I thanked him. It was probably good advice in any case. He nodded pleasantly to Rebecca and went about his work.
When he was done, I followed Rebecca’s Hyundai as she drove Jenna to school, then kept behind her all the way to her office. She worked a stone’s throw from where she lived, at Willard Square, just by the junction of Pillsbury and Preble. She had told me that she planned to be in the office until lunchtime, then had properties to visit in the afternoon. I watched her go inside. I had tried to keep a discreet distance from her while she drove. I hadn’t yet seen any sign of the man who was following her, but I didn’t want him to spot me with her, not yet. I wanted him to try to get close to her again, so that this time I could be waiting. If he was good, though, he’d pick me out easily, and I had already resigned myself to the fact that I would need to bring in more bodies if this thing was to be done right.
While Rebecca worked in her office, I drove back to Scarborough, walked and fed Walter, then showered and changed my clothes. I switched cars, substituting the Mustang for a green Saturn coupe, bought coffee and a Danish in Foley’s Bakery on Route 1, and headed back to Willard. Willie Brew’s auto shop in Queens had sourced the coupe for me and sold it on for what seemed like less than it must have cost to buy the tires. It was useful as a backup at times like this, but driving it made me feel like a rube.
“Somebody die in it?” I had asked Willie when he had first presented it to me as a possible second car.
Willie had made a show of sniffing the interior.
“I think it’s damp,” he had answered. “Probably. Maybe. Anyway, at what I’m asking for it, the corpse could be stuck to the seat and it would still be a bargain.”
He was right, but it remained kind of embarrassing to drive. Then again, it was hard to be inconspicuous in a 1969 Mustang Boss 302. Even the dumbest criminal is likely to look in his rearview at some point, and think, I wonder is that the same ’69 Mustang with go-faster stripes that was behind me earlier? Hey, maybe I’m being followed!
I checked in with Rebecca by phone, then took a walk around Willard to clear my head a little more and to pass some time. Sleeping on a couch with a cold wind whistling through a broken window wasn’t conducive to a good night’s sleep. Even after my shower, I still felt out of sync.
People across the water in Portland tended to look down some on South Portland. It had been a city for only a hundred years or so, which made it a baby by Maine standards. The building of the Million Dollar Bridge, the construction of Interstate 295, and the opening of the Maine Mall had taken away some of its charm by forcing local businesses to close, but it still had a character all its own. The area in which Rebecca Clay lived used to be called Point Village, but that was way back in the 1800s and by the time South Portland became a separate entity from Cape Elizabeth in 1895 it had become known simply as Willard. It was home to ships’ captains and fishermen, descendants of whom still lived in the area to this day. During the last century, a man named Daniel Cobb used to own a lot of the land around here. He grew tobacco and apples and celery. It was also said that he was the first person to grow iceberg lettuce in the East.
I walked down Willard Street to the beach. The tide was out, and the sand changed color dramatically from white to dark brown where the sea’s advance had halted. To the left, the beach stretched in a half-moon, ending at the Spring Point Ledge Light which marked the dangerous ledge on the west side of the main shipping channel into Portland Harbor. Beyond lay Cushing Island and Peaks Island, and the rust-streaked façade of Fort Gorges. To the right, a set of concrete steps led up to a pathway along the promontory that ended in a small park.
A trolley line used to run down Willard Street to the beach in summer. Even after the trolley stopped running, an old refreshment stand remained near what used to be the end of the line. It dated back to the 1930s, and it was still selling food as late as the 1970s, when it was called the “Dory” and the Carmody family passed out hot dogs and fries through its window to the beachgoers. My grandfather sometimes brought me there as a child, and he told me that the stand had once been part of the empire of Sam Silverman, who was kind of a legend in his time. It was said that he kept a monkey and a bear in a cage in order to attract people to his businesses, including the Willard Beach Bath House and Sam’s Lunch. The Carmodys’ hot dogs had been pretty good, but they couldn’t really match up to a bear in a cage. After we had spent a little time on the beach, my grandfather would always take me over to Mr. and Mrs. B’s store, the Bathras Market, on Preble Street, where he would order some Italian sandwiches to bring home for supper and Mr. B would carefully record the sale on my grandfather’s tab. The Bathras family had the most famous tab in South Portland, so that it seemed like every customer settled bills there on a weekly or biweekly basis, with cash rarely changing hands for small items.
I wondered if it was nostalgia that caused me to reflect warmly on something as simple as a grocery store or an old refreshment stand. That was part of it, I supposed. My grandfather had shared these places with me, but now both he and they were gone, and I would not have the opportunity to share them with another. Still, there were other places and other people. Jennifer, my first child, had never been given the chance to see them, not really. She was too young when she and her mother came up here with me, and before she was old enough to appreciate what she was encountering she was dead. But there was still Sam. Her life was just beginning. If I could keep her safe from harm, then, in time, she might be able to join me on a stretch of sand, or on a quiet street along which trolleys used to rumble, or by a river or on a mountain path. I could pass on some of these secrets to her, and she could hold them to herself and know that the past and the present were speckled with brightness, and that there was light as well as shade in the honeycomb world.
I turned back toward Willard Haven Road, following the slatted path across the sand, then stopped. Halfway up Willard Street, a red car sat idling by the curb. The windshield was almost reflective, so that when I looked at it I saw only the sky. As I began to approach, the driver put it into reverse, backing slowly up Willard, keeping the distance between us constant, then found space to turn and headed for Preble. The car was a Ford Contour, probably a midnineties model. I didn’t get the number of the plate. I couldn’t even be sure that inside was the man who was stalking Rebecca Clay, but I had a feeling it was he. I guessed that it had been too much to hope that he might not have connected me to her yet, but it wasn’t a disaster. My presence might be enough to rattle his cage. It wouldn’t frighten him off, but it might make him try to frighten me off instead. I wanted to meet him face-to-face. I wanted to hear what he had to say. Until then, I couldn’t begin to solve Rebecca Clay’s problem.
I walked back up Willard Street to where my car was parked. If the guy had made me, then at least I wouldn’t have to drive the Saturn any longer, so that was some cause for celebration. I called Rebecca and told her that I thought the man who was bothering her might be nearby. I gave her the color and the make of the car and told her not to leave the office, even for a short time. If her plans changed suddenly, she was to call me, and I would come and get her. She informed me that she planned to eat lunch at her desk, and she had called Jenna’s principal and asked that Jenna be allowed to wait with his secretary until she came to pick her up. The fact that Rebecca was staying at her office for a while gave me an hour or so to play around with. While she had told me a little about her father, I wanted to find out more, and I thought I knew someone who might be able to help.