Backflash p-18

by Richard Stark

  The purser’s office was open on one side, to an interior lobby, with a chest-high counter. The purser himself was there, with two of his girl assistants, all three of them in the blue and gold uniforms. He wanted them to call him Jerry, and he gave them a big smile as they approached: “Hey, Mike. How you doin, Jane Ann? Enjoyin the ride?” Nobody ever asked anybody if they were winning or losing; that was considered bad taste.

  “Not so much, Jerry,” Noelle told him, and swallowed hard.

  Jerry looked stricken, as though he thought the ship was to blame, and Mike leaned close to him to say, “I hate to be a pest, Jerry, asking special favors all the time” as the phone on the desk behind the counter rang and one of the girls answered it.

  “Hey, no problem, Mike,” Jerry said. “I can see Jane Ann’s ready to call it a day. You be down in that lounge again, you remember? and Excuse me.”

  Because the girl who’d answered the phone wanted to say a quick word to Jerry, who tilted his head toward her while continuing to face Mike and Noelle.

  One strange thing about all these hours in the wheelchair was the way it changed your perspective on everybody else. They were all big people now, and she was little. Seated in the wheelchair, she was too low to actually see the countertop, but could look at an angle up past it at the faces of Jerry and his girl assistant as the girl, in low tones that nevertheless Noelle could hear, said, “The cashier’s cage say they’re not getting any change.”

  Jerry looked blank, but continued to smile at Mike and Noelle. He said, “What?”

  “People want to cash in now,” she told him, “and they’re sending down the chips, but nothing’s coming back up.”

  Here we go, Noelle thought. One twenty-seven by the big clock on the wall at the back of the purser’s office. Here’s where the hairy part begins. Sooner or later, cops are going to come aboard, and they’re going to want to know if there are any anomalies here tonight, any odd or unusual passengers, and will they look at a girl in a wheelchair? Sooner or later they might, but not if she’s long gone, off and away from here.

  “Excuse me,” Jerry said, and turned away from them, and made a quick phone call. Four numbers; internal. Calling the money room. Waiting. Listening. Waiting. Looking confused.

  Exactly one-thirty. Jerry hung up, and stood still for a second, frowning this way and that, trying to decide what to do. Mike said, “Jerry? Something wrong?”

  “No, no,” Jerry said. ‘Just a little, uh, communication problem. Excuse me, one second.” He made another internal call, and this time it was answered right away, and he said, “It’s Jerry. We’re not getting anything up from the money room, and when I called down there there’s no answer. Can you beep your guy at the top of the stairs? Well, can you send somebody over, see what’s up? Thanks, Doug.”

  Mike, sounding worried, said, “Jerry? Is there gonna be a problem?”

  “I’m sure there isn’t,” Jerry promised him. “Maybe there’s an electric failure down there, who knows what. They’ll take a look.”

  Mike, more confidential than ever, said, “Jerry, the reason See, I’m responsible for Jane Ann.”

  “I know, Mike, and you do a great”

  “Yeah, but, see, if there’s gonna be a problem Jerry, I gotta get this girl home.”

  “Don’t you worry, Mike, we’ll get Jane Ann home, there isn’t going to be any reason not. You’ve got my word on this, okay?”

  “Would it be okay,” Mike asked, “if we stuck around here to find out what’s going on? You know, just so we know. I mean, if we gotta get the medevac helicopter, we oughta know that right”

  Jerry blanched, but rallied. “If it comes to that,” he said, “we’ll move fast, don’t you worry, but it isn’t gonna come to that. Sure, stick around, I’m happy to have the company. Jane Ann? Anything I can get you?”

  “Oh, no,” she said, and put a trembling hand over her mouth.

  Jerry looked as though he couldn’t figure out which of his problems he should worry about most.

  One thirty-three by the big clock, and the phone rang. The same girl assistant answered, then said to Jerry, “Doug.”

  “Right. Jerry here. Yeah? What?Holy shit,I I I mean hell! Jesus! Whatare we Yeah, okay, I’ll come up, too, who knows whatthe fuck we’re supposed oh, God. I’ll come up.”

