The Penny Ferry - Rick Boyer (40 page)

Old Critchfield sat back and sighed softly.

"God knows they need him. Haven't had a
Republican in since Frank Sargent." He turned to me and raised
his bushy eyebrows. "I'm not sure whether Santuccio knew of my
grandson's political plans. There have been rumors for some time. In
any event, he certainly picked an opportune time to try and put the
squeeze on us. Well, you now see why I absolutely cannot permit the
pictures and this distasteful business up in Lowell to become public.
I'm sure, Doctor Adams, if you have any sense of public duty, you'll
agree."

"I don't agree. I don't agree at all. That's the
same weak ploy Nixon tried. It didn't work because it shouldn't have
worked. It won't work now for the same reason. Those negatives will
be in the hands of newspapers before the week's out. And you'll be
indicted for murder one. Better pack your toothbrush, pal."

He glared at me again, started to rise, thought
better of it, and shrank back onto the couch. The bright eyes glowed
bluish-white, like acetylene torches.

"You said you'd make a deal," he hissed.

"Wrong," I said. "The note said I
wanted to talk about it. I still do. But the story's coming out. And
soon."

Critchfield turned to Lundt. His mouth turned down in
a scowl. He seemed to ignore Roantis, who appeared to be asleep. Then
a faint smile played on his lips. He took a roll from the basket on
the tea tray, broke it, and set it down on the silver. He turned to
me again.

"Thank God I had the cleverness and foresight
not to trust you, Adams." He chuckled. "In addition to
keeping your attention while you were up on the cliffside, my phone
conversations on the terrace had another purpose."

"
Aw don't tell us," I said, holding up my
hand. "We already know, don't we, Liatis? Old Critchfield's
hired some more thugs to come burn our feet with cigarettes and stick
knives in us so I we won't release the photos. Right, Critchfield?"

"Wrong." He grinned impishly. "I
called my pilot in Lawrence and told him to fuel the Lear jet and
stand by for a possible business excursion. The aircraft has a
significant range, Doctor Adams. There are several secluded stops I
have in mind for you and your friend here. None is in the United
States. You will remain there, your whereabouts unknown to your
family, until after the election."

"
They'll know who took us," I said.

"
I don't think so. If approached, I shall deny
everything. I know you came here alone because Lundt, in one of his
rare moments of mental lucidity, checked the approaches to these
grounds carefully before surprising you up there."

He looked away from me long enough to remove another
roll from the basket and break it. He bit at one half quickly, then
set it down on the tray with the other one.

"I am a realist, if nothing else," he
continued. "I know I haven't long to live, despite my personal
regimen. I wouldn't have cared a fig if Santuccio had released those
papers if it weren't for Joe and the race. Not a fig. I also don't
care if people come nosing around here after you're gone. I don't
even care if they lock me up, which they won't. But I will not allow
that film to get out."

"
It's beyond our control. The Globe's already
got it," I lied.

"That's a lie," he said, taking another
roll from the basket.

"In a few minutes, when my pilot calls back and
tells me the Lear jet is ready and at the proper place on the
airfield, my staff will escort both of you to my limousine and thence
to the Lawrence Municipal Airport, where you will be taken aboard the
aircraft."

He looked up at Lundt again while his hands fumbled
in the breadbasket. "I don't know if Mr. Lundt feels up to
joining you or not—"

"Not," said Lundt, his upper lip curling in
a sneer. "You'd try to pin the whole rap on me wouldn't you?"

"And why not? You disobeyed my instructions
completely. I did not pay to have anyone murdered. If the law comes
here, I'm afraid you'll have to speak for yourself."

"You said
use any means
necessary
." Lundt unconsciously raised
the gun slightly.

Critchfield stared at him, like a judge passing
sentence. He was holding up the edge of the linen that had been
wrapped around the rolls. We couldn't see his other hand. I stood up.

"Latis!"

