Stone Quarry Part 1

Stone Quarry.

by S.J. Rozan.

Acknowledgements

my agent, Steve Axelrod my editor, Keith Kahla what a pairEmily Horowitz, who first told me I was writing a novel the expertsDavid Dubai, Joe Karas, Pat Picciarelli, Carl Stein and Harvey Stoddardthe criticsBetsy Harding, Royal Huber, Barbara Martin, Jamie Scott (and her d.a.m.n owls), and, on this one, Becca Armstrong and Steve Landau Steve Blier, Hillary Brown, Max Rudin, Jim Russell, and Amy Schatz the muse Richard Wilc.o.xthe genius Deb Petersandthe goils Nancy Ennis and Helen Hester

Chapter 1

It can be a treacherous road, State Route 30, especially rain slick in the twilight of late winter, but I know it well.I sped along its badly banked curves faster than legal and faster than necessary. I was heading for Antonelli's; I had plenty of time. I drove that way just for the charge, pus.h.i.+ng the road, feeling its rhythm in my fingers, its speed in the current in my spine. Water hissed under my tires and my headlights reflected off the fat raindrops that splattered the blacktop in front of me.Years ago, 30 carried a fair amount of tourist traffic, but even then it was people on their way to somewhere else. Now that the state highway slices through the northern part of the county and the Thruway wraps around it, no one pa.s.ses through Schoharie anymore unless they mean to stop, and not many have a reason to do that. The tourist brochures call this countryside picturesque. If you look closely, though, you'll see the caved-in roofs and derelict silos, the junked cars and closed roadside diners with their faded billboards. These rocky hills were never good for much except hunting and dairy farming. Farming's a hard way to make a living, getting harder; and hunters are men like me, who come and go.The hiss of water became the crunch of gravel in the lot in front of Antonelli's. I swung in, parked at the edge.I had Mozart in the CD player, Mitsuko Uchida playing the B-flat Sonata, and I lit a cigarette, opened the window, listened as the music ended in triumph and the exhilaration of promises fulfilled.Then I left the car and strolled over to look across the valley. I was early. City habits die hard.Hands in my pockets, I let my eyes wander the far hills, asked myself what I was doing. Work wasn't what this place was about, for me. But on the phone, when Eve Colgate had called, I'd heard something: not her words, clipped and businesslike, but the long, slow melody under them. Raindrops tapped my jacket; a tiny stream ran through the gravel at my feet, searching for the valley.Unexpectedly, I thought of Lydia, her voice on the phone when I'd called to tell her I was coming up here, would be away awhile. There was music in Lydia's voice, too; there always was, though I'd never told her that. She wasn't surprised or bothered that I was leaving. Over the four years we've known each other she's come to expect this, my sudden irregular disappearances and returns. In the beginning, of course, I never told her when I was going, didn't call when I got back. Then, we just worked together sometimes; if she needed someone while I was gone, there were other people to call. But at some point, and I couldn't say just when, I'd started calling, to let her know.The rain was ending. Wind rolled the high black clouds aside, revealing a sky that was still almost blue. The air was full of the smell of earth and promise, everything ready, tense with waiting. Soon spring would explode through the valley and race up the hills, color and noise engulfing the sharp silence I stood for a while, watched tiny lights wink on in the windows of distant homes. When the sky was dark 1 turned and went inside.The crowd in Antonelli's was small and subdued. A golf tournament, all emerald gra.s.s and blue sky and palm trees, flickered soundlessly from the TV over the bar. A couple of guys who probably thought golf was a sport were watching it. A few other people were scattered around, at the bar, at the small round tables. None of them was the woman I had come to meet.I slid onto a bar stool. Behind the bar, Tony Antonelli, a compact, craggy man whose muscles moved like small boulders under his flannel s.h.i.+rt, was ringing up someone's tab. He looked over at me and nodded."Figured you were up," he said, clinking ice into a squat gla.s.s. He splashed in a shot of Jim Beam and handed it to me. "Saw smoke from your place yesterday.""Big help you are," I said. "Whole place could burn down, you'd just watch.""Happens I drove down to make sure your car was there, wise a.s.s. I oughta charge you for the gas.""Put it on my tab." I drank. "How's Jimmy?" I asked casually.Tony turned, busied himself with gla.s.ses and bottles. "Still outta jail."I said nothing. He turned back to me. "Well, that's what you wanna know, ain't it? Make sure all your hard work ain't been wasted?""No," I said. "I knew that. How is he?"

"How the h.e.l.l do I know? He don't live with me no more; he moved in with some girl. If I see him I'll tell him you're askin'."

I nodded and worked on my bourbon. Tony opened Rolling Rocks for two guys down the other end of the bar. He racked some gla.s.ses, filled a couple of bowls with pretzels. Then he turned, reached the bourbon bottle off the shelf. He put it on the bar in front of me.

"Sorry," he said. "It ain't you. I oughta be thankin' you, I guess. But that no-good punk p.i.s.ses the h.e.l.l outta me. He never shoulda came to you. He gets his a.s.s in trouble, he oughta get it out."

"Uh-huh," I said. "How come you never gave him a break, Tony?"

Tony snorted. "I was too busy feedin' him! What the h.e.l.l you see to like in that kid, Smith?"

I grinned. "Reminds me of me."

"You musta been one G.o.dless b.a.s.t.a.r.d."

"I was. Only I didn't have a big brother like you, Tony. I was worse."

"Yeah, well, he should'n'a came to you. And don't think you're gonna pay that candy-a.s.s lawyer you brought here. I told you to send me his G.o.dd.a.m.n bill."

"Forget it. He owed me."

"That's between you and him. I been bailin' Jimmy's a.s.s outta trouble for years; I got no reason to stop now. I don't like the kid, Smith, but I'm family. You ain't."

I looked at Tony, at the sharp line of his jaw, his brows bristling over his deep-set eyes. "No," I said slowly. "No, I'm not." I poured myself another drink, took the bottle to a table in the corner, and sat down to wait for Eve Colgate. for Eve Colgate.

