Follow the Sharks (24 page)

“Listen,” I hissed to E.J. “We’ve got to hide right here. Okay? We’ll move around this rock and get down so just our heads are sticking up. They won’t see us. You with me?”

“Okay,” he said. There was no hint of fear in his voice.

I kept one arm around his back as we eased to the side of the boulder. The current tugged hard at us, and I felt E.J. grab onto the back of my pants. With my free hand I tried to cling to the big rock. By bending my knees I managed to duck into the shadow of the boulder.

The light played across the water and over our heads.

“Nah. I told you. Nothing down here. They’re back up there in the woods across the street.”

Then I heard it, a low rumble. I could feel a new vibration in the riverbed. I recognized it instantly and felt a quiver of panic. They were releasing water from the dam. In a couple of minutes a two-foot wall of water would hit us like an out-of-control truck. It would lift us and tumble us downstream, smash us against the rocks, suck us under. The furious power of the river was still a palpable memory for me.

“E.J. Listen carefully,” I whispered. “We’ve got to try to get across now. Climb onto my back and hold tight. I’ll stay as low as I can. Okay?”

“Sure,” he said.

I helped him crawl up so that he had a firm grip with both arms around my neck. I held his legs in the crooks of my arms and, crouching as low in the water as I could, I slid quietly away from the shelter of the rock.

Already I could feel the growing power of the river. We had, at most, one minute before the full force of the released dam water hit us.

“Look! Over there! There they are!”

We were centered in the beam of the flashlight. I tried to move out of the light. I slipped into darkness, then the light found us again. I heard an explosion, then another, and it took me an instant to realize that they were shooting at us.

“For Christ’s sake,” yelled one of them angrily. “I can’t hold the goddam light and shoot, too.”

“Give me the gun.”

Momentarily we were in darkness. The light swept across the rising river. E.J.’s grip around my throat made me gasp for breath. We were only ten feet from the brushy, rock-strewn shore. Ten feet from safety.

Then the light found us.

“There! For Christ’s sake, shoot!”

It felt as if someone had touched the back of my leg with a red-hot brand, the pain sudden and surprising. “Ow!” I yelled. My leg buckled under me, and at that instant the surging wave hit me. I felt E.J.’s grip on my throat loosen as I stumbled, knocked off balance by the force of the water and staggered by the abrupt numbness in my right leg. I clutched E.J.’s ankle, had it for an instant as it slipped through my arm, and then it was wrenched away from me. I tried to pivot around to grab him, and as I did the water lifted me by my shoulders and rammed me under. I came up gasping, my mouth and nose full. My feet searched for the bottom. It was all so familiar. I tried to keep my head up and my hands out to fend off the rocks. My feet touched, bounced, and were swept along.

I crashed against something solid, and instinctively I clawed at it. It felt rough, and I found a grip on it. It was the trunk of an ancient tree that had toppled into the river. I found handholds and hoisted myself along it until I was able to crawl into the thick brush that grew alongside the river.

I lay there gasping for breath. My stomach was full of water and my head swirled dizzily. My right leg had no feeling. I touched it. It felt dead, foreign to my body, but my hand came away warm and sticky. I realized I was bleeding heavily. I felt no pain. My mind seemed to float, and I clenched my jaw in an effort to think clearly.

“You got him. They’re gone,” shouted a voice above the crashing roar of the river.

“Let’s get the hell out of here,” said the other. “We got more business.”

“Hang tight for a minute. Play the light along there. I want to be sure.”

The light swept across the river. I lay flat, my cheek grinding into the soft earth, and didn’t move. The light touched me, moved on, then came back and paused. Then it moved away. I heard the voices, but couldn’t make out what they were saying. The rhythm of the pounding river lifted my brain so that I seemed to be drifting high over the water. I forced myself to regain control. There was something important. I couldn’t remember. My eyelids were heavy. I wanted to sleep. I was very tired. No. I had to stay awake. There was something…

I willed my eyes to open and, clawing at the bushes around me, heaved myself over onto my back. The arching branches of the trees overhead spun crazily. I narrowed my eyes, trying to make them focus, to halt the whirling in my brain.

I turned my head so that I could look back across the river. The light bobbed and flickered up the embankment. They were moving back to the road. I concentrated on the light. It gave me something to do, a reason to fight the sleep that my brain cried for.

The light disappeared. Then I saw it again, moving at a steady pace down parallel to the river. They were in their car. They were leaving. We were safe.

We. Then I remembered. E.J. Where was E.J.?

