The Shadow Box (67 page)

She would sit here for a while, wait for him to leave.
Michael won't miss her. He'll have left for the airport by
now. She would go get Moon's Buick, drive it back to
the inn.

But before that, she decided, hanging a few extra fend
ers from her railing seemed a good idea. Some of those
power boaters were already a little drunk and the evening was only beginning.

The best plans, thought Parker, are improvised plans.
Of all the police raids he'd been on, he could think of
maybe two that had gone as rehearsed. Cops never seem to learn that the bad guys weren't there at the rehearsal.

It did not greatly trouble him, therefore, that they were
playing this by ear. The trick, he told Hector, was to keep
this simple, use the element of surprise. We do a fast
reconnoiter, hit quick, and get out.

What did trouble him a little was Tami. At the mention
of a reconnoiter, Tami, like an asshole, starts to strip out
of his jogging suit. He's wearing his dumb ninja suit un
derneath, complete with a belt full of knives and stars and
other ninja shit. Parker had to smack him.

“
Look around you, numb-nuts. Does this look like fuck
ing Hong Kong?”

Thank God he's almost done with these clowns.

The good news, however, was that reconnoitering could be easy. With luck, he could do that by phone. He climbed
to the dock, Childress's cellular phone in his hand
. He practiced what he would say.

Hey,
Mr. Fallon? Wally Peabody again. Yup, made it
after all. Me and Betsy won't be staying because you're
right, the whole island's booked solid, but we'd sure like
to take you up on your offer. What might be a good time
to look at the house?

Parker would suggest after dinner. That way, chances
are, the other guests would be out walking it off. He'd go
there with Tami, knock on the door, and by the time Fallon
recognized him it would be too late. He pops Fallon in
the mouth, Tami cuts his throat, they take a
picture
to
show Rast and they're gone. Hector would be watching
the street. Yahya, who is so fucking seasick he's useless,
would stay and watch the boat to make sure no one boxed
it in.

Parker punched out the number.

But wouldn't you know it, Fallon was out. A hick
named Harold answered. He said Fallon had gone to the
airport to pick up some visitors.

Parker took visitors to mean guests.

“Then what?” he asked. “You all sit down and eat?”

The hick didn't understand the question.

“You know. Dinner. What's a good time to call after that?”

Now Harold got it. He said, no, they don't serve evening meals but there are many fine restaurants right here in
Edgartown. This launches him into a commercial.

He says the Taylor House serves a continental breakfast
and an afternoon tea with real English scones and Dev
onshire cream and there'll be a nice brunch this Sunday
because one of the guests wants to fix it but no, no eve
ning meals.

For tonight, he says, they're all having dinner at Square
Rigger restaurant over on Main Street—Harold knows this
because he and Myra, that's his wife, got them all a table together—it's sort of a tradition—and Myra reads them a
ghost story over dessert.

“This is what time?” Parker asked.

“Reservation's at seven. It'll run till nine or so.”

“And Mike will be there or what?”

“He'll be right here, most likely. Michael's not much
on ghost stories.”

“Oh, great. Would you tell him Wally Peabody called?
Tell him I'll call again later. Hey, Harold?”

“Yessir.”

‘it's been a few years since I been there. Michael didn't
make too many changes, did he? I mean, he didn't make
it too modem.”

“New bathrooms is all, but that was Mrs. Daggett. Mi
chael never changed a thing.”

“Glad to hear it. What room did he take for himself?”

“Room the Daggetts had. Third floor front.”

This was good information, thought Parker. He snapped
the phone shut, digesting it. On a wall nearby, he saw a bank of public phones.

Here's what we'll do, thought Parker. We'll send Hector
and Tami up to the Taylor House now. They'll keep an
eye on that house and on that third floor bedroom in partic
ular. Hector will take the cellular phone and the number
of one of these pay phones. He, Parker, will sit tight and
wait for Hector to call him with the comings and goings.
This is also a very good spot because from here he can
see the whole waterfront and also all the foot and vehicular
traffic that is now going up and down Water Street.

