Rogue Island (20 page)

“This could be our break,” he said. “You may have seen our guy's face.”

Four hours later, I shut the last mug book, unable to find a match. I spent another hour with a sketch artist who'd found her art school on the back of a matchbook. Based on her portrait, we were looking for Homer Simpson.

When I got home, the apartment still reeked of gasoline. Black fingerprint dust coated the stair railing, my door frame, the door knob, anything the little thug might have touched.

I tried to grab some sleep, but it wasn't working, so I called McCracken to tip him off about the little thug. He promised to run the description by insurance investigators around New England.

“He told you to stop snooping around? Those were his words?”

“Uh-huh.”

“So much for your theory that he's getting his kicks from the publicity.”

“Yeah.”

“Tell me again how he kicked your ass.”

“We already went over that.”

“Yeah, but I like hearing that part.”

I hung up and fell into bed again, but I still couldn't sleep. I decided to go for a ride.

*  *  *

“I see him again, and his ass is mine,” I said. “Can't believe I let him get the best of me like that.”

“Hey, it fuckin' happens,” Zerilli said. “Asshole hits you in the nuts, it doesn't matter how big he is. My six-year-old grandson Joey—you remember little Joey? He jumped on me the other day, landed on my balls, and I dropped right to my knees.”

His left hand dropped reflexively to shield the bulge in his boxers.

“The top of his head barely reached my shoulders,” I said, “so I put him at five foot five. Dark complexion, shaved head with a couple of red scaly patches, might have been psoriasis. Shoulders like cantaloupes stuffed in his jacket. Smokes Marlboros. Sound like anyone you see around the neighborhood?”

“Nah. Sounds a little like a guy Arena used to bring down from Brockton now and then for strong-arm work, but last I heard he was doing a dime in Cedar Junction on a hijacking beef. The dumbass pistol-whips the driver, shoots the lock offa the box, and starts dreamin' about how he's gonna fence a truckload of computers. He hauls open the doors, and what do you suppose is inside? A load of folding metal chairs.”

We'd already run through our ritual—he presenting me with a new box of Cubans and asking me to swear once again never to reveal what went on in this little room overlooking the grocery aisles; I swearing, opening the box, and getting one going.

“What's the line on tomorrow's opener?”

“Sox game?”

I nodded.

“One-seventy,” he said.

“Seems a little steep.”

“With Matsuzaka pitching? Probably should be higher.”

“I'm in for a dime.”

Zerilli's was a volume business. If the Sox won, he'd collect $100 from the underdog betters and pay out $100 to the favorite betters, making nothing. If the Sox lost, he'd collect $170 from the favorite betters and pay out $150 to the underdog betters, clearing $20 per bet.

Judging by the constantly ringing phone, volume wasn't a problem.

“Been getting so much action on the Sox,” he said, “that I gotta lay off some of it on Grasso.”

46

Baseball is a game that should be played in the summertime. This seemed especially true on this early April afternoon in Boston when the game-time temperature was in the forties and the wind swirling in from the harbor smelled of salt with a hint of sewage.

We'd caught a late-morning Amtrak train at Providence Station, Rosie in a new, hooded sweatshirt with Ramirez's name and number stitched across the back, and I in an old Red Sox warm-up jacket that had belonged to my father. We talked baseball, arson, and Veronica all the way up.

“Buy her that present yet?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“I don't know. It seems like …”

“Like a step.”

“Yeah, I guess.”

“Baby, you're way past that point already.”

“I am?”

“Let me ask you a few questions, okay?”

“Sure.”

“Do you think about Veronica a lot when she's not around?”

“Uh … yeah.”

“When Annie flashed that butterfly the other night, did it take your mind off her?”

“You saw that, huh?”

“Quit stalling and answer the question.”

“No. It didn't take my mind off her.”

“If her fingers brush your arm, do you tingle?”

“Do I tingle?”

She just looked at me.

“Yeah, I guess I tingle. It's not always my arm, though.”

“Are you up in the middle of the night, just watching her sleep?”

How in the hell did she know that? “Sometimes.”

She stretched out her hand and pinched my cheek. “Aw. My little Liam is in love.”

