WIDE GREG WAS BUSY separating rival gangs when Pink and I hooked up in the White Birch parking lot, and not in a forgiving mood. “Maybe I’ll go in and give Greg a hand,” said Pink.
“Greg doesn’t want a hand.”
“Yeah, but then next time I get in trouble, maybe he won’t bar me.”
“I don’t think it works that way.”
Pink looked longingly at the bar, where the sound of breaking glass was getting louder. “Wouldn’t mind getting into that.”
“Until they unlimber firearms. Why don’t we drive up to the Hitching Post?”
But the Hitching Post, Pink informed me, had still not recovered from a disgruntled woody from Norfolk chainsawing its bar in an attempt to get served after hours.
“Lorenzo’s?”
“Not on a weekend.” Lorenzo’s Pizza Palace had gone upscale in a successful attempt to attract the new McMansion crowd. Weekends, the whiskey-drenched regulars fled squalling toddlers and ill-bred eight-year-olds.
I wasn’t about to suggest the Yankee Drover, which Pink regarded as an uptight bastion of Main Street privilege on the scale of the Ritz of London. But I knew that if I didn’t get him out of here very soon he would wade into whatever was unfolding in the White Birch.
“Boat launch?” The warm night would see a crowd drinking beer until Trooper Moody interrupted the party.
“Mosquitoes,” said Pink. “Besides, it’s just kids.”
“How about the River End?”
“All right!”
The River End Bar was managed by Matthew Jervis, a yet-to-be convicted member of the felonious Jervis clan. It was on a dirt road, deep in the Jervis woods, not far from the Indian reservation. Any McMansion dwellers who somehow stumbled upon it would assume, judging by the vehicles in its parking lot and the plywood walls without windows, that the patrons roasted unruly children on spits.
We drove north, Pink in his truck, I in my overpowered Olds. Just before we hit the dirt roads, he signaled me to pass on a straightaway, and when we arrived at the River End, his was the (borrowed) vehicle caked with dust.
The crowd drinking and dancing quieted noticeably, as crowds tended to when Pink darkened a door. The noise picked up again when he exchanged civil hellos with Matthew, the owner. We ordered Screech for Pink and a Rhode Island Red, the house beer, for me. Screech, the private stock rum, was imported from Newfoundland by snowmobile, speed boat, ATV, and beneath-the-radar aircraft. Or so it was said.
“Fine-looking trucks outside,” Pink said to Matthew, who replied, “Folks are doing all right,” and left it at that. A new prosperity was evident indoors, too: a wide plasma TV, encased in wire mesh in case someone threw a bottle, diamond nose studs, even some platinum teeth bling.
I remarked on the kitchen Matthew had added, with a cook and a teenage Jervis waitress passing plates of decent-looking burgers and remarkably crisp French fries. In the past, a patron who wanted solids with his beer or Screech had purchased them from a dusty rack of beef jerky or carried in take-out. “What’s next, Matthew? Windows?”
“Not likely.”
Two beers and four Screeches later, Sherman Chevalley wandered in, looking aggrieved, and I thought, Oh hell, here we go again. Pink braced him right off. “What the hell are you doing here?”
“Wide Greg kicked me out.”
“Wha’d you do?”
“Nothin’.”
Pink shook his head at the injustice and bought Sherman a Screech. Soon they were gazing peacefully up at the TV on which was playing a DVD of “American Chopper.”
Half an hour and several Screeches later, Pink nudged me. “Thought Little Rick was still inside.”
“Early parole,” I said. “Good behavior.”
Little Rick was a son of my long-time friend Gwen Jervis, daughter of old Herman Jervis, clan leader emeritus, who had recently celebrated the retirement of the third generation of state police that failed to pin convictable charges on him. Gwen’s brother Bill now ran day-to-day operations with a firm hand and was, by most accounts, only murderous when he had to be. Little Rick looked up to his uncle.
Pink, unusually talkative tonight, said, “Makes you wonder what his cell mate was like.”
