“No?”
“Things look different from the land,” Hanzen explained. “From out here, you could pick the spot you want, but when you get on shore you’ll never find it.”
“Not without you, you mean,” Parker said.
“Not without somebody knows the river,” Hanzen said.
“Somebody I trust,” Parker said.
Hanzen grinned again; things didn’t bother him much. “You’re already trusting me,” he said, “out here on my boat, even though that’s a little .22 under your shirt. Come on, let’s head upriver, and you sing out when you see something you like.”
10
They spent three hours on the river, and there were four spots along the way that Parker thought he might be interested in, three on the east shore and one on the west. Hanzen had road maps in his cabin that showed this part of the river, and he pointed out to Parker where each potential spot was, so he could see what road access he’d have, and what towns were nearby.
From time to time, as they moved, long low barges went slowly past, upriver or down, piled with boxed cargo or with trash. The crews waved, and Hanzen waved back, and each time their smaller boat rocked from side to side in the long slow undulations of the barge’s wake, no matter how far off to the side they were.
They also saw, at one point on the way back, as they hugged the more thickly settled western shore, a fast speedboat, white with blue trim, heading downriver across the way, close to the opposite bank. A police launch. “Stay away from my babies, now,” Hanzen told it.
Parker said, “They patrol much?”
“Not at all,” Hanzen said. “Not enough activity on the river to keep them out here regular. They’ll come out for the fun of it, sometimes, in the daylight, but at night they only come out if there’s a problem.” Nodding at Parker, he said, “You can count on it, though, if there’s a problem, they will come out.”
“All right,” Parker said.
A while later, Hanzen said, “Seen enough?”
Parker looked around. “We’re back?”
“That’s my mooring,” Hanzen said, pointing across the river, where nothing specific could be seen. “I don’t think you care about anything south of this.”
“No, you’re right.”
“You might as well pay me now.”
Parker took the envelope out of his hip pocket and handed it over. Hanzen squeezed it enough so the slit opened and he could see the edges of the twenties. Satisfied, he pulled open one cabin door long enough to toss the envelope onto the bunk. “Nice doing business with you, Mr. Lynch,” he said. “Maybe we’ll do it again sometime.”
“Maybe,” Parker agreed.
As Hanzen steered them across the wide river, Parker held the map down on the cabin top and studied the possibilities. If it seemed like the job would work out, Mike Carlow would come here and look over the routes, see which one he liked best, which one fitted in with whatever way they decided to work it.
When they were more than halfway across, with the current slapping hard at the left side of the boat, Parker could begin to see the dark red color of the Subaru straight ahead, parked just up from the water. He could see people, too, three of them, in dark clothing. And two or three motorcycles. “You’ve got visitors,” he said.
Hanzen nodded. “Friends of mine. And you’re just Mr. Lynch, a man looking for a place to put a restaurant with a river view.”
“Here’s your map,” Parker said.
“Put it in the cabin,” Hanzen told him, so Parker opened a cabin door and dropped the map in onto the bunk next to the envelope of twenties, then shut the door again.
Hanzen slowed as they neared the shore, and Parker looked over at the three of them waiting there. Bikers. Two were heavyset middle-aged men with heavy beards and mean eyes and round beerguts; the third was younger, thinner, cleanshaven. All were in leather jackets and jeans. The two older ones sat on the ground, backs against their motorcycles, while the third, jittery, hopped-up, kept walking this way and that in the little clearing, watching the approaching boat, talking to the other two, looking back up the road they’d all come down. Finally one of the older men spoke to the young one, who agreed and came down to the water’s edge to wait for the boat.
Hanzen steered carefully forward, and the young biker leaned way out over the water to grab the prow. As he pulled the boat partway up onto the bank, Hanzen again stripped out of shoes and socks and pants, and rolled them in a ball. “Ernie!” he called, and the young biker, who had a face like a white crow with smallpox, looked alert. “Catch!”
Hanzen tossed his bundle of clothes, and Ernie caught it like a football, with both forearms and belly. The other two bikers laughed, and Ernie turned around, jumpy, with a twitchy grin, to pretend to throw a forward pass. One shoe fell out of the bundle onto the ground, near the water.
Hanzen, sounding more bored than irritated, called, “Don’t fuck around, Ernie, you don’t want to get my shoe wet. Pull the boat round sideways so Mr. Lynch can get off.”
Ernie hustled to pick up the shoe, carry it and the bundle farther from the water, put them down, and hurry back to pull the boat around at an angle to the bank.
Parker said, “See you around.”
“Anytime,” Hanzen said. “You know where I am.” He stuck out his hand and Parker shook it, then climbed over the side onto the bank.
The older bikers watched with slow interest as Parker walked toward the Subaru. Behind him, at Hanzen’s continuing orders, Ernie pushed the boat free of the shore, apparently getting his own feet wet in the process, and that was good for a general laugh.
Parker got into the Subaru. Offshore, Hanzen was tying the anchor line to the float. Parker started the Subaru, backed in a half-circle, shifted into drive, and saw that one of the bikes, with its owner seated leaning against it, was in his way. He drove forward and put his foot on the brake, and the biker pretended not to see him, to be interested in watching Hanzen wade ashore.
Parker leaned his head out the Subaru window: “You care about that bike?”
The biker turned his head. He contemplated Parker for a long minute, unmoving, and just as Parker took his foot off the brake he grunted and struggled to his feet and wheeled the bike out of the way.
Hanzen was on shore now, drying his legs with a towel Ernie had brought him from his own bike’s saddlebag. Parker completed his turn to the dirt road and jounced over the railroad track.
They all watched him go.
11
Claire had her own car, a gray Lexus, legitimately registered in her name at the Colliver Pond address. She’d driven off in it three days ago, to look into Hilliard Cathman’s private life, so when Parker heard the garage door opener switch on at three that afternoon it was probably Claire coming back. But it didn’t have to be Claire coming back.
Parker had been seated in the living room, looking at maps of New York State, and now he reached under the sofa to close his hand on the S&W .32 revolver stored there. He tugged, and the clip holding the revolver gave a small metallic click, and the .32 nestled into his hand.
He rose, crossed the living room and hall and the kitchen, looked through the hole he’d drilled a long time ago at eye level in the door between kitchen and garage, and saw the Lexus drive in, this side of the Subaru already parked in there. Claire was alone in the car, and didn’t seem troubled by anything. He watched her reach up to the visor to lower the garage door behind her.
When Claire walked into the living room, Parker was again studying the maps. The revolver wasn’t in sight. He looked up and said, “Welcome back.”
She nodded at the maps. “Planning a trip?”
“You tell me.”
“Ah.” She smiled and nodded. “You can keep them open, I guess. After I shower and you bring me a drink, I’ll tell you all about it.”
It was nearly six when they got around to talking, the long spring twilight just starting to stretch its fingers outside the house. Claire sat up in bed, back against the headboard, a sheet partly over her. Her drink, the ice cubes long gone, she held on her up-bent knee, the tan skin looking browner against the clear glass. Parker, in black trousers, paced as he listened.