“Did you read the Boston Globe today?”
“Haven’t gotten to it,” Felix said.
“Check out the Metro section. Seems a couple of students were filming a movie near the Boston University campus. Lots of gunfire, bullets flying, bodies on the street.”
“The hell you say,” Felix said, both surprise and admiration in his voice.
“Page B-2, News Briefs,” I said. “Check it out. You know what this means, don’t you?”
“I’ve been around, I don’t need a picture drawn.”
Felix’s tone was pretty calm, a feeling I didn’t share. “All right, no drawn picture, but Felix, we’ve just entered the world of my former employer.”
No answer from the other end. I knew Felix was considering what I had just said; and to emphasize my point, I added: “Just so there’s no confusion, I don’t mean Shoreline magazine and my crazy editor, Denise Pichette-Volk. I mean before that.”
“Before that” being as a research analyst for an obscure section of the Department of Defense, which I had left years ago after the people in my section were all killed — except for me — in a training accident that could have embarrassed many a corrupt soul in our government.
I could hear Felix breathe. It was a damn fine cell phone.
“Well, how about that,” he finally said.
“Remember our little discussion back at the diner? About the number of men we’ve run up against since we went to Boston?”
“How could I forget? You put ketchup on eggs, remember?”
I pressed on. “You add the logistics and financing that you need to support that effort, and then you add on the ability to fake a news story about the shooting back at BU… we’re talking government agencies here.”
“Ours or theirs?”
“Somebody’s, that’s for damn sure.”
Outside my room, I could hear someone vacuuming the hallway. Any other time, I would find that incredibly irritating. Right now, I found it incredibly soothing.
Felix said, “You be extra careful, then.”
“What? No warning from you about stepping away, backing down, letting everything just settle out?”
Felix said, “They hurt your friend. I wasn’t going to insult your intelligence.”
“Thanks.”
“I’m going to be tied up for another day or three, getting Aunt Teresa out and down to Florida. You going to need anything?”
“You beat me to it,” I said. “Yeah, I’m going to be doing some out-of-state traveling. I need a photo ID and a credit card to match. Plus some cash. Can it be done?”
“How long do you need it for?”
“Just a couple of days.”
“Yeah, it can be done. Where are you now?”
I told him where and my room number, and he said, “Okay, it’ll be arranged. But what do you have planned?”
“You said something earlier about going back to the beginning.”
“Yeah. I remember.”
“I’m going back to the beginning, and then some.”
I brought Kara’s Subaru back to the Exonia Hospital parking lot and then took the elevator up to the ICU. At the entrance to Diane’s room, a muscular-looking young man was reading a copy of the Union-Leader newspaper out of Manchester, the state’s largest city. He had on jeans and a flannel shirt, and on display at his right hip was a holster with an automatic pistol.
Despite all that had gone on earlier, I felt happy at seeing him. I slowly approached him and he quickly folded his newspaper and put it in his lap.
“Help with you something?”
“I’m looking for Kara Miles.”
“And you are?”
“Lewis Cole. I’m a friend of hers and the detective sergeant.”
He stared me up and down and said, “You got ID?”
“Sure do. Let me get it.”
I moved slowly, went to my wallet, slipped out my New Hampshire driver’s license. I suppose I could have also passed over my press card, issued by the N.H. Department of Safety, but since I was no longer employed by Shoreline, I didn’t want to be accused of doing something illegal.
The police officer gave my license a quick scan, grunted, handed it back. “So it is you, and you’re one lucky fella. There’s four names on a list of people allowed to visit who don’t work at the hospital, and you’re one of them.” He motioned with his left shoulder. “Kara’s in there with the detective sergeant. You want I should get her?”
To do what? To tell her about the faint outlines of something dark and monstrous that had been stirred up out there, that was after me and her and Diane and no doubt others?
I passed over the keys to Kara’s car and condo. “Give these to her, if you don’t mind. Tell her thanks, that I’ve made other arrangements.”
“Fair enough. Anything else you’d like to say?”
“Officer, I’d love to, but I just don’t have the time.”
Sometimes in my off moments I like to think that maybe the Greek or Roman gods of old are still at work up there, sort of like a little immigrant grocery store going up against the current Walmart Supercenters of organized religion. Their activities by nature get drowned out, but every now and then they poke up, like they did tonight when the God of Irony — whoever she or he was — sent me a signal with the arrival at the Tyler Inn and Suites of a cab the front desk had called for me. Like before, it was a dark blue sedan with the yellow letters EXONIA CAB stuck on the side.
The window rolled down. The same cloud of cigarette smoke. The same driver from the other night.
“Oh, it’s you,” she said.
“Try to contain your enthusiasm.”
She took a hefty drag from her cigarette. “What, you need to get over to the train station again? Why the hell don’t you just walk it? Couldn’t be more than a mile.”
I reached for the door handle. “Maybe I just like your company.”
“Hah.”
I opened the door, said, “A different place this time. How does Durham sound?”
Her tone brightened. “Mister, Durham sounds just fine.”
To get to Durham from Exonia meant traveling through two small New Hampshire towns, and my new best friend kept up an entertaining chatter as we proceeded. Even in this day and age, there were dairy farmlands and wide-open fields, and it was good to look at the red, gold, and yellow of the fall foliage as we approached Durham. My personal driver talked about the weather, about the snotty prep-school kids in Exonia, her aching hips, and how her husband George was adjusting to his new artificial knee—“and thank Christ the V.A. eventually said it was a service-related injury, otherwise my grandkids would be paying off that bill when we’re both dead and gone.”
Downtown Durham consisted of the post office, a couple of beer-and-pizza places, and a tidy downtown with two-story brick buildings. The UNH buildings were mostly brick and marble, and when I was dropped off near a main intersection with lots of college students walking briskly along, my driver asked, “You need a ride back?”
“I do, but I don’t know how long I’ll be.”
She passed over a creased business card. “Call me.”
I glanced at the card. “Maggie, I appreciate it, but like I said, I don’t know when I’ll be done.”
Maggie shrugged, put the car into drive. “What, you think my dance card is full for the rest of the day? No worries, pal, okay?”
She drove off, and I thought: no worries.
I wondered what that felt like.
CHAPTER EIGHT
I walked a ways and sat on a stone wall, across from a dormitory called Congreve Hall. Like most of the surrounding buildings, it was brick with white windows and black shutters. Students walked along the concrete sidewalks, singly and in groups, most carrying knapsacks or book bags. I eyed them carefully as they walked by. There were times in this nation’s storied past that college students had had the luxury of studying in a safe bubble of fun and higher learning, only worrying about being popular or getting good grades, or getting the best education possible.