"Thing is," said Joe as he lunged so hard into an egg roll that the cooking oil ran down his big chin, "thing is, we gotta make the thing stick." He commenced chewing, and his big soft eyes glazed over in ecstasy.
We sat around a big table in the Yangtze River Restaurant in Lexington. I had just inhaled a tureen of hot-sour soup, an egg roll, won-ton shrimp, and four pork dumplings with hot sesame oil. I had warned my mouth, esophagus, and all parts below that they were in for trouble, then thrown caution to the winds. Nothing beats a good thing like too much of it.
"How?" asked Mary, whose mouth was swollen with Szechuan spicy beef and fried rice.
Joe shook his head like a big bass fighting a hook. The headshake meant that he didn't know, couldn't talk, or both. We were thinking of an airtight way to nail Joseph Carlton Critchfield to the wall, even though he was ninety-two years old.
"His grandson's the active one now," said Brian. "Maybe he's the one we're really after. One thing: we're not going to get anything firm on him because of that letter. It's damning; it'll wreck his rep
… but it won't put him away."
"We got to get him for killin' Johnny," said Sam.
"I've got a nasty hunch," said Brian, "based on a lot of experience, that if we don't make it tight on the first pass, he'll slip through the net. He's got too many connections."
"You're dead right," Joe said, rolling up a pancake filled with mu shu pork: He fed the tube into his mouth; it disappeared like a branch into a tree shredder. "I suggest entrapment."
"Isn't that illegal?" I said.
"Yep. I suggest it anyway. Just for openers. All Critchfield now knows are two things. One: nobody's found the incriminating photographs. He therefore has good reason to suspect they'll never be found… at least in his lifetime. Two: the thugs- all three of them- who could testify against him are dead, and nobody's come knocking on his door. He thinks he's in the clear. He's finally breathing easy. He's ready."
"Count me in, Joe."
"Forget it, Sam. We count you out. You're up to your ass in alligators already. You've done your part and we all thank you, but now you've got to be cool. Nope, there's only one logical person to spring the trap."
"Who?" asked Mary.
Joe pivoted around in his chair and leveled a big fat finger at my chest.
"You."
"Oh no."
"Oh yes. You're the one, Doc."
"Now wait a minute, Joey," said Mary. "Wait just a goddamn mm-"
"I know, I know. But listen, the thugs are dead and the evidence is missing. But there's one guy around that if DeLucca did report in to old Critchfield- and we have every reason to think he did- could be a possible threat. And we all know who it is."
Everybody stared at me. I felt like Caesar crossing the forum on the ides of March.
"But I… but I…" I protested.
"Not to worry, Doc. Take it easy, Mare, Joe continued, scooping a pint of sweet-sour pork over a heap of steaming rice. "There's nothing to worry about."
He commenced shoveling in the food, and I felt a little better. I guess. But I had my doubts. After all, the last person he said that to was the late Johnny Rizzo. I felt the first of the gas pains shoot up my rib cage like a napalm rocket, and winced. Mary saw my expression and rubbed my shoulder. She attempted at weak smile.
"Nothing to worry about, Charlie," she said. I stared glumly at the table and asked for the garlic shrimp and snow peas.
"Here you go, pal," said Brian as he handed me the platter.
"You're gonna need it."
I peered down at the L-shaped brick-and-stone mansion at the foot of the hill. There was an iron fence all around it, and the tall, ornate gates were closed. In back of the house, enclosed by the L, was a pool, and off to one side a formal French garden. The roof was slate, and heavily gabled. It sure looked like a big house for one old man. But then he wasn't alone; he had his staff too…
A portly black man in a dark uniform came out the back door and walked along a curved gravel path to the garage. He had white hair and carried a leather case. He disappeared into the garage, which was a four-car structure with a sizable apartment over it. It matched the house. Seconds later one of the doors glided up and a Fleetwood brougham limo the size of a boxcar rolled silently out, swung around the house, and eased to a stop in front of the terrace steps. It was the same one I'd seen earlier at the younger Critchfield's fund-raiser on Beacon Hill. The man got out of the car, putting on his cap, then opened the rear door and stood at attention with his white-gloved hand on the door handle. He could have been hewn from stone. It was right out of a movie.
I felt a jabbing at my shoulder and handed the binoculars to my companion, who was also sprawled prone on the granite ledge above the estate on the outskirts of Andover. On the northern horizon we could see the forest of giant smokestacks in the city of Lawrence. They were still nowadays; no great white and black plumes of steam and smoke rose from them. They were like a forest of dead trees.
"Here comes somebody," said Liatis Roantis, adjusting the focus of the marine glasses. "Looks like the big shot himself."
Without the glasses the two figures descending the front steps of the mansion looked very small, but there was something familiar about the man who accompanied the old man into the limo. Was it his walk, his appearance? What? Before I had a chance to get a look through the glasses, the two men had entered the car and settled themselves in its vast interior. The black chauffeur shut the door and got back behind the wheel. The big car glided around the drive and through the gateswhich had swung open, apparently by remote control- and was gone.
