And who does he blame? Not the woman who cut him. He blames Vernon Lockwood, is who he blames, for taking off and leaving him there. Well, two things about that. First, Briggs should have been on time. Second, only a dope would have hung around after knowing how much heat must have showed up in that town, what with everyone they knew disappearing. You get out until you know what you’re up against.
This was all Whistler’s fault. It was all Whistler’s doing. But does Whistler get the bill? No, he goes off playing sailor. He’s off with that girl who should have been dead like he doesn’t have a care in the world.
And now look at Aubrey. Still can’t walk without crutches. The word is he’s minus a set of balls too, not that Aubrey ever used the ones he had. The worst of it is, he gave Whistler a pass. He folded because Whistler has his ledger, but so what? All that money listed in it had already been laundered. All that real estate they seized, all that other stuff they took, is so spread around over so many people that they’ll never be able to track it all down. And all Aubrey has to do is cook some new books and say that the other one was a fake.
Aubrey doesn’t know who cut him. Neither does Briggs. Briggs says by the time he felt the first cuts he already had blood in his eyes. Aubrey won’t talk about what happened with him, but Lockwood had heard from other sources. The story is that Aubrey was taking a crap in a hotel room down in Richmond. He’s sitting on the bowl, his pants down at his ankles, when this woman shows up out of nowhere. He says he couldn’t see who because he’s reading reports. Anyway, this woman grabs his pants, yanks them up, flips Aubrey ass-over so his head’s in the toilet. She carves him up like a roast.
Lockwood knew who it was. It was the mother, who else? It was the mother of the girl who got shot. Aubrey, however, says that isn’t right. They showed him pictures of the mother. He says that’s not her. Not that he ever got that good a look because his face was in the shit he just took. And not that it makes any difference who’s right. When a thing like that happens, you make somebody pay. Pick someone who’s handy. Like the mother. She deserves it. From the day those two women threw them out of their house, he knew they were in this with Whistler.
Briggs says no, not the mother. He says leave her alone. He says she was there when they were stitching up his face. He says she was decent to him. She held his hand. See that? The guy’s perspective is shot.
Next it’s Aubrey and Poole who say leave it alone. Aubrey says this is an order. Aubrey and Poole want to let Whistler go. They not only let the guy get out of this clean, they let him take off with that girl who got shot and let him live the life of Riley on some boat these two gave him. They also gave him cash, must be two or three million. A good chunk of that came from Lockwood’s pocket. Aubrey made Briggs kick in almost as much, but it was probably Aubrey who took the biggest hit. Or his relatives did. He cleaned most of them out. Poole started to say something about “Rendering unto Caesar” until Aubrey told him to shut the fuck up. That was something, at least. At least Aubrey was mad.
Three times now, Lockwood had gone in to Aubrey with ideas on how to get even with Whistler. Okay, thought Lockwood, the money’s gone, but there’s a principle here. You let someone burn you and walk away clean, you got no credibility left. You have to let it be known that they did not walk away. You fix it so Whistler’s never heard from again. He went off on a boat? Make him look lost at sea. It happens, right? Boats go down all the time. How can anyone blame us for that?
Aubrey doesn’t want to hear it. He says forget it. He says let’s just get back to work. The truth is, he’s…whats the word?…he’s traumatized right now. That woman who cut him cut deeper than she knew. He’s scared she’ll come back and he’s scared of Whistler’s father. But if you know she had to work for either Whistler or his father, if you make them go away, she’s no longer in the picture. That makes sense, right? She’s got to find some other work. The trick is, therefore, to get Whistler and his father, same day, both at once, and it’s over. We either coordinate, same day, different places, or we wait until they visit for a birthday or something. What we don’t do is sit with our thumbs up our asses, letting that bunch think they beat us.
Aubrey agrees. He won’t say so, thought Lockwood, but he does. He could see how Aubrey was biting his lip and wanting, really badly, to get even with Whistler. All he’d say was, “You are to take no action. No action whatever. Am I clear?”
