Finally I said, "That's some good stuff, huh?"

McCord was quiet.

"You tell the detectives all that," I said, "and maybe they ease off me and Trey Phigg. Plus you look good."

"Maybe." McCord clicked off.

The next morning, cereal-bowl clinks woke me. As I realized I'd fallen asleep on the couch, I craned my neck and saw Charlene doing something new-humming and dancing a box step in the kitchen while she ate her raisin bran.

She didn't know I was awake, so I held still and watched and listened. After a minute I figured out the tune: "I Feel Pretty." Morning sun lit the edges of her blond hair. She wore work clothes: black pencil skirt, pearl-gray blouse.

It was nice watching her while she didn't know she was being watched.

When she danced her cereal bowl over to the sink, I said, "You look pretty."

She jumped six inches, turned, put hands on hips. "How long, Conway Sax?"

"Couple minutes."

Charlene tried for a mad face but couldn't hold it, smiled, held her arms out like a TV spokesmodel. "The empty-nester life," she said, "is the life for me."

Then she ran into the family room-the tight skirt making for choppy steps-and plopped herself on top of me, straddling. Had to wiggle the skirt real high to make it.

I said, "Wow."

Charlene laughed and wriggled and put her hands on my chest. "No 'Where's my homework?' No three-day pout because somebody didn't get her way. Freedom!" She did the spokesmodel flare again and slowed her wriggle, gave it some purpose, moved her hands to the waist of my jeans.

"Got a stiff neck," I said.

"And then some," she said, giggling. When I tried to sit up to kiss her, she flat-handed my chest. "Stay right there, dragon breath."

I don't know how she got her panty hose off without climbing from me.

But she did.

After, Charlene was all business and bustle. A bathroom cleanup, fresh panty hose, check the makeup, ready to split. She glanced at the TV, which was tuned again to the New England news station, as she crossed the room. Said she wanted to hear more about the Vermont deaths, but it'd have to wait. She leaned down to peck my temple.

I grabbed her wrist. "What about Fred?"

Her eyes went hard for an instant-she hates being interrupted while on a mission, and she was on a mission to get to the office-but then she softened and sat. "I did everything I could think of," she said. "I drove around two hours last night looking for him. I called the Shrewsbury police and the state police again. I even e-mailed the gal who runs the town blog, sent her a cell-phone picture of Fred that Sophie took. I said Fred may be wandering around, implying he has Alzheimer's."

"Did you call Vicky Lin at Cider Hill?"

"I did," she said, brushing nonexistent hair from my forehead.

"And?"

"And she said it happens more often than not." Charlene kissed my forehead as she stood. "I'm sorry, Conway. Doctor Lin said this happens almost every time."

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO.

It was time to deal with Montreal. That meant driving to Rourke and acting like a worm on a fishhook.

I spent the ride thinking about Fred, wondering what pushed him out of Charlene's place. He tried to drink himself to death for thirty years or more. I wasn't sure I'd ever heard of such a hard case sobering up the way he had. I wouldn't have believed it but for Vicky Lin's tests.

So you stop using, cold turkey. You get through the worst of it, find yourself a cushy setup-Charlene's home, her money, a pair of adoring females-and hit the streets again?

I sighed. Knew it could happen, had seen it a hundred times. There's nothing rational about a man who drinks that long.

Once Fred cleared Charlene's neighborhood, he could blend in. The main drag was less than a mile from her house, and from there it was ten minutes to Worcester. In that city, b.u.ms lugging trash bags are a dime a dozen. And there's a h.e.l.l of a rail yard to boot. My father could be rocking his way to Vermont, Florida, you name it.

"Jesus, Fred," I said out loud.

I was still playing around with ideas when I rolled into Rourke. My best guess put Montreal near Motorenwerk, eyeballing the place. He thought there was a big pile of money inside the shop. I thought he was right.

As I neared Mechanic Street, I put on my left turn signal. There was no traffic coming the other way but I hesitated anyway, stutter-stepping the F-150 like a man trying to make up his mind. I canceled the turn signal, weaved back to my lane, and cruised toward Jut Road. I kept an eye on my mirror, wondering if he'd take the bait.

Montreal made it too easy. Maybe he was stupid. More likely he'd grown c.o.c.ky and bored sitting around in a nothing town, waiting. I hadn't even cleared Rourke's three-block downtown when the black Escalade snorted out of Mechanic Street, squatted under acceleration, and came after me.