My first instinct was to argue with her, but losing would just confuse me.

We took a cab from South Station, arriving at Fenway in time for the hour-long celebration. The Boston Pops played the theme from
Jurassic Park
as a huge 2007 world-championship banner unfurled to cover the Green Monster. Tedy Bruschi, Bobby Orr, Bill Russell, and a host of other Boston sports heroes were trotted out. David Ortiz helped ancient Johnny Pesky raise the championship pennant on the center-field flagpole. Rosie and I were both hoarse from cheering by the time Bill Buckner stepped to the mound, wiped a tear from his eye, and threw the ceremonial first pitch to Dwight Evans.

Oh, yeah. They also played a baseball game. Matsuzaka toyed with the Tigers' sluggers, Kevin Youkilis slammed three hits, Ramirez tripled, and the Sox won 5–0.

Afterward I was ready for an ice-cold Killian's, but Rosie had other ideas.

“Let's go around to the players' parking lot and wave to them when they come out.”

Ugh. Bad idea. I loved watching them play, but I wasn't into hero worship.

“Come on,” she said. “It'll be fun.”

Not as much fun as that beer. I trudged along behind her.

A manic sea of red and white pressed against the chain-link fence, going absolutely nuts every time a player came out, ignored them completely, and climbed into an obscenely expensive gas-guzzler.

“Marry me, Dustin!”

“Hey, Youk! How 'bout an autograph?”

“Josh! I wanna have your baby!”

Rosie waded into the crowed and shoved her way to the front. A couple of guys started to object, then craned their necks for a look at her and thought better of it. That's when Manny Ramirez bounded through the door like a schoolboy. He grinned and swung an imaginary bat as digital cameras clicked. Rosie let loose a shriek I'd heard only from smitten teenage girls at rock concerts.

Manny turned toward the sound and, as all men must, he noticed Rosie towering over the throng. Above the dozens of maniacs screeching his name, I clearly heard him say, “Wow.”

As he approached the fence, she stuck her fingers through it. He grinned, grabbed them, and squeezed. Chief Rosella Morelli, the hero of Mount Hope, turned to mush. Then Manny turned and walked to his restored 1966 Lincoln Continental. He looked back, marveled at Rosie again, climbed in behind the wheel, and was gone.

She stared until the taillights disappeared around a corner. Then she turned toward me.

“If you ever …

tell anyone …

about this …”

“About what?”

We followed the crowd to the Cask'n Flagon at the corner of Lansdowne Street and Brookline Avenue for beer and pizza, then wandered down the street to shoot some pool at the Boston Billiard Club. Much later, we had last call at Bill's Bar around the corner. By then, it was too late to catch the last train to Providence, so the bartender pointed us to an after-hours joint that offered a choice of Budweiser or Miller straight from the can, Jim Beam or Rebel Yell in chipped shot glasses, and a lot of backslapping from blitzed Sox fans. We caught the first morning train, a 6:10 local, and tried to sleep it off on the way home. By the time we were deposited, happy and rumpled, at Providence Station, it was 6:55
A.M
. Bedtime.

A Mr. Potato Head statue greeted us in the lobby. On its flank, someone had scrawled “Yankees Suck!” in red spray paint. I thanked Rosie again for the ticket, gave her a hug, begged her to be careful, and staggered out of the station. I walked up Atwells Avenue toward home, poured some Maalox on my screaming ulcer, and collapsed on my mattress.

It was nearly noon by the time I made it in to work. As I stepped into the city room, Lomax grabbed my arm.

“Mulligan! Hear what happened to Gloria Costa?”

47

Fifteen minutes later, I slipped into her room at Rhode Island Hospital and didn't recognize the face on the pillow. Her right eye was covered with gauze. Her nose was blue-black and hooked to the left. Her lips were split and swollen. Her right hand, encased in a cast, lay still on the crisp white sheet. Dried blood matted her blond hair. She didn't look like Sharon Stone anymore.

I reached for her left hand, then saw the IV line taped to the back of it, so I just laid my palm on her shoulder. Her left eye fluttered open, and she mumbled something that might have been my name.

