“Easy the fuck for you to say,” Cameron replied. “All these years you’ve skated along, while I’m the one with the record.”
Duncan put the Chevy in park, noted Cameron shifting his position, as his right hand lowered to his belt. “Stop moving around so much, Cam. You’re giving the cop back there an excuse to get suspicious. Why do that?”
Cameron said, “Suspicious? We’ve got enough firepower back here to take on half the police forces in the state. You don’t think that’s a problem? I’ll tell you what happened, bro, is that little fuck Gus Spooner dimed us out the moment he got some Oxycontin into him and got his hand bandaged up. You remember that joke you said about his dad leaving us off his Christmas card list. Does that sound funny now?”
“Look at your mirror,” Duncan said. “Is the cop back there a local or a statie?”
Cameron said, “All I see is headlights, blue lights, and trouble. I see lots of trouble.”
Duncan looked to his side view mirror, saw the cruiser door open up, a figure come out. “Cameron, there’s not going to be a shoot-out, understand? You know how it works: traffic stop is made, call is made to Dispatch to do a records check. So if you start blasting and I drive us the hell out of here, the word on us will be out in minutes.”
“So the fuck what,” Cameron said, his Glock semiautomatic pistol in his hand, his hand now lowering to his side. “Those minutes, I’ll be free and clear, won’t I.”
“Leaving me high and dry?”
“Be a change for you, wouldn’t it,” Cameron said.
He was going to say something sharp in reply but the interior of his Chevy truck cab was lit up from a flashlight. “Evening, folks,” a woman’s voice came out. “Would like to see your driver’s license and registration, please.”
“Absolutely,” Duncan said. “My license is in my wallet, my registration is in the glove box. I’m getting them both now.”
He leaned across, hoping his jacket didn’t ride up enough to reveal his own firepower strapped to his side, and he popped open the glove box. Luckily he was anal when it came to keeping records like this at close hand: the registration was right on top, in a clear plastic sleeve, and wasn’t buried under a pile of napkins, store coupons, and ketchup containers.
Duncan hunched up, removed his wallet, took out his license. Both were passed over to the cop. Cameron sat still, staring straight ahead.
The flashlight came down, the license and registration were both examined, and then returned. “So you’re Duncan Crowley, of Turner. Correct?”
“That’s right, ma’am.”
“Understand you own a number of businesses in this county.”
Duncan said, “That’s also right, ma’am.”
The flashlight was lowered and the woman cop said, “Thought as much. I’m Melanie Pope, the new chief in Crowdin. I was heading home after dropping off some late paperwork at the district court. This is unusual and all, pulling you over as part of a traffic stop, but I was wondering if I could ask you something.”
“Ask away,” Duncan said.
“Thing is, as the new chief in town, I want to make a good impression. We have Old Home Week coming up in three months, and I’m supposed to meet with the celebration committee in two days. Any chance I could ask you and your company to make a charitable donation?”
Duncan tried not to burst out laughing. “Just so I’m clear, you made a traffic stop to ask me that question?”
“That’s right,” she said, not embarrassed at all. “I suppose I could have called or sent a letter, but I like the direct approach.”
Cameron still stared straight ahead. Duncan said, “Tell you what, call my wife Karen tomorrow. She runs a hair salon in Turner, called Karen’s Cut and Curl. You tell her that you talked to me, she’ll look at the books, and figure out what we can donate. That sound fair to you, Chief?”
“More than fair,” she said. “I’ll leave you two be, then, and see you later.”
But before she stepped away, she flashed her light back into the truck’s cab. “Who’s your passenger tonight, Mr. Crowley?”
“My brother,” he said.
“Not very talkative, is he,” she said, keeping the flashlight trained on Cam’s angry bearded face, with pockmarks and old scars. Duncan was afraid of what was going to happen to Cam: he had seen that same look before, back over the years, at the Flight Deck Bar & Grill, or at the motorcycle rallies in Laconia, or any other place, when Cameron felt like he had been pushed into a corner and was about to explode.
