Back Story. Part 13

"Anne told me," Malone said and nodded sideways at his wife.

He didn't look good. His eyes were sort of unfocused. His face had sunk under his cheekbones, and he had the sort of thin, flabby look of a man who had lost a lot of weight in a short time. There was a lot of loose skin under his jaw.

"Emily Gordon," I said. "Killed during a holdup at a bank in Audubon Circle."

"Yeah?"

"I believe you were the lead agent on the case."

"Hard to remember," he said.

"But you know it was long enough ago to be hard to remember," I said.

Malone shook his head and didn't say anything. Malone's wife watched him all the time, as if she were afraid he might fall over without warning. She was short and plump with gray-streaked hair that used to be blond, worn in short bangs across her forehead.

"I know there was a Bureau file on the killing," I said. "But I don't seem able to access it."

Malone sipped his iced tea carefully, as if the gla.s.s were hard to hold. When he put it back on the tray table, his wife's hand moved to grab the gla.s.s if he had trouble. Neither of them said anything. The spaniel had gone to sleep with her head on Mrs. Malone's left foot.

"I wondered if you might have any recollection of what might be in the file."

Malone was slouched in the deck chair, his chin touching his sternum. He wore tan shorts and a yellow polo shirt with blue horizontal stripes, high white tube socks, and brown leather sandals. His legs were pale and thin and blue-veined.

"Mr. Malone has had some very difficult surgery," Mrs. Malone said. "He hasn't gotten his strength back yet."

"I won't be long," I said. "Anything you can tell me?"

"Nothing to tell," Malone said hoa.r.s.ely. "Wrong place, wrong time. We never found the shooter."

"Did you know his name was Shaka?"

"No."

It was a splendid summer day, 75 degrees with a breeze off the lake.

"Do you know why she was in Boston?"

"Don't remember, something about a sister." There was sweat on Malone's forehead.

"Did you write a report?"

"Must have." He smiled a frightful, weak, humorless smile. "Bureau's big for reports."

"You recall any connection with Sonny Karnofsky?"

"Never heard of him."

No law enforcement guy in Boston in the past thirty years wouldn't have known about Sonny Karnofsky.

"Any kind of mob connection?"

"No." He looked at his wife. She stood at once.

"I'm sorry," she said. "Mr. Malone needs to lie down now."

I nodded. She sort of hovered around him as he got himself slowly out of the chair. He stood as if his balance were uncertain and began to walk very slowly, bent over as if his stomach were vulnerable and he wished to protect it. She was right with him, ready to catch him if he fell. Though how she thought she'd prevent him from falling, I didn't know. They reached the back door of the cabin. She opened it and put her hand under his arm and steered him through. Then she turned and looked at me.

She said, "Good-bye, Mr. Spenser," and went in after him. I looked at the spaniel. She sat up suddenly and scratched her ear with her right hind foot.

"Enjoy," I said to her, and walked back to my car.

24.

I drove out the road from Malone's cottage in green shade. The trees pressed close to the small road. I recognized white pine and maple and oak, and some pale-skinned birch. I felt like Natty b.u.mppo. A half mile from Malone's cottage, a dirt road cut across the paved road. I was twenty yards past it when I spotted a car parked across the pavement. I looked in the rearview mirror. A car pulled out of the dirt road behind me and parked across the pavement. Men got out of both cars and stood behind them. They had long guns. I was pretty sure this wasn't a speed trap. I slowed. There was no way past the car in front of me. I checked the rearview mirror again. There was no way past the car behind me, except that when it had pulled straight out of the dirt road, it had left a little s.p.a.ce behind it. I couldn't go straight past it on the pavement, but I might be able to turn onto the dirt road. I didn't have any other choices. I did a really perfect, and really quick, three-point turn and floored it back toward the second car. Behind it, two men raised their guns. Probably shotguns. I slouched down behind the wheel as much as I could, and just before I hit their car I rammed on the brakes and yanked my car as hard right as I could. The car almost stood on its side. But it didn't, and I was onto the dirt road and into the woods. It was barely a road. Something sc.r.a.ped the bottom of my car. I smelled gasoline. The car bucked and stumbled; it went far too fast down through the root-welted, rock-stubbled trace. My right wheel hit an outcropping of granite, and the tire exploded. Ahead of me I could see the glimmer of the lake. I stomped on the brakes and rolled out of the car and hit the ground running. I was wearing jeans and a T-shirt and running shoes. At least I was dressed for it.

To the right was the gray-buckled remnants of a fishing camp. I went past it on the run. I was pretty sure these were city guys behind me. If I got them deep enough into the woods, I might have a chance. I was a city guy, too, but I hadn't always been one.

Behind me I heard the cars pull up, the doors open and close. I had a short-barreled.38 on my hip, but against five or six guys with shotguns, that was pretty much irrelevant. This was a case of Feet, do your duty. I slowed to a jog as I moved through the woods. Twisting my ankle on a rock or tripping would be a bad thing. The lake showed itself occasionally, when the forest thinned for a moment. I knew I could run ten miles, and I was hopeful that none of my pursuers could. If they could, carrying shotguns, I was also hopeful that they'd give up before I did. I looked at my watch: 2:30 in the afternoon. The sun would have moved westward enough to get a direction. It was hot in the woods. There were insects. A vast network of thin vines with thorns was everywhere, catching at my pants legs. I was walking now, moving as fast as the forest permitted, keeping the lake on my left. I was glad for the heat and the bugs and the th.o.r.n.y vines. I could put up with it to save my life. I wasn't so sure the shooters could put up with it to kill me. There was an opening in the forest where a big old maple tree had fallen, its upper branches ten feet out into the lake water. I climbed over it and stopped and listened. Distantly, I could hear them thrashing along. I could hear their voices. They were not happy voices. I looked at the lake and the tangle of rotting limbs in the water. Beyond them across an inlet, I could see the imploded fishing hut. We'd been walking around a long inlet for an hour. Straight across, it was about a hundred yards. I could hear my heartbeat, steady but loud and fast from exertion. I took my gun out and went along behind the fallen tree and into the water. Holding the gun high enough to keep it dry, I waded carefully over the underwater rocks, slippery with algae, until I was neck deep among the rotting leaves and branches. I waited.

