Author Brett Reetz – Please Review this book on Authonomy.com

SWIMMER

There was no bullet hole. Carter Anselmo killed himself with a single bullet, thirty-thirty caliber, yes he did, but nobody would ever know this reality. It was his finest moment, those were his words, and it killed him as sure as if he’d just put the business end of the thirty-thirty in his mouth and pulled the trigger. He did not commit suicide. He would have never dreamed of doing such a thing, never ever. But if a life line is a series of dominos set up in a row, and maybe it is, when a domino tips, it hits the next one, and the next one hits the next one, and so on and so on, until they’re all laying flat. So a person can go and get himself killed without even knowing it. This is the point here.

Example: A guy dates a girl he met at Victory Lane bowling alley. The owner’s last name is Lane, as if Mr. Lane was predestined to own a bowling alley. The guy didn’t even want to go bowling, he wanted to go over to the recreation center and shoot some hoops with the brothers. In fact, he hates bowling with a passion, says that it can’t be a sport if old fat guys with bad backs and hacking coughs can beat him, but he goes at his friend’s urging, specifically Johnny Rowling’s urging. Unlike our guy, Johnny Rowling loves bowling. A domino tips and click, it hits the next one, which just happens to be a girl named Sally, four-dates-never-passed-first base-and-then-it’s-over Sally, standing in the shoe line returning a size six that she claims is a mislabeled women’s size five. Conversation starts up and the guy’s feeling confident, he hasn’t bowled yet, and so, tip, he asks her out and, click, she says yes, and tip-click, they go out, and tip-click, she smokes, and tip-click, he lies and says he smokes, and can’t stand the first few but by date three, the first base date, tip-click, tip-click, he’s starting to like the feel of nicotine in his veins, and tip-click, he gets himself addicted, and tip-click, tip-click, tip-click times a million smokes later, he’s laying in a hospital bed hooked up to a respirator with his family standing around him patting his arms, lying about how everything is going to be fine and dandy and how he’ll be home soon and the lawn mower is waiting for him in the garage and the guys are asking about him, and all the rest of the lies that get dispensed to a terminal patient; lying just like he lied to Sally about how he smoked. He thinks of her now and wants to kill her for getting him hooked on the cancer sticks, wants to kill Johnny Rowling too for talking him out of shooting hoops with the brothers, but killing anybody, except himself of course is out of the question. He can’t even sit up. The truth is he can’t even get to the can anymore, not that it would matter; nothing significant has come out in months. He can’t drop more than a marble sized turd in the toilet bowl any more. The cancer seems to eat everything up. The only thing he can do, and this is sad, is to try to catch a breath that will never be caught. Tip-click. Tip-click. Tip-click.

The other side of the story. Four-date-Sally hates the way the guy she picked up in the bowling alley (she hates this fact too, that she picked up a guy in a bowling alley) looks when he smokes, just too much smoke comes out of him. The way he smokes reminds her of her father’s mosquito fogger and maybe it reminds her of her father who went a little generous on the strap during her high school years, and maybe got a little tent pole in his Dockers when he used the strap too, but she denies this memory, it’s her father after all. Whatever. Men are pigs. She truly believes this.

Anyway. There’s no electricity with the guy from the bowling alley, a total brown out. And the way the guy holds his cigarette, yuck-gross me out totally. He might as well be blowing glass. It repulses her. So four-date-Sally, did she really kiss the guy? Yeah, she did, on date three, and that was as bad as the way he smoked, so tip-click, tip-click, she dumps the guy and also the habit that never really was, but might have been but for the guy she picked up in the bowling alley. And she lives to be a hundred and three.

It was like this for Carter Anselmo. His four-date-Sally happened to be a male deer, a buck. A buck can give a guy buck fever, which means that a guy almost shits himself when he sees the rack, which Carter Anselmo almost did, shit himself that is. The buck’s rack was that magnificent. Eight years into the Coast Guard, past the grunt years and the yes sir no sir, may-I-kiss-your-ass-sir-before-I-scrub-the-urinals-sir years, Captain Carter Anselmo’s career was in middle age, not quite easy street but that would come, at least he thought it would.

He was on leave and it was November in Wisconsin and when in Rome, or in his case Wisconsin, well, real men hunt deer, that’s the honest to god truth, at least it was to Carter Anselmo. And he knew which deer he wanted, the one out on Chambers Island. The buck he wanted had horns like a marching band. He’d seen it while he was on lighthouse duty, which involved checking the batteries, bulbs, solar panels, and wiring, and not much more since lighthouses had gone automated long before his tour of duty. When his leave arrived smack dab in the middle of deer season, he headed to Chambers Island, which was as much in the middle of Green Bay as his leave was in the middle of Deer Season. He wasn’t on the island an hour before the mighty buck stepped out of the thick stuff. Carter Anselmo caught his sphincter, saving himself from a major league skid mark, and pulled the trigger. The buck went down and in six months it was on his wall, right above the TV set, between two plaques for meritorious service that were hung just a little lower than the deer mount. The plaques were nice, but the deer was his finest moment.

That was in the two thousandth year of our Lord. Three years later, Carter Anselmo gave up deer hunting. He could not hope to ever shoot a bigger buck; they just didn’t grow as big anymore. He tired of deer hunting but never did he tire of telling the story of his finest moment.

Now, evenings were spent in front of the TV, his eyes spending almost as much time on the deer mount hanging above the TV as the junk broadcast on it. Carter Anselmo never would have guessed his deer, his finest moment, would get his due.

The marching band buck was the last buck on Chamber’s Island. That meant a lot of willing females with no suitors and that meant no fawns in the springs of ’05, ’06 and ‘07, o-six, and o-seven. Combine with that, the winters of o-’05 through ‘07 were brutally cold winters. This was all Ma Nature needed to cull the last of the deer on Chamber’s Island. The last doe almost made it to the spring of o-three. If she had she was planning on swimming to the mainland. At least she spent a lot of time on the fringe, eyeing up the shoreline across the bay. Islanders saw her. Maybe she was lonely. Maybe it was a survival instinct. But just when winter seemed to have used itself up, it came roaring back for a two-week attack in late April and the lone doe, the last deer on the island, died of starvation.

This would not have been a problem under most circumstances. Nothing really needed the deer, except deer hunters. The higher predators, bears, wolves, coyotes, and bobcats, had been eliminated from the island at the turn of the century, except for one and there lay Carter Anselmo’s domino of death. The last predator was a deer hunter too, not quite like Carter Anselmo, but a deer hunter all the same and when the last deer dropped, this predator got hungry. By the end of August in ’09 he was fucking starving.

Tip-Click Captain Anselmo. Your death is coming.

Chapter One

Lloyd Jornt tilted his head back and drained the can of Hamm’s, $8.99 a case if you could find it, as he stared into the afternoon sky. The alcohol sated the thirst that had been plaguing him since the time he woke. Actually, the thirst was what had caused him to wake up at five thirty a.m., thank you very much. Of course he knew that his rooster crowed in the land of sky blue water, but it was a knowledge that he avoided dwelling on, like returning the telephone call from Mrs. Miller from the bank. She was always so damn pleasant, grandmotherly, and she referred to him as Mr. Jornt. Not many, well nobody, referred to Lloyd as Mr. Jornt anymore. And for that reason alone, he should return her call. Of course, she was calling to let him know that his checking account was overdrawn and his checks should be bouncing around town like superballs dropped from a helicopter, but the bank took care of its preferred customers, customers like Lloyd Jornt.

Lloyd threw the empty can of sky blue water into the corner of the cockpit where it rattled off the pile of empties and skidded back across the deck, ending up at his feet. Maybe he should call her? Did it really matter? They weren’t going to bounce his checks and anyway, the only checks he had written were to the general store and Nelson’s hardware. Even if they did bounce, the folks at the general store and Nelson’s would just give him a call and let him know that his checks hadn’t cleared and would he be so kind to run some of the green stuff over. But he liked the nice lady from the bank. He would probably call her tomorrow and have her transfer money into his checking account. He really should give her standing permission, but then she wouldn’t have to ever call. He wondered if he wrote bad checks just to hear her pleasant voice.

Maybe.

He contemplated picking up the can of Hamm’s and making another attempt to land the can on the growing pile of aluminum in the corner of the cockpit, but his hand had other thoughts. He reached into the cooler at his side and pulled another cold one out. He popped the tab and took a slug from the can and then set it down in the cup holder in the armrest of the fighting chair. He dug into his shirt pocket and retrieved the pack of Camels, flipped one into the corner of his mouth, lit it, took a drag and blew a cloud of white smoke out and sat there watching the smoke drift out over the transom of the boat.

“You went in right over there.” He pointed the cigarette at the shoreline a little more than a mile off the stern of his boat. “And I was there when you went in, no matter what anybody says.” He took another drag on the cigarette and then another, blowing the smoke out in a thick plume. At least his lungs were still in tact, although they had been rattling a bit as of late. You got some muck forming in there Lloyd. He told himself.