“You mean until we know we can’t miss.”
“There is no ‘until.’ There is no ‘unless.’ Must I write this on the back of your hand?”
“So, you’re telling me…what? You got something else going?”
“Get out of my office, Mr. Lockwood.”
This was very frustrating. It could have been over.
Lockwood could have had Whistler if they hadn’t pulled him off. He and one of his guys had staked out Whistler’s apartment. They were waiting on his roof. Rain or shine, they didn’t care. Whistler would have shown sooner or later. But then Mr. Poole made this deal with Whistler’s father. It’s a stand-off. It’s over. They could make up their losses in a few months, tops, as long as Whistler’s father keeps his end of the deal and doesn’t go public with this thing.
This was wrong. It was dumb. No one keeps a deal like this. Someone hurts you this bad, you go for payback, big time. You watch for your chance and you finish it.
Twice now, since then, he’d almost got Whistler. He’d almost got Whistler and the girl in one shot. He’d gone after them on his own. A runner who owes him spotted their boat. It was on its way out of Belize. He told his guy, “Let them get out to sea. Then I want you to take them; send that boat to the bottom. If you can, board them first and take them alive. Have whatever fun you want with the girl and make Whistler watch while you’re doing her. Let them know before you kill them that this is from me. This is payback from me and from Briggs.”
His guy almost had them, but he had to back off. He got close to their boat, said he needed some ice, but the girl must have not liked their looks. She gave them some ice, but she kept a gun on them. It was one of those shotguns with a twenty round drum and she looked like she knew how to use it.
Same guy, same runner, sees her again. This time, a month later, it’s on Grand Cayman Island. She’s walking down the street and Whistler is with her. They’re walking along holding hands. His guy was there for a court appearance on a charge that the magistrate ended up dismissing after they’d talked a little business. Whistler and the girl turn a corner, disappear. There were restaurants there; he knows they must have gone in one. He looks in some windows and he spots them, he thinks. He goes in this one restaurant to make sure it’s them, but then he gets spooked by the girl again.
He says he gets a feeling that she recognized him from last time down off Belize. He says he knows it’s crazy because, that time off Belize, she never got a look at his face. Off Belize he was watching her through a pair of binoculars from maybe four boat lengths away. On top of that, he’s now wearing a suit because of this court appearance he had. He says there’s no way that she could have made him, but it’s like she sensed it, he says. She looks like she’s ready to stick him with a fork. He kept going past their table, took a leak, then went back out. He wasn’t going to try to take them alone, so he went back to his boat to round up some crew. By the time they get back, Whistler’s gone.
After that, Lockwood told this guy to forget it. By now, this guy’s gone so mental on the girl that it’s better to use someone else.
The mother, all this time, is sending faxes and e-mails and is talking to them on the phone. Lockwood had monitors logging these calls, but they only got fragments of what they were saying. A couple of times they were talking in German. Since when do these women know German? And since when, for that matter, does the daughter know guns? Since when did she learn to smell trouble? The answer has to be that she’s learning this from Whistler, but what is he training her to do? Be like him? They’ve got to be planning some kind of move and the mother
has got to be part of it. The mother disappears for weeks at a time. She makes it look like she’s headed for Europe, but she’s probably flying a round-about route and meeting up with them on some island.
The good news, thought Lockwood, is that now he’ll know where Whistler is at all times. Another guy he uses flew down to Martinique after Lockwood had traced some of their calls there. This was Kaplan, the guy who was with him on the roof. Kaplan’s not just a shooter. He does electronics. He was looking for a way to stash a tracking transmitter someplace on the boat Whistler lives on. But Whistler had this boat at a private marina that had security guards day and night. Kaplan had a hard time getting near it.
