Authors: George V. Higgins
Farrier snickered. “ ‘Another
brutal
drug-related shooting.’ Don’t you just love it? ‘Brutal shooting’—ever hear of ‘a nice
dainty
little shooting’?”
“Can’t say’s I ever have, no,” Stoat said, turning away from the refrigerator with two bottles of Harpoon lager and setting them down on the kitchen counter behind the television. Then he frowned. Farrier expected him to say something, but he didn’t.
On the screen a sandy-haired compactly built man wearing glasses, a tweed jacket and a blue shirt with a blue knitted tie began speaking into a handheld microphone. “ ‘Walterboy’ Junius
Walters, sixties stickout point guard for the University of Kansas Jayhawks”—the screen flashed a black-and-white photo of Walters releasing a one-handed jump shot —“and his associate and friend, Aladdin Stephenson, jogged into a hail of bullets at peaceful Jamaica Pond just after sunup today, thus …”
As he continued talking, three brown ducks, one mallard and a Canada goose swam into the frame on the pond behind his left shoulder and the four trees. Quacking furiously, one of the brown ducks reared up on the water, spreading its wings and prompting the cameraman to edit the reporter out of the picture and zoom in on the fowls. “While his Bronx teenage pal Stephenson never made it to college, Aladdin too was something of a b-ball legend, making
his
name in the slam-dunk world of New York playground hoops.”
Stoat opened the beers and put one of them on the pass-through counter. “Guys who got shot—they any concern of ours?” He opened a cabinet to his right and brought out two pilsner glasses, setting one next to the beer on the pass-through.
The cameraman remembered his mission and the reporter’s face was on the screen again. “ … Ron Gollobin, for the New England Cable News. Back to you, Margie.”
Farrier picked up the beer with his left hand and poured it slowly into the glass. “Names never surfaced on my watch,” he said. “Which doesn’t mean if they’d’ve lived a while longer, they wouldn’t’ve. My guess’d be the reporter’s probably right—New York out-of-towners hornin’ in on the drug trade. That’s black gangbangin’ stuff, not OC, way
I
look at our bailiwick at least. Not OC
yet
anyway; may be headed that way—boundaries’re nowhere near as clear-cut’s they used to be. State Police Special Investigations Bureau—drew that assistant DA shooting back a year or so?” He shuddered. “Horror-show case that one is—Jim Dowd, the SP boys, probably had a fat file on these guys. Good,
let ’em have it. Our practice’s always been, leave ’at shit to them and DEA. Stay as far’s we can away from it.” He tasted the beer. “Or the locals.”
Stoat emerged from the kitchen, heading for the chair closest to the door. Farrier following his lead had reached the living-room area when Stoat said, “You can shut that thing off, you want. ’less you want it on.”
Farrier hesitated, then continued toward the living room. “Nah, leave it on, I guess. Case they give the scores and weather. Jeez, Sox’ve been amazing, haven’t they? Swore, I got assigned here, ‘Okay, so I’ll go to Boston. Guys give their left nut to go there, I can handle it. Eat the lobster, take up skiing? Maybe dive the
Andrea Doria.
But one thing I’m
not
gonna do’s become a Red Sox fan.’
“I was a kid, I’m a Cardinals fan. All I know ’bout Boston’s we beat ’em in sixty-seven. Orlando Cepeda, the Baby Bull. Lou Brock.
And
the greatest clutch pitcher ever—Bob Gibson, mowin’ ’em down. But this year’s Red Sox? I dunno. Bunch of castoffs, rejects, but give the bastards credit: they don’t seem to realize when they’re licked. Cheap hit, steal a base, take advantage of an error, other pitcher hangs a slider and be damn if they don’t win. Exciting club here, for change.”
Stoat collapsed heavily into the chair. He sat with the bottle of beer in his right hand and the empty glass in his left on the arms of the black leather chair, staring toward some point on the wall above the couch. Farrier went back to his initial place and sat down again, just to the right of where Stoat’s gaze seemed to be focused.
“Darren,” Farrier said, “ ’re you okay?”
Stoat clearly heard him but seemed reluctant to shift his gaze. Then he shook himself out of his deep concentration; frowning, he began to pour the beer into the glass.
