Joe Service knew this conversation was inevitable, but that didn’t mean he had to like it. It was particularly ominous that the colonel had insisted on holding the little conclave at the boat they had provided for him. Joe was supposed to have returned the boat, but he was supposed to have done a lot of things that he hadn’t done. Dinah Schwind had tried to defend him to the others, but even her patience needed relief.
It was pouring rain, which provided for maximum security— nobody was down at the marina on a night like this. The boat was docked at the Saint Clair Flats Boatyard, not far from the restaurant where Joe and Dinah had met earlier. It was also not far from Mulheisen’s mother’s house, but none of them were aware of that. It had just seemed a convenient moorage to Joe. The Sea Ray, a pretty sleek powerboat, had a tight Cordura canopy that buttoned up well.
The colonel sniffed as he came aboard. “You living here?”
“It’s as good as any place,” Joe said.
The colonel had brought along a guy whom he introduced as Pollak. He was also a member of the Lucani, the colonel said. Acker and Collins had other business, he said.
“I thought you were just a tight little outfit,” Joe said, “four or five of you. How many Lucani are there?”
“Just six,” the colonel said. “Seven, counting you.”
“Well, don’t leave me out,” Joe said.
Pollak was a tall, blond man with a battered face. He looked like some kind of agent, once you were told he was an agent; until then, he looked like a hockey player. With Pollak, Schwind, and the colonel aboard, the Sea Ray was cramped. Joe provided the beer.
The colonel said he was disappointed that Joe hadn’t come around after DiEbola had been hit. He had some money coming for that nice little piece of work, and they had more work for him. “We know how insistent you are on collecting,” the colonel said.
“Yeah, well, I didn’t think I could ask for payment,” Joe said, “seeing as I didn’t do anything.”
The colonel was good at hiding his disappointment that his ploy hadn’t worked. He frowned and said, “You didn’t hit him, then? We thought you had. The FBI, of course, was convinced it was an internal thing. Well, you read the papers.”
“I read the papers,” Joe said, “but I don’t necessarily believe them. Still, maybe it was like they say. But it wasn’t me. So you don’t owe me anything. As for more work, what have you got? I’m available.”
The colonel and his friends didn’t say anything for a long moment. Finally, the colonel said, “We were thinking something out of the country, maybe.”
“Great,” Joe said. “Whereabouts? Someplace sunny, I hope. South America?”
“Closer, actually,” the colonel said. He seemed to have made up his mind. “Canada.”
“Really?” Joe said. “What’s in Canada?”
“Humphrey DiEbola,” said Schwind.
They all watched Joe. He looked puzzled for a moment, then he nodded. “So,” he said, “the Fat Man pulled a fast one. That guy’s quick on his feet. It’s like a polka party, isn’t it? They have these dances, around here, you know. It’s like a marathon, or something. All these big fat guys and their babushkas, wheeling around on the floor, bumping into each other. It gets pretty dangerous toward the end. The band starts playing faster and faster, ‘Roll Out the Barrel,’ that kind of stuff. The last guy standing is the big cheese, I guess. Or the big pickle in the barrel. Who knows? I went to one a couple nights ago, in Hamtramck. Pretty funny.”
They all agreed it was funny. Not that any of them were laughing. They had found out, somehow, that Mulheisen had gone to Canada. A little judicious checking—it hadn’t been difficult— had revealed that he’d gone to an island off the Bruce Peninsula. They couldn’t be positive, but it looked like Mulheisen was onto something. Whether it was DiEbola himself or just a lead to him, they weren’t sure. But there was a woman on the island who had, evidently, some connection.
Joe shook his head, marveling. “The guy is something,” he said. “We’re all convinced that Humphrey went down, but Mulheisen doesn’t believe it. So, why should I go to Canada? If Mulheisen finds him, he’ll bring him back.”
“We want you to go and make sure,” the colonel said. “Take Pollak with you. Mulheisen could have problems, if not with DiEbola, then with extradition. This one looks like a freebie, to us.”
“How’s that?” Joe asked. “I’m not into freebies.”
“We didn’t mean it in that sense,” the colonel said. “You’ll get your fee.”
“Which is?”
“Whatever you can recover from DiEbola. And before you ask, let’s say fifty grand, if you can’t recover anything.”
“A hundred,” Joe said.
The colonel shrugged. “All right, a hundred. But believe me, the man clearly didn’t leave his little mess in the basement without taking along a nice cushion. As far as we’re concerned, it’s all yours. It could be quite a bit. We know he managed to send a lot out of the country beforehand, and we think we can recover some of that. But he’ll have a bundle with him.”
Joe managed to look enthusiastic, but he calculated that they must have some other plans. They wouldn’t let him keep everything that DiEbola had taken with him. Maybe that was why Pollak was along. “You said a freebie,” he reminded them. “What does that mean?”
