He took the dish towel off his shoulder, tossed it at my head, and it just barely missed. "Because it's the most important meal of the day, fool. You feel like a ride?"
"Absolutely."
"Then let's make tracks." Which is what we did.
Chapter Fourteen
On I-95 we made our way north, and I thought ruefully of the many times I had gone up and down this stretch of roadway these past few days, all as part of this damn great quest. Felix was driving another anonymous rental car, and in the rear seat were a number of black duffel bags containing a fair number, I was certain, of firearms and other means of coercion and destruction. My own firearm and means of coercion was in a shoulder holster under my coat.
I looked over at him as we approached Porter, and I said, "You said Ray was working for a group down in Florida."
"That's right."
I said, "The postcards you found at Ray's antique store. From Florida."
“What about them?"
"A signal, right?"
"You are correct, sir."
I thought for a moment, and then said, "They were indicating something was going to happen on a schedule, right?"
"Right again. Care to guess what?"
"Something to do with antiques?"
"Let you in on a little secret, Lewis. It has everything to do with antiques."
I pondered that as we passed around Porter and headed over the Memorial Bridge, spanning the fast-moving Piscassic River, which separates the state of New Hampshire from the state of Maine. I looked quickly to my right, saw the beached memorial of the USS Albacore submarine, and shivered for a moment at the memories.
"A shipment," I said. "The postcards were letting him know about a shipment."
"So far you're doing well, grasshopper. Continue.”
"A shipment of stolen antiques, from…. wait."
Felix waited. I thought some more and said, "You said Ray was working with a group from St. Pete?"
"Yep."
"This group active up here?"
"Not particularly."
We were over the bridge and were officially in Maine, passing a sign that said MAINE, THE WAY LIFE OUGHT TO BE, and I said, "Hold on. I was looking at this wrong. The stolen antiques... they weren't being shipped from New Hampshire to Florida. They were being shipped from Florida to New Hampshire. Ray was working a scam. Like money laundering. But this was antiques laundering. Right?"
"You should get on a game show or something one of these days. Yeah. That's the case. Look, who goes to live in Florida?"
"Retirees."
"Right. Retirees from New England who are sick of the snow and ice. They pack up and move south, and what do they do when they pack up and move south?"
"They take their antiques, their heirlooms, with them."
"Bingo."
"And they live there for a while and pass away and... Oh."
"There you go. People go to Florida from up here, they want to help ease the big move. Because it is a big move. Read a study somewhere, that the most depressed part of the elder population down there are people who've moved there recently. They're away from old friends, family members, the local newspaper. They're cut loose and they have to adjust. And it's comforting for them to have their old things with them. So, Lewis, when they do pass away, what happens then?"
"Their stuff gets stolen during the funeral. Or somebody comes in and pays almost nothing for stuff that's worth tens of thousands of dollars. Or more. And then it gets shipped up north --- "
Felix passed a lumbering tractor trailer as he said, "Yep, back up north, where antiques are still high priced, are still valuable. Best I found out was that old Ray was a central distribution center. Stuff comes in-mostly stolen-sits there for a while, and then gets laundered out to legitimate dealers throughout the whole region. Not a bad scam as scams go. You said Ray had dealings with his brother?"
"Yes," I said, watching the bare branches of the maples and oaks whiz past us as we headed north. "Besides his hunt for Viking artifacts, Jon also found other items as well. Old coins. Nautical artifacts. Stuff like that."
Felix said, "Ray would probably want some real local stuff from your buddy Jon to sprinkle in with the stolen stuff. Help make it legitimate. And then when Jon found the Viking artifacts, well, I bet Ray wanted in on the deal. Maybe he wanted to sell them, make a fortune, through his contacts, and maybe Jon wanted to keep them for a museum or something. What do you think?"
It was a good guess, but it nagged at me. Something about it didn't seem right, and it took another couple of miles driving before I figured it out.
"No," I said. "A good guess, but I don't think so."
If Felix was upset at being contradicted, he sure hid it well.
