Allegiance (Joe Logan Book 4) (15 page)

After
leaving the parking garage, Paulie stopped to fill up with gas before driving the stolen station wagon west to the Garden State Parkway and north as far as Irvington, before leaving the Parkway and heading in the direction of the South Mountain Reservation in northeastern New Jersey.  They passed four or five motels, but Logan wanted to find somewhere away from the highway.

After driving for ten miles, they were traveling through hilly and wooded terrain and passed a sign advertising
The Maple Tree Resort
‒ Affordable Accommodation
. 
Turn right in 1 mile.

“Let’s check it out,” Logan said.

Paulie made the turn sixty seconds later, to leave the blacktop and slow as he took the narrower, rougher gravel road.  Another sign advised them that the resort was a further two miles ahead.  Mature pines crowded in on both sides as they drove up the winding road into higher country.

The entrance to the resort was its most impressive feature.  At either side of it was a six-foot high pillar of large, smooth river pebbles compressed into underlying concrete columns.  On top of one was a black bear standing upright, and on the other a mountain lion in a leaping pose.  Both were life-sized and carved from wood.

“Do they have bears and cougars in New Jersey?” Benny asked as Paulie drove between them, up the driveway towards the reception office.

“Yeah,” Logan said.  “This is ideal habitat for them, and they’re supposedly on the increase.”

“Great,” Benny said.  “We’re in a zoo with no fences to keep the wild animals from tearing us to bits.”

“Jellystone Park with attitude,” Della said and giggled. “Best not wander off alone in the dark, Benny, or Yogi might give you a bear hug that would make your eyes pop out.”

“Not funny,” Benny said.  “And I think it’s more like Jurassic Park, full of critters with sharp teeth and claws.  I’m a city boy.  All this open space is seriously scary.  I don’t even go in Central Park at night.”

“You’re a lot safer out here than back in the city,” Paulie said as he parked in a slot next to a Datsun that obscured most of the Malibu from sight of the office.

They got out of the wagon and looked at what were timber-built chalets or lodges situated with plenty of space between them around a fishing lake.  The resort looked to have been part of the landscape forever, and appeared to be pretty basic.

“I’ll go in and book a chalet,” Paulie said as he made a mental note of the plate number and decided that if he had to register he would give it as GRN 23X instead of 28X, which it could be mistaken for, due to the dirt on the plate and the gloom of evening. And if ID was requested he would use his driver’s license, which named him as Robert Paul Neilson, although he had always been known as Paulie.

Logan and the others took in their surroundings.  Looked at a plan of the resort on the office wall, which was under a sheet of scratched and cloudy Perspex sheet to protect it from the elements.

“There’s a bar and grill on site,” Della said. “The Hungry Bobcat.”

“I could eat a bobcat,” Margie said.  “I haven’t eaten properly since Arnie’s been in hospital, but all this fresh air has made me ravenous.”

Paulie opened the door and walked into the office.  It had timber-clad walls with a lot of photos of guys and gals ‒ many wearing waders ‒ holding up big fish that they had caught, and all with even bigger smiles on their faces.  And there were wall-mounted antlers and animals’ heads in abundance.  Behind the reception desk, that had a couple of stuffed chipmunks on the counter, was a tall guy with thinning gray hair worn in a ponytail.  He wore a thick, red and black check shirt and had a deep scar running down his left cheek that trailed off in the stubble near his chin.

“Can I help you, friend?” Ron Anderson asked.  “I’m Ron, and I own this little piece of heaven in the hills.”

“Hope so,” Paulie said.  “I’m Bob Neilson, and I need a chalet or lodge for a party of five.”

“How long might that be for?”

“Three nights would be good.  We’re headin’ north for a family reunion, and thought we’d make a vacation out of it.”

