Bones of a Witch (13 page)

Lilith leaned across the table and stared
Spinelli down until she got into his head. I could see exactly the
point where she began to read him. He swallowed hard. She leaned
back slowly, folding her arms and locking her fingers under her
pits. “I don’t believe it,” she sneered. “You named it
Lilith?”

He winced as if it hurt. “If it makes you feel
any better,” he said, “I found out it wasn’t a she. It was a
he.”

She shook her head. “It doesn’t.”

“Oh. Did I mention he ran away
already?”

And with that, the world was in balance once
more. Spinelli was now on Lilith’s shit list and I was again top
dog in the doghouse. I reached out and tapped Dominic on the arm.
“What’s wrong there feller? Chihuahua got your tongue?” He shot me
a sulking glare. Oh, the good life. Sometimes it gets no better
than this.

Lilith Adams:

I really don’t know why Tony thought all his
precautions were so necessary. I keep telling him I can take care
of myself just fine. But as a favor to Carlos, who asked me to
humor the boy, I agreed to all the bullshit without pitchin` too
big a fit.

I showed up at the train station around 5:10,
just minutes before the southbound to Boston was to roll in. Tony’s
wino cop had already taken up a corner on the platform by the
stairs, a smart move, I’ll admit, for covering an otherwise easy
exit. Across the tracks and over the northbound platform, a
department sniper lay perched on the rooftop overhang. His
position, I felt, was not so well thought out, as the setting sun
was shining directly into his eyes. If he had to take a shot I only
hoped he would know what the hell he was aiming at.

Besides the wino cop and myself, there were
only two other people on the platform. One was a middle-aged
gentleman, tall, clean-shaven and smartly dressed, but wearing a
seriously bad toupee; the other a woman, old and lumpy in all the
wrong places and clinging to her handbag with a paranoid eye toward
the wino cop who, admittedly, did look scary.

Exactly four minutes after I stepped foot on
the platform, a shimmering light from the headlamp of the 5:15
southbound began dancing on the horizon. An equal distance in the
other direction, a similar glint from the 5:15 northbound also
flirted upon the tracks. The man and the woman beside me inched
closer to the yellow line marking the edge of the platform. Off in
the corner I spotted wino cop staging a phony stagger to his feet.
I slipped my hands into my pockets, and as I did my phone rang,
startling the old woman into clamping a bear hug onto her purse. I
took the phone out and answered it.

“You haven’t much time,” a man’s voice said,
and I realized right away it was not Lemas Winterhutch, James
Putnam or whatever the hell he called himself. I glanced over at
wino cop. He didn’t seem alarmed by the call so I guessed for a
moment it could have been one of Tony’s men.

“Who is this?”

The voice came back harshly, “Shut up and
listen. When I say now, I want you to jump the tracks and cross
over to the other platform.”

“What?”

“You heard me. Toe the edge of the platform and
get ready to cross.”

I looked again at wino cop. Clearly he had not
a clue as to what was going on. Across the tracks on the roof’s
overhang, the sniper lay like a stone, his sights narrowed in on
toupee man for all I knew. I had no way of letting him or any of
Tony’s men know what was happening. I only imagined that with all
of his precautions, Tony had not planned for this contingency. I
gathered another look down the tracks in both directions. The
trains were slowing, but nearing the station on equal
terms.

“What if I don’t cross the tracks,” I said.
“Are you going to kill some mother and child like Lemas
said?”

“Better,” he answered. “I’m going to kill the
two girls from your apartment building.”

“What girls?”

“Young Abigail and Anne: the children whose
balloons you retrieved from the tree the other day?”

“Snot-nose and whiny ass? Shit, smok`em. Ain’t
no skin off my nose.”

“You don’t mean that.”

“Try me.”

“I will. You have roughly ten seconds left to
cross the tracks and get to the other platform before the trains
pull into the station. Fail and the children die.”

