Cold Service

48

THE GRAY MAN met us in the parking lot of a bait-and-tackle shop near the marina on Ocean Way, a few blocks east of City Hall. He got into the backseat of Hawk's car with Vinnie. Neither one paid any attention to the other.

"Tony Marcus gonna try for Boots," Hawk said.

"Where?" the Gray Man said.

"Probably City Hall."

"When?"

"Don't know," Hawk said. "Soon."

"Are you participating?" the Gray Man said.

"We gonna get Boots out," Hawk said.

"Out?"

" 'Fore he dies," Hawk said, "Boots gonna give me money for Luther Gillespie's kid."

"Ah," the Gray Man said. "Yes. You want it all."

"Un-huh."

"Do you need me to shoot, or can I help you better by remaining covert."

"Need you to get us in to Boots, or Boots out to us," Hawk said.

The Gray Man nodded.

"Without revealing myself," the Gray Man said.

"Exactly," Hawk said.

The Gray Man looked past Hawk at the boats in the marina slip. It wasn't much of a marina, and the few boats seemed to be mostly perches for herring gulls.

"Do we know the timing," the Gray Man said.

"No," Hawk said. "Boots got a private exit?"

The Gray Man nodded. He continued to look out past the shabby marina at the dirty harbor. From here you couldn't see the open ocean. You would have thought Vinnie was asleep in the backseat beside the Gray Man, except that his head bobbed very gently in time to the music only he could hear. Probably emblematic of us all, bopping to the tunes only we could listen to. I smiled to myself. Crime buster/ philosopher.

"When the shooting starts, you think he'll use it?" I said.

"Boots don't scare easy," Hawk said.

"He doesn't," I said. "But he's not stupid."

"We need not decide," the Gray Man said. "I'll show you the route. You wait outside. When the shooting starts, I'll urge him. If he comes out, you take him. If he doesn't come out, you come in."

"You staying?" I said.

"Yes."

"You're more useful to us alive."

"I have been alive a long time," the Gray Man said. "And I have heard bullets fly quite often."

"Okay," Hawk said. "Tell us about the entrance."

"Have you writing materials?"

Hawk nodded. He took a pad and a ballpoint pen from the glove compartment and handed them back to the Gray Man, who drew silently for a few moments.

"This is the main entrance," he said.

"Here?" I said. "Where it says MAIN ENTRANCE, with an arrow?"

The Gray Man didn't smile.

"Yes," he said. "Around here, down along the side of the building on Broad Street, an alley cuts through between the old City Hall and the addition they built about ten years ago."

"Connected by an enclosed bridge at, what, the second floor?" I said.

"Yes."

"If he needed to, the mayor would walk across that bridge from his office and go down fire stairs in the new section that leads to a fire door in the cellar, which leads to a fire door that opens on the alley. But if you go down another flight to the basement level, there's a passageway that connects with the parking garage across Broad Street."

"Where are the garage exits?" Hawk said.

"One opposite the alley," the Gray Man said. "On Broad Street. One on the opposite side that empties out onto Exchange Street."

"Which is a main drag," Hawk said.

"On Exchange Street," the Gray Man said, "you are off and running. West on Franklin, north on Essex, south on Federal."

"Broad Street would just take you back into the thick of the firefight," Hawk said, looking at the map the Gray Man was sketching. "If there was a firefight, and if they surrounded the building."

"Only a fool," the Gray Man said, "would fail to surround the building."

"Tony isn't a fool," Hawk said.

"No," I said, "he isn't."

"Though occasionally," the Gray Man said, "I wonder about you two."

"So do we all," I said. "You haven't shared this information about the tunnel with Tony, have you?"

"No."

"Don't," Hawk said.

The Gray Man smiled gently and without warmth.

"I wouldn't think of it," he said.