A Matter of Mercy Read online

  David Lorenz picked up on the tension in the room, which didn’t require a sixth sense. “If you men are going to be partners and make it work, well, you know, you gotta at least try to be on speaking terms occasionally, or bring a woman with you as interpreter.” He was trying for jocularity, but it fell like an anchor.

  “We’re all right, thank you,” Tomas said quietly. “Let’s get on with business. Now that we’re all here.” He looked at his watch.

  David Lorenz sighed. “I’m trying to give you advice that will help you, because it seems you will have the opportunity to be in business together if you choose. I’ve located the person to whom the tidal flats at Indian Neck are still deeded.”

  Mario jumped in. “And it ain’t Pissario? Or the real estate developer? You were right?”

  “That’s correct. Someone was just very careless and didn’t record beach rights out to mean low tide, although they certainly could have. It happens. People make mistakes. Fortunately.” Lorenz ran his hand over his head, smoothing down flyaway hair, then adjusted his heavy glasses back up on his nose. He leaned back in his chair and smiled. “I haven’t approached the couple who still owns the rights, although, frankly, just owning tidal flats is pretty useless if you’re not a shellfisher, and especially if you don’t have a license. There’s really not a lot of usable beach there, correct? I’m trying to think like they might. Why not turn something useless into cash?”

  “That’s right,” Rid inserted, covering the same ground with his thoughts. “There’s some beach that’s good at low tide, when we’re there, pretty much none at high tide. And you can’t really walk the beach, because it leads around the bend into Blackfish Creek. There’s no grant space left open there, so nobody can take up shellfishing there, whether they own it or not. Unless, of course, they kicked us all off and—man, I don’t even want to go there.”

  Lorenz nodded. “That’s part of the risk we talked about. Also, that this could somehow get to Pissario and he could outbid you. Or the owner of the rights could go off in search of a higher bidder. Remember, you have the option of just fighting Pissario in court and hoping you win. You definitely have a chance to come out on top.”

  “But then he appeals, and appeals again. And we get farther away from the local court where a judge knows how we live, and pretty soon we go broke anyway,” Tomas said quietly, and it was the quiet that was dangerous. “I say trying to buy the flats is our best chance. I want my life in my own hands. I’d rather be executed now than sit on death row for ten years and then get the bullet.”

  “An interesting metaphor,” Lorenz said. “But you’re correct, as I’ve said, that the court process could drag on for years. Honestly, I don’t see any fail-safe alternative, so you should pick the one you think you can tolerate best.”

  “Or the one in which we have the potential to gain the most,” Tomas mused, ruddy-faced, in his good overalls, his face gone to an inscrutable mask as he looked into the future.

  “Indeed,” Lorenz assented, head bobbing up and down behind his desk. The motion made his glasses slide down his nose and he repositioned them before becoming still.

  There was a moment of extreme silence, during which the lawyer hiccupped and Mario’s stomach complained. The furnace kicked on, and Rid shifted which leg was crossed over the other.

  “Let’s do it. Let’s buy the damn flats,” Tomas said.

  “I hate waiting,” Mario said. “I’m in.”

  “We’ve gotta talk about how much we’re going to offer. I don’t know how I’m going to raise the money, but I’m in,” Rid said, trying to smother automatic panic about where he could come up with yet another pile of cash.

  “Good decision. Two things you need to do,” David Lorenz said, moving his legal pad in front of him and clicking his ballpoint open. “You need to form and name a realty partnership, and make an offer. So let’s get to work.”

  * * * *

  It was good he’d driven down alone. Not that he’d had the confrontation with Mario that he’d planned. Caroline would kill him for that, and she had a right. Now he’d have to do that later. Right now he was shell-shocked. Too much to take in. They’d decided to offer twenty-five thousand dollars for the flats. Lorenz, Rid could tell, thought it might not be quite enough, but with all the legal bills they’d run up already, this was another eight thousand three hundred something, bango, on top of what else he had to come up with. It was all too much to wrap his mind around.

