The Demolishers (23 page)

Mr. Anson spoke abruptly. “No,” he said. “No, it is not good of me. You will find no help here.”

Mrs. Anson said, “Wally, please ...”

Her husband said, “No, I must speak. Normally I would not have wanted to meet with you, Mr. Helm, or your daughter-in-law, even though you have both felt the same hurt as we have. It is not a pain that can be shared. But I read the newspaper, and I read between the lines of the story, and I know what you are trying to do. I know because of course the same evil, angry thoughts came to me, right after Belinda . . . right afterwards. I suppose it comes to everyone in such a situation. So I told myself,
Walter, you must see these poor misguided souls. You must try to save them from the sin from which you, yourself, were saved only by the Word.”
He drew a long breath, looking up at me. His eyes were very bright behind his horn-rimmed glasses. He went on harshly: “Vengeance is not for us, Mr. Helm. Do not seek it for yourself, and do not lead this innocent young girl into a vain search for a retribution that is not hers or yours to bestow. It must come from Elsewhere. It will come, that I assure you, but it is not our place to deliver it. We cannot usurp such powers. Leave them to the One to whom they belong. ...”

Outside, as we made our way down the walk, a single leaf came drifting down from the great overhanging tree.

I stepped aside and caught it. Definitely an oak. Not bad for a man brought up in pinon country. I might even recognize a maple leaf if you handed me a good specimen. I laid the oak leaf gently on a small pile that had been raked together but not picked up yet. Halfway up the block, a young man in jeans was fiddling with the windshield wipers of an undersized white Chevrolet. He made a certain gesture as he got into his car, letting me know that the Porsche was still safe to drive.

“Phew!” said Sandra. “Well, you’re not going to get any recruits in that house!”

“The trouble with people who’re going to wait for God to do the job,” I said, “is that we always seem to wind up having to do His work for Him.”

“That’s awfully close to blasphemy, Matt.”

“I know. I never finished Sunday school and I guess it shows. But Mr. Anson wouldn’t be calling you an innocent young girl if he’d seen you with that flop-open dressing gown this morning. And what was the idea of all those dears and darlings?”

Sandra giggled. “Did I embarrass you, I hope? That’s what you get for serving up beautiful brunettes for breakfast. Where do we go next?”

“I thought we’d take a look at Pirate Williams’ boat yard.”

The Pirate’s Lair Marina and Boat Yard was out of town; we had to drive well up the island to reach it. Located in a cove and surrounded by summer homes, it was a forlorn sight. Somehow there’s nothing as deserted-looking as a marina without boats. Well, almost without boats. A waterlogged wooden rowboat that had once been painted green was tied up at the dinghy dock, and a white cabin cruiser in the thirty-five- to forty-foot class was secured at the end of one of the piers; it carried outriggers so perhaps you’d call it a sportfisherman. The seagulls had taken it over and staked their claim in the usual way. Otherwise the docks were empty and looked as if hungry marine organisms would have the supporting pilings eaten up fairly soon.

To one side was an enormous metal boatshed for smaller boats, the kind that are launched when they’re wanted and picked up again and stuck on a shelf or rack when the owner is through boating for the day. An oversized forklift was rusting outside the big doors. A neglected Travelift stood over the rectangular basin where the big boats had come in to be picked up with slings and parked on the nearby concrete for bottom work or trundled off into the outdoor storage area. A few shabby hulls still rested over there inside the chainlink fence. A low, unmarked building was presumably the machine shop; another one was marked
office
at one end and
ship’s store
at the other. A fairly complete facility; it seemed a pity to let it fall apart.

“The way this fence looks,” Sandra said as we stood by the gate, “we can probably find a place to crawl under it if you want a closer look.”

“You’d get those nice white pants dirty,” I said. “Anyway, I don’t want to look, I just want to be seen looking.”

“What does that mean?”

I reached up to give a friendly pat to the faded sign overhead, which showed a cheerful rascal of a buccaneer with a black eyepatch and a cocked hat. I led the way back to the Porsche parked at the side of the access road; the marina’s parking lot was inside the fence.