He took another drag from the Camel. He was alone in his boat, on the water, and a good three miles from the nearest person and that was just as fine as silk. There wasn’t anywhere he’d rather be, and although there really weren’t many options left, there were a few taverns that still served him, like the Bayside, where he could have spent the afternoon putting the fire out. But the fire was burning white hot today and he knew the bartenders counted the beers he drank, he’d heard them do it, especially that new hippy with the dreadlocks and the Harvard T-shirt that the kid seemed to always be wearing as if he actually attended Harvard. That guy. What was his name? Hayden or Haddon or something like that, with his sandy brown dreadlocks and affected voice, he actually held up his hands with a finger count after delivering each successive beer. A guy couldn’t much drink in anonymity with the bartender signaling his beer consumption like a K.O.’d fighter down for the count, that was for sure. He’d have to talk to Elaine, the owner, about Harvard boy. She’d set Harvard boy straight about who’s paying the light bill.

And then again, maybe Harvard boy was on to something, Lloyd thought. The whites of Lloyd’s eyes hadn’t gone yellow from moderation and the good doctor Grover probably wasn’t bullshitting about Lloyd’s bilirubin count being off the charts. He had told Lloyd what a high bilirubin count meant. It meant that his liver was taking early retirement, giving up really, not that he could blame it all that much. Not that he cared all that much either.

He knew that he had two choices. Quit drinking or die from drinking, but wasn’t that always the choice, he thought, followed by another thought, this one he liked better, the idea that something’s got to kill you.

“Isn’t that right, Arnie?” He shouted across the water. “Isn’t that just fucking right? Fucking-A it’s right. Something’s gotta kill you. And fucking-A I’ve got to piss.”

Lloyd got up, tossed the Camel into the water, and steadied himself against the gentle rocking of the boat. The late September afternoon was quite nice and the wind was light and cool, out of the west-northwest. The seas were no more than a foot, barely enough to rock the thirty foot Bertram, but enough to cause a person one beer into the third six pack on a thirty foot Bertram to grip the rail when he pissed over the side.

Lloyd surveyed his status. The first six-pack hadn’t made a dent; it never did anymore. The first six for him had become nothing more than an exercise, like stretching out before a game.

But the second sixer, usually at beer number nine or ten, that’s where the relief hung out. In the second sixer a guy could start feeling good about things, maybe even get a little optimistic, definitely drunk enough to ignore problems, and still have plenty of time, and beers, before the urge to pass out in the bunk below showed up. The other thing about the tail end of the second sixer, everything was possible, the rationalizations came easy, and justification ruled. And if anybody had justification, he did. Fucking-A right he did.

But he was in the beginning of the third. Some nasty people hung out in the third sixer. And you never knew who was gonna show up, Lloyd reminded himself, but that wasn’t completely true was it. No. He had a good idea who might show up, and he wasn’t a nice guy. No sirree, in the third sixer, graves got dug up and bad guys, really bad guys, climbed out of the holes. Not too many nice guys hung out in Lloyd’s reality when it got to the third sixer.

He had to get through the third sixer. It was the point really, that is to get to the fourth, because in the fourth, that’s where Promised Land hid. Anesthesia. No memories. All for the paltry sum of $8.99, if you could find it on sale.

He braced his knees against the gunnels of the boat, unzipped his pants and waited for relief of a different sort. He had all the time in the world. No commitments. No obligations really. Not even a friend to call back. So what about the bank lady with the nice voice on his answering machine, she was fulfilling her duty and nothing more, she certainly wasn’t his friend. Fuck her, she probably told the whole county when his checks turned rubber.

The nasty man had arrived early.

When he did call the bank, it wasn’t going to be today, today was in the can so to speak, but when he did call the bank, it would be to give instructions for a money transfer from his money market account to his checking account and the bean counters in bookkeeping could relax. Anyway, they never did bounce his checks; they only threatened to do so. The transparency of the threats was almost laughable. Close to a million sitting in a low grade money market account, managed by the bank, ensured that a little bit of rubber spread around town didn’t have much consequence. The thought again occurred to him that maybe he let his checking account go below zero just to hear the nice-voiced lady on his machine. She’s the only one who ever calls anymore.

“She’s the only one you call, too,” he said as Perrier-colored piss sprinkled the bay water.

He tried Alcoholics Anonymous. No thank you. That experiment hadn’t worked. It was bad enough not drinking, but to hang out in a fraternity of sober alcoholics was unbearable. Lloyd decided that a higher concentration of miserable fucks just didn’t exist. What is it they say around the tables? The man takes a drink. The drink takes the next drink. And the third drink takes the man. The AA mantra. These were the words of the pontificators, whose only pleasure in life seemed to be sitting around church basements and Elk’s lodges, layered with cigarette smoke and that awful smell of burnt coffee, telling their all too familiar tales of dancing with Mr. Booze. Thinking gets you in trouble so don’t think. That was another winner of an AA jingle. There were about a million of them Lloyd figured, the mantras, poems, clichés, rhymes, prayers, and all the other sound bites live from Margaritaville, and Lloyd could recite them all, his memory still apparently functioned, and that was further proof that he didn’t need to be seated in an AA meeting.

Then why are you thinking about it Lloyd? He asked himself as he monitored the stream of piss splashing into the bay. When you think you drink, don’t forget that one. When I drink, I don’t think, so answer me that one, Bill? And how about this one? Something’s got to kill you. And my personal favorite. Go fuck yourself. Lloyd laughed and then checked his outburst. No laughing in the third sixer, the bad guy reminded him.

His last meeting, when was it, two months ago, three weeks into the sober life, almost a one month medallion in his hand, not that he wanted it, that meeting hadn’t gone so well. He had suggested the concept of free will. The man takes a drink and then another and then another. Choice. Simple as fucking that. Nothing complicated about it and it places the blame, if it’s got to be placed, in the right place. The suggestion, that’s how the king of the meeting, referred to it, as “Lloyd’s suggestion,” had made the table junkies light their cigarettes en masse and a few of them refilled their coffee cups, and one guy, whose eyes were the color of mustard, he started crying. And then the table junkies attacked, after all he was pummeling the cornerstone of AA, that a person is powerless over alcohol, with a sledgehammer, and the table junkies didn’t take kindly to that kind of talk. Harry Martin, a twelve step Nazi if there ever was one, pulled Lloyd aside after the meeting. He had leaned in close to Lloyd’s face and Lloyd had smelled the distinct smell of alcohol on Harry Martin’s breath.

As Lloyd pissed, enjoying the thought path his mind was hiking along, this little morsel of his past struck him as fucking hilarious, the king of the meetings, Harry Martin, hitting the sauce. Oh purple Jesus with a woody, does it get any better than that, not often baby. Fucking hilarious. Picturing old Harry Martin, who wasn’t old, just traveled, whispering that that kind of talk wasn’t good for the new comers, it got them thinking and thinking got drunks in trouble. Harry, with a cigarette hanging from his mouth, with a hint of alcohol, probably vodka Lloyd pondered, suggesting that Lloyd spend some time reconsidering his thoughts or find a different meeting, well coming from old Harry, that was about the funniest thing in the world Lloyd decided. In an attempt to impart some final wisdom, Harry Martin, by then Lloyd was sure it was vodka on his breath, pointed out some passages in the AA big book that Lloyd should read. He did read the parts in the big book that Harry Martin had suggested, read the whole damn book. It took a case and one more six pack to finish the book and by that time, Lloyd was done with AA for good.

He would not keep “coming to the tables” as they say in AA. Oh, the table, junkies loved that one, Lloyd thought. “Keep coming to the tables and everything will be all right.” They are all so damn clever, those table junkies, sitting around and spouting off their redundant tripe about how AA saved them from Mr. Booze, and how the new guy will some day wake up and see the light.

Just keep coming to the tables. Lloyd snorted in disgust; or rather the bad guy did the snorting. How about this one Lloyd thought as he finished his piss, now annoyed that Harry Martin managed to invade his mind and cloud up what should have been a perfectly pleasurable piss: “Who gives a fuck? Yeah, who gives a fuck?” He repeated, shaking himself off and zipping his pants back up.

“Not you Arnie. No siree. Not you Arnold Gunlaugsen,” Lloyd challenged, pointing towards the shore. “You give a fuck?” Lloyd said as he steadied himself on the back of the fighting chair, looking out towards the island.

He collapsed back into the fighting chair and poured the rest of the can of Hamm’s back. He lobbed the empty into the corner of the cockpit. This can bounced against the gunnels and landed on top of the pile. “Three points for the dead soldier.”

All cans of beer in the vicinity of Lloyd were soldiers, or soon to be dead soldiers, and the irony of his chosen nomenclature did not escape him. Was he in a battle? Aren’t we always in a battle with something? Yes, he decided. Life was a battle and his had been going on for as long as he could remember, from his youth, that’s where his thethethbattles had started.

“And you didn’t make it any easier on me Arnie, now did you. You went in right over there. I saw you go in. God damn it, I saw you.” Lloyd trembled as if some force shook him from within, like it was responding to his drunken taunting.

He gathered his wits and thought about getting a jacket out from the cabin. It would be cooling down fast now with the sun laying low on the horizon. Late September in the north woods was like that with extreme swings on the thermometer, usually warm during the day and cool at night, but sometimes it would go cool for a few days and then downright hot for a few after that, as if the summer and fall competed to claim the days.

