The Shore (Leisure Fiction)

speak exclusively in non sequiturs. 'The town council would never allow it.' Suddenly, the woman's stare angled in his direction, so he fixed his eyes on his beer and let their words blur around him. A thin drift of laughter reached him from across the bar, and he had the feeling he'd missed something, that someone had at last uttered something crucial, and he leaned his head on his hands and struggled to listen, concentrating first on the nearest table, then on another farther away, but now each remark had developed a chanted, mumbled quality that made his head throb. Everyone around him seemed to be drinking boilermakers, even the dim little couple at the far end of the bar, so when Margie/Tracie returned, he ordered one too. Again, she raised an eyebrow, something he knew she practiced in front of a mirror. He gulped the shot and swigged from the beer, feeling the sweat bead out on his forehead. God, how do they stand these? He watched a highly rouged woman drop the whole shot glass into the beer, raise it carefully and take an enormous gulp without blinking.

'No,' the guy with the toupee loudly insisted. 'The real problem is still the gambling and the whores and the fast-food joints.' He waited for one of them to nod in agreement. When no one did, he drained his glass as though vindicated. 'Am I right?'

'I'm telling you.'

Christ, I need sleep. He realized that he and the barmaid were speaking again, though he had no idea what they'd been saying.

'...welfare, a lot of them, I guess.' She shrugged a bony shoulder. 'I don't really know.'

'I guess'--he started to cough--'there's not much else to do winter nights besides drink.'

'Well, they do enough of that.' Abruptly, she teetered away.

Not doing too well here, am I? Haven't done too well in a long time. He shivered, and the faces in the bar rose like apparitions, thin and anxious, bathed in the light from the television, a light as dingy as dirty water. Probably it's time they sent somebody else. But who? His glass chattered against his teeth. Steady. Then he realized they'd all stirred. Suddenly, they sat up or leaned forward in their seats, staring above his head. Trying to comprehend, he put down his glass.

'Stacey, put the sound up.'

'Yeah, turn it up.'

On the picture tube, people crowded around a few tethered boats. With a start, he recognized Edgeharbor. '...has not yet been identified but police say...' His hand gripped the mug to keep from shaking, and he caught a glimpse of milling uniforms before the shot changed to a wet-suited diver. '...that of a woman, twenty-five to thirty years...' State troopers in heavy coats scooped the water with nets as coast guard cutters chugged past. 'Local authorities are asking anyone with information...' He felt the glass crunch, stared at the blood in his palm.

'Mob hit,' someone declared.

'You think?'

The barmaid hurried over with a rag. 'You okay, hon?'

'No. Yes.' He pressed a paper napkin into the cut. 'I'm all right.'

'Why the hell don't they stay in Atlantic City?'

As the newscast dissolved into the swirling colors of a commercial, people erupted with sudden animation all around the bar.

'Oh my God.'

'Would you believe that? Right here.'

'Oh my God. On the news and everything.'

'Thanks.' Nodding, he felt the food lump inertly in his gut. 'Stacey.' He threw some money on the bar, then staggered across the room and out the door without even zipping his jacket.

'Come again,' she called, watching the door swing shut on the night. As she glanced up at the television, a line creased her forehead, and after a moment, she clicked to the end of the bar and picked up the phone.

VI

On the private beach, sand clung to the earth in frozen mounds and patches. Boulders, scaled with broken shells and furred green, angled steeply to moonlit surf.

The old house appeared empty, and a ship on the weathervane slued inland as the current that carried it shrilled across the chimney. The house seemed to lean against the wind, and a shutter banged at a gabled dormer. Front windows boldly faced the sea, but thick draperies hung behind the shutters so that no lights showed at all.

In the front parlor, a deeper shadow swayed. One shaking hand clutched at the curtain. 'I have seen you,' the old woman whispered dryly. 'And I know you wait there still.' She stared down the beach to where the black sea writhed. 'By the rocks at night, I have seen you.'

All her life, she'd hated the sea. Bit by bit, it had taken from her everything she had ever cared for. She lived by it now in a state of conscious challenge and had come to believe without hesitation that it was equally aware of her. Sometimes she felt their enmity was all that remained of her life, all that animated her.

'And I know what you are.' An acute sense of absurdity floated through her dread. She envisioned herself with clarity, alone in an old dark house, whispering to the windowpane and watching for a dead thing to heave from the waves. 'But not yet. You won't rise yet.' She wished she could laugh at her own madness. 'I'm not quite crazy. I have seen. And I know.'

Sea winds surged against the walls, and the beams of the house creaked like the timbers of an ancient ship.

...and I did nothing.

His hands shook as he hurried from the bar. Young woman...ripped apart. The words snarled in his brain. Right here. In this town. While I...

When his chest began to ache, he realized his jacket still hung open. Pneumonia won't help. Fumbling with the zipper, he hurried down the street. He'd have to lay low--the police would be here in full force now. Nothing must interfere. He had to get to the boy before they did.

Cold stabbed into his lungs, and an old knotted scar along his ribs throbbed, but he used the pain, forcing himself onward through the wind. The empty bungalows no longer looked sad to him. They looked ominous, corrupt. Can't let the cops get onto me. The maze of streets untangled. The lights in the convenience store still blared, though a placard in the window now read CLOSED, and he fished out his keys and slid into the front seat of the Volks. My gloves. He stared at his hands on the steering wheel. Must have left them at the bar.

Slowly, his breathing eased, and the engine growled. Torn to pieces.

All the way back to the hotel, he fought the impulse to take the first road out of town, to speed on until the pinelands lay far behind him, until even these past years of his life dwindled in the distance. What life would that be? So many times before, he'd struggled with the impulse to run. Sometimes I think I've been dead all these years. Dead and just too stupid to fall over.

He parked and hurried to the door. Don't make me have to ring. I don't think I could deal with any more suspicions tonight. But the hotel door swung easily at his shove, and he released a steaming sigh. The small lamp still glowed in the deep gloom by the desk. If I can just lie down for a while, I'll be all right. Closing the door softly, he shivered in the entrance, waiting for his vision to adjust.

'Pardon me, but do you mind if I ask you a few questions?'

Brown shadows slid one into another as someone rose from the lobby sofa. He blinked rapidly and his mouth dropped open. Before he could speak, the door behind the desk flew open, and the hotelkeeper shuffled forward, holding his bathrobe closed. Mrs. D'Amato trailed him aggressively, and as she gestured and muttered in Italian, the sleeves of her housedress flapped to reveal angular glimpses of bony arms. He knew not a word of the language, but her tone of voice he understood perfectly. 'You startled me.' Turning back to his visitor, he tried to smile with numbed facial muscles. 'Is anything wrong?' He'd grown sufficiently accustomed to the light to make out the insignia on her coat.

'Officer Lonigan,' she told him. 'I'm with the Edgeharbor Police Department.' Somehow she made it sound like a question. 'Mr. D'Amato, could we get a little more light in here, please?' Her voice held a cajoling quality.