Chapter 7
I left the rest of the water in the kitchen and headed out toward the garage block. Dusk was gathering on the ocean horizon, a hundred miles away in the east. The wind was blowing hard and the waves were pounding. I stopped walking and turned a casual circle. Saw nobody else out and about. So I ducked out of sight down the side of the courtyard wall. Found my hidden bundle and laid the phony plates and the screwdriver on the rocks and unwrapped both guns. Duffy's Glock went into my right-hand coat pocket. Doll's PSM went into my left. I put the spare Glock mags in my socks. Stowed the rag and picked up the plates and the screwdriver and backtracked to the courtyard entrance.
The mechanic was busy in the third garage. The empty one. He had the doors wide open and was oiling the hinges. The space behind him was even cleaner than when I had seen it in the night. It was immaculate. The floor had been hosed. I could see it drying in patches. I nodded to the guy and he nodded back. I opened up the left-hand garage. Squatted down and unscrewed the Maine plate off the Cadillac's trunk lid and replaced it with the New York number. Did the same at the front. Left the old plates and the screwdriver on the floor and got in and fired it up. Backed it out and headed around to the carriage circle. The mechanic watched me go.
Beck was waiting there for me. He opened the rear door himself and dropped his sports bag on the back seat. I heard the guns shifting inside. Then he closed the rear door again and slid in the front beside me.
"Go," he said. "Use I-95 south as far as Boston. "
"We need gas," I said.
"OK, first place you see," he said.
Paulie was waiting at the gate. His face was all twisted up with anger. He was a problem that wouldn't keep much longer. He glared in at me. Turned his head left and right and kept his eyes on me the whole time he was opening the gate. I ignored him and drove on through. I didn't look back at him. Out of sight, out of mind was the way I wanted to play it, as far as he was concerned.
The coast road west was empty. We were on the highway twelve minutes after we left the house. I was getting used to the way the Cadillac drove. It was a nice car. Smooth, and quiet. But it was heavy on gas. That was for sure. The needle was getting seriously low. I could almost see it moving. The way I recalled it the first gas stop was the one south of Kennebunk. The place where I had met with Duffy and Eliot on the way down to New London. We reached it within fifteen minutes. It felt very familiar to me. I drove past the parking lot where we had broken into the van and headed down to the pumps. Beck said nothing. I got out and filled the tank. It took a long time. Eighteen gallons. I screwed the cap back on and Beck buzzed his window down and gave me a wad of cash.
"Always buy gas with cash," he said. "Safer that way. "
I kept the change, which was a little over fifteen bucks. I figured I was entitled. I hadn't been paid yet. I got back on the road and settled in for the trip. I was tired. Nothing worse than mile after mile of lonely highway when you're tired. Beck was quiet beside me. At first I thought he was just morose. Or shy, or inhibited. Then I realized he was nervous. I guessed he wasn't entirely comfortable heading into battle. I was. Especially because I knew for sure we weren't going to find anybody to fight.
"How's Richard?" I asked him.
"He's fine," he said. "He's got inner strength. He's a good son. "
"Is he?" I said, because I needed to say something. I needed him to talk to keep me awake.
"He's very loyal. A father can't ask for more. "
Then he went quiet again, and I fought to stay awake. Five miles, ten.
"Have you ever dealt with small-time dope dealers?" he asked me.
"No," I said.
"There's something unique about them," he said.
He didn't say anything more for twenty miles. Then he picked it up again like he had spent the entire time chasing an elusive thought.
"They're completely dominated by fashion," he said.
"Are they?" I said, like I was interested. I wasn't, but I still needed him to talk.
"Of course lab drugs are fashion items anyway," he said. "Really their customers are just as bad as they are. I can't even keep track of the stuff they sell. Some different weird name every week. "
"What's a lab drug?" I asked.
"A drug made in a lab," he said. "You know, something manufactured, something chemical. Not the same as something that grows naturally in the ground. "
"Like marijuana. "
"Or heroin. Or cocaine. Those are natural products. Organic. They're refined, obviously, but they aren't created in a beaker. "
I said nothing. Just fought to keep my eyes open. The car was way too warm. You need cold air when you're tired. I bit my bottom lip to stay awake.
"The fashion thing infects everything they do," he said. "Every single thing. Shoes, for instance. These guys we're looking for tonight, every time I've seen them they've had different shoes. "
"What, like sneakers?"