"Okay. What's your theory?"
"You're a criminal."
"Not a nice way to pass the morning."
"No," I said. "Let me finish. You're a criminal. You've done time and you're still involved in illegal activities, concerning antiques. You have a legit brother whom you can't stand, because he's always been straight as an arrow. But he's done his little thing with the Vikings and that's fine, what harm can that do to you, right?"
"If you say so."
I said, "Then, boom. Your brother doss the impossible. He's reached his dream. He's found Viking artifacts, old items that will change the history of this area, that will put your brother in every newspaper and news magazine, and on most television programs in New England, if not the nation. Is this a good thing for your brother? Absolutely. Is this a good thing for you, his criminal sibling? No. Absolutely not. Whatever bright light of publicity that shines on your now famous brother will slop over on you. You'll be mentioned in stories, in some of the write-ups. You'll start getting some unwanted attention about you, your background, and your current business. And that's intolerable."
Felix rubbed at his jaw, and I could make out the faint scrape-scrape of stubble against his palm. "Hate to say it, but I like your theory better than my theory. All right, then. Any idea what he's doing in this house in Sanford?"
'Waiting," I said.
"Obviously," Felix said. "But for what?"
I shook my head. "I don't know. But the Viking artifacts... they're the key, Felix. I think they're missing, and maybe that's why he's hiding out. Wait for the investigation to slow down some, and then pop up and start looking for where his brother hid them. I have a feeling that if Ray had the artifacts in hand, he'd be long gone. Not in the next state over."
"Okay. Then who was that mysterious man who whacked you one last week at Ray's antique store?"
I folded my arms, watched the passing landscape, as the Interstate now went through a series of Bat salt marshes, stretching out to the horizon. "I had a theory about that, too."
"Oh. And what's the status of that theory?"
"About on par with the flat earth theory." And so I spent the next half hour telling Felix about my encounters with Professor Hendricks at UNH, Brian Mulligan up in North Conway, and, of course, William Bear Gagnon. Felix asked a few questions, and when I was done, he said, "You know, when I first met you, you were so straight and narrow that you had to put your underwear on with a ruler."
"That's a level of detail I don't think I've ever shared with you, Felix."
"Whatever." He laughed. "Man, either I've corrupted you or you've been corrupted through some other mysterious means. Holding a pistol on a guy, demanding that he drop his pants. That's pretty cold stuff."
"I wasn't really holding a pistol on him, and I didn't ask him to drop trou. I asked him to pull up a pants leg. Whole lot of difference."
"Not to ex-cons," he said. "They have such a low threshold for insults that ants can look over it without stretching themselves. Look, you've done well, and if we're lucky, we're about ready to pop this baby wide open. I just need to get a few things straight before we start barreling ass into Ray's little house o’ paradise."
"Okay, talk away," I said.
He sp
ared a glance at me. 'What's the deal when we get there?"
“We determine he's there, and then we talk to him."
"We do, do we? And what are you going to ask him?"
I looked over at him this time. "Felix, get real."
"No, my friend," he said in a comfortable voice. "You get real. We go in there and you know what's going to happen. There's going to be a lot of bluff and bluster, and he's going to deny everything."
"Then it'll be my job to convince him to talk to us," I said, now looking out the window at the cold fall landscape.
Felix let that slide for a little bit and said, "You know what you're saying?"
“I do.”
"We could find a pay phone, next exit, make a nice little anonymous phone call, give the Maine State Police a tip that he's hanging out there. That's attractive, isn't it?"
I let a breath out. "He's a suspect in the murder of my friend. I just want justice done, all right?"
"There's varying degrees of justice, Lewis."
I looked back at him. "Like the justice for three rapists of a young college girl in Rhode Island, am I right?"
There was a moment of silence, and Felix gave me a crisp nod.
"Yes, you're right."
Oh, Felix being Felix and such, we soon passed over that little bump in our relationship, and after taking the Route 109 exit in Wells, we headed east, going through rural countryside, heading up to Sanford. Felix had handwritten directions in one hand, which he glanced at on occasion. He said to me, "You know who it was said life wasn't fair?"
