"Thanks, Felix. I appreciate it."
I took my coat off and he held it for me, as I quickly slipped on the shoulder holster, the pistol bumping against my left side. Felix had no expression on his face as he handed my coat back, and I said, "Okay. I guess we know what this means."
"Yeah. Somebody’s after you."
I slid the coat back on, feeling it tight against my left side, where the pistol hung. A heavy feeling, in more ways than one.
"I figured that out after the airbag punched me in the face." The whining noise from the tow truck stopped, and the young guy came over and said, "It'll be at our garage in Durham. Storage fee is twenty bucks a day, but tell you what, you might be able to drive it off with the spare if you'd like after I check the rim. It's not a real tire but it can get you home, or to a tire store."
The Explorer looked exposed and vulnerable, up on the flatbed of the tow truck, its side stained with dirt and grass. "Not today. Maybe tomorrow."
"Okay," he said, passing over a yellow sheet of paper. "Here's your receipt."
Felix said, "Hey, it's nice to be standing out here and passing the time of day, but I really think we need to get going."
With the tow truck operator climbing into the cab of his truck, I said, "Worried about snipers in the woods?"
He grasped my arm, started walking me back to his parked car.
"You should learn to be as worried as I am, my friend."
Inside the Mercedes, I stretched out and then the shakes started, little quivers in the lower part of my legs. That had been a close one, and I had a thought again of being upside down in the Explorer, seat belt secure across my waist, as water from the Oyster River flooded in through a broken window. I shivered again. Felix looked over at me and then pulled out into the road, where the traffic was thin and moving, since the show was now gone.
"You okay?" Felix asked. "Doing better, that's for sure."
"Yeah, breathing well after somebody tries to whack you one, there's nothing like it in the world."
Felix pulled into a driveway, backed out, and then we were heading east, toward the coast. I said, "I've been doing some thinking."
"I certainly hope so."
"Why me?"
'Well, why not you?" Felix replied. "There has to be a reason."
"And you think you've got the reason?"
We sped over the Scammel Bridge, heading into Dover, the Bellamy River on our left, the expanse of Great Bay off to the right. "Yeah, I do. The relics."
"The Viking relics?"
"The same," I said.
"What about them?"
I looked at Felix. "The killer didn't get them at Jon's house. They weren't there. He thinks I have him. That's what I think."
"Good going," Felix said. "That's what I thought, too, about one minute after you called me for a ride."
"Which begs another question," I said. "Our friend at the antique store?"
"Yep. That guy had hair, you remember. Which Ray doesn't. If it wasn't Ray, then who was it?"
"An accomplice," Felix said. "A rival. Who knows. What's more important is keeping you breathing until things get straightened out. And first things first, getting back to your house as soon as we can."
"And that's because... oh. Now I get it."
We were now in Lewington, on Route 16, the main north-south highway in this part of the state, which fed into 1-95 in Porter. On one side of the road were the two main shopping malls of Lewington, and on the other side of the road was McIntosh Air Force Base. Guns and butter, separated by four lanes of asphalt.
Felix said, "You do get it, then? Explain it to me, if you don't mind."
"The little exercise with the front tire. Designed one way or the other to disable me, until someone could go through my house."
Felix gently tapped the side of the steering wheel. "Very good, Lewis. Stick with me and who knows what else you'll learn about the dark sides of people's souls. Yeah, that makes sense. Delay or disable you to allow somebody a clean time with your house."
Little quivers returned to my legs. "Can I go out on a limb here?"
"Climb out as far as you'd like."
"I'm hoping that you had this little brainstorm before you headed north, and that you made some sort of arrangement before you left."
"Ah, Watson, you know my methods all too well," Felix said, in a fake British accent that made my ears ache. "By the time I got out of there with your Beretta, a couple of guys who've done freelance for me in the past had set up, both in the Lafayette House across the street and in a plumbing and heating van parked in the lot near your house. You shouldn't have any unwanted visitors, anytime soon."
The quivers in my legs stopped. My house is old and is creaky and the sand from the nearby beaches can blow into cracks in the woodwork and get into everything, but damn it, the house is mine. I didn't like the thought of strangers trooping through, upending drawers and going through my belongings. Once again, Felix had pulled through.
"Thanks," I said. "I owe you big-time."
"Friend, the things you owe me are beginning to get as big as Jupiter. And it's just started. I've been doing some talking to some old associates in Florida and I think I might have something to check out in the St. Petersburg area. Only thing is, the guy I want to talk to got burned years ago, talking over the telephone. Spent ten years as a guest of Uncle Sam out in Illinois. Will only agree to a face-to-face."
"What might be down there, waiting for you?"
"Don't know. No details, only something worth my while to check out. So off I go, and if it doesn't work out, Florida in October can be fun. But I'll make sure to let you know in either case."
"Fun," I said. "A nice word."
We sped south now, not much traffic heading toward the border with Massachusetts. Felix reached over and switched on the CD player, and Sarah McClachlan's voice started soothing its way into the interior. I tried to show some sort of surprise on my face, which Felix noted.
"Yes?"
"Nothing. Just wondering why you're not listening to something more ---"
"More operatic? Please. Another cliché’, in such a long series of them. I like Canada, and I like her voice. And that's why."
"Okay."
We slowed some, as traffic began to approach the tollbooths to Tyler. We took the exit that led us to Route 101, which eventually would return the both of us to Tyler Beach. But before that would happen, we would have to pass through a tollbooth.
