Billingsgate Shoal

by Rick Boyer

  In the fourth stall, in the middle of the barn's belly, behind and underneath a few bales and scattered mounds of hay, I found it. Or rather them. First I felt the rough crate wood, and could see the pale gleam of whitish wood in the faint light. I switched on my flashlight. At the instant I did so I heard a sound from the far end of the barn. I shined the light quickly in that direction but saw nothing. Probably a rat, coon, or skunk. I cut the light and waited in the dark ten minutes before going back to the crates. Then I swept the hay off the uppermost one, and turned the light back on. It had a double swirl symbol stenciled on it, and underneath the symbol, stenciled in black paint, the words:

  MILITARY ARMAMENT CORPORATION

  POWDER SPRINGS, GA. U.S.A.

  Looking for a place to insert the crowbar, I noticed that someone had already pried the crate open; there was an indentation between the lid and side of the box where a big screwdriver had been inserted. I pried off the lid. Inside the box, which was the size of a small footlocker, were four weapons. They were strange looking, unlike any firearm I'd ever seen before. They were ugly, made of stamped dull metal. They looked like pistols, with big squarish bodies and little teeny barrels sticking out the ends. The grip projected downward from the middle of the pistol body instead of the back end. Also in the box were eight clips (two for each gun) and four big metal tubes about a foot long (longer than the gun bodies). I picked one of these up; it was heavy and solid. Then I saw the thread mount on the end of the tube. that matched the one on the barrel extension on the gun body. I knew what it was then: a silencer. I picked up one of the bodies. Used to fine shotguns and pistols, I couldn't believe how cheaply made it looked. There was no machining whatsoever. It was a rude collection of stamped metal and spot welds. It looked as though you'd find it lat the bottom of a Crackerjack box.

  A knurled knob on the top of the body moved backward if I pulled hard on it. There was a big spring in there, but no external locking and safety lugs like those found on automatic pistols. But this didn't look like an automatic pistol. It was, I suspected, a machine-pistol, or submachine gun. And one with a silencer too. `

  Son of a bitch.

  There were two of these crates. Underneath those were three more crates that were noticeably larger. I saw the familiar logo on the sides: the interfacing triskelion of Colt Industries. I knew that weapon: the Armalite M16, the standard assault rifle of the U.S. Army. Joe and his friends at the State Detective Bureau had told me enough about these to make it clear they were worth a fortune on the black market. And finally, wrapped in a canvas tarp alongside the wall were two bulky objects that were wound, mummy style, in rust-inhibiting paper. I unwrapped one of the bundles enough to peer at it. It was a medium-weight machine gun. The ribbed metal housing over the barrels looked oddly familiar but I didn't know why. I wrapped the big weapon up again and placed it back the way I found it. I re-covered the crates and scattered the hay back over them. Then, my light out and stuffed in my hip pocket, I went over to the ladder.

  Two rungs up, a light shone behind me. I blinked my eyes twice to make it go away. Surely they were playing tricks on me. Surely I was dreaming.

  But I wasn't. I felt cold against the back of my neck. It was steel, and pressed hard up underneath the big bone in my skull that lies right behind the ear. It was the barrel of a gun.

  "Dawn't move," said a husky voice, "dawwn't!"

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  I DIDN'T. I stared straight ahead at the boards of the old barn wall. They were whitewashed, and I could see the faint dried strokes of the coarse brush that had put on the whitewash, probably about fifty years ago. I didn't move.

  "Who are you?" I finally managed.

  "Dawn't ask. I'd as soon put a bullet in yer brain now, and who might you be?"

  He had a brogue so thick you could cut it with a cold chisel. The sound of County Mayo, or Clare; or whatever, coupled with the weapons I didn't like. And that's when I disobeyed instructions and moved. I moved like all get-out, too, and I'll tell you why: Because I thought I was going to die right then. I thought I was going to get blown away, and all that nicely applied old whitewash was soon to be besotted with glumps of reddish tissue: skin, bone, brains, and ocular fluid, as the strange visitor from County Kerry (or Wicklow, or Donegal, or whatever) blew my head apart so bits and pieces of it would fly out from homebase and affix themselves to the wall. That's why I jumped for it.

  And that's why I think people with guns pointed at them try a lot of that "brave" stuff. They aren't brave; they're scared. They're trying to survive. They know they are a finger-pull away from death and it has a tendency to bother them. If I could get free and manage to knock him off balance for a second I could get the Bull-Barrel out from my pocket in a wink. And though I'd never harmed a living thing with it, I knew I could give a gentleman a third nostril at fifty feet. I was very, very good with that little small-bore target pistol.

  So I moved.

  I flung myself backward off the ladder. From the way he held the pistol and the fact that I had climbed two rungs, I judged myself to be above the gunman by about two feet. As I left the ladder I rolled to my left, and chopped down and back with the cast with all I had. I felt the hand strike something semisolid and the light wavered and flickered crazily around for a second. When I hit the floor I rolled over to get up, my hand already working the pistol from the windbreaker's pocket.

  But that was as far as I got.

