The Daisy Ducks (15 page)

"Well, Mike, I've just spent two days with Fred
Kaunitz, who sends you his best."

"Hooweee, man. Well, I think even his best ain't
gonna help me much now. Got throwed out of my place today." He
nodded in the direction of the coatroom in the front of the club.
"Everything I own is in that GI duffel bag up front.
Everything."

"Where are you going? What will you do?"

He shrugged his massive shoulders and let out a slow
breath of smoke. "Can't go back to the South Side, that's for
sure. I'll be on the street for keeps in a month."

I pushed the cheese tray at him but he declined,
saying he'd appreciate it if I bought him another round. This I did,
and after another jolt of hooch he managed to attack the cheese and
pretzels. It wasn't an ideal diet, but it was solid food anyway,
which was more than he'd probably had in a few days. Mike Summers,
war hero, was another of the walking wounded. The Daisy Ducks had had
their wings clipped but good. The receptionist came up with a leather
pouch and placed it on the table.

"What's that?" asked Summers.

"A blood pressure cuff. Do you mind?"

"Hell yes I mind!"

Then he leaned forward in his chair and placed his
big dark face inches from mine. He seemed to loom over me like an
ancient monolith. He spoke in a soft, menacing whisper.

"You a nosy motherfucker—you know that?"

"Suit yourself then," I replied as
nonchalantly as possible. He eased back in the chair, staring at me.
Then his eyes softened a tiny bit; the frown wrinkles relaxed just a
tad.

"All right then," he said, unbuttoning his
sleeve. "Then will you stop messing with me?"

I checked the readings twice: one eighty-two over one
thirty-one. Mike Summers was probably days, maybe only hours, away
from a massive stroke. I hated to think what his systolic pressure
had been twenty minutes earlier, before he'd had the drinks. I
explained frankly what the readings meant. At first he scoffed,
saying he was fine. I just sat back and waited, and soon he admitted
he'd felt pretty rotten for months.

"What have you been eating mostly?" I
asked.

"You know, bar food. Peanuts, salted pork rinds,
chips—stuff like that."

"Why don't you let me buy you a square meal?"

"Yeah. Maybe later."

I looked at my watch. In twenty minutes I had to
proceed to the gate. I looked at Summers, slouched in the chair, then
back at my watch. Then I realized I had already made the decision.
That's what I get for hanging around with Moe Abramson.

"Wait here a minute," I said.

"Is there another seat available on my flight?"
I asked the receptionist. She tapped some keys on her computer
terminal and said there was. I snapped my credit card down on the
desk and asked her to reserve it for Mr. Summers. In less than a
minute we had adjoining seats in the smoking section of first class.

Then I called home to touch base with Mary. Nobody
answered; she was out somewhere. Maybe it was just as well. It took a
third round of drinks to get Summers to even listen. But then he
stared down at his big, puffy brown hands and considered his options.
He had none. And so at the appointed time we left the airline club
and walked toward the gate, only half a mile distant. We already had
our boarding passes—another benefit of the club—so there was no
waiting at the gate. In the airliner, Mike Summers eased back in the
seat and directed the overhead stream of cold air on his face. The
stewardess poured him another champagne.

"Don't you want another one?" she asked me.

"No thanks, I already gave him mine. What's for
dinner?"

"Chicken Kiev or beef Bourguignon."

After liftoff, Summers smoked a cigarette and had two
more Scotches. These did the trick. He seemed to shrink back into the
cloth of the seat. His hands ceased their endless drumming and
trembling, and his breathing became deep and regular. In a jiffy he
was out cold. I woke him up for chow. At first he dabbled at his
chicken. Then he ate two genuine mouthfuls. Then he inhaled the
remainder in less than a minute. I snagged the stewardess and said
that if at all possible, my friend who'd just gotten back from the
wars would really appreciate a second meal. Did they by chance have
one left over? Soon it was placed in front of him and he inhaled that
one, too. After a cup of coffee he crashed again.