  He slammed the phone down and gave Noelle an agonized look, saying, “I doapologize, Jane Ann, I’m very sorry, that isn’t like me, to use language like I was just I’m overwhelmed.”

  Mike said, “Jerry? What is it?”

  “I’ve gotta go see the captain.” Jerry was well and truly rattled.

  Mike said, “Jerry, don’t leave us like this. What’s going on?”

  Jerry looked both ways, then leaned over the counter and gave them a harsh stage whisper: “We’ve been robbed!”

  “What?” Mike was as astonished as Jerry. “You’re kidding me, nobody could” Then, moving as though prepared to fling himself between Noelle and an approaching bullet, he said, “They’re on the ship? You’ve got robbers on”

  “No, no, they I don’t know, apparently they came in through the door in the hull, there’s a separate door there, I don’t know if you ever noticed, the armored car, at the dock”

  “No,” Mike said. “They came in through some door in the hull? The side of the ship, you mean?”

  “And I guess back out again,” Jerry said. “With the money.”

  Noelle said, “Jerry?”

  He leaned close to give her a solicitous look, and to say, “Don’t worry, Jane Ann, we’ll still get you off, just as soonas we dock.”

  “Thank you, Jerry,” she said, “but that’s not what I wanted to say. Jerry, do you realize what this is? It’s piracy!”

  Jerry reared back, thinking about that. “By golly, you’re right,” he said.

  Noelle said, “Look for a man with an eye patch.” And, despite how miserable she felt, she smiled.

  At one forty-five they made the announcement over the loudspeaker. The money room had been robbed by gunmen who escaped in a small boat. More money was coming from the bank and would meet the boat, and people who still had chips to turn in would be able to do so while exiting the ship. There would be two exit ramps, so if you didn’t want to cash in any chips you wouldn’t have to wait on that line. All passengers would be required to give their names and addresses and show identification to the police when debarking, but otherwise would not be detained. The ship, its crew and its owners apologized for any inconvenience.

  The ship was abuzz with excitement and rumor, and Mike and Noelle stayed well away from it. Mike asked permission to stay in the purser’s office till they landed, to protect Jane Ann, and the distracted Jerry agreed, but they didn’t hear any more about what was going on. The action had apparently moved to the security office.

  When at last they docked in Albany, Jerry was as good as his word. He personally escorted them to the lounge near the exit, he spoke to the first police officers who boarded, and there was no problem about departure from the ship.

  Mike showed his fake chauffeur’s ID, gave Jane Ann Livingston’s spurious address in a mansion on the Hudson, and three minutes after the ship had tied up at the dock he was pushing a thoroughly beat-up Noelle down the gangplank and through the departure building and out to the parking lot, where for the last time he did the elaborate ramp arrangement that got her wheelchair into the van. Then he got behind the wheel, and drove them away from there.

  The second traffic light they hit was red, and while stopped he looked at her in his inside mirror and said, “How you doing?”

  “Ask me,” she told him, “three beers from now.”

  10

  Ray Becker woke up. Holy shit, he fell asleep!

  Around ten he’d driven away from the cottages and down into a nearby town to a pizza place, where he got a small pizza and a can of Coke, and came back, and sat here on the porch in the dark, looking out at the black river, with the living room and ki
tchen lights on in the cabin behind him, and while he ate he thought about where he’d go, once he had his hands on the money.

  He wished he could just get completely out of the United States, but he didn’t dare. He wasn’t sure he could cross any border without ID, and he didn’t have any ID he’d care to show anybody official. And if he went somewhere else in the world, what would he know about the place? The laws, the systems, the ways things worked. What would he know about how they handled things? He’d be crippling himself, that’s all, and for what?

  No, he’d have to stay in the States, which meant he’d have to go somewhere that was both out of the way and far from home; he wouldn’t want to run into any old high school pals on the street.

