Billingsgate Shoal (40 page)

"Where?"

"Some boat ten miles offshore from here. Blew
apart and sank."

"Was her name
Coquette
?"

"How'd you know?"

"I'll bet you that blue and white boat we saw
last night had something to do with it. Did anyone report seeing
it'?"

He shrugged his shoulders and then asked what all the
blankets were for.

"To cover the bodies,
you dummy. Listen, thanks for calling for help. Can you make it back
to Cape Ann alone? I gotta go home and rest. I've been puking and
bleeding too much."

* * *

At home I hugged Mary hard and lowered most of myself
into a warm bath. I sat there and soaked and poured a hot toddy into
self, telling her everything. She stared wide-eyed at me, shaking her
head slowly, murmuring. Then I crawled into bed and passed out. I
awoke in late afternoon.

The phone rang. It was the
Globe
.
They wanted the story on how I'd smashed the gun-running ring. I told
them to speak with Brian Hannon. That would keep them busy. It rang
again. It was a man with a husky voice and thick accent.

"Gott-damn good, Doc! You chop them up really
good, eh!"

"Who the hell's this?"

"Roantis."

"Hi, Liatis."

"You chop them up real good. Nice"

"I heard you were in some kind of trouble. Tommy
told me. You OK now'?"

"Hmmm. I got to go to trial. Dat's all."

"How's the uh, guy you hit?"

There was an uncomfortable silence. I heard him sigh
in a resigned way.

"Well Doc. I gott some bad news I tink—"

"Oh God. You mean he's dead?" `

"No. He lived."

"Now c'mon, Liatis—"

"No dat's the bad news. He dint die. I'm getting
too old to fight I tink. But other real bad news, Doc. The boy was
killed with you, he was Tomrny's nephew."

I sat up in bed. I felt too weak to hold the phone.

"Liatis, don't kid me."

"ReaIly, Doc. It was Tommy Desmond's li'l
nephew. The cops they found out it was Larry Heeney."

"I didn't know Tommy even had a nephew."

"I dint either. But he was."

"Tommy's gonna kill me, Liatis. But honest, I
didn't—"

"No Doc. He's proud of you. Dint you know where
those guns were going?"

"Uh huh. They were going to Ireland,. to be used
against the Republic—"

"Yeah Doc. That's what Tommy told me. They been
after this bunch for years now. And that man was with you, who was
also shot?"

"Stephen O'Shaughnessey—"

"Yeah. He is with the Irish police I tink."

"Right. And who told you all this stuff,
Liatis?"

"Ask Tommy; Desmond. But I tink you did real
good, Doc. Nice job the way you chop them 'up."

"Thanks, Liatis. You've made my day."

I lay back in bed and stared at the ceiling. I
wondered what Tommy Desmond had to tell me. How much had he known all
along about the IRA's operations in America, especially in Boston and
Southie? But I didn't have long to consider it because the phone rang
again. It was Brian Hannon, telling me the press was all over him and
his staff, and could I get down there, too, because I was in part
responsible for cracking the whole thing. In part. . . "

"In part? Gee, Brian, I'm glad you saw fit to
mention my name."

"Hey c'mon, haven't I always given you a fair
shake?"
 

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

I FINALLY HAD my brother-in-1aw right where I wanted
him: in the rearmost booth of Frankie Caeserids Happy Landings saloon
in Marblehead, Mass. We were busy killing brain cells. When I
estimated the Body Count was to my liking, I was going to make a
suggestion to him. The proverbial "offer he couldn't refuse."

It was three-thirty, peee emmm. The few sailing boats
left in Marblehead Harbor rode on the gray slick outside the picture
window of the Happy Landings. A bevy of local housewives were
drinking and laughing up front, at the stand-up bar. They all had
tennis outfits on, having no doubt just come from lessons given at
one of the indoor clubs. They wore little skirts that flipped up when
they wiggled their hips, and showed their panties underneath. Joe and
I liked this, and kept our eyes glued on the set of thirtyish women,
some with tipped hair, who shook and strutted at the old-time men's
bar. We waited—like buzzards on a limb—for a glimpse of the curve
of buttocks, the smooth sweep of inner thigh, the bounce and jiggle
of bosom.

Middle age is a terrible, terrible affliction. Thank
God Senility, Decrepitude, and Death put a stop to it.

"Another drink, gentlemen?" asked the
cocktail waitress, who had a pretty interesting outfit herself.

"Gee. . ." Joe began, "I really don't
think—"

"Sure, why not? I'm buying. Two more of the
same."

She grinned and took the two tall-stemmed glasses
back with her. She switched away from us, wearing an exaggerated
(and, I might add, extremely abbreviated) eighteenth-century maid's
uniform. It was sexist and tacky and revealing. It was extremely
popular. I saw she was wearing the shiny pantyhose that I like so
much. The ones worn by barmaids and stewardesses on the
less-well-known airlines. The ones that catch all the shiny
highlights of the legs, and feel slick to the touch if you happen to
brush across them. The ones Mary maintains are cheap and tawdry. Yep,
they're my favorite.

Via several longish talks with O'Shaughnessey, I'd
found out a lot about the Kincaid/Schilling outfit during the past
week. Some of the interesting stuff confirmed early suspicions I'd
had. For example, the Laura Kincaid/James Schilling affair. Perhaps
it was Laura Kincaid's expensive face 1ift operation and her
desire—her fetish rather—to remain imperially slim that planted
the initial seed of suspicion. Certainly it was remarkably parallel
to Schilling's quest for physical perfection and eternal youth.
Walter Kincaid had borne the affair for some time with an almost
parental patience and aloofness. But finally his pride and
possessiveness forced him to fire Schilling. The fact that his wife
didn't file for divorce and follow her lover must have told Kincaid
something, i.e., that she placed extreme value on her plush
surroundings. To give up Walter Kincaid was to part with the fortune
he'd made. So they lived together much as she had described when we
first met, with her taking off for long—and
not-so-secretive—weekends with Schilling while he spent his spare
time aboard the
Windhover
searching for artifacts and treasure.