Driving away, I said, “Look, we’re not detectives; we’re just going through the investigative motions while we wait for our presence and Laurel Bennington’s story to stir things up around here.”

“You mean, you’re not really interested in Mr. Howard ‘Pirate’ Williams and his possible drug connections?” “Frankly, I don’t give a hoot about his connections, if any. As I told friend Tallman, the happy stuff is not my business. Oh, I suppose if I stumbled onto a neon-lit clue, I might pass it onto Tom Benison, the guy who dropped in after Tallman left, the other night in Savannah. He works for a real law enforcement agency, unlike Tallman’s half-baked panty raiders. But I’d do it only if I felt that having Benison’s people snooping around here wouldn’t interfere with my own mission Frankly, I consider terrorism a much more important threat than drugs; and I’m not going to jeopardize my chances of wiping out the people I’m after just so Benison, or Tallman either, can get a few lousy pushers off the street. There will always be more where those came from.”

“There will be more terrorists, too.”

“Maybe,” I said, “but I’m cynical enough to think that terrorism can be contained if we make it too risky, because there’s no money in it. The number of people, these days, who’ll die for a cause, good or bad, is much smaller than the number of folks who’ll stick their necks way out for a profitable business like drugs.” I shrugged.

“Anyway, I don’t think we’re going to get much closer to the CLL by digging up dirt on Pirate Williams, or Linda Anson, either. It’s just a way of staying visible while we wait for things to break.”

Sandra frowned. “I don’t quite understand what you’re trying to say, Matt.”

I grinned. “Maybe I don’t quite either. Except that we’ve got to keep our priorities straight. What we’re after is the Caribbean Legion of Liberty, not the solutions to a lot of local mysteries, real or imaginary. Delgado has her computer working on a promising lead. If her microchips come through for us, I want to be ready.”

Sandra grimaced. “Ready with a scapegoat like Daddy?”

I said, “So far, I’ve heard nothing to indicate that what he did for us, and himself, has got your pop into any trouble. Angelita Johansen’s two sidekicks are listed as unmounted casualties of the Florida drug wars and there’s no reason to think they won’t stay that way.” I glanced at her. “Incidentally, the game now stands at seven to thirteen.”

She frowned. “Game?”

“We figured that they’d made thirteen points in three bombings, right? Deads a point apiece; woundeds don’t count. And you toted up our score yesterday and made it five. Well, you can add two to that. Arthur Galvez and Howard Koenig were taken out last night on my orders.”

She started to ask a question and stopped. “Oh, those were the two members of the Council. ...”

“Right. So we’re still behind, but gaining. And I haven’t had the slightest protest from my conscience, not a twinge.”

“Which just goes to prove that it doesn’t exist, as I told you.” Sandra shivered. “To call it a game is disgusting, Matt. Like those body counts in Vietnam.”

“If they’re dead, they’re dead. Counting won’t hurt them. And your problem is that you’ve got the strange idea these are people we’re talking about. We’re People, honey. Those are Enemies. A different species entirely. Open season.”

“That’s a convenient way to think, if you can manage it. I can’t.” She grimaced. “But I can’t forget La Mariposa, either. What does that make me, a schizo?”

I said, “No, just a normal human being, unlike some. But in answer to your original question, yes, I’m looking for a scapegoat, somebody to carry the ball while I run interference. Let’s find out if this scion of New England nobility, Jerome Elliot, fills the bill. Maybe he’ll see us at his office.”

We never got to see the offices of the Elliot Manufacturing Company. After keeping me on hold for several minutes, a secretary came back on the line and informed me that Mr. Jerome Elliot, Jr., would meet us for lunch at a place called the Chowder Hut. Noon sharp. She didn’t say if he planned to pick up the bill. If he was a real chip off the old block, he probably wouldn’t; those old New England merchants and manufacturers didn’t get rich buying meals for nosy strangers.

