by Boyle, Gerry
CHAPTER 45
Route 1 in Falmouth. Fuller and Kelvin in the Caprice, four cars behind Mia’s Saab. There were two cops in a Jeep Cherokee three cars behind the Caprice. Fuller had the rearview mirror turned so he could see them from the passenger seat.
“Do what I say,” he said.
“When?” Kelvin said.
“When I say so,” Fuller said.
They drove past a shopping center, a health club, a wallpaper store. Just beyond the store, a girl, maybe 14, was waiting at a cross walk. She carried a bag, McDonald’s. She stepped off the curb.
“Slow down,” Fuller said.
“I see her,” Kelvin said, starting to brake.
The kid waited, saw the car start to slow. She took three steps and was in the middle of the traffic lane.
“Go,” Fuller said.
“She’s in the—”
“Go,” Fuller said again and reached over with his left foot and stomped the gas.
The car leapt forward, the girl froze and dropped the bag, soda spraying. Kelvin swerved around her and Fuller saw the cops in the Jeep stop as the girl bent to pick up the bag, the soda puddling out.
“What the hell?” Kelvin said. “I almost hit that kid.”
“Right at the shopping center, all the way through,” Fuller said.
Kelvin turned. They drove down the center lane, turned past the store-fronts, took another right at an access road that circled behind the building. They made the circle, emerged in the far end of the lot, and circled back onto the road. Fuller saw the cops’ Jeep stopped in traffic in front of the stores.
Kelvin turned right. They couldn’t see the Saab.
“Left,” Fuller barked, and Kelvin turned, sped down a cross road. Took another right and Fuller said, “Hit it.”
The Caprice shuddered and hissed as they sped down the narrow road, estates on the left side, big new houses on the right. The road climbed a hill and at the crest Fuller said, “Got it.”
“Where?” Kelvin said.
“They just turned in.”
“You want me to follow them?”
“No, keep going. We gotta find a place to hide this thing, come back on foot.”
“Hit the place in daylight?” Kelvin said.
“You crazy? We check it out now. Wait until it gets dark, we go in. Fast and furious. Just like the Israelis.”
“You and your freakin’ Israelis. What if they don’t go peaceably?” Kelvin said, a word from a cowboy movie slipping in.
“It’s outta my hands,” Fuller said. “It’s like those dominos knocking each other over.”
“Since the cop.”
“Since forever,” Fuller said, and something new and different in his voice made Kelvin think that maybe Joel was giving it up, was going down.
“I got a kid,” Kelvin said. “How ’bout I wait with the car.”
They were through the gates, a drizzle falling, turning the road slick and shiny in the headlights. The woods were black as the cloudless sky and Brandon stared out, squinting, trying to see where Fuller was hiding.
Mia looked over at Brandon from behind the wheel.
“What?” she said. “What’s bothering you?”
“A guy I liked a lot was shot to death.”
“Something else,” Mia said. “It happened in the house. Your mood.”
“She bought clothes,” Brandon said. “Lots of women’s clothes. In New Jersey.”
“Who?”
“Irina. If that’s really her name. I saw the receipts. In her bag.”
Mia drove, didn’t ask what Brandon was doing snooping.
“Maybe she’s sending stuff home to Poland, outfitting the whole family,” she said. “They don’t have a T.J. Maxx.”
“She never talks about family. She never talks about anything.”
You don’t trust them,” Mia said.
“They’ve got tickets for London in two weeks.”
“A holiday?”
“One way.”
“Maybe they don’t know exactly when they’re going to come back,” she said. “They’ve got money. They can just buy tickets at the counter. Not like they’re shopping for a deal on the Internet.”
“Her name isn’t Irina, not on the ticket. It’s Zalina. Zalina N. Maricova. He’s Willem S. DeHahn.”
“Well, you didn’t think his parents named him Lucky,” Mia said.
“What about Zalina?”
“One of those Old World things. A nickname. Her grandmother’s name. Maybe she doesn’t like Zalina.”
