Eleven

On the slight chance that I was mistaken, I didn’t shoot to wound or to kill. I’d hate to have the blood of two innocent Mormon missionaries on my already-crowded conscience. I fired twice at the near man, turned and fired twice at the far man, and then I grabbed Carla’s upper arm and started running. Both men had professionally ducked and rolled when I started shooting, so I was pretty confident they weren’t on a mission from God.

I ran just enough to get out of their immediate view, and quickly slowed down, now walking on Manchester’s Main Street, which had more pedestrian traffic, and my hand was loosely grasping Carla’s upper arm, while my Beretta was back in its shoulder holster. Carla’s voice was shaky when she said, “Shouldn’t we be getting the hell out of here?”

“Yes,” I said, “but we need to be getting out of here in a smart way. Four gunshots were fired a few minutes ago a few blocks away. Two people running away would get a lot of interest. Right now, we’re blending in, slowly strolling around on this nice day, and I’m happy.”

We walked another block. Main Street was four lanes, two northbound and two southbound. Traffic was steady. “About that cellphone of yours, do you have it handy?”

“Right here.”

“Pass it over.”

She unzipped her leather bag, dug in, and passed it over to me. Based on so much experience that I forgot when I exactly had started it, I had removed the back, the SIM card—which I broke—and then came across a sewer grate. I paused, reached down like I was picking up a loose dollar bill, and I dropped what was once Carla’s phone into the sewer.

“I was being tracked.”

“Yep.”

“By the same people who are tracking you?”

“Makes sense, doesn’t it.”

Carla said, “About George, and what you said about he being from the DoJ … ”

“Yes?”

“I’m getting scared that you might be right. Maybe George is one of us.”

“One of you,” I said. “Not us.”

We stopped at the intersection of Main Street and Concord Street. “What now?” she asked.

I took her upper arm again while we walked across. “You got anything in that Impala that’s valuable?”

“No.”

“Registered in your name?”

“Sort of,” she said. “It’s a rental.”

“Well, it’s probably burned, just like your phone. It’s time for us to go dark, take a breath, and decide what to do next.”

“Will the ‘do next’ part including getting to George and whoever killed my brother?”

I stopped in front of a coffee and pastry shop. “That’s my plan. You can either come along for the ride or go back to Boston.”

“Fuck Boston,” she said.

I gently propelled her into the coffee shop. “What, are you a Yankees fan or something?”

We both had cups of strong coffee, and I added to my calorie fest with a vanilla Neapolitan pastry. We sat at a round table near the rear, just by the exit sign, and I kept a sharp eye as we let the time pass us by.

She said, “You’re fast.”

“I try.”

“No, I don’t mean you’re driving or anything like that. I meant … back at the restaurant. You made a decision, and we got out of there. Out on the sidewalk. You saw a threat. You reacted. You’re … fast.”

“You ever hear of Edna St. Vincent Millay?”

“Sure. Pulitzer Prize–winning poet, 1920s, something like that.”

“There’s a short poem of hers that I’ve always used as a template for my life:

My candle burns at both ends;

It will not last the night;

But ah, my foes, and oh, my friends—

It gives a lovely light.

“Do you understand? That’s how I move. No time to waste one’s life or talents.”

I tried to gauge what was going on behind those eyes of her and failed. I went on. “I take that as a compliment. Sitting still … you’re a target. Moving … you shake things up, you disrupt other people’s plans. That’s what’s gotten me this far in reasonable good health.”

“Why do you do it, then?” she asked. “What’s your background?”

I said, “Not enough money or pressure in the world to tell you where I come from, or what I’ve done before. But I learned a long time ago that the nine-to-five, cubicle office work with a fat 401k down the road with a wife and ungrateful kids wasn’t going to work for me.”

“It’s safe.”

“It’s dull.”

“Are you an adrenaline junkie?”

I shook my head. “Like those guys who do rock climbing with no ropes? Or climb the top of a thousand-foot TV antenna and do a parachute jump? Nope, not for me. I take risks, I go into dark places, but it’s all calculated.”

“And what’s there at the end of the day? Besides a fat bank account?”

“Many fat bank accounts … with the knowledge that when I start to slow down, when my reflexes aren’t what they should be, then I’ll silently fade away and find something else to do, with the fine sense of accomplishment that I’ve done exactly what I wanted in the previous years, no compromises, no illusions.”

The slightest of smiles. “Perhaps you’ll end up in a cubicle anyways.”

“Only if I get a good dental plan.”

Carla picked up her coffee mug, stared out at the bustling Main Street, and put the mug down without drinking from it. “Whatever my brother was involved in … and you … and now me, it’s gotten big. Out of hand.”

“That’s right.”

“What’s going on, then?”

“Pretty easy,” I said. “Either some criminal element or a group from the government. Or maybe both.”

“I don’t believe it.”

“We know my main man George ID’d himself to the Bellows Falls cops as somebody from the Department of Justice.”

“Like I said, that might be a lie. Or a cover story.”

“Or maybe the truth. If he’s illegal, he’s going into the belly of the beast: law enforcement. He’ll be looked at, videotaped, and maybe a discreet phone call or two to check up on him. That’s pretty edgy. Which means I think George is either with the DoJ or working with them.”

Carla shook her head. “I can’t believe that... no matter what I said earlier, about being scared, you might be right.”

“Oh, honey, honey, honey …”

She looked like she’d like to pop out my eyeballs, one after another, using a grapefruit spoon. “Don’t call me honey.”

“Then don’t say stupid things,” I said. “You think the FBI, the Department of Justice, the federal government is all run by Boy Scouts or Girl Scouts. Damn, you work from the FBI field office in Boston. Do I really have to remind you of Whitey Bulger and his Irish gangsters, how they were protected by corrupt FBI agents? How they concealed their crimes, hid evidence so innocent men were sent to prison? Or do you and your coworkers all suffer from collective amnesia?”

