Abel Baker Charley by John R. Maxim Page A

solid two days' work by more than one person. “What’ ll you bet there's a tuna casserole in the kitchen?”
    Baker didn't answer immediately. His throat felt hot and he did not trust his voice. “Are you hungry?” he managed fi nally.
    “I'll grab a steak up the road. You said you wanted to get to the hospital.”
    Meister stopped the car past two empty sealer cans that blocked the driveway. Baker made no move to get out. “What happens next?” he asked.
    “We get ready for trial. You start soon on a round of psy chiatric testing, first with their shrink and then with my shrink. I start interviewing the witnesses to make sure they remember it right.”
    Baker nodded. “In court, you said their statements wouldn't support the charges. What did that mean?”
    “They're on your side.” Meister shrugged. “They tried to put the best face on what happened. You won't look so good under cross-examination, though, unless I drill them pretty good.” Meister squirmed in his seat to fish an object from his hip pocket. “Listen, I'll be in touch. In the meantime, Son nenberg wants you to have these.” He held out a set of silver keys.
    “They're for Sonnenberg's boat. He says to tell you it's stocked with provisions and it's yours to live on any time you like. Go down there if being here gets to you or if any one bothers you. There's a radiophone on the boat. If you want to talk to Sonnenberg, just flip on the radio switch but don't touch the dials. He'll know you're there.”
    “Am I allowed to leave the state?” Baker asked doubt fully.
    “Don't worry about it.” Meister placed the keys in Baker's hand.
    Baker hesitated as if making up his mind, then dropped them in his pocket. “Ben?”
    “Yeah?”
    “How long have you known Sonnenberg?”
    “We go back a few years.”
    “Is he straight?”
    “Compared to what?”
    “Come on, Ben.” Baker sighed. “You know what he wants me to do. You were setting me up for it all day.”
    ”I was preparing you, Baker. Setting up isn't the same thing.”
    “What Sonnenberg was suggesting ... Is it possible?”
    “You mean about you and your daughter walking away from all this and never being touched? Yeah, it's possible. It's even easy.”
    “Do you know people who've done it?”
    ”A few, yeah.”
    “He said something about me making a living as an artist. That part can't be possible.”
    “Why not?”
    “It's a hobby. I'm just ordinary at it.”
    “You don't know Sonnenberg.”
    Something in Ben Meister's voice made Baker turn his head. It was in Meister's eyes too. The breeziness that was part of the big man's manner was gone, only for a moment. “I'll give you a hint,” Meister said, looking deeply into Baker. “You could even make a living as a lawyer if you wanted.”
    It was a few minutes past sunset. The streetlights had not yet blinked on. A Ford sedan drifted silently down the dark street by Baker's house. The driver could see without slow ing that Baker's car was gone. The house was unlit. A single bulb burned inside the open garage. He nodded, satisfied, and the Ford coasted on before turning right at the end of Baker's street.
    “That was the guy's house?” the other man asked. He was younger than the driver and half again as large. He spoke through thickened lips and his eyebrows had been torn and stitched a dozen times until the skin had a glassine shine to it. His mouth was twisted in a street tough's sneer and it hung partly open even as he chewed noisily on a wad of gum. Stanley Levy despised being with him. He nodded once but said nothing.
    ”I fought a guy named Baker once,” Vinnie Cuneo said, squinting.
    “Maybe you'll get to fight this one.” God should be so good, Levy said to himself.
    ”I think his name was Ronnie.” Cuneo's brow wrinkled into tight folds. “No, Randy. Randy Baker. A southpaw.”
    The homely little man wasn't listening. Ahead of him, his lights picked up the edifice of a church. The parking lot would be