Wilderness

by Robert B. Parker

  "We'll keep an eye out for someplace," Steiger said. "If they just keep driving we'll stop for lunch. I'm not going to hit him today anyway." Angle smiled.

  At Portsmouth Circle the Bronco headed northeast on Route 16. Steiger swung off of the highway and followed a sign that said

  "Portsmouth Downtown." "Look in your guidebook, Angie," he said. "See what's a good place to eat in this town."

  CHAPTER 17.

  "Did you know that Chris prowls around our yard at night?" Janet said.

  Newman shook his head. "What do you mean prowls around?" he said.

  "I got up about four in the morning a couple of days ago and looked out the bathroom window and he was standing under that big white pine tree in the back, with a rifle. And I thought, "What the hell is he doing?"

  And so last night I was up till about two doing some stuff for the affirmative action task force and I thought, "By God, I'm going to check." So I turned out the lights and went and looked out all the windows and he was there. He was out front, in the bushes between us and the Erasers."

  They were lying together in bed. Newman was reading the book review section of last Sunday's New York Times. Janet was watching the Johnny Carson show. Her hair was in rollers, a blue kerchief was tied around it. She had on pajama bottoms and an old white shirt of Newman's. There was cream on her face.

  "That figures," Newman said.

  "Is he guarding us?"

  "Yeah, partly. But he's playing too."

  "Playing?"

  "Cops and robbers. Cowboys and Indians. The Lions and the Packers.

  Rangers and gooks. I think this is a kind of game for him. It's the most fun he's had since he got cut by the Lions."

  "What could be fun about standing around in the dark all by yourself all night. When does he sleep?" "He told me once that he only slept three or four hours a day. Always been that way, he said. And it is fun to be a guard. Or at least it's fun for a little while and if you're a certain kind of guy. Think of the high points in his life." "Football and Korea," Janet said.

  "Combat, in a sense."

  "Yes. He does karate too, doesn't he?"

  "Black belt."

  "Formalized combat."

  "And since he was cut by the Lions, how have things been going for him?"

  "Not good," Janet said. She had turned the sound down on the remote control mechanism by her bed. On the screen Robert Goulet sang soundlessly. "He hasn't been very successful or made very much money.

  His marriage didn't work. I don't know how the new place is doing, do you?" "He doesn't talk about it," Newman said.

  "So you're saying," Janet said, "that this situation came along and gave him a chance to do something he's good at, and to feel good about himself." She had turned on her left side, facing Newman, and rested her head on her propped left elbow.

  "A chance, as the jargon would have it, to maximize his potential. I mean, for cris sake he's the Michelangelo of machismo and for twenty years there's been little call for it from the society he moves in."

  "So he can stand out there with his rifle, the silent protector.

  Tireless, brave, deadly. Yes. I see."

  "I think so," Newman said. "I don't mean to put him down. We need him badly in this. And he is tough. Toughest bastard I ever knew. And it's comforting to know he's out there. But he's also beginning to scare the shit out of me."

  "You think he takes too many chances?" she said.

  "I think he doesn't want this to end," Newman said.

  Janet thought about that as she looked at her husband. Behind her the voiceless Carson show ended and Tom Snyder appeared.

  "That would make sense," she said. "If it ended he'd be back at his restaurant doing what he was doing, nothing bad. But nothing exciting.

  Nothing that engages his, what, physical self? Beyond throwing out an occasional drunk."

  Newman nodded. "I think if he really wanted this finished we could have done it already. I think it could be over with. But Chris.

  "Let's check down this alley," he says. "Let's take another look at his house." We go over it and over it. We plan and talk. "You can't know too much," he keeps saying. And I'm afraid he's going to get us killed." "Jesus," she said. "All this time I've been feeling better about it all because Chris was involved. You think it's worse?" "It's both," Newman said. "I don't know if I could do it alone. But Chris's goals aren't the same as mine. I mean, I want this over. I can't write. I'm scared all the time. I worry about you. You know what we're doing tomorrow? We're going to get outfitted for the woods.

