'They use it?'
'Daughter comes to visit sometimes. She and her husband use it.'
'How deep is it by the raft?'
'Phil?' Stone said to the harbormaster.
'Twenty feet,' Phil said. 'Drops off pretty sharp from the beach.'
We were quiet, while far out into the Atlantic beyond us some sailboats were swooping about, and a couple of fishing boats plodded into the wind. On shore, nothing moved except a couple small seabirds with long beaks, which poked around in the rocks without any visible result. I knew how they felt.
'How often do they use the raft,' I said.
'We don't check it every day,' Stone said. 'But when the weather's good, she's down here. She bakes for awhile and then goes in and swims to the raft. I assume it's to cool off. Hubby goes sometimes. Sometimes doesn't.'
'I don't suppose we can use your boat,' I said.
'It's the town's.'
'I still assume we can't use it.'
'You can't.'
'You don't talk much,' I said. 'Do you.'
'It's an experiment,' Stone said. 'If I got nothing to say, I try not to say it.'
'Maybe I'll try it sometime,' I said.
'You got a plan?' Stone said.
'We off the record here?' I said.
'I look like a fucking TV crew?' Stone said.
'I'm planning to snatch Bonnie Czernak, nee Karnofsky,' I said.
'Good thing I'm not a fucking TV crew,' Stone said.
'Where do you stand on that,' I said.
'Off to the side.'
'I'm not asking you to do anything but leave it alone,' I said.
'I do that well,' Stone said.
59
We set up on the other side of the point at the bottom of the path that formed the right of way. The Zodiac that Hawk had acquired bobbed on the gentle chop of the water that lapped the rocks in the shelter of the cove. Hawk and I had a picnic basket to explain what we were doing on the rocks if anyone came by. Though, in truth, Hawk didn't look that much like a picnic guy. But at the least it served to carry the bunch of sandwiches we'd bought at a takeout shop in Paradise. We had binoculars and a bird book to explain them, though Hawk didn't look much like a birder, either. I was watching Karnofsky's beach through the glasses, peering over the edge of the rock, while Hawk ate a roast beef sandwich and drank coffee from a Thermos.
'Can you actually drive that thing?' I said.
'Course I can,' Hawk said. 'Used one for a year once.'
'Doing what?'
'Covert stuff,' Hawk said. 'In Burma.'
'Everything you do should be covert,' I said.
'This the third day we be here,' Hawk said, 'and we ain't seen nothing but some seagulls.'
'I looked in that bird book,' I said. 'They are officially known as herring gulls.'
'Hot damn,' Hawk said.
He took another bite of his sandwich and another sip of coffee.
'Susan okay?' Hawk said.
'Yep. Quirk was there last night.'
'What I like,' he said, 'is when I thinking 'bout Quirk marching over there to relieve Ty-Bop on guard duty.'
'I'm just hoping Ty-Bop doesn't get a snootful of coke and shoot up West Cambridge.'
'Ty-Bop be clean till we done,' Hawk said. 'How long we going to hang here?'
'Until she shows up or we think of something better,' I said.
'That's how long I figured,' Hawk said. 'How's Susan taking to the security stuff.'
'She's had to do it before.'
