31

I rode the elevator down to the lobby and ran smack into Thanks-Dad, arriving for work fashionably late in full It Happened One Night regalia.

“Where we going?” he said.

“I’m going out. You’re going to your desk.”

I brushed by him, banged through the front door, and sprinted across the street. A red newspaper delivery truck blasted its horn at me, its brakes squealing. I snatched the “Out of Order” hood off the meter, figuring it would come in handy, and climbed in behind the wheel. Before I could snap the lock on the passenger-side door, Mason popped it open and slid in.

No time to argue. Leaning on the horn, I ran the red at the foot of Fountain Street, roared past city hall, and sped across the Providence River. Mason’s manicured fingers dug into Secretariat’s armrest.

“Another fire?”

“You’ll find out when we get there.”

Three Providence police cruisers, blue lights slashing the storefront, were parked diagonal to the curb, blocking most of the street in front of Zerilli’s. Braking to a stop, I saw a uniformed patrolman slap a beefy paw on top of Mr. Rapture’s head and shove it down, bulling him into the backseat of one of the cruisers. The cops took off, sirens shrieking.

“Shit!”

I grabbed the cell, caught Veronica at her desk, and told her to find a photographer and get over to the police station, which was just a block from the paper.

“If you hurry,” I said, “you can be there in time for the perp walk.”

Mason threw me a puzzled look.

“Don’t you want the byline?”

“Fuck it. Let Veronica have it.”

I’d get a description of the arrest from Zerilli and feed it to her later, but there was no need to rush now. I pulled away from the curb, cruised north on Doyle, and pulled into a space in front of the chop shop.

“Wait in the car, Thanks-Dad.”

Mike Deegan was inside, watching a worker in paint-splattered overalls spray a new black identity on a burgundy Chrysler Sebring convertible.

“Been expecting you,” he said. “Toss me the keys, leave your ride out front, and come back in an hour.”

I collected Mason and headed back to Zerilli’s, a short, sunny walk down a cracked sidewalk. The sooty mush in the gutter was all that remained of a hard Rhode Island winter.

The brass bell over the door tinkled as I pushed it open and walked into the market with Thanks-Dad.

“Where the hell you been?” Zerilli said. “You missed the whole fuckin’ show.”

He was standing by the register, not quite looking like himself with his suit pants on. He snatched a blue Bic disposable, lit a Lucky, and returned the lighter to the display rack.

“Should we adjourn to your office, Whoosh?”

“Nah! Just spilled the whole story to the cops, so I don’t have anything to say what your lapdog can’t hear.”

“My name is Edward,” the lapdog said, extending his hand.

Zerilli ignored it.

“ ’Bout eleven o’clock this mornin’,” he said, “just as the Budweiser guy finishes stocking the cooler, I glance down from my office window, and what the fuck do I see? The chink we been lookin’ for all over the fuckin’ neighborhood waltzing into my store big as life.”

“Do something useful,” I told Mason. “Pull out your notepad and take notes.”

“Couple of the DiMaggios—Gunther Hawes and Whimpy Bennett—work just up the street at Deegan’s, so I ring ’em up, tell ’em to haul ass over here. Then I come out, see if I can stall him. Asshole pokes around the store, then heads to the counter with a Penthouse and a six-pack of Michelob. Asks the girl for a deck of Marlboros, then spies the Colibri display behind the counter, says he wants to see one. You can tell by his face he likes the feel of it in his hand—probably thinkin’ about using it to burn somethin’ down.

“Hawes and Bennett walk in carryin’ Louisville Sluggers they grabbed off the display rack out front the fuckin’ store. Asshole pays for his goods, lighter included, heads for the door, sees my boys standin’ in front of it. Asshole says Excuse me, tries to push past them. Hawes gives him a little tap, and he topples over into the Cheez Doodles rack. My boys stand over him with their bats, and he gets this scared-shitless look.

“That’s when he yells somethin’ really fuckin’ funny in his dumb-ass chink accent. He says, ‘Hep! Caw duh porice!’ ”

Mason winced and looked up from his notepad. “He wanted you to call the police?”

“So I did,” Zerilli said. “Sorry I fucked it up, Mulligan. Shoulda called you first.”

“Don’t worry about it, Officer Whoosh.”

“Fuck you. I told you before, that ain’t funny.”

“Call Veronica,” I told Thanks-Dad, “and read her your notes.”

I took a corned-beef sandwich and an ice tea from the cooler and found a seat at a little round table under the awning out front. A few minutes later, Mason sat down across from me with a bag of chips and a Coke.

“Reach Veronica?”

“I did.”

“Give her all the quotes?”

“Yeah. She asked if I had one Lomax would print, one without the words fuck, shit, or asshole in it. I told her she’s going to have to paraphrase.”

“Give her all the details?”

“Uh-huh.”

“The part about the asshole buying the lighter?”

“Uh-huh.”

“The part about the Marlboros and the Penthouse?”

“I didn’t think that was important.”

“The part about Cheez Doodles spilled all over the floor by the door?”

“Didn’t think that was important either.”

“You can’t write a good story without details, Thanks-Dad. Call her back, and this time give her all of it.”

While he was making the call, I tossed my sandwich wrapper in the barrel by the door and walked back into the store. Zerilli was bent over, scooping Cheez Doodles packages from the scuffed tile floor.

“Hey, Whoosh. How’d the asshole pay for his purchases?”

“Credit card.”

“Visa? Discover? MasterCard?”

“Sheila!” Whoosh shouted to the clerk. “What kinda plastic did the asshole use?”

“Visa.”

“Great.