  I felt a huge pressure on my upper chest, just below my Adam's apple. I smelled shoe leather. I felt an iron grip on my right wrist just above the hand. Jesus did it hurt. Then I felt the cold pressure of the pistol barrel, again, on my neck. Only this time it was jamned up under my jaw. The husky voice spoke. It was panting a bit, but pretty level and very mean.

  "Now lok," it said, "I'll not kill you if you do what's right. But if you dawn't, yer a dead mahn, heer?"

  I nodded.

  He grabbed the Ruger pistol and jammed his flashlight up under his right arm and held it shining down on me while he slid out the clip. He flicked the rounds out one by one but very fast. I heard a brief ka-chunk and knew he'd ejected the round in the chamber too. He frisked my other pocket and grabbed the spare clip, which he disarmed as quickly as the first. Then I was amazed as he handed me back gun and both clips. With a swirl of hands and cloth he dropped the rounds into his coat pocket. I heard them rattle as they fell, like a beanbag. I still couldn't see the face. The light beam was right in my eyes and he was behind it.

  "Get up then."

  I did. And I sat with my back against a hay bale as he asked me my name and business, and why I was where I was, doing what I was doing. I thought it best, since he had a Walther PPK pointed at my chest, to tell him. But I made it a point to stall a bit, to tell mostly of my life and job, and to say how I'd been hunting a certain boat.

  "Ah yes. I saw you on the docks at Plymouth—"

  This stunned me.

  "Ah yes, I've had my eye on you, sir. Let me see your wallet. Be quick with it."

  He examined it and flung it back. I saw the faint outlines of his profile as he sat and looked at me. He was thick and not very tall. He wore a hat. He breathed heavily. I yearned for a glance of the jaw or cheekbone in profile. . .something my physician's eye could latch on to for future identification. But no luck. This man was a pro. The way he'd gotten the drop on me while my hands were on the ladder (and not a sound to tip me off), the way he'd countered my moves against him and emptied my pistol, the way he held the light and gave instructions, they all spelled experience in a certain line of work that I was obviously still amateur at. And his sidearm. I didn't know that much about handguns, but from everything l`d gathered, the Walther PPK was the pro's piece. It was the mark of the experienced spy, saboteur, policeman—especially overseas.

  "Hmmph! Adams. . .an English name. Oh well."

  I squirmed on the hay bale.

  "Now look here, Doctor Adams, you mind what I say. You stay away from heer. You st
ay cleer of that dock in Plymouth. My friends and I won't like it if you interfeer. Are you taking careful notion now of what I'm sayin?"

  "Uh huh."

  "Now rise and go—and—"

  He didn't finish his sentence. He lunged at me and grabbed me by the upper arm.

  "Shhhhh! Hush I say," he said in a coarse whisper. "You stay put, or so help me Katie you'll pay! Did you leave the trap open?"

  "I think so."

  The stocky man, still in shadow, moved with incredible speed. He flung the beam of his flashlight to the rear of the barn.

  "Then hide there, yah. Quick now, or we're both for it!"

  He doused the light as I went behind a big pile of bales and waited. In less than three seconds I could hear the whine of a heavy transmission. The squeak of brakes sounded above. I heard the soft thump of the trap door being shut, the almost metallic sound of heavy shoes on wooden rungs, and then the man was beside me again.

  "Heer it, mahn?"

  I nodded and said a low yeah.

  "And we're trapped," I whispered.

  "Naw! Keep close. And no funnies, heer?"

  I followed his heavy breathing farther back to the end of the barn cellar. Then I remembered that it was from this part of the cellar that I'd heard the sound earlier as I was opening the gun crates. No doubt it was my captor, not the skunk or coon I had supposed. Almost instantly we were making our way through a small door and up a ramp of gravel to the outside. We left the vicinity of the barn and made our way halfway up the wooded slope that overlooked the building.

  "They'll find my satchel in those bushes," I said, pointing. "They're sure to find it—"

  "Naw, laddie. I've taken it up the slope. You see, you gave yourself away with the flashlight game with the dog, don't ya know . . though you put him to sleep right nicely. Come on."

  Within thirty feet of the car he handed me my satchel. "Now go, Doctor Adams. Go back to Concord and stay there if your own personal safety means a damn to you. . .heer? If you get in my way again I promise you I'll not be so kind."

  Then he was gone, moving with that amazing speed, silence, and agility that was so odd for a thick man. I looked back down at the barn. It was dark, but I could see faint sweeps and flashes of lights in the windows. The van near the big door breathed and purred at idle. Twice I heard anxious loud whispers and the knocking of wood and doors inside. I saw a shadowy figure kicking at the dog, who was whining softly. I heard the opening of the van's doors, and a soft slamming of them too. I dragged myself up the rest of the slope to my car—Christ I was tired!—and glassed the building once more. The lights winked out inside the old building, and the van's headlights went on, shooting narrow white cones of light out onto the dirt road. It moved away slowly, then gained more and more speed as it receded into the distance. I poured coffee and downed it, then went back to the car, backtracked my way down to the main road, then onto the Mass Pike and headed east for home. I was hoping to run across the van so I could follow it, but they'd probably taken another route and had too big a jump on me. I didn't know if they were loading more weapons into the building or taking the ones I had seen out. They had used the same door I had used initially and which I had seen them use earlier. This was puzzling because the guns were hidden in the stable. floor, but then I realized that the small door through which we had escaped was ill suited for vehicles, and the big one was inaccessible because rain had made a huge gully in the sloping gravel drive.

