The Cove (9 page)

“Friend of mine. Julia Meadows. Julia. This is Richie Sullivan.”

“Pleased to meet you,” Julia said in an uncharacteristic sweet voice as she extended her hand. Their eyes met and held for longer than Ben liked as they shook hands.

“Likewise,” Richie said. “So you live in The Cove?”

“I moved to town recently … to help out my father.”

Richie smacked his lips and shook his head.

“Yeah. Getting’ old. Ain’t it a bitch? Like they say — now it takes me all night to do what I used to do all night, if you catch my drift.”

“I certainly do,” Julia said with a wry smile.

Ben couldn’t decide if she was actually intrigued by Richie or if she was mocking him, but he admired the way she gave it right back to him. She had spunk and clearly was confident that she could hold her own with Richie.

It occurred to him that the way he got jumped last night had all the hallmarks of a gentle Crowbar warning. He watched and listened as Julie and Richie bantered back and forth for a bit. His eyes narrowed as he wondered if they knew each other much better than either of them was letting on.

“Well,” Richie said. He raised his arms and stretched them back and rotated his head from side to side until something in his neck popped. “I don’t wanna interrupt
youse
any more than I already have.”

He stuck his hand into his trousers’ pocket and came up with a roll of bills in a money clip. After licking his thumb, he peeled off a fresh hundred-dollar bill and smacked it onto the table in front of Ben.

“Lunch is on me,” he said, smiling as he looked back and forth between Ben and Julia. Ben noticed that his gaze lingered a little longer than necessary on Julia.

“I appreciate it, Richie. Seriously. But I can’t take your money.”

“’Course you can. It’s the least I can do for you after what you done, putting your ass on the line over there.” He hooked his thumb over his shoulder as though indicating the general direction of Iraq.

Ben was about to refuse again, but he knew Richie wouldn’t back down. It wasn’t his style. Even if Ben stuffed the bill back into Richie’s pocket, Richie would drop it on the restaurant host and tell him to cover Ben’s tab and keep the change. They didn’t call him The Crowbar for nothing.

“Thanks … Thank you,” Ben said as he slid the bill off the table, folded it in half, and put it in his pants pocket. “You really don’t have to.”

“But I just did.”

With that, Richie gave them each a quick nod and turned around. He strode out of the place, nodding to the host and waitress standing off to one side like he was the boss and owner. Knowing Richie, the
Wursthause
very well could be one of the “interests” he had that brought him up from Rhode Island from time to time, especially in the summer.

Neither Ben nor Julia mentioned Richie again until after their main course arrived, and Ben had ordered another mug of German beer. Julia was still sipping on her glass of red wine. Then, while she was trying to figure out how to get a grip on the huge bratwurst sandwich in front of her, Julia said, “He’s quite the character, isn’t he?”

“Who’s that?”

“Richie.”

“You mean ‘The Crowbar?’”

“Is that his nickname? … Crowbar?”

Ben nodded, then forked a slice of spicy German sausage and raised it to his mouth. He took a small bite and chewed thoughtfully, savoring the explosion of flavors.

“How’d he come by that name?” she asked, but before Ben could tell her, she waved her hand in front of him. “No … Maybe I don’t want to know.”

“It’s not what you think,” Ben said, still chewing sausage.

“You mean the people he has disagreements with don’t end up getting beaten to death with a crowbar?”

“Now that you mention it …” Ben let it hang there for a second or two, then smiled. “No. He got that nickname because he’s so smooth and hard as iron he can pry anything out of anyone.”

“He does look like he’s in good shape.”

“He takes pride in how he looks. For sure. And — yeah, he’s been known to resort to violence … allegedly … from time to time to settle certain … issues.”

Ben got a chill, thinking that now his father was in serious debt to Richie, it didn’t bode well.

“Allegedly.”

Ben nodded and swallowed, closing his eyes as the flavors from the meat filled his mouth.

“You figured it out, right?” Ben asked before taking a long sip of beer.

For a moment or two, Julia looked at him, confused; then she slowly nodded.

“He’s mobbed up,” Ben said. “He’s got his fingers in a lot of things around The Cove — drugs, real estate, a fish company, a laundry service. You name it.”

“A laundry service?”

“There’s a lot of money in that. Take a guess who all of the local motels go to for laundry service if they want to stay in business.”

“
Sheesh
. He’s that powerful?”

Ben nodded and took another sip of beer, letting it linger in his mouth so the carbonation tickled his tongue before he swallowed.

“And then some. Richie Sullivan is not someone you want to mess with or ever say no to if you can help it.”

“I got the feeling that was the case by the way he forced that money on you.”

Ben waved a hand at her. Then, pointing his fork at the sausage on his plate, said, “This is really good. You want a bite?”

Julia considered and then nodded, so Ben speared a piece of sausage with his fork and held it out across the table. She leaned forward, her hands braced on the edge of the table, so he could feed her. He was enamored of the way her eyes narrowed when she opened her mouth to take the food.

“
Ummm
…” she said, chewing slowly. “That is
good.
” She sat back and blotted her mouth with her napkin.

They ate for a while in silence until Ben said, “The thing about Richie is, he’ll get hundreds more in interest from my old man every month.”

“Because of the boat loan?”

Julia had apparently decided not even to try to lift her sandwich. She picked up her fork and knife, and started carving a small piece off the side.

“Yeah,” Ben said, feeling a deep-bone chill inside, and — for the first time in his life — he realized that he was genuinely worried about his father. “Because of the boat loan.”