Duncan quickly said, “You’re absolutely right, he’s not very talkative at all. You see, my brother sometimes isn’t all there. He’s slow, forgetful, and quick to get angry. Some doctors say he’s slightly retarded. But we’ve learned over the years how to take care of him. We find a nice quiet drive out in the country before bedtime usually means a good night’s sleep, without him wetting the bed.”
“Oh,” the chief said. “Sorry to bother you then. Good night.”
“A good night to you as well,” Duncan said, and after putting the registration back into the glove box, he sat still, waited until the Crowdin police chief safely got back to her cruiser, she not knowing just how close she had come to the finality of death tonight. All it would have taken would have been a quick glance behind the seat to see the miniature armory and protective clothing. A few sharp questions on her part and he doubted he could have held Cameron back from blasting away at her.
The cruiser pulled away and Duncan flexed his fingers on the steering wheel. That had been so damn close, so very damn close …
“You know this new chief?” Cameron asked.
Duncan carefully said, “Not really. What do you know?”
“Some hard charger, supposedly ex-military cop. Decided to move up north, get away from it all.”
“Good for her.”
“Still … retarded?” Cameron demanded. “Is that what you called me, retarded?”
Duncan started up the Chevy, went out onto the road. “It worked, didn’t it? Don’t you think you’d rather be called retarded, instead of getting into a bloody shoot-out with a cop?”
Cameron raised up his Glock, put it on his lap. “Don’t be so fucking sure,” he said.
Duncan stayed quiet. After about a mile, Cameron said, “Hey, weren’t you going to say something back there, before we got pulled over?”
“Forget it,” Duncan said.
seventeen
So now they were in New Hampshire, and Louis Fontaine was getting more and more pissed with Jean-Paul Mailloux, who had been driving ever since they had left the Slinky Pussy Gentlemen’s Club. They had stopped for gas, take-out food, and piss breaks, and not once had Jean-Paul given up the driving. Louis needed something to take his attention away from the little shit’s humming along with the radio, or the way he picked his teeth and nose, or the way he drifted from lane to lane like he was falling asleep.
At least they had gotten through Customs in Vermont with no problem—even with the Chinese semiautomatics hidden away in the rear of the van—and along the way, Louis learned why Jean-Paul was in the Iron Steeds. It seemed the punk’s aunt was Brenda Aube, the go-to gal for Francois Ouellette’s dancers at the club.
Somewhere in the darkness of an empty stretch of road, Louis said, “So Brenda, she’s really your aunt?”
Jean-Paul laughed. “Yeah, she is, if you can believe it. She’s one wild and twisted gal. Wouldn’t believe the stories I could tell you.”
Louis grunted and Jean-Paul said, “When I was younger, my mom, she was in the hospital for a hip replacement, and I had to stay with Brenda for a few days. Mom didn’t want me raising hell at home, so I was with Aunt Brenda and she caught me one night, smoking her cigarettes. Really pissed her off. Wanna guess how she punished me?”
Louis put his elbow on the doorframe, rested his head on his ha
nd. “No, not really.”
“She dragged me to the Slinky Pussy one morning. You know, the joint’s only closed from eight a.m. to ten a.m., so that’s when she brought me. Francois, he’d have the place running 24/7, but they need at least a couple of hours every day to give it a cleaning. Wash the dishes, mop the floors, and clean the leather couches in the private dancing rooms out back. Don’t need to tell you what gets spilled back there, eh?”
Louis closed his eyes, wished this night, this trip, this everything was over. It was rugged enough to volunteer for a zap trip like this, but to be assigned with this clown … He kept his mouth shut, hoping Jean-Paul would take the hint, but the idiot didn’t.
“So there I was, and Aunt Brenda, she thought she’d punish me by putting me back in the dressing rooms, gather up all the soiled clothes from the dancers for the laundry pick up. Can you believe that? Horny teenage boy, dumped in the dressing room? Man, I got the laundry bagged up but when I was through, sweet Jesus, my crotch was so sore from—”
“Jean-Paul, for Christ’s sake, just shut up, okay?”
