As I drove north, Merrick was engaged in his own work. He approached Rebecca Clay’s home. Later, when everything ended in blood and gunfire, a neighbor would recall his presence, but for now he went unnoticed. It was a gift that he had, the ability to blend in when necessary, to avoid attracting attention. He saw the two big men in their enormous truck, and the car owned by the third man parked at the rear of the house. The car was empty, which meant that the man was probably inside. Merrick was sure that he could take him, but there would be noise, and it would draw the others to him. He might be able to kill them as well, but the risk was too great. Instead, he retreated. He had acquired a new car, boosted from the garage of a summer home at Higgins Beach, and drove it to a warehouse on a decrepit industrial park near Westbrook, and there he found Jerry Legere working alone. He put my gun in Legere’s mouth and informed him that, when it was removed, Legere would tell him all that his wife had shared with him about her father, and all that he knew or suspected about the events leading up to Daniel Clay’s disappearance, or he would blow the back of his head off. Legere was certain that he was going to die. He told Merrick about his wife, the whore. He peddled fantasies to him: lies and half lies, untruths half-believed, and truths that were worth less than the lies. But Merrick learned nothing useful from him, and he did not kill Rebecca Clay’s ex-husband, because Legere gave him no cause to do so. Merrick drove away, leaving Legere lying in the dirt, crying with shame and relief.
And the man who was watching from the woods took in everything and began making his calls. Chapter XXVII I was heading north on I-95 when the call came through. It was Louis. When he had returned to Scarborough, there was an unknown car waiting in my driveway. A couple of phone conversations later, and it was not unknown any longer.
“You got company up here,” he said.
“Anyone we know?”
“Not unless you planning on invading Russia.”
“How many?”
“Two.”
“Where?”
“Sitting slap bang in your yard. Apparently, there ain’t no Russian word for ‘subtle.’”
“Keep an eye on them. I’ll let you know when I’m coming off Route I.”
I guessed they’d be around asking questions eventually. They couldn’t let Demarcian’s death pass without mention or investigation. I had just hoped that I’d already be gone when they arrived.
I didn’t know much about the Russians, except for the little I’d learned from Louis in the past and what I’d read in the papers. I knew that they were big in California and New York and that the main groups in each of those places maintained contact with their peers in Massachusetts, Chicago, Miami, New Jersey, and a dozen or more other states, as well as their peers back in Russia, to form what was, in effect, a huge criminal syndicate. Like the individual mobs themselves, it appeared to be loosely structured, with little apparent organization, but it was believed that this was a ruse to throw investigators off the scent and make it difficult for them to infiltrate the syndicate. The soldiers were separated from the bosses by layers of buffers, so that those involved in drugs and prostitution at street level had little idea where the money they earned ultimately went. Demarcian had probably not been able to tell Merrick very much about the men with whom he dealt beyond first names, and those were unlikely to have been real anyway.
The Russians also seemed content to leave large-scale narcotics dealing to others, although they were said to have formed links with the Colombians. Mostly, they preferred insurance scams, identity theft, money laundering, and fuel tax fraud, the kind of complex rip-off operations that were hard for the authorities to track and prosecute. I wondered how many of the clients for Demarcian’s porn sites realized the kind of individuals to whom they were revealing their credit card details.
I figured they were here only to ask questions. If they’d come for something more serious, they wouldn’t have been dumb enough to park in my driveway and wait for me to arrive. Then again, that presupposed they gave a damn about their car being noticed or even about potential witnesses. The Russians were bad news. It was said that when the Soviet Union collapsed, the Italians sent a few guys over to Moscow to assess the potential for muscling in on the emerging market. They took one look at what was happening on the streets and went straight back home. Unfortunately, the Russians followed them back, joining the Odessa Mafia that had been operating in Brighton Beach since the midseventies, and now the Italians sometimes seemed almost quaint by comparison with the new arrivals. It was kind of ironic, I thought, that what ultimately brought the Russians to our door was not communism, but capitalism. Joe McCarthy must have been turning in his grave.
I reached Scarborough forty minutes later, and I called Louis when I was at Oak Hill. He asked me to give him five minutes, then head down at a steady thirty. I saw the car as soon as I rounded the bend. It was a big black Chevy 4x4, the kind of vehicle usually driven by people who would cry if they got real dirt on it. As if to confirm the stereotype, the Chevy was scrupulously clean. I did a U-turn as I passed my house and pulled up behind the Chevy with the passenger door closest to it, effectively blocking it from leaving the drive. It was bigger than the Mustang, and if they got enough power behind it they might manage to knock my car out of their way, but in the process they’d probably wipe out the back of their vehicle. Apparently, nobody had yet thought of putting bull bars on the rear of 4x4s, although I was sure that it could only be a matter of time. Both front doors of the Chevy opened, and two men emerged. They were dressed in standard hood chic: black leather jackets, black jeans, and black sweaters. One of them, a bald man built like a piece of Eastern Bloc architecture, was reaching inside his jacket for his gun when a voice behind him said only a single word: “Don’t.”
