Chalk hit the porch stairs at a thousand miles an hour. Almost at the top, he heard Pallaton grunt behind him. Then came a big caliber gunshot. This was not the usual order of things unless the shooter was actually a distant sniper. He turned without arresting his headlong rush up the steps. Pallaton was down. His balaclava a ripped gunny full of fish guts.
Chalk rolled through the open double front door, and cleared the immediate entry hall. There was a grand old staircase sweeping up the back of the hall to a second floor landing. Chalk went for it, quick, but easy. The ancient treads squeaked, threatening to collapse in a puff of termite dust at every step.
Chalk cleared the upstairs hallway. Scanning for anyone with an eye to mow him down. Nobody there. Quiet as a tomb.
And then he heard the chuckling. A man, laughing low the way a person does when he’s read something funny in a book, but has nobody close by with whom to share the joke. Chalk shook his head to clear it. No, this laughter was real, not psychosis; it came from a front room. Chalk figured the box and key were in there, too. He slowly followed the sound, his gun ready.
Whatever the joke, it must have been a good one. The mirth persisted until he reached the doorway to a parlor. Chalk’s first glance through the door was directed out the opposite window. He could see the burning Palestrina at the shore throwing orange-white clinkers into the air. The southerly breeze wafted the sparks toward the building. This was bad enough, regardless of the hebephrenic loopster waiting for him in the room.
Chalk was about to S.W.A.T. into the parlor with a classic Hollywood diving roll when the laughter suddenly stopped.
He heard a familiar voice call out, “Come on in, Maynard. The water’s fine.”
Chalk was speechless, but not for long. “Richard Willem Blackshaw! You goddamn thief! That you?”
“Yeah, bunky. In the flesh.”
Chalk shook, insane with rage recalling the hassles of the last forty-eight hours. “Throw down your weapon, shit-heel! Now!”
“Easy boy. Don’t have one to throw. Anyway, you got bigger problems than me. Way bigger.”
Chalk had not yet put his head into the room. “You don’t sound so good, my friend.”
Dick restarted his noncommittal chuckling. “Been better.”
Despite the cordial invitation, and the fact that Dick sounded off his feed, Chalk penetrated the room hard, low and fast. He needn’t have bothered.
Richard Willem Blackshaw sat on the floor propped up against the back wall. He did not even look at Chalk. Instead, he placidly watched the reflection of the boat fire flickering on horse hair binding that hung down in brittle tufts from the cracked plaster ceiling. Blood drenched the fingers of both his hands where they gripped just above his pelvis.
Chalk ordered, “Put your hands up.”
Dick Blackshaw smiled and said, “If I do like you say, my guts’ll flop into my lap. Our chat’ll be kinda short, doncha know. Reckon I caught me a round of your suppressing fire. Messed me up good. So I respectfully decline.”
“Dickie, Dickie, Dick-Be-Nimble. I hope it hurts like hell,” Chalk said. “Had something like that in mind for you myself. For starters.”
As Chalk patted Blackshaw down, the injured man said. “Think you’re gonna get all the gold back?”
“I don’t think it. I know it.” Then Chalk heard somebody shout “Fore!” over his radio earpiece. Not Slagget. Not O’Malley. A stranger. It sounded like somebody playing golf. Maybe it was not the transceiver at all. Maybe stress sped up the metabolism of his psych meds, and he was finally having the auditory hallucinations he feared. So what!
Then Chalk noticed the rest of the metal boxes. They were stacked up against the right hand wall in the shadows thrown by the fire outside. A quick count. He totted up nineteen. Those, plus the one in the window, made twenty. Beautiful.
Chalk grinned. “See? All here. Gotta say your boys didn’t put up much of a fight.”
“Maybe not, but that big problem I told you about? That’s in the last box over there. In the window.” Dick nodded toward the opposite wall. Chalk went to the window, careful to keep in the shadows.
Dick said, “Go ahead and open the box. It won’t bite you. Leastwise, not for a minute or two.”
Chalk grinned. “I have a better idea.” He pulled out his sat-phone and dialed. Then he retreated from the window, and loomed over the gut-shot man. Chalk bent down and hoisted Dick to his feet. “Upsy-daisy, Dickardo. Come on!”
Blackshaw groaned. He staggered as Chalk dragged him to the window. Chalk kept his good arm around Dick’s shoulders. With his free hand he held his sat-phone to the waterman’s ear.
“Dickie-Boy, I want you to say howdy to a new friend of mine.”