"Lewis?" came the voice.
"Yeah, Felix," I said, feeling the need to sit down. "How's it going?"
"Oh, not too bad," he said, his voice cheerful. "Hey, I had dinner last night with Mickey, the place you recommended up in Porter."
"How was it?" I asked, staring at the nearest bookcase, not trying to think of anything much.
"How was it?" Felix repeated. "How it was, it sucked. Sorry to tell you that, but man, it’s been a long time since I’ve eaten in a place so bad. Lobster and soup were both cold, the salad had brown leaves...” Then he laughed. "About the only thing good about the night was the dessert, and I got that at home."
'Tm sure you did."
"Well, I'll talk to you later this week. If I have another bad meal, that is."
"Understood. "
We talked a couple of more minutes about the Red Sox actually securing a good pitcher for this season, and then, after hanging up, I went back to work.
A couple of hours later I was still looking at the brightness of my new machine, trying to get used to the neon-like blueberry color. In a room with wood flooring and books and bookshelves, the plastic and bright colors seemed as out of place as a circus clown at an Amish social. I sat in my chair with manual in hand, and started putting the new machine through its paces. As I worked, I was also trying to figure out what to do next about the man who had been murdered some yards away from this comfortable place.
So far, all I knew was that the death --- murder or suicide, of course, depending on your point of view --- had attracted the attention of some very interesting people. I had no idea who these people were, but the guesses of Diane Woods and Felix Tinios dovetailed into my own: people in the payment of Uncle Sam. But with Diane unable to trace those license plates and with Felix striking out on my organized-crime theory, I wasn't sure what I could do next.
Oh, in the long term, I knew what I could do. After a couple of weeks or so, I could start putting a little pressure on the North Tyler cops and EMTs who had been at the scene. Knowing cops and firefighters and how they are the very best of storytellers, I knew it wouldn't take long for some information to dribble out about what had been said to them by that nighttime crew in their Ford vehicles.
In the meantime, well, in the meantime I had a new computer to try out, and after an hour of that, testing some of its abilities, from sound to video recording to Internet surfing to word processing, I sat up and looked out the window. It was almost time to have lunch, but with a start, I knew lunch would have to wait.
I had visitors.
I leaned over in the chair, continued looking out the window. My lawn rises up to dirt and a rocky ledge that hides my house from Route I-A, and a man in a suit was there, looking down at me, talking into a handheld radio. I looked up my dirt driveway and saw other men running down, followed by a certain woman, a woman I had only met two days ago.
I sat back in my chair, crossed my arms, played some more with the computer. It looked as if some of my questions were about to be answered.
Pounding sounds came up to me, from someone at the door with a heavy fist. I sat there, waited. I looked out the window, and the guy on the ledge was still there. I waved at him. The guy scowled and he went back to his radio.
I worked some more on the keyboard, and then there was a loud noise that made me wince. Splintering wood and protesting metal, and that quick sound was drowned out by stampeding feet coming up the stairway. I put the computer in a screensaver mode and then rolled the chair around, so that I was facing the open door. Two men sprinted into view, pistols held up in the air, and I tried to sit there calmly, my hands in my lap. I recognized the two men as part of the crew the other night from the parking lot of the wildlife preserve.
"Clear!" the guy on the left called out, and then he moved back and the woman came in, nodding to both of them, as if she was congratulating them for a job well done.
"Mr. Cole," she said, sitting down in my spare chair, which I usually use to hold printouts of my column before mailing them off to
Shoreline.
She was dressed the same as the last time I saw her, but it didn't look like the same clothes. I imagined she had an identical wardrobe of black slacks and white sweaters, kept somewhere in a large suitcase. In the light of my office I could that her skin was tanned. She placed a soft black leather shoulder bag on her lap.
"The same," I said. "Let me guess. Itinerant home repairmen. Am I right?"
For the first time since I had met her, the look on her face faltered. "I'm sorry, I don't understand."
"Well, why else would you break down my front door? Unless you want to repair it now and charge me about twice as much as I should pay."
She crossed her legs. "Sorry, but we broke your door down because we needed to talk to you, and you wouldn't answer."
"Isn't that my right, to be left alone?"
"Not today."
"I suppose it would be too much to ask for a warrant, or anything else similar," I said.
I could make out the sounds of the other men walking around my house, and I tried to keep a calm expression on my face. There were debts being incurred at this very moment, and I knew that one of these days, these debts would be paid. Then one of the men came to the door.
"Interim weapons inventory completed," he said, looking at a piece of paper in his palm. "One FN eight-millimeter assault rifle, one nine-millimeter Beretta pistol, one twelve-gauge Remington shotgun, and one Smith and Wesson three-fifty-seven revolver. Ammo for all, as well."
"Thanks, Clem," she said, turning slightly to talk to him.
She turned back to me and said, "You've got a lot of weapons."
"I have a lot of needs," I said. "Which brings me back to my point about the warrant."
"If you would prefer a warrant, Mr. Cole, I'm sure I could secure one within a few hours," she said. "But time is of the essence, and we were hoping for your assistance."
"Some hope," I said. "The other night you couldn't wait to get me out of your hair. What's changed since then?"
She smiled at that. "Well, that was before we found out a bit about you Mr. Cole. Like your inquisitive nature, asking about our activities with the Tyler and North Tyler police. That made us curious, and we soon found out that you had quite the interesting life before becoming a writer for
Shoreline
.”
"I don't know if I would call it interesting."
