“That’s correct, sir. They’re a classy outfit. Got a bunch of homes on the island, redid themselves a whole restaurant, brought in a sushi cook so they could eat the way they like. Sure wish they’d outbid the Scientologists for that old hotel, though.”
“Don’t we all. So does Fujisaki-Superduperist! Clientologist! Fujiopolis!-does Fujisaki live here in Musconguspoint year-round?”
“What’s that?”
“Fly-on-top-of-us!”
“You got a touch of Tourette’s syndrome there, son.”
“Yes,” I gasped. “You want a drink?”
“No, no. The classy outfit, do they all live up here?”
“Nope. They come and go in a bunch, always together, Tokyo, New York, London. Got a heliport on the island, go back and forth. They just rode in on the ferry this morning.”
“Ah.” I blinked madly in the wake of the outburst. “You run the ferry, too?”
“Nope, wouldn’t want any part of that bathtub. Just a couple of boats, couple of crews. Keep my feet up, concentrate on my hobbies.”
“Your other boat’s out fishing?”
“Nope. Urchin-diving’s an early-morning affair, son. Go out three, four in the morning, day’s over by ten o’clock.”
“Right, right. So where’s the boat?”
“Funny you ask. Let a couple of guys take it out an hour ago, said they had to get to the island, couldn’t wait for the ferry. Rented my boat and captain. They were a lot like you, thought I’d be real impressed with twenty-dollar bills.”
“One of them big?”
“Biggest I ever saw.”
My detour through the middle of Boston had cost me the lead in the race to Musconguspoint. Now it seemed silly that I’d imagined anything else. I found the red Contour and the black Pontiac in a small parking area just past the ferry landing, a tree-hidden cul-de-sac lot for day-trippers to the island, with an automated coin-fed gate and one-way exit with flexible spikes pointed at an angle and signs that warned, DON’T BACK UP! SEVERE TIRE DAMAGE! There was something I found poignant in Tony and the giant each paying to park here, fishing in their pockets for coins before enacting whatever queer struggle had led them to hire the urchin boat. I took a closer look and saw that the Contour was locked up tight, while the Pontiac’s keys were in the ignition, the doors unlocked. Tony’s gun, the one he’d pointed at me the day before, lay on the floor near the gas pedal. I pushed it under the seat. Maybe Tony would need it. I hoped so. I thought of how the giant had strong-armed Minna wherever he wanted him to go and felt sorry for Tony.
On my way up the hill I felt a buzz, like a bee or hornet trapped inside my pants. It was Minna’s beeper. I’d set it to “vibrate” at the Zendo. I drew it out. It showed a New Jersey number. The Clients were home from Brooklyn.
In the parking lot I got into my car and found the cell phone on the seat with the sandwich wrappings, which were beginning to mature in the sun. I rang the number.
I was very tired.
“Yes?”
“It’s Lionel, Mr. Matricardi. You beeped me.”
“Yes. ›
“I’m working on it.”
“Working is wonderful, honorable, admirable. Results-now those we truly cherish.”
“I’ll have something for you soon.”
The interior was all inlaid burnished wood to match the exterior’s toasted-marshmallow color; the carpet supplied the seashell pink. The girl who met me just inside the door wore an elaborate Japanese robe and a dazed expression. I smoothed both sides of her collar with my hand and she seemed to take it well, perhaps as admiration for the silk. I nodded at the big windows overlooking the water and she led me to a small table there, then bowed and left me alone. I was the only customer for lunch, or the first anyway. I was starving. A sushi chef waved his broad knife at me and grinned from across the big, elegant dining room. The beveled-glass partition he worked behind made me think of the holdup-proof Plexiglas habitats for clerks in Smith Street liquor stores. I waved back, and he nodded, a sudden and ticcish bob, and I reciprocated happily. We had quite a thing going until he broke it off, to begin slicing with theatrical flair the whole skin off a slab of reddish fish.
The doors to the kitchen swung open, and Julia came out. She too wore a robe, and she wore it splendidly. It was her haircut that was a little jarring. She’d shaved her long blond hair down to military fuzz, exposing the black roots. Her face underneath the fuzz looked exposed and raw, her eyes a little wild to be without their veil. She picked up a menu and brought it to my table and halfway across the floor I saw her notice who she was bringing it to. She lost only a little something from her stride.
“Lionel.”
“Pisspaw,” I completed.
“I’m not going to ask you what you’re doing here,” she said. “I don’t even want to know.” She passed me the menu, the cover of which was thatched, a weave of bamboo.
“I followed Tony,” I said, putting the menu gingerly aside, wary of splinters. “And the giant, the killer. We’re all coming up here for a Frank Minna convention.”
“That’s not funny.” She examined me, her mouth drawn. “You look like shit, Lionel.”
“It was a long drive. I guess I should have flown into Boston and-what’s your trick, rental car? Or catch a bus? This is a regular vacation spot for you, I know that much.”
“Very nice, Lionel, you’re very smart. Now get lost.”
“Muscongaphone! Minnabunkport!” I gritted back a whole series of Maine-geography tics that wished to follow these two through the gate of my teeth. “We really ought to talk, Julia.”
“Why don’t you just talk to yourself?”
“Where’s Tony?”
“He’s-Tugboat! Tunaphone!-he’s on a boat ride.” It sounded so pleasant, I didn’t want to say who with. From the vantage of Yoshii’s high window I could see Muscongus Island at last, wreathed in mist on the horizon.
“He should have come here,” said Julia, without a trace of sentiment. She spoke as someone whose thinking had taken a very practical turn in the past day or so. “He told me to wait here for him, but I can’t wait much longer. He should have come.”
“Maybe he tried. I think he wants to get to Fujisaki before someone gets to him.” I watched her as I dangled the theory, alert for any flinch or fire that might cross her expression.
It was flinch. She lowered her voice. “Don’t say that name here, Lionel. Don’t be an idiot.” She looked around, but there was only the hostess and sushi chef. Don’t say that name-the widow had inherited the dead man’s superstitions.
“Who are you afraid of, Julia? Is it Fujisaki, really? Or Matricardi and Rockaforte?”
She looked at me and I saw her throat tighten and her nostrils flare.
“I’m not the one hiding from the Italians,” she said. “I’m not the one who should be afraid.”
“Who’s hiding?”
It was one question too many. Her fury’s crosshairs centered on me now, only because I was there and the person she wanted to kill was so very far away, working her by remote control. “Screw you, Lionel. You fucking freak.”
The ducks were on the pond, the monkeys were in a tree, the birds wired, the fish barreled, the pigs blanketed: However the players in this tragic fever dream ought to be typed zoologically, I had them placed together now. The problem wasn’t one of tracing connections. I’d climbed into my Tracer and accomplished that. Now, though, I had to draw a single coherent line through the monkeys, ducks, fish, pigs, through monks and mooks-a line that accurately distinguished two opposed teams. I might be close.