I resealed the envelope as neatly as I could, but anyone could tell that it had been opened. Since I was afraid to throw it away, I didn't see what else I could do except go through with the delivery.
And never make another one.
How was I going to explain that to Donny?
I sat in the clearing for a few more minutes, trying to fight the panic that kept welling inside me, trying to think. I decided to make the delivery, meet Donny afterward as if nothing unusual had happened, then talk to Jeff and tell him what I'd discovered. Together, we would decide what to do next.
I wheeled my bike furtively back onto the sandy lane, and began looking for the red arrow at the fork in the road. I hated the way I kept looking back over my shoulder, hated the fear and paranoia I felt from knowing what was in the envelope.
At last I came to the third driveway after the PRIVATE WAY sign, and knocked on the door of the house. But first I pulled down the brim of my baseball cap to cover my face.
An oldish guy came to the door, which kind of surprised me. I'd never really thought about it much, but I guess I figured it was mostly kids who smoked pot. Behind the man I caught a glimpse of a woman in a long, floaty kind of dress. She went to get a small envelope, which she gave me as I handed the manila one to the guy. He turned it over and made a funny face. Before he could say anything about the rumpled tape job, I ran to my bike and fled.
I pedaled hard, looking over my shoulder again, this time to make sure the man wasn't behind me. When I got to Donny's, the Tomahawk was parked in the yard, and he was in it, waiting.
I took a deep breath and pulled up warily beside the driver's side door. Something didn't feel right. Then I realized the radio was quiet. So was Donny. He was smoking nervously, raking his hair back from his face and scowling.
I handed him the envelope.
“Anybody follow you?” he asked.
“Follow me?” I repeated, playing dumb. “Why would anyone follow me?”
He didn't answer, but asked insistently, “So, nothing out of the ordinary happened?” It was strange to see Donny like this, not even pretending to act cool.
“No,” I lied. I even managed an offhand, “The usual. Piece of cake.”
Donny reached into the envelope, did a quick count, and handed me a ten and a five.
I was debating whether I should ask him what he was so worried about. Maybe I would have if I didn't already have some idea of the answer. I decided instead to get out of there as quickly as I could. “See ya, then,” I said, getting ready to ride away.
I was hoping Donny wouldn't call me back to set up a delivery for the following day. To my relief, he said, “Take the day off tomorrow, Daggett.” He tried to grin, but it didn't quite come off. “Wouldn't want you to work too hard.”
“Okay,” I said, pretending to be disappointed. “You're the boss.”
I said it, but I didn't believe it anymore. Donny was Jeff's and my boss, but I was pretty sure somebody else was his boss. Namely, Ray.
I rode home, my hands shaking and my mind spinning like the light on top of Chief Widdiss's police cruiser. The chief was on my mind, no doubt, because I had
just finished making a drug delivery
. The full realization of what I was involved in hit me, and I began trembling all over.
Jeff had said he was going somewhere with his parents, but when I got home I called him, hoping he hadn't left yet. “Jeff?”
“Yeah, what's up? You sound funny.”
“Did you make your delivery?”
“Yeah, why?”
“Did everything go okay?”
“Yeah. Donny kept asking me the same thing. What's going on?”
“Listen, Jeffâ” I began, then broke off, suddenly worried about talking over the telephone. In the movies, the cops were always tapping the bad guys' phones and tape recording what they said. But I wasn't one of the bad guys! And neither was Jeff.
Not really.
Even though it surely looked that way.
“How long are you going to be out tonight?” I asked.
“I don't know. We're going to my aunt's birthday party. It could be pretty late.”
“Oh, great.” I moaned. Then, abandoning caution, I blurted out the news that we'd been delivering drugs for Donny. I couldn't stand being the only one to know; I needed Jeff to tell me we weren't in as big a mess as I thought.
But instead a long silence met my words. Then Jeff spoke, his voice sounding small and shaken. “No way, Ben. You're kidding, right?”
When I didn't say anything, he whispered, “What are we going to do?”
I swallowed hard. “I don't know,” I said.
Jeff whispered again. “My mom's right here, so I can't talk. I'll call you when we get home, unless it's really late.”
“Okay.” It wasn't okay, of course. I was so wired, I couldn't imagine sitting around, waiting for Jeff to come home, and I had no idea what I should do. The clock said a quarter after five. Fifteen minutes until Mom got home.
I decided to ride back to Donny's house. Before I told anybody else, like Mom or Chief Widdiss, I figured I'd better talk to Donny. Maybe he didn't know what was in the envelopes. Maybe this guy Ray, or whoever was the real boss, hadn't clued Donny in, and that was why Donny hadn't told Jeff and me.
Yeah
, I thought,
and maybe the stuff in the envelopes will turn out to be spices for making spaghetti sauce
.