The Russian’s hand froze. Louis stood in the shadows of my house, his Glock in his gloved hand. They were trapped between us. I stayed where I was, my .38 now drawn and trained on them.
“Take your hand out of your jacket,” I told the bald Russian. “Slowly. When I see it, fingernails had better be the only thing on the end of it.”
The Russian did as he was told. His partner had already raised his hands. I came out from behind the car and advanced on them.
“Flat on the ground,” said Louis.
They did as they were told. Louis then frisked them both while I kept the gun on them. They were each armed with matching Colt nine-millimeter semiautomatics. Louis ejected the clips from the guns, then checked for any in the chute. When he was sure that they were empty, he tossed the clips into the undergrowth and retreated five feet from the two men.
“Up and kneel,” I told them. “Keep your hands behind your heads.”
They struggled to a kneeling position, then glared at me.
“Who are you?” I said.
They didn’t reply.
“Shestyorki,” said Louis. “Ain’t that what you are? Messenger boys.”
“Niet,” said the bald one. “Boyeviki.”
“Boyeviki my ass,” said Louis. “He says they’re soldiers. Guess it’s hard to get good staff these days. This one can’t even answer a question in English. What happened, you fall off the boat and get left behind?”
“I speak English,” said the Russian. “I speak English good.”
“No shit?” said Louis. “What you want, a medal? A gold star?”
“Why are you here?” I asked, although I already knew.
“Razborka,” he said. “We want, uh—” He searched for the English word. “—clarification,” he finished.
“Well, let me give you clarification,” I said. “I don’t like armed men on my property. If I shot you now, you think that would be clarification enough for your bosses?”
The redheaded one glanced at his partner, then spoke.
“You kill us, and this gets worse. We are here to talk about Demarcian.” His English was better than his partner’s. He spoke it with only the faintest hint of an accent. It was clear that he was the one in charge, although he had been content to hide the fact until it became obvious that his bald friend was out of his depth in the current negotiations.
“I don’t know anything about him, apart from the fact that he’s dead.”
“The police questioned you. The rumor is that your gun was used to kill him.”
“The gun was taken from me,” I said. “I don’t know for certain that it was used to kill Demarcian. My guess is that it probably was, but I don’t go loaning it out for killings. The man who took it wanted it real bad.”
“It was careless of you to lose your gun,” said the Russian.
“As you can see, I have another. If I lose that, I can always borrow one from my friend behind you. He has lots of guns. Anyway, I didn’t have anything to do with Demarcian’s death, the weapon apart.”
“So you say,” said the Russian.
“Yeah, but we have guns, and you don’t, so our word wins.”
The Russian shrugged, as though the whole matter was immaterial to him anyway. “I believe you, then. We would still like to know about the man who killed Demarcian, this Merrick. Tell us about Merrick.”
“Do your own homework. You want him, you find him.”
“But we think you, too, are looking for him. You want your gun back. Perhaps we find him, and we get it back for you.”
His bald companion snickered and said something under his breath. It sounded like “frayeri.”
Louis responded by striking him across the back of the head with the barrel of the Glock. It wasn’t enough to knock him out, but it laid him flat on his face. His scalp began to bleed.
“He called us suckers,” explained Louis. “That’s not nice.”
The redheaded man didn’t move. He just shook his head in apparent disappointment at his colleague’s stupidity. “I think your friend does not like Russians very much,” he said.
“My friend doesn’t like anybody very much, but he does appear to have a particular problem with you two,” I admitted.
“Perhaps he is a racist. Is that what you are?”
He turned his head slightly, trying to see Louis. I had to give him credit: he wasn’t easily intimidated.
“I can’t be no racist, man,” said Louis. “I’m black.”
It didn’t quite answer the Russian’s question, but he seemed content with what he heard. “We want Frank Merrick,” he continued. “We could make it worth your while if you tell us what you know.”
“Money?”
“Sure, money.” His face brightened. This was the kind of negotiation that he liked.
“I don’t need money,” I said. “I got too much as it is. What I need is for you to take your friend and get out of here. He’s bleeding on my driveway.”
The Russian looked genuinely regretful. “That is a shame.”
“It’s okay, it’ll wash off.”