Roantis was already in the air, leaping toward the
old man on the couch. But the ancient, liver-spotted hand was raised,
and the small black automatic in it spat flame. Lundt grabbed his
chest and jumped up, and the small pocket gun spat again. In a reflex
action Lundt jerked the trigger on the pump gun. It clicked. We knew
it would. He shucked the action fast and snapped the trigger again.
Empty. Then there was a loud splat as Roantis smacked Critchfield's
hand with the sap. The old man sat there on the couch and screamed
bloody murder. He held his hurt hand and bawled. Roantis seized the
little pistol and emptied it. I examined Lundt, who was now down on
the floor. He had taken two slugs. Critchfield sat moaning on the
couch like a giant, cadaverous infant. He jabbed at the button on the
end table and shouted for Geoffrey, who was nowhere to be seen.

I did what I could for Lundt, who had shoulder and
chest wounds. Roantis took a big revolver out of his coat, wiped it
off carefully, and handed it to me. It had been Lundt's. He'd taken
it when he'd taken the sap. He couldn't be caught with it now. As I
walked to the phone at the far end of the huge room I looked out the
window and saw the big Caddy glide down the driveway. Geoffrey was at
the wheel. He still had his white jacket on. He looked like a
dining-car waiter. I heard him call to the Hispanic guard at the gate
and motion him over to the car window. The guard stuck his head
inside for a second, looked back at the house, then ran around to the
passenger side and got in. The big limo spun out of the gate on two
wheels.

I picked up the phone.
 

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

I was out there on the porch again, standing under
the ceiling fan and listening to a Jimmy Rushing tape. A pair of
robins were hopping and clucking on the lawn. Joe's unmarked cruiser
swung onto the gravel turnaround and he and Sam came up the walk.

I went into the kitchen and checked the standing rib
roast. I told Mary the guests had started to arrive, poured her some
red, and made silver bullets for the three of us. When I came back,
old Mr. Five-by-Five was belting out: "Every-day, every-day,
every-day, every-day, I have the blues—"

"Ain't he a killah?" said Sam, looking up
at the speakers.

"How's the new man working out?"

"Doc, he's great, lemme tell you. Big and rough
and gentle. He rides my old bike. Oh yeah. And that foxy mama he's
got, that Loretta . . . mmmmmmm—mmmm."

"Good. Well, you can thank Moe Abramson for both
of them."

"
And me," said Joe.

Brian showed up, and then Moe, who brought ginger
beer, tofu, and bean sprouts. We almost threw him out. He was
delighted that Loretta was settling in. I was worried about her past
and told Mary so. But she'd eyed Amos Railford— the Jamaican
recently incarcerated in the Dedham jail, until Joe and Moe sprung
him— and said his past wasn't so rosy either. She also took a long
look at his body and then said she doubted that he was a virgin, so
maybe it didn't matter about what poor Loretta had done in her past.

Roantis showed up toting a strange bundle. He asked
to use my workshop for a few minutes and I let him down there. When
he didn't show, we all went down and found him standing at my
reloading bench, running patches through the ugliest-looking pump gun
I'd ever seen. I guess the two cops didn't know Roantis was on
probation. I said nothing.

"What the hell is that?" asked Brian.

"
My streetcleaner. Needs cleaning. Pass the
oil."

Schlick, schlick. He worked the action on the old
piece with the shortened barrel and black friction tape wrapped
around the stock.

"I don't think that's a dove gun, Liatis."

"
Nope."

The piece was about as handsome as Godzilla.

"
Tell me, Roantis," said Joe, "how'd
you ever get the drop on that guy Lundt anyway? All I heard was he
crept up behind you on that cliff and surprised you, then marched you
down the hill. What happened?"

"I'll tell you," I said. "Roantis
tripped and fell flat on his face. I didn't know he had faked it;
that's how real it looked. So I went and bent over him until Lundt
approached and waved me off. The only strange thing I noticed was
that Roantis's watchband was turned inside out. Show them, Liatis."

Roantis flipped his expansion band around so that the
back of his watchcase showed. It was stainless steel polished to a
mirror finish.