Lloyd opted for another beer instead of a jacket. If he went down to get a jacket, the bottle of Kessler’s would come back with him, maybe even the jacket too, but he wasn’t ready for Kessler’s, it was still to early and he was enjoying, despite the AA brain fart diversion, the time with himself and his thoughts. He didn’t want to rush his buzz by switching to Kessler’s just yet. And the bad guy might go out in the lobby for a while if he slowed down a bit. Maybe the bad guy would stay out there for the third sixer. And so what if the bad guy arrived for good in the fourth? Nobody else ever came to the fourth but the bad guy, not that Lloyd could remember anyway.

He trained his eyes on the shoreline, squinting, studying what detail he could make out. A blur of cedar trees formed a dark green stripe just above a narrow sliver of limestone and dolomite rock on the shore. “Yes-sir-ee. I was there all right. Saw you go in now, didn’t I.” Lloyd belched and reached into the green Coleman cooler and grabbed another can of beer. He snapped the pull-tab and brought the beer to his mouth and poured it back, considered setting the beer down, but instead poured another splash down his throat. Cigarette time. He traded the can of Hamm’s for the pack of Camels, shook one of the sticks from the pack and flipped it into his mouth, lit the cigarette and drew the nicotine into his lungs.

“So where the fuck did you go, kid, huh? Answer me that. Just answer me on that one. Just let me win this one little battle kid.” Lloyd took a drag off his cigarette. “Nobody believed me you know.”

Lloyd took another swig of beer and contemplated transferring the pile of aluminum in the corner into a trash bag, hiding the evidence. He stared at the pile of empties and decided Kessler’s time was going to start early after all. He rose from his seat in the fighting chair and headed for the cabin. He would put his jacket on too. The warmth of the day was leaving and the wind had picked up, it had swung more out of the northwest and it had a bite to it, it did indeed. He began to step down into the cabin and hesitated. He turned around and looked over the transom, at the distant shoreline that had gone from green to a blackish hue in the waning sunlight. “They didn’t believe me because they never found you. Fucking never found you Arnie.”

Chapter Two

Stephen McNeil guided the twenty-six foot Grady between the moored boats, an equal mix of sail and power crafts, bobbing on their mooring cans in the gentle swells of the evening. The Grady was his boat, his life, and his reality. Coming in felt powerful, as if the act of returning to the harbor was a conquest over nature. Sometimes it was. The bay, more than one hundred miles from north to south and more than forty miles from east to west, had taken its share of seamen. The white squalls that swept over the bay, so named because their intensity was literally blinding, combined with the treacherous shoals that lay in wait for the unfortunate mariner, had taken hundreds of lives. Stephen McNeil knew the bay’s history and its lurking treachery, and this knowledge provided a backdrop for the sense of conquest he felt when he came in off the water. He ignored the fact that depth sounders, radios, and GPS had made boating somewhat, but not entirely, idiot-proof.

The cooler under the console seat, lined with fresh salmon and trout that he’d caught, only added to Stephen McNeil’s sense that he was a conqueror. But more than anything else, the simple fact that he owned his own boat fueled his sense of conquest.

29-year-old Stephen McNeil was of meager beginnings and not just wrong side of the tracks meager beginnings. His whole boy-hood town was on the wrong side of the tracks. He was the first McNeil to graduate from anything beyond high school. The fact that he’d graduated from law school neared a miracle.

The boat was his reward, his gift to himself. His father, if he hadn’t died, would have been proud. His mother, she was still alive, thought he was crazy. What did a kid from Cicero, Illinois need with a boat? The only water in Cicero was the sanitary ship canal and that was only fit for barges and tugboats.

But he’d left Cicero behind. “Escaped” was how he liked to think of his exodus. Cicero had a knack for hanging onto its inhabitants, infecting them, destroying hope, dousing expectations, and hobbling those unlucky enough to reside there. In Cicero, a kid was considered good if he managed to escape his teens without a felony tag. If a kid made it out of adolescence, the best that most kids could hope for was to get hooked up in whatever plant their old man slaved in, repeating the cycle. If you could get on the police force, and you could if you paid the price of admission, ten grand the first year, two grand every year after, you had made it by Cicero standards. If you got into public works, you had really arrived because the one great benny in working for public works was that you didn’t have to.

The machine named Cicero had always been greased, even before Al Capone called it his home. Last year, the mayor, whose greed was only trumped by his stupid belief that he was untouchable, had been sent up to the big house over in Joliet for looting the city insurance coffers.

And if Cicero needed anything more to help it along in its apparent desire to resemble a cesspool, the Latino street gangs operated freely as long as they didn’t kill white people and, of course, as long as they paid the street tax to the coppers.

So the way Stephen had it figured, Cicero offered three options. Crime. Government. Blue-collar work. Crime and government were synonymous. He did not want to follow in his father’s footsteps. He chose none of the above.

His father had not escaped. His father, until the day he died, shoveled shit at Sportsman’s Park where the trotters ran nightly. Although by Cicero standards it wasn’t a bad job, stable workers got regular tips on fixed races to supplement their earnings, in the end the job was still about shoveling shit.

So he’d escaped, muddling through high school, squeaking into college where he found that he had a knack for higher learning and continuing onto law school, only looking back for the sake of appreciating how far he’d come.

But Cicero’s mark was still on him and he had a foreboding sense that it was only waiting for the right time to drag him back home. He could see Cicero from his office on the fiftieth floor of the Sears Tower. If he looked. When he worked late which was often, when darkness should have hidden Cicero, the glaring lights of Sportsman’s Park identified the town’s ominous presence.

When he did look, he always thought about Joey Capri. Joey had been his best friend. He hadn’t made it out, but had made it, sort of. Joey Capri had taken over his father’s plumbing business. He had scored a city contract making him rich by Cicero standards. It also made him a crook. You didn’t get city contracts without paying kickbacks, but when you’re from Cicero, paying a kickback was as normal as income taxes.

While Stephen made his escape, he stopped returning most of Joey’s calls. When Joey drove over to Valparaiso for a weekend visit, Stephen was embarrassed by Joey’s rough edges, and Joey, street-smart Joey, who understood better than a Harvard MBA that business is about money, picked up on his shame. After the Valparaiso visit, Joey’s calls came less frequently, but they didn’t stop. Stephen understood that this was just Joey’s way of reminding him of how much he’d matriculated into an asshole. Stephen treated the sting of this truth with the rationalization that Joey was just another prisoner who’d failed to make the wall. And Stephen wanted to believe that Joey was jealous of someone who did.

He’d initiated one call to Joey in the last year, to tell him about the boat. Joey seemed disinterested until he mentioned the price. The price got Joey’s attention.

“How much you fucking pay? You fucking nuts? I just floated a three-flat for that,” Joey said in utter disbelief.

The call had been brief. Stephen had wanted to impress Joey. He’d accomplished the opposite. And the worst of it was that a part of him, the Cicero part that tugged at him and constantly made him feel like an undeserving fraud, thought Joey was right, he should have bought a three-flat. He hated Cicero because he couldn’t shrug it.

But when he brought his boat in, these nagging doubts vanished. He was a successful lawyer in a star firm and his life was going just about as perfect as he could wish, and if he had any doubts about this, he had Sandy Cosgrove to prove otherwise. Sandy was as much a conquest as the boat. She and Stephen had been hired in the same freshman class at the law firm of Buckner, Hadley, & Goldblatts.

It was rather amazing that Stephen had been hired at all. The firm interviewed graduates from Chicago law schools, but they didn’t hire them, with the exception of University of Chicago graduates, that is, until the arrival of Herman Goldblatts, who came on board the year before Stephen was hired. Herman Goldblatts was not educated inside ivy-covered buildings and therefore had no esteemed credentials except one. He made money. Law had changed and the stodgy intellectual style of Buckner & Hadley no longer played in the new legal arena where civility was considered a weakness. Law had become war and Herman Goldblatts was a warrior. “Fuck them all,” was Herman Goldblatts’ mantra. He couldn’t care less where a hire went to school; all he cared about was an unbridled desire to win and conquer. He searched out winners, hires with sports backgrounds or street smarts, applicants who were hungry. Stephen had street smarts and he was hungry and the thing that really tickled Herman Goldblatts: Stephen was from Cicero. Herman Goldblatts, born in a slum on the south side of Chicago, knew Cicero. It was his kind of place. He knew what it took for a kid to get out of Cicero, so Stephen got hired.

That was three years ago and he already owned a condominium on Lake Shore Drive where the doorman referred to him as Mr. McNeil. Stephen had manipulated his way onto the condo-board and then collected the votes to move the association’s legal work to Buckner, Hadley, & Goldblatts. He found that he had an appetite for new work and this pleased Herman Goldblatts to no end. Work equaled money and money, only money, was the prize that Herman Goldblatts sought.

