Hush Money (18 page)

“I’m looking for Last Stand Systems,” I said.

The shopkeeper/postmaster was a fat old guy wearing a collar-less blue and white striped shirt, and big blue jeans held up by red suspenders.

“In town here,” he said.

As he answered me he eyed Hawk. The look wasn’t suspicious exactly, it was more the look you give to an exotic animal that has unexpectedly appeared. The way he might have looked if I’d come in with an ocelot on a leash.

“Where in town?”

“Out the Buxton Road,” he said.

“Does it have an address?” I said.

“Beecham, Maine.”

The shopkeeper was seated on one of four stools bolted to the floor in front of a marble-topped soda fountain, his fat legs dangling, his fat ankles showing sockless above a pair of moccasins. There were donuts under a glass dome, and straws and napkins in chrome dispensers.

“Does it have a number on it?” I said.

“Nope.”

“If I went out the Buxton Road how would I recognize it?”

“See the sign out front.”

“The one that says Last Stand Systems, Inc.?”

“Yep.”

“That should help us,” I said.

“Might.”

“How do we get to the Buxton Road?” I said.

“Right out front. Turn right.”

“You been working on this act for a long time?” Hawk said.

The old fat guy almost smiled for a moment, but fought it off and stayed in character.

“Yep,” he said.

“Real hay shakers wear socks,” Hawk said.

“Some do,” the old fat guy said.

Hawk grinned. We turned and went back out and got into Hawk’s car and turned right. Nearly all the houses were white and set on low foundations. Many had long porches that wrapped around the front and one side where people could sit in rocking chairs and look across the street at people sitting in rocking chairs looking across the street. The Buxton Road barrel-arched over a fast-moving little river and then flattened out between tall pines on the right and the sea-foamed boulder-scattered coastline on the left. The sea birds seemed livelier on this coast. There was very little of the effortless gliding that gulls did in Boston. Here, they flashed above the waves, and dove into the foam, and scooted over the rocks and snapped food out of the tidal ponds that formed among the rusty-looking granite chunks. About a mile out of town there was a narrow drive off into the pine trees. A small sign, black letters on white wood, read Last Stand Systems, Inc. Hawk U-turned and pulled up onto the shoulder at the opposite edge of the road above the ocean fifty yards down past the sign.

“We could be bold,” Hawk said.

“And if it’s the outfit that sent the well-dressed shooters,” I said, “we could be dead.”

“Or, we could be guileful.”

“Guileful?”

“Guileful.”

“I vote for guileful,” I said.

“Good,” Hawk said, “what you suggest?”

“You don’t have a plan?”

“I come up with the strategic concept,” Hawk said.

“Is that what that was?” I said. “I thought you were just showing off you knew a big word.”

“That too,” Hawk said.

“Okay, let’s sneak around in the woods and see what we can see.”

“Covertly,” Hawk said.

“Of course,” I said. “Covertly.”

Hawk and I were both in work clothes, which meant jeans, sneakers, tee shirt. I wore a blue oxford dress shirt with the tails out to hide the Browning on my belt. Hawk mostly used a shoulder holster. To conceal it he was wearing a gray silk sport coat. He took it off and folded it carefully on the backseat. He had a big.44 Mag under his arm.

“Doesn’t the weight of that thing make you tip to the side?” I said.

“It do,” Hawk said. “But you never know when you might have to shoot an elephant.” Hawk put the car keys over the visor.

“Case we need wheels real quick,” Hawk said. “Don’t want to be looking for the keys.”

“‘Course this could be an outfit of pleasant people who make umbrella stands,” I said.

“With an unlisted number and a private jet,” Hawk said.

“Just a thought,” I said.

We crossed the road and went into the woods. It had that bittersweet scent that the woods often have on a hot day. Except for the whine of locusts, and the occasional movement of the wind off the ocean, it was very still. Pine needles were six inches thick underfoot. We made very little sound as we walked. We walked in a wide circle aiming to come to Last Stand Systems, Inc. from a direction other than the road. It was easy going. There was very little underbrush. It was as if the land beneath the high pines had been carefully cleared. In about twenty minutes we saw the compound. Not much to see. It looked like it might once have been a manufacturing facility that had been recycled. There were three cinder block buildings with those high glass windows that nineteenth-century industrial buildings used to have, the kind that have a fine wire mesh running through them. The buildings were painted flat white. The compound was surrounded by a high chain link fence with razor wire on top.

