“Fuck,” I say. “Holy shit.”
Carlos has spotted the police activity. “What do you want me to do?” he asks.
“Just keep driving.”
I left nothing in the room. Registered under a phony name. Paid cash. Made no calls. A clean break. But the Heat is obviously hip to my presence in the area. This truck has Massachusetts plates and is not traceable to me, so presumably still cool. There is a diner across the road from the airport. The state cop who pulled out in front of us is parked in the airport lot and is out of his car looking around.
How the fuck… ? I’m wondering. Wart Hog must be hot—or busted. That would not explain how they got hip to my decoy motel room. The ponytailed taxi driver? Good thing I moved out of that room and secured the money. See, always listen to that still, small voice within. If the taxi driver gave me up, that would mean JD and Father Flaherty are hot as well.
“Pull in to the diner,” I tell Carlos.
We park the hash-filled truck and go inside.
Sitting at the counter in the diner, with the front windows behind us looking out at the airport, we can see everything going on there. More cop cars arrive and a couple of pale green US border patrol vehicles. The airport is swarming with cops and agents. Two vans pull into the diner parking lot. Half a dozen long-haired freaks descend on the diner, and I’m thinking, Fucking DEA. We are busted. But they are not. They are a rock band that played a gig at the mountain music jam the night before. Carlos and I strike up a conversation with the musicians, trying to blend in, trying to disappear. I go to the hallway outside the restrooms and call JD from a pay phone.
“How’s the weather?”
“Everything’s cool here,” he tells me.
“We’re hot,” I say. “Stay tuned.”
When the band gets up to leave, Carlos and I follow them outside. As we walk through the narrow entranceway to the front door, two beefy state troopers enter. We have to turn sideways to let them pass and are face-to-face, eyeball-to-eyeball with the Heat. I nod and say, “Good morning.” The cops ignore me, and we keep walking, say our good-byes to the musicians and get into the truck with the three hundred pounds of hash in the bed. At each passing moment I am relieved not to be arrested.
“Where to?” Carlos asks.
“Just drive. Don’t go back to Kingfield. Head up toward Stratton.”
If I’m going to get busted, might as well be in a town with the same name, I’m thinking—just for the record: Fugitive drug smuggler Richard Stratton was arrested this morning in Stratton, Maine. What? But then, as we approach the entrance to Sugarloaf, two more state cop cars speed up behind us. Here it comes, I say to myself and wish I hadn’t involved my kid nephew.
The cops pull out and race past.
“Shit, man… what the fuck is going on?”
“Jesus!” Carlos says. “They’re everywhere.”
I’m sure they are looking for us, scouring the area but not seeing us. It’s as if we are invisible. Soon, no doubt, they will set up roadblocks, and we will get stopped. They will search the truck, and all will be lost. Got to land somewhere and wait this out.
“Here. Pull in,” I say, indicating the entrance to the Sugarloaf Mountain ski resort. Already cars carrying concert-goers for the continuation of the music and arts festival are heading into the road to the base of the mountain. They are lined up at a team of parking attendants directing them to fill up the parking area. Best to try to get lost in the crowd.
Carlos pulls in and parks in the lot with cars and trucks and campers from all over New England and the East Coast. We walk up to the lodge and take a seat in a booth in the bar and restaurant with a bird’s-eye view of the parking lot. The place is alive with festival ticket holders, college kids, young couples, aging hippies, backwoods freaks, and tie-dyed flower children. We order breakfast and Bloody Marys.
“I don’t know if I can eat,” Carlos says when the omelets arrive. “My stomach is in knots.”
“Eat,” I advise him. “It may be the last decent meal you have in some time.”
Fool for coming back to Maine, I chastise myself. Returning to the scene of the crime and tempting fate. I’m wondering if it’s time to call Godfried. No, best not involve him yet. Even as I am trying to formulate a plan to get us out of the area without getting busted with a truck full of hash, the cops arrive. State troopers. Border patrol. Plain clothes federal agents. My balls shrivel up inside me. I’m looking around, expecting to see Bernie Wolfshein appear at any minute. Or that other guy, the blue-eyed stranger who ignited all this Heat and seems to act as Wolfshein’s forward scout.
