Persuader (19 page)

Waded into the sea. I wasn’t keen to do it. It was just as cold. But the tide had turned. It was going my way. Even the ocean was cooperating. I swam the same twelve minutes.

Looped right around the end of the wall and came ashore behind the garage block. I was shaking with cold and my teeth were chattering again. But I felt good. I dried myself as well as I could on the damp linen rag and dressed fast before I froze. Left the Glock and the spare magazines and Doll’s set of keys hidden with the PSM and the chisel and the bradawl. Folded the bag and the towel and wedged them under a rock a yard away. Then I headed for my drainpipe. I was still shivering.

The climb was easier going up than coming down. I walked my hands up the pipe and my feet up the wall. Got level with my window and grabbed the sill with my left hand.

Jumped my feet across to the stone ledge. Brought my right hand over and pushed the window up. Hauled myself inside as quietly as I could.

The room was icy. The window had been open for hours. I closed it tight and stripped again. My clothes were damp. I laid them out on the radiator and headed for the bathroom. Took a long hot shower. Then I locked myself in there with my shoes. It was exactly six in the morning. They would be picking up the Taurus. Probably Eliot and the old guy would be doing it. Probably Duffy would have stayed back at base. I took the email device out and sent: Duffy? Ninety seconds later she came back with: Here. You OK? I sent: Fine. Check these names anywhere you can, inc. with MP Powell-Angel Doll, poss. associate Paulie, both poss. ex-military.

She sent: Will do.

Then I sent the question that had been on my mind for five and a half hours: What is Teresa Daniel’s real name?

There was the usual ninety-second delay, and then she came back with: Teresa Justice.

CHAPTER 6

No point in going to bed, so I just stood at the window and watched the dawn. It was soon in full flow. The sun came up over the sea. The air was fresh and clear. I could see fifty miles. I watched an arctic tern coming in low from the north. It skimmed the rocks as it passed them. I guessed it was looking for a place to build a nest. The low sun behind it threw shadows as big as vultures. Then it gave up on the search for shelter and looped and wheeled and swooped away over the water and tumbled into the ocean. It came out a long moment later and silver droplets of freezing water trailed it back into the sky. It had nothing in its beak. But it flew on like it was happy enough. It was better adapted than me.

There wasn’t much to see after that. There were a few herring gulls far in the distance. I squinted against the glare and looked for signs of whales or dolphins and saw nothing. I watched mats of seaweed drift around on circular currents. At six-fifteen I heard Duke’s footsteps in the corridor and the click of my lock. He didn’t come in. He just tramped away again. I turned and faced the door and took a deep breath. Day thirteen, Thursday.

Maybe that was better than day thirteen falling on a Friday. I wasn’t sure. Whatever, bring it on. I took another breath and walked out through the door and headed down the stairs.

Nothing was the same as the morning before. Duke was fresh and I was tired. Paulie wasn’t around. I went down to the basement gym and found nobody there. Duke didn’t stay for breakfast. He disappeared somewhere. Richard Beck came in to eat in the kitchen. There was just him and me at the table. The mechanic wasn’t there. The cook stayed busy at the stove. The Irish girl came in and out from the dining room. She was moving fast. There was a buzz in the air. Something was happening.

“Big shipment coming in,” Richard Beck said. “It’s always like this. Everybody gets excited about the money they’re going to make.”

“You heading back to school?” I asked him.

“Sunday,” he said. He didn’t seem worried about it. But I was. Sunday was three days away. My fifth full day there. The final deadline. Whatever was going to happen would have happened by then. The kid was going to be in the crossfire throughout.

“You OK with that?” I asked.

“With going back?”

I nodded. “After what happened.”

“We know who did it now,” he said. “Some assholes from Connecticut. It won’t happen again.”

“You can be that sure?”

He looked at me like I was nuts. “My dad handles stuff like this all the time. And if it’s not done by Sunday, then I’ll just stay here until it is.”

“Does your dad run this whole thing by himself? Or does he have a partner?”

“He runs it all by himself,” he said. His ambivalence was gone. He looked happy to be home, secure and comfortable, proud of his dad. His world had contracted to a barren half-acre of lonely granite, hemmed in by the restless sea and a high stone wall topped by razor wire.

