Fire Season Page 7

  “That makes one of you,” Coffin said.

  “You’d better come in,” she said. “It’s freezing out here.”

  She lived in a converted barn that had, until a few years ago, housed a number of small artist’s studios, but was now a big, open-floor-plan dwelling with a spacious loft upstairs. It had all been done in polished wood and stainless steel, and must have cost a bundle. Gemma was an artist, but didn’t have a job that Coffin knew of. She was the kind of young woman who attracted wealthy gentlemen friends.

  “I’m looking for Rudy,” Coffin said, once Gemma had led him upstairs to the master suite, seated him on a stainless-steel chaise longue covered in spotted cowhide, and put a glass of bourbon in his hand. “He around?”

  “Depends,” Gemma said. Soul music drifted from speakers mounted in the rafters—a woman singing over a driving beat, horn section in the background. “What’s he done now?”

  “Probably nothing,” Coffin said.

  Gemma grinned. “Don’t try to bullshit a bullshitter.” She took the towel off her head and shook out her hair. Last spring’s blond dreadlocks were gone—it was cut short, dyed a light pink.

  She looked up, caught Coffin’s eye, and dropped the kimono. She was naked underneath (of course, Coffin thought), firm, but with rounded hips and big breasts.

  “See,” she said, arms raised, back arched: ta-dah! “The carpet matches the drapes.” Her pubic hair was topiaried into a neat heart shape, and dyed the same cotton-candy pink as her hair. “I figured what the hell, for once.”

  “You’re incorrigible,” Coffin said, as Gemma rummaged through a dresser and stepped into a black thong.

  “You love it,” Gemma said. She pulled on a shiny green bra, then stood regarding him for a moment, head tilted, arms crossed. “At least I think you do. Figured maybe I’d be seeing a bit more of you around here.”

  “Don’t think I wasn’t tempted,” Coffin said. “Seriously.”

  “I know, I know,” she said, wiggling into a pair of skinny jeans. “You’ve got a nice girlfriend.”

  “Who’s pregnant.”

  “Holy shit, she’s pregnant?” Gemma said, stopping mid-wiggle, looking at Coffin over her shoulder.

  Her ass was spectacular, Coffin thought, framed for a moment between the black thong and the waistband of her jeans.

  “The minute you quit trying,” he said.

  “Badda bing,” Gemma said.

  “Exactly. Plus, you’re dating my uncle.”

  “Ha. You could call it that,” she said. She zipped the jeans, pulled on a T-shirt. “Color me disenchanted.”

  Coffin sipped his bourbon, smoky and a little sweet, warm in his throat. “He’s a busy guy.”

  Gemma smiled a slow half-smile. She sat down on the edge of the big, rumpled bed and crossed her legs. Her toenails were painted sparkly chartreuse, like a Stratocaster. “Busy in more ways than one,” she said. She refilled her glass from the bottle of Rare Breed on the nightstand, stubbed out her cigarette and lit another.

  “Sorry,” Coffin said.

  “After a while a girl wants to know what’s what,” Gemma said, swirling the ice in her glass. “God, slap me. I sound like I’m waiting to be asked to the fucking prom.”

  Coffin glanced at his watch. It was 4:52. He levered himself off the cowhide chaise. “Thanks for the drink,” he said, setting his empty glass on the dresser. “And the excellent floor show.”

  “What,” Gemma said, “that’s it? No third degree? You’re not even going to ask me where he is?”

  “He’s in town, but he’s not staying with you. Now you see him, now you don’t.”

  “You’re practically psychic. And your uncle’s a son of a bitch.”

  “I’ve known that son of a bitch all my life.” Coffin put on his hat. “Nice to see you, Gemma,” he said.

  “Leaving so soon?” Gemma said. She sat back against the headboard, drew her knees up. “What’s your hurry? You scared or something?”

  “Terrified,” Coffin said, trotting down the stairs.

  “Sissy!” Gemma yelled after him.

