“Yeah.”
“Oh,” she said, caught up short by my answer. “I was only teasing. I didn’t mean to make light of …”
“It’s okay. Water scares me, no big deal.”
“Why?”
“Why does it scare me?”
“No. Why is it no big deal?”
“Because it’s just a fear. They only count if you let them get in the way.”
“Ah. So you will stay here, with me?”
“Does the boat rock at night?” I asked her, hedging.
“Of course. But there are no real waves in this cove. It is a very gentle motion.…”
“I guess we’ll see,” I told her.
It wasn’t so bad down there. At least that’s what I kept telling myself. Gem’s bed was a single, but she fitted herself over me like a sweet-smelling sheet.
I woke up the next morning ready to go fishing. But I had to wait until past New York’s nightfall to reach out to Mama.
“Gardens,” she answered the pay phone in the back of the restaurant. One in the morning in New York, right in the middle of Mama’s workday.
“It’s me,” I said.
“Very quiet here.”
“Dead quiet?”
“Yes. Many people … hear news.”
“Cop come back?”
“Not him. Others.”
“What’d they want?”
“Not come inside. Just watch.”
“Ah. They still there?”
“No. But maybe come back. Looking for—”
“Well, they won’t see it.”
“You not coming—?”
“Not for a while, Mama. Can you grab Michelle for me?”
“Sure. Where call—?”
“No call. Tell her to ask the Mole to send me some phones, okay?” And I gave her an address Gem told me was safe—a tackle shop a few miles down the road from where she was docked—and a name to use.
“Sure,” she said, like it was a take-out order of roast-pork fried rice. “You need Max?”
“Not where I am now, Mama. We’ll see, all right?”
“You see, you tell me, Max come, okay?”
“Okay, Mama. See you soon.”
“Sure,” she said. And hung up.
I fitted the cellular I’d been using in Portland into two halves of a Styrofoam block, wrapped it tight with duct tape. “Why are you sending that phone away?” Gem asked me.
“Byron had this number.”
“Yes?”
“So it’s going back to New York. Like I’m supposed to be doing. A pal of mine’ll make some calls on it over the next few days. Then he’s going to trash it. Anyone checking, they’ll know the calls were made from there,” I told her.
“So if Brick …?”
“Yeah.”
“It is hard for you to trust, isn’t it?”
“No. Not like you think, girl. If I don’t
“I don’t think so.”
“Sometimes, you don’t have a choice. You’re in a situation, you have to either trust someone or not. That’s it. Black and white—yes or no, live or die. But most of the time, you don’t have to go there. I don’t have to go there with Brick. I don’t
“And me?”