  But it couldn’t be just anywhere. There were states, for instance, like Florida and Louisiana, that had a floating population of petty crooks and therefore had a lot of police forces alert to the idea of checking out any strangers who hung around too long. For similar reasons, big cities like New York and Chicago were out; but they were out anyway, because Becker had never felt comfortable in big cities.

  He’d thought about Oregon and he’d thought about Maine, but the idea of the weather in both those places daunted him. On the other hand, if he went too far south, he’d stand out too much.

  Maybe some place like Colorado or Kansas. Move in to some medium-size town, just settle in for a while, then get fresh ID, invest some of the money in a local business, start a new life.

  ID wouldn’t be a problem, he knew how to do that. You’d choose a good-sized city Omaha, say, or St. Louis and look in the newspaper obits there for the year you were born, where you’d eventually find a child that had died before its second birthday. Using that child’s name, you’d write to the Hall of Records in that city to ask for a copy of your birth certificate. Using that, you’d go to the nearest Social Security office and explain you’d lived outside the U.S. since you were a kid, with your parents, but now you were back and you needed to sign up. With those two pieces of ID, and the same off-shore story, you’d go get your driver’s license, and all of a sudden you were as legit as any citizen in the country.

  Kansas, he thought, that’s where I’ll go, check it out, see if that’s the place for me, and on that thought he’d fallen asleep.

  Only to spring awake, with the realization that he’d almost made a huge mistake. A hugemistake. If the robbers came back with the money and Ray Becker was sprawled in this chair asleep, that would be it. No questions. No more chances.

  Kansas? Bottom of the Hudson River, more likely.

  The lights are still on! What time is it?

  He was trying to look at his watch and jump up from the Adirondack chair, both at the same time, when a voice said, “Whadaya suppose they left the lights on for?”

  Becker froze. Someone in the kitchen, directly behind him. He stared ahead of himself, out at the blackness that contained the river, and he listened very hard to the space behind him.

  A second voice: “Maybe so they could find the place from the river.” Younger, more nasal, than the first voice.

  “We’ll leave it the way they left it,” said a third voice, older and heavier and beerier, like the first one. And how the fuck many of them werethere? “We want those boys walkin in here all fat and sassy.”

  Now he knew why he’d come awake. He must have heard them arrive somehow, a car door slamming or the front door opening or whatever it was.

  Get off the porch; that’s the first thing. Slowly and silently, without attracting attention, get off this goddam porch.

  Becker eased forward off the Adirondack chair onto his hands and knees. Behind him they were talking, making themselves at home, opening and closing the refrigerator door. A beer can popped.

  The screen door off this screened-in porch was ahead and to the right, and it opened inward. Becker crawled over there, found the door by feel, pulled it a little way open, and for a wonder it didn’t squeak. Holding the door with his left hand, he shifted around to a seated position, then slid himself forward on his rump into the doorway, until his feet found the log step out there between porch level and the ground.

  Easing himself out, and down onto that step, without letting the door slam, was damn tricky, but he did it, holding his hand between door and frame at the last, until he could get his feet under him, and reach up to the knob. He pushed the door open just a bit to free his hand, then eased it shut.

  Darkness outside, with canyons of light vaulted from the windows. Becker eased along next to the building, peeked in the kitchen window, and saw three of them, all now with beers in their hands.

  Bikers. Two big old rogue elephants, bearded and ponytailed and big-gutted, and one young ferret, all three of them in the black leather those boys like so much. One of them was the leader, and was telling the other two where to position themselves for the ambush to come; this one in this room, that one in that room.

  Becker went back to the side of the porch, away from the light, then hurried around the next-door cottage to his pickup truck. From there he could see, gleaming in the living room light over there, three big motorcycles. So that’s what had waked him, those hogs driving in. Damn good thing.

  When he’d first rented the pickup, he’d removed the interior light, so it stayed dark when he gently opened the passenger door. There was a narrow storage space behind the bench-type seat, that you got to by tilting the seatback forward. Not much room back there, but enough for the shotgun he’d taken from the trunk of his patrol car when he’d ditched it, and also for the two handguns he’d always carried; his official sidearm, a Smith and Wesson Model 39, a 9mm automatic with an eight-shot clip, and his extra, a little Smith and Wesson .38 Chiefs Special, a very concealable revolver with a two-inch barrel.