Stephen McNeil liked money, maybe even loved it, but not for its own sake. Stephen liked what it could buy. Like his condo and his boat, and maybe even Sandy Cosgrove. It wasn’t like she would have fallen for him if he were running a plumbing business back in Cicero. No, she would have never fallen for Joey Capri, even with his city contract and three flats. Sandy required status with her money and Stephen had obtained both.

Dating co-workers was strictly off limits, unless you got married. If you made it to the engagement, you were in the clear. He planned on making it to the engagement in the next hour. Sandy was up at the Bayside Tavern waiting for him. He would take her for a walk and as they say in sports, take a knee. Yes, Stephen thought as he reveled in the night, his life had turned out perfect.

The engine whined and then died.

“Shit.”

The only sounds on the water were the metallic pinging of the halyards against the masts on the sailboats, the lapping of waves against their hulls, and the light breeze rustling through Stephen’s hair. He turned the ignition off and put the boat in neutral. He turned the key and the engine turned over, running smoothly. It wasn’t the engine; he must have hit something with the prop. The light wind off the bay pushed the boat further into the harbor. The nearest boat was a yawl that looked empty, but maybe the occupants had called it an early night. He needed to get his boat running or he’d be banging into the yawl. He didn’t need to be waking up any sleeping boaters. Sleeping boaters could be assholes. Wide-awake boaters could be assholes too, he thought, realizing that this truth might apply to him as well.

The boat stopped drifting and swung on its stern. “Shit,” he said, pushing the gearshift into forward. The engine whined and died for the second time, confirming his suspicion and also his inexperience. He should have checked the prop before he attempted to put the engine in gear. Now there was a chance that whatever was tangled in the prop was more tangled. “Fuck me,” he said.

He went to the stern and looked over the side. A mooring can bobbed alongside the hull. He reached over the side and tried to lift the can but its line was taught and angled under his boat towards the prop. How had he missed a mooring can? A goddamn mooring can. Because he wasn’t paying attention, that’s how, he told himself. He’d been thinking about Cicero, that damned place that wouldn’t let go of him. And now his prop was most likely wrapped in the mooring line. Please, don’t let it be the chain. If he wrapped the chain, the prop was probably wrecked.

He considered his options. He could radio for help, but the harbormaster’s shanty was dark, illuminated by a solitary light bulb over the door. And anyway, he didn’t want help. He didn’t want anybody to know that he had run over a mooring can and gotten his prop tangled. He could put the engine in reverse and hope that the shaft would throw the line, but that might only tangle it more.

“Damn it,” he said as he realized that his choices were slim.

His own mooring can, where his dingy was tied up, was only a hundred yards away. He could swim for the dingy and then row in and get some help. But what would anybody do that he couldn’t? The bottom line was that he had to clear the prop. If it was just the line, he could cut if off and then be on his way. Even if there was damage, he was pulling the boat out for the season in the morning and he could have it fixed at his leisure over the winter. He wouldn’t even have to tell Sandy. No matter what, somebody was going to get wet. It might as well be him. He would just cut the line and be on his way. At least it would be an experience to add to his thin book of nautical tales.

He looked around one last time, considered his decision, and decided there was no time like the present. He stripped down to his underwear. A chill ripped up his naked back. Christ, the night had a chill to it all of sudden. Oh Yeah. Wait ’til you hit the water, he thought. He glanced at the graph on the console. The temperature indicator showed 68 degrees. Not a dangerous temperature, but still cold, though bearable for a short time. He didn’t plan on dilly-dallying around in the water.

He formulated the plan. Get in the water. Cut the line off the shaft. Get out. He opened the tackle box and found the Rapala filet knife. He removed the knife from its sheath. The long blade flashed in the blue moonlight. He leaned over the transom, unfolded the swim ladder, then sat down and swung his feet over the side.

He placed his foot into the water. His foot recoiled from the chilly water and then got even colder as the breeze evaporated the water from his skin. Get on with it, he told himself.

He stepped down the ladder and crunched his body until the water was up to his neck. His chest went tight in response to the cold water. He took a series of deep breaths and let his feet slide off the lower rung, hanging on to the ladder with one hand, the filet knife in the other.

God he hated this. His father taught him to swim by repeatedly throwing him into Sag quarry off Archer Avenue, until he finally managed to keep his head above water on his own. Since that time he had hated the water. This was the real reason he felt like a conqueror when he returned to port. Because each time he returned to port, he had conquered the only true and constant fear that he had, his fear of the water, thank you very much dad.

“Jesus, I don’t like this.” He sputtered between staccato breaths.

He let go of the ladder and submerged, feeling his way beneath the hull of the boat. He found the prop and immediately discovered a mass of slimy rope wrapped in a slippery ball about the size of a paper wasp’s nest around the propeller. He tried to see but the water was lightless and he could make out only dark shadows he didn’t want to think about. He cut away at the hulk of line, staying under as long as he could without air. He felt his way to the transom and surfaced. The cold didn’t hurt so much anymore and the feeling that his toes had been smashed waned.

He took a deep breath and began to submerge. Just before his ears went beneath the surface, he heard a loud splash. He clutched the swim ladder, abandoning his descent.

What the hell was that? Ten yards off the stern, bubbles rose to the surface as if somebody had just knifed into the water.

“Great. Now I’ve got fish attacking me.” He said, attempting to stave off the shivers that threatened to loosen his grip on the swim ladder. He watched the bubbles disperse and then let his body slide off the swim ladder. He found the nest of rope and, tracing it with his free hand, searched for the cut he’d begun. He found the cut in the ball of line. He guessed he was a third of the way through. He could cut the tail end and then just unwind it but the filet knife was sharp. It would only take two or three more dives and then it would be free.

He was slicing through the line when his eyes caught a dark mass moving under the hull. He watched, terrified, as the mass disappeared, blending into the black night water. Flailing, he kicked backwards. The filet knife dropped from his hands, flashing as it fluttered to the bottom.

Panic engulfed him. Calm down. Goddamn it.

His head broke the surface and he spun around looking for some indication of what he had just seen. All was quiet. O.K. Stephen, you dropped the knife, you saw a big fish, and there aren’t any sharks in Lake Michigan, so go back down there and unravel the last of the line. You owe yourself a new knife too.

Yeah, that’s what he would do. It was a fish, a big one, probably a carp, magnified by the water, that’s all. He took a deep breath and submerged returning to the work at hand. The line unraveled easier than he’d thought it would. He would succeed. He would conquer.

He originally planned to tie the line to the mooring can to prevent it from drifting away, but that was before the giant carp had come around. Now he would just clear the line and get out of the water. Fuck the guy’s mooring can, Herman Goldblatts voice added.

Something brushed against his right leg. He recoiled as his calf felt all at once cold. A weed, it was a weed, he told himself. Nothing more, just get on with it. He pulled on the last of the line and then he noticed a dark cloud forming in the water in front of him, and his leg, where the weed had touched him was cold, incredibly cold and it felt different. He gripped the last of tangle with his left hand and slid his right hand down the back of his leg, down past his knee.

“Ahhhh,” he screamed. A burst of bubbles escaped from his mouth as a lightning bolt of pain ripped up his leg. His fingers had touched something that they weren’t supposed to touch, his tibia. He’d touched his fucking tibia.

Where’s your calf, Stephen? Joey Capri’s voice chided.

Stephen pulled himself upward, working on autopilot as the thinking part of his brain tried to determine what had happened to his calf. His head banged against the hull.

Up. His scream had emptied his lungs and he needed air now. His head hit the prop. He felt the skin just above his temple open and another inky cloud appeared before his eyes. As he clawed his way towards the stern of the boat, he knew, oh yes he knew, that the cloud in the water was blood and it was his.

He also knew what that other sound had been, the one that had accompanied the splash and the bubbles, the one that he had been so cock sure was nothing, the one that he had convinced himself he hadn’t even heard. Oh yeah, now he knew what it was.

It was a gasp, a deep inhale, like a person would take just before submerging beneath the water. He now understood, in a fatalistic, resigned sort of way, that the shadow he’d seen wasn’t a carp after all.

“Nope.” Joey Capri’s voice agreed. “Bet you wish you had a good pipe in your hand about now, Law Boy, like the time we faced off with the ‘ricans at the park.”

Stephen’s head broke the surface. He gasped, sucking in the air, feeling a warm sheet of blood bathe his face. He lunged for the ladder. His hands clasped the cold stainless steel and he pulled himself upward, suppressing a scream that wanted so badly to erupt from his lungs, he would scream later, and also suppressing the knowledge that his calf was flapping in the water, attached only by a slim isthmus of flesh near his heel.

Get in the boat.

A wave of nausea flooded his head and he vomited as he began to gather the strength it would take to get up the ladder. Something akin to a vice grip clamped down on his left ankle and an alien cold sensation permeated his groin. With everything he had left, he pulled himself upward against the vice grip on his ankle. Whatever the fuck was hanging onto his ankle wasn’t budging and it was pulling backward, and hard. Flashes of pain shot through his legs like lightning bolts. For just a moment, his body was suspended over the water like a bridge, his hands on the swim ladder and his foot in the grips of, of what he had no idea other than it had gasped. With all of his strength concentrated on hanging onto the swim ladder, his head hung down, availing him with an upside down view of his suspended body. The scream that he had so far suppressed escaped as he saw what had him and also watched what it was doing to him. From somewhere on shore, a tourist, undoubtedly drunk, howled back. Pain ricocheted through Stephen’s body.

