Macklin shifted a little in the seat so he could look straight at Fran.
“Fran, we just pulled off the mother fucker of all heists, you understand? This is a time to be cool and feel it and kick back and like it. This ain’t a time to be whining.”
“Fran’s got four kids,” Crow said.
“Shoulda thought about that when I invited him in,” Macklin said.
“I did,” Fran said.
“Then shut the fuck up,” Macklin said.
“You don’t have to talk to me that way, Jimmy,” Fran said.
“I’ll talk to you anyway I want,” Macklin said.
“Got to understand,” Crow said gently. “Jimmy isn’t doing this for the money. That’s just the way he keeps score.”
“You don’t have to talk for me, Crow,” Macklin said.
“The real thing he does it for is this, the charge, the danger, the goose it gives him, you understand? He does it same reason people do downhill skiing or sky diving. This is like getting laid for Jimmy, and right now when he’s just ready to come, you’re spoiling the feeling.”
“What the fuck are you, Doctor Spock?” Macklin said.
Crow paid no attention to him.
“We’ll pull this off or we won’t,” Crow said. “And worrying out loud about it ain’t going to do you any good, and it’s going to piss Jimmy off really bad.”
“And that won’t do you any fucking good either,” Macklin said.
Crow didn’t say anything else. Fran was silent and so was JD. Macklin resumed his finger drumming and toe tapping as they left the little downtown and swung onto Sea Street.
Chapter 57
When Jesse walked into the station with Simpson, DeAngelo, and Perkins, Molly was working the switchboard and covering the front desk.
“There’s a guy from the Coast Guard on his way, Jesse,” Molly said as he walked in, “and a State Police SWAT guy in your office.”
Jesse said, “Thank you, Molly. Anthony, go find Doc Lane and bring him here.”
“The bartender at the Gull?”
“Yep. If he’s not working, ask the restaurant for his address. Peter, go find me a wet suit, medium. And some kind of waterproof equipment flotation. If you can’t find anything closer, there’s a place in Belmont on Trapelo Road.”
“Flotation?”
“Yes. Go. Get it. Bring it back. Now.”
Perkins and DeAngelo left the station. Suitcase stayed with Jesse waiting to be told what to do. Jesse nodded toward his office, and they went in.
The SWAT team commander was a lean guy with round glasses and a crew cut. He put out a hand.
“Ray Danforth,” he said.
“Jesse Stone. The big kid here is Suitcase Simpson.”
“Lighter color than I remember you,” Danforth said.
Suitcase looked blank. Danforth turned to Jesse.
“I got my men standing by at the explosion site,” Danforth said. “We got a mobile operations van on the way. What can you tell me?”
“What I know is that somebody blew the bridge to Stiles Island. Somebody also blew the landing dock at the yacht club on Stiles. No one has heard from the Stiles Island Security patrol since last night, and all the phones on Stiles give a busy signal when you call them.”
“What do you guess?”
“A guy named Wilson Cromartie and a guy named James Macklin and probably some others are on the island. I assume the motive is robbery.”
“How they going to get off the island?”
“Don’t know. ”
“People on the island?”
“Far as I know, about a hundred.”
“I’ll get a hostage negotiator up here,” Danforth said.
“Good. Let’s not get any civilians killed,” Jesse said.
“We got a traffic helicopter should be here anytime,” Danforth said. “And a transport chopper if we need one. That’ll take a little longer. We got to fly it in from Hanscomb Field.”
“Better call it up. We don’t want to have to wait for it when we need it.”
“Will do,” Danforth said. “What’s your plan?”
“I might go ashore.”
“Alone?”
“Yeah. Might be a good idea to have someone on the ground.”
“Police chiefs don’t usually do that kind of work,” Danforth said.
“This is a small-town department,” Jesse said. “It’s sort of informal here. We all pitch in.”
“You don’t have anyone else you’d trust?” Danforth said. “Or you don’t want to ask anyone else?”
Jesse shrugged.
“Whatever,” he said.
“Who’s going to run the department?”
“Molly,” Jesse said, “and Suit.” He nodded at Simpson.
“I ought to come with you, Jesse,” Suitcase said.
“You stay here. Molly shouldn’t have to run it alone.”
“You remember what that cop said in Tucson,” Suitcase said.
“I’m not going up against anyone,” Jesse said. “I’m just reconnaissance, you know? I’m just going to scoot around in the bushes and see what I can see and radio it back.”
“I could cover your back,” Suit said.
“You’re too big to scoot around in the bushes,” Jesse said. “You go with Lieutenant Danforth. Molly will stand by in the station, and I will have a look-see on the island.”
“How you going to get there?” Suitcase said.
“I’m working on that.”
“Doc?”
“He’s been around this harbor all his life,” Jesse said.
“You going to have him put you in the water?”
“Probably,” Jesse said.
“And?” Suit said.
“And we’ll see,” Jesse said.
