This wasn't a total surprise to Willy. He'd heard about Broad Channel, and its reputation as a pretty conservative enclave, suspicious of outsiders and any enlightenment they might bear. He'd also heard, deserved or not, that it was an aggressively all-white neighborhood, and that any and all strangers, regardless of race, were checked out pretty thoroughly.
If one could not afford to live in a gated community, but wished to leave most of the world at the door, this sounded like a fair compromise, assuming the locals let you in to begin with.
Willy slowed down and looked again at the address on the driver's license he'd stolen off Ron Cashman's body, along with his wallet and keys, and later his car, which he'd found parked just outside the warehouse. Broad Channel wasn't on any subway route, and Willy had known that he didn't have much time before the cops were called in to investigate the firefight in Red Hook. Stealing a car seemed the least of his problems now. Also, he comforted himself with the fact that the license, while equipped with Cashman's photograph, was in the name of John Smith, which he hoped would buy him some additional time. He hadn't ruled out that the address might also be fictional, of course, but it would have been foolish to simply make that assumption.
Craning over the wheel, he tried to read the street numbers unfolding in the half-light.
He knew he'd stepped over the line by now. Certainly the Ward Ogdens of the world would want him back in jail for the moment, and out of a job at the very least. And it was possible even Joe Gunther had reached the same point. Lord knows, Willy hadn't done much to encourage the poor guy to do otherwise.
But Willy was back in overdrive mode now. He'd survived his charge through Cashman's hail of bullets, he'd discovered that Riley was probably going to live and had done what he could to guarantee it with a 911 call, and he'd been given just enough through Cashman's last words to propel him once more toward resolving Mary's death. Never the best of long-range thinkers, Willy was once more consumed with a need to know and heedless of what it might cost him.
He finally found the street he was after, the equivalent of a wide alley lined by more squeezed-together homes, and drove down half the block before parking in front of one of the humbler residences.
He stayed put for a few minutes, with the engine and lights off, watching the street for signs of life. Three or four houses had lights on, perhaps in a bathroom or kitchen, but otherwise things still seemed acceptably dormant. Willy got out of the car, walked quietly and quickly to Cashman's front door, and slipped the key into the lock, hoping to hell the dead man didn't have a fondness for pit bull housepets.
He didn't. The place was absolutely silent.
By the dawn's strengthening light, Willy took rapid inventory of the small house, deciding how to maximize his time. He figured half an hour overall would be risky but acceptable.
The home's interior made its shabby outside look good by comparison. Cashman had been clearly uninterested in decor, or cleanliness, or even eating more than cereal, Spam, and /or bread. The whole place felt like a temporary lodging, which in fact it might have been. Given the phony license and his erstwhile livelihood, Cashman quite possibly had several home addresses. Willy could only hope that this one had more in it than dirty clothes, broken furniture, and dying food in the fridge.
He finally found the one exception in a small cubbyhole off the living room, which shared with it a large window overlooking the boat slip.
The desk in this tiny office was a hollow-core door laid across two filing cabinets and covered with bills, newspapers, several phone books from far-off states, three empty beer cans, a calendar with cryptic notations, an assortment of survivalist and weapon catalogues, a legal pad covered with doodles, arrows, boxes, and seemingly unconnected words, and a phone.
Willy didn't stop to read any of it at first. He was still in the reconnoitering phase, and eager to explore the contents of the filing cabinets.
A loud knock on the front door stopped him cold.
He froze in place, trying to imagine who might be outside.
"John? You in there? It's Budd."
Willy remained silent.
The knock came again, slightly heavier. "John. I didn't see you drive up. You okay?"
Willy very slowly rose from the chair he'd just sat in, careful not to make the slightest sound.
He clearly heard the door latch open and the front door swing back on its hinges. He'd forgotten to turn the lock behind him.
"John?" Now the voice was more tentative, betraying the first inklings of concern.
Willy realized his hoped-for half hour had just evaporated. Trying his best to sound vaguely like Cashman, he growled, "Yeah," and stepped behind the office door.
Heavy steps approached with renewed confidence, along with Budd's commentary. "Jesus, man. I thought you were dead or something. Why didn't you speak up the first time?"
Through the crack in the door, Willy saw a tall fat man flash by, sporting a tight T-shirt, a beard, and tattoos on both arms.
The sheer bulk of the guy dictated Willy's course of action.
As soon as Budd stepped into the room, Willy threw his weight against the door, smashing it against the big man and sending him staggering into the far wall, where he hit his head. Not letting him recover from the impact, Willy reached him in two steps, grabbed his hair from the back, and smacked the front of his face into the wall a second time.
Budd collapsed like a felled ox, crumpling to his knees and coming to rest like a drunk taking a quick rest between swigs.
Cursing his bad luck, Willy returned to the desk, grabbed the calendar and the legal pad, and ran for the exit. Whether it was Budd waking up, another neighbor dropping by, or the police suddenly appearing, Willy knew his survival time here was now being measured in seconds.
He reached the car just in time to see a woman appear on the porch next door, squinting against the rising sun's first glare, trying to see who was at the wheel.
"John?" she called out. "Is Budd with you?"
Willy fired up the engine, did a squealing U-turn, and retreated the way he'd come. The four of them were back in the interview room adjacent to the detective bureau-Joe, Sammie, Ward Ogden, and Jim Berhle. The mood, once enhanced by a camaraderie cutting across state and department lines, had chilled to where Joe Gunther was thinking he and Sammie might be asked to disappear at any moment.
It was midmorning of the day following the shootout and they were all living on a steady diet of coffee.
Ogden was the only one standing, pacing back and forth across the small room as he spoke. His tone of voice, however, while a little more concentrated, retained much of its familiar calm friendliness. If he did have problems with the Vermonters, he was keeping them to himself.
"Okay," he said. "Things are getting messy. I've got someone baby-sitting Riley Cox. He's definitely out of the woods, but still refusing to talk, and there's not a hell of a lot we can do about that. He didn't have a weapon when we found him, there were no drugs or contraband at the scene, so he knows all he has to do is keep quiet and this'll go away without a murmur.
"A crime scene unit was sent to Cashman's legal address in Sunset Park," he continued. "So far, they haven't found anything of interest that we didn't already know, but records search has revealed he had a car, which apparently now is missing."
"What about the lookout who was hooked up to the chain-link fence?" Sammie asked.