KILLING MAINE

by Mike Bond

  “One of those kinda guys.” I’d known a lot of them, in my own two stretches.

  “Interestingly, Mass Hauling also has what they call a “renewable energy” division called ‘Green Dividends’ that builds wind projects. It has five in Maine.”

  Now I really smelled blood. “And?”

  “The Boston Feebies figure Jesús for several murders but there’s never anything to link him. They say he’s fast and leaves no clues, always has a bulletproof alibi. Likes to use a knife. Interpol thinks he was a hired killer for military dictators in Guatemala and El Salvador.”

  “Our allies…”

  “His father did Bay of Pigs, part of that whole Trujillo mafia. Jailed by Castro, released to us in ’65. Worked his way up in the Cuban Mafia drugs and prostitution business in Miami. Jesús born ’79.”

  That made Jesús thirty-six. “Where’s Jesús now? Can you trace him?”

  “From recent credit card transactions and his GPS locate he seems to be at home on Beacon Hill in Boston. 127a Acorn Street.”

  “Guy’s stupid, to leave on his phone.”

  “Check the surveillance videos: he’s very in shape, that lethal way of moving, you know it, the inner toughness. Fast on his feet, shaved head, gold earring in his left ear. Drives a new black Camaro with black wheel rims and tinted windows, Florida plate UXO 995. Oh, and he has a tattoo up the inside of his left bicep that says “La vida es sueño”… which means –”

  “Life is a dream.”

  “Yeah. Something like that.”

  “How’d he get Bucky’s .308?”

  “How do I know? Ask him.”

  “I will.”

  TWO MINUTES LATER Mitchell sent the videos, pix and other stuff. In one photo Jesús was smiling into the camera, a movie star look, white teeth, dark eyes and tan. A video of him playing soccer for a local club. Fast, in perfect shape, quick changes of direction that left other players flatfooted.

  Maybe I should have gone to the cops. But the evidence of the cellphone calls wasn’t enough. Circumstantial: Jesús Truman could have come to Augusta for many reasons. Same as why Dannon Ziller called Ronnie. Any defense attorney would be all over it.

  And I wanted to nail them.

  I slipped back into bed, suddenly aware of the cold. “What was it, honey?” Abigail kissed my shoulder, half-asleep, warm under the eiderdown.

  Her calling me “honey” made my heart leap. To be loved, if only for a moment, is a glorious thing. To be included in what another person cares about.

  Particularly if you feel the same way about them.

  Even more so if your life’s at risk.

  “Gonna be gone a while,” I said.

  She pulled closer. “Don’t. Please don’t.”

  I snuggled against her. I never had a teddy bear but she was one now: not just a sexual savage but a warm, cuddly, all-forgiving friend.

  Or did she know of some danger I didn’t?

  KNOWLEDGE IS DANGER. The more you know the more you’re at risk. So everything I shared with Abigail only increased her peril. Yet I needed her to know enough to reveal if I didn’t come back.

  For breakfast we’d made ten scrambled eggs, a pound of bacon, lots of toast and Country Kitchen doughnuts. Mugs of Italian espresso, the elixir that drives one harder into the core of life. “So if something happens,” I says, smiling to show the impossibility of it, “you and Mitchell have to get this all out there.”

  “But like you said, it’s circumstantial…”

  “If I go missing, that won’t be.” This was Marine Corps logic, I realized: send a bunch of grunts to wander around out there till they get shot at, then use your airplanes and artillery to pound the shit out of the shooters, chopper out your dead Marines and send the survivors back to wander some more.

  “They’ll just assume you jumped bail. They’ll be trying to arrest you and won’t give a damn you’re dead.” She gripped my forearms. “Let’s find a way, a way to do this – you not going down there.”

  “We’ve been over this.” I stood, on the verge of giving in, of staying with her and letting fate take its course. “That’s a betrayal of who you are,” I told myself, and went upstairs to pack a few things – another pair of Kinvaras, a couple of shirts and sweats, the KA-BAR.

  Lips tight, Abigail drove me to the Hertz counter at Augusta Airport where Pierre Van Brughe rented a silver Impala with Pennsylvania plates.