"Whole lot of people have said that."
"You know what I mean. Somebody famous said that."
It took a second or two for my memory to kick in, and I said, "JFK. Don't know when, but yeah, he said that. Life's not fair."
"Wonder if he was thinking about that the day he took that trip to Dallas... Anyway, you know what's not fair?"
“What?"
He looked down at the directions again. “What's not fair is that most of the times I'm in with you on one of your noble causes, it always has to be out in East Whatever or West Overshoe. How come you never have me come along with you to someplace civilized? Like Boston? New York? Or New Orleans?"
"New Orleans?"
"Okay, some parts of it are civilized. Why is that, Lewis?"
"Maybe I lead an exciting life."
"Not likely."
The road was two-lane, twisty, and there were the usual New England decorations of stone walls, bare trees in orchards, and the usual car in disrepair on someone's front lawn. There was a panel truck that distributed water jugs for homes that was pulled over to the side, with the driver looking forlornly at a road atlas, and it looked like a young boy in jeans and windbreaker was trying to give him directions. Felix slowed and said, "Okay. Turner Road. Here we go."
We made a right onto a single lane, firm dirt and gravel, that went up a slight hill. Felix was going even slower, and it seemed with each reduction in speed, my heart rate increased. I remembered the words I had said earlier to Felix, about meeting up with Ray and what was to be done, and this close to where we had to be, that's what they had just been: only words.
"Okay. Right there. Sign that says COOPER, up on the left." There was a dirt driveway to the left, and a wooden sign nailed to a pine tree that had COOPER in those black and gold stick-on letters that you can get from the hardware store. Felix drove by and said, "Ah, luck be a lady this morning. Here we go."
About a dozen yards up from the driveway was a wide stretch of gravel off to the right. He pulled in and switched off the engine, and we sat there in the silence and waited to see if any traffic was coming by. The road was empty. On both sides pine trees and saplings and brush crowded in toward the drainage ditches on both sides of the road. Besides the utility poles and the dirt driveway behind us, there were no other signs of what passed for civilization.
'Who's Cooper?" I asked.
"Some sort of distant relation to one of Ray's many girlfriends, from what I learned in St. Pete. I guess she was reluctant to let him stay there, but he was a way with words and his fists."
"That he does. He alone in there?"
"Yeah, just him and cable television and a freezer full of food. He wants to get out of here in the worst way, Lewis, and it's going to be our job to make him think that's what we're here for."
"Sounds good."
Felix swiveled in his seat one more time, and then looked in my direction. "You got a plan, then?"
"How about going up the driveway and knocking on the door, and politely asking him to get his ass on the floor with his hands up?"
"That's an approach, but I was thinking of something a bit more subtle."
"Go on."
"We go up the driveway, and then split. You take the rear of the house, I take the front. I knock on the door and try to appeal to his better nature, and take things from there."
"All while I'm standing in the backyard?"
"You got something better?"
"Yeah. The two of us go up to the front door and knock on it, and I'm there to back you up in case things go bad."
Felix shook his head. "This guy knows you, right? What happens if he's keeping an eye on the front yard and sees you waltzing up there? He may not know much about you, Lewis, but I'm pretty sure that he knows you're not in any way in hell involved with his antiques scam. I'd hate to start walking up there with you and have a lot of steel-jacketed rounds come zipping over my head."
"I still don't like the idea of you being up front there, all alone."
"Yeah, well, I still don't like the designated hitter rule for the American League, but you don't see me getting all choked up about it. Look, I know where you want to take this. Fine. But don't let your ego and your anger muddle things up. You've got to look at the whole picture, everything that's out there, and right now, that means doing it my way. Capisce?"
I nodded, opened the passenger door. "Yeah. What you said."