  He’d turned them down when Mario suggested a drink at The Oyster, saying he was way behind on paperwork, and pretty much everything else. That much at least was true. He had to go home and tell Caroline the truth, then figure out what he could sell to come up with the money.

  Once inside, though, kicking snow loose from his boots at the door, but still tracking some across the tiles on his way to the big closet under the stairs, his resolve was melting like the ice he’d tracked in. As before, he avoided Caroline by going through the hall by the stairs.

  “How’d it go?” she called from the living room. He had a quick glimpse of her red sweater. She was sitting on the floor with the pieces of a nursery tray spread all around her, as he went from front door into the hallway toward the kitchen where the big closet and the stairs to the basement were. He started to ask what the hell she thought she was doing, and then there was too much else that filled the space between them.

  “Pretty good,” he called back. She got up and came the other way, through the dining nook, to meet him in the kitchen. And then, like an offering, instead of telling her about Mario, like putting a big IOU in an offering plate, he told her something far more dangerous to himself personally. “You have to promise me—I mean on the baby’s life, that kind of promise—that you won’t tell anyone something.”

  “All right,” she said, sliding into a seat at the table. He noticed her belly then, how she sort of pushed it down to make herself fit underneath rather than pull the chair out while she answered without thinking about either her belly or the answer, it seemed.

  “The three of us, we formed a company and we’re putting in an offer to buy the tidal flats from the real owner. See Pissario thinks he owns them, but his land wasn’t registered right, and our lawyer found out about it. Pissario doesn’t know.” Rid sat across from her at the table and explained what Lorenz had learned, how they were trying to do it all without Pissario getting wind of it, and how he had to figure out what to sell now.

  “So what’s the name of your realty company?” Caroline said, which Rid found a strange question.

  “You promised,” he said, suddenly nervous about disclosing it all. “Pissario can’t get wind of this.

  “I’m on your side, remember?”

  Rid sat back in his chair and grinned for a few seconds. “Other Foot Realty. As in the shoe’s on the other foot now, and watch out buster, because we may just use it to drop kick you straight to hell.”

  “Great name,” she said with a smile. “You want me to put on some coffee—or you want a beer?” She started to lean forward on her elbows and slide her butt back to get up from the table, obviously intending to get him something to drink, like there was no more to say about the subject.

  He never knew quite how to take her. “You really think it’s a good name? You think the whole thing’ll work?”

  She hesitated. “What about the—”

  Goddammit. A volcano started rumbling in Rid’s head. She thought they were crazy. “What’s wrong with it? You think the real owners will go to Pissario? Hell, they don’t have any use themselves for the flats,” he erupted.

  Now she was stopped, half-up, half-down, propped on her forearms, leaning over the table. “I didn’t say that. You already said you’re in debt, I was just—”

  “You don’t seem to get it. Even if we win, Pissario will appeal and keep us tied up in court forever. Next time he might be able to get an injunction, too.” His voice continued to rise, but he couldn’t seem to stop it. He unbuttoned the
top of his shirt. The house was too damn warm now. And where was Lizzie?

  “Where’s Lizzie?”

  “On the couch. I hope that’s okay. I was working in there, and she jumped up next to me. You didn’t make her get down the other day, so I figured she was allowed.” Caroline shifted her weight to one arm and gestured over her shoulder, toward the living room where the tray parts were spread out on the floor.

  What was she doing with his stuff? Not trying to make a repair, for God’s sake! She’d only watched him a little while that morning. “Yeah. Hey, what are you doing with—”

  Caroline sat back down the rest of the way. “Rid, I could put some money into the realty company for you. I inherited enough from my mother.”

  “No way.”

  “Why not?”

  “Look, thanks for the offer, but this is my thing, and I want to keep it that way.”

  “I’m not trying to take anything away from you.” Seated, but leaning toward him just the same, keeping her tone reasonable.

  “But it would happen, and that’s what scares me.”

  “No, it wouldn’t.”