  I rubbed noses with Abigail. “I love you, girl.”

  “I love you too, you bastard.” Tears flashed in her eyes. “Just come back.”

  IT’LL BORE YOU TO DEATH, the drive to Boston. The first part, Augusta to Portland on 295 is fine, lots of trees but few elevation changes. But south of Portland it’s all chewed-up forest and too many exits, overpasses and big-box stores. With more and more “civilization” all the way and then you’re weaving your way insanely through Boston traffic, a literal paradise for anyone who wants to break the law.

  Maine was part of Massachusetts till 1820, when it finally seceded, chiefly because the more affluent and mercenary Massachusetts was bleeding it dry with land speculation, and pro-British Massachusetts merchants had refused to defend it during the War of 1812, when the British occupied parts of Maine. I felt similarly out of touch in Boston – a Hawaiian bumpkin adrift in this rushing metropolis of glinting towers and smoggy streets, this mob of humans and vehicles, the roar, the stench, the flashy windows, concrete, asphalt, concrete.

  Though there were pretty women everywhere.

  Jesús Truman lived conveniently nearby, the upper flat of a two-story brick square on Acorn Street in Beacon Hill. I checked it out for an hour but there was no action so I headed downtown to the HQ of Green Dividends, the “renewable” energy subsidiary of Mass Hauling, the Boston garbage monopoly that Jesús Truman “worked” for.

  Green Dividends lived in one of those glass towers that adorn so many once beautiful places on our planet. A kill zone for life. You stand in its frigid shadow trying to find the sun above this glass canyon, and it’s hard to see the forest that was so recently here, the beautiful balsam-shaded brooks headed out to the sea, the needle-cushioned earth, all the creatures who’d lived here. You could say that now lots of people lived here, but it seems wherever we go we push out everything else.

  Green Dividends was on the 17th floor. I wandered, a tourist, into their vast lobby with its teak floors, Danish furniture and a petite desk at the back with a petite black girl at the helm. After all the usual “May I help you” we established that I was a journalist from Hawaii doing a survey of renewable energy on the mainland. And could I talk to someone.

  Someone wasn’t available right now but tomorrow at 14:00 I could see the press VP, so I wandered back through the lobby past charming pictures of Maine’s magnificent mountains, lakes, streams, rivers and ridges. And guess what? Not a turbine in sight.

  When I got in the elevator who was there already but WindPower’s evil attorney Cruella all touted out in a brown pantsuit. “What are you doing here?” she grunted. “You should be in jail.”

  “You’re a succubus,” I said. “A vampire. You drain the life and beauty out of everything.”

  “If you’re stalking my clients I’ll have you for that.”

  “How does it feel, living on welfare?” I pushed G, stepped out and walked the 17 stories down to the ground.

  But now they knew I was scouting them.

  Finding Jesús

  JESÚS STILL wasn’t home. Nor was his black Camaro parked on any nearby street. Something felt wrong.

  I called Mitchell. “Can you find Jesús?”

  “Not right now. Tied up, something else.”

  “Let me know when you can.”

  He called back twenty minutes later. “You’re on a wild goose chase. He’s at or near the Senator Hotel in Augusta.”

  “Oh shit.”

  “How fast can you get up there?”

  “In late afternoon traffic? Five hours…”
/>   “Catch a plane.”

  If Jesús was at the Senator he was four miles from Abigail.

  STUCK IN BOSTON TRAFFIC I checked Travelocity for flights to Portland but by the time I would get to Logan, turn in the car, grab a flight, rent another car in Portland and drive to Hallowell it would take longer than by road.

  I called her. “Where are you?”

  “Where are you?”

  “Abigail stop fucking around. Where are you?”

  “Home. Looking up…”

  “Get in the car, go somewhere. No, wait.” My brain raced. If she went somewhere busy like Walmart he could kill her there easily and get away. If she was driving he could catch her with the black Camaro and blow her away on the highway. She couldn’t stay home… “I want you to go to the cop shop, Augusta. Tell them you want to stay till I get there.”

