The Shadow Box (72 page)

Parker's immediate problem was Yahya. If the Giordano
brothers had set him up, then Yahya must be a plant. But
did Yahya know Johnny was here? Not twenty feet away?
Parker didn't think so.

Yahya's chin was on his chest, he had fallen asleep. He
had never so much as looked up at the people in the boat
next to theirs. Parker intended to keep it that way.

He stepped onto the boat, shook Yahya awake, and
pulled him into the small forward cabin. He put him to
work filling empties of Snapple with gas.

Yahya was spilling as much as he poured but at least
he was getting it done and he was down where he couldn't
see out. Parker laid low as well. He grabbed a hat and a
pair of sunglasses, put them on. He would sit here, tearing
towels into strips, and wait for Hector and Tami. When
they got here, same plan, minus Yahya. Tami's first job
will be to cut Yahya's throat.

Suddenly he saw Hector coming.

Hector had rounded the corner running. He had both
hands to his face, there was blood on his jacket, and he
was dragging a twig from one sneaker. There was no sign
of Tami. Heads were already turning, looking at him. Par
ker had to take the chance. He stood up in the boat, waved his arms at Hector, made a palms-down gesture that said,
“Get down. Down. Now go slow.”

Hector saw him. He understood. He crouched and pre
tended to be tying his laces. For the tourists who were
near him, this made him stand out even more because his
nose, Parker saw, was all over his face. But at least he could no longer be seen from the sailboat.

Parker spread his hands as in “What's wrong? What happened?”

Hector's hands flew helplessly. He pointed up the hill.
He drew a hand across his throat to say that someone's dead up there. Then he jabbed his finger at the sky.

Parker groaned inwardly. We're playing fucking cha
rades here. Worse, Hector's crouching there all bloody,
about six people staring at him, and his clues are telling
every one of them that there's probably just been a murder.

New clue. Eyes. He's holding his fingers to his eyes . . .
pushing up at the corners . . . slant eyes? . . . you mean
Tami? . . . Tami what? . . . and now the throat again . . .
no, not cut
...
new clue . . . twisted . . . Someone twisted
Tami's neck? . . . Who?
...
the sky? . . . something
round in the sky? . . . flying saucers? . . . aliens? . . .
Hector, what the fuck are you talking about?

The Mexican, desperate, stood up like a signpost and
pointed one arm at the eastern sky.

The moon. At last Parker got it. The moon is what's
round.

“Megan?

Michael had stepped away from Johnny G. and leaned
into the hatch. For some minutes now, he had seen that
she was acting strangely. It began, he thought, after Doyle
went ashore to make his call. More so since he returned.
She was pacing the walkway from cabin to galley, hugging
herself, her eyes glazed and distant.

“Megan . . . sweetheart . . .”

Her eyes flashed at him. Or rather, it seemed, at his use
of an endearment. She turned away. He stepped through
the hatch and began to climb down. She raised one hand.
The gesture and the look said, “Don't! Don't come near
me.”

Now, what?

“Look . . . I'm sorry,” he told her. ”I haven't been
very attentive, but . . .”

“Get off my boat. All of you.”

A silent groan. Just once in his life, when a woman
gets . . . this way, he would like to have some idea of
why and some clue as to how he should deal with it.
Johnny G. heard her as well. He tried to help.

“This is my fault,” he said over Michael's shoulder.
“We had no right laying all this on you.”

She didn't answer. She gave no sign that she heard. She
was moving about the cabin, touching things again, the
way she did that first night at the Taylor House. Her head
kept twitching, this way and that, as if voices were calling
from five different directions.

Johnny G. tried again. “Megan . . . Miss Cole . . .
suppose Doyle and I take a walk, maybe get some dinner.
That would give you two some time alone.”

Her eyes met his and, for only a moment, she was
herself again. The look seemed to say, “It's not you but
thank you.” She dropped her eyes. They fell on his over
night bag. “You'll need this,” she told him. She passed
it up through the hatch.

Next, she found Doyle's thick briefcase. She reached
for it, but hesitated, as if reluctant to touch it. But she did.
She passed it up as well.

Michael took it, frowning darkly. He ran his hands over
the leather as if trying to feel what had made her react
to it.

“It's Doyle?” he asked her. “Megan, what has he
done?”

“Go, Michael. Just go.”

Johnny G. touched Fallon's shoulder. “Let's give her a
break,” he said gently. “You can come see her later.”

“Megan? Will you be here?”

She lowered her eyes, then nodded. He knew that she
was lying.
Johnny tugged at him. “Let's go,
”
he said.

Megan closed the hatch and locked it.

She turned, slowly, and lingered for a moment in the galley. She reached to touch a bottle of Chablis, now al
most empty, whose contents she had shared with Michael. She moved on through the main cabin, running her fingers
along the bed they had shared.

It had a set of drawers underneath. She opened one of
them. Her eyes fell, sadly, on the birthday-wrapped pack
age that she'd rushed out to buy while he was at the
airport. It was only a sweater. But it would have looked
good on him. It was a knit of Irish wool and part of the
label was in Gaelic. He liked Irish things. She moved the
package aside.

Beneath it, she found the Colt Python that she had taken
from his bedside table. She picked it up, brought it to her
lips. The gun was silent now. All the same, she would
have waited before giving it back to Michael. She would
have done it the next time they went out sailing. She
would have asked him to drop it over the side.