A while later, in walked Gwen Jervis, and her daughter Josie, home on leave from the Army, which had included Iraq this year. Josie had enlisted as a chubby little eighteen-year-old. Every time she came home she arrived a little taller and leaner. It was possible that she was developing a kind of beauty that one day might rival her mother’s.
Josie sat with her brother.
Gwen spotted me at the bar and swayed over smiling. She appeared to have started drinking earlier, back around the time Connie and I had arrived at Kimball’s watercress party.
“Hey, Pink.” She punched him on the arm, said, “Hi, Ben, slumming?” and gave me a warm, rum flavored kiss on the mouth. She was a tightly strung redhead, missing a front tooth. As Old Herman’s daughter, she was as close to royalty as you’d find in the River End Bar.
I kissed her back and bought her a Screech and basked in an unexpected glow of well-being. I had admired Gwen since I was eight years old and she was twelve. When I reached twelve I had begun to realize why. At fourteen, I was given an introduction and a six-pack by Pink, which had led to a night that was incandescent. Over the years we had stayed friendly. Now and then we managed to do each other a favor. She had been having a love affair with my cousin Renny when he was murdered, and sadness lingered.
“Josie looks great.”
Gwen was hugely proud of her daughter, the first of the clan to complete high school, though Gwen herself had come close.
“You know she made sergeant?”
“Read it in the Clarion.” I had leaned on Scooter MacKay to do the right thing and reprint the Army press release even though Jervis territory wasn’t officially in Newbury and Jervises lay beneath Scooter’s social radar. “Is she going back?” I asked, meaning Iraq.
“I hope not. Hey, there’s poor Jimmy Butler. I’ve never seen him here. He looks scared stiff.”
He would not be the first, upon first entering the River End. Jimmy lunked in the doorway, ducking his head like a turtle. I could just see Billy Tiller sizing up the sucker to drive a hot truck. Just when I thought he would bolt out the door, he broke into a relieved grin and hurried over to Sherman Chevalley, who had drifted down bar from us. Sherman greeted him with a skeleton-rattling clap on the back and let Jimmy buy him a Screech.
“What are you doing here?” I heard Sherman growl.
“Humongous fight at the White Birch. Troopers brought a Corrections bus and a flatbed for the bikes.”
“How’d you get away?”
“Got there late.”
“Guess I got lucky, too, getting kicked out, early. Greg okay?”
Wide Greg was boarding up windows, Jimmy reported, and their conversation moved on to the merits of multi-position V-plows. Gwen reeled across the room to say something to Josie. I turned to Pink, who was arm-wrestling two truck drivers from Vermont. “You want another Screech?”
“I’ll need a straw.”
I got him a Screech with a straw.
“What the hell is that?” Pink and the truck drivers cocked ears toward the open door. Something huge was clanking and rumbling up the road.
“Sounds like a tank.”
Everyone exchanged looks. What were the Jervises into now?
The cement floor was trembling.
I got to the door first and stepped out for a look. Guided by blazing headlamps, an absolutely enormous machine trundled into the parking lot and stopped just short of demolishing my Oldsmobile. Bearded, long-haired men and close-cropped women began jumping down from the bucket and the rear deck.
“That’s a goddamned D-7R,” somebody said behind me. “Look at that sucker. Brand new.”
Someone asked, “Where the hell did that come from?”
A third voice answered, “It’s from the Fed job.”
“What Fed job?” I asked.
“EPA doing the Jervis dump.”
The bulldozer crew bunched tentatively beside the machine, as if unsure of their welcome. Most of the men were skinny and bespectacled. Most of the women were round and bespectacled. And all had the sun-burned glow of academics released from the academy to romp outdoors. A tall figure shut down the lights and the motor. And who should climb down and lead her colleagues toward the bar but Ms. Jennifer Giraffe?
She stopped when she recognized me. She was wearing blue jeans and a hoodie. The hood was sprayed over her shoulders, framing her angular face like a cowl. Her hair was shorter than I’d seen three days ago. “Hey! Ben Abbott, how you doing?”
“I wasn’t aware you knew how to drive a bulldozer.”
