A Fatal Vineyard Season (12 page)

“Taking no chances, eh?” asked the chief of police, who happened along in a cruiser as I was lashing the
Mattie
to the trailer.

I shrugged.

“I think you're right,” said the chief, stoking up his pipe and looking out at the harbor, where a lot of boats still hung on their moorings. “I pulled my own boat yesterday. The way I figure it, you can always put it back afterwards, if you want to.” He gestured with his pipe to a trawler-hulled yacht moored out by the first green buoy. “You know that boat?”

I knew it instantly. Only one local boat was like the
Invictus
.

“Belongs to a guy you may have met up in Oak Bluffs,” said the chief. “Name of Alberto Vegas.”

I tied a last knot and looked out at the boat. “Never met him.”

“You met his brother, though, or so Lisa Goldman tells me. You be careful, J.W. Those boys are mean.”

“Meaner than me, for sure.”

“For sure. Meaner than anybody on the island except, maybe, for Cousin Henry Bayles. Maybe even meaner than him.”

“High praise, indeed.”

“You watch yourself, J.W.” The chief drove away. I looked after him. Meaner than Cousin Henry Bayles, the Crandel black sheep, was mean with a capital
M
.

I had seen Cousin Henry Bayles only once in my life, when my father and I were having ice cream on Circuit Avenue, and my father, who somehow knew who he was, had pointed him out. I looked and saw a scrawny little guy the color of coffee with cream. My father, who from time to time tried to teach me things he thought were important, had said, “Cousin Henry Bayles is a very dangerous guy, although he doesn't look like much. You should remember that many a big man has been laid in the dust by a guy half his size, and many an intellectual snob has been done in by somebody he took for a fool.”

Years later, when I was with the Boston PD, I'd heard more about Cousin Henry from old-timers I worked with. The upshot was that if Stanley Crandel and most of his huge family represented the upper echelons of Oak Bluffs' African-American society, Cousin Henry Bayles represented the lower ones. The lowest, in fact. Cousin Henry had been a powerful force in the black Philadelphia mobs during the fifties, working first as an enforcer, then as a boss, before getting out of town just ahead of several volleys of machine gun bullets that left most of his gang dead in the streets and him on the run.

Or so I'd been told by the old guys on the force, although I don't think anyone in Boston knew what had really happened down in Philly. Cousin Henry had certainly never told anyone anything. Instead, he had come north, moved
into a nondescript house in Oak Bluffs, and had more or less disappeared for a while.

Then, the story went, after a year or so, he was seen going off-island. A few days later, the new boss of the black rackets in Philly was blown to pieces when he started up the Lincoln parked in his garage, and after that, for several weeks, his gang members managed to get themselves killed in a variety of ways, including gunshots, fires, drownings, and knifings. Shortly after the last of these killings, Cousin Henry was seen returning to the Vineyard.

The old cops in Boston were surprised by only one thing: Henry's irritation with the black gang members. Normally, he only hated whites and other nonblacks.

In any case, Cousin Henry still lived in Oak Bluffs, but, if the chief was right, might no longer be the meanest man in town.

Or maybe he never really had been, for no one had ever actually proved that Henry had done a mean thing in his life. The only people who might have been able to give testimony were dead in Philadelphia, and since coming to Oak Bluffs, Cousin Henry had never broken a single law that anyone knew about.

Not that there wasn't speculation. On two occasions, particularly virulent white racists in town had hurriedly left the island never to return, and Cousin Henry had been suspected of being their propelling force. But no one knew for sure, because the racists had never told anyone why they'd left and Cousin Henry had spit in the eye of the only reporter (an Anglo-Saxon) who had dared ask him to give his side of the story.

Cousin Henry's exact words, according to the most popular version of the encounter, were “Fuck off, honky slime, 'fore I loose my dog on you! And don't come back, God damn your eyes!”

