A Catskill Eagle

CHAPTER 11

WHILE HAWK DROVE I CANVASSED THE briefcase. Allie’s gun was a Colt .45 automatic with a full clip. That gave us four guns, but no spare ammunition. And each gun took a different load. If this took long we’d have to reorganize the arsenal. I kept my .25, put the .45 and the police .38 with one round spent into the briefcase. Then I counted the money. We were back on 101 south of the airport when I finished.

“Eleven thousand, five hundred and seventy-eight dollars,” I said.

“Eight bucks?” Hawk said. “Who pays a whore eight bucks? `Give you round-the-world for thirty-eight big ones, honey.‘ ”

“The pocket money from Allie’s wallet, probably,” I said.

“He look like a guy carries eight bucks,” Hawk said. I put the money back in the briefcase. Then I looked at the credit cards and licenses. There were three American Express cards, a Visa, two MasterCards, all in different names. There were licenses to match each name and a picture of Leo on each.

“You get some horn-rimmed glasses,” Hawk said, “and shave off that five-day growth you might get by using those cards and licenses. You preppy like Leo.”

“I’ll leave the beard,” I said. “They’ll think I’ve grown a beard since the picture and it will cover up the fact that I have a strong manly jaw and Leo’s is weak and unassertive.”

I put the credit cards back in the briefcase. “Remember where Mill River Boulevard is?” I said.

“Un huh.”

“Jerry Costigan lives off it on something called Costigan Drive in something called The Keep.”

“The Keep?” Hawk said.

“The Keep.”

“The more money you honkies get,” Hawk said, “the sillier you get.”

“Wait a minute,” I said. “Didn’t you grow up in a place called The Ghetto?”

“Shit,” Hawk said. “You got me.”

“See, you intolerant bastard.”

Hawk drove quietly for a moment and then he began to laugh. “Maybe I move to Beverly Farms,” Hawk said, “buy a big house call it The Ghetto.” He made ghetto a two-word phrase.

“The Wasps would turn lime green,” I said.

“Match their pants,” Hawk said.

The sun was beginning to set as we pulled off Route 101 and the slant of its decline hit the rear view mirror and Hawk had to tilt his head to keep from being blinded. We went the wrong way on Mill River Boulevard on our first try and had to U-turn and head back before we spotted Costigan Drive. Hawk pulled over to the side of the road and we sat with the motor idling and looked.

There was a redwood sign that said PRIVATE DRIVE, in gold lettering. The road curved up past it into a canyon. There were no mailboxes, no evidence that anyone else lived up the road. The hill into which the canyon cut was wooded and quiet. Not even birdsong broke the silence.

“Let’s walk in,” I said.

“Might be far,” Hawk said.

“We got time to be careful,” I said.

Hawk nodded. He got out and opened the trunk and took out the jack handle. I stuck the .25 in my hip pocket. We began to walk up the road. The butt of the big .44 stuck out of Hawk’s side pocket. The weight of the guns tended to tug at our pants. They’d removed our belts at Mill River PD.

“Next stop,” I said softly to Hawk across the narrow road, “we gotta get belts.”

“Rescuing maidens suck if your trousers fall down,” Hawk said.

“Didn’t Sir Gawain say that?”

Hawk raised his hand and we froze. There was no one in sight but around the next bend of the road we could hear a radio playing: Fats Domino singing “Blueberry Hill.”

“A golden oldie,” Hawk murmured.

We stepped into the woods and slipped through the woods toward the sound of the music.

The music came from a gatehouse, on the left side of an ornate wrought-iron gate from which extended on either side a ten-foot fieldstone wall with razor wire swirled along the top. Beyond the gate the road curved up through some dandylooking green lawn and out of sight again. Hawk squatted on his heels beside me. We listened to a disc jockey make a cash call to someone in Menlo Park. Through the open door of the gatehouse I could see the head of a man leaning back with his hands clasped as if he was in a swivel chair with his feet up.

“Name the amount and it’s yours,” the disc jockey said, his voice electric with excitement.

