She stopped whatever she was doing, looked at me, raised an eyebrow.
I nodded, putting both hands to the side of my ears, then rolling my eyes to the direction of outside. She nodded in understanding—she’s a quick study, I had to credit her that—and then reached into her leather carrying bag. Carla took out a pen and small notepad, and I gently put my hand over hers.
“Honey,” I said, “would you mind if we took your vehicle to dinner? My Ford’s been acting up some.”
“Your Ford—” And I knew she was surprised because she knew I drove a Pilot, but she hardly skipped a beat and said, “I thought you were going to bring that back to the dealership.”
“I was,” I said, nodding in appreciation. “But the day just got away from me. Let me get my coat.”
I grabbed my coat and we left my house, with me locking the door behind me, and I noted Carla was driving a black Mercury Impala. She had her keys in her hand and I snapped them out of her grasp, and said, “Thanks, love bug. You know how I like to drive.”
She gave me a smile with about one degree of warmth. “How can I forget?”
I made sure I stayed between her and the inquiring eyes up the street, and bundled her into the front seat. I was also tickled to see that her Impala was registered in Massachusetts. I got into the front seat, started the car, adjusted the rearview mirror.
Carla said, “Mind telling me what the hell is going on?”
“In just a minute or so,” I said.
I put my seatbelt on, and so did she, and I took a moment to make sure the side mirrors were also in place, so I had a good view of what was behind me.
Which was just an empty street.
I shifted the Impala into reverse and slammed my foot down on the accelerator.
We flew back with the engine humming like the warp engines on the original Star Trek, and Carla was also smart enough not to disturb me as I was racing up my street in reverse. With the way still clear, I stepped off the accelerator for a moment, made a slight motion with the steering wheel—at this speed and direction, even the slightest touch will have a large response—and the Impala started skidding to the right, the front end flipping around. I shifted into neutral, kept my foot off the accelerator and the brake, and when we had spun a nice round 180 degrees, I shifted the Impala into drive and goosed it.
We got to the intersection of Route 3, where I made a legal and lawful stop, and spared a second to look in the rearview mirror.
Nothing. “All right,” I said. “Being this is a car registered in Massachusetts, the only license plate is on the rear bumper. Good chance the folks in the van didn’t spot that. And the way I walked out with you, I don’t think they got a clear shot of your face.”
“Christ, you really do think things through.”
“It’s what I do,” I said.
She kept quiet.
“Still hungry?” I asked.
“Yes,” Carla said.
I drove up Route 3, heading to Manchester.
Less than thirty minutes later we were in downtown Manchester, at the Hanover Street Chop House, a fine old steak restaurant that’s pretty well known in this part of northern New England. I left the Impala in an out-of-the-way parking spot, which gave us a brisk ten-minute walk to our dining spot. The restaurant was in an isolated three-story building almost directly across the street from a grand old pillared building that had new hampshire fire insurance co chiseled overhead, but now housed the Manchester campus of the Hellenic American University.
After we settled into a corner table, and after salads, sea scallops, and a nice Pinot Noir from Chile was ordered, we got back to the issue at hand.
“Who’s watching and listening?” Carla asked.
“Beats me,” I said, buttering a roll. “But I’m pretty sure it’s coming from your side of the fence.”
She flipped a white napkin onto her lap. “That parked van up the street?”
“Very observant, Agent … er, Office Services Supervisor Pope.”
“Thanks,” she said dryly. “I try to get good marks on that through my annual performance review. How certain are you that watchers were in that van?”
“Extremely certain,” I said. “I made a bogus call to the Litchfield police about a suspicious van in the neighborhood. When the cop showed up, I saw the driver flash something, and a few minutes later, they were yucking it up like police academy chums from way back.”
“Interesting,” she said. “But now they know you know.”
I took a bite out of the roll. Warm and freshly made. “Yeah, we’re a couple of knowledgeable folks. Which means they’ll have to work harder to get whatever it is they’re looking for.”
“Which is what? Information about my brother? The stolen painting? Anything else nefarious you’ve been up to?”
The wine tasted great. “Very good, Carla, it’s been a long time since I heard someone use the word nefarious in a conversation. Let’s take out Bishop Occam’s Razor and give it a go. All of my business dealings over the … past periods of time, has ended in a reasonably peaceful manner. Save for the last one. And it’s getting more complicated every day.”
“What do you have?”
So I told her about my visit back to Bellows Falls and my encounter with the earnest Detective Shaye, and she stopped me when I told her I saw the man known as George standing in the police station, saying he was from the Department of Justice.
“George? The one who killed my brother?”
“That’s right.”
“You … fool. Why didn’t you go up to Detective Shaye and have him arrest George?”
We kept quiet as the salads came. When the waiter left, I leaned over our booth’s table and said in a low voice, “Carla, I know you’re under pressure. You’ve had a rotten week. Your brother is dead, and his body’s still not been recovered. You have my sympathy.”