Another bourbon and a cigarette later, the door opened and a tall, gray-haired woman stepped into the smoky room. No heads turned, no conversations stopped. She looked around her, reviewing and dismissing each face until she came to mine. She stayed still for a moment, with no change of expression; then she came toward me, contained, controlled. She wore a down vest over a black sweater, old, stained jeans, muddy boots. I stood."Mr. Smith?" She offered her hand. Her grip was sure, her hand rough. "Thank you for coming.""Sit down." I held a chair for her."Thank you." She smiled slightly. "Men don't do this much anymore-help ladies into their seats.""I was born in Kentucky. What are you drinking?""Tony keeps a bottle of Gran Capitan under the bar for me." The skin of her face was lined like paper that someone had crumpled and then, in a moment of regret, tried to smooth out again. Her blunt, shoulder-length hair was a dozen shades of gray, from almost-black to almost-white. I went to get her drink.Tony gestured across the room with his eyes as he poured Eve Colgate's brandy. "You know her?""Just met. Why?""I meant to tell you she was askin' about you, coupla days ago. Wondered about it, at the time. She don't usually talk to n.o.body. Comes in alone, has a shot, leaves alone. Maybe sometimes she talks cows or apples with somebody.She ain't-I don't know." He shook his head over what he didn't know. "But she's got money.""My type, Tony." I picked up her brandy from the bar."Hey!" Tony said as I turned. I turned back. "You ain't workin' for her?""Nah. She just thinks I'm cute.""With a puss like you got?" Tony muttered as I walked away.Eve Colgate's mouth smiled as I put her drink on the scarred tabletop. Her eyes were doing work of their own. They were the palest eyes I'd ever seen, nearly colorless. They probed my face, my hands, swept over the room around us, followed my movements as I drank or lit a cigarette. When they met my eyes they paused, for a moment. They widened slightly, almost imperceptibly, and I thought for no reason of the way a dark room is revealed by a lightning flash, and how much darker it is, after that.I smoked and let Eve Colgate's eyes play. I didn't meet them again. She took a breath, finally, and spoke, with the cautious manner of a carpenter using a distrusted tool."I'm not sure how to begin." She sipped her brandy. If I had a dollar for every client who started that way I could have had a box at Yankee Stadium, but there was a difference. They usually said it apologetically, as if they expected me to expect them to know how to begin. Eve Colgate was stating a fact that I could take or leave."I called you on a matter difficult for me to speak about. I don't know you, and I don't know that I want you closely involved in my-in my personal affairs. However, I don't seem to have many options, and all of them are poor you may be the best of them.""That's flattering."She looked at me steadily. "Don't be silly. I can't pretend to welcome the intrusion you represent. I'm too old to play games for the sake of your pride, Mr. Smith. I may need you, but I can't see any reason to be pleased about it."I couldn't either, so I let it go.She went on, her words clipped. "However, things are as they are. At this point, Mr. Smith, I'd like to know something more about you. All I have up to now are other people's opinions, and that's not enough. Is this acceptable?""Maybe. It depends on what you want to know.""I'll tell you what I do know. I know you bought Tony's father's cabin ten years ago. You come up here irregularly, sometimes for long periods. Tony says you're moody and you drink. Other than that he speaks very highly of you. I understand you helped get his brother out of serious trouble recently-and went to considerable trouble to do it.""The kid deserved a chance. He was in over his head in something he didn't understand. I bought that cabin twelve years ago. I sleep in the nude."She looked at me sharply over her brandy. Her movements were small and economical. In contrast to her eyes, her body was composed and still."And are you always rude to your clients?" she asked."More often than I'd like to be." I refilled my gla.s.s from Tony's bottle. "I've been a private investigator for sixteen years, twelve in my own shop. Before that I was carpenter. I've been to college and in the Navy. I drink, I smoke, I eat red meat. That's it.""I doubt it," said Eve Colgate. "Have you a family, Mr. Smith?"I took a drink. "I had.""But no longer?""I'm hard to live with.""Was your wife also hard to live with?""Her second husband doesn't think so.""And children?"That was territory where no one went. I drank, put my cigarette out. "Look, Miss Colgate, you called me. I can use the work, but not the inquisition. I gave you references; call them if you want, ask about me.""I have." She didn't continue."Well, that's all you get."We drank in silence for a while. Eve Colgate's eyes never rested. They swept the room, probing the corners, counting the bottles on Tony's shelves. They inspected the cobwebs at the raftered celling. Every now and then, unpredictably, they returned to me, settling on my face, my hands, taking off again."Yes," she said suddenly, draining her gla.s.s. "You'll do. I'll expect you tomorrow morning. Do you know where I live?""You'll expect me to do what?""Some-things were stolen from me. They're worth a good deal of money; and yet they're not as valuable to the thief as they are to me. I want them back.""The police are good at that sort of thing."Her eyes flashed. "I'm not a stupid woman, Mr. Smith. If I'd wanted the police involved I would have called them.""Why haven't you?"She stood. So did I. "I don't want to discuss it here. If, after I tell you what I need done, you don't want to do it, I'll pay you for your time and your trip. Thank you for the drink, Mr. Smith." She walked from the room, her back straight, her steps measured.When the door shut behind her the bar was the same as it had been before, as it had always been. Men and women who'd been stopping in at Antonelli's after work since Tony's father had run the place bought each other drinks, talked quietly about sports, the weather, their cars, and their kids. In the back, laughing, smoking, drinking beer from the bottle was a tableful of young kids who'd been children when I first started coming here. Now that rear table was clearly theirs, Antonelli's as much their place as their parents'. Room had been made for them, and Antonelli's continued.I swirled the bourbon around in my gla.s.s, then signaled to Marie, Tony's waitress, who was leaning on the bar chewing gum and trading wisecracks with the Rolling Rock drinkers. "Hi," she said, bouncing over to my table. "Can I get you something?" Her s.h.a.ggy hair was bleached to a very pale blond, fine and soft."Hi." I pointed to my gla.s.s. "I need more ice, and I'm starving. What do you have?""Lasagna." She nibbled on a maroon fingernail that must have been an inch long "And bean soup. And the usual stuff." She giggled.I ordered the lasagna. Marie bounced off chomping openmouthed on her gum. I glanced up at the TV. The golf was over, the news was on. That meant there'd be NCAA basketball soon. I had a client, a bellyful of bourbon, and Tony's lasagna coming. I stretched my legs and idly watched an elderly couple a few tables over. They were eating dinner in a silence punctuated only by quiet remarks and small gestures that dovetailed so perfectly they might have been ch.o.r.eographed.I'd told Lydia I was coming up here, told her I'd be away; but I hadn't said I'd be meeting a client, that I might be working.I got up, bought a Mountain Eagle Mountain Eagle from the pile by the bar. Sipping my bourbon, I caught up on what had been happening since I'd last come up. from the pile by the bar. Sipping my bourbon, I caught up on what had been happening since I'd last come up.There was federal DOT money coming along and with it the state was planning to replace or rebuild three county roads. That was bad. Seven years ago they'd replaced this stretch of 30 with a faster, straighter road on the other side of the valley. Now this was strictly a local road and most of the establishments along it had died slow, lonely deaths. Antonelli's was one of the few still open.I glanced at the other lead stories. Appleseed Baby Foods was expanding. That was good. Appleseed was the only major employer in the county. Appleseed CEO Mark Sanderson smiled from a front-page photo. I sipped my bourbon, considered the photo. In the old days, pictures of the state senator's Christmas party or the county Fourth"I July bash always included a shot of Mark Sanderson with his arm around the usually bare shoulders of his stunning wife, Lena. Then four years ago shed left him, just waIked away. Consensus among the women in the county seemed to be that anyone married to Mark Sanderson would have considered that option, maybe much earlier than Lena Sanderson did, but Sanderson reported her to i he county Sheriff and to the State Troopers as a missing person, made anguished televised pleas for her to come home, and waited. My professional opinion at the time was that the cops would come up empty and wed seen the last of her, and I was right. Looking at Sanderson's round, smiling face now, it seemed to me he'd come through the whole thing pretty well.I drank more bourbon, read on. New York State Electric and Gas had run an open meeting to get local comment on a natural gas pipeline they wanted to pull through the county. It would be heading down from Canada, where the gas was, to New York City, where it was needed. Local comment pro had to do with promised jobs. Local comment con was about tearing up fields, fencing off pastureland, polluted water, damaged crops, and the chance of major explosions. Pro won, hands down.I lit a cigarette, turned the page. The Consolidated East girls' basketball team had won the tri-county champions.h.i.+p in a squeaker last Friday. There was a photo with this one too, sweaty, long-legged girls grinning at the camera, arms around each other's shoulders. I imagined that picture fixed with magnets to refrigerator doors all around the county.I was onto the Police Blotter-a lot of DWIs, one marijuana arrest-when Marie sashayed over, bringing silverware and a tall gla.s.s of ice. As she put them on my table the door swung open, letting a chill breeze push into the room.I looked over. Three men stepped inside, chuckling as though they'd just exchanged a joke. They headed for the big table at the front. The first to sit, an angular, pasty man, c.o.c.ked a finger at Marie, winking. The features on the left side of his face-ear, eye, eyebrow-were set a little higher than the ones on the right, and his nose was crooked. The other two men dropped themselves into chairs on either side of him. The big one was dark, with a thick, droopy mustache, wide shoulders, and an easy, friendly manner. The other was small and bony with bad skin and dead-brown hair.Marie, paling, looked unsurely to Tony. Tony shook his head, lifted the gate, stepped around the bar."Who's that?" I asked Marie quietly."Frank Grice," she whispered, her eyes on Tony."No kidding." I knew that name. The trouble Jimmy Antonelli had been in last fall, the hole I'd dug him out of, was because he'd been dumping stolen cars for Frank Grice, cars Grice used to run dope from Miami to Albany. But Grice denied knowing the kid, and Jimmy wouldn't roll on him. Grice left the state when the sheriff picked Jimmy up and came back after my lawyer had gotten him out. I knew the name; but this was the first time I'd laid eyes on him.I ground out my cigarette and leaned forward in my chair as Tony walked to where the three men sat."You ain't welcomed here, Frank." He spoke low to Grice, ignoring the others. The line of his jaw was white. "Get out."What kind of a way is that to talk, Tony?" Frank Grice smiled widely, spread his hands innocently, palms up. "We just came by for a drink.""Drink somewhere else."Grice didn't answer. He took a pack of cigarettes out of his overcoat, pulled one loose. The big guy flicked a gold lighter for him. Grice looked at the flame as if it were something new and interesting. Lighting the cigarette, he looked up at Tony. Smoke streamed lazily from his mouth. He said something softly, so softly I couldn't hear it. Tony went a deep red; I couldn't hear his answer, either. Grice stood suddenly. The other two exchanged looks, then followed suit. Grice sauntered to the door, opened it, and held it open, smiling the whole time, his cigarette dangling from his c.o.c.keyed lips. Tony half turned, searching for Marie. "Keep an eye on things," he growled. "I'll be right back." He slammed forward, past Grice, through the open door. Grice followed, his boys followed him, and the door swung shut behind them.Before the door closed I was out of my chair, moving swiftly past the bar and through the vinyl-padded doors that swung into the kitchen. Buzzing fluorescent lights, too bright, reflected off the stainless-steel counters. The room smelled of garlic and ammonia. A skinny kid up to his elbows in greasy water stared as I slipped out the kitchen door into the winter darkness. My steps made no sound as I rounded the corner of the building, a cold wind pus.h.i.