Felix said, "Feel like repaying part of your debt to me?"
"Sure."
"Then come up with two quarters, will you?"
"Coming right up."
I dug two quarters out of my pants pocket, handed them over to Felix, who slowed down at the gate to about twenty miles per hour or thereabouts, and tossed them in. He sped ahead and we turned right, going to Tyler Beach.
"Debt to you still the size of Jupiter?"
"Yeah."
"Okay," I said. "I can live with that." "Good."
Before us were an open road, lots of unanswered questions, and the sands and rocks of Tyler Beach.
Chapter Eight
True to Felix's promise, as we went through the parking lot of the Lafayette House I spotted a black van at the near corner, right by my dirt driveway. A well-painted sign on the side said SAM'S PLUMBING AND HEATING, with a Falconer phone number and address. Felix gave a little wave as he pulled up, and self-consciously, I waved as well. A young man in the front seat wearing a baseball cap the correct way --- with bill pointing forward, thank you --- waved back. Felix stopped and said, "Don't want to risk the undercarriage, so off you go."
"All right. When's your flight leave?"
"Tomorrow. I'll snoop around in St. Pete, talk to my contact.
Should be back with something worthwhile by the end of the week."
"Great." I turned in my seat, looked back at the van. "How long will they stay here?"
Felix grunted. "They're cousins, and so far I've managed to channel their larcenous ways into some activities safer and more profitable. So they'll stay here as long as I want them to. That okay?"
"That's great."
"Fine. What have you got planned next, young man?"
"The fun thing would be to sit on the couch and watch some afternoon talk shows with a pistol on my chest, but I've got work to do."
"Don't we all. What do you have going on?"
"Just before he got killed, Jon saw and spoke to three different people about his quest. And right after he talked to those people, he found the artifacts. And was killed. I've talked to the first person on the list, a UNH professor. I've got two more interviews to set up."
"Sounds like a full day. Now, get out of here, will you? I've got some packing to do."
I climbed out of the Mercedes, and was going to turn around and once again express my thanks, but Felix, as he does so well, was already on the move.
Inside my house, I locked the door, and checked the windows, making sure they were all locked. I took out the Beretta, made sure there was a round in the chamber, and did a leisurely search of the cellar, the first floor, and the upstairs. Save for a top drawer in an oak bureau that was partially open --- which a few hours ago was holding the very same pistol that was in my hand --- everything else looked fine. Someone had been in here earlier, but since that someone had been Felix, I was fine with that. From outside two men were keeping an eye on the place, and that made me feel pretty good, all things considered.
I got out of my dirty and bloodstained clothes and then looked in the mirror, at the purple-green bruise that was still pretty visible across my chest, from where it had been struck the other night at Ray's antique store. I touched my sore nose, which had spurted blood so copiously after being struck by the airbag. It felt better, but not much.
I attempted to make a tough-guy look in the mirror, and failed.
All I saw was a tired guy who had just been beaten up twice in the past few days and was getting tired of it.
I went out into my bedroom and got dressed.
After a lunch of tomato soup and a hunk of French bread, I started working the phones, making calls to three different people and organizations. The first call ended up with an answering machine picking up, the second phone call got a man who seemed both curious and a bit miffed at my call, and the third was to a rental car agency that promised to "come to your house and pick you up."
Which they eventually did.
I was now back outside, waiting for the rental car company rep to arrive, and I carried a small paper bag. I went up to SAM'S PLUMBING AND HEATING, and before I could knock on the driver's side door, the window rolled down. The young guy inside looked out at me, his face a bit red, maybe from the cold, and he said, "Hey."
"Hey, yourself," I said. I handed the bag up to him. "Inside's some coffee, a ham and cheese sandwich, a couple of other things."
He grinned. "I'm doing okay, really. My cousin Tom is across the way, and we get to switch off every few hours or so."
"Still, suppose he gets seduced by room service menu and doesn't want to leave?"
He nodded, still smiling. "Yeah, that's a thought. Thanks."
I handed the bag over and he took it, and then I held my hand out and he looked surprised, but shook it, nonetheless. "Name's Lewis Cole."
"Frank Duffy."
"Thanks for what you're doing."
He went into the bag, took out the cup of coffee. "Hey, for what we're getting paid, doing guard work on a house like yours is pretty simple stuff. Beats having to... Well, Felix always told us, not to mention stuff like that, so I guess I won't."
"That's wise."
A silver GM car came into the driveway, one of those models that has a name you forget within ten seconds of noticing it, with a rental car logo on the side. I raised my arm to the young lady driving the car, and said to Frank, "My ride's here. Thanks again."
"Don't thank me, thank Felix."
"I've already tried."
An hour later, after filling out more paperwork at the rental car agency in Porter, I was heading north again, not to Durham or the University of New Hampshire, but to North Conway, driving another hunk of anonymous GMC metal. I was back on Route 16 and went through two more sets of tolls, before the highway folded into a two-lane roadway in Rochester. Despite being one of the fastest growing states in the country, there's still a lot of open space and trees in New Hampshire, and the drive north proved that again to me. Some areas were still holding on to the fall foliage, and as I sped through the towns of Wakefield and Ossipee and Tamworth and Chocorua, I found myself relaxing some. As I passed through towns that still had downtowns that would practically be recognizable to a time traveler from the 1700s or 1800s, I had a pang of regret, that Jon and I had never really talked much about the rest of this state, of how it had been settled, and how little some parts had changed.