Rogue Island (19 page)

“I'm glad you called,” she said, climbing onto the stool next to mine. “Something I meant to tell you this morning. You remember Lucy?”

“Your sister?”

“Yeah. She's driving down from Boston this afternoon to spend the weekend with me. I won't be seeing you for a couple of days, so it's good we can grab a quiet lunch together.”

I looked around. Two loudmouthed women were having an expletive-laced discussion about the cheating ways of someone named Herb. Charlie hummed a little off-key ZZ Top to drown out my burger as it screamed for mercy. Some guy a couple of stools down was snoring like a champ. The diner wasn't exactly a romantic spot, and sitting between Veronica and Mason didn't feel much like quality time.

“You've got a sister?” Mason said.

“I do.”

“Is she as pretty as you?”

“Younger and prettier.”

“Think she'd like me?”

What was this,
High School Musical
?

Veronica tossed her mane and laughed. “She might. I'll give her your number and you can ask her yourself.”

Mason grinned, then remembered he was rumored to be a reporter. He unsnapped the Dunhill and extracted a file folder.

“Got a few minutes now to consult on that manhole covers story? I think I'm on to something, and I could use your advice on how to proceed with my investigation.”

Oh, great. Now he's an
investigative
reporter.

“Sorry, Thanks-Dad. No time today.”

“Oh. Okay,” he said, and put the file away.

He sat quietly for a moment, then said, “Mulligan?”

“Um?”

“Is this a test? Do you want to see what I am able to accomplish on my own?”

“Right. You're on to me.”

“So I should use my own judgment, then?”

“Yes, that fine instrument honed in the hallowed halls of Columbia.”

He nodded and smiled to himself.

Veronica and Mason were still picking at their sandwiches when Charlie cleared away my empty plate and dropped the check on the counter. I nudged it toward Thanks-Dad.

“Have fun, Veronica,” I said. That sounded lame, so I pecked her cheek for emphasis.

As I headed for the door, I turned around for a last look at her bare legs curled around the stool. She had her wallet out and was showing Mason a photo of her sister. He was grinning again. I turned away and stepped out into a day that smelled like rain.

I walked to the CVS in Kennedy Plaza, bought a package of Benadryl, dry-swallowed a couple, and made for the musty property-records room in the basement of city hall. The drug didn't help much. By the time I closed the last records book, my eyes itched and my nose dripped.

The triple-decker on Doyle, the single-family on Pleasant, and the duplex on Larch had all been bought by one or another of those five mystery realty companies in the last eighteen months. The garden-apartments complex on Mount Hope was a different story. It belonged to Vinnie Giordano's company, Rosabella Development, named after his sainted mother. Records showed the mobster had snapped it up at a tax sale three years ago. Just to be thorough, I looked up the house where the DeLuccas lived, confirming it had been in Joseph's family since the 1960s.

I wrote it all down, but it wasn't worth the time or the clogged sinuses. As far as I could see, it wasn't worth anything at all.

43

It was past nine when I finished up a few things in the newsroom and stepped out into a light rain. I didn't feel like spending the rest of Friday evening smelling traces of Veronica in an empty apartment, so I walked over to Hopes and claimed a stool at the bar. Annie, a moonlighting Johnson & Wales student, was behind the stick.

“The usual?”

My ulcer said yes, but the rest of me said Killian's.

“You sure?”

“Yeah.”

Somebody fed quarters to the juke and punched up Bob Dylan's “Lonesome Day Blues.” Just what I didn't need—music to fit my mood.

A cluster of firemen were laughing at the other end of the bar. I looked over and saw them shoving dollar bills at Annie. She snatched them and hiked her peasant skirt all the way up her long, long legs, giving them a good look. Then she smoothed the skirt back in place, glided back my way, saw my bottle was already empty, and brought me another.

“What was that about?”

“I got a tattoo last week,” she said, “and I made the mistake of mentioning it in here. Now everybody wants a look. At first I said No way. Then guys started offering me a dollar apiece to see it. I figured What the hell? Only way I can get some of these deadbeats to leave a tip.”

