"They wouldn't fit."
"I'll ask Drew Lynch for some of his then."
"I don't want him to know I'm here," I said lamely.
Nancy came over and put her hands on my shoulders gently, as though lecturing a slow learner.
"John, you won't have to show Drew any identification for me to borrow a sweater from him. Besides, he certainly knows you're up here by the sound of your footfalls."
I thought back to Jacquie and Ricker above me in old Curl's house. I shuddered.
"Chill?" she said.
"No," I replied.
"Wel1, then, let's go."
"What about the numerous ruffians who no doubt frequent the area?"
She laughed. "Don't worry, it's too cold for them."
I yielded.
Drew's sweater was a thick-ribbed, oily burgundy turtleneck that closed out the cold. The stars were bright over the patch of inky black harbor we could see as we strolled along the beach. A couple of joggers in ski masks thumped by us, looking like terrorists and flicking their mittens at us in salute. Nancy swung her arms conservatively at her side. I kept my hands in my pants pockets, thanking whoever had given Drew the sweater for Christmas.
"It's tomorrow, isn't it?" she said. She spoke quietly, but the air was so cold and the night so still that I was sure the joggers, at least a quarter mile behind us by now, could have heard her. We kept walking.
"What's tomorrow?"
"Whatever it is that you're going to do."
I exhaled heavily. My breath clouds never got started because of the wind coming off the harbor.
"Probably," I said. "If all goes well."
She dug her hands into her pockets and watched her feet. "Would it do any good for me to argue that the court system is the better way to resolve disputes like this one?"
She made me smile in spite of myself. "No, it wouldn't.”
"John Francis Cuddy," she said wearily, "you are too old, too recently drugged, and probably too damned decent to deal with these people."
"You left out too loyal, too arrogant, and too stubborn to quit now."
She stopped and punched me in the arm, harder than I was ready for.
"Don't!" she cried out, then dropped her voice. "Don't you dare make fun of yourself."
"O.K.," I said, feeling the little glow inside again. "I won't."
She shook away the tears beginning to form in her yes. She went up on tiptoes and threw her arms around my neck, drawing her face up into the side of my throat.
"Please come back," she said. No sobbing, just an even, reasonable request.
I stroked her hair and began to realize just how much I wanted to.
We walked back to her house, Nancy's left arm slid into the crook of my right. We climbed the stairs. We both knew I'd taken a step out there on the beach. She had the good sense to realize that a step wasn't a leap.
"Couch?" she said lightly.
I nodded.
"I usually set the alarm for seven," she said in the same tone.
"That'll be just fine."
She walked into her bedroom. "Why don't you take the bathroom first," she said, closing the door behind her.
TWENTY-THREE
-•-
MY AGENDA FOR THE; MORNING WAS SHORT, AND THE first two items took no time at all. I drove to Newton, a city about eight miles west of Boston. I obtained a large General Delivery mailbox for a month at the Newton Post Office under the name of "J. T. Davis" and bought ten dol1ars' worth of stamps. Then I stopped at a stationery store and bought five large book-mailing envelopes with the legend "Books—Fourth Class Mail" already printed on them. I put these in the trunk of the rent-a-car, just above the blanketed shotgun I had bought at the shop of the Button's brother. I got into the car and drove to Eddie Shuba's junkyard.
I drove by slowly and counted off the five side streets Eddie and I had agreed upon yesterday. I turned right and spotted the old Pontiac slumped into a parking space next to a weather-beaten house and across from a nonoperational auto body shop. I pulled in ahead of the Pontiac and walked back to it. I got in and found the keys on a wire just under the glove box. I pulled off the ignition key and turned the engine over. The car started on the third try. I let it warm up while I went back to the rental and transferred my cargo from it to the Pontiac's cavernous trunk. I put the Pontiac in gear and drove it into the driveway of the auto body shop and behind the building itself. The old car still had effortless power steering and crisp, albeit squeaky, braking. I turned off the engine and sat in the car for a few moments with the front windows rolled down. No noise, no voices. I got out and walked to the back of the car, my footsteps crunching the unshoveled snow. I reopened the trunk, taking out the tools Eddie had left there for me, and returned to the front of the car. I opened the hood of the Pontiac and went to work. It took less than an hour.
