Adrian McKinty - The Dead Yard

Samantha looked at me.

“What else?”

I sighed.

My hand was on the counter. She put hers on top.

“There’s something you’re not telling me,” she said.

“It’s really nothing.”

“What is it?’

“Well, it’s very stupid, you might have heard about it on the radio. That bank robbery in New Hampshire. That was us.”

Samantha’s eyebrows raised.

“It’s not what you think. God knows, Gerry doesn’t need the money, it was just a test, to see if I was up to it.”

“Was Gerry involved?”

“No.”

“Gerry’s the one we want.”

“I know.”

Samantha smiled.

“I’ll tell you what. Why don’t we give it a couple of weeks. If it doesn’t look like they’re going to do anything-if, as you think, they are running scared-I’ll pull you out. We’ll see. Who was in on the robbery?”

“Touched, Kit, me, and Seamus.”

“Hmmm. I’d take three convictions for armed robbery and consider this a successful operation. We might even agree to suspend Kit’s sentence if Gerry would return to Northern Ireland to stand trial. He might do that to keep his daughter out of jail. What do you think?”

“No, Kit waited in the car. She wasn’t involved at all. You can’t arrest her for anything,” I lied, firmly.

“Of course we can, she’s an accessory. Anyway. You’ve done well. I’ll check out the robbery to see if the police have any leads. We might have to get the locals to slow-play if you left any clues. And I hope you’re right, I hope they’re not trying anything. But you’ll have to tell me the truth. If they are planning something big, we’ve got to know.”

“But if not, I’m out. Right?”

“Right.”

Kit came back in with the ice cream.

“What’s keeping you?” she asked.

Samantha hurriedly removed her hand from mine. I don’t know if Kit saw but if she did, she didn’t think anything of it. We drove home, distributed the ice cream, and as she had predicted the combination of rhubarb and vanilla was close to perfect…

An hour later.

Kit and me sitting on the dunes. Gerry and Sonia body boarding on the beach break. Sonia had changed into a neat one-piece swimsuit that showed off her lithe body and long legs. Gerry, unfortunately, was also showing off his body, in a pair of size 48 board shorts.

Touched was off doing something secretive that involved the Massachusetts National Guard and Seamus was sleeping away his hangover.

Kit had changed into a black Body Glove one-piece wet suit and was resting her feet on a surfboard that said “Hello Kitty” above an anime cat.

There were about a dozen surfers on the water and at least twenty or thirty kids and older people body or boogie boarding on the breakers. Amazingly, Gerry was one of them. Amazing and a bit terrifying. A wave could easily have swept him up and plonked him down on some poor unsuspecting five-year-old.

“How long has your dad been into that?” I asked Kit.

“Since we moved here from Boston.”

“How long ago was that?”

“Since my mom died.”

“It looks like fun.”

“Family that surfs together stays together.”

We sat and watched her da and Sonia and then she pointed out Jackie on the beach break. Of all the surfers there, he was catching the most waves. He really was very good.

“Jackie is definitely the best one there,” I said generously.

She turned to me and I caught her looking at my prosthetic foot.

“Come on, let me show you some moves,” she said.

“It looks easy in theory,” I said.

“It’s not that hard.”

I lay back in the sand.

“Maybe another time. For now I just want to be mellow, sit down, enjoy the evening.”

Kit nodded. “We got the rest of the summer to learn to surf and at least into October. If you’re wearing a wet suit nobody would even notice your, uh…”

“My foot. You can say it, I don’t give a shit.”

She smiled.

“Hey, I was thinking, you know what we’re a bit like today?” she said after a moment’s pause.

“What?”

“You ever see that movie Point Break?” she asked.

“No, I don’t go to the movies much.”

“You haven’t seen it? I thought everybody had seen that movie.”

“Is Lee Marvin in it?”

“Who’s Lee Marvin?”

“Ok, I guess he’s not in it. So, ok then, I haven’t seen it.”

“It’s Keanu Reeves. Have you at least heard of him?”

“Of course.”

“It’s like us, it’s about this gang of bank robbers who go surfing. And look at us, we robbed a bank today and now we’re going surfing,” Kit said with obvious pleasure at the intersection of celluloid and reality. I smiled.

“Listen, if you want to get into the water to complete the similarity, don’t let me stop you, I’m fine here,” I said.

“I’ll go in a minute,” Kit said. “I’ll sit beside you for a little bit more. Maybe encourage you to body board at least.”

I shook my head.

“Honestly, I’m not going in. I’m no Keanu Reeves.”

She laughed.

“You wouldn’t want to be anyway. He was the bad guy, well sort of, he played this undercover FBI agent who wants to stop them robbing all the banks…”

Kit’s talk continued for at least another two or three sentences, but I didn’t hear a goddamn word. The blood had chilled in my veins and I was trying not to show it.

“Ok?” she asked finally.

“Yeah. Sure.”

I had obviously agreed to her departure. She got up, grabbed her board, said hi to Gerry and Sonia, and paddled out into the water.

FBI agent. Jesus. Out of the mouths of babes.

Kit sat in the water for a long time and finally took a wave. Jackie had also selected the same wave. He cut back and forth several times and even attempted a 360. Kit just rode it sedately into shore.

She ran back up the beach.

“See how easy it is?” she said, sheer joy making her look cool and confident and happy. Big contrast from earlier in the day.

I nodded. She sat down on the sand. The sun had long disappeared over the salt marsh and the sky behind us was a burnt amarillo. And in front, from Cape Ann all the way up to Canada, a pink haze dissolving into black.

Kit leaned back beside me and we sat together watching a fleet of fishing boats from Gloucester heading up to the Grand Banks.

Beautiful.

The still Atlantic. The endless shore. Golden light disappearing beyond the Earth’s curve. The sea breeze tousled her hair and calmed me and I imagined us out in that blue swell. Dissolving, becoming part of all that space.

My fingers went down into the wet sand.

Kit’s were there too. The darkening sky. Birds. The tide coming in.

Water lapping at our ankles.

Her fingers touching mine. She was beautiful and young and I liked her. She had a depth that she let no one see. Not Jackie, not her dad.

She was in that stage of transition from teenager to woman.

She was breaking out of the mold she’d been in for years and anything was possible. College, the pro surf world, or smalltime terrorism.

She reminded me of Bridget. Bridget in the half minute after she found out I was alive and as she was deciding that she was going to have to kill me.

I looked at her.

Could Kit kill me?

Could I kill her?

Before the week was out, I’d know the answer to both those questions.

Gray wind. Green water. A vesper of sound on the cadence of the bog. Rose petals, seraphim, Levantine cotton sheets. The ceiling, a facsimile of a busy part of the Sistine.

I slip outside.

Fog rolling in lazy tongues, the dead sound of a buoy bell, and the ocean hidden, silent, pretending to be benign.