I jerked my wallet out of my jeans and slid a bill on the bar.

“Give me five dollars' worth,” I said.

She smirked and lifted her skirt, revealing a red-and-blue butterfly perched just south of heaven. I thought it might take my mind off Veronica. It didn't work.

I was finishing my third beer, and my ulcer was beginning to grumble, when Annie drifted over with another bottle. “This one's on the tall, drop-dead gorgeous brunette at the table in back,” she said. “She looks familiar. Haven't I seen her on TV?”

I looked where Annie was pointing and said, “Yeah. In the trailer for the new
Wonder Woman
movie.”

I picked up the bottle and carried it to the table where Rosie sat alone, a shot of amber liquid in her hand and four Budweiser empties lined up in front of her. She was normally a sipper. I'd never seen her drink that much. There were frown lines around her mouth that hadn't been there before.

“Didn't see you when I came in,” I said.

“I saw you. Just didn't feel like talking right away.”

“How you doing?”

“Two of my men are dead, three more are in the hospital, the ones I've got left are all fucking exhausted, and I've lost count of the number of civilians killed and injured on my watch. That's how I'm doing.”

I covered her left hand with mine and squeezed.

“It's not like any of this is your fault,” I said.

“You sure about that?” There was that glare again, the one that took me straight back to first grade.

“Are you kidding me? You're a hero, Rosie.” But the hero lowered her head and declined the honor. Her shoulders slumped, and tendrils of brown hair fell across her face. It was the first time I'd ever seen her look small.

“Know what scares me most?” she said, her voice a whisper.

“What's that?”

“Polecki and Roselli. With Dumb and Dumber on the case, we might never get out of this nightmare.” She tossed down what was left of her shot and signaled Annie for another. When it arrived, she threw it back in one motion.

“You need some time off, Rosie.”

“That's what the public-safety director said. I told him No way, but he ordered me to take a couple of days. I'm going to spend them getting drunk.” She rummaged in her purse, pulled out an envelope, and handed it to me. “Here,” she said, “you might as well have these.”

I peeked inside and found two tickets to the home opener at Fenway.

“Take your girlfriend,” she said. “I'm not going to be in the mood.”

“She doesn't like baseball. I'd rather go with you.”

“I won't be any fun.”

“That's okay. We can be miserable together.”

With that, she pushed back from the table, grabbed her bag, and stood to leave. I reached over and swiped her car keys from the table.

“That's sweet,” she said, “but I think I'll walk.”

A half hour later, I was sitting on a bar stool nursing my beer when Annie slid over with another bottle. “This one's on the blonde by the front window,” she said. “Are you that hung, or is this just your lucky day?”

“Hung,” I said. “Every day is lucky.”

I picked up the bottle and carried it to the table where Gloria sat with a can of Bud.

“All alone on a Friday night?” she asked.

“Veronica's off playing with her sister.”

“You two starting to cool off?”

“Feels more like we're heating up.”

“Oh. Too bad.”

I didn't know what to say to that, and I guess she didn't either. We sat quietly for a few minutes.

“Well,” she finally said, “I gotta be going.”

“Late date?”

She shook her head. “It's not easy finding the right guy, one who wants to spend a romantic evening driving around Mount Hope with the windows cracked, sniffing the air for the smell of smoke.”

“Jesus, Gloria. Are you still doing that?”

“Most nights. Not every night. When all hell broke loose Monday, I was at the White Horse in Newport getting groped by a broker who tried to impress me with everything he knows about hedge funds. Missed the biggest story of the year, and I didn't even have a good time.”

She drained her can, slid her chair back, and got to her feet.

“Stay, Gloria. Next round's on me.”

“Sorry. Gotta go.”

“You shouldn't be wandering around out there by yourself.”

“Come with me,” she said. “I got Buddy Guy on the CD player, you can smoke in my car, and this time I promise I
won't
kiss you.”

I almost caved. But hell, I couldn't look after everybody. The gnawing in my stomach told me I wasn't doing much of a job of looking after myself. Besides, I wasn't sure she'd keep that promise or if I'd remember to behave if she broke it.