“I think they sailed almost all the way to Nova Scotia,” Brandon said. “Why was the boat so completely cleaned?”
“They’re neatniks.”
“It wasn’t neat. It was scoured.”
Mia hesitated, her devil’s advocate defense crumbling. “I think your grandmother’s afraid of him,” she said. “At first I thought it was just sadness, the bad memories. But now I don’t think so.”
“I know. When he was talking about Griffin getting killed, for a minute there it was like Lucky was a cop.”
“Or a criminal.”
“Not some ex boat bum,” Brandon said.
“Hit it big on an IPO,” Mia said.
“What’s that?”
“Initial public offering.”
“Oh.”
“But none of it really proves anything,” Mia said.
“Not one thing. But it all adds up.”
“To what?”
“They aren’t what they say they are.”
“So what are they?”
“I don’t know,” Brandon said.
They drove across the old bridge at the entrance to Back Cove. Brandon looked out on the water, pools of it shining against the mud, a rotting pier silhouetted against the pale gray city sky.
“There’s no water at that float,” he said.
“What?”
“His float at the house. There’s four feet of water there at low tide. Rocks all through there, out three hundred yards. That’s why there’s no moorings at those houses. Just small boats.”
“So?”
“Lucky said he could picture Ocean Swell there,” Brandon said. “Could never happen and he had to know that. A sailor like him.”
“Why would he say it then?”
“He was totally bullshitting. For a minute he forgot who he was talking to.”
“Not like him,” Mia said.
“No,” Brandon said. “He screwed up.”
There was a church down the road from the estate entrance. It was Catholic, a statue of the Virgin Mary standing lonely vigil on the dark lawn. To the rear, an addition was going up, the slab poured, lumber in a flesh-colored stack, a trailer parked and locked.
The Caprice was pulled in behind it. Fuller was in the passenger seat, Kelvin behind the wheel. They were drinking beers, Budweiser from 16-ounce cans. Fuller had the pistol on his lap.
“Oughta toss that gun,” Kelvin said. “Ballistics.”
“When we’re done here I’ll throw it in the ocean.”
“Not at the house.”
“Off the bridge,” Fuller said.
He held the gun up in front of him and stared at it.
“People say you need a honking three fifty-seven.”
“Like Dirty Harry,” Kelvin said.
“That was a magnum,” Fuller said. “This Ruger. Nothing wrong with a nine. Kill you just as dead.”
Kelvin froze. Took a deep silent breath. A swallow of beer.
“Know what you mean,” he said softly. “But not sure I like the way you put it.”
“K-Rod,” Fuller said. “I need you right with me.”
“When?”
“When we hit the house.”
“I told you. I got a kid. I can’t go around fucking holding people up.”
“You jumped Blake.”
“That’s a whole different thing.”
Fuller smiled. “I know. You’re thinking like a daddy. That’s nice.”<
br />
He raised the gun, pressed the muzzle to the side of Kelvin’s neck, just under his right ear. Kelvin was still. He could see the Virgin Mary, her arms extended. Her back was to him. He thought to himself that she wouldn’t be able to testify. It made him smile.
“Dude, you stay here, you know what you are?” Fuller said.
“I’m not a murderer.”
“You’re a witness. You’re the one person who can put me away for life.”
“I wouldn’t do that to a friend.”
“Oh, they’d make you a deal you can’t refuse.”
“I’m here, ain’t I? Doesn’t that tell you something?”
“It tells me you could be outta here as soon as I’m out the door.”
“I ain’t gonna run on you, Joel.”
“No, Kel,” Fuller said. “You’re not. ’Cause you’re gonna be right beside me, son. All the way.”
He lowered the gun, looked at the dime-size red circle on Kelvin’s neck, an inch from the scabbed ice-pick hole. The gun was on Fuller’s lap, still pointed at Kelvin, his waist. Fuller smiled, stuck the gun in the front of his jeans.
“Must be getting paranoid,” he said, giving the smile that was only his mouth. “Let’s go.”
