A
t six o’clock the next morning, Danny’s iPhone alarm went off. The bedroom was dark and a bit overheated, and for a moment Danny, woozy, nearly gave in to the temptation to go back to sleep.
Until he remembered.
Lucy mumbled, “Why are you getting up?”
“To do some work,” Danny said.
“What time is it?”
“Six. In Boston, it’s eight o’clock.”
She murmured, “We’re not in Boston,” and rolled over.
• • •
No one else was up, which was a relief. Before the grown-ups had retired for the night, Galvin had announced that they weren’t crack-of-dawn ski types and everyone should feel free to sleep in. But Danny was prepared in case Tom or Celina were up—he knew the girls wouldn’t be—and offered him coffee and wondered why in the world he was headed out so early. He’d say he was mentally outlining the next chapter of his book. Fresh air always helped him think clearly. Who’d question that? Writers were an enigma to most people anyway.
The front door sounded a chime when he opened it, but it wasn’t alarmed. Outside it was dark and cold and the snow crunched and squeaked underfoot. The frigid air stung his cheeks and earlobes as he walked along the shoulder of the road.
There was hardly any traffic, with the exception of a Jeep passing by, blaring a snatch of something hip-hop and unmelodic. Gung-ho skiers, probably, on their way to sample early-morning corduroy.
The walk to town took just over twenty minutes. Gradually the sky began to brighten.
Sweet Tooth was exactly as Danny had expected, a hipster coffee shop/bakery that offered chai latte and gluten-free brownies and organic fair-trade coffee roasted by hand in small batches. Something by Ray LaMontagne was playing on the speakers. The only patrons were an exhausted-looking young dad with a squalling baby in a stroller, and, sitting by himself on a beat-up leather couch, Philip Slocum.
Danny ordered a small black coffee, which set him back four dollars, and joined Slocum on the couch.
An idea had just occurred to him, and he took out his iPhone.
“Hold on,” he said, feigning annoyance at some dull task he had to get out of the way.
It wasn’t easy to snap a photo of Philip Slocum furtively. But he muted the phone’s volume and then held it up vertically as if trying to get a better view of something on the screen.
And hit the
CAMERA
button. No sound, no flash. Just a half-decent, fairly in-focus picture of Slocum’s face.
“Did anyone watch you leave the house?” Slocum asked.
“I doubt it. Everyone was asleep. Why?”
He slid a small black nylon pouch across the sofa toward Danny. “Because you didn’t leave the house with this, so you might not want to flash it around.”
Danny unzipped the pouch. Inside was what looked like just the lens for an SLR camera, a small black barrel. But on second glance he could see it was an entire camera, extremely compact, its body dwarfed by its lens.
“And where’s this meeting taking place?”
“We don’t know. Just that it’s going to be fairly remote. They’re concerned about tracking devices and surveillance.”
“I told you, I don’t have a car.”
“You don’t need a car. Galvin’s not taking a car. Too easy to be tracked.”
“So maybe they’re meeting at Galvin’s house.”
“Doubt it.”
“Then, what?—he’s walking?”
The baby let out an ear-piercing shriek. Danny sometimes missed having a little kid—Abby was a heart-meltingly adorable little girl—but he sure didn’t miss having an infant that age.
“Most likely it’ll be a location where cars can’t drive to—where you can’t park a van. Where you can’t point a parabolic microphone. And where the cell phone coverage is so unreliable, or nonexistent, that no concealed transmitters are going to work. It’ll have 360-degree visibility, so they’ll be able to see anyone approaching.”
“Including me,” Danny said. “So they can pick me off with a sniper rifle.”
“No,” Slocum said patiently. “You’re a friend. A houseguest. If for some reason you’re spotted, Galvin will vouch for you.”
“And when is this supposed to happen, this meeting?”
Slocum shrugged. “This weekend. Today or tomorrow. That’s all we know.”
“And it could be anywhere. Anywhere he doesn’t need a car to get to.”
“Right. So try not to leave his side.”
When Slocum had finished his instructions, Danny stood up.
“Hey,” Slocum said. “Buy some muffins and scones to take home to the Galvins. Be a nice houseguest.”
Danny jammed the camera case into the outside pocket of his down parka. He bought an assortment of scones and muffins. With a white paper sack in his hand—
SWEET TOOTH
printed on it in the same typeface the Grateful Dead used to use on their albums—he left the coffee shop.
