Rick Moody - Right Livelihoods

When I was done looking for leads, I inevitably checked the weather for the region. The fact that we had not had a major, category-five hurricane in some years did not mean that we could not have one now. And it was with a grim satisfaction that I recognized one night that there was a powerful category-four storm working its way up the coast. Having bypassed the Carolinas and Virginia Beach, the storm would likely be upon us within days. Of course, any such storm would serve as convenient cover for dark-complected persons. The Omega Force, according to the reports of elite government counterterrorist Stuart Hawkes-Mitchell, awaited the hurricane, awaited the night, awaited the blizzard, awaited the war that breaks out elsewhere, awaited a major disturbance in the markets, awaited the Super Bowl, awaited the national holiday, awaited the religious festival, awaited the assassination, awaited any movement or weakness. The Omega Force waited for Plum Island to secure itself, waited for Plum Island to batten down its hatches, and then by amphibious assault in the thick of the storm, the Omega Force would come to liberate the island from the Capitalist running dogs. And the first thing it would do: free the animals.

By coincidence, the hurricane in question was called Helen.

I gummed my food. I ate soup and those small custardy yogurts that practically cried out gerontologist-approved . Knowing what I knew relegated me to a singular status, in which there was no one to whom I could talk, no one to whom I could turn. My two brothers died alone. The Van Deusens’ success in the world was matched only by their mute, solitary suffering in the personal realm. Neither one of them ever asked to see me before he was gone. No heroic measures were performed. These Van Deusens slipped from consciousness so quietly — as in the case of my brother Chalmers, the venture capitalist — that it was almost as if they’d never actually been conscious. Terrence, who inherited the mattress business, was lost in a hunting accident. He was doing what he loved to do, alone in a duck blind, and he simply didn’t turn up later in the day, having been struck by a stray bullet. They were gone, I was left, I was provided for, and here I was up in the attic.

I went for a walk before dawn. I think it was Monday. It might have been Thursday. One of my online purchases was a clam hoe. My wife considered this a reasonable therapeutic activity that I might take up in my dotage, looking for clams on the shore, clams that had not already been infected with a deadly shellfish toxin.

I had a rather unusual garb on that morning. I thought it rather jolly. I wore pressed white boxer shorts, slippers (ordered from L.L. Bean of Freeport, ME), and my purple dressing gown, which was a princely robe. It had a bright yellow lining. I thought of waking Skip, who still slept in the adorable fetal curl of a young child. The wind was howling and beckoning to me, and out I went into it, with my cane and my clam hoe.

When I reached the edge of the sea, which even on the bay side was quite rough, I encountered the former lobsterman Ed Thorne. I suppose I had been expecting him. I had no idea when it was going to take place, the transfer of dossiers, what week, what month. But I was prepared. Ed was just where he was supposed to be, wearing foul-weather gear of the sort you might find in a Winslow Homer painting. We exchanged pleasantries. I asked after his family, whom I had always liked. Then I said, “Ed, are you here with information?”

His ominous reply: “I will no longer be known by the name Ed, Dr. Van Deusen.”

“Why certainly, Ed,” I agreed. I’d expected it would be so much more difficult to speak, but, here on the threshold of revolution and international instability, I found I was feeling rather energized. There had been an influx of adrenal juices in my compromised system. “Tell me what name to use.” I faced the coast of the Nutmeg State. The lights twinkled against violent seas.

“My name,” Ed said, “is Ernest Piccolo.”

“I’ve heard of you.” I didn’t bring up the Hawkes-Mitchell book, of course.

“The reason we have brought you here,” Ed continued, “is to let you know that there has been another sighting. An aircraft. At the other end of the island. Just two nights ago. An isolated event, according to the NSA, would be considered a transient sighting, in which the hostiles, understanding that the situation was too hot, aborted the mission. A second visit presents much more serious parameters, and the situation, naturally, has now been expressed up the chain of command. We believe, in fact, that we have a Code White. As you are one of our reliable local informants, Dr. Van Deusen, we will require your services.”

“Anything you say, Ed,” I replied, “uh, Ernest.”

“We charge you with looking into aircraft design. We have ideas about the design of this aircraft, and we have managed to locate the registration numbers, which are as follows: DB-81404. We suggest that you begin looking into the FAA databases. We suggest that you pursue the licensing information, the insurance information, anything you can find about this aircraft in particular.”

I was speechless. The brazenness of the perpetrators! Right here in our resort community! To use a nationally registered aircraft, licensed by our own federal licensing authorities.

“Did you make contact with the hostiles?” I asked. “Did they say anything?”

“Contact was made.”

“Were they taken into custody?”

Ernest Piccolo’s surf-casting rod never once ceased from its pendular motion. The lure belly flopped on the surface of the black, storm-addled sea. He reeled it in. I could see now that he also had a pail beside him, and that a pair of snappers, in a gallon of briny water, fought back against their imprisonment. Piccolo was loath to tell me what he had learned. Government values secrecy above all. And yet had I not proved that I was a willing participant in the struggle for our values and for our community? Had I not managed this, if little else, in my seventy-three years? Piccolo deliberated before going on.

“During the course of the field interview with the hostiles, I asked what they were doing, and they said they were taking pictures. I told them it was a private airfield, and they said this was news to them, that they had been training here for takeoffs and landings for years. They mentioned Yankee Airlines of Groton. I told them not to be coming around again, that they should consider themselves warned from the highest levels.”

“Are you able to identify their nationality?”

“They were dark-complected, as has already been reported. Time’s growing short, Dr. Van Deusen. We don’t have the luxury to be going over points that we’ve already covered.”

“Are you certain it was the same men?”

“Rendezvous here this evening with whatever information you locate. We’ll have further assignments for you at that juncture.”

Dawn was breaking again. I lost myself in its consideration, wondering when the hurricane would come, if the evildoers would come, when exactly, and why me, what had I done to merit the burden that had been so precipitously thrust upon me? Piccolo, departing surreptitiously, left behind his pail. And evidently he was practicing catch and release, for the pail was empty.

In order to preserve my own cover, I spent the next hours attempting to harvest clams.

9. Contemporary Aircraft Design

What a welcome coincidence that my wife had elected to go to the mainland. For some time she’d wanted to locate a secretaire for the guest room. Oddly, it became imperative to her that she locate this piece of furniture before the hurricane. Of course, as I have discussed earlier, it is possible that my wife was a hostile agent. It’s possible that she knew the island was now a locus of intrigue. It is possible that she’d been intercepting conversations between myself and Ernest Piccolo, that she knew about the Omega Force and its diabolical intentions, and that, though she loved me, she now realized that she had no choice but to leave me to my uncertain fate.