The Distance Beacons (29 page)

With the light came voices, murmuring. Mummies don't talk, I figured. I strained to make out what was being said. It was difficult; my pounding heart seemed to be louder than the voices. Eventually the light reached the room in which I was cowering, and there it stopped. I ordered my stomach not to growl. I saw the flickering shadows of two men against the far wall. Between the shadows was a painting of Boston Common at twilight back in the old days. It is winter. A mother watches her child feeding pigeons. There are trolleys and gas lamps. I suddenly ached with memories I had never actually experienced. And then I noticed with horror that my own shadow was part of the tableau. Too late to do anything about it, though. I pressed back against the wall and listened.

"I bet it was rats," a man's voice said.

"Yeah, rats," another male voice agreed.

Neither voice sounded sure of itself. Both voices sounded familiar.

"Can't search the whole fucking building," the first voice said.

"Just draw attention to us," the second voice pointed out, "if it's only a couple of kids screwing around."

"Who'd want to screw around in this place?" the first voice whined. "I wish we could get the hell out of here."

"Won't be long now."

"We shoulda left as soon as that other broad showed up."

"More dangerous movin' than stayin'."

"The whole thing's too fuckin' dangerous."

"Too late to back out now," the second voice said glumly. "Christ." There was a pause as the two men contemplated their situation. I prayed they didn't contemplate their shadows at the same time.

"I suppose we should go downstairs and check on Freddy and the other broad," the first voice said.

"Can't hurt," the second voice agreed. And then the light started to fade.

I carefully stuck my head out into the corridor and watched as the torch returned the way it came. My eyes were used to the dim light now, and it was easy enough to make out the retreating forms of my old Charlestown bike-stealing buddies Pete Santoro and Eddie Grimes.

I didn't have time to figure out what the hell they were doing here. Right now I had to figure out where they were going, because "that other broad," clearly, was Gwen.

I followed them along the corridor. It wasn't easy, since I had to go faster now to keep up, and their torch wasn't much help to me. If I tripped again, I was doomed. Eventually the torch turned left and headed down, leaving me in darkness. I decided not to risk following them downstairs. I retreated into a room off the corridor, and I waited for the torch to reappear.

Santoro and Grimes.
Damn them, it didn't make sense. But then again, I supposed it did. Damn them.

There were footsteps on the stairs, and the torch came into view once again. "—much more of this," Grimes was saying.

"Just till morning," Santoro replied. "He promised. We just gotta stick it out till morning."

"I'll believe it when it happens," Grimes said.

The torch continued up the next flight of stairs. I waited until its light had disappeared once again and the sound of their footsteps had faded. Then I crept forward to the staircase.

My hand grasped the smooth banister, and I started down, pausing on each stair to minimize the noise. When the staircase made a turn, I saw a light, and I saw the guy they had called Freddy. He was closing a door across the corridor at the foot of the stairs. I waited as he set down the smoky lantern he was carrying and settled into a chair outside the door. Then he picked up a magazine. From where I was lurking, it looked like he had bought it at Art's Filthy Bookstore.

The chair was angled half toward me and half toward the door he was guarding. Freddy didn't look like a very formidable adversary—he was short and scrawny, and the top of his head was bald. Had he been one of the thugs on O'Malley's porch? It didn't really matter who he was or how strong he was; I had to get past him.

I didn't want to shoot him, although I felt capable of it to save Gwen. Santoro and Grimes were at least smart enough to figure out that rats don't make
that
much noise. But doing anything else meant I had to get closer.

I moved down a stair. It creaked. I froze. I hoped Freddy's magazine was interesting. He shifted and kept reading.

I tried another stair, then another.
Creak.
The magazine dropped into Freddy's lap. I got out my gun, ready to shoot. Freddy's head fell to one side, and he started to snore. The poor guy was making it easy on me. I descended the final few stairs, then crossed the remainder of the distance that separated us. I turned the gun around and whacked him on top of his bald head. He twitched a bit, and I cursed silently. I had simply roused him instead of knocking him out. But then he slumped still farther down into his chair, and I took a deep breath. I had won the first round.

He was wearing a shoulder holster; I lifted his arm and took the gun out of it. Then I picked up his lantern and hurried over to the door he had been guarding. The key was in the lock. I turned the key and opened the door.

It looked like a workshop of some kind. There were long tables surrounded by stools, and lots of cupboards and shelves.

But where was—?

In a corner of the room, I made out a human shape on the floor, covered by a sheet. "Gwen!" I whispered.

She didn't respond, and my heart stopped. Was she—I couldn't bring myself to think it. Besides, why would they be guarding her if she was—

She turned over on the floor and started to snore. Softer than Freddy, but audible nevertheless.

I went across the room and shook her. "Hey, Gwen!" I whispered. "Wake up! I've rescued you, goddamit!"

She opened her eyes and gazed up at me groggily. "Walter?"

"Yes, it's me. You're not dreaming. Are you okay?"

She thought for a moment. "I guess so. They put me in here, I dunno, a long time ago, and after a while I figured they weren't going to kill me or anything, and there was nothing else to do, so—" Her gaze got a little less groggy. "You look terrible, Walter," she said.

"Yeah, well." I wanted to mention how I'd been tortured and shot and chased and all of that while she was having a nap, but I decided to let it pass for the moment.

Meanwhile Gwen was becoming more and more alert. "The guard," she said.