+ng its way through my s.h.i.+rt. Three figures-Tony, Grice, and the big, friendly man-leaned close together in the middle of the parking lot; a fourth, the little guy, stood by the bar's front door. I worked my way in the shadows of parked cars.I couldn't see Tony's face, but his voice came to me, tight and gravelly. "You don't get it, Frank. I want you outta here, d.a.m.n fast.""No, you you don't get it, Tony." Grice's voice still held a smile. "If I'm thirsty, you pour me a drink. If I'm hungry, you grill me a steak. That's how it is now." don't get it, Tony." Grice's voice still held a smile. "If I'm thirsty, you pour me a drink. If I'm hungry, you grill me a steak. That's how it is now.""h.e.l.l it is," Tony spat.A nod from Grice, just a small movement of his misshapen head, and the big man slipped behind Tony like a shadow, pinned his arms as Grice smashed his fist into Tony's belly. Tony doubled over, groaning. The big man pulled him up. Grice laughed, rubbed his fist into the palm of his other hand. He stopped laughing suddenly as I slammed into him like a freight train, spreading him backwards across the rusted trunk of an old red Chevy. I backhanded him once across the mouth, just to slow him down; then I sprang back, left him there. He was Tony's.Tony tore himself out of the big man's surprised grip and reached both hands for Grice, hauled him off the car while I grabbed the big man's shoulder, spun him around. I threw my best punch into the middle of his mustache. He wasn't any bigger than I was, and my best wasn't bad, but it didn't faze him. He staggered back; then, spreading his lips in a hungry smile, he launched himself at me. I sidestepped, drove a kick into his ribs.He stumbled; I watched. Then something crashed into me from behind, knocked me to the ground. Small, bony hands lightened around my throat, squeezing, shaking. A knee dug into my back.Gravel sc.r.a.ped the side of my face as I twisted, digging with my right foot, trying to shake off the little guy as my lungs began to strain for air. I groped at his hands pressing into my windpipe. My heart pounded, raced; yellow and red explosions started behind my eyes. His breath rasped loudly in my ear. I had no breath at all. The world got smaller, darker. Closing on one finger of each choking hand I forced them back, my muscles only half obeying, beginning to tremble. I put everything into bending those two fingers; at the last minute the hands loosened and I clawed them away from my throat.I sucked air loudly and twisted left, yanking on his right arm. He slipped from my back; I drove my right elbow hard beside me into whatever was there. It landed solidly enough to send bolts of pain ricocheting up and down my arm. From the sounds behind me, I wasn't the only one who noticed. I pulled away and got up on one knee and then the big man was back, with a fist the size of a bowling ball slamming into my chin. My head snapped back and I landed in a cold muddy puddle. I lay motionless, breathing hard.The big man leaned over me, relaxed and smiling, for a good look. When he was near enough that I could smell the stale coffee on his breath, I shot my arms out and grabbed his jacket, pulled my knee to my chest, shoved my foot into his gut. I straightened my leg and threw him away from me, and this time when he stumbled I was right there, three fast mean punches pounding his face and another sharp kick up under his ribs. He moaned and started to sag. I clenched my hands together and swung them like a hatchet down on the place where his neck joined his shoulder. At first nothing happened; then he fell over sideways like a tree. I stepped back, panting, and looked around. The little bony guy was standing now but he was a lot smaller than I was and he wouldn't try to take me again, not from the front where I could see him coming. I grinned so he'd know I knew that.A loud, wordless sound came from behind me. I whipped around and saw Tony sitting on Frank Grice's chest, his knees pinning Grice's arms, his square fist thumping repeatedly into Grice's already b.l.o.o.d.y face. "Tony!" I yelled hoa.r.s.ely. "Hey, Tony, that's enough! Come on, man, you're going to kill him."I pulled Tony back and off Grice, who groaned, rolled, and worked his way slowly to his feet. Tony struggled in my grip and I held him, not relaxing until he did."All right?" I asked, as his rocky muscles loosened under my hands. He nodded and I let him go.Grice stood slightly stooped, breathing noisily through his mouth. He lifted a hand to his face, cupping his nose, then moved the hand away. "You'll pay for this, Tony," he hissed. "This was stupid. And you"-he turned his b.l.o.o.d.y face to me-"whoever the h.e.l.l you are, stay the f.u.c.k out of my way from now on.""Aw, Frank," I said, my voice still hoa.r.s.e. "Why should Tony have all the fun?"Something flared in Grice's eyes. I suddenly noticed how cold I was, soaked with sweat and muddy water out here in the winter night."Go on, Tony," Grice said, still looking at me. "You bring me all the smarta.s.s muscle you want. It won't help you, Tony." He coughed."I don't need no help, you son of a b.i.t.c.h," Tony snarled, taking two fast steps toward Grice.From off to my right a voice like gears grinding said, "Don't do that." I spun around. Ten feet away, the little bony guy was planted, legs spread apart, holding an automatic pointed at the centre of Tony's chest.Grice and Tony saw the gun the same time I did. Everyone froze, and for a long moment no one moved in the gravelled lot under the blue-black sky, scattered now with more stars than a man could count, even in a long lifetime.My gun was pressed to my ribs under my flannel s.h.i.+rt, as out of reach as the stars.Then Grice laughed, a short, guttural sound, as of something being ripped in two. "Oh, Christ, Wally. What the h.e.l.l is that for? Put it away. Come on, let's go." He looked at me, then at Tony. "Next time," he said.He turned sharply and walked to a big blue Ford, got in the front pa.s.senger door. The little guy hesitated, swore, then tucked the gun into his belt. He grabbed the big man, who looked as if he wasn't sure what day it was. Steering him to the car, he shoved him through the rear door, got behind the wheel, and sprayed gravel tearing out of the lot.Tony and I watched the red glow of their tail lights vanish down 30. "I don't like your friends," I told him."You got Frank p.i.s.sed off at you now," he said.I fingered my left cheek carefully. It felt hot and sore. "You owe him, Tony?"Tony turned to me. A lead curtain fell behind his eyes. "I don't owe n.o.body, Smith." He wiped his hand down his sweaty face. "You shoulda stayed out of it.""Yeah." I shrugged. "But I was hungry. Grice beats the s.h.i.+t out of you, I don't get my lasagna."We turned together, headed back toward the door. The ancient, pitted tin sign that read "Antonelli's," Tony's father's sign, creaked as it swung in the wind. A smile cracked Tony's face. "Sucker," he said. "I'm outta lasagna."Two hours later, full of food, warmer, I turned my six- year-old Acura onto the dirt road that leads from 30 down to my cabin. The single lane was rutted and slippery, ruts that fit my tires exactly because almost no one drove that road but me. I parked in the flat field next to my place and spent a long time leaning on the car, looking at the stars through the black cross-hatching of tree branches.Inside, I turned on the lamp in the front room. The cedar-panelled walls soaked up most of the light, except where the gla.s.s frame of a photograph or drawing caught it, threw it back. When I bought the cabin it wasn't winterized, so I'd done that, insulating, finis.h.i.+ng with cedar because it stood up well to damp and I liked the smell. I'd reroofed, too, and rebuilt the porch; this year, as soon as the weather was warm enough, I was going to replace the chimney.I shed my jacket, threw it over the broken-in reading hair by the window. As I turned, lamplight glinted on the child's silver-framed photograph in the middle of the bookshelves. Days, weeks could go by without my looking at that picture, knowing it was there but feeling it only as a source of warmth, a hand on my shoulder. At those times I felt almost at peace; sometimes I even thought I wanted to talk about it, although I didn't know with whom and I never tried.And then other times, like now, I'd walk by too close, too close, and slice my heart on the sharp edges of Annie's smile. Then the old pain would well up from where it lived in the hollows of my bones, and my eyes would grow hot. Ambushed by this aching, I would stare, as I did now, into this picture that never changed, and wonder why I kept it here, where it was so dangerous. Seven years ago I'd packed away the pictures I'd had in New York, and all her things. Her things were gone from here, too; this was all that I had left, all I'd kept, and I wondered why.But I knew.Because although the fresh prettiness of her face, the round cheeks and soft brown eyes and the wave in her hair, had all been her mother's, that sharp, slanted smile was mine.And because, in all her nine years, I had never seen Annie afraid.I turned away from the picture. I poured myself some Maker's Mark, left the bottle out. I drank, then flexed myhands, palms up, palms down; they seemed all right, so I carried the bourbon to the piano bench and raised the cover off the keyboard of the old, battered Baldwin.I ran through a series of scales, the keys cold and smooth and hard under my fingers; then, after a still minute and a few deep breaths, I started on the Mozart B minor Adagio, trying out the phrasing that had been running around my head since morning. It didn't really work, but I played through the piece anyway, twice, and then went on to more Mozart, the Sonata in A minor, which I'd been playing a lot longer and played better.As I moved into it, the power and the tension in me grew until my whole body rang with them, with the exhilaration of balancing on a very narrow beam, barely controlling the lines of the music as they wove toward and away from each other, building, fading, stopping and not stopping, only my hands preventing chaos, creating just enough order for just enough time that the immense beauty of the music could exist here, now, in this dark, small place halfway down a wooded winter hillside, under a million stars.