The reporter had beat a fast retreat and had not returned,
for one of the two known facts about Cousin Henry was that he owned a dog. The other was that he lived with a woman. It was not known if the dog was the kind you loosed on reporters, but no one wanted to find out. The woman, one of those people who might be thirty or seventy, was still seen around town, shopping or peering into store windows, usually alone but sometimes accompanied by Cousin Henry. Two smallish people, minding their own business and inviting no social contacts.

I had seen Cousin Henry in a Crandel photograph, but I hadn't seen him in person since I'd moved to the island and was now almost surprised to learn that he was even alive, since when I'd seen him that one time as a kid, he had seemed pretty old to me.

I wondered if the African-American community in Oak Bluffs was of such a nature that its members all knew one another. The wealthy and aristocratic Crandels knew about Cousin Henry, of course, because he was kin, but did other people? Aside from some degree of African ancestry (and Africa is a big continent, with native peoples quite different from one another), I couldn't imagine what they would have in common.

On the other hand, links between crime figures and the social elite were not unknown in Boston society, as I'd learned when a policeman in Bean Town, so maybe the same was true in Oak Bluffs.

Once again I realized that in spite of my years on the Vineyard, my ignorance of its people was nearly boundless. I could live here for a dozen lifetimes and still have more to learn about my neighbors. It was a kind of doom shared, I suspected, with most citizens of seemingly cozy communities. No wonder native Vineyarders, born and bred on the island, never saw any need to leave it and see the world. “Why should we go someplace else,” they would ask, “when I won't live long enough to see everything that's right here?”

Why, indeed?

After getting the
Shirley J
. safely blocked up in our yard, I went back to Collins Beach and loaded my dinghy into the back of the Land Cruiser. Other people were also hauling their boats just in case Elmer made a run north. Hurricane tracks are notorious for being hard to predict, in spite of major advances in meteorology, and no one was sure where this latest storm would go. As is always the case when a hurricane is hanging out there beyond the darkening curve of the earth, there was a lot of camaraderie among the boat haulers. When confronted by such a common enemy, even men who might normally be unfriendly tend to set their enmity aside and work together.

I looked out at Alberto Vegas's trawler-hulled yacht. As yachts go, I liked the looks of this one. The stern of the boat swung toward me and I saw the name,
Invictus
, on the transom above the landing platform that crossed the stern just above the waterline. I was interested in the name because nothing I'd heard of Alberto Vegas had led me to think of him as being the type to thank the gods for his unconquerable soul or for anything else. More proof that my father had been right in advising me not to be misled by appearances or reputations.

Then I saw movement on the yacht. A man had come up from below and was climbing into a Boston Whaler that was tied alongside. He was young and bulky and looked enough like Alexandro so that I knew it was brother Alberto. I wondered if he'd phoned me from shore or from the boat. The brains of the Vegas family started the outboard and headed for the docks. If he sensed me watching him, he gave no sign of it.

Alberto handled his boat with ease and grace, and I wondered, not for the first time, why I sometimes presumed that graceful, capable people were somehow superior to most others in fundamental ways. I often had that feeling when I saw someone doing something well, even though I knew without doubt that such was not necessarily the case.
Of course the lovely ballerina might not be a beautiful person in any way other than as a dancer; of course the brilliant composer might well be an immoral lout; and of course, the ugly duckling was sometimes a swan.

I was not the first to flirt with the ancient notion that beauty is good and good is beautiful, nor would I be the last. Nor would I be the last to know it wasn't so.

Still, even after Alberto's Whaler disappeared on the far side of the yacht club, I was struck by the easy way he had handled himself swinging down from the deck of the
Invictus
and then bringing the boat into the docks, and I was aware of the ambiguity of my feelings: the meanest man in Oak Bluffs had looked quite handsome and attractive, and I suddenly thought that women might put up with a lot from him.

I got into the Land Cruiser and drove over to the parking lot at the foot of Main Street. There, I parked and walked to the dock, where Alberto was making the Whaler fast. He glanced up at me as I paused. His eyes were dark under dark brows, and they were without emotion. Dead eyes. The eyes of one who cared nothing for anything. His bones were just a shade finer than Alexandro's. His body was wide and his arms were thick and ropy. His hands moved swiftly and economically as he tied the last line.

