Rough Weather

And I was with the girl of my dreams.

“She has been married to some of the richest men in the world,” Susan said.

“And profited from each marriage,” I said.

“Any girl would,” Susan said. “How did she find you.”

“Maybe she Googled stud on the Internet?”

“I’ve tried that,” Susan said. “You’re not listed.”

“Damn,” I said.

“So, how did they end up with you?”

“Somebody called somebody,” I said. “And one thing led to another?”

“Okay, and if it worked that way, what would be the basis for recommending you?”

“I’m a great husband substitute?” I said.

“Probably not,” Susan said.

“That I’m a tough guy, and I own a gun?” I said.

“Probably so,” Susan said.

We were quiet for a moment. Susan had some sort of exotic fish. She took a small bite. Susan always took small bites. She ate slowly, and rarely ate all of what she ordered. I had pasta, all of which I guzzled.

“I thought of that,” I said.

“Me, too,” Susan said.

“So why do you hire a guy with a gun to hang around your party?”

“Because you’re afraid,” Susan said.

“Even though the island has its own security.”

“Even though,” Susan said.

“Maybe you’re afraid of the security,” I said.

“Maybe she thinks they’re incompetent.”

“For crissake,” I said. “It’s her island. They are her security.”

Susan shrugged and nibbled on her fish. I finished the last meatball. Susan took a small sip of wine.

“Well, whatever the reason,” she said. “She feels the need to augment it.”

“With one guy?”

“Apparently,” Susan said. “Which is why the one guy is you.”

“Shucks,” I said.

“Which means they went looking for you,” Susan said. “Or someone like you.”

“Which means maybe I should bring two guns?”

“One should be enough,” Susan said. “You are, after all, bringing me.”

3

Tashtego Island had its own ferry service, a high-speed catamaran that shuttled people to and from the island every day. The trip took about forty minutes from New Bedford. The island rose like a single black rock from Buzzards Bay, and the house gleamed on top of it. White marble among the hardy trees softened the hardness of the stone.

“I think I hear the theme from Camelot,” Susan said.

She had brought enough luggage for the weekend to sustain Cirque du Soleil. But the number of servants meeting the boat was more than sufficient to the task, and I walked ashore unencumbered. There was a small dock house made of the same white stone as the big house. Parked beside the dock house was a white Jeep. In the white Jeep were two guys in safari jackets, wearing aviator glasses and carrying sidearms in polished cordovan-leather holsters. In front of the dock house was an open carriage. The two big horses in harness were white. The driver had a blond crew cut. He wore a blazer and white slacks, and looked like a big college kid. Maybe a middle linebacker. I patted one of the horses on the flank.

“Clydesdales?” I said.

“Belgians,” he said. “In medieval times they were warhorses.”

“Big,” I said.

“Yes, sir.”

Beside the carriage was a square-jawed woman in a mannish-looking white shirt and gray flannel slacks. There was a cell phone on her belt. She was too old for college by now, and she wasn’t actually so big, but there was a hint of linebacker about her, too. I wondered if Smith had a team.

“Mr. Spenser,” she said. “I’m Maggie Lane, Mrs. Bradshaw’s assistant.”

We shook hands. I introduced Susan. They shook hands. One of the horses looked over his shoulder at us without interest. Maggie Lane gestured toward the carriage.

“Please,” she said.

“Luggage?” Susan said.

“It will be delivered to your rooms,” Maggie Lane said.

For Susan, the thought that her luggage was in alien hands was nearly life-threatening. But she simply smiled and got into the carriage. Her clothes fit her well, and I admired her agility as she stepped up into the carriage. Also her backside. I followed, and Maggie Lane stepped up beside the driver.

“Except for the patrol Jeeps,” she said, “there are no cars on the island.”

“How lovely for the ambience,” Susan said.

“And the atmosphere,” Maggie Lane said.

“Good source of fertilizer, too,” I said.

Maggie Lane nodded with a smile, though I didn’t think the smile was terribly warm. The ride from the dock wasn’t steep enough to bother the big Belgians, that I could tell. It wound slowly around the rising rock, with the ocean on our right and the south coast of Massachusetts still visible on the horizon behind us, until we leveled out on the flat top of the rock where the house was, surrounded by trees and gardens, beneficiaries, no doubt, of the horses’ largesse. Such greenery hadn’t settled on top of this rock by accident, and it had not exfoliated so richly without help.

The house itself looked like it had been constructed by Cornelius Vanderbilt. It looked like someplace you could catch a sleeper train for Chicago. There were columns and friezes and arched windows twenty feet high.

“We have a small suite for you in the northeast corner of the house,” Maggie Lane said. “Not far from Mrs. Bradshaw’s private quarters.”

I sort of thought everyone’s quarters were private but decided not to raise the question.

“And the luggage?” Susan said.

“It should be there waiting for you,” Maggie Lane said. “Unpacked, and carefully hung up.”

Susan blanched slightly. But Maggie Lane was looking toward the house and didn’t notice. I knew that the thought of anyone opening Susan’s luggage and carefully hanging up her stuff was unbearable.

With her lips barely parted she said, “Oh, how lovely.”

The crushed-shell driveway gleaming white in the morning sun curved in front of the vast marble pile of a house and under a two-story porte cochere. Another young guy in a blazer and white pants, maybe an outside linebacker, came to help us from the carriage. Susan hated that. She jumped down briskly before he was able to get there. I dismounted more sedately but no less athletically. In front of us, and closer to the house, was another white Jeep with two guys in it wearing safari shirts and sunglasses and gun belts. Like the two guys at the dock, they had inconspicuous earpieces.

Maggie Lane took us in through a front door that could accommodate a family of giraffes. We stood in a foyer that would have accommodated the Serengeti Plain, at the foot of a vast curving staircase that probably went to heaven.

“Stay close,” I murmured to Susan.

We went past the staircase and down the corridor, which narrowed to maybe thirty feet behind the stairs. There was a pair of huge French doors at the far end, and the light poured in happily. On the wall were well- framed oil paintings of people who were almost certainly rich, and pleased about it. Halfway down the corridor,