Chapter 2

Morning came, cold, clear, and much too early.

Groggy, I rolled across the bed out of the sunlight, tried to remember why I ached, why my cheek was stiff and sore and my jaw was tender. There must have been a fight, but I didn't remember it, and a sick, familiar feeling began in the pit of my stomach. The fights I couldn't remember were usually ones I'd started, usually over nothing, usually with men I didn't know and had no quarrel with except the quarrel that comes in a bottle of bourbon like the prize in a box of Cracker Jacks. Time had been when I would often wake sick and aching, finding nothing in my memory but shadows and regret. It had been a long time since the last time, though, and it had never happened up here. That was one of the reasons I came here, and so I worked at remembering, pus.h.i.+ng my way through the bourbon haze and the dull thudding in my skull.

Nothing came. I groped on the table by the bed for a cigarette. I lit one, missed the ashtray with the match, rolled onto my back. I looked slowly around, to the window, the charcoal drawing on the wall, the bureau, the straight-backed chair with yesterday's clothes slung over it. Nothing. A cloud covered the sun, left the room gray and cold.

Early-morning smoke caught in my throat and I coughed, felt a pain I wasn't expecting. I touched my neck, feeling the sore, bruised places, and then memory and relief flooded in together like tide in a sand castle. It was all there: Tony, Frank Grice, the bony hands around my neck. The muddy puddle. The gun.I finished the cigarette, threw off the quilt. Standing at the window I watched the high thin clouds drifting east. Birds searched my yard for breakfast. They moved with the jerky speed of a silent movie, flas.h.i.+ng from branches to the ground.I shrugged into a robe, went out to the front room. As always, it was warmer there than in the rooms in the back, the one I slept in and the other, rarely used now.I flicked on the hot water heater in the corner of the kitchen. I built a fire in the wood stove and put some water on to boil. When the coffee was ground and waiting I took a quick shower, in water I wouldn't have called hot anywhere but here.I dressed quickly in clothes as cold as the air. I thought about shaving, but I looked in the mirror at my cheek, streaked and raw, and decided to skip it. Eve Colgate would just have to live with it.

