The Reapers: A Thriller-CP-7 (30 page)

“No, I was out of town for a while, up in the County. I just got back this morning. Why?”

Willie gave him a summary of all that had happened. The Detective didn’t ask any questions until Willie was done. He just listened. Willie liked that about him. The man might have made him nervous for reasons that he both could and could not put his finger on, but there was a calmness about him at times that reminded Willie of Louis.

“Do you know where they went?”

“Upstate. The guy who warned us mentioned somewhere near Massena, someone named Arthur Leehagen.”

“Are there procedures in place for when something goes wrong?”

“There’s an answering service. I leave a message, and then they can pick it up. They’re supposed to check it every twelve hours when they’re away. I’ve done that, but I don’t know when last they called to check in and, y’know, it doesn’t seem right just to wait around in the hope that it’ll all work out.”

The Detective didn’t even bother to ask about cellphones.

“What was that name you were given again?”

“Leehagen. Arthur Leehagen.”

“All right. You at the shop?”

“No, I’m down at Nate’s. I’m worried that my phone might be tapped.”

“Why would someone tap your phone?”

Willie explained about the visit by the feds.

“Hell. Shout me the number of where you are.”

Willie gave it to him, then hung up the phone. There was a soft knock at the door.

“Yeah?”

Nate appeared. He had a snifter with two fingers of brandy in his hand.

“Thought you might need this,” he said. “On the house.”

Willie thanked him, but waved the glass away. “Not for me,” he said. “I think it’s going to be a long night.”

“Somebody die?” asked Nate.

“Not yet,” said Willie. “I’m just trying to keep it that way.”

When he returned to the auto shop nearly an hour later, Arno was still sitting in the office, but the bottle of Maker’s Mark had been put away, and instead there was the smell of brewing from the Mr. Coffee machine.

“You want some?” asked Arno.

“Sure.”

Willie went to a shelf and removed a Triple A road atlas. He opened it to the New York page and began tracing a route with his finger. Arno filled a mug with coffee, added some creamer, then put it by his boss’s right hand.

“So?” Arno asked.

“Road trip.”

“You’re going up there?”

“That’s right.”

“You think that’s a good idea?”

Willie thought for a second. “No,” he said. “Probably not.”

“The Detective going too?”

“Yeah.”

“Driving?”

“Yeah.”

“Couldn’t he fly? Wouldn’t it be quicker?”

“With guns? He’s not Air America.”

Willie considered removed his bib overalls, then decided against it. He was happier wearing them, and anything that lightened his current mood wasn’t to be dismissed easily. Instead, he shrugged on an old jacket over them.

“You stay here,” he said to Arno. “In case they call.”

“I wasn’t going anyway,” said Arno. “I told you. I’m not that kind of guy.”

“I just thought you were going to offer, like in the westerns.”

“You kidding? You ever see a Scandinavian western?”

Willie tried to remember if Charles Bronson had been Scandinavian. Actually, he thought that Bronson might have been Lithuanian. He was an -anian anyway, that much he knew.

“I guess not,” he said at last.

Arno followed him to the rear of the auto shop, where Willie’s old Shelby stood in the yard. It looked like it wouldn’t go two miles without shedding parts and oil, but Arno knew that there wasn’t a better-maintained automobile this side of New Jersey.

“Okay.” Willie nodded at Arno. Arno nodded back. He suddenly felt like the little woman in the relationship. He was tempted to hug Willie, or straighten the collar on his shirt. Instead, he contented himself with simply shaking his boss’s hand and advising him to be careful.

“Look after my place, now,” said Willie. “And, listen, if all this goes to hell, you close up and walk away. Contact my lawyer. Old Friedman knows what to do. I put you in my will. You got no worries if I die.”

Arno smiled. “I knew that, I’d have killed you myself long before now.”

“Yeah, well that’s why I didn’t tell you. That, or you’d just be bitchin’ at me for your cut all the time.”

“Drive safe, boss.”

“I will. Don’t pay any bills while I’m away.”

Willie climbed in the car, backed out of the yard. He raised a hand in farewell, then was gone. Arno went back inside, and saw that Willie hadn’t even touched his coffee. It made him sad.

