Hardbingers

4

The sleek little four-seat, two-prop Diamond Twinstar had a bumpy time in the cloud-filled sky.

"Unsettlement in the air," Joe told him through the headphones.

"Long as we don't do a John-John."

"Gotta few more hours under my belt. Just a few."

Jack knew the Ashe boys had uncountable hours of flight time, but still he hung on and prayed.

He hid his relief when, at a little after ten, he was able to step out onto the tarmac of tiny Nantucket Memorial Airport. He pulled his duffel bag from the rear and shook hands with Joe.

"I owe you one, man."

"Hell, you paid me."

"You know what I mean."

Joe smiled through his beard. "Yeah, I do. Hope things never get to the point where I have to call you up and collect."

"You've got my number."

Joe looked at the sky. "Don't reckon I'll be able to come back here for a while. Once that nor'easter hits—and it looks to be real soon—I'll be snowed in. We ain't commercial or even municipal. Takes time to get our strips plowed."

Since Jack wasn't sure he'd be able to go back tomorrow—or ever, for that matter—he took the news in stride.

"I'll work something out."

Joe rubbed the arms of his sweatshirt. "God damn, I swear it's even colder here than back home. I gotta get back inside."

Jack waved, then hurried through the razor-edged wind to the solitary, cedar-shake-sided building where he found a Budget counter. After renting him a Jeep Liberty, the woman there gave him a map and outlined the route to Pocomo Road.

Pocomo, it turned out, was a section of Nantucket whose main artery was—surprise—Pocomo Road. The area lay northeast of the airport as the crow flies, but no road ran the crow route. He'd have to follow a roundabout course that took him west and then back eastward.

A small annoyance, but still an annoyance. It meant delay, and time was a fist against his back, kidney punching. If the doc had been right last night about Gia and Vicky having twenty-four hours left, damn near half of that was already gone.

If Darryl Heth didn't want to tell him what he needed to know, what then? Getting rough with him would be counterproductive—might alert the yenigeri that someone was asking questions about their place. He'd have to use an oblique approach—make Heth tell him about the house without Jack asking about it.

He thought he knew a way. But first he had to find the place.

Due to multiple wrong turns, the ten-mile trip along winding, rolling roads took forty minutes. He detected a conspiracy in the lack of road signs out here. The first three or four miles had been fine, everything clearly marked. But the farther east he moved, the spottier the markings. This was the less populated, untouristy half of the island. He sensed the residents saying, if you can't find your way around here, maybe you shouldn't be around here.

All of which he understood. And sympathized with. But not when he was working against the clock.

As he drove, following a line of canted telephone poles, Jack noticed that almost every house, no matter what the shape or size, had a dark roof and cedar-shake siding. No tile-roofed, stucco-walled, Tara-columned, bright-colored, vinyl-sided McMansions here. No McDonald's either, for that matter. Or Wendy's or Burger King. A chain-free oasis that discouraged the look-at-what-I-can-buy parvenus. A suburb of heaven.

Finally, Pocomo Road. He followed it, marveling at the huge houses on either side, until he ran out of pavement. He kept going. He found "Heth" on a mailbox on the right and followed a winding pair of sandy ruts through the six-foot-high brush to Chez Heth, a tiny, cedar-shaked ranch on the north side near the end of the road. Head Case had been carved into the wood of a canoe paddle fixed over the front door.

Hardly encouraging.

Jack parked in front, walked to the door, and knocked. A thin woman, in her sixties, wearing a house dress, answered the door. Her pale blue, wrinkle-caged eyes took his measure as she stood and stared at him.

Jack said, "Can I find Darryl Heth here?"

"Who's asking?"

"Someone who might have some work for him."

"He's 'round back, chopping wood."

He walked around and found a sixtyish man splitting logs with a long-handle ax. Reminded Jack of a Charles Bronson scene from The Magnificent Seven.

Jack introduced himself as John Tyleski. Heth took off his gloves and they shook hands. His palm and fingers were tortoise-shelled with callus. His face was as wrinkled as his wife's.

"Beautiful piece of property you've got here."

Jack was burning to shake the info out of this guy, but he held back. Never hurt to soften up a source. Besides, Jack wasn't lying. Heth's house sat on a bluff overlooking a huge expanse of ice—square miles of it. He imagined how beautiful it must look in the summer with sun sparkling on the water.

"Yeah. Been in the family forever. If I wanted to buy this property now, I couldn't afford it. Hell. I couldn't afford a corner of it. The price of land on the island…" He shook his head in disgust.

"Don't I know. I'm looking to buy and it's, well, it's just incredible." He pointed toward the ice. "What am I looking at here?"