  With the help of the thermos of coffee I made it home awake, and rolled up the drive. As I walked to the front door—I hadn't bothered with the garage—I thought I heard a sound at the side of the house. I waited three minutes in total silence. Nothing. My mind was beginning to play tricks on me. I needed sleep, and less cops and robbers.

  The coffee had me going now; I walked to the back of the house past the small sign that said Atelier and entered Mary's ceramic studio. I switched on the light. The place was festooned with hanging plants of all varieties, each one in a huge custom-thrown urn. I saw her recent work on the big table. They were modeled after Chinese pots from one of the dynasties, and were trapezoidal in cross-section with angular, though handsome, lids. Some were two feet across. It takes a huge amount of arm muscle to throw a pot that big. They were glazed with a textured drip finish. I stood in silent admiration in the room. I also resolved to forget about him. Schilling, the boat, and even Allan Hart. I would tell Joe and anyone else who wanted to know all about the guns in the Buzarski barn and the blue van. Then it was up to them. This thing had taken too heavy a toll on Mary, and on us.

  I went upstairs and kissed her awake and loved her back to sleep. We both said we felt a lot better. I slept very soundly. In fact I slept so soundly that Mary told me later it was her third scream from the bottom of the stairs that stirred me. I met her on the landing. She leaned into me, wailing and moaning in her nightgown. I felt her nails dive into my right forearm.

  "The oven! In the oven, Charlie—my God!"

  Then she ran to the bathroom, sick.

  In the kitchen I saw that the oven door atop the stove was ajar. It was at eye level. I crept forward and opened it with caution. The face of Angel stared back at me. Her eyes were still open, but dulled. Her hound face wore a quizzical expression. There was no anger in it, no snarl to the lips. There was no fear either. Just a confused look, as if asking fate why this had happened to her. A tiny pool had gathered beneath her severed neck. Not much. Her long velvet ears hung down between the wires of the baking rack on which her head rested.

  "Oh, my poor Angel," I whispered to her.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  BRIAN HANNON'S face crinkled up in disgust as he stared into the oven.

  "And we're selling the stove, Charlie. Right now! You hear, right now we're selling it! Goddamn thing and—"

  Mary was crying hard again and running her twisted fingers through her hair. It was not only the loss of the pet, the murder of our dog, that had her on the brink. It was the stealthy invasion of our home, while occupied: the cold, professional, wanton terrorism of it. If they thought they had us scared, they were indeed correct.

  "My God that's awful, Doc. That's an awful thing. Please don't any of you touch anything for a while. Mary, it might be a good idea for you to get out of this house temporarily while my men work. Doc, we never found the body. They came in through the window. Jimmied it up clean as a whistle. They bypassed the alarm too. They're pros, Doc. They knew exactly what they were doing."

  "And the noise I heard coming in the front was them leaving by the window. They saw my headlights and hurried out."

  "Doc, I think their message is pretty clear."

  I nodded.

  "What they're saying is lay off or you'll be next."

  "The dogs were all outside last night. They were together, but neither Danny nor Flack barked. How did they get to Angel without the other two knowing? And how did they catch and kill her silently? And why did they bring her inside?"

  "They did it all for the message. They've showed they're silent. So quiet that dogs don't wake up when they're near. They're quick. So quick they can snatch a dog in her sleep and destroy her without a peep. And finally, you can't keep them out. They can get to you whenever they want."

  I let out a long sigh as I heard Mary trundling up the stairs.

  "That's not encouraging."

  "No. I'd be extremely wary if I were you, Doc. Whatever it is you've been poking around in, forget it. You and Joe have discovered a body up in Gloucester. Now you stay out of it. Let the Commonwealth handle it. I guarantee your house will be guarded twenty-four hours a day."

  "And what will you be doing?"

  "I am gonna stay with you. I'm gonna be harder to shake than athlete's foot. Count on it."

  He spun around and went to his men. I went to a pay phone and called the boys and told them to leave their present dwellings at once; and go to earth elsewhere.

  "Call Chief Hannon in two days and let him know your whe
reabouts. That's an order."

  I saw Joe pull into the drive: I was never so glad to see him. The rest of the day was taken up with estate and local police, the dismantling and hauling away of the stove at Mary's irrational insistence, (although I admitted to myself that I never wanted to set teeth around anything cooked in that oven again as long as I, too, lived), and the tramping around through our domicile by state and local lab teams, who admitted to a person (two of them were women) that the breakers-enterers-murderers were very clean. No stray prints were found. The burglar alarm system had been circumvented with surgical precision. I cornered Joe and Brian on the porch.