His legs were getting hacked to pieces. Slabs of flesh hung down, dangling in the water like cut bait. By the amount of blood plopping into the water from where his nuts should have been, he was pretty sure he’d been castrated too.

Sorry Sandy the package isn’t going to be delivered.

It was all he could take. It was over. He understood this more than he had ever understood anything in his life and he also understood it had all been for naught, that Joey Capri had won after all, that everything he had strived for was to end up being a monumental waste of effort and this knowledge crushed him, just like Herman Goldblatts crushed his enemies, except that Herman Goldblatts only figuratively cut his victims balls off.

Resigned to his fate, how quick one’s outlook changes, he thought. Stephen McNeil released his grip on the swim ladder. He lay floating face down in the water, waiting for the end. He was beyond pain or even fear for that matter and as he floated there, face down in the chilly water, he didn’t even feel cold any more. Shock is a beautiful thing was one of his last thoughts. As his consciousness drifted away, the last grace life afforded him was that he found it all to be so funny. Joey Capri had won. Herman Goldblatts, his mentor, was nothing more than a big fat money grubbing Jew. And the funniest thought of all, he never should have left Cicero. And then he was pulled beneath the surface in one sharp tug.

Chapter Three

God almighty his head pounded. Like it did most mornings, he had to concede that, but this particular head banger was so ferocious it wouldn’t surprise him if the throbbing was actually visible. There was an elixir, a few of them probably, in the cooler up on the aft deck of the boat. The hair of the dog sounded like a plan. Have a beer, just one, it will probably be warm, get rid of the head banger, and then, let the day call the shots.

He rolled over and let his body slide off the bunk in the v-birth. His feet thudded on the floor of the cabin. The mad drummer in his head beat against his temples and his stomach felt like it was on fire. He struggled to the refrigerator. God his head hurt, worse than usual too. The pounding was focused on the top and back of his skull. The sides of his head, just inside his ears, had a different variety of pain. Sharp pain. So this is what an ice pick in the ear feels like. A glass of milk was in order. A glass of milk would lay down a smooth runway for the first beer of the day. His stomach knotted and pain seared his guts. It felt like a porcupine was running around his insides. Definitely a glass of milk first, Lloyd decided.

He found the milk in the door of the refrigerator and gulped it down, trying to make out the sell-by date on the side, as the cold milk soothed his throat and stomach. Milk splashed on his flannel shirt, soaking through and chilling his clammy skin. He ignored the spilled milk like so many other things in his life that went ignored. Spilled milk was the least of his worries. He was going to change clothes soon anyway.

He slept in his clothes again. That was worrisome. He had been sleeping in his clothes a lot lately. Who was he kidding? He slept in his clothes every night. And recently, wearing the same clothes the next day was getting pretty regular too, like anchoring off for the night and forgetting the anchor lights. Had he forgotten to turn the anchor lights on?

He set the carton of milk down on the navigation table and switched the marine radio on, turning the squelch up high to screen out the chatter that tended to dominate the marine airwaves.

He leaned over the nav table lifting his head up so that he could see out the cabin windows. The bay was calm, almost placid. The wind had disappeared over the night. The clouds that had arrived on the evening breeze were gone too and the day looked perfect. Thank god for small favors. Even moderate seas would have egged on the percussion section in his head. Had he even checked his anchor before dosing off? He didn’t think so. It was lucky it hadn’t gotten rough during the night. If it had, the anchor could have dragged, and in the condition he had been in, hell the condition he was still in, he probably wouldn’t have woke up until his boat was on the rocks.

He should have gone in and tied his boat up at the municipal dock. It would have been the smart thing to do, the safe thing, but lately, doing the smart thing was rare. Safety never crossed his mind. He still smoked two packs of Camels a day didn’t he? Even the tobacco chiefs finally admitted smoking had some downsides. Like not being able to breathe a decent breath of air when you hit sixty. Would he even make it to sixty, the home stretch? Not the way he was going. One habit at a time, he told himself, as he contemplated whether or not it was beer time yet.

His stomach twisted and he clutched his midsection.

“Whoa.” Lloyd teetered, reaching out to steady himself against the nav table. He was still drunk he realized. He hung on the table as the cabin did somersaults. He pinched his eyes shut but the cabin still felt like it was spinning and he was sure that he was going to vomit. After a minute or two that felt like an hour, the tilt-a-whirl in his head stopped. No collapsing on the floor today, yet anyway.

Milk provided some relief for the gnawing in his gut, not much but enough that he could stand up. Appreciate the small things in life, he reminded himself, as he finished the last of the milk.

He checked the angle of the sun and then his watch. Ten o’clock. Most of the day was still left and it would be noon soon enough if the hankering to keep this particular bender going strong continued. And it would, no doubt about that one. Mr. Booze would come knocking on the door, asking him to come out and play. It wasn’t a matter of if, just when.

The deck was sticky with slop that had dribbled out of the beer cans piled in the corner. Well Lloyd, if there’s any question as to why your head feels like the like a punching bag, I think this explains it. He lit a cigarette, half expecting the world to flip on its head. It didn’t and that was a good sign. Maybe today wouldn’t be a sick day after all. The truth of his drinking was that he was sick more often than he was drunk, which meant that his habit was in its end game.

He sat himself down in the fighting chair looked out over the water. It was a Sunday, he was pretty sure of that, and a few boats were visible in the distance. He propped his feet up, letting his body adjust to consciousness. From behind him the radio crackled and a familiar voice came over the speaker.

“We’ve got divers in the Creek harbor. So far it’s a negative.”

Smilin’ MacDonald was on the radio. Lloyd had worked with him and even liked the guy and that was something wasn’t it. He cocked his head, waiting to hear what else Smilin’ had to say. He could be good for a laugh. Maybe he’d even give Smilin’ a holler on the radio, see what he’s up to.

“10-4. Search.”

“Standing by base.”

Goddamn, somebody’s gone missing, Lloyd realized. That’s big time for the village of Fish Creek. The deputies will be all over it, milling around, barking at the tourists. And the divers will be stoic as they alternate search time under the water. And…God, he missed the life. This truth, one he tried to avoid, haunted him. It was in the past; yes it was, another life ago. He’d loved the life and it was gone and this was the crux of the haunting.

What the hell had happened? The answer’s laying all over the deck, you dumb ass.

He couldn’t go back, that was for sure. Two jobs lost. First, there was the incident in Chicago. He picked the wrong day to sleep off a monstrous hangover and somebody, not just somebody, Tommy Kowalski, got killed. Firing wasn’t necessary. He quit on his own after Tommy got killed. More recently, with the Door County Sheriff’s Department, he’d managed to get drunk on the job twice. The first time, he got a choice. Treatment or dismissal. He chose treatment. It worked for three months. And then he took another drink and the Sheriff gave him a different choice. Quit or be fired. He quit, preserving his second pension, he’d exited the Chicago Police Department under like circumstances, and that was the end. Finité, as Tommy used to say. He couldn’t even work in the auxiliary, couldn’t so much as wear a uniform and direct somebody to the livestock building at the county fair or help a kid find his mother.

“Search One. How about getting some divers on the north side of the harbor?”

Smilin’ MacDonald said.

“Roger Smilin’. Just heading over there.”

“Roger. Search One.”

Lloyd spun around so that he was facing the speaker. He almost pulled a beer from the cooler as his hand swung past, but he fought the urge. The beer wasn’t going anywhere. The question was, was he going anywhere. He wanted to be part of the action, if not officially. Hell, he wanted to be in the middle of it. His slip at the Fish Creek Municipal Dock would be in the heart of it. He could sit in his fighting chair and watch the whole thing unfold. He could armchair QB it. He knew more about police work than anyone on the force, including the sheriff, Ron Stern, who happened to be his cousin and his best friend, even if Lloyd wasn’t the sheriff’s best friend anymore.

Cruising in and arm-chairing the search was an idea with legs. He would have to clean up the cockpit. He couldn’t very well tie up with a pound of aluminum rattling around the deck. No, that would prove that Ron had been right about him, although Ron didn’t need more proof. He knew Lloyd almost as well as Lloyd knew himself. To think Ron wasn’t aware of his love affair with the juice was absurd.

Where was Ron anyway? A missing person would definitely get the sheriff out of bed on a Sunday morning. Most likely he was on his way to Bethel Lutheran. He’d probably say a prayer or two, then arrive on the scene.

Prayers aren’t going to help whoever’s in the water because even if God exists, he doesn’t micro-manage, Lloyd thought.

“Command. Negative on the search. We’ll take another pass.”

“Roger.” Smilin’s voice snapped back over the radio.

“10-4 Command.”

Lloyd’s hands tightened on the armrests. He looked down at them and smiled. The tightening of his hands felt good and right because it reminded him of the past, like returning home after an absence. He hadn’t been away for long, only two years, two downward spiraling years, okay, more like free falling, but still; only twenty-four months since he’d wore a badge. Two years since he had last felt that adrenaline rush unless you counted ejaculating into a wad of toilet paper. The frequency of even that pathetic escape seemed to be falling off in the last couple of months.