I might have smiled, McCord style, at my rearview mirror. The only drawback I could see to my plan was that I'd have to take a beating to make Montreal buy it.

I've taken beatings before.

I led them out of town. Montreal was behind the wheel of the Escalade. He tailgated me, trying to scare me half to death. I made a big show of noticing him, checking my mirrors again and again, trying to look nervous.

When we hit Jut Road, I pulled in like a man who'd run out of options.

As we parked, Montreal jammed his truck against my rear b.u.mper. We all climbed from our vehicles. Montreal's lounge-lizard look was going strong: He wore another shimmery suit that looked gray or olive drab, depending on how the sun hit it, and his pompadour was tall.

He snapped his fingers like a gangster in a black-and-white movie. His muscle man, wearing a black T-shirt that advertised a gym I'd never heard of, moved in.

I gulped and made a let's-all-take-it-easy gesture with both hands. "Plenty for everyone," I said, just as muscle man punched me in the stomach.

I flopped against my truck and doubled up-and felt happy. I'd guessed muscle man didn't know how to fight, and the punch proved me right. For starters, I'd seen it coming two yards away. Had tensed my abs, barely felt it. Could have sidestepped if I'd wanted to, and he would've broken his hand on my door. And despite the big windup, the punch was all arm. He hadn't set his feet, hadn't started by torquing his thigh.

He probably worked as a bouncer and thought he was pretty tough because he could slam a drunk's head off an alley wall.

Thinking all this, I dropped to a knee. Muscle man got set to hit me in the face with a downward-slanting left that might have actually done damage, but I said, "Okayokayokay," and Montreal snapped his fingers again.

"First, a correction. There's not plenty here for everybody," he said. Zere's. "What is here is mine, and you will take me to it or my man will put you in the river and stand on you awhile, eh?"

I hoped I looked like a beaten man, holding my arm against my ribs as I stood. I jerked a thumb behind me at the shack. "You were close," I said. "When you bought a hammer and bashed up the walls inside."

"How close?"

"I'll show you," I said, and winced my way down the slope to the river.

Ten minutes later I knocked the last peg from its hole and slipped out of the way as the false floor swung down. It wasn't a hard job once you knew what you were looking for. There was nothing there, of course, and so I went into act two of my sell job-cursing, begging, swearing to G.o.d it was all supposed to be here. "Those G.o.dd.a.m.n-"

"Yes? G.o.dd.a.m.n who?" Montreal said.

I looked at my boots, which were in six inches of water, and said nothing.

Montreal snapped his fingers again. You could tell he liked the move.

Muscle man grabbed the back of my shirt and kicked my feet out from under me, dumping me in the ice-cold Souhegan facedown, my nose grinding coa.r.s.e sand. As promised, he kept one boot on my back as I flopped and struggled.

I'd been ready and had gulped a deep breath on my way down. But instinct is instinct, and after thirty seconds I didn't need to playact my thrashing. He kept me under another thirty seconds. By the time he lifted his boot and I thrust my head from the water, I had a lungful of river. I gagged and retched on hands and knees.

Muscle man stood not two feet from me, his crotch level with my head, his arms folded, his pride obvious. I wanted to show him the truth about street fighting; it'd be so easy to reach out and twist his nut sack until he pa.s.sed out. I doubted I could actually tear his b.a.l.l.s off, not through his jeans. But I could try my d.a.m.nedest.

But this was working. I fought back the urge and instead crawled ash.o.r.e, coughing up water, making I-surrender gestures.

Montreal stepped over and toed my side. His knees popped when he crouched. He spoke gently. "You don't need to die here today in a cold river, Conway Sax. Who took the money from this place?"

"They'll kill me."

"He will kill you first."

"You don't get it," I said. "These are bad hombres. Survivalists, mercenaries."

Montreal sighed, stood, snapped. "Two minutes this time."

"No!" I said as muscle man stepped toward me. "Okay. I'll take you there. They live a couple towns over."

"You will indeed take us there," Montreal said. "You will also provide an address and a map. In case we get separated."

"If I give you the address, what's to keep you-him-from killing me right now?"

"If you don't give it," he said, "what is to keep him from standing on your back for two minutes, thirty seconds?"

I tried to look like I'd had it. Stood, sloshed over to my truck, pulled a pen and a map of New England from the glove box. Spread the map on my hood.

I managed to not crack a smile as I told them precisely how to get to the Beet Brothers' compound.

Fifteen minutes later we neared the place, the Escalade a car length off my b.u.mper. I sat in a puddle and wondered how many times I had to get dunked in the Souhegan.

