There once was a bored private eye.
Day in and day out he would spy
On people in bars,
Or out driving cars,
Like a voyeur, but not the good kind.
Just before five o’clock Richard’s BMW nosed its way from the alley back onto the road. I was able to catch up with him about a quarter of a mile down the road, heading toward his house. He veered off at one point but it was just to pull into the large parking lot of a discount liquor store. He emerged holding a paper bag close to his torso and returned to his car. I was parked one row over, and angled so that I had a view through the driver’s side window. He put the bag down on the passenger side seat then pulled something from it. I wasn’t sure what it was until he raised it to his lips, and I saw him drinking from a nip bottle, tipping it back and downing it all at once. Then he reached into the bag again and pulled out another of the same. This one he sipped at slowly while staring through his windshield out toward the darkening sky. He must have turned on his car’s engine because he powered his window halfway down and I could hear music coming from inside. I couldn’t be a hundred percent sure, but it sounded like “Lyin’ Eyes” by the Eagles, which was way too on the nose, I thought.
When he finished his second small bottle, he got out of his car, and walked with a stiff, awkward gait back to the front of the store, where he deposited the two empty nips into a trash container.
Then he got back into his car and drove home, me following at a slight distance. After he pulled into the driveway of his green Colonial I kept driving, all the way back to Cambridge. At a long red light, I got on my smartphone and cued up “Lyin’ Eyes.”
Chapter 10
Joan
She left the Windward at just past ten, walking across the empty front lawn, then crossing Micmac Road to get to the beach. It was a dark night, no stars in the sky. Stepping onto the beach she had a brief moment of complete displacement, the water and the sand and the sky all equally black, and making Joan feel as though she were a tiny creature marooned in the middle of a vast nothingness.
She saw a yellow flicker toward the jetty side of the beach and made her way in that direction, walking slowly, ready to turn back if it was only Duane by the fire. But soon she could hear multiple voices, and a loud whooping noise. There were about six bodies grouped around the flames. It wasn’t until Joan was close enough to hear their words and see their faces that they even saw her approaching. Duane stood up. “Hey, you made it,” he said, and all the other firelit faces turned toward her.
He introduced her around, ignoring the fact she’d already met Derek. Besides him, there were three other guys, two of them who seemed like they might be in their twenties, one of them smoking a cigarette. And there were two girls, wearing shorts and sweaters, hunched over near the fire like they were freezing. Their names were Emily and Anne and they said they were sisters, even though one had very blond hair and the other one was a full-on redhead, her face covered with dark freckles. Duane grabbed Joan a can of beer from a plastic cooler, and she popped it open and tasted it. It was both bitter and overly sweet at the same time, and she shuddered a little after taking a sip.
“You like beer?” Duane said.
“Not really. I prefer martinis.”
Everyone had been listening, and the boys laughed, one of them saying, “Oh my God,” in a loud, slurry voice.
There were two coolers around the fire, and Joan was offered one to sit on. Duane was nearest to her, and he began to tell her about how there was this liquor store a few towns away in Biddeford, and it was run by this guy whose brother was a cop, so pretty much anyone could buy beer there, no matter how old they were. “All you gotta do,” said Derek, “is show them any kind of ID when they ask. Like just present your library card or something, and the guy who owns the place looks at it, then rings you up.”
“What kind of beer is this?” Joan said, just to have something to say.
“It’s Coors Light. You like it? We have other stuff too. We got J?ger.”
“The beer is fine,” Joan said, and one of the sisters said she’d do a J?ger shot, and then the bottle was being passed around. When it got to Joan she said she’d do one shot, and she tipped the bottle to her lips, but only sipped a tiny bit.
“It’s no martini,” one of the older boys said.
“No, it’s not,” Joan said, and looked at him until he looked away. Then she twisted her beer can into the sand so it wouldn’t tip over, and said, “I’m going to take off soon, it’s kind of cold out here.”
“You’re wearing jeans and a sweatshirt,” Duane said. “Look at me.” He stood up to demonstrate he was only wearing cargo shorts and a T-shirt.
“We’re pretty cold, too,” said one of the other girls, and then one of the older guys said that his place wasn’t too far away from here, and they could all go there and smoke some pot.
Joan stood up and said she really did need to get back to the hotel, that her parents would probably be checking on her soon, and if she wasn’t in her room they’d have a fit.
“You aren’t going to show off your gymnast’s moves first?” Duane said.
“Like what?”
“I don’t know. You’re a gymnast, aren’t you? Let’s see something.”
“Yeah, let’s see a split,” one of the older guys said, lighting a new cigarette.
The sand was packed hard where they were all sitting so Joan did a quick handstand, holding it for a few seconds. Everyone clapped. “I’m heading back,” she said.
“I’ll walk you,” Duane said, and Joan shrugged. “I’ll be back,” he said, as the two of them headed in the direction of the hotel.
“Yeah, right,” one of the boys shouted, and Joan looked back. The two sisters had stood up, as well, and she could hear the guys begging them to stay a little longer.
“I don’t really need to be walked back,” Joan said.
“I don’t mind taking a break from those guys. Besides, it’s pretty dark out.” He was acting as though they hadn’t been on this beach before, her trying to get away from him, him squeezing her arm and calling her a tease. Maybe he actually had forgotten?
They crossed the road, an oncoming car casting them briefly in yellow light. When they got to the lawn, he pressed his hand against her lower back, and said, “Slow down, will ya?”
“Why?”
“I want to keep hanging out with you. Seriously, you’re like the only cool person in this place. Why don’t you show me another one of your gymnastics moves?”
“I probably shouldn’t, not without stretching. I might hurt myself. Besides, I don’t want to be a tease.”
“Hey, look, I’m sorry about that. I was just plastered, that’s all. I’m not like that, though. I just want to hang out.” Joan could feel that he’d grabbed a bunch of her sweatshirt and was tugging her toward him. Looking at his face in the moonlight she saw the same thing in his eyes that she’d seen a few nights before, a wolfish look, like hunger. If they were still on the beach she thought she’d be in trouble. Even here on the lawn she considered running, then made a quick decision and gave him a hug, saying “Let’s hang out again this week, okay? Just the two of us.”