He tossed his cigarette into the water. He was going to go in, take a look see at the search. Maybe they’d even ask his advice. It wouldn’t be official, but maybe they’d let him pretend on a Sunday morning.

The day was looking up. His head wasn’t quiet but the pounding was softening and the ice picks had disappeared completely. Amazing what a little adrenaline can do. Yes, the day was definitely looking up. A beer would go down easy about now. He opened the cooler. Good. A few pieces of ice still floated in the water, cooling three cans. That made it 21 cans last night. Plus the Kessler’s, mustn’t forget the Kessler’s. He hesitated before touching a can of beer, as if just touching the can locked the day into autopilot. Maybe it did, he thought, maybe it did just that.

Here we go again, he thought, disgusted with the power of the drink to guide his life in a manner akin to being dragged behind a pick-up truck. He’d been through the routine a thousand times. There wasn’t any point fighting it, not today, not tomorrow either.

Ignoring the brisk chill of the water on his hand, he fished out a beer, then hesitated again. The run in was a two-beer run. He slipped the can he was holding into his pocket and grabbed another one, snapped it open and took a drink. The beer tasted remarkably good. The first of the day always did. He chugged down, threw the empty in the corner where it landed on top of the pile and stayed there for once. He reached back into the cooler and grabbed the last beer. He was headed to the fly bridge, but he turned and instead went to the cabin for a garbage bag. He was going in and he needed his boat to be ship shape even if he wasn’t.

He was feeling better. His head still pounded but it was to a different tune, one that Lloyd almost enjoyed.

Chapter Four

Twelve-year-old Todd Grafton stands on a milk crate scanning the water through his telescope. There is a man on a boat, not a small boat either, and he is doing something in the cockpit that causes something to flash in the sunlight. The boy turns the knob and brings the telescope into focus and discovers what the man is doing. He’s picking up beer cans. Except for the man in the boat, there is nothing else to spy on. There are no other boats on the bay. The bay is calm, only a weak swell is coming in from the northwest.

“Where are you?” The boy says as he moves the telescope, scanning the bay. His words are muffled and their edges are rounded like he is talking through a pillow.

The boy tenses at the smell of cigarettes. She is here in his room. The smell of cigarettes is just too strong for her not to be there. Confirming his belief, that she is there, he feels a tug on the collar of his polo shirt. The tug is acute and unfriendly, as if he is a dog being lead to the spot on the carpet it just peed on. Her hand brushes the young skin of his neck and his skin recoils in response. Her skin feels like frog skin. He shudders. He wants to get her hand, her touch, away from his neck, away from him. He turns his head and looks at her and then cocks his head to look at her handhold. She does not release him but tugs again, wrenching him off balance. He starts to fall towards her. He teeters on the milk crate trying not to knock into his telescope. He doesn’t. He falls towards her and thinks that he might actually collide with her. But she backs away, as if she is stepping out of the way of his fall, which in fact is what she is doing. And she lets go of his collar, allowing him to fall.

He lands on his knees and his weight thuds against the carpeted floor, but he hears nothing. He only feels pain. He looks up at her and there is the faintest trace of a smile on her lips. He suspects that she is enjoying herself. He cannot understand why. Why what? Why she has gone mean is the answer.

He has endured a lot of mean in his life. His classmates never cease tormenting him. He has been assured that this will end as he grows older but this assurance does little to ease the pain he feels. Adults have been mean to him too, a man in a store once mocked him, making grotesque shapes with his mouth and contorting his fingers as he rolled in laughter. Mean has been a common theme in the boy’s life. He deals with it. He has no choice. Mean is real. He has been assured that things will get better with time.

And his home was always there. His home had been the one place that he felt comfortable, a place where he felt whole, his sanctuary. He had a home where he could hide from the meanies.

But this is over. His Nanny has gone mean. It is inexplicable to the young boy. He cannot remember ever being mean to anyone and this thought, that he had never been mean, begs the question: Why are people mean to me if I am not mean to them?

Now is not the time to think about why. She is still above him, almost leering, and yes, he is sure that her face would form into a sick smile if she permitted it to do so. She does not smile though. He does not like looking at her. She has cold and uncaring eyes. But so does he. He has learned that eyes are powerful tools. He looks into her eyes and thinks that maybe she intended to do a little more than just yank a twelve year old’s collar. Maybe she wanted him to fall, to experience pain.

He holds eye contact. He is good at using his eyes. His is not afraid to use his eyes, to hold people with them. Nobody can beat him in a staring contest. Eyes, if used to their fullest extent can almost touch and feel and maybe almost hear. Eyes can be used like Mr. Spock on Star Trek uses the pincher grip to paralyze bad guys.

He finds her profoundly ugly. The idea that he is kneeling beneath her thinking that she is ugly strikes the boy as hysterical. It is a defense mechanism, to deal with her meanness, but it is effective. The stinging in his stomach subsides. He bites the insides of his cheeks to keep from letting a grin appear on his face. She, that was how he thinks of her, as she, does not like it when he laughs, or when he smiles. He has never seen her smile, ever.

She swings her free hand back over her shoulder and he believes that she is going to strike him. He releases his eye lock on her and follows her hand which forms into a bony pointer, pointing at his open bedroom door.

He knows, breakfast is ready. But he is far from hungry.

She spins around, flaring her pleated ankle length dress just a bit, enough to see her legs which are even whiter and bonier than her hands and her legs are covered in blue ink colored veins that trace up her legs like tributaries to a river. She is ugly all over he thinks as he rises, rubbing his knees suppressing any reaction to the pain emanating from them. He will not let her know that she caused pain in him. No way, Jose.

He is in pain though. The thought that she is ugly has lost its ability to quell the pain. Tears well up in his eyes and he looks over at the picture of his mother on the nightstand. He misses her. Of course he does. She has been dead for eight years. She was beautiful. He was only four when she died, but he still has memories of her although he recognizes that they may be creations of his own desires rather than reality. It doesn’t matter, he still loves her. He still misses her. He has no doubt that he always will.

He looks at the poster of Stephen Hawking on his bedroom wall. He likes Stephen Hawking. Stephen Hawking was handicapped; he was a crippled. He did not let his handicap stop him from being successful. Stephen Hawking was brave and he needs to be brave right now, like Stephen Hawking.

He follows the Nanny down the hallway and then down the stairway, wiping the tears from his eyes. The tears end as he approaches the top of the staircase. He will not let her see that she has drawn blood. He believes that she will only get meaner if she knows she is inflicting pain. He believes this may be her intention.

He forms a plan as he pads down the stairs. He will tell his father about the nanny. Nannies aren’t supposed to pull kids off of dairy crates. They aren’t supposed to be mean. They are supposed to be like Mary Poppins. He’d had nannies before that were like Mary Poppins, without the magic, of course.

His father will deal with the nanny. That is what his father does. He deals with things. But his father is not home. His father, Dan Grafton, spends most of his time on endless business trips. He is ever busy, even when he is home. If he is going to tell his father, it will have to be at the right time. And not on the voice phone, his father does not pay attention unless he is sitting across from the boy. His father will be home in one week. Then he will tell him.

He will endure her for another week. He has no choice. He will deal with her like his father deals with people. She is the Nanny Nazi in his mind now. He likes the name for her. He wonders what she thinks of him. He is probably just another chore, like laundry or vacuuming.

She has breakfast ready for him. She is mean but she is orderly and sticks to her routines. She never eats with him. A bowl of oatmeal and two pieces of toast are positioned at the end of the otherwise empty table. There is a gagging amount of butter lathered on the toast. She knows he hates butter.

He told her, actually wrote it on a piece of paper, that he would like less butter on his toast. He got more butter. She is mean right down to the way she lays butter on his toast, like a bricklayer slaps mortar on a brick. Ever since he asked her to go light on the butter, it has been butter city for breakfast.

She does not sit with him but instead, she stands, always in the same spot, with her meager rear propped against the counter, her ghost white skin and friendless eyes watching his every move. A cigarette dangles in her hand. She is always smoking or five minutes away from smoking. She smokes a lot, unless his father is home. Then the smokes disappear. Todd does not like smoking but he appreciates her smoking. It allows him to smell her presence.

He scrapes the butter off his toast. It reminds him of shoveling slush off the front walk in the winter. He decides that he is through shoveling slush this morning. He sets the knife down and picks the toast off of his plate. He watches for a reaction from the Nanny Nazi. The wrinkles on the side of her eyes grow prominent. He has his reaction. This is good. Screw her and her butter. Screw everything about her. She is a bitch. The cuss label feels good in his thoughts. It feels dangerous too, and beyond his years.

Smoke is floating up around her head of stringy hair. The smoke makes her look like she is steaming. She looks like the wicked witch of the west from the Wizard of Oz, but taller, a lot taller, and real, a lot more real. Todd does not think that a bucket of water will do her in, no matter how much he wishes it.

