Part 5 (1/2)

Duffy had gone quiet. She was thinking hard. I was pretty sure she was thinking of ways she could use me. And I didn't mind at all.

”Will you stay in Boston?” she asked. ”Where we can find you?”

I said I would, and they left, and that was the end of day five.

I found a scalper in a sports bar and spent most of days six and seven at Fenway Park watching the Red Sox struggling through an early-season homestand. The Friday game went seventeen innings and ended very late. So I slept most of day eight and then went back to Symphony Hall at night to watch the crowd. Maybe Quinn had season tickets to a concert series. But he didn't show. I replayed in my mind the way he had glanced at me.

It might have been just that rueful crowded-sidewalk thing. But it might have been more.

Susan Duffy called me again on the morning of day nine, Sunday. She sounded different.

She sounded like a person who had done a lot more thinking. She sounded like a person with a plan.

”Hotel lobby at noon,” she said.

She showed up in a car. Alone. The car was a Taurus built down to a very plain specification. It was grimy inside. A government vehicle. She was wearing faded denim jeans with good shoes and a battered leather jacket. Her hair was newly washed and combed back from her forehead. I got in on the pa.s.senger side and she crossed six lanes of traffic and drove straight into the mouth of a tunnel that led to the Ma.s.s Pike.

”Zachary Beck has a son,” she said.

She took an underground curve fast and the tunnel ended and we came out into the weak midday April light, right behind Fenway.

”He's a college junior,” she said. ”Some small no-account liberal-arts place, not too far from here, as it happens. We talked to a cla.s.smate in exchange for burying a cannabis problem. The son is called Richard Beck. Not a popular person, a little strange. Seems very traumatized by something that happened about five years ago.”

”What kind of something?”

”He was kidnapped.”

I said nothing.

”You see?” Duffy said. ”You know how often regular people get kidnapped these days?”

”No,” I said.

”Doesn't happen,” she said. ”It's an extinct crime. So it must have been a turf war thing.

It's practically proof his dad's a racketeer.”

”That's a stretch.”

”OK, but it's very persuasive. And it was never reported. FBI has no record of it.

Whatever happened was handled privately. And not very well. The cla.s.smate says Richard Beck is missing an ear.”

”So?”

She didn't answer. She just drove west. I stretched out on the pa.s.senger seat and watched her out of the corner of my eye. She looked good. She was long and lean and pretty, and she had life in her eyes. She was wearing no makeup. She was one of those women who absolutely didn't need to. I was very happy to let her drive me around. But she wasn't just driving me around. She was taking me somewhere. That was clear. She had come with a plan.

”I studied your whole service record,” she said. ”In great detail. You're an impressive guy.”

”Not really,” I said.

”And you've got big feet,” she said. ”That's good, too.”

”Why?”

”You'll see,” she said.

”Tell me,” I said.

”We're very alike,” she said. ”You and me. We have something in common. I want to get close to Zachary Beck to get my agent back. You want to get close to him to find Quinn.”

”Your agent is dead. Eight weeks now, it would be a miracle. You should face it.”

She said nothing.

”And I don't care about Quinn.”

She glanced right and shook her head.

”You do,” she said. ”You really do. I can see that from here. It's eating you up. He's unfinished business. And my guess is you're the sort of guy who hates unfinished business.” Then she paused for a second. ”And I'm proceeding on the a.s.sumption that my agent is still alive, unless and until you supply definitive proof to the contrary.”

”Me?” I said.

”I can't use one of my people,” she said. ”You understand that, right? This whole thing is illegal as far as the Justice Department is concerned. So whatever I do next has to stay off the books. And my guess is you're the sort of guy who understands off-the-books operations. And is comfortable with them. Even prefers them, maybe.”

”So?”

”I need to get somebody inside Beck's place. And I've decided it's going to be you.

You're going to be my very own long-rod penetrator.”

”How?”

”Richard Beck is going to take you there.”

She came off the pike about forty miles west of Boston and turned north into the Ma.s.sachusetts countryside. We pa.s.sed through picture-perfect New England villages.

Fire departments were out on the curbs polis.h.i.+ng their trucks. Birds were singing. People were putting stuff on their lawns and pruning their bushes. There was the smell of woodsmoke in the air.

We stopped at a motel in the middle of nowhere. It was an immaculate place with quiet brick facings and blinding white trim. There were five cars in the lot. They were blocking access to the five end rooms. They were all government vehicles. Steven Eliot was waiting in the middle room with five men. They had hauled their desk chairs in from their own rooms. They were sitting in a neat semicircle. Duffy led me inside and nodded to Eliot. I figured it was a nod that meant: I told him, and he hasn't said no. Yet. She moved to the window and turned so that she faced the room. The daylight was bright behind her.

It made her hard to see. She cleared her throat. The room went quiet.

”OK, listen up, people,” she said. ”One more time, this is off the books, this is not officially sanctioned, and this will be done on our own time and at our own risk.

Anybody wants out, just leave now.”

n.o.body moved. n.o.body left. It was a smart tactic. It showed me she and Eliot had at least five guys who would follow them to h.e.l.l and back.

”We have less than forty-eight hours,” she said. ”Day after tomorrow Richard Beck heads home for his mother's birthday. Our source says he does it every year. Cuts cla.s.ses and all. His father sends a car with two pro bodyguards because the kid is terrified of a repeat abduction. We're going to exploit that fear. We're going to take down the bodyguards and kidnap him.”