Blunt Darts - Jeremiah Healy

by Jeremiah Healy

  Cal shrugged, unbuttoned a shirt pocket, fished for something in it. "Mr. Cuddy and I have a date at our pistol range. When one of my boys picked up Dexter's transmission to you over the radio, I thought I'd come out and pick him up for it." Maslyk found a cigarette and resumed his fishing, this time for a match.

  "Since when did your men start monitoring my radio frequency'?" snapped Smollett.

  Maslyk smiled soothingly as he came up with his light. "Nobody was monitoring anybody, Will. One of the boys was just scanning and picked it up."

  Maslyk struck the match off his side-turned shoe. I hadn't seen that in years. "You know how it is, Will," said Maslyk as he cupped his hands around the match and tilted his face forward to light the cigarette.

  Smollett fumed silently, then gestured to his troops with his head toward the cars. Dexter looked relieved and scampered back up. The two big ones looked disappointed and went sulkily back up, one stumbling to a knee to add insult, and dust, to injury. The four got into their cars, backed out, and gunned their engines down the road toward Meade.

  I was sweating a bit more heavily than my flannel shirt and the rock's radiant heat could account for. "Thanks, Cal," I said quietly as I stood up.

  "This time you were lucky. I can't have a man assigned to listen in on Smollett's transmissions, and hell, next time they'll use phones anyways."

  I was halfway up the bank. "I agree," I said.

  "This is not a good town for an outsider. Not when he's poking into old deaths, important deaths." Cal waved his hand at the bridge and river.

  "I agree," I repeated as I reached the top.

  "So, you got any questions?" Cal asked.

  "Just one," I said. "Where do you get those matches? They're impressive as hell."

  Cal tossed his cigarette and stomped toward his car, jerking a hand for his driver to follow. "Goddamned wise-ass private eyes."

  TWENTY-FIRST

  -♦-

  Smollett's umbrage at my being in his town gave me a coward's way out for Val's dinner. I decided instead to drive there directly and settle things.

  I turned into Fordham Road and stopped in front of Number 17. I climbed the steps and rang her bell.

  "John!" It was barely five-thirty, and she was dressed in a blue terrycloth robe. She threw her arms around my neck and hugged hard. She smelled of scented soap.

  "Does tenure protect small-town teachers against charges of moral turpitude?"

  She gave a little laugh and released her grip. Her eyes were bright as she smiled. "Just got out of the tub. You're early but I forgive you. Come in."

  She took my hand and led me in. I swung the door shut. Her living room had a sunny bay window. Living in Back Bay and Beacon Hill, I'd grown used to fireplaces. There was none, but the room had a nice dining alcove under a beam near the kitchen. A half-closed door on the other side of the living room showed the foot of a bed.

  She took me to the couch, and began talking as we sat down. "Aren't you dying in that heavy shirt?"

  I wondered if I smelled rancid after the bridge encounter. "It's a little warm."

  She released my hand and leaned forward to get up. As she did, her robe bowed forward and back. I was very much aware of her right breast and the tan line

  around it.

  "Take it off," she said, smiling.

  I blinked up at her. "Your shirt," she said, her smile growing broader, "take it off. I have a T-shirt that I use as a nightie that ought to fit you."

  "No, thanks. Really," I said uncertainly. "I'm all right."

  She planted her fists on her hips and looked resigned. "Well, if I can't make you comfortable, at least I can get you a drink. What will you have?"

  "Orange juice," I said, and cleared my throat. "And a little vodka, if you've got it."

  "I'll just be a minute," and she trotted off-to the kitchen for the drinks, not to the bedroom to change.

  Well, John-boy, what now? Beth now. Beth and my decision. The question was how to put the decision into words. Or actions. And when. Something was beginning to make me perspire again. Maybe the flannel shirt.

  She returned with the drinks. From across the room, mine appeared awfully pale. Unless she reconstituted her frozen o.j. with a lot of water, she'd mixed me a whale of a screwdriver. She handed it to me. As she sat down, her robe did another calisthenic. I was positive she had known that it would.

  "To lasting friendship," she said, with a nice try at a naughty wink.

  I took a sip. Almost pure vodka. "You should hold the orange peel in a little longer next time."