“Why, the man is presumed dead. Killed by his old buddies. That’s the official line. You can just make sure it’s true.”
Joe looked at Dinah. She gazed back calmly. “I’m not a hired killer,” he said to her. “I told you that. The thing with Echeverria was an accident. I never intended to take out Humphrey. That wasn’t the deal, you know.”
“No, but we figured you had,” the colonel said. “Probably the situation got out of hand and you did the best you could, that’s what it looked like. And then, you didn’t come around, didn’t correct our misunderstanding. A suspicious person might think you were involved, somehow.”
“In the escape?” Joe said. “I didn’t know anything about it. I was keeping tabs on him, through Helen. She seemed to think something was afoot, but she didn’t know what it was. The best I could figure, he had some grand reorganization in the works. It looked like something might break and I’d get my chance. But I wasn’t going to pop him. I figured once I could see which way it was going to break, I could set him up for you. If you want, I’ll still do it.”
“It’d be cleaner and easier if you just ran up there in your boat—this is your boat, Joe. Nice boat. And if DiEbola’s up there you could show us, once and for all, that you’re a team player. Joe Seven.” The colonel was calm and logical. That was the deal. “If you don’t want to be on the team, fine. You’re on your own.”
Joe knew what that meant. It meant he would be fair game to anyone, and the Lucani would provide the direction to whoever came after him.
“I’ll go get him,” Joe said, “if he’s there. You can do what you want when you’ve got him.”
“Pollak will go with you,” the colonel said. He wasn’t accepting any refusals.
Joe knew what that meant. Pollak was set to ice Humphrey, if need be. And then, who knows? Maybe he’d ice Joe, too. These guys were in the direct-action business. Well, it looked like the complaint window was closed, Joe thought. He’d just have to play his position as the game unfolded. He peered out through the plastic side curtains. The rain was dancing on the deck.
“Not much of a night for a boat ride,” he said. “Maybe we should wait till tomorrow, you could get us up there in a chopper, we could rent a boat.”
“No,” the colonel said firmly. “No choppers. No flying through international airways. No renting of boats. You can run up there, just a couple of fishermen. The Coast Guard doesn’t bother. You find the island, find DiEbola. Our information is, he’s at a house right near shore. Pollak’s got the poop.”
An hour later they were in the channel. It was a hell of a run, Joe thought, but it wasn’t as if he didn’t know the way. He’d brought Humphrey; now the problem was to pretend not to be familiar with the run. More than two hundred miles, the bulk of it across the open sea of Lake Huron, in pitch-black, pouring rain. But the seas were not heavy, the boat was powerful—he had a 205-horsepower MerCruiser, inboard/out, with a four-barrel carb. It took plenty of fuel, but he had gassed up, including the extra tanks on deck.
The navigation was uncomplicated. Once past Point Edward they would be out in the lake. It was mainly a matter of keeping an eye out for lake shipping. Joe figured they could cruise moderately through the night, through the Saint Clair River channel, and by daylight they would be well out in the lake. If the winds didn’t get contrary, they should reach the island well before dark. They wouldn’t want to be there any sooner.
According to Pollak, Mulheisen had already reached the island. They reckoned he wouldn’t approach the woman before the next day. Presumably, Mulheisen could not be sure that DiEbola was even there. For that matter, neither could they. But Mulheisen would have to be a little cautious; a direct approach might be dangerous.
Joe was extremely interested in knowing how they had gotten their information and what it consisted of. Pollak, a man who didn’t like to talk much, obviously was aware of Joe’s keen interest and knew how much to reveal. Through a variety of sources they had become aware that Mulheisen had blown open the FBI investigation. As they understood it, he had learned that DiEbola had boldly faked the evidence of his death by breaking into a doctor’s office and manipulating files. It appeared that the body identified as DiEbola’s was really one Angelo Badgerri, a longtime associate of DiEbola’s. Apparently, however, the authorities were still clinging to the idea that DiEbola had been the target of an assassination attempt.
It was amazing, Joe thought, how difficult it was for investigators to abandon a scenario once it had been established and agreed upon. This tendency had produced a modified scenario: DiEbola had planned to bolt but was nearly thwarted in his attempt, by an untimely attack by old enemies—or perhaps the mob knew he was bolting and that was why they had tried to hit him. They believed that Mulheisen had ferreted out a connection with an old girlfriend, one Ivy White, now a semiretired doctor living on Shitepoke Island. DiEbola was presumed to have staged a fake boat explosion and then continued onward by switching to another boat.
This was the touchy part. If Pollak was not conning him, they assumed that DiEbola had provided himself with that other boat and was now at the island. No one had reported him there, but the doctor was known to be on the island. She had continued to see a few patients in the past two weeks, but that didn’t mean that DiEbola wasn’t present. She rarely went out, anyway, it seemed, and not at all, lately.