When I shook my head no, she turned and walked out the door. I watched her walk past the window in the rain.

I slipped a Cuban out of my jacket pocket, clipped the end, and set fire to it with the Colibri. Annie brought me another Killian's, then went back behind the bar and turned the volume up on the TV so the night shift filing in from the newspaper could catch Logan Bedford's version of the news:

“Remember Sassy, the dog that either did or didn't walk all the way across the country to find its owner? Well, the tests from the Tufts veterinary school are in, and 10 News has it exclusively. Wait till you hear what they found. You'll be
shocked
!”

No, I won't,
I thought, but I carried my beer to the bar for a closer look. Bedford had a good time holding up Hardcastle's story and rubbing it in. He closed his report with two short camera shots—one of Martin Lippitt roughhousing with his dog, the other of Ralph and Gladys Fleming on their front stoop in Silver Lake, clutching each other and sobbing in the rain.

Annie wiped a tear from her cheek and brought me another beer.

“That was one of the saddest things
ever
,” she said.

“Yeah. It's right up there with ‘In lieu of flowers,' ‘Let's just be friends,' and ‘Yankees win.' ”

44

That night, I couldn't sleep. I stretched out on my bed in my undershorts, watching CNN and reading
A Pocket Guide to Accelerant Evidence Collection
at the same time. I smelled the gasoline before I heard the rustling at my apartment door.

I tiptoed barefoot to the kitchen, stepped in something wet, and peered through the peephole. All I could see was the cracked plaster wall across the hall. I flipped the dead bolt, yanked the door open, and discovered a man squatting at my threshold, spilling a gallon jug onto a dustpan angled to shoot the gasoline under the door.

He set the jug down on the floor, straightened to his full height of five foot five, and looked me up and down.

“Really?” he said. “Red Sox boxers? Isn't that taking things a bit far?”

“You outta see my condoms.”

The right corner of his mouth curled into something that could almost be mistaken for a smile. Then he reached into his jacket pocket and extracted a pack of Marlboros. He shook one out, stuck it in his face, and fired it with a disposable lighter.

I didn't say anything. The little thug's lip curled again. He probably thought I was scared speechless, but that wasn't my problem. I just couldn't find the right wisecrack. “Those things can kill you” was too obvious. “Don't you know it's Fire Prevention Week?” wasn't much of an improvement. “Hi—no offense” seemed beneath me. Unlike my threshold, each lacked a little something.

Finally I settled for “Sorry, but Timmy can't come out to play.”

The lip curl faded.

“Pretty funny for a dead guy.”

“It's only an ulcer.”

“What?”

I shrugged.

“I got a message for you, Mulligan. You've been sticking your nose into places it don't belong, and that ain't healthy. Quit your snooping. This is the only warning you're gonna get. Next time I drop the cigarette.”

“Mulligan?” I said. “You're looking for Mulligan? I threw that asshole out months ago. He smoked in the apartment, he never helped clean up after dinner, I caught him cheating on me, and he always welshed on his share of the rent.”

The little thug wasn't buying it. He was already tromping down the stairs.

I chased after him, catching up in the narrow entry hall. I grabbed him by the shoulder and spun him. My mistake. He balled his fists, faked with his left, and shot a right uppercut to my groin. He smiled as he watched me fall, then turned and strolled out the door as if he didn't have a care in the world.

45

“Okay, asshole,” Polecki said, “let's go over it again.”

I repeated the description of the little thug, from his shaved head to his Air Jordans, and recited, as close as I remembered it, every word he said.

“He said he had a message for you? Did he mean it was from him, or was he delivering it for somebody else?”

“He didn't say.”

“Tell me again how he managed to kick your ass, big guy like you.”

“We've been over it three times already.”

“Yeah, but I really like hearing that part.”

It had been well past three in the morning when I got to the police station on Washington Street. The night sergeant had listened to my story, recognized its importance, and rousted Polecki out of bed. We sat across from each other now on battered metal chairs, two empty paper coffee cups on the cigarette-scarred interrogation-room table.