Wearing my jacket and gloves, I took my coffee outside to the porch. Up on the ridge 30 ran, invisible, around the rim of my land. The damp smell of decaying leaves mixed with the dryness of woodsmoke. In the crisp and clear air the black skeletons of trees were sharp against the sky. The oaks up by the road I'd planted myself, the first summer I was here. They were still small; oaks are slow growers.

By the time I'd finished the thick, bitter coffee the Bounding in my head was gone. I smoked a cigarette while the pale- sun stabbed through the branches as though it were searching for something. I grabbed a handful of bird- seed from the can by the door, scattered it in the yard. Then I went back inside, rinsed out my coffee cup, slipped on my holster and my .38. I wiped the frost from the car and headed up the road to meet Eve Colgate.Eve Colgate's house sat on the crest of a hill along Route 10 in the north of the county. Below, the state highway gleamed two wide flat ribbons laid over the fields. Cars raced along it with a faint whoosh. From Eve Colgate's place you could see that, but there were better things to look at. The sky was a brilliant blue and the wind raised miniature waves on puddles by the roadside. The sun was almost warm. Eve Colgate had apple, peach, and cherry orchards, pasture for a small dairy herd, and a long, straight drive arched over by chestnut trees planted close. A stand of forsythia already showed tiny spots of green.The house was small but solid, yellow clapboard with white shutters and a big front porch. To the right of the drive a lawn slanted up to the house. On the drive's other side, ten feet of lawn separated the chestnuts from a tangle of undergrowth and scrub trees sloping down to the forest. A hundred years ago someone had cleared the forest from that slope, probably intending to plant and harvest andProsper. But the ground was rocky and winters were hard. Some of the scrub trees were as tall as the house.A muscular black dog came charging off the porch as I drove up. I parked behind a blue Ford pickup. In front of the house was another truck, a work-scarred red one. Eve Colgate, in a black sweater, hatless and gloveless, stood beside it talking with a thickly built man.I got out of the car. The dog barked, planted his feet, growled deep in his throat like a dog who means business. I took a step forward. So did he. I stopped, waited."Leo!" Eve Colgate called. The dog looked to her, then quickly back at me, giving one wag of his tail. He didn't stop growling. "Leo!" she called again, more sharply, and he hesitated, then went to her reluctantly, glaring at me over his shoulder.Eve Colgate stood scratching the dog's ears. I walked up the drive toward her and the heavy man. The dog bristled as I got close but he didn't move.Eve Colgate's eyebrows rose slightly when she saw my face, bruised and unshaven. She looked from me to the man next to her; then she explained us to each other. "Bill Smith, Harvey Warner. The Warners have the next farm to mine. Mr. Smith is up from New York. He has a cabin near North Blenheim." We shook hands."Well, I'll call you," Warner said to her. "Is day after tomorrow's good?""It's fine," she said. "I'll be sure to have read this by then." She gestured with a folder of papers she was holding.

"d.a.m.n thing better be all it's cracked up to be." Warner spat in the dirt. "Else I swear I'm gonna sell them d.a.m.n cows, go sharecroppin' for Sanderson like everybody else."

"You swore that last year," she smiled."Yeah well, this year I'm gonna do it. d.a.m.n pipeline's gonna ruin my best pastureland anyway. Or maybe I'll just stick Sanderson with the whole d.a.m.n place, retire to Florida before he figures out he's out of his mind. To h.e.l.l with it. I'll call you." He swung into the red pickup, drove nil down the muddy drive. The dog chased after him, yapping.Eve Colgate watched the truck go, then looked at me, her eyes probing my face as you might test an ice field before you walked out on it."What did he mean, sharecropping?" I asked, to be saying something under those eyes.She turned back to the drive, watched the dog trotting up it. "That's what they all call it. The small dairy farmers are all giving up. They're selling their herds to whomever will buy them, and their land to Appleseed. Then they contract to Appleseed, putting the pastureland into vegetables. They grow what Mark Sanderson tells them to and he pays them whatever he wants." She ran a hand through her blunt gray hair. "A lot of people are bitter about it. But they do it, because they're farmers and this is what they know, even on land that's no longer theirs." She gestured with the folder in her hand. "Harvey's grandfather settled that farm. But fifty cows aren't enough anymore. I have even fewer. We're talking about consolidating our herds and investing in new equipment.""Will that pay?""I hope so. I don't know what Harvey will do if he has to sell his cows, or his land.""He says he'll go to Florida."She said, "He's never been farther than Albany.""What will you do?""I-" She paused. Her crystal eyes moved over the hills and pasture, ocher and charcoal and chocolate under the bright sun. "I have options Harvey doesn't have. Don't misunderstand me: this farm supports itself, it's not a hobby. But neither am I totally dependent on it. I have no mortgage, no bank loans. I can weather bad times." She turned away from the drive. "Shall we walk?"I lit a cigarette, turning to shelter the match from the wind, and we headed down the slope behind the house. The dog sniffed at me. I showed him my hand and when he stuck his cold nose in it I carefully scratched his ears the way Eve Colgate had. He wagged his tail grudgingly and bounded away.Eve Colgate watched the dog, then looked at me appraisingly. "He usually won't let a stranger touch him.""Professional courtesy," I said.She continued to look at me for a short time, absorbing me with her colorless eyes. Then she laughed."They say I'm eccentric, Mr. Smith," Eve Colgate said as we paced over yielding earth criss-crossed by papery yellow gra.s.ses."Is it true, or just convenient?" I asked her."It's true enough.""Where are we going?""I need to show you something."We didn't speak again, striding side by side through last year's field. As we walked I could feel Eve Colgate's mood change. She grew distant, tense.Finally we came to a small outbuilding, weathered siding and corrugated steel roof in a clearing where a dirt road curved up from the valley. We stopped at the padlocked door. Eve Colgate looked at me, looked down at the mud at her feet; then, her lips drawn into a thin line, she pulled a single key from her back pocket and thrust it into the lock, jerked it open. She pushed the wide sliding door just enough to make an opening a person could fit through and she went inside.I followed her into a single square room, flooded with unexpected brightness from a skylight. Unexpected, too, was the fact that the interior was finished: sheetrock walls and ceiling, white; gray deck paint on the broad-plank floor; double-glazed frosted windows, allowing light but no view out or in; and heat, electric heat from baseboards running all around the place.The warmth and closeness of the air, after the sharp cold of the morning, was unpleasant, and it intensified the strong, heady smell of turpentine that rolled toward me as I came through the door. But that wasn't what stopped me dead two steps inside. What did that was the canvas leaning on the wall before me.

Six feet high, eight feet wide, unfinished, but already with the power of a nightmare, barely contained. Brutal, slas.h.i.+ng lines; sullen, swollen forms whose weight seemed to threaten the canvas that held them; a darkness, a lack of clarity that made you want to shake your head, clear the film from your eyes. When you did that, when you stared long and deep enough, the thick grays and decaying browns, even the black, began to unfold, revealing the taut wires of color within them-blood red, cobalt, the green of a Kentucky sky in the minutes before a twister hits, other colors I couldn't begin to name.

