Third Rail (12 page)

Ahead waits the toppled monument, poking from the town green like a severed finger. Its shattered top is lodged in the ground, surrounded by sugar-colored pieces of marble. On one side of what's left of the monument stand a couple of Uncle Sams, a pack of patriots in tricornered hats, a curly-haired woman in a red-white-and-blue-spangled one-piece swimsuit, and a couple dozen old men with signs that read
REBUILD OUR HERITAGE AND REMEMBER OUR HEROES
.
On the other side there's a silent group dressed in black T-shirts and yoga pants, holding a drooping banner that says
END ALL WARS—TEAR DOWN THE MONUMENT
.

Deep ruts from Hammond's last drive mark the grass. No matter which side of the latest controversy wins, the town will grade the ground, sow grass seed, and cover up the damage. Hammond's incident on the green will fade but never quite disappear, like all small-town tragedies.

His shift over, Harkness gets in his squad car to drive back to the station. His phone rings just as he's getting in. Harkness recognizes the number. “Listen, Pauley,” he says. “You got to quit calling me at work.”

There's a pause. “Check it out, Harkness.”

Harkness gets a message with a tiny photo. When he clicks on it, he sees the familiar shape of a dark gun in the foreground, a black-haired man with a bloody hole above his eye slumped in the background.

Harkness shifts in the driver's seat, his hands tightening on the steering wheel.
That can't be real,
he thinks.
That can't be my gun.

 

A Tercel a few cars ahead of the squad car races through a crosswalk and almost clips an elder bent over his walker.

Harkness reaches up to turn on the flashers and give a quick yelp from the siren. The Tercel slows. The driver looks in the rearview mirror. Then he speeds up. Harkness hits the siren full force for a second and zooms up about six inches behind the Tercel. The driver swerves left into the parking lot of the Unitarian church.

Harkness calls in the plate number, tells Debbie he's got a possible DUI. He writes the time at the top of his clipboard and gives the guy a couple of minutes to stew, per protocol.

He does his cop walk toward the Tercel, spine straight, just a hint of
sheriff
. At the driver's window, he rolls his hand and the window lowers. Inside sits a bearded man wearing a tan linen suit, a vision from the mid-1800s.

You've got to be kidding,
Harkess thinks. “Driver's license, please.”

The guy just straightens his straw hat, wide with a broad black band. A sweet alcohol breeze wafts from him. Then he pulls a twenty-first-century wallet from his coat pocket, rips open the Velcro, and hands over a business card:

 

HENRY DAVID THOREAU, WRITER AND SURVEYOR

 

Harkness keeps his cop face on. “License, please.”

Thoreau holds out a smudged Massachusetts license showing a long-haired guy in a gray hoodie.

“Thomas Lehmann?”

“That's me,” he says. “Spelled
T-H-O-M,
by the way.”

“You almost hit a pedestrian back there, Mr. Lehmann. Consumed any alcohol today?”

He gives a twitchy snarl. “Look, I've been wearing this suit all day, talking to third graders. I was way thirsty. So what if I had a fucking beer or two after work?”

Harkness nods. This guy may look like Thoreau but he acts like an asshole.

“Stay in the car.” Harkness turns to walk back toward the patrol car for the Breathalyzer. The car door creaks open and the gravel crunches.

Harkness turns just in time to catch the first punch on the side of his head. Then he's face down on the ground, ears ringing, stunned. He rolls over. Outlined by the gray sky, Thoreau raises a walking stick over his head like an ax.

Henry David
Thoreau is trying to kill me.
The thought is so absurd that Harkness almost laughs. But Thoreau's face blazes furious red and his pinched mouth sputters out
“fuck fuck fuck
,
”
spit spraying. He swings the heavy stick down with both hands.

Harkness rolls to one side and the stick slams in the gravel next to him. If he had his gun, he would draw it now. Instead, Harkness pulls his long leg back and shoves a heavy boot at Thoreau's crotch. The stick goes flying and Thoreau sprawls in the gravel.

“Shit.” Thoreau curls up in the gravel, his linen pants bunched and smudged at the knees. He turns to the side to spew beer into the gravel. When he's done, Harkness reaches down and spins him over onto his back. His boot fits snugly under Thoreau's neat, Amishy beard.