  Now she was starting to get mad, he saw, but keeping it in check. Well, so be it. He wasn’t going to have worked so hard to keep his grant and then go halfsies with some chick just because he needed money in a pinch. “The discussion is over,” he said. “No.”

  “Look, I can loan it to you, then.”

  “OVER!”

  She let loose. “I get it that you’re scared, but I’m not the one trying to do anything to you, here. I’m scared to death. I’m scared something’s wrong with the baby, I’m scared of your nutcase partner—and by the way, did you talk to him?—if he’s the one threatening me, I’m scared out of my mind if you haven’t noticed, and I get it you’re scared about the lawsuit but that’s no reason to shout at me. I thought we were going to help each other.”

  Suddenly sober and wild at once. “What’s wrong with the baby?”

  “Nothing that I know of. I’m scared, because of the accident, and what I did! Do you believe in karma?”

  Then, to make things worse, she started crying. He could never do a single thing right around her for more than a minute and a half. “Did some doctor tell you something?”

  “I haven’t been to a doctor yet.”

  “What? Jesus. Why the hell not?”

  She shook her head helplessly. A shrug. “All the chaos—” she started.

  “What are you thinking? You’re supposed to.”

  “I’ll take care of it. How about you talk to your partner like you said you would and get off my case.”

  It was too much, too much. Couldn’t he manage anything right except to love the flats and a dog? Rid grabbed his keys, whistled for Lizzie, stumbled back into his boots and jacket even as he headed back for the front door, pulling them on as he went. He undermined the drama of his exit by stepping on a loose bootlace and tripping. Lizzie did not appear enthusiastic about going with him, a cut. Still, with the dignity he could gather, and his reluctant dog, he stomped to his truck, revved it and showed her how fast he could get off her case, since that’s what she wanted. With nowhere to go, he spun left out of the driveway toward Route 6 because at least that would get him nowhere a helluva lot faster than 6A, which was to the right.

  Chapter 23

  He drove aimlessly for a while, first heading for Provincetown, shame arguing with anger, trying hard to let anger win. He’d left Caroline trapped at his house—still no gas in her car, at least he didn’t think she’d chance it—and now he’d trapped himself away from the house, just as neatly. “I’d do anybody else’s whole shit list if they’d do this one thing for me, girl” he told Lizzie. Then, “Don’t look at me like that. Your place is with me.” He reached over to the glove compartment and took out a biscuit to sweeten the deal. The Lab snuffled it out of his hand. “Yeah, I know what you like,” he said, caressing her ears. Then, “Goddammit, it’s my grant. They’re my goddamn trays.”

  Then, when shame won, he was angry about that, too. “She’s right about one thing, Lizzie. I didn’t talk to Mario, that fucker.”

  He’d turned his truck around back toward Wellfleet and The Oyster where Mario’s truck was in the parking lot. He’d known it would be. Across the street, the shellfish shack was showing the orange ball. No fishing, obvious given that it was well below twenty-eight. It felt like twenty-eight below, what with the wind.

  He parked some distance away, figuring Mario might come out mad. He might come out mad himself. They couldn’t afford it, though. The partnership had to survive.

  The afternoon was dwindling into graveyard weather, smoky with souls and ghosts as another round of snow created a faux twilight of obscured visibility. Rid motioned Lizzie to the back seat and put out her blanket. He’d brought her with him more to irritate Caroline than anything else. It was later than he’d thought, though, past Lizzie’s suppertime. He put some water in the dish on the truck floor. “Not long, girl. I promise.” Lizzie sighed and settled on her blanket.

  Mario was at the bar, still the dressed-up version of himself he’d been in the lawyer’s office. Rid mock slugged him on the shoulder. “Come on, man, let’s get a table.”

  “Thought you had too much to do,” Mario said.

  “Yeah, well, I got thirsty.”

  “Slide in here.” Mario gestured to the stool next to his. He was sitting on his jacket, the limp arms extending to the plank floor, hat and gloves on the bar, taking the space of two customers in season. The hat was new, looked like a fur-lined baseball cap with ear-flaps, Rid noticed, annoyed. There was a time he’d have made fun of it.

