Стюарт Вудс - Class Act

“What can we do for you, Chief?” the cop asked.

“I need a little info on a man named Jack Coulter, lives part time in P.B., drives a Bentley from the local dealer.” He spelled Coulter for the man.

“Okay, let’s see. What d’ya know? Man had a couple parking tickets on Worth Avenue.”

“Where does he live?”

“Local address at a big hotel called the Breakers.”

“Any other address?”

“One on Fifth Avenue, New York City, one in Northeast Harbor, Maine, on Harborside Road. That’s it.”

“That’s all I need,” O’Brien said and hung up. Maine! Why didn’t he think of that? He went to the maps on his iPhone and looked up the address. Harborside Road was fairly short, and there was an airport less than ten miles away: Bar Harbor Airport.

He called a travel agent. He could get to Northeast Harbor by flying to Boston and changing for Bar Harbor, where he could rent a car. He looked at his watch: a little late in the day. He made a reservation for tomorrow, then started looking for a bar where he wouldn’t stand out too much.

Late in the evening, Mickey got out of a cab into pouring rain and ran for the door to his basement apartment. He stuck in his key, but it wouldn’t turn in any direction. Befuddled, he searched his brain for some reason. Then he remembered what his mother had screamed at him before he left the house. The locksmith had done his work and replaced the old lock with one set to unlock on a timer.

He checked his wristwatch for the time, but couldn’t see it. The bulb under the main staircase had burned out. He walked around trying to find a ray of light to reveal his watch, then Nature obliged with a quick bolt of lightning. Eleven-forty, it read, so he was required to shelter under the stairs for another twenty minutes before his key would work.

It didn’t work then, either, but finally, after another three minutes the key opened the door. He left his sodden clothing in a pile by the front door and got into a hot shower, to warm his bones. That accomplished, he set up a clothesline in the kitchen and hung his clothes there to drip dry, then got into a bed that eventually became warm.

Mickey O’Brien got himself slowly together the next morning, then wrote his mother a note and stuck it on the door.

Mom, I’ve got to go out of town on business today, but I should be back by around six p.m. Book us a dinner table somewhere you love, and it’s on me! The day holds promise!

Your loving son,

Jack Coulter was awakened by a warm hand on his thigh, which moved further.

“Is this working yet?” Hillary asked.

Somewhat to his surprise, it was, and the two enjoyed a romp in the hay that was up to pre-blackjack standards.

After a little tidy-up of the bed, Hillary rang, and a few minutes later the housekeeper, Mae, pushed in a cart loaded with breakfast and served them in bed.

“Any thoughts on what to do today?” Hillary asked.

“I don’t know, how about a cruise up the sound, aboard Maine Belle ?” Jack replied. “The weather is glorious.”

“Oh, yes; we’ll have lunch. I’ll ring up the captain and give him his instructions. Twelve o’clock? That will give the cook time to shop.”

“Perfect.”

Jack got himself into his yacht club Brenton Reef red trousers, a white shirt, and a club necktie, then donned a blue blazer and threw a sweater around his shoulders, in case the wind got up.

Hillary installed a fresh bandage and a nose guard.

Mickey made his early-morning flight to Boston in a rush, then sat in the airport there for hours, waiting for them to do something to the puddle jumper that was the only way to Bar Harbor. He read the papers and thought about the ponies but didn’t do anything about them, then formulated a plan for his eventual arrival.

Upon landing, he went to the rental car booth in the tiny terminal and asked for something small. All they had was a Chevy Suburban, a domestic tank, but they gave him a lower rate. They gave him a map, too, which included an inset of Northeast Harbor.

He crossed an almost unnoticeable bridge to Mount Desert Island, and made his way to Northeast Harbor. His approach was right down Harborside Road, where there were a couple of dozen houses but no way to identify Jack Coulter’s. Then he spotted a green Range Rover pulling out of a driveway ahead of him and thought, What the hell, how many of those could there be around at this time of year? Labor Day had been a couple of weeks ago, and the village was deserted.

Mickey hung back from the Range Rover, which was driven by a woman with a man at her side. He followed them down to the harbor marina, where they parked and walked down the dock to a handsome motor yacht from the twenties or thirties, Mickey thought. The man was big enough to be John Fratelli. He saw them walk up the gangplank, then, a moment later, two crew cast off, and the yacht moved gracefully down the harbor. He noted the name on her stern, Maine Belle.

Mickey looked around for a boat to rent or steal but saw nothing. Most of the berths were empty. He noticed a chart posted on a bulletin board and tried to guess where the yacht might go. As he looked up, she was leaving the harbor and turning right. A light breeze had come up, and his guess was that she would stay in sheltered waters. He liked the look of a body of water called Somes Sound and thought that looked perfect for a day cruise. He got into the car and switched on the GPS navigator as he drove up to the main street. Then he saw a shop with a sign in the window: sporting goods, fishing and hunting gear. He parked and got out. All he had on him was his 9mm handgun; he needed more range.

Mickey walked into the shop and had a look around. There was a rack of used rifles at the rear, and he headed there.

“Something I can do for you?” an elderly man behind the counter said.

“Oh, maybe something light, with a scope. Something good for varmits.” He looked over the weapons in the rack and found a .30-caliber military carbine, probably of World War II vintage.

“That’s a great old weapon,” the shopkeeper said.

“Will it take a scope?”

“Sure it will. And I can install it. Mind you, the scope costs more than the rifle. I can mount it in half an hour,” he added.

“How about a silencer?” Mickey asked.

“Sure, those are legal these days. I can do the threads for that, too.”

They haggled a bit, then agreed on a price. “If you’ll throw in a box of ammo,” Mickey said. “I’ll take a walk while you work.”

“Turn over that sign on the door so it reads closed,” the man said. “That’ll make things go faster.”

Mickey did so, then stepped into the street.

A row of shops and galleries ran down the street, some of them with empty windows. He found an open restaurant called the Colonel and had a sandwich, then he walked back to the sporting goods shop.

The proprietor was screwing in the silencer. “Pretty neat, huh?”

“Pretty neat,” Mickey replied. “Got a canvas case for it?”

The man produced one. Mickey inspected the rifle, then slipped it into the case. He paid the man in cash, from his emergency stash, for when a great long shot came along, and left the shop. He tucked the rifle into the front passenger seat and followed his GPS map to a road called Sargeant Drive, which ran up the eastern side of Somes Sound. He pulled over about halfway up the sound, next to a boulder and a cutback pine tree, then got out. He looked up and down the sound and saw nothing, not so much as a sailing dinghy. He was expressing disgust with his guess of the yacht’s routing when it hove into sight from behind a boulder, perhaps half a mile away.