  She rolled the ice around in her glass and looked me up and down. "You know, John, you have a great sense of humor, but you shouldn't let it affect your taste in clothes."

  We both laughed. "Actually, I'm on my way to find Stephen."

  Valerie jumped forward and nearly spilled her drink as she set it on the coffee table. Her robe bowed out again and stayed that way. I kept looking into her eyes.

  "Oh, John, you know where he is! Where?"

  "I told Mrs. Kinnington I wouldn't tell her, and I'll not tell you for the same reasons. First, I'm not sure I do know where he is, and second, given Blakey's general temperament, I don't want anyone he could approach to know as much as I do."

  Valerie shot me a disbelieving look. "Oh, come on, John. Blakey wouldn't dare try to intimidate me or Mrs. Kinnington."

  "I don't mean to frighten you, but I'm not sure he wouldn't, if the stakes he's playing for are as high as I think they are."

  She slid her hand onto mine. The hand was cold from her drink and warm from her at the same time.

  "I'm not frightened," she said.

  I leaned away from her and against the backrest of the couch. My hand followed quite casually and naturally, and I interlocked my lingers in my lap. Val turned sideways to me and brought her legs up into a figure-four on the couch. She spoke in a whisper.

  "From the way you're dressed and the things you've said, you expect to beat the bushes for Stephen somewhere. It'll be dark in another few hours. Do you really think that you'll find him at night?"

  I cleared my throat again. "No, you're probably right."

  She closed her hand over mine again. "I've got the chicken defrosted and some Sylvaner in the 'fridge. I can't promise you L'Espalier, but I can promise it will be nice." Another hard squeeze.

  Now was the time. Instead, I lied. "That sounds good."

  She leaned over, kissed me lightly on the cheek, and nestled her head into my shoulder. She also began stroking the back of my hand with the tips of her fingernails. She had long, pianist's fingers, and I noticed for the first time how long her nails were. I wondered how she could keep her nails so long, since she probably participated in vigorous school activities like recess. Then I remembered that school had been out for a while. Then I began to realize that I was thinking about her hands to avoid thinking about the lump in my throat. Now it was really time.

  "Valerie . . ."

  She arched her head back and up, her eyes half-open, her lips slightly parted.

  "Val, it's just no good." I sat forward, and she drew back, her face an open cut.

  "What . . . what do you . . . ?"

  "Look," I said, more testily than I had a right to, "it's just not right between us. It just isn't there."

  She began to look more mad than hurt. "What? What isn't there?" she demanded.

  I began gesturing with my hand, making my points and waving her off at the same time. "A feeling isn't there. You're a nice person. A good human being. And being with you here so far has made me feel more warm than I have for months, since even before Beth died, because the last week or so she wasn't warm, she was just getting slowly colder, slowly slipping away. But that warmth isn't enough—there has to be something first, some kindred spark."

  "So now," she snapped, "now you're going to say I don't 'spark' you? That you weren't excited to be near me?"

  "No, that's not it. That's what's drawing me, don't you see? You'
re real, and you want me to be with you and be a part of your life. And that, plus the physical attraction, is what's drawing me to you. But I don't want to make you a part of my life. I don't feel toward you the way I felt toward Beth."

  She threw her hands up and jumped to her feet. She crossed her arms and turned toward me and argued down to me.

  "You big jerk! I'm sorry, John, but that's what you are. I can understand that I'm the first woman you've let yourself feel anything about since your wife died, and I can see why that would make you feel, oh, awkward even, like I think you've been tonight. But my God, John, how can you expect to feel toward someone the same affinity you felt toward Beth so soon? I mean, you knew her for, what, ten years? That's the sort of thing that takes time to grow, for

  God's sake!" Her eyes were filling with tears.

  "But that's just it, Val. After Beth died, and in between binges with the booze, I read all sorts of articles, whole books even, on the need to rebuild, to start over in your life, block by block. The problem is, it's wrong. Those writers were wrong, and you're wrong. There really are special people in the world, people who are special to other people from the word go, and that's the way it was with Beth and me. She was the only woman I'd ever loved. She was the only one who knew me, who knew what I was thinking and could anticipate what I'd be doing. It was magic between us from the first time I met her."

