During the whole incident, nobody else in the room had moved, because Al Z hadn’t given any indication that they should. He looked at his struggling soldier the way he might have looked at a one-clawed crab dying on a beach, then returned his attention to Louis.
‘You’ll have to excuse him,’ he said. ‘Some of these boys, they learn their manners and their speech patterns in the gutter.’ He turned his attention to the bulky man at the door, waving his cigarette at the figure on the floor, who now lay with his back against the wall, his eyes dazed and his mouth open. ‘Take him to the bathroom, get him a glass of water. Then try to explain to him where he went wrong.’
The bulky guy helped the younger man to his feet, and accompanied him outside. The big man on the sofa didn’t move. Al Z got to his feet and walked over to the window where he stood for a moment, watching the street below, before turning and resting against the windowsill. The three of us were now on the same level, and I recognised the gesture of good manners after what had taken place.
‘Now, what can I do for you gentlemen?’ he asked.
‘A girl came to visit me a few days ago,’ I began.
‘Lucky you. The last time a girl came to visit me, it cost me five hundred dollars.’ He smiled at his joke.
‘This girl is the daughter of a friend of mine, an ex-cop.’
Al Z shrugged. ‘Forgive me, but I don’t understand how this concerns me.’
‘I had an encounter with Tony Clean after the girl’s visit. It kind of hurt, but I don’t think Tony got much more satisfaction out of it than I did.’
Al Z took a long drag on his cigarette, then exhaled the smoke in a noisy sigh through his nose. ‘Go on,’ he said, wearily.
‘I want to know if Tony took the girl, as leverage maybe. If he has her, he should hand her back. He doesn’t need cop trouble. Not on top of everything else,’ I added.
Al Z rubbed the corners of his eyes and nodded without speaking. He looked to the fat man on the sofa. The fat man’s head moved slightly, the eyes impossible to see behind his shades.
‘Let me get this straight,’ said Al Z at last. ‘You want me to ask Tony Clean if he has kidnapped an ex-cop’s daughter and, if he has, you want me to tell him to hand her back?’
‘If you don’t,’ said Louis quietly, ‘we have to make him do it ourselves.’
‘You know where he is?’ replied Al Z. I was aware of the air in the room quickly becoming charged.
‘No,’ I said. ‘If we knew that, maybe we wouldn’t be here. We figured you might.’ But something in the way Al Z had asked that last question told me that he didn’t know, that Tony Clean was operating in some place beyond Al Z’s control, and I guessed that Al Z was weighing up his position even before we arrived. That was the purpose of the fat man on the sofa. That was why he had not been asked to leave, because he wasn’t the kind of man anyone asked to leave a room. He was the kind who did the asking. Things were coming apart for Tony Clean, a fact that Al Z seemed to confirm with his next words.
‘Under the circumstances, it would be unwise for you to involve yourselves in this matter,’ he said softly.
‘Under what circumstances?’ I replied.
He puffed out some smoke. ‘Private business matters, the kind you should leave private. If you don’t back off, we might have to push you.’
‘We might push back.’
‘You can’t push back if you’re dead.’
I shrugged. ‘Getting us there might be the difficult part.’
It was handbags at ten paces, but the underlying threat in Al Z’s voice was coming through loud and clear. I watched as he stubbed out his butt in a cut-glass ashtray with more force than was strictly necessary.
‘So you’re not going to keep out of our affairs?’ he asked.
‘I’m not interested in your affairs. I have other concerns.’
‘The girl? Or Billy Purdue?’
He surprised me for a moment, but not for long. If there was a pulse, then Al Z had his finger on it and he would only remove his finger when the pulse stopped.
‘Because if it’s Billy Purdue,’ he continued, ‘then we may have the seeds of a difficulty.’
‘The missing girl is a friend, but Rita Ferris, Billy’s ex-wife, was my client.’
‘Your client’s dead.’
‘It goes beyond that.’
Al Z pinched his lips. To his right, the fat man on the sofa remained as impassive as a buddha.
