North of Boston (15 page)

“No.” It can't be that. But I'm not sure. “Are you really happy with Max? With him and no one else?”

“I can see why you might be skeptical. I know I'm getting ahead of myself right now. But if I believe in what I'm doing, believe wholeheartedly in this choice and give it my all, then who's to say in five years' time it wouldn't have become love after all, and then everything would have turned out all right?”

“But how is it
today
, Thomasina?”

“Max is good for me. I haven't dated anyone like him for a long time.” She picks up the Diet Coke, sips at the rim like a determined ten-year-old. Avoids my eyes.

The problem with alcoholics is that it's easy to think you make them do it. That my raining on her love parade is the simple hex that will cause what actually is inevitable. That could even be what she'll end up telling herself, at moments anyway, in her future hours of bitter, lonely stupor, which are prophesied in the white-knuckled fingers that clasp the glass, and her oddly twisting mouth.

—

Noah's room is filled with a bed, a desk, a rocking chair, an aquarium, and a turquoise lava lamp. There are posters on every square foot of wall, and every square inch of horizontal surface is covered with books, projects, artifacts, stuff. The shades are drawn; dirty blue curtains droop from their rods. Noah, fully dressed, is lying on the rumpled sheets of his bed, lost in a comic book.

“Has he gone?” A tone of patient sufferance.

“Yes.” I take a seat in the rocking chair.

Noah slowly turns a page, only the top of his head visible. “I like Mighty Thor better than this. The Hulk's getting stupider.”

“Really? Why?”

“He says dumb things.”

“And Thor doesn't?”

“Not
as
dumb.”

“Oh.”

He closes the comic book. “Want to see a box I found?”

“Uh-huh.”

He scrambles to his feet and kneels by the bed, pulls out a wooden box, and puts it on my lap. There's a faded flamenco dancer painted on its top—dark hair piled high, two blotches of rouge on her cheeks, castanets in her bent wrists. She is whirling, showing a saucy profusion of white petticoat under her red dress. He takes pains to show me how the top is fit into a groove that slides open noiselessly, letting a wisp of sweet, dirty tobacco odor escape. Inside are only a few wood shavings.

“What are you going to put in here?”

“Nothing.” Noah turns the box upside down and shows me how to spring a false bottom by pressing down in one corner until the opposite edge slowly lifts. The workmanship is ingenious and precise; the secret space is the size of a pack of cards. It's also empty.

“What are you going to put in
here
?” I ask.

He shrugs nonchalantly, avoiding my eye, a man about his business. “Don't know yet. Maybe money.” There's something rough and mechanical in his movements as he closes up the box. Playtime over.

But Pirio the Good Fairy Godmother isn't going to let him get away with that—reality may be harsh, but a secret compartment is still a secret compartment. “Money is good,” I say. “Treasure is better.”

His eyes find mine, the same heartbreaking gray as Thomasina's, and his pursed mouth relaxes a bit. “What kind of treasure?”

“Rubies, turtle shells, bark of a mango tree.”

He nods, giving judicious consideration to my list. Then he tells me that if you light methane gas it will explode. “Cows fart methane, just like us. It makes global warming worse.”

I tell him that if we could harness the power of methane gas, we wouldn't have to burn coal or have nuclear plants. The problem becomes the solution.

“Right.” He's excited now, and way ahead of me. “We'd put all the cows in a big building and cover it in, like, some kind of plastic thing, and then we could suck the gas out with fans”—he holds his nose with clothespin fingers—“and make all the gas go in tubes to the city, and then light it on fire.”

As he talks he bends forward, elbows on the arm of the rocking chair, then slides into my side nonchalantly, like he's just leaning, and a minute later he's on my lap. Little Noah again, with the fine-as-silk, sweet-smelling hair.

We draw some pictures of possible methane-collection apparatuses that would probably burden the animals with no more indignity than what they presently suffer at our hands.

“Wait,” Noah says. He crosses the room on quiet feet, slides open his desk drawer, and removes something that fits into the palm of his hand. He comes back and opens his fingers slowly, showing the object to me. It's the whalebone. “I'm going to put
this
in the secret compartment, so no one can find it but you and me. I'm not ever going to let
him
see it.” He tips his head in the direction of the door.