"So what made Schilling pull the disappearing
act in Alaska?" asked Joe as he cradled his third whiskey sour,
which had just been placed in front of him.

"Because he'd just made contact with an old army
buddy of his who'd pulled the first of a series of armory heists.
Schilling was attracted to breaking into armories for several
reasons. One, it allowed him to hurt the army, which had given him a
D.D. and hurt his chances for landing any decent job. The fact that
Kincaid overlooked it, or didn't know about it, was perhaps the only
reason he got as far at Wheel-Lock as he did. Second, one of
Wheel-Lock's biggest contracts ever was obtained during the early
Vietnam buildup. Wheel-Lock designed the complex locks and security
devices for armories. Since Schilling knew the systems and locks, he
knew how to get around 'em."

'
And by disappearing he could be more mobile and
invisible."

"Yep. And leave his wife and be with Laura. I
figured he came back to New England shortly after his 'death' on the
Kenai Peninsula to make contact with arms buyers. Right away he
uncovered two hungry sources with lots and lots of dough: The French
Separatists in Quebec and the Irish Republican Army. According to
O'Shaughnessey he'd even trucked with the Mob for a while, but found
that too risky, or scary. Dealing with foreign buyers was cleaner,
safer. But there was one thing he needed badly to do it right: a
boat. He didn't have the money for one big enough to range as far as
he wanted."

"And that's when they decided to kill Kincaid?"

"Maybe they never planned to kill him. But in
early summer two events occurred that forced the issue. One:
Kincaid's company began a sharp decline, one that perhaps was
irreversible. Two: Kincaid found the jackpot he was seeking."

"Yeah bullshit."

"Wait. Wait, I'm getting to that."

"I want my two grand back, Doc."

"And you'll get it, whether or not I sell the
Rose
. But anyway,
Kincaid decided that by disappearing, he could rid himself of his
wife, his failing company, and all the unpleasantness he'd endured
for the past several years and skip to the Caribbean."

"It's curious he had the same idea Schilling
had," said Joe.

"Not when you consider the fact that they had
the same needs and motives. With a miniature Fort Knox in bullion
sealed into the
Windhover's
hull—which was now reshaped and named
Penelope
—he
was going to slide down the Big Trough, skip over to Grand Cayman and
deposit the fortune, tax-free, then head on over to his prepurchased
condominium on St. Thomas."

"Then why the hell didn't we find the bullion,
Doc? Why? Even though we cut up that hull until the
Rose
looks like a goddamn tea-strainer. Why?"

"I'm getting to that—"

"I want my two—" .

"Shut up and listen. Laura and Schilling
discovered Kincaid's plan to disappear. Since he'd done all the
groundwork for them, wouldn't it be easy for them to help him along?
And they'd have the boat they needed too."

"So Laura Kincaid wasn't independently rich as
she claimed."

"Doesn't look that way. Though she thought she
would stand to gain at least something by her husband's death. That's
why they thought of putting the house up for sale. Though it would
net them about four hundred grand, and they wouldn't have to run guns
anymore. Just as soon as Schilling made this last series of hauls,
they'd be home free."

"And never bothering to check the post office
box, they were ignorant of the condominium and the treasure."

"Knew nothing about it, and couldn't open the
box anyway without the key."

"So then where in hell—"

"But wait. Of course just about then they had
the mishap at the
James Longstreet
,
killed Allan Hart in a foolish and desperate panic, and from then on
had me on their tail, poking my nose in and disrupting things. As
soon as I explained my theory to Laura—who was an excellent actress
by the way, surely she had untapped talent in that department—she
was alarmed. She had Schilling stick himself under his car so he
could get a good look at me as I left her place. There were two
people who could blow their cover: Danny Murdock and Yours Truly."

"You think Murdock helped kill Kincaid?"

"Nah. He probably didn't even know Kincaid was
killed. Probably Laura fed him some cock-and-bull story about taking
over the arrangements for her husband. As far as Murdock the bombed
boatbuilder goes, the only illegal thing he knew about was falsifying
a certificate. BUT, they told him: listen, if a guy named Adams, who
looks like such and such—or anybody else—comes asking you
questions about
Penelope
,
you call us on the double and we'll bail you out."

"Mmmm. Hmmm," said Joe taking a deep sip
and leaning back; "so the night you approached him at the bar he
did as instructed."

"Sure. And I figured later it probably took
Schilling no more than fifteen or twenty minutes to arrive outside
the bar and station himself there, waiting for me to emerge. What
place is fifteen minutes from the Schooner Race?"

"The Kincaid residence."

"Uh huh. Which further strengthened the link
between Laura and Schilling. No, I wasn't at all surprised to find
her in that warehouse pointing an automatic rifle at my throat. Not
the slightest."

"Now how did O'Shaughnessey get involved'?"

"Because the Garda Siochana was tracking down
the rash of assaults in the Republic perpetrated by the militant wing
of the UFE the Ulster Freedom Fighters. They're the Protestant
counterpart to the IRA. A guy named Reggie Thompson is their leader.
Reggie's a tough customer—former Special Air Service Commando.
They've vowed to head south, and give the Irish a taste of their own
terrorist medicine, They're already charged with about twenty
murders; Claim to have a base somewhere in the Wicklow Hills. . ."

"But I still don't see how—"

"How it links to America? Because Schilling
switched sides. After dealing with the IRA for two months or so, he
discovered another group who'd pay double for the same merchandise."