  * * *

  Except for the narrow window that looked out over a landscape of sand and scrub pine, the exam rooms at Outer Cape Health could have been in almost any clinic anywhere. There was a white enamel exam table with a black, padded cushion, retractable chrome stirrups and a little pull-out step. There were two color diagrams on the wall: one of a human spine, the other of a human heart, and a wooden rack stocked with informational pamphlets with titles like “Help With Smoking Cessation,” and “Seasonal Depression: Treatment Can Help.” A computer monitor and keyboard crouched on a built-in desk; beside them, a small swivel chair on which the nurse sat to take his blood pressure, the cuff tightening at his elbow, the air hissing out when the nurse released the valve. “Up a little bit since last time,” the nurse said, making a note on Coffin’s chart. “You been drinking coffee today?” She left, and after a short wait, there was a quick knock on the door and Dr. Sengupta stepped into the room.

  Dr. Sengupta was a short, smiling man with a full beard. He shook Coffin’s hand—up, down, release—in the little exam room and sat down. “Well,” he said, “your cholesterol’s elevated. Two twenty-six. What are you going to do about that?”

  “Well, I—”

  Sengupta crossed his legs at the knee. He wore purple socks. “Your good cholesterol’s okay but not that great. Your bad cholesterol’s much too high. What are you eating—cheeseburgers every day?”

  “Well—”

  “What about exercise? You’ve put on quite a bit of weight.”

  “My job’s pretty demanding right now,” Coffin said. “I don’t have a lot of time.”

  “You must make time,” Sengupta said, meeting Coffin’s eyes. “Do you want a heart attack at fifty?”

  “No,” Coffin said.

  “Fifty-one?”

  “No.”

  “Fifty-two?”

  “Ah—”

  “Well,” Sengupta said. “What are you going to do about that?”

  Coffin waited a beat. “Watch my diet? Go to the gym?”

  “Bingo!” said Sengupta. “I want to see you again in six months. If there’s no improvement, I’m going to put you on a medication to lower your cholesterol. We don’t want to mess around here, okay?”

  “Okay,” Coffin said.

  Sengupta jumped to his feet and stuck out a small, delicate hand. “Six months,” he said.

  “You know,” Coffin said, “I’m sure you’re very good at what you do, but your manner’s kind of confrontational.”

  Sengupta smiled broadly. “Oh, yes,” he said. “Patients say so all the time.”

  “Well,” Coffin said, “what are you going to do about that?”

  * * *

  Coffin decided to stop at the Oyster Shack on his way home. It had been a long day, and he needed a drink. The place was quiet, Squid tending bar, Kotowski perched on his corner bar stool, poring over a slim, paperback volume. A couple of down-and-out fishermen sat a few stools down, watching ESPN on the wavery Zenith that squatted behind the bar. They were the only customers except for Pat—an old woman with steel gray hair, drinking Blue Ribbon draft, her dentures on the bar at her elbow, a lit cigarette clenched between the upper and lower plates.

  Captain Nickerson stopped climbing the bars of his cage. “How’s Frankie?” he called. “How’s Frankie?”

  “It’s like déjà vu all over again,” Coffin said, sitting next to Kotowski. “Where’s Yelena and all her good-looking friends?”

  “It’s her day off. She’s probably home, reading up on international finance.”

  “Really?”

  “Yep,” Kotowski said, sipping his bottled Newcastle. “She wants to go to Wharton and get an MBA, then work on Wall Street.”

  “Smart girl. If you can’t fight the plutocracy, be the plutocracy.”

  Kotowski grunted. “Like you’d ever fight the plutocracy. You’re one of th
eir hired lackeys.”

  “Aren’t lackeys supposed to make money?” Coffin said.

  Squid sidled over. “Stooges make money,” he said. “Lackeys and lickspittles not so much. What can I get you, boss?”

  “Macallan. A little ice.”

  Squid poured a fat double and set it on a small, white paper napkin in front of Coffin. The scotch seemed to glow from within: Like a jar of honey, Coffin thought, held in front of a candle flame. Coffin sipped it, savoring the slow burn as it went down.

  Kotowski waggled his book. It was about the size of a volume of poetry. “Seen this?” he said.

  It was the annual town report, published every year by the board of selectmen, as required by statute. It listed every town official, whether elected or appointed, descriptions of their departments and duties, their budgets, their salaries, and telephone numbers. It contained transcripts of every town meeting, and a complete accounting of tax receipts and expenditures. It was a kind of official snapshot of the town government, in all of its various functions. It also contained a section called “Vital Statistics,” which Kotowski was holding open under Coffin’s nose. Page after page of marriages were listed, almost all of them same sex, almost all from out of town. Two pages of deaths. And, after the deaths, a notation of the number of births (names withheld out of respect for the parents’ privacy): six boys and three girls—a grand total of nine.

