House on Fire

62

When I left Paul Kimball’s house, I decided to leave my car parked on Franklin and walk a couple of blocks up to Mass. Ave. and say hello to Gabe at his record store. The shop would just be opening.

The streets are narrow in this part of Cambridge, and there was no one else walking on the block. I made a right turn and went up Magazine Street, and I heard a car door open behind me somewhere down the street. I clocked it — basic situational awareness — and kept going the two blocks to Mass. Ave.

Paul’s scratched arms had made me wonder. Had he really been wrestling with thorny rosebushes at this time of year? But why would he lie about it?

He was not the person I’d thought he was. He might have been uninvolved in running Kimball Pharma, but he sure wasn’t uninterested. He wasn’t the vague, out-of-it academic he seemed at first. He was sharp, and he was savvy.

But was he also a murderer?

I took a right onto Mass. Ave. The street was bustling with people.

Yet I had the sense that I was being followed. I felt a prickle at the back of my scalp. I passed a Thai restaurant and glanced at the menu, pausing for a moment as if I was considering whether to have lunch there. I looked in the reflection in the plate-glass window and saw a man half a block behind me who looked like a generic businessman. Short dark hair, steel-rimmed glasses, a suit and tie.

He passed me, which made me think I was just being paranoid, but after a few hundred feet, he stopped to look into the window of the Chinese restaurant where I often took Gabe.

He was looking to see whether I was going to turn around. He didn’t want to lose me.

My stomach tightened.

The Chinese restaurant was closed. I’d noticed that when I was last in Central Square to see Gabe.

This was the sort of time when you want a cigarette. They’re handy for giving you a reason to stop, pause, light up, and look around. But I didn’t have any on me, since I don’t smoke, and I hadn’t come prepared.

I glanced at my watch. As if I was meeting someone. I looked back at the menu. Like I couldn’t make up my mind whether to eat here. At this angle I could see enough of the man’s face to know it wasn’t the guy with the eyebrow. But he was around the same age — late twenties or early thirties — as the one who’d followed me from Westchester to Manhattan. He was evidently fit; he had the look. He was wearing a Bluetooth earpiece like lots of businesspeople do.

Maybe I was being paranoid. But I trust my instincts.

I turned and kept on walking past the guy. Past a yoga studio, past another Thai restaurant, past the record store, and I kept going.

The guy was following me.

Massachusetts Avenue is a heavily trafficked street in both directions, and there was no crosswalk nearby. But I stopped and turned and started trying to cross the street, which wasn’t easy at that point. There was no stoplight. I wasn’t able to look for my follower; I was intent on not getting killed. Finally I made it to the other side of the street, narrowly avoiding being hit by a speeding bicyclist.

This would flush him out. If he crossed the street now, I would know.

I entered the Santander bank on the corner and spotted an ATM. Not that I needed one, but I wanted an excuse to look, to see how he responded. I inserted a bank card.

He was either window-shopping at the record store or pretending to. Then he turned around and began trying to cross the street, and I knew.

But I didn’t want to let him know I knew.

I withdrew a hundred bucks, pocketed it and my card, and went back out onto the street. Kept going north up Mass. Ave. Sure enough, the guy fell in, following me at a distance of around half a block. He was good, but not good enough. He was following too closely.

I came up to a bicycle shop, stopped, and looked in the window.

The guy slowed his pace. Three college-age women in MIT sweat-shirts passed by, then an old guy, then a young guy in an MIT crew jacket, and I cut in to the flow of pedestrian traffic so that I was right in front of him.

I took a right at the next block, a small residential street, well-maintained old wooden triple-deckers on either side of the street, which was deserted. I got about halfway down the block and then began patting down my pants pockets as if I was looking for something.

Abruptly I spun around. As I expected, the man had been following me closely, and now we faced each other.

“Excuse me,” I called out. I drew closer. “Do you have a light?”

He said “Huh?” shook his head, and tried to pass me on my left. As we came abreast, I launched my right fist at the side of his head, targeting his ear with considerable force.

But before my fist reached his ear, his left hand came right up expertly, striking my right wrist at the same time as he stepped back with his right foot. Triangular footwork. The guy was a pro. Trained in the martial arts. He’d hit me hard, and just in the right place.

My right arm went numb.

Shit.

I did the only thing I could: I whipped my left foot behind his left leg, trying to drop him to the ground with a hip throw.

But he was too good. He anticipated that move and lifted his left leg up, grabbed my right sleeve and left lapel, and quickly dropped to the ground, pulling me down with him. His Bluetooth headset clattered to the sidewalk.

I went down and over his prone body, my back smashing into the concrete pavement, and I felt the wind rush out of my lungs. Now he quickly rolled over and got on top of me. His full weight on me, he held me down by the right lapel with his left hand and immediately started raining blows on my head with his right.

I was in pain. I grunted. This was not going to be recoverable.

I groaned with pain, tasted blood.

I was in big trouble. I had only one option: I hugged his left arm to my chest, avoided the next blow by shifting my body to the right, and then hooked my left foot over his right ankle, hugging it to my left buttock.

Then I bridged up sharply using my right leg and levered him over my left shoulder. I rolled with his momentum and landed on top of him. I shot my right hand deep into the gap between the right side of his neck and his collar, then grabbed his left lapel with my left hand.

And I yanked hard.

My heart was hammering.

I had him in a classic cross-collar choke. He flailed and struggled, but I had him.

He lost consciousness in a matter of seconds.

A house door opened nearby and quickly shut again.

I was out of breath and needed to rest, but I couldn’t afford the time. I grabbed his weapon from a holster on his left side. A Beretta. A semi-automatic pistol. I ground its muzzle into his left ear, and he came to.