He hung up on me before I could
tell him what a colossal dick he was for dragging a couple of
snot-nose whiny ass kids into the equation. It’s not that I cared
all that much about them, but I knew Tony would have gotten all
bent out of shape if I didn’t do
something
to stop him. So I toed the
yellow line like the man said and I jumped down onto the tracks. I
could see wino cop from the corner of my eye snap to attention as
if prodded with a sharp stick. Sniper man up on the roof swung his
rifle toward the stairwell, perhaps anticipating a rush of bad guys
from that direction.

From down on the tracks the trains appeared
much larger and closer than I first thought; maybe because they
were. But I didn’t wait around to confirm my instincts. I launched
into a sprint like a frightened gazelle, ignoring my cell phone,
which started ringing the moment I started running. I imagined it
was Tony, wondering what the hell I was doing. I wondered why the
hell he was calling me with two trains bearing down on my ass like
streaking comets. They were nearly on top of me now, air horns
blaring in stereo, drowning out the screams from old lumpy ass back
on the southbound side of the tracks. She was still clutching her
handbag for dear life, but it was nice to know that she cared
enough for me to take her eyes off wino cop for all of seven
seconds, which was all it took for me to reach the other platform,
scale the wall and pucker my ass on the safe side of the yellow
line.

I turned to face the southbound platform just
as the northbound train came ripping into the station, the screech
from its wheels tearing at my nerves like fingernails on a
chalkboard. I strained to look through the passing windows to the
other side and saw wino cop still on the platform. He had his radio
out and was yelling into it, but for the noise I could not hear a
word.

The northbound had nearly come to a full stop
when the southbound rolled in alongside it. The squall from its
wheels were just as loud but its pitch less piercing to the ears.
My phone began ringing again and so I answered it, hoping to give
Tony the heads up on the change of plans. Only it wasn’t Tony; it
was that dickweed.

“Drop your phone and get on the train,” he
said, though the door hadn’t even opened yet.

“Can you see me?” I asked.

He shouted back, “Do it!”

“How many fingers am I holding up?”

The doors opened.

“I said drop the phone and step
aboard.”

“Wrong. I’m only holding up one. It’s the
middle finger. See?” I waved the bird over my head like a banner.
“Ha. Fuck you, asshole.”

“Do it, Adams. NOW!”

“All right.”

I stepped onto the train and rapped the phone
against the wall, hoping the jolt would convince him that I had
pitched it like he told me to. But as I put it back up to my ear I
heard his scratchy voice cawed back. “Lose it.”

I tossed it out the door just before it closed.
A sudden jerk set the train car in motion and I was northbound, my
senses heightened and wits abound, ready to bring it all
on.

I looked around the car and noticed it empty,
save for a kindly-looking old gentleman sitting way in the back. He
seemed only mildly interested in me, puzzled perhaps at my actions
concerning the phone. He had been reading the paper when the train
first stopped, and when he saw me looking at him he returned to the
folds of the local section. I turned my eyes away, but kept tabs on
him just the same by watching his reflection in the dirty
windows.

The next stop was Willow Junction, so named
because of the street it was on and because it was indeed a true
junction. At that stop the northbound line ends. From there one can
catch the southbound to Boston, the eastbound to Ipswich or the
westbound to Lowell; all nice places, but nowhere I particularly
wanted to be.

Just three minutes after rolling out of
Jefferson we squealed to a stop at Willow. There I was met by a
stocky little runt in an overcoat and fedora, looking like a
caricature straight out of a Mickey Spillane novel. I recognized
his awkward walk and that stupid hat right away.

“Lemas,” I said, “at last we meet. Third time’s
a charm, isn’t it?”

He pulled a revolver out from under his coat
and pointed it at me. “Walk, Ms. Adams.” He motion towards the
stairs with a nod.

“What, you’re not going to kill me
here?”

This time he gestured with the gun, flicking
the muzzle toward the stairwell twice before leveling it again at
me. “Walk.”

