And he liked it.
Tommy stood behind him, lifting himself up and down on his toes, and Dex could feel the nervous energy coming off the guy in waves.
“We ready?” he whispered.
“By the numbers, okay?”
Tommy gave him a thumbs up, turned and headed for the back gate.
Following him in the dim light of the service alley, Dex watched Tommy unhook the crude latch and slip into the narrow concrete strip crowded with trash cans and bordered by the high wall of the bocce court. The gate to Tommy’s yard swung inward on bent hinges, a monument to years of neglect and an insufficient maintenance budget of his deceased uncle. The yard itself was crammed with junk that never quite made it to the alley for collection or disposal. Dex had to be extra cautious to not collide with any stray boxes or cans that might make enough noise to announce their presence.
Ascending the small set of brick steps to the back door, Tommy slipped Augie’s spare key into the old lock, twisted it to the right. He made no attempt to quiet this maneuver, acting as if he were casually entering his home, expecting no trouble. As he stepped into the narrow galley kitchen, Dex inched in right behind him like they were wearing the same set of clothes.
Dex pulled the mini maglite from his pocket and used its tight beam of light to guide them through the first floor of the house. He noticed a heavy security slide bolt on the door to the cellar — it was clicked solidly into place, which meant there was nobody down there waiting for them. Dex gestured they move on. While they maneuvered among the pieces of heavy, old furniture, Tommy tried to recall if anything looked disturbed. “Looks okay so far.” His voice was beneath a whisper.
With his Sig-Sauer drawn, Dex pointed it past a newel post up toward the second floor, then set upon the first carpeted step. Slowly, they ascended the narrow staircase, pausing to listen for any sound not theirs. But the old house held on in total silence. As they reached the cramped little landing, Dex followed Tommy into his bedroom. The tiny room was practically filled by the bed, armoire, and a long, low dresser. There was no closet and no one waiting for them. After checking the bathroom, including the space behind the shower curtain, and the second bedroom in the rear of the house, Dex exhaled a breath he’d been holding way too long.
Unless their adversaries were meticulous as surgeons and cloaked by invisibility, it appeared the house had not been breached.
“So far, so good.” Dex moved to the stairs. “Let’s check that answering machine.”
Moving back to the first floor, guided by the thin beam of the mini flashlight, Tommy pointed to the pre-Cambrian equivalent of home electronics — a Code-A-Phone that housed a standard audio cassette.
“Check your messages,” said Dex.
Tommy depressed a flat lever-key, followed by a series of clunks and the whirr of a rewinding tape, another clunk, and beeps preceding each message. The first six or seven were either hang-ups or automated ads for mortgage refinancing, donations to police benevolent associations, and a solicitation for a free trial subscription to the Baltimore Sun. The last message was from Jason Bruckner — simple and direct, with a phone number for contact.
“Looks like we got lucky,” said Dex, punching the stop button, then lifting the cassette from the machine. “At least in the analog world.”
“Huh? What’s that mean?”
“Nobody else heard this tape. But there’s no way to tell if the bad guys had a wire on your phone line, or a way to trace every call that’s come in here.” Dex jammed the cassette deep in his pocket.
“What’ll we do about that?”
“Nothing we can do.”
Tommy shook his head as though disgusted, then: “So… time for ‘phase two’? Looks like our luck’s holdin’ pretty good.”
“Why not?” said Dex, aiming the beam toward front door which opened onto High Street. “But don’t kid yourself — we’re making our own luck.”
Grinning, Tommy moved through the shadows, unlocked the deadbolt, and twisted the tumbler lock on the knob to the open position. “Okay, let’s go fishin’.”
Dex checked the magazine on his weapon, nodded, and headed for the staircase which ran down the wall and opened facing the front door. “I’ll be waiting right here.”
He gave Tommy the maglite, watched him weave through the furniture into the kitchen. He made only the softest sounds as he exited the back door and locked it behind him.
As soon as Dex heard the solid slap of the deadbolt, he checked his watch. No more than a two minutes needed for Tommy to circumnavigate the block, walk up High Street past the valet parking attendants for Da Mimmo’s and ascend the steps to the house.
While he waited, Dex thought about Tommy Chipiarelli and the other guys in the dive club. Up till now, he’d been ignoring the stark truth he’d never see Kevin or Donnie or Andy or Doc again. Just keep it out of your mind and it won’t haunt you so completely. The idea was to keep that kind of stuff from debilitating him from the basic job of survival. Same went for Tommy. He was a fireman, for Christ’s sake, and put his life on the line every day. No need for Dex to beat himself up about possibly getting the kid killed.
No need.
Sure.
Fact was — Dex had a very bad feeling about the whole mess. He hadn’t really figured out much to do about it other than react step-by-blind-step to each new development.
A sound at the front door pulled him out of his thoughts.
It was the scrape of metal against metal. Tommy going through the motions of inserting a key in a lock. Anybody watching him would have no idea his key could not open a door already unlocked. With a studied casualness, Tommy slowly pushed open the door and took a step into the darkened room.
But that was it.
A step.
Before he could take the next one, a tall, wide-shouldered figure materialized behind him. He tapped Tommy on the base of his skull and he collapsed like a puppet with its strings cut. Dex eased back deeper into the shadows of the stairwell as he watched the attacker ease Tommy to the carpet, then turn to lock the front door behind him.
Despite the dim light, Dex’s eyes had adjusted well. He could see the guy was big and bald. He wore wire-rimmed glasses, a black turtleneck and dark pants. Towering over Tommy, some sort of slick handgun dangling from his left hand, the guy scanned the room coolly, then moved to the answering machine on the end table. When he discovered the cassette missing, he swept it off the table and sent it clattering against the wall. Then he straightened and paused as if deciding what would be his next target.
Tommy stirred slightly and that got the guy’s attention for an instant, which was plenty long enough for Dex.
His twenty years of deep sea rescue — both in training missions and the real thing — had taught him the utter necessity of acting on that single tick of the clock. That solitary notch on the ever-turning gear of time, when you do it. When all the accumulated wisdom and balls and stupidity combine in some kind of weirdly righteous alchemy to allow you to do exactly the right thing at exactly the right instant.
Which is what happened next.
“Right now,” he said in a low whisper.
The sound of his voice so obviously startled the big guy, he hardly moved — other than slowly raising the weapon toward the still inert Tommy.
“Right now you drop it.” Dex spoke in a loud voice now. “Or you will die.”
The intruder’s arm stopped rising, and he gently dropped the handgun to the carpet. “Even though I’m not sure I believe you, dying wasn’t on my ‘to do’ list today. Advantage yours.”