  “That’s going to be some graduating class,” Kotowski said. “Go, Fishermen!”

  “Fisherpersons,” Coffin said. “What’s your point?”

  “My point is that your kid is going to be lonely and weird. Who’s he going to play with? You? Captain Cholesterol?”

  Coffin shrugged. “A hideous fate.”

  “Exactly. It’s practically child abuse!” Kotowski took a rumpled pack of Camels from his T-shirt pocket, shook out a bent cigarette, and lit it. “You should get out of here, Coffin, you and your girl,” he said, smoke streaming from his nose. “She can teach yoga anywhere. You can pretend to be a cop anywhere, more or less. Go to some nice suburb. Some little Leave It to Beaver neighborhood in the Midwest—‘Mr. Coffin, can Billy come out to play?’ Besides your mother, what’s keeping you here?”

  “Besides my mother? My job. My pension. This place. Which is allegedly smoke-free, by the way.”

  Kotowski took a deep drag, blew it out. “Ah,” he said. “Tastes like—freedom. So basically, nothing.”

  “Pretty much.” Coffin sipped his scotch. “They’re throwing her out, you know. Sending her down to Sandwich where they can manage her.”

  “I heard. So what are you going to do about that?”

  Coffin stared at Kotowski for a second. “Not sure there’s much I can do.”

  “What about that little prick, what’s his name?”

  “Branstool.”

  “He looks like a guy with something to hide. Why don’t you get a search warrant and ransack his house, just to fuck with him?”

  “With no probable cause? Good luck with that.”

  Kotowski spat out a fleck of tobacco. “Pussy. It’s what your uncle would’ve done. With or without the warrant.”

  Coffin laughed. “You sound like my mother.”

  Chapter 10

  In the parking lot, Coffin checked his watch: 6:45 and almost dark. There was just one vehicle on Shank Painter Road: an incongruous black Town Car, lights on high beam, gliding silently into town from the highway. The breeze was damp and raw. Coffin shivered, and wondered if it might not be an early winter, one of those years of howling winds and heavy snow. Provincetown would turn into a ghost town, all but cut off from the rest of the world, deserted except for people like him, the few hardy souls who had to stick around to keep the place from shutting down. Most years he liked the off-season, but now the thought of Provincetown’s midwinter isolation filled him with dread: the same faces, day after day. The narrow streets filled with snow.

  To Coffin’s surprise, the Town Car turned into the Oyster Shack’s parking lot and pulled up next to the Crown Vic, the front tire stopping about four inches from his toes. A dark-tinted rear window powered down, and a cloud of marijuana smoke rolled from the car’s interior into the stiffening breeze, along with a blast of rock music—George Thorogood’s raunchy version of “Who Do You Love?”

  The passenger was a big man in his early sixties, gray-haired, thick through the neck and shoulders. “What it is, Frankie,” he said. It was Coffin’s Uncle Rudy.

  The driver—Coffin could only see a bulky outline through the tinted window—switched off the Town Car’s stereo.

  “Always the dramatic entrance,” Coffin said. “You got a chauffer, now?”

  “My business manager,” Rudy said. He turned to the driver. “Loverboy, shake hands with my nephew, Frankie.”

  The driver’s door swung open, and a man climbed out. It seemed to Coffin that he took a long time to do it. He was about the size of two normal human beings—six foot ten, Coffin guessed, and at least three-sixty. He was brown-skinned, and had thick, black hair that hung in curls down to his shoulders. Polynesian, Coffin thought. Samoan, maybe.

  “Loverboy?” Coffin said.

  “My real name’s Tāufa 'āhau Niutupu 'ivaha Topuo,” the big man said, sticking out a hand. It was like shaking a piece of furniture. “But haole people never get it right.”

  “Why Loverboy?” Coffin said.

  Loverboy shrugged. “They say I have a way with the ladies,” he said. He spoke slowly, a nearly subsonic rumble. The way a tree would talk, Coffin thought.

