“Take a load off in the livin’ room. I’ll heat up the oven. You guys need a Natty Boh?” Augie waited for their answers as he leaned slightly to the right with his head tilted that way.
“You betcha,” said Tommy. “Grazie, Augs.”
The old guy smiled, then shuffled into the kitchen. Dex continued to look at all the old furniture crammed into the narrow confines of the house. The décor had been a pleasant distraction from the pressures of their situation, but he needed more information. There was a small television opposite the couch where he sat, and a remote control on an ottoman with feet that looked liked claws holding spheres in their taloned grips.
He flipped it on, checked his watch, and thumbed through the channels. “Looks like we missed the local news.”
Tommy leaned forward. “Try the cable stuff.”
Just then Augie re-entered the room with two bottles of National Bohemian lager and handed them out with obvious pride. “Baldymore’s finest, amici! Drink up.”
They thanked him as he sat down in a big worn Barcalounger and looked at them with sudden seriousness. “Your boat was on the news…”
“That’s what I wanted to ask you. What’re they saying?”
Augie looked upward as he tried to recall the exact words. “They didn’t say much — said there was a boating accident on the Bay. Four people confirmed dead and that they were looking for possibly two other divers — and I almost shit when they gave your names, right on the air.”
“Christ, Dex, you were right. They got onto us quick!”
Dex nodded. “They say anything else?”
Augie brightened. “Yeah, they said the crew was investigating a sunken Nazi sub.”
“Probably got that from the Coast Guard.”
“They give the name of the sub?” Dex wondered if it even mattered. He could feel the net closing in on them already.
“Can’t remember,” said Augie.
“If the old gal who gave us the clothes and the ride saw the evening news,” said Tommy. “I’ll betcha she’s already called the police.”
“We can’t stay here.” Dex looked around as if he’d find some answers within the cramped space of Augie Picaccio’s living room.
“What’re we gonna do?” said Tommy.
“They’re going to be all over this place.” Dex stood up.
Augie chuckled. “Forgot to tell you — they already have.”
Anger flashed through Dex as he looked at the little gnomish figure, but he quelled it right away. No sense being angry at a guy who has trouble remembering what he said five minutes ago. “What? Who?”
Augie warmed to the chance to be in on the action. “A big tall guy, in a suit, going bald, them little wire eyeglasses. He knocked on the door about an hour before you guys got here.”
“Jesus, Augs, why didn’t you tell us before?”
“Tommy, c’mon… I just remembered it, you know?”
Dex retained a neutral expression. No sense getting the old guy worked up. “What did the suit want? What questions did he ask?”
Augie looked up at the ceiling as if the info he needed might be written there. Then: “Well, he wanted to know if I knew Tommy, and I told him hell no — he was a fireman workin’ weird hours and the rest of the time he was out chasin’ the girlies. I told him I hardly ever saw ’im, but didn’t know ’im from Jack Robinson.”
“Okay, you did good, Augie. What else?” Dex was grateful the old guy had paid attention to Tommy’s earlier phone call.
“He asked me if I’d noticed anything strange going on around the house, any strangers coming or going, and of course, I said I didn’t know nothin’. I told ’im I watch the Orioles games and Turner Classic Movies, and other than that I don’t see much of anything.”
Dex grinned. “He go for that?”
“Yeah, I think so. I wasn’t nervous or anything. At my age, lyin’ ain’t the worst of my problems.”
“Did you see him leave?” said Tommy.
“I peeked through the blinds. He climbed into one of them SUV-things — you know, the big ones. It was black. Then he drove off real slow.”
Dex considered this, then: “Odds are he’s still hanging around. Probably watching your place, Tommy. We took a chance coming here. If there’s a team in place, they might know we’re here already.”
Tommy looked worried. “Augs, I’m really sorry we dragged you into this…”
“You jokin’ me? This is the kinda crap makes life worth livin’. Let’s eat while we figure out what to do.”
“If they come for us, we have a decision to make,” said Dex.
“You mean fight or give up?” Tommy sucked down the rest of his beer.
“Something like that.” Dex moved to the front window and eased a heavy fall of drapery away from the glass a tiny sliver of an inch. His vantage point of High Street was too obscured to see anything. “And I can’t see us giving up when we have no idea who we might be surrendering to.”
“Good point,” said Tommy. “So what’ll we do?”
Dex was thinking. An odd, impulsive thought hit him, and he pulled his Trac phone from his pocket, started keying in the number of his Verizon answering service. “Hang on,” he said. “I just had a nutty thought.”
Tommy and Augie watched in silence as he waited for the automated prompt for his password to get his messages. He punched in the numerical equivalent of “diveshop” and waited.
You. Have. Seven. Teen. New. Messages. You. Have. No. Saved. Messages, said the computer voice, followed by instructions to access the new ones. Dex listened to the beginnings of each one — a variety of sales pitches, requests for donations, and a few ominous hang-ups. There were also a few forwarded calls from Barnacle Bill’s, his dive shop, and the stack of calls on his service were typical.
Except for the last one.
“Hello,” said the voice of a young man. It was tentative and questioning. “I’m trying to reach someone called Dexter McCauley. I hope this is the right number. My name is Jason Bruckner, and I have a message for Mister McCauley. A message from… from Erich Bruckner.”
Chapter Thirty
Around 9:30, Jason unlocked the door to Manny’s Tap Room. It was a ritual he’d been doing since his days at Penn State, when his father had started to teach him the family business. More than twelve years now.
Pushing open the front door, Jason smelled the familiar aromas of exhaled smoke, spilled beer, and fried foods. As he lifted the shades in the front windows, late spring sunlight blasted the old, dark woods of the bar and surrounding fixtures. As he walked through the place, inspecting everything for the neatness and cleanliness his father had always demanded, he nodded. The night crew had done their usual good job and Manny’s looked as ready as ever.
Grabbing the remote off the back bar, he keyed on the big flat screen, where he’d catch up on the world with a little Fox News, then slip over to ESPN for some scores. He wasn’t the biggest sports fan in Lancaster, but if you owned a bar, you needed to know enough to talk a good game.
Most taverns would love to be like Manny’s — a comfortable, affordable place with local charm and genuine warmth. Jason’s father, Richard, had always worked hard to maintain that standard; and even though these days he spent most of his time driving golf carts around the Overlook course.