Ron gave the end of his index finger a swift lick and reached to the side, behind the chipmunks, and slid a sheet of paper from a stack.  “Here’s the layout,” he said, turning the map round so that Paulie could see it.  “I’ve got a lodge with two bedrooms and a sofa bed in the living room, right next to the lake, here,” and he jabbed at it.  “Or a three-bed cabin on the far side, which is set back in the trees.  It’s a little rustic, but roomy.”

“What’s the best deal you can do on the cabin, Ron?”

“It’s usually a hundred twenty bucks a night at this time of year, but I reckon I could shave it down to a hundred, due to it being quiet at the moment.”

“Appreciate that,” Paulie said, taking his wallet out and paying in advance.

“No need for ID,” Ron said.  “Let me just jot down your name, home state and vehicle make and plate number.”

“Bob Neilson out of New York, driving a Malibu station wagon, GRN 23X.”

Ron gave Paulie the plan and two sets of keys that were on large, lozenge-shaped fobs that had the resort name and address on, and would float if dropped in the lake.  “The Hungry Bobcat is open until eleven p.m. for food and drink, and there’s a store at the back of the office that’s open eight till late seven days a week.”

Ron watched his new guest leave the office.  Wondered how the guy had got a badly swollen nose and two black eyes, but hadn’t asked.  He had learned over the years to keep his own nose out of strangers’ lives.  He didn’t need to get to know them or share their problems.

The cabin was perfect.  Not the Ritz-Carlton, but clean and spacious with a diner-kitchen, three bedrooms and a large bathroom.  It was a place that ‒ under normal conditions ‒ Logan would have been happy to stay at for a week or two, to just savor the peace and quiet and relax.

They ate some of the food that they had picked up on the way, and had a nightcap of bourbon, with ice from the large, rumbling fridge freezer that looked to be antique.

Soon after, Benny hit the sack, Margie and Della took turns in the shower, and Logan and Paulie sat at the kitchen table, drank more bourbon and discussed how they should proceed.

“I’ve got a lot of phone numbers and information,” Logan said as he handed Paulie back his gun and cell phone.  “But we need more.  I think a talk with Trask could be the best way to figure out how to take down Quaid and Dalton.”

“I thought that you were goin’ to go straight for Fallon,” Paulie said.

“He’ll be too well guarded, but the men that watch his back won’t be.  If we deal with them first he’ll be vulnerable.”

Paulie nodded.  Life as he had known it was now behind him.  He had to somehow adjust mentally and live in the now, and hope that if he got through this he could get back on track.

“We’ll leave the girls here and go back to the city tomorrow,” Logan said.  “Benny can drive us.”

“Do you trust him?”

“Up to a point.  He knows that his life is on the line, and that while Trask, Quaid and Dalton are out there, he won’t be safe.  I’m…we are his best bet.”

“Do you plan on killin’ those guys?” Paulie asked.

Logan said nothing.

“I need to know,” Paulie said.  “I’m a cop, not a hitman.”

“You’re a guy that a fellow cop has put in the firing line.  If it comes down to us or them taking a fall, I want it to be them.”

Paulie nodded.  Sometimes you had to do bad stuff to prevent worse things from happening.  And the people that were on their case were all paid killers.  He finished his drink and said goodnight to Logan.  He needed to take three or four Tylenol to ease the pain in his nose, lie down in a dark room and let his thoughts settle.

It was seven p.m. and Jack Trask was feeling a lot better.  He hoped to be discharged from the clinic within the next twenty-four hours. He had been lucky, survived being shot, and would soon be back at home, convalescing in style.  He had not been kept up to date on what was being done about the cop, Newman, but didn’t really care.  Newman was in a coma, so would probably die or come out of it and be a vegetable.  In the unlikely event of him making a full recovery, then Quaid would have him whacked.  He had nothing to worry about.  His part was over with.