“I don’t think you really killed that cop,” he said.

The kitchen went quiet. I stared at him.

“I think you just wounded him,” he said. “I’m hoping so, anyway. You know, maybe he’s recovering right now. In a hospital somewhere. That’s what I’m thinking. You should try to do the same. Think positive. It’s better that way. Then you can have the silver lining without the cloud.”

“I don’t know,” I said.

“So just pretend,” he said. “Use the power of positive thinking. Say to yourself, I did a good thing and there was no downside.”

“Your dad called the local police,” I said. “I don’t think there was any room for doubt.”

“So just pretend,” he said again. “That’s what I do. Bad things didn’t happen unless you choose to recall them.”

He had stopped eating and his left hand was up at the left side of his head. He was smiling brightly, but his subconscious was recalling some bad things, right there and then. That was clear. It was recalling them big time.

“OK,” I said. “It was just a flesh wound.”

“In and out,” he said. “Clean as a whistle.”

I said nothing.

“Missed everything by a fraction,” he said. “It was a miracle.”

I nodded. It would have been some kind of a miracle. That was for damn sure. Shoot somebody in the chest with a soft-nose.44 Magnum and you blow a hole in them the size of Rhode Island. Death is generally instantaneous. The heart stops immediately, mostly because it isn’t there anymore. I figured the kid hadn’t seen anybody shot before. Then I thought, but maybe he has. And maybe he didn’t like it very much.

“Positive thinking,” he said. “That’s the key. Just assume he’s warm and comfortable somewhere, making a full recovery.”

“What’s in the shipment?” I asked.

“Fakes, probably,” he said. “From Pakistan. We get two-hundred-year-old Persians made there. People are such suckers.”

“Are they?”

He looked at me and nodded. “They see what they want to see.”

“Do they?”

“All the time.”

I looked away. There was no coffee. After a while you realize that caffeine is addictive. I was irritated. And tired.

“What are you doing today?” he asked me.

“I don’t know,” I said.

“I’m just going to read,” he said. “Maybe stroll a little. Walk the shoreline, see what washed up in the night.”

“Things wash up?”

“Sometimes. You know, things fall off boats.”

I looked at him. Was he telling me something? I had heard of smugglers floating bales of marijuana ashore in isolated places. I guessed the same system would work for heroin.

Was he telling me something? Or was he warning me? Did he know about my hidden bundle of hardware? And what was all that stuff about the shot cop? Psychobabble? Or was he playing games with me? “But that’s mostly in the summer,” he said. “It’s too cold for boats right now. So I guess I’ll stay inside. Maybe I’ll paint.”

“You paint?”

“I’m an art student,” he said. “I told you that.”

I nodded. Stared at the back of the cook’s head, like I could induce her to make coffee by telepathy. Then Duke came in. He walked over to where I was sitting. Placed one hand on the back of my chair and the other flat on the table. Bent low, like he needed to have a confidential conversation.

“Your lucky day, asshole,” he said.

I said nothing.

“You’re driving Mrs. Beck,” he said. “She wants to go shopping.”

“Where?”

“Wherever,” he said.

“All day?”

“It better be.”

I nodded. Don’t trust the stranger on shipment day.

“Take the Cadillac,” he said. He dropped the keys on the table. “Make sure she doesn’t rush back.”

Or, don’t trust Mrs. Beck on shipment day.

“OK,” I said.

“You’ll find it very interesting,” he said. “Especially the first part. Gives me a hell of a kick, anyway, every single time.”

I had no idea what he meant, and I didn’t waste time speculating about it. I just stared at the empty coffee pot and Duke left and a moment later I heard the front door open and close. The metal detector beeped twice. Duke and Beck, guns and keys. Richard got up from the table and wandered out and I was left alone with the cook.

“Got any coffee?” I asked her.

“No,” she said.