“ ’re you okay?” Farrier said. “ ’Cause if you aren’t, you know,
I can always find some way, get in touch with Nick and Arthur, tell them not to come—you don’t feel right.”
Stoat, shaking his head, filled the glass. “It isn’t …” he said, filling the glass and setting the bottle on the coffee table between them. “It’s personal, really. Isn’t how I feel so much as I don’t know what’s going
on
in my life.
“Lily’s back in Memphis. Her first husband, Wally Weymuss, finally died. Last Sunday. Hardly unexpected, man his age—he’s eighty-
four.
Not that he’d been sick, either—he was at a yearling quarter-horse show somewhere outside of Fort Worth, had a heart attack and died. He’d arranged to have his lawyer call all of his ex-wives when it happened, he died. Lily was his fourth and then he had himself another one after that. And divorced her too, I guess. Number Five, I mean.
“So,” he said, morose, “she got this call, like I said, and she told me she was going back down there to Memphis. For the funeral. And I just said to her, ‘My lord, Lillian, what in
God’s
name you want to do
that
for? You and Wallace’re divorced, years and years ago. Hell, you were only married to him less’n four years, you divorced him.
We’ve
been married almost
nine
years, and you’re single three or four years before we even
met.
Must be close to eighteen years, maybe nineteen, since the last time you’ve seen him; what the
hell
makes you think now you have to go his funeral?’ ”
He shook his head again, his eyebrows high and eyes wide, and he drank some of his beer. He softened his voice and exaggerated a drawl. “ ‘Well, but he was my husband, Darren. For a while he was my
husband
and I was his wedded
wife.
We were one flesh, like in the Bible, an’ the
Bible
tells us that when two people cleave
together
, a man and a woman, that they then become as one flesh—and that is what, the eyes of God, no man can put asunder, and I guess the Bible’s right.
“ ‘I just feel like I belong there, ought to be there. Wallace was
my
husband
, and we
cared
for each other; and that even though he
did
make me so crazy we did have to get divorced, and it was quite a while ago, in some ways he’s always remained a
part
of me,
inside
me, in that respect, and now he’s dead, I just feel like I should go. And be there. It’s the proper thing to do.
“ ‘And all Wallace’s other wives—Rosalie, you recall she was his first, his wife, she came first, she went and had this conference call set up the other day when she first heard the sad news down there, that Wallace had passed away, so we all could talk. And take counsel with one another. And we talked and, well, the more we shared our feelin’s with each other, the more we saw that way down deep we all felt the same. Wallace finally left this world? We were all part of his life, and we should be there to see him off and say farewell. To Wallace. They all feel the same as I do, and they’re going to be there too. All of us, one pew of all of Wallace’s wives together, to say good-bye to him.’ ”
He paused and studied Farrier. “Now does that sound right to you, Jack?” he said, his face and voice both mournful. “Does that make any sense to you, that stuff she said to me?” He drank some beer.
F
ARRIER
LATER
AT
HIS
OWN
HOME
that night, before he had fully sorted out the meaning of McKeach’s call and Cistaro’s late arrival at Stoat’s by himself, was struck again by the intensity of Stoat’s gaze. “Never
saw
him like that before,” he said to Cheri. “Didn’t know he had it in him, this total
focus
that he had, like he’s counting my pores or something and this is the most important thing, most
vital
and, well,
significant
, thing, maybe, he’s ever done in his whole life. Seeing how I’m now going to react to this information he just gave me. And he says to me, the voice of doom—‘Do you think that’s right? Tell me, do you think what she said’s right?’
“Thing of it is,” Farrier said, “well, I know he’s testing me, but I don’t know what passing is. What it is I’m s’posed to do. One part of me thinks what he just told me’s true, and he really is just as devastated as he certainly looks to be, but he thinks maybe I’m laughing at him. Maybe I think he’s a fool. In which case his life is probably over, but if there’s even a little bit of it left he’s going to use it to destroy me, revenge for my destroying him. Don’t ask me how I got this power over him, if I did, but apparently I did, and now how I use it’s truly life-and-death to him.
