2
Ace Merrill crossed the Tobin Bridge and entered Boston at four o'clock that afternoon, but it was well past five before he finally reached what he hoped was his destination. It was in a strange, mostly deserted slum section of Cambridge, near the center of a meandering snarl of streets. Half of them seemed to be posted oneway; the other half were dead ends. The ruined buildings of this decayed area were throwing long shadows over the streets when Ace stopped in front of a stark one-story cinderblock building on Whipple Street. It stood in the center of a weedy vacant lot.
There was a chainlink fence around the property, but it presented no problem; the gate had been stolen. Only the hinges remained. Ace could see what were probably bolt-cutter scars on them. He eased the Challenger through the gap where the gate had been and drove slowly toward the cinderblock building.
Its walls were blank and windowless. The rutted track he was on led to a closed garage door in the side of the building which faced the River Charles. There were no windows in the garage door, either. The Challenger rocked on its springs and bounced unhappily through holes in what might once have been an asphalt surface. He passed an abandoned baby carriage sitting in a strew of broken glass. A decayed doll with half a face reclined inside, staring at him with one moldy blue eye as he passed. He parked in front of the closed garage door. What the hell was he supposed to do now? The cinderblock building had the look of a place which had been deserted since 1945 or so.
Ace got out of the car. He took a scrap of paper from his breast pocket. Written on it was the address of the place where Gaunt's car was supposed to be stored. He looked doubtfully at it again.
The last few numbers he had passed suggested that this was probably 85 Whipple Street, but who the f**k could tell for sure?
Places like this never had street numbers, and there didn't seem to be anyone around he could ask. In fact, this whole section of town had a deserted, creepy feel Ace didn't much like. Vacant lots. Stripped cars which had been looted of every useful part and every centimeter of copper wire. Empty tenements waiting for the politicians to get their kickbacks straight before they fell under the wrecking ball. Twisty side-streets that dead-ended in dirty courtyards and trashy cul-de-sacs. It had taken him an hour to find Whipple Street, and now that he had, he almost wished it had stayed lost. This was the part of town where the cops sometimes found the bodies of infants stuffed into rusty garbage cans and discarded refrigerators.
He walked over to the garage door and looked for a push-bell.
There was none. He leaned the side of his head against the rusty metal and listened for the sounds of someone inside. It could be a chop-shop, he supposed; a dude with a supply of high-tension coke like the stuff Gaunt had laid on him might very well know the sort of people who sold Porsches and Lamborghinis for cash after the sun went down.
He heard nothing but silence.
Probably not even the right place, he thought, but he had been up and down the goddam street and it was the only place on it big enough-and strong enough-to store a classic car in. Unless he had f**ked up royally and come to the wrong part of town. The idea made him nervous. I want you back by midnight, Mr. Gaunt had said. If you're not back by midnight, I will be unhappy. When I'm unhappy, I sometimes lose my temper.
Mellow out, Ace told himself uneasily. He's just some old dude with a bad set of false teeth. Probably a fag.
But he couldn't mellow out, and he didn't really think Mr. Leland Gaunt was just some old dude with a bad set of false teeth. He also thought he didn't want to find out for sure one way or the other.
But the current thing was this: it was going to be dark before long, and Ace didn't want to be in this part of town after dark.
There was something wrong with it. Something that went beyond the spooky tenements with their blank, staring windows and the cars standing on naked wheelrims in the gutter. He hadn't seen a single person on the sidewalk or sitting on a stoop or looking out a window since he started getting close to Whipple Street... but he had had the sensation that he was being watched, just the same.
Still had it, in fact: a busy crawling in the short hairs on the back of his neck.
It was almost as though he were not in Boston at all anymore.
This place was more like the motherfucking Twilight Zone.
If you're not back by midnight, I will be unhappy.
Ace made a fist and hammered on the rusty, featureless face of the garage door. "Hey! Anybody in there want to look at some Tupperware?"
No answer.
There was a handle at the bottom of the door. He tried it. No joy. The door wouldn't even rattle in its frame, let alone roll up on its tracks.
Ace hissed air out between his teeth and looked around nervously.