Watch Your Back (18 page)

“Who? Oh, Tonio,” Pam said, because the pilot of this small sailboat, the bronzed Tonio, was murmuring into a cell phone as he sat hunched over the tiller at the rear of the boat, steering them out of the cove, toward the open sea. “Oh, he always does that,” she said. “He has to phone the marina whenever we set sail, it’s a safety thing.”

“Oh,” Preston said, and faced forward again, as the open sea grew increasingly open. The little sailboat did bob around an awful lot, did it more and more the faster they went and the farther from the protection of the cove. Preston tried to think of the movements as sensual, but it was difficult.

This was the first time he’d been off the island since he’d flown down from New York, almost three years ago. He’d never felt the need to frisk about on the briny, and in fact he still didn’t, but Pam was so difficult to pin down, a phrase he meant quite literally. She was always either off sailing with some lout or too tired from her outer–sea exertions to be of much use.

Well, if you can’t fight them, join them. Last night, when once again Pam had been too tired to drop by his place for a little kidding around, he’d brought up the sailboat idea himself: “Tomorrow, what do you say, if you want to go sailing again, I’ll came along with you.”

She was delighted: “Oh, would you, Pres? You’ll love it, I know you will.”

So here they were, and so far he wasn’t loving it. Not that he was going to be seasick — that sort of thing had never been a problem — but maintaining one’s balance was definitely a problem, perched here on this padded seat at the prow of the sailboat. Also noise; he would have expected sailpower to be silent, but the rush of the little boat through the sea created two kinds of white noise that made conversation difficult, they being wind and wave. The wind of their passage rushed past his ears, and the surface of the ocean hissed as the boat sliced through it.

So Preston merely sat silently, clasped his knees, frowned mightily at all that empty water, and waited for the good part. Are we having fun yet?

Once he looked back, and Tonio was off the phone now, and the island was really surprisingly far away. The sailboat traveled faster than one would have supposed. Preston looked at Tonio, and the man just sat there, one hand on the tiller, no expression at all on his face. Preston faced forward again.

He let another minute whish by, then leaned very close to Pam’s lovely left ear and murmured, “When does Tonio take his little swim?”

“Oh, Preston, not till we’re out of sight of land.”

“Out
of sight?
”

Twisting again to look back past the stolid Tonio, Preston said, “By God, we almost
are!
” Facing Pam, he called, into the roar of wind and wave, “Should we be out this far?”

“Oh, these boats are completely safe,” Pam assured him. “They wouldn’t let us go out if they weren’t.”

“Presumably.” Preston gazed out at the illimitable ocean, and on it there moved a speck. “What’s that?”

“What?”

“That,” Preston repeated, and pointed at the black–looking speck with the tiny white line of wake behind it.

“Why, it’s another boat,” Pam said, sounding pleased.

“Why don’t they find their own ocean?”

Pam caressed his near knee. “They’ll be gone in a minute, darling.”

Preston frowned toward that other boat, which, instead of going, was definitely coming nearer. “It doesn’t have a sail.”

“No, it’s a motorboat.” She shielded her eyes with a hand, gazing at the interloper. “I think it’s one of those they call the cigarette boats.”

“Noisy and fast,” Preston said, disgusted with the idea. “Drug dealers and the like.”

“Oh, some very decent people, too,” Pam assured him.

“Is that boat going to crash into us?”

“Of course not, darling.”

“They’re coming right at us.”

“Maybe they want to say hello.”

Preston looked back past Tonio, and there was no island back there at all any more, no land anywhere in sight, nothing and no one except themselves and that other boat. “I don’t like this,” he said.

Scoffing, Pam said, “Oh, there’s no bad people in this part of the ocean.”

Preston shielded his own eyes with his hand. That other boat was surging powerfully through the sea, thundering on like a seagoing locomotive, nose up. It could now be seen to be mostly white, with blue trim, and with names and numbers in blue on its side. Sunlight glinted from its windscreen, so that whoever was driving the boat couldn’t be seen.

Preston made a sudden decision. Twisting around again, he called, “Tonio, take us back! Now!”

Tonio didn’t even bother to look at him. They continued to sail as before. Wide–eyed, Preston stared at Pam, but she was smiling at the approaching boat, apparently mightily amused by something or other.

And now Tonio did do something with the sail, so that they definitely slowed. Instead of rushing, all at once they were wallowing. And the cigarette boat was just
there,
also slowing, turning in a large, carnivorous circle as it approached.

