Liars & Thieves (13 page)

“How can you tell?”

“Look at him! He’s a healthy man in his mid-sixties, I’d say, properly nourished yet not fat, reasonably fit, seems to have most of his teeth, bathes regularly …”

Fiocchi didn’t argue. She, too, had seen her share of derelicts, and obviously the sleeping man wasn’t one of them. “So who is he?”

“I haven’t the foggiest.” Jarrett held up the clothes Goncharov had come in, which were now dry. The new trousers and shirt were brands that were sold in many large clothing chains nationwide.

Fiocchi shrugged. “He knows we are here and went to sleep anyway. On the other hand, he did break into the cabin. Should we wake him and demand an explanation, or should we go to Durbin to call the law?” There was no telephone in the cabin—no electricity at all—and no cellular service this close to the Radio Astronomy Observatory.

“Take hours for a deputy or trooper to get here,” Jarrett replied gloomily. “They have to come all the way from Marlinton. Maybe we should find out who he is before we toss him overboard. Maybe he’s sick or crazy and wandered away from a cabin or farm around here.”

Linda Fiocchi didn’t think much of the police option either. “He’s probably sick. He looks harmless enough.” She went into the cabin for a blanket, which she arranged over the sleeping man.

***

I loaded the women, the submachine gun, and Mikhail Goncharov’s suitcase in Johnson Dunlap’s car and set sail on the highways of America. At my insistence, we left the two thugs right where they had fallen. I also left their weapons beside them; I could use the ammo, but I decided to buy what I needed at a sporting goods store. When the police found those dudes—which would probably happen sooner rather than later—I wanted the record to accurately show the weapons they brought with them.

I figured that the police were already involved in this somehow and might be looking for cars—-mine, Kelly’s, and possibly Dorsey’s. I just hoped they weren’t looking for Dunlap’s. Yet.

Every time we passed a police cruiser I twisted for a look, and ogled the mirrors, waiting for the driver to turn around and snap on the lights and siren and give chase. What I would do if a cop did give chase I didn’t know, but I was absolutely certain that I didn’t want to kill or wound a cop. If cops were involved, they were merely following orders from their sergeant or captain or whoever. Johnson Dunlap, the camo man, and the dudes who were slicing up Willie Varner were a different breed of cat. They weren’t trying to arrest anyone—they went to kill. I had no regrets icing them and I certainly wouldn’t lose sleep over them.

Dorsey would, however. When I wasn’t rubbernecking for cops, I watched her in the rearview mirror. She was in the back seat staring out at traffic and the scenery. I didn’t think she actually saw much of it. Her eyes were dry, but she had a look on her face that hadn’t been there before.

I debated telling her about my visit with Michelle Dunlap earlier that morning, then decided against it. Maybe it was best for Johnson to remain an anonymous thug who broke into her house to kill her. She didn’t need to hear a sob story or a description of the widow.

See, that’s the way guys think. As far as I was concerned Dunlap and his pals were assholes who sold out to another asshole and went sallying forth to kill people they didn’t know for money. Dunlap got wasted—his tough luck. Dorsey didn’t appear to see it that way or she wouldn’t have been leaking tears earlier or staring out the window now.

And for Christ’s sake, I wasn’t crying about the camo man. I was actually sort of pleased that I used the submachine gun and hosed him good before he did it to me. I hadn’t suspected he might be wearing a bulletproof vest; if I had only squeezed off a round or two with the pistol, my dick might have been on the chopping block. We played for keeps and he lost. What’s for dinner?

Kelly Erlanger was busy reading files in the passenger seat. She had arranged the pages into some sort of order and was skimming through them. Reading in a car always made me sick, but it didn’t seem to bother her.

“So who’s hungry?” I asked brightly.

Erlanger didn’t look up from her reading. Dorsey kept her face pointed out the window.

I stopped in Annapolis at a hamburger joint. “Anyone need to use the facilities?”

No response.

They never pee in James Bond movies either.

