was surrounded by pals, Gavin sucked in his pride and walked away. But later, when he and Nick crossed the parking lot, Gavin found the kid’s car—a new model that actually belonged to his parents—and with a pocketknife he laid into the paint job. Had Nick not stopped him, Gavin would have turned the hood into a Jackson Pollock. As small a scene as that appeared through a lens of four decades, it always came back to Nick when he picked up rumors of Moy’s dealings with adversaries. “It means that I know you can play hardball. So let me just say now that if anyone makes the slightest threat against her again, there’s going to be hell to pay.”
Moy held Nick’s eyes for a few seconds. “You really have a thing for this woman.”
Nick resented the implication. “She’s a colleague and a former student.”
“Oh, hell, man, I didn’t mean anything by it. Just that she’s a real looker.”
“Yes, she is. She’s also a good person.”
“I’m sure.”
In the water below, a large, sleek outboard chuffed into the marina for its slip with two men aboard. One looked up and waved when he spotted Gavin and Nick. Moy’s adopted son and only heir.
“So we on?”
“Under the conditions specified.”
“Fine.”
And Nick clinked glasses. “Great view.”
They sat in silence for several minutes. Then Moy broke the spell, the champagne warming his words. “Do you friggin’ believe where we’ve come from? You, a poor Greek kid from Lowell, and me a son of a shoemaker out of a three-decker in Everett. Like the old cigarette ad:’A long way, baby.’” He raised his glass. “To whatever leads to glory and makes a buck.”
Another of Moy’s favorites—one that had been with him since he was half his age.
A few minutes later, his son entered the apartment. “You remember Teddy,” Moy said, as the man emerged onto the deck. “Dr. Nick Mavros.”
It had been years since Nick last met Teddy. He was a quiet man in his thirties. Except for the implacable expression, he was good-looking. Months of exposure to the sun had bronzed his skin and lightened his hair, which was pushed back to expose the slick V of a high widow’s peak. He was not very tall, but he had clearly spent a good deal of time in a gym, because he was wadded with muscles—the tight brown T-shirt making his chest look like gladiatorial armor. He also had large thick hands—the kind that could twist the head off a cat, just like that.
Teddy made a tortured smile and shook Nick’s hand. “Good to see you again, Doctor.”
From what Nick knew, Teddy had failed to live up to his father’s dreams of heading the GEM enterprises after Gavin. He was not the scientist type. In fact, he had dropped out of college and had gotten involved with some real estate schemes that set him afoul of the law and that ended up costing Gavin Moy considerable money. Apparently Teddy did not have any steady employment—just some handyman jobs with different contractors. He lived in the condo and spent his days on his father’s boat. He also waited on his father like a valet, removing the empty champagne bottle and asking Moy if he’d like another, refilling the bowl of smoked almonds. As the two interacted, Nick could detect a curious pattern he had noticed years ago when Ted was a boy—behavior that balanced Teddy’s need for approval and Gavin’s scant servings of it.
While they sipped their champagne, Nick studied Moy’s face. The tan made his green eyes blaze all the more, reminding Nick of the handsome young scientist with the shocking red Afro who had charmed female grad students and instructors alike back at MIT, where he was known as Big Red. A ladies’ man, Gavin was never without a date, never wanting in his love life. And Nick had envied him because whenever they entered a bar or campus party, women’s heads turned as if a film star had walked into the room. And Gavin exploited that advantage, sometimes leaving Nick to whoop it up with other guys while he headed off with some queen. And although he had filled out and had lost his hair, Moy was still attractive, and all the more so because he was about to turn a multibillion-dollar profit.
Nick nodded toward the water. “There were reports of tropical fish around the Elizabeth Islands a few weeks ago.”
“Is that right?” Moy shoved a handful of almonds into his mouth.
“Your jellyfish sent a guy into our ICU. He’s in a coma.”
Moy’s eyebrows rose up. “Is that so?” And he crunched almonds in his molars. “What the hell was he doing out there?”
“Who knows? I thought you’d seen the story. I think he was a former summer resident.”
“What his name?”
“Jack Koryan.”
“Jack what?”
“Koryan.”
Moy washed down the nuts with champagne. “Means nothing to me.”
“Me, neither.”
And they sipped their drink as shadows stretched across the harbor.
28
JACK KORYAN LOOKED THROUGH THE BARS to see the door click open and the large dark pointy thing entered with a hiss.
The light was dim. Flashes dashed off the bright equipment in the room—the chrome IV stand, the tubes running from his arms and side. The stacked monitors with their green squiggles. The vase of flowers from that woman.
But the fading afternoon light slashed through the blinds to catch the creature approaching the bed.
Jack’s eyes were gummy with stuff they kept putting in them. So he couldn’t make out the figure. But it wasn’t any of the nurses or aides—God, no—because this thing was big and dark and not asking how he was doing or running on about how the weather was or that movie she saw last night or how the Sox were doing in the AL standings …
And Jack was scared. Pissing scared, whimpering scared …
And something in the creature’s hand caught the light.
Or club.
It made no difference because he could hear the hard cracks shoot through his soul.
Through jellied corneas he watched the thing stop at the foot of his bed. Something hard knocked against the bars.
The thing scraped along the side of the bed toward Jack’s head. It hunched over him, and he could smell fishiness … and a swimming pool.
The creature raised its arm as Jack braced for the blow, and for a telescoped moment Jack reached down to the bottom of his being through all the layers conspiring to hold back the one vital urge not to yield:
And the creature was gone.
“Jack, you call? It’s Marcy, your nurse. Jack, wake up.”
“Hi, Jack.” Another female voice. “Was that you?”
“Nothing.”