Pam turned her beautiful head to meet Preston’s stare, and her smile now was savage with triumph. “It’s been fun, darling,” she said.

“You’re taking me off the island!”

“You
are
off the island, darling.”

The cigarette boat eased in close, and Preston made a belated and bitter discovery. “You
look
like my wives.”

She laughed, lightly. At him. “Of course,” she said, and Tonio held out a hand to catch the cigarette boat’s rope.

“Uh huh.”

“About the swap.”

“Gotcha.”

“Says he can.”

“Good.”

“Day after tomorrow.”

“Not today?”

“No. Looks like we’ll move the smaller one first, take it out there.”

“But,” Kelp objected, hunkering over the phone, “what we said, we’d use the big one to pick up the small one.”

“Not the way it’s gonna work.”

“Too bad,” Kelp said, wondering how they’d get at that alarm without a nice, tall truck to help.

“So what we’ve got here,” Stan said, “is what Tiny would call another delay.”

“Yes, he would. In fact, he will.”

“I was wondering, could you call him.”

Kelp made a regretful face, which, of course, Stan could not see. “Gee, I don’t think I could,” he said. “I think of it as your news.”

“Well, it’s everybody’s news.”

“It was yours first.”

“Well, then, there’s the other issue.”

“Other issue?”

“The location you were gonna find, for the trade.”

“I’m working on that.”

In fact, Kelp was at that moment sharing muffins and eggs with Anne Marie at a neighborhood beanery, but he had actually turned his thoughts once or twice so far to the question of where to stash the truck once it was full of product for Arnie Albright. “But now, turns out,” he said, “I got an extra forty–eight hours.”

“Use them well,” Stan advised.

“Thank you.”

Kelp broke the connection, pocketed the cell, kissed Anne Marie on the cheek, the nose, and the lips, and went off to look for a little cranny somewhere. It was such a nice sunny August day, without that humidity that sometimes happens, that he decided to leave the medical profession alone for once and start his search on foot. If I were a truck, he asked himself, where would I want to stash myself?

The problem is, Manhattan is not only an island, it’s crowded. Other places, where people and their civilizations spread out like kudzu, you’ve got your front lawns, back yards, side driveways, alleys, mewses, cul–de–sacs, empty lots. In Manhattan you’ve got three things: street, sidewalk, building. Bang bang bang, that’s it. (Forget parks; they’re
watched.
)

There was a cubbyhole in Manhattan once, way downtown, about the size of the original Volkswagen Beetle, and one day an immigrant from Pakistan found it, moved in, and sold CDs and sunglasses from there for years until he retired to Boca Raton. Sent a son through NYU, a daughter through Bard. Is this a wonderful country or what?

Or what, if you’re trying to stash a truck. The upside to this crowded–island thing was that always, somewhere, here and there around town, something that wasn’t wanted any more was coming down to make way for something new that would be much more useful, at least for a while. The city is forever pockmarked with construction sites, some of them quite extensive, up to a full city block rectangle (city blocks aren’t square; would you expect them to be?).

It was Kelp’s initial idea that he would ankle this way and that around town in the pleasant sunlight and see did he come across a construction site large enough for its workers not necessarily to notice the addition of one extra truck parked in a corner, particularly if it was in with materiel not yet in use or a section they were temporarily finished with. After all, how long would it be before Arnie found some other location for the goods? Just a few days, probably, especially if they insisted. Especially if they sent Tiny to insist.

It’s true the extra two days was a bit of an irritation, but on the other hand, it took the pressure off Kelp in his search. So he ambled along, and when next his cell vibrated against his leg, he took a couple of extra steps to get in the shade of a very nice plane tree before he uncorked the thing, and said, “Yup.”

“Another delay.”

Tiny — so the news had spread. “I’ve been thinking about that,” Kelp told him, “walking around here remembering the three most important things about real estate —”

“You got your location yet?”

“I’m not gonna need it till day after tomorrow, you know.”

“Where you looking?”

“Around and about.”

“I don’t like these delays.”

“We just roll with the punches, us guys.”

“Not
my
punches,” Tiny said, and broke the connection.

Over to the west by the river was where a lot of construction was taking place these days. For many years, New York City ignored its riverfronts, got along somehow without all those esplanades, boardwalks, colonnades, market piers, and waterside restaurants that lesser cities tried to console themselves with, but now the real estate devil–princes, in their aeries on top of the taller buildings, have noticed that gleam of water far below and have devised just the perfect way to deal with it. Put up a Great Wall of separate huge buildings, jammed together, marching for miles up the West Side, with windows. That way, the office workers and residents in those buildings can have terrific river views and then come out and describe them to everybody else.