They were about ten minutes behind me, five of them, three with shotguns. All but one were wearing street shoes. They were sweat-soaked and angry.

"s.h.i.t!. I shoulda left the freakin' shotgun in the car. You think he's got a gun?. How the f.u.c.k do I know?. All I know we're supposed to clip him. Yeah, well you blocked the f.u.c.king road right we'da had him clipped and gone. f.u.c.k you. Yeah, well f.u.c.k you. How the f.u.c.k was I supposed to know the a.s.shole would drive into the f.u.c.king woods. You're the f.u.c.king a.s.shole. Whyn't both of you shut the f.u.c.k up. "

They labored past me, sweat-soaked and red-faced. When they had pa.s.sed, I slipped out from among the branches and headed across the inlet. I could touch the bottom most of the way. I came out of the lake behind the shack, moving quietly. They could have left someone with the cars. They hadn't. The two cars sat silently in the dappled yard at the end of the dirt road, a Chrysler LeBaron and a Ford Crown Victoria. I put my gun back in the soaked holster, under the saturated T-shirt, on the waterlogged belt that held up my wet jeans. I felt like Burt Reynolds in Deliverance. I looked into both cars. No one had left any keys. I shrugged as if someone could see me and opened the hood on the Ford and pulled the ignition wires free and started the car by the always reliable hotwire method. I backed the Ford around and headed it up the dirt road. Then I got out and opened up the Chrysler and pulled all the spark plugs loose from the wires and threw them into the lake. I got back into the Ford and drove carefully back up the dirt road.

25.

Hawk came into my apartment with a long duffel bag. He set it on my coffee table and unzipped it.

"We going to the mattresses?" he said.

"What brings you?" I said.

He took out a 12-gauge pump shotgun and stood it against my kitchen counter. He took out four boxes of sh.e.l.ls and put them on my counter.

"Susan."

"I'm surprised she didn't come herself," I said.

"Me too."

"She tell you the whole story?"

"Much as she knows."

"That would be the whole story," I said.

"How come you tell her? Makes her worry."

"If I don't tell her, she'll worry all the time."

" 'Cause she never know if you in danger or not."

"Yes."

Hawk nodded. "How long you think it took them to walk out of there?" he said.

"Given the woodsmanship they showed me, they might still be in there."

"There more where they came from."

Hawk took an M-16 rifle out of the duffel bag and leaned it next to the shotgun. He took three extra magazines and put them on my counter next to the shotgun sh.e.l.ls.

"Sonny?" he said.

"Who else?" I said.

"Harvey with them?"

"No. I guess they figured they wouldn't need him."

"How Sonny know you up there?"

"Could have had a tail on me," I said.

"That you didn't make?"

"Unlikely," I said.

"So?"

"Only people who knew when and where I'd be were the Malones."

Hawk took a Glock semiautomatic handgun out of the bag and put it on the counter along with an extra magazine and three boxes of 9mm sh.e.l.ls.

"The cops and the robbers?" Hawk said.

"Wouldn't be a first," I said.

"No," Hawk said. "Wouldn't."

He took a change of clothes out of the bag and folded it on top of the bookcase. He took out a shaving kit and walked to the bathroom and left it, and came back into the living room and sat on the couch with his feet on the coffee table.

"You got a plan?" he said.

"Be good if we knew why Sonny was interested in this," I said.

"That's not a plan," Hawk said. "A plan be how you going to find out why Sonny interested in this."

"Gimme a minute."

Hawk went around the counter into my kitchen and made himself a peanut-b.u.t.ter sandwich on whole wheat. He found a bottle of champagne in the refrigerator, opened it, and poured some into a pint beer gla.s.s and came back around the counter, moved some of his a.r.s.enal around to make room for his sandwich, and sat on a stool to have lunch. "Think of anything yet?" he said.

"How come I always have to think of stuff?" I said.

" 'Cause you the white detective," Hawk said.

"But if I always think of stuff and you don't, it just reinforces the black-white stereotype."

"I know," Hawk said.

"So why don't you think of a plan?" I said.

"You just trying to weasel out 'cause you can't think of no plan," he said.

"Okay, I admit it," I said. "You go."

Hawk grinned. "Brain, do yo' duty," he said.

We were quiet. Hawk looked ruminative. He chewed his sandwich. He sipped his champagne. I stood and walked to my front window and looked down on Marlboro Street. The colleges had closed for the summer, and the summer-school sessions hadn't started. The whole Back Bay seemed empty and pleasant. I could even see a parking s.p.a.ce up toward Berkeley Street.

Behind me, Hawk said, "d.a.m.n."

"You think of something?" I said.

"No."

I grinned. "You just discovered you're no smarter than I am."

"Startling," Hawk said.

"Maybe we need to work on this together," I said.

"One half-wit plus one half-wit?" Hawk said.

"We can hope," I said.