I climbed a tree. From there I could see that the buildings faced onto an open area about the size of a football field. An American flag was on a flagpole in front of one building. A couple of men in dark suits and white shirts came out of the building by the flagpole and walked across the open area and went into the building across the way. I looked down. Hawk had taken a seat under the tree with his back against the trunk and his ankles crossed and appeared to be asleep, though he probably wasn’t.

I sat in my tree some more. There’s something about sitting in a tree when you’re a grown man that makes you feel like a doofus. But it was a feeling I understood, I’d had it before. I sat, doofus-like, and looked at the layout. To my left was a gated entrance with a guard shack manned by a guard. The gate was open, folded back out of the way against the chain link fence. The central building with the flagpole was directly opposite the gate. It was clearly the administrative place. The suits continued in and out of there. The other two buildings seemed to be a barracks and maybe a supply warehouse. A couple of green Jeeps and a black Lincoln stretch limo with tinted windows were parked in front of the administration building. They all had Maine plates. I noted the plate numbers.

As I watched, a man in starched fatigues and wearing a pistol belt strolled slowly along the fence. There was a radio on his belt on the hip opposite the pistol, and a microphone clipped to his epaulets. At the corner he stopped and spoke to another guy with the same equipment who had obviously walked down his length of fence. One of them leaned his hand against the chain link as they talked. Which meant the fence was not electrified. The other two lengths of fence were hidden by the buildings. I watched as my guy turned smartly and strolled back along his fence and, sure enough, met another guard at the other corner. Being a trained observer I concluded that the perimeter was guarded by four men. I watched some more. The guards went back and forth. After about a half hour a squad of four other men in starched fatigues came out of the far building under the direction of another guy and they marched out to change the guard. I sat some more. In the next hour and a half I counted at least twenty men in starched fatigues and sidearms either guarding the perimeter or marching about in the compound in something resembling close order drill. My left knee was beginning to hurt where I’d gotten shot once. I wasn’t sure I could stand the excitement of another guard change, so I climbed back down the tree and stood and stretched out my knee a little. Hawk tilted his head back and looked at me.

“So, Hawkeye,” he said. “What’d you see.”

“Looks like something between an IBM retreat and Parris Island,” I said.

“Got a perimeter guard,” Hawk said.

“I counted about twenty guys in fatigues and sidearms,” I said.

“Don’t seem necessary for a bunch of pleasant umbrella stand makers,” Hawk said.

“No,” I said. “It doesn’t.”

“We tough enough to go in there and roust twenty guys?” Hawk said.

“Of course we are,” I said.

“How ‘bout stupid enough?” Hawk said.

“Sure, but then what? I don’t even know what we’re looking for in there.”

“Same thing we looking for when we drove way the fuck up here,” Hawk said. “We trying to figure out the connection between Amir and this outfit.”

“Oh yeah,” I said. “And we’re doing that because we think it might help us figure out who threw Prentice Lamont out the window.”

“Exactly,” Hawk said.

“Shooting it out with twenty guys may not be the best way to get that information.”

“Specially if only one guy’s got the information and you kill him.”

“A definite possibility.”

“Or we might both get shot to pieces and then the thing wouldn’t ever get solved,” Hawk said.

“Unlikely,” I said. “But not impossible.”

We both looked at the gleam of the white cinder block buildings through the lacy distraction of the trees. The high locust whine was so much a part of the woods that it had become nearly inaudible. The bittersweet smell of the woods was stronger as the sun had gotten higher.

“I think guile is still our best option,” I said.

“So what the guileful thing to do?” Hawk said.

“Go back home, maybe have a couple beers, and think about it,” I said.

“Works for me,” Hawk said.

“You smell it?” I said.

“Cigarette,” Hawk said.

I nodded. Hawk took his elephant gun from the shoulder holster and stuck it into his belt at the small of his back. He shucked off the shoulder rig and dropped it and moved off to the right. I went left. We emerged onto the highway bracketing the car, Hawk ten yards beyond it, me ten yards this side. There were four of them leaning on the car. They had on uniforms and carried side arms. An unmarked blue Jeep was parked behind Hawk’s Jag. I sauntered toward them with a big friendly smile.

