by Gerry Boyle
Clair eased out of bed and I did the same. He shoved the pillow into his sleeping bag and silently fluffed it up. I leaned over and piled my blankets. Then we padded to the side of the door. Clair was in front.
There was more scraping at the jamb, then a click. The door eased open and the jaws of a pair of bolt cutters appeared at the chain. The jaws closed and the chain separated. There was a soft jingle.
Then silence.
The door pushed open. A leg stepped out. A basketball shoe on it. A black basketball shoe. Black sweatpants. The barrel of a shotgun. Short.
Clair hit the door with his shoulder, came around with his right forearm, and lifted the intruder off the ground by the throat. It was a kid. There was an ooof, and the kid’s head hit the wall by the door and Clair had the gun out of his hands and tossed back on the bed.
I turned the door bolt. Someone said Shit! outside and there was a bang, like somebody’s shoulder slamming the door. Clair had the kid by the throat with both hands and then the kid’s right hand dropped to his sweatshirt pocket and I grabbed that arm just as the knife was coming out. Clair’s big right arm pulled back and then shot out like there was a giant spring in it. His fist drove into the kid’s mouth and nose, and the kid’s head hit the wall again and blood spurted from his face like juice from a splatted orange.
The knife fell from his limp hand and I grabbed it. The shoulder hit the door again and I yelled “Shoot through the door!” and somebody said “Shit!” again, and then there were footsteps and a car motor revving and tires scrabbling on pavement.
“Call 911,” Clair said, staring into the kid’s face.
I went to the phone, picked up the receiver. Put it back down.
“What’s the matter?” Clair said.
“I don’t know. Do we want to do that?”
“What?”
“Get involved with cops again. We’ll be stuck here all day.”
“What the hell else are we gonna do with him?”
“Bring him into town and dump him.”
“At forty miles an hour,” Clair said.
“And I want to talk to him.”
“Should have told me that a couple of minutes ago.”
“Glass jaw?”
“I guess. These kids are used to getting shot at, but they never get punched.”
“You hit him hard enough.”
“You want a knife stuck in your side up to your aorta, be my guest.”
“No, thanks. But maybe we should clean him up a little.”
“And then we better get out of here,” Clair said. “The other guys probably went to get the rest of the club.”
He was still holding the kid up against the wall. The kid’s eyes were vague, his head weaving on his shoulders, blood running out of his nose and mouth and off his chin like drips off an icicle.
“I’ll get a towel,” I said.
I went to the bathroom, ran a hand towel under cold water, and wrung it out. I came out and handed it to Clair and he clamped it over the kid’s face as if I’d soaked it in chloroform.
It came back red. He put it over the kid’s face again and pinched the kid’s nose. He took the towel off and then pinched again. And then he led the kid over to the bed. I picked up the shotgun and Clair sat him down.
The kid was young, maybe sixteen, my height, but thirty pounds lighter. He was dark and had even, almost handsome features and a wisp of a mustache. A tattoo on his hand was three letters, “TZT.” His eyes were beginning to focus.
“Can we help you?” I said, still holding the shotgun, the barrel pointed at the floor.
He looked at me and made ready to spit. Clair smacked him on the side of the face with his left hand, lightly, with his open palm. The kid’s head rolled and then snapped back. He stared at the space between us.
“Mind your manners,” Clair said.
“What do you want?” I said.
The kid stared.
I repeated the question.
He took a deep breath.
“You’re both dead,” he whispered.
“What do you want?” I said.
He stared.
“Get the knife,” Clair said.
“What?”
“Just get it.”
I’d left it in the bathroom, by the sink. I went and got it, handed it to Clair. It was a wicked-looking combat knife, with a six-inch blade and holes for four fingers in the grip.
Clair handled it like a commando.
He grabbed the kid’s left hand and jerked it toward him, shoving the blade between the kid’s middle fingers. The knife was in a position to pare them off.
“Ten seconds,” Clair said.
I looked at him.
“Nine, eight, seven . . .”
The kid’s eyes began to widen. His breathing came faster.
“What do you want?” I said.
“Six, five, four, three—”
“The money,” the kid blurted, his eyes on the knife.
Clair stopped counting.
“What money?”
“The money. The money for the buy.”
“Who told you we were here for a buy?”
“Somebody.”
“Who?” I said.
“Somebody. A friend of mine.”
“Who?”
“A guy.”
“A guy you know?”
He nodded, his eyes still locked on the knife.
“A guy from here?”
“Yeah.”
“A guy you’ve known a long time from here?”
He nodded again.
“How much?”
“Thirty thousand.”
“For coke?”
He nodded.
“Who told your buddy?”
“I don’t know,” the kid said.
“Should he start counting again?”
“Oh, no. I don’t know, man. I don’t know. They don’t tell me that.”
“What if he starts counting again?”
“I’ll have to make it up,” the kid said. “ ’Cause I don’t know.”
I looked at Clair.
“Let’s get out of here,” he said.
