Harlan's Race

to comfort Angel.
    ‘The second sniper?” added Vince quietly.
    He looked at me. “Harlan, you’re right,” he said. “Somebody must be watching us. Last night, of all nights.”
    After some discussion, we phoned the tiny police station at the Davis Park marina.
    “No time like the present to find out if they’ll help us,” I said.
    Police Sergeant Chapman, a middle-aged bay-man, and his rookie Lance Shirley weren’t in a hurry — they got to the scene an hour later. They didn’t know who I was, and I didn’t tell them, but they knew that Steve was a controversial writer, and they weren’t as liberal and protective as I had hoped. With an air of going through motions, they searched the area, but said they found nothing. No tracks in the sand, no blood. The perpetrator had walked on the boardwalk, leaving no tracks. Evidently he had smothered the poor animal’s head, so the screams wouldn’t be heard.
    “Any neighbors bring cats out?” asked Chapman.
    ‘Yeah. The Abramsons ... the Millers ...”
    “Maybe,” said Chapman boredly, “the perpetrator thought it was the neighbor’s cat, right? Maybe he don’t like your neighbor, right?”
    ‘Your cat killed birds sometimes?” asked Shirley.
    “Sure. Like any cat .. .”
    “People get some pissed about bird-killing, right?”
    Shirley added in bay-man rhythms. “Especially people on the Beach, right? They come out here for the wildlife, and I don’t mean the sex kind. Maybe your neighbor is a nut for birds, right?”
    “Look,” Steve said, “you guys know — we know — it’s a threat.”
    “Then you gotta have a bodyguard, right?” the husky young rookie stated. “You gotta.”
    They weren’t going to do more than shrug.
    “Pig-fuckers,” said Vince hoarsely as he watched them walk away.
    Steve was still trying to dry Angel’s tears. Angel wanted to pick up the dead cat and hold it, but Steve walked him away. I got a shovel, and buried Horatio under a scrubby tree, well away from the house.
    For the rest of the day, Steve and Marian walked around to some of the houses in that end of Davis Park. They limited their visits to families that Steve knew. Standing in the drifting smoke of barbecues, they asked if anybody had seen or heard anything strange. Some weird-acting visitor or singles drop-in at their Saturday night party? Some redneck with a fish knife who didn’t like liberals?
    A few people were mildly sympathetic.
    Most shrugged.
    When Steve and Marian came back, Steve quoted one bonniker householder who said, “There’s thousands of pilgrims drift on and off the Beach in a weekend. On the ferry, right? Driving their own boats. Some people don’t even put up anywhere, right? They party all night, they get some drunk, they get some laid at somebody’s house, they get laid in the fuckin’ dunes, they get laid in somebody’s house-boat, they even get laid some good in the bottom of somebody’s clam-boat. Right? Then they go off the Beach on the morning ferry, and nobody remembers shit about them. Right?”
    That evening, our house sat up late and feverishly discussed the killer’s motive.
    Maybe the deed was aimed at Steve personally, because of the gay realism in his books. Maybe some religious fanatic with a talent for private investigation had found out that Vince and I were there. But was it “the second sniper’? Somehow it didn’t feel like his MO.
    Vince was high again — on rage and adrenaline.
    “I swear,” he said hoarsely, “I swear ... when I get finished with America, man, nobody will dare to lift a finger against our people!”
    Later, privately, Steve and I talked about calling Chino and Harry. But I was still being fanatical about not living behind a chainlink fence. Steve was fatalistic — sure the two vets couldn’t do anything.
    “If they’re going to get you,” Steve said, “they get you.” Finally we decided to hang tight.
    For three days now, I hadn’t been out on the water, and was already missing the sweet aloneness and safety out there. My boat sat locked up in the boathouse.
    The next day was Monday. At 9 a.m., I called Doc Jacobs’ office and made a late afternoon appointment for the tests. Then Vince and I walked to The Grove. From there, we rode the ferry over to Sayville, where The Grover ferries dock. Near the marina, locked in a garage space that Mario and Vince had rented, was the red Testarossa that Mario had given him.
    “Mario also paid for my clap shots,” Vince