The Eyes of Darkness

open, and there wasn't a car inside.
    "We've got to get off the street and out of sight," Elliot said.
    He drove into the open garage as boldly as if it were his own. He switched off the engine, scrambled out of the car, and ran to the big door. It wouldn't come down. He struggled with it for a moment, and then he realized that it was equipped with an automatic system.
    Behind him, Tina said, "Stand back."
    She had gotten out of the car and had located the control button on the garage wall.
    He glanced outside, up the street. He couldn't see the van.
    The door rumbled down, concealing them from anyone who might drive past.
    Elliot went to her. "That was close."
    She took his hand in hers, squeezed it. Her hand was cold, but her grip was firm.
    "So who the hell are they?" she asked,
    "I saw Harold Kennebeck, the judge I mentioned. He—"
    The door that connected the garage to the house opened without warning, but with a sharp, dry squeak of unoiled hinges.
    An imposing, barrel-chested man in rumpled chinos and a white T-shirt snapped on the garage light and peered curiously at them. He had meaty arms; the circumference of one of them almost equaled the circumference of Elliot's thigh. And there wasn't a shirt made that could be buttoned easily around his thick, muscular neck. He appeared formidable, even with his beer belly, which bulged over the waistband of his trousers.
    First Vince and now this specimen. It was the Day of the Giants.
    "Who're you?" the pituitary-challenged behemoth asked in a soft, gentle voice that didn't equate with his appearance.
    Elliot had the awful feeling that this guy would reach for the button Tina had pushed less than a minute ago, and that the garage door would lift just as the black van was rolling slowly by in the street.
    Stalling for time, he said, "Oh, hi. My name's Elliot, and this is Tina."
    "Tom," the big man said. "Tom Polumby."
    Tom Polumby didn't appear to be worried by their presence in his garage; he seemed merely perplexed. A man of his size probably wasn't frightened any more easily than Godzilla confronted by the pathetic bazooka-wielding soldiers surrounding doomed Tokyo.
    "Nice car," Tom said with an unmistakable trace of reverence in his voice. He gazed covetously at the S600.
    Elliot almost laughed. Nice car! They pulled into this guy's garage, parked, closed the door bold as you please, and all he had to say was Nice car!
    "Very nice little number," Tom said, nodding, licking his lips as he studied the Mercedes.
    Apparently Tom couldn't conceive that burglars, psychopathic killers, and other low-lifes were permitted to purchase a Mercedes-Benz if they had the money for it. To him, evidently, anyone who drove a Mercedes had to be the right kind of people.
    Elliot wondered how Tom would have reacted if they had shrieked into his garage in an old battered Chevy.
    Pulling his covetous gaze from the car, Tom said, "What're you doing here?" There was still neither suspicion nor belligerence in his voice.
    "We're expected," Elliot said.
    "Huh? I wasn't expecting nobody."
    "We're here . . . about the boat," Elliot said, not even knowing where he was going to go with that line, ready to say anything to keep Tom from putting up the garage door and throwing them out.
    Tom blinked. "What boat?"
    "The twenty-footer."
    "I don't own a twenty-footer."
    "The one with the Evinrude motor."
    "Nothing like that here."
    "You must be mistaken," Elliot said.
    "I figure you've got the wrong place," Tom said, stepping out of the doorway, into the garage, reaching for the button that would raise the big door.
    Tina said, "Mr. Polumby, wait. There must be some mistake, really. This is definitely the right place."
    Tom's hand stopped short of the button.
    Tina continued: "You're just not the man we were supposed to see, that's all. He probably forgot to tell you about the boat."
    Elliot blinked at her, amazed by her natural facility for deception.
    "Who's this guy you're supposed to see?" Tom asked, frowning.
    Appearing to be somewhat amazed herself, Tina hesitated not at all before she said, "Sol Fitzpatrick."
    "Nobody here by that name."
    "But this is the address he gave us. He said the garage door would be open and that we were to pull right inside."
    Elliot wanted to hug her. "Yeah. Sol said we were to pull in, out of the driveway, so that he'd have a place to put the boat when he got here with it."
    Tom scratched his head, then pulled on one ear. "Fitzpatrick?"
    "Yeah."
    "Never heard of