But no phones rang the whole way home. I drove smoothly and gently and found all the right roads. I turned east toward the Atlantic. It was already full dark out there. I came up on the palm-shaped promontory and drove out onto the rock finger and aimed straight for the house. The lights were blazing all along the top of the wall. The razor wire glittered. Paulie was waiting to open the gate. He glared at me as I drove past. I ignored him and hustled up the driveway and stopped on the carriage circle right next to the door. Beck got straight out. Duke shook himself awake and followed him.
"Where do I put the car?" I asked.
"In the garage, asshole," he said. "Around the side."
That was the second benefit. I was going to get five minutes alone.
I looped all the way around the carriage circle again and headed down the south side of the house. The garage block stood on its own inside a small walled courtyard. It had probably been a stable back when the house was built. It had granite cobblestones in front of it and a vented cupola on the roof to let the smell out. The horse stalls had been knocked together to make four garages. The hayloft had been converted into an apartment. I guessed the quiet mechanic lived up there.
The garage on the left-hand end had its door open and was standing empty. I drove the Cadillac inside and killed the motor. It was gloomy in there. There were shelves filled with the kind of junk that piles up in a garage. There were oil cans and buckets and old bottles of wax polish. There was an electric tire compressor and a pile of used rags. I put the keys in my pocket and slid out of the seat. Listened for the sound of a phone in the house. Nothing. I strolled over and checked the rags. Picked up a thing the size of a hand towel. It was dark with grime and dirt and oil. I used it to wipe an imaginary spot off the Cadillac's front fender. Glanced around. Nobody there. I wrapped Doll's PSM and Duffy's Glock and her two spare magazines in the rag. Put the whole bundle under my coat. It might have been possible to get the guns into the house. Maybe. I could have gone in the back door and let the metal detector beep and looked puzzled for a second and then pulled out the big bunch of keys. I could have held them up like they explained everything. A classic piece of misdirection. It might have worked. Maybe. It would depend on their level of suspicion. But whatever, getting the guns out of the house again would have been very difficult. Assuming there were no panic phone calls anytime soon the chances were I would be leaving with Beck or Duke or both in the normal way and there was no guarantee I would have the keys again. So I had a choice. Take a chance, or play it safe? My decision was to play it safe and keep the firepower outside.
I walked out of the garage courtyard and wandered around toward the back of the house. Stopped at the corner of the courtyard wall. Stood still for a second and then turned ninety degrees and followed the wall out toward the rocks like I wanted to take a look at the ocean. It was still calm. There was a long oily swell coming in from the southeast. The water looked black and infinitely deep. I gazed at it for a moment and then ducked down and put the wrapped guns in a little dip tight against the wall. There were scrawny weeds growing there. Somebody would have to trip over them to find them.
I strolled back, hunched into my coat, trying to look like a reflective guy getting a couple of minutes' peace. It was quiet. The shore birds were gone. It was too dark for them. They would be safe in their roosts. I turned around and headed for the back door. Went in through the porch and into the kitchen. The metal detector beeped. Duke and the mechanic guy and the cook all turned to look at me. I paused a beat and pulled out the keys. Held them up. They looked away. I walked in and dropped the keys on the table in front of Duke. He left them there.
The third benefit of Duke's exhaustion unfolded steadily all the way through dinner. He could barely stay awake. He didn't say a word. The kitchen was warm and steamy and we ate the kind of food that would put anybody to sleep. We had thick soup and steak and potatoes. There was a lot of it. The plates were piled high. The cook was working like a production line. There was a spare plate with a whole portion of everything just sitting untouched on a counter. Maybe somebody was in the habit of eating twice.
I ate fast and kept my ears open for the phone. I figured I could grab the car keys and be outside before the first ring finished. Inside the Cadillac before the second. Halfway down the drive before the third. I could smash through the gate. I could run Paulie over. But the phone didn't ring. There was no sound in the house at all, except people chewing. There was no coffee. I was on the point of taking that personally. I like coffee. I drank water instead. It came from the faucet over the sink and tasted like chlorine. The maid came in from the family dining room before I finished my second glass. She walked over to where I was sitting, awkward in her unfashionable shoes. She was shy. She looked Irish, like she had just come all the way from Connemara to Boston and couldn't find a job down there.
"Mr. Beck wants to see you," she said.
It was only the second time I had heard her speak. She sounded a little Irish, too. Her cardigan was wrapped tight around her.
"Now?" I asked.
"I think so," she said.
He was waiting for me in the square room with the oak dining table where I had played Russian roulette for him.
"The Toyota was from Hartford, Connecticut," he said. "Angel Doll traced the plate this morning."
"No front plates in Connecticut," I said, because I had to say something.
"We know the owners," he said.
There was silence. I stared straight at him. It took me a fraction of a second just to understand him.
"How do you know them?" I asked.
"We have a business relationship."
"In the rug trade?"
"The nature of the relationship needn't concern you."
"Who are they?"
"That needn't concern you either," he said.
I said nothing.
"But there's a problem," he said. "The people you described aren't the people who own the truck."
"Are you sure?"
He nodded. "You described them as tall and fair. The guys who own the truck are Spanish. Small and dark."
"So who were the guys I saw?" I asked, because I had to ask something.
"Two possibilities," he said. "One, maybe somebody stole their truck."
"Or?"
"Two, maybe they expanded their personnel."
"Either one is possible," I said.
He shook his head. "Not the first. I called them. There was no answer. So I asked around. They've disappeared. No reason why they should disappear just because someone stole their truck."
"So they expanded their roster."
He nodded. "And decided to bite the hand that feeds them."
I said nothing.
"Are you certain they used Uzis?" he asked.
"That's what I saw," I said.
"Not MP5Ks?"
"No," I said. I looked away. No comparison. Not even close. The MP5K is a short Heckler amp; Koch submachine gun designed early in the 1970s. It has two big fat handles molded from expensive plastic. It looks very futuristic. Like a movie prop. Next to it an Uzi looks like something hammered together by a blind man in his basement.
"No question," I said.
"No possibility the kidnap was random?" he asked.
"No," I said. "Million to one."
He nodded again.
"So they've declared war," he said. "And they've gone to ground. They're hiding out somewhere."