Vineyard Prey (4 page)

“That's the theory.”

As we came into Falmouth, Joe arranged the bag of birdseed in front of him. You have to arrive at the ferry dock a half hour before the boat leaves, so he was going to have to sit there quietly for quite a while if he was to be unobserved.

I got into the parking lot line and turned on the Cape's classical station. It plays fine instrumental music but never any opera arias or choral music because, I was told when I asked why, studies show that audiences of classical music decline significantly
when vocal music is offered. Since I consider the human voice to be the finest of musical instruments, I find this inexplicable, and I split my radio time between the classical station and the country-and-western station in Rhode Island. C-and-W fans like human voices, even nasal ones.

“Do you have a plan for the Bunny?” I asked Joe.

“I do,” he replied in a muffled voice from beneath the birdseed. “I plan to kill him.”

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There were not many leaves on the trees, so as I drove to Aquinnah I could see farther into the woods than I can in the summer. Narrow, sandy driveways led to houses and barns and stone fences that for half the year were invisible from the road, the property of people who like their privacy.

Today there were many hunters out there somewhere, seeking deer, and maybe one hunter seeking Joe Begay. Joe had removed the bag of birdseed from his lap when we'd passed Lake Tashmoo, and in my rearview mirror I could see him looking thoughtfully out the window.

“What can you tell me about this guy?” I asked. “What does he look like? Where does he come from?”

“Remember Carlos the Jackal?”

Who could forget the world's most wanted hired assassin? I said, “I think he was from South America someplace. He had a very long run, but they finally got him and put him in jail. Are you telling me that the Easter Bunny looks like Carlos?”

“No, because we really aren't too sure what the Bunny looks like. We have some fuzzy photos and some supposedly eyewitness descriptions, but about all we know is that he's not too tall, is on the skinny side, and is probably of European descent. We can't even be sure he's not a woman. The point is that, like Carlos, the Bunny works as an assassin for organizations the U.S.A. doesn't like at all, and has been at it for a long time, very successfully.” Begay paused, then added, “Too successfully, in my book.”

“European descent?”

“Apparently, according to the eyewitnesses I mentioned. I doubt if they really know, but maybe one of them heard the Bunny talk about his childhood or his school, or something like that. Anyway, the Scarecrow and Rudolph worked mostly, but not always, in the Middle East and Africa, but the Easter Bunny almost always worked north of the Med, probably because he has European looks. The Scarecrow and Rudolph were both darker-skinned.”

“And now he's in America? Does he speak English?”

“He speaks a dozen languages, they say.”

“Any accent?”

“I don't know. He probably doesn't talk like an American since as far as we know he has never lived in the States.”

“Until now.”

“Maybe not even now. Maybe he flew in and out to do the two Stateside jobs.”

“In spite of Homeland Security?”

Begay smiled a small, grim smile. “In spite of that. The homeland isn't as secure as Washington wishes it was. The Bunny can probably get in and out and move around pretty freely without being noticed.”

That was no doubt true. Americans are amazingly
free of police surveillance in spite of what civil libertarians currently see as intrusions into private lives by the authorities. Not that a lot of those authorities aren't glad to intrude and will continue to try to do so on the grounds that security is more important than freedom. People like that are scarier to me than are most professional criminals.

“Does he know where you live?” I asked.

“My address here isn't top secret,” said Begay. “But before I sent Toni and the kids out to Third Mesa, I talked to some of my family there and they said nobody had been around asking questions. If someone had, he wouldn't have gotten a very clear answer.”

I'd read once that the Hopi language was of such a nature that for its speakers, time and space are perceived differently than they are for English speakers; that the language has no words for small segments of time, but only indications that events are not happening anymore, are still happening, or may happen in the future, and that people, too, are no longer here or are here or may be here in the future. It was a good language to hide in with perfect honesty.

“But the Bunny knows you're here on the island.”

“I think he could find out,” said Begay. “Like I say, it's not a secret. Some people in Washington know. Other people know. And I'm probably listed on some computer site.”

“Does the Bunny have access to military records?” I asked.

“Probably, because those records really aren't too
secure.” Then he surprised me by saying, “That's why I played this little Hyannis airport game. I want him to think I'm here, but that I tried to fool him into thinking I left. If he's as smart as he's supposed to be, he'll come for me here while Toni and the kids are gone and I'll be waiting for him.”

Wives and children have never been off-limits to killers, in spite of the myth of honor among warriors. Joe was wise to send his family away.

I took South Road through Chilmark. During the summer, the island's roads are filled with cars and bikes, but now they were almost free of traffic and none of the few drivers we saw seemed at all interested in us.