I went inside, visited the men’s, then ordered burgers, fries, and three soft drinks—Diet Cokes, of course. A county mountie sneaked in while I was paying, and I didn’t see him. I nearly dropped the load when I turned around and found him behind me in his Foster Grants watching me juggle the bag and the drinks. Gave him a noncommittal “Hi” and walked on by. Not a friendly, neighborly “Hi” or a go-to-hell, kiss-my-ass-fool kind of “Hi,” but more of an I-don’t-give-a-shit “Hi.” You know, just a “Hi.” I guess he didn’t see the automatic under my shirt, because he didn’t pull his piece or shoot me or even say “Hi” back.

I used my butt to open the door of McDonald’s and stuffed the food in the car and fed it gas. Neither of the women was hungry or thirsty.

We crossed the Bay Bridge and headed east.

I turned on the radio and got an easy listening station in Baltimore; rolled down my window and stuck my elbow out.

“Where are we going?” Dorsey asked, the first words she had spoken since she gunned down Johnson Dunlap.

“To visit a Iriend.”

“Let’s see . . . You’ve roped me and Willie Varner into this mess already. I had to kill a man and Willie is in the hospital—you did say you took him to the hospital?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Anyone else?”

I hadn’t yet mentioned Sal Pulzelli to her and now didn’t seem to be the right time.

“Now you have another friend in mind. What do the Catholics call it when the devil comes calling?”

“I don’t know.”

“If your friends hold up a crucifix, will you still cross their threshold? Or will it take a silver bullet through your heart to slow you down?”

I bit my lip. You can never win these kinds of arguments with women, and only a fool would try.

“Being your friend is a dubious honor, Tommy. What do I have to do to get my name erased from the list?”

I almost said to stay away from porno movie producers, but managed to stifle myself. The miles rolled by while Kelly Erlanger read and Dorsey glowered at the back of my head. I kept the car five over the speed limit, slurped on a diet Coke, and listened to the radio.

They were in their apartment in Moscow when they came to arrest him. They came in the middle of the night, as they always did. They smashed at the door with a sledgehammer. The furious pounding woke him, the sound of wood splintering, someone somewhere screaming. Bronislava was beside him, startled awake.

He could see everything in the small apartment in the light from the street that came through the window, see the door panel bulging and splintering under each impact, hear the grunting of the man swinging the hammer. And there was no other way out. No exit. They were trapped! When they found his notes he and Bronislava would be taken to the Lubyanka, thrown into the cells, and interrogated and tortured until they told everything or died. He had seen them there so many times, people praying to die . . . and now it was his turn. The hammering . . . they were almost through the door . . .

He awoke in a lather, fighting the blanket that was over him. He sat up, stared at his surroundings.

Oh, God, where was he? Nothing looked familiar .. . nothing. Only the dream had been real, the same dream that had tortured him for twenty years . . .

There was a woman sitting on the cabin steps—a young woman, perhaps thirty years of age, with medium-length dark hair, wearing a blouse, slacks, and a sweater. She spoke to him in a language he didn’t understand. He shook his head slowly, completely lost, confused.

He urgently needed to go to the bathroom. He stood, folded the blanket that had covered him, and, with it draped over one arm, stepped behind some bushes and relieved himself. He zipped up his pants and stood looking around.

The woman found him there. She had a cup of something hot. He accepted it gratefully, sipped, then she took his arm and led him back to the steps of the cabin. By gestures she motioned him to sit beside her on the top step. He did so, sipped at the drink, glanced around at everything, trying to remember.

She spoke again. He understood not a word. While she was talking a man joined them on the porch. He was slim, apparently in his mid-thirties, with a lean, tan face and short hair. He spoke to Goncharov also, and to the woman, back and forth. Mikhail Goncharov had no idea what they were discussing.

After a while she led him inside. He looked around again. Everything was strange. He sank into the nearest seat, scanned the entire room, then arranged the blanket over his legs. He was chilly.

The woman made him a sandwich. He ate it slowly, savoring every bite. She gave him more of the hot liquid to drink.

When he finished the food, the man brought a notebook and a ballpoint pen. He handed them to Goncharov, pointed to Goncharov’s chest, then widened his hands before him in the universal gesture of a question.

A name, Goncharov thought. He wants my name.

But what is it?

Startled, his eyes widened as he realized he didn’t even know who he was.

He picked up the pen, made the point go in and out, examined the white paper, but for the life of him he could think of nothing to write.