Her eyes teared up. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome,” I said. “But if you call me a fool, or stupid, or any other insult from this moment forward, then I am getting up, walking out, and that will be that. And before you get your FBI-issued panties in a bunch and threaten me with arrest, water boarding, or anything else, I’ve dropped out before, and I can do it again. All it will take is me getting up from this table and walking down the sidewalk. And you’ll never see me or hear from me again, and your brother’s death will go unsolved, and those who did it won’t be punished. Is that what you want?”
Her voice was quiet but hard as steel. “No.”
“Good. Now. Figure out why I didn’t go race up to Detective Shaye and start yelling, ‘He’s the one officer, he did it!’ For one, at the time he thought I was a true-crime writer. That means telling him I had been lying to him for the past half hour. Second, our killer George was there as an official of the Justice Department. Who do you think Detective Shaye would really trust then?”
“George is a killer. He can’t be from the DoJ. It has to be a front.”
“With a fake ID, right? Since you’re the expert?”
She blushed. “Maybe so. And it’s a small Vermont town. They tend to get … overly impressed by someone claiming to be from the FBI or the Department of Justice. Did the detective tell you about the man you shot? George’s driver?”
“Just his name, Mike Dillman.”
“Where was he from?”
“Ohio.”
“And what about his background?”
“Detective Shaye didn’t have that with him,” I said. “The State Police and the Attorney General’s office are playing it all close to their vest.”
“Did you find anything out that can help us?”
“Not at the moment.”
She frowned. “Seems like a wasted trip, then.”
Our main courses were served and I said, “Let’s talk about something els
e for a while.”
“Why?”
“Because I hate to dine on a fine meal with a companion who seems to want to chew on something else,” I said, picking up my knife and fork. “Like my shin bone.”
With dishes cleared away and check paid with cash, I said, “And you, madam? What did you find out about our mystery woman?”
“Pretty much still a mystery.”
“Oh? Did the fingerprints come back with any identification?”
“Yes, but that’s about it. Her name was Kate Salzi, and she was from Pennsylvania.”
I nibbled on a roll crust. “Really? That’s all?”
“That’s all I could get.”
“Don’t get pissy at me,” I said. “I find it hard to believe that you’d get a fingerprint report with such a thin result.”
“Oh, well, I was expecting more but my source … he got called away.”
I stopped eating. “Carla, tell me more.”
“My source … he called and left me a message. ID’d her as Kate Salzi, and that he’d have more in ten minutes. But he never called me back.”
“Did you call him?”
“Yes.”
“And…?”
“One of his coworkers said he had been suddenly called away.”
“Any reason why?”
She seemed disquieted. “No … ”
“Any follow-up? Email? Texts? Phone calls?”
“No,” she said.
I got up from the booth. “Let’s get going.”
“Where?”
“Anywhere but here,” I said, leading her out. “Tell me, your source, a close friend? Someone you’ve had a long relationship with?”
“No, not really,” she said, scrambling to keep up with me. “Why are you asking me that?”
“Because I’m pretty sure he or she is dead,” I said. “Or has been sent to the Boise field office. Whatever might be worse.”
“You can’t believe that. I’m sure it’s just a coincidence.”
“If you’d like to believe that, go right ahead. I can’t afford it. Let’s roll.”
Outside on Hanover Street, I turned to Carla and said, “Your phone. Personal or government-issued?”
“Personal. What difference does that make?”
Too late.
Two men were on opposite ends of the sidewalk, quickly and confidently centering in on us. We were in the most urban city in this small state, which wasn’t that urban. Nobody else was on the sidewalk save for us.
“I need two answers and need them quick,” I said. “Number one, are you in this for real? To find your brother’s killer, no matter what?”
“Yes.”
“Number two, are you armed?”
“No, I’m not.”
“Damn,” I said. “Wish you had gone all-in on your FBI agent disguise.”
With that, I pulled out my Beretta and opened fire.
Eleven
On the slight chance that I was mistaken, I didn’t shoot to wound or to kill. I’d hate to have the blood of two innocent Mormon missionaries on my already-crowded conscience. I fired twice at the near man, turned and fired twice at the far man, and then I grabbed Carla’s upper arm and started running. Both men had professionally ducked and rolled when I started shooting, so I was pretty confident they weren’t on a mission from God.
I ran just enough to get out of their immediate view, and quickly slowed down, now walking on Manchester’s Main Street, which had more pedestrian traffic, and my hand was loosely grasping Carla’s upper arm, while my Beretta was back in its shoulder holster. Carla’s voice was shaky when she said, “Shouldn’t we be getting the hell out of here?”
“Yes,” I said, “but we need to be getting out of here in a smart way. Four gunshots were fired a few minutes ago a few blocks away. Two people running away would get a lot of interest. Right now, we’re blending in, slowly strolling around on this nice day, and I’m happy.”