I
t was the last week of May, so school wasn’t out, and vacationers hadn’t started moving to town in great numbers yet, so traffic was relatively sparse on the drive up Route One back to
Catawamkeag
Cove. Ben knew some back roads that would avoid the worst of the backups, but today, even the bottleneck at the bridge in Wiscasset wasn’t bad. They sailed right through town.

“Red’s Eats,” she said when she noticed a small shack on the side of the road before the bridge.

“A classic,” Ben said.

“You ever eat there?”

”Can’t say as I have. Us locals avoid the tourist traps.”

As they drove, they chatted about a variety of other things, laughing at each other’s jokes and getting downright serious when Julia expressed how worried she was about how poorly her father was doing. In the back of his mind, Ben couldn’t get rid of the nagging worry that his father was in deep trouble, too. Maybe even more than he realized. No matter how bad things were, owing The Crowbar any amount of money was going to make things worse.

But no matter how much he told himself not to let that encounter ruin the time he had with Julia, it was as though a dark cloud had shifted in front of the sun even though the afternoon outside the car was warm and bright.

“So,” he said. The steering wheel played loosely in his hands as he navigated the road. “You probably have to get back home and check in on your dad, huh?”

Julia slipped her tongue out and licked her upper lip as she nodded, but Ben caught a look in her eyes — at least he
thought
he did — that said she would much rather spend the rest of the day with him.

That’s what he hoped, anyway.

His throat constricted and his heart felt too large for his chest when he turned the corner onto her street, and her house came into view.

“I had a good time,” Ben said as he slowed for the turn into the driveway. He stopped about halfway to the garage and slipped the car into
park
.

“Me, too,” Julia said. She kept her eyes downcast.

Ben wished he could know what she was thinking.

“We’ll have to do it again soon, but … what about Kathy?”

“Who?”

“Kathy Brackett. I heard you and she were an item before she married Dwight.”

“’An item?’ That’s so … quaint.”

He smiled and gave her a little jab on the arm.

“You know what I mean,” Julia said. Her tone of voice was odd — low and serious and maybe tinged with jealousy.

“You were talking with her before the launch, and it looked like —” She heaved a sigh and kept staring downward. “Let’s just say it looked like you were still more than friends.”

“She’s married, you know. And has a kid.”

Ben almost choked on that and wondered if Julia had also heard that he was the father.

“And no matter what you might have heard around town, I’m not what they call a … a ‘sport fucker,’ if you’ll pardon the expression.”

“So you’re
not
a
Gunna
?”

Ben fought back a rising surge of frustration. He wished he could find the words to say exactly what he was trying to say, but he was so confused …
She
confused him. His mind was blank.

“That was back in high school, ’
kay
?” he said. “Truth is, I’d much rather spend time with you.”

Julia raised her head and looked at him, blinking her eyes rapidly as though holding back tears. He was being drawn into the warm, brown depths of her eyes like a drowning man.

“Maybe we can go to a movie or something,” Ben said. He wished everything he said didn’t sound so damned stupid.

“Yeah … I’d like that,” Julia replied.

Ben twisted in his seat so he was facing her squarely. His heart was racing as he looked at her. It was all he could do not to lean over … hug her … and kiss her; but he held back, telling himself it wouldn’t be right.

Not yet.

Maybe with time.

“Thanks again for lunch,” Julia said, reaching for the door handle, “I really liked the restaurant … and meeting The Crowbar.”

“Word to the wise.” Ben raised his hand and pointed a cautionary finger at her. “If I was you, I wouldn’t use that name around town.”

“What, you think he’d have me whacked or something?”

“Stranger things have happened.”

The surprised expression on her face let him know that she got it.

Acting purely on impulse, Ben reached out and stroked her hair. A spark of … something jumped between them. She turned and looked at him, her expression softening as their eyes locked. A strand of hair shifted forward and hung down over one eye. All Ben could think about was how amazing it would be to wake up some morning, roll over in bed, and see her lying there next to him, her dark hair fanned out across the pillow.

“I don’t usually kiss on the first date,” Ben said, grinning crookedly.

“This was a date?”

Julia laughed, and Ben felt the tension break, but then — without warning — she leaned toward him. Narrowing her eyes, she placed her right hand on the side of his head, touching him lightly behind the jaw. Without saying a word, she applied enough pressure to draw his face close to hers. Her mouth opened, and then their lips met in a long, moist kiss. Her tongue flicked teasingly between his lips.

Surprised by the intense passion in her kiss, Ben almost drew back, but then he shifted and wrapped his left arm around her, inhaling sharply as he drew her close and crushed her against his chest. Her breasts flattened against him, and the heat of her body was intoxicating. He felt himself stiffening as her right hand shifted down to his leg and gently rubbed the meat of his upper thigh.

Ben had no idea how long the kiss lasted. Later on, while driving home, he remembered something Mr. Perry had said in science class when he was trying to explain Einstein’s theory of relativity. Placing your hand on a hot stove for even a few seconds, he said, can seem like an hour while kissing a beautiful woman for an hour can seem like mere seconds. For now, Ben was lost in the embrace as the kiss lengthened, their passion growing. Her breathing came hard as she gasped for breath. When they finally broke the kiss, and Julia pulled back, she gazed at him with a dark, smoldering look.

Ben realized he was smiling at her and must look like an idiot.

“Wow,” he said, his voice husky and constricted in his throat. It was difficult to breathe. The air didn’t go deep enough into his chest.

Julia’s smile widened, but then — without another word — she twisted around, snapped the car door open, and stepped out onto the grass. She hesitated with the car door open and leaned down, staring at him without saying a word. Their eyes met and locked. Ben licked his upper lip, tasting the salt that lingered there. His body was flushed, pulsing with excitement.