I tried to yell for him. The roar of the river filled my ears. My voice was a hoarse gurgle, a pitiful, weak whisper. I tried to prop myself up onto my elbows, and I collapsed with the effort, my head falling back onto the muddy earth. “E.J.!” I croaked.

Then a black hood fell over my head.

S
HARP, RHYTHMIC LASHES OF
pain against the side of my face dragged me up into reluctant consciousness. I heard the roar of the river, and higher up the whine of wind through the pines. Another sound mingled with the wind and the water, a voice, chanting what sounded like a prayer. “Come on, come on, come on,” it crooned, in synchrony with the sharp stings on my cheek.

I forced my eyelids to lift. The pain against my face was sharp but superficial. The pulses of hurt in my leg went deeper, into the marrow of the bone and up into my armpits with each contraction of my heart. I moaned and shivered. I was wet—drenched, I realized, and my body began to quiver and shake uncontrollably.

I raised my hand to brush away the stinging on my face.

“Come on. Uncle Brady, wake up. Come on.”

I shifted my eyes. E.J. knelt beside me, slapping methodically at my face. “Hey! Cut that out,” I said.

I turned my head. He sat back on his haunches to peer down at me.

“Are you all right?” he said.

“Are you?”

“I’m okay. I took a swim. I thought you were dead.”

“Not quite.” I tried to sit up and the woods began to whirl around me. I sank back to the ground and let my eyes close. “Can’t make it,” I said. “Got to rest for a while. Tired. Real tired.”

E.J. grabbed my shoulders. “You’ve got to get up.” He shook me. “Come on. We can’t stay here.”

I opened my eyes. “How long have we been here?”

“A long time,” E.J. said. “It took me a long time to find you. I got out of the water way down there and I waited until they were gone. Then I came to find you. You’ve been sleeping. I think the water is going down. It isn’t as loud as it was. You’ve got to stand up. I’ll help you.”

He tugged at my shoulders and the pain in my leg sharpened my mind. I struggled up onto my elbows. E.J. moved behind me and pushed me into a sitting position. He held me that way until the dizziness faded and I could sit unaided.

“Are you okay now?” he said.

“I think I can make it. Find me a stick or something to lean on. I don’t think my leg’s going to work too well.”

“Did they shoot you?”

“Yes. On the back of my leg.”

He was back in a minute with a piece of a dead limb. I tested it between my hands and it seemed sturdy enough. I propped it onto the ground with my right hand and E.J. moved under my left arm and together we heaved me to my feet. I fought off a wave of nausea and dizziness and then I was okay. I was gratified that my right leg was no longer numb. It was far from numb. But the pain seemed centered in the big muscle in back, and I knew no bone had been broken. And I felt strong enough. I couldn’t have lost too much blood. It had been the shock that knocked me out when I was hit. I thought I’d be all right. I tried an experimental step. With E.J. at my left side and the stick supporting my right, I managed to shuffle forward a couple of paces.

“See what happens when you get old?” I said to E.J. with a feeble grin.

“Very funny,” he said. “Let’s go. We’ve got to get across the river.”

E.J. helped me across the river and up the slope to where my BMW waited. The two gunmen must have been pretty confident that they’d killed us, because they hadn’t bothered to yank out the wires or shoot holes in the tires.

We drove back to the main road and found the Riverview Inn, a stately old Federal period place where I’d eaten a few meals after a day of fishing on the river. A grandmotherly old lady herded me and E.J. into a big, sunlit dining room, studiously ignoring the dampness and disarray of our clothing. We ordered breakfast and then I excused myself to use the pay phone I had seen in the lobby.

I dropped in a quarter, dialled “O” and then Marty Stern’s number, told the operator to make it collect and person-to-person, and muttered, “Be there, Stern. God damn it, be there.”

He answered on the second ring, agreed to accept the charges, and said, “What now?”

“Hi,” I said. “Listen. I’m at the Riverview Inn in Charlemont. It’s right on Route 2. Here’s what you’ve got to do.”

“Now just a damn minute, Coyne—”

“No, you listen to me. I’ve got E.J. Donagan with me. I’ve seen Eddie. I’ve been shot in the leg. I’ve got the story. Will you listen?”

“I’m listening.”

“There’s a guy named Stump Kelly. Arnold, his name is. Lives in Chatham at the Fox Hill Estates. Two other guys, I don’t know where they live but Kelly can tell you. One named Peter Lucci and the other is Vincent Quarto. They drive a gray Buick station wagon, license P29-257. Might be Kelly’s. They kidnapped E.J. and Eddie Donagan. They killed Mary Ann Mikuni and Bobo Halley. They tried to kill me last night. Got that?”

