The Inn(29)

“The waste-management business?”

“Sure.”

“Well, way I always saw it, you got three options,” he said. “And those options get steadily less friendly. First, you can divide up the turf. Make sure he stays on his patch and you stay on yours. Charge him something for the privilege.”

“Right.”

“That doesn’t work, you convince him to go somewhere else. Send a guy in talking about how sweet the pussy down in Florida is or something. Grab his gumad and give her a squeeze and tell her if she don’t get her guy to go down there, they’re gonna have problems.”

“What’s the last option?” I asked.

“The last option?” He pointed the knife at me. I watched his lips form the very same snake-like grin I’d seen on Cline. “You blast him and his crew full of holes.”





CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE





IT WAS FAST work, but if you had the funds, Cline knew, you could get the job done. The previous night’s fun and games with the Druly woman had filled him with a violent energy, and he’d used that energy all afternoon making phone calls, reading out credit card numbers, watching Squid, Turner, and Bones making their own calls. As the sun set, they started arriving. The caterer came first and took over the bottom floor with six waitstaff. Then there was the DJ, the sound guy, the lighting guy, a team of college kids setting up portable heaters on the patio and cabanas around the heated pool, the firepits. Cline felt like Jay Gatsby watching the lights across the water for Daisy. He kept Squid close at hand. Didn’t want the young idiot to mess this up.

“Is she coming?” Cline asked at six.

“Of course she’s comin’.” Squid held up his phone.

She arrived in the initial rush, a youthful face among a hundred other youthful faces, the desperate and bored of Gloucester, Rockport, Hamilton, all pouring through his doors and flooding into his yard. The big house rattled with bass; the body heat of already too-drunk guests made condensation bead on the windows. Beer pong in the kitchen. Strippers in the pool area. Morons doing backflips off the second-floor balcony into the pool to screams and cheers. Cline watched her picking her way through the crowd, narrow shoulders slicing between big bodies, her tongue nervously worrying that piercing in her lip. The girl called Marni had talked to Squid first, a quick, awkward conversation by one of the bars. And then she was off into the safety of a crew of girls she must have known from high school.

Cline watched her, waited for her to come into his orbit. She was strangely beautiful in a haphazard kind of way, like she had been assembled from pristine but mismatched parts. Her lips were a little too red for her white skin, her arms slightly too long for her body, the eyes a little up-turned at the corners. Dark mutant girl transforming, only now realizing that she was different from those around her, powerful. The things he could do to her with a little time. Show her how to dress, how to walk. Take the stupid piercings out, fix the crooked nose, dazzle her with big money, big cars, big guns. She had no idea, this little coastal urchin from nowhere, just how far she could go. She could have men with their balls in a twist at the sight of her. Empires at her feet. Cline leaned on the rail and watched her and swam in his fantasies.





CHAPTER THIRTY





ANGELICA STOPPED ME as I tried to make my way into the house, putting a hand out like a traffic guard.

“We have a problem.”

“You don’t know the half of it,” I said, sighing.

“Come with me,” she said. We walked through the house to the porch, where Effie, her back to me, was sitting cross-legged on the edge. Angelica and I came around in front of Effie, and I saw she was eating a large chocolate chip cookie. On her left knee, a plump brown rat sat on its haunches, a small shard of cookie in its hands. It was turning the cookie crumb around and around, nibbling the edges as it went.

“This is happening.” Angelica pointed sharply at the rat on Effie’s knee. The little animal didn’t flinch, and neither did Effie.

“Effie is eating a cookie with a friend,” I noted.

“That thing is not a friend!” Angelica threw her hands in the air. “It’s a parasite-riddled, flea-bitten rodent!”

Effie and I looked at the rat. It sniffed the air between nibbles of the cookie shard, its tiny pink nose twitching.

“To be fair,” I told Effie, “this is a pet-free household.”

Effie froze at my words, shocked. She put down her cookie and gestured to the rat, then she pointed to herself and shrugged dramatically. After that she spread her hands to indicate the porch, the house, the forest.

“He’s not your pet, you’re saying,” I surmised. “He goes where he wants.”

Effie picked up her cookie again.

“This is ridiculous,” Angelica said. “The house has always had rats. I understand. We live in the woods. It’s bound to be a problem. But Effie, it’s your job as the groundskeeper to keep them outside the house.”

Effie stared at Angelica, munching her cookie, totally unrattled by her tirade. The rat finished its treat and started cleaning its ears.

“If it bites one of us, it could give us rabies!” Angelica cried.

“Perhaps we could have the rat seen by a veterinarian?” I suggested. “Given a little flea bath, maybe?”