I sat there until I finally figured that a dutiful chauffeur should be ready and waiting, so I headed out through the back door. The metal detector beeped politely at the keys. The tide was all the way in and the air was cold and fresh. I could smell salt and seaweed. The swell was gone and I could hear waves breaking. I walked around to the garage block and started the Cadillac and backed it out. Drove it around to the carriage circle and waited there with the motor running to get the heater going. I could see tiny ships on the horizon heading in and out of Portland. They crawled along just beyond the line where the sky met the water, half-hidden, infinitely slow. I wondered if one of them was Beck’s, or whether it was in already, all tied up and set for unloading. I wondered whether a Customs officer was already walking right past it, eyes front, heading for the next ship in line, a wad of crisp new bills in his pocket.

Elizabeth Beck came out of the house ten minutes later. She was wearing a knee-length plaid skirt and a thin white sweater with a wool coat over it. Her legs were bare. No panty hose. Her hair was pulled back with a rubber band. She looked cold. And defiant, and resigned, and apprehensive. Like a noblewoman walking to the guillotine. I guessed she was used to having Duke drive her. I guessed she was a little conflicted about riding with the cop-killer. I got out and made ready to open the rear door. She walked right past it.

“I’ll sit in front,” she said.

She settled herself in the passenger seat and I slid back in next to her.

“Where to?” I asked politely.

She stared out her window.

“We’ll talk about that when we’re through the gate,” she said.

The gate was closed and Paulie was standing dead-center in front of it. His shoulders and arms looked like he had basketballs stuffed inside his suit. The skin on his face was red with cold. He had been waiting there for us. I stopped the car six feet in front of him. He made no move toward the gate. I looked straight at him. He ignored me and tracked around to Elizabeth Beck’s window. Smiled at her and tapped on the glass with his knuckles and made a winding motion with his hand. She stared straight ahead through the windshield. Tried to ignore him. He tapped again. She turned to look at him. He raised his eyebrows. Made the winding motion again. She shuddered. It was enough of a definite physical spasm to rock the car on its springs. She stared hard at one of her fingernails and then placed it on the window button and pressed. The glass buzzed down.

Paulie squatted with his right forearm on the door frame.

“Good morning,” he said.

He leaned in and touched her cheek with the back of his forefinger. Elizabeth Beck didn’t move. Just stared straight ahead. He tucked a stray wisp of hair behind her ear.

“I enjoyed our visit last night,” he said.

She shuddered again. Like she was deathly cold. He moved his hand. Dropped it to her breast. Cupped it. Squeezed it. She sat still for it. I used the button on my side. Her glass buzzed up. Then it stalled against Paulie’s giant arm and the safety feature kicked in and it came back down again. I opened my door and slid out. Rounded the hood. Paulie was still squatting down. He still had his hand inside the car. It had moved a little lower.

“Back off,” he said, looking at her, talking to me.

I felt like a lumberjack confronting a redwood tree without an ax or a chainsaw. Where do I start? I kicked him in the kidney. It was the kind of kick that would have sent a football out of the stadium and into the parking lot. It would have cracked a utility pole. It would have put most guys in the hospital all by itself. It would have killed some of them.

It had about as much effect on Paulie as a polite tap on the shoulder. He didn’t even make a noise. He just put both hands on the door frame and slowly pushed himself upright.

Turned around to face me.

“Relax, Major,” he said. “Just my way of saying good morning to the lady.”

Then he moved away from the car and looped right around me and unlocked the gate. I watched him. He was very calm. No sign of a reaction. It was like I hadn’t touched him at all. I stood still and let the adrenaline drain away. Then I looked at the car. At the trunk, and at the hood. To walk around the trunk would say I’m scared of you. So I walked around the hood instead. But I made sure to stay well out of his reach. I had no desire to give some surgeon six months’ work rebuilding the bones in my face. The closest I got to him was about five feet. He made no move on me. Just cranked the gate all the way open and stood there patiently waiting to close it again.

“We’ll talk about that kick later, OK?” he called.

I didn’t reply.

“And don’t get the wrong impression, Major,” he said. “She likes it.”

I got back in the car. Elizabeth Beck had closed her window. She was staring straight ahead, pale and silent and humiliated. I drove through the gate. Headed west. Watched Paulie in the mirror. He closed the gate and headed back inside the lodge. Disappeared from sight.