We go into the living room, where Thomasina is camped out on the couch with a cup of coffee and the
Globe
. It feels OK. Sunlight. Saturday morning. The apartment clean, Thomasina sober. Noah jumps next to her, leans against her arm.

“Hungry, sweetie?”

“No.”

Mother and son smile at each other. Thomasina puts her arm around him, and he snuggles. They've been through a lot together, and when they find each other, they're home.

Time for me to go. The shady dealings I wanted to talk about don't seem important right now.

—

The phone call from Thomasina comes that evening. “Max and I were thinking maybe next weekend. Foxwoods, I mean. Just two nights. But only one if you'd rather. That is, if you can do it.” A pause. “You'll take Noah, won't you, Pirio? He won't stay with anyone else.”

“Yes, of course.”

“Oh, thank you, thank you. I'm so grateful—you have no idea.”

M
urphy's Pub on a Saturday night draws a motley crowd of tired-looking singles. The men are in flannel and dirty denim; the women wear tight jeans and a lot of eyeliner. The jukebox is carrying on with the eternal golden oldies, and the television above the bar is showing the Red Sox playing the Orioles in Baltimore. A few guys on stools are staring up at the screen. I take a seat between two of them and order a draft beer from a friendly, burly bartender. Finally one of the guys notices me, and as soon as we start talking, the guy on the other side of me checks me out and joins the conversation. Turns out the first guy, Ron, works construction and the second, Tim, works at Ocean Catch. It isn't long before they figure out that they're sitting next to the Swimmer. This wakes them up a bit; they move in closer, innocently excited, eager to tell their own miracle tales that they readily admit can't compare to mine. There's friendly sparring between the two gentlemen. They scan my face for approval, nearly blush when they get it. The boilermakers keep coming—all free for me—and soon the worn-out pub starts looking kind of sparkly and magical.

After about an hour, when we're three best buds and pleasantly looped, I turn to Tim and casually say, “I was down at dry dock the other day. Saw one of your boats with a cracked hull. Like, that must be kind of scary, huh? You're out in the middle of the ocean, the hull cracks. What do you do?”

“It wasn't as bad as it sounds. Stress fracture, that's all. We made port in time.”

“You were
on
that boat?” I say incredulously. “The
Sea Wolf
?”

“Yeah, sure. Was a hell of a trip.”

“I'll bet. Where'd you go?”

“Oh, no place special. Same old, same old. But I'll tell ya, I saw one thing on that voyage I ain't never seen before. Captain and the fishmaster almost came to blows. I swear, I thought Lou Diggens was gonna toss the little Jap overboard. Lou's a damn good captain, but he's a hothead. Not good to be on Lou's bad side. Thank God the Jap backed down. Or else it would have been sayonara
for him.”

“No shit,” the construction worker says, nodding solemnly. He asks what they were fighting about.

Just then I happen to twirl a bit on my bar stool—I'm about half sober. Or less. A young skinny guy is standing in the shadows beside the doorway of the pub. He's got slack dirty-blond hair and a face shaped like a beaver tail. There's a weird, unhealthy twitchiness to him. More disturbing, I'm sure that his vivid black eyes—all pupil, no iris—were just boring a hole in my back. There's a couple of seconds of lag time, then he slips out the door so fast I'm doubting he was really there.

“Hey, Ron, Tim. Did you see that guy? The one who just left in a hurry.”

“Nope,” says Ron, not even turning around.

“Who? What guy?” says Tim, glancing over his shoulder.

“Never mind. Go on with your story.”

“So the cracked hull, that's where it came from,” Tim explains. “The fishmaster insisted on top speed. Captain Lou went along with it at first, but when ice floes appeared, he said no way. Jap said do it. Lou said no. Then we hit a sunken floe straight on, and Captain Lou just about threw the little guy overboard. I heard Lou went to Dustin Hall afterward and said he'd quit before he'd work with another ignorant Soga bastard.”

Ron asks what a fishmaster is.

“He controls the fishing operations. Which fishing grounds to go to, where to set the hooks or nets, how long to stay in an area. He's not supposed to control the ship itself. That's the captain's job, and the captain has seniority. Always. No one goes against the captain.”