Chapter 58
The helicopter came up from the southeast, across the causeway to Paradise Neck and then across the harbor. It hovered for a time over the explosion site, then banked suddenly and flew down the Stiles Island coast and paused again, this time over the boat house explosion.
It moved away from the yacht club and began unhurriedly to fly back and forth over Stiles Island, looking at what there was to look at. Across the empty span where the bridge had hung, there was a gathering of trucks and automobiles and people. The helicopter paused again over the small downtown where people were gathered in the street, looking up, then moved on toward the open ocean side of the island where the restaurant was located.
In the van, Crow heard the helicopter first and glanced up through the van window. It wasn’t in sight yet. As the van pulled up beside the restaurant, they all heard it.
“Chopper,” Fran said.
Macklin looked up through the van window and watched the helicopter come in over the treetops and hover over them. Then he got out of the van and walked around to the back and opened the doors.
“Everybody out,” he said, and the six women climbed out and stood silently beside the van.
The helicopter dropped down a little and Macklin fired four rounds from his handgun at it. The helicopter heeled sharply and soared in the same motion and was out of range almost at once.
“Let ’em know we’re here,” Macklin said.
“I think they know that,” Crow said.
“They’re going to know it even more in a minute,” Macklin said. “JD, gimme the cell phone.”
Five hundred yards offshore, holding the boat steady against the rough chop, Freddie Costa watched the helicopter fly back across the island, out of pistol range. The prow of the boat pounded steadily as the short waves pushed at it. He looked at his watch. Three and a half hours.
Across the island, across Stiles Is
land gut, where the roiling water foamed over the wreckage of the bridge on the Paradise side, in the mobile operations command truck, a radio operator talked with the helicopter pilot. Ray Danforth stood listening. Suitcase Simpson was with him, looking a little uncomfortable among the State SWAT team cops with their black fatigues and their assault weapons and their funky gun belts.
“I think the bandits are at the restaurant on the open ocean side of the island. We drew some small arms fire,” the pilot said. “There’s a power boat maybe four, five hundred yards offshore. From here, it doesn’t look like he can get closer.”
“Okay,” Danforth said to the radio operator. “Tell them to stay out of range but monitor.”
He turned to Suitcase.
“When is high tide around here?”
“Don’t know,” Suitcase said, “but I’ll find out.”
“Do that,” Danforth said.
Chapter 59
“Lemme call Carleton Jencks,” Doc said.
“Snapper’s father?”
“Yeah. He knows the harbor better than I do.”
The phone rang.
“Okay. Have Molly call him from the switchboard,” Jesse said and picked up the phone.
“This is Harry Smith,” the voice said.
Doc went out to the desk.
“Or James Macklin,” Jesse said. It could have been Cromartie, but the voice didn’t have that indefinable Indian overtone that Jesse remembered from his childhood.
There was silence on the phone for a moment, and then Macklin went on.
“I’m on the island. And I wanted to run couple things by you. First, the next helicopter I see anywhere around here, I shoot a hostage.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Second, any boats, anything, any attempt to land on the island, any interference with us as we go about our business, and I shoot hostages. I got a lot of them. I can shoot a bunch and have plenty left.”
“What business are you going about?” Jesse said.
“Our business,” Macklin said.
“And when will you be through going about it?”
“I’ll let you know,” Macklin said. “Remember what I told you. I see so much as a fucking sea scallop come ashore, and it’ll be a bloodbath.”
“We don’t want that,” Jesse said.
“No you don’t, and if I see you out here, I’ll go shoot that broad you been fucking.”
“Which one?” Jesse said and winced silently as he heard the way it sounded.
“Way to go, Stone,” Macklin said. “Marcy, the real estate lady.”
“Uh-huh.”
“You fuck up, and she goes first.”
Jesse took in air silently and flexed his shoulders, forcing himself to relax. “I hear you,” Jesse said.
“Got anything to say?”
“We’ll cooperate,” Jesse said. “You’ve got my word on it.”
“Well, isn’t that good,” Macklin said.
He turned off the cell phone and put it on the bar in the empty restaurant where they were holding the hostages. Marcy sat on a bar stool at the other end of the bar looking at the floor.
“Says he’ll cooperate,” Macklin said. “Guess he don’t want you to get hurt, Marcy.”
Marcy didn’t say anything.
“I mentioned the woman he’d been fucking, and he asked me which one,” Macklin said and put his head back and laughed. It was a loud laugh and long and, Marcy thought, somehow contrived, just as it was contrived the way he threw his head back. He was posturing.
“Where’s JD and Fran?” Macklin said to Crow.
“Guard duty,” Crow said, “I told them to go out and walk around the building, keep an eye out.”
“Good, serves a useful purpose and keeps them from whining at me. This thing is going down so good there’s not enough O’s in smooth.”
Crow nodded and glanced out the window at the water that boiled through the offshore rocks as the tide came slowly in. Freddie was out of sight around the low headland to the right. Crow glanced at his watch.
Carleton Jencks came into the office with Snapper.
“I brought my son,” Jencks said.
“Can you get me ashore on Stiles?”