‘So you’re a man of principle,’ said Al Z. He tackled the word ‘principle’ like it was a peanut shell he was crushing beneath his heel. ‘Well, I’m a man of principle too.’
I didn’t think so. Principles are expensive things to maintain and Al Z didn’t look like he had the moral resources to support any. In fact, Al Z didn’t look like he could work up the moral resources to piss on a burning orphanage.
‘I don’t think your principles and mine would qualify for the same definition,’ I said at last.
He smiled. ‘Maybe not.’ He turned to Louis. ‘And where do you stand on all this?’
‘Beside him,’ said Louis, inclining his head gently in my direction.
‘Then we have to reach an accommodation,’ Al Z concluded. ‘I’m a pragmatist. You step lightly in this matter, and I won’t kill you unless I have to.’
‘Likewise,’ I said. ‘Seeing as how you’ve been so hospitable and all.’ Then we left.
Outside, it was cold and overcast.
‘What do you think?’ asked Louis.
‘I think Tony’s out there on his own, and maybe he hopes he can sort this mess out before Al Z loses his patience. You think he has Ellen?’
Louis didn’t reply immediately. When he did, his eyes were hard. ‘He does or he doesn’t, somehow it all ties in with Billy Purdue. Means it’s gonna end bad for someone.’
We walked around to Boylston and hailed a cab. As it pulled up, Louis slid in and said ‘Logan’, but I raised a hand.
‘Can we take a detour?’
Louis shrugged. The cab driver shrugged too. It was like bad mime.
‘Harvard,’ I said. I looked at Louis. ‘You don’t have to come. I can meet you at the airport.’
Louis’s eyebrow rose half an inch. ‘Nah, I’ll tag along, ’less you think I’m going to cramp your style.’
The cab dropped us off at the monolithic William James Hall, close by Quincy and Kirkland. I left Louis in the lobby and took the elevator to Room 232, where the psychology department had its office. My stomach felt tight, and there was sweat on my palms. At the office, a polite secretary told me where Rachel Wolfe’s office was located, but she also told me that Rachel wouldn’t be in that day. She was at a seminar out of town, and wouldn’t be back until the following morning.
‘Can I take a message?’ she asked.
I considered turning round and walking away, but I didn’t. Instead, I reached into my wallet and took out one of my cards. On the back, I wrote the new telephone number for the Scarborough house and handed the card to the secretary. ‘Just give her this, please.’
She smiled. I thanked her, and I left.
Louis and I walked back to Harvard Square to catch a cab. He didn’t speak until we were on our way to Logan.
‘You do that before?’ he asked, with just the faintest hint of a smile.
‘Once. I never got that far, though.’
‘So, you, like, stalking her, right?’
‘It’s not stalking if you know the person well.’
‘Oh.’ He nodded deeply. ‘Thanks for clearing that one up. Never really understood the distinction before.’
He paused before he spoke again. ‘And what you trying to do?’
‘I’m trying to say I’m sorry.’
‘You want to get back with her?’
I tapped my fingers on the window. ‘I don’t want it to be the way it is between us, that’s all. Frankly, I don’t know what I’m doing and, like I told your significant other, I’m not even sure that I�
�m ready yet.’
‘But you love her?’
‘Yes.’
‘Then life will decide when you’re ready.’ He didn’t speak again.
Chapter Seventeen
Angel met us at the airport, and we drove to the food court at the Maine Mall to eat before we headed north.
‘Shit,’ said Angel, as we drove down Maine Mall Road. ‘Look at this place. You got your Burger King, your International House of Pancakes, your Dunkin’ Donuts, your pizza parlours. You got your four main food groups right here on your doorstep. Live here too long and they’ll be rolling you from one place to the next.’
We ate Chinese in the food court of the mall and told Angel about our encounter with Al Z. In return, he produced a crumpled letter addressed to Billy Purdue, care of Ronald Straydeer.