It was a long ride north, as long a drive as Willie had ever tackled without a proper break. He was tempted once or twice to stop for coffee or a soda, something with caffeine and sugar in it to keep him alert, but he had a bladder that was ten years older than he was and he didn’t want to waste even more time by having to pull off the highway to relieve himself twenty minutes after he’d finished whatever he’d had to drink. He listened to WCBS until it began to fade, then found a Tony Bennett cassette in the glove compartment and let that play instead. There was a tightness in his gut. At first, he wondered if it was fear, but then he realized that it was anticipation. He had been coasting for a long time, living from day to day, doing what he loved but never stretching himself much, never testing himself. Willie had thought those days were behind him, that they were part of his youth, but he had been proved wrong. He patted the Browning in his jacket pocket. It seemed too small and light to be of use, but it also felt as if it was radiating heat, so that he could sense its warmth against the side of his leg. He tried to imagine using it, and found that he could not. This was a weapon for killing up close, and Willie had never had to look a man in the face when he fired off a shot at him. As for dying, he didn’t believe that he was frightened of it: the manner of it, perhaps, but not the fact of it. After all, he had reached an age where dying had started to become an objective reality instead of an abstract concept. No, the thing that worried him most was the possibility of letting Angel and Louis down, or the Detective. He didn’t want that to happen. He wanted to do the right thing. He prayed for the courage to step up to the plate if the call came.

Willie reckoned it was six, maybe six and a half hours from Queens to where he was due to meet the Detective. At least it was highway most of the way, so he maintained a steady eighty for most of the journey, and it wasn’t until he turned off 87 that the landscape and the road began to change in earnest and he was forced to slow down. Not that he could see any of it, but he didn’t need to be a psychic to sense the change in atmosphere from the interstate to the county roads. The highway kept nature at bay: it was six lanes of fast-moving traffic, and Willie had only a limited degree of sympathy for any of the roadkill that he passed along the way. But when he left the interstate for the smaller roads, his mood and perspective changed. Here, nature was much closer. The trees crowded in upon him, and the only light that he had to guide him came from his own headlights and the warning reflectors occasionally embedded in the tarmac. It rained for a time, and the drops looked like starbursts exploding in his high beams. Something flew across his line of sight, so big and close that he was certain for an instant that it was going to crash through his windshield. At first, he thought it was a bat, until he realized that bats didn’t grow that large, not outside of B movies, and that it was in fact an owl on the hunt for prey. He felt strangely elated by the sight: the only owls he had ever seen before were on TV, or in the zoo. Even then, he could not have guessed how big and heavy they appeared to be when in flight. He was relieved that he hadn’t hit it at speed: the bird would have taken his head off. Willie was a creature of the city, and of New York in particular. It wasn’t that he considered green fields merely to be suburbs waiting to happen. He wasn’t entirely without sensitive feelings. No, it was just that New York wasn’t like other states: it was a place defined by its largest city in a way that nowhere else in the country was. When you mentioned New York to most people, either American or foreign, they didn’t think of the Adirondacks, or the Saint Lawrence, or of forests and trees and waterfalls. They thought of a city, of skyscrapers and yellow cabs and concrete and glass. That, too, was Willie’s New York. He could not equate it with its rural obverse.

He realized that Angel and Louis had probably come this way. He was shadowing them, driving in their tracks. The thought seemed to renew his sense of purpose. He checked his mileage and calculated that he had only an hour or so to go before he reached the place where he was supposed to meet the Detective. He felt his stomach tighten again. The gun was heavy in his pocket.