“Remember, I told you, I’m doing the Northwest Connecticut Landfill Reclamation project? The site characterization study?”
“And you picked up bulldozing this week?”
“No,” she said, as serious as ever, despite a new exuberance. “I took courses in school.”
“She’s fantastic,” said a graduate student.
“First rate,” said an older fellow who was clearly the professor.
“And you brought the machine here to characterize the site of the River End Bar?”
“My van wouldn’t start. We wanted some wine. No one else’s car was big enough for all of us.”
That made a kind of sense, though I did wonder whether they had considered the environmental impact of the gallons of diesel the monster would burn on a pub crawl. On the other hand, a single vehicle represented a kind of carpooling.
The academics got a lot of looks on the way to the bar, and I could see various Jervis reprobates preparing to separate the college girls from the college boys by the simple expedient of pounding the boys through the floor. An eager fellow lurched at the women, grabbing his crotch to present it like a bouquet. Gwen Jervis gave a nod toward the parking lot. Numerous less drunk Jervises led him away, opening the door with his head.
“Welcome,” said Gwen. “Matthew, buy our Audubon friends a drink.” To me she muttered, “I love these kids. The Feds are paying us a fortune to let ’em work the dump.” That was the source of the new wealth. Well, why not? As long as they didn’t use it to replace their house trailers with McMansions.
Matthew splashed blood red wine from a gallon jug into a row of highball glasses.
I got a fresh beer and stayed at the bar conversing with any who stumbled near.
Later, when the crowd had begun to thin and I was thinking of calling it a night, Gwen reeled up to me. “I’m shit faced. Would you drive me home? Josie’s staying.”
“Sure.”
I got her into the Olds and buckled her seatbelt for her. Then I walked across the parking lot, planting each step immediately after the other, toe to heel.
“What the hell are you doing?”
I stood on my left foot and timed sixty seconds on my watch. Then I balanced on my right foot for sixty seconds.
“What the hell are you doing?”
“Making sure I can pass a DUI checkpoint.”
“Jesus Christ, it’s easier to outrun them.”
I got in the car. “Hold your finger in front of my nose. Okay, now move it way to the left. Hold it there. Is my eyeball shaking?”
“Why the hell would it be?”
“There’s a kind of astigmatic reaction you can’t control when you’re high. Is it shaking?”
“No.”
“All right. We’re outta here.”
Gwen closed her eyes. I maneuvered the car around Jennifer’s bulldozer and headed down a dark road into the woods. Gwen woke up after a while and asked, “Are you going to try to take advantage of me drunk?”
“Could I have a rain check?”
“What for?”
“I’d much more enjoy taking advantage of you sober.”
She slumped down in her seat. I thought she fell asleep again, but she was watching the side mirror. “Wonder who’s following us?”
Their lights were higher than a car, lower than a truck. “I was thinking your husband.”
“Buddy’s out with the boys.” That could range from poaching deer to delivering sidearms to customers too busy to linger for an instant background check. Although, to be fair, Buddy was often legitimately employed as an offshore oilrig roustabout, working months on and months off. One thing for sure, Gwen’s husband hadn’t been caught up in the White Birch fracas back in Frenchtown. Jervises did not waste their energy on police-attracting activities that didn’t put food on the table or cash in the mattress.
It was slow going to her trailer, with the Olds scraping the crowns of the dark, dirt roads. Halfway there, she said, “Still following.”
“Probably looking for a place to pull over and make out.”
“I wonder if they’re after you or me?”
“Who would have the balls to follow you into the Jervis woods?”
“So I guess they’re after you.”
“Or lost. ”
“Maybe you better stay the night, just to be on the safe side.”
Tempting. Very. Although a prime example of polar opposites would be “safe side” and Buddy Jervis concluding his night’s business early. “When’s Buddy heading back to the Gulf?”
“He promised me he’d stay home a while.” She glanced at me and the dashboard lights glinted green in her eyes. “It’s gotten so I miss the son of a bitch. I like having him around. We’re getting old, Ben.”