“All right, all right, I’m going.
See?”

I started toward the stairs, and could tell
from the shadows that stretched ahead of us that he preferred
maintaining a two to three foot distance behind me—this, I suppose,
was so that I could not turn abruptly and drop a karate chop down
on his gun hand; ridiculous I know. Who did he think I was, the
Green Hornet? Didn’t he realize how easily I could reduce him to
ashes? I gathered something more mysterious was brewing than what
Lemas Peckerhutch was letting on, but I couldn’t figure it out. It
puzzled me why he didn’t just shoot me on the platform. He seemed
eager enough to kill on sight when he thought I was that poor woman
in the parking garage. Still, it intrigued me. I know Tony wouldn’t
have approved, and maybe that’s exactly why I did it, but I decided
to let the sniveling twerp play his game just long enough to see
what it was. They say that curiosity kills the cat; well, it almost
did.

Waiting for us at the bottom of the steps was a
black limousine, the kind the teenagers like to rent on prom night:
long and sleek with dark tinted windows and coach lamps flanking
the oversized back door. Putnam opened that door for me, flaring
his hand with a bow as if presenting the open gates of Camelot. I
smiled with anticipation, wondering when he would lower the boom on
my head and stuff me in the trunk instead. I pulled back and
offered the honor to him.

“After you,” I said. “It is your car after
all.” He pulled the hammer back on his gun, allowing the multiple
clicks of the revolving chambers to decline the offer for him.
“No?” I shrugged. “Suit yourself.” I started into the limo, paused
and then backed out again. “You know, on second thought,” I pointed
at the barrel of his gun and brushed it aside with a wave. “Shoot
yourself.”

He probably dropped a duce in his pants when
the gun inexplicably went off, blowing a .38 millimeter hole into
the limo’s rear quarter panel. But hey, at least he didn’t actually
shoot himself. He could have, and I think he knew it. I gave him a
look to let him know that next time I won’t be so
generous.

I climbed into the limo and the door shut
behind me. Putnam came around to the other side and got in behind
the wheel. I remember laughing out loud thinking of all the fun I
was going to have fucking with his head the rest of the night. But
then the door suddenly opened again. A hand reached inside. It came
at me so quickly I hadn’t time to react. Then everything went black
on me.

Dominic Spinelli:

You can’t imagine Tony’s reaction when he saw
Lilith jump down onto the tracks and hop up onto the other platform
at Jefferson station. Of course we were all surprised. None of us
saw it coming. We had Officer Burke on the platform; four of my
buds from traffic on the southbound, a marksman up on the roof,
Tony in the engineer’s booth and Carlos and me staked out at the
turnstile. Nine cops all covering one woman, and Putnam gets her to
give us the slip. When the northbound rolled out of the station,
Tony started chasing the damn thing on foot. Should have seen him,
man, running and hollering at the train to wait up, and shouting
for Lilith to come back. It was classic—sad, but
classic.

Carlos and I ran after him as far as we could.
For Carlos it was to the end of the platform; for me a bit further:
about a hundred yards. I think Tony would have kept going all the
way to Willow Junction, but thankfully (for me, not him) he stopped
to answer my phone call.

“Tony,” I said, “stop running.” I was seriously
out of breath and hoping he’d not make me repeat myself. “We can
drive to Willow.”

“No, meet me there,” he said, amazingly not so
out of breath. Even on foot I think he might have beaten us. “I
can’t let him take her, Dominic. I can’t lose her.”

If only for sympathy I would have continued
running after Tony. Illogical, I know, but he means that much to
me. Yet I’m here to tell you that camaraderie trumps the
sympathetic impulse in ways that logic can appreciate. Never so
true, I observed, than when Carlos pulled the car alongside the
fence running parallel to the tracks and told me to hop in. I did,
and we drove on to pick up Tony, who reluctantly agreed to ride
with us.