The first thing he noticed was a black Suburban.
Standing a few feet from the coffee shop, smoking and watching the front door, was Galvin’s driver.
T
he Suburban passed Danny on his way back.
He half expected Alejandro to pull over and offer him a lift. There was no question they’d recognized each other. The chauffeur had looked away too quickly.
Of course, it was possible that the chauffeur genuinely didn’t recognize him. But if he did, and if he’d witnessed the transaction between Slocum and Danny, had seen Danny pick up the camera . . . ?
By the time he got back, the Suburban was parked in front of the house, its engine block ticking and creaking as it cooled. He glanced around. Alejandro was nowhere to be seen.
And through the glass front door he saw a light on that hadn’t been on before. He stamped his boots on the welcome mat, unlaced and removed them when he entered. In stocking feet, he followed the light into the kitchen.
Galvin, in a white bathrobe, his back to Danny, sat at a high chair at a long granite island. Coffee had just been brewed.
Danny held up the Sweet Tooth paper sack by way of efficient explanation. “Good morning.”
“Good morning,” Galvin said heartily. He laughed and pointed to an identical paper bag on the counter by the coffeemaker. “Alejandro just got back from there.”
Had the driver gone into the shop right after Danny had left?
“Great minds think alike,” he said.
“You went all the way into town on foot to get coffee?” he scolded. “I told you guys to make yourself at home.
Mi casa es su casa
.”
“I guess I’m still on East Coast time.” He set the bag down on the island. “The terminally hip barista said their cinnamon buns are to die for.”
“Well, no one’s going to complain about seconds.”
“Amazing view,” Danny said, pointing at the enormous picture window. “You probably take it for granted by now.”
Galvin pushed back his chair and stood up. “That view is what sold us on this property. That and the fact that there’s a cross-country trailhead close by. We can just put on our cross-country skis and take off from the backyard if we want to. In town’s a lot more convenient—you can walk pretty much everywhere—but you don’t get the view.”
“What are we looking at?” Danny approached the window, and Galvin joined him.
“Snow,” Galvin said.
“Thanks.” The comfortable sardonic banter of a couple of buddies. “Is that Aspen Mountain?”
“Aspen Highlands Bowl.” He pointed. “Steeplechase. That’s upper Castle Creek valley.”
“Beautiful.” There was no backyard, really. No fence defining property lines. Just a few stands of birch trees jutting up from the snow and lines of scrub pines. And a blanket of snow that went on for as far as he could see. And no other houses in view.
“Anytime we’re not here, you guys are welcome to stay. Otherwise it just sits here empty.”
Danny nodded. “Thanks.” They both stood admiring the scenery.
“And when we
are
here, too, of course. Celina and your, uh, girlfriend look like they’re becoming fast friends. Abby and Jenna are inseparable. And you’re not so bad yourself.” Galvin clapped an arm on his shoulder. “Seriously, the first time I met you, I knew you.”
“Knew me?”
“Recognized you. Like you were a kindred spirit among all those phonies at Lyman, all those hoity-toity types.”
“I don’t exactly belong,” Danny said.
“Neither of us does.”
“Except you’re—”
“Rich?”
“You could put it that way, yeah. As long as you’ve got beaucoup bucks, Tinsley Thornton couldn’t care less where you come from.”
“
Lally
, you mean. Please.” A tart grin. “See, Danny, that’s where you’re wrong. She knows who I am and where I’m from. To her, and to everyone at that school, I’ll never be more than a blue-collar kid from Southie who got lucky. As far as they’re concerned, I’m no better than some jamoke who works at a gas station and just won three hundred million bucks in the lottery. I’ll always be, you know”—he extended a pinkie and mimed drinking a cup of tea—“below the salt, as they’d say. They’re happy to take my money, sure, but I don’t have any illusions about the kind of smack they talk about me at board meetings.”
Danny shrugged, grinned. “
Jamoke.
My dad’s favorite insult.”
“You grew up on the Cape, right?”
“Yep. Wellfleet.”
“But not McMansion Wellfleet, I’m betting.”
“Not even close.”
“I forget if you told me, he was a plumber like my dad, right?”
“Contractor. Carpenter, really—that’s what he most loved doing.”
“Bet he was good at it.”
“He was great. A real craftsman. Meticulous. But a lousy businessman.”
“My dad was a good businessman but not exactly meticulous.” He laughed. “But everyone loved him. Did you say your dad passed?”
