Then as the other two looked just about done grabbing their equipment, he looked me uncomfortably hard in the eye, his stare relentless.
“You want news? You come back here ’bout noon today. Bring us lunch and two six packs of cold ‘Gansett’s, and I’ll have some hearsay you’ll want to know. Right now, boy, I’ve got fish to catch and bills to pay.”
With that he flicked the cigar butt into the sand, and with their equipment and and tackle in tow, followed closely by the decrepit dog, they headed toward their preferred fishing spot, while I jogged away, only now with a whole bunch more shit to digest, lunches to arrange, and beers to (somehow) buy!
My mind circled back to the earlier subject. Now why would someone wear a golf glove if they, pretty obviously, don’t play golf?
And…
Just which hand did the cops tell us that severed finger was from anyway?
Always thinking Jimmyrocket.
I glanced at my watch. I figured I had time to finish up my run, and figure out how to make some sandwiches. Would they want tuna? Maybe they were sick of fish. Better idea... I could go with trusty peanut butter and jelly, figuring everybody liked that, right? Good. That was decided. Now, what I need next is the hard part, getting someone to buy beer for me. There were options.
I could recruit one of the older kids who liked me (Tony being the #1 candidate if he was working maintenance today, otherwise Ronny Parker was a likely candidate). Or maybe Crazy Eddie was around if, that was, I wanted to count on him, which I didn’t. Scratch that idea. Or maybe my sister could help.
Ok... get home fast, make sandwiches, find somebody willing to buy the beer for me at Gray Gables Market—then get back to Hog Island, all before noon. I shook my head and sighed. This was actually a task easier to accomplish at night. But I was up for the task seeing our investigation was at stake!
Now Robin, to the BatCave!
I went with the PB&J route. My mom wasn’t home to ask what I was up to, so no excuses were necessary, but I worked fast, slapping together four hefty Peter Pan with Welch’s Grape on Wonder Bread sandwiches, and bolted out the door to complete the next and significantly more vital phase of the operation, beer.
I saw Tony Dupré working maintenance around The Club, and he couldn’t help, but told me to ask Adrian Best who was in the back parking lot sitting in his dad’s caddy and “doing nothin’ anyway.’’ So I tracked him down; he was in the middle of looking at himself in his rearview mirror fixing his stylish blond hair. The kid loved himself.
He was, however, happy to help. So twenty minutes and four-dollars and twenty-five cents plus two awkward high-fives later, I was stashing two six-packs of iced ‘Gansett bottles in a styrofoam cooler behind the baseball-field’s backstop for later transport to Hog Island.
Ideally, I’d have opted for a ride up to Hog Island, but schlepping the cooler up the beach myself seemed preferable to sharing my whereabouts with anyone, so at 11:40 I grabbed the goods and headed over to the Hog Island Beach. The tide was out, so I made my way through the typical battery of exposed rocks, arriving with supplies firmly in hand, slightly out of breath, and nervous as shit, just before noon.
Good, their truck was still there, so I headed around the far side of the island to where I knew they’d be and sure enough there they were. They took zero notice of me. So I stood there for a few never-ending minutes like a mute, finally calling over,
“Hello, ummm, Hello!” I got no reply, so I spoke a little louder: “Umm, excuse me?” *throat clearing noise* But still I got nothing. “Hi, I, umm, brought you guys lunch. AND BEER TOO!”
They turned. The tall fisherman spoke first
“Heya, kid, you showed. Wasn’t too sure.” He locked eyes with me, while the other two glanced over, a few middling-looking fish squirming in their bucket, as they stacked their rods against a large rock.
He raised his square chin, gesturing toward the cooler. “So, whadaya got in there?” His interest piqued.
“I brought what you wanted. Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches on Wonder and, umm, beer. Narragansetts like you asked. They’re still pretty cold. Hope you like ’em. I made the sandwiches myself,” I weirdly added as I was handing them out.
“Sure thing, kid. Thanks.”
“Yeah, good job, kid,” the other two barely mumbled. Aha! So they can talk!
We all sat on a large flat rock together while they sucked down beers, interrupted by loud belching, as they gobbled up the sandwiches.
The tall fisherman motioned for me to join in, and I gladly accepted. (Exactly what I was waiting for!) After a few more minutes of eating, drinking, and belching, the conversation turned to Mashnee.
“Now, kid, I know you’ve been poking around asking about the goings-on at that island.” He pointed in the general direction. “And rightly so; there’s been some strange stuff happening there all right.”
“See, I got me a source telling me about a meeting set for tonight around ten o’clock over there at that bar they got. It’s a meeting you’re gonna wanna have your eyes and ears out for, especially your ears. They’ll be a twosome sittin’ in the bar area, man and woman, and they should be easily recognizable, since the dame’s real tall and will catch eyes for certain.”
“Now from what I hear, the lady is a hitter. For dough, you follow? Big dough. Anyway, that simpl’. That’s the deal. The whole of it.”
“Umm, thanks. So, wait a sec. You mean like a real hired gun (I had after all seen my fair share of detective movies)?” He didn’t respond.
“Just make sure to have ears on them. That’s all.”
“I will. Thanks, I sure will.”
“Ok, kid. You didn’t hear nuthin’ from me. Never met ya. Now we gotta get back to hookin’ fish and makin’ a livin’. Eat up then go.”
“OK, thanks. By the way, I never caught your names?”
“Guess I never threw ’em.” He lit another cigar and returned to his trade.
I left the cooler with them not wanting to schlepp it back, and raced back to The Club as fast as I could, anxious to tell the gang what I had learned so we could plan for tonight’s counter-espionage thing.
The conversation had left me thinking about something else odd I had recently witnessed. Well, overheard. I was cutting through the bar on my way to the blue marine-colored “buoys” room, when I heard a loud argument coming from the back deck. It was two men energetically hollering at each other, one of them was that creepazoid, Barkeep Ben, I didn’t recognize the other, but it’s possible it was the New York renter, ’cause I heard that accent. Why the hell would Barkeep be fighting with a (presumably) customer? Other than the fact he was an asshole, I mean. But yelling and screaming like that? He sounded incensed. What was he doing, trying to lose his job? Those two most-definitely had an issue. Add this to the ever-growing list of strange happenings needing further investigation.
But my immediate concern was tonight’s meeting the fisherman had tipped me off about. I needed to find a trustworthy pair of eyes and ears to spy on this purported get together, and fast!
Fortunately, I had a plan in mind. Now, all I needed now was my sister Alison’s help, along with a certain guitar-playing friend.
Chapter 45
Stop
