Ice Cap (33 page)

I nodded. “Franco told me. And I've been there. I've seen it.”

“You can go up there,” she pointed toward the ceiling, “and see our bedroom. Two beds. Part of the deal, he has to make everyone believe we are husband and wife. But you're right, in real life just on paper. The only thing that happened up there was a lot of snoring. Unbelievable. No one could sleep through that.”

Another flurry of questions flew like startled birds into my brain, but I stayed on track. “Tad called Franco, looking for you.”

She nodded. “Franco tells him he was about to go clear off the woodshed, which was the truth. He was worried it would collapse from too much snow. But now, it would be a good way to get Tad away from the house so I could sneak back in, then make up some silly story about taking a walk in the storm. I ran down the hill as fast as I could with all the snow, and when I get to the house, he's not there. That's all I know. I never saw him again.”

“You didn't run into him along the way?” I asked, almost casually.

She perked up in her seat. “Who, Tad? No. That would be disaster.”

“There was a disaster. He was killed,” I said. “Franco found him on the path you took to the main house.”

She struggled to understand me, or confuse me further, it was hard to tell.

“Me kill Tad? That's impossible. He catch me out there it would be the other way around for sure.”

Not impossible for Franco, I thought, who trod the same path. But I didn't say it.

“When you got back to the house, what did Saline say?” I asked, without conceding to her denials regarding Tad. “Weren't you concerned about her?”

“Saline wasn't there. She was back in her own house, I suppose. No reason to be here.” She looked toward the kitchen, fixing Saline's location in the present.

“Where did Tad go when he left for long periods of time? What was he doing?”

“I don't know,” she said, too quickly.

“Yes, you do.”

“So you're a mind reader? You know what's up here?” She pointed to her head.

“What's under Hamburger Hill?”

She stiffened but held the set of her face. I could only imagine the terrors and stresses of the life she led in Poland and Russia, the types of people with whom she did daily business and the types of pressure they could apply. She would have a natural resistance to revelation, an instinct for half-truths and subterfuge.

“I don't know what you are talking about. It's a hill.”

“You're giving us permission to go look for ourselves,” I said, taking out my phone. “I've got the Southampton police on speed-dial. They won't have to ask.”

She pulled up her feet again and lay down on the couch, putting her clasped hands between her knees, tucking into herself.

“Suit yourself,” she said.

So I did.

*   *   *

Back in the kitchen, Dayna, Harry, and Saline were sitting on stools around a counter-height butcher-block table drinking coffee and munching on sausage and peppers, bits of ham, pickles, beets, and olives.

I grabbed an olive and announced to my partners that we had a job ahead of us, should they still choose to participate.

“You can come too, Saline,” I said to her.

“I don't understand,” she said.

“We're going out to take a look around Hamburger Hill. Anything specific we should focus on?”

She dropped a half-eaten pickle on the plate. She put both hands flat on the table and stared at me.

“You can't just do that,” she said. “This is private property.”

“Zina gave her permission. Sure you don't want to come?”

“Why do you want to do this?”

“Why shouldn't I? Come on, guys, let's go,” I said, and led my gang out the door to Dayna's pickup. I unfolded a still shot from the satellite video I'd stuck in my coat pocket. We looked it over, brushing snowflakes away every few moments, and established our bearings, plotting a route along the path I'd seen taken by the box van.

“Do you think your truck can manage it?” I asked Dayna.

“For sure. It's actually easier in deep snow to get a grip. If we have to plow, I'll plow.”

The first part of the trip took us farther down the main driveway toward the staff house. I had my eyes on the still, trying to plot the best place to turn off, so I didn't see what Dayna and Harry saw, I just heard “Uh-oh.”

It was another pickup, about the size of Dayna's, also with a plow slightly raised. Freddy was at the wheel. We were in a deep valley of plowed snow, inside a stand of young pine trees, with little room to pass by. Freddy slowed, but didn't stop until his plow came up against ours with a slight bump. Dayna put the shifter into first gear and stood on the brakes. We heard Freddy's engine racing and felt our truck slide backward.

