Wilderness

Newman sat at the kitchen table and stared at the Today show. He was breathing hard as if he'd run a distance. His sight blurred with tears. With his clenched fist he hit the table softly. Barely moving his fist, over and over.

He was still sitting at the table at nine-thirty when Chris Hood walked across the backyard from his small white house to Newman's big one. He came in the kitchen door without knocking.

"Coffee?" he said.

Newman said, "Instant," and nodded at the jar on the counter. "Water's probably still pretty hot."

Hood turned the gas flame on under the kettle, got a cup from the cabinet, and put a spoonful of instant coffee in it. He got two slices of oatmeal bread out of the second drawer to the right of the sink and put them in the toaster. When steam came from the kettle he made coffee, put margarine on his toast, and sat down at the table. He had on a blue T-shirt that said Adidas in white lettering across the front and he looked, as he moved and the small muscles played intricately beneath the skin, like a fine mechanism in perfect working order.

"You want to talk?" Hood said.

"About what?" Newman said.

"About us killing this guy Karl," Hood said. "You got any jam?" "Refrigerator," Newman said. Hood went to the refrigerator and took out a two-pound jar of strawberry preserves.

"Good," Hood said. "Smucker's, they're the best kind." Newman nodded. "You and me?" he said.

"Yes." Hood put strawberry jam on his toast.

"You and me go out and actually shoot this guy Karl?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

"Janet's right," Hood said. "Everything she said. It's the only way to go." "Maybe," Newman said. "But why you?"

Hood gri

Newman shook his head. There was no humor in his voice. "Why?" he said.

"It's true," Hood said. "I'm living alone. Jerry can manage the place for me if he has to. It's the kind of thing I can do."

"Kill someone?"

"Well, scuffle, fight, hit, handle trouble, you know." Newman continued to look at Hood.

"I'm good with my hands," Hood said.

Newman nodded. "Yeah, I know that, Chris, but' Newman put his palms up-"kill someone? Someone you don't even know?"

"I know you. And Janet. And it's what I can do."

"This is their business, you know. They're professionals. What if they kill us instead?" "No point playing te

"The threat of death."

"Sure. No fun if there wasn't some strain to it. Not too much point in doing it." "I thought you wanted to do it because it was a logical way to solve our problem." Hood said, "No. I think you should do it for that reason. I'm willing to help for other reasons. And besides, I know you. It'll eat your liver till you've done something." "Or Janet will," Newman said.

Hood said nothing.

"Okay," Newman said. "Let's do it."

CHAPTER 8.

Newman looked at the gun rack in Chris Hood's den. There was a lever-action Winchester.30/30, a semiautomatic Mi carbine with a fifteen-round clip, a five shot 12-gauge Ithaca pump gun, a Ruger.44 magnum bush gun In a locked case beneath the gun rack was a 9mm, Walther P.38 automatic pistol, a hammerless Smith amp; Wesson.32 revolver with a nickel plating, an Armyissue Colt.45 automatic pistol, a bone-handled bowie knife with a nine-inch blade, and a ski

"Take the.32," Hood said. "Five shots, small, easy to carry. Wear it on your belt and hang the shirt outside."

Newman took the handgun and aimed it at a knothole in the paneled wall.

He slid it in and out of the soft leather holster. He slipped his belt through the holster slot and redid the belt. He let the tails of his tattersall shirt hang out over his belt. The gun was invisible. He pulled it and aimed at the knothole again.

Hood took a box of shells from the cabinet and handed them to Newman.

"It breaks here," he said, taking the revolver from Newman and opening it. Newman fed five bright cartridges into the cylinder, closed the gun, and slipped it into his holster under his shirt.

"What about a permit?" Newman said.

Hood said, "I've got one." Newman said, "But I haven't. All I've got is an FID card. I can't carry this on your permit."

Hood smiled. "We're setting out to commit murder, Aaron. I wouldn't sweat the unlicensed gun too much."

Newman nodded. Hood put on a shoulder holster and slipped the P-j$8 in it. He put an extra clip of ammunition in his hip pocket and the folding knife in his side pocket. He handed the carbine to Newman.

"Remember how to fire this?" "Yes," Newman said. "It's one of the things you don't forget. Like bike-riding." "Or sex," Hood said. He picked up the Winchester and a box of ammunition. "Come on," he said. "Let's get to it."

"I think Karl might catch on," Newman said, "if he saw us walking up his driveway like this."

"We'll stash the long guns in the car. I just figured we'd be better to have them handy."

"And you might want to put on something over the shoulder holster." "Smart," Hood said. "You writers are a smart breed."

They walked through Hood's small immaculate kitchen. On a peg by the back door was a short-sleeved cotton safari jacket. Hood put it on.

They put the carbine and Winchester, wrapped in a blanket, behind the back seat in Hood's red and white 1976 Bronco.

"You got the address?" Hood said.

"473 Ly

"Probably him."

"Would he be listed?"

"Why not. Don't thugs make phone calls?"

Newman said, "Yes they do. Sometimes they make house calls."

They drove from Smithfield to Ly

There was a two-car garage and in the cement driveway that co

"That's the car," Newman said. He felt the tension again in his solar plexus. He put his hand down on the butt of the gun under his shirt.

"It must be the right place," he said.

Hood drove on past and turned left at a drugstore a block beyond Karl's house. He parked.

"Karl ever see you?"

Newman shook his head.

"How about the guys that laid it on Janet? They see you?"

Newman shook his head again.

"Then nobody in this group should know what you look like." "True," Newman said. His voice was hoarse.

"So let's stroll back and look at the building a bit."

They got out. Hood locked the car. They walked back a block along the seawall side of the street. Below them the beach was littered and beyond the beach waves rolled in from the open ocean. Across the harbor the turtle back of Nahant rose at the end of its causeway.

Behind them a massive restaurant looked out over a cove where fishing boats rocked at tether.

They leaned against the seawall and looked at Karl's house. On the ocean side there was a sunporch, the windows closed by Venetian blinds.

Above the sunporch the house rose two more stories. The third story looked cramped beneath the slate mansard roof. The house actually fronted on a small side street. Four windows on the first floor, five on the second, two A-dormers through the slate roof on the third. There were Venetian blinds in each of these windows.