Stuart Woods - Below the Belt

Jimmy laughed. “It pretty much tells everybody to go to hell, doesn’t it?”

“Pretty much. What’s up with Ed?”

“Well, these days, he greets callers with a shotgun in his hand, that’s what.”

“How come?”

“Nobody knows for sure. He used to do his grocery shopping here. Now he calls in his order and we leave that and his newspapers in a plywood box he’s built at his gate. The kid who delivers it has never seen him.”

“Is he ill?”

“He hasn’t had the doctor in, far as we know.”

“Have you talked with anyone who’s actually had a conversation with him?”

“Nope. I don’t think anybody has. When you coming back to the island, Stone?”

“Maybe sooner than I’d planned.”

“You better be careful with Ed. He hasn’t fired at anybody yet, but he’s waved that shotgun around a couple of times when people turned up at his gate by mistake.”

“I’ll keep that in mind. What about the Old Farts? Are they still around?”

“Ed’s the last man standing. The others kicked off — one, two, three. Heart attacks, strokes, you know. Of course, the first one was murdered.”

“I remember.”

“Come see us when you get in.”

“Thanks, Jimmy.” They said goodbye and hung up.

“Sounds like old age and loneliness have made Ed become a little unhinged,” Holly said.

“Possibly. Sounds to me like Ed is feeling threatened.”

“Paranoia?”

“It’s not paranoia if somebody’s after you.”

“So, are we going to abandon Santa Fe for Maine?”

“Santa Fe is looking a little less hospitable than when we got here,” Stone said. “That strong case is attracting too much attention.”

“Are you sure it’s not just paranoia?”

“We’ve been followed, and someone broke into the house last night. What else has to happen before you start to feel a little paranoia?”

“I guess that’s enough,” Holly said. “When do we leave?”

“Get packed,” Stone said. “I have to repair that window, then we’re out of here. You know what I wish we’d done?”

“What?”

“Brought Bob with us.”

“You mean the killer Labrador retriever?”

“I mean the noisy dog.”

Stone called Joan and informed her of his change of location.

“You sick of Santa Fe already?”

“No, I just have a hankering for Maine. Pack up Bob’s things and ask Fred to meet me with him at the airport in Oxford, Connecticut.” He looked at his wristwatch. “In about six hours. Also, please call Seth and Mary and tell them we’ll be two for dinner this evening, then staying on for a while. Ask Seth to call the airport in Rockland and get me a ride to Islesboro and ask them if they have hangar space for the Citation for a week or so.” They went over some business for a few minutes, then he hung up. “I’d better go fix the window,” he said.

They took off from Santa Fe with a stiff tailwind and made it to Oxford, Connecticut, in a little over three hours.

“Why here?” Holly asked as they taxied in to the FBO.

“Less hassle than in Teterboro, quicker in and out. Also, whoever has been interested in us could be tracking our flight on the Internet, so from here, we’ll fly VFR and set the transponder to twelve hundred. If they’re watching, they won’t be able to distinguish us from a lot of smaller airplanes.”

“But we’ll have to stay under eighteen thousand feet.”

“Right, but it’s less than an hour to Rockland.”

As they approached the ramp, Fred came out of the building with Bob on a leash. Bob went nuts when he saw the airplane.

Stone greeted them both and ordered enough fuel to get them to Rockland with reserves. They stowed Bob’s bag with his food and toys, then took off for Rockland under Visual Flight Rules without filing a flight plan.

At Rockland, they put Stone’s airplane into a hangar and, at his insistence, locked it. “If anybody should ask, I’m not here, and you haven’t heard from me,” he told them.

The three of them piled into a Cessna 182 and made the flight to the island of Islesboro in fifteen minutes, setting down on the fairly short landing strip. Seth was there to greet them in the 1938 Ford station wagon that belonged to the house.

“Can’t say I’m surprised to see you,” Seth said, shaking their hands. “Nothing you’d do could surprise me.”

Another fifteen minutes and they were at the house. Seth took their bags upstairs.

“Anyone asking for me?” Stone asked when he came down.

“Yup, Jimmy did, when I went to the store.”

“So by suppertime everybody will know I’m here.”

“I expect so,” Seth said. “That okay with you?”

“Oh, sure. There are no secrets around here. Any phone calls?”

“One. They hung up when I answered.”

“Maybe that was Ed,” Stone said to Holly.

“Or somebody else,” she said darkly.

Dinner was the usual first-nighter: lobster bisque followed by lobster, shelled and tossed in butter.

“You wouldn’t get this in Santa Fe,” Stone said to Holly. “I’m sorry to have yanked you out of the town so quickly.”

“Don’t worry, I’m happy to be here.”

Seth came in with the strong case. “This yours?” he asked, holding it up by the handcuff. “I found it in the car.”

“Yes, I forgot that. Just leave it here by me,” Stone said.

Seth, being a Mainer, liked to mind his own business and didn’t ask about the handcuff, just set the thing down where he was asked to and left.

“What do you suppose Seth thinks about that?” Holly asked.

“He can think whatever he wants to,” Stone said. “After all, nothing I do surprises him. He said so himself.”

After dinner he went to the secret room maintained by his cousin Dick Stone, after whose murder Stone had come into his house. He unlocked it, revealing the small office. “The Agency computer is gone,” Stone said.

“The Internet setup, too. Now you’re just an ordinary civilian who has to supply his own Wi-Fi.”

“Already supplied,” Stone said. He opened Dick’s safe and tucked the strong case inside, then he closed it and unlocked the compartment that held Dick’s weapons. Gone were the fully automatic machine gun and the assault rifle. The riot gun and a couple of handguns were still there.

“They took whatever was on the Agency’s inventory list,” Holly said.

Stone handed her a 9mm semiautomatic pistol and a couple of loaded magazines. “So you won’t feel naked,” he said.

“Thank you.”

“Nobody is coming in here,” Stone said. “This house was built to Agency specs, remember?”

“I remember, and it gives me a warm feeling all over.”

“I believe you said something about getting naked,” Stone said, locking the secret room and straightening the picture that hung on the door.

“I believe it was you who mentioned naked, in reference to sidearms, but now that I think of it, I’m ready to get naked.”

“Then let’s get upstairs,” Stone said, and on the way he armed the alarm system and checked the panel to be sure all the windows were secure.

The following morning, as they were finishing breakfast in bed, Stone’s cell phone rang. The caller’s number was blocked.

“You said to call you,” Ed Rawls said. “What’s up? Don’t waste my time.”

“I’m coming to see you this morning, Ed, and Holly Barker is coming with me, and I don’t want a shotgun pointed at us. That concise enough for you?”

“Yep.” Ed hung up.

“You think he’s gone completely nuts?” Holly asked.

“Jimmy Hotchkiss said they had ninety inches of snow up here this winter. What sort of effect would that have on you if you were alone and couldn’t see out the window for four or five months?”