He rolled the window down, opened the door, got out, and closed it. Leaned back. A clean shot through the open window. Kelvin got out slowly, came around the front of the car.
“What’s the plan?” he said.
“Bushwack over there. Get the lay, of the land. Wait for the lights to go out. Let ’em get to sleep, pop a door and go in. We do it right, we get ’em in bed.”
“You gotta get the money.”
“Not a problem.”
“What if they don’t want to hand it over?”
“We start with her,” Fuller said. “A babe like that is almost worth dying for.”
They walked behind the church, crossed a narrow road, hopped a stone wall. Some sort of animal flushed and scurried away. Neither of them flinched. Fuller slowed, let Kelvin lead the way.
CHAPTER 46
Lights were on, three rooms on the first floor, one room upstairs, the curtains there drawn. Irina was on the bed, dressed, watching television. On the show, fashion experts were telling a chubby, plain woman that her clothes didn’t fit. The plain woman reminded Irina of a woman from Odessa. On the TV, the fashion people were saying her jeans did nothing for her butt, her sweater was too big, maybe if she got a push-up bra.
It was a strange world, having discussions like that, Irina thought. Her mother had never considered any of this: butt or boobs, whether a skirt made her look fat. She cooked for six kids, waited for her husband to get home from the shipyard, already drunk and ornery. Some sort of twisted miracle that they had children at all, Irina thought, not for the first time. How could there have been even that momentary joy in such a grim place?
She wasn’t going to live like that. She’d been working for a year and eight months to make sure, and soon she’d be in London, turn right around and fly to the British Virgins, money in the Caymans, a little house on a hill overlooking Georgetown Harbor.
And she’d be alone.
The plain woman on the television was pretending that she didn’t mind being called chubby and ugly, only a few million people watching. Who cared what—
A snap outside, like a branch breaking. Irina listened for a thrashing in the woods, a deer bounding through the brush. She heard nothing, just the television chatter, a june bug buzzing against the screen.
She rolled off the bed, grabbed a rain jacket off a hook on the door. Out in the hallway, she slipped a gun out of the jacket pocket. A Bersa .380, a gift from Victor in London. She held it against her thigh as she went to the next door, opened it, crossed the room without turning on the lights.
At the side of the window, she stood in the dark room and listened. Heard birds and frogs murmuring in the trees. More bugs buzzing. The faint rumble of the sea. A single scratching shuffle.
Irina eased toward the window and looked down. The driveway was lighted, the parking area in front of the stable and the garage. Irina watched, listened.
Saw a big man in jeans, a black T-shirt. He eased around the corner of the stable. Still in the shadows, he moved to the door that led to the tack room. He tried the latch. The door didn’t open and he leaned against it, pulled the latch up.
The door squeaked as it opened. The man slipped inside, closed the door behind him. Irina was about to turn away when another figure came around the corner, smaller, thinner. He stood at the door for a moment and then it opened.
Irina saw the big man’s face.
It was Kelvin. That meant the other guy was Fuller. The cop killers had come to visit, were coming in through the garage.
The room smelled of leather and hay. They crossed it gingerly, trying to be silent. Kelvin stubbed his toe on something big and heavy, gritted his teeth to keep from crying out.
Fuller was in the rear, the gun at his side. The room with the hay led to a garage with a Jeep, a boat heaped with stuff. They crossed the garage, found a door that led to the house. Fuller put his head against the door and listened.
Hearing nothing, he pointed at the knob with the gun. Kelvin reached for it, turned it slowly. The door fell open. They moved through.
Irina found Lucky in the dining room, spreading his foul weather gear, underwear, jeans, and T-shirts on the big mahogany table.
“They’re here,” she whispered.
He turned to her, saw the pistol in her hand. “Where?”
“Came in the garage. One minute.”
Lucky nodded. “Shoot only if we have to,” he said. “I don’t want a mess.”
He crossed to a buffet table, leaned down, and opened the bottom drawer. There were table cloths in it, white and embroidered. Lucky bent, lifted the top cloth, slid out a Mossberg shotgun, the barrel shortened to fourteen inches, the stock cut down. He stood, moved to the doorway, turned out the lights. Motioned for Irina to take the other door.