We passed the Chilmark graveyard, site of the island's second most popular tourist attraction: the grave of an entertainer who had taken a shortcut to the afterlife via an overdose of illegal chemical additives. His pilgrim followers still came to meditate and decorate his grave with roaches, roach clips, beer bottles, needles, and other memorabilia. Only the famous bridge on Chappaquiddick attracted more visitors.

I said, “You mentioned five people on the trade mission. Three are dead. That leaves you and one other person. Does that person know about what you think is going on?”

“I left a communication, but I don't know if it was needed. Three dead people is a pretty clear message, and like I said, a lot of people in our business are thinking that the Bunny is responsible.”

At Bettlebung Corner we took a left. The
Chilmark store wasn't doing too much business and the Chocolate Factory was closed. Over us the clear December sky was pale blue. I felt as though an early winter was coming.

Even Quitsa, the loveliest part of the Vineyard, and where I'd live if I had as much money as the island's castle builders, seemed wintery to me. The coldness, I realized, was inside of me, but it seemed to flow out of my eyes and chilled the landscape that was unrolling before us.

As we approached Aquinnah I took note of the slash of white high on a hill north of the road. It was the only visible sign of the huge, mostly underground house where Toni Begay's uncle Bill Vanderbeck now lived with his bride, the widow of a rich man who, after a dangerous life, had died of natural causes, much to the surprise of many people. For the first time I consciously realized that Uncle Bill was, by marriage, a relative of Joe Begay's.

“Maybe you should go live up there with Uncle Bill until all this dust settles,” I said. “There's no way anybody can sneak up on that fortress.”

“I'm not too proud to do that,” said Begay, “but I don't think I need to do it yet, although it might be handy to live with an invisible man.”

Uncle Bill Vanderbeck had been considered by his young nieces, Toni and her sister, to be a shaman because he spoke sometimes in amused riddles and because he had the unusual ability of not being seen when he should have been in plain sight. You could be standing there, apparently alone, when suddenly
Uncle Bill Vanderbeck would be at your side, seemingly having appeared from nowhere. Uncle Bill claimed it was because he was so insignificant that no one paid any attention to him, but the two little girls had been sure it was because he was a shaman. Now grown up, the sisters still thought so. I'd wondered about it myself.

Joe Begay lived in Aquinnah, in a small neat house just beyond the north end of the famous colored clay cliffs that marked the westernmost point of Martha's Vineyard. During tourist season his wife ran one of the souvenir shops at the top of the cliffs where the tour buses stopped and for years had unloaded elderly visitors who, before shopping, often immediately set off down the hill to the pay toilets, which charged fifty cents a sit.

Because Aquinnah's roads were lined with No Parking signs where once fishermen had parked for free, and because the town parking lot charged an arm and a leg to anyone who wanted to loll on Aquinnah's lovely beaches, I took every opportunity to bad-mouth the town and its politics.

However, recently I had been obliged to abandon one of my favorite complaints: Aquinnah's overpriced pay toilets, which I considered an abomination in the eyes of man and God. For reasons unknown, the town had stopped charging for use of their johns. I had been astonished when I heard the news! Who'd have thunk it?

Maybe there was more civic morality in Aquinnah than I had thought. Maybe someday it would even manifest itself in new parking regulations. Until
such time, though, I planned to limit my visits to the town to when I was visiting friends and could park for free in their yards while I fished.

As we approached the Begay driveway, Joe tapped my shoulder. “Why don't you just pull over here and let me out. I'll walk in.”

I pulled over. “Better yet,” I said, “you get out and I'll drive in. If nobody's there, so much the better. If somebody's waiting for you, I'll play innocent and wonder where you are, then drive out and let you know you have company. It won't be dangerous for me because the Bunny, if he's there, won't have any idea who I am or any reason not to believe me. He can pretend to be a friend in waiting and I'll pretend to believe him. Are you dressed?”

Begay's hand moved and a medium-size pistol appeared in it. “How about you?” he asked.

“I won't need a gun,” I said. “I'll just be a guy wondering if you want to try for some cod off the north shore.”

He didn't like it but couldn't come up with a reason not to do it. If the Easter Bunny was waiting for him, it would be a nice thing to know.

“If you don't see anybody,” he said, “look at the bottom of the front and back doors. I put a bit of cellophane tape between the doors and the frames.”

He got out and I drove down his sandy driveway into his yard. Toni's car was there, parked off to the right in its usual place.

I whistled a happy tune as I parked and got out and looked around casually.

Nobody.

I walked to the house and knocked briskly on the door.

No answer.

I looked at the bottom of the door and then knelt and finally saw the cellophane tape still in place between the door and its frame.

I peeked through a window and called Joe's name, then walked around in back of the house and peeked through another window. I called his name again, then knelt in front of the rear door.

The cellophane tape was still there.

As I rose, I heard a small sound and felt cold metal against the back of my neck.

“Put your hands behind your back,” said an icy voice, “or I'll blow your spine out through your face.”

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