The Undertaker

“How could he?” I asked, just as confused as she was. “We need to call Hardin. He's right, we need to go in.” I walked over to the dark spot between two garages where the goon had been hiding in the shadows. I found a small, two-way radio propped against the window ledge. “It doesn't look like he's alone, either.”

I picked up the radio and pushed the microphone button. “Ey,” I mumbled, sounding like the goon. “You dere?”

“Yah. What's wit dose two? You see where dey went?”

“Nah. Nuttin’.”

“Well fuckin' stay awake next time.”

I grabbed her by one hand and the radio in the other, and took off running.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

Don't crush a da grapes…

The faster we got away from Doug's townhouse and lost ourselves in a big crowd, the safer I'd feel. When we reached the first cross street, we geared down to a quick, huddled walk and turned south toward Commonwealth Avenue and the Mall. No sense attracting any more attention. We crossed the westbound lanes and entered the park, then turned east toward downtown. The curving walkways, bushes, and tall canopy of trees might be lovely on a bright sunny day, but on a dark, wet night with the town full of bad guys, every shadow was a threat I didn't want to deal with.

“Tell me something,” I asked Sandy as we hurried away. “All that flashing-feet karate stuff? Between beautician school, photography classes, and your graduate degree in auto theft, how did you have time to get a black belt?”

“After I threw Eddie out, I developed an intense desire to kick guys. I switched over to The North Avenue Tae-Kwan-Do and Karate School, because they let me do that without going to jail. You'd be amazed how fast you can work your way up to black belt when all you want to do is smash somebody.”

“I'll bet you won Miss Congeniality, too?” I said as I sprinted away.

“No, the Class Clown,” she answered, narrowly missing the back of my head.

I kept the goon's radio turned on as we headed east. It was a standard Motorola model with no special markings, none of the usual “Property of U. S. Government” warnings, and no Boston Police Department bar codes or inventory numbers. So far, their channel was dead quiet. Not a squawk. Not a peep. No one came on for a communication or time check. In fact, Sandy and I were almost back to Arlington, the busy north-south street and a half-mile away, before we heard anything. Then, all hell broke loose.

They must have found the goon or he must have finally gotten up and found them, because we heard a quick staccato of half-coherent messages over the radio. It was hard to tell how many people or cars were involved, but I had been in the Army. From the language they used, these were not police calls or calls from any other government agency I had ever heard of. There was no standard radio procedure, no call signs, and no unit designations, only angry grunts, swearing, threats, and a lot of chatter. They were not the Boston Police Department. They were not the FBI, the DEA, the CIA, or any of the other flavors in the Federal law enforcement alphabet soup either. But whoever they were, they were too late.

We crossed Arlington, where the Commonwealth Mall ended, and hurried on into the Public Garden, the western third of the Boston Common. A quarter mile in, along a curving walkway around the lake, we came to a park bench and a trashcan sitting under the dim light of a decorative Victorian street lamp. The can had one of those black plastic liner bags inside. I dug all the way to the bottom, but all I found was newspapers and old beer bottles.

Sandy stood there watching me “What are you looking for?” she finally asked.

“Some string or something,” I said in frustration. “If I can tie down the transmit button on the radio, we can block the frequency and completely screw up their communication for a while.” I looked up at her and said, “See? I get some good ideas, and I didn't even go to Catholic Schools or know Bobby McNally.”

She gave me a pitying look, reached into the trashcan, and pulled out the whole bag. In ten seconds flat, she had dumped the trash back into the can, ripped the thick top strip off the bag, and tied it around the radio. She found a large pebble on the ground and slipped it under the plastic, forcing the transmit button down and open the frequency.

“Engineers. What would you do without me?” She raised the radio to her lips and spoke into the open mike in a sexy, throaty voice. “You boys out there in radio land, ya'll have a nice night now, you hear.” She then set the radio in the bottom of the can. But as she straightened up, she got a good look at her clothes and at mine. “Yuck. Rolling around in that alley wasn't such a good idea, was it? Look at us.” Her new mall clothes from Toledo were covered with mud and food stains and mine weren't much better. Neither were our hands and her arms and legs. “We're not going to get very far looking like this.”