Joe and Pollak dined on sandwiches brought aboard by the colonel. Their coffee was soon gone, but they had beer and soft drinks. They took the wheel by turns, sleeping as best as they could in the small bunks forward. Pollak was in communication with the colonel by radio. The colonel informed them that Mulheisen was on the island, that he might have already visited the doctor.
At one point, trying to make conversation as they pounded along through the dark, Joe asked if Pollak was a Pole. There were dual seats, both of them the high, con type, comfortable enough. They could look out through the windshield over the deck. Joe had turned down the glow of the instrument lights, so they wouldn’t interfere with their watch for shipping. It was damned bad visibility, so they had to keep alert.
Pollak said he was American. No Polish ancestry. Joe asked if he were Catholic. He wasn’t. No denomination. Joe asked if he was a baseball fan. He wasn’t. He didn’t follow professional sports. Also, he volunteered, he didn’t watch TV, hadn’t read any good books, and never went to the movies.
“You eat, don’t you?” Joe asked. “What’s your favorite food?”
“Spaghetti,” Pollak said.
“Great,” Joe said. “I love spaghetti. What’s your favorite?”
“Chef Boyardee. With meatballs.”
That shut Joe up. He had been wondering if there was any good reason, should the occasion arise, to kill this bastard. It appeared there was.
They still had good fuel supplies, but they’d have to get more to make it back the way they had come. Pollak said they could run ashore at a village on the mainland, maybe even Tobermory, to get gas and food. It was still raining, but there were intermittent periods when it stopped, followed by heavier downpours and now some wind. The lake was kicking up. The Sea Ray, however, was taking it very well.
They got fuel in Tobermory, with little difficulty, and bought beer. They were fishermen, as anyone could see from the gear lying on the seats aft. They headed back out.
“What’s the plan?” Joe asked.
“It’s simple as hell,” Pollak said. He was loading a Heckler & Koch MP5A3. “We’ll beach below the house, walk up, and reconnoiter. If our man is there and no one’s around, we grab him and go.”
“What a plan,” Joe said, smiling. “And what if?”
“We’ll have to see when we get there, Joe. If Mulheisen’s around, we’ll cool it. If DiEbola’s not there …” He shrugged. “We don’t interfere with the lady. If Mulheisen’s got him, we better discuss it with the colonel.” He nodded toward the little handheld radio.
“How about if he doesn’t want to go with us, puts up a fight, is armed, has help?” Joe asked.
They were motoring rather slowly now, angling in toward the island. Pollak had already pointed out the house, sitting up on the bluff and not very visible, thanks to heavy foliage. Joe knew the house all right, but appeared not to.
“We don’t want a firefight,” Pollak said. “It depends on what we see when we get up there. You about ready? You armed?”
Joe was armed. He had a .38 automatic, a nice Smith & Wesson he’d always liked. He slipped a couple of extra clips into the pocket of his rain parka.
They would move up as close as they could. Joe knew they could run the boat onto a sandy beach, thanks to the tilt function of the inboard/outboard engine, but he couldn’t say as much. At any rate, in his previous run he had simply dropped Humphrey and Roman off. For the kind of operation they were envisioning, it wouldn’t do to leave the boat beached. It might be difficult to get off. They agreed it would be better to anchor somewhere near the path up the cliffs.
There was no tide to speak of on these lakes, as oceanic as they might seem, so there was no danger of being stranded. There was also very little surf running, which helped. It would have been nice to dock, but it wasn’t in the cards. The nearest dock was at the village, and they weren’t going there.
Joe suggested anchoring among some of the larger rocks. That might be possible. They cruised along the shore. The best spot they could find for that was more or less ideal, but it was a good half mile from the spot where they would have to descend with DiEbola. Pollak decided that was all right. If DiEbola was mobile—that is, if they didn’t wound him in the extraction—he could surely walk the half mile in the dark. And the boat would be much more secure than if it were left to wash in the weak surf. The alternative was to take a line ashore and anchor that way, and there was always the possibility that the boat would get beached and prove difficult to shove off.
It was getting dark. Rain was falling softly but steadily. There was a wonderful fresh smell of pines in the air. Joe nosed the Sea Ray in among some large rocks. It was quite secure here, in a gentle heave and pull. If the wind and the sea kicked up—which certainly looked likely—the boat might get scratched a little, but it was quite protected among these boulders. He could loop a line around a crag on either side. Best of all, they could hop out onto the rocks and, if they didn’t slip and fall and skin their shins, they could leap to shore without getting very wet.
They set off.
They could see Roman standing in the kitchen, just staring at nothing. He was listening to something, conceivably. But he stood with his hands hanging at his sides. He was dressed in his usual dark suit, now rather wrinkled and baggy. A woman came into the room dressed in rain gear, obviously the doctor. She talked to Roman for a moment, gesturing toward the front of the house. Roman nodded. She left.