“I see,” Basil Jarrett said, glancing at Fiocchi. “So you’re saying he’ll probably wind up in the nut house?”
“I sorta suspect so,” the sheriff admitted. “This fella doesn’t have a wallet or money on him — you told me that. It’s been my experience that there are very few people without some kind of identification on their person unless they are running from something.” He shrugged, then continued, “He doesn’t appear to be under the influence of alcohol or drugs. He won’t talk to me in any language, won’t write down his name or tell us where he lives — he seems unresponsive. Abnormally so.”
The sheriff got out a pack of cigarettes and lit one, taking his time. When he had it going he said, “He appears to me to be unable to take care of himself. I call that incompetent. What do you think?”
While the sheriff smoked, Jarrett and Fiocchi walked out of earshot and talked the situation over. In a moment they came back. “Is there any way you could fingerprint him and send the prints to the FBI? And leave him here until you hear something?”
“You don’t know who this man is,” the sheriff pointed out. “He could be a fugitive, a killer, or an escapee from a prison or asylum. He could be bedbug crazy. He could be any damn body. Do you really want the responsibility of caring for this man for a while? Might be as long as a week?”
They went away and discussed it animatedly. Finally they returned. “Yes,” Jarrett said. “He’s sick, having severe nightmares, and we think he has amnesia. We don’t think jail is the place for him. I have to go to work on Monday, but Linda could stay here with him if necessary.”
“I’ve got some office supplies in the trunk,” the sheriff said. “Seem to remember an ink pad in that bag.” He made no move to open the trunk but stood smoking. When he finished the weed, he dropped it and ground it out beneath his shoe. “This guy seems pretty harmless. Let’s hope he is.”
When I got back from Wal-Mart that afternoon, I did some sit-ups and push-ups to get the kinks out, then went for a run. I stood on the dune looking until I saw the women — they seemed deep in conversation — then I ran the other way along the beach.
That night I fixed steaks and potatoes for dinner on the charcoal grill that sat beside the house in the small yard. While the food was cooking I made a salad. I had even remembered to buy a six-pack on my shopping expedition, so we washed our meal down with beer.
The women didn’t have much to say that night. Kelly dove back into the Goncharov treasure and Dorsey selected a book from the shelves. She read on it a while, then put it back on the shelf and went upstairs. I heard the shower running, then nothing. I figured she went to bed.
I sat on the screened-in porch and thought about the last two days. Bullets, blood, fire, murder… it was like we were in the middle of a war.
Me, I was just a thief who liked breaking into places I wasn’t supposed to be. The agency kept me busy cracking safes, planting bugs, photographing documents in private offices, and the like. All in all, it wasn’t a bad job — I got paid adequately and regularly, although I wasn’t getting rich, and presumably someday I would retire on a comfortable pension if someone didn’t shoot me or I didn’t open a booby-trapped filing cabinet. Or a rope didn’t break while I climbed the side of a building. Or I didn’t get thrown into some third-world dungeon to rot. Or I didn’t pick up a fatal intestinal parasite somewhere or other. Or these hired killers who were chasing me and Kelly — and now Dorsey — didn’t catch me.
What was there to worry about?
Truth be told, I thought about quitting the government off and on for years. Tell the CIA to shove it and go out on my own, burglary for fun and profit. Then I would think about guys I had known, guys like Sal Pulzelli, who didn’t live to retire, and I would think, what the heck, I’ll hang in there. Keep on keeping on. So I’d been hanging in, keeping on. Now Sal was dead and Willie carved up and…
I knew exactly how Dorsey felt.
Why me?
There were some blankets neatly folded on a chair in the living room, so I carried them out to the covered porch and bedded down on a couch. Kelly was still curled up reading.
It must have been about midnight when I awoke to find a woman crawling under the blankets with me. At first I thought it was Dorsey, but it wasn’t. It was Kelly. She was wearing cotton pajamas and she wasn’t interested in anything but sleeping. She snuggled up against me and promptly dropped off.
I wrapped an arm around her and went back to sleep myself.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
When I awoke Thursday morning I found myself alone on the couch with the breeze whipping through the screens. I opened an eye, looked out. The day was here, but the sun had not yet risen. Or maybe it had. There were a lot of clouds up there.
I heaved myself out, put on shorts and my tennis shoes, and went outside. No one sitting in cars, no one peering out a window. Only a few folks out and about at this hour, joggers and dog walkers. I trotted down the street and thundered over the boardwalk across the dune. Birds probed the surf runout, and a garbage truck with balloon tires drove along emptying trash barrels. Here and there people combed the beach for treasures that might have washed up during the night. There was more trash than treasures. Amazing how many plastic milk jugs find their way into the ocean, to drift for months until they wash up somewhere.
I puffed along watching the gulls and the solid gray clouds racing overhead. On the way back I stopped running and walked to cool down.
So what was next? Where should I go from here?
The only leads I had were the contents of the wallets and cell phones I had taken from the dead and injured thugs. Of necessity, the trail must start with those since there was nowhere else.
Should I leave the women here and hunt these people alone?
The women seemed to be sleeping when I got back, so I got a pot of coffee going and went out for doughnuts and a copy of every newspaper sold in this town. When I returned to the house thirty minutes later, I took a quick shower, then settled at the kitchen table drinking coffee, munching doughnuts, and scanning the papers. I could not find a single word about the massacre in West Virginia or the shootings yesterday in Washington. Nada.
I was on my second cup of coffee when Kelly came downstairs. She was dressed in shorts and one of my T-shirts. She poured herself coffee, snagged a doughnut, and sat down beside me to look at the paper.
“Good morning,” I ventured.
She grunted. Well, some women are like that B.C. Before Coffee.
I decided I wasn’t going to mention sharing the couch until she did.
“There’s nothing in here on the shootings yesterday,” she said when she finished with the Washington Post. She put that paper down and picked up the next one.
“I didn’t see anything,” I agreed.
“So it didn’t happen?”
“Apparently.”
When she had scanned the lot, she helped herself to more coffee. She took her time examining the doughnut possibilities before selecting her second victim.
“I’ve read about two-thirds of the files,” she said, “scanned them, anyway. Every one is on political double-crosses and murders and hounding dissidents and faking evidence for show trials of state enemies. The names are coded, but as near as I can tell, every person mentioned is a Soviet citizen or a prominent American or British traitor. I just can’t see anything there that would make anyone in Europe or America feel threatened.”