Back Bay (66 page)

Danny ran to his father’s side. Tom Fallon was unconscious, but he seemed to be breathing.

“It looks to me like the little bastard’s screwing his boss,” said Ferguson. “If you want to screw a Pratt, who’s the best person to go to?”

“Rule?” offered Peter.

“That’s right, but we better be careful, because that little bastard’ll kill her.”

Peter looked at his father. “Is he all right?”

“I don’t know,” said Danny.

“It’s a bump on the head. He’ll wake up,” said Ferguson.

“I’m stickin’ around to make sure he does,” said Danny.

“In the meantime, the tea set is gettin’ away from us,” said Ferguson.

“So get goin’,” yelled Danny. “When the old man wakes up, we’ll follow you. And be careful.”

Peter and Ferguson headed down Boylston.

“Did you kill my nephew?” demanded Philip Pratt.

Soames smiled. “I had to say something to get the tea set out of that hole.”

“You haven’t answered the question,” snapped Evangeline.

Soames ignored her. He looked at Pratt. “I think we should open the box.”

“My niece wants to know what happened to her brother,” said Pratt.

“Mr. Pratt, I have been dedicated to finding this tea set. All my actions have been dedicated to it and our mutual interest.” He smiled. He knew he might still need Pratt’s help.

Pratt wanted to accept Soames’s response as a denial.

“Let’s open the box,” repeated Soames.

For a moment, Pratt contemplated the box. Then, he pulled off the padlocks, two of which had already been snapped. The outer steel box was rusted shut, and he needed a screwdriver from the glove compartment to pry it open. After that came an oak liner, rotted into wet powder.

Evangeline forgot Soames. She held her breath and watched her
uncle enter the family tabernacle. She hoped that the water hadn’t seeped through to the tea set.

But there was another oaken box; it was about an inch thick and in better condition. Philip Pratt opened it and revealed a Revere masterpiece: a copper liner for the strongbox. At the time that he had made the tea set, Revere had been experimenting with rolled copper. Lid and bottom fit so perfectly that the liner seemed watertight.

Philip Pratt’s mouth went dry. His palms were sweating. He broke open the liner. First came the red velvet, then, silver.

Silver. Gleaming, luminous, incandescent.

Evangeline did not see the blackened, tarnished metal she had expected. She saw silver, silver glowing in the predawn light.

Philip Pratt was dazzled.

For a moment, no one spoke.

Then, Soames reached into the box and picked up the sugar urn. “After all these years. Exquisite.”

“It’s almost too beautiful,” said Pratt. “Too beautiful to keep hidden.”

Soames’s eyes shifted from the small golden eagle on the urn to Philip Pratt. “I’m afraid that is impossible. We are going to deal right now.” Soames slammed the Plexiglas divider between front and back seat and locked it.

The limousine turned off Storrow Drive and headed for the waterfront.

Philip Pratt realized that he was being betrayed. He was losing everything—his company, his stature, his self-respect. He wished he had never heard of the Golden Eagle.

He turned to Evangeline. “I’m sorry, Vange. About Christopher, about everything.”

She didn’t look at him. Her eyes were fixed on the silver. On the tiny golden bird. On the object which had dominated and destroyed so many lives.

The limousine turned onto Lewis Wharf.

“You know exactly what to do,” said Soames.

Harrison nodded and took out his pistol.

Soames climbed out of the car and looked up at Rule’s balcony. He had to act quickly. He could see Edward peering down at
him. He straightened his sportcoat and put the sugar urn into his pocket. He was nervous, but he had rehearsed this moment a hundred times. After this morning, he would never arrange a schedule, take a phone call, or swallow an insult from Philip Pratt again.

When Edward answered the door, Soames had a pistol pointed at his belly. “Let’s have your pistol.”

Edward turned over a .22 revolver, and they both went upstairs. Soames was surprised to see Rule and Hannaford having breakfast. It was not yet five o’clock.

“Morning, Soames,” said Rule. “Coming rather heavily armed to breakfast, aren’t we? I suppose you’re mad because you weren’t invited.”

Soames didn’t like Rule’s joviality. He backed onto the balcony so that Harrison could see him. He waved, then stepped back into the room. “If I am not out with an answer in two minutes, Mr. Harrison will leave with Pratt and the tea set.”

“You have the tea set?” asked Rule.