He slept like a baby all
the way to Boston.

* * *

I never realize how much I love Boston, or how
homesick for her I've really been, until the plane breaks below the
cloud cover (that's there ninety percent of the time I fly in) and
begins its steeply banked descent over the bay. From a plane's
height, the water of the bay and harbor have the wrinkled appearance
of avocado skin when the waves are up, except the color is bluish
gray. I look down at the fishing boats trailing their comet-like
white wakes across it. Then I see Boston Light, or even Minot's Ledge
if I'm lucky, and Spectacle Island and old Fort Warren, and the old
warehouses that seem to be sliding right into the water, and I'm glad
to be back in Beantown.

Mike Summers awoke when the passengers were filing
out. We walked up the ramp into the gate area and headed for the
baggage claim. The bags came snaking around on the conveyor belt. I
grabbed my big suitcase and we waited, and waited, for Summers's big
duffel. It didn't appear.

"Sheeee-it!" he growled under his breath.
"I know what went down, man. I checked the bag late, you know?
It didn't make the flight, is what went down."

But just then two men with wide shoulders, mustaches,
and bulky sport coats came up to us and flashed their badges. The
bigger of the two looked at Summers.

"You Michael Summers?" he asked. Mike
nodded, and the man asked both of us to accompany him. It then
flashed through my mind that perhaps Summers, in his recent life, had
had a brush with the law. Chicago's South Side being what it is,
anything's possible, especially to a guy down on his luck. If this
were so, then I, Dr. Charles Adams, was guilty of aiding and abetting
a fugitive from justice.

Swell.

The men led us into a baggage locker, a room with
wooden tiers on which rested all kinds of suitcases, overnighters,
steamer trunks, and cartons. Smack in the middle on a table sat
Summers's army duffel. He grinned with relief and made a beeline for
it. But before he'd gone two steps the tall security guard grabbed
him by the arm. I saw a gleam of metal in the guard's hand. Not a
gun. Handcuffs. Summers looked momentarily confused. Then the look of
surprise was transformed into a bearlike glower.

And then all hell broke loose.

With speed that was unbelievable in such a big man,
Summers grabbed the guard's outstretched arm with his left hand and
jerked him forward violently. At the same instant he threw a short,
straight right at his jaw. The poor guy was snapped right into the
punch, and the effect was devastating. Still holding the guard's arm,
Summers pulled him down and across his outstretched leg, tripping
him. Before the guard could rise, he chopped him hard on the nape of
the neck. The guard oozed down onto the floor and didn't even twitch.
But during this brief encounter his buddy had been circling behind
Summers. Now he reached up, wrapped his arms around Summers, and
tried to put a bear hug on him. Dumb. Even I know enough never to do
that. Almost faster than the eye could follow, Mike swung back his
left foot and hooked his toe around his attacker's left ankle,
locking it. Then he threw his fullback weight backward and slightly
to the left. The oflicial landed with a thud that shook the floor,
and the poor security guard—make that former security
guard—happened to be underneath. The guard's face knotted in pain.
His breath hissed between clenched teeth, like a steam engine. An
electronic paging device on his belt began to beep.

"Time to fade," Summers said, grabbing his
duffel bag. I stayed put. As far as I could tell, Mike Summers was
infinitely more dangerous than the two goons he'd cold-cocked. I'd
just have to explain myself to the authorities and take my chances.
But Summers was scarcely out the door when he rushed back in again.
He didn't even look in my direction—just dropped his duffel, flung
open the zipper, and began to rummage through it as fast as he could.
Three more men came through the door, men with real,
honest-to-goodness Boston Police uniforms on. All the men had their
revolvers drawn. I felt like sinking right into the floor.