Oh, I had to push a few wires and hoses out of the way. Also, I spent fifteen awkward minutes cutting a hole through the engine side of the glove box and niggling into place a doubled-over shirt to take the powder burns. Three of the Button's braces were perfect, though, and the wire to the dead-man's switch was easy to attach. I ran the wire down through the dash and mounted the switch itself on the floor next to the headlights' dimmer switch. I armed the switch with the shotgun empty and did a few trial runs. Then I tossed my remainders into the trunk and folded one of the mailers into the glove compartment. I reset the system and took the Pontiac out for a bouncy test drive of about two miles. I came back in behind the auto body shop and tried it again. I heard the satisfying click from under the hood. I reset the switch and loaded the shotgun. Then I paused a few minutes to think things through one more time. The only flaws I could see were those of timing that I had already anticipated and those of chance that I could not predict.
I started the Pontiac and headed toward Weston Hills. I stopped at a pay phone in Newton and dialed Murphy's number.
"Lieutenant Murphy's line, Detective Cross speaking."
I tried to disguise my voice. "Lieutenant Murphy, please."
"I'm sorry but he's not available. Can I take a message?"
"No," I said, "I can call him back." I paused. "Just tell him Mr. Lazarus tried to reach him."
"All right."
I hung up. I walked several stores down and bought a paper, a tuna sub, and two root beers. I walked back to the Pontiac and killed nearly three hours before I drove on.
I got to Weston Hills about 3:30 P.M. I found a parking space across the street and three doors down from the real estate agency. It struck me that the Pontiac was the oldest, cruddiest car on the street but I passed that worry and found another pay phone just across from "Belker's" office.
I dialed the number and got the Mount Holyoke receptionist again.
"Weston Hills Realty, may I help you?"
"Mr. Belker, p1ease."
"May I say who is calling?"
I had given the answer to that question a lot of malice aforethought. It was luck that he was in, but as much as I wanted to twist the knife in him, I couldn't let "Belker" and Al's death, and therefore me, appear connected in any traceable way.
"This is the Board of Registration of Real Estate Brokers and Salesmen. A former customer of your agency has, ah, expressed some concerns to us, and I wanted to speak with Mr. Belker about them before the situation got out of hand."
"Yes, certainly. Hold on, please."
Nicely done, Cuddy. Too flustered to remember to ask about your name again. There was an outside possibility that she would monitor the rest of the conversation or that he would tape it, but that was a risk I would have to run.
A click and then, "Hello, this is Clay Belker."
Another perfectly modulated voice.
"Hi, this is Al Sachs calling"
Silence from his end.
"Or would you prefer Sergeant Ricker?" I continued.
"Who is this please?" he said gamely.
"Or maybe a heroin pusher named Bouvier?"
"Listen, I really think we should talk."
"I don't know—"
"Today."
"I'm afraid I'm pretty well jammed for—"
"Two hours. In front of your house. I'll be in a yellow Ford station wagon."
"I'm afraid that's—"
"Perfect for you? Excellent. See you then." I hung up and walked over to an army/navy surplus store, keeping my back to his building and watching his door in the store's reflecting plate glass window.
The next five minutes must have been bad ones for him. A few notches up from an annoying consumer complaint lodged with the Real Estate Board. I was dead sure he had a stash of contingent money and identification somewhere. Maybe at home, or in a safety deposit box, or with an attomey. Perhaps some fail-safe combination of all three. My gas-guzzling dinosaur was the ace in the hole there: no matter where he ran, its engine was big enough to catch his car and its body heavy enough to force him off the road.