‘Cops and the feds did a pretty good job, but they didn’t deal with your buddy Ronald the right way,’ he said.
‘You talked to him about his dog?’ I asked.
‘Talked about his dog, then ate some stew.’ He looked a little queasy.
‘Roadkill?’ I knew that Ronald wasn’t above scavenging, despite the state’s laws on taking roadkill. Myself, I couldn’t see the harm in using a deer or squirrel for food instead of letting it rot by the side of the road. Ronald did a pretty mean venison steak, served with beets and carrots preserved by burying them in sand.
‘He told me it was squirrel,’ said Angel, ‘but it smelt like skunk. It didn’t seem polite to ask. Seems this letter came for Billy about a week back, but Ronald hadn’t seen him to give it to him.’
The letter was postmarked Greenville. It was short, little more than an extension of good wishes, some details of renovations to the house and some stuff about an old dog that the writer still had around the place and with which Billy Purdue seemed to have been familiar when it was a pup. It was signed, in his old man’s scrawl: ‘Meade Payne.’
‘So they stayed in touch all these years,’ I remarked. It seemed to confirm what I had thought: if Billy Purdue was going to seek help from anyone, it would be Meade Payne.
We drove nonstop to Dark Hollow, Angel and Louis shooting ahead in the Mercury. The mists gathered as I went farther north, so that journeying from Portland to Dark Hollow was like moving into a strange, spectral world, where house lights glowed dimly and the beams of headlights assumed their own, lance-like solidity, where road signs announced towns that existed only as scattered dwellings without any hub or centre. There was more snow forecast, I knew, and soon the snowmobilers would arrive in numbers to hurtle along the Interstate Trail system. But, for now, Greenville was still quiet as I drove through, sand mixed with snow by the side of the road, and I passed only two cars on the uneven, pitted surface of Lily Bay Road on the way to Dark Hollow.
When I arrived at the motel, Angel and Louis were already checking in. The same woman with the blue-rinse hair who had greeted me earlier in the week stood behind the desk, examining their details on a single registration card. Beside her, a brown cat slept on the counter, curled in on itself with its nose almost touching its tail. Angel was doing the talking while Louis examined a series of battered tourist booklets in a rack. He glanced at me when I came in, but didn’t acknowledge my presence further.
‘You gentlemen sharing a room?’ asked the blue-rinse woman. ‘Yes ma’am,’ replied Angel, with a look of homely wisdom on his face. ‘A dollar spared is a dollar made.’
The woman glanced at Louis, resplendent in a black suit, black coat and white shirt. ‘Your friend a preacher?’ she said.
‘Kind of, ma’am,’ said Angel. ‘He’s strictly Old Testament, though. An eye for an eye, and stuff like that.’
‘That’s nice. We don’t get many religious folks staying here.’
Louis’s face had the long-suffering look of a saint who has just heard that the rack is to be tightened.
‘If you’re interested,’ the woman continued, ‘we got a Baptist service tonight. You’re welcome to join us.’
‘Thank you, ma’am,’ said Angel, ‘but we prefer to engage in our own forms of worship.’
She smiled understandingly. ‘Long as it’s quiet and doesn’t disturb the other guests.’
‘We’ll do our best,’ intervened Louis, taking the key.
The woman recognised me as I approached the desk. ‘Back again? You must like it here in Dark Hollow.’
‘I hope to get to know it better,’ I replied. ‘Maybe you can help me with something.’
She smiled. ‘Sure, if I can.’
I handed her a photo of Ellen Cole, the small, ID kind taken in a photo booth. I’d had it blown up on a colour copier so that the picture was now eight-by-ten size. ‘You recognise this girl?’
The woman looked at the picture, squinting her eyes behind the thick lenses of her spectacles. ‘Yes, I do. She in some kind of trouble?’
‘I hope not, but she’s missing and her parents have asked me to help find her.’
The woman turned her attention back to the picture, nodding as she did so. ‘Yes, I recall her. Chief Jennings was asking about her. She stayed here with a young man for one night. I can get you the date, if you like.’
