happened to you?”
Sturgis eased himself down again. “They’re after me, Wally. I had no place else to go.”
“No place closer to Boston? A hundred and forty miles away? Who is after you?”
“You never see them. You just know they’re there.”
Carver sighed. “What have you gotten yourself into, Preston?”
Sturgis shook his head as though loosening a stiff neck. “I’m sixty-two years old, Wally. All I wanted was a little security.”
“And...?”
“You know my story. You got me through the...problem.”
“You mean your Chapter Eleven filing?”
“You don’t know what it’s like. Sure, the legal stuff. But you’ve always had plenty of money. You don’t know what it is to be retirement age with nothing to retire on.”
“So you robbed a bank.”
“Of course not!” Sturgis sat up and took a swallow of his brandy. “Why the hell I hired you I don’t know. You are the least sympathetic....”
“Most cold blooded bastard…”
“Yes!”
“What did you do?”
Sturgis fell back on the couch. “How many ways do you know to make back a lot of money - enough to retire on - when you’re my age?”
“Legal, of course.”
“God damn it, Wallace!”
“I see.” Carver looked at him. “Drugs?”
Sturgis lowered his eyes. “I just carried them; I didn’t push people to use them.”
“It isn’t the government that’s after you, is it?”
“No.”
“What happened? Did you steal from them?”
“Of course not.” He sat up. “I’m not a thief. I’ve accidentally come across something I shouldn’t have seen. They’re a little upset.”
Carver sighed. “Preston, tell me straight. Do you have any drugs with you?”
“No, I swear I don’t!”
“How in hell did you ever get into this? How did you make contact with these people?”
“Went where they sell. Asked questions, like a fool. Don’t ever do that, not that you’re about to. They don’t like questions.” He fell back on the couch and waggled his head from side to side. “I was lucky, they roughed me up a little, but after a while I got to meet someone. He discovered I knew something about social contacts - looked the part more than any of them. So, I’ve been the retired tourist. Until this.”
“Until what? What’s happened?”
“They blew up my car - that’s a rental outside.
“You injured?”
“No, Alexandra had it. Alice’s daughter. You never met her; she went with Alice after the divorce.”
“She hurt?”
“No. She wasn’t in it at the time. She was with Vasquez that day.”
“Vasquez?”
“Her old nanny. Cuban refugee, more a mother to her than Alice was. Took over when Alexandra was born. Did she ever. The kid spoke...hey, I’m the one with a problem. You don’t need all this shit about the family. Tonight my apartment was blown up, Wally!”
Carver was disbelieving. “On Beacon Street? They set off a bomb in a Beacon Street apartment?”
Sturgis nodded. “I was just coming in when the damn thing went off. Threw me clear across the yard. Killed poor Alfie.”
“And they’re `a little upset’. I suppose you don’t know if you were followed?”
“I wasn’t, I’m sure of it. I turned off in Portsmouth on the way up and drove around the town for a while just to see. There was no one.”
“And now?”
“Now you got to hide me. Wally, I’m desperate. I called Phil Stang’s place at Cave Mountain. He’s the only other person I know around here and he’s in Florida. You’re my last chance.”
“Hah,” More bark than laugh.
“Oh God, I’m sorry, Wally.” He dropped his voice to a whisper. “They’ve got a long gun. They can find me almost anywhere. But they may not think to look up here in the mountains.”
“So I’m to hide you for the rest of your life, huh? That’s what it would amount to, Preston, from what you’re telling me.”
Wheedling, “Just for a few days. Long enough for me to work out details. Wallace, I’m going to change my identity, go away. Another part of the country. I’ve learned my lesson.”
“And do what? You’re broke, you change your name you can’t even collect social security. What are you going to live on?”
“I’ll get along. I can still earn a living, I’ll just have to keep working longer.”
“Real estate development is not a low profile business.”
“No real estate. I’m going to teach.”
“What not to do?” He sighed. “All right. Tonight you’ll stay here in this house. Tomorrow I’ll hide you.” He eyed Sturgis’s velvet collared overcoat and polished shoes. “And get you some country clothes.”
“Wally, one thing. Promise me. No one must know I’m here. Even your son-in-law or whatever he is. These people seem to have ears everywhere.”
“Alright. Though the more I hear the less I like this,” said Wally. He rose. “One thing clear, your word; you’re through with drugs.”
Sturgis was like an aged golden retriever, practically licking Carver’s hand. He was also less hurt than he had first appeared; with sanctuary granted, making it thankfully to an upstairs guest room without help.
Carver stood looking at the blackness outside his French doors. His instinct was still to call Hudson, then remembered he was in Europe on some sort of ski area errand for his wife, Cilla. He sighed again. He should never have agreed to Sturgis’ request. He was getting soft in his dotage.
Cilla Wheaton Rogers stood behind her desk looking at the office. It would have to go. Other than the well- used oak desk, which came from her late father’s house, nothing else suited her. The former occupant had furnished it to his military taste - cold, formal and smelling of tobacco. Still. It had been four months since the man had last used it; any longer and she’d call in an exorcist.
She sat down to paperwork. Running the ski area for her Abenaki relatives had more to it than fun runs swooping its trails, as she was discovering each day of the two months she’d been its general manager. She studied the proposal from Breugen Corporation for a detachable quad lift that Hudson had faxed, and smiled; he didn’t like what another lift meant - more people at the area. But if he had his way the mountain would be a private ski park for the two of them. It wasn’t that he was antisocial. He just didn’t like people much, particularly in numbers. He felt the mentality of a group sank to that of its slowest member, and a decision to put