I had seen paintings like this before. They were in the Museum of Modern Art, at the Whitney, at the Tate. There had been at least one in every large twentieth- century show at every major museum for the last thirty years. Landscapes, I'd heard them called, but that was only by people who needed distance, needed to name and so deflect the pain and anger that lashed out from these paintings to rip open the places inside you where you hid things you had let yourself believe were gone forever."Jesus Christ," I said finally, and then again, "Jesus Christ." I looked at Eve Colgate, who was standing in front of me, a little to one side. Her, back was rigid, as though she were expecting a blow, bracing herself. "You're Eva Nouvel."She turned to face me. Two hot spots of red shone on her cheeks, but her eyes were completely calm. "Yes," she said, in a voice that matched her eyes. "And now you know something that not a half dozen other people in this world know." She pushed past me and out through the narrow opening. I turned back to the unfinished canvas for a long look, then stepped over the threshold, joining her in the crisp, bright day. In silence we skirted a pasture where black-and-white cows nosed at a carpet of hay. Beyond the pasture was an apple orchard, where new, mature, and ancient trees ran in parallel rows up and over the hillside. We walked beneath them under branches studded with buds. The dog threaded in and out as though st.i.tching the orchard together.Eve Colgate, without looking at me, spoke. "You recognized my work. I didn't expect that. It may make this easier".At the edge of the orchard a low stone wall curved sinuously along a ridge. Eve Colgate leaned on the wall, her arms hugging her chest, her back to the sun. I leaned next to her, watching the shadows of the high, cottony clouds move across the hills."If you know my work," she said quietly, "perhaps you know my reputation.""Eva Nouvel is a recluse. A hermit.""That's right." She put her hands on the wall behind her and slid onto it, cross-legged. The black dog settled into a round pile in the sun."I was just thirty when I left New York, Mr. Smith. I came here and bought this farm and I have lived here since, alone. I stopped painting when I came here and did not paint for some years after." She picked up a twig lying on the wall, dug it into the joint between two stones. "That's not quite true. Within weeks of establis.h.i.+ng myself here I did a series of six canvases. I-" She drew a deep breath. "Before I came here I had been in the hospital for-for a long time. I had been seriously injured in an automobile accident in which my husband was killed. The accident was entirely our fault, my fault, I was driving. We had been drinking heavily." She paused again, stared into the distance, past the valley, past the hills.To my mind, sudden, unwanted, and unavoidable, came the screech of brakes, the shattering of gla.s.s, sirens and shouts. Not Eve Colgate's accident, but another one, seven years ago: the crash when Annie died. An accident I hadn't seen, hadn't even known about until days later. I'd been away then, out of town on a case, and hadn't called anyone to say I was leaving, to say where I'd be.The sun was high by now, s.h.i.+ning through a silence broken only by the drone of a distant plane. Eve Colgate spoke again. "The paintings I made when I first came here . . ." She stopped, restarted. "It doesn't matter. They were not successful. They couldn't have been. I stopped painting then, and did not paint again for almost five years." The twig in her hand lodged between two stones and snapped. "When I came here I brought almost nothing from my days in New York. Most of my husband's things, and mine, I disposed of. The few things I couldn't part with I brought here, packed in the steamer trunk we had taken on our honeymoon. The trunk went into a storeroom and I never looked at it again. When I realized the paintings I had made were not good, I intended to destroy them, as I do all my unsuccessful work, but I couldn't. I crated them and put them in the same storeroom." She threw the broken twig away."Four days ago-two days before I called you in New York-I had a burglary. I'm a prosperous woman in a poor county, Mr. Smith; it's happened before. I expect itand I survive it. But this time the storeroom was broken Into The trunk and the crate were taken, as well as some other things: tools, equipment. I don't care about any of II, mil even Henri's things, which were in the trunk. I don't need to have them anymore."She fell silent, empty clear eyes staring out over the far hills. Then she turned to me, and I saw that her eyes weren't empty. Something gleamed deep within them like grins locked in ice. "But I want those paintings back. Do you know why?"I looked into her eyes, saw amethysts, rubies, sapphires, sparkling, infinitely distant. "I think I do."She waited, still and silent.I said, "Because they're not good."She nodded, let her breath out slowly. "I want you to mind those paintings, Mr. Smith. Can you do that?""I don't know. Have you told the police?"She shook her head. Then she gestured over the orchard, the pasture, the hills. "Do you know what this is?"I answered a different question. "It's beautiful."She was quiet for a very long time. Then she spoke. "It's mud," she said. "Manure. Hay. Snow. Eight-hundred- pound cows that have to be helped to calve. Eggs that have to be collected every morning in a henhouse that stinks. Apple trees that lose their blooms in a frost, or their fruit in a hailstorm. Or produce so much fruit you can't hire help enough to pick it, at any price." She unfolded her legs, slipped off the wall to stand again on the rocky ground. The black dog leapt to his feet, tail wagging. Eve Colgate looked at me. "It's why I can paint."We started walking again, back through the orchard, toward the house. "Eva Nouvel is famous," she said. The dog dropped a stick at her feet. She picked it up, threw it in a high, curving arc. The dog charged after it. "But Eve Colgate is a farmer. She splits wood and wrings chickens' necks. And she's the one who paints." The dog trotted back, dropped the stick. I bent down for it. He lunged but I was faster. I lifted it into the air, let him jump at it; then I sent it flying end over end through the sunlight. He raced away."Thirty years ago," Eve Colgate went on, "I made an arrangement with myself. It was based on my opinion of the world as I knew it. I've had no reason to change that opinion." She didn't speak again until we came up the hill behind the house, trim and solid against the blue of the sky. "Fame is a disease, Mr. Smith. I don't want it; I won't have it. Nor will I have those paintings dissected, discussed, exposed-!"The spots of red appeared in her cheeks again, but her voice stayed low, controlled. "I want you to find those paintings, and do whatever you have to do to get them back. Pay the market price, if you have to. I can do that." She smiled a small, bitter smile; then it faded. "But who I am is my business."We rounded the house, stopped at the porch steps. I looked at her. Her boots were caked with mud. Her eyes were like crystal creatures caught in the net of lines around them."The paintings" I said, watched her eyes. "Who would recognize them as yours? An expert? A layman? Are they signed?" I said, watched her eyes. "Who would recognize them as yours? An expert? A layman? Are they signed?""They're not signed. An expert would certainly know them. An educated layman, possibly. My work is distinctive, Mr. An educated layman, possibly. My work is distinctive, Mr. Smith. There are recurring images, themes that don't Smith. There are recurring images, themes that don't change." change."I searched for the right way to put my next question. "If it were necessary to destroy the paintings to preserve your privacy, would that be all right?"She didn't speak right away. Finally she said, "I don't know."Simple and clear, that answer; and I'd made my decision. I said, "There are some things I'll need.""What things?""Descriptions of whatever was in the trunk. And I'll need to bring someone else in."She stiffened. "Why someone else? No.""If I'd stolen your stuff, I'd forget about selling the paintings-a.s.suming I didn't know what they were worth- and try to unload whatever looked valuable: silver, old photographs, things like that." And probably dump everything else in the county landfill, but I didn't tell her that. "But if I were smart enough to know what the paintings were worth, I'd also know I couldn't sell them up here. I'd take them to New York. I want to call someone, check that out. I could go down there myself, but I think I'm more useful up here." I'd stolen your stuff, I'd forget about selling the paintings-a.s.suming I didn't know what they were worth- and try to unload whatever looked valuable: silver, old photographs, things like that." And probably dump everything else in the county landfill, but I didn't tell her that. "But if I were smart enough to know what the paintings were worth, I'd also know I couldn't sell them up here. I'd take them to New York. I want to call someone, check that out. I could go down there myself, but I think I'm more useful up here."

