The Shadow Box (62 page)

“He's a Gemini . . . might have known . . . two-faced.”

She wanted Lena to tell everyone how they met, what
happened in that New York subway. Lena declined. “Over
and done with,” she said. “Boy does need lookin' after,
though.”

The phone rang. Harold rose to answer it. Megan started gathering the dishes. She paused and cocked an ear toward
Harold, who was only listening, but she shook it off and
turned toward the kitchen.

“Michael,” Harold waved a finger. “It's a doctor at
the hospital.”

“What hospital?”

“Ain't but one, over to Oak Bluffs. Doctor's asking do
you know a Montague
Mullins?”

“Me? I don't think so.”

“Says the police found him staggerin' around up by
Lighthouse Beach. Said your name and address was in
his pocket.”

The man who called about the ghosts came to mind.
But no, his name was Peabody. “Did he say what's wrong
with him?”

“This Mullens thinks he's having a stroke. Doctor's not
so sure.”

Stroke. Michael felt as if slapped. ”A black man?
Late fifties?”

Harold asked the doctor. “Says that's him,” he said.

FalIon's chair toppled backward as he rose. Megan set
her dishes down.

“I'll drive you,” she said.

“You never knew his real name?” asked Megan. She
turned onto Beach Road. The sign said three miles to
the hospital.

“Not Montague. I never heard Montague.”

In fact, the last time he heard Mullen—not Mullens,
Mullen
—was when he asked what room he was in at
Mount Sinai and Michael had to stop and think that he
had a name besides Moon.

“Michael? When did he come here?”

“Last night, I guess.”

“Last evening? On the ferry from Woods Hole?”

”I don't know. Why?”

“Nothing.” She reached for his hand and squeezed it.
“I'll have you there in five minutes.”

Chapter 38

Sp
ecial Agents
Mowbray and Phipps, driving
separate cars, had followed the taxi to Oyster Bay. The order to tail it had been a disappointment. They would
rather have stayed at the restaurant for when all the top dagos showed up.

The taxi proceeded toward Long Island Sound where it
entered the grounds of the Corinthian Yacht Club. The
sign outside said
Members Only.

No amount of wardrobe advice, thought Agent Phipps,
would pass this bunch off as members or even as accept
able guests. Agent Mowbray shared this view. He thought
that they were obviously here for a meeting but with
whom? Who would want to meet them at a chi-chi club
like Corinthian? They realized, too late, that such a meet
ing would only be held on a boat, preferably out on the
water, possibly a rendezvous with a second boat, possibly
a pickup of smuggled contraband.

The four men, two of them carrying camera bags, one
with a price tag still hanging from his warm-up suit, were
seen to board a Grady-White sport fisherman named
Child's Play.
They cast off the lines immediately. It
bumped its way out of the slip.

Agent Phipps radioed a request for a helicopter a/though
he knew that it was probably useless. From where he
stood, it seemed that every boat ever made was already
out on Long Island Sound. Agent Mowbray, who had
noted the registration number through binoculars, radioed
the Coast Guard. The Coast Guard quickly identified the
owner as a Mr. Frampton Childress of Oyster Bay, New
York.

Childress . . .
Child's Play.
Cute, thought Mowbray.

The name rang a bell. He'd heard it before. He'd heard
it, he was fairly sure, in connection with that Iranian a
few years back who was peddling all those bogus pills.
His memory was vague on the subject because either it
never amounted to anything
or...no...
now he remem
bered. He had been ordered not to pursue it. But that
was then.

Mowbray placed another call. He asked that a file be
pulled on one Frampton Childress II.

Chapter 39

The
hospital
was good-sized but no Mount
Sinai. Fallon found Moon right away.

He was still in ER, in a small treatment room. A nurse
showed them in. She said that his signs were stable, he's
in no immediate danger, but that Michael must not leave
without speaking to the doctor who called him.

Moon's eyes cracked open at the sound of their voices.
He was propped up in a bed,
an oxygen tube at his nose
and a glucose drip in his arm. The arm was bandaged
where they had taken blood. It was badly discolored as
well.

The eyes, when they recognized Michael, showed a
flicker of displeasure. They had not yet focused on Megan.
She stayed back by the door where she made no sound.
Moon forced a smile. He reached out with his free hand
and Michael took it. But then he felt Megan's cold stare.
He looked at her past Michael's shoulder. He blinked
twice as if confused, then suddenly his eyes opened wide.
Moon wet his lips.

“Friend of yours?” he asked Michael.

Megan had moved. She had stepped to a rack where
Moon's clothing had been hung. She was fingering his
shirt.

