Felix quickly turned the key to the Cadillac. “Lewis, I do believe it’s time to depart these fair shores.”
“No argument here.”
With lights off, Felix drove us down the street, slowed without halting at the stop sign, and made a turn. I admired his tradecraft. If we were still being watched by a curious neighbor or two, they wouldn’t see taillights flickering as we braked, so whether we went left or right wouldn’t be known.
Once the turn was made, Felix switched on the headlights, and we sped up through the quiet suburban streets of Brookline. Felix made a series of turns, going one way and then another, until I was severely, completely, and utterly lost. There was an impressive navigation system in his rented Cadillac, but he refused to use it. Earlier, he had said: “It takes a lot of work to stay disconnected in this wired world of ours, but you’ve got to do it. Otherwise, one of these days you’ll be sitting in court, watching some sharp prosecutor explain in full detail your driving record on the night in question.”
On this night, we soon left the confines of Brookline and entered Boston. Once we were out of the city where the police were on the prowl, I sensed Felix relaxing, and I did too, though right after that I was quite tired.
Felix said: “Always nice to set your own schedule for meeting public servants. The ones you meet at this hour of the night tend to be grumpy and suspicious.”
“Even when they’re working for the public good?”
“Especially when they’re working for the public good.”
“If you say so,” I said, and maybe I was being paranoid, for I swung my head around one last time to check on our progress.
Nothing.
Good. Meant the Brookline patrol cruiser was still back there in Brookline, doing its job. The fair people of Brookline were getting their tax money’s worth this early morning, for the police were indeed preventing a number of crimes including kidnapping, assault, and possible torture.
A series of crimes I was fully prepared to commit.
CHAPTER TWO
Felix brought us to the North End of Boston, with its narrow streets and brick buildings pushed together like some architect years ago had been deathly afraid of open space. Being with Felix the past few days, since we had driven down here from New Hampshire, I had gotten familiar with our temporary lodgings, but Felix drove by that brick building and went on for another two blocks.
I was going to ask him what was going on, but, through years of experience, I knew when to keep my mouth shut. His eyes narrow and his jaw tightens, and one can sense the energy coming from him while he’s working. Now he backed into a narrow alleyway and waited, switching off the Cadillac’s lights.
It was quiet. He shifted some in his seat. Leather squeaked. I kept my mouth shut.
A group of drunken college students stumbled by. One of them stopped and weaved his way into the alley, started fumbling at his belt and zipper. Felix said “Not on your life,” and he lowered the window.
“Hey!” he called out.
The student raised his head, grunted something in return.
Felix said, “Pull it in, zip it up, or I’m coming out. And if I come out, your hands will be worthless for a month, and you’ll be wearing an adult diaper. Got it?”
The student got it. He wandered back out to the street, moved away. Felix raised the window. He sat, silent, looking out the windshield.
“What’s going on?”
Felix looked left, looked right, looked left again. “Don’t know. Just got the feeling we’re being followed.”
“The cops?”
“Maybe. I don’t know.”
I kept quiet, gave him space. A few long minutes passed. “After years of being out there, doing what I do, you gain… a sixth sense, or a sight, or something like that. Nothing you can put your hand on, but you learn to trust it. Has saved my skin on a number of occasions.”
“And you’re feeling that now?”
He tugged at an ear. “That I am.”
“But I don’t see anything.”
“Neither do I,” he said. “But I feel something… ”
He switched on the headlights, put the Cadillac in drive, slid us back out on the narrow North End street. “Eh, probably nothing. I’m tired, you’re tired, and it’s damn late at night.”
A few minutes later, he pulled up in front of our quarters. There was an empty spot in front of the four-story brick building. There was always an empty spot there, and when I had noted that to Felix our first night here, he had said, quietly, “Nobody in this neighborhood would dare to take it.”
We got out into the chilly early morning air. Lots of lights out there, the hum of traffic, car horns and distant sirens. The street was jammed with parked cars, wet trash was underfoot, and, by the near alley, there was the strong smell of recently released urine.
Big-city life.
I hated it.
I wanted to be back at Tyler Beach, in my small hundred-year-old-plus home, deep in bed, listening only to the creaks of the old timbers and the gentle roar of the ocean waves crashing in, with no worries besides what I was going to have for breakfast the next day.
If I said something, I knew Felix would take me back right away. Tyler Beach was just about an hour away, and then we’d both be back where we belonged, instead of here, where we had to be.
We retrieved our respective pistols and then, from the back seat of the Cadillac, took out our duffel bags. Our first night here, after another long night of surveillance, I had been in favor of leaving our gear in the Cadillac instead of humping it up three flights of stairs, but Felix had instantly quashed that idea. “Not for a minute,” he had said. “Leave stuff like that out in the car, you’re leaving evidence. All it would take is some nitwit sideswiping or trying to steal the damn thing, and cops will be here, asking questions.”
Now with duffel bags over our shoulders, Felix led the way and we went up some stone steps, and he unlocked the door. Dim light bulbs flickered in the stairwell, and we slowly went up the creaking stairs. Instead of the smell of urine and wet trash, there was the smell of spices and sauces.
On the third-floor landing, Felix unlocked another door and we stepped inside a very warm and cozy living room. There was a thick braided rug in the center, and two plush couches with lace doilies on the armrests. A light had been left on for us by the owner of this building, Aunt Teresa, a relative of Felix’s who was no doubt fast asleep in her own room. We softly let the duffel bags down, for Aunt Teresa was quite the light sleeper, for which I couldn’t blame her, since she was closing in on her tenth decade of life.
A small kitchen was on the other end of the living room, and there were two other small rooms, one of which was a spare bedroom, the other a sewing room. In a burst of generosity when we had first arrived three days ago, Felix had taken the sewing room and a fold-out couch. I think it was a positive comment on his character that he didn’t readily seem to regret that decision, which was why I always let him use the tiny bathroom first.
When he was done I went into the bathroom myself. It had an old porcelain sink and a claw-footed bathtub. A small statue of Jesus was propped on top of the medicine cabinet.
Felix was already in his room when I got out, and I went into my lodging, closing the door behind me. I undressed and tossed my clothes on a simple wooden chair in the corner. I crawled into bed, switched off the light, and stared up at the ceiling. Even with the shade drawn, the outdoor light was illuminating everything inside, from the simple chest of drawers to the chair with my clothes on it, to the nightstand with another lace doily, and up on a small shelf by the door, a statue of the Virgin Mary. The statue was glow-in-the-dark, and her eerie light seemed to look right at me.