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Sylvia than you’ve told me?”
    â€œI hear he went out to California last week. Summer school at UCLA, or something like that.”
    While I thought about that, a car stopped and the driver beckoned. The chief leaned toward the window, listened, told the woman driving that there wasn’t any ferry to Block Island, and stepped back.
    â€œIt’s amazing,” he said. “I had a driver ask me where the bridge was to the mainland. Can you believe it? I’ll be glad when Labor Day comes.”
    â€œWhat’s the latest on the explosion? Any theories?”
    â€œThey’re going to leave the boat where it is. Pretty expensive to bring it up, and not any real reason for it, from what I’m told. There’s not enough left of the boat to be a navigation hazard. Jim Norris was dead when they gotto him. Burned, and with pieces of gear blown into him and through him. Probably never knew what hit him. Everything says accident. Young Martin would probably have cashed in, too, but I guess he was up on the forward deck when everything went off. Blew him into the water. Anyway, I don’t think the daughter has a case.”
    â€œBilly have any special pals in town? Anybody he hung around with when he was walking on the wild side?”
    â€œNo. Oak Bluffs was his stomping ground in those days. Edgartown was too quiet for bouncing Billy. If you insist on nosing around, you’ll have to do it in O.B.”
    â€œThanks,” I said.
    He said I was welcome.
    *  *  *
    I drove up past the state beach to Oak Bluffs. The road was lined with parked cars on the beach side. Between the cars and the blue waters of Vineyard Sound the beach was crowded with June People, intent on tanning. By the time the July People came down, the June People would be brown and feeling healthy. The July People would be self-conscious about their pallor and would work hard at what I call Browning the Meat so that the August People would, in their turn, feel as conspicuous as the July People once had. One advantage about vacationing in June is that everybody is pale and wan.
    Circuit Avenue, Oak Bluff’s main street, is a mixture of honky-tonky shops and bars. The Day People arrive there, take the sightseeing buses around the island, buy souvenirs and snacks, get back on the boat, and go home. Oak Bluffs does quite well by this business. There are several other sides of the town, though. The island hospital isthere, there’s some big money in big houses, the tabernacle is surrounded by wonderful gingerbread houses from Victorian camp meeting days, and the town is a major resort for well-to-do blacks, one of the few on the East Coast. I drove to the hospital.
    George was in intensive care. As she went out, the nurse told me not to be long.
    I sat down and looked around. “Where’s Billy? I thought you two might be sharing a room.”
    â€œNo, he’s down the hall. He’s got some bruises and he lost some hair and skin, but he’s going to be fine, thank God. They’re just keeping him under observation for a while. He should be out in a few days.”
    â€œI’ll drop by and see him on my way out. He’s had his troubles. First drugs and now this.”
    George grunted in the affirmative. “Well, he got loose from the dope and he’s going to make it away from this, too. If I’d made him go to summer school, he’d be up at Brown now, instead of down here in the hospital. But you know how kids are. He wanted to be on the island for the summer. I only made him promise one thing—that he’d stay away from the Fireside. That’s where his old buddies still hang out, and I didn’t want him mixing with them again.”
    I wondered if Susie had told him what she’d told me: that just last week she’d seen her brother right outside the Fireside, having an argument with an old buddy. I guessed she hadn’t.
    â€œShame about Jim,” I