The Spy in the Ointment

19

So that’s what my specialty was, in Ten Eyck’s eyes; I was a gunman. Maybe the only pacifist gunman in the history of the world.

Eustaly arrived not long after dark; just a few minutes, in fact, after P. J. Mulligan and his merry men drove away toward oblivion. I saw Eli Zlott peeking after them out the living-room window, watching his handiwork go away to happen someplace. I suppose the way he figured it, Celts, Teutons, what’s the difference?

Armstrong was already in the house, and it turned out at least one of his specialties was brawn; when Eustaly drove his two-year-old Mercury around to the back of the house, Armstrong came downstairs lugging two black suitcases neither of which I could do much more than lift and put right back down again. Armstrong stowed the suitcases in the trunk, Eustaly and Ten Eyck had a brief conference in a corner of the living room, Eustaly turned down with thanks Mrs. Bodkin’s offer of mince pie and coffee, and Ten Eyck motioned me to follow him upstairs to the second floor.

We got to the thing at the head of the stairs, turned left, and went into the room where the Orientals had been assembling their machine guns. The assemblers were gone, but their choppers were still there, piled up on a table, lying on their sides, most of them pointing at me.

Ten Eyck slipped a pistol into my hand and said, quietly, “On the way up, don’t worry about Armstrong, he’s a moron and dedicated. But keep an eye on Eustaly. I wouldn’t trust Mortimer any further than I could throw him.”

Pistols are heavier than I’d thought. (Need I say this was the first time in my life I’d ever held one?) The gun sagged from my hand, which sagged from my wrist. I nodded and said, “I’ll watch him. Right” All the while wondering what I’d do if Eustaly did try something.

“It’s just on the way up you’ve got to be careful,” Ten Eyck went on. “When you’re carrying the cash. Plastic explosive isn’t that easy to pawn, so I doubt Mortimer’ll try anything on the way back.”

“Good,” I said. “What about Armstrong? Is he armed?”

“Yes,” he said, and then killed my burgeoning hope by adding, “But don’t count on him, he’s never been in a deal like this before.”

“It’s up to me, then.”

“You’re my right hand in this, Raxford.” He glinted at me, smiling to show his teeth. “We’re the same breed,” he said, patting my shoulder. “We understand each other.”

With that inaccurate thought in mind, I followed him back downstairs, where Mrs. Bodkin approached me with a red-and-black-check hunting jacket, a residue of the late Mr. Bodkin’s, which she insisted I wear. “The nights are still chilly,” she said, “and you don’t have a topcoat.”

Neither had Eustaly, who was stout and dapper in a pearl-gray suit that appeared to reflect the light, but she didn’t push any old horse blankets on him. For some reason she’d taken a liking to me and a dislike to Eustaly; maybe because I ate her pancakes and he wouldn’t eat her mince pie.

In any case, it was impossible for me to refuse the damn coat, so I finally put it on, thanked her for the thought, and went lumbering outside like a combination checkerboard and Smokey the Bear. From the kitchen doorway she called, “You be sure and keep that on, now.”

“I will,” I promised, and past her shoulder I could see Ten Eyck watching it all, smiling to himself. Ten Eyck was a man interested in control, in how it is obtained and how it is lost. In this relatively unimportant situation, the matter of the hunting jacket, I had lost control of the outcome — I was wearing a jacket I obviously didn’t want to wear — and Ten Eyck took a rather clinical enjoyment in watching the process by which I’d been unhorsed and jacketed. (Also, I think, he had a cautious respect for me, thinking me another such as himself, and it pleased him to see me fail in a situation, no matter how unimportant, in which he would not have failed.)

Still promising faithfully to wear the jacket, I’d wear it, I’d wear it, I got into the back seat of the Mercury, which, oddly enough, was the same combination of red and black exterior as the jacket, except that on the car the red was perhaps softer and closer to orange. Eustaly was in the passenger seat up front, and Armstrong was to take the first turn at driving.

The Bodkin driveway connected, near the trees, with a dirt road that went through the trees and led to a blacktop county road on the other side. The county road in turn led to a highway, which led to the Garden State Parkway, which led to the New York State Thruway, which led north.

The three of us were silent as Armstrong steered the car around the house and down the driveway and along the dirt road. As we turned onto the county road, however, Eustaly cautioned him, “Don’t break any traffic laws. We don’t want to get stopped in this car, it’s stolen.”

I closed my eyes.