  “Pono are you crazy? I’m having fun. I’ve got a bowl of peanuts, a Stella Artois and a joint and I’m looking up neat places we can go when this all blows over. And in an hour I have to be at Slates to sing. So I’m not going to see Officer Hart or any of them… Ever been to the Azores?”

  I was so exasperated I wasn’t watching the car in front and had to jam on my brakes and wham the car behind me hit me.

  We were in the middle of three lanes. I finally pulled over by a Burger King and he wheeled in behind me and leaped out. A huge guy, very black. “What you stoppin so fast for?” he yells, coming at me.

  “Cool down, man. Nobody’s hurt.”

  He leaned into my face. “You gonna pay to fix my car?”

  A waste of time to explain that he was at fault. I stepped back and kicked him very hard in the nuts and he went down like a redwood tree, moaning and yelling and holding his crotch.

  My car’s rear bumper was shoved halfway in the trunk. The front bumper of his shabby Monarch was split and driven into the grille. Both cars still drivable.

  I took the keys from his ignition and threw them across six lanes of traffic.

  I didn’t need to have the stupid bastard chasing me.

  “WHERE YOU AT?” I says soon as I get Abigail back on the phone, keeping an eye on traffic.

  “Where I was five minutes ago. What happened?”

  “I got rear-ended.”

  “You okay?”

  “Fine, look…”

  “I’ll be at Slates.” She crunched peanuts. “Drive safe…”

  I called her back but of course got voicemail. “Damn you Abigail!” I stared furiously at the hazy line of vehicles ahead of me crawling like a great centipede toward the jaded dusk.

  TRAFFIC EASED up after Portsmouth. “Where is he now?” I asked Mitchell.

  Mitchell’s keyboard rattled and clicked. “Where are you?”

  “Kittery.”

  “Son of a bitch!”

  “What? What?”

  “Jesús is in Hallowell.”

  MY MIND RACED for some innocent reason he’d be in Hallowell. There was none.

  Green Dividends’ wind “farms” were all further north. No one from the company lived anywhere near Hallowell.

  “Hey, don’t worry about Abigail,” Mitchell had said as he cut off. “Jesús wants you.”

  I wanted to speed but if I got caught I’d be arrested. Then Abigail’d be on her own. I imagined her walking back up the hill after Slates… An easy kill.

  At 21:17 I pulled up on Second Street three blocks from Slates. But when I tried to open the trunk for my KA-BAR it had been jammed shut by the crash. I left without my knife and circled down toward Slates looking for a black Camaro.

  If Jesús was hunting her he’d know she would be walking home… he didn’t have to hit her in Slates, in fact that would be a bad and complicated idea.

  He’d either be here or already waiting at her house.

  I killed my phone and slipped down the alley behind Slates. Over the roar of the kitchen fan I could hear her lovely voice. I went in. She was sitting on a wooden chair, a capo and a tall glass of booze on a chair beside her, the Washburn sideways on her lap, and she was leaning forward to listen to someone in the audience.

  All the tables full – young couples, older matronly ladies and skinny men with hearing aids, two families with kids, three brawny bearded guys. No one looked like Jesús.

  Then I saw him. At a front table by himself, asking her a question. She was smiling, head tilted, as she listened. One of his hands was on the table, the other under it. Over the other voices and squealing of chairs I couldn’t hear what they were saying.

  He was maybe about to kill her and I needed to stop him. Or he was just trying to set up later and I had time to take him down.

  She leaned back and began to strum. Unexpectedly Jesús got up and headed for the door. I turned my back facing the announcements on the bulletin board, and didn’t think he saw me as he darted out the door.

  After five seconds I followed him. He’d crossed Water Street and was trotting down a dirt path between two buildings toward the River. I sprinted across and looked round the corner of one building. He’d vanished, the night very dark, underfoot a steep eroded bank down to the dirt road along the River.

  He had a gun and a knife and I had nothing. But I had to take him down.

  Behind the row of old brick buildings a dirt road ran next to the River. Black outlines of a few parked cars and trees, blocky buildings and slumping back porches. The River rushed and rumbled, tearing at its ice. The snow crusty, blowing away in crystals at every step. On the wind a spicy tang of antiperspirant.