Barnswallow! Fucking Fearful Fred. This is all his fault. Wart Hog must have been popped. Trace it back, follow the thread, look for the loose ends, and unravel the net. The Cessna 210 is hot. Probably seized by now. Another airplane gone. The Wart Hog flipped and told them I deplaned in Rangeley. It took them all day, but they eventually located the taxi driver who took me to the motel outside Kingfield. But he apparently protected his fellow ex-Marines, JD and Flaherty, who do not appear to have picked up this Heat. Or maybe the cops are laying back, watching them, hoping they will lead them to me.
Best to distance myself from any of my close associates in case the Man is onto them. I go on rubber legs to a phone booth downstairs from the bar and call the local guy who worked for me on the farm as a cabinetmaker, a skilled craftsman and quiet, mellow, the dude we call Mild Bill. Bill’s old lady used to bug Anaïs to urge me to throw some of the more lucrative work Bill’s way. They were broke and needed money to pay their mortgage before the bank foreclosed. I used him a couple of times to load planes for the smaller trips into Quebec. He made a quick ten grand and was thankful. And he was there on that memorable morning when the DC-6 crash-landed. Bill was one of the recruits who turned tail and ran before JD ordered them back. His wife answers the phone and is obviously upset when I ask for Bill. Bad idea, I’m thinking as I wait for Bill to come on the line. I decide to change plans. I tell him to go up to the neighbor’s farm where JD is living, give him the number of my pay phone, and tell JD to call me from an outside line in half an hour.
“If I don’t answer, tell him to call Hef in Boston. You got that?”
“Yeah.”
“Everything okay?” I ask.
“Yeah, I guess so.”
But I don’t like the tone of his voice. He’s alarmed, sounds perturbed to be asked to lend a hand. Oh, but it was okay to beg for my help when you needed money. Now I’m putting you out by asking for a favor. What the fuck is that? Straight people. Fucking citizens! You never know how they will react when the Heat comes down. Of course, that can be said for pretty much anyone. Some crooks roll over and spread their legs like bitches. The JDs of the world are few and far between. JD took a beating at the hands of the cops when we got cracked in New York and stayed strong, gave them only name, rank, and serial number.
While I’m waiting for the call back, I survey the parking lot from the ski shop windows on the lower level. Cops everywhere. But they do not appear to be in bust mode. No guns drawn. They are looking for something. A vehicle, obviously. But apparently not the truck we are driving with the Massachusetts plates and hash in the rear, for they walk right past it, not ten feet away, and are on radios conferring with other cops or agents elsewhere. I’m searching my mind trying to figure out how they knew to come here to the mountain to look for whatever it is they are looking for—apparently me.
There he is. Lord above, it’s Wolfshein. Or am I hallucinating? No, it’s him. He drives up with Blue-Eyes in a government sedan. They get out to confer with the state troopers and border patrol agents. I am almost glad to see the Wolfman—a familiar face. At least I know he will try to stop the more excitable cops from shooting me. Fuck. If they believe I am here, they will search every square inch of this place until they find me and drag my ass to the slammer. I’m thinking I should grab Carlos and hightail it, just run up over the top of the mountain and head off int
o the vast Maine woods. Leave the truck. Just go. Run. Get the fuck out before they hit the lodge.
Adrenaline pours into my bloodstream. My heart is racing. My mouth is dry. I’m speeding my brains out. Relax, calm yourself. Think this through. This is happening right here in front of me, I am on top of this situation, I see them—cops and agents who look like toy soldiers from my vantage point. Think. Come up with a plan, Dick. This is where you shine. In the crux of the matter, in the vital moment, at the turning point.
I’m thinking I could go to the locker room and squeeze into one of the lockers until they’ve made their search and moved on. Not likely. I’m too big and too claustrophobic. Where else to hide?
And then I have it, my boldest, wildest idea yet. I go back to the pay phone and call information, ask for the number of the DEA office in Portland, Maine. Once I get through to agency staff, I identify myself as a concerned citizen who would like to report suspicious activity. “Some men just landed in a small plane on a private airstrip in Phillips, Maine. They’re loading the plane with what I suspect to be drugs. I live in the area and know for a fact these men use this airstrip to smuggle drugs,” I report in a voice imbued with the authority of truth.
