The three men I’d sent on ahead had booked two adjoining rooms on the ground floor. It was Ron Klesczewski who answered my knock. He was wearing his undershorts and a T-shirt and was still only semiconscious. That changed when he looked past me.
“Holy shit. It’s snowing.” He stuck his head out and looked up-a gesture that has never made much sense to me. “Jesus. It’s a goddamn blizzard.”
He focused on Katz. “My God. What the hell is he doing here?”
I planted my hand against his chest and pushed him back into the room so we could enter. “Hello to you too. Do you always wake up in such a state of amazement?”
He blinked a couple of times. “No. Well, I mean… I didn’t expect it; or him. It is unusual, you got to admit.”
“Katz is observing. Don’t tell the state police who he is or there’ll be hell to pay. Where’s DeFlorio?”
“Here.” The voice was muffled by the pile of blankets on the far bed.
“Morning, Dennis. Rise and shine.”
A hand emerged from the pile and groped for a watch on the night table. Both disappeared and were followed by a groan. “Jesus. Too early.”
The connecting door to the other room opened, and J.P. Tyler stepped in, shaved, showered, and fully clothed. “Hi, Joe; Willy.” He nodded at Katz without comment or visible surprise. From his appearance, it might have been the middle of the day.
I pulled open tpulled ohe curtains, without great effect, and switched on the overhead light. “I take it you’re aware of that.” I pointed at the snowstorm.
“Yeah. Last radio report had it at almost two feet. Worst in years, they say.”
“Has anyone been in touch with the locals yet?” I knew the answer for DeFlorio and Klesczewski, but I thought I’d be polite. Among his peers at least, Tyler never failed to assume unofficial command.
“I talked to them after I heard the weather. They’ve been in touch with the Postal Service. Things will be delayed, but they’ll still come through. As far as the state police are concerned, the operation is on without changes.”
“They still headquartered at the school?”
He nodded. There was a large school building in the middle of Gorham, several blocks southeast of the post office. The assumption was that a small cluster of cars wouldn’t seem out of place there, even in this mess. Tyler added, “By the way, they managed to get a man inside the post office, posing as a mail sorter.”
“Has anyone seen Cioffi?” I asked.
“Nope.”
De Florio had by this time emerged from his blankets and was sitting with his back against the wall. “Are we sure we’re ever going to see him?”
“Yes. I called his broker yesterday. The deal’s still on. There was a bit of a problem with Express Mail because of the post office box delivery address. Cioffi is anxious to be there when they make the delivery, so we’ll probably see him loitering around the post office.”
“He’ll be a snowman unless he loiters inside.”
I checked my watch. “I’m going over to the school. I want to get the lay of the land. You guys meet me there as soon as you can.”
“You can’t see the lay of the land.”
Kunkle, Katz, and I trudged back out to the car. We slithered from the parking lot to the road in the gloomy half-light, Kunkle fighting to keep us from the ditch. The motel was on the north end of Gorham, a small, flat town tucked between the parallel curves of the Androscoggin River and the railroad tracks. There was one central street, predictably named Main, which served as a brief convergence for Route 2, running east to west, and Route 16, which cut from north to south.
We crawled down the deserted street, our eyes searching the white turmoil outside for the post office. We found it in the middle of town, on the right, situated like the hub of a three-spoke wheel amid Charlie’s Restaurant on one side, a small laundromat-supermarket complex on the other, and an abandoned greasy spoon across the street.
Katz spoke up for the first time in hours. “Well, that answers where he’ll probably be loitering.”
“I wonder if the state police have a plant in the supermarket, too,” Kunkle muttered.
The school was several short blocks farther down the street, set back in the middle of its own lot of land. It was a typical Victorian monstrosity, not unlikey, not u the Municipal Building back home. I noticed two Sno-Cats parked by the side, blending in with some town sand trucks and graders. If the weather kept up, they’d be the only way to get around. I hoped someone knew where the keys were.
We piled out of the car and stumbled up the broad steps toward the school’s large double doors. They swung back before we reached them and revealed a Marine Corps poster come alive-mean of eye, hard of belly, complete with a crew cut perched on a six-foot-four frame. I had to look twice to confirm he wasn’t in uniform.
He was Captain Kevin McNaughton of the New Hampshire State Police-the man with whom I had coordinated the fun and games ahead.
He looked icily at Kunkle and Katz. “More? That wasn’t what we discussed.” I shook his hand and stepped in past him. “I know, but this is it. We won’t get in your way.”
“How can you help it? You’ve got almost as many men as I have now.”
I sincerely hoped that wasn’t true. “Just consider us troops. Put us where you want us.”
He closed the door behind us and ushered us into a side office. “You’d think we were after John Dillinger.”
I took my coat off and laid it across the low counter that split the room down the middle. Two plainclothes troopers were sitting at the back drinking coffee. “It’s not getting Cioffi that worries me. It’s Stark getting him, like I told you in Brattleboro.”
McNaughton shook his head and all but sneered, “The mysterious masked avenger. He must really be something if you think he’s going to pop up today.”
“He’s a dedicated man.” I moved to a large table covered with a map of the region. “Any change of plans with the weather?”
McNaughton sauntered over. “If anything, I’d cut back, but I suppose I have to put your men somewhere.”
I looked at the map and thought again of what I might have missed. Since we didn’t know where Cioffi was hiding, we’d planned for four two-car roadblocks-two for Route 2, two for Route 16-to swing into place only after he was identified at the post office; we had to be sure he wouldn’t see us on his way in. McNaughton had one man in the post office-an extra we hadn’t counted on-plus one in the laundromat and one in the restaurant flanking the post office. It was good coverage but thin, which is why I’d brought so many of my own people. I was going to double what he had wherever I could.
“Do we have access to the greasy spoon?” I pointed at the small rectangle across Main Street from the post office.
“We can get it. I have the fire chief on call. Does it matter?”
“You don’t have anyone in there now?”
“No.”
“It can’t hurt. In fact, that’s where you and I could hang out-and him.” I nodded at Katz. “If that’s all right,” I added.
McNaughton sighed and nodded at one of his men. “Call DuBois and ask him for the him forkeys.” He looked down at the map. “So, you want each of your guys to ride shotgun on the roadblocks?”
“All but one. I’d like Kunkle here in a nonblock car, just in case.”
McNaughton shrugged. “They been told who’s boss?”
“Yes.” I looked at my watch. “The post office opens in a half hour. We better get in position.”
The captain sighed and shook his head, but he reached for his jacket. For reasons I couldn’t figure, he’d insisted on downplaying all this from the start, as if the whole thing were a major inconvenience, best handled by a meter-maid unit.
The front door opened and Klesczewski, DeFlorio, and Tyler appeared in a gust of snow. The first two still looked half-asleep. I told them which roadblocks they were to share and sent them back out the door along with McNaughton’s troopers.