Powers said, “Good. You do that. I’m getting out of the fucking rain. Hawk, you and Macey help them load the pieces when Macey’s satisfied.”
Powers got up in the cab of a yellow Ryder Rental Truck and closed the door. Rose and Jane and Macey went to the back of the truck. Macey opened the door and the three of them climbed in. Hawk and I and Pam Shepard stood in the rain. In about one minute Rose leaned out of the back of the truck.
“Spenser,” she said, “would you check this equipment for us?”
I said to Pam, “You stand right there. I’ll be right back.” Hawk was motionless beside her, leaning against the front fender of the truck. I went around back and climbed in. The guns were there. Still in the original cases. M2 carbines. I checked two or three. “Yeah,” I said, “they’re good. You can waste platoons of old men now.”
Rose ignored me. “All right, Jane bring the truck over here. Spenser, you said you’d help us load the truck.”
“Yes, ma’am,” I said. “Me and Hawk.”
Macey took the shopping bag that said FILENE’S on it, jumped down and went around to where Powers sat in the cab. He handed the money in to Powers and came back to the tailgate. “What do you think, Spenser. This okay to make the swap.”
We were to the side of and nearly behind the restaurant. “Sure,” I said. “This looks fine. Nobody around. Nobody pays any attention anyway. They load and unload all day around here.”
Macey nodded. Jane backed in a blue Ford Econoline van, parked it tail to tail with Powers’ truck, got out and opened the back doors. I went back to the front of the truck where Pam and Hawk were standing. “Hawk,” I said softly, “the cops are coming. This is a setup.” Macey and Rose and Jane were conspiring to move one case of guns from the truck to the van. “Hawk,” Macey yelled, “you and Spenser want to give us a hand.” Hawk walked silently around the front of the truck behind the restaurant and disappeared. I put my hands in my hip pockets. “Stay right beside me,” I said to Pam Shepard.
From a truck that said ROLLIE’S PRODUCE Sylvia and McDermott and two state cops emerged with shotguns.
Jane screamed, “Rose,” and dropped her end of the crate. She fumbled in the pocket of her raincoat and came out with a gun. Sylvia chopped it out of her hand with the barrel of the shotgun and she doubled over, clutching her arm against her. Rose said, “Jane,” and put her arms around her. Macey dodged around the end of the van and ran into the muzzle of Bobby Santos’ service revolver, which Santos pressed firmly into Macey’s neck. King Powers never moved. Klaus and three Chelsea cops came around the other side of the truck and opened the door. One of the Chelsea cops, a fat guy with a boozer’s nose, reached in and yanked him out by the coat front. Powers said nothing and did nothing except look at me.
I said to King. “Peekaboo, I see you,” nodded at Jackie Sylvia, took Pam Shepard’s hand and walked away. At seven we were in a deli on Tremont Street eating hash and eggs and toasted bagels and cream cheese and looking at the rain on the Common across the street.
“Why did you warn that black man?” Pam Shepard said, putting cream cheese on her bagel. She had skipped the hash and eggs, which showed you what she knew about breakfasts. The waitress came and poured more coffee in both our cups.
“I don’t know. I’ve known him a long time. He was a fighter when I was. We used to train together sometimes.”
“But isn’t he one of them? I mean isn’t he the, what, the muscle man, the enforcer, for those people?”
“Yeah.”
“Doesn’t that make a difference? I mean you just let him go.”
“I’ve known him a long time,” I said.
Chapter 27
It was still raining when we drove back to my apartment to get Pam’s things, and it was still raining when we set out at about eight-thirty for Hyannis. There’s an FM station in Boston that plays jazz from six in the morning until eleven. I turned it on. Carmen McRae was singing “Skyliner.” The rain had settled in and came steadily against the windshield as if it planned to stay awhile. My roof leaked in one corner and dripped on the back seat.
Pam Shepard sat quietly and looked out the side window of the car. The Carmen McRae record was replaced by an album of Lee Wiley singing with Bobby Hackett’s cornet and Joe Bushkin’s piano. Sweet Bird of Youth. There wasn’t much traffic on Route 3. Nobody much went to the Cape on a rainy midweek morning.
“When I was a little kid,” I said, “I used to love to ride in the rain, in a car. It always seemed so self-contained, so private.” There we were in the warm car with the music playing, and the rest of the world was out in the rain getting wet and shivering. “Still like it, in fact.”
Pam Shepard kept looking out the side window. “Is it over, do you think?” she said.
“What?”
“Everything. The bank robbery, the trouble Harvey is in, the hiding out and being scared? The feeling so awful?”
“I think so,” I said.
“What is going to happen to Harvey and me?”
“Depends, I guess. I think you and he can make it work better than it has worked.”
“Why?”
“Love. There’s love in the relationship.”
“Shit,” she said.