Jencks nodded slowly.
“Got to bring Snapper, though. He’s the one knows.”
“Too dangerous to bring a kid.”
“He’s got to show us,” Jencks said.
“He can tell us.”
Jencks shook his head. “Not enough margin for error,” he said. “Place is about five feet wide.”
“You know how to get ashore on Stiles?” Jesse said to Snapper.
“Yeah.”
“Answer right,” Carleton Jencks said.
“Yes,” Snapper said. “Yes sir, I do.”
“Tell me.”
“It’s on the harbor side, about halfway between the yacht club and the bridge. Me and some other guys used to go over there in my father’s rowboat. Anchor it and swim ashore, watch what went on.”
Maybe steal a little something too, Jesse thought. But he had bigger things to worry about, and he dismissed the thought.
“Can you tell me how to go in?”
“Not really . . . sir . . . I got to show you. There’s no real landmarks, you know?”
Jesse sighed. He had no choice.
“Okay,” he said. “You and your father.”
He looked at Jencks. “You know how to use a gun?”
“Yes.”
“You want one?”
“Got one,” Jencks said.
Not the time to ask him for his permit, Jesse thought.
“I got a shotgun on the boat,” Doc said.
“Okay,” Jesse said, “here’s the deal. Doc, you take us. Snapper tells us where. I’ll go in alone.”
“Before me and my kid sign on here, we need to know what’s going on.”
“You do,” Jesse said and told them what he knew.
“High tide will be in about three hours,” Doc said to Jesse.
“Okay,” Jesse said. “I figure that’s how long we got. Chopper pilot says there’s a boat lingering on the ocean side of the island. My guess is it can get in close enough at high tide to take them off.”
“Near the restaurant?” Jencks said.
“Yes. You think?”
“Yeah. It gets to where you can get in about twenty yards offshore and it’s shallow enough to wade out.”
“We let them get on the boat with the hostages, and we have a hairball,” Jesse said.
“Like you don’t have one now?” Doc said.
“Now we’ve got room to maneuver,” Jesse said. “Bad guys and hostages on a small boat in the open sea . . . ?” Jesse shook his head.
“You figure they’re over on the other side, by the restaurant?” Jencks said.
“Yes,” Jesse said. “That’s where they were when they fired on the chopper.”
“You don’t want to go ashore there.”
“No.”
“Then we’ll have to put you ashore where Snapper says.”
“Can you swim?” Jencks asked.
“Yes.”
“Good?” Doc asked him.
“Good enough.”
“I hope so,” Doc said.
Chapter 60
Marcy knew all of the hostages. Stiles Island was small, and those who worked there had a silent mutual contempt for those who lived there. The young blond woman who had been crying was Patty Moore. She was twenty-two and worked as a teller in the bank. The gray-haired woman who had comforted her was Agnes Till, the assistant manager. Patty was single, lived with her divorced mother in Paradise. Agnes was married with
three grown children. She commuted to Stiles Island every day from Danvers. Judy, Mary Lou, and Pam were all tellers, all young, all white. Judy and Pam were married and childless. Mary Lou was a lesbian, though most people, including the Paradise Bank, didn’t know it. She had spoken of it to Marcy once last spring at this bar on a Friday night after three Long Island iced teas. There were no black people on Stiles Island, residents or workers.
All of the women sat at two tables pushed together in the corner of the empty restaurant. They didn’t talk. There was nothing to say. Patty Moore’s eyes were still damp, but she had herself under enough control to be quiet. Marcy stared out the window and watched the early evening begin to darken the surface of the ocean.
Macklin was behind the bar. He took a shaker from under the bar and made some martinis. He held the shaker up.
“Crow?”
Crow shook his head.
“Ladies?”
No one answered. Macklin shook his head.
“Fine,” he said. “More for me.”
He poured the martini through the spring strainer into a martini glass, rummaged under the bar, found a jar of olives, and added three to his drink. Then he raised it toward the group of women sitting close together and took a drink.
“Ahhh,” he said.
His movements were too quick, Marcy thought. And his jolliness was too forced, and there was something wrong with him. He’d been so calm when he’d come to the office and tied her up. He’d been—she thought about the right word—he’d been so contented when he’d arrived. Despite being his captive, or maybe because of it, she’d had a certain confidence in him to make this come out all right. Now he frightened her. She looked at Crow. He was unchanged. He was neither calm nor excited, not fast not slow, not kind not cruel. He seemed simply to be who he was.
Crow met her look.
“You’re worried about Jimmy,” he said.
She didn’t answer.
“The fun part is over now for Jimmy,” Crow said as if Macklin weren’t there. “All the planning, putting together the crew, thinking about it, doing it! It’s what Jimmy lives for.”
“What am I?” Macklin said. “A fucking Lally column?”
“You know this is true, Jim,” Crow said. “You get to this point, job’s done. All you got to do now is get out with the dough. And they might still get you before you do.”
Robert B Parker: The Jesse Stone Novels 1-5 Page 43