Part 14 (2/2)

The wind was up now and I was on the run toward the locks. There were two locks, spanned by pedestrian walkways that swung open when a boat went through. They weren't big locks. There was no commercial traffic on the Charles. The locks were for pleasure boats. The dam was to keep the ocean from flowing upstream at high tide and leaving a layer of heavy salt water at the bottom of the river to kill all the bottom life.

There were streetlights on the dam property, lining the driveway entrance from City Square. I moved as fast as I could, staying low, trying not to silhouette against the streetlights. The wind was cold and I was soaked and s.h.i.+vering. I crossed a set of railroad tracks that breached the fence and ran across the dam compound and came to an end just short of the base of the Charlestown Bridge. If the fat guy with the shotgun knew about them, he wouldn't have to go around. If he knew about them and came out that way, I'd be a sitting duck in the lighted area with the choice of standing my ground with no gun or running for it across the two sets of locks on the narrow iron footpaths under the are lights. In either case the guy with the shotgun could cut me in two while juggling two pickled eggs.

I stopped and moved back along the fence and crouched flat against it, next to the railroad tracks, beside the opening. The two gates were swung all the way back against the fence. A chain dangled from one of the gates, and a broken padlock was hooked through it. So much for security. I looked closer at the chain. It was merely looped through the fence link, the padlock still attached. Someone had cut it with a bolt cutter. G.o.d knows why. But vandalism marches to the beat of its own drummer. I took the chain out of the fence. Doubled, with the padlock end swinging free, it made a decent weapon. Not, on the whole, as decent as a shotgun, but better than an empty .38 with a two-inch barrel. The weeds grew right up to the outside of the fence, overgrowing the railroad tracks. On my side it was lawn and I felt the center of attention in the bare lawn with the streetlights s.h.i.+ning twenty feet away, but they wouldn't see me until they got through the fence. If they came around, I could duck back through the gate into the weeds again. If they came one from each direction, I was probably going to be shot often.

They came on the railroad tracks. I saw the weed movement and then they were through the opening. First through was Shotgun, nearest me, and half a step behind Shotgun's left was a guy wearing aviator gla.s.ses and carrying a long-barreled revolver. I swung the chain down on the wrist that held the shotgun. The fat guy made a gasp, the shotgun fired upward and to the left and fell from his hand. I was s.h.i.+elded from the guy with the gla.s.ses by the fat man, who dropped to his knees, pressing his right hand against his chest and groping for the shotgun with his left. As the fat man dropped I hit his buddy across the face with my chain flail. His gla.s.ses broke and some of the gla.s.s got in his eyes. Blood appeared and he dropped the handgun and put both hands to his face. I shook the chain in a short circle to keep it out and away from him and then drove it down against the back of the fat man's neck. He had gotten the shotgun but was having trouble pumping a round up with his right hand numb and maybe broken. The second time the chain hit him he pitched forward and lay still on top of the gun, the barrel sticking out past his shoulder. His partner ran. With one hand still pressed against his right eye, he sprinted for the pedestrian walkway across the locks. I worried the shotgun out from under the fat man, pumped a round up. Shot the fat man as he lay, and went after his partner, working the pump lever as I ran. The partner was hurt and it slowed him. Pain will do that, even if it's pain elsewhere. The iron walkway zigzags across the locks. Over each lock it is actually on the dam doors that open and shut to let boats through and a sign says that the locks are subject to opening without warning.

By the time we were across the first lock I had closed the gap between us. The walkway was wet with rain and he had on leather-soled shoes. Blood ran down his face, he was running with one eye closed and his hand pressed against the eye. I was five feet behind him when we reached the second lock.

”Freeze,” I said, ”or I will blow the top half of you off.”

He could tell from my voice that I was right behind him. He stopped and put his left hand in the air. His right still pressed against his eye.

”My eye,” he said. ”There's something bad wrong with my eye.”

”Turn around,” I said.

He turned, his face was b.l.o.o.d.y. And the rain drenching down on it made the blood pink and somehow worse looking than if it had been just blood.

”I want you to go tell Mickey Paultz that you couldn't do it. That he sent five guys and it wasn't anywhere near enough. You hear me, sc.u.mbag? Tell him next time he better come himself.”

”I'm going to lose my f.u.c.king eye,” he said.

”I hope so,” I said. ”Now, be sure to tell Mickey what I said.”

He stood silently, holding his eye, one hand looking silly sticking up in the air.

”Beat it,” I said.

Still he stood, staring at me with one eye. I threw the shotgun in a soft spinning arc into the river. ”Beat it,” I said. ”Or I will throw you in after it.”

”My f.u.c.king eye,” he said. And turned. And ran toward the Boston side.

I trailed after him at a more sedate pace, feeling the beginning fatigue of pa.s.sion expended and a slowing of the adrenaline pump.

”You didn't kill her on me this time,” I said aloud. ”Not this time.”

Beyond the locks was a parking lot, and beyond that North Station. I went around to the front of North Station and caught a cab back to a.s.sembly Square. I looked like I'd been wrestling alligators and losing. The cabbie didn't appear to notice. A lot of North Station fares looked like that.

CHAPTER 33.

Linda stood against the wall outside the pub at the a.s.sembly Square Shopping Mall. She had dried out in the time she'd waited and her hair was curlier than usual where it had been rain-soaked. She stood motionless as I approached, and when she saw me her eyes widened but she made no other sign.

”How you doing, babe,” I said. ”You in town long?”

She stared at me and shook her head. ”Come here often?” I said.

”What happened?” she said, her voice soft.

”I thwarted them,” I said.

Her soft voice was insistent and there was some color on her cheeks. It wasn't the flush of health, it was two red spots, unnatural and hot looking. ”What happened, G.o.dd.a.m.n you?”

”There were five of them, I think I killed four. One I sent back to his boss with a message.”

”You just killed four people? Just now? And then you come here and joke with me? 'You in town long?' Jesus Christ.”

”They were trying to kill me.”

”What was that stuff about losing me too,” she said.

I felt very tired, it was hard to concentrate. ”I don't know,” I said. ”What stuff?”

”You said you didn't want to lose me too. Were you talking about Susan?”

I remembered. I remembered other things. Feelings I'd had. I remembered on the locks in the dark rain with the wind off the harbor pulling my words away, You didn't kill her on me this time. You didn't kill her on me this time.

”I was thinking of a woman in Los Angeles,” I said. ”I let her get killed.”

”Well, I'm not she,” Linda said.

”I know. I'll call a cab and get us out of here.”

”And then what?” Linda said.

”Cook a couple of steaks,” I said. ”Drink a little wine? Your place or mine?”

Linda shook her head. ”Not tonight. I . . . I can't tonight. I have never . . . I'm exhausted and I need to be alone and to think. I can't just eat and drink and . . . I can't do anything after something like this.”

I nodded. ”Okay,” I said. ”Let me get us home anyway.”

I found a phone booth in the mall and called a cab, and Linda and I went and waited for it at the main mall entrance, inside, out of the rain. We didn't talk and Linda, normally the most touching of people, kept her hands buried in her pockets and stood a foot away.

The cab dropped us off at Linda's condo. I got out with her. She said, ”I can go up all right alone. You better keep the cab.”

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