“And at the same time the other part of me is saying he’s making all this up, that Lily’s at one of her suburban ladies’ stock-and-bond seances, doping out the markets, and she’ll be home by eleven. And if I’m not sharp enough to see how ridiculous this all is, the idea that she’d actually fly back to Memphis for the funeral of this old goat she and at least four other women married for his money, so they can now all cry together ’cause they now think they should’ve gotten more; if I
don’t
laugh my ass off, then he’ll know that either
I’m
a perfect asshole, or else that I’m convinced that
he
is—and the
very
first thing that he’s going do tomorrow, when he gets back to his office, is get in touch with SOG and torpedo my career.
“So now, how do I call it? Because one way or the other I have got to make a choice here, I’m juggling live grenades—drop it, make the wrong choice and I’m going to be paying for it the rest of my life.
“And I am literally saved by the bell. So I think, for a while, anyway.”
T
HE
YELLOW
PHONE
MOUNTED
on the wall next to the refrigerator rang in the kitchen. “
Unnnh
,” Stoat said, exhaling heavily and leaning forward to put his glass on the coffee table. “This’s probably Lily.” He heaved himself up out of the chair and started
toward the kitchen. “She’s been down there four nights now and called me every one of them. ‘Just to see how you’re doing, don’t want you to get too lonesome.’ Making sure I’m at home, not off somewhere
enjoying
myself, even though I told her last night not to call because I’d have you and the lads here so I wouldn’t really be able, talk.” In the kitchen he grabbed the phone off the mount and said shortly, “Stoat.” Then he said “yeah,” and then “sure,” and put the phone down on the counter.
“For you, Jack,” he said to Farrier, coming back into the living area, saying as he stood up with an inquiring look on his face, “Didn’t give me a name. Think it may be Nick—never heard him before on the phone.”
Farrier took the phone cautiously. “Yeah?” he said.
“Jackie,” Cistaro said, “is Arthur there?”
“No,” Farrier said, “of course he isn’t here. You guys always come together.”
“That’s why I’m calling, from the lobby, my apartment.” Cistaro said. “Didn’t pick me up yet. See him this after, over the Spa. Rico’s droppin’ me off, get my car there—he’s gotta do somethin’ with Max. Arthur says he’s gonna do a few things, then go home. Grab a nap if he can. Said he’s up fairly early today, couldn’t sleep for some reason. And I know he’s lookin’ forward this evenin’ with you guys. Says, ‘I
can’t
fall asleep over dinner.’ But it’s now after seven; he still isn’t here. Called where he’s been living—him an’ Dorothy—didn’t get no answer there. Thought maybe he went directly there.”
“If he did he’s not here yet,” Farrier said. “I haven’t heard from him either. You know how he gets—somethin’ happen to spook him, he’s halfway to Canada now?”
“Come
on
, Jack,” Cistaro said, “don’t kid around about that stuff. That’s your department, knowin’ if anything’s happened to spook us. You’re the one’s s’posed to be Paul Revere, make the
call, let us know if we oughta take off. You didn’t do that. So then, why would he split? You ain’t heard of nothin’ goin’ down?”
“Not a whisper,” Farrier said. “And since anything federal’d clear through me first, and the staties’re supposed coordinate with us when they got a party planned, if there
was
something I definitely would’ve heard. Look, there’s nothing, all right? Either he’s havin’ car trouble and he isn’t near a payphone or else one of you got screwed up. Calm yourself down. Get in your Beemer and come over here; we’ll have a drink, wait for him. He goes to your place? He’ll find out you’re not there. He’ll stop, make a call, find out that you’re here;
he’ll
come here and then we’ll all eat.”
“Okay,” Cistaro said, “I will do that. But I will tell you, I’m worried. This isn’t like Arthur at all.”
“W
HICH
IT
WASN
’
T
,” F
ARRIER
SAID
to Cheri. “But tell you the truth, when I hung up the phone I wasn’t really too worried. Well, I was
concerned
, I was
very
concerned, but not about Nick and McKeach—I was concerned about me and my boss. What’m I gonna say to him, his crazy wife’s antics? How the hell do I know what they mean?
“But then I decide, ‘Hey, maybe now, thanks to the Frogman, I could be off the immediate hook—I can play for a little
time
here. First see try to find out he
wants
me to say’—see, I’m havin’ in mind what you said—‘and then when I do find out, well then,
say
it.’ ”
“Y
OU
WERE
RIGHT
,” F
ARRIER
SAID
to Stoat, hanging up the phone, “that was Nick. He doesn’t know where McKeach is.” He started toward the living room.