“So why was this guy being such a prick?” I ask.

Tim swigs his beer. “Why do you think? He wanted a bigger catch. Doesn't give a shit about anything else. Those guys aren't even supposed to be on our boats in the first place. There's a law that says American commercial fishing vessels have to be under the control of American citizens at all times. That's to keep foreigners from buying American vessels and fishing in our waters.”

“Soga?” I repeat, to be sure I remember it.

A shadow passes over me, and a heavy arm is laid across my back. “
There
you are. Tim, you met my girlfriend. She's a sweetheart, isn't she?”

I shrug Johnny's arm off my shoulder. “Where'd you come from?”

“Where'd
you
come from? This isn't exactly your side of town anymore.”

“I missed the place. Anything wrong with that? And I wanted a beer.”

“Yeah? Looks like you had a few.” A look passes between Johnny and Tim. Tim gets off his stool and disappears without a good-bye. Ron disappears, too. Maybe they think I really am Johnny's girlfriend.

“You sure you weren't looking for me?” he says, shooting me a rare, guarded smile.

“It's date night for marrieds. Where's your wife?”

He leans in too close. I can smell his breath, see the pores in the skin on the side of his nose and the pink stubble on his upper lip. I'm so uncomfortable that I don't even hear what he's murmuring in my ear.

Obviously, it's high time for the likes of me to be heading home. I slide off my bar stool. The floor's closer than I thought it would be. Johnny catches my arm before I fall.

“Hey, careful now. Sit down over here for a minute,” he says, leading me to a table. “You and Tim had a nice conversation, I take it. What were you talking about?”

“Lots of things: swimming, cars, his lard-ass ex.”

Johnny's face is impassive. He's trying to figure me out.

Then it comes to me: I'll play the traumatized drunk. It won't be hard since I'm already halfway there. I let a disorganized torrent of emotion gush from my mouth. The accident, the flashbacks, the nightmares. Why did it happen? Why haven't the bastards been caught? And who the fuck makes fucking life rafts that don't fucking inflate? My voice rises in outrage and breaks soulfully in the appropriate places. I nearly cry. Usually, a performance like this is enough to make a guy like Johnny run for cover. But he's hanging in, studying me harder than he ought to be, without much sympathy.

I demand another shot of whiskey and another bottle of beer, and when they come, I tip the shot glass into my mouth, swallow the whiskey in one gulp, and slap the empty down on the table. “My father always told me—he's a bastard, in case you didn't know—he always said . . .
Get back in the saddle, girl!
That's the only way to cure the fear when you've been thrown by a horse. If you don't crawl right back into that saddle, you'll be horse shy forever! That's what he always said.”

Johnny blinks. This is just the kind of macho hogwash he believes in himself. “Does that mean you want to go fishing again?”

“Sure. I gotta be free, don't I?” My hand wraps clumsily around the beer bottle.

He pries it from between my fingers. “Let me take you home. You shouldn't drive.”

At this point, I'm pretty sure he's satisfied that I'm an authentic emotional mess. That I came down here to get drunk like I used to in the good old days and ended up harmlessly bending Tim's ear with my neurotic survivor needs. I burp for good measure.

“Nah, don't bother, Johnny. I'll take a cab.”

“You won't get a cab down here. I'll take you,” he repeats.

“Well, you're not coming in!” I announce.

“Not tonight anyway.”

“Not ever, Johnny. You're a married man. Four kids. Fuck it. Shame on you.”

The car ride's quiet. He pulls up outside my apartment. I fumble with the door handle, and he reaches across my lap to open it. But before he does, he leans some of his upper body weight on me, brings his big square face close to mine.

“Stay uptown from now on, Pirio. I don't want you getting hurt.”

“Why would I be getting hurt, Johnny?” I drawl.

“Go home now. Go to bed.”

—

There's no home page for Soga Fisheries, but I find two news stories on the web. One says that in addition to buying millions of dollars' worth of fish from around the world for distribution to Japanese retailers, Soga Fisheries operates its own fleet of six fishing vessels. One of these was caught trawling in a twenty-five-mile Hoki breeding ground on the west coast of New Zealand's South Island last summer. The company forfeited a $2.4 million ship named the
Soga Maru No. 8
and a catch worth $85,000. Another story reports that the company lost another of its ships, the
Soga Maru No. 1
, when it capsized off the northern coast of Russia. Twelve of the thirty-six crew members died, and the Japanese Coast Guard accused Soga of inadequate safety measures.

