“Take the lantern, too,” Evan added. “The stairway’s pretty dark.”
Mitch wrestled his way back through the clutter to the front door, where he found the key and the lantern hanging on hooks. The key popped open the padlock on the lighthouse’s massive steel door. The door’s hinges creaked ominously as he flung it open-shades of The Old Dark House with Boris Karloff. Inside, he flicked on the lantern and found himself at the base of a six-story-high corkscrew. He climbed the spiral staircase slowly and steadily, his footsteps echoing in the narrow, cylindrical tower. He was, he realized, getting more than his share of exercise on this particular day. He was panting by the time he got to the lantern room, where its twin thousand-watt lamps had once served to warn seafarers of the treacherous rocks to be found here. But the lamps and lenses and workings had been removed. Now there was only the empty glasswalled chamber, its bare cement floor littered with cigarette butts and marijuana roaches.
And there was the view. What a view it was. A true 360-degree panorama. Mitch stood there, awestruck, drinking it all in. He could see so far up and down the coastline that he could actually make out its shape as it appeared in maps. In front of him, he could practically reach right out and touch Fisher’s Island. Behind him, he could see all the way up the Connecticut River to the old cast-iron bridge at East Haddam. Below him, Big Sister was no more than a lush green meatball in the middle of the sea, a narrow wooden lifeline connecting it to the Point.
Two tiny figures in matching yellow windbreakers were standing at the dock waving their arms up and down at him in some secret semaphore code known only to them. Smiling, Mitch headed back down the corkscrew and joined them, full of appreciative noises.
Their boat was called Bucky’s Revenge. It was a low-slung J-24 racing boat. It had a cabin down below with a galley and space for four people to sleep. Jamie and Evan were in the process of stowing the ice chests down there.
“I’d better warn you,” Mitch cautioned them. “I am the ultimate landlubber.”
“You are not alone, Mitch,” Jamie assured him. “Evan sails the whole boat by himself. All I do is pretend to steer.”
Evan was presently unwrapping the sail bags. First, the bright blue canvas bag around the mainsail, then the green one around the jib.
“Here, put this on,” Jamie said, tossing Mitch an orange life jacket. He wriggled into one himself and yanked on the outboard motor starter. When it was putt-putting convincingly he said, “Okay, we can cast off now.”
“You want me to untie that rope?” asked Mitch.
“Please,” said Evan as he stowed the sail bags down below. “And it’s not a rope, it’s a line.”
“Ignore him when he gets nautical, Mitch,” Jamie advised drily. “I do.”
The line was wrapped around a cleat that was bolted to the dock. Mitch unwound it and jumped back onboard Bucky’s Revenge and they pulled slowly away, bobbing along on the blue water like a rubber duck. It was quite calm, and there was very little breeze.
Evan raised the mainsail while Jamie manned the tiller, edging them away from the mouth of the river eastward in the direction of Long Island’s Orient Point. Mitch huddled in his life jacket watching Evan, who was totally in his element on a sailboat, quick and nimble as a cat. Tying this line. Untying that line. Darting here, darting there. Never wasting a motion. Never losing his balance. It was a pleasure to watch him. There weren’t many other boats out now, just a couple of late-afternoon fishermen. As they moved farther out into the Sound, the water grew choppier and the air began to freshen. Soon, the breeze was downright stiff. The sails began to billow and flap. Evan signaled to Jamie to kill the engine. Jamie did. And they were sailing now, scooting right along in glorious, windborne silence, the J-24 trim and swift and sure.
A serene glow came over Jamie’s face as he hunched there in his life jacket, hand on the tiller. “This is the best time to come out,” he said. “You almost always get a breeze.”
“I guess I can see why you left Los Angeles.”
“I never left, Mitch. My body is here, but my mind is still there. And it always will be.” Jamie had brought along a boombox. He reached down and flicked it on. Now they were cutting through the water to the sounds of “I’m a Believer,” by The Monkees.
“Jaymo, do we have to listen to your oldies crap?” Evan objected.
“That’s the best thing about crap, my young friend. It never goes out of style.” To Mitch, Jamie said, “Did you know that they went with Mickey Dolenz over me at the very last minute?”
“No, I did not.”
“It’s the absolute truth. I had the part. They told me I had it-for twenty-four blissful hours I was actually a Monkee. And then, just like that, I wasn’t. They wanted a new face, was what my agent said. God, I was bitter. It is not easy to be told you’re an old face when you still can’t buy a drink or vote. I was washed up at twenty, Mitch. When I didn’t get The Monkees-that’s when I knew.” He let out a heavy sigh. “That’s also when I started getting heavily into drugs.”
They seemed to be slowing a little now. Evan took over the tiller from Jamie, but to no avail. “The wind’s shifting,” Evan said. “Let’s come about.” He immediately started busying himself with the lines.
“What do I do?” Mitch asked.
“You duck,” Jamie ordered sharply.
Mitch did-just as the boom swung directly over his head.
Soon, they were zipping through the water again.
They were approaching a tiny speck of an island-not much more than a heap of rocks with a light tower on it. Cormorants perched on the tower. There was a crude dock. Jamie steered them directly for it, nudging the sailboat up gently next to the piling. Evan hopped out and tied them to it. Mitch hopped out as well, grateful to have something firm under his feet again.
“Do they mind people docking out here?” he asked Evan.
“Does who mind, Mitch?”
“Whoever owns it.”
“I own it,” Evan said modestly. “This is Little Sister. It became mine when I turned twenty-one.” He glanced around at it a moment, hands on his slim hips. “We camp out here fairly often. Sleep under the stars. It’s just incredibly peaceful. I’d love to build a cabin out here someday.”
They had brought a portable barbeque to grill on. Evan got busy lighting the coals while Jamie uncorked a cold bottle of Sancerre and poured three glasses.
After he had handed them around Jamie lit a cigarette and stretched out on the dock, watching his young lover with a mixture of affection and apprehension. “You may as well know, Mitch, that Evan and I have been spatting. He wasn’t planning to go to Seymour’s funeral. I told him it was fine by me, since I’m not planning to go. Only now he’s decided he will go, out of respect for Dolly. I think he’s being a complete hypocrite. What do you think?”
Mostly, Mitch thought that he did not want to get caught in the middle. “How did you feel about your stepfather?” he asked Evan.
“First of all, I didn’t consider him my stepfather,” Evan replied angrily. “Just some low-life sleaze she was living with. I honestly don’t understand why she married him.”
“Possibly, he was exceedingly well hung,” Jamie suggested.
“Jaymo, that’s my mother you’re talking about,” Evan said indignantly.
“I know, but she is something of a cunning little user, our Dolly,” Jamie observed, puffing on his cigarette. “That helpless act of hers, designed to make every man she meets go four paws up. It amazes me it works. But it does work. Why, I’ll bet she’s even hit on our young friend here.”
“Not really. All she’s done is ask me to open her pimientos for her.”
Jamie let out a huge guffaw. “Let me guess-she was wearing something low-cut at the time. Am I right?”
He was, but Mitch didn’t feel like touching that one in front of Evan. He sat there perched on a rock, sipping his wine and wondering if Jamie was on to something. Was Dolly a scheming manipulator? She certainly did have Bud jumping through flaming hoops for her. Maybe she had persuaded him to raid those accounts for her. Maybe that wasn’t all she’d persuaded him to do. Maybe he had killed for her.