I had just moved my window watching from the surplus store to a video shop when my man slipped casually out the front door, an attaché case swinging lightly at his side. He smiled and waved to a couple of people as he made his way up the sidewalk. As he crossed the street to my side, I checked my watch and strolled over to the Pontiac. When he got a block ahead, I started up and slid into the stop-and-go traffic, slowly trailing him.
There have been lectures given and volumes written about methods of following subjects. Two-operative, three-operative, street-zigzag, vehicle-parallel, etc. If you're alone, you can follow almost anyone for a short time without help. However, you can follow almost no one, even a complete boob, for a long time without a lot of good, and not a speck of bad, luck. I wanted my man to be unaware of me only until he had cleaned out his hidey-hole. After that, I wou1dn't need to follow him anymore.
He weaved leisurely through the sidewalk throngs, still nodding and waving like a candidate on the stump. The flow of traffic cooperated nicely; only once did I nearly pull even with him. About two and a half blocks down, he turned into a bank's main doorway. I checked around for cops, then eased over into a yellow loading zone. I waited. And worried.
Probability said he was going into the bank to take a huge chunk of cash from a safety deposit box. Possibility said I had caught him just before a scheduled real estate closing at the lender's, and he was merely intending to collect his six percent check. Nightmare said he was cleaning out his cache but would smilingly prevail on the security guard to let him out a back entrance.
I sweated for about seven minutes. Then he emerged from the bank. A bit quick for a closing to have concluded, and the attaché case seemed to swing a good deal less lightly at his side.
I put the Pontiac in gear. I pulled into the bank driveway just as he was drawing even with the sidewalk.
"Mr. Belker," I called in an artificial, Southwestern twang. "Yo, Mr. Be1ker."
He tumed, looked at me impatiently and turned back to continue on his way.
I called a bit louder. "Yo, I do have that name right, don't I? It is Clay Belker, from Vietnam, isn't it?"
He froze and looked around. He didn't think anybody had heard me either time, but he was afraid my next decibel level might call attention to us. I expect he decided then and there he'd be having to kill me.
He turned toward me again, smiling and giving his little wave. He walked up to the driver's side window, unbuttoning his coat and glancing into the empty back seat. He leaned down a little. "I'm sorry," he said pleasantly, "but I'm afraid you have the better of me."
I smiled back. I said, softly but in my normal voice,
"Get in the car, Sergeant Crowley."
"I don't know—"
"If I intended to turn you over to the authorities, I wouldn't have forewarned you. I'm talking private deal here. Now get in the car."
"But I have to get some papers back to my—"
"I have a feeling those papers will figure prominently in our negotiations. Now get in."
The wheels must have been spinning furiously in his crew-cut brain. There were two alternatives. One, I was working for the authorities, who had staked me out to lure him in. If so, they were probably within sight and/or sound and could thwart any attempt by him to run. If I were with the authorities, he couldn't risk reaching into his unbuttoned coat and acing me, since I was probably being filmed, recorded, or at least watched.
The other alternative was that I wasn't working for the authorities. In that case, there was at least a chance I was alone. If so, he could play along with the blackmail until he could kill me. The Clay Belker cover might be potentially too dangerous to resume, but he'd be free and away with the contents of his briefcase.
"Well," he said, "at least you can give me a lift to my office while you explain yourself." Alternative Two.
"Come around. Front seat," I said, depressing the switch with my left foot.
"All right." He walked around to the passenger side and got in, case placed on the floor between his legs. "My office is . . ."
I shifted to reverse. I backed out and headed down Main Street in the eventual direction of Eddie's junkyard.
"My office is back the other way," said my passenger evenly.
"We're taking the scenic route," I said and glanced at him. He sat slightly sidesaddle, Walther PPK in his right hand. He held it low, out of my reach, and angled up at my chest.
"Fine weapon, the Walther," I observed.
"Take the next right," he said.
"Of course, without a silencer, kind of noisy." The next right slid by.
He advanced the weapon an inch or so toward me.