Dayna let out a little yap of surprise. She let off the brakes and pressed the accelerator. We stopped sliding and held our position. Harry rolled down his window and yelled, “Hey, what're you doin'?”

Freddy suddenly backed up, causing us to lurch forward. Dayna braked and we watched him pull back. Harry put his hand on the door handle, but I stopped him.

“Wait,” I said, a split second before Freddy sped forward again, wheels spinning, and plow rising. Dayna frantically shoved the plow lever forward and the truck in reverse, though we'd barely gotten under way when Freddy's truck hit. Freddy had ballistics on his side. His head would've only slammed back into the headrest; ours pitched forward, along with the rest of us. Dayna at least had a hold on the steering wheel. Seated in the middle without a seat belt, I was the least secured, and if Harry hadn't thrown his long left arm in front of me, I'd have gone through the windshield.

“You fucker!” Dayna yelled, shoving the gear lever back into first gear and hitting the gas, slamming into Freddy's plow before he could retreat and locking up the two trucks like rams in a mighty contest of engines, gears, and tire treads.

At first it was a stalemate. Harry held on to me and braced himself with his other hand on the dashboard. The engine roared, and we shifted side to side, though stuck in place. With the plows raised, we couldn't see much of the other truck, but could hear the scream of his spinning wheels and see the plume flying from the tires like the tail off the back of a hydroplane.

Dayna called him a few more impolite names and then did something surprising, and a little alarming. She took her foot off the accelerator and put it back on the brake. After pitching backward for an instant, we lurched to the left and then stopped. Dayna had cocked the steering wheel, causing us to crunch into the hardened snowbank. Freddy kept shoving us without letup, but we stayed in place. Dayna then put her truck back into gear, only this time in second. Harry saw what she did and said, “Hah.”

Dayna let out a growl and started to accelerate as she eased off the brakes. We moved forward, very slowly at first, but then more quickly. We could hear the rpms from Freddy's engine rise and fall as he tried to regain traction, but his wheels just spun with little effect while our higher gear ratio and lower torque led to the opposite effect.

We heard his engine drop all the way off and felt a thud as he hit his brakes, and then pulled Dayna's trick, turning backward into the snowbank. The instant he hit, Dayna slammed her truck into reverse and pulled back a few feet, using the plow controls to both lower it and change the angle of the blade to the hard right. We could now see Freddy's truck, forty-five degrees off the center line with his rear end buried in the tall bank and his wheels spinning as he tried to regain forward momentum.

With her plow cocked to the right, and back in second gear, Dayna drove into the front left corner of Freddy's truck, catching the side of his plow in a way that allowed her to shove the pickup sideways and farther into the snowbank until it was perpendicular to the driveway and hopelessly jammed in place.

Dayna stopped pushing and stepped on the brakes. Harry jumped out of the truck and grabbed his pickax out of the bed on his way around the rear bumper. I followed him and was around the truck in time to see him swing the flat end of the tool, like Mickey Mantle going for the stands, right into Freddy's passenger-side window. Freddy thought this was a good time to leave his truck and run. Harry anticipated this and, like a giant arboreal ape, clambered over the hard cover protecting Freddy's truck bed, and ran after him.

It took me a bit longer to get to the other side, but again, just in time to see Harry, with his loping stride, quickly overtake Freddy as he slipped and scurried over the slickened driveway. Harry came up to Freddy's side, spread his right hand across the other man's back and pushed. Freddy went splat, arms and legs splayed, spinning on his big belly across the frictionless surface.

Harry slid, too, but stayed on his feet, rotating around so he faced toward the other man, who was trying to wriggle to his feet. He might have made it, but I got there first and jumped on his back. Freddy went back down and I went with him, gripping the hood of his heavy down coat and pulling it backward, which had a decided choking effect.

I let go when Harry got back to us. He grabbed me by the shoulder and helped me scramble off Freddy's back. We watched Freddy struggle to his feet. Harry reached out and grabbed a wad of Freddy's coat at the neck, holding him at arm's length, which in Harry's case was pretty long. Freddy looked at Harry's other hand, which was pulled back in a fist the size of a fruit basket, and dropped his arms in defeat, the ongoing snow speckling his round face and thinning gray hair.

