In the coffee shop he breakfasted on poached eggs, toast, a pot of strong tea. The drizzle had stopped, although bloated gray clouds rimmed the horizon and the surf toiled restlessly on the beach. Church bells began to ring for early Mass. A bellman loaded his suitcases into the station wagon. Before eight o'clock, Vasily was on the road back to Williamsburg.
20
Eddie dreamed . . . dreamed that he was a boy again, playing stickball on the cluttered side streets of summer off Avenue B . . . Good hit! Run, Eddie, run! Dreamed of Martin and Luther and King, taking the quick pass from the quick black hands, fake and up and in . . . two points. Games, always games. Us against them. Even in the water, bubbles ascending, the rainbow-colored fish grouped above and below, hostile troops darting at him while he searched for the trigger of the spear gun that wasn't there; searched, then gave up, let the sea soothe and wash over his body. No need to fight. Don't have to play the game. Sleep is good, sleep solves it all . . . can't win, can't lose. Just sleep.
His eyes opened to the narrowest of slits and let gray light pass through to the pupils. Even that hurt. Gray light . . . why was the light so gray? His eyes opened a little more, so that pain bounced down from the brain, up from the hollow sockets, down and up, down and up, doing a crazy little circuit that made him want to give up, let sleep take him, let the soothing sea claim him.
But he forced the eyes to stay open, absorb the ghostly light. Forced himself to think where he was, to hear the ghostly voices. The reedy falsetto of Crowfoot. Good luck to you, Mancuso. Chalice's husky, weary tones. I love you too, Eddie.
He remembered.
Oh, Vasily. Oh, you son of a bitch.
Very slowly, he raised his head, while the sockets of his eyes gonged and clanged with pain. No other sound penetrated. He moved his left arm inch by inch across the pillow, damp from sweat, until his wristwatch swam blurrily into view. The hands of the watch formed a narrow V. Five minutes to one. That couldn't be. Night? Morning? Something was wrong there. Finally he saw it. Five after eleven. And there was light bleeding through the curtains that faced the ocean; so it was morning. Five after eleven in the morning.
Oh, no. No.
Whatever the cost to his body, his brain ordered it to move. He staggered out of the bed and across the carpet to the bathroom, shedding his clothes. Under the shower, the cold water beat on him like arrows of ice. He wanted to scream. You son of a bitch, I trusted you. Can't trust the old man? It was you I couldn't trust. You! He turned off the shower, shivered terribly, reaching with trembling hands for the big brown bath towel and, strangely, still heard the beat of the water. Like rain.
In the bedroom, still shivering and leaving a trail of water behind him, he forced open the curtains and looked out, blinking, at the steel-gray sea. The rain beat steadily down from a pearly sky.
He picked up the telephone. Again, the brain did the work while the body fumbled. He asked for the Information Center at Williamsburg. The musical tones pained his eardrums. His voice, when he spoke, had the hoarse growl of a three-day drunk. He asked about the weather, and was told that it was raining in Williamsburg.
"What about the military show on the green? Has it started yet?"
"Course not. Can't run that thing in the rain."
"Do you have any idea when it will start?"
"No idea at all, mister. Soon as the rain lets up, I reckon. Could be an hour from now, could be five minutes."
"Thank you," Eddie said, hanging up.
In ten minutes, unshaven and with bloodshot eyes, he was at the Hertz counter in the lobby. The black girl in the crisp red uniform looked at him warily.
"Yeah, I know," he said. "But here's my credit card. Look, sister, you'd do it for O. J. Simpson, so do it for me. My wife's just been taken to the hospital."
A gleaming blue Ford Fairlane screeched to a stop in front of the hotel in five minutes and Eddie, hands shaking, head pounding, sunglasses shutting out the weak gray glare of the morning, slid behind the wheel.
Run, Eddie, run. . . .
And while Eddie ran, Vasily cursed the rain; cursed it in Russian below his breath and more volubly in English, for he was not alone. He stood on the wet grass in the shelter of The Magazine, dressed in the hand-tailored lobsterback uniform of the King's Own Foot, in company with two other soldiers, both students at The College of William and Mary. Inside, the cannon also waited for the rain to stop. There was always an unknown factor, always something that one couldn't count on, could rarely foresee. In this instance, that something was as prosaic as the weather.