"Sure, like they play basketball for a living. One time they've got two-hundred-dollar Reeboks, brand new out of the box. Next time I see them, Reeboks are completely unacceptable and it's got to be Nikes or something. Air-this, air-that. Or it's suddenly Caterpillar boots, or Timberlands. Leather, then Gore-Tex, then leather again. Black, then that yellow color like a work boot. Always with the laces undone. Then it's back to the running shoes again, only this time it's Adidas, with the little stripes. Two, three hundred dollars a pop. For no reason. It's insane. "
I said nothing. Just drove, with my eyelids locked open and my eyeballs stinging.
"You know why it is?" he said. "Because of the money. They've got so much money they don't know what to do with it. Like jackets. Have you seen the jackets they wear? One week it's got to be North Face, all shiny and puffy, full of goose feathers, doesn't matter whether it's winter or summer because these guys are only out at night. The next week, shiny is yesterday's news. Maybe North Face is still OK, but now it's got to be microfiber. Then it's letter jackets, wool with leather sleeves. Two, three hundred dollars a pop. Each style lasts about a week. "
"Crazy," I said, because I had to say something.
"It's the money," he said again. "They don't know what to do with it, so they get into change for change's sake. It infects everything. Guns, too, of course. Like these particular guys, they liked Heckler and Koch MP5Ks. Now they have Uzis, according to you. You see what I mean? With these guys, even their weapons are fashion items, the same as their sneakers, or their jackets. Or their actual product, which brings everything full circle. Their demands change all the time, in every arena. Cars, even. They like Japanese mostly, which is about fashions coming in from the West Coast, I guess. But one week it's Toyotas, next week it's Hondas. Then it's Nissans. The Nissan Maxima was a big favorite, two, three years ago. Like the one you stole. Then it's Lexuses. It's a mania. Watches, too. They're wearing Swatches, then they're wearing Rolexes. They don't see a difference. Complete madness. Of course, being in the market, speaking as a supplier, I'm not complaining. Market obsolescence is what we aim for, but it gets a little rapid at times. Gets hard to keep up. "
"So you're in the market?"
"What's your guess?" he said. "You thought I was an accountant?"
"I thought you were a rug importer. "
"I am," he said. "I import a lot of rugs. "
"OK. "
"But that's fundamentally a cover," he said. Then he laughed. "You think you don't have to take precautions these days, selling athletic shoes to people like that?"
He kept on laughing. There was a lot of nervous tension in there. I drove on. He calmed down. Looked through the side window, looked through the windshield. Started talking again, like it served his own purpose as much as it served mine.
"Do you ever wear sneakers?" he asked.
"No," I said.
"Because I'm looking for somebody to explain it to me. There's no rational difference between a Reebok and a Nike, is ther
e?"
"I wouldn't know. "
"I mean, they're probably made in the same factory. Out in Vietnam somewhere. They're probably the same shoe until they put the logo on. "
"Maybe," I said. "I really wouldn't know. I was never an athlete. Never wore that type of footwear. "
"Is there a difference between a Toyota and a Honda?"
"I wouldn't know. "
"Why not?"
"Because I never had a POV. "
"What's a POV?"
"A privately owned vehicle," I said. "What the army would call a Toyota or a Honda. Or a Nissan or a Lexus. "
"So what do you know?"
"I know the difference between a Swatch and a Rolex. "
"OK, what's the difference?"
"There isn't one," I said. "They both tell the time. "
"That's no answer. "
"I know the difference between an Uzi and a Heckler and Koch. "
He turned on his seat. "Good. Great. Explain it to me. Why would these guys junk their Heckler and Kochs in favor of Uzis?"
The Cadillac hummed onward. I shrugged at the wheel. Fought a yawn. It was a nonsense question, of course. The Hartford guys hadn't junked their MP5Ks in favor of Uzis. Not in reality. Eliot and Duffy hadn't been aware of Hartford's weapon du jour and they hadn't been aware that Beck knew anything about Hartford, that's all, so they had given their guys Uzis, probably because they were lying around closest to hand.
But theoretically it was a very good question. An Uzi is a fine, fine weapon. A little heavy, maybe. Not the world's fastest cyclic rate, which might matter to some people. Not much rifling inside the barrel, which compromises accuracy a little bit. On the other hand, it's very reliable, very simple, totally proven, and you can get a forty-round magazine for it. A fine weapon. But any Heckler amp; Koch MP5 derivative is a better weapon. They fire the same ammunition faster and harder. They're very, very accurate. As accurate as a good rifle, in some hands. Very reliable. Flat-out better. A great 1970s design up against a great 1950s design. Doesn't hold true in all fields, but with military ordnance, modern is better, every time.
