the world. They’d boarded his boats, slashed his nets, kicked his ice chests over and swept his catch overboard, fined his captains. No sooner had Sheriff Jeffries slammed his meaty fist against his screen door and bellowed Tag’s name, than sweat started trickling under his collar. A lot of his cats scurried under the house or after the cowardly Trousers. Others hunkered low behind pot plants to watch the suspicious character stomping down their breezeway.
“I just let Rusty and Hank out. They’re calling you a murderer.”
You half-wild, no-good bastard.
His own father had wrongly accused him of embezzlement and grand larceny. Anger burned in Tag’s throat, but he smiled as if he didn’t give a damn and saluted the man with a whiskey bottle. “You got a warrant—”
“Sometimes, Campbell, the smart thing is to walk away.”
Tag stared at his own reflection in the silver glasses and then pushed the door wider. “I ain’t runnin’.”
The sheriff planted himself on his thick legs and then leaned against the doorway.
“Jeffries, those guys talk big when they’re safe in jail, but they’re like dogs barking from inside a fence. You let ’em out, and they’ll lick my hand like puppies.”
“Just a friendly warning, Campbell.”
“Thanks, amigo.”
Still, Tag had opened a drawer, loaded his automatic and stuffed it in the waistband of his jeans before setting out on his bike alone.
Numbly Tag studied his friend’s tombstone. Frenchy had been mighty proud of the pink stone. He’d chosen it himself on a lark five years earlier right after he’d brought Tag home. Frenchy was known for cheating at cards, and had won the plot off one of Rockport’s most respectable citizens in a drunken poker game at Shorty’s.
“You cheated him,” the man’s indignant wife had ranted, and the whole town, at least the women, had believed her. “You got him drunk, so you could cheat him.”
Now Frenchy was as ashamed of his lack of talent at cards which made cheating a necessity as he was proud of his drinking skills. He might have gallantly returned the plot had she not accused him of cheating.
“We wuz drinking his whiskey, I’ll have you know, and I was even drunker than he was, lady,” Frenchy had declared almost proudly. “Could be he cheated me.”
The lady sued, but the judge, a poker player, had sided with Frenchy.
Tag studied Frenchy’s name and the date of his birth and the single line etched in caps on the bottom of the stone—IT WAS FUN WHILE IT LASTED.
Slowly Tag lowered his gaze. Instead of flowers, a mountain of beer cans and baseball caps were piled high on the mound of clods. Indeed, every baseball cap that had been nailed to the ceiling of Shorty’s had been enthusiastically ripped off and reverently placed on his grave.
Tag’s eyes stung. Frenchy would’ve been mighty proud.
Grief tore a hole in Tag’s wide chest as he slowly rose and stalked over to his bike. He pulled on his black leather jacket, zipped it. Next came his gloves, his black helmet. Straddling the big black monster, jumping down hard, revving the engine, he made enough noise to wake the dead.
But then maybe that was his intention.
Not that it did any good.
Frenchy wasn’t coming back.
Tag roared to the gate, skidding to a stop in a pool of brilliant gold that spilled over him from the streetlight.
He turned and looked back at the cemetery.
Stay with me, Frenchy.
Suddenly, time as Tag knew it did a tailspin. Or maybe the world just turned topsy-turvy. Whatever. The moon got bigger. Then it flattened itself into the shape of a huge pink egg in that inky sky. Stars popped like fireworks. For a second or two Tag felt there really might be a mastermind up there.
Tag got all warm and tingly inside. The wind sped up and the silvery night pulsed bluish-pink. A couple of beer cans came loose from the grave and started to roll straight toward Tag.
He shut his eyes, but the same pulsating, vivid rosy-blue fog swirled behind his eyelids, too. He blinked. Open or shut, the otherworldly, blue-pink radiance pulsed.
After a while, somebody, maybe Frenchy, switched off the pink light, and the moon settled down. The streetlamp came back on, gold and bright as ever. The night beyond was silvery dark. The can didn’t stop rolling till it hit the toe of Tag’s boot. He picked it up, noticed it was Frenchy’s favorite brand. Tag flattened the can, stuffed it in his back pocket.
What the hell had that been about? Had the streetlight malfunctioned? Or was it just him?
As he stared at the moon he felt different somehow, not so tight and morose. The hole in his chest seemed to have closed. And the night, like his future, beckoned with amazing possibilities.
Had Frenchy done this? Had he actually haunted him? Had he given him this strange sensation of peace? Of new opportunities?
Hell no. The grief and the booze he’d drunk earlier, coupled with not eating, was getting to him. He was hallucinating.
He’d better make it a short night, grab a burger and go to bed. Warily, he looked both ways before pulling out.
Two cars zoomed recklessly toward him from his right. Kids, playing chase. Where the hell was Jeffries when there was real work for a big bully with a gun to do?
Impatiently, Tag waited for the juvenile delinquents to pass.
When he caught that first glimpse of long blond hair, the back of his neck began to tingle. She was a rich tart on the prowl for a cheap thrill.
Happy to oblige, pretty lady.
Then she came into clearer focus the way a terrified deer does in your headlight.
He didn’t notice the make of her late-model, flashy red sports car. He was too busy noticing her. She looked nervous and scared.
He felt her—deep inside. She touched a raw place he hadn’t known was still alive. She made him ache and hurt and crave things he’d thought he’d given up for good. What would it be like to have a woman like her waiting at the door with a smile every night when he came home?
In the space of a microsecond he memorized that pale pampered face; those classy, even features she’d painted with way too much makeup, probably to make herself look older and more sophisticated. Pert, shapely breasts spilled above a low-cut white bodice. The style was overly sophisticated for her, too.
He caught a glimpse of something sparkly around her throat. Diamonds? Rich, too?
He knew her type. She was the kind of woman who wanted her real man to be a money machine but found “nice” men too tame in bed. So, she came looking for a guy like him at Shorty’s. He’d gone with plenty to motels. Some preferred backseats of cars, but once they got their kicks, they rearranged their skirts and drove off. They never asked his name, and he always felt depressed and cheapened, less than nothing when they were done with him.
Other men envied him his popularity. What the hell was the matter with him? What did he want really?
He couldn’t tear his gaze from this one. With her long blond hair streaming behind her, she looked like an angel riding the wind.
He willed her to look at him, to really see him.
Suddenly she tossed her head toward him. Her eyes grew huge the instant she saw him—as if she were equally fascinated and yet scared, too. Again, he thought her different than the others. He had the strangest feeling that if he stared into her eyes long enough, he would rediscover his own soul—which was a crazy feeling, if ever there was one.
Something dangerous and fatal connected them. Unwanted longings and painful needs bubbled too near the surface. His pulse