"It's the same old story," he said. "You can talk about it, but there's nothing you can do about it. What did they do back in 1776? Wait for the sun to shine before they fought the revolution?"
"If they were getting paid by the hour at a union rate," one of the students said, scratching his beard, "I'll bet that's exactly what they did. What's your hurry?"
"I've got to catch the midnight flight to Rio," Vasily said, grinning.
"Take me with you. I've never been there." The bearded student laughed, and put out his hand. "I'm Dave Lehman, and I don't think we'll have to wait much longer. It looks like it's clearing up."
And indeed, the stubborn sun had punched a hole in the gray- ness that was broadening into a wide patch of blue sky. Almost as soon as Lehman spoke, the last drop of rain pattered down, and a bar of gold light spread across the meadow. The grass steamed sweetly in the sudden warmth.
"Twelve forty," Vasily said, glancing at his watch. "How long before the shooting starts?"
Tourists began to emerge from the restaurants and buildings on the green. "Here they come," Dave Lehman said. "We can start to wheel out the cannon. I'd say by one o'clock we'll charge, then the militia will charge, and by three o'clock we'll be a beaten army. At four we get paid." He laughed and turned to Vasily. "Then at midnight you can fly to Rio."
Eddie prayed as he raced along 1-64 toward Williamsburg at eighty miles an hour. He prayed for time, he prayed for rain, and he prayed that the state police were sleeping late that morning. He watched the elephant-colored sky thin away into a porcelain blue, watched the friendly rain clouds lumber eastward, and he prayed even harder. He was hungry, and the sockets of his eyes still ached, but his anger had cooled and given way to calculation. There was one way, and only one.
Once in Williamsburg, he swung the car into the Merchants Square parking lot on Henry Street, cut the engine, and flung open the door. Out on Prince George Street, several soldiers in red British uniforms ambled along on their way to Market Square, while a single young soldier in colonial buff followed behind, his musket at the trail and his powder horn looped over his shoulder.
"Excuse me," Eddie called as he approached. "Can you tell me where the Governor's Palace is?"
"Sure, straight ahead."
"Can you do me another favor? I've got a map of Williamsburg here, but I can't make head or tail out of it."
"What are you looking for? I can probably tell you where it is." The tall colonial soldier bent forward. From under his road map, Eddie took a small nasal spray and squeezed it once, gently, so that the mist shot forward into the young man's face.
Minutes later, streaming sweat and dressed in the buff militia uniform, Eddie locked the doors of the car, leaving the front windows open an inch so that the student slumped on the floor of the back seat wouldn't suffocate. The tricornered hat came down almost to Eddie's eyes, the pants were baggy and the buckled boots two sizes too big. Gripping the musket, he hurried down Prince George Street and across the Palace Green. British soldiers were already moving into formation on Market Square opposite the buildings of the Colonial Squad. There were no sign of cannon yet, and he didn't see Vasily. Across the way, the militia had begun to muster in ranks, pouring powder and loading muskets.
Eddie's eyes darted around the square, assessing the various shops there. Basketmaking, Spinning and Weaving, Bootmaker, Cooper. His eyes passed over all these and settled on
the Deane Shop and Forge. The blacksmith had business; he was shoeing a horse. The fire in the forge showed dull red in the shadows of the smithy, and the clang of hammer on iron beat a steady rhythm. Eddie's eyes narrowed, he nodded, then he ran for the door of the shop.
"Shoeing nails?" the blacksmith said. "Now, what would you want with a pound of shoeing nails?"
"Souvenirs," Eddie mumbled hastily. "Um, paperweights . . . ah, carpet tacks."
"Carpet tacks?"
"Great for hanging pictures, too."
The puzzled blacksmith shook his head as he filled a paper bag with the metal pegs, then gaped as Eddie laid a ten-dollar bill on the anvil, grabbed the sack, and ran.
Outside the shop, among a press of people obscuring his view, he tore his handkerchief, wadded it, poured gunpowder from the horn down the barrel of the musket, and followed that with a handful of nails. He rammed them tightly with the rod, and was setting the flint in the lock when a small boy looked up at him in wonder.
"Mister, will that thing really shoot?"