“Produce three million in cash and securities by nine
A.M
., and it’s yours. Otherwise, it goes to Pratt, and you two gentlemen are revealed for the frauds that you are.”

“Do you have evidence of the tea set?” Hannaford was interested in seeing it, at least once.

Soames took the sugar urn from his pocket and put it on the table. “There are thirty-one pieces. Each engraved with a small golden eagle. Do we have a deal?”

Rule could see the perspiration on Soames’s forehead. He was glad Soames was nervous. The scheme might work on a nervous man. He looked at Hannaford. “I suggest we call the police. It seems that we have an art thief on our hands.” He began to laugh.

“What are you talking about?” said Soames.

“Show him, Larry.”

Hannaford reached into the duffel bag beside him and pulled out a lump of silver about the size of a softball. He dropped it to the table. “It’s still warm.”

“It seems,” said Rule, “that thieves broke into the Museum of Fine Arts and stole the Golden Eagle Tea Set. You say you have it in your possession. That’s what you call your grand theft.”

“I don’t believe you.” The fury was building in Soames. He was
smarter than Pratt. He was smarter than Rule. He was smarter than all of them. He couldn’t be bluffed.

“It’s true,” said Rule. “Listen to the morning news.”

Soames leaned across the table. “You listen to me. There is a hole in the subway six feet wide. There is another hole in the basement of the New Old South Church. When we tell the story of this tea set, people will believe us, because no one would make the mess we’ve made unless there was a reason to make it.”

Rule knew that Soames was right, but Rule was gambling. He laughed. “Try and prove it, little man, now that there’s no more fake. You can talk all you want to, but there’s only one tea set. That’s all there’s ever been. All that wasted effort.” Rule began to laugh, taking in great gulps of air and pouring out derision.

Hannaford began to laugh with him. “Face it, Bennett. You’ve been outmaneuvered.”

Outmaneuvered. He had played it all so well. He had planned everything so carefully. And now, they were laughing at him.

The fury exploded out of Bennett Soames. He raised his pistol and shot Lawrence Hannaford in the chest. He turned the gun onto Rule. Edward streaked across the room and caught Soames with a shoulder in the belly. Together they smashed over the balcony railing and down three stories to the paved wharf.

For a moment, William Rule couldn’t move. He looked at Hannaford’s body, at the smashed balcony railing, and then, for the first time in his life, he panicked. He heard the engine kick over on the wharf below. They were leaving with the tea set. He had to stop them. He had to destroy the tea set before it destroyed him.

He pulled a .45 from his desk and ran to the balcony. Through the fog, he could see the limousine starting to back off the wharf. He fired five shots. One missed. One hit the radiator, another the hood. Two smashed through the wind-shield on the driver’s side. The car accelerated suddenly, swung in a half circle, and slammed into one of the pilings on the wharf.

Philip and Evangeline were trapped. They couldn’t get out of the car, nor could they get into the front seat to get Harrison’s keys. Harrison was slumped over the wheel.

Rule reached the limousine as Fallon and Ferguson arrived at Lewis Wharf in a hot-wired car. He took Harrison’s keys and
opened the back door. He grabbed Evangeline by the arm and pulled her out of the car.

“No!” Philip Pratt tried to grab Rule, and Rule shot him in the chest.

Peter and Jack jumped out of the car. Rule turned and fired at them, then he put the gun to Evangeline’s head. She struggled, but his arms were powerful and he held her tight.

“Don’t wrestle with me, you little bitch, or I’ll shoot you, too. Now pull that fuckin’ trunk out of the car.” He released her, and she did as she was told. Ferguson started to advance.

Rule fired at him. “Stay where you are, Jack.”

Rule and Evangeline backed down the ramp onto the floating dock. Each held a strongbox handle. Evangeline wanted to drop her handle and run, but William Rule was a madman. She knew he would shoot her. They flung the strongbox onto the
Peter
, which was moored at the dock.

“Goddammit,” said Ferguson. “He’s not gonna dump that tea set.”

Fallon grabbed him. “If we let him go, he’ll toss her overboard. She can swim back.”

In the distance, a police siren was wailing.

“He’ll dump the tea set.” Ferguson strode down the wharf and fired his pistol into the air. “Hey, you son of a bitch! Take a shot at me. I’m the one who’s been on your tail. Shoot me!”

