I got down on hands and knees in the snow and looked along the length of the channel. There, to my right, fifty or sixty feet behind me, was a dinghy that had broken loose in the storm and drifted up this channel. I’d walked right past it. I got up, went back the way I’d come, and stood over where the dinghy had caught on a wood piling. She was rocking pretty hard in the water, but I climbed down into her without going over. Shit! One of her oars was missing, so there was no way I’d be able to row all the way over to Jimmy Palumbo’s house. Given how choppy the water was and the size of the swales even in this narrow, sheltered channel, I probably wouldn’t have made it anyway. I used the one remaining oar to push the dinghy off the piling, paddled across the thin strip of water, and pulled myself up on the opposite side. One down, one to go.
I was running again, heading for the short block that ran parallel to Jimmy’s street. Other than the sounds of the ocean and the storm, it was strangely quiet. I slowed down, searching the street for a house with a backyard that faced across the channel at Jimmy’s dock. There was only one candidate on the right side of the street. The house was totally dark and the driveway was empty of cars. When I threw a snowball at the front window, no dogs barked, no alarms sounded, no lights flashed. I crept up the driveway and went through the unlocked gate into the backyard. And there, across the second narrow channel, was Jimmy’s dock. That’s where my luck ran out. This house, like all the houses down here, had a backyard dock too, but it was empty. No boat. This time there would be no dinghy to get me across the water.
I thought about just letting the police do what they wanted to do in the first place, but no. Jimmy Palumbo had made me an accomplice to at least one murder and maybe two. He was mine. If there was only an ounce of redemption for me in finding out where Sashi was buried, I was going to get it. Besides, I noticed the lights were on in Jimmy’s house, which was a good thing, but so too were the running lights on in his boat. That, and beneath the howl of the wind and the crash and slap of the surf, I could make out the low growl and purr of the boat’s idling twin engines. Fuck me, but I was going in. I was still a little boozy and figured the water couldn’t drown me any faster than my own raging guilt. Now I had three people’s blood on my hands: Katy’s, Sashi’s, and Tierney’s. I meant to wash some of it off or to die trying. I threw off my shoes and sports jacket, bundled up my parka for a makeshift flotation device, and dived into the black water.
It was worse than I ever thought it would be, much worse. The shock of the wet and the biting cold robbed me of my breath, my will, my ability to think. I flailed about, slapping at the water, but couldn’t find my bundled coat. Panic was as near to me as the pounding of my own heart and I felt it about to pull me under. Then I thought I heard a splash behind me. The distraction saved me for a brief moment as my increasingly heavy arms and legs kicked and pushed the dense, unforgiving water. But I could feel myself failing, slowing down, falling under the soulless water’s icy spell. There wasn’t enough adrenaline in all of Suffolk County to keep me afloat any longer. Then something grabbed me and just like a drowning victim in a Learning To Swim video, I went bonkers. I swung my arms wildly, striking out into the blackness. Something, the back of a hand, a clenched fist, something, slammed into my face and stunned me. I was no longer flailing.
“Moe, relax! I’ve got you. Relax!” a voice screamed to me from beyond the fog in my head. “Come on, we can do this.” It was Paul Stern. “Can you swim at all?”
“Yeah, I’m all right now.”
“Okay.”
He grabbed me by the belt and urged me forward. When I started stroking and kicking again, he let go and we made it to the opposite dock. He got out first and then helped me out of the frozen water. I was so cold, it burned. Now I knew what a steak forgotten at the back of the freezer felt like. Paul and I stood there shivering, teeth chattering. The surging water had pushed us a house or two north of Jimmy’s. This house was dark and quiet as well.
“I’m going in,” I said. “You stay here out of trouble.”
Paul showed me a Glock. “Detective McKenna gave it to me and went to stall the cops for time. I hope the damned thing works wet.” He looked down at his waterlogged watch. “We’ve got maybe ten more minutes.”
“ We don’t have shit. You’re staying here.”
“We outgun him, don’t we?” There was that we again.
“Maybe not and neither of us is in any kind of shape to go toe to toe with him. He’s warm, dry, and gigantic. Plus, given the strain he’s been under for over a month, he’s probably about ready to explode.”
“Then you need me and I’m helping whether you want me to or not.”
I was in no position to argue and I needed to get out of the cold. “Okay.”
“How are you going to deal with him if, like you say, he’s ready to blow?”
“In his way, I think he’s expecting me. But it really doesn’t matter, does it? We’re here and I’m going after him. Cover me until I get around the side of the house, then take care of the boat. Do whatever you have to do to it, but just make sure he can’t use it to make a run.”
As I worked my way to the side door, back against the clapboards, ducking below the windows, I tried figuring out a play that would get me inside the house without Jimmy knowing about it. Who was I kidding? Even if I wasn’t soaked, frostbitten, and shoeless and hadn’t consumed a third of a bottle of scotch or had a fight or been punched in the face, I don’t think I could have figured out a reasonable plan. I wasn’t a goddamned cat burglar, so I did the only thing that made any sense at alclass="underline" I knocked. I put my arms in the air high above my head, my old. 38 in my hand, butt end out, and waited. I didn’t have to wait long.
Jimmy Palumbo almost smiled at me when he answered the door. He grabbed my. 38 and tossed it into the darkness and drifting snow behind me. He had a big, nasty-looking revolver in his hand and it was pointed right at my belly.
“Come on inside,” was all he said as he backed up into the house. “Close the door behind you.”
As cold and scared as I was, I did as he said without hesitation. I guess I didn’t care so much about getting killed as long as I could be warm when it happened.
“There’s a comforter on the couch over there.” He pointed with the gun. I went to the couch and had the comforter wrapped around my shoulders and the rest of me in a flash. “Sit,” he said. I sat.
The interior of the place looked as I imagined it would, like a well-decorated house that had been rented out to a couple of irresponsible frat boys. Dirty floors, dirty dishes, half-empty food containers, a big TV. Except for the lack of used needles and cotton balls, it kind of reminded me of Nathan Martyr’s place.
“No way to sell a house,” I said, my teeth still chattering. “The place is a mess.”
He ignored that, walking over to the front window and pushing the curtain aside with the muzzle of the revolver. “Fucking weather. I should have been long gone by now.” Jimmy let the curtain fall back into place.