"I'll bet my life on it," Eddie told him.
Then he heard the first ragged volley from the green and, craning his neck to look over the crowd, he saw the cannon.
In The Magazine, a squad of British soldiers began trundling the cannon to the door, hauling them by the limbers, two men to a gun. Vasily quickly picked out the cannon with the deep V scratched on the butt. Grasping the rope attached to the limber, he waved Dave Lehman to his side. Together, they worked the cannon out onto the grass, Vasily pulling, Dave bracing the barrel to keep the gun from careening out of control. The sun beat down strongly now; the grass was soaked, and in the humid heat a mist swirled up from the green. The mist partially obscured the maneuvering of the troops, but the frame-and-shingle building of the
Colonial Squad showed clearly. Vasily and his helper bumped the cannon across the grass, the wheels jolting over stray rocks.
Vasily put a hand to his chest, and winced. "Hold on a minute," he murmured.
"What's the matter?"
"I don't feel so well. Please, let's just rest a minute."
The other cannoneers had passed them, heading for the southern edge of the green. That was not where Vasily wanted to go. Farther away, the line of British redcoats charged, firing at the colonial militia. A file of standing men fired while the file in front of them knelt on the wet grass to reload. Then the files changed places, the kneeling men straightening, pointing their muskets, and at an officer's command pulling the heavy triggers. The guns popped and banged wonderfully, acrid smoke rising into the mist. Children shrieked with pleasure; parents applauded politely as members of the militia sprawled on the grass, feigning death and injury.
How much they appreciate it, Vasily thought, and how deeply it touches them . . . and how little they understand.
A militia officer, head wrapped in bandages, shouted a command. His troops scattered to the flanks and began to fire their harmless charges at the redcoats. The thin red line stumbled, broke, fell back. Then the British cannon rumbled, great swirls of smoke pluming up from the muzzles. Again the militia fell back to rally and regroup. The crowd cheered the performance.
"Hey, come on," Dave Lehman said, puzzled. "Let's go! We can't just sit around, we're right in the middle of the whole damn battle."
"I'm really not well," Vasily said, his voice low and weak. "I was a fool to have done this." He slumped across the barrel of the cannon. "Please ... get me a doctor."
"Oh, my God! Say, are you serious? You're not kidding me, are you?"
"No," Vasily gasped. "This is no joke. A doctor . . . please. My heart. There must be a doctor somewhere." He fluttered one hand toward the crowd.
"Stay right here," Dave Lehman said. "Don't move." He broke into a run toward the apothecary's shop.
As soon as he was gone, Vasily straightened up, laid down his musket, and began to haul the heavy cannon around into place. He was almost exactly in the center of the green, men lying on the grass all around him; the two armies firing, reloading, shouting hoarsely, the other cannon booming. Yelling soldiers ran by, and the smell of gunpowder bit sharply into his nostrils. Smoke drifted lazily overhead as he maneuvered the heavy limber to one side so that the muzzle of the cannon pointed toward the Colonial Squad building. He was about to reach into the touchhole to activate the laser mechanism when he heard his name called.
"Vasily, wait!"
But that was impossible. He stiffened, controlled himself, and refused to turn toward the source of the sound. The voice called his name again; it was no mistake. He wheeled and saw a single colonial soldier sprinting toward him, musket extended, weaving a path through the fallen men and around the other cannon. It took him only the briefest of glances to see, under the tricornered hat, the pale, hard, angry face of Eddie Mancuso.
Vasily reacted without thought, responding only to instinct and training. He dropped to one knee, snatched the modified musket from where it rested against the cannon, and leveled it in the direction of the charging soldier.
"Eddie!" he called. "Don't come any closer."
Thirty yards away, Eddie kept coming.
Vasily shouted at him: "Don't make me do it. Stay back!"
Eddie skidded to a halt. He had heard Vasily clearly the first time, but the musket pointing at him had seemed as harmless as the others on the field. Only now, as he came closer, did he recognize the odd configuration of the stock, the thickened barrel and notched sights, and know that it was no ordinary Brown Bess that was leveled at him. He knew immediately that whatever weapon Vasily had fashioned would blow him apart, and the warning message worked its way from his brain to his legs.