“You’re not old. Neither am I. Neither is Buddy. Well I guess he is, actually. What is he, fifteen years older than you?”
“They’re turning off.”
“I see.”
“I’ll lend you a sawed off. In case they’re waiting for you.”
Wouldn’t that would make Trooper Moody’s night if he pulled me over back in Newbury with an illegal weapon in my car? Still, I was debating Gwen’s offer when I saw in my mirrors red tail and white backup lights where the headlights had disappeared. Brake lights flashed and off. Then tail lights disappeared as whoever had been behind us turned around and pulled away in the direction from which we had come. “Thanks. I’ll be fine.”
A half mile on, her trailer came in view, one of a dozen whose lights speckled the woods. I pulled up beside the wooden steps, kissed her good night longer than Buddy would have liked, and helped her climb the steps. “Wait a second,” she said. I heard her rummaging in the dark. She returned with a shotgun that had been hack-sawed down to sixteen inches of barrel and pistol stock.
“Safety’s on. Stick it under your seat.” She was holding it in a dishrag. I stretched my sweater cuff over my fingers, kissed her cheek and said, “Thanks.”
Her door shut behind her, I waved in the general direction of the other trailers, nipping clan gossip in the bud, and drove away. Surrounded by cousins, nephews, uncles, and aunts, Gwen would sleep as safe as a general in the Green Zone.
I drove for a half mile and lowered the windows to see better as I neared the point where the car behind me had turned around. Apparently it had kept going. Nonetheless, I drove with my high beams high and watched carefully at every indent in the road where someone could be waiting. I was not surprised to make it to the River End still intact.
The bar was closed, the parking lot empty. Even Jennifer’s bulldozer was gone.
I kept going. Then, after another mile or so of curving dark road, I topped a little rise which sent my headlights farther than normal. In the distance I saw the gleam of a car. It didn’t seem to be moving. Closer, I saw it had stopped in the middle of the road, blocking it. I drew within a hundred yards and slowed, liking the situation less and less. I couldn’t see the marker plate or tell what it was, except it looked like one of the smaller kinds of SUV.
I checked my mirrors, half-expecting a vehicle to come up behind me. Nothing. Or at least nothing with lights on. I stopped the car. Part of me wanted to pick up the gun under my seat. Part of me did not because once it filled my hand up went the potential for a misunderstanding turning deadly.
I shut the engine, doused my lights, and listened for someone coming up on foot or leaping from the woods. It was near silent, too early in the year for bugs to sing. I heard a barred owl bark. Then all I heard was the ticking of my engine cooling down. My eyes adjusted to the dark. But there was still nothing to see except the car ahead, the empty road behind, and the trees to my left and right.
I felt for the switch to deactivate the interior lights when I opened the door.
Suddenly the vehicle sprang to life. Headlights on, engine roaring, it raced away. I cranked the Olds and floored it. A couple making out would receive my apologies for interrupting, but I wanted to know who the hell was in that vehicle.
It was immediately obvious that I would never catch them. I had the speed, but not the clearance. The Olds was too low slung for the ruts and high crown of a dirt road. The red lights ahead dwindled and soon had disappeared. Just as well. Probably just a couple, or scared kids smoking dope. Still, I watched carefully until the dirt road finally returned me to the smooth macadam of a hilly, winding road which would connect me to Route 7 and home to Newbury.
It was past midnight. The road was empty. The speed limit was 45. I held to 50, with just enough beer on my breath not to want to be pulled over for speeding. I passed the occasional farmhouse, dark or with a single light on, but the land was mostly overgrown fields and dense woods. Where the tree canopy didn’t cover the road I caught glimpses of stars in a black, moonless sky and once, where it opened by a farm field, a bright swath of Milky Way meandering south like a river.
I was back under the trees, entering a sharp curve, when I was stunned by a loud explosion and a dazzling flash—searing, stark and penetrating as a million bolts of lightning. I saw the trees leap before my eyes, bright as icicles. Blinded, I stomped the brakes. The car screeched into a skid. I tried to steer away from the trees I could not see.
* * * *