Стивен Хантер - G-Man

“Oh, Charles, if only—”

“Make Earl proud, maybe my success would help him in the Marine Corps, if that’s what he wants to do.”

“Charles, how can such a thing happen?”

“It’s my boss, Sam Cowley. You never met a finer man. I can’t wait for you to meet him. Sweetie, I think this thing is almost done up here and then we can move on. I promise you, I will take care of things and be the man you thought you were marrying.”

“Oh, Charles.”

“You will see, honey. I will make this happen.”

He hung up, feeling a weight gone at last from his shoulders. But then it all changed. A memo was lying on his desk. He picked it up, recognizing Elaine’s handwriting.

“Uncle Phil called. He says don’t bother to call him back, but the word is in: Lake Como Inn, Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, later this week.”

OUACHITA FOREST

ARKANSAS

The present

Swagger got the flex-cuffs tight on each of the big boys, did a quick body search, coming up with several knives and, in each left boot, a small backup sidearm, a Kimber Solo 9mm, and an S&W Bodyguard, all of which he tossed away. Then he turned them around and sat them down where they had sat him, on the lip of the trench he had excavated to free the guns.

Nick came over, having retrieved the main hardware, the Serbu shorty and the Smith .500.

“Wow,” he said, “big-time ordnance. These goobers must have been hunting buffalo and just bumbled into you. I bet that’s their story too.”

“Okay,” Swagger said, “let’s see who these mystery gents are.”

He snatched the two balaclavas off to reveal broad, heavy-boned faces of no particular distinction under a frost of stubbly hair. They looked tough, that’s all, one with a broken nose that spread across his face, the other with a filigree of stitch scars running from the corner of his mouth to his ear. Both had gray eyes, not surprised, not frightened, not engaged. They just regarded him sullenly.

“So,” said Nick, “ Thuggis Americanus —what, two hundred forty apiece? — look at those mugs, like both these guys were hit in the face by gorillas with trailer hitches and neither of them particularly noticed. They did go to the doctor… two weeks later.”

Swagger opened the wallets.

“Grumley, no less. The foot soldiers of the criminal South. Law’s been fighting them two hundred years, including my grandfather, my father, and me. You too. Remember Bristol. That was all Grumley.”

“Were those your brothers or cousins or kids? Or can you tell ’em apart?”

The two big guys exchanged glances, rolled their eyes, and settled back into their obdurate silence.

“They’re skip tracers,” said Bob, examining the credential. “Bonded-by-the-state, legally armed man hunters. Tough game. Takes a hard man. Lots of physical stuff. Guy doesn’t want to come along, they have to convince him.”

“Okay,” said Nick. “Let’s see. Start with conspiracy to felony, armed robbery itself, unlawful use of firearms in the commission of a crime — I’m figuring at least fifteen, maybe twenty. Plus, I’m guessing that all over the state there are cops and prosecutors with particular grudges, waiting to pile on with this and that. So they’ll do hard time, and find themselves among many of the guys they sent up and whose skulls they busted. They’re tough, no doubt about it, but I think their years in prison will prove highly stimulating.”

He leaned close, shined a light in each set of sullen eyes.

“Anything to say, gents?”

They just looked at him.

“All right,” he said. “I’m calling the State Police. Once I do that and troopers are dispatched, it’s legal, it’s on the record, and there’s no turning back. The system takes over and it does with you what it wants.”

One of them laughed. Then the other.

Nick shook his head sadly, as if this were the greatest tragedy since Agamemnon or New Coke.

He punched seven of the eight keys.

“All right,” said one of them.

“Well, well, well,” said Swagger, “they speak English.”

“Now, Mr. Swagger,” said the speaker, “I hate to squish your big moment here, having bested two Grumley and enjoying the damned hell out of it, down to victory laps, high fives, and fireworks, but do you really think we’d move against a tricky bastard like you and this federal man without no Plan B?”

“Oh, boy,” said Nick, “I’ll bet this Plan B is something. This one’ll be good.”

“I think you’ll cotton to it,” said the talky one. “In fact, here’s my prediction: I bet that, inside of a half an hour, not only have you let us go but you’ll have given us the Colt Monitor there so we can complete our business successfully. It ain’t yours, after all, it’s Baby Face’s; you’ve no particular right to it except the right of salvage. You can have the FBI shit for the museum, if you want it. Not only will you wave us bye-bye but you’ll both be thinkin’, Damn, I’m glad we run into Grumley. Damn, that was the luckiest thing ever.”

“He’s got a pair,” said Nick, “I’ll say that.”

“What have you got that I want?” said Swagger, leaning forward.

“We know what happened to your grandfather,” said the Grumley, smiling.

COMO INN

LAKE GENEVA, WISCONSIN

November 27, 1934

It could have been the road to nowhere. Trees — dense Wisconsin pines — deep on both sides, nothing ahead, nothing behind, no noise, just a sense of being removed from the real world. This time of year, there wasn’t much activity in the woods, and most of the ground vegetation had turned to thatching. A gray chill clarified the air, and breath turned to vapor.

“It’s spooky,” said Helen.

“It’s Wisconsin,” said Les. “Come on, you’ve been here before. Fish, deer, stuff like that. Farmers who talk funny—”

“Cheese,” said J.P.

“Last time, they put me in jail. Anyhow, the farmers are all inside by their fireplaces,” said Helen.

Les drove the newly stolen black V-8 Ford down this ribbon of dirt. He was all steeled up, as was J.P., and the Monitor and Thompson were cocked and locked, out of sight in the backseat well but could be up and in play in seconds, yet nothing was set to happen today. They had told Tony Accardo they wouldn’t be there for another few days and wanted to take the time to examine the layout, figure out routes in and out, switchbacks, other cars to steal in an emergency.

“I want to know which side road dumps me in Chicago and which one dumps me in Lake Geneva,” Les said.

In time, the nondescript road through the forest approached the lakeshore of the body of water that sustained a playground for Chicago vacationers, with plenty of room to speedboat, water-ski, and fish, under the blue sky amid the perfume of the pines. Before them lay the Lake Como Inn, a rambling, white-clapboard joint with country-house aspirations, including a long porch under a roof supported by three Doric columns, and out back were docks and a lakeside lawn, and cabins. Fifty yards farther down the shoreline, a two-story house stood, where the owner and well-known Mob pal, Hobart Hermanson, lived. In late November, however, the whole place had the look of abandonment, as all the vacationers were absent, the water was gray and choppy, and no speedboats flashed across its surface. A few Adirondack chairs shed paint in the chill, and the grass looked like Shredded Wheat.

“Boy, will Hobe be surprised to see us,” said J.P.