She thought of the man named Hobbs. He had not killed
his
“whole
self—as Moon had put it—he killed “just the part where his fear was.” For Hobbs, a gun had
brought relief.

Megan knew that she would soon lose Michael. She had
thought that she'd be able to deal with it. But here, al
ready, she was falling apart. Hearing voices. Seeing flashes of visions. Seeing that lawyer, her file in his hands, reading
aloud to a stunned and sickened Michael.

And she was seeing fires again. People screaming and
running this time. People dying. She was hearing, all
around her, other men who want to kill her, kill Michael,
kill everyone. Even Moon. And Moon's not even here.

Even Parnel. That's how crazy she was getting. When
the voices tell
her that they've come to kill poor, simple,
Parnel Minter, who is probably down at the A&P right
now, munching grapes from Helen's produce section, it's
time to try to make them shut up.

Her lips closed over the Python's muzzle.

Was there one single part of the brain, she wondered,
where the visions came from and where the voices lived?
That's where she would aim if she knew.

But she won't shoot herself.

Not here. Not yet.

She'll do it the way she had meant to once before. Far
out at sea. Nothing but horizon in either direction. She'll
turn into the wind, sit out over the railing, and do it that
way. No note, no blood on the deck, no sign that it was
anything more than a sailor who went out alone and got
knocked in the head by the boom.

This time, she wouldn't let some dolphin talk her out
of it.

“
Oh, Christ,” muttered Parker.

He saw, through the wheelhouse window, that all three
of them were leaving the boat. They were carrying their
bags. Just once, before this day is out, he would like to have one thing go right.

But the girl, he realized, had stayed on board. Could be
they're just stashing their bags in the car. He heard police sirens off in the distance. The way to bet, he thought, is
they're heading for Tami.

Hector was still calming down, he's trying to straighten
his nose, but he should still be able to drive this thing.
Parker nudged him.

“Time to haul ass,” he said quietly. “You're clear on
what to do?”

Hector wet his lips. “Maybe you're wrong about
Yahya.”

Parker hissed. “Hector . . . we've been set up. How
much clearer can it be?”

“But Yahya . . . look at him . . . does he look as if
he's had instructions? All he cares about now is to stop being sick.”

“Hector . . . when the noise starts, kill him.”

Parker pulled out his lighter, made sure it still flicked.
He handed it to Hector. At his feet was a bucket containing
six bottles, each primed with a three-inch wick. He felt
for the pistols he wore at his waist. Both safeties were
off. He pulled the brim of his hat down over his eyes.

“Start counting,” he told Hector. “At ten, you start the
stampede. At sixty, we're heading home rich.”

Parker stepped onto the dock.

“Brendan . . .” Fallon stopped at the trunk of his car.
He looked up toward the bank of public phones. “Who did you call from up there?”

A shrug. ”I told you. I checked with Sheila.”

“You're sure?”

“As opposed to some tootsie? Michael . . . give me the
key.” He took it and opened the trunk.

“Did you say anything to her about Megan?”

“Will you stop? No. Sheila doesn't know she exists.”

Johnny G. understood what Michael was asking. Some
thing had set Megan off. One minute she's hospitable, the
next she's throwing them out and she treats Doyle's brief
case like it's been laying in shit. His thought at the time
was that she must have gone through it, found something she didn't l
ik
e. Michael's thought was a little more weird
but a hell of a lot more interesting.

“Brendan,” said Johnny. ”I saw you make two calls.”
It's a lie, but let's see.

No reaction from Doyle.

But no indignation reflex either. Johnny held up two
fingers.

“The second was about Megan Cole. You asked for a
make on her, didn't you.”

Doyle looked away. ”A good lawyer checks,” he said
lamely.

Michael turned red. He was, thought Johnny, about two
seconds from liftoff and then would have wrung Doyle's
neck. He had a right to be pissed but to Johnny this was
missing the point. This girl
knew
that? She really
did?
When this is over, he thought, let's fly her to Vegas.

“Understand me, Brendan . . .” Michael spoke through his teeth, his voice like escaping steam. “Megan has told
me all that she cares for me to know. When she's ready,
she might give me more. If you learn one fucking fact
more,
I'm
finished with you. If you . . .”

But Johnny was no longer listening. He was watching
the strobe lights of two police cars picking their way
through pedestrian traffic and now he turned toward the
sound of a young girl's voice, off to his right, because he
heard her say someone is bleeding.

He saw her now, up by the toilets. She was pointing
and backing away. He followed her finger to what looked
like some drunk who was staggering back down to his
boat. It was Moon. Johnny slapped Michael's arm and
took off at a run.

Michael, confused, only watched him go. But he fol
lowed Johnny G.'s line of sight until he, too, disbelieving,
saw Moon. Brushing Doyle aside, he pushed off in pursuit.
A flickering flame arched high overhead.

Michael saw it. It seemed, impossibly, to come from Megan's boat. Still moving toward Moon, he followed its
path through the night sky. It came down on Dock Street, amid a cluster of tourists. It exploded, spitting tongues of
flame. The tourists screamed and ran. A young woman's
hair was on fire. She didn't seem to know it. Two college
boys chased her down, one beating at her head with his
jacket. A second bomb hit. It burst amid the row of parked
cars, missing but searing the Mercedes. Doyle ran from it,
covering his head.