“Can I have your name, please sir?” the DEA functionary asks. “I’ll put you through to the agent in charge.”
“No, sorry,” I say. “I don’t want any trouble.” And I hang up before they can trace the call.
I go into the locker room, into the bathroom area, into a stall, drop my drawers and sit on the shitter—even though the last thing I need to do at this moment is to take a crap. Scared shitless are the words that come to mind to describe how I feel. I bury my face in my hands and try to calculate how many minutes have passed since I asked Bill to relay my message to JD, and how long it will take for JD to go out and drive to a pay phone and call me back. I’m watchless, as I hate to be encumbered by anything around my wrists. It has been at least ten minutes, I estimate, maybe fifteen. I’m not happy about leaving Carlos alone upstairs. He must be wondering what happened to his insane uncle. But I’m not excited about the prospect of going back up there and running into Special Agent Bernard Wolfshein of the Drug Enforcement Administration either. Yes, I’m hiding. Admit it. I’d like to flush myself down the toilet like a big turd and swim away into the deep underground septic system of America.
Calm… calm. Relax, Dickhead, I tell myself, though my heart is pounding so hard it aches. This too shall pass. What’s the worst that can happen? I get busted. They can’t know about Carlos. He’ll walk. So I go to jail. Been there. I don’t relish the prospect, but as long as they don’t shoot me, I’ll be okay. There are worse things that could happen. I could get sick and die of some excruciating, long-drawn-out disease. I could lose my nerve and end up cowering in the corner, pissing and shitting myself, begging for mercy. Roll over and give up my best friend. Become a rat, a coward—a fate worse than death in my mind.
Some men enter the room and relieve themselves, splashing their waters into the porcelain for what seems like too long. I sneak a look under the stall to see if they are shod in cop shoes. No, sneakers and sandals. They leave. Minutes drag by. Carlos, Carlos… I’m sending him thought waves. Sit tight. Eat, drink, and remain calm in the eye of the storm. Let the excitement swirl around you like the weather, but be as the mountain—unmoved. You think the mountain gives a shit about any of this? No. I keep telling myself with each slow-moving shift of the planet that this moment will not last or alter anything in the cosmic order.
I creep out of the stall and climb into a utility closet to squat among the mops and buckets. More minutes crawl into the endless moment. I visualize Wolfshein getting the call from headquarters in Portland. He’s excited as he strides to his car and wheels off in the direction of Phillips, to the so-called Amascontee Lodge and Flying Club, with glimpses of Stratton in his sights. Must be our boy, he’s thinking, marshalling the troops. In my vision, the squad of cops races off behind him. Yes, please, dear Lord, carry them away on this wild goose chase. Here I go, praying again.
A stringy-haired, bearded-and-tattooed old freak is startled when I stumble out of the closet. “Hiding from the old lady,” I say, but he stares back at me as though he knows who I’m avoiding.
Step by step back to the pay phone. I bear only a slight resemblance to my last available mug shot. My hair is long and bleached blond, my beard full. I’m wearing a baseball cap and shades. The Wolf has never seen me looking anything like this. But that warty asshole Wart Hog would have clued them in to my changed appearance. But maybe not. The one advantage we have in this chase is that the Heat doesn’t know what we are doing; they know only what their rats tell them, which is not always accurate or complete. Rats make shit up. They embellish. Or they conceal things for whatever private reasons.
I sit in the phone booth, turn my face to the wall, pick up the receiver and act as though I’m engaged in conversation, but with my hidden hand pressing down on the plastic lever that disconnects the line. Chatting away to no one, I nearly leap out of the booth when there comes a rapping on the folding wood-and-glass panel door. But it is only Carlos.
“What’s going on out there?” I ask.
“I don’t know,” he says. His face is ashen. “A bunch of them took off.”
It worked! Did it? Something happened.… I feel giddy, though not quite relieved. “You okay?”
“Some guys in suits—”
The phone rings and I release the lever.