  "Magic?" Val said unbelievingly. "Magic?"

  "Don't you see? I knew she was the one the instant I met her, and she did about me. Call it our Catholic upbringing or indoctrination if you like, but that was the attitude I had, and despite all the other Catholic attitudes I've fallen away from, it's still the one I have. And I'm right, Val. And the others, you, the writers and all, are wrong. At least about me."

  Although Val then knelt in front of me, I'm sure she wasn't mocking my references to religion. She put her hands on my knees and leaned her face toward, and almost into, mine.

  "John, that sort of thing does happen, but it happens when you're young, maybe when you're in high school or even college, before too many disappointments hit you and you wake up to the fact that life has imperfections in it. But you're ignoring reality if you tell me that unless it's love at first sight, a relationship can't work for you. That's just not the way it is, John."

  I kissed her forehead and closed my hands over hers.

  "I'm sorry, Val, but that's the way it is, at least for me. And if I kid myself any further about it, I really will be ignoring reality."

  She blinked away her tears and rose to her feet. Her face took on a determined look.

  "I feel sorry for you, John. I really do. Not because your wife died, but because you're letting you die after her." She turned away and picked up the drinks. She began walking to the kitchen. "I'm afraid I'm going to have to retract the dinner invitation," she said over her shoulder.

  I was already halfway to the front door.

  As I drove away from Valerie's, I felt cold and empty. I just drove, paying little attention (to my eventual regret) to anything around me. The problem was, Valerie was right about one thing: It was far too late in the day to begin looking for Stephen. I took a county road that wound roughly north. When it crossed Route 9, I headed west. I came pretty quickly to the Sheraton Tara, a large, mock-Tudor motor inn. It's about twenty miles from Boston where Route 9 and the Mass Pike intersect. I checked in, ate a monstrous steak in the restaurant, and then downed several too many screwdrivers while watching some suave suburbanites rock and disco till

  closing.

  TWENTY-SECOND

  -♦-

  "Oh, I'm sorry, sir."

  The maid was young and plain. She spoke with a heavy accent I couldn't catch. There was too much sunlight in the room.

  She closed the door behind her as she backed out. I was on top of the covers of one bed, my pants on top of the other. I was still wearing my socks and flannel shirt. And my .38 in the calf holster. The air conditioner hummed at the window, and as I sat up I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror over the low dresser-desk. Jack Lemmon in Days of Wine and Roses.

  My watch said 11:35. Great. Real professional to get soused and not even leave a wake-up call.

  I cleaned up, checked out, and was in my car heading west on the Pike by twelve-fifteen.

  The Lee exit was about seventy miles west. The traffic was moderate for a Sunday, which in Massachusetts means three car-lengths at sixty-five miles per hour, despite the fifty-five-mile-per-hour limit.

  The Berkshires sort of ease up on you, and they stay a little higher each mile westward as you drive into the valleys. I took the Lee exit and drove three miles north and two miles northeast to Granville.

  I drove through Granville Center once, then turned around and parked near the church. A typical, small New England town. Catacomer from the church and across the common was a sporting goods-hardware-housewares store with front windows piled high with a mixture of plastic, wood, and iron items, more wood and iron than plastic. The front door's misplaced wind chimes tinkled a rhythmless ditty as I opened it. A head bobbed up from behind the counter.

  "Aftahnoon."

  I nodded in reply to the young clerk. Two years out of high school, probably the son of the owner. I was still decked out in my red flannel shirt with patch pockets, a pair of old Levi's, and boots. My .38 was strapped under the pantleg of my left calf. It was still a little too hot for the shirt.

  "He'p ya?"

  "Hope so. I'm interested in an old cabin a friend of mine in Boston saw advertised in the Globe."

  He looked down a minute at the counter, lost in thought. It was glass top over old newspaper clippings of stringers of trout and deer hung for dressing, with the appropriate smiling sportsmen nearby.

  "Ah don't read the Globe, but ah can't say as ah recall any cabin prop'ty 'round bein' fer sale." Most western Mass people do not have a New England accent, but this boy was a distinct exception.

  I plunged on. "He said the ad mentioned an old ranger station."

  The boy blinked and started rustling under the counter. He came up with an old topo map with a lot of pencil and pen marks on it. He spread it so we could both look at it if we turned sideways. He pointed to Granville's name on the map.