I got up and removed her chart from its hook at the foot of her bed. “Severed tendon, right hand. Fractured right occipital bone. Three fractured ribs, right side. Multiple contusions to face, arms, chest, and back. Detached retina, right eye. Prognosis for regaining sight uncertain.”

I couldn't remember which eye she used to look through the viewfinder.

*  *  *

That night Veronica cooked for me again, bringing her own wok and stir-frying a fragrant mix of shrimp, ginger, and something she called “vegetables.” The rising steam misted her skin.

“How is Gloria doing?” she asked.

“She's hurting. She's not talking much. It's hard to look at her. You should go see her. I'm sure she's tired of gazing up at my face.”

There was silence as Veronica turned off the burner beneath the wok. Finally she said, “I wouldn't be so sure.”

The Sox game was a safer subject. As we ate, I blathered about it, stopping about ten minutes after her eyes glazed over. Then she told me about her weekend dining out and shopping at Providence Place with her sister.

“Miss me?” she said.

“Oh, yeah. I sure did.”

When I got around to my encounter with the little thug, she dropped her fork and stared at me. “Jesus, Mulligan! Why didn't you tell me this first?”

“ 'Cause the Sox are way more important.”

“What if he comes back?”

“I'm counting on it. Believe me, I can totally kick his ass, and I'm going to, first chance I get.”

She picked up her fork again and stabbed at a shrimp.

“You aren't two boys on the playground, Mulligan. If this is our firebug, we already know that he kills people. What if he has a gun next time?”

“I'll just take it away from him,” I said, suddenly feeling less cocksure than I sounded.

“What if he goes for this again?” she asked, her fingers brushing the front of my jeans. “With the luck you've been having lately, he might do some permanent damage next time.”

I didn't like where the conversation was going, but I liked where her hand was wandering. I was a little tired, but the parts I planned on using weren't. Once we flopped into bed, I was turned down flat. For the first time since we'd first done it, we weren't doing it.

“You need to rest,” she whispered. “And you need to stop acting like such a cowboy.”

She pulled my head to her chest, and it felt good there. She touched her lips to my forehead, lingering on a spot I swear had never been kissed before. Suddenly, sleep became a distinct possibility. Her smell was a drug, pulling me under.

“G'night,” I managed to mutter.

“Love you, baby,” she said. Or maybe I dreamed it.

48

The next day, Gloria was a little better. Not much, but a little. Well, enough to try to tell me her story. She spoke in snapshots, sometimes stopping to weep, sometimes to catch her breath. Her voice was hoarse and faint. I sat at her bedside for two mornings and two afternoons before I had the story straight.

Saturday night, after I'd let her stroll out of Hopes alone, she prowled Mount Hope in her little blue Ford Focus. Just before midnight, the rain turned hard and cold. She reached for her thermos and realized she'd forgotten to fill it before starting out. Zerilli's store was still open, so she parked in the lot beside the building and dashed inside. At the coffee stand, she recharged the thermos with a quart of Green Mountain. When she stepped back outside, the rain beat down harder. Head down, she sprinted to her car and slid the key in the lock.

She had just yanked the car door open and put her right foot inside when it happened:

The heel of a hand ramming into her back. A face-first fall onto the driver's seat, the thermos slipping from her hand, clattering on the asphalt. A man's weight slamming on top of her, stealing her breath. Rain hammering the roof, drowning her screams.

Clawing out from under him. Scrambling across the console toward the passenger-side door. Fists pounding her face. Her head shoved under the dash. Her hand wrenching off a shoe, whacking it against the side window to attract someone. Anyone. The shoe torn from her hand, bashed against her skull. A knife suddenly at her throat. A voice cutting the dark:

“Gonna fuck your ass, you nosy bitch.” Saying it again. And again. And again.

Lying motionless now, half on the floor, as he pulls the Nikon from her camera bag, then rummages in her purse. His voice again:

“Where's the money, bitch?”

Her voice: “In the wallet. Just a few dollars.”

The fists again. The knife on the seat now as he works the clasp on her Skagen wristwatch. The knife so close. Taking a chance. Grabbing the knife, pointing it at his face. A face that is no face. Covered with a blue ski mask.