Seventh Enemy (21 page)

“Can’t. I’ve gotta be in court at one. How about later?”

“I’ve got an editorial meeting that’ll drag on till eight or nine. We generally order up pizzas.”

“You could come over for a nightcap afterward.”

“Hoo, boy. Another nightcap, huh?”

“Sure. A nightcap.”

“I might not get there before ten.”

“That’s okay.”

A
FTER COURT THAT AFTERNOON
I took a cab over to Mass General. I didn’t notice any blue Ford Escorts following us, which only convinced me that he had either changed vehicles or was lurking back there somewhere in the traffic.

Wally was wearing a bathrobe and sitting in a chair. He was not attached to any plastic tubes.

Diana was sitting cross-legged on his bed.

“Hi, folks.” I said. I shook Wally’s hand and Diana and I exchanged pecks on the cheek. I sat beside Diana. “How’s it feeling?” I said to Wally.

“Better and better.” He glanced sideways at Diana and said, “About ready for strenuous exercise. How about you? Been fishing?”

“Not since the Deerfield.”

“Well shit, man. The month of May’s passing you by.” He smiled. “I was just telling Diana. I had a visit from a friend of yours today.”

“Friend of mine?”

“Yeah. State cop named Horowitz. Said you’ve been bugging him about me. He complained a lot. He respects the hell out of you.”

I nodded. “I respect him, too. Crabby son of a bitch. What’d he have to say?”

“He didn’t say much of anything. Asked me some questions. Just, basically, what I remembered. Which isn’t much of anything. Wanted to know if I could think of anybody who’d want to shoot me. I mean, aside from the SAFE connection.”

“What’d you tell him?”

Wally shrugged. “I mentioned the animal rights crazies. I mean, they’re at least as fanatical as the SAFE guys. They’ve been convicted of burning down medical laboratories and issuing death threats to scientists who use animals in their research. Otherwise, I guess I’ve probably stepped on a hundred sets of toes over the years. Anybody who builds dams on salmon rivers, clear-cuts forests, dumps poisons into trout streams, votes the wrong way. I can think of a dozen politicians and CEOs who’d probably like to see me in an urn.”

“Did you mention Howard?” said Diana.

Wally turned and looked at her. “Yes, honey,” he said. “I had to.”

She nodded, then turned her head to stare out at the air shaft.

“What about poachers with expensive bamboo fly rods?” I said.

“I forgot that one.”

I smiled. “I’m sure Horowitz found the interview helpful.”

“I don’t know. He just sat there chomping on his gum.”

“It’s not even a state police case,” I said.

“I know. It’s officially a hunting accident. Your friend Horowitz doesn’t seem to buy it.”

“Neither do I,” I said.

He cocked an eye at me. “You seem pretty emphatic about that.”

I nodded. “I am.”

“Do you know something?”

“Not much.”

“Well, shit, man. What?”

“I can’t tell you.”

“You playing lawyer with me, Brady?”

“Not really.”

“Somebody else get shot at?”

I shrugged. “Maybe something like that.”

“A listed enemy?”

I nodded.

“Christ,” mumbled Wally, and I knew he was thinking that I was a listed SAFE enemy, too, and it was his fault.

“Don’t worry about it.” I said. “I talked with Gene McNiff yesterday and got everything straightened out.”

“Sure,” said Wally. “Good.” He sounded dubious.

I stayed for about an hour. The three of us talked mostly about fishing. Wally planned to recuperate back at his cabin once they released him from the hospital. Diana was going to stay with him. Neither of them seemed worried about returning to the place where the shooting had occurred.

His producers had assured him that they would adjust their filming schedules to accommodate him. They had even started renegotiating his contract with his agent. Walt Kinnick had become an even more marketable commodity since the shooting. The sponsors were lining up. The SAFE threat of a boycott had not, apparently, scared anybody away.

When I stood up to leave, Wally said. “Brady, do me a favor.”

“Sure.”

“Take Diana out to dinner.”

“You trust me with this beautiful woman?”

“Course not,” he said. “But I trust her.”

“You do?” she said.

“Absolutely.”

She grinned at me. “I can’t stand it.”

“How’s tomorrow?” I said to her.

She nodded. “Terrific.”

“Where?”

“Do you know Giannino’s?”

“Behind the Charles Hotel?”

