and leave?”

“Probably.”

“What’s in the envelope?”

“Money.”

“How much?”

“Eighty-five hundred dollars.”

She looked at him.

“Whose?”

“Your husband’s now.”

“Then I probably don’t want to know about it. Light me a cigarette, will you? I don’t want to run over anyone.”

There was a brown leather cigarette case on the console. He opened it, took out a pack of Marlboro Lights and a bright silver lighter. He got one of the cigarettes going, read the inscription on the lighter. Engraved there was an Irish Claddagh symbol—clasped hands within a circle of intricate hearts—and the words, “To Cristina, My Angel—E.”

“Take one for yourself,” she said. “You still smoke, don’t you?”

“No. I quit.”

“Smart. I wish I could.”

“Have you tried?”

“A couple of times. Once almost for good, but I always go back.”

He handed the cigarette to her.

“How is it,” she said, “that we don’t see each other for all these years and then run into each other twice in one week?”

“I don’t know. Fate?”

“I don’t believe in it. Tell me, what went on between you and Lester at the club?”

“He grabbed me. We got into a tussle and he fell.”

“That doesn’t sound like you. You were the calmest person I’d ever met. What happened?”

“People change.”

“He was insane afterward. He wanted to kill you. He was back there, you know, at the restaurant.”

“I figured that too.”

They drove on, past beachside snack bars and a miniature golf course.

“How come you’re not married anymore?”

He looked at her. She pointed at his left hand.

“There’s an outline where your ring was. Divorced? Or just pretending?”

“Widowed.”

She grew quiet.

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s all right.”

“How long ago?”

“Two years.”

“What happened?”

“Cancer.”

“Forgive me. I didn’t mean to pry.”

“You’re not prying.”

He shifted in the leather seat, looked around. “Nice car,” he said.

“A birthday present. Last year. You still a motorhead?”