The Penny Ferry - Rick Boyer (38 page)

"Count me in, Joe."

"Forget it, Sam. We count you out. You're up to
your ass in alligators already. You've done your part and we all
thank you, but now you've got to be cool. Nope, there's only one
logical person to spring the trap."

"Who?" asked Mary.

Joe pivoted around in his chair and leveled a big fat
finger at my chest.

"You."

"Oh no."

"Oh yes. You're the one, Doc."

"Now wait a minute, Joey," said Mary. "Wait
just a goddamn mm—"

"I know, I know. But listen, the thugs are dead
and the evidence is missing. But there's one guy around that if
DeLucca did report in to old Critchfield— and we have every reason
to think he did— could be a possible threat. And we all know who it
is."

Everybody stared at me. I felt like Caesar crossing
the forum on the ides of March.

"But I . . . but I . . ." I protested.

"
Not to worry, Doc. Take it easy, Mare, Joe
continued, scooping a pint of sweet-sour pork over a heap of steaming
rice. "There's nothing to worry about."

He commenced shoveling in the food, and I felt a
little better. I guess. But I had my doubts. After all, the last
person he said that to was the late Johnny Rizzo. I felt the first of
the gas pains shoot up my rib cage like a napalm rocket, and winced.
Mary saw my expression and rubbed my shoulder. She attempted at weak
smile.

"
Nothing to worry about, Charlie," she
said. I stared glumly at the table and asked for the garlic shrimp
and snow peas.

"Here you go, pal," said Brian as he handed
me the platter.

"
You're gonna need
it."

* * *

I peered down at the L-shaped brick-and-stone mansion
at the foot of the hill. There was an iron fence all around it, and
the tall, ornate gates were closed. In back of the house, enclosed by
the L, was a pool, and off to one side a formal French garden. The
roof was slate, and heavily gabled. It sure looked like a big house
for one old man. But then he wasn't alone; he had his staff too. . .

A portly black man in a dark uniform came out the
back door and walked along a curved gravel path to the garage. He had
white hair and carried a leather case. He disappeared into the
garage, which was a four-car structure with a sizable apartment over
it. It matched the house. Seconds later one of the doors glided up
and a Fleetwood brougham limo the size of a boxcar rolled silently
out, swung around the house, and eased to a stop in front of the
terrace steps. It was the same one I'd seen earlier at the younger
Critchfield's fund-raiser on Beacon Hill. The man got out of the car,
putting on his cap, then opened the rear door and stood at attention
with his white-gloved hand on the door handle. He could have been
hewn from stone. It was right out of a movie.

I felt a jabbing at my shoulder and handed the
binoculars to my companion, who was also sprawled prone on the
granite ledge above the estate on the outskirts of Andover. On the
northern horizon we could see the forest of giant smokestacks in the
city of Lawrence. They were still nowadays; no great white and black
plumes of steam and smoke rose from them. They were like a forest of
dead trees.

"Here comes somebody," said Liatis Roantis,
adjusting the focus of the marine glasses. "Looks like the big
shot himself."

Without the glasses the two figures descending the
front steps of the mansion looked very small, but there was something
familiar about the man who accompanied the old man into the limo. Was
it his walk, his appearance? What? Before I had a chance to get a
look through the glasses, the two men had entered the car and settled
themselves in its vast interior. The black chauffeur shut the door
and got back behind the wheel. The big car glided around the drive
and through the gates— which had swung open, apparently by remote
control— and was gone.

Roantis and I sat up. We were within view of the
house, but its owner had left. I stood up and stretched. Roantis
continued to scan the place.

"We could go in if you want," he said
casually.

"Nah. I did that already, up in Lowell. I'm
still in trouble for it, too."

"Want me to go alone."

"No. Joe doesn't even know I contacted you.
After he struck out on his entrapment plan with the police brass, he
thinks nobody's doing anything to get Old Man Critchfield."

"So he let the brass talk him out of it? Listen,
inna army, if I'd done that, me and my men would have died right
away."

"Yeah. But Joe's in kind of hot water lately
with the brass. For instance, somehow they found out he had a
conference with one of the North End Wise Guys. They told him to cool
it or else. So I'm going after Critchfield myself."

"Why are you?"

"I just . . . I just. want to see the record set
straight, I guess."

The old ex-mercenary looked up at me and laughed
softly.

"I think you're a little bit like me, Doc. You
get bored easy. And when you get bored, you get in trouble."

"Speaking of trouble, you're usually in plenty.
You still on probation for that bar fight in the Zone?"

"
Yeah. Almost over with. Ahhhh, fuck it,"
he said, rolling over and sweeping the estate with the 7x50 glasses.
"I still say we should go in. Hey, how much are you paying me?"

"Nothing."

"
Figured. You know a guy could get rich down in
there . . . in less than an hour."

"Don't get any ideas." I looked at my
watch. It had stopped.

My four-hundred-dollar Blackwatch Chronograph
Adventurer had broken. It did everything but tell time. I sighed. "In
about ten minutes he'll be at the Holiday Inn desk to pick up the
envelope. He'll probably open it and look at the prints in the car on
the way back here. I just want to watch his reaction if we can."

"And then what? All you've done is made him mad.
And making him go himsef that's . . . whaddaya call it? Insult and
injury. I tink he's gonna be mad at you, Doc. And a guy like that is
mean, let me tell you." He swept his arm over the estate below.
"Hell, anybody got a spread like that, they're mean. Look at me.
I'm the meanest guy who ever lived and I don't got diddly-shit."

I grinned at him.

"
It's 'cause you're not greedy, Liatis . . . and
because you spend all your dough on good booze and bad women."