Still, even though I didn't really think Donny was innocent, or at least as innocent as Jeff and I were, I wanted to talk to him. Maybe there was some explanation that would make everything all right again. Maybe he'd say something that would mean I wouldn't have to rat on a guy who'd once been my hero, which also meant ratting on my best friend and myself.
There I went with the maybes again.
When I pulled into Donny's driveway, the Tomahawk was gone. Donny wasn't there, but the guy Donny had taken the reels to, the skinny little guy with the long, greasy ponytail, was.
Ponytail was walking from Donny's front door to his car, looking furious. It was too late to escape. He'd already seen me.
“What are you doing here?” he asked suspiciously.
I wanted to say, “I have as much right to be here as you do,” but he didn't seem like the kind of guy I wanted to provoke. “Looking for Donny,” I said, trying to act cool, even though he gave me the creeps, big-time.
He looked closer at me. “Which one are you, Manning or Daggett?” he asked.
Surprised that he knew our names, I answered, “Daggett. Ben.”
Apparently, Ponytail had no intention of telling me his name. Instead he walked right up to me, grabbed me by the chin, and jerked my face up close to his. He wasn't much taller than I was, and I got a better look than I cared to at his stubbly whiskers, bad complexion, and brownish stained teeth as he said, “You the one who got nosy this afternoon?”
“W-what are you talking about?” I said. With his hands roughly gripping my chin and his narrowed eyes boring into mine, I felt terrified and helpless. Nobody was home at Donny's. Ponytail and I were alone in the yard, and no one knew where I was.
“You didn't have a little look-see at your delivery today?” he said. “Didn't snoop in other people's private business? Maybe help yourself to a little product?”
“N-no,” I managed to choke out.
He gave my chin a twist to the side and let go. “If you're lying, I'll find out; you can bet on it,” he said. “In the meantime, remember this. And you can tell your pal Manning, too: you steal from me, and I promise you'll be sorry. And if you're thinking of running to the cops, forget it. You two are in this thing right up to your ears. If I go down or Donny goes down, you go with us. Got it?”
I nodded, too frightened to speak.
“Ever been to the juvie farm?”
“The what?” I asked.
“Juvenile reform school,” he said slowly, emphasizing every word.
I shook my head.
“Well, take it from me, you don't want to go there.” He spat onto the sandy driveway, then added, “If you see our friend Donny, tell him I'm looking for him.”
He got into his car and drove away, but not before giving me a long, meaningful stare that kept me frozen in place until he was well out of sight.
I'd broken into a sweat in Ponytail's grasp and now, in the breeze, my body was covered with goosebumps. I rubbed my arms and then my face, trying to snap out of the terror that Ponytail had made me feel, and
think
.
Ponytail was Ray, I was pretty sure about that. Ray, who wouldn't have been happy if Donny called off the day's deliveries; Ray, who must have been informed that the manila envelope had been opened, and who suspected I'd taken some of the pot. Ray, who knew all about juvenile reform school.
Ray, Donny's boss. My partner in crime.
I swallowed a sob that threatened to escape from my throat. How in the world had I gotten myself into such a screwed-up mess?
Getting in was easy, stupid
, I answered myself.
Getting out is going to be the hard part
.
I'd never felt so alone in my life. And Pop had never seemed so far away.
I had to figure this out on my own. I hadn't imagined the sense of menace Ray projected. If things started to fall apart, and it looked as if they had, what might Ray do?
The sight of Cameron Maddox's body washing back and forth in the shallow waters off Devil's Bridge filled my mind. I pushed the picture away, telling myself I was being ridiculous to make a connection between Ray and a kid from off-island who happened to come here and drown.
I had no idea where Donny was, and neither, apparently, did Ray. But I knew I wanted to find him before Ray did.
After sitting through an endless dinner with Mom and Barry, pretending everything was just fine and totally normal, I asked if I could go out for a while.
“Where, Ben?” Mom asked.
“Just up to Jeff's,” I said.
“But I saw June today, and I'm sure she said they were having a surprise party for Anita tonight.”
“Oh, yeah,” I said, acting as if I'd just remembered, and angry with myself for forgetting that Mom knew everything. “Well, then,” I went on, thinking hard, “I kind of feel like taking a few casts down at the beach. I heard the blues were in.” Lies piled on top of lies as I talked.
“Hey!” said Barry enthusiastically. “I'd like to go along with you, Ben. You were going to teach me to cast this summer, remember?”
“Oh, right,” I said, thinking miserably,
This nightmare doesn't go away; it just gets worse and worse
. I didn't want to hurt Barry's feelingsâand Mom's, tooâby saying no, but I couldn't have Barry coming with me. “The thing is, I don't know where the fish are, exactly. How about if I scout around tonight, kind of check out the situation, and we can go catch 'em tomorrow night?”