“No, they’re both alive.”
“Lucky. Mine are gone. Funny how the relationship changes when they get old. You start giving them advice. They even listen to you once in a while. They need your help, and you don’t need theirs anymore.”
Danny nodded.
Galvin went on, “Whatever stuff you went through, whatever ticked you off about your mom and dad, you just move on from that. You take care of them, because that’s what you do.”
Danny nodded. “Dad’s starting to lose it, you know, so we may have to put him in a home pretty soon. But he’s gonna go kicking and screaming.”
“I see the way you look at Abby. I see it in your eyes. You’d do anything to keep her safe.”
Danny felt tears spring to his eyes. “You know it.”
“I mean, I’d kill to protect my family. Bet you’d do the same.”
Danny nodded, uncertain what he was getting at. He looked Galvin in the face, just as he heard Celina say, “What big trouble are you two plotting?”
“Morning, babes,” Galvin said as they kissed.
“Good morning,” Danny said.
He thought about what Galvin had just said. He’d kill to protect his family. From anybody else, that would be a figure of speech.
From Galvin, though, it sounded awfully like a threat.
C
elina made French toast and bacon for breakfast, which they had along with the pastries from the coffee shop, and then they all suited up and took the Silver Queen Gondola to the summit of Aspen Mountain, six of them in one cabin. The sun glinted off the snow trails, dazzling ice-encrusted trees, the skinny pine trees far below like the bristles of a coarse brush.
The three Galvins were wearing expensive ski outfits. Jenna had on a gold down jacket and ski pants that looked like blue denim but weren’t. Her mother wore a long silver metallic coat with a fur collar, too high fashion to be practical on the slopes. Tom had a bright yellow Salomon parka that resembled a rain slicker with a high collar. A bright green-and-yellow-striped knit cap with a pompom. With that outfit, Danny thought, he should be easy to spot at a distance.
The girls sat on the bench facing the adults and didn’t stop talking the whole way. Abby wore the hot-pink Helly Hansen ski parka that Sarah had bought her a couple of years ago, a little worn and a size too small.
Lucy held Danny’s hand. She leaned in close and said, under her voice, “She really looks happy, doesn’t she?”
Danny nodded. In the bright light, he could see a few faint freckles across Lucy’s nose. She hated her freckles, usually hid them with makeup. He thought they were adorable. She was wearing a light blue down jacket with a blue scarf and white pants that made her great legs look even greater.
Abby paused in midsentence and looked at them. She had the hearing of a bat, at least when she was the subject of conversation.
“We’ve never skied before, have we?” Lucy said.
“This is a first.”
“You know I’m pretty good at this sport, right?”
“I’m not surprised. You’re good at most sports.”
“You’re not going to be embarrassed, I hope.”
“At what?”
“At how much better a skier I am.” She said it with a coy smile, almost flirtatiously.
“Not at all. I’ll be inspired, more likely. You make me a better man.”
“That’s for sure,” she said with a laugh.
But Danny wasn’t thinking about skiing.
He was thinking about a way out. The DEA had him in a corner, it was true, but that didn’t make him powerless. If he were actually able to snap a picture of whoever Galvin was supposed to be meeting with, then he’d have something the DEA wanted.
You want the pictures? How about I get a letter of immunity? Signed by the DEA and the Department of Justice and whoever the hell else was necessary to make it ironclad. The president, if need be. A guarantee that he would never be indicted for anything to do with Galvin.
That would finally banish the threat hanging over his head, which kept them coming back and coming back. He was fed up with being a marionette. The only way to cut the strings was to be ruthless.
But how safe would it be to trail Galvin? If he were actually meeting someone from the Sinaloa drug cartel, he’d take precautions against being followed. And Danny was a writer, not a spy. Not a trained intelligence operative. He didn’t know the first thing about surveillance. From everything he’d read on the subject—mostly, he had to admit, spy thrillers—following someone without being detected was a skill acquired by a professional after long practice. Not a skill he had. No way.
Short of chaining himself to Tom Galvin’s ski boots, there was simply no way to make sure Galvin didn’t go off somewhere during the course of the afternoon. Galvin could ski down the mountain and disappear into the streets of Aspen. He could meet someone at a café, a restaurant, a bar, and Danny would never know about it.
All he could do was keep Galvin in sight as long as possible. And hope he got lucky.
At the top of the mountain, they got off the gondola, snapped into their skis, and gathered to confer.