She was silent for a time, her eyes roving over the sloping lawn, the drive, the tangles of forsythia. "All right, she said quietly. "I'm hiring you as a professional. If you think this is necessary, do it. But understand that total discretion is as important to me as the return of those paintings."

I couldn't help grinning. If I hadn't gotten that message already it would have been a good time to tear up my license and go fis.h.i.+ng.

Chapter 3

It was early for lunch at Antonelli's. Tony was alone inside except for two T-s.h.i.+rted guys wolfing down beers, burgers, and a mountain of fries. Tony, leaning on the bar, looked up from his newspaper as I came in."Jesus," he said. "You look like h.e.l.l.""And you don't. Why is that?"He grunted. "Clean livin'." He folded the paper, put it aside. "You okay?""Sure," I said. "Just thirsty. Let me have a Genny Cream." He opened a bottle and put it on the bar with a gla.s.s. "Listen, Tony, I need to talk to Jimmy. Where can I find him?""Trouble?" His mouth tightened."No. Just something I need to know.""From that punk?" He gave a humorless laugh. "If you can't drink it, drive it, or steal it, he don't know nothin' about it.""Oh, Christ, Tony, there are some things he's good for, if you'd cut him a little slack. He cooks as well as you do. And he's better than anyone I know with a car." I was sorry the minute I said it.Tony's face flushed. "Yeah. He can fix 'em, smash 'em, or cool 'em off if they're hot."Oh well, I was in now. "That what Frank Grice was here about last night? Something to do with the quarry?""That's none of your f.u.c.kin' business!" He slammed his open hand on the bar. The T-s.h.i.+rts looked up from their fries. Tony s.h.i.+fted his eyes to them, then back to me. He dropped his voice. "You saved my a.s.s last night. I owe you, okay? But keep out of this. I can handle Grice.""His type doesn't handle, Tony. You give him what he wants or you shut him down.""What the h.e.l.l do you know?""Not much," I said. "I only know Grice by reputation. But I've met a lot of guys like him. I do it for a living.""Then stick to the payin' customers."I drained my gla.s.s, turned it slowly between my palms. Tony gestured at it. "You want another?" I nodded. He opened a bottle, filled my gla.s.s. I drank."I'm sorry, Tony," I said. "I have trouble minding my own business. And guys like Grice make my skin crawl.""Forget it." He took the empty bottles, put them in slots in the cardboard case under the bar. "Jimmy's been workin' a coupla days a week at Obermeyer's garage over in Central Bridge. Call over there, maybe you can get him.""Thanks." I stood. "Okay if I tie up the phone for a while?"He shrugged. "It ain't rang in two days."I took my beer over to the pay phone against the back wall. I thought for a minute, about Tony, Jimmy, Eve Colgate's pasture, and some paintings she hadn't seen in thirty years; about how things change and how they don't. Then I slipped in some quarters, dialed Lydia's office number in New York.I got the bounce-line message; so she was on the phone; either actually in her office or at home on the line that rings through. Normally I would have just left a message of my own, but calling me back up here wasn't all that easy. I took a chance and dialed the other number, the one that rings at home, in the kitchen. It's not a number I call often, but it's engraved deep in my memory just the same. I lapped my fingers on the old, scarred woodwork as the phone rang and rang.Finally a woman's voice answered in Cantonese, using words I recognized, though I didn't understand them. I gave her my dozen Cantonese words: a respectful greeting and a request. There was silence, then a snort; then the phone clattered in my ear and I could hear the voice calling to someone else.A few moments later came another woman's voice, this time in English. "My mother says you should stop trying to impress her; your Chinese is terrible.""What did she call me this time?"Lydia said, "The iron-headed rat.""What does it mean?""'Iron-headed'-you know, stubborn, willful; sometimes stupid. I guess it could mean gray-haired, too.""You think she meant that?""No. In Chinese that's a good good thing." thing.""Great. Why rat?""Don't ask.""Someday she'll like me. Listen, are you real busy, or can you take something on?""She'll never even tolerate you. I'm tailing a noodle merchant whose wife thinks he's messing around with her younger sister, but it's not as engrossing as it sounds. But I thought you were up in the country.""I am.""You never call from there. Are you all right?" A slight quickening came into her voice."I took a case.""Up there?" Now, surprise. "I thought you-""It's a long story," I said, even though as I said it I realized it wasn't; or at least, not the way that's usually meant. "I got a call from someone up here; that's why I came up. Can you work on it?""Um, sure." Her tone told me she wanted to ask more, maybe hear the long story, but she answered the question I'd asked. "What do you need?"I told her about the burglary, what was stolen. I didn't say from whom. She whistled low. "Six Eva Nouvels? My G.o.d, they must be worth a fortune.""Maybe two million, together," I agreed. "Could be more: they're unknown, uncatalogued.""How unknown?""The client says completely. I don't know. But right now I'm not thinking anyone came looking for them. It was probably just a break-in, kids. They may even have junked the paintings by now, just kept the stuff that looked valuable to them.""That's a cheerful thought.""I'm going to try some other things, but if nothing turns up it may be worth a trip to the county dump. But just in case, I want you to look around down there. I don't think anyone will try to sell those paintings in New York; they'd s.h.i.+p them out to Europe, maybe j.a.pan. If that's happening I want to stop them.""What were they doing in a storeroom? Six paintings that valuable?"" That's where the client kept them.""Okay, funny guy. And who's the client?"" I can't tell you."She skipped half a beat. "You can't tell me?" me?""Now," I said. "From here. Over the phone.""Oh." That single word held a dubious note, as though my explanation was logical but not convincing. "Are there other things you're not telling me?""Yes," I said. "But when I tell them to you, you hang up on me.""For which not a woman in America could blame me. What do I do if I find a trail? Are the police in on this?""No, and that's important. I don't want anyone who doesn't know these paintings exist to find out from us.""Top-secret paintings stuck in a storeroom by a top- secret client in the middle of nowhere. And I thought it was all trees and cows and guys who shoot at Bambi up there. Silly me.""I'll call you later," I told her. "If anything turns up, you can try the cell phone, but you might not get through up here.""I'm surprised you even took it with you.""You told me I had to carry one. I always do what you tell me.""Uh-huh.""Uh-huh. Well, anyway, if you can't get through, try this number." I gave her the number of the phone I was at. "Ask for Tony. Leave a time and a place I can call you. Hey, and Lydia?""Yes?""Tell your mother I'm a nice guy.""I never lie to my mother. Talk to you later."She hung up. I took out another quarter, dialed Obermeyer's garage-the number was carved into the wood-work-and asked for Jimmy. A voice m.u.f.fled by food told me he hadn't come in yet. "You got a problem?""Lots," I answered. "If you see him, tell him Bill Smith is looking for him, okay?""Sure." The voice slurped a drink, went on. "If you you see him, tell him I'm all backed up here, and where the h.e.l.l is he?" see him, tell him I'm all backed up here, and where the h.e.l.l is he?""Sure."There were loud crunching sounds. I hung up.The vinyl-covered phone book was chained to the shelf under the phone. I flipped it open to the Yellow Pages in the back, found Antique Shops, pages of them. Schoharie was studded with these places. Most of them were no more than someone's front room or disused garage, where chipped china and molding books shared s.p.a.ce with broken-legged tables and chairs with torn upholstery. But a few shops were bigger or more choosy about their merchandise. It was still possible to come across the kind of finds up here that had long since vanished from areas closer to the city or more attractive to tourists. The past was one of the few things people up here had to sell.Jimmy could have pointed me in the right direction.He'd have protested innocence, or maybe with me he wouldn't have bothered; but he'd know where to find a fence for the sort of things Eve Colgate had lost. Without him it was a c.r.a.pshoot, so I fed quarters into the phone and started from A. With everyone who answered I used the same line. A teapot, I said I needed, describing vaguely a silver teapot Eve Colgate had described to me in great detail. For my wife, I said, for our anniversary. She liked that kind of thing, I didn't know anything about it, myself.At the end of half an hour I had four promising places, all within an hour's drive of Eve Colgate's farm.I brought my empty gla.s.s back to Tony at the bar. The T-s.h.i.+rts were gone; the place was empty."You leavin'?""Yeah. I'll be back tonight. Someone may call me here." I pointed a thumb at the phone."Okay," Tony said. "Only help me out with somethin' before you go.""I thought I was supposed to mind my own business.""You gonna want ice in your G.o.dd.a.m.n bourbon later, this is your business. d.a.m.n thing's busted again." Tony's antiquated ice machine had more weak points than a sermon."What is it, that valve? Like when I was here in the fall?""Yeah, and twice in the winter when you wasn't. You gotta turn it off downstairs, wait till I tell you to turn it on again. The red one. You know." I knew. "Unless you're in a hurry. It can wait till the O'Brien kid comes in, or Marie.""No hurry."The door to the cellar was back by the phone. Under my weight the wooden stairs creaked. The light from the head of the stairs didn't reach very far, but dusty gray daylight filtered in through the grimy windows in the back wall. The place smelled of mildew and damp concrete. I shook a spiderweb from the back of my hand.Tony's cellar was a shadowed landscape of boxes, crates, abandoned furniture. Lying across the pipes overhead were old fis.h.i.+ng rods, skis, a pair of snowshoes whose leather webbing was crumbling to dust. About five miles of greasy rope was heaped in a corner, next to a bureau Tony's father had moved down here before Tony was born.Tony knew every object here, and could navigate smoothly through them in the dark. I couldn't. I waited for my eyes to adjust to the dimness, then picked my way carefully to the middle of the room, where a single light- bulb dangled from the ceiling.I reached a hand up to it; then I stopped and froze. I wasn't the only thing moving.Barely visible, a shadow darker than the others slid noiselessly behind a hill of boxes.Slowly, silently, I eased the gun from under my arm. I stared through the dimness; there was nothing. Everything was still, as though it always had been. But I'd seen it. I moved to my left, to where the shadow went. My steps were silent. Maybe whoever it was wouldn't hear my heart pounding, either.Suddenly a crash, something shattering on the concrete floor. Another flash of movement. I pressed my back against the wall, gun drawn. Before me two unblinking eyes appeared, glittering in the half-light.The cat whose face they were in crouched on a pile of boxes, hissed, thrashed its tail. It turned, flowed through a broken windowpane and was gone.I breathed. "s.h.i.+t," I said to the vanished cat. "You could get killed doing that." I put my gun away, rubbed the back of my neck."Hey, Smith!" Tony yelled from above. "What the h.e.l.l are you doin' down there?""All right!" I yelled back. I stepped over a broken barstool into the center of the room and yanked the chain on the dangling bulb. The sudden glare brought sharp edges and color springing out of the soft shadows. I looked around, searching for a clear path to the back of the room, but I never found it.From the back wall near the floor another pair of eyes met mine. These didn't blink either, but they didn't glitter. They were human, and they were dull because they were dead.