Roantis and I sat up. We were within view of the house, but its owner had left. I stood up and stretched. Roantis continued to scan the place.
"We could go in if you want," he said casually.
"Nah. I did that already, up in Lowell. I'm still in trouble for it, too."
"Want me to go alone."
"No. Joe doesn't even know I contacted you. After he struck out on his entrapment plan with the police brass, he thinks nobody's doing anything to get Old Man Critchfield."
"So he let the brass talk him out of it? Listen, inna army, if I'd done that, me and my men would have died right away."
"Yeah. But Joe's in kind of hot water lately with the brass. For instance, somehow they found out he had a conference with one of the North End Wise Guys. They told him to cool it or else. So I'm going after Critchfield myself."
"Why are you?"
"I just… I just. want to see the record set straight, I guess."
The old ex-mercenary looked up at me and laughed softly.
"I think you're a little bit like me, Doc. You get bored easy. And when you get bored, you get in trouble."
"Speaking of trouble, you're usually in plenty. You still on probation for that bar fight in the Zone?"
"Yeah. Almost over with. Ahhhh, fuck it," he said, rolling over and sweeping the estate with the 7x50 glasses. "I still say we should go in. Hey, how much are you paying me?"
"Nothing."
"Figured. You know a guy could get rich down in there… in less than an hour."
"Don't get any ideas." I looked at my watch. It had stopped.
My four-hundred-dollar Blackwatch Chronograph Adventurer had broken. It did everything but tell time. I sighed. "In about ten minutes he'll be at the Holiday Inn desk to pick up the envelope. He'll probably open it and look at the prints in the car on the way back here. I just want to watch his reaction if we can."
"And then what? All you've done is made him mad. And making him go himsef that's… whaddaya call it? Insult and injury. I tink he's gonna be mad at you, Doc. And a guy like that is mean, let me tell you." He swept his arm over the estate below. "Hell, anybody got a spread like that, they're mean. Look at me. I'm the meanest guy who ever lived and I don't got diddly-shit."
I grinned at him.
"It's 'cause you're not greedy, Liatis… and because you spend all your dough on good booze and bad women."
His eyes crinkled up in laughter. They had a slightly Mongol look to them, and his neck was laced with cords and veins. He looked a little like another Lithuanian, Charles Bronson. Only meaner. He flicked his droopy mustache and lit a cigarette.
"How you know the desk clerk dint open the envelope and spill the beans?"
"Not a chance and you know it. Not the way I sealed it, and not with Critchfield's name on it."
So we waited for another twenty-five minutes until the big black car returned. It was going pretty fast, no doubt at the urging of its irritated occupant. It swung around in front of the steps and the old man and his assistant, who still looked vaguely familiar, stalked up the steps and into the house. The old man appeared to be telling the assistant off. They disappeared.
Then nothing happened for almost another half-hour. Suddenly Roantis, who had the binoculars, punched my arm.
"Look who's coming out," he said. I took the binoculars and saw the old man and his assistant come out on the terrace and sit down in wrought-iron chairs around a table. They seemed to be enjoying the sunshine. The old man, who moved with speed and grace for his age, held a cordless telephone which he dialed and talked into.
"He's getting help," said Roantis. "He's looked at your pictures and now he's calling in the heat. You watch."
"I think he's gonna need it. Question is, what do we do now?"
"The note in the envelope said I'd contact him. I'm wondering how and when."
"No time like the present."
"Did you bring a gun?".
"Nope. judge told me that I can't carry one while on pro. Said it'd be a year in the slammer if I'm caught with one. Too bad, too. This'd be perfect for my streetcleaner."
"What streetcleaner? I don't see any streetcleaner."
"Not that kind of streetcleaner."
"Well what?"
"It's a- shhhhhhhhh! Hear that?"
"No. I don't hear anything but the wind."
"Well I thought I heard something like bushes breaking. I think maybe it's too bad I dint bring a gun. Too late I guess."
"Well let's go then," I said.
"What's your hurry? Look, number-two man just went inside. Let's hang around and see what happens."
We watched the man walk into the house. The chauffeur came out the back door and went into the garage again. Then nothing happened for about ten minutes; the old man on the terrace continued to speak into the cordless telephone. Occasionally he got up from the wrought-iron chair and paced the terrace, then sat again. The middle garage door swung up and an enclosed jeep crept out. It went slowly along the gravel drive and took a fork that led around behind the house, where it disappeared momentarily, then came back in sight, going a bit faster now, and returned to the main drive and left the estate. We watched it till it disappeared, then turned our attention back to the mansion below. After twenty minutes I was getting bored, and said so.
"Yeah, but we've got to wait and watch. Pretty soon now something's gonna happen and-"
Schlick-schlick.
The sound startled us, coming from directly behind. And neither one of us liked the sound. Not a bit. We turned and found ourselves looking down the business end of a shotgun. The guy who was holding it was old Mr. Critchfield's assistant. How he got out of the house and up on the rock behind us I had no idea. Not at first, anyway. And now, twenty feet away from him instead of three hundred, I knew why he had looked so familiar even at a distance. I could now see the thick glasses. And he'd put on the trenchcoat, too.