  "We're heah." He moved his finger to a black box on a hilltop. "The station's theah." He next pointed to a perimeter road that went around the base of the hill. "Good road theah." A spur road went up the hill toward the station. He pointed to the spur road. "Loggin' road'll get ya closer. Fah-wheel drive?"

  I shook my head.

  "Wahl, then, leave your vehicle at the base of the hill heah. The last four-five hunnerd yards you'll need to climb. More like hikin', really."

  "Thanks," I said, and turned to go.

  "On'y thing is," he said behind me, "no cabins t'all up theah."

  "I'll check the ad, anyway."

  No cabins. Nice cover, Cuddy.

  I noticed him as I stepped into the sunshine. He was parked off to the side of the common in a different car than the one I'd seen before, probably a rental. He ducked his head into the magazine just a little too sharply when he saw me. My guess was, he had picked me up at Val's, possibly with Smollett's help. It would have been a cinch to tail me to the motel. Maybe he had even planted a transmitting bug in my car. No. No bug. More sophisticated than needed and probably beyond Blakey. I kept walking back to my car.

  I got in and started up. I couldn't really fault myself for not noticing him behind me on the Pike. But I damn well should have spotted him thereafter and before I led him to Granville. I decided to drive around awhile to assess my options.

  First, I could try to take him. I had my .38, but I had no justifiable reason to shoot him. I could fight him, but I'd never given away four inches and a hundred pounds before. Scratch Option One.

  Option Two was to head back to the Pike and into Boston. No good. Even Blakey's minuscule mind would deduce that I wouldn't drive seventy-plus miles into the trees for the scenery. H
e might trail me to and even onto the Pike, but sooner or later he'd head back and ask the store clerk what I'd been up to, which would put Blakey between Stephen and me. Scratch Option Two.

  Option Three was an extension of Option Two. I could drive to a decoy site, mess around for a while, then return in disappointment to my car and drive dejectedly back to Boston. The problem with Option Three was that as soon as he saw me heading back to Boston, he might still check in with the store clerk. Enter Option Four. I could try to lose Blakey without allowing him to realize that I was trying. If I lost him, he'd go to the clerk. If he realized that I was trying to lose him, he'd come after me. I was willing to bet that he had the biggest engine allowed in his car, and could catch my four-cylinder Monarch in depressingly short order. There would follow a very unpleasant variation of Option One.

  Option Five, the final one. I might be able to lead him close enough to the station without tipping him that I knew he was behind me. If I could keep the trail warm enough for him, I might (1) discourage his following me on foot and (2) delay his visit to the clerk. Option Five looked like the only choice. I drove toward the ranger station but swung onto the perimeter road at the base of the mountain. The perimeter road was dirt and some gravel, and I threw a high rooster-tail of dry dust as I bounced along at a bone-crunching twenty or so. Blakey would realize that although my dust would hide him, I might see his dust if he drove too close. Since my slowly falling dust was a perfect trail of crumbs for him to follow, I figured he'd back way off and stay there.

  I went by two long-abandoned camps and a house in ruins and executed a three-point turn so the car headed back the way it had come. I pulled it onto the shoulder and raised the hood. I then left my pack in the back seat with the windows open and lit out across the road and into the forest at the base of the mountain. I headed up as far as I could as fast as I could until I heard the sound of another car. Then I ducked down.

  I couldn't see the road, but I could hear Blakey throttle down and then continue up the road at a low speed. I heard him fading in the distance for maybe a half mile; then he came back. He stopped near the car and turned off his engine. He probably checked my car and, seeing my gear still in it, figured I wasn't intending to be gone for long. He'd know that I hadn't had car trouble because I was facing back out the way I'd come in, a difficult maneuver if your car isn't working. He'd also figure, I hoped, that I'd intended it to look like car trouble so that if anyone did pass by, they wouIdn't think a parked car was suspicious. I heard him reenter his car, start up, and move back down the road. I was willing to bet he'd angle in and hide it at the old house to wait for me to come down the road with Stephen. I then heard what sounded like a short spurt of reverse. Then his engine stopped long before it would have faded in the other direction. Good work, Option Five.