“Ah, but you could go to jail for any number of reasons, Kevin.”
“One beer,” he repeated, setting the draft down on a coaster.
“You can leave us alone now,” Coffin told him. “I doubt this conversation will turn to sports, but if it does we’ll let you know.”
When he was gone, Coffin clinked Lincoln’s glass. “The thing is,” he began, as if resuming an ongoing conversation, “we don’t do right by girls.”
“Who doesn’t?”
“Us. You and me. Men in general. We close ranks, every one of us. Cops especially. We shouldn’t, but that’s what we do.”
“Are we talking about Jacy, Mr. Coffin?”
As if Lincoln hadn’t spoken, he said, “There isn’t much real crime here. You know why?”
Lincoln allowed that he didn’t.
“Stands to reason, when you think about it. Say you do some shitty thing. You shoot somebody. You rob a bank.”
Lincoln couldn’t help smiling. This morning Coffin had imagined him as a rapist and murderer; tonight he’d been demoted to a mere bank robber.
“So, what happens next?”
“I wouldn’t know,” Lincoln said. “I’m not a criminal. You run away?”
“Close. You drive away. At a high rate of speed. At least that’s what you do other places. Here you wait for the ferry. Islands just aren’t conducive to crime, Lincoln. That’s a fact. Especially ones that require flight. Or premeditation. Impulse crime, where you know better, but just can’t help yourself? Like domestic assault? Our strong suit, especially in the winter, after all the tourists leave and times are lean. No rich people around. Nobody hiring you to mow their lawn or clean their pool. Columbus Day to Memorial Day. Hell, you do your best. You budget for this and that—kid needs braces, vehicle needs a new transmission, all the shit that’s gonna happen. Waves of it, believe me. But every year? It’s the thing you don’t see coming that fucks you up. Somebody slips on the ice and breaks a hip. All of a sudden you got medical bills. You’re behind on your rent, payments on that snowmobile you never should’ve bought in the first place. You start getting calls from bill collectors. Are you familiar with these problems, Lincoln?”
“Not firsthand, no.”
“I’m glad to hear it,” Coffin said unconvincingly. “But a lot of people who live here year round are. Anyhow, come January, a friend of yours somehow scores tickets to a Patriots playoff game, say, in Denver. Wants to know if you’re in. You’re not in, Lincoln. You wouldn’t be in if the game was in Foxborough and you could fly there using your own arms for wings. But man, you’d love to go to that game. You try to think of somebody who might loan you the money, who might think you’re good for it, but you’re kidding yourself. It’s an island, Lincoln, and everybody you know knows you right back. You look around for somebody else to blame. Your wife’s handy, so you explain the whole thing to her. How she’s a piece of shit. How it’s all her fault.”
Lincoln sighed and settled in. Like their conversation that morning, this one was clearly headed down a rabbit hole, and this time he was drunk to boot. “Why are you telling me all this, Mr. Coffin?”
His face immediately clouded over. “Shut up, Lincoln.”
“I’m sorry?” Because it was stunning. He tried to recall the last time someone had told him to shut up, and couldn’t.
“I’m explaining something here, so do me the courtesy. Besides, you heard me tell Kevin there wasn’t going to be any trouble. Don’t make a liar out of me.”
This, it occurred to Lincoln, was the sort of thing Anita had been worried about earlier—that left to his own devices he’d end up sitting next to a belligerent drunk at one in the morning. There were men who saw things coming and others who didn’t, and he belonged in the latter category. Wet Wipes weren’t the only thing he failed to anticipate the need for. He seriously considered just getting down off his stool and heading for the door, but he was pretty sure that if he did Coffin would lay a heavy paw on his shoulder and command him to sit. Seeing this, Kevin might come down the bar and intervene, but that wouldn’t be good, either. In the end, though, what kept Lincoln seated was that, in addition to menace, there was something almost plaintive in the man’s request that he not be made a liar of.