The Distance Beacons (11 page)

* * *

When I awoke again, Gwen was still there, and my brain seemed to have returned as well. I was lying on the sofa in the downstairs parlor. Sunshine streamed in through the bay window. I tried to move. I failed.

"Take it easy, Walter."

"There were two of them," I explained, feeling a need. At least I was talking better. "I didn't have a prayer."

"Don't think about it. You're safe now."

Was I? I felt safe enough in daylight, with Gwen by my side. But my bruises were happy to tell me the kind of trouble I was in. Whoever had beaten me up knew where I lived; if they had come here once, they could come here again. Gwen held some juice up to my lips, and I managed to swallow a little. "Maybe I'm not cut out for this kind of work," I said.

"No one's cut out to be beaten up."

"I should've known I was in danger." But how? Between sips of juice I told Gwen what had happened. "So who could have done it?" I asked her. "For that matter, who knew I was on the case? Henry Fisher, of course, but he isn't going to hurt me. And Flynn Dobler suspects I'm not really looking to be a convert, but how could he know where I lived—and how could he get his people down from Concord before Mickey and I got here in the van, if he doesn't believe in automobiles?"

"Well, he could've read my article about you," Gwen suggested. "And if he really is behind TSAR, he's obviously willing to bend his religious beliefs to fight the government."

I thought about that. And I thought about Mickey's problem with the radiator hose, and the car that had passed us in the night. Someone could've gotten from Concord to Boston ahead of us. What was a clue, I wondered, and what was just life happening to you?

"Or," Gwen went on, "if your theory is right about someone in the government being involved, it might be easy enough for whoever it is to find out you'd been put on the case, and arrange to give you a warning."

I closed my eyes and half-sighed. Sighing hurt. Gwen was just trying to help. But instead she was just depressing me. "What do you think I should do?" I asked.

"Rest."

"Will you—"

"Don't worry. I'm not going anywhere."

"Thanks," I said. I held her hand, and I tried not to worry.

Gradually I improved. By the end of the day I was able to sit up. By the end of the evening I was able to stagger upstairs to bed. By the next morning I was able to shoo Gwen and Stretch off to work and face the day alone. There was nothing to be afraid of, after all. TSAR had no reason to beat me up again, because I had stopped meddling.

Hadn't I?

I was not in a particularly good position, I realized. Bolton would not be happy if he found out I was sitting at home all day staring out my bay window instead of carrying on the investigation. In fact, I should already have reported the incident to him. I didn't relish the thought of becoming Private Sands again.

On the other hand, I didn't want to die.

If I went back to work, there were things I could look into, I supposed. And a private eye has his professional ethics. I had taken Bolton's ten dollars. I owed him more than one day's work (no matter how difficult the work had been). Still, I couldn't see putting my life on the line for the Feds. I could always refund them the eight dollars I hadn't earned.

This was not an easy decision.

At supper that night Gwen helped me make up my mind. "Two masked men beat up a soldier early this morning," she told Stretch and me. "He was off-duty, going back to the compound after sneaking a visit to his local girlfriend. They left a note pinned to his jacket. It had the usual message: Boston is ours. The Feds must go."

"Those—those—" Stretch couldn't find the words to express his anger.

"Is the
Globe
running a story about it?" I asked Gwen.

"Front page," she replied.

"Um, it doesn't mention what happened to me, does it?"

She shook her head. "Of course not, Walter."

I looked down at my scrambled eggs. "I think," I said, "that I'm going to take a vacation from being a private eye."

Gwen reached out and covered my hand with hers. "Are you sure?" she asked.

"No," I said.

"But Walter, someone's got to stop these people," Stretch said. "We're talking about America here. We're talking about the president."

"All she has to do is stay home in Atlanta," I pointed out.

"But then what happens to the referendum?"

"That's her problem, not mine."

Stretch looked disappointed in me. "It's everyone's problem, Walter."

We let it drop. You don't argue with Stretch about something like that. Gwen and I lay in bed together later, staring into the darkness and thinking. "If I were working for anyone but the Feds," I said, "I wouldn't be doing this."

"Bolton will come and get you, you know."

"I know." Damn case. "Are you ever assigned stories you just don't want to write?"

"All the time. No one threatens my life, though."

There was that difference. But having your life threatened came with the career I had chosen. If I didn't like it, I had made the wrong choice. We were silent for a while.

"How are your bruises?" Gwen asked.

"Getting better, I guess."

"Do you think they could stand some kissing?"

I smiled. "I think kissing would do them a world of good."

Gwen rustled in the darkness, and suddenly she was naked. I lay back and let Gwen take care of what ailed me. She gently kissed the bruises on my face and chest, then moved down and started licking some parts of me that hadn't been bruised. I groaned with pleasure. Her treatment was doing wonders for me. Pretty soon I pulled her over onto her back and did some licking of my own, until we were both so wet and slippery that the next step in the treatment seemed to come on its own. Her legs were wrapped around me, and I was thrusting into her, and for a few moments there were no problems, there were no threats, just Gwen and me—one single point of fire in a dark, cold world.