Moving up along this serial construction site, Kelp had made it into the upper Fifties when he thought he saw something that might serve. So he swerved that way, but then the cell started vibrating, so he swerved the other way, unleashed the cell, and it was Dortmunder:

“I understand you’re out lookin for the place.” I am.

“Even though we got the delay and all.”

“Well, the weather’s nice, so why not take advantage.”

“You want company?”

“What, to walk?”

“Well, yeah, to look around, see what’s happening.”

What is he up to? Kelp asked himself. “I don’t know,” he said, deliberately not using any of Dortmunder’s names, not out in public like this, “I seem to be doing pretty good as a solo here. You’re at kinda loose ends, I guess.”

“Well, kinda. Except, naturally, I gotta go have a word with our friend.”

Kelp immediately saw what was what. “Our friend” was Arnie Albright, and
Dortmunder
had volunteered to have a word with him, Dortmunder and nobody else. Hence, “Ah hah!” said Kelp.

“Whadaya mean, ‘ah hah?’ I just said.”

“You want you should come with me so then I should go with you.”

“Well, it seems kinda the thing, you know, we went there together last time, worked out okay.”

“I don’t think so.”

“He’d probly expect us to show up together.”

“He’d be wrong.”

“You said yourself how much he improved.”

“Not that much.”

“Well, anyway.”

“Get it over with,” Kelp advised. “It’s one of those things better looked back on than forward to.”

“Sure,” Dortmunder said, and grumpily hung up.

By that point, walking and talking, Kelp had almost circled the construction site that had caught his eye, and was being stopped by a tall chain–link fence where there used to be, more than likely, all three of the city’s basic elements: street, sidewalk, building. There was quite a dropoff beyond a low metal barrier to his right, with the West Side Highway rushing back and forth below, and the Hudson sparkling all the way from there over to the squat towers of New Jersey.

The Hudson is a tidal river for up to a hundred miles inland, and the tide at the moment was coming in, which was slightly disorienting. It was a little weird to know that upriver was to your right, and yet the strong flow of water was headed up that way. He knew it didn’t actually slop over the sides when it reached the top up in the Adirondacks, but it felt that way.

Anyway, this chain–link fence. Kelp turned and ambled back alongside it, and here was a broad gate kept open during work hours because cement mixers and other large workhorses were pretty steadily passing in and out. Inside, a temporary dirt road led down to a cellar level, where the work was going on. Far over to the left, down there, half a dozen trailers were set up as site offices. Guys and vehicles moved in constant random motion, like a disturbed anthill.

Kelp waited while an empty flatbed truck groaned up and out of there; then he entered and walked down the slope, because it seemed to him some unused vehicles were parked behind the office trailers. Would they like a playmate?

“
Where’s your hard hat?
”

A guy called that from over to the right, just as Kelp reached the foot of the slope. With a big smile and wave, Kelp pointed leftward at the trailers. “
Just going to get it!
” And he moved on, striding pretty fast.

Yes, as he approached the trailers he could better see the other things parked back there, and they were tow trucks, a couple of pickups, and some other things, including a dump truck with its forward–tilting hood standing up like a parrot’s nose.

“
Where’s your hard hat?
”

This safety expert was a guy coming out of one of the trailers. “
Just going to get it!
” Kelp assured him, with a big smile, and pointed the direction he was going.

Definitely this was the place. The parked vehicles were not all jammed in together like a parking lot, but just left here and there in the empty space behind the trailers as the drivers had no more immediate use for them. The truck Stan would bring here after the visit to the penthouse would fit in perfectly right
there,
between the hook–nosed dump truck and a red pickup with a see–through Confederate flag covering its entire rear window.

Having seen enough, Kelp turned about and headed back for the ramp.

“
Where’s your hard hat?
”

“
Just going to get it!
”

Kelp kept moving, kept smiling, kept looking around at everything there was to be seen. They wouldn’t be able to move their truck in or out at night, because that big gate would be locked and there would be night watchmen in here, but that was okay. The penthouse was a day job, and they could finish it up and get the truck over here long before the end of the workday. Then, once again, when Arnie was ready, they could move the thing out during the day. No problem.

The only thing was, before he came back here, he’d really have to get a hard hat.