"I would take the next available fight if I were you."
I smiled. "Take a look at my left foot."
He looked down and tensed. "You're wired. I knew that .... "
"It's a wire, all right, but not to a tape machine. My foot's depressing an armed switch. The switch is connected to enough explosives in the front of the car to send both of us back to Saigon."
He didn't offer any reply.
"Therefore," I continued, "if you shoot me or don't cooperate, I let up on the dead-man's switch, and we both blow."
"That's crazy," he said, still evenly. "Either way you lose."
I tried to sound resigned. "I'm a down-and-out private investigator, boy-o. I lost my wife to cancer and my best army buddy to you. Al Sachs has a widow and infant son that I sure as hell can't provide for. I don't see that anybody is so much worse off if I lift my foot except you."
"You're bluffing," he said, still with no emotion in his voice. He must have been a great real estate bargainer. "Nobody is that suicidal."
I shrugged and ignored the next available right.
"Nobody," he repeated.
We drove on for a bit. Neither of us said anything. “Where are we going," he finally said, not quite so
evenly as before.
I tried not to sound relieved. "To someplace quiet where we can talk about Al's family. And their future."
We traveled in silence after that.
I drove past Eddie Shuba's gate on the right and counted five blocks before turning in. It was 4:35 and already dark.
"I don't like this," said my boy.
"I don't much care about that," I replied.
My rental was still across the street. From a windshield appraisal, it didn't look like anybody had stripped it. I turned left into and behind the auto body shop. My passenger's head whipped nervously left and right.
He said, "I hear a sound or see anybody, and you're dead."
"Relax," I said. "There's just the two of us." I turned off the engine. It was perfectly, almost serenely, quiet in the derelict neighborhood. "Besides, if I'm dead, so are you."
I watched him steadily for a minute or two. The car was still warm from the heater, but he was perspiring a little more than the temperature alone would have warranted. He was pale, like a grunt from the bush during the rainy season in Vietnam.
His gun hand was steady, though. Quite steady.
"You wanted to talk," he said. "So talk."
I shifted carefully to face him a little more directly. He stared at my left stationary foot until I stopped moving.
"I figure that by now you're convinced I'm not working with the cops, the army, or anybody."
"I don't know what you're talking about,” he said.
"O.K.," I said, "so you're not convinced. Let me do the talking, then, till you get bored. Then feel free to jump in."
He said nothing, so I continued.
"My guess is that you were up to your eyes in something, probably black market. Covering for shortage investigations, helping launder the skim, whatever. Anyway, you sensed that somebody was on to the operation, but was still a few turns or steps away from you. I figure it was like a chess game, and you could see checkmate in maybe a few moves."
"I don't know—"
"So," I talked over him, "you had to set up a safety valve for yourself. An out. But a big problem. You're in Saigon, not the U. S. of A. If you want to get back to The World, you've got to get out of the country and then back into this one. Shipping out of 'Nam other than with Uncle Sam's blessings is touchy and expensive. Slipping out with Uncle Sam focusing especially on you is touchier and very expensive. So you set up a trap door as your out."
I paused. His jaw worked a few times, but no sound.
"You arrange a meeting between yourself and one Bouvier, a ballsy, reasonably connected holdover from the colonial heydays. But there's a double cross, and a bit of explosive takes somebody's head off. Your double cross, my friend, but, more's the pity, not your head. You and Bouvier are roughly the same size and coloring, and with everybody thinking he killed you, attention is shifting from the crooked noncom to the dastardly drug dealer. Of course, you need some help there, but it doesn't have to be much. Just one man really. The MP who takes the prints off the corpse. No head means no face or dental charts for identification. So you draw Belker into it ahead of time, and after he roll-prints the corpse, he switches fingerprint cards for you. No big problem. The prints on the switched card match the ones of yours on file, and you just lay low for a couple of weeks, then fake enough ID to come out as, what, a British journalist?"
The Staked Goat - Jeremiah Healy Page 20