It was my old friend from the mill who'd smacked Mary down. The guy who'd clobbered me up in Lowell. It was the guy with the heavily starched lapels.
"Move back… all the way back," he said, jerking the muzzle at us. We did, until we were right at the cliffs edge and in full view of the house. Without lifting his eyes from us he waved his arm in a high, slow arc. I looked down and saw old Critchfield give a responsive wave, then bring something up to his face. He was watching through binoculars.
"Well Doctor, I didn't know you had a friend with you. All we could see was you from inside… and we were careful never to gaze up in your direction when you could see us. Who is he?"
I explained that Mr. Roantis was an old dentist friend of mine. Lapels gave him the once-over and decided he was harmless. Certainly, at five-eight and slightly gray and pudgy, Roantis didn't look like an expert in practically every exotic form of fighting and defense ever devised. That he could kill people with his earlobes usually went unnoticed.
"Please don't point the gun, sir," said Roantis with a pant. "I can't stand it. I'll faint and fall off… please!"
"Then don't move," said Lapels, approaching me. He held the shotgun cradled in his right hand while he fished in the pocket of his trenchcoat. That coat was a regular bag of tricks. He took out a thin leather sap. It was a spring-loaded sapper with a leather-covered steel ball at either end. He waggled it in his left hand and it flicked back and forth fast on its springy steel shaft. It made a whirring, whistling sound like the wings of a mourning dove. I didn't like it.
"I owe you pain," he whispered, and swung it.
There was a little high whistle and a stab of pain on the point of my elbow. It shot up my arm, up the side of my face to the top of my head. I heard the whistle again and felt the snapper strike my right collarbone. The pain was deep, and traveled through my bones to my chest, my right shoulder, and my lower jaw. The whistle again, and Lapels had reached low and struck my left knee. He hit it hard, and the left leg gave way in a wave of agony. It felt as though my bones were breaking. I sucked air through clenched teeth.
"Please don't! That's enough!" pleaded Roantis, a look of horror on his face.
"Quiet, short stuff, or you'll get it too."
The little truncheon continued to whistle and snap at me like a trained serpent. And Lapels had studied his perverted craft. He knew exactly where to strike so the steel would hit bone and- nerve bundles and send the pain into the center of my neural pathways until I was aglow with hurt. He finally tapped me almost delicately on the tip of my jaw, and the world grew fuzzy. Noises were distant, and there was the sound of rolling surf in my poor hurt head.
"That should slow you down, Adams. If I had anything to say about it, I'd kill you here and now. Now let's go, both of you. Mr. Critchfield's waiting."
Lapels walked behind us, the big smoothbore aimed at our kidneys. It would have made me nervous if I hadn't been so woozy already. The sap had taken the tar out of me all right. I could barely walk. Roantis, his pride no doubt injured at having been outfoxed by a common thug, stomped on ahead of me, his hands shoved deep into his Windbreaker's pockets, looking at the ground and saying nothing. We passed my parked Scout, then the jeep. It was obvious to me now how he'd gotten the drop on us. The chauffeur brought the jeep around behind the house, out of our line of sight. It had stopped there momentarily for the chauffeur to get out and Lapels, with his smoothbore, to climb in. He'd left the estate, doubled back up the dirt road, then crept up on us. One thing was becoming more and more apparent to me: Old Man Critchfield was smart and tough. And he had help that was utterly loyal and brutal.
After we passed the vehicles we walked down a steep and twisty path, and it was there that Roantis fell down. It happened so fast that I almost stumbled over him. He had tripped over a root and fallen flat on his face. He'd fallen hard because we were going downhill. I regained my balance and leaned over him. He didn't move. He had covered his head with his hands, and was moaning. I noticed one strange thing: his watchband had been turned inside out.
"Get away," said Lapels. I stood ten feet away, swaying back and forth to keep upright. I wasn't faking. Lapels held the shot-gun at Roantis and kicked him in the legs. More whimpering from Roantis, whose hands went down under his face for a pillow.
"It's broken," he wailed. "I think I broke my ankle. Please don't kick…"
Lapels listened to his whining and whimpering with a disgusted look. Then Roantis tried to get up several times, but each time he fell back on his stomach.
"Want me to help?" I asked. Lapels told me to shut up and stay where I was. I watched him kick and prod Roantis, finally grow impatient, and reach down and grab the prone man by the back of his jacket collar and heave."
Wrong move.
We walked single file through the gates of the Critchfield estate. Roantis was right behind me, and Lapels followed, holding the gun on both of us as before. The gatekeeper-gardener, a husky chap of Hispanic heritage, watched our little parade closely to make certain nothing was amiss. Lapels nodded at him and he closed and locked the gate behind us.
We were in there now, and couldn't get out. we climbed up the stone terrace steps to the huge oak door. The old black chauffeur opened it and let us in.
"Bring them in here, Lundt!" cried a shrill and imperious voice.