But one day he sees Whistler watching some kid who goes down and cleans the crap off boat bottoms. Whistler talks to the kid. He wants to hire the kid. The kid gets seventy-five bucks for the job. Kaplan asked the kid how he’d like to make two hundred. He flashes ID, says he’s DEA, tells him Whistler’s a suspected drug runner. He shows the kid this little transmitter that looks like a dominos tile. He gives him some stuff, Crazy Glue or some shit, and tells him to stick it under the rail at a place where it wouldn’t be noticed.
And what almost happened? Same thing as before. The girl comes on deck while he’s working below. She’s walking along the deck, looking down. This kid can see her up through the water. He thinks she’s onto him; he almost gives it up. But a bird plops down and distracts her long enough so he can slap the thing under the rail. Even then, he’s sure that she knows what he did because of the way she’s still looking at him. She also has a phone to her ear. She looks like she’s reporting the kid.
But it ends up okay. They never found the transmitter. It showed where they were every day after that. They couldn’t move that boat without him knowing it.
Lockwood didn’t tell Aubrey about the first two. When Aubrey said, “You’re to take no action,” Lockwood decided that what Aubrey really meant was that he didn’t want to know. Lockwood would have waited until he was sure they were dead and maybe the mother along with them. He did tell Aubrey about the transmitter, however. He wanted to see the look on Aubrey’s face when he told him that he’d pulled it off.
He went into Aubrey’s office. He said, “Ask me where he is. Ask me where Whistler is right this minute.”
Aubrey didn’t look up, but he turned a little red. “I have no further interest in that subject.”
“He’s in Antigua. Two weeks now he’s been there.”
Aubrey sat back. “You’ve been tracking him? Why?”
“Because somebody should. I got a stake in this, too. And I’ll tell you what else. He’s using his name. It’s the first time he’s used his real name.”
“Which means?”
“I don’t know. It’s just different. Wait a minute. Here’s why. He’s saying,
‘Fuck you, Mr. Aubrey.’”
Again, that faggy little curl of his lip. “I would think, Mr. Lockwood, if that were his intention, he would find a more direct way to say it.”
“Okay, then you. What do you have to say?”
“On what subject, Mr. Lockwood?”
“On maybe how I did a good job here, for starters. On maybe how that girl, who you thought was just his squeeze, is turning into someone we should worry about.”
Again, with the lip. Aubrey asked, “Meaning what?”
“Forget it. You don’t care? Then forget it.”
Aubrey hissed. “Mr. Lockwood, tell me what you have done.”
“It’s…just I that know more about them than you think.” He wasn’t going to mention the two hits he missed. If that lip curled again, he’d want to smack it. He said, “But, hey, let’s forgive and forget. So what if they made you spend four months in a wheelchair. They’re enjoying themselves. The girl’s learning a trade. Let’s let bygones be bygones. Be happy.”
Lockwood turned to leave his office.
“Mr. Lockwood? One moment.”
Lockwood stopped. He waited.
“You say you’ll know at all times where that boat is?”
“Within thirty feet. Rain or fog, it won’t matter.”
“Then perhaps you’ve done well. I will give this some thought.”
“Then we move, okay? You’ll get the green light from Poole?”
“Never mind Mr. Poole. You just keep me informed. But you’re to do nothing. Don’t think for yourself. You saw where that got us the last time.”
Lockwood darkened. “You’re going to keep harping on that?”
Aubrey motioned toward the crutch that he still needed sometimes. “I’m reminded of the cost every day, Mr. Lockwood.”
“Well, I told you before. If Poole hadn’t pulled me off…”
“Mr. Lockwood…they knew that you were waiting on that roof. I am told that it gave them a chuckle or two. I will say it again. Do not think for yourself. Just report on Whistler’s movements. Nothing more.”
THIRTEEN
They did sail north after their stay in Antigua. They did swing wide of the Florida coast. His father called on the satellite phone.
He asked, “Adam, what are you doing?”
“Oh, you noticed.”
Whistler knew that he would have. His father, at that moment, would be sitting at a screen on the top floor of the building next door to his house. He’d be watching a little yellow blip on that screen. He’d have seen that the blip was now north of the Bahamas. After that, there weren’t any more islands. There was only the southeastern coast.
