Shelly had planned to make rounds this morning; she had a few surgeries up and through lunch, then she was going to run a few errands, shop for a few things, and meet Colin at the dock at 4:30 p.m.
I scanned the horizon for any sign of a boat, but still no Bertram.
I’d been there a while when a glistening speck crested the horizon, but it was not the Bertram. For Shelly not to show meant one of two things: She’d had second thoughts, which I rather doubted, or something at work—something she couldn’t pass off to one of her partners—demanded she miss her own wedding. Colin, on the other hand, had been giddy at the thought of my marrying. Other than a pressing family need, I could think of no reason that Colin wasn’t standing on this beach. The fact that he wasn’t dropping anchor right now suggested something serious, and sudden, had happened to his family. For both of them not to show meant that “something” involved both of them: i.e, boat trouble, which was possible though unlikely, or Colin had need of Shelly professionally. As in, he needed a doctor.
After standing in the water for what felt like an hour, I waded onto the beach and asked an older lady walking her dog down the beach, “You know the time?”
She eyed her watch. “Quarter past eight.”
Something was way bad wrong. I stood arms folded, lips pursed. I carried a cell phone, but I seldom dialed out on it and I hadn’t the foggiest idea how to tell someone how to call me. Using the same phone on a regular basis was an occupational hazard because law enforcement agencies could use it to triangulate my position. Given this, Colin gave me a new SIM card every week—sometimes several times a week—and a new phone at least once a month. When I first got in the game, I tried to memorize each change, but after twenty new numbers and four new phones in less than four months, I gave up. Colin was the only one who knew my number, and as a testimony to his genius and his photographic memory, he never wrote them down. He stored everything upstairs. This pattern had been a major reason we’d stayed in the game so long and with such success.
The sun had fallen, and the moon was chasing the sunlight off the beach when I heard the rotors of the helicopter. Colin hated traffic—despised inefficiencies—so he used it routinely to check on locations for his import business or to hop to the island for lunch. The helicopter circled, landed, and Shelly stepped out, walking slowly. The light from the helicopter lit her approach.
She wasn’t wearing her bathing suit.
Her medical scrubs looked like they’d been sprayed with tomato puree. She approached, arms crossed, and stood at a distance. She’d been crying. Still was. I reached for her and she stepped back, not making eye contact. When the helicopter had quieted, she glanced at me, looked away, then glanced again and held it.
I’d never seen such sadness.
The wind scraped the beach and blew the sand against my calves, stinging my ankles. After a minute, she brushed the hair out of her face and again crossed her arms. Holding herself tighter.
She retreated a step. The tears returned. She spoke without looking. “Last night, Life Flight brought in this little girl. A pit bull attacked her face. Lost most of her blood.” She looked at me. “She got caught in the middle between bad people doing bad stuff.” She stared at her hands, finally looking me in the eyes. “I spent eight hours trying to—” Shelly stopped. She was shaking. I tried to hold her, but she turned and slapped me as hard as she could across the face. Then again. She spoke through gritted teeth. “Get her smile back.” She shook her head. “I’m not sure she’ll—”
I waited. She shook her head and wiped her nose on her arm. She had finished with whatever she’d come to say.
Keeping her distance, she extended her other hand, palm down. Like she wanted to give me something. I responded, and she stared at her closed fist, which was shaking slightly. I touched her hand with mine, and she opened her fingers, dropping my watch in my hand. The watch was sticky and the face smeared. I couldn’t read the time. She spoke while looking at it. “Maria was wearing this when they brought her in. It—” She cracked, then recovered. “Just dwarfed her little wrist.”
Finally, it hit me. I pointed at my heart. My voice rose. “My Maria?”
Shelly swallowed but didn’t acknowledge me. I’d already lost her.
I pressed her. “Will she live?”
Shelly only shrugged, nodded. She took one step toward the helicopter, then stopped and spoke over her shoulder. “Colin—” She hesitated and looked at her hands, finally continuing, “Told me…everything. Starting with the day you two met.” She shook her head in disbelief. “I told him I did not know that man. Never met that man. That the man I loved would never lie to me. Never put me in danger.” Her voice turned acrid. “Never use me like that.” A pause. “When I left the hospital, three cops were sitting in their cars, typing reports. Tactical guys. Tattoos. Black clothing. They were with Maria when she came in. I asked them if they had any suspects. All they said was ‘Corazón Negro,’ and that they’d been chasing him off and on for a decade. Said he’s a ghost.” Eye contact again. A single shake. “You should have told me.” Shelly had been in Miami for a long time, and her Spanish was very good. Far better than mine. She didn’t offer a translation, and I didn’t ask.
I knew what it meant, and I knew that she knew what it meant.
A wave spilled across our feet. She knelt, reached into the water, and washed the blood from my watch off her hands. The helicopter pilot read her body language and the rotors began spinning. Winding up. When she stood, she palmed the tears from her eyes and turned to look at me. Her face was puffy, shrouded in darkness, and her eyes looked like smoldering embers. She said, “Charlie, have you ever considered that life is not a poker game and that we aren’t chips that you just toss about the table ’cause you feel like it?” A steeliness returned to her eyes and face. “There’s an evil in you. And…” She waved her hand across the splattered blood. “It stains everyone but you.” It was over. She stepped closer. “Don’t ever contact me again.” She turned, glancing out across the water. “Ever.”
Arms crossed, wind tugging at her scrubs and hair, she stepped into the helicopter; it lifted off the beach and disappeared west with the night. I cannot say I was brokenhearted at her leaving. I’m not sure I wanted to marry Shelly as much as I didn’t want to lose her. Marrying her said something about her. Losing her said something about me, and I was afraid to hear that indictment.
The truth of me had broken us.
Chapter Four
Given the size of Harvard’s endowment and the immense block of recently freed-up time in my schedule, and having worn out my welcome in and around Boston, I began looking into study abroad scholarships and found one custom-made for guys like me—finance-minded juniors with off-the-charts test scores, all A’s in math, no parents, no siblings, and no extended family. What the scholarship board called a “child of prodigy and hardship.” Funny how there’s so little difference between “prodigy” and “prodigal.” The summer after my junior year, the Pickering-Kuscht Scholarship sent me to London, where I studied derivatives, leverage, and the emerald-green eyes of a goddess named Amanda Pickering.
Amanda was beautiful, self-confident, loved to run, and—fortunately for me—directionally challenged. After I quit track, I rediscovered my love of running—much of which I did at night, so while most of my classmates made the rounds of the British pubs sampling gallons of Guinness, I ran the streets of London. Incidentally, so did Amanda. Only difference was that I could find my way back to my hotel once I turned around. We’d been in a couple of classes together but given that she was a bit guarded, it was no wonder that we’d never said two words to each other. Amanda also had one other trait much talked about among the fathers and sons of the New England elite: She was the sole heir to the Pickering fortune. Her college experience was her father’s personal talent search among the East’s best and brightest to find someone to manage his precious money. One night, about 1:00 a.m., I found her—several miles from our hotel—standing next to an Underground sign attempting to read a map. She glanced at me but was too proud to admit she needed help.