call on the white working class. Everything is upside down, as though all the nation’s tortured racial history has undergone an inversion. The young man’s gaze is disdainful. His colorless hair is pulled back in an unwashed clump. The dirt under his broken nails looks permanent, a proclamation to the world that he works for a living. I chafe under his scrutiny. I have earned what I possess, I have stolen no bread from his table, this fellow has no right to disapprove of me-yet I can think of nothing to say in my own defense.
“What?” he inquires.
“How long has Manny been gone?”
“He always goes away this time of year.” Of yeeah. Answering a slightly different question, and wanting me to know it.
“Listen. I’m sorry.” Not sure why I am apologizing, but it seems appropriate. “Uh, isn’t this the place where, uh, that man who drowned back in November rented his boat?”
He makes me wait.
“You a reporter?”
“No.”
“Cop?”
“No.” I search for the words. Yankee reserve has always driven me nuts, but this man is ridiculous. “I wanted to talk to Manny because I saw the story in the paper, and I think… I think the man who drowned was somebody I knew.”
“You could call him up.” Cahl im uh-upp.
“Do you know his number?” I ask eagerly.
“Why would I know your friend’s number?”
Okay, so I’m the village idiot. I thought he meant Manny. A pickup bounces past, some kind of maritime equipment jostling in the back, and the young man leaps nimbly out of its path. But I notice the start of a smile on his bronzed face and I realize he is putting me on.
A little.
“Look, I’m sorry. The man I think drowned… I didn’t know him that well. He and I, uh, had some dealings. I just want to see if it’s the same man. All I’m trying to find out is if there’s any way to get in touch with Manny.”
He scratches his arm, then returns us to start: “Manny’s gone.”
“Gone? You mean off-Island?”
“Florida, I think.”
“Do you know where in Florida?”
“Nope.”
For a few seconds, we listen together to the calling gulls.
“Would anybody around here know where?”
“Have to ask them, I guess.”
“Any idea who I should ask?”
“No.”
Like pulling teeth. From a pit bull. With no anesthetic.
And then I put together his reserve and his disdain and his likely belief in my wealth and the fact that he has not yet walked away and I realize what he is waiting for. Well, why not? I don’t give my knowledge away for free either. As I reach inside my jacket for my wallet and examine the paltry sum inside, I feel his interest quicken. I have just over one hundred dollars in cash. I pull out three twenties, wondering how to explain it to Kimmer when she goes over our accounts this month, for she has lately become meticulous with money, trying to put aside enough to replace her luxurious BMW M5 with an even more luxurious Mercedes SL600, which is, she says, more appropriate to her position.
“Look,” I say, fanning the bills so he can see them clearly, “this means a lot to me.”
“Guess it does.” He takes the cash at once. He does not seem offended, as I feared he might be. “You’re a lawyer, right?”
“Sort of.”
“Figured you were.” You wu-uh. But at least he’s on my side now. The bills have disappeared, although I never saw his hand move toward his pocket.
“When did Manny leave?” I ask.
“Three weeks ago. Maybe four. Right after all the ruckus.”
“And you’re sure he went to Florida?”
“That’s where he said he was going.”
He waits. There is something he expects me to ask him; he took the money so fast because he knew the value of what he was selling. I look over at Manny’s shack, and at the others along the water, all of them closed, the boats grounded and covered with tarpaulins. A few gulls peck at the sand, searching for breakfast.
“Does he usually go to Florida this time of year?” I ask, just to keep punching.
“Don’t know. Don’t think so.”
Okay, that wasn’t the right question.
“Did you see the men who rented the boat?”
“Afraid not.”
Okay, that wasn’t it either. I let my eyes wander over Manny’s tiny shack again. Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe he doesn’t have any-
Wait.
… all of them closed…
I have it.
“Listen,” I say, “was Manny’s closed five weeks ago? When that man drowned?”
“Yep.”
“I mean, it was closed when, um, when the man who died and his friends rented the boat?”
“Yep.” I detect the faint smile again. We have finally arrived where my new friend expected to go from the moment he saw me peering in Manny’s window.
“So-what happened? Did he open the shop for them specially?”
“The way I heard it, they paid him a lot of money. Drove up to his house-he lives down that way-oh, say around noon. Told him they needed one of his boats, promised to pay him a nice chunk of cash to open for them specially. And so he did.”
“Why did they go to his house?”
“Because the shop was closed.”
Oh, these Vineyarders!
“No, I mean, how did they know where he lived?”
“Oh. Well, the way I heard it, one of the fellers who rented the boat comes up every summer and rents from Manny.”
Now this, at last, is something new.
“Do you know which one?”
“Way I heard it, ’twas the tall feller, looked sort of like you.”
“Like me?”
“Sure, like you.” Now the smile is wide. “Black feller.”
The drive from Menemsha to Oak Bluffs is overlong and rather dull even in the high season, as miles of thick trees flash by, punctuated by the occasional unpaved driveway, usually complete with a battered mailbox and a spanking-new NO TRESPASSING sign. In late autumn, the trees are considerably thinner, the vistas more brown than green, and the journey itself is even more lonely and bleak. This time of year, one can see many of the houses ordinarily hidden in the woods, but they are shuttered and empty, an easy mark for any burglar or vandal, except for the sophisticated alarm systems that will bring the Island’s small but efficient police force running.
Not that our alarm helped protect Vinerd Howse from the late Mr. Scott’s invasion.