“Hey, it’s just a story, and—”
Louis turned to him. “Look. We’ve got serious business ahead in an hour or so. So let’s stay focused, all right? No more stories about your aunt or strippers’ panties. Let’s talk about what we do once we get to Turner.”
The headlights of the van cut through the darkness and the narrow, twisting night road. They went through a marshy area, and about twenty meters off to the right, two moose were plodding through the mud.
Jean-Paul sounded cross. “All right. What do we do when we get to Turner?”
“You’ve been driving and yapping ever since we left Laval. You tell me what you think, then.”
He shrugged. “I dunno. We find him at that restaurant, or his house, drag him into a dark corner, work him over, get the info we need … zap ’em. If we get his wife and kids … zap ’em after playtime. If you don’t want to play, fine, give me time and—”
“Oh, for Christ’s sake, bundling those strippers’ clothes must have melted your mind. We have to be sure before we go in. Do some recon. Make sure he’s either at the restaurant or at home, maybe we grab his wife or kids beforehand. Shit, we have to have sort of goddamn plan, now, don’t we?”
Jean-Paul said, “You’ve done this before?”
“I’ve gone plenty of other things. You?”
“Shit, man, you’re thinking too much. This’ll be slick as shit, just you see.”
“Never been accused of thinking too much. Jesus,” Louis said. “Look, here’s something to think about, okay?”
The van drifted across a single yellow line, and Jean-Paul cursed and tugged the steering wheel back. Louis said, “Couple of years back, me and a guy named Phillie Tours, we went over to Buffalo to pick up a cousin of his who had a couple of run-ins with the Buffalo cops. His cousin Bobby was a dopey shit, but he had a chance to come back up north with us and keep his nose relatively clean. So that was the job. Straight pick-up. Kid was expecting us, best we figured, he even had his bag packed. Problem was, we were supposed to get him at 63 Clinton Street, and instead, goddamn Internet direction program sent us to fucking 63 Clinton Avenue, on the other fucking side of town.”
Jean-Paul said, “Sorry to say, Louis, you’re boring the shit out
of me.”
“Oh, it gets better, so keep your yap shut and ears open, okay? So it’s late at night, me and Phillie, we were picking up his cousin, so we had our colors on. No big deal, hunh? So we go up to the house, we knock on the door and expect cousin Bobby to come out, all happy and shit, and what happens? Later we find out it’s a goddamn house full of Colombians, they think we’re there to rob them and shit. Instead of the door opening up, one of the Colombians, he goes to the picture window and lets loose with a fucking shotgun with double-ought buckshot. Damn near takes off Phillie’s arm, sprinkles me with a couple of pellets, and we go down on the porch. Shit, we don’t know what the fuck is happening, so we grab our own pieces, return fire, pumping rounds into the front windows. So there’s a goddamn firefight breaking out, we don’t know who’s shooting and don’t particularly care, and then something inside the house catches fire.”
Louis took a breath. “We tumble our asses off the porch, reload, and we take up position behind a stone wall. By now I’m pissed and bleeding, Phillie’s convinced somebody’s whacked his cousin, and he’s practically spurting blood into my goddamn face, so we’re not in the mood to show any goddamn mercy. The house is real lit up, flames coming out of the windows, and Colombians are bailing out of the front door, and me and Phillie, we’re wasting the little fuckers as they come out. A couple of ’em stay behind, try to put up a fight, but by then, the flames are licking at their brown asses, and they come out too, and we nail ’em. So the whole front lawn’s full of shot or burning Colombians, and me and Phillie decide it’s time to get the fuck out, screw cousin Bobby, but then, it gets seriously weird.”
Jean-Paul said, “Hate to admit it, but I’m not bored any more.”
“Won’t be long,” Louis said. “So we get up and try to get to our van, and we can’t move. The whole fucking neighborhood is out there, and me and Phillie, that’s it, we think we’re dead. Looks like we’re the only white guys in the whole fucking block and all these people are out there, watching the house burn, seeing us bleeding and with pistols in our hand, and maybe we got three or four rounds left between us. Like Custer’s Last goddamn Stand, we know we’re dead. And then … a fucking party starts up!”
Jean-Paul glanced at him. “A what?”