Chapter 4.

He must have been standing right up against the back wall when he was shot. Three dark rings with darker centers the size of a baby's fist stained his s.h.i.+rt. He'd slumped down leaving a thin smear of blood on the ancient whitewash, until he settled, sitting on the dirty floor, one arm over a case of empties as though it were a friend of his. His face was a mottled gray, like candlewax and ashes, and from his slack, open mouth a thin line of blood, now dry and cracking, had dripped down his chin to splash perfect circles onto his open, bony hand.I knew those hands. After last night, the way they'd circled my throat, shaking and choking, after that I'd have known them anywhere.He looked so foolish, so surprised. I wanted to close his eyes, his mouth, cover him with something. He was indecent, unready as the curtain went up on his final show, probably the only starring role a guy like him had ever had.I knelt, felt his neck for a pulse. I knew it was stupid. I lifted the edge of his coat with a finger, looking for the gun he'd had last night. It was gone.

The sweet smell of blood was thick in the damp air. I let his coat fall and stayed where I was, prowling the floor with my eyes. I didn't know what I was looking for but I found it, a set of keys on a silver ring in the dirt by his knee. I stared at them in the dim light; then I took out a handkerchief, picked them up in it, and slipped them, wrapped, into my pocket.

I stepped back the way I'd come, careful not to disturb anything I hadn't disturbed already.The creaking of the stairs as I went up seemed louder than before, but I could have been wrong about that.Tony and I were sitting at the round table in the front of the room, about as far from the cellar as you could get. I was drinking bourbon; he was drinking gin. Tony had called the state troopers. Now all we had to do was wait.A fly, early and stupid, staggered slowly around a wine stain in the red-and-white tablecloth like an old man avoiding a puddle.I lit a cigarette, shook out the match. "Tell me about it, Tony."Tony looked into the gla.s.s in front of him. He didn't find anything but gin. "Nothin' to tell.""There's a stiff in your cellar says otherwise."He raised his head sharply, glared at me. "You think I put him there?"I shook my head. "You didn't even know he was down there or you wouldn't have sent me down. But you do know something, Tony. About what?"Tony didn't answer. I sipped my bourbon, tried again. "What did Grice want last night?""Ah, s.h.i.+t!" He slammed his gla.s.s onto the table. "He thinks he's got somethin' on Jimmy.""Does he?"Tony poured himself another slug of gin. He didn't speak."What does he want?" I asked. "For whatever he's got?"He shrugged, drank. "I told him to go to h.e.l.l.""Does that mean you don't know? Or you don't care?"He started to stand, his face darkening. He started to speak, too, but stopped, clamped his mouth shut, and sat back down heavily. He stared at his gin, then drank it as though he were doing it a favor.I took the handkerchief from my pocket, unwrapped it, laid it on the table. The keys on the silver ring glinted between us.Tony's eyes narrowed. "Where did you g