"You won't find the gun in there, Mr. Summers,"
said the man in front. "We discovered it in your luggage, that's
why you're being held." The man stopped to stare down at the two
fallen plainclothesmen. His mouth opened in disbelief and fear. I saw
Summers looking at the first fallen man, whose sport coat had flipped
up to reveal a small holstered revolver.

"Mr. Summers, you're being held in violation of
the handgun law of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts- "

But he didn't get a chance to finish his little
speech because Summers dove for the gun in the fallen man's belt, and
I discovered, not particularly to my surprise, that I was also in
midair, diving for that same gun so that Summers would not get it. I
knew, in the millisecond I was airborne in my horizontal dive, that
Mike and I would collide. I also was aware that when we did—the
laws of physics being what they are—I would emerge the loser. That
is, gf I emerged. It did not surprise me that I was doing this fool
thing. I seem to have a knack for stepping into a big pile of
you-know-what every chance I get. I'm gifted that way.

Well, I arrived at the gunbelt just ahead of Summers
and in enough time to grab the small revolver from the holster and
spin it along the floor to a far corner. Meantime, the fuzz had all
jumped on Summers at once. One bluecoat smacked him on the side of
the jaw with a big, flat sap. It went
poimf!
against the side of his open mouth, and Mike was going down. They
manacled him then, and sat him on the edge of a table.

One of the cops helped me to my feet. I was dizzy
from the collision with the big man and from the combined weight of
three other men on top of us. I was a wreck.

"Mr. Summers, you are
being held in violation of the handgun law of the Commonwealth of
Massachusetts," began the cop again. But Summers told him to go
fuck himself, and they hauled us both off to the pokey.

* * *

Twenty minutes later I was sitting across from my
traveling companion in the interrogation room at the Hanover Street
branch of the Boston PD. We'd gotten there in the back seat of a
squad car. A lieutenant came into the room and placed a forty-five
automatic on the table. The action was back and the magazine was out.

"Don't go for it, Summers—it's empty."

"So's your head."

"It's a fluke the baggage handler discovered it,
I'll admit. Many airports have metal detectors that scan checked
baggage, but what tipped him off was feeling this piece through the
canvas of the duffel. You put it in there so you could get to it
quickly. Why?"

"Habit I picked up in the service."

"We checked your service record. Very good.
Perhaps you should have stayed in."

"I get one phone call," I said. "And
so does Mr. Summers."

Mike called Roantis, who had returned to his job the
previous week, at the BYMCU number I'd given him. I didn't think this
was a hot idea, but I said nothing.

They handed me a phone. Luckily, Joe was in his
office at State Police Headquarters. I explained the situation. As I
feared, he was not overly sympathetic.

"Doc, for Chrissakes, how many times do you
expect me to bail you out? Violation of the Fox-Bartley gun law is
serious. It's a year in the can. No ifs, ands, or buts."

"Okay. One: Mike didn't know about the gun law.
I know it's what everybody says, but I hauled him out here at a
moment's notice. Two: he wasn't packing the piece for any special
reason. He just had all of his worldly belongings in his duffel,
including the gun. And they rode in the cargo hold, not the cabin."

"And you say this guy's a friend of Roantis?"

"Uh-huh."

"That's all we need. Listen, I've got good
friends at the Hanover Street station. I'll come over and see if we
can straighten it out.”

 
Well, he got us off the hook, but I think
Summers's military career helped as much as anything. Cops like
soldiers, especially good ones. Fortunately, the two meanies Mike
assaulted weren't policemen. They were airline employees. Summers was
instructed to stay put until charges, if any, were filed. I told the
Boston Police that, for the time being, anyway, he was staying with
me in Concord.

 
We got into Joe's cruiser and he drove us back
through the Callahan Tunnel to East Boston so I could retrieve the
car at the airport. Right in the middle of the tunnel, amid all the
roaring and rushing, honking, and deadly CO fumes, he dropped a
bombshell on me.

"Who's your lady friend, Doc? Sure was a
knockout."

"What are you talking about?"