Around eight, he'll call Fallon again. Invite himself
over. Same game plan from there. Don't forget to bring a
camera. If everyone's out eating, it could be well after
nine before anyone finds Fallon's body. By then, Parker
would be halfway back to Oyster Bay and a million dollars
richer. Or he will be by tomorrow once he calls Rast and
says have that suitcase ready. Says he got a snapshot the
Baron's going to like.

And then another million on Sunday from the Giordano
brothers, less the fifty grand Julie paid him today. He had
told that hood, and especially his brother, more than he wanted to. Especially their connections in the FDA. He
should not have named names just yet. But when someone
lays fifty thousand in cash on the table it's hard to leave
it sitting there.

Screw it.

That's two million by Sunday. Sunday night, he's on
his way to Seattle.

Out there, maybe, he'll buy a boat of his own. Not just
for fishing. Something classy. Maybe like the one parked
in front of theirs. The one that girl is on. Must be the
owner's squeeze. Too good looking to be a deckhand.

That's what he'd do. Get a boat just like that, two masts,
lots
of shiny brass, dark wood all polished up like furni
ture, and get a young blond hard-body just like her to
teach him how to work it.

How about it, honey?

Want to come to Seattle?

Old Granny Futterman will treat you real good.

Chapter 42

B
aggage claim,
at the Martha's Vineyard air
port, is a section of sidewalk outside the little terminal.
Johnny G. saw Michael waiting for them. He was not
surprised. The look on Michael's face said he'd talked to
Moon. It figured that he would then have called Doyle,
got Sheila instead. Sheila would have told him they
were coming.

Michael stood, arms folded, leaning against his car as
they collected their overnight bags, all the time glaring at
Doyle. His expression softened only slightly when Johnny
G. approached him and embraced him.

“Mike . . .” said Johnny G. quietly, “Doyle wasn't
sure who killed Jake. Not before today.”

“Like hell he wasn't.”

“Michael . . . listen to me.”

“If he didn't know, he should have. When he saw they
used a bat on Jake, he should have known.”

“Hey.” Doyle threw down his bag. ”I didn't come up
here to—”

Johnny G. took Michael's arm.

“Come on,” he said. “Let's take a walk.”

He steered him toward a sign that said
Rental Car Re
turns.
They left Doyle with the black Mercedes, fuming.

“In the first place,” Johnny G. told him, “don't fold
your arms when you have a gun in your belt. It pulls your
jacket, makes an outline. In the second place, we're your
friends. Let's stop all this other shit right now.”

“Doyle's no friend of mine.”

“Michael . . . you've had no fucking clue who your friends are. It was Bronwyn who set up Jake.”

The next few minutes would remain a blur. Fallon re
membered getting angry, more at Doyle than at Johnny,
furious that Doyle would try to lay this on Bronwyn. He
remembered Johnny, reaching into his pocket, pulling out
a creased and wrinkled copy of the AdChem annual report,
saying it was in Jake's pocket when he died.

“Who gave this to him, Mike? Who opened it to Franz
Rast's picture and made sure Jake Fallon looked at it?”

Michael tried to get away from him. He remembered
pushing him when he tried to follow and the sharp sting
on his cheek when Johnny slapped him. Michael threw a
punch. It was a reflex, mostly. But Johnny stepped inside
it and they grappled. The next thing he knew, Doyle was
running toward them. And Johnny was waving him off. But he, Michael, was looking up at them.

Fallon realized, dimly that he was sitting on the ground,
his back against the door of someone's car. He saw Doyle,
walking away, back to the Mercedes. He saw Johnny come
back over, ease himself down, sit next to him on the
pavement.

“You settled down now?” he asked.

Fallon’s left temple felt thick and swollen. The nerves
there were coming back to life. “Did you hit me?” he
asked.