“Nice boat,” I said.

“Yeah.” He picked up a plastic toolbox. “It gets me around.”

“I mean the
Invictus
. I saw you come off of her.”

He gave me a longer look with those dead man's eyes. “Thanks.”

Up close I could see scars on his face and arms. Souvenirs of Cedar Junction?

“Looks new,” I said. “Don't think I've seen her in Edgartown before.”

“I keep her in Oak Bluffs.”

“Strong-looking vessel.”

“Trawler hull. She's strong, all right. Only kind of boat I'd own. I've got no use for a boat that won't take a beating and come back for more.”

“I know what you mean.”

“See ya.” He walked past me and got into a brand-new Land Rover. Alberto bought only the best, apparently. I watched him drive away.

I took him to be in his late twenties. He was doing pretty well in business for a guy with his background. New house, new boat, new car. Maybe I should get into the extortion racket.

I followed him at a distance all the way to Oak Bluffs, where we went our separate ways. Mine went to the Crandel house.

Lights were on in the house and a car was parked in front of it. I parked behind the car and studied it for a moment. Two men were in it. I was pretty sure they were looking at me in rearview mirrors. As I got out, they got out. I didn't know either one of them. I started up the walk, and they joined me, one on either side.

“You have business here?” asked the one on my right.

He looked to be about thirty. An earth-colored man with curly hair, dressed in casual clothes. His partner looked much the same.

“I work for Julia Crandel. My name's Jackson. Who are you?”

“My name's Mills. This is Jack Harley.” Mills took an ID card out of his shirt pocket. I looked at it. It said he was from Thornberry Security. “We're working for Miss Crandel, too. Do you have any identification, Mr. Jackson?”

I actually felt as if a weight had been removed from me. I dug out my driver's license. He looked at it and gave it back. He put out his hand. “The boss said you'd be around. Glad to meet you.”

I shook hands with both of them.

“Tell us what's going on,” said Harley.

We stood in front of the house and I told them what I knew. When I was through, Harley said, “The agency has some people working on the West Coast business, too, Mr. Jackson, so maybe you can just leave the whole thing to us and get back to your own life.”

“Fine. I don't want any more to do with the Vegas boys. They're all yours now. The same goes for Mackenzie Reed.” I looked at the house. “I'll just go in and say hi to Ivy and Julia and be on my way.”

“They got home about an hour ago,” said Mills. “We've all had a chat. One of us will be with them at all times. I think Jack's right. I think you can go home and leave this situation in our hands.”

“Glad to.” I had the little good feeling down inside me that you get when somebody tells you that you don't have to do a nasty job you never wanted to do in the first place, the feeling you get when you've unexpectedly been saved some grief.

I went up onto the porch and knocked on the door. Julia opened it and smiled. I went in.

“How was your day?” I asked.

“Beautiful,” said Ivy. “We had the hills all to ourselves. It was like being a thousand miles from anybody else. Too bad you couldn't join us.”

“Next time, maybe. I think Thornberry Security is pretty much on top of things here and in California, so I don't think you'll be needing me anymore. But if you do, you know where to find me.”

“Thanks for everything,” said Julia.

“You two relax and enjoy yourselves. Don't worry about the Vegas boys. I don't think they'll give you any more trouble.”

“We'll have you over for supper before we go.”

“I'll be here.”

I went out and down the walk to where Mills and Harley were leaning against their car.

“The job's all yours,” I said, meaning it. But then, as I started to go on to my car, my mouth, all by itself, surprised me by adding, “But I'd like to know how to get in touch with you if something comes up.”

“You can beep us anytime, and we'll get back to you,” said Mills. He gave me a card.

Beepers, yet. I was way behind in modern technology. Still, I was feeling pretty good and free, in spite of my meddlesome mouth.

“I may stop by sometime, just to see how things are going,” I said.