He walks to the trashcan. Her eyes narrow, challenging him. He arrives at the trashcan, two pieces of toast in hand. He steps on the foot pedal that lifts the stainless steel cover up and at the same time, displays the toast as if he’s holding his hands out for inspection, just in case she wasn’t getting his drift. Her eyes bead into rivets. She is getting his drift. He flips his hands over, and two pieces of toast slide off and into the trash. He releases the foot pedal and returns to his chair, wonderfully pleased with himself.

Chapter Five

Lloyd looked out over the harbor from the cockpit of the Bertram in its slip. He sat in the fighting chair, pleased that he had never removed the chair when he purchased the boat. The chair offered no real function on Lake Michigan, but he liked its polished stainless steel hardware, worn but lacquered wood, and the way the gimbaled rod holder moved without noise in the crotch of the chair. He liked it all, despite the regular kidding he took for keeping it mounted in the cockpit. It was just one more thing for the locals to criticize, to set him apart.

It served his need, a comfortable place to sit and drink, nothing more. And when he referred to it as his drinking chair, the natives could understand that, most of them had their favorite places to drink. Lloyd’s just happened to be a fighting chair.

They should be searching under the boats along the dock.

There was a good chance the kid would have tried to make the dock if he went in the water. If he tried to make it to one of the finger piers that divided the boat slips, he might be under one of the boats now, tight to the bottom, just a rocking back and forth in the benign surge that was presently lull-a-bye-ing the boats. Yep, Lloyd decided, they should get some divers cruising under the boats.

A shadow interrupted the sunlight that was warming Lloyd. Lloyd looked back over his shoulder to determine who was blocking his sun. Smilin’ McDonald stood on the finger pier, staring down at Lloyd. His legs were splayed and the brown material of his uniform pants strained against bulky legs. Smilin’s hands rested on what was one of three apparent inner tube shaped rings of fat that circled his mid-section. From the looks of him, Smilin’ had broken the three hundred pound mark and was on his way to 350-Land for sure. Poor guy probably can’t even see his pecker when he takes a leak, Lloyd thought.

“Morning Lloydy,” Smilin’ said, adjusting his belt around his ample waist.

Lloyd turned the fighting chair on its swivel so that he was facing Smilin’ up on the dock. “God damn it all. Smilin’ MacDonald. What brings the team out on this fine Sunday morning?”

Smilin’ shifted on his heels as if he was uncertain if he wanted to engage in a conversation. “It’s almost eleven. That’s mid-day where I come from Lloydy.”

Lloyd looked at his watch and then blinked his eyes. “You’re right there, Deputy. Where does time go when a guy’s having fun?”

Smilin’ MacDonald’s body slumped and a frown formed where his smile had been. “This ain’t no fun, Lloyd. You know that.”

Lloyd didn’t know that. The only fun he ever had was doing police work.

“So what’s going down, Smilin’? I see you have a missing person. Where’s Ron?” Lloyd said, trying to rekindle the conversation that he had just efficiently queered.

Smilin’ held his position, training his eyes on the boat pulling the divers around the harbor.

“Like you said. A guy got himself missing. Twenty-nine year old lawyer from Chicago didn’t make it back to his hotel room last night. His girl friend reported him missing this morning. The guy’s boat was drifting around the harbor and Ziek went out in the get-about and towed it in. Tied it up at the gas dock. Ziek didn’t think much of it though, just some tourist who didn’t know how to tie a knot. He checked the cooler, probably looking for a gratuitous beer he was, but it was empty except for a bunch of fish all cleaned up. There was a pile of clothes on the console bench, but Ziek missed the importance of it. A pile of clothes pretty much tells the story, don’t it?”

“Maybe and maybe not.” Lloyd said, spinning the fighting chair back to its position facing the harbor.

“What?” Smilin’ asked as he scanned the harbor.

Lloyd spoke without looking up at Smilin’. “Maybe the guy wants to be missing. Why’d the girlfriend wait till this morning to call it in? That’s kind of strange.”

“Who knows? Says she got a little drunk waiting for him and went back to their room at the Gull and fell asleep waiting for him. She’s pretty angry.”

Lloyd understood women getting angry. He understood it all too well. “So he stood her up. Can’t blame a guy for that.”

“She’s a looker. Don’t think she’s used to getting stood up.”

“You check the other hotels?” Lloyd said. He’d stood up lookers before, not recently though.

“Yep. Had a couple of the boys do door-to-doors.”

“Nothing?” Lloyd said matter-of-factly.

“Yep. Nothing.”

“Did you ask her if they had a fight?”

Smilin’ thought about this one and deep creases formed around his neck. “Nope. She’s an attorney too, gave a pretty thorough accounting of the evening. Says she woke up about two in the morning and when he wasn’t there she came down here. Saw his boat in the middle of the harbor and figured he’d tied it up and was on shore. She’s never been here before so she didn’t know a shit about where he moored his boat. Thought it was where it was supposed to be.”

“Maybe he hooked up with someone else?”

“Don’t think so.”

“And why’s that, Deputy?” Lloyd said, surprised at Smilin’s certainty that the missing attorney hadn’t hooked up with somebody else.

Smilin’ hiked up his belt again, sucking in his gut as he brought the buckle up between inner tube two and three, about a foot above where his navel should be. “Like I said. She’s a looker.”

“Maybe I should talk to her?” Lloyd offered, less than half-heartedly. It really had been a long time since he even had a shot at a looker.

“Nope. Don’t think that’s a good idea. She already thinks we’re a bunch of Barney Fifes.”

Lloyd faked a cringe. “Thanks for that one Smilin’.”

“Oh don’t go acting hurt now,” Smilin’ said. “You ain’t hurtable anyway.”

Smilin’ was close to right about that. Lloyd didn’t allow himself to get hurt. He could get hurt, at least he thought he could, but it served him no purpose and maybe it opened a door he didn’t want opened, a door that he didn’t even want to rattle the knob on.

Lloyd turned his attention on the harbor. “I see Wharton’s driving the boat.”

“Yeah, he spent three hours in the water.”

“He’s still an asshole,” Lloyd snorted.

Smilin’ chewed on the asshole comment for a moment it looked like he was about to say something. He didn’t.

Lloyd knew it was because he was right about Mark Wharton. The guy was a genuine class A Asshole, always getting in your face in a confrontational way, not to mention that he didn’t have much of a problem using his fists on his old lady when the mood suited him. No matter how much public service Mark Wharton provided, no matter how long he stayed under the water, he was still an asshole, because it wasn’t about duty or commitment with Mark Wharton, it was about power and position and that added up to class A asshole.

If Wharton’s the class A variety, which variety of asshole would I be? Lloyd taunted himself.

“Well, looks like you got it under control, Smilin’.”

“Thanks for the support. You got any ideas Lloyd?”

“Nope,” Lloyd said too quickly. He always had thoughts. That was about all he did have lately.

“That’s bullshit. Never met somebody who had more opinions than you, Lloyd. You think we’re monkey-fuckin’ it in some way. I’d bet on it.” Smilin’ adjusted his belt for the third time, pulling it up tight under the upper inner tube around his waist, pinning the waistline of the standard issue brown slacks, with the even browner stripe down the sides, under the slab of flab hanging off his waist.

Lloyd decided Smilin’ was definitely in 350-Land. “Well I might get some divers under the boats.” The water between the finger piers was deeper than the rest of the harbor. It got dredged almost annually so the yachties’ boats didn’t get nicked. Weeds, tall weeds, mostly spider frond and cabbage leaf, thrived in the protected water under the boats, where the dock shielded the vegetation from the current.

A body could get wrapped in the weeds. A body might get overlooked if it were up against the foot of the dock, wrapped up in a tangle of cabbage leaf. The weeds could hold a body down for weeks.

Smilin’ looked down at the water and nodded. He yanked the mic off the breast pocket of his shirt and brought it up to his mouth. “Search. Bring your pattern in so you can get some divers under the boats.” Smilin’ nodded at Lloyd, acknowledging the direction. “We’ll check it out, Lloyd.”

A crackly voice came over the radio. “We’re in pattern out here.”

Smilin’ shook his head and pressed the transmit button down. “Well move your pattern over this way Mark. You roger on that?” Smilin’ tipped his head at Lloyd and smiled, shaking his head. “You got that guy’s number all right. You got any other ideas.”

“Nope. Not yet.” This much was true.

“Well, you let me know if you want to share, okay, Lloydy?”

“Guaran-fuckin-teed Smilin’.”

Across the harbor, the search boat towing the divers on the spreader bar began a lazy turn in Lloyd’s direction. He shifted in the fighting chair. It was late enough to go public with the day’s beer consumption. It was near noon anyway, it was always noon somewhere in the world to justify breaking the seal, not that Lloyd really cared much about justification anymore. Who gives a fuck was Lloyd’s preferred justification. The search boat was coming closer, and if they found the body, if the line got tugged or a diver surfaced, he wanted to see it. If he left his seat to get a beer, he could miss a critical play in the game so he stayed in his seat, fighting off the screaming voice in his head that wanted him to go below and find a beer.