  We spent most of Tuesday finding a spot to stay near Fryeburg and surveying the area. The spot to stay took an hour. The rest of the afternoon and evening we checked the cabin where Karl stays. Looked at the woods, walked ridge lines." Newman shook his head. "Goddamn," he said.

  "What are you going to do?"

  "Christ, I don't know. Even if I could do it without him, how could I tell him to screw? He's already risked his life for me. He's in a conspiracy to murder. If we get caught he's an accessory even if he bails out now. And this is the biggest thing in his life. How can I tell him we don't want him? That he's counterproductive?"

  "I know. I couldn't say that to him either."

  "What would help, would be if you came with us."

  "You mean to Maine?"

  "Yes, and stayed right with us through the actual shooting and everything." "I'm not saying I won't," Janet said, "but why?"

  "It would help control Chris. He'd feel protective of you, because you're a woman, and it would give me courage. I'm much braver with you than I am alone."

  "Do you worry about my safety at all?" "Yes," he said. "But I'm trying to really look at things. I'm trying, as someone suggested recently, to grow up. This is life or death. I can't romanticize. I need you.

  There's risk to you but I can't make it without you. I know it, and I'm willing to risk you to help me through this. It's not a posture I'm proud of, but there it is." She said nothing for a long time. On the television Tom Snyder threw his head back in pantomime laughter.

  "Yes," she said, "I'll go. I want to go. I am not afraid. I would kill Karl in a second and never feel a thing. It's my problem as much as yours. But I want you to teach me to shoot."

  Newman wasn't looking at her now. He was staring at the silent television. "Yes," he said. "I'll teach you. It's easy. You just point the gun and pull the trigger. Just like the movies. You can learn easy." "Okay," she said.

  "Are you mad?" he said.

  "I don't know," she said. "I want to go to sleep now. I have an early class, I have to get some sleep. I didn't get to bed till three last night."

  "But you don't think I'm that swell to ask you to go, do you?"

  "It doesn't matter. I said I would."

  "But it matters if you think badly of me."

  "I don't think badly of you."

  "But you're mad."

  "I'm getting mad, Aaron. I said I'd do it, now let me alone. I want to sleep."

  She turned away from him, shut off the bedside light, shut off the television, and shrugged the covers up over her shoulder, settling her head on the pillow.

  The twisted knot in his stomach that had been there since he'd seen the murder twisted a little tighter. He shut off his light and lay on his back and felt it tighten.

  Outside, in the shadow of now green forsythia bushes, along the fence Chris Hood squatted with the Ithaca pump gun across his thighs and looked carefully at the yard and empty street. Then he moved silently toward the backyard, staying close to the bushes, the shotgun butt braced on his hip, looking slightly sideways so as to see better in the dark. He was dressed in black and had put burnt cork on his face. On his belt, at the small of his back, was a bowie knife with a nine-inch blade.

  In the backyard he stood motionless and nearly invisible in the shadow of an old sugar maple, and watched the house, barely breathing, listening for enemy footsteps.

  CHAPTER 18.

  "During t
he day he's always with his buddy," Steiger said. "The lights stay on at night usually till midnight, one o'clock. If there's an alarm, they normally would turn it on when they went to bed. Otherwise they'd keep tripping it, letting the cat out, dumping the garbage, that kind of thing. Embarrassing as hell when the cops come running in with the blue lights going and the weapons out and it was you throwing out the coffee grounds."

  As he talked Steiger was looking out the hotel window at the Charles, dark now and glossy-looking with the lights reflecting off of it from Storrow and Memorial drives. Angie sat with no clothes on at the round table on which they ate breakfast, and did her nails.

  "So when would be best?" Angie said.

  "In about an hour," Steiger said. "Round ten o'clock. I go knock on the door. When he answers I do it, and leave. Tomorrow we go back to Cleveland."

  "You're going tonight?"

  "Yeah."

  "I hope you don't have to kill the wife."

  "If she doesn't see me, I won't. If she does, I will. It's luck."

  "I know," Angie said. "You want to make love again before you go?"

