Wilderness

CHAPTER 16.

"Nice house," Steiger said.

Angie, in a sleeveless lime-green linen dress, tucked her legs under her on the seat of the rented Plymouth and looked at Aaron Newman's two-hundred-year-old house.

"It looks old," she said.

Steiger nodded. "Let's cruise around back," he said. "See what it looks like."

Angie nodded. Steiger put the Plymouth in drive and went around the block. They parked on the street behind Newman's house.

"What town is this?" Angie said.

"Smithfield," Steiger said.

"We ever settle down, I'd like to live like this," Angie said. Her hands were folded in her lap. Steiger's right hand covered both of hers. Neither seemed aware of touching. It was a gesture so fundamental and one that had been made so often that it was unconscious.

"Yeah," Steiger said. "I wonder if he's got an alarm system. Lot of these houses do. Tied into the police."

"Any way you can tell?"

Steiger smiled at her. "I could break in at night and see if the cops come." She shook her head. "No good," she said.

"True. I'll see about hitting him outside. If it's no good, I'll go in during the day and do it."

"Anyone else there?"

"Wife, I'm told. She works during the day. We'll come out tomorrow and take a look. Then, depending what I see, I'll figure the best time to hit him."

"I hope you don't have to kill the wife too."

Steiger shrugged. "Don't see why I'd need to, I do it right."

"I wonder if they love each other like we do," Angie said.

"Most people don't," Steiger said.

"I know," she said.

Steiger slipped the car into drive and pulled away from the curb. He drove around the block and parked two houses up from Newman's. Steiger reached over and took a road map out of the glove compartment and spread it open on Angie's lap.

"Anyone comes along, they'll think we're lost."

Angie nodded. "You're not going to do anything today, are you?"

"With you here? Have I ever?"

"No. I know. You wouldn't. It was a dumb question."

"Not dumb. You were worried. You had a right to ask. You're never dumb."

A red and white Ford Bronco came down the driveway of Newman's home and turned right onto Main Street. Steiger started the Plymouth.

"That him?" Angie said.

"Yes. In the passenger seat." He drove down Main Street behind the Bronco. When it turned up onto Route 128 he followed.

At the wheel of the Bronco, Hood said to Newman, "We may as well be watching Karl's place while we figure this out." The Bronco went over a small bump in the road and the long guns, wrapped in a blanket, rattled on the floor behind the back seat.

Newman nodded. "Might as well," he said.

"I think Janet's right," Hood said. "The more I think of it, the more I like it. If we can get him isolated up in the woods, we'll have him off his turf and on mine. We'll have no cops to worry about, nobody to see us. We can lay up somewhere and pick him off with the Springfield."

"Why don't we go up there and wait, then?" Newman said. "The more we hang around Karl and his house and his business, the more risk we run of blowing this." The lines that ran from the corners of his nostrils to the edges of his mouth were deep. His eyes looked heavy-lidded.

"I think you're probably right," Hood said. "Let's give it this day to make sure nothing new develops. Then we can go up country and begin to set up."

"Sure."

"I figure," Hood said, "we can rent some kind of cabin or something up there. We'll do it in my name, just in case Karl's keeping an eye on real estate transactions or something."

"Why would he do that?" Newman said.

"Can't tell. These guys are fu

"I am," Hood said.

"But maybe you better use a false name too. I mean, if we do hit him up there we'd want to leave promptly, wouldn't we, and not be co

"Good," Hood said, "good idea. I wasn't thinking. We'll do it that way. I'll take care of that." He exited Route 128 for Route 95 North.

"In fact," Hood said, "why not do it now? Why not drive up there now and take a look around and maybe set up a cabin or something?"

"Better than sitting around waiting for Karl to spot us. Or the giant," Newman said. "He knows our faces. He'll remember us next time."

Steiger turned off onto Route 95 behind them. "If they keep going straight for very long I'm going to drop them," he said to Angie. "I don't feel like driving to New Hampshire, or Maine, or wherever the fuck they're going."

Angie leaned her head against his arm. "Okay by me, I'm getting hungry anyway."

"We'll keep an eye out for someplace," Steiger said. "If they just keep driving we'll stop for lunch. I'm not going to hit him today anyway." Angle smiled.

At Portsmouth Circle the Bronco headed northeast on Route 16. Steiger swung off of the highway and followed a sign that said

"Portsmouth Downtown." "Look in your guidebook, Angie," he said. "See what's a good place to eat in this town."

CHAPTER 17.

"Did you know that Chris prowls around our yard at night?" Janet said.

Newman shook his head. "What do you mean prowls around?" he said.

"I got up about four in the morning a couple of days ago and looked out the bathroom window and he was standing under that big white pine tree in the back, with a rifle. And I thought, "What the hell is he doing?"

And so last night I was up till about two doing some stuff for the affirmative action task force and I thought, "By God, I'm going to check." So I turned out the lights and went and looked out all the windows and he was there. He was out front, in the bushes between us and the Erasers."

They were lying together in bed. Newman was reading the book review section of last Sunday's New York Times. Janet was watching the Joh

"That figures," Newman said.

"Is he guarding us?"

"Yeah, partly. But he's playing too."

"Playing?"

"Cops and robbers. Cowboys and Indians. The Lions and the Packers.

Rangers and gooks. I think this is a kind of game for him. It's the most fun he's had since he got cut by the Lions."

"What could be fun about standing around in the dark all by yourself all night. When does he sleep?" "He told me once that he only slept three or four hours a day. Always been that way, he said. And it is fun to be a guard. Or at least it's fun for a little while and if you're a certain kind of guy. Think of the high points in his life." "Football and Korea," Janet said.

"Combat, in a sense."

"Yes. He does karate too, doesn't he?"

"Black belt."

"Formalized combat."

"And since he was cut by the Lions, how have things been going for him?"

"Not good," Janet said. She had turned the sound down on the remote control mechanism by her bed. On the screen Robert Goulet sang soundlessly. "He hasn't been very successful or made very much money.

His marriage didn't work. I don't know how the new place is doing, do you?" "He doesn't talk about it," Newman said.

"So you're saying," Janet said, "that this situation came along and gave him a chance to do something he's good at, and to feel good about himself." She had turned on her left side, facing Newman, and rested her head on her propped left elbow.

"A chance, as the jargon would have it, to maximize his potential. I mean, for cris sake he's the Michelangelo of machismo and for twenty years there's been little call for it from the society he moves in."