"The head of the harbor." He pointed a gnarled finger leftward. "See that low shore on the far side over there? That's the coatue; it keeps out Nantucket Sound."

Jack saw a sandy colored strip capped with a fuzz of vegetation—scrub brush, most likely.

He pointed straight ahead across the ice. "And there to the east, that line of dunes you see keeps out the Atlantic."

The same kind of strip, but this one sported a single large house midpoint.

"Does the harbor always freeze up like this?"

"Not the whole harbor, not down by town, though sometimes that happens and an icebreaker has to come through so we can get food and heating oil. But here, well, the head of the harbor's something of a backwater. Freezes over most every winter. This year's no exception."

Jack nodded toward the stack of split wood. "Doesn't look like you'd miss the oil much."

"Been burning a lot more of that since the price of oil went outta sight." He eyed Jack. "But I gather you didn't come here to admire the view, nice as it is, or talk about oil. Just to save us both some time, let me tell you flat out that this place ain't for sale."

"I appreciate that." Jack dropped an oceanfront street name he'd picked off the map: "I've been looking at property along Squam Road—"

"Weather can get rough over there."

"So I've been told. That's why I'm leery of leaving the place to the elements for nine or ten months a year."

"And you're looking for someone to keep an eye on your house."

"You got it."

Heth narrowed his eyes. "Well, just so happens I do a bit of that. But how'd you know?"

Jack shrugged. "Someone in one of the realty offices gave me your name. Would you be able to fit another place into your schedule?"

"Sure. What did you have in mind?"

"Well, let's not get ahead of ourselves here. I don't wish to offend you, but before we come to an agreement, I'll need some references. I hope you understand."

"Course I do. Only a damn fool would hand his house keys to a stranger without knowing something about him."

"So you can provide references?"

"Sure can. Come on inside."

Okay, Jack thought. So far, so good.

He was burning clock here, but he reminded himself that he wouldn't be able to make a move on the safe house—wherever it was—until after dark.

The ranch was cramped inside and smelled of fried fish, but its pine walls and floor were clean and polished. Mrs. Heth poured coffee as they sat down at the dining table. Heth pulled a ledger from a drawer and began thumbing through it.

"I caretake nine places—all shapes and sizes, from a brand-new ocean-front in Surfside to the old Lange place over on Cliff Road. I charge a monthly retainer."

He seemed pleased to be able to say that he received retainers.

"Can you provide contact numbers for your clients?"

Jack figured a guy who liked receiving retainers would also like the idea of having clients.

"All nine?"

"Well, I'll need only a couple of responses, but who knows how many will reply?"

Heth nodded. "Good point. I'll write 'em down for you." He reached for a scratch pad. "Matter of fact, you can ride over to one of the places right now and ask them in person."

Jack kept his tone casual. "Is that so?"

"Yep. It's on the other side of the harbor head. This is the first time I've known them to show up since I been working for them."

"Really."

"Interesting history to the place. You can see it from here—sitting by itself on that strip of land I pointed out to you, you know between the harbor and the Atlantic. Been there fifty-sixty years or better but the present owners done some strange modifications."

Jack's ears pricked up.

"Such as?"

"Well, you see, the house sits over a wash-away garage."

"I'm not familiar with that term."

"Means the living space of the house proper sits on a bunch of pilings. The under part is enclosed as a garage, but not all that sturdily built. That's so, in a real bad storm, should the ocean have a mind to jump the land and pay a visit to the harbor, the walls of the ground level will wash away, leaving the flood waters swirling around the pilings while the house sits safe above it all."

Jack was disappointed. "Not such a strange modification."

"That was the original design. I'm talking about other stuff. The original design also had a set of stairs running from the garage up to the first floor. But these folks tore that out and covered the opening with steel plate. In fact, the entire flooring of both levels is reinforced with steel plate." He shook his head. "That's not gonna protect you from no storm."

Jack agreed. But it would protect from anyone shooting through the ceiling below.

Jack leaned forward. "So how do they get in?"

"You gotta go up an outside stairway to a door. Get that? No matter what the weather, you've gotta leave the garage and go outside to get inside. Don't make sense."

Made lots of sense if you wanted to limit access.

"Who are these strange folks?"

"Nice people. Said they won't need me coming around while they're here but they're gonna keep paying me my retainer. Lucky thing they're here, too, otherwise you might have trouble getting hold of them."

"Why's that?"

"The place is owned by some sort of foundation." He checked his ledger. "The MV Foundation, whatever that is. It hired me and pays me."

Jack resisted pumping a fist. He'd just taken a giant step closer to the new 0.

"I'll put these folks first on my list."