Marine Park: Stories by Mark Chiusano Read Free Book Online Page A

she thought. He’ll get soaked.
    She’s wearing a leopard-print blouse and tight black slacks, because that’s what she likes to wear around the house.
    He’s feeling the cold now in his bones, but Benducci tosses him another coat and gives him a thumbs-up, says be careful of the swells.
    She’s sitting in bed with a book. She can hear the gutter flooding on the roof, and the window is that color of purple with the sun going down and the clouds and thunder. She is beginning to feel worried about Vincent seeing the police cruiser.
    He’s out past Deep Creek now, Dead Horse Bay, where there had been a glue factory once and they say you can still find the scraped-out hooves of horses buried in the dirt. You can just see the lights of the few cars by the Belt Parkway and, up ahead, the bridge, then thin Rockaway and the Atlantic.
    The storm has become tremendous. She puts on a windbreaker and bangs the door shut. She forgets her wallet. She runs back in to get it. She walks quickly down the street, starts dragging her legs because it’s not quick enough, to the Chevy, to drive to the open water. She gets in, fumbles with her keys, her hand on the passenger headrest while she backs up. Floors forward. She is moving now, and no one is out, the rain’s too heavy—she can hardly see even with the wipers. She’s on Flatbush Avenue, hitting all the lights. She is flying past Floyd Bennett Field, where Charles Lindbergh landed when he got back to America. The batting cages, the football fields, here the bridge coming up in front.
    He’s unloading, Benducci is passing him cardboard boxes. One rips at the top as they transfer, and he sees stacked packages of white powder. Bendy, he says, what the fuck is this? Benducci is looking out into the bay for boats. He looks at Vincent like he’s crazy. It’s for the clients, not money, he says. He takes a packet, slips it in his back pocket. On top of their bonuses. Vincent is staring at the boxes. He claws at the rip, looks at the piece of paper above the packages. WATER STREET, NEW YORK, NY, it says. And Vincent knows that he has broken his cardinal rule.
Don’t look, don’t care
.
    Aurora parks next to the E-ZPass and starts running up the bike path, up the bridge, pulling her hood over her head. She’s cold and she has that sick feeling in her chest that means she shouldn’t be doing this right now, her lungs pumping, her feet on the pavement. She’s not sure why she’s here. She wants to tell him to leave it all alone. She’s at the top and she sees the
Napoli
all the way below, pulling up next to a bigger boat, and she sees Vincent. And the police cruiser, too close, trying to stay within eyesight. She has the irrational idea that Vincent will know it’s her if they see the cruiser. She almost feels his eyes staring through her. Vin! she yells. But he can’t hear her. The rain is getting in her mouth.
    She sees the cop boat coming around the bend, and then she comes down back off the bridge. On the shore she’s waving her hands, her hat, and she can tell that Vin sees somebody, sees her; feels like she can feel his breath collapse as he heads to shore. She’s waving and the cop cruiser is getting closer so you can see the blue markings on the side and they must have seen it by now and the
Napoli
pulls onto the sand and she runs to the bow.
    Vin—, she says, but he cuts her off.
    The hell are you doing here? he yells. He reaches out a hand to help her get in. He’s no longer breathing right. Benducci pulls out a mobile and presses a button, yells into the phone, New location. Vinny’s. Blues. Then he hangs up. She doesn’t have time to remember that trip in Canada when Vincent used to pick her up by the crook of her knees and the meat of her back and throw her in the canoe they rented, before they pull away. Benducci is in the back, and under his arm he has a handgun. He pulls his