“There aren’t any green trails?” Abby asked, trying to sound casual. She swallowed hard.
“Just intermediate and expert,” Danny said. “You can snowplow for a while until you get used to it. It’ll all come back to you. Wasn’t it you who said it’s like riding a bike?”
“The blue trails really aren’t so scary,” Jenna said.
The girls didn’t want to ski with the oldsters, and who could blame them? Abby pulled her goggles into place, and the two of them started down the slope, a blue trail called Easy Chair, which didn’t in fact look particularly easy.
Celina said, “Everyone: One thirty at the Sundeck for lunch?” She pointed at the building behind them. “Okay? Girls? Yes?”
Jenna waved an impatient acknowledgment to her mother, and the two girls were off. If Abby was nervous about her skiing ability, she was no longer showing it.
A minute or so later, the adults set off down the same slope, giving the girls enough of a head start to be on their own. Galvin was nimble and graceful, clearly an expert. Lucy was even better. Celina was good, about on par with Danny.
They quickly came to a juncture with a black trail.
“What do you think, Danny?” Lucy said. “Stay with the blue?”
Galvin said, “I’ll probably be doing mostly black trails. Don’t worry about trying to keep up with me.”
There was no way to explain to Lucy why he needed to stay with Galvin at all times. He hesitated a moment, then said to Galvin, “I’ll be fine,” and he followed Galvin toward the expert trail, leaving Lucy and Celina behind.
• • •
The black trails weren’t easy. They were scary at times, with some incredibly steep runs, but Danny managed to keep up with Galvin, more or less, for the next two hours or so. They skied on black diamond trails, but not double black diamond ones. The difficult ones, but not the “expert only” ones. He took a few spills, wounding just his dignity. He worried about the camera, hoped the down padding would protect it from damage.
A few times he spotted Abby and Jenna on the chairlift or cruising down the slopes. Abby seemed to be doing just fine. Twice he and Galvin met up with Lucy and Celina on the Shadow Mountain chairlift line. If Lucy was annoyed about being left behind in favor of Galvin, she didn’t display it.
At a few minutes past one thirty, the adults all gathered out behind the Sundeck restaurant by the picnic tables to wait for the girls. They stashed their skis in a rack. Galvin lit up a cigar. He waggled it at Danny with a questioning look.
Danny shook his head. “Thanks anyway.”
A few diners at the picnic tables were giving Galvin poisonous glares, but he didn’t seem to notice, and if did, he didn’t care.
Something about him seemed different. He was unusually preoccupied, pensive. Maybe he’d made a bad trade at work. Lost a couple hundred million dollars. Maybe he and Celina had had a fight.
Maybe that was all.
Anyway, how well did he really know the guy? They’d had a couple of friendly chats. They’d bonded over their similar backgrounds. Men don’t sit around sharing their feelings. They do stuff together. They don’t cry together or gossip; they watch football on TV, maybe play poker. They drink together, rib each other.
Maybe he was preoccupied. Or maybe he really was about to meet his contacts from the Sinaloa cartel.
“Hey, you,” Lucy said to Danny. “You took off.”
“I’m sorry about that. I guess I just wanted to push the edge of the envelope. My bad.”
“Men and their competitiveness,” she said, shaking her head, amused.
Danny made a stop in the men’s room, clomping, with his ski boots on, like Frankenstein’s monster.
When he returned, Galvin was gone.
“Tom went back to the slopes,” Celina said. “He said he wasn’t hungry.” Something about the way she spoke, the way her eyes wouldn’t meet his, prickled Danny’s suspicions.
“Which way did he go?” Danny said. “I think I’ll join him. I don’t mind skipping lunch.”
“I saw him going that way,” Abby said. She pointed vaguely toward the uncleared back section of the mountain, away from the blue and black trails, down the hill on the other side of the gondola landing.
“Oh, stay with us,” said Lucy.
“Knowing Daddy,” said Jenna, “he’ll be doing one of the double black diamond runs.”
“I wouldn’t mind trying a couple of double black diamond runs,” Danny said.
“I think maybe Tom is just wanting to ski by himself,” Celina said. Her tone was brittle. She gave Danny a quick but penetrating look.
Danny, pretending not to hear her, headed toward the uncleared area.
“You’re not staying for lunch?” Lucy said. “You sure?”
“I’m good,” he said.
And he set off in search of Tom Galvin.