  "Whatever we do together is making love, Angie." He walked over from the window and touched her shoulder. "We're making love all the time." "Okay," she smiled. Her nails were done.

  "If anything happens to me you know what to do?"

  "Like always. Every time you go out you go through it with me. I have the safe-deposit key. I've got plenty of money to get home. I leave everything here and go."

  "Good. Kiss me good-bye."

  She stood and pressed against him and kissed him, careful all the time that her still wet nails didn't touch his clothes.

  "Hurry back," she said.

  "I always do."

  Steiger took the shoebox from the top shelf of the closet. He took out the Ruger, loaded it, put the holster on his belt, slipped the nose of it into his back pocket. He took twelve rounds of.44 ammunition, wrapped six in a Kleenex and put them in the left shirt pocket of his tan Levi shirt. He wrapped six more in another Kleenex and put them in the right shirt pocket. He buttoned both pockets. He put on a dark blue summer-weight blazer with plain brass buttons. It covered the gun. He slipped a package of Lucky Strikes into the breast pocket of the blazer, adjusted his shirt collar in the mirror so that the points of the collar rolled out over the lapels of the blazer. He looked at his watch.

  "Okay, babe. See you pretty quick. How about late supper in the room when I get back?"

  "Wine, cheese, French bread and a pate?"

  "Wonderful."

  He went out of the hotel room and took the elevator to the lobby. The elevator was glass-walled and the lobby was eleven stories high. He looked down, as the elevator descended, at the fountains on the ground floor. The elevator seemed to descend into them.

  He went to the hotel garage, got the rented Plymouth, paid the Puerto Rican attendant at the gate, and drove out. On Memorial Drive he turned left and headed east along the river. At the end of Memorial Drive he turned right across the Charles River Dam, past the Science Museum, stopped for the lights at Leverett Circle, and then cruised up the ramp to the expressway and headed north up Route 93. As he drove he turned the tuning dial on the radio until he found an easy-listening station. He listened to the music as he drove toward Smithfield. He was listening to the orchestra of Frank Chacksfield as he turned off of Route 93 at the 128 exit and went north on Route 128. He was listening to Carly Simon as he reached the Smithfield exit and turned off. As he came into the center he turned the radio down. He parked on the street in front of the home next to Newman's. Hanging from a colonial lamppost by the front gate a small white sign with pseudo-rustic ragged ends said The Frasers in brass letters.

  Steiger left the keys in the ignition, left the parking lights on, and got out of the car. He closed the door quietly and walked briskly back toward Newman's house. It was set back from the street, and the front yard was shadowed by old maple trees grown huge over several centuries.

  He turned without any hesitation into the long driveway smelling of bark mulch and walked toward the side door of the house. The lights were on in the house, in most rooms. Upstairs and down. He took the Ruger out of his hip holster as he walked up the drive, and held it against his leg.

  When Steiger reached the side door Hood stepped out of the shadowed bushes behind him and jacked a shell into the breech with the pump action of the shotgun. Steiger turned at the sound. The.44 still held against his right leg, his face was inquisitive.

  "What the hell is this," he said.

  Hood said, "Don't bullshit me, Jack. I saw you take the gun out coming up the drive." He held the shotgun steady on Steiger's middle. "Reach across with your left hand. Take the gun by the barrel. Hold it by the barrel and toss it with your left hand over here to my right. You do anything quick and I'll cut you in two." "You got the cannon," Steiger said. He tossed the gun left-handed and butt-first onto the bark mulch-covered driveway near Hood's right foot.

  His face was still pleasant and quizzical.

  With the shotgun steady still on Steiger, Hood felt with his foot for Steiger's gun in the driveway. When he found it he maneuvered it into position and then kicked it into the bushes with his heel. "Put your hands on top of your head," he said to Steiger. Steiger did, not clasping them together but resting the right lightly on top of the left.

  Hood stepped closer to search Steiger for a gun. He held the shotgun against Steiger's neck as he patted him down on the left side, then he switched the shotgun from right hand to left so that he could search Steiger's other side. Steiger brought his right elbow around and hit Hood on the temple as the gun was in mid-switch. Hood staggered and dropped the shotgun.

