“No problem.” He regarded me curiously. “Somebody tried to beat you up?”
“Yeah.”
“Did you do something to annoy them?”
“Besides walk down the street? No.”
“That’s a bit unusual. Did you know them?”
“I saw them earlier at the general store. I think they think I kidnapped that girl or something.”
Toby raised an eyebrow. “Really? Why would they think that?”
“Who the hell knows? Everyone here is paranoid. Including me, now.”
He tugged at his beard. “Well, my apartment’s down by the boiler room.” He pointed at a stairway. “This is all just storage up here.”
The stairway was dark. The room we emerged into was even darker, until Toby pulled a string and an overhead bulb flared to life.
“Boiler room,” said Toby. He walked past a contraption that looked like something out of Metropolis. “My apartment’s there.”
He pointed at a door covered with a pirate flag. “Welcome.”
There was something very different about his apartment, and it took me a minute to figure out what it was. It was warm. It was hot. I unzipped my jacket, plucking at Toby’s sweater.
“That’s one of the good things about living by the boiler room,” he said. “In the summer, I just switch it off and the whole place is so cool you wouldn’t believe it—those brick walls are a foot thick. It’s like what they say about Maine women.”
“Which is?”
“You want a big woman with tattoos. Shade in the summer, warm in the winter, and moving pictures all year long.”
His place was a cross between a machine shop and a roadside museum. There were boxes everywhere, jars full of nuts, bolts, drillbits. Racks of antique tools hung from the ceiling, bolts of sailcloth. A vintage Triumph motorcycle peeked from beneath a Naval Academy Sailing Squadron flag.
Toby called to me from farther back in the warren. “Come here, I’ll show you something.”
I followed him to his sleeping quarters, a bunk in the back corner. It was like being inside a submarine captained by Pee-wee Herman. Semaphore flags dangled from the ceiling. There was a brass hookah and a bunch of old computers and dozens of empty bottles of Captain Morgan’s rum.
I ducked beneath a chart of Paswegas Bay. “This is amazing.”
“Why, thank you.” Toby smiled. “Check this out.”
On a table beside the computers was a black rotary phone, a cheap Radio Shack microphone attached to its handset. The lunar-landing ping of a satellite connection came through the mike while a laser printer spat out sheets of paper. Toby bent to peer at one of the computer screens.
“See that?” He pointed to a grid of lines and numbers, tapped the second monitor, which showed a series of sine curves, and finally the third, which displayed a gray-and-white whorl that, when I squinted at it, resolved into a satellite map of the Atlantic Ocean and Eastern Seaboard. “That’s a northeaster.”
He picked up one of the printed pages and handed it to me. It showed a higher-definition version of what I’d seen onscreen, with classified slashed across it in white letters.
“Naval weather satellites,” he explained. “I had the Arabian Gulf earlier.”
“You hacked into this with a rotary phone?”
“It’s not that hard. You want some coffee?”
“Some water.”
He lit a cigarette and moved methodically about the room. I felt as though my face was starting to peel back, just above my eyes. When Toby appeared again, I started.
“Here—” He moved a roll of charts, revealing a chair, and handed me a glass of water. “Have a seat.”
“Thanks.” I drank gratefully.
Toby pointed at my boot. “You got some paint there on your shoe.” He tossed me a roll of paper towels, unscrewed the top from a bottle of rum. “Want some?”
“No thanks.” I cleaned the blood off the tip of my boot and tossed the paper towel into a wastebasket. “Listen. Things haven’t been going so good. Aphrodite—Gryffin’s mother—she died last night.”
Toby’s eyes widened. “What happened?”
“I’m not sure. I think she was drinking and fell and hit her head.”
“Jesus. How’s Gryffin taking it?”
“As well as can be expected.”
“I better call him.”
He hurried to the front of the apartment. I fidgeted and fought my paranoia with more Jack Daniel’s. It helped, but not much.
“He doesn’t sound too good.” Toby returned and sat across from me. “Coroner or someone’s on the way over; they’re taking her body to Augusta. Gryffin’s got to do something about a service and cremation. What a shame.”
He looked upset but not surprised. “She had kind of a drinking problem for a long time. Like I said, I never knew her that well, but—that whole crowd from back then, for a while there we were pretty tight. Someone should tell Denny.”
“Are you going to help Gryffin?”
Toby sighed. “I wish I could. But that northeaster—I got to get over to Lucien’s place and make sure everything’s battened down. Denny’s supposed to have closed everything up for the winter, but Lucien likes me to run backup.”
“I’ve got to get back to the city. I really need a ride back to Burnt Harbor. Can you bring me before you go?”
“I can’t. Sorry. I should have checked Lucien’s place last week, but I got caught up with another job. And now the weather’s supposed to come down. Can’t let the pipes freeze.”
“Couldn’t you just run me over first? Like, just a real quick trip there and back?”
“I’m sorry.” His dark eyes glinted. “Any other day, I’d be glad to. But I can’t let this slip. First thing tomorrow, though, I’ll be out.”
“Shit. Well, Is there someone else? Like Everett? Can I call him?”
Toby sucked at his lip. “Boy, you’re in a spot. I don’t know if you could find anyone today. They’ll be out looking for Kenzie Libby.”
“So why wouldn’t one of them give me a lift?”
“Well, I don’t know as I’d ask them. If I were you, I mean. Maybe you should just lay low till tomorrow morning. Kenzie’ll show up by then, everyone will be all pissed off at her for scaring ‘em. They’ll fall all over themselves to help you. If the weather’s not too bad, I mean. This is the first big northeaster of the year.”
“I don’t give a fuck. I want to get the hell out of here—”
Toby shrugged. “Well, you can go down to the harbor and take your chances, I guess. I wouldn’t. Tempers running high already, and now this thing with Aphrodite. But you can stay at my place if you want.”
He gestured vaguely at a corner. “There’s a futon.”
“I have to leave,” I said.
Toby’s phone rang. “’Scuse me,” he said and ducked into the shadows.
I stared at the row of monitors. They now appeared to be clocking atmospheric disturbances somewhere east of Subar.
I got up and started pacing. I searched for a mirror, to see if I looked as crazy as I was starting to feel, but of course there were none, not even a window.
The bathroom had a shower stall. But no mirror.
I went to the kitchen and got some more water. Toby stood in the doorway, phone pressed to his ear, and stared into the boiler room, talking to Gryffin again, I assumed. He lifted his hand to me, and I turned away.
I wandered toward the back of the room again and passed a cluttered table. From underneath it peeked a mask. I stooped and pulled it out, another brightly colored confection made of papier-mâché and chicken wire and acrylic paint.
It was a frog’s head, like the one I’d seen on Northern Sky. This one was even more eerily totemic. Also surprisingly heavy, as I discovered when I lifted it. I put it over my head, knocking a book off the table as I did.