OK, so Soga Fisheries cuts corners. Interesting, but not unusual.

I return to the top of the article and realize that in the very first sentence Soga Fisheries is described as a subsidiary of the Jaeger Group.

The Jaeger Group's Website reveals that it's a conglomerate composed of forty international companies involved in real estate, manufacturing, and fisheries. It has offices in New York, London, Moscow, Tokyo. The home page is crisp, glossy, and polished, with revolving photographs of breathtaking forests, oceans, city skylines—the various worlds of Jaeger are bathed in clean sunshine pouring out of cloudless skies. I click around the site and discover that there are relatively few pages, that information is scant, and that the copy is mostly self-congratulatory. The Jaeger Group sponsors a scholarship program for young scientists and is dedicated to community involvement and social responsibility. Its commitment to global environmental sustainability is repeatedly emphasized.

I fall into bed with an authentic boilermaker headache and no answers.

—

It's Sunday and a special exhibit, so the Museum of Fine Arts is crowded. I happen to be occupying the choicest spot in a small group of viewers clustered around a self-portrait of Henri Toulouse-Lautrec—jaunty, mysterious, smug. A woman with a large handbag jostles me. Apparently, she thinks I've been studying the artist's self-portrait long enough.

Moving out of reach of the woman's handbag, I scan the crowd. Mrs. Smith's low gray head is bobbing among the patrons. She insisted on meeting me here when I called her this morning. She sees me and waves. Today she's wearing a fun-loving purple trench coat. Her canvas tote shows a stylized cat's face over the words “Walk for Animals.”

“Let's go someplace quieter,” I say.

I steer us out of the crowded hall, through the gift shop, down a long corridor of nineteenth- and twentieth-century European art. We find an empty bench of tufted velvet in the last hall, before the massive painting of Gauguin's
D'où Venons Nous? Que Sommes Nous? Où Allons Nous?

“What do you know about Soga Fisheries?” I ask her.

“Soga Fisheries? They're Ocean Catch's best customer. They buy about seventy-five percent of the company's fish.”

“Is there any reason they'd put one of their employees on an Ocean Catch vessel?”

“I don't see why. They're a wholesaler. They buy from us and other American companies, and sell to Japanese retailers.”

“Seems like a long way to come to get fish.”

“It's a global market now. The wholesalers go wherever they get the best price. And there's a big demand for the flounder and halibut that come out of the North Atlantic.”

“They must be getting a good price from Ocean Catch.”

“I'm not sure what they get. It would vary with market rates. But I'm sure they do well enough. Dustin's very loyal to Soga. If it weren't for them, we'd have had a hard time keeping our head above water when the new fishing regulations went into effect a few years ago.”

“I heard there was a Soga fishmaster on the
Sea Wolf
.”

“Hm, can't imagine why . . .”

“What about the Jaeger Group? Know anything about them?”

“Jaeger Group . . . Jaeger Group . . . I don't think so. Oh, unless you mean Bob Jaeger? He used to call Dustin once in a while. I was always supposed to put his calls through right away. I never met him, but Dustin went to New York for meetings with him a few times.”

“Do you have any idea what they talked about?”

“Dustin acted like they were personal friends.”

“Really?” Fretful Dustin Hall doesn't seem like the kind of guy who'd fit in socially with billionaires.

I pull out my phone. “Give me a minute, Mrs. Smith. I want to look up Bob Jaeger.” As I'm searching the Internet, Mrs. Smith gets up and wanders over to the Gauguin. She stands a few inches away from the far right side of the painting, and begins looking up and down the canvas, squinting as if she's attempting to decipher a vertical hieroglyph.

There are a lot of entries for Bob Jaeger. I click on the first link—an article in a golf magazine. Apparently, Jaeger and a partner won first place in the Pebble Beach National Pro-Am tournament this year. But an attentive golf official noticed that Jaeger had submitted a greatly inflated handicap that had given him an unfair advantage, so he was stripped of the title.