"Oh, I would," she said, pulling out a sheaf of papers from the leather shoulder bag on her lap. "Like your service in the Department of Defense. The comments in your personnel file, showing a high intelligence quotient but poor team skills. Your posting to the Room Three-twelve Subgroup, also known as the Marginal Issues Section. And the dreadful event that resulted in the deaths of your colleagues, and your eventual retirement to this beach resort. Have I covered enough, or should I go on?"
The words came out of my mouth almost mechanically.
"I'm afraid I can't comment on what you've just mentioned. Whatever service I performed for the Department of Defense, I signed a non-disclosure form when I left prohibiting me from discussing it."
She nodded, still smiling. "Like this one?"
I was almost afraid to touch the paper, remembering where I was when I signed it. At a government hospital facility in the middle of the Nevada desert, following my first surgery and recovery, desperately ill and desperately frightened that I would not leave the hospital alive. I quickly gave the paper a glance, almost imagining that the sense of horror and despair that I had felt back then was still clinging to the paper, like some old odor.
And there it was. My scribbled signature, from all those years ago. I could barely recognize it. I passed the paper back. My mouth had had been quickly getting dry with each syllable that she had pronounced about my past service. It had been a very long time since anyone had mentioned those phrases in my presence. I tried to clear my throat. "Like I said the other night, you have me at a disadvantage. I don't know who you are, even though I have a pretty good idea who you work for."
She laughed. "Sorry to be so cloak-and-daggerish. The name is Laura Reeves." From her bag she pulled out a slim leather wallet, which she passed over. "I work for the Drug Enforcement Agency, as do the other members of my little task force here.” I glanced at the identification and then passed it back to her.
"Your picture looks good," I said. "Better than your average license photo. And what brings the field agents of the DEA trooping into my house on this fine April day?"
Reeves put her identification away. "Simply put, we need your help, Mr. Cole."
"Really? Well, parking isn't much of a problem this time of year, though you have to be careful around The Strip down at Tyler Beach. A lot of the restaurants are overpriced and over reviewed, but I could-"
"Not that kind of help. Something else."
I tried to smile back at her. Damn it, why was she looking so cheerful? 'Tm sorry, Miss Reeves. That's the only kind of help I'm prepared to offer."
"But that's not the help we need. Mr. Cole, the man who was found in the parking lot of the state park was there for a meeting with someone we believe is responsible for a major heroin shipment coming into the New Hampshire seacoast over the next several days. The gentleman’s name was Romero. He was from Mexico. Without getting into too much detail, obviously the meet didn't occur as planned."
"So if the man was murdered instead of committing suicide, why the cover story?" I already knew what the answer was going to be, but I wanted to hear what kind of spin she was going to put on it.
"You can imagine, I'm sure," Reeves said. "A suicide means lack of news media attention. Without the news media attention, we can work better in the background, without being forced to answer a number of questions. Something as delicate as this, we don't need the attention."
I folded my arms. "Then here's a question for you. Why me?"
Her hands were gently playing with the flap to the carrying case. "Like I said, we prefer to work in the shadows. We can do a lot dealing with the local law enforcement agencies, but sometimes that’s more work than it’s worth, handling their egos and their problems. We’re looking for your help because you’re familiar with the area, you have a great cover as a magazine columnist --- which allows you to ask a lot of questions --- and because of your past experience."
"All I did in my past experience was read and write government reports."
She shook her head. "You're too modest. You performed some admirable intelligence work, coming up with conclusions that others had missed. If it hadn't been for that unfortunate accident in Nevada, I'm sure you could have gone far."
"No," I said.
"Oh, I disagree," she said. "I think that ---"
"I wasn't responding to your statement about my abilities," I said. “I’m just cutting off this lovely discussion so that we're not wasting each other's time. No, I'm not interested in working with you, for you, or even in the same room as you. All right?"
It was as if she hadn't heard me. She went on. "All we know about the contact in this state is that he's associated with the Porter Naval Shipyard, up the coast, and that the man's nickname is Whizzer. We're sure you can do well with that information, give us some leads ---"
"No," I said.
"We'll pay you an attractive day rate. One thousand dollars a day. When can you start?"
The noise of the other men in the house was still going on, as they searched for God knows what. "Never ," I said. "I worked once for this government. At the time, it seemed to be the patriotic thing to do. I was younger and full of vim and vigor. Now, all I have is a few scars and a lot of nightmares, plus a little vigor and no more vim."
She made a point of looking around my office. "Plus this house and an attractive monthly pension."
"Which doesn't even begin to compensate me for what happened in Nevada," I said.
"That was a different time, a different administration. Because of these past mistakes, do we have to ---“
“The space shuttle,” I said, interrupting her.
“Excuse me?”
"The space shuttle mission going on right now," I said. "Do you and your folks have any connection with it at all?"
"Of course we don't. What's the point?"
I leaned forward in my chair. "The point is, Miss Reeves, that the shuttle mission going on right now is one of the few areas in the federal government where I would gladly volunteer to assist. If you had come to me from NASA, we could have worked something out. Since you're from the Department of Justice, no deal."
"Is that your final word?"
"My solitary, last and only word. No."
A quick, chilly nod. The smile had gone. Oh well. She reached once again into her leather bag and passed over a business card. "Here. My card. If and when you change your mind, you can contact me at any hour of the day."
I put the card on my crowded desk. "As the saying goes, if the phone don't ring, you'll know it's me."
She got up and I followed her out of my office and down the stairs. Three of her men were waiting outside my shattered door. One of the men was the redheaded fellow with the merry smile from the other night, the one she had called Mr. Turner. He looked over to Reeves and said, "Well, is he on board?"