"See that? He'd done that before he fell down.
When Lundt came and stood over him with the shotgun, Liatis could see
his every move. Then, jerk that he was, Lundt reached down and
grabbed Liatis's collar and tried to yank him up to his feet. It was
the last move he got in, 'cause our friend here struck like a swamp
adder. Before old Lundt even hit the ground for the first time
Roantis had taken the shotgun and tossed it to me. From then on I had
Lundt covered, as if I needed to. Mr. Roantis here, though he can be
uncouth at times, moves with surprising grace and speed, don't you,
Liatis? Sort of the Rudolph Nureyev of violence."

The short man with the droopy mustache grinned and
put a dab of Gunslick in the receiver.

"Well, during the next thirty seconds or so Mr.
Lundt did not have a very good time. He spent a lot of it airborne,
and the landings weren't pleasant. It was over pretty quickly. It was
silent too, except for the grunts, cracks, and thumps made by poor
Lundt. Liatis put on quite a display— all at Lundt's expense. So
when he was softened up sufficiently— Liatis had removed the sap
and the pistol early on— we stood him up, brushed him off, and made
him carry the emptied shotgun behind us as we went through the gate
to Old Man Critchfield's estate. There we went, up those terrace
steps and into the huge living room. And all the time Critchfield was
convinced Lundt had us covered."

"
Let's get another drink," said Roantis,
stifling a yawn. We went upstairs. It remembered that just before we
stood Lundt back on his feet after Roantis had finished with him, I
ran my fingers down the lapels of his trenchcoat. Each one had two
pounds of lead shot sewn inside thin leather bags. The old Parisian
policeman's trick: buckshot sewn in the cape. Swing the cloth around
and you put out people's lights. Roantis had marveled at it, saying
it was funny. I had said it was funny all right. A regular riot . . .

Roantis put his streetcleaner back under the rear
seat of his old sedan and joined us on the porch. The irony was that
he'd become friends with Lundt, who turned out to be another former
mercenary. Figured. In fact, Roantis had just come back from visiting
Lundt in the hospital. He was going to pull through, thanks mostly to
those teeny-weeny slugs. When he'd come to he'd turned on old
Critchfield like a cornered bobcat. He'd sung like a bird, and said
all kinds of bad things about the old geezer. So the old man hired a
superb legal team and railed on and on about treachery, betrayal,
socialism, and everything else until he developed a severe headache.
An hour later he collapsed, and three hours after that he was dead of
a massive "cerebral vascular accident." So time had finally
caught up with him, as it does with everyone.

The funeral was very small, although Joseph Carlton
Critchfield hadn't planned it that way. Not even the household staff
showed up. And nobody ever found a trace of Geoffrey, the Hispanic
guard, or the big Caddy. They just went away and never came back. The
following day Joe III announced he was withdrawing from the
gubernatorial race because of his grandfather's "tragic death."
Mary said it was a crock of shit, just like everything else about the
family.

I guess I felt a little sorry for Joseph Carlton
Critchfield III.

He seemed a capable guy, and might have made a decent
governor. I doubt if he knew anything about his grandfather's
implication in the trial of the 1920s. But he sure paid the price all
right;_as things stood, he couldn't have won a race for county pencil
sharpener.

He declined comment on the Sacco-Vanzetti papers,
which had made the front page from coast to coast. Well, he might
have declined comment, but the North End went wild. It made the Feast
of St. Anthony's celebration look like a warm-up. They danced and
sang in the streets for three days and nights, and erected a bronze
tablet to Nick and Bart right at the old dock on Eastern Avenue where
the penny ferry used to land.

We had a nice meal and a great party afterward, with
the two offspring, Jack and Tony, joining in. As the festivities drew
to a close I confided to them that I had bought tickets for them too.
We were to leave in two days for three weeks abroad. Later, after
everyone had left, Mary and I sat alone on the couch. She was on my
lap. Her hair smelled nice. She looked at the Mickey Mouse watch on
my wrist. The thugs had stolen the Omega when they beaned me up in
Lowell.