22

“It’s Mulligan. I’ve got something that might interest you.”

“I’ve got something for you too. My size-twelve up your ass.”

“Second time in a week somebody said that to me.”

“Doesn’t surprise me any,” Polecki said, and slammed down the receiver.

Screw him, I thought. Then I thought about it some more. I thought about the dead twins. I thought about the two scorched corpses pulled from the rooming-house fire. I thought about the DePrisco kids who didn’t have a daddy anymore. I thought about Rosie and her crew out there risking their lives night after night. I picked up the phone and called him back.

“You really should see what I’ve got.”

“Why don’t you try Roselli? He only wears a size nine.”

“Look, I’m offering you some useful information here. You want it or not?”

“How useful?”

“Might make you a hero. Make everybody forget that ‘Dumb and Dumber’ story.”

“Everybody but me, maybe. I plan on holding a grudge.”

“Look,” I said, “I think I know who’s setting the Mount Hope fires. Thought maybe you might want his picture.”

He was quiet for a moment, then said, “Seriously?”

“Yup.”

“Okay, asshole. Come on over. I’ll hold my nose and look at what you got.”

“Not there,” I said. “Some place we won’t be recognized.”

“The McDonald’s on Fountain Street in fifteen minutes.”

“People from the paper get coffee there.”

“Central Lunch on Weybosset, then.”

“City editor’s sister runs the place.”

“Okay, Mulligan, how about this. There’s a titty bar called Good Time Charlie’s near the Sax chicken-and-ribs place on Broad.”

“Just up from the YMCA?”

“Yeah. Got any pervert friends that hang out there?”

“I think that’ll work,” I said, and hung up.

I swung Secretariat around the newspaper building, crossed over the interstate to the Italian tenement district, bounced four blocks south on what passes for roads in Rhode Island, and parked on Broad at the edge of the hood, where sixteen-year-old daytime hookers in hot pants competed for sidewalk space with used condoms and smashed forty-ounce Colt 45 empties.

The joint was dark except for a small floodlit stage where a skinny black girl writhed like a freshly killed snake. The small afternoon crowd sat up close, glassy-eyed and clutching sweating cans of beer. Polecki was already there, squeezed into a dark booth in back. I slid in across from him. A waitress, snapped into a body stocking so transparent I could almost see behind her, materialized to take our orders.

“Hey, Mulligan!” she said. “What’s shakin’?”

Polecki looked at me and made a face.

I’d been wondering what had happened to Marie after she quit waiting tables at Hopes. I also used to wonder what she looked like naked. Two mysteries solved already, and it was only two thirty.

We sat silently until Marie returned with my club soda and Polecki’s can of Narragansett, a local favorite named in honor of a Rhode Island Indian tribe butchered by our God-fearing colonial ancestors. Marie gave me fifteen back from my twenty and hooked a finger in the red garter on her right thigh. I slid in a dollar, and she winked and went away.

“So,” Polecki said. “Which one am I supposed to be?”

“Huh?”

“Am I Dumb or Dumber?”

“Does it matter?”

“Might be the difference between one broken arm or two.”

I stared at him over the top of my glass for a long moment.

“Look,” I said. “You’re never going to invite me to share a box of Kentucky Fried, and I’m never going to invite you to share a box at Fenway Park. But people in the old neighborhood are getting burned to death, and I’m betting that bothers you as much as it does me.”

“More,” he said.

“So I’m going to show you some photographs,” I said. “And then you’re going to give them back to me, and we’re going to talk about what to do next.”

“Okay.”

I pulled a manila envelope out of my jacket, drew out the crowd pictures with Mr. Rapture’s face circled in red, and fanned them across the table. He picked them up one at a time and studied them in the dim blue bar light. When he was done, I gathered them up, slid them back in the envelope, and stuck it back inside my jacket.

“So, who is he?” he said.

“Don’t know. Been calling him Mr. Rapture.”

“Because of that look,” he said.

“Yeah, because of that look.”

