I didn't. I stared straight ahead at the boards of the old barn wall. They were whitewashed, and I could see the faint dried strokes of the coarse brush that had put on the whitewash, probably about fifty years ago. I didn't move.
"Who are you?" I finally managed.
"Dawn't ask. I'd as soon put a bullet in yer brain now, and who might you be?"
He had a brogue so thick you could cut it with a cold chisel. The sound of County Mayo, or Clare; or whatever, coupled with the weapons I didn't like. And that's when I disobeyed instructions and moved. I moved like all get-out, too, and I'll tell you why: Because I thought I was going to die right then. I thought I was going to get blown away, and all that nicely applied old whitewash was soon to be besotted with glumps of reddish tissue: skin, bone, brains, and ocular fluid, as the strange visitor from County Kerry (or Wicklow, or Donegal, or whatever) blew my head apart so bits and pieces of it would fly out from homebase and affix themselves to the wall. That's why I jumped for it.
And that's why I think people with guns pointed at them try a lot of that "brave" stuff. They aren't brave; they're scared. They're trying to survive. They know they are a finger-pull away from death and it has a tendency to bother them. If I could get free and manage to knock him off balance for a second I could get the Bull-Barrel out from my pocket in a wink. And though I'd never harmed a living thing with it, I knew I could give a gentleman a third nostril at fifty feet. I was very, very good with that little small-bore target pistol.
So I moved.
I flung myself backward off the ladder. From the way he held the pistol and the fact that I had climbed two rungs, I judged myself to be above the gunman by about two feet. As I left the ladder I rolled to my left, and chopped down and back with the cast with all I had. I felt the hand strike something semisolid and the light wavered and flickered crazily around for a second. When I hit the floor I rolled over to get up, my hand already working the pistol from the windbreaker's pocket.
But that was as far as I got.
I felt a huge pressure on my upper chest, just below my Adam's apple. I smelled shoe leather. I felt an iron grip on my right wrist just above the hand. Jesus did it hurt. Then I felt the cold pressure of the pistol barrel, again, on my neck. Only this time it was jamned up under my jaw. The husky voice spoke. It was panting a bit, but pretty level and very mean.
"Now lok," it said, "I'll not kill you if you do what's right. But if you dawn't, yer a dead mahn, heer?"
I nodded.
He grabbed the Ruger pistol and jammed his flashlight up under his right arm and held it shining down on me while he slid out the clip. He flicked the rounds out one by one but very fast. I heard a brief ka-chunk and knew he'd ejected the round in the chamber too. He frisked my other pocket and grabbed the spare clip, which he disarmed as quickly as the first. Then I was amazed as he handed me back gun and both clips. With a swirl of hands and cloth he dropped the rounds into his coat pocket. I heard them rattle as they fell, like a beanbag. I still couldn't see the face. The light beam was right in my eyes and he was behind it.
"Get up then."
I did. And I sat with my back against a hay bale as he asked me my name and business, and why I was where I was, doing what I was doing. I thought it best, since he had a Walther PPK pointed at my chest, to tell him. But I made it a point to stall a bit, to tell mostly of my life and job, and to say how I'd been hunting a certain boat.
"Ah yes. I saw you on the docks at Plymouth-"
This stunned me.
"Ah yes, I've had my eye on you, sir. Let me see your wallet. Be quick with it."
He examined it and flung it back. I saw the faint outlines of his profile as he sat and looked at me. He was thick and not very tall. He wore a hat. He breathed heavily. I yearned for a glance of the jaw or cheekbone in profile… something my physician's eye could latch on to for future identification. But no luck. This man was a pro. The way he'd gotten the drop on me while my hands were on the ladder (and not a sound to tip me off), the way he'd countered my moves against him and emptied my pistol, the way he held the light and gave instructions, they all spelled experience in a certain line of work that I was obviously still amateur at. And his sidearm. I didn't know that much about handguns, but from everything l`d gathered, the Walther PPK was the pro's piece. It was the mark of the experienced spy, saboteur, policeman-especially overseas.
"Hmmph! Adams… an English name. Oh well."
I squirmed on the hay bale.
"Now look here, Doctor Adams, you mind what I say. You stay away from heer. You stay cleer of that dock in Plymouth. My friends and I won't like it if you interfeer. Are you taking careful notion now of what I'm sayin?"
"Uh huh."
"Now rise and go-and-"
He didn't finish his sentence. He lunged at me and grabbed me by the upper arm.
"Shhhhh! Hush I say," he said in a coarse whisper. "You stay put, or so help me Katie you'll pay! Did you leave the trap open?"
"I think so."