Her voice was flat, with no emotion. “That’s past. History. We don’t dwell on it.”

“Well, you should dwell on it,” I said. “Your friend who ran the fingerprints for you … that triggered something for somebody. Which means he’s either dead or has been disappeared.”

“Or something innocent.”

“Innocent? Well, look at this … you were next up on their hit parade, until we managed to scramble away. But they’re still out there, either from your Boston office, or someplace else in the Northeast, or anywhere else. Corrupt feds, or somebody working with the corrupt feds.”

“Over what? The Rembrandt painting? That’s how this all started. What’s the deal, then?”

“Who knows?” I said. “It’s a murky world. Maybe somebody knows where the Isabelle Stewart Gardner paintings are located, and wants to make a side deal with the FBI, for money or glory or something like that. And before he proceeds, he wants to make sure the paintings are the real deal. Clarence and I go to Vermont, I verify the Rembrandt is the Rembrandt, and when that was achieved, it was time for George and Kathy Salzi to eliminate us both.”

She played around the edge of her coffee mug, pushing it slightly with a thumb against the handle, until it revolved a complete 360 degrees. “What’s your thought process now?”

“Now? Short-term, we enjoy our beverages. Long term … this is how I see it. We can do one of two things. Sit around and scurry and wait for them to come at us again. Or we can go on the offensive.”

“I don’t like sitting around,” Carla said.

“Neither do I.”

She gulped down the last of her coffee. “I’m done enjoying my beverage. Let’s roll.”

Unlike most metropolitan cities, getting a cab in Manchester takes more effort than standing on a corner, waving madly. That’s not how it works here. After talking to the young lady who had seated us, she made a phone call and told us our ride would be coming by in ten or so minutes. I slipped her a couple of dollar bills and walked outside back on Main Street, with Carla at my side.

Sirens sounded in the distance. Carla winced and I said, “Take my hand, we’re a young couple out for a stroll, nothing to get worked up about.”

She didn’t pull away. “You’re not that young.”

“Oh, such a charmer,” I said. “I can’t see why your husband left you.”

“I left him,” she said, squeezing my hand hard.

We walked two blocks and at the intersection of Palmer Street and Main Street, we waited, until a dented white Ford Taurus with stick-on letters saying queen city livery pulled up. I opened the rear door, she slid in, and I joined her. The driver was a heavy-set woman with white-streaked black hair wearing a dungaree jacket and a Manchester Monarchs baseball cap. “Where you going, folks?”

I told her, and off we went.

About fifteen minutes later, in a run-down industrial section of Manchester, I stepped out of a fence-enclosed parking lot that contained scores of metal buildings, holding storage units. I got back into the Ford Taurus, holding a black nylon duffel bag with web handles. Carla eyed me as I got in, the bag on my lap.

“What’s that?” she asked.

“Stuff. You know, bird watching gear, books, that sort of thing.”

“And you store it here?”

I patted the top of the bag. “You never know when you need bird watching gear in a hurry.”

An hour later, I was by myself, slightly chilled, but feeling pretty good. I had changed out my clothes and was wearing a camo wrap designed to be used by trackers and snipers, both professions I have a serious and high regard for. I was now back at my home, in the stretch of woods behind my house, on my belly, keeping eye on the neighborhood. With 7 x 50 Zeiss binoculars in hand, my birdwatching and other gear at my side, I could see everything that was moving, everything that was going on, like the two Smith girls playing in their back yard.

And also including something that wasn’t moving.

My friendly surveillance van from earlier in the day.

Hadn’t moved a bit.

“Well, guys,” I whispered. “Even by doing nothing, you’re telling me a lot.”

Which was this: at least two, maybe three guys in that van. They were still sitting here, which meant another two guys had been out there, near the Hanover Street Chop House. That means five. Plus a Mister Big or Doctor Evil either hiring George or being George, along with a minion or two (without the goggles and gobbly-gook dialogue) to help him out.

Lots of serious men and—including Kate Salzi—at least one serious woman.

I gently put the binoculars down on the leaves and pine needles at my side, picked up a Remington .22 semiautomatic rifle, with a nice 10x optical sight attached to the receiver. A long time ago a very helpful gunsmith made some adjustments to the rifle so it could be broken down and carried in a duffel bag like the one nearby. It’s a very popular weapon, not particularly high-powered or dangerous, but as I learned a long time ago, there’s no such thing as a dangerous weapon, only a dangerous man.

Or, thinking of Kate and her H&K MP 5 pointed in my direction, a very dangerous woman.

That gunsmith also made me a fair number of highly effective and highly illegal sound suppressors, one of which was attached to the end of my rifle’s barrel. I lowered my head, sighted through the scope. I probably could have made the shot using the open iron sights that came with the Remington, but like most things in life, I didn’t want to leave anything to chance.

I kept steady, narrowed my aim, and fired.

A harsh chuff and the clink of the bolt ejecting the tiny spent .22 round.

Three more shots, and I was finished.

I quickly broke everything down, took off my camouflage wrap, and walked across my back yard like the responsible and tax-paying citizen I was. I gave a slight and silly wave to the folks in the surveillance van—now resting on four shot-out tires—and I got into my Ford with the new car smell, started it up, and drove off.

I still felt good, though I admit I was a bit concerned about starting up the Ford, thinking maybe things had gotten so far that an explosive device had been attached, but nothing happened, which went a ways to renewing my faith in whatever humanity rested in my pursuers.

I stopped and took a right onto Route 3.

Check that, I thought. Our pursuers. For better or worse, I now had a representative of the FBI working with me.

I almost doubled over in laughter at that thought.