“Hi,” I said. “You waiting for me?”

One of them turned toward me. He was still wearing his hornrimmed glasses and it still made him look smart. Of course, appearances can be deceiving.

“This your car?” he said. After he said it, he stared at me and I could see recognition begin to form behind his lenses.

“Actually it belongs to my Negro friend,” I said.

They had not planned on being approached by two people at the same time from opposite directions. They should have divided the chore. Two look at me. Two look at Hawk. But they hadn’t decided in advance, and therefore didn’t know, which two should look at whom. Training is good, but sometimes innovation is better.

“I know you,” Horn Rims said.

“And a better man for it,” I said.

Hawk and I kept coming. Horn Rims put a hand on the radio at his belt and turned his head and spoke something into the microphone clipped to his epaulets. Then he unsnapped the flap of his holster.

“Stop right where you are,” he said.

“Here?” I said.

For a moment all four of them were looking at me. When two of them looked back at Hawk, he had put the car between him and them and was resting the big.44 on the roof with the hammer back.

One of them said, “Jesus Christ” and all four looked for a moment at Hawk. When two of them looked back at me I had the Browning out and cocked and pointed.

“You guys got to be better organized,” I said. “Move away from the car.”

Horn Rims glanced toward the driveway. He was expecting reinforcements. I stepped closer and hit him with a left hook that staggered him into the road. Then I got in the car and fumbled the keys down from the sun visor. Hawk remained with his gun on the security guards.

“You’re a dead man,” Horn Rims screamed at me. “Wherever you run, whatever you do, even if you kill some of us, we’ll run you both to ground and kill you.”

From up the long driveway I could hear the sound of cars coming. More than one. I started the Jaguar.

I heard Hawk say, “Watch this.”

There were two big booms from the.44 and in the rearview mirror I could see the Jeep settle forward on its rapidly deflating front tires.

I heard Hawk say, “All of you on the ground, facedown.”

Then Hawk was in the front seat. I stomped on the accelerator and the Jag lunged forward spinning up gravel from the road shoulder. We lurched up onto the road surface and screeched away. I could smell the tires scorching and there was some small-arms fire, but nothing hit us. Hawk slammed the door shut as the car stabilized and smoothed out.

“We going to have to do something about these guys,” Hawk said.

I was driving as fast as the Buxton Road would let me back toward Beecham. Hawk had the cylinder of his.44 open and was feeding in two fresh rounds that looked about the size of surface to air missiles.

“I’ll bet they’re back there saying the same thing,” I said.

It was all right on the plane, and in the car rental office, and the car we rented was air-conditioned. The walk from the car to the elevator and the ride up in the elevator was not air-conditioned, and we were near collapse by the time I got Farrell’s door unlocked. The condo was roasting. It had been closed since Farrell’s last vacation. I staggered to the thermostat and turned the air-conditioning on high. In a few minutes the crisis had passed and we were breathing normally again.

“I don’t want to disappoint you,” I said to Susan after she had unpacked and hung up all her clothes and joined me at the little bar in the living room for a cocktail. “But Farrell made me promise there would be no heterosexual carnality in here.”

“Is this your way of telling me you want me to dress up in a man’s suit again?” Susan said.

“Lee says it’s in the bylaws of the condo association – hetero-sexuality is prohibited.”

“Oh boy,” Susan said. “Finally a real vacation.”

“Gee,” I said. “Usually when someone tells you that you can’t do something, you want to do it immediately.”

Susan sipped on the Bellini I had made her and looked at me and frowned thoughtfully.

“You know,” she said, “you’re right. That is how I am. The hell with the condo association. Let’s fuck.”

“That’s the Susan I know,” I said. “Did you say something about a man’s suit?”

“Just a little humor,” she said.

“How about maybe just the shirt and a tie,” I said.

“Stop it,” Susan said and got up and walked toward the bedroom. I followed.

“How about just the tie?” I said.

Susan unzipped her shorts.

“How about less talk and more action,” she said.