Outside, the air felt good but there was a tinge of something to it, of wheels set in motion, of plans coming together, about the approach of violence. I looked over at Felix, but he was now in work mode, single-minded, single-focused. He opened up a rear door of the car and reached for one of the duffel bags, unzipped it, and went to work. I went around to join him and was taken aback at what he was bringing out: a stubby-looking submachine gun, with a slightly curved magazine.
"Here," Felix said. "Hold this, will you?"
I did. He took off his long coat and dumped it on the roof of the rental car. I examined the weapon, a Heckler & Koch MP5, made in Germany. He took it from me and slung it over his shoulder, and then put the coat back on. Back into the duffel bag and back out with a spare magazine, and a pistol, which he stuck in his waistband. He noticed me looking at him and said, “What? Is there a problem, officer?"
"Some serious firepower you're packing there."
"Some serious guy we're going up against. Ex-con, right?"
"Yep."
"Well, they have a higher threshold for being convinced of the errors of their ways than normal civilians. One needs to focus their mind, and I find an MP5 will do that just fine."
"Aren't those illegal?"
"Oh, only if they're full automatic. This one is semi-auto. Perfectly legal. Ready to go for a walk?"
"As ready as I'll ever be."
We went down the road --- and still no traffic, not even the hint of a sound of traffic ---and we started up the dirt driveway. I reached in under my coat, just to make sure my pistol was there --- a brief bit of reassurance, that's all --- and I said to Felix as we went up the driveway, "Don't you ever get tired of it?"
"Tired of what?"
"Walking into bad situations with firearms."
"You telling me you're scared?"
"Scared shitless, as the phrase goes," I said.
"Good. That will sharpen the senses, keep you up and running. If you told me you weren't scared, I'd have left you back in the
car."
"But answer the question. Don't you get tired?"
He stopped, eyes flickering around, as he took in our surroundings. Dirt driveway ascending gently up to a rise, trees on both sides, still no sign of the house. "No, not yet, Lewis. I find ... well, I find it comforting in an odd way. Comforting that I can still use my skills and what drives me, even at my increasing age. The time my knees start creaking or I need glasses, well, then it'll be time to retire and devote my life to more peaceful pursuits. In the meantime, no, I don't get tired." He spared me a quick grin. "Of course, with you as a neighbor, I sure as hell find myself getting into situations. C'mon, let's keep on keeping on."
We went another few score feet and Felix held up a hand. I saw what caused him to stop, which was the sight of a rooftop through the woods. "As much as this is sweet sorrow, chum, this is where we split up. You head through the woods, come out and around the rear of the house. I'll give you a ten-minute head start. You wait, and when I come to the rear, it'll be all safe, and your buddy Ray will be there, ready and eager to talk to you."
"Sounds good."
"Then get going."
"Sure."
With Felix, of course, there were no words of encouragement, no whispered "good-lucks" or squeeze of the hands. There was just the calm assumption that you were a professional, were up to the task, and wouldn't let him down, and I found that more encouraging than anything he could have possibly said.
In a matter of moments Felix and the driveway had slipped from view, and I took my time, moving through the woods, keeping the roof of the small house in view. I didn't want to get too close, in case Ray was keeping watch on his surroundings. About ninety seconds into the walk my mouth was dry and my legs were tingly, like they were half anticipating that I was going to start tromping through a minefield, so I reached into my coat, slipped out the Beretta, pulled the hammer back. There was round in the chamber, and I suddenly felt better, knowing that I would be ready for whatever came my way.
The woods were sloppy with fallen leaves and muddy spots, but eventually I made it to the rear of the house. I was surprised at how good it looked. It was a typical two-story Cape Cod, in a cleared area of an acre or so, and the house was painted white. It looked in good repair, and there were no rusting washing machines, automobiles, or piles of tires in the rear. There was a window looking out toward the rear yard, and a door with short concrete steps, and a clothesline. That was it. The lawn, though covered with leaves, looked well maintained. I scratched at my ear as I stood behind a maple tree trunk, watching the rear of the house. I waited, thinking how nice it would be just to lean against the tree and let the morning pass along.
Buried Dreams Page 18