  He’s here. My heart was hammering; I tried to slow down my breath. You can get him.

  Knives

  AN ENGINE CAUGHT, growled. Halogen headlights flicked on. A dark car, parked further up the dirt road, hidden by a building. I ducked down the riverbank as its headlights flashed over me. It turned and accelerated up to Water Street. A shiny black Camaro.

  I sprinted up to Water Street and uphill to Second Street to my rental Impala and drove in rectangles above downtown but the Camaro wasn’t there.

  I still didn’t think he’d seen me, either in Slates or following him. Nor would he recognize the Impala.

  I drove past Abigail’s and further uphill and checked a few streets before I found the black Camaro three blocks from her house. Florida UXO 995. The car empty, the hood still hot.

  Wrapping my scarf round my face I strolled toward her house, just a normal Hallowell evening stroller at ten below. No one else outside, the houses silent behind bright windows and the blue glint of televisions, oak smoke heavy on the air, the icy sidewalk crunching underfoot.

  A car came uphill clanking its chains. Somewhere a door opened, a snatch of song. Further downhill someone was whistling and calling, “Louie! Louie!”

  Hands in pockets I ambled past Abigail’s, the windows dark, the yard snow-hard and empty, no fresh tracks. Through the garage door windows the pale outline of the Saab.

  A shape crossed a living room window against the streetlights through the front door. Just a flash of motion. But enough.

  It was time to call the cops. But what would they get Jesús for, if he let himself be caught? Breaking and entering? He’d say he’d come back to see Abigail, she’d told him to, the door was open… Which is why he’d spoken to her, at Slates.

  And if the cops did come he’d know he was burned and disappear, and we’d have someone new hunting us down. Someone we didn’t know.

  Abigail would be home in 45 minutes. Whatever I did, it had to be fast.

  I slipped along the spruce hedge to the back corner of the barn. Hoping he was still in the front of the house I crossed to the back door. It opened.

  He was more skilled than I, had picked the lock.

  I slid into the kitchen and eased the door shut behind me.

  THE KNIFE DRAWER was under the counter beyond the sink. It squealed if not opened slowly. Suddenly the kitchen exploded with light as a window across the way flashed on – the old bag with the curlers – blinding me, silhouett
ing me. I ducked behind the chopping block table and waited. No sound from Jesús so maybe he hadn’t seen me.

  The light flicked off. My pulse thundered, my breath, the hiss of floor tiles under my fingertips, the wind against the windows.

  The knife drawer slid open silently. Like all good cooks Abigail had very sharp knives. By feel I picked a twelve inch stainless, thicker and stronger than carbon steel. Like an Italian dagger, long, slim and very pointed. The handle perfect in my palm.

  BUT SADLY I COULDN’T KILL HIM. Though he’d killed Ronnie Dalt and no doubt others. Had probably tried to kill me, was about to kill Abigail and me, unless I stopped him.

  But killing him would put me in far worse trouble, and we’d never learn all the fine things he could tell us. Like who hired him to kill Ronnie, maybe to kill me, and whatever other crimes he’d committed for Green Dividends and its trashy owners.

  So I had to take him down, have a chat, then deliver him to C. Hart and Company.

  Though it was crazy to pursue him like this. He surely had a gun and probably a knife and flashlight. And could turn the house lights on any time and shoot me before I could get to him. Or wait and knife me in the dark. But I was furious, wanted payback, and intended to take him down. And he didn’t know I didn’t have a gun.

  But maybe he’d gone out the front when I came in the back. Was outside waiting for me. Easier to get away from there, after he’d shot me.

  I stepped into the dining room, knife underhand, blade up, imagined blood on the Orientals, how his knife would feel in my gut. Wondered what he was thinking.

  Maybe he still didn’t know I was here?

  Or was I walking right into where he wanted me?

  The dining room so dark you couldn’t see who might be beyond the table and chairs. Or beyond the door into the front parlor with its frozen view of Larch Street.

  Silhouette. That’s how you find somebody. A break in normal outlines, an unexpected curve or blocky shadow. Not easy when a mistake can get you killed.