From the gas station phone I could see Sandra giving the Porsche tender loving care, filling the tank, cleaning the windshield and rear window, and even opening the engine compartment back there to check the oil. She was wearing a black silk blouse,, and her white slacks fit her nicely—no fashionably baggy bloomers for Mrs. Helm, Jr. I told myself I liked tall blondes and to hell with sturdy little females with shorn black hair. I made a second call, to the contact number, and asked to have the rendezvous covered. At this stage of a mission dealing with folks who got their kicks blowing up restaurants it seemed unwise to keep a lunch date without taking a few precautions.

“All set?” Sandra asked as I returned to the car.

“Check. Linda Anson’s dream man is meeting us for lunch. I wonder why.”

Sandra frowned. “What do you mean?”

I said, “We have no official standing that Elliot knows about, and he must be pretty damn tired of people asking him about last spring’s explosive incident. Why should he give us the time of day? Even if he’s a little curious about a fellow victim and wants to see you, why make a lunch of it? He could have had us in his office, answered our questions politely, and got rid of us in ten minutes.”

“I don’t think you understand.” Sandra was very serious. “It’s like a club, a very exclusive club.”

I said, “I’ve seen things go boom a few times myself, ma’am.”

“It’s different for you, it’s your business,” she said. “You play games with . . . with death all the time. For us peaceful citizens to get that kind of a look into hell is a very significant experience. It changes everything. I think maybe Jerome Elliot wants to talk to somebody who’s been there, too.” Sandra hesitated. “Let me handle him, Matt. I have a hunch, after looking at all those glamour shots at the Ansons’. . . . Let me ask the questions, please.”

“I never argue with anybody’s hunches. Carry on, as they say in the navy.”

We killed a little time sightseeing; then Sandra looked up the restaurant in the guidebook and navigated us to the address given, but we had a hard time finding a place to leave the car—the parking problem is no closer to being solved in Newport than anywhere else. The Chowder Hut turned out to be a self-consciously gloomy saloon-type establishment with a long, old-fashioned bar and butcher-block tables that would have looked more authentic if they hadn’t been sealed in plastic.

Although we were right on time, noon sharp, there was no Elliot there to greet us. He had a table reserved, however, but I didn’t like it. Even though Trask’s people were supposed to be covering us, I didn’t like it. I had us moved into a comer where I could put my back against a wall. Wild Bill Hickok had once, just once, made the mistake of sitting with his back to the door. I’d hate to make him feel, wherever he is, that he’d died in vain. Even sipping slowly, we had time to reduce the liquor levels in our glasses significantly, and watch the place fill up, before a blow-dried young businessman came marching in briskly, consulted the headwaiter, and was directed our way. I rose and shook hands with him and was told that he was Jerry. I told him that I was Matt and that Sandra was Sandra.

Along with his breezy, first-names-only style, Elliot had some other informal habits; and we got to watch him strip for action, removing the coat of his expensive gray suit and arranging it neatly on the back of his chair, unbuttoning his vest and shirt collar, pulling his tie down to half mast, and finally sitting down with a sigh of relief. To me, it always seems like a weird performance, undressing in a public restaurant, but more and more of them are doing it. A gesture of rebellion against the three-piece suit, I suppose. It must be nice to find an easy revolution, one that can be won just by sitting down to lunch bravely in your shirtsleeves. A waiter placed a drink before him. He helped himself to a healthy slug, eyeing Sandra with interest.

“So you’re the girl who almost got blown up last night,” he said. There was an odd intentness in the way he looked at her, and I remembered her remark about an exclusive club; I guess he was searching for signs of the trauma they shared, beyond the obvious scar. He went on: “That’s twice for you, the paper said. Well, once was enough for me; but we both carry the terrorist brand, don’t we? My right shoulder looks as if somebody’d played tic-tac-toe on it with a sharp knife.”

Sandra said, “At least we’re still alive. That makes us the lucky ones, I guess. So far lucky, anyway. Maybe they’ll get me next time, the bastards. I’d like to tie them all into chairs, the whole lot of them, in a nice circle, and put a big bomb in the middle of the circle, and let them sit there watching the fuse burning down very, very slowly while I look on from a safe distance, laughing fit to kill as they mess their pants and scream for mercy. Mercy? After they killed my husband like that? Well, you must hate them as much as I do, after what happened to your girl.”