“Anything else make you think this is our guy?”

“Found him walking on Doyle last night. When I tried to talk to him, he ran.”

“Couldn’t catch him, big lanky guy like you?”

“Nearly did, but I slipped and fell.”

“That how you got that nose?”

“Yeah.”

“Broken?”

“No.”

“Too bad.”

He flagged Marie down, and we sat quietly as she fetched him another beer. Who says cops can’t drink on the job?

“Well,” he said, “what you got isn’t much. Doesn’t prove a damn thing. But it is a lead, and we don’t have many. What do I have to do to get my hands on those pictures?”

I pulled the envelope back out of my jacket, slid out the best picture of Mr. Rapture, and laid it on the table between us. I kept my hand on it and looked at him hard.

“I’m going to give you just this one,” I said, “but there is a condition.”

“I’m listening.”

“You didn’t get it from me, and we never had this conversation.”

“Figured it was something like that.”

“Deal?”

“Deal.”

Polecki drained his beer, picked up the picture, and hauled himself to his feet.

“Hold on a minute. You don’t have many? Is that what you said?”

“Huh?”

“Leads, Polecki. You said you don’t have many. That means you must have some, right?”

He sat back down and said, “Why should I tell you?”

“I gave you something. Your turn to give me something.”

“This ain’t Let’s Make a Deal, asshole.”

“Look at it this way. If Mr. Rapture turns out to be the guy, I just cracked the case for you. But until we know, I’m going to keep digging, and some of the people who talk to me aren’t ever gonna talk to you.”

He stared hard at me for a minute.

“If you learn something you’ll call me?”

“Called you today, didn’t I?”

He sat silently for a moment, fiddling with the gold wedding band he still wore. Maybe because he still loved her. Maybe because the extra pounds he’d packed on made it impossible to get it off.

“Off the record?” he said.

“Absolutely.”

“ ’Cause I don’t wanna be reading this in the fuckin’ paper.”

“You won’t be.”

“Okay, Mulligan. We’re lookin’ at a retired fireman, an old fart who has nothing better to do than hang around the Mount Hope Firehouse every afternoon and get in everybody’s way. Likes to show up at fires and hand out coffee to the crew.”

Oh, shit. That sounded like Jack.

“Anything solid makes you thing it’s him?”

“Nothing yet, but his alibi sucks. Claims he’s home alone every night watching cop shows and FOXNews. ’Stead of being helpful and answering our questions, he got all indignant when we braced him. Roselli’s got a hunch this is our guy. Me, I’m not so sure. But he does seem the type.”

“How’s that?”

“Lives alone. Something of a loser. Spent thirty years in the department and never got a promotion. And somebody who used to put out fires would know how to set them.”

“You think an ex-fireman would do this?”

“You got any idea how many arsonists turn out to be firemen or former firemen?

“How many?”

“I don’t know, but it’s a lot. Some of ’em do it because they get to be heroes when they put the fires out. Some do it because they love fighting fires with their buddies. Some of them are probably just fuckin’ nuts.”

“So what’s this guy’s name?”

“Uh-uh. You’re not getting that from me. With what I gave you, you can figure it out for yourself.”

Polecki hauled himself to his feet again, Marie calling “Come back and see us” as he headed out. I sat alone for a few minutes, then walked to the door, pushed it open, and studied the street.

It wasn’t being seen coming out of Good Time Charlie’s that worried me; it was being seen with Polecki. By giving him the picture of Mr. Rapture, I’d strayed way over the line. Reporters don’t feed info to cops. Some of us go to jail for contempt rather than answer subpoenas. We have to be loners to do our jobs right. Guys like Zerilli would never talk to us if we smelled like rats.

I’d given Polecki more than a photo. I’d handed the better half of Dumb and Dumber something he could hold over me if he had enough functioning brain cells to recognize it. If he ever told Lomax what I’d done, I’d have to find myself a tin cup and stock up on pencils. But I’d rather be unemployable than have another innocent victim on my conscience.