Limping over to the en suite bathroom, Jack took a piss and decided that when able he would take his partner ‒ Jessica, an ex-pole dancer from Albany ‒ to Barbados for a few days.  She was dumb, but loved him to bits.  It crossed his mind that she loved him
because
she was dumb, putting up with him slapping her around quite a lot, and treating her like shit most of the time.  If broads like her wanted to lead the good life, then they had to suffer a few bruises, take it up the ass if required to, and generally keep him satisfied.  There were too many of them out there for him to let one of them start thinking he was in any way domesticated.  He had always taken what he wanted, when and how he wanted to.  In his experience the average working man never got to do more than get dragged down by a wife, kids and taxes.  The thought of that made him shudder.  His old man had worked in a steel mill for forty years, and hadn’t had anything to show for it but a damp apartment in Yonkers, and an alcoholic wife who was fucking the landlord behind his back.  Jack had gone to his father’s funeral a year ago, and his bitch of a mother was dry-eyed and finding it hard not to look bored as the service droned on. And guess who was standing next to her, to lend a shoulder to cry on, should she squeeze out a few tears for proprieties sake: the fucking landlord, Dick Marshall.  Jack chuckled as he rinsed his hands.  Two weeks after the funeral he had sat in his car outside the brownstone that Marshall owned, and when the guy came home from a local bar, he stepped out, leveled a silenced pistol at his head and said: “This is for my dad and me, you asshole,” and shot him in the throat.  It gave Dick the dickhead just a couple of seconds to know that he was dying, as he was punched back against the steps of the stoop, clutching at his neck and trying to draw breath through the hole that had been made next his Adams apple.  Some things in life were just totally fucking wicked, Jack thought.  And that had been one of them.

He went back into the room, slipped on his silk robe and switched the TV on, before sitting down on the end of the bed.  He could not have imagined that Logan and a cop were in the clinic, and that Logan was only twenty feet along the corridor, approaching the private room he was in.

They had got up early, made coffee, eaten the last of the snack food they’d bought, and just chilled for the rest of the morning.

Logan had said that he was going for a walk around the lake, and Della said she would like to join him.  He shrugged, which to Della was as good as an invitation.

“When will you be leaving?” Della asked as they walked side by side through the trees bordering the wide stretch of water.

“Lunchtime,” Logan said.

“You don’t seem apprehensive about what you plan to do,” Della said as she linked arms with him.  “Those people are organized.  You could get killed.”

“They
think
that they’re organized.  But this is probably the first time that someone has come at them.  They have no idea if, when or where I’ll strike.  And they probably think I’ve decided to stay away from New York.  Overconfidence in your ability can bite you in the ass.”

“And you’re not overconfident?”

“No, just very good at guerilla warfare.  You can’t be beaten very easily if you hit and run.”

They reached a boat house with a jetty at the side of it that ran out for thirty feet into the lake.  Della stopped, grasped Logan’s hand and said: “Let’s sit down for a minute or two.”

They sat on the wood planks with their legs hung down over the side, but well above the glassy surface, and Della lit a cigarette.  “This is a lovely part of the world,” she said.  “It’s a pity that we’re here because of being on the run.”

“We’re not on the run, Della; just regrouping in a safe place.  Once I’ve dealt with the problem you’ll be able to go back home, and so will Margie.”

“You sound very sure about that, Joe.”

“I am.  There’s no point in starting something that you don’t think you can finish.”

“You didn’t start this.”

“No, I suppose Arnie did by trying to bite off more than he could chew.  But I chose to become involved, so it’s my fight now.”

Della tossed the end of the cigarette into the water, put her arm around Logan’s shoulder and leaned into him.  He didn’t respond or pull away.  Just remained as still as a tree trunk.

“I want you, Joe,” She whispered, and he felt her warm breath on his ear.

“I’m not a keeper,” he said.  “I won’t be staying in New York when this is resolved.”

“I know that.”

“Pity that the cabin is full of people.  If it wasn’t we could―”

“Let’s go inside the boathouse.”

Logan got to his feet, took her hand and helped her up.  Della walked back along the jetty a few feet, turned the handle on the door and it opened.  Inside was a small cabin cruiser.