Lights Out (11 page)

Packer checked his watch. “How about a snort of V.S.O.P.? Then we can take a gander at the plans, if that suits you, Perr.”

“I’m anxious to see them.”

Not long after, Packer and Trimble were sitting at the cleared table with the plans and a bottle of Remy. Evelyn and Mrs. Trimble had gone for a walk on the beach. JFK was in the kitchen. Eddie and Jack stood by the fire, cognac glasses in hand.

“What do you think?” Jack said.

“About what?”

“Everything. So far.”

Everything was a lot:
Fearless
, JFK’s herb garden, Packer’s .303, the letter in the wastebasket, Mandy. “Unreal,” he said.

Jack laughed. “That’s what we’re pitching, all right.” He glanced up at the bar. Packer was leaning over the table, pointing out something in the plans. Trimble wasn’t looking at whatever it was; he watched Packer’s animated profile. “He’s worth twenty mill, bro,” Jack said.

“How do you know?”

“Evelyn. Her dad was Trimble’s lawyer, when he was just starting out. Evelyn’s dad is a very useful guy.”

Something made a loud splash in the water, not far out.

“Fifteen footer,” Jack said.

“Shark?”

“That’s where they live. I’ve seen a dozen since I got here.”

“You’re going to need a special kind of tourist.”

Jack checked the bar again. “We don’t have to worry about it yet. Our worry is the shark over there.” Trimble had his hand over his glass.

“How did you meet them?” Eddie asked.

“The Packers? It’s a long story. And boring.” Jack sipped some cognac. “I’m starting to like this stuff.”

“Tell me about SC.”

“What about it?”

“What was it like?”

“Hard to say. In a word.”

“Did you like it?”

“Sure.”

Down the beach, Evelyn and Mrs. Packer emerged from the darkness; or rather, their white dresses did, floating over the sand. Their legs, arms, heads, were invisible.

“Then why did you leave?” Eddie said.

“I told you already.”

“That was it?” Eddie said, giving Jack a chance to bring up the letter.

“Sure. What else?”

There was another splash in the water, bigger, closer.

“But what if this doesn’t work out?”

“It will.”

“But what if it doesn’t? What if Trimble turns him down?”

“Trimble’s not our only shot.”

“But what if everyone turns him down? What will you have to fall back on?”

“This island has a lot of resources.”

“You mean you’d stay here?”

“Why not?”

“What kind of future is that?”

“You can be pretty dumb sometimes, Eddie.” Jack took another drink. There were scratches on his hand and forearm.

Eddie walked away for a moment; he had to, when Jack made him mad. Soon he had a thought, came back.

“Jack?”

“Yeah?”

“Did you meet the Packers there?”

“Where?”

“SC.”

Jack’s voice rose. “You’re full of questions all of a sudden. Like the caring mom we never had. Is that what your role’s going to be?”

“Lay off,” Eddie said. Packer and Trimble were watching them. “Why shouldn’t I be interested in SC? I’m going to be there for four years.”

An inward look appeared in Jack’s eyes. “That’s true,” he said, quietly now. He took another drink. “I met Brad through SC, if you must know. It’s not a secret.”

“What’s he got to do with SC?”

“He’s an alum. Swim-team booster. Okay?”

Eddie nodded.

“He’s not a bad guy, Eddie.” Eddie said nothing. Jack punched him in the ribs, not hard. “Why don’t you just cut your fucking hair?”

“You’re joking, right?”

“Yeah, I’m joking.”

The women were closer now; their legs, arms, faces took shape in the moonlight.

“Can you go back?” Eddie said.

“Back where?”

“SC.”

“There’s more than one bore here tonight. What’s the matter? Scared to go away to school all by your lonesome?”

Now Eddie’s voice rose. “I didn’t mean now. Someday. Would you still have your scholarship?”

Jack looked up at the bar. Packer and Trimble were watching them again. “You don’t get it, do you?” said Jack, keeping his voice down. “I’ve outgrown all that nickel-and-diming. School is a means to an end. I’m at the end already.”

9

C
hampagne and cognac: a destablizing combination, new to Eddie. It made him restless, made him want to move, to disconnect from the grown-up world. He didn’t bother to say good night to the dinner guests; as soon as Jack returned to the bar, he just backed out of the fire’s glow into the darkness and started down the beach, shoes in hand.

