27

A light snow was falling as we stepped out onto Fountain Street.

“So where are we going?” Mason said.

“You’ll know when we get there.”

“Okay if I drive?”

“Sure.”

He led us a few yards down the street, pulled a remote from his pocket, and snicked open the lock to an opalescent silver-blue 1967 Jaguar E-Series coupe parked at a meter.

“Like this car?” I said.

“Sure do.”

“Then we better take mine.”

As we settled into the Bronco, he eyed the wires snaking from the slot where the CD player used to be.

“Leave the Jag in Newport,” I said. “Get yourself a used Chevy or Ford to drive on the job. And if you ever have to park the Jag in Providence again, put it in a parking garage, lock it, remove the wheels, and take them with you.”

“Got it, Mister Mulligan.”

“And drop the ‘Mister.’ ”

“I don’t know your first name. Just your byline, ‘L. S. A. Mulligan.’ ”

“Tell you what,” I said. “You call me Mulligan, and I’ll call you Thanks-Dad.”

“I prefer Edward.”

The drive to Zerilli’s Market took us past two burned-out buildings. Crews from Dio Construction were busy knocking them down and loading the debris into dump trucks. I backed into a parking space right in front of the market and told the kid to stay in the car.

“How come?” he said.

“Remember that ‘lesson’ about confidential sources? That’s why.”

*  *  *

“Back already?” Zerilli said. “Jesus! How many Cubans can one scribbler smoke?”

“Only burned four sticks from the last box, Whoosh. Just wanted to drop by, see how you’re doing.”

“The Colibri working okay?”

“Hotter than Ramirez on a hitting streak, reliable as Lowell’s glove at the hot corner. Which reminds me. What odds you giving on them going all the way again?”

“This week, nine to two. Gonna throw money away on ’em, oughta do it now. Word is Colón’s shoulder may be okay. I hear his fastball’s hitting ninety-five on the radar gun. If he’s healthy, the odds will fall to four to one. Sucker bet either way, cause no way they’re gonna repeat. Only two teams have done that in the last thirty years.”

He tapped the ash from his Lucky and scratched his balls through his white boxers.

“Put me down for a Franklin,” I said.

He threw me a disgusted look, pulled the nub of a pencil from behind his ear, and made a note, then rubbed a bruise on his right wrist.

“From the handcuffs?” I asked.

“Yeah. Put ’em on tight as a bastard, the fuckin’ pricks.”

“How long did they hold you?”

“Overnight. Spent half of it on a metal chair that hurt my back somethin’ wicked, getting threatened by two detectives and a snot-nosed junior prosecutor who kept sayin’ he’d throw the book at me on the DiMaggios’ assault case ’less I rolled on Grasso. Like I’m gonna do that, the fuckin’ morons. Jesus!”

“Grasso send his lawyer over to get you out?”

“Yeah. Brady Coyle showed up about eight in the mornin’ looking like he just stepped out of a can of starch. Didn’t need ’em, it turned out.”

“How’s that?”

“Just after the sun come up they led me out of the holding cell, took me up to the chief’s office. Chief took the cuffs off himself, shook my hand, apologized all over the place. Set me down on one of his leather chairs, gave me coffee and a Danish. Then apologized some more. Kept callin’ it a misunderstanding. Hoped I wouldn’t hold it against him.”

“What the hell?” I said.

And he said, “Who’s the asshole in the hat?”

We were both looking at him now through the window over the grocery aisles, skinny guy in a fedora and a trench coat picking up a soft-porn mag, grimacing, and placing it back on the rack.

“He’s with me,” I said. “I told him to stay in the car, but he’s not used to taking orders.”

“Long as he doesn’t try comin’ up here.”

“He does that,” I said, “and I’ll shoot him myself.”

“So I was eating a Danish,” he said, picking up the story, “when those two retards, Polecki and Roselli, come waltzin’ in. Chief introduces them, real formal, like I don’t already know the pricks.”

“What did they want?”

“The four of ’em—the two retards, the snot-nosed prosecutor, and the chief—pull up chairs, sit in a half-circle around me. Show me a fuckin’ picture—young chink in a black leather jacket watching one of the fires. The one where DePrisco got burned up, I think. Terrible thing. I put a collection can on the counter for his wife and kids.”

Mason was over by the coffee stand now, pouring himself a cup of Green Mountain. He sneaked a look at Zerilli’s office window, saw me staring back at him, and quickly looked away.

“Same guy that was in one of the pictures you showed me that time,” Zerilli was saying. “Didn’t get it from you, did they?”

“Fuck, no.”

“I didn’t think so.”

Mason poured a second cup and grabbed some sugar packets and a couple of those little creamers.

“So then what?” I said.

“Chief said they want to talk to this guy real bad, and would I be willing to hand the picture out to the DiMaggios, ask them to be on the lookout.”

“Amazing,” I said.

“Yeah. One day, we’re a menace to society. Next day, we’re practically deputized.”

“Officer Zerilli,” I said.

“Fuck you, Mulligan. That ain’t funny.”

“So you turned him down?”

“Nah! No percentage in pissing them off. ’Sides, I want this asshole bad as they do. They give me this here stack of pictures,” he said, slapping a pale, bony hand on a stack of eight-by-tens lying facedown on his keyhole desk. “Gonna hand ’em out to the boys tonight.”

Mason was at the register now, paying for the coffees.

“ ’Course, they asked me to make sure the boys don’t rough him up, we happen to catch the asshole. I told ’em, Sure, I can do that. Then they told me to take their bats away. Citizen patrol was a great idea, they said, but arming them was askin’ for trouble.”

“What’d you say?”

“That I wasn’t sendin’ my boys out at night with nothin’ to carry. Up to you, I told ’em—bats or semiautomatics.”

“Good for you,” I said, and got up to leave.

“Hey. Heard your CD player got ripped off the other night.”

“Where’d you hear that?”

“Can’t say. But if you pop over to Deegan’s chop shop, he’ll put one in for you free. As a favor to me. Who knows, might be the same one you lost. I told him you might be droppin’ by.”

I walked down the stairs, put a twenty in the collection jar, strolled over to the coffee stand, and grabbed a handful of creamers. Mason was waiting by the Bronco. He handed me a coffee, and I pried off the plastic lid, poured a quarter of it out, and dumped the creamers in.

“So what was that all about?” he said.

“It was about you not doing what you were told.”

“How’s the coffee? I didn’t know how you take it.”

“Did you hear me?”

“Yes, I did. I’m sorry, Mulligan. It won’t happen again.”

“And lose the stupid hat,” I said.

“No, I don’t think so,” he said. “It’s a Mallory and I rather like it. I think it makes me look older.”

“Well, it doesn’t.”