  Steiger bent down for it and Hood kneed him in the face. It straightened Steiger up but he had the shotgun. Hood lunged in against him, locking his arms around Steiger's. The shotgun was in Steiger's right hand but he couldn't turn it to bear on Hood. The muscles in Hood's back and shoulders swelled with effort as he clamped his arms tighter around Steiger, his balled right fist pressing into the small of Steiger's back, his left hand covering it, adding pressure. With his hands he pulled in and up, leaning his chest into Steiger, bending him back while keeping his arms pinned against him. Hood's neck thickened, the trapezius muscles bulged up at the base of his neck and across his shoulders. Steiger tried to use the shotgun butt against Hood's kidneys, but it was too awkward an angle to hurt. In his present position the shotgun was useless. He dropped it and locked his own hands behind Hood's back. Hood had arched forward in arching Steiger back and thus had an advantage in leverage. Steiger couldn't reverse it, he was bending farther back and it was harder to breathe.

  He let go of Hood's back and brought his hands down under Hood's buttocks. He got hold and heaved back. Hood's feet came off the ground. His leverage was lost. Steiger was able to straighten his back and turn Hood toward the house. He tried to ram Hood against the cement stairs to the porch door but he couldn't and they both fell and rolled, locked in each other's embrace, fifteen feet down the driveway.

  Hood released his hold as they rolled and came up on his feet under the huge old maple tree. Steiger came up opposite him. Steiger's gun was somewhere in the bushes. Hood's shotgun was fifteen feet away back up the driveway. Steiger hit Hood a sharp left-hand hook on the right cheek and followed with an overhand right that staggered Hood against the tree. He kicked at Hood's groin, but Hood karate-blocked it with his left forearm. Hood reached behind him with his right hand and brought out the bowie knife. It was dark but there was enough light filtered in from the street lamps to see the knife. Steiger backed away, Hood followed. Hood held the knife low in his right hand, sharpened side up, moving it back and forth in front of him. His knees were bent and he shuffled like a boxer, left foot always ahead of the right. Steiger, as he backed away, kept his hands out in front of him, overlapping the thumbs, making a V and aiming the crotch of the V at the bowie knife as it moved. Hood had both hands on the knife, read
y to switch to either hand if Steiger went for one. They were in the shaded darkness under the big maple tree as they moved down the sweetsmelling bark-mulch driveway. A car went by on the street behind Steiger. Neither Hood nor Steiger knew. Both concentrated on the knife. Nothing else impinged, nothing else was real. Their faces were serious. Steiger took a head-jerking glance at his car parked in front of the next house. It was too far to run. The knife would catch him before he could get in and lock the door. He half-turned as if he would, and as Hood charged he gave him a head fake and dashed for the shotgun, past Hood, back up the driveway. Hood caught the back of his jacket as he went by. He half-turned him and drove the nine inch knife blade upward into Steiger's stomach, turned it at the end of the thrust, and pulled it toward him along the line of Steiger's rib cage.

  Steiger made a soft sound, Hood pulled the knife free and slashed it back and across Steiger's throat. Steiger fell down and died on the bark mulch in silence.

  CHAPTER 19.

  "You mean the bastard is lying out there dead in the driveway, now?" Newman said. He wore a green velour bathrobe and no shoes.

  Hood said, "Yes. We'll have to do something with him." Janet said, "There's that big roll of polyethylene in the shed. You could wrap him in that if he's messy." "I'll get it," Hood said. "You get dressed, Aaron, and help me." "I'll come too," Janet said. Hood looked at her for a moment and then went to the shed.

  When Newman and his wife came out of the house Hood had spread a large sheet of polyethylene on the ground beside Steiger's body.

  "Help me roll him onto it," he said.

  Janet looked away but knelt down beside Hood. New man hesitated, then crouched down beside them. They rolled Steiger's body over, onto the polyethylene.

  "You got some tape or something?" Hood said.

  Newman said, "I'll get some." He got up quickly and went to the house.

  Hood and Janet folded the polyethylene carefully around Steiger's body.