* * *

The next day I stayed at home again and waited for the summons that would end my brief vacation. I didn't have to wait long. That afternoon an ancient jeep pulled up outside, and my buddies Danny Smith and Gus Ziegler got out. They climbed the front steps and pounded on the front door.

I heaved myself off the sofa and went to let them in.

"We've been looking for you, Mr. Sands," Danny said. "You weren't at your office."

"Lucky thing you knew where I lived, then. Call me Walter, by the way."

"W-w-what happened to your face?" Gus asked from behind Smith.

"You know the soldier that got beaten up?"

Both men nodded, and their faces darkened with anger.

"Same thing happened to me."

Sympathy immediately replaced the anger. "That's terrible, Walter," Danny said.

"We've gotta c-c-catch those guys," Gus added.

"Yeah, I guess we do."

"Governor Bolton told us to come and—" Smith started to say.

"Right," I interrupted. "Hold on a sec." I got the eight dollars and the sheet of paper with TSAR's threat on it. "Okay," I said. And I followed the two soldiers out of my nice safe house back into the real world.

Chapter 8

There was lots of activity in Government Center. Crews were out scrubbing everything in sight, replacing bricks in the wide plaza, putting up the stage, stringing red, white, and blue bunting. The VOTE YES posters were suddenly outnumbered by "See Your President Speak Thursday" posters. Thursday was the day after tomorrow. "What's her security going to be like?" I asked.

Danny shook his head. "She wants it low-key, they tell me. Doesn't want people to get riled up."

"The g-governor said he might assign me and Danny to her," Gus mentioned as he drove the Jeep. "Says she n-needs all the help she can get."

"Well, if she gets you two guys, she'll be fine."

Gus and Danny smiled. As before, they stopped in front of the JFK Federal Building and brought me up to Bolton's office, where they left me with more smiles and best wishes for my recovery. My relationship with them was progressing.

My relationship with Lisa, the governor's attractive blond secretary, was going nowhere, however. She glared at me as I approached her desk. "Sands," I said, smiling. "Walter Sands. The governor wants to see me."

She murmured something into her phone, then hung up. "Have a seat," she ordered.

I kept smiling. "You going to see the president speak Thursday?"

She ignored me, so I took the hint and sat down. I think I understood her. Like Bolton, she was probably a local who had cast her lot with the Feds. Undoubtedly she had taken some abuse for that, and this had made her suspicious and resentful of people like me. She imagined I was judging her, despising her because she had sold out for chocolate bars and lipstick and aspirin. I was doing nothing of the sort, of course. I was simply admiring what the chocolate bars had done for her figure.

"You can go in now," she informed me after a brief wait.

"Thanks, Lisa," I said.

She ignored me. I went into Bolton's office.

Bolton looked up. General Cowens half-turned in his chair to face me. "I've been waiting for a report," Bolton said. As I sat down, he noticed my face. "What happened to you?" he asked.

"I got warned." I showed them the message from TSAR and described the beating I had received.

"This is outrageous," Bolton said. And then he seemed to focus his anger on me. "How long ago was this?"

I shrugged. "A couple of days."

"Why didn't you tell us about it right away?"

"I was recovering."

"And meanwhile precious time has been lost."

"And one of my soldiers has been attacked," Cowens pointed out. This was clearly a matter of much more consequence than my trivial injuries.

"I don't see how I could have prevented that," I said.

"Perhaps if you hadn't told a reporter about this group in the first place, they wouldn't have felt so powerful and important."

"That's absurd," I said. "No one said I wasn't supposed to talk about TSAR. And you're much more likely to find out about them if you don't keep their existence secret."

"If that's your theory," Cowens said, "it hasn't proved to be true. We've learned nothing about TSAR as a result of that article."

I stood up and took out the eight dollars. "I guess my performance has not been satisfactory," I said, with an air of injured innocence. "In that case I have no choice but to refund your—"

"Sit down," Bolton thundered.

I reluctantly did as I was told.

"Now tell us everything that happened to you. Let's see if we can get anywhere in figuring this out."

I summarized for them what I thought was relevant about my day on the case.

"So there's a possibility that the Church of the New Beginning is behind this," Bolton said.

"It's conceivable," I replied. "I didn't really think so at the time I talked to Flynn Dobler, but—"

"But maybe you asked the wrong questions," Cowens said. "I'll have my people look into Dobler."

"I don't want any indiscriminate roundups of suspects, Bob," Bolton warned. "Just because they dress funny and don't like us doesn't mean we can arrest them. That's just the kind of publicity the president doesn't want."

"My duty is to keep her alive, not to worry about publicity," Cowens muttered.

"Your duty is to obey lawfully appointed civilian authorities," Bolton responded.

There was a brief silence. The rebuke hung in the air like a thundercloud. I decided to change the subject. "I wonder if any progress has been made on the government angle," I said.

Both men looked at me. "What government angle?" Cowens demanded.

"The file on TSAR. Did you find out who started it?"

Cowens gave me his usual frigid stare. "That has not yet been determined."