“It’s a very small town, a village, really. Ask around.”
Joe shook his head. “Can’t do that. When we get the job done, people will remember we were asking.”
Gino zoomed in on the map. “The house is next door to the yacht club,” he said, pointing. “You got an iPhone?”
“Yes.”
“Then use that to find the house—should be easy.”
“We’ll need to book a room somewhere.”
“Now, that’s a problem. There used to be an inn on the island, but it’s closed. I checked.”
“Then we’ll have to be in and out on the same day.”
“There’s an airfield there.”
Joe got out his phone and Googled the island. “Short strip—twenty-four hundred feet. That’s good for light aircraft.”
“Where can you rent an airplane?”
Joe did some more Googling. “There’s a Bonanza available at Teterboro,” he said, “but how are we going to get from the airfield to the house?”
“Rent a car.”
Joe shook his head. “If there’s no inn on the island, I doubt if there’ll be a car rental agency, either.” He did some more Googling. “No, there isn’t.”
“I recall that you’ve had some experience with stealing cars,” Gino said.
“You have a good memory. Let’s hope we can find something near the airport, then.”
Jane spoke up. “This is all too insecure,” she said. “We don’t know who, if anyone, will be at the airfield. We don’t know where the nearest car is to steal. In a small village we stand too good a chance of being spotted and remembered. What we need to do is to spend a day or two on the island, get the lay of the land, find out where the fuck we’re going and how we’re going to get back to the airfield after the job’s done. We need to know if there are cops in the village, and if so how many and how many cars.”
Gino stood up, walked to the window, and gazed at the view for a moment. “You could rent a house or a cottage,” he said. “How about that?”
“Not a good idea. We’d have to land on the mainland, rent a car, take a ferry, and meet a rental agent. We’d be seen by too many people, coming and going.”
“How about this?” Jane said. “We do all that, then we leave the island without doing the job.”
“That kind of misses the point, doesn’t it?” Gino asked.
“Then we rent a boat and go back to the island. You said the house is next to the yacht club, so it’s on the water, right?”
“Smart girl,” Joe said, “but why rent a house when we can just rent a boat, one we can sleep on, if necessary.”
“Where are you going to rent a boat?” Gino asked.
“It’s Penobscot Bay, for Christ’s sake,” Joe said. “The whole area is lousy with boats—we’ll research it.”
“We should buy a rifle with a scope,” Jane said. “It’s Maine, people hunt, so it shouldn’t be a problem. We don’t want to just walk up to the front door and shoot whoever opens it.”
“She’s right,” Joe said. “The boat idea will work, but this is going to be a three-or four-day project, and it’s going to be expensive.”
“I can afford it,” Gino said. He placed a stack of hundreds on the table. “Get it done.”
* * *
—
STONE PICKED UP the phone and dialed a local number.
A gruff voice said, “Who the fuck is this?”
“Hello, Ed,” Stone said. “It’s Stone Barrington. You free for dinner tonight?”
“Where?”
“My house.”
“Are you having lobster?”
“Yes.”
“I’m sick of fucking lobster. I’ll bring my own steak.”
“Not necessary, we possess a steak.”
“Just you and me? Is that the best you can do?”
“Just you and me, and a pretty girl.”
“That’s more like it.”
“Seven o’clock, if you want a drink first.”
“Better your liquor than mine,” Rawls said, then hung up.
“Who’s coming to dinner?” Meg asked.
“Friend of mine named Ed Rawls, lives on the island.”
“What does he do here?”
“Whatever he likes. He retired from the CIA some years back, then moved here. There used to be a little group of ex-Agency guys here, called themselves the Old Farts, but one by one they died off. Ed is the only one left.”
“What’s he like?” she asked.
“Indescribable,” Stone replied.
21
At precisely seven o’clock the doorbell rang, and Stone answered it. “Good evening, Ed,” he said, shaking the man’s hand.
“It better be,” Rawls replied gruffly, “to get me out of my comfortable chair.”
“There’s a comfortable chair right over there,” Stone replied, nodding. “Right next to the pretty girl. Meg, this is Ed Rawls. Ed, Meg Harmon.”
Rawls shook her hand. “Of Harmony Software?”
Meg looked surprised. “That’s right.”
“We get the Wall Street Journal up here, you know—the New York Times, too.”
“And I thought this was the far north,” Meg said, laughing. “I suppose you’re on the Internet, too.”
“Couldn’t live without it,” Rawls said, accepting a glass of Knob Creek from Stone. “I do most of my shopping online, and all of my correspondence.”
“Ed is surprisingly computer literate,” Stone said, “for somebody as ancient as he is.”
“You’ll be ancient one day, too, Stone,” Rawls said, raising his glass and taking a deep swig of the bourbon. “But not you, Meg.”
“You’d better not leave me alone with this guy, Stone,” Meg said, laughing.
“Damn right,” Rawls replied. “I’d have your knickers off before you knew it.”
Stone laughed. “Ed, I think you’ve been spending too much time alone.”
“Oh, I’ve got a widow stashed in Camden, gets over to the island most weekends. I keep my hand in—so to speak.”
“Stone tells me you were CIA,” Meg said.
“Oh, I had a careerful of that work, until I got sent to prison.”
“Stone, you didn’t tell me Ed was an ex-con,” Meg said.
“Damn right I am. I got life and did a few years of it, until the truth came out and I got a presidential pardon. Now I’m back in everybody’s good graces—everybody who counts, anyway.” Rawls looked at Stone. “So, pal, what’re you doing up here? Somebody after you?” He turned back to Meg. “Stone only comes up here when somebody is after him.”
“Not this time,” Meg said. “They’re not after Stone, they’re after me.”
“Who are ‘they’?”
“A guy who was once my business partner, who thinks he should be as rich as I am.”
“Is this a shootin’ war?” Rawls asked.
“I’m afraid it is,” Stone said. “The ex-partner has hired somebody. If you see a couple around here—he’s six-three or -four, skinny, curly hair, going gray. She’s five-eight, with the usual equipment—sing out, will you?”
“These people have names?”
“Dirty Joe Cross and Jungle Jane, no last name. He’s a pro, but fortunately not the ultimate pro. He’s tried twice and failed.”
“That’s encouraging,” Ed said. “An inept assassin’s not much good to anybody.”
“That’s so,” Stone agreed.
“But if he keeps at it,” Rawls said, “sooner or later he’ll get lucky, and lucky is just as good as good.”
“You’re a pessimist, Ed,” Meg said.
“I’m so sorry,” Rawls replied, “am I casting a shadow of gloom over the party? I hope the fuck so.”
“No, Ed, you’re right,” Stone said. “We’re taking precautions.”
“Well, this house is a good start, as precautions go,” Rawls replied. “Has he told you about this house, Meg?”
“No,” she said, “but maybe it’s time he did.”
“The house was built by my first cousin,” Stone said. “He was a higher-up in the CIA, so the Agency took an interest in how it was built and contributed to its design and construction.”
“That means the framing is steel clad,” Rawls interjected, “and the windows are bulletproof.”
“He left the house to a foundation that contributes to the welfare of the families of agents who died in the line of duty,” Stone explained, “but he also left me lifetime occupancy. Eventually, when I could afford it, I bought the place from the foundation.”
“And added it to the Barrington collection?” Meg asked.