"I knocked him out. We've gotta tie him up and gag him before he comes to. You suppose there's any rope in here?"

Gwen got up, and we searched through the workshop. We found some cord wrapped around a canvas, and we ripped up Gwen's sheet for a gag. Within a few minutes, Freddy was bound and gagged in the room where Gwen had been relaxing all afternoon.

We stayed with him for the moment; we had some talking to do, and we didn't want to make any noise. But there was one more thing to be done before talking: a long hug was required under the circumstances. We did what was required.

"I knew you'd rescue me," Gwen whispered finally.

"Then you knew a lot more than I did."

"You're the best private eye I've ever met."

"And you're the best reporter. How'd you find out about the museum, anyway?"

She shrugged. "A guy was walking along Huntington Avenue last night, and he saw a light, and he thought for sure it was the mummies' ghosts. So he came to the
Globe
, and I was the one who talked to him. I wasn't really sure it had anything to do with the president, but I figured it was worth checking out."

"Good thinking."

"I wish you'd been with me, though. I'm no private eye. I barely got inside before they captured me."

"Well, I was busy, I guess. Did you see the president?"

Gwen shook her head. "What exactly is going on? I don't even know what time it is. Are you alone?"

"Yup." Now was the time to rehash my exciting day for her. I did so briefly.

Gwen was appropriately impressed and distressed. "Oh, I'm so sorry, Walter. But you know, that Bolton idea was completely—"

"Yeah, yeah. You're right. Stretch was right. It was stupid. But I didn't hear anyone coming up with the real perpetrators." And I recounted my discovery, moments before, of who the real perpetrators were. "How do you like that?" I said. "All my clever theories turn out to be hogwash, and this other theory about O'Malley, the one I make up on the spur of the moment to escape from jail—that turns out to be the right one. How do you figure it?"

"Maybe your made-up theory was more, I don't know, instinctive."

"But my instincts still tell me it's wrong. Or I just want it to be wrong. It's so damn banal. O'Malley wants to take over Boston, so he kidnaps the president to get rid of the Feds. He keeps her here because he's afraid the Feds will suspect him and start searching in Charlestown. So O'Malley's thugs were the ones who beat me up outside our house. Big deal."

"But how did they know you were on the case?" Gwen wondered. "And what about the sandals? What about the empty file?"

I threw up my hands. "I dunno. This is real life, I guess. It's messy. Or I'm just stupid, and I can't tie up all the loose ends."

"Anyway," she said, "we should figure out what to do."

"Why don't we just leave? You're safe, and that's all that matters. Let some other folks risk their lives saving the president."

"But that won't exactly improve your position with the Feds, will it?" Gwen pointed out. "There's no way you can clear yourself now unless you hand over the president. That lucky guess or whatever it was about O'Malley clinches the case against you, if they ever do figure this out."

"Shoot," I said. I had forgotten about that.

"Besides," she said, "I still want my scoop."

"You already have a scoop."

"I want a bigger one."

I sighed. She'd had a nap. That obviously could do wonders for your ambition. "I'm tired," I said. "I'm hungry. I hurt all over. And what's more, I'm in a bad mood. Can't we just go home?"

Gwen stared at me for a moment, and then smiled. "All right," she said. "Give me those two guns you've got. And wish me luck."

I stared back at her. "You'd never do it on your own," I said. "You're incompetent. You said so yourself."

"Sure. But this is important. Let me have the guns."

She held her hands out to me.

Well, I thought, private eyes finish their cases, even if they're in a bad mood. And sometimes private eyes do have sidekicks. I gave Gwen one of the guns. I kept the other. "Now what?" I asked her.

"I don't know," she replied. "You're the private eye."

Chapter 20

I tried to think. The first thing to do, I supposed, was to figure out our odds. "How many people did you see when you were captured?" I asked Gwen.

"Just one—no, two. That guy who was guarding me, and someone else. I don't remember what he looked like."

No help. O'Malley could have had an army here—although the fewer who were involved the better, from O'Malley's point of view. Less chance of someone becoming an informer. And Santoro and Grimes hadn't sounded as if they had a lot of company. Was O'Malley himself here? Could be. But he was probably back in Charlestown, monitoring the situation. He had to have some way of finding out if the Feds were meeting his demands, and it wouldn't be a good idea to have too much traffic going in and out of the museum.

So, there were at least two people left to deal with—but probably not many more. I supposed we could handle that. Of course, if they were willing to shoot the president as soon as they found out they were being attacked, we'd be out of luck. But I doubted they'd do that. O'Malley was a businessman, and President Kramer was his merchandise. He would make sure his employees didn't destroy the merchandise.

"All right," I said. "I think they're upstairs. Let's stay together and go slow. And we get rid of the light when we think we're getting close."

Gwen nodded her understanding.

I picked up the lantern and took one last look at Freddy. He was still unconscious. We left the room, locking it behind us, and headed off.

I noticed as we went upstairs that we were in a newer part of the museum: glass-roofed, and decorated in whites and grays. I could hear the rain tapping on the roof, and the distant howl of the wind. It was turning into a good night for ghosts. We reached the first floor, then took the staircase up another flight. We paused at the top. We couldn't see any lights, but we could make out the murmuring of voices, in spite of the wind and rain. It was impossible to tell where the voices were corning from, however. I picked a direction, and we continued.