“Please don't,” he said.

“You can let him go,” I told Harry. He looked over and saw the Glock in my hand. He released his grip on Freddy and stood back.

“You're not going to kill me,” said Freddy, somewhat hopefully.

“No, but I might shoot you in the foot. How do you think that would feel?”

Dayna walked up. “Jesus, man,” she said. “What kind of a nutcase are you?”

“You can't go up there,” Freddy said to me. “It's private.”

“It's not up to you.”

“Zina doesn't know what she's doing.”

“We're going,” I said. “With or without you.”

“We are,” said Harry in his most convincing basso profundo.

I held the gun on Freddy while Dayna and Harry moved his truck, yielding just enough room for her to slip by. When they reached the place where Freddy and I were standing, I said to him, “Here's the deal. If you make us search for the door, and we don't find it within an hour or two, I'll give up and call the police. Then there's nothing I can do for you. If you show me where to go, I'll help you.”

“What are you talkin' about? What door?” he said.

I shook out my still of the satellite video and gave it to Harry to show him. He stared at it for a while, then looked up at me through his slitty little pig eyes.

“This ain't legal,” he said.

“Get with it, Freddy. It's a new world out there. There's no hiding anything anymore.”

He just stood there in sullen refusal. With Harry's help, I got him to sit in the back of Dayna's truck with me as we drove to the spot I'd picked out to make the turn toward Hamburger Hill. Dayna plowed out an entrance, then pushed into the drifts. She made slow but steady progress, though Freddy and I got jostled around a bit.

“Offer's still open,” I said as we came up to the hill and started to follow its contours around to the left. He continued to look at me, his florid face pinched in anger, but at the moment I was ready to pick a spot, he pointed at the hill.

“It's there,” he said.

I tapped on the rear window. Dayna stopped and looked back at me and I showed her where to go. We drove up to the base of the hill and everyone got out and grabbed a snow shovel and followed Freddy as he tramped up to the very foot of the mound. We watched him burrow by hand into the snow, tossing some aside and digging out a small hole. Then he stopped and, after securing his footing, pulled back, bringing a large piece of the hill with him.

He was holding the corner of a canvas, painted in a classic camouflage pattern, off of which heavy chunks of ice and snow slid to the ground. Harry got next to him and helped shake off the rest. Behind the canvas was a gray metal door in a sturdy frame that jutted out from the brown and green foliage covering the side of the hill. Freddy opened his coat, unclipped a heavily laden key ring from his belt, and held it up.

“Like to see you get through that door without this,” he said with evident pride.

“We appreciate it,” said Harry, taking the key and using it to open and push in the door. He gripped Freddy as I had by the hood and motioned him to go first. Dayna and I followed them out of the blowing snow and into absolute darkness.

Luckily, this only lasted a moment. Harry had found the switch, which he threw with one hand while still holding Freddy with the other.

“Wow,” said Dayna, astonished, and her being a woman not so easily impressed.

 

23

My first thought was “Welcome to Lucifer's Foreign Auto Repair and Body Shop.” The room was huge, with steel joists more than thirty feet overhead, and I-beam posts strategically placed to carry the load. Along the wall to the right was a lineup of exotic cars—Ferraris, Bentleys, ancient Porsches and Maseratis, midcentury Corvettes and Shelby Cobras, MG Midgets and a Lotus Elan. I was nearly blinded by the profusion of shapes and colors, so unlike the cookie-cutter bodies and monotone silvers, whites, and blacks that filled modern parking lots.

It was like a Concours d'Elegance with corrugated walls instead of red velvet providing the backdrop.

In the center of the room, spaced beneath overhead racks with pneumatically driven tools—drills, reciprocating saws, and impact wrenches—were partially disemboweled versions of the same, their engine parts and body molding neatly stored in rolling steel bins. In the aisles between each workstation were block-and-tackle mechanisms hung from tracks mounted to the ceiling for transporting the bins to another set of work tables at the other end of the room.