So I waited.
I shifted my weight. The rain was a steady downpour. I thought about when this day was over, I could be home and turn up the heat and take a long shower, put on some fresh dry clothes, and then I stopped thinking.
I didn’t have a home anymore.
It was now smoking timbers, wet books, charred clothes, and who knows what else.
I put my hands in my coat pockets.
My hair was soaked through.
A black van went up the road. I didn’t pay any attention to it.
Pants were soaked through, too.
I looked up the road, which went up a slight incline.
The van had stopped at the top of the incline.
Then it made a three-point turn.
It was coming back.
Well, this was getting interesting.
The van came down the road, slowed, and stopped across from me. Engine idling, headlights on, windshield wipers flipping back and forth, back and forth.
The passenger’s side door opened up. A man came out.
My right hand went up under my coat, slipped my Beretta out of my Bianchi leather shoulder holster. I brought my hand down and rested it behind my back.
No matter what was going to happen, I wasn’t getting into that van.
The man had on black slacks, a long black coat, and a tweed cap on his large head. He looked both ways before crossing.
A careful man.
I switched the safety off the Beretta, pulled the hammer back. There was a round in the chamber. There was always a round in the chamber. I didn’t want to waste time working the action.
The man sloshed his away across the street, stood before me. His hands were in his pockets. I decided then and there that if one of his hands came out of the pocket with a weapon in his hand, then I’d open fire.
I remembered my training. Aim for the lower trunk, keep on shooting, because the recoil would cause the pistol to buck, meaning subsequent shots would go right up the torso.
He stopped. Grinned. “Hey,” he said.
“Hey yourself.”
“Hell of a day.”
“I’ve seen worse.”
“You need any help?”
“Excuse me?”
“I said, you need any help? Shelter, place to stay, a warm meal?”
His right hand came out of his pocket and my pistol started coming up, until I saw he was holding a brochure. Clumsily, I brought my hand down, turned so he couldn’t see what was in my hand.
“Not at the moment, but thanks,” I said.
He held out the brochure and I cautiously took it with my left hand. “Catholic Charities,” he said. “Just driving around in this awful weather, see if we can help people who are in need.”
I nodded, folded the brochure in half. “I’m all right, honest. Thanks for stopping.”
He touched the tip of his tweed cap. “Just looking to help.”
“Glad to hear it.”
He went back to the van. I stomped my feet, splashing up some water.
Hell of a day.
About fifteen minutes later, a light red Chevy pickup truck slowed down, and Felix was driving. He stopped in front of me and I stepped forward and got into the truck. The interior was warm and oh, so comfortable. I sat down and slammed the door.
Felix said, “You didn’t think about waiting inside?”
“I like heavy weather.” I rubbed at the console of the truck. “Not your usual style of driving.”
“You complaining?”
“Observing.”
We pulled out, got into the nearly empty streets of Manchester. I sat back. It felt good to be moving. Felix said, “Got what I could from what was available.”
“Meaning what? You got supply dumps scattered around the state?”
“Around the northeast.” Jazz music was playing from the radio.
“How did you do that?”
“Pretty simple.”
“Nothing’s ever simple when you get involved, Felix.”
We came to a stoplight. He stopped, draped a big wrist and hand over the steering wheel, revealing a gold bracelet. “In my years of… self-employment, sometimes it worked to my advantage to arrange a cash discount in exchange for future services.”
“Funny, you don’t look like Don Corleone.”
“Well, it’s more than just favors. And I’d never do anything to humiliate or embarrass my former clients, or to put them in an uncomfortable spot. But due to… services provided, I have the ability to get transport, housing, meals, and other oddball items rather quickly. So be glad I’ve done so.”
“Very glad. So, how did you get this pickup truck?”
“From an apple farmer in Bedford,” he said. “He had an idiot son-in-law who kept on pressuring him to sell the joint, so another lifeless office park could be built on the property, make everybody a ton of money.”
“Doesn’t sound like something you’d do,” I pointed out. “Get involved in a family squabble and all that.”
“Yeah, but it was the son-in-law who had contacted me first. He had the oddest idea that I’d kill the old man for a sum of money. I told him that he was misinformed, and when he wouldn’t take no for an answer, we had what diplomats call a frank and open exchange of views.”
“I take it you prevailed.”
“Don’t ever doubt me,” he said. “So I went to the old man and explained the situation, and in exchange for letting him know about his idiot son-in-law, and for allowing the poor boy to live, I had the use of the farm’s spare pickup truck and free apple pies for the foreseeable future.”
“And what about the idiot son-in-law?”
“Last I heard, he’s still an idiot. And he’s finally gotten rid of his crutches.”
The light changed, we took a left, and it was good to be moving again.
Felix added: “By the way, now it’s your pickup truck. As long as you need it. Just don’t use it to haul around hay or manure or anything like that.”
“That’s what it’s designed for, Felix.”
“No, it’s designed to give suburban men the illusion that they have deep roots to the land. Or something like that.”
“Looks like you’re reading GQ again,” I said. “But another favor, if I may.” I passed over a set of keys. “The Subaru I’ve been driving, it belongs to Kara Miles, Diane’s partner. Can you get it delivered back to Tyler?”
He took the keys, tossed them into the air, caught them and put them in his coat pocket. “It’ll be delivered with a full gas tank and a full car wash.”
“Skip the car wash.”
“Why?”
“I think the rust is the only thing holding it together.”
About twenty minutes later, Felix dropped me off at a motel just off Interstate 93, called the Laurentian Peaks. “I’ll be back in a couple of hours with your wish list,” he said. “Then maybe you can take me out to an early dinner.”
“Fair enough, since I’m using your cash advance.”
Check-in was fairly straightforward, with a plump older woman with dyed black hair who spoke French to a man about her age, who sat in a corner, reading a newspaper with French headlines, half-watching a black-and-white television hanging from the white foam ceiling. From her directness and tone of voice, I imagined the guy was her husband. Or her long-suffering husband, if he ever got a word in edgewise to tell me.
Cash and my driver’s license was good enough, and I got a real key with a triangular hunk of plastic and a white number 5 in the center.
“You need anyt’ing,” she said, leaving the “h” out of the third word, “you jus’ call up ’ere, eh?”
I nodded in thanks, went to my room, and dumped my clothes about halfway to the shower. I took my 9mm Beretta along and put it on the toilet seat, within easy reach, and after unwrapping two of those little soap bars, washed up and warmed up in equal measures.
I wrapped myself in a white towel and hung up my wet clothes in the bathroom. The room was small but clean, with a constant drone coming in from the nearby Interstate. Inside the nightstand were a Gideon Bible, and also one in French. On the far wall was a portrait of the famed Chateau Frontenac; next to that, a crucifix. I didn’t have the number of the ACLU on speed dial on my cell phone, so I let it be. The television was a small color Sony, chained to a credenza; after a long, troubled nap, I watched a little news while waiting for Felix to show up.