The moon was higher and smaller now, but still a massive ball circling close by. It shone on the surf, breaking in orderly lines along the shore like waves of white-horsed cavalry in one of his history textbooks. Eddie came to the fish camp, went by his cabin, paused outside Mandy’s. It was dark and silent. He walked on, taking the path to the road, following it to the tennis court.

The backboard loomed in the silvery light, making Eddie think for a moment of JFK’s imprisoned brothers, jailed for losing their trials. Dime and Franco. Eddie crossed the court, damp with dew under his bare feet. He found the beginning of the short path, kept going to the shed.

He looked in. Moonlight flowed through the cobweb window, gleaming on the steel roller. Eddie sniffed the air, smelled red clay. All the other smells were gone.

Eddie stood there for a moment, thinking about what had happened in that shed, confirming the details to himself. Under the influence of champagne, cognac, the night, its importance grew.

Eddie went back to the road. He could have turned left; that was the way to the fish camp, to bed. But he wasn’t sleepy. He turned right instead and walked all the way to the flamboyant tree. For some reason—maybe it was simply the brightness of
the moon—Eddie felt no unease at all about the night, as though he were in a place he knew well. He started up the path to JFK’s herb garden.

The walk was easier this time, partly because it was cooler, partly because the path seemed wider: no plants brushed his skin, nothing made him itch. Eddie mounted the long rise, came down toward the clearing, singing to himself:

Gonna get some goombay goombay lovin’
Gonna find a goombay goombay girl.

He couldn’t remember feeling like this, so elevated, so full of his own possibilities. Champagne, cognac, moonlight, banana-shaped tropic isle, Mandy. It was perfect. Then he saw that JFK’s herb garden was gone. Not a stalk remained.

Something rustled in the bushes. The first pulse of adrenaline went through Eddie. A little form darted from the bushes, scuttled across his bare feet. Not a pig this time—just a crab, but the realization didn’t come in time to block the second pulse. It washed the restlessness out of him. He wondered what crimes had sent Dime and Franco to jail.

Eddie returned to the fish camp, no longer singing. Both cabins were dark. He entered his. Jack’s bed was empty. Eddie undressed, lay down. A breeze curled through the screen window above his head, soft and smelling of the sea, sleep-inducing as the strongest potion.

Eddie dreamed of wild pigs swimming on a coral reef. Red bubbles streamed from their mouths. Something unpleasant was about to happen, but it never did. Instead there was a scraping sound, insistent. Eddie awoke, heard fingernails on the screen. He raised his head, saw Mandy’s face, obscure on the other side of the screen. She didn’t say a word. Eddie looked across the room, saw Jack’s still form in the other bed, got up. He went outside, closed the door without making a sound, felt Mandy’s hand in his.

Then her lips were at his ear. He heard her say, “I couldn’t sleep without you.” So quietly, she might have just mouthed the words.

Mandy led him into her cabin. He smelled ripe pineapple. Her body was a white glow in the darkness. She pushed him gently on the bed. The sheets were sandy. “So many things I want to do to you,” she said. “I don’t know where to start.”

She found a place. Soon Eddie stopped having clear thoughts. He entered a sensory world, where surfaces were liquid and the atmosphere was full of breathing. She entered it too. He was sure she did; he could feel her doing it.

The moon sank behind the trees. In the darkness, almost complete, that followed, the bed seemed to move, to drift away, taking them on a journey, the way he and Jack had once sailed the Spanish Main.

After, they lay in twisted sheets, her head on his chest.

“I’ve died and gone to heaven,” she said.

He stroked her hair, damp and grainy with sand. “No one’s going to die.”

“The pig died,” Mandy said. “Just to impress a big shot.”

There was a silence.

“What did it taste like?” she asked.

“Pork chops à la cannabis.”

“Are you stoned?”

“Yes and no. Mostly no.”

“Me too.”

A breeze rose again, cooling them. They abandoned their bodies to it; this was luxury.

Then Eddie thought: Evelyn will be flying back to Florida soon; when she’s gone, Mandy moves down to cottage six. Questions began forming in his mind. Why was she with someone like Packer? How did they meet? Did he pay her? He realized he didn’t even know her last name. Eddie shuffled the questions, searching for a good way to begin. Finally, he said: “Where did you meet Brad?”

No answer.

“Mandy?”

She was asleep.

Eddie closed his eyes. There would be time for questions later.