We walked another block. Main Street was four lanes, two northbound and two southbound. Traffic was steady. “About that cellphone of yours, do you have it handy?”
“Right here.”
“Pass it over.”
She unzipped her leather bag, dug in, and passed it over to me. Based on so much experience that I forgot when I exactly had started it, I had removed the back, the SIM card—which I broke—and then came across a sewer grate. I paused, reached down like I was picking up a loose dollar bill, and I dropped what was once Carla’s phone into the sewer.
“I was being tracked.”
“Yep.”
“By the same people who are tracking you?”
“Makes sense, doesn’t it.”
Carla said, “About George, and what you said about he being from the DoJ … ”
“Yes?”
“I’m getting scared that you might be right. Maybe George is one of us.”
“One of you,” I said. “Not us.”
We stopped at the intersection of Main Street and Concord Street. “What now?” she asked.
I took her upper arm again while we walked across. “You got anything in that Impala that’s valuable?”
“No.”
“Registered in your name?”
“Sort of,” she said. “It’s a rental.”
“Well, it’s probably burned, just like your phone. It’s time for us to go dark, take a breath, and decide what to do next.”
“Will the ‘do next’ part including getting to George and whoever killed my brother?”
I stopped in front of a coffee and pastry shop. “That’s my plan. You can either come along for the ride or go back to Boston.”
“Fuck Boston,” she said.
I gently propelled her into the coffee shop. “What, are you a Yankees fan or something?”
We both had cups of strong coffee, and I added to my calorie fest with a vanilla Neapolitan pastry. We sat at a round table near the rear, just by the exit sign, and I kept a sharp eye as we let the time pass us by.
She said, “You’re fast.”
“I try.”
“No, I don’t mean you’re driving or anything like that. I meant … back at the restaurant. You made a decision, and we got out of there. Out on the sidewalk. You saw a threat. You reacted. You’re … fast.”
“You ever hear of Edna St. Vincent Millay?”
“Sure. Pulitzer Prize–winning poet, 1920s, something like that.”
“There’s a short poem of hers that I’ve always used as a template for my life:
My candle burns at both ends;
It will not last the night;
But ah, my foes, and oh, my friends—
It gives a lovely light.
“Do you understand? That’s how I move. No time to waste one’s life or talents.”
I tried to gauge what was going on behind those eyes of her and failed. I went on. “I take that as a compliment. Sitting still … you’re a target. Moving … you shake things up, you disrupt other people’s plans. That’s what’s gotten me this far in reasonable good health.”
“Why do you do it, then?” she asked. “What’s your background?”
I said, “Not enough money or pressure in the world to tell you where I come from, or what I’ve done before. But I learned a long time ago that the nine-to-five, cubicle office work with a fat 401k down the road with a wife and ungrateful kids wasn’t going to work for me.”
“It’s safe.”
“It’s dull.”
“Are you an adrenaline junkie?”
I shook my head. “Like those guys who do rock climbing with no ropes? Or climb the top of a thousand-foot TV antenna and do a parachute jump? Nope, not for me. I take risks, I go into dark places, but it’s all calculated.”
“And what’s there a
t the end of the day? Besides a fat bank account?”
“Many fat bank accounts … with the knowledge that when I start to slow down, when my reflexes aren’t what they should be, then I’ll silently fade away and find something else to do, with the fine sense of accomplishment that I’ve done exactly what I wanted in the previous years, no compromises, no illusions.”
The slightest of smiles. “Perhaps you’ll end up in a cubicle anyways.”
“Only if I get a good dental plan.”
Carla picked up her coffee mug, stared out at the bustling Main Street, and put the mug down without drinking from it. “Whatever my brother was involved in … and you … and now me, it’s gotten big. Out of hand.”
“That’s right.”
“What’s going on, then?”
“Pretty easy,” I said. “Either some criminal element or a group from the government. Or maybe both.”
“I don’t believe it.”
“We know my main man George ID’d himself to the Bellows Falls cops as somebody from the Department of Justice.”
“Like I said, that might be a lie. Or a cover story.”
“Or maybe the truth. If he’s illegal, he’s going into the belly of the beast: law enforcement. He’ll be looked at, videotaped, and maybe a discreet phone call or two to check up on him. That’s pretty edgy. Which means I think George is either with the DoJ or working with them.”
Carla shook her head. “I can’t believe that... no matter what I said earlier, about being scared, you might be right.”
“Oh, honey, honey, honey …”
She looked like she’d like to pop out my eyeballs, one after another, using a grapefruit spoon. “Don’t call me honey.”
“Then don’t say stupid things,” I said. “You think the FBI, the Department of Justice, the federal government is all run by Boy Scouts or Girl Scouts. Damn, you work from the FBI field office in Boston. Do I really have to remind you of Whitey Bulger and his Irish gangsters, how they were protected by corrupt FBI agents? How they concealed their crimes, hid evidence so innocent men were sent to prison? Or do you and your coworkers all suffer from collective amnesia?”
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