  “He’s got a schlong the size of a freaking python,” Rudy said. “Back home in Tonga he’s a god king or a chief or something.”

  “My dad was the king’s first cousin,” Loverboy said. “I’m an MBA.”

  “Listen,” Rudy said. “Don’t worry about your ma. I’m on that prick Branstool like a cheap suit.”

  “Rudy—”

  Rudy held up a hand, a fat joint between the tips of his thumb and forefinger. “You don’t have to thank me. We’re blood, Frankie. Am I right?”

  “We’re not blood. You’re my father’s sister’s ex-husband.”

  “Whatever. It’s taken care of.”

  “What did you do, Rudy?”

  Coffin’s uncle took a long toke, held the smoke a few seconds, then released it slowly. “Don’t worry your pretty little head. Let’s just say I’d be real surprised if Dr. Fuckface continues to be a problem.” He held the smoldering spliff out to Coffin. “Want a hit? It’s excellent stuff—Humboldt County, one hundred percent organic.”

  “No thanks,” Coffin said. “Weed makes me paranoid.”

  “Just ’cause you’re paranoid,” Rudy said, “doesn’t mean they ain’t out to get you.”

  “There’s another thing,” Coffin said.

  “How’s your girlfriend?” Rudy said. “Something sexy about ’em when they’re knocked up—they get so female, you can almost smell the estrogen. You’re not sticking around here, are you, once the baby’s born?”

  “Of course I’m sticking around,” Coffin said. “Where would I go?”

  “You could go anywhere.” Rudy waved the joint, then puffed at it to keep it lit. “Sell the house, take the money and run. Even with the market down the place is still worth a few hundred grand. This is no place to raise a kid, Frankie. Trust me—I know.”

  “Tell me about 376 Bradford Street, Rudy.”

  Rudy shrugged. “I owned it. Some fucknut burned it down. What do you want me to say? I didn’t do it?”

  “Sure. Humor me.”

  “Look, Frankie,” Rudy said, black eyes gazing up at Coffin from the Town Car’s dark leather interior. “I’m a businessman. And the first rule of business is, shit happens. Second rule is, when shit happens, money always changes hands. Know what the third rule is?”

  “Rudy—”

  “The third rule of business, Frankie, is that when money changes hands, make damn sure you get your share.” Rudy pinched out what
was left of the joint between his thumb and forefinger and flicked it out the window. “You know the weirdest thing about pregnant chicks?”

  “Rudy, for Christ’s sake—”

  “Their asses get square. One day their asses are nice and round like always, next day”—Rudy snapped his fingers—“square. It’s one of the great mysteries.”

  “Oh my God.”

  “Nice meeting you,” Loverboy said. He levered himself back into the purring Town Car, shifted into reverse and let it roll in a slow, backward arc onto Shank Painter Road.

  “Don’t let your meat loaf, Frankie,” Rudy called, the window gliding silently shut, the big car surging forward and disappearing around the bend, going much too fast.

  * * *

  Jamie was fresh from the shower, a big white towel still wrapped around her head. Coffin stood behind her, kissing her neck, both hands on her belly’s taut bulge.

  “You know the weirdest thing about being pregnant?” Jamie said, standing naked in the bedroom.

  She was gorgeous, Coffin thought. He cupped her breasts: They were heavy and full, the nipples big, suddenly brown.

  “Tell me,” Coffin said.

  “I haven’t seen my pubic hair in three weeks—and I guess I won’t see it again ’til after the baby’s born. Freaky, right?”

  The whole day had been full of these odd echoes, Coffin thought—now a little replay of his encounter with Gemma, but without the complicated agenda. He brushed Jamie’s dark pubic ruff with his fingertips. It had grown luxuriant in the last month or so, longer and thicker, spreading nearly from hip bone to hip bone. “Still there,” Coffin said, “and then some.”

  “I kind of gave up on the hedge-trimming,” Jamie said squirming her hips a little against his hand. “Out of sight, out of mind.”

  Coffin rolled her clitoris gently under the tip of his middle finger. “Works for me,” he said. “Variety is good.”

  Jamie sighed, squirmed her backside against him. “What you’re doing right there? That’s good,” she said.

  Coffin changed directions.

  “That, too,” Jamie said, taking a sharp little breath.

  “See?” Coffin said. “Variety.”