‘Would you, please?’
She took a registration card from a green metal card box and examined the details. ‘December fifth,’ she said. ‘Paid by credit card made out in the name of Ellen C. Cole.’
‘Do you recall anything that happened, anything out of the ordinary?’
‘No, nothing important. Someone had suggested to them that they visit here, someone they gave a ride to from Portland. That’s about all. She was nice, I remember. He was kind of a surly kid, but they can be that way at that age. I should know: raised four of my own and they were meaner than wharf rats until they were twenty-five.’
‘Did they give any indication of where they might be heading after they left here?’
‘North, I guess. Maybe up to Katahdin. I don’t know, for sure, but I told them that, if they had some time to spare, they should drive out and watch the sun set on the lake. They seemed to like the idea. It’s a pretty sight. Romantic, too, for a young couple like that. I let them check out late in the afternoon, just so they wouldn’t have to be rushing to pack.’
‘And they didn’t say who recommended that they see Dark Hollow?’ It seemed an odd thing to suggest. Dark Hollow didn’t have too much going for it.
‘Sure they did. It was some old guy they met along the way. They gave him a ride up here, and I think maybe he met up with them before they left.’
I felt my stomach turn a little. ‘Did they mention his name?’
‘No. Didn’t sound like anybody from around here, though,’ she said. Her brow furrowed a little. ‘They didn’t seem concerned about him or nothing. I mean, what harm could an old man do?’ I think she meant the question to be rhetorical when she started out, but by the end I don’t think it sounded that way to either of us.
She apologised, told me she didn’t know any more, then gave me directions to the lake, about a mile or two outside the town, on a tourist map. I thanked her, left my bag in my room and knocked on the door of the room next door, now occupied by Angel and Louis. Angel opened the door and let me in. Louis was hanging up his suits in the battered brown closet. I put the old man to the back of my mind. I wasn’t about to leap to conclusions, not yet.
‘What do people do for fun around here?’ asked Angel, sitting down heavily on one of the two double beds in the room. ‘This place sees less action than the pope.’
‘Wrap up warm for the winter,’ I said. ‘Wait for the summer.’
‘And what happens when the summer comes?’
‘Sometimes it doesn’t.’
‘So how can they tell the difference?’
‘The rain turns to snow in winter.’
‘Fulfilling existence, if you’re a tree.’
Louis finished arranging his clothes and turned to us. ‘Find out anything?’
‘The manager remembers Ell
en and her boyfriend. She told them to go watch the sun set out of town, then reckons they went north.’
‘Maybe they did go north,’ said Louis.
‘Rangers up in Baxter State Park have no record of them, according to Lee Cole. Apart from that, the options up north are limited. Plus, the woman at the desk says they gave some old guy a ride up here, and it was this old man who suggested that they stay in Dark Hollow.’
‘Is that a bad thing?’
‘I don’t know. Depends on who he was. It could be nothing.’ But I thought of the old man who had tried to take Rita Ferris at the hotel, and the figure of the old man Billy Purdue claimed to have seen shortly before his family was taken from him. And I thought too of something Ronald Straydeer had said when he misheard my comment as we stood before Billy Purdue’s trailer, discussing a man he might or might not have seen on his property.
‘You’re getting old.’
‘Yuh, he could have been old.’
‘So what now?’
I shrugged glumly. ‘I’m going to have to talk to Rand Jennings.’
‘You want us to come along?’
‘No, I have other plans for you two. Take a ride out to the Payne place, see what’s going on.’
‘See if Billy Purdue’s turned up, you mean,’ said Angel.
‘Whatever.’
‘And if he has?’
‘Then we go and get him.’
‘And if he hasn’t?’
‘We wait, until I’m certain that Ellen Cole isn’t in some kind of trouble here. Then . . .’ I shrugged.
‘We wait some more,’ finished Angel.
‘I guess,’ I replied.
‘That’s good to know,’ he said. ‘At least I can plan what to wear.’
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