–«»-«»-«»-

LATER THAT NIGHT we had dinner at The Sanibel Steak House. The dining room was small and pleasant with glass at the far end looking out over some greenery. We both had martinis. They were excellent. We both ordered steak. For Susan to order steak was a breach of self-discipline comparable to masturbating in public. Salads arrived first. They were excellent. The steaks arrived shortly thereafter. Susan recovered herself sufficiently to cut her steak into halves and put one half aside.

“I guess we showed them,” Susan said as she chewed on a small piece of steak. “Sex, martinis, and steak. How much more carnality is possible.”

I took a bite of my steak. It was excellent.

“That can be our project while we’re here,” I said. “See how much carnality is possible.”

“Would you care to tell me exactly why we are here?”

“Haven’t been away in a while,” I said. “Lee offered.”

“Lee’s a cop,” Susan said. “He doesn’t spend all winter here either. Why now at the end of June?”

“Sure it’s out of season,” I said. “But everything’s air-conditioned.”

“I’m not complaining about the heat,” Susan said. “And so far I’m having a lovely time. But I think that there’s something lurking behind the arras.”

“A rat, maybe?”

“Or Polonius,” Susan said. “Shakespeare aside, I know you nearly as well as you know me. What’s up?”

I finished my martini, and in a burst of unbridled carnality, Susan finished hers. The waitress noticed our situation and came over. We ordered red wine. She went to get it. And brought it back and left.

“You remember Beecham, Maine?” I said.

She shook her head. I told her, all of it. She listened as I talked as she always did, with full attention, her eyes fixed on me. I could feel the charge in her. I could feel the energy between us. It made talking to her a lush experience.

“And you obviously believe them,” Susan said when I finished.

“That they’ll try for Hawk and me? You remember Clausewitz on war?”

“I should,” Susan said, “by now. You keep quoting him.”

“And what is the quote?”

“Something like ‘you must prepare for the enemy’s capability, rather than his intentions.’”

“Yes.”

“So you have to assume they might try.”

“If I assume they might try and I’m wrong, I’m inconvenienced. If I assume they won’t try and I’m wrong, I’m dead.”

“Which is why you brought me here. Because if we were to spend time together you wanted it where I wouldn’t be in danger by proximity.”

“Yep. I figure they follow us down here in late June and their bullets will melt.”

“And you still don’t know their connection with Amir?”

“Only that they sent a plane for him. And warned us away from him.”

“It’s the first time in this case that you’ve run into people who seem like they could have killed Prentice Lamont,” she said.

“Yeah, I noticed that too. Don’t know if they did, but at least we can assume they would.”

Susan had another bite of steak. I sipped some red wine. I had finished my steak and was keeping track of what happened to the half of her steak that she had put aside. It was still aside. I remained hopeful.

“So what are you going to do?”

“Keep pushing,” I said. “Something will pop out.”

“The police can’t help you?” Susan said.

I shrugged.

“We say they threatened us, they say they didn’t, what are the cops going to do?”

“You wouldn’t go to the police anyway,” Susan said. “And certainly Hawk would not.”

I didn’t say anything. Susan put her knife and fork down, and folded her hands under her chin and gazed at me in silence.

“Don’t let them kill you,” Susan said.

“I won’t,” I said.

She thought for a minute, looking at me, and then said, “No, you won’t, will you.”

“No.”

We sat and our eyes held like that for a long minute.

Finally I said, “You going to eat the rest of that steak?”

She kept staring at me and then began to smile and her eyes filled up, and then she began to laugh and the tears spilled onto her cheeks.

She managed to say, “No.”

“Good,” I said.

I forked the steak onto my plate and sliced off a bite.

“Do you have a plan for tomorrow?” Susan said.

She had herself back under control but her face was still flushed the way it gets when she cries, or laughs, or both, and there was still some wetness on her completely sensational cheekbones.

“I thought we could sleep late, have a leisurely breakfast, once again defy the condo association for much of the afternoon, have a swim and go for dinner at a place called the Twilight Cafe. I hear they have a steak with black beans that you won’t be able to finish…”

She was laughing again. There was a slivered edge of fear behind the laugh, but it was real laughter.

“As I think about it,” she said, “I don’t think anything can kill you.”

“Nothing has,” I said.