Fifty-Four

"The meet's all set up," Stuart said. "Called them before I went looking for you. Drove by your house earlier, and when I didn't see your car I was hoping I'd find you there."

I said nothing. He'd tell me what I needed to know sooner or later. I was still at the wheel of this shitbox truck.

"You know Walnut Beach?" he asked.

"Yeah."

"Down by a senior citizens residence on Viscount," he said. "Had an aunt who used to live there. There's a parking lot, kind of wide-open, but it won't be busy late at night. You can see who's coming and going."

"Right."

"I set it up for"—and he stopped to look at his watch—"twenty minutes from now. We get there, like, ten minutes before them, we'll be ready."

"And what are they giving you again, in return for the bag?"

"Fifty."

"Fifty thousand," I said. "Nice jump up from the ten you wanted from me."

Stuart smiled. "You're a fucking teacher. I'm a reasonable man."

Since I knew where we were going, I didn't need any more directions from him. There wasn't a second that went by when I wasn't thinking about some way out of this. I glanced over regularly to see whether the gun was trained on me, and Stuart was very attentive in this regard. I thought about hitting the brakes suddenly, throwing him forward, grabbing his head, and smashing it into the dash, knocking him out, the kind of stunt you'd see a Jack Ryan or a Jack Reacher—one of those Jacks—do in a movie. But this was no movie. I could end up with a bullet in my gut if I tried something like that.

I still wondered about jumping from the truck while it was moving. But, again, that was the kind of thing you could do in the movies and not get a scratch. I figured I'd end up run over by the back wheels. And with the seat belt on, the moment I went to unfasten it, Stuart could pull that trigger.

I kept waiting for an opportunity that might never come.

What worried me less was his threat to go after my family. If I could get away, the first thing I'd do is notify the police, give them my address and tell them to get there ASAP.

We were heading south on Viscount Drive, Long Island Sound shimmering in the moonlight ahead of us. I slowed as I reached the end of the street and made a right into a parking lot that, on a summer day, would be filled with cars as people hit the nearby beach.

Bonnie and Rachel and I had been down here many times. We'd bring towels and an umbrella and some sand toys for Rachel and pretend we were in Florida. Not quite as tropical, and not a palm tree in sight, but there wasn't a twelve-hour drive to get here, either. Sometimes we'd walk out to the end of the Albert Munroe Pier, which extended some three hundred feet out into the Sound and afforded a view of Charles Island, a small state-owned bird sanctuary that was only a few hundred yards out there, and could be walked out to on a sandbar during low tide. None of that, of course, was visible at this time of night.

"Okay, okay, let's just drive around, make sure they haven't tried to pull a fast one and get here ahead of us," he said.

"I know the car," I told him. "That is, unless they've ditched it and are in a different one. Last I saw them they were in a black Audi."

"Don't see anything like that," Stuart said.

He was right. There were maybe five cars scattered across a lot that would hold one hundred or two hundred vehicles. Stuart pointed.

"Let's settle in up at the far end there. At the edge. Back into a spot."

I did as I was told. Once the truck was in position and we had a good view of anyone who might arrive, I had a question.

"What's to keep these people from taking your bag, giving you nothing in return, and shooting you in the head?"

Stuart smiled, like he had all the angles covered. "Thought we went over that. That's why you're here. You deliver the bag and I hang back by the truck. They try something dumb, I start shooting."

And I'd get caught in the cross fire. "Have you even met these people before? I mean, when I walk out there and hand over the bag, are they going to think I'm you?"

Stuart thought on that. "They might. I never met them. Billy didn't want me around when Psycho Bitch and Butthead did their pickups."

Their nicknames did nothing to allay my fears, especially that first one.

"You don't really think I killed Billy," I said.

He shrugged. "I don't think you've got it in you."

"So you think it's these drug dealers."

"Would make sense," Stuart said.

"Then why didn't they take the stuff with them?"

"Huh?"

"You say you came back with food and Billy was dead. If they did it, why'd they leave the bag there? Why'd they leave it for you to take?"

Stuart went very quiet for a moment.

"Maybe... maybe they killed him, and figured the shit wasn't going anywhere, and they were going to come back later and get it."

"Why?" I asked, pressing him. "What would they be thinking? Okay, we just killed this guy, let's grab a drink, and then we'll come back? Who'd be that stupid?"

Stuart was looking annoyed. "What fucking difference does it make?"

"I don't know. Maybe it might be kind of important to you, being Billy's friend and all."

It was possible Stuart was right. What fucking difference did it make? Still, something seemed wrong.

"Headlights," Stuart said.

There was a car coming down Viscount. It slowed as it reached the end of the street, then turned into the lot.

A black four-door Audi.

"That's them," I said.