  “Hey, Billy, how y’doin’?” Rid said pointedly. “Nah, let’s grab a table, want something to eat?” He hoped Mario hadn’t had more than a couple beers. “Or did you already?”

  “No, I’m okay. Just another brew.”

  “Come on, let’s get a table, there’s business.” He could tell Mario was a bit gone, not too far yet. “Billy, can you bring us a couple drafts, and how about a double order of wings, single order of fries.” Something he knew Mario would eat that might keep him from getting shit-faced.

  Billy drew the beer, wearing frustration that he was being excluded from their conversation. He plunked the mugs on the bar with too much force. “The rest’ll be up whenever King Chuck sees fit. Can you get these to a table by yourselves?” He had gelled his hair, and wore two silver bracelets and a heavy silver ring that looked new, all on his left hand. On his right wrist, a second watch appeared when his sleeve rode up; Rid almost said something about it, but stopped. The goal was to get away, after all.

  “We’ll manage somehow,” Rid said.

  Mario started to protest, but Rid picked up the mugs and headed well away from the bar. Only three people were there, two—Rick and Monty—he knew. They had grants over off Egg Island, and Rid nodded to them while he herded Mario to a table against the back wall.

  Maybe more sober than Rid had calculated; once they were seated Mario challenged him. “All right, what’s up?” The light was low enough in the bar that Mario’s eyes appeared black instead of brown and his skin as dark as it did in August. An old scar was visible on one side of his face in the better light coming from the entryway with its glass doors to the waning daylight. There was no light in Mario’s eyes, though, which made Rid uneasy.

  And, he had no approach prepared. “Uh … you, uh … you know the chick I….”

  “Knocked up?”

  “Yeah, that’s the one. Listen, someone’s been messing with her.”

  Mario snickered, stopping Rid cold. “So I heard from Billy. Billy figured it to be me, since she’s a waterfront owner, and I figured it to be you since you’re the handy dandy daddy.

  Rid leaned back in his chair. “What? Me? How do you figure that? She’s, for Christ sake, man, she’s pregnant.”

  Mario smirked. “Didn’t know you had such family feeling. So you’re saying it’s not you?”


  “No it’s not me.” The realization that Mario was playing him as he’d played Caroline started to come to him.

  “No you don’t. No, you don’t,” Rid said, leaning forward, getting into Mario’s face, using the side of his arm to sweep Mario’s cap and gloves to the side of the table and nearly knocking over Mario’s beer as he did. “I’m not what this is about. You’re what it’s about. You and rocks through windows and notes in your handwriting and burned toast on doorways.”

  There was probably no faking the confusion on Mario’s face when he threw in the bit about burned toast.

  “Burned what?” Mario said.

  “Toast.”

  “Like bread?”

  “Like bread.”

  “What’s the point of that?” Irritated, loud.

  “As if you don’t know.” Sarcastic.

  “I don’t know.” Mario was shouting now.

  Billy interrupted them with the food, setting it between them. “Do I have to set up a DMZ here?” he teased, a hand on a hip. “You need me to call in some of my boys, break things up?”

  “Beat it, Billy.” Gesturing with his thumb back toward the kitchen, Rid tried to soften it with a half smile.

  “No fighting.”

  “It’s cool, Billy. Go on back,” Rid said again. He waited for Billy to get all the way back behind the bar where he couldn’t hear, though he continued to watch, wary of fists. That must mean that Mario had been drinking longer than Rid had guessed. “Calm down, Mario. Last thing we need is Billy getting between us. He might lose an earring, and how would we live with ourselves?”

  Mario chuckled.

  “Here, let’s have us some wings.” Rid pulled the plates closer between them, picked up a wing, dipped it into sauce, and gestured to Mario to do the same. Mario salted the fries. “Grab that ketchup, will ya?” he said, pointing to the table behind Rid. Both men ate in silence for a couple of minutes.