“You know that he hasn’t caught on to you already?”
“No, I don’t.”
They waited in silence for another ten minutes.
“If you saw a gun barrel or something sticking out of a ripped package, that would be sufficient cause for you to ask for a permit, right?” asked Matt.
“Absolutely. A wrapped-up gun is a concealed weapon.”
“He’s got a permit to carry concealed, but you could get the serial numbers.”
“I’ll go bump the sonofabitch,” Cronin said.
Five minutes after that, Gerald North Atchison came out the Yock’s Diner. Detective Cronin stepped from between two parked cars and bumped into him, hard enough to make Atchison stagger. But he didn’t drop the package, and he held on to it firmly while Cronin profusely apologized for not watching where he was going, and tried to straighten Atchison’s clothing.
Detective Cronin, still apologizing, went into the diner. Atchison watched him, then turned and walked quickly to his car. Matt trotted to his Porsche and followed him out of the parking lot.
Atchison drove back toward Media. Just making the light, he turned left on Providence Road. The line of traffic was such that Matt could not run the stoplight. He fumed impatiently until it finally gave him a green left-turn signal, and then took out after Atchison’s Cadillac.
It was nowhere in sight. There weren’t even any red taillights glowing in the distance.
Matt put his foot to the floor. When he passed the residence of Mr. and Mrs. Brewster Cortland Payne II, he was going seventy-five miles an hour. There were lights on in the kitchen, and he had a mental picture of his mother and father at the kitchen table.
Just beyond the bridge over the railroad tracks near the Wallingford Station, he was able to pick out the peculiar taillight assembly of a Cadillac. He gradually closed the distance between them.
Atchison drove into and through Chester, to the river, then through a run-down area of former shipyards and no-longer-functioning oil refineries, weaving slowly between enormous potholes and junk strewn on the roadway.
Matt turned off his headlights, which kept, he felt, Atchison from noticing that he was being followed but which also denied him a clear view of the road. He struck several potholes hard enough to worry about blowing a tire, and making a trip to enrich the alignment technicians at the Porsche dealership a certainty.
And then he ran over something metallic, which lodged itself somewhere under the Porsche, set up a terrifying howl of torn metal, and gave off a shower of sparks.
He slammed on the brakes, wondering if he had done so because he was afraid Atchison would hear the screeching or see the sparks, or because it hurt to consider what damage was being done to the Porsche.
He jumped out, looking in frustration at Atchison’s disappearing Cadillac. And then the brake lights came on and the Cadillac stopped.
Christ, he saw me!
What do I do now?
There was a sudden light as the Cadillac’s door opened. Atchison got out, looked around, seemed fascinated with the Porsche, and then slammed the car door shut.
It took Matt’s eyes some time to adjust to the now pitch darkness, but when they did he saw Atchison-nothing more than a silhouette-walking away from the car.
He ran after him. When he got close he saw that they were next to the river, and that Atchison was on a pier extending into it.
He saw Atchison make a move like a basketball player. A shadow of something arced up into the sky, fell, and in a moment, Matt could faintly hear a splash.
Atchison now walked quickly back to the Cadillac, fired it up, and started to turn around. As the headlights swept the area, Matt dropped to the ground. His hands touched something wet and sticky. He put his fingers to his nose. It smelled as foul as it felt.
Atchison’s Cadillac rolled past him. It stopped at the Porsche. Atchison got half out of the car, looked around, then got all the way out. It looked for a moment as if he was going to try the door, but then he stumbled over something.
Then he got back in the car and drove rapidly away.
Matt got to his feet, rubbed his hands against his jacket to cleanse them of whatever the hell it was on his hands-the jacket was ruined anyway-and walked back to his car.
He saw what Atchison had stumbled over. A curved automobile bumper.
That which caused that unholy screech and the shower of sparks. With a little bit of luck, Atchison will think that’s why the Porsche is here, and not that I ran over the goddamn thing when I was tailing him.
The Cadillac’s taillights were no longer visible.
What the hell, he’s probably going home anyway.
Matt opened the car door with two fingers, got the keys from the ignition, then opened the hood and took out the jack. It took him fifteen minutes to dislodge the bumper from the car’s underpinnings.
TWENTY
Inspector Peter Wohl was visibly disturbed when he opened the door to his apartment and found Detective Payne standing there.
“What the hell do you want? Are you drunk, or what?”
“Atchison threw something I’ll bet is guns in the river,” Matt said.
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“In Chester,” Matt said. “I followed him.”
“You did what? What the hell gave you the idea you had that authority?”
“He met Frankie, Frankie gave him a package, and Atchison threw it in the river in Chester.”
“I’ll want to hear all about this, Detective Payne, but not here, and not when you’re obviously shitfaced. I’ll see you in my office at eight o’clock.”
The door slammed in Detective Payne’s face. He waited a moment and then started down the stairs. He was halfway down when light told him the door had reopened. He looked over his shoulder.
Amelia Payne, Ph. D., M.D., attired in a terry-cloth bathrobe, stood at the head of the stairs.
“Matt, what happened to you?”
You may be his lady love, but first of all, you are my big sister, who takes care of her little brother.
“Are you drunk?” Amy asked, more in sympathy than moral outrage.
“Not yet.”
“Well, come in here,” Amy said. “What does ‘not yet’ mean?”
“I mean that getting drunk right now seems like a splendid idea, one that I will pursue with enthusiasm, once I have a bath.”
“What is that stuff on you?” Wohl demanded, in curiosity, not sympathy.
“I don’t think I want to find out.”
“Come up here,” Amy ordered.
She is now in her healer-of-mankind role.
Matt climbed the stairs.
“It’s all over you!” Amy announced.
“I’ve noticed.”
She wiped a finger, professionally, across his forehead.
“There’s irritation. It’s a caustic of some sort. You need a long hot bath.”
“If he’s coming in here,” Inspector Wohl said, resigned to the inevitable, “he’s going to take his clothes off first.”
Fifteen minutes later, attired in the robe Amy had been wearing when she appeared at the top of the steps, Detective Payne entered Inspector Wohl’s living room. Inspector Wohl and Dr. Payne were now fully clothed.
“I am under instructions to apologize for accusing you of being drunk,” Wohl said. “You want a beer?”
“I’d love a beer,” Matt said.
Wohl walked into his kitchen, returned with a bottle of Ortleib’s, and handed it to Matt.
“I am under further instructions to question you kindly, having been reminded that you are undoubtedly in a condition of grief shock,” Wohl said. “So why don’t we start at the beginning?”
“I don’t like your sarcasm, Peter,” Amy said. “Look at his face and hands! He’s been burned! Have you got any sort of an antiseptic lotion?”
“Listerine?” Wohl asked. “Where did you get that stuff on you, anyway?”
“No, not Listerine, stupid!”
“On a pier, or near a pier, near the old refineries in Chester,” Matt said.