“This is Megan Cole,” said Michael. “She's more than
a friend. She's—”

“I'll wait outside,” said Megan. Her voice seemed flat
and hard.

Michael had no idea what caused Megan's behavior.
Or, for that matter, why Moon was staring so hard at the
door she'd gone out of.

“Pretty woman,” he said. “She local?”

“From Woods Hole. How are you feeling?”

“Been better. How long you known her?”

“Moon . . . will you stop about Megan?”

“Just glad you found a friend, that's all. You look real
good, by the way.”

“Thank you. Where the hell have you been?”

“Just wandering . . . healing.”

“But not a whole lot of calling.”

Moon cleared his throat. “Listen, Michael. I need you
to do an errand for me.”

He told Michael that he had Jake's car. It's a maroon
Buick, Florida plates. Being on the road so much, he also
had a gun. When he got sick, over near Lighthouse Beach,
and feared he might pass out, he thought he'd better not
get found with a gun on him. He buried it at the base of
a
No Clamming
sign along with his car keys and wallet.
Didn't want the car impounded while they checked to see
if he stole it.

“I'll take care of it,” Michael told him. “Moon, why
didn't you tell me you were here?”

“Doc did it for me. I was too woozy.”

“The doctor said he found my name. He didn't say you
gave it to him.”

Moon rubbed his face. “Hard to think. Guess I'm still
in a fog.”

Michael wanted to say, “Bullshit.” He'd seen Moon's
eyes when they narrowed at Megan. He'd heard the crisp
ness with which he said go get his keys and gun. Now all
of a sudden he's a sick old man. It didn't fly. If Moon showed up here, armed, and wasn't going to tell him he
was on this island, that could only mean . . .

“Moon . . . is someone after me?”

“You? Why should anyone—”

“Okay, after you.”

“Michael
...
I just missed you, that's all.”

“Screw this. I'll go call Doyle.”

The eyes again. The eyes didn't like that idea.

“If I tell Doyle you're here”—Fallon folded his arms—
“and that you told me
everything,
what will he say,
Moon? Will he ask me what the hell I'm talking about?”

Moon chewed his lip.

“It's Jake, isn't it? You found who killed Jake.”

Moon let out a breath. It was more of a sigh. “Sit
down, Michael. Tell me more about Megan.”

He threw up his hands. “I'm calling Doyle.”

”I said sit.”

“For the last time, Moon. Who killed him?”

“Hobbs was part of it. Now sit.”

For the first ten minutes, he only felt rage. He saw the
Baron, Franz Rast, in his mind. Michael had sat with him in meetings, and in private dining rooms, and had shaken
his hand.

He'd had, in his grip, the evil old bastard who had
broken his father's spirit, torn his parents apart, and made
his mother so crazy that all she could think to do was run.
He'd had his hands on the man who would soon order
Jake Fallon's murder. And Moon's. And his own. He was
also the man who had caused poor Bronwyn's death.

And that was still not all of it. Hobbs
...
Childress . . .
Bellows . . . Parker. They had played him like a harp. He
had been part of a criminal organization and he'd been
too blind or stupid to see it. Or he didn't want to see it.

Moon was still talking. He was asking again about
Megan. Fallon, at first, couldn't answer. It was all so
much, so overwhelming, that a numbness had begun to set
in. But he told Moon some part of what little he knew.
He spoke as if he were sleepwalking. At last, he excused
himself and stepped out into the corridor where Megan
had been waiting. She sat on a bench, her knees drawn
up to her chin. She too seemed off in a world of her own.

“Megan . . . listen,” he said, approaching
her. He felt
for his car keys, remembered that she had them. “Moon
and I
...
have a lot to catch up on. I want you to go
back. I'll call a cab when I—”

“I'm staying, Michael.” She stared straight ahead.

A weary breath. How much she'd picked up of what
Moon had just told him, or sensed, or intuited, or simply
heard with her ear to the door, he really didn't care
right now.

He gestured toward the nurses station. ”I have a call to
make and I need to talk to the doctor. Please take my car.
Let me call you later.”

“Michael
...
I'll
wait,”
she said firmly.

The doctor was an internist named Berman. The duty nurse paged him. Fallon waited by her station. He came
along in about five minutes, tall and thin, about Michael's
age, wore glasses low on his nose. The nurse waved a
folder at him.

“Just came in,” she said.

Berman raised a staying hand to Michael. “His records
from Florida,” he said. “Give me a second.” He leafed
quickly through several fax pages while sucking
on his lip. He nodded a few times, then closed the folder.

“He's a friend of yours?”

“He's family.”

“Family what? Employee? Bodyguard?”