Rudy lowered his arms with relief. “Yeah, thanks.”
I got some paper towels. I wet a bunch and kept another bunch dry, then passed them over to him. “Your head’s bleeding pretty bad,” I said. “You get caught up in that shooting up there?”
He wiped the blood away with the wet towel, winced. “Shit, no.”
“You mean you weren’t part of it?”
He wiped and wiped and most of the blood came away, and I saw an ugly gash on the left side of his forehead, just under his hairline. “Didn’t you hear me earlier? No guns, don’t even want to be near ’em. Nope, I was trying to sneak around that whole shit-show up there when I fell in your rocks. Damn nasty things, sharp and slippery.”
“You think you’re okay?”
“Yeah, yeah,” he said. “I got dinged up in my scalp, and believe you me, those cuts bleed like a bastard. Won’t kill you or nothin’, but boy, it just won’t stop bleeding.” He dabbed and dabbed at the wound, and the helpful homeowner part of me wanted to grab my first aid kit—but later.
“All right,” I said. “Then why are you here, at this time of the night?”
“I didn’t plan it that way.”
“What did you plan, Rudy?”
“Well, I wasn’t sure at first, but you see, I heard Felix was looking for me, and I got scared. There’s looking, and then there’s … looking. One means kicking back and having some beers at a strip club in Salisbury, and the other means digging a hole in the ground and being told to step inside. You got it?”
“I got it.”
“And I heard you were his friend, a magazine writer who lived in this remote cottage on the beach. That’s you, right?”
“Right.”
“And you being his friend and all, well, I hoped you could, what’s that word? Inter … inter …”
“Intercede.”
He nodded his head with pleasure. He might be bleeding out in a stranger’s dining area, but at least the conversation was making progress.
“Not sure if I can do that, Rudy, when he gets into one of his moods. You know why he’s looking for you?”
Rudy nodded. “He thinks I have something that belongs to him.”
“Okay, and—hold on a moment.”
I remembered what I saw, not more than two minutes ago, when he had first shown up at my place. I said, “Is it on the deck?”
Another nod.
“You sure?”
“Hell, yes, I’m sure. I brought it all the way down here, and then tried to walk across all those slippery fucking rocks, so yeah, I’m sure.”
“Why did you drop it?”
His eyes glared at me. “Hey, you told me! You said, ‘hands up,’ and I saw you were pointing a piece at me, so I put my hands up. What else was I going to do?”
Sure, I thought. What else could he have done?
“Okay, Rudy, not that I don’t trust you, but we’ve just met. I want you to slowly go out on my deck, retrieve what you were carrying, and bring it back inside. Hold it with one hand, no sudden moves. You got it?”
His eyes still glared at me. “Okay, but you better know this, Mr. Lewis Cole.”
“What’s that?”
“If it’s broken, it’s your fault.”
It took less than a minute and he came in, carrying something a couple of feet long, covered in what looked to be bubble wrap and a black piece of cloth. He put it down on my kitchen counter and took two steps back without waiting for me to ask. I passed over a fresh collection of paper towels and he squeezed them against his forehead.
“Like I said, if it’s broken, it’s your fault.”
I took my time removing the black cloth, which was just a torn T-shirt, and the bubble wrap. Sure enough, Felix’s silver serving set came into view. I put it down on the counter on its four little legs and rubbed the tarnished silver, trying to make out the archaic Sicilian lettering on the surface.
“It doesn’t look like much, does it,” he said. “I was gonna get some silver polish and really give it a good scrub.”
I winced. “Good thing you didn’t. Silver this old and tarnished, if it’s going to be cleaned, needs to be done by an expert. Using store-bought polish would ruin the value.”
For a few seconds I was entranced with the feel and the look of the old ornate piece. Hard to believe that something made for some long dead and forgotten King of Sicily had now ended up at my home. The currents of history sure run wide, and often drop off the most unexpected pieces.
“How did you get it?”
Rudy got defensive. “Well, I think that’s what you call, you know, trade secrets and—”
“You stole it from Maggie Branch’s antiques shop, just up the road from where you were conducting surveillance on a house. Do tell me, Rudy, how did you end up stealing it?”
He looked confused and angry, and it was late and I was tired. I took out my .32 Smith & Wesson and said, “Rudy, do you really want to go sit on the couch over there and have a seat as I call Felix and have him come over? He’ll be in a real rotten mood, no matter what. Or do you want to answer me and then get the hell out of here, while I turn this over to Felix?”
Rudy still wasn’t saying anything, so I nudged him. “Was it before or after you saw that car race out with the Massachusetts license plates?”
His shoulders sagged. “After.”
“How much longer?”
“I don’t know. Maybe ten, fifteen minutes. Then I heard something.”
“What was the something?”
“A woman screaming, and then a gunshot. Sounded like a shotgun.”
“How can you tell?”
“Shit, you can tell. The sound, it echoes right in your chest.”
“But you said you were in your car, watching.