The kid sat on the bed while I pulled on my clothes and stuffed both of our duffels. Clair stood with the shotgun hanging at his side. When I was done, he handed me the gun.
“Be careful with that thing. It’s a piece of junk.”
“You mean this isn’t a sporting piece?” I said.
“For jacking drug dealers and storekeepers.”
“And other sitting ducks.”
“Which we’ll be if this kid’s frat brothers come back.”
He grabbed his jacket from the hook by the door and put it on. I handed him the shotgun and put my jacket on. The kid on the bed hadn’t flinched.
I opened the door a crack and looked. This end of the parking lot was empty except for Clair’s truck. I watched for another moment and then turned and grabbed both duffels. I went quickly to the side of the truck and tossed them in.
Clair came out with the kid in front of him. I opened the passenger door and got in. Clair opened the driver’s door and shoved the kid up and in. The gun was at his side. He climbed in after the kid and shoved the kid’s head forward so his forehead pressed against the dash. Then he handed me the gun. I held it on my right side, pointed forward.
The motor started with a throaty rumble and Clair backed up and then forward, and we bounced out of the parking lot and headed south for the interstate.
“We’ll circle around,” he said.
We got on the highway and headed east. Two exits up, we got off again and doubled back toward Valley. The kid looked straight ahead and didn’t say a word.
When we got close to the city, Clair slowed and pulled into a strip mall. It wasn’t much of a strip: a convenience store, a pizza shop, and a hair salon. The pizza shop was closed, so we pulled up there, then turned so the front of the truck was pointing out. We waited for a lull in the traffic and then Clair shov
ed the kid’s head forward again. I handed him the shotgun, which he kept on the seat, pointing toward the kid. Then I opened the door and got out.
“Your only way out of this is to get some education,” Clair told the kid. “Go back to school. Move away. It’s your only chance. Get out.”
Wordlessly, the kid slid across the seat and out onto the pavement. There was crusted blood under his nose, and both of his lips had ballooned. Worse than that, he’d lost considerable face.
The kid started walking, across the parking lot toward the city. I jumped back in the truck and Clair started off, away from the city. Five hundred yards down the road, he pulled into a vacant lot and, with the motor idling, picked up the gun and broke the barrel open and dropped out the shell.
“Junk, huh?” I said.
“Doesn’t even deserve to be called a gun,” Clair said.
We started off again, and a few hundred yards farther, Clair pulled over and eased up to a mailbox with one of those drive-through snouts. I grabbed a dirty pad from the glove box, pulled off a page, and wrote, “Deliver to Valley P.D. Gang weapon. TZT.”
Clair took out his handkerchief and wiped the gun down, then the knife. Then he pulled the mailbox door open and dropped both of them in. They made a muffled thump.
“Special delivery,” I said.
We drove away from the city, back to the interstate. One ramp said west, and one said east. West was Valley. East was home.
“Which way?” Clair said.
“I think we’ve worn out our welcome.”
“Or used up our luck.”
“Go east, young man,” I said.
He did.
We’d driven five miles before either of us spoke. I broke the silence.
“You wouldn’t have hurt that kid, would you?”
“When he was holding that shotgun, I would have killed him dead.”
“But the thing with the fingers?”
“A bluff,” Clair said.
“You scared the hell out of him.”
“No easy task.”
“You looked like you’d done that before.”
“Yeah. Well, they called them insurgents back then.”
I looked at him.
“I don’t think I could do that. Even just bluffing.”
“When a man’s sole purpose in life is to kill you, you can do a lot of things,” Clair said.
I thought for a moment.
“You know,” Clair said, “you could probably save that kid. Take him away from that place. Deprogram him.”
“You don’t think it’s too late?”
“No. Did you see his eyes? There was something left in there. I’d say he has six months. A year.”
“If they don’t dust him for screwing up.”
“Goes without saying,” Clair said.
We drove in silence for five more miles. My back was damp with cooled perspiration. I looked out at the gray, nondescript sky and woods and highway. Clair turned on the radio. It blared news of traffic jams and other sporting events.
“We forgot our garbage bags,” he said.
“I forgot my toothbrush.”
“So what do you think that was all about?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “Maybe if two guys from Maine come down and start rummaging around Valley, it can only be for one reason.”
“And it isn’t to look for some lost soul.”
“Probably we’re an anomaly.”
“I hate that word,” Clair said. “It’s hard to say. Like anemone.”
“You get the feeling we made an anemone or two?”
“Well, we didn’t make many friends, did we?” he said.
“But somebody got the idea we were carrying thirty grand.”
“Pretty specific.”
“Maybe they just told the kid that so he wouldn’t chicken out,” I said.
“I doubt it. They go in looking for something. We offer ’em forty bucks and change and it’s our fingers under the knife.”
“Maybe they were looking for two other guys from Maine, driving a big Ford four-wheel-drive.”
“Good-looking guys, you mean.”
“Right. Or maybe we just don’t know what’s going on. Maybe we were in over our heads down there.”