"There's no reason," I said. "Makes no sense to me. "
"Exactly," Beck said. "It's about fashion. It's an arbitrary whim. It's a compulsion. Keeps everybody in business, but drives everybody nuts, too. "
His cell phone rang. He juggled it up out of his pocket and answered it by saying his name, short and sharp. And a little nervously. Beck. It sounded like a cough. He listened for a long time. Made his caller repeat an address and directions and then clicked off and put the phone back in his pocket.
"That was Duke," he said. "He made some calls. Our boys aren't anywhere in Hartford. But they're supposed to have some country place a little ways south and east. Duke figures that's where they're holed up. So that's where we're going. "
"What are we going to do when we get there?"
"Nothing spectacular," Beck said. "We don't need to make a big deal out of it. Nothing neat, nothing fancy. Situation like this, I favor just mowing them down. An impression of inevitability, you know? But casual. Like you mess with me, then punishment is definitely swift and certain, but not like I'm in a sweat about it. "
"You lose customers that way. "
"I can replace them. I've got people lining up around the block. That's the truly great thing about this business. Supply and demand is tilted way in favor of demand. "
"You going to do this yourself?"
He shook his head. "That's what you and Duke are for. "
"Me? I thought I was just driving. "
"You already wasted two of them. Couple more shouldn't bother you. "
I turned the heater down a click and worked on keeping my eyes open. Bloody wars, I said to myself.
We looped halfway around Boston and then he told me to strike out south and west on the Mass Pike and then I-84. We did sixty more miles, which took about an hour. He didn't want me to drive too fast. He didn't want to be conspicuous. Phony plates, a bag full of automatic weapons on the back seat, he didn't want the Highway Patrol to get involved. I could see the sense in that. I drove like an automaton. I hadn't slept in forty hours. But I wasn't regretting passing up the chance of a nap in Duffy's motel. I was very happy with the way I had spent my time there, even if she wasn't.
"Next exit," he said.
Right then I-84 was spearing straight through the city of Hartford. There was low cloud and the city lights made it orange. The exit led to a wide road that narrowed after a mile and headed south and east into open country. There was blackness ahead. There were a few closed country stores, bait and tackle, beer on ice, motorcycle parts, and then nothing at all except the dark shape of trees.
"Make the next right," he said, eight minutes later.
I turned onto a smaller road. The surface was bad and there were random curves. Darkness everywhere. I had to concentrate. I wasn't looking forward to driving back.
"Keep going," he said.
We did eight or nine more miles. I had no idea where we were.
"OK," he said. "Pretty soon we should see Duke waiting up ahead. "
A mile and a half later my headlight beams picked out Duke's rear plate. He was parked on the shoulder. His car was canted over where the grade fell away into a ditch.
"Stop behind him. "
I pulled up nose-to-tail with the Lincoln and jammed the selector into Park. I wanted to go to sleep. Five minutes would have made a lot of difference to me. But Duke swung out of his seat as soon as he identified us and hurried around to Beck's window. Beck buzzed the glass down and Duke squatted and leaned his face inside.
"Their place is about two miles ahead," he said. "Long curved driveway on the left. Not much more than a dirt path. We can make it about halfway up in the cars, if we do it quiet and slow, no lights. We'll have to walk the rest of the way. "
Beck said nothing. Just buzzed his window up again. Duke went back to his car. It bounced off the shoulder and straightened up. I followed him through the two miles. We killed our lights a hundred yards short of the driveway and made the turn. Took it slow. There was some moonlight. The Lincoln ahead of me lurched and rolled as it crawled over ruts. The Cadillac did the same thing, out of phase, up where the Lincoln was down, corkscrewing right where the Lincoln was twisting left. We slowed to a crawl. Used idle speed to inch us closer. Then Duke's brake lights flared bright and he stopped dead. I stopped behind him. Beck twisted around in his seat and hauled the sports bag through the gap between us and unzipped it on his knee. Handed me one of the MP5Ks from it, with two spare thirty-round magazines.
"Get the job done," he said.
"You waiting here?"
He nodded. I broke the gun down and checked it. Put it back together and jacked a round into the chamber and clicked the safety on. Then I put the spare mags in my pockets very carefully so they wouldn't rattle against the Glock and the PSM. Eased myself out of the car. Stood and breathed the cold night air. It was a relief. It woke me up. I could smell a lake nearby, and trees, and leaf mold on the ground. I could hear a small waterfall in the distance, and the mufflers on the cars ticking gently as they cooled. There was a gentle breeze in the trees. Other than that there was nothing to hear. Just absolute silence.