The stocky man, still in shadow, moved with incredible speed. He flung the beam of his flashlight to the rear of the barn.
"Then hide there, yah. Quick now, or we're both for it!"
He doused the light as I went behind a big pile of bales and waited. In less than three seconds I could hear the whine of a heavy transmission. The squeak of brakes sounded above. I heard the soft thump of the trap door being shut, the almost metallic sound of heavy shoes on wooden rungs, and then the man was beside me again.
"Heer it, mahn?"
I nodded and said a low yeah.
"And we're trapped," I whispered.
"Naw! Keep close. And no funnies, heer?"
I followed his heavy breathing farther back to the end of the barn cellar. Then I remembered that it was from this part of the cellar that I'd heard the sound earlier as I was opening the gun crates. No doubt it was my captor, not the skunk or coon I had supposed. Almost instantly we were making our way through a small door and up a ramp of gravel to the outside. We left the vicinity of the barn and made our way halfway up the wooded slope that overlooked the building.
"They'll find my satchel in those bushes," I said, pointing. "They're sure to find it-"
"Naw, laddie. I've taken it up the slope. You see, you gave yourself away with the flashlight game with the dog, don't ya know.. though you put him to sleep right nicely. Come on."
Within thirty feet of the car he handed me my satchel. "Now go, Doctor Adams. Go back to Concord and stay there if your own personal safety means a damn to you… heer? If you get in my way again I promise you I'll not be so kind."
Then he was gone, moving with that amazing speed, silence, and agility that was so odd for a thick man. I looked back down at the barn. It was dark, but I could see faint sweeps and flashes of lights in the windows. The van near the big door breathed and purred at idle. Twice I heard anxious loud whispers and the knocking of wood and doors inside. I saw a shadowy figure kicking at the dog, who was whining softly. I heard the opening of the van's doors, and a soft slamming of them too. I dragged myself up the rest of the slope to my car-Christ I was tired!-and glassed the building once more. The lights winked out inside the old building, and the van's headlights went on, shooting narrow white cones of light out onto the dirt road. It moved away slowly, then gained more and more speed as it receded into the distance. I poured coffee and downed it, then went back to the car, backtracked my way down to the main road, then onto the Mass Pike and headed east for home. I was hoping to run across the van so I could follow it, but they'd probably taken another route and had too big a jump on me. I didn't know if they were loading more weapons into the building or taking the ones I had seen out. They had used the same door I had used initially and which I had seen them use earlier. This was puzzling because the guns were hidden in the stable. floor, but then I realized that the small door through which we had escaped was ill suited for vehicles, and the big one was inaccessible because rain had made a huge gully in the sloping gravel drive.
With the help of the thermos of coffee I made it home awake, and rolled up the drive. As I walked to the front door-I hadn't bothered with the garage-I thought I heard a sound at the side of the house. I waited three minutes in total silence. Nothing. My mind was beginning to play tricks on me. I needed sleep, and less cops and robbers.
The coffee had me going now; I walked to the back of the house past the small sign that said Atelier and entered Mary's ceramic studio. I switched on the light. The place was festooned with hanging plants of all varieties, each one in a huge custom-thrown urn. I saw her recent work on the big table. They were modeled after Chinese pots from one of the dynasties, and were trapezoidal in cross-section with angular, though handsome, lids. Some were two feet across. It takes a huge amount of arm muscle to throw a pot that big. They were glazed with a textured drip finish. I stood in silent admiration in the room. I also resolved to forget about him. Schilling, the boat, and even Allan Hart. I would tell Joe and anyone else who wanted to know all about the guns in the Buzarski barn and the blue van. Then it was up to them. This thing had taken too heavy a toll on Mary, and on us.
I went upstairs and kissed her awake and loved her back to sleep. We both said we felt a lot better. I slept very soundly. In fact I slept so soundly that Mary told me later it was her third scream from the bottom of the stairs that stirred me. I met her on the landing. She leaned into me, wailing and moaning in her nightgown. I felt her nails dive into my right forearm.
"The oven! In the oven, Charlie-my God!"
Then she ran to the bathroom, sick.
In the kitchen I saw that the oven door atop the stove was ajar. It was at eye level. I crept forward and opened it with caution. The face of Angel stared back at me. Her eyes were still open, but dulled. Her hound face wore a quizzical expression. There was no anger in it, no snarl to the lips. There was no fear either. Just a confused look, as if asking fate why this had happened to her. A tiny pool had gathered beneath her severed neck. Not much. Her long velvet ears hung down between the wires of the baking rack on which her head rested.
"Oh, my poor Angel," I whispered to her.