Harkness presses down hard. Thoreau's eyes brighten and his legs flail.

“What the hell is going on?”

Thoreau's shaking his head. He's got something to say. Harkness lets up on his throat a little so he can say it.

“Didn't mean to.”

“Not good enough.” Harkness shakes his head slowly. “You do not hit a police officer. You do not swing a dangerous object at his head. Doesn't matter who you think you are, you have to follow the rules just like everyone else, otherwise they're not rules.”

“Fuck you.”

“Okay, have it your way, Hank.” Harkness reaches down, grabs Thoreau's shoulders, and throws him hard against the Tercel. He hits the door with a loud gasp and slumps down to the ground.

Harkness picks up the walking stick and points it at him. “Tell me what the fuck's wrong with you. Now.”

“Do all cops talk like that?”

“I'm not all cops,” Harkness says. “I'm the cop you just tried to kill.” He reaches back and grabs a thick plastic zip tie from his belt and secures Thoreau's right wrist to the Tercel's door handle. He draws the end extra tight.

“Not like this, really,” Thoreau says, gulping for breath. “Can explain.”

“Start talking.”

“Hand me my hat?”

Harkness looks over at Thoreau's straw hat, upside down on the ground. He thinks of grinding it into the dirt. But the hat's innocent.

Or maybe not. Thoreau keeps giving it shifty glances. Harkness picks up the hat and runs his fingers around the inner band until he finds a lump. He plucks out a small amber vial and holds it up to the sky. “So what's this?”

Thoreau gives a low groan. “Nothing.”

“Oh yeah? Looks about half full of something to me. What?”

Thoreau evades. “Got a doctoral thesis due by the end of the year. And I'm teaching three classes at Tufts. Couldn't get it done.” He pauses. “Then I started taking this . . . new stuff.”

“Let me guess. Third Rail.”

Thoreau nods. “It's incredible.” He gives Harkness the awestruck look of the drug connoisseur. “Makes Adderall look like Skittles. Sets your mind on fire.”

Harkness realizes he's found an early adopter, the kind of drug user who always thinks he's ahead of the curve, not knowing he's just the latest canary in an old mine.

“Couple drops and you're off to the races,” Thoreau says.

“Or to the ER.”

“Yeah, makes you lose it sometimes. Can't figure it out.”

“Even smart drugs make people do stupid things.”

Thoreau shakes his head. “This one was really great for a while.”

“That's the problem with drugs. They wear off.” Harkness holds up the vial. “Buy this in town, did you?”

Thoreau pauses for a moment.

“Tell me. Now. Or I'll smack you back into the Transcendental era.”

“
Bought it from a twitchy guy, short, really hairy, kind of a dick. Met him at a party.”

Harkness nods. Dex's friend Mouse
.
“Here's the deal,” he says. “I'm taking you in. You'll get released when you straighten out. But if you end up doing anything else stupid, I'll find out, believe me, and I'll make sure you go to jail. And not just for a night, Hank.”

“Okay, okay, okay.” Thoreau perks up. “Hey, this isn't going to be in the blotter, is it?” Everyone in town reads the
Nagog Journal
police blotter, a long list of the week's drunk drivers, pot smokers, shoplifters, and wife beaters. It's like the town stockade.

“I'll make sure you're at the top,” Harkness says. “After all, you're famous.”

***

Captain Munro puts on his reading glasses and unfolds the piece of paper.

“Hammond's daughter actually signed this?”

“She did.”

“You sure she's got power of attorney?”

“Yes.”

The captain reads for a moment, then snaps off his reading glasses. “This is excellent, Harkness. You've saved the town a pile of money. The town manager will be off my back. The monument crisis can end, thank God.”

“There's something else,” Harkness says.

“Yes?”

“I . . .” A confession rises up in his thoughts and starts to form into four simple words.
I lost my gun.

“What is it?”

Harkness stalls, his confession caught like a fish bone. “I think there's something going on in town, something we need to look into. About drugs.”

The captain tilts his head slightly. “What kind of drugs?”