“Yes, I noticed,” he said, “and your year isn’t up. You remember the terms of the agreement.”
“Of course, I remember. I also remember whose idea it was. But don’t worry; we only have a few weeks left and we’re not going to make any waves.”
“Where exactly are you headed?”
“We’re just cruising along up the coast.”
“I’m getting two signals from your boat again. Do you have your GPS on?”
“It’s never off. You must be getting an echo.”
“Well, instead of just ‘cruising along up the coast,’ why not swing more northeast and set a course for Bermuda? Tell you what, I’ll fly over. We’ll spend a few days.”
“Claudia would like that, but not in Bermuda. She’s got her heart set on
Maine. Meet us there.”
“You know better than that. Explain to her why.”
“Wait. I’ll put her on. You can try to explain. But her pelican has already given its blessing. In fact, I think this was the pelican’s idea.”
“Adam…what the hell are you talking about?”
“There’s this pelican. It talks to her. And it scouts up ahead. But maybe you’d better not mention that last part. Sometimes she gets touchy about it.”
“Adam…” Long silence. “Are you pulling my leg?”
“The pelican’s an angel, too, by the way. It’s been with us for months, keeps an eye on things for us. One good part about it being an angel is that it doesn’t have those nasty bodily functions. It never leaves its droppings on the deck.”
“Adam…”
“The pelican likes lobster, but it can’t crack the shells. That’s why it needs us to go to Maine for the summer. Myself, I’m looking forward to digging for clams. Think of the money we’ll save.”
“I get the picture.”
“Knew you would. You’re very quick.”
“You’ve either been out in the hot sun too long or I’m seeing a touch of rebelliousness here.” He said, “Fine. Have your fun. But watch yourself, Adam. You’ve had a good year, but it must have dulled your edge. Check in with me, will you? Don’t leave me here wondering.”
“I will. Don’t worry.”
“Um…that pelican business…”
“There’s really a pelican. It does speak to Claudia. You thought what? That she’s suddenly normal?”
Another long silence. His father was still doubtful. “You’re lucky you’re too big to spank.”
Vernon Loc
kwood stepped into Aubrey’s office again, a loosely rolled chart in his hand. He said, “Whistler’s moving. He’s coming this way.”
“This way…meaning what, Mr. Lockwood?”
The bigger man placed the chart on his desk and spread it for Aubrey to see. A series of plottings were marked with an X and the X’s were joined by a line. “This shows where he’s been. Look where that route takes him.”
Lockwood traced a finger more or less in the direction that Whistler’s boat seemed to be following. His finger came to rest on the District of Columbia.
“You’re saying that he’s planning an assault on us by sea? And without air cover? No shelling of defenses? No bombing of all our routes to the beach to keep our tanks from engaging him?”
“Hey, you wanted me tell you where he goes.”
Aubrey groaned softly. “And you have, Mr. Lockwood. I would point out, however, that the course he is on might lead to Nova Scotia just as easily.”
“Why’d he swing so wide of the Florida Coast?”
Aubrey looked at the chart. “That would seem to have been the thing to do if he had no intention of going there.”
Aubrey sat back. He saw Lockwood’s color rising. Very well, he thought. A good dog deserves a bone. He decided to soften his expression and his voice. He said, “Mr. Lockwood, you’re doing good work. But surely you see that no action can be taken until we know what Whistler is up to, if anything. Do you have any other intelligence?”
“Not yet. I wanted you to know something’s changed.”
“And I thank you. I do. You’re a very good man.”
“You mean that?”
“I do. You’ll keep me advised?”
“I’ll track him every inch of the way. Just one thing. If we take him, I get him. Agreed?”
“Who else but Vern the Burn would I call on,” Aubrey asked, “to handle such a delicate matter?”
Claudia had realized that Maine would have to wait. It was only late April. There would still be snow in Maine. Her original thought would make the most sense. They would cruise the Georgia coast and the Carolinas until it warmed up further north.
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