My directions had been perfect: We'd found our way over to Route 123, had paralleled railroad tracks, and now you could see the Beet Brothers' mailbox, cemented into a stack of old truck wheels to keep snowplows and vandals from knocking it over.

Time for me to make my move and hope. I put my turn signal on, began to swing into the dirt road-then straightened the wheel and ga.s.sed the F-150. The truck's six-cylinder engine didn't have a lot of juice, but I worked it through the gears as fast as I could, watching my mirror the whole time.

The Escalade had lurched to an awkward, angled stop when I took off. Now Montreal and his muscle man had a choice. They could hope I'd led them to the right place but had then panicked and rabbited. Or they could use their horsepower to chase me down, then beat on me until they got another address.

I liked my odds. Dealers were used to seeing people roll over for them, and they were used to people who panicked when the heat was on. Plus, after sitting around doing nothing for a week, they felt ready for action.

Wrong. They didn't want any part of Beet Brothersstyle action. But by the time they figured that out, it'd be too late.

Before I disappeared around a gentle left-hand bend, I saw the Escalade cut down the Beets' dirt road. For maybe five seconds I felt bad for Montreal and his muscle man. They were dime-a-dozen crooks like a thousand other guys I'd known.

Then I thought about heroin, the things I'd seen junkies do. Thought about Ollie Dufresne, who survived the French Foreign Legion so he could be hung like a side of beef in his boyhood room. About his mom, a widow lady making turkey sandwiches in her own kitchen when muscle man wrapped ap.r.o.n strings around her neck.

But mostly I thought about Tander Phigg, Jr. Born in his father's shadow, tried to step out, didn't quite make it. Chased his only son away, hid inside a bottle of Scotch, climbed out, got greedy or stupid, lived in a shack while he watched his dream house rot, wound up hanging from a pipe stub.

There were plenty of people to feel for here. Montreal wasn't one of them.

The Beets' compound disappeared in my mirror. I headed south.

On the drive I shivered and played guessing games about Fred. I wondered how he'd walked out of Charlene's neighborhood without causing neighbors to call the cops, wondered where he'd go. Without really deciding to go there, I found myself aimed at Purgatory Chasm. By ten I was parked there, facing roughly east, squinting against the sun. Had the place to myself for thirty seconds. Then a big black Toyota Sequoia parked and spilled three little blond kids and a nanny driver. The nanny tried to round up the kids, but she didn't have a prayer-the two boys and a girl were all under six, and they scattered.

Soon they were all out of sight. Things went quiet. I rolled down both windows of my truck and pushed away Fred thoughts.

They were replaced by thoughts of Montreal. I'd done state time for manslaughter two after I shot someone who was trying to shoot me, but the calculated, indirect way I'd just handled Montreal and muscle man didn't sit right.

Tough s.h.i.t. Barnburner sacrifice, like the time I'd spent at Ma.s.s. Correctional Inst.i.tute, Cedar Junction, on the manslaughter.

After a while I locked the F-150, walked to an area with picnic tables, chose one in full sunshine, and sat drying. In my peripheral vision I saw a nothingburger car-dirty beige, Altima, Taurus, whatever-parked on the other side of the Sequoia.

The nanny had dumped a big cloth bag of toys and snacks on a picnic table. I noticed one of the blond boys and the girl were sticking close to the nanny as she walked laps around the picnic area calling for Jeffrey, saying it Heff-ray.

The sun was nice.

Wheels turned as I tried to tie off loose ends. Josh Whipple, Phigg's blown fortune, his hidden stash.

Patty Marx. I thought about our farm-stand meeting and realized she was the best kind of bulls.h.i.tter, the kind that vibes hey-I'm-giving-you-the-lowdown straightforwardness. People like that know the soft sell works best when they're lying.

Patty Marx, Diana Marx, D.P.R. Marx. She was hiding her name and a lot more-meeting with Phigg the day before he died, living a couple miles from Jut Road, apparently dating Josh Whipple.

Patty and Josh? Working Phigg like a speed bag?

While I thought it through, the nanny's perimeter walk gained urgency, her calls for Heff-ray grew louder. The daughter, who was the youngest, picked up on the nanny's fear, squatted, and covered her eyes with her hands, whimpering some. The nanny peered down into the chasm itself, pulled her cell, made calls. I wondered why she didn't just walk down the chasm. It's not an easy climb, but people do it with kids. Then I saw she wore stiletto-heeled sandals. Stupid.