He drove on.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

JUST AS ANGEL AND Louis had hours before, Willie emerged from small towns and forests into a cluster of motels and casinos close to the Canadian border. He’d only been this far upstate once before, and that was farther west, over at Niagara. He and his ex-wife had gone there for their honeymoon. In January. He must have been crazy but, then again, he had been in love, and neither of them was exactly a summer person. He’d had enough of heat and sweat in Vietnam, and she had simply wanted to see the falls. She told him they would be even more spectacular in winter, surrounded by ice and snow. He supposed they had been pretty impressive, although the chill that had entered his bones should have served as a warning for what was to come later in their married life. All things considered, he ought to have stuck her in a barrel right there and then and pushed her over the edge. He spotted the Detective’s Mustang parked outside the Bear’s Den, a big truck stop and diner about ten miles from Massena, and experienced a sense of pride at the sight of the vehicle. He had sourced that car for the Detective, beating the dealer down on price until he thought the guy was going to start weeping on the lot. Willie had then brought the Mustang back to the shop and taken it to pieces, checking every moving part, substituting those that were worn or threatened to give up the ghost in a year or two. Seeing it here, far to the north, he felt the way a school principal might feel upon encountering a former student who had done particularly well for himself. He half expected the car to beep softly in recognition as he approached. After he had parked, he walked around the Mustang twice, giving both the interior and exterior a brief examination. When he was done, he sighed contentedly. There were one or two little nicks to the paintwork, and the treads on the right front tire were wearing thin, but otherwise she seemed to be in good condition. Still, he wanted to take a lengthy look under the hood soon. He was sure there were halfway-decent mechanics up in Maine, but they couldn’t love his babies the way that he did. He patted the hood affectionately and entered the diner, passing some tattered stuffed bears in a glass case beside the main door, their fur rubbed bare in places. They made him depressed, and he quickened his step to put them from his sight. It was shortly after 6:00 A.M., and the sky was only just beginning to lighten. The rain had stopped falling for a while, but the sky was gray and brooding, and Willie knew that there would be more to come. The Bear’s Den was a big place, and it was already half filled with people eating breakfast in the booths. They were smoking, too. It reminded Willie, once again, that NYC rules didn’t apply up here. You tried lighting up over breakfast in the city and there would be a cop kneeling on your back before you could get to the funny pages, assuming your fellow diners didn’t beat you to death first.

The Detective was seated in a red vinyl booth at the back of the room, a little fake hay bale made from wood shavings on the windowsill beside him, topped with a miniature scarecrow and plastic pumpkins. He was wearing dark-blue jeans, a black T-shirt, and a black military jacket. He hadn’t removed the jacket, despite the warmth of the diner. Willie could guess why. There was a gun under there somewhere. The Detective was supposed to have surrendered all of his weapons after his permit and license were revoked, but Willie figured that only counted for the ones the cops knew about. Like Louis, the Detective wasn’t the kind to go around advertising all of his possessions.

There was a cup of coffee before him, and the remains of bacon and poached eggs. Willie took the seat across from him and a waitress appeared. He ordered coffee and toast. He wasn’t very hungry. He wasn’t tired either, or not as tired as he had expected to be. That surprised him. Then again, he wasn’t a big sleeper at the best of times. Four, maybe five hours a night was usually enough for him.

“I see you couldn’t resist giving the Mustang a once-over,” said the Detective. He was smiling.

“You send them out into the world, and all you can hope is that the world treats them the way it should,” said Willie. “Like children.”

He saw the Detective’s smile flicker slightly, and wished that he hadn’t mentioned children. You lose a child, especially the way this man had lost his, and it will always be a red, raw wound to you.

“She running okay?” asked Willie, moving on to safer ground.

“She’s running fine.”

“Helps not having her shot up by folk.”

Willie had never quite forgiven the Detective for allowing his previous Mustang, also sourced by him, to be shot to pieces in some godforsaken Maine town. The car had been beyond salvation, although Willie had been forced to rely on Angel’s testimony in that regard. Willie had offered to transport the car back down to Queens at his own expense to see what could be done, but Angel had put a consoling hand on Willie’s shoulder and quietly suggested to him that this might not be a good idea. He reckoned the sight of what was left of the car would be too upsetting for Willie. It was the equivalent of a closed casket at a beloved relative’s funeral.

“I do try to avoid getting shot up whenever I can,” said the Detective. How’s that working out for you, Willie was tempted to ask. The Detective exerted a seemingly irresistible force of attraction over bullets, knives, fists, and just about anything else that could potentially do a body harm. Even sitting this close to him made Willie nervous. The coffee and toast arrived, distracting him for a time from his concerns for his personal safety. The coffee tasted good, and he could feel his brain responding to the rush of sugar and caffeine.