person he said that to was the late Johnny Rizzo. I felt the first of the gas pains shoot up my rib cage like a napalm rocket, and winced. Mary saw my expression and rubbed my shoulder. She attempted at weak smile.
'Nothing to worry about, Charlie,' she said. I stared glumly at the table and asked for the garlic shrimp and snow peas.
'Here you go, pal,' said Brian as he handed me the platter.
'You're gonna need it.'
I peered down at the L-shaped brick-and-stone mansion at the foot of the hill. There was an iron fence all around it, and the tall, ornate gates were closed. In back of the house, enclosed by the L, was a pool, and off to one side a formal French garden. The roof was slate, and heavily gabled. It sure looked like a big house for one old man. But then he wasn't alone; he had his staff too…
A portly black man in a dark uniform came out the back door and walked along a curved gravel path to the garage. He had white hair and carried a leather case. He disappeared into the garage, which was a four-car structure with a sizable apartment over it. It matched the house. Seconds later one of the doors glided up and a Fleetwood brougham limo the size of a boxcar rolled silently out, swung around the house, and eased to a stop in front of the terrace steps. It was the same one I'd seen earlier at the younger Critchfield's fund-raiser on Beacon Hill. The man got out of the car, putting on his cap, then opened the rear door and stood at attention with his white-gloved hand on the door handle. He could have been hewn from stone. It was right out of a movie.
I felt a jabbing at my shoulder and handed the binoculars to my companion, who was also sprawled prone on the granite ledge above the estate on the outskirts of Andover. On the northern horizon we could see the forest of giant smokestacks in the city of Lawrence. They were still nowadays; no great white and black plumes of steam and smoke rose from them. They were like a forest of dead trees.
'Here comes somebody,' said Liatis Roantis, adjusting the focus of the marine glasses. 'Looks like the big shot himself.'
Without the glasses the two figures descending the front steps of the mansion looked very small, but there was something familiar about the man who accompanied the old man into the limo. Was it his walk, his appearance? What? Before I had a chance to get a look through the glasses, the two men had entered the car and settled themselves in its vast interior. The black chauffeur shut the door and got back behind the wheel. The big car glided around the drive and through the gateswhich had swung open, apparently by remote control- and was gone.
Roantis and I sat up. We were within view of the house, but its owner had left. I stood up and stretched. Roantis continued to scan the place.
'We could go in if you want,' he said casually.
'Nah. I did that already, up in Lowell. I'm still in trouble for it, too.'
'Want me to go alone.'
'No. Joe doesn't even know I contacted you. After he struck out on his entrapment plan with the police brass, he thinks nobody's doing anything to get Old Man Critchfield.'
'So he let the brass talk him out of it? Listen, inna army, if I'd done that, me and my men would have died right away.'
'Yeah. But Joe's in kind of hot water lately with the brass. For instance, somehow they found out he had a conference with one of the North End Wise Guys. They told him to cool it or else. So I'm going after Critchfield myself.'
'Why are you?'
'I just… I just. want to see the record set straight, I guess.'
The old ex-mercenary looked up at me and laughed softly.
'I think you're a little bit like me, Doc. You get bored easy. And when you get bored, you get in trouble.'
'Speaking of trouble, you're usually in plenty. You still on probation for that bar fight in the Zone?'
'Yeah. Almost over with. Ahhhh, fuck it,' he said, rolling over and sweeping the estate with the 7x50 glasses. 'I still say we should go in. Hey, how much are you paying me?'
'Nothing.'
'Figured. You know a guy could get rich down in there… in less than an hour.'
'Don't get any ideas.' I looked at my watch. It had stopped.
My four-hundred-dollar Blackwatch Chronograph Adventurer had broken. It did everything but tell time. I sighed. 'In about ten minutes he'll be at the Holiday Inn desk to pick up the envelope. He'll probably open it and look at the prints in the car on the way back here. I just want to watch his reaction if we can.'
'And then what? All you've done is made him mad. And making him go himsef that's… whaddaya call it? Insult and injury. I tink he's gonna be mad at you, Doc. And a guy like that is mean, let me tell you.' He swept his arm over the estate below. 'Hell, anybody got a spread like that, they're mean. Look at me. I'm the meanest guy who ever lived and I don't got diddly-shit.'
I grinned at him.
'It's 'cause you're not greedy, Liatis… and because you spend all your dough on good booze and bad women.'
His eyes crinkled up in laughter. They had a slightly Mongol look to them, and his neck was laced with cords and veins. He looked a little like another Lithuanian, Charles Bronson. Only meaner. He flicked his droopy mustache and lit a cigarette.
'How you know the desk clerk dint open the envelope and spill the beans?'
'Not a chance and you know it. Not the way I sealed it, and not with Critchfield's name on it.'
So we waited for another twenty-five minutes until the big black car returned. It was going pretty fast, no doubt at the urging of its irritated occupant. It swung around in front of the steps and the old man and his assistant, who still looked vaguely familiar, stalked up the steps and into the house. The old man appeared to be telling the assistant off. They disappeared.
Then nothing happened for almost another half-hour. Suddenly Roantis, who had the binoculars, punched my arm.
'Look who's coming out,' he said. I took the binoculars and saw the old man and his assistant come out on the terrace and sit down in wrought-iron chairs around a table. They seemed to be enjoying the sunshine. The old man, who moved with speed and grace for his age, held a cordless telephone which he dialed and talked into.
'He's getting help,' said Roantis. 'He's looked at your pictures and now he's calling in the heat. You watch.'
'I think he's gonna need it. Question is, what do we do now?'
'The note in the envelope said I'd contact him. I'm wondering how and when.'
'No time like the present.'
'Did you bring a gun?'.
'Nope. judge told me that I can't carry one while on pro. Said it'd be a year in the slammer if I'm caught with one. Too bad, too. This'd be perfect for my streetcleaner.'
'What streetcleaner? I don't see any streetcleaner.'
'Not that kind of streetcleaner.'
'Well what?'
'It's a- shhhhhhhhh! Hear that?'
'No. I don't hear anything but the wind.'
'Well I thought I heard something like bushes breaking. I think maybe it's too bad I dint bring a gun. Too late I guess.'
'Well let's go then,' I said.
'What's your hurry? Look, number-two man just went inside. Let's hang around and see what happens.'
We watched the man walk into the house. The chauffeur came out the back door and went into the garage again. Then nothing happened for about ten minutes; the old man on the terrace continued to speak into the cordless telephone. Occasionally he got up from the wrought-iron chair and paced the terrace, then sat again. The middle garage door swung up and an enclosed jeep crept out. It went slowly along the gravel drive and took a fork