“Yes. We can eat out on the patio. It’s nice outdoors this time of year, and they have good Italian food there. If you don’t mind coming to Cambridge.”

“Sounds fine. Seven?”

“Perfect. I’ll meet you there.”

“Thanks,” said Wally.

“It’ll he my pleasure,” I said.

I decided to stop at Skeeter’s on the way home for a giant burger and a glass of beer. It was one of those May evenings when even in the city the air smelled clean and fresh, and it wasn’t until I turned off Cambridge Street onto Court Street that I became aware of my tail.

He had been lounging by the entrance to the hospital, and when I stepped outside after my visit with Wally and squinted into the slanting late afternoon sunshine, he had looked away from me a little too quickly. I noticed it, but it didn’t register. I might have noticed a blue Escort, but I wasn’t looking for an undistinguished thirtyish man wearing khaki pants and a brown sports jacket.

But when I turned off Cambridge onto Court Street I glimpsed that same man sauntering along in the same direction on the opposite side of Cambridge Street. I kept walking, and from the corner of my eye I saw him cross Cambridge and head down Court Street. He stayed behind me and on the other side of the street.

When I got to Congress Street, I stood on the corner waiting for the light. I glanced back up the street, but couldn’t spot the guy in the brown sports coat. The light changed, I crossed Congress to State, and continued along until I came to Skeeter’s alley. When I turned in there I had another chance to look behind me. My tail, if that’s what he was, had disappeared.

I went inside and hitched myself onto a barstool. The TV over the bar was playing “Wheel of Fortune” with the sound turned off.

“Hey, Mr. Coyne,” said Skeeter. “By yourself tonight?”

I had once met Gloria at Skeeter’s, and he had been completely charmed by her. “Yes, I think so,” I said, remembering my tail. “How about a draft Sam and a burger?”

“Medium rare, right?”

“The burger, not the beer.”

Skeeter poured my beer and slid it in front of me. I lit a cigarette and took a sip, and as I did I glanced in the mirror over the bar. A man in a brown sports coat came in, looked casually around without letting his eyes linger on me, then took a seat in a booth near the door.

I stared openly at him through the mirror. He picked up a menu, studied it, then lounged back and looked up at the television. He was as nondescript as a blue Ford Escort—thinning brown hair cut neither short nor long, medium build, blue Oxford shirt open at the neck. Just an average working stiff happy that another day at the office had ended.

I finished my cigarette, stubbed it out, picked up my half-empty draft of beer, and took it to his booth. “Mind if I join you?” I said.

He turned his head, shrugged, and gestured to the seat across from him. Then he resumed looking at the television. “That Vanna White,” he said, still staring at the screen. “Some nice-lookin’ broad, huh?”

“A little on the thin side,” I said.

“She’d look good to you, if you see my old lady. How do you get waited on in this place?”

“You’ve got to order at the bar. It’s just Skeeter. No waitresses.”

“What’re you having?”

“Skeeter’s burgers are the best in town.”

“Burger and a beer.” he said. “Sounds good.”

“Why are you following me?” I said.

“It’s my job.” He continued watching the television.

“You’re not that good at it,” I said. “I saw you in the Escort last night. I picked you up about halfway over here from the hospital.”

“Actually, that was another guy in the Escort. But I did follow you from your apartment to your office this morning. Then to the courthouse, then the hospital, then here. You didn’t catch on to me until you come out of the hospital? That’s not bad, huh?”

“I don’t get it,” I said.

He swiveled his head around and smiled at me. “It doesn’t matter whether you get it or not, Mr. Coyne. And it doesn’t matter whether you know we’re watching you or not, either.”

I sat back in the booth and laughed. “Oh, shit,” I said. “You’re not an assassin, are you?”

“Not on this assignment I’m not.”

“Secret Service, right?”

“Bingo,” he said. “You win a night with Vanna.”

“Are you protecting me?”

He rolled his eyes. “Not hardly.”

“Oh,” I said. “I get it. You’re making sure I don’t assassinate somebody.”

“Or conspire with somebody,” he said. “Like Gene McNiff.”

“Is that what you think I was doing out there yesterday?”

“Me?” He laughed. “I don’t think, Mr. Coyne. I keep track of you and report it to the lady who does the thinking.”

“Agent Krensky.”

“Her own self. My boss.”