Something thudded through his dream, heavy and rhythmic. The dream began reshaping itself to incorporate the
sound. Then the screen door opened with a snick and slapped shut, snick slap, and Eddie awoke, too late.

Packer said: “You up, babe? We’re gonna have to be quick.”

There wasn’t time for jumping under the bed, or into a suit of armor, or onto a greenhouse roof, or any of the other places they think of in funny movies. There was only time for Eddie to raise his head, time for Mandy to make a sleepy complaint into his shoulder. Then Packer, in singlet and jogging shorts, was standing in the middle of the room with his mouth open. Packer didn’t say anything. He backed away, to the door, out.

“Oh, God,” Mandy said, sitting up, covering her breasts although there was no one to see but him. “With those people here. I can’t believe—”

The door burst open. Packer had found his voice, a yelling one. “You fuckin’ little hoor.” He came toward the bed, hands squared into fists, shaking. “You fuckin’ little hoor.”

Mandy sat there, covering her breasts.

“Don’t say that,” Eddie said, getting up.

Packer ran a furtive glance down Eddie’s body, almost as though he couldn’t help himself, then said: “You don’t tell me anything, boy.” He took a swing at Eddie, powerful, but long and slow. Eddie had been in a few fistfights: where he came from that was part of growing up. He leaned back. Packer’s knuckles grazed his shoulder.

“Don’t do that again,” Eddie said.

“Who’s going to stop me?” said Packer, getting ready to throw another one. But the way Eddie had moved made him pause. His eyes darted around the room, perhaps searching for a weapon. There was nothing obvious. That left his yelling voice.

“You’re dead.” Packer stormed out, banging the screen door shut behind him.

Mandy was up, tugging a T-shirt over her head. “You’ve got to get out of here,” she said.

“Why?”

“Why? He’s coming back with his gun, that’s why.”

“Over something like this?”

“What else?” She was looking at him in a way he didn’t like, as though seeing him from a new angle.

“What about you?” he asked.

Mandy didn’t answer. She went out the door; Eddie followed. Jack came hurrying out of the other cabin, zipping up his shorts. He saw them, glanced down the beach where Packer was running as fast as he could, ungainly, almost stumbling, toward the cottages; and understood at once.

Jack strode up to Eddie. Jack was looking at him in a new way too.

“Didn’t I tell you?” he said. He said it again, louder. Then he hit Eddie across the face with the back of his hand. Eddie fell, partly because of the force of the blow, partly because it was Jack.

His brother stood over him. “You’re a fuckup, you know that? You couldn’t even cut your goddamn hair.”

“Leave him alone,” Mandy said.

Jack turned on her, raised his hand again, maybe to strike her, maybe just to threaten. At that moment the Trimbles walked out of the bush. They wore bermuda shorts and polo shirts, carried binoculars and butterfly nets.

“Oh, my goodness,” said Mrs. Trimble, taking in the scene: Jack and Mandy, half dressed, Eddie, naked and bleeding on the ground.

Trimble stepped in front of his wife, raising his butterfly net like a symbol of office. “What’s the trouble?”

Jack wiped his hands on the sides of his shorts, managed a smile. “No trouble, Mr. Trimble. Just a little roughhousing, that’s all.”

Trimble frowned. “Looks like trouble to me.” He offered his hand to Eddie, helped him to his feet. “Get dressed.”

Eddie went inside his cabin, threw on clothes. When he came out, Jack was saying, “Lepidoptery, isn’t that the word?”

Trimble ignored him. He was looking at Mandy. “I’ve seen you before.”

“Have you?”

“At the Pelican Club. You were waiting in the car for Packer after lunch. He said you worked for him, I don’t recall in what capacity.”

Mandy started to reply, but Jack interrupted. “She’s no longer with the company.”

“Then what’s she doing here?”

Jack was still forming his answer when the sound of a revving engine came from the beach. Everyone turned, saw the jeep racing toward them, spewing rooster tails of sand. Packer was at the wheel, brandishing his rifle like a dervish.

“Run,” Mandy said.

“What about you?”

“He won’t hurt me,” Mandy said, but her eyes weren’t so sure.

Eddie grabbed her hand. “Where?”

“I don’t know. Cotton Town.”

“The commissioner lives there,” Jack said. “That’s all we need.”

“Then what do you suggest?” asked Mandy, her voice rising.