It was a lame excuse, and it sounded like one. Barry quickly tried to hide the expression of hurt on his face, and Mom gave me a long, probing look. I felt like a total creep.
“All right,” Mom said carefully. “You do that. But be home no later than nine-thirty. You're working tomorrow, right?”
“Yeah,” I said hurriedly, wanting only to get out of there fast. “I'll be back by nineâand I'll check out those fish, Barry. We can go tomorrow, like I said, okay?”
I ran upstairs to my bedroom. I had an idea. I reached into one of Pop's old tackle boxes, where I kept his good watch and all my other special stuff, including my money, counted out ninety dollars, and put it in my pocket. Ninety dollars. Forty-five for me, and forty-five for Jeff. It was the money we'd gotten from Donny, and I planned to give it back.
Then I grabbed a rod for show and looked around for a flashlight. The only one I could find was a heavy-duty waterproof torch Pop and I used to use in the boat, so I took it and threw it into my bike basket. Calling goodbye to Mom and Barry, I hit the road.
I checked out Donny's house first, and his mother told me he hadn't come home for dinner. Not only that, but she said the police had been there looking for him, too. She looked pretty frazzled, and I felt sorry for her. I could tell she didn't know whether to be angry or worried or both. I promised that if I found him, I'd tell him to come home, and left.
I knew what I was doing was stupid. Donny could be anywhere, even way down-island. He could have left the island on the ferry or on somebody's boat, especially if he knew the police were looking for him. Still, I cruised around looking for the Tomahawk, checking the parking lots at the cliffs and at West Basin. Posters with Cameron Maddox's picture still fluttered from almost every telephone pole, and I tried not to look at them.
I was riding down from the cliffs along the Moshup Trail, heading to the Philbin Beach lot, when I spotted a gleam of silver in the middle of the dense scrubby trees, beach grass, and poison ivy that lined the road. I circled back, and there was the Tomahawk, pulled off the road and nearly invisible in the underbrush. If I'd been in a car or if I'd looked the other way for just a second, I'd never have seen it.
I stopped for a minute to think. It stood to reason that Donny was somewhere close by. He might be at somebody's house, but I couldn't imagine whose. There were no homes on the beach side of the road, where Donny's car was. The ones on the other side of the road were pretty far away, and were in all likelihood rented for the summer to tourists. That left the beach.
Donny really must have wanted not to be found. There was no way he could have gotten out of the Tomahawk and down to the beach without getting all scratched up, with a good case of poison ivy, as well. I sure wasn't going to follow that route.
I raced down the road about a half mile to the Philbin lot, and chained my bike to the rack. I didn't really need the rod, so I hid it in the bushes, but I took the flashlight with me. The parking area was deep in shadow. I checked my watch. It was already 8:30! It would be dark soon, and Mom would be waiting for me. I ran up the wooden boardwalks that made a path through the dunes and out onto the beach.
My plan was to work my way back toward where Donny had left his car, then continue in the direction of the cliffs and Devil's Bridge, until I found him. I kept running, scanning the narrow beach for any sign of Donny.
There were a few couples sitting around a fire, and farther on I passed a woman stretched out on a blanket, doing some kind of weird exercises.
Tourist
, I thought scornfully. Then I caught myself. Okay, so some tourists were strange and some, like Brad and Nicki, were real jerks. So what? Donny was an islanderâwhat about him? Was he supposed to be my friend, no matter what, just because he was one of
us
? I knew better now.
As I walked, I planned what I was going to say if and when I did find Donny. I figured there was only one way out. I had to come clean, to tell Chief Widdiss everything. And I wanted to give Donny the chance to come with me. Not because he was an islander, certainly not because I was awed by his coolness, which I wasn't anymore. Maybe because I'd known him my whole life and had been grateful to him more than once. It was possible that Donny had gotten sucked into trouble the same way I had, little by little, and that he wanted to get out, too, and didn't know how to do it.
Anyway, dumb as it sounded, that was my plan.
The sun was close to the horizon, with that squashed look it gets right before it sets for good. I had a couple more minutes of daylight left, and there was still no sign of Donny. I kept moving, past Devil's Bridge and up around the headland of Aquinnah, where the beach was a thin rocky strip between the ocean and the steep clay cliffs.
The tide was high: I couldn't go any farther without going swimming, and unless Donny had come much earlier than I, he hadn't gone any farther, either. I stood panting, ready to scream with frustration. Had I reasoned wrong? Where else could Donny be?
It struck me all at once: the cave. As far as I knew, Donny was the only person who knew about it besides Jeff and me. If he wanted to hide, I couldn't think of a better place.