  For present purposes, he left the automatic, pocketed the revolver in case he needed to do in-close work, and headed back for the lit-up cottage, carrying the shotgun at port arms.

  And now at last he looked at his watch: five minutes to two! Jesus Christ, they’ll be back any minute! He had to get rid of those people, he had to get those lights switched off.

  It’s getting complicated again, goddam it, it’s getting screwed-up again. Get it under control. Don’t let things spin away into disaster like every other time, this is the last chance, the last chance. The last chance.

  The leader first. Moving cautiously along, stooped to stay under the shafts of light, Becker found him in the bedroom off the kitchen, in semi-darkness, looking through the mostly shut doorway at the kitchen, patiently waiting. He had a beer can in his left hand, a big automatic in his right, like the one Becker had left in the truck.

  Take care of this now. Take care of it all right now. Get it simple again.

  Becker rested the tip of the barrel of the shotgun against the wood frame at the bottom of the screen over the window. The window was open, so it was only the screen in the way. Focusing past it, not seeing the screen at all when he did, Becker aimed the shotgun carefully at the center of the back of that head, just at the knot in the ponytail. His finger slowly squeezed down on the trigger.

  FOUR

  1

  “We didn’t leave lights on,” Parker said, and a shot sounded from up there, on shore.

  He had both guns in his hands, the one he’d carried onto the ship in a shoulder holster and the one he’d taken from the guard on the stairs, because he’d planned to throw them out into the river as they left the boat, but now he turned and put the barrel of the Colt Python against Hanzen’s near temple. “Turn us around,” he said, being very quiet, because sound travels on water. “Take us out of here.”

  Hanzen did it, without an argument, without a reaction at all, as though he’d been expecting this.

  “You know,” Wycza said, speaking as quietly as Parker had, “I thoughtthis thing was going along too easy.”

  Parker said, “We’ll head for your landing.”

  “Oh, shit,” Hanzen said, but that was all. Behind them, a se
cond shot sounded, and in quick succession a third.

  Parker hadn’t one hundred percent trusted Hanzen, but had felt he could take care of things if a problem came up. But why would people be shooting back there? Had they been shooting at this boat? What would be the purpose in that?

  Nobody spoke for a good three minutes, as Hanzen steered them at a downstream angle out toward the middle of the river. They’d come from upstream, and Hanzen’s landing was further on down. For those silent three minutes, Parker held the barrel of the Python against Hanzen’s temple, and Hanzen hunched grimly over his wheel, looking straight ahead, asking nothing, offering nothing.

  Finally, Parker tapped Hanzen’s head lightly with the gun barrel. “I can’t hear you,” he said.

  “You know the story,” Hanzen said. He sounded bitter.

  “Not all of it.”

  “Shit, man, Idon’t know allof it. Who’s shooting back there? Beats the shit out of me. Maybe they got stoned, they’re shooting at little green men. Wouldn’t put it past them.”

  That was possible. Or there could be more players in the game. Parker said, “Just how many people you told my business?”

  “Only them as leaned on me,” Hanzen said, “and you met them.”

  “They didn’t buy our restaurant story, is that it?”

  “A businessman don’t offer to run over one of them’s bikes. You come on too hard, so they wanted to know about you. I figure it’s your way, you can’t help it.”

  Wycza said, “What have we got, exactly?”

  “Three bikers,” Parker told him. “Friends of Hanzen.”

  “Not friends,” Hanzen said.

  “They do drug deals together,” Parker said. “They saw me one time, I was with Hanzen, the story was I was lookin for a site for a waterfront restaurant. Seems they didn’t buy it, and they got curious.”

  “They leaned on me,” Hanzen insisted, “like I said.”

  Wycza told him, “I look at you, friend, it don’t seem to me you’d need much leanin.” To Parker, he said, “So Hanzen here told these biker friends of his where they could expect to find us with some money on us.”