“Third Rail. It's some kind of smart drug, just starting to get popular. Our monument smasher had some in his car. And so did the guy I brought in for DUI this afternoon.”

“That's not good, not at all.” The captain sits down. “Where's this going on?”

“Old Nagog Tavern, out on Forest Road.”

“What're they doing out there—dealing?”

“Not sure yet. There may be a lab.”

The captain leans forward. “I'll get Detective Ramble on the case.”

Harkness shakes his head. “No offense, sir. But I'd like your permission to check it out myself.”

“So how dangerous is this . . . Rail Yard or whatever it's called?”

“Seems kind of unpredictable,” Harkness says. “Makes people lose it. Checked online on some gray market drug sites, did a Narco-Intel database search, been e-mailing someone who's writing a book about smart drugs. Not a lot of intel on Third Rail.”

The captain pauses. “You have two weeks to find out more. That's it.”

Harkness smiles. “Thank you, sir.”

“Report anything you find directly to me. Don't mention this to anyone else. And do not, I repeat, do not, do anything to put anyone in danger. That includes you. We'll pull in the State Police or the DEA if it gets serious.”

Harkness nods.

“Got to keep you safe,” he says. “You'll be heading back to Boston soon.”

Harkness scans Captain Munro's creased face, looking for some sign that he's lying. He sees nothing but the captain's clear blue eyes.

T
HEY'RE DRINKING WHISKEY
at McCloskey's, crowded with neon-tanned men with XXL Patriots jerseys draped over beer bellies, whiskey-botched women in velour sweatpants. The dim light does everyone small favors.

“You know that politician guy, Fitzgerald?” Thalia says. “The one you were talking about?” She's shouting over the Sox game on the flat-screen behind the bar.

“Yeah?”

“I think he used to come by Mach's. Looked like him anyway.”

“For drugs?”

“No.”

“Girls?”

Thalia shakes her head. “Liked to hang with the big boys after hours.” Thalia stirs her drink with a tiny straw made for sipping, which she's not.

“What big boys?”

Thalia shrugs. “The usual crooks. Old-style Irish mob guys, mostly.”

“Why didn't you tell me this before?”

“Wasn't sure this guy was Fitzgerald. Googled him. Still can't tell. Not exactly an original look around the Zero Room—sausage-colored and vicious.”

“Can you find out if it was Fitzgerald?”

“There's a guy I can call. Name's Jeet. Worked the back bar, where all the crazy shit happened. Liked to take pictures. Called them his insurance policy.”

“Why the hell would he do that?”

“Everyone at Mach's was working some angle.”

Harkness sees a glimmer in Thalia's eyes. “Even you?”

She gives him a steady stare. “I stole a couple big bags of frozen tiger shrimp from the downstairs freezer once.”

“Were they good?”

Thalia shrugs. “Not really.”

“Anything else you want to tell me about?”

“Cut it out, Eddy. No more interro-fucking-gations. I'm your girlfriend, 'member?” She pulls him toward her. “I'd do anything for you.” Whiskey burns on her hot breath and her voice drops. “I'd kill for you, Eddy.”

“For now, just call Jeet.”

The TV catches her eye and she points. “Game's moving really fast.”

“It's the season recap, Thalia.”

“Right. Sox lost big. Thanks to you, Eddy.” On cue, the camera zeroes in on a pinstriped Yankees fan smiling maniacally and waving a handwritten sign that says
THE CURSE IS WORSE!

Harkness feels a little worse, too.

“You know, if Pauley Fitzgerald hadn't been wearing a Sox jersey when they dropped him down onto the Pike—”

“I think I get why you majored in history, Harvard Cop,” Thalia says. “You're always . . . living in the past.” Thalia waves to the bartender to order another whiskey, then weaves toward the ladies' room.

The past points the way forward.
Red Harkness told him this once about market conditions, which he ignored for his uniquely larcenous approach to investing. But using this rare paternal insight, Harkness can predict how this night's going to end. He and Thalia will move on to Franklin's or another dump and drink until two in the morning, then head back to her loft to thrash around on the futon. Harkness will wake up in the middle of the night, sure that something's very wrong, like a bad diagnosis that slipped his mind. Then he'll remember his gun is still missing and he's not any closer to getting it back.