“I only see one,” I said to Hawk.

Hawk said, “Hard to be sure, though.”

“Ohhh, I’m sorry,” the disc jockey said, his voice trembling at the lip of despair. “But keep on listening, will ya. You never know, we may call you back.”

“Even if there’s only one, he’s inside and we’re outside. We try to bust in he’ll trip an alarm.” The radio played Lennie Welsh singing “Since I Fell for You.”

Hawk and I stayed still and watched. No one came in. No one went out. The head in the door of the guardhouse moved out of sight. Some insects made a small hum in the alder and scrub cedar around us. On the radio there was a commercial for a restaurant with a famous salad bar. Then Elvis Presley sang “Love Me Tender.”

“How come everybody like him,” Hawk said.

“He was white,” I said.

The guard appeared at the door of the gatehouse. He was wearing a straw cowboy hat, and a white shirt and chinos and cowboy boots. He had a handgun in a holster on his right hip. He looked at his watch, surveyed the road and went back inside the guardhouse.

“We need to get him out,” Hawk said. “But we don’t want to do it with a big ruckus ‘cause we only want him.”

“The tar baby,” I said.

“You speaking to me,” Hawk said.

“You ever read Uncle Remus?” I said.

“You gotta be shitting,” Hawk said.

“Br’er Rabbit and the tar baby,” I said. “ `Tar baby sit and don’t say nuffin.‘ ”

Hawk was quiet, watching the guardhouse. “I’m going to go out and sit in the road and wait for him to come out and see what the hell I’m doing.”

I took the .25 out of my pocket and palmed it.

Then I moved back through the woods to the road out of sight of the gate. I walked slowly up the road directly toward the gate, and when I was about ten feet from it I sat down in the road and folded my hands in my lap with the gun out of sight and stared at the gate.

The guard came out of the guardhouse and looked at me through the gate.

“What the hell are you doing,” he said.

He was a stocky man with a drooping mustache and a thick neck. When I didn’t answer he looked at me carefully. I didn’t move. I kept my eyes focused on the gate at about belt level.

“You hear me?” he said. “What are you doing out there?”

Tar baby sit and don’t say nuffin.

“Listen, Jack, this is private property. You’re on a private road. You understand? You’re trespassing. You keep sitting there and you’re subject to arrest.”

Nuffin. The guard took his hat off, and ran his hand over his nearly bald head. He put the hat back on and tilted it forward over his forehead. He pursed his lips and put one hand on his gunbelt and the other hand on the gate and looked at me.

“Espanol?” he said. Behind him the radio aired a commercial for a law firm that specialized in accident claims. “Vamoose,” the guard said.

I was sitting with my legs folded like Indians sit in the movies, and I was developing a cramp. I didn’t move. From the guard shack the radio played. It was the Big Bopper. “Chantilly lace, and a pretty face…” The guard took a big breath. “Shit,” he said, and opened the gate. As he walked toward me he took a leather sap from his righthand hip pocket.

When he got to me he said, “Okay, pal, last chance. Either you get on your feet and haul ass out of here, or I’ll put a knot on your head while you sit.”

I unfolded my hands and pointed the .25 straight up at him as he bent over me. “How dee doo, Br’er Bear,” I said.

The guard’s eyes widened and the rest of his expression went blank. He remained half bent over.

I said, “Put the sap back in your pocket, and straighten up and I’ll get up and you and I will walk to the side of the road, just like I’m doing it because you told me to.” I thumbed the hammer back on the automatic. “Anything goes wrong I’ll shoot you in the head.”

The guard did what I told him to. I kept the gun near my body and the guard between me and the gate in case someone came down and saw us. At the edge of the road I said, “Step ahead of me into the woods.” Five feet into the woods Hawk was leaning against a tree. When we reached him he hit the guard across the back of the head with the jack handle. The guard grunted once and fell forward. He lay still except for his right leg, which twitched slightly.

“Br’er tire iron,” Hawk said.