“When you don’t truly understand your enemy, you’re always at a disadvantage,” Clair said.
“Thank you, Mr. Military History.”
“It’s true.”
“I know,” I said. “But I figured—”
Clair held up his hand, then reached for the radio and turned it up. A radio voice intoned:
“The investigation is being handled by the Valley Police Department and Massachusetts State Police. A police spokesman said the body was discovered early this morning, in the burned remains of a car. The fire was reported at three-eleven a.m. in a deserted area behind the former E. E. Wooling Mill in Valley. Firefighters extinguished the blaze and discovered the man’s body in the backseat.
“The body was reportedly burned beyond recognition and has been taken to the state coroner’s lab for identification and determination of cause of death. Police said the car was a white Subaru station wagon with Maine license plates. It was not known if the death was drug-related. And that’s it for News Central Ninety-eight. Tune in at nine-oh-eight this morning . . .”
“They killed him,” I said. “I can’t believe it.”
21
Valley wasn’t a model city, but some things it did very well. Cleaning up dead bodies was one of them.
By the time we found the Wooling mill, the body was gone. So was the car. So were any interested bystanders, assuming there had been any.
The scene was behind the mill, a monolithic building with gaping windows. The car had burned on a rocky slope that ran down to a canal, where water trickled through black muck littered with rusting iron shapes that leaned here and there like the remains of a sea battle. An industrial Truk Lagoon.
A Valley police cruiser sat idling at the top of the slope. The spot where the Subaru had been was looped with crime-scene tape. In the center of the loop was a chunk of melted tire and gashes in the gravel, probably from when the car had been yanked onto a ramp truck.
We parked behind the cruiser and got out. The cop buzzed his window down. He was bald with glasses. When we got closer, I could see a book on his lap, his hand on his gun.
“Can I help you?” the cop said.
“This where they found the body?” I said.
“Yup.”
“White Subaru wagon with Maine plates?”
“It was. Isn’t anymore.”
“I think I know who was in it,” I said.
The cop looked at me.
“Who are you?”
“Jack McMorrow.”
“The guy from Maine?”
“Yup.”
He reached for the microphone on his shoulder.
“Stay put,” he said.
The detectives pulled up within ten minutes. There were two of them, and one was Detective Martucci, whom I’d spoken with on the phone. This time she didn’t have a call on the other line.
Clair went with the other detective, a small gray-haired guy. They went and stood at the rear of the unmarked car. I saw Clair reach into his wallet for his ID.
I stood by the hood of the cruiser with the patrol cop and Martucci. She was tall and thin and was wearing jeans and a tweed blazer. At first glance she looked like a fortyish mom, but up close there was a hardness in her gaze, a feeling that she was driven to do her job. She looked at my ID and didn’t give it back.
“Okay, McMorrow,” Martucci said. “Sorry about the brush-off before, but this place is crazy, you know? Start at the beginning. Tell me what the hell you’re doing down here.”
I did, right from the beginning. Martucci took notes on a tiny pad. The fair. Florence. Bobby’s marijuana plots. The legalization movement. Melanie in the restaurant. The people in Lewiston. What Paco said in the church.
“S
o he squawked and they whacked him?” Martucci said.
“I don’t know. What do you think?”
“I think maybe your buddy—”
“He isn’t my buddy. Wasn’t, I mean.”
“Whatever. Your source may have been up in the woods too long. Maybe he didn’t know that they play a little rougher down here than they did ten years ago.”
“I’ve seen that.”
“How so?”
I told her about the kid in the motel. I told her about the gun in the mailbox. I didn’t tell her about the knife and the fingers.
“That’s pretty stupid and you’re pretty lucky. How’d your buddy get to be so tough?”
“He’s an ex-Marine, and he’s from Maine,” I said. “The kid never knew what hit him.”
“You can ID him?”
“You can’t miss him. He’s the one with the smushed face.”
“We could charge you for putting that gun in the mailbox. Why didn’t you call?”
I shrugged.
“I guess we just wanted to get out of here.”
“Just turn the kid loose?”
“What would you have done with him?”
“Charged him with attempted armed robbery.”
“And then turned him loose,” I said.
She ignored that one.
“Why’d they think you were here to make a buy?”
“I don’t know. A pretty big one, too.”
“Thirty thousand isn’t big around here,” Martucci said. “It’s on the small side of medium.”
“So they took us for a couple of nickel-and-dimers?”
“Easy marks, maybe. Home invasion at a motel. Couple of hicks. Easy money.”
“Which doesn’t tell us what happened to Bobby Mullaney,” I said.
“I don’t have a Bobby Mullaney yet,” Martucci said. “I got a burnt body in the back of Mullaney’s car.”
We followed Martucci and the other detective to the police station. When we got there, we were put in separate rooms with pads of paper that said “Official Statement” at the top. We were told to write what we’d told the detectives. Clair finished first and was waiting in the hall when I came out. We were standing there with our statements when Martucci came out of a door across the hall.