"Put that thing down," he called across the din of the battle. "Put it down and we'll talk."
Vasily's answer was a warning shot that screamed high and harmlessly over Eddie's head. He ducked quickly to one side, to where a group of colonial militia were bringing up a battery of their own cannon. Linstock touched powder, the carronade roared, and for a moment the smoke of the explosion obscured the field. Vasily vanished from his view.
Dropped prone on the grass behind the wheel of a cannon, Eddie raised his musket. As the smoke blew away in shreds, he saw the Russian bent to the base of the cannon. Aiming deliberately wide, returning the warning shot to drive him away from the laser, Eddie yanked at the stiff trigger. The musket bucked.
Vasily heard the whine of metal weakly striking metal, ricocheting off the cannon barrel. Lips thinned, gray eyes cold as iron, he sighted along the tangent sights he had fitted to the Brown Bess and squeezed off two shots at the figure he saw veiled in the smoke and mist. This time he shot to kill.
A colonial soldier to Eddie's left, standing by the second cannon and priming his musket, screamed with pain and pitched to the turf. Blood flowed down the buff-colored trouser leg.
Eddie squirmed along the ground, musket clutched in one hand, his other hand clawing for a hold to haul himself forward. A bullet whistled past, struck a loose rock, ricocheting crazily. Men were shooting all around him, but except for the boy who lay moaning on the ground, not one of them realized that among the mock charges there were real bullets being fired. He knew then that there was not going to be any truce on that field; no time out for reasoning; but he called again in one last try.
"Vasily, don't! It's me. Eddie."
Again his answer was a bullet. This one plowed the ground nearby.
There was no time to press another charge of nails into the musket, ram it home, pour in gunpowder. Eddie launched himself forward at the figure in red crouched by the cannon. He threw his body to the left just as a 9-mm parabellum bullet plucked at his flowing white sleeve. He struck the grass, rolled, came up swinging the musket like a baseball bat. The wood of the stock connected with the barrel of Vasily's Brown Bess, knocking it to the side, and Eddie kept coming, driving his hundred and fifty pounds into the bigger man like a demented quarterback foolishly leading the interference. For a mom
ent Vasily lurched, stumbled, then braced himself against the barrel of the cannon. His foot snapped out in a karate kick that caught Eddie on the hip and sent him spinning.
Even as he fell, Eddie thought, 1 can't do it! I can't handle him. Breath fled his lungs as his chest crashed into the ground, but he kept spinning, rolling, and his hand fastened on to a cold, wet rock, jagged, the size of a baseball. Grunting with fury, Vasily snapped the toe of his boot forward again.
Eddie squirmed, reaching out to catch the leg, and then the Russian was falling on top of him, eyes coolly murderous, one hand groping for the trigger of his rifle, and Eddie saw it. His arm went back; he twisted and struck. The rock in his fist took Vasily in the left eye, the jagged edge slicing through jelly and bone.
An animal bellow broke from Vasily's lips. With blood pouring from his eye, his hands found Eddie's throat and fastened on the larynx. The powerful fingers pressed deeper, looking for the leverage that would snap the cartilage and kill.
Nausea slammed through Eddie's nervous system. With his clenched right hand he struck a second time, and then a third time, and with the third blow the Russian went sliding away to the ground, unmoving. Eddie breathed deeply, rolled over, stood up.
"Vasily?"
The question in his voice went unanswered. The Russian was dead.
Eddie stared at the blood-soaked rock in his hand. After all the years, all the tricks, and all the devices, he had finally killed with the weapon of Cain, the oldest weapon known to man. He looked down at Vasily. The face was set, the eyes already glazed in death. He knelt and touched the cheek gently.
"Boy, we really screwed that one up, didn't we?" he whispered hoarsely. "We should have used a preheater to activate the laser, and a remote control on the trigger to . . ."
His voice trailed away. His throat hurt too much for him to speak, and his eyes were blurred with tears.
He stood up and looked around. The battle still raged in mock fury on either side of him. Vasily's body was only one of many lying on the green. He ducked his head and broke into a trot through the drifting, bitter smoke, making for the parking lot and the car.
THE DEATH FREAK -- An Eddie Mancuso Thriller (Eddie Mancuso And Vasily Borgneff Book 1) Page 26