“He doesn’t know his own name,” Linda Fiocchi said heavily.

“Apparently not,” Basil Jarrett agreed.

“So what should we do?”

“Damn, woman, I don’t know.” Jarrett went to the woodstove and opened it. He wadded up a sheet of newspaper from a nearby pile, added kindling, and struck a match. When the paper caught, he closed the door and adjusted the draft.

What should we do with a man who is obviously suffering from some kind of severe mental confusion? Not that Linda or I know a solitary thing about mental illness. Boy, you come to the cabin for a quiet, restful weekend, some fishing, reading, wine, andlovemakjng.. . and you’ve got a mental patient on your hands.

When Jarrett turned around, Linda was sitting beside the older man holding his hand. The man seemed to be paying no attention. He stared fixedly at something far, far away.

***

Civilization had reached Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, I decided as I cruised slowly through, checking out the scene. The Wal-Mart was huge, spanking new, and had a couple of acres of parking lot. Inside would be 9 mm and .38 Special ammo, not to mention underwear and jeans, socks and shirts. All the necessities for classy, with-it guys like me.

The house I was looking for was about a mile south of downtown on the beach side of the highway, on a dead-end street. It looked about as I remembered it, a medium-sized two-story bungalow with a large screened-in porch and a crushed-seashell parking area big enough for four cars. I wheeled in, killed the engine, sat looking it over. Only two of the other bungalows on this street that dead-ended at the dune had cars parked beside them.

“Whose house is this?” Dorsey O’Shea asked from the back seat.

“Guy I know.”

“One of your friends you are about to curse with your presence. Do you have permission to stay here?”

“Uh, he won’t mind.”

“So the answer is no.” She harrumped. “I thought not.”

I turned in my seat to face her. “I’ve had about enough of your lip. I’m sorry you had to shoot that bastard this morning, but I’m not real damn sorry. He came to kill all three of us. It was him or us. He was a rotten cop and he fell in with rotten people.”

“You knew him?”

“I know his name, yes.”

“Jesus, Tommy, I don’t want to have to kill people, for any reason at all. Ever again.” Her voice had a hard, brittle edge to it. “Do you understand ?”

“I understand.”

“What kind of man are you, anyway? You kill a man at my house, watch another die before your eyes, and you drive all afternoon with your arm out the window and the radio playing, like you don’t give a good goddamn.” The pitch and volume of her voice were rising. “What kind of animal are you, anyway?”

“I can answer that,” Kelly Erlanger said calmly. “Yesterday morning Tommy Carmellini ran into a burning building and dragged me out, saving my life. Men like the ones this morning went through that building shooting everyone they could find, then set the place on fire to burn the bodies. Last night he went to my house and got me out of it just before more men arrived to kill me.”

She turned in her seat so that she, too, could see Dorsey. She held up a handful of paper. “These are copies the KGB archivist made of the files in his custody. He spent twenty years copying these files and smuggled them out of Russia after he retired. Never in my life have I read such a chronicle of evil. Tommy Carmellini? He’s one of the good guys.”

She got out of the car and closed the door behind her, leaving me alone with Dorsey.

Dorsey wouldn’t look at me. After a bit she said, “I know there is evil in the world, but I don’t want to live with it. I don’t want to fight it. I don’t want it bleeding to death in my foyer. What’s so wrong with that? Do you understand?”

“I think so,” I told her. “But you’d better keep that pistol handy. You may need it again if you want to keep breathing.”

It only took me a couple of minutes to pick the lock on the front door of the bungalow. I opened the door, went through turning on lights, then went back to the car to carry in the weapons and baggage. The women came inside. After they used the facilities, they walked through the house examining everything.

“You really do know the owners?” Dorsey asked sharply.

“Yes.”

“They won’t mind you using this place?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Why don’t you call them and ask? There’s the phone.”

‘I would rather not. The fewer people who know we’re here the better. If there’s a problem, I’ll make it right with the owners later on.”

Kelly took a deep breath and announced, “I’ll take the bedroom on the left, upstairs. I saw a swimsuit up there that looks like it might fit me. Dorsey, would you like to go for a walk on the beach?”