“Will you report this conversation to her?”

“Sure. That’s my job.”

“What will you tell her?”

“I’ll tell her you and I shared a burger at Skeeter’s Infield from seven-oh-nine until whenever, then I tailed you home.”

“Would you mind telling her that I’m no assassin and she’s wasting a lot of taxpayer’s money?”

“I’ll tell her,” be said. “But she don’t listen to me.”

We ended up eating together at his booth and watching the first few innings of the Red Sox game. He didn’t tail me home. He strolled along with me. We ended up talking baseball. He was a Cubs fan and his name was Malloy. That’s all he would tell me.

I couldn’t decide whether to be relieved or annoyed that the Secret Service was following me around.

I kicked off my shoes inside the door, dropped my jacket and tie onto a kitchen chair, and sat on my bed to divest myself of the rest of my lawyer duds. I pulled on a pair of jeans and a T-shirt, then went into the living room.

My answering machine was winking at me. Wink-wink, pause. Two messages. I pressed the button. The machine whirred, clicked, and then came Alex’s voice. “I’m running a little late over here,” she said. “It’s gonna be closer to eleven. Assume that’s still okay. I’m pooped. Can’t understand why. I might want to skip the nightcap and go straight for the nightshirt. I’m on the fly. Bye.”

The machine clicked. Then a voice that I had heard once before on an answering machine tape said, “Brady Coyne, you have betrayed the Second Amendment For Ever and you deserve to die a just and ironic death.”

The machine rewound itself. Its red eye stared unblinking at me. I stared back at it.

I
’D HEARD THAT
message before. It was the same one Wally got the night before he was shot. The same precise syntax. I remembered the word “ironic” in Wally’s message, and I recalled that Alex had used the word “ironically” in her article. People who understand irony always impress me. Gene McNiff had said that all kinds of people belonged to SAFE.

Still, the man who left me this message didn’t fit my image of a typical SAFE redneck bent on shooting his enemies.

I replayed the tape. Alex sounded warm and sexy. It occurred to me to tell her not to come over. I didn’t want her to he in the way if something was going to happen. But I didn’t think anybody would try to shoot me in my bed behind a brick wall six stories above the Boston Harbor. About the only way to accomplish that would be from a helicopter.

Besides. I knew I’d appreciate having someone to hold on to.

My answering machine was old. I figured the heads needed cleaning or something, because the fidelity was too poor to attempt to identify the speaker by his voice. He might’ve even attempted to disguise it, I couldn’t tell. It could have been anybody. If it was a voice I’d heard before, I couldn’t determine it by this brief recorded message.

I removed the tape and replaced it with a new one.

I poured myself a finger of Jack Daniel’s and stood by the open sliders. The moon shimmered on the corrugated water of the harbor six stories down. Somewhere out there a bell-buoy clanged quietly, and the air smelled of old seaweed.

I tried to figure out what to do. Or not do. Call Horowitz? And what would he do? Tell me to stay in my apartment, probably. And for how long? Until they caught the shooter? And what if they never caught him? The peculiarity of American law-enforcement is that it cannot act until a crime has been committed. Horowitz couldn’t do a damn thing to prevent me from getting shot.

If Agent Malloy continued to tail me, he probably wouldn’t be able to prevent an assassination, either. But he’d be in a good position to catch the shooter. That offered me a little consolation. Very little.

I couldn’t decide what to do. In the end, I did nothing.

I was glad Alex was coming over.

I finished my drink and picked up the clothes and magazines and fishing gear that were strewn around my apartment. I didn’t want her to think I was a slob.

I was sitting out on the balcony sipping another shot of Daniels when the intercom sounded. I buzzed Alex up, and when she came in I hugged her hard for a long time.

“What’s wrong?” she said.

“I’m just really glad to see you.”

She pressed herself against me, then tilted her head back and grinned. “I’ll say you are.”

I didn’t tell her about sharing a burger with Agent Malloy, and I didn’t mention the telephone message. It didn’t seem quite that ominous any more. Besides, she wanted to get into her nightshirt.

So did I.

I felt her mouth on the back of my neck. I hugged my pillow. “I’m out of here,” she said.

I rolled onto my hack, Alex was standing beside the bed smiling down at me. I lifted my hand to her, and she backed away. “Oh no you don’t,” she said. “I gotta get to work.”