“Yeah. Slow down. Yeah, okay, I got it. Explain to me—”

“I’ll explain it all. But you’ve got to get out here. We’ve got to go get Eddie. Come pick me up. It’s right on the way. I’ll explain it all to you then. And listen. Call Sam Farina and have him come here to get E.J. Tell him E.J.’s fine and wants to see his mother. Okay?”

I heard Stern sigh. “Okay. I hope the hell you know what you’re talking about, Coyne. We can pick up these guys, but you know we can’t hold them. Not without evidence.”

“Eddie’ll give you that,” I said. “Guaranteed.”

“Right. Hey, listen, Coyne. You all right?”

“You’re a darling to ask. I am just fine, thank you so much.”

I bandaged my leg, then had three eggs, over easy, four slices of toast, a big slab of ham, and a glass of orange juice. After I finished eating, E.J. and I sat on rockers on the front porch of the inn and watched the traffic on Route 2 while I worked on my third cup of coffee. Aside from the stiffness and dull ache in the back of my leg, I was feeling stronger by the minute. E.J. chattered continuously. He had been a man, he probably had saved my life, but now he was a boy again waiting to see his mother after a month’s separation. As I listened to him talk, I rehearsed what I would tell Eddie when I saw him. I had promised him three days. Now I had decided to give him less than one. I hoped he was still at Jake’s farm.

Stern pulled into the circular drive two hours almost to the minute from when I had phoned him. He had two other men with him. One was a young guy with black hair and piercing black eyes, whose face seemed permanently fixed in a scowl. Stern introduced him simply as Catlett. The other one, Swan, was pushing fifty. They both referred to Stern as “Chief.”

I told E.J. that his grandfather would be right along for him, shook his hand and told him I’d see him soon, and left him with Swan. Stern and Catlett and I climbed into Stern’s car. Catlett got behind the wheel, and Stern and I sat in back. I gave Catlett directions then settled back in the seat.

“Okay, so talk,” said Stern.

I told him how I had found Eddie and E.J. at Jake Grabowski’s farm. I explained how Kelly and his two henchmen had kidnapped E.J. and then lured Eddie into it, and how Eddie and E.J. had escaped and fled to Lanesborough. I told him how E.J. and I had been followed and shot at and left for dead.

“I don’t get it,” said Stern. “What’s the connection? Kelly’s the baseball scout. He knew Donagan. It’s not just a coincidence that it was his kid they kidnapped.”

“No,” I said. “It’s not a coincidence. It goes way back. I’m not sure it’s relevant.”

“Everything’s relevant, Coyne.”

“Yeah, I guess you’re right. Okay,” I said. “It goes like this. After Eddie was signed by the Red Sox they sent him to the minor league team in Pawtucket. There he got involved with a girl.”

“Mikuni,” said Stern.

“Yes. Annie. Eddie was a kid. She was beautiful. It happens. Anyway, she liked to gamble on ball games. Pretty soon she had Eddie betting, too. Just on his own team, on himself, but still gambling. It was easy money, because Eddie was so good he could win, and beat the odds, almost every time. There didn’t seem to be anything wrong with it, even though he knew the rules. The girl laid off his bets for him and gave him his money when he won. Then one night he met her in a bar after a game. Stump Kelly was sitting at the table with her. Eddie thought it was all over right then. If a baseball official knew he had been betting it could’ve cost him his career right there.”

“Kelly was in on it,” said Stern. “It was a scam. Right?”

“Yeah, something like that. The girl and Kelly worked together. I guess they had worked the same thing on other young players. Bobo Halley, for sure. Eddie will explain all that. Anyway, Kelly had Eddie over the proverbial barrel. Made it seem like he had found out about Eddie’s gambling, but out of the goodness of his heart wouldn’t tell. So Eddie was in his debt. It soon became clear that Kelly had something else in mind for Eddie.”

“He wanted him to throw games.”

“Not right away. He wanted Eddie to get to the big leagues, first, where the real gambling money was. But he did maneuver Eddie into the position where he’d give up a run or two so that Kelly could beat the spread, all the time reminding Eddie that one word from him would mean disgrace and the end of the only profession Eddie knew. And Kelly was clever enough so that there never would’ve been any case against him. Everything went through the girl. And they made Eddie continue betting, too. He usually won, in the beginning, which made it easier for him to go along.”