His eyes crinkled up in laughter. They had a slightly
Mongol look to them, and his neck was laced with cords and veins. He
looked a little like another Lithuanian, Charles Bronson. Only
meaner. He flicked his droopy mustache and lit a cigarette.

"
How you know the desk clerk dint open the
envelope and spill the beans?"

"Not a chance and you know it. Not the way I
sealed it, and not with Critchfield's name on it."

So we waited for another twenty-five minutes until
the big black car returned. It was going pretty fast, no doubt at the
urging of its irritated occupant. It swung around in front of the
steps and the old man and his assistant, who still looked vaguely
familiar, stalked up the steps and into the house. The old man
appeared to be telling the assistant off. They disappeared.

Then nothing happened for almost another half-hour.
Suddenly Roantis, who had the binoculars, punched my arm.

"Look who's coming out," he said. I took
the binoculars and saw the old man and his assistant come out on the
terrace and sit down in wrought-iron chairs around a table. They
seemed to be enjoying the sunshine. The old man, who moved with speed
and grace for his age, held a cordless telephone which he dialed and
talked into.

"He's getting help," said Roantis. "He's
looked at your pictures and now he's calling in the heat. You watch."

"I think he's gonna need it. Question is, what
do we do now?"

"The note in the envelope said I'd contact him.
I'm wondering how and when."

"No time like the present."

"Did you bring a gun?".

"Nope. judge told me that I can't carry one
while on pro. Said it'd be a year in the slammer if I'm caught with
one. Too bad, too. This'd be perfect for my streetcleaner."

"What streetcleaner? I don't see any
streetcleaner."

"
Not that kind of streetcleaner."

"Well what?"

"It's a— shhhhhhhhh! Hear that?"

"No. I don't hear anything but the wind."

"Well I thought I heard something like bushes
breaking. I think maybe it's too bad I dint bring a gun. Too late I
guess."

"Well let's go then," I said.

"
What's your hurry? Look, number-two man just
went inside. Let's hang around and see what happens."

We watched the man walk into the house. The chauffeur
came out the back door and went into the garage again. Then nothing
happened for about ten minutes; the old man on the terrace continued
to speak into the cordless telephone. Occasionally he got up from the
wrought-iron chair and paced the terrace, then sat again. The middle
garage door swung up and an enclosed jeep crept out. It went slowly
along the gravel drive and took a fork that led around behind the
house, where it disappeared momentarily, then came back in sight,
going a bit faster now, and returned to the main drive and left the
estate. We watched it till it disappeared, then turned our attention
back to the mansion below. After twenty minutes I was getting bored,
and said so.

"Yeah, but we've got to wait and watch. Pretty
soon now something's gonna happen and—"

Schlick-schlick.

The sound startled us, coming from directly behind.
And neither one of us liked the sound. Not a bit. We turned and found
ourselves looking down the business end of a shotgun. The guy who was
holding it was old Mr. Critchfield's assistant. How he got out of the
house and up on the rock behind us I had no idea. Not at first,
anyway. And now, twenty feet away from him instead of three hundred,
I knew why he had looked so familiar even at a distance. I could now
see the thick glasses. And he'd put on the trenchcoat, too.

It was my old friend from the mill who'd smacked Mary
down. The guy who'd clobbered me up in Lowell. It was the guy with
the heavily starched lapels.

"Move back . . . all the way back," he
said, jerking the muzzle at us. We did, until we were right at the
cliffs edge and in full view of the house. Without lifting his eyes
from us he waved his arm in a high, slow arc. I looked down and saw
old Critchfield give a responsive wave, then bring something up to
his face. He was watching through binoculars.

"Well Doctor, I didn't know you had a friend
with you. All we could see was you from inside . . . and we were
careful never to gaze up in your direction when you could see us. Who
is he?"

I explained that Mr. Roantis was an old dentist
friend of mine. Lapels gave him the once-over and decided he was
harmless. Certainly, at five-eight and slightly gray and pudgy,
Roantis didn't look like an expert in practically every exotic form
of fighting and defense ever devised. That he could kill people with
his earlobes usually went unnoticed.

"
Please don't point the gun, sir," said
Roantis with a pant. "I can't stand it. I'll faint and fall off
. . . please!"

"Then don't move," said Lapels, approaching
me. He held the shotgun cradled in his right hand while he fished in
the pocket of his trenchcoat. That coat was a regular bag of tricks.
He took out a thin leather sap. It was a spring-loaded sapper with a
leather-covered steel ball at either end. He waggled it in his left
hand and it flicked back and forth fast on its springy steel shaft.
It made a whirring, whistling sound like the wings of a mourning
dove. I didn't like it.

"
I owe you pain," he whispered, and swung
it.

There was a little high whistle and a stab of pain on
the point of my elbow. It shot up my arm, up the side of my face to
the top of my head. I heard the whistle again and felt the snapper
strike my right collarbone. The pain was deep, and traveled through
my bones to my chest, my right shoulder, and my lower jaw. The
whistle again, and Lapels had reached low and struck my left knee. He
hit it hard, and the left leg gave way in a wave of agony. It felt as
though my bones were breaking. I sucked air through clenched teeth.

"Please don't! That's enough!" pleaded
Roantis, a look of horror on his face.

"Quiet, short stuff, or you'll get it too."

The little truncheon continued to whistle and snap at
me like a trained serpent. And Lapels had studied his perverted
craft. He knew exactly where to strike so the steel would hit bone
and— nerve bundles and send the pain into the center of my neural
pathways until I was aglow with hurt. He finally tapped me almost
delicately on the tip of my jaw, and the world grew fuzzy. Noises
were distant, and there was the sound of rolling surf in my poor hurt
head.

"
That should slow you
down, Adams. If I had anything to say about it, I'd kill you here and
now. Now let's go, both of you. Mr. Critchfield's waiting."