“A goddamn party! There’s booze and cigars and pot, and one Chink guy, he’s a registered nurse or something, he bandages us both up, and between getting drinks put into our hands and hot Asian chicks rubbing up against us, we find out the Colombians have been the shitheads of the neighborhood. Raising hell, loud noises, dumping trash in other people’s yards, threatening to kill anyone who’s pissing them off. Complaints to whatever’s left of the Buffalo police doesn’t help, so they see us come along, see us open fire and waste the little fucks, the neighborhood thinks we’re goddamn heroes! Like the cavalry, riding to the rescue, but not Custer’s cavalry, no, we’re the ones that got the job done. Shit, it took us forever to get out of there, but we had to, because eventually the Fire Department showed up and once they saw all those fucked-over Colombians, the police came, too. So we hauled ass.”
“I guess,” Jean-Paul said. “Did you finally pick up the cousin?”
In spite of the long drive and the general stupidity of his companion, Louis laughed. “Yeah, we did. We were a couple of hours late, we went to the right fucking address, knock on the door. Cousin Bobby, he answers the door, first thing he says is, ‘Why the hell are you so goddamn late?’ I broke his fucking nose, I did.”
Jean-Paul said, “You broke it? Not Phillie?”
Louis shook his head. “Nah, his arm hurt too much, so he had me do it. There you go. So Jean-Paul, that was the job. About as slick as shit as you can make it, and it got screwed up so bad, it was unbelievable. We were lucky we didn’t end up dead in the street. So when we’re heading like this, into strange turf, to find a guy who probably whacked Pierre and Andre, and we’re supposed to go to him, guns up, get info from him, and then zap him? Shit, I don’t care what you think, Jean-Paul. It ain’t slick as shit, it just ain’t. So don’t make believe it is.”
Jean-Paul finally shut up, and Louis just looked out the windshield.
There was so much darkness ahead of them, past these woods.
eighteen
When he got home, Duncan Crowley gave his wife a kiss and a firm pat on the butt, and went to say good-night to their kids. He went to the left down the hallway, knocked softly on Amy’s door, and walked in. The room was cluttered with toys, dolls, pillows, and a couple of low bookshelves, and there was a sudden movement from undern
eath the blankets. He tried not to smile. He went up to the blankets and gently removed them, found his eight-year-old girl looking up at him, long blond hair on the pillow, a kid’s book in one hand, a pink Barbie doll official flashlight in the other.
“Amy, you know the rules,” he said, taking the flashlight and book away. “No more reading after nine p.m.”
She smiled, knowing it was the way to get into her daddy’s heart. “I know, but I just wanted to do one more chapter, and then one more chapter, and then … well, I didn’t know what time it was.”
He put the book and flashlight on her nightstand, kissed the top of her head. “Rules are rules. You know that.”
Amy snuggled under the blankets. “Are you gonna tell mom?”
“Are you going to remember the nine p.m. rule?”
Another heart-breaking smile from his eight-year-old. He was instantly and insanely jealous of that unknown young boy out there who was going to eventually take her away from him and Karen. “Yes, Daddy, I’ll remember.”
He kissed her cheek this time. “Good girl. Sleep well, okay?”
“Night, daddy.”
Back to the hallway, another soft knock. He went in and their ten-year-old son was in bed, watching a game between the Red Sox and the Seattle Mariners. The volume on the television set was low and Lewis said, “Hey, Dad. Sox are up, three to one.”
“Glad to hear it,” he said.
His boy was no longer of the age when he allowed kisses or hugs from his father, so Duncan made do with a hard rub of the top of his head. Unlike his sister, Lewis’s hair was a dark brown, like his own. He was in bed, sitting up, a copy of Sports Illustrated on the blanket next to him. If his sister’s room was Hannah Montana and Justin Beiber, Lewis’s bedroom was Big Papi and Jon Lester.
There was a small desk next to the bed with a matching chair, and Duncan took the chair, reversed it, and sat down as he watched the inning close out with his son. When the side was retired, he got up and checked the time. “Television’s off at ten,” Duncan said. “Got it?”
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