They waited, listening. Breathed slowly. Listened some more.
Minutes passed. Neither of them moved. Lucky closed his eyes to hear better. Waited. Another minute passed. And then he heard it. A footstep, almost silent, but not quite.
It was from the direction of the pantry, off the kitchen. A door led from the pantry to the garage. Lucky raised his hand. Irina nodded.
It was less a sound than a presence. Someone moving into the kitchen. A barely audible rustle. A nearly silent breathing.
Irina looked over at Lucky. Held up the ice pick. He nodded. She turned back to the door.
There was a thud as one of them bumped a corner of a table, then a shhhsshh that was louder than the thud. A shuffle as they moved across the kitchen, the grit on their shoes like sandpaper on the tile floor.
Lucky took a step to the door on his side of the room. Then another. As he glanced back he saw Irina tensing. The pick low in her left hand, the gun in the right. The left hand easing back, like a string drawn on a bow.
A figure emerged from beside the door frame. A hairy arm. A hand with a screwdriver, a black and yellow handle, the point forward and low. A shoulder. Kelvin’s face, his head. He turned, saw Irina, and started to swing the screwdriver toward her.
Irina drove the ice pick into his shoulder.
Kelvin bellowed and Lucky spun out of the room, saw Fuller lunging forward, turning to the doorway, the pistol held low. Lucky said, “Freeze, police,” as Kelvin fell back, his hand on the wooden handle of the pick. Fuller turned, snapped off a shot at Lucky, a black pock appearing in the wall to his left. Fuller backpedaled, crashed into a table in the next room, turned, and started to run.
Irina came out of the doorway, the pistol in two hands, stopped, and sighted on Fuller’s back.
“No,” Lucky said. “No blood in the house.”
Fuller was through the door, pounding through the living room. They heard a rattle and bang as he went out the front door. Irina put the g
un on Kelvin, still clutching the pick, breathing heavily.
“Outside,” Lucky said, motioned with the shotgun.
“No,” Kelvin said. “No, don’t.”
“I said, outside,” Lucky said again.
“Kevin,” Irina said. “Listen to him.”
They walked through the kitchen, Kelvin going first, hunched and moaning. Out the kitchen door and into the drive. It was dark and the pavement was wet. The wind had shifted to the south and the breeze was damp and salty.
“Stop,” Lucky said.
“I got a kid,” Kelvin said. “Don’t kill me.”
“What do you want?” Lucky said.
“I don’t want nothin’. He’s the one wants money,” Kelvin said, the pick sticking out of his T-shirt, blood running through his fingers.
“Aren’t there any 7-Elevens?” Lucky said, the shotgun barrel up now.
“We gotta stay on the down low.”
“You shot that cop,” Lucky said. “That’s really stupid.”
“I didn’t fucking shoot nobody,” Kelvin said.
“Were you going to tie us up or something?” Irina said.
“I don’t know,” Kelvin said. “I don’t know what the plan was.”
“How much?” Lucky said.
Irina looked at him.
“How much what?”
“How much money do you need?”
“A couple thousand,” Kelvin said. “So we can leave. We’re going to Chicago.”
“Driving?”
“Yes.”
Lucky moved the shotgun to his right arm, reached back for his big wallet. He fingered out $2,000 in hundreds, took a step up, and stuck it in the back pocket of Kelvin’s jeans.
“There you go,” he said. “If we see either of you ever again, I absolutely promise we’ll kill you. Cut off your balls and chop you up. Throw you in the ocean for the crabs to eat.”
“Okay,” Kelvin said.
“Now take off.”
“I can’t. This thing—”
“Pull it out,” Lucky told Irina.
“No,” Kelvin said. “It hurts.”
“Okay, we shoot you right here,” Lucky said.
“No. But what if it bleeds. What if I—”
“Die?” Lucky said. “You don’t leave, you’ll die for sure.”
He jerked his head at Irina.