“What’s up, chief?” JD asks.
“Hold on a second.” And then to Carlos, “Yeah?”
“These guys, they just, you know—they’re not here for the concert.”
“Are they still here?”
“I don’t know,” he says. “It’s fucking weird.”
“Go back up to the bar and wait for me. I’ll be there in a minute.”
I tell JD to come pick me up in his old lady’s car.
“Get here as fast as you can. But be careful. The whole area is crawling with cops.”
Back in the bar, I take another look out into the parking lot. Many of the cop cars have gone. If there were seven or eight counting the border patrol units, there are now no more than three: a state trooper’s car, a sheriff’s department car, and one of the fed cars. Wolfshein’s car? I don’t know, but I suspect not. If they went for the bait, which it appears they have, Wolfshein would not have allowed himself to miss the bust. I almost smile, imagining the Wolfman standing in the middle of the airstrip. He looks around with that quizzical, befuddled scowl, pushes his glasses back up over the bridge of his nose and inspects the strip for signs of recent use. Then he shakes his head and leaves, knowing he’s been outflanked.
My omelet is cold, but I eat it anyway. Anything to carry on with whatever is required to stay alive. Eat. Breathe. Drink. Think. Carlos is looking at me as if he expects some explanation. I don’t want to jinx the ruse by mentioning what may have happened. All we know for sure is that the cops seem to have gone—most of them, anyway. I say “seem to,” for there is always the possibility that they have merely moved and set up a roadblock at the entrance and are checking everyone who leaves the area. Time passes. More Bloody Marys. Two guys in suits who are not here for the music festival come in and take a seat.
JD pulls up in his woman’s Saab. I pay the tab, and we leave. It’s the oddest feeling each step I take, expecting at any moment to be confronted with agents wielding weapons and screaming, “Down on the ground, motherfucker!” Each step is charged with every ounce of freedom I can bring to bear. Walking to the hangman’s noose or to the edge of deliverance.
I never felt so alive.
We walk outside, meet JD in the parking lot. “You run into any roadblocks on the way?” I ask. My hands are trembling, yet I know I appear calm. I look around. No cops anywhere.
“No, but I saw plenty of cops. They’re all over the strip and the lodge.”
I can’t suppress a guffaw, more a sputte
r of relief.
“What’s so funny?”
“I’ll tell you later. Right now, we gotta get out of here,” I say.
“Carlos, stay here.” I give him a few hundred dollars. “Buy a ticket and go to the concert. Relax. Enjoy yourself. Keep an eye on the truck, but don’t go near it until you hear from me. I’m going to call you at the phone booth downstairs—the one I was using—at… let’s say seven tonight. We’ll check the roads, make sure it’s cool, then you drive the truck out of here.”
“Where to?” he asks.
I look at JD. “Take it to Father Flaherty’s?”
“Yeah. His new place. It’s cool.”
THE ROAD BACK to Kingfield is cop free.
“You did what?” JD says when I tell him about the bogus tip that drew the Heat. “That is fucking crazy.”
“They hit that place this morning,” I say when we pass the motel. I’m feeling good but still vulnerable. All this good fortune must be balanced somewhere. You either win or lose. We are both laughing. This is the feeling I live for: the rush. The thrill of getting over on the Man. This means more to me than all the money in those fat bags stashed under the horse stall. More to me than the juiciest piece of ass. And yet it is every bit like a blast of cocaine or a win at the blackjack table or a loveless fuck, for almost as soon as you get off and reach the peak of the high, you are already starting to come down, thinking about the next hit, the next flip of the card off the deck, the next scent of pussy, the next brush with the law. And in the private hell of your habit, you sense the empty feeling that is still there at the bottom of the well of your being.
“Fuck it,” JD says. “It’s not like they don’t know about that place. So they fell for it. They must be apeshit. Standing around with their dicks in their hands.”
We laugh again, but in my mind I am already moving on. I don’t want to alter good fortune with derision. JD confirms state troopers contacted the taxi driver. They checked the trip log to learn he had taken a passenger from the airfield in Rangeley to the motel, but he told them nothing more. “He’s cool,” JD says. “Ex-jarhead.”
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