He just had to wait until the search boat made its pass next to the dock. The water was clear. If the kid was under the boat, the divers would find him. If they found the body, and it was this possibility that held Lloyd in his seat, Touchdown. He could take some credit for locating it, not that anybody would be offering credit to him. No, it would go down in the inevitable discovery category, no credit owed, no credit due.

Except, of course, Mark Wharton would claim he knew where they’d find it all along; that was as sure as finding shit in a cow pasture.

Lloyd opted for a cigarette rather than a beer. His Camels were in his pocket and didn’t require a trip to the fridge.

“Morning Lloydy.”

Lloyd spun the fighting chair around to the finger pier next to his slip and looked up at the source of the familiar voice. Ron Stern, Sheriff Ron Stern, stood with his hands on his hips and a pair of mirrored sunglasses, strictly trooper issue, covering his eyes. Even with the mirrored glasses, Lloyd could feel Ron’s eyes on him. Ron’s eyes could take inventory, they could. They could read a person right down to the bone.

For just a second, Lloyd forgot that he had cleaned up the collection of Hamm’s cans in the corner of the cockpit. His heart fluttered like a moth in a peanut butter jar because he knew that even one empty Hamm’s can would have brought on a lowering of the trooper mirrors and a knowing frown.

“How you doing Ron. No Sunday school today?”

“Had better mornings. Just got off the telephone with the kid’s mother.”

“Anything good?” Lloyd asked.

“Nothing.”

“No calls home?”

Ron lowered the mirrors to the tip of his nose and his eyes revealing his eyes. “Nothing.”

“Well I would venture to say, the kid’s in the water,” Lloyd offered.

Ron scanned the harbor. The search boat was cutting in along the sterns of the boats tied up to the dock.

This was the money pass, Lloyd thought, the best bet as to where the guy’s body was located. Ron’s eyes followed the search boat as it crossed the stern of Lloyd’s boat coming in a little closer than he needed to.

Ron nodded at Mark Wharton as the search boat motored by. “So why you venture the kid to be in the water?”

“Simple really,” Lloyd paused. He wanted what he was about to say to be framed in silence so Ron would hear it.

“Cough it up Lloyd.” Ron pushed the mirrors back over his eyes, waiting for Lloyd to speak.

“If he fouls his prop in a mooring line, he un-fouls it. That’s why.”

“Well, I thought of that. Doesn’t figure that a kid with a boat, a new boat by the looks of it, would leave his boat hung up in a bowl of spaghetti, now does it Lloydy? And then there’s the next question,” Ron said as he turned and trotted away, keeping pace with the search boat trolling parallel to the municipal dock.

“Hey, Ron?”

“What happened?” Ron shouted back over his shoulder.

Yep, Lloyd thought. What happened was definitely the next question, the $64,000.00 question. Yeah, maybe he drowns himself trying to untangle his prop. Maybe he clunks his head getting in the water and drowns. That trick happens about once a year in the county.

Just last summer, a guy went over the side of his Swan 48 while his wife videotaped him. She thought he was crooning to her when he clutched his chest with a look that was half “Oops, I just shit my pants” and half “Yikes! That’s a different kind of pain.” The guy’s head hit the gunnel when he keeled over. On the video, it sounded like a pumpkin smashing. The guy’s wife said as much as she narrated the video later on, as while she chain- smoked Virginia Slim menthols. They never found a body and they had a damn videotape of the guy going in and a GPS fix to beat. Go figure, Lloyd thought.

Mark Wharton had run that search, Lloyd remembered. He also remembered listening to Wharton argue on the radio about dive times. He’d insisted on one dive per man, claiming they’d get the bends in fifty feet of water. Lloyd knew it was possible but at fifty-six feet a diver had almost 90 minutes. Wharton didn’t let them stay down for half that. So videotape, GPS fix, and divers at 56 feet, but never a body. Thank you very much Wharton.

The harbor was only 16 feet at its maximum depth. There weren’t many places for a body to go. If the kid drowned, Wharton’s crew should have snagged him out in the middle of the harbor. Drowning victims don’t drift around as much as most folks think. They sink where they die and unless there’s a good current, a real ripper, the body stays put. The crooner on the Swan with the chain-smoking wife probably caught himself a deep current and was on his way to Escanaba by the time the search and rescue showed up. The kid should still be in the harbor.

“So where’d you put yourself, kid?” Lloyd closed his eyes, clearing his thoughts of anything other than what he knew about the disappearance. He might not be on the force, but he could still pretend couldn’t he? Nothing wrong with pretending. Nope. Nothing at all.

There was no way the kid drowned. He wasn’t drunk unless he was throwing the empties overboard and that wasn’t likely, not today in the age of loving trees and everything green. No certainly not drunk. He wouldn’t have gone in the water if he couldn’t swim, and if he could, from the kid’s boat it was only 50 yards to the municipal dock, 75 to the nearest shore and a 150 to the other side of the harbor. The far side of the harbor was nothing but rock and a mile’s walk back to town if you took the road that snaked around the harbor. The kid wouldn’t have swum to the other side of the harbor. Unless the kid swam a precise north-northwest route, he would have gotten to dry land in short order. Lloyd added this thought to his mental inventory as reliable circumstantial evidence.

If the kid managed to drown with a life preserver on, not likely, but if he did manage to knock himself out and fall over board and if the life jacket didn’t keep his face above water, an offshore wind could have floated him out into the bay. This was another possibility, that the body was bobbing somewhere off shore, out in the bay. Lloyd placed it in the not likely category.

Lloyd stood up. The spectators were gone and there was a beer with his name on it in the fridge. He could feel it tugging on his shirtsleeve. He shrugged the urge, craving, whatever, and leaned over the transom looking down the line of boats. The search boat was turning a radius back into the harbor, having come up empty on the pass near the boats. That had to make Mark Wharton feel good. Sure it did.

“Huh.” Lloyd muttered. I’d have thought they’d hit a bingo for sure. That changes the landscape. Maybe the guy didn’t drown after all? Maybe the kid will show up. He sat back down in the fighting chair, perplexed and a little irritated.

He blanked his mind again and ran the facts, just like old times. The good old times.

Nope. The kid didn’t drown. He would probably show up. That would make a couple of parents, who right about now would be driving north through Milwaukee on interstate 43 at about 120 miles per hour, happy.

So you didn’t drown. Where are you then? A familiar voice, like Lloyd’s but not Lloyd’s, spoke up in his head. Hey Lloyd. I’m the friend that saved your ass more than a few times. I’m the guy who kept you a good cop and not a dead cop. Remember, it was me, back in Chi town, who saw that look in Wilma Cordell’s eyes, the look that says, “Go ahead and try to take my man, cause I got a tech-9 under the pillow that I’m a gonna pull out and heat up just as soon as you think you got the situation under control.” Remember how the boys almost shit themselves when you jumped on little Wilma and pinned her to the bed. They thought you were gonna do her, they did. And you know why they thought that? I’ll tell you why. ‘Cause they didn’t have a back up in their head did they? But when you pulled the techie out from under that drool stained pillow, they understood. And Tommy Kowalski, he almost kissed you right there in that shit hole apartment. He has kids you know, I mean had . . .

Lloyd slammed the door in his mind shut.

O-caine then, no Jimmy Kowalski talk. Fair enough. We’ll dissect this missing kid, just stick to business. I can live with that, promise to if you let me back out when we’re done.

Lloyd shivered. He hadn’t heard from his back up in a long time. He referred to the voice in his head, and it was a voice, as his back up. His back up had gone on sabbatical when Mr. Booze showed up. That was a long time ago, back when he was a member of the Chicago Police Department, back when Lloyd was CPD true and blue, which he remained until Tommy Kowalski took a bullet in his forehead.

Lloyd looked to his left and to his right. He never was comfortable with the idea of alter egos running around in his head, no matter that this particular voice had saved his life, that it was as real as steel. His back up wasn’t bullshitting about Wilma Cordell.

Lloyd lowered his head, checking one last time for nosey onlookers. They were there, but were following the progress of the search boat.

Hi, old friend. Been a while. Thanks for letting me out, Lloyd. Okay, gave you my word we’d stick to the missing kid, save Tommy Kowalski for another day. So I’ll be honorable but I don’t like it. A man’s gotta roam you know, gotta cover some ground. Anyway, here’s the skinny on the kid. Only three ways a guy dies. He kills himself, he dies naturally, or he gets killed. That’s it. Just three ways. So let’s think about this attorney guy. Did he kill himself? No way. Facts just don’t support it: a shiny new boat, good looking girlfriend, no way he does himself. Did he die naturally? I’ll give you and me both this, it was our first hunch, and not a bad one. But they would have found the body by now. It’s not the Pacific Ocean we’re looking at, although it might as well be with that Wharton guy running the search. So, and your gonna love this one, I think he got himself killed.

Lloyd tensed. He got himself killed? This is Fish Creek, not the south side of Chi-Town. People don’t get themselves killed in the Creek. They either die naturally or kill themselves. He lit another cigarette, feeling energy tickle its way up his back. It felt like a cool breeze on wet skin.

Lloyd bristled. “How?” But his backup was gone.

A man’s got to roam.

Want the rest? Contact Brett Reetz