Rule aimed the pistol at Ferguson, and Evangeline jumped into the water. Rule fired. A crimson stain spread on Ferguson’s shoulder, but he kept coming. Rule jumped onto the
Peter
and started the engines. He shot again at Ferguson, who was now halfway down the ramp, but he was out of ammunition. He tossed the gun aside and leaned on the throttle. The powerful twin screws drove the boat from the dock. Ferguson leaped and caught the stern.

Fallon could have made it easily if he’d jumped for the
Peter
, but Evangeline had hit the water in panic, and, as the
Peter
pulled away, she was sucked down into its wake. For a terrifying moment, Fallon thought she had gone into the propellers.

He dove and was beside her in an instant. She had taken a mouthful of the harbor and was struggling, fighting, instead of treading water. He wrapped an arm around her. He told her to
relax. His presence settled her. After a moment, she didn’t need to hold onto him, and they swam together back to the dock.

Peter hauled himself out of the water, then helped her. “Are you all right?”

“I will be,” she said weakly.

He looked toward the
Peter
, barely visible in the fog. He could make out the figure of Jack Ferguson clinging to the stern. He jumped into a small Boston whaler moored next to Rule’s space. He pulled the ignition wires out of the control panel, touched them in the correct sequence, and the engine kicked over.

“We can’t even see them, Peter,” said Evangeline.

“We’ll follow their wake.”

The
Peter
was already skimming past the waterfront restaurants and heading toward the outer harbor. William Rule had navigated this route so many times in his good life that the fog was no more an impediment than a slight easterly chop.

Ferguson managed to get a leg out of the water and haul himself onto the deck. Rule looked over his shoulder, but he couldn’t let go of the wheel. He was going too fast.

Ferguson leveled the gun at him. “Turn this thing around.”

Rule laughed.

“I said turn it around.”

The panic was gone. William Rule realized that it was over, no matter what happened to the tea set. He was finished. If he couldn’t convince the world that his tea set had been authentic, he would not give the Pratts the chance to prove that it had been false. “You’ll have to shoot me, Jack.”

Through a break in the fog, Fallon and Evangeline glimpsed the
Peter
. Fallon corrected his course and fed the outboard more gas.

“I
will
shoot you if you don’t turn this thing around,” said Ferguson.

“No you won’t.” Rule looked over his shoulder. “And you know why? Because you’re too decent. You’re a sucker.”

Ferguson stepped across the deck. Rule pulled a fillet knife from the knapsack beside him. “Don’t try to wrestle the wheel away from me, Jack. I’ll cut you open like fuckin’ codfish. You want to stop me, shoot me in the back of the head. Because it’s all over for me,
Jack. The tea set’s ruined me. If you can get it ashore, you’ve got a whole new life to enjoy. So take a tip from a guy who should know. When you get the chance, kill your enemy. Don’t try to nickel-and-dime him to death. Don’t mess up his apartment and try to scare him when he figures out you’ve killed a Carrington. Don’t try to get him drunk and hope he drinks himself to death. Put a new set of nostrils in the back of his head and kiss him goodbye.”

Ferguson raised the gun.

Rule looked around. “No balls, Jack. You have no balls. I’ve got ’em to rent. That’s why I’ve lived the way I have, and you’ve ended up in the gutter.”

The
Peter
streaked out past Castle Island and Thompson’s Island, past the unmarked grave of a long-decayed cargo sloop called the
Reckless
, and out toward the open sea.

The outboard couldn’t keep up, and soon Fallon was circling in the fog, cutting his engines periodically to listen for the cabin cruiser. But the heavy moisture in the air captured sounds, and the
Peter
was already too far away.

William Rule had decided that he wasn’t going back. His loaded flare gun was on the bulkhead. A quick shot into the gas tank would take him, Ferguson, and the tea set to the bottom. His troubles would be over, and trouble was all he could see ahead of him.

Ferguson held the pistol so that it was close to Rule’s ear. “For the last time.”

Rule laughed. “You can’t shoot a man in the back of the head, Jack. You just can’t.”

Jack Ferguson knew that Rule was right. William Rule had tried to destroy his life. Jack Ferguson had lived for the moment when he would avenge himself. The moment had arrived, and he couldn’t do it. He looked at the strongbox. It was finally within his grasp. If he pulled the trigger, the tea set would be his, and the murderer would be punished. In the pit of his stomach, Ferguson had known all along that Rule had killed Jeffrey Carrington.