Duke was waiting for me. I could see tension and impatience in the way he was holding himself. He had done this stuff before. That was clear. He looked exactly like a veteran cop before a major bust. Some degree of routine familiarity, mixed in with an acute awareness that no two situations are ever quite alike. He had his Steyr in his hand, with the long thirty-round magazine in it. It protruded way down out of the grip. Made the gun look bigger and uglier than ever.
"Let's go, asshole," he whispered.
I stayed five feet behind him and walked on the opposite side of the driveway, like an infantryman would. I had to be convincing, like I was worried about presenting a grouped target. I knew the place was goi
ng to be empty, but he didn't.
We walked on around a bend and saw the house in front of us. There was a light burning in a window. On a security timer, probably. Duke slowed and stopped.
"See a door?" he whispered.
I peered into the gloom. Saw a small porch. Pointed at it.
"You wait at the entrance," I whispered back. "I'll check the lighted window. "
He was happy enough to agree to that. We made it to the porch. He stopped there and waited and I peeled off and looped around toward the window. Dropped to the ground and crawled the last ten feet in the dirt. Raised my head at the sill and peered inside. There was a low-wattage bulb burning in a table lamp with a yellow plastic shade. There were battered sofas and armchairs. Cold ash from an old fire in the hearth. Pine paneling on the walls. No people.
I crawled backward until the light spill let Duke see me and held two forked fingers below my eyes. Standard sniper-spotter visual code for I see. Then I held my hand palm out, all my fingers extended. I see five people. Then I went into a complicated series of gestures that might have indicated their disposition and their weaponry. I knew Duke wouldn't understand them. I didn't understand them either. As far as I knew they were entirely meaningless. I had never been a sniper-spotter. But the whole thing looked real good. It looked professional and clandestine and urgent.
I crawled back ten more feet and then stood up and walked quietly back to join him at the door.
"They're out of it," I whispered. "Drunk or stoned. We get a good jump, we'll be home and dry. "
"Weapons?"
"Plenty, but nothing within reach. " I pointed at the porch. "Looks like there's going to be a short hallway on the other side. Outer door, inner door, then the hallway. You take left, I'll take right. We'll wait there in the hallway. Take them down when they come out of the room to see what the noise is all about. "
"You giving the orders now?"
"I did the recon. "
"Just don't screw up, asshole. "
"You either. "
"I never do," he said.
"OK," I said.
"I mean it," he said. "You get in my way, I'll be more than happy to put you down with the rest of them, no hesitation. "
"We're on the same side here. "
"Are we?" he said. "I think we're about to find out. "
"Relax," I said.
He paused. Tensed. Nodded in the dark. "I'll hit the outer door, you hit the inner. Like leapfrog. "
"OK," I said again. I turned away and smiled. Just like a veteran cop. If I hit the inner door, he would leapfrog through it first and I would go second, and the second guy is the guy who usually gets shot, given normal reaction times from the enemy.
"Safeties off," I whispered.
I clicked the H amp;K to single-round fire and he clicked the catch on his Steyr to the right. I nodded and he nodded and kicked in the outer door. I was right there on his shoulder and slid past him and kicked in the inner door without breaking stride. He slid past me and jumped left and I followed him and went right. He was good enough. We made a pretty good team. We were crouched in perfect position even before the shattered doors had stopped swinging on their hinges. He was staring ahead at the entry to the room in front of us. He had the Steyr in a fixed two-handed grip, arms straight out, eyes wide open. He was breathing hard. Almost panting. Getting himself through a long moment of danger, the best way he could. I pulled Angel Doll's PSM out of my pocket. Held it left-handed and snicked the safety off and scrambled across the floor and jammed it in his ear.
"Keep very quiet," I said to him. "And make a choice. I'm going to ask you one question. Just one. If you lie, or if you refuse to answer, I'm going to shoot you in the head. You understand?"
He held perfectly still, five seconds, six, eight, ten. Stared desperately at the door in front of him.
"Don't worry, asshole," I said. "There's nobody here. They were all arrested last week. By the government. "
He was motionless.
"You understand what I said before? About the question?"
He nodded, hesitantly, awkwardly, with the gun still jammed hard in his ear.
"You answer it, or I shoot you in the head. Got it?"
He nodded again.
"OK, here it comes," I said. "You ready?"