Roantis and I sat up. We were within view of the house, but its owner had left. I stood up and stretched. Roantis continued to scan the place.
"We could go in if you want," he said casually.
"Nah. I did that already, up in Lowell. I'm still in trouble for it, too."
"Want me to go alone."
"No. Joe doesn't even know I contacted you. After he struck out on his entrapment plan with the police brass, he thinks nobody's doing anything to get Old Man Critchfield."
"So he let the brass talk him out of it? Listen, inna army, if I'd done that, me and my men would have died right away."
"Yeah. But Joe's in kind of hot water lately with the brass. For instance, somehow they found out he had a conference with one of the North End Wise Guys. They told him to cool it or else. So I'm going after Critchfield myself."
"Why are you?"
"I just… I just. want to see the record set straight, I guess."
The old ex-mercenary looked up at me and laughed softly.
"I think you're a little bit like me, Doc. You get bored easy. And when you get bored, you get in trouble."
"Speaking of trouble, you're usually in plenty. You still on probation for that bar fight in the Zone?"
"Yeah. Almost over with. Ahhhh, fuck it," he said, rolling over and sweeping the estate with the 7x50 glasses. "I still say we should go in. Hey, how much are you paying me?"
"Nothing."
"Figured. You know a guy could get rich down in there… in less than an hour."
"Don't get any ideas." I looked at my watch. It had stopped.
My four-hundred-dollar Blackwatch Chronograph Adventurer had broken. It did everything but tell time. I sighed. "In about ten minutes he'll be at the Holiday Inn desk to pick up the envelope. He'll probably open it and look at the prints in the car on the way back here. I just want to watch his reaction if we can."
"And then what? All you've done is made him mad. And making him go himsef that's… whaddaya call it? Insult and injury. I tink he's gonna be mad at you, Doc. And a guy like that is mean, let me tell you." He swept his arm over the estate below. "Hell, anybody got a spread like that, they're mean. Look at me. I'm the meanest guy who ever lived and I don't got diddly-shit."
I grinned at him.
"It's 'cause you're not greedy, Liatis… and because you spend all your dough on good booze and bad women."
His eyes crinkled up in laughter. They had a slightly Mongol look to them, and his neck was laced with cords and veins. He looked a little like another Lithuanian, Charles Bronson. Only meaner. He flicked his droopy mustache and lit a cigarette.
"How you know the desk clerk dint open the envelope and spill the beans?"
"Not a chance and you know it. Not the way I sealed it, and not with Critchfield's name on it."
So we waited for another twenty-five minutes until the big black car returned. It was going pretty fast, no doubt at the urging of its irritated occupant. It swung around in front of the steps and the old man and his assistant, who still looked vaguely familiar, stalked up the steps and into the house. The old man appeared to be telling the assistant off. They disappeared.
Then nothing happened for almost another half-hour. Suddenly Roantis, who had the binoculars, punched my arm.
"Look who's coming out," he said. I took the binoculars and saw the old man and his assistant come out on the terrace and sit down in wrought-iron chairs around a table. They seemed to be enjoying the sunshine. The old man, who moved with speed and grace for his age, held a cordless telephone which he dialed and talked into.
"He's getting help," said Roantis. "He's looked at your pictures and now he's calling in the heat. You watch."
"I think he's gonna need it. Question is, what do we do now?"
"The note in the envelope said I'd contact him. I'm wondering how and when."
"No time like the present."
"Did you bring a gun?".
"Nope. judge told me that I can't carry one while on pro. Said it'd be a year in the slammer if I'm caught with one. Too bad, too. This'd be perfect for my streetcleaner."
"What streetcleaner? I don't see any streetcleaner."
"Not that kind of streetcleaner."
"Well what?"
"It's a- shhhhhhhhh! Hear that?"
"No. I don't hear anything but the wind."
"Well I thought I heard something like bushes breaking. I think maybe it's too bad I dint bring a gun. Too late I guess."
"Well let's go then," I said.
"What's your hurry? Look, number-two man just went inside. Let's hang around and see what happens."
We watched the man walk into the house. The chauffeur came out the back door and went into the garage again. Then nothing happened for about ten minutes; the old man on the terrace continued to speak into the cordless telephone. Occasionally he got up from the wrought-iron chair and paced the terrace, then sat again. The middle garage door swung up and an enclosed jeep crept out. It went slowly along the gravel drive and took a fork that led around behind the house, where it disappeared momentarily, then came back in sight, going a bit faster now, and returned to the main drive and left the estate. We watched it till it disappeared, then turned our attention back to the mansion below. After twenty minutes I was getting bored, and said so.
"Yeah, but we've got to wait and watch. Pretty soon now something's gonna happen and-"
Schlick-schlick.
The sound startled us, coming from directly behind. And neither one of us liked the sound. Not a bit. We turned and found ourselves looking down the business end of a shotgun. The guy who was holding it was old Mr. Critchfield's assistant. How he got out of the house and up on the rock behind us I had no idea. Not at first, anyway. And now, twenty feet away from him instead of three hundred, I knew why he had looked so familiar even at a distance. I could now see the thick glasses. And he'd put on the trenchcoat, too.
It was my old friend from the mill who'd smacked Mary down. The guy who'd clobbered me up in Lowell. It was the guy with the heavily starched lapels.
"Move back… all the way back," he said, jerking the muzzle at us. We did, until we were right at the cliffs edge and in full view of the house. Without lifting his eyes from us he waved his arm in a high, slow arc. I looked down and saw old Critchfield give a responsive wave, then bring something up to his face. He was watching through binoculars.
"Well Doctor, I didn't know you had a friend with you. All we could see was you from inside… and we were careful never to gaze up in your direction when you could see us. Who is he?"
I explained that Mr. Roantis was an old dentist friend of mine. Lapels gave him the once-over and decided he was harmless. Certainly, at five-eight and slightly gray and pudgy, Roantis didn't look like an expert in practically every exotic form of fighting and defense ever devised. That he could kill people with his earlobes usually went unnoticed.
"Please don't point the gun, sir," said Roantis with a pant. "I can't stand it. I'll faint and fall off… please!"
"Then don't move," said Lapels, approaching me. He held the shotgun cradled in his right hand while he fished in the pocket of his trenchcoat. That coat was a regular bag of tricks. He took out a thin leather sap. It was a spring-loaded sapper with a leather-covered steel ball at either end. He waggled it in his left hand and it flicked back and forth fast on its springy steel shaft. It made a whirring, whistling sound like the wings of a mourning dove. I didn't like it.