Bad Men

Then his sca

It had all turned to shit, just as he had expected.

Barron ditched the SUV at Hoyt’s Pond, then retrieved his own car and headed home. He spent the next two hours pacing his apartment floor, wondering if he should run, fearing that his colleagues were already coming for him, sold out by Scarfe to save himself. After a while, he just had to know. He returned to Commercial and contrived to bump into one of the detectives from headquarters, who gave him the lowdown on the situation. Dupree was dead, killed by persons yet to be identified. Some, maybe all, of those responsible were also dead, but they were still searching the island. Macy had blooded herself: Terry Scarfe, who appeared to be tied in with those involved, had died at her hands. Barron was particularly happy to receive this last piece of information. If he had survived, Scarfe would have fed him to the department like fish bait.

Barron returned to his apartment relieved and began to feel the old urge gnawing at him, brought on in part by his relief at what he had learned about the events on Dutch. His appetites had forced him to risk his job and jail time for men he didn’t know, yet he was still unable to control his urges. Lipska, the little Polack who acted as Boston’s representative in Maine, had promised him some payback if he did as he was told, even as he was blackmailing him in another’s name. Barron felt saliva flooding his mouth and the welcome ache building at his groin. He made the call.

“Yeah, it’s me. Something went wrong, and the cops moved on the island.”

He gave Lipska a summary of what little he knew. “Now I want what’s coming to me.”

He sighed when he heard the other man’s reply.

“Yeah, I know I still got to pay, but you promised me something fresh, with a little off the top for my time.”

Barron gri

“Man, you crack me up, you really do. I’ll be waiting.”

Barron’s apartment lay off Forest, close to the university. It took up the entire top floor of the building, the rooms below rented out to students, and nurses from Maine Medical. They paid their rent to Barron although they didn’t know it. He used an agency. To them, he was just another tenant. Barron didn’t want them bothering him with their shit.

He took a beer from the fridge, walked to the bathroom, and lit some candles, then ran a bath, testing the water with his fingers to make sure the temperature was okay. He wanted it just a little too hot, so that it would have cooled down just enough by the time the package arrived. He stripped, put on a robe, then turned some music on low. He was just heading back to the kitchen for another beer when there was a knock at his door. There had been no buzzer, no voice over his intercom. He went to his bedside table and took out his gun, keeping it to his side and slightly behind his back as he approached the door. He looked out of the peephole, then relaxed and opened the door.

There was a boy standing before him, fifteen or sixteen at most, just the age Barron liked. He had dark hair and pale skin, with reddish-purple smudges beneath his eyes. Truth be told, Barron thought he looked kind of ill, and for a moment he was worried that maybe the kid had the virus, but Lipska had assured him that he was clean, and that was one thing about Lipska: he didn’t lie about shit like that.

“How’d you get up? I leave the door open? I must have left the door open.” Barron heard himself babbling, but hell, the kid had something. He was almost otherworldly. Barron felt certain that tonight was going to be special. He stepped aside to let the kid enter, noticing his faded, crude trousers, his rough cotton shirt, his bare feet. Bare feet? The hell was Lipska thinking, on a night like this?

“You leave your shoes at the front door?” Barron asked.

The boy nodded. He smelled clean, like the sea.

“Yeah, bet they got real wet. Maybe tomorrow we’ll head out, buy you some sneakers.”

The boy didn’t reply. Instead, he looked toward the bathroom. Steam was rising from the tub.

“You like the water?”

The boy spoke for the first time.

“Yes,” he said.

He followed the older man into the bathroom, his thumbs rubbing against his fingers, tracing the grooves that the waves had worn into his skin like an old song waiting for the touch of the Victrola needle to bring it alive.

“I like the water very much.”

Lipska arrived forty minutes later and tried the buzzer. There was no reply. He tried twice more, then tested the door with his hand. It opened at his touch. He gestured to the boy waiting in the car, and the young man stepped out. He wore jeans, a white T-shirt, and a black leather jacket. He was shivering as he followed Lipska into the house.

The door to Barron’s apartment was open when they reached it. Lipska knocked once, then again, harder this time. The door unlatched beneath the pressure of his hand. Inside there was water on the floor; just a little, as if someone had left the shower or the bath without properly drying off first. To Lipska’s left, the bathroom door stood half open and he heard the sound of the tap dripping. The only light came from there.

“Barron?” he called. “Barron, man, you in there? It’s Lipska.”

He walked to the bathroom door and pushed it open. He took in the naked man, his knees above the surface of the water, his head below it, eyes and mouth open, one arm dangling over the edge of the tub; registered too the faint tang of saltwater that hung in the air.

He turned to the boy, who had remained standing at the door.

“Let’s go,” he said.

“Don’t I get my money?” said the boy.

“I’ll give you your money,” said Lipska. “Forget you were ever here. Just forget you were ever here…”

Lipska led the boy down the stairs and out into the street, then stopped as two uniformed policemen advanced toward him, a plainclothes detective walking close beside them. Behind the cops, he saw the private detective named Charlie Parker leaning against a Mustang. Parker’s face was expressionless as the uniforms separated Lipska from the boy. Only when Lipska was cuffed did Parker step away from the car and join the cops.

“What’s this about?” said Lipska.

“I think you know what this is about,” said Parker.

“No,” said Lipska. “I don’t.”

Parker leaned in close to Lipska’s face.

“It’s about Barron,” he said. “It’s about children.”

Epilogue

The best way to suppose what may come, is to remember what is past.

– George Halifax (1633-1695)

Maria

He has not cried, she thought. He has not wept since the night Joe Dupree died. He has not asked that we leave this place, and for the present we ca

So many had died because of her: Bo