Good Harbor

“Yes. He’s fine. It’s nothing to do with your family. It’s your friend, Mrs. Tabachnik.”

“Oh my God. Has Joyce been in an accident?”

“No,” Jimmy said. “Look, there’s no good way to say this. Can I come in for a sec?”

Kathleen opened the screen door and Jimmy stepped into the foyer. He stood close to her and talked in a hushed rush, as though someone might walk in on them.

“There’s going to be a drug bust in Rockport within the hour. There’s a man we’ve been keeping under surveillance, and . . .” Jimmy took a breath. “Mrs. Tabachnik has been, uh, seeing him. I know she doesn’t have anything to do with his, uh, activities. But she could get caught in the middle of something.

“I shouldn’t even be here. I just found out, and, well, I’m just saying that you might want to go stop her. It might be too late to find her at home. You’ll have to go Rockport before she’s inside that apartment.

“If she goes, when she goes, she gets there at noon. So if you just happen to be around there a few minutes before then, you’ll catch her.”

He handed her a folded scrap of paper. Kathleen opened it and read an address.

“It’s behind that sub shop on Broad. The door’s in the back, off the parking lot. If she isn’t there by twelve-fifteen, you just leave, okay?”

Kathleen nodded.

“Like I said, I just found out it was today, and I had to decide. So I hope I did right by coming to you, Mrs. Levine.”

“You did right, Jimmy.” Kathleen thanked him, closed the door, and started looking for her car keys. It had been a while since she’d used them or even seen them. They weren’t in her purse. Or on the table in the foyer. Or in the junk drawer in the kitchen.

Oh, Lord.

She went to the closet and rummaged through the pockets of her raincoat, her jacket.

Oh, no.

She ran up to the bedroom and looked in her other purse, in her sweatshirt pockets.

“Please, please, please,” she muttered.

Feeling through the drawer in Buddy’s nightstand, she thought she heard something jingle. She dumped the contents onto the bed. Lots of change but no keys.

Then, remembering the spares, she ran to the back of the garage.

What would she have done if Hal had taken the car today? she thought, pulling out of the driveway. What would she have done if Jack had been home and wanted to know where she was going without brushing her hair or putting on shoes?

She raced out of her driveway and down the street, leaning forward, honking to get the car ahead of her to hurry up and pull out onto the highway.

Take it easy, she told herself. This is no time to get a ticket. She didn’t even have her license. No money, no watch even. The clock on the dashboard hadn’t worked for years.

She had time, didn’t she? Jimmy had come to the door — when was it, eleven-fifteen? Or was it later than that? How long had she wasted looking for the keys?

Her hands were sticky on the wheel, and she could feel her heart pounding, but not the way it did when she was on the bridge. She just had to get there before Joyce . . . What was Joyce doing at noon with a drug dealer?

“As if I didn’t know,” she muttered, grateful to find a parking spot only a few doors up from the sub shop. She retrieved a pair of Buddy’s thongs from the trunk and peered through the realty storefront window, looking for a clock. It was 11:48. She walked around to the back, clutching at the key in her pocket.

The parking lot was empty except for a rusty panel truck up on blocks. An open Dumpster buzzed with wasps. The midday sun raised welts of heat from the cracked macadam.

Kathleen caught sight of herself in the truck window. She was wearing her gardening pants, traces of dried mud on the knees. She hadn’t showered that morning or even pulled her hair back off her face. The thongs were far too big for her feet. She looked like a bag lady.

Hurry up, Joyce, she thought. We’ve got to get out of here. Hurry up.

A few long minutes later, Joyce appeared around the side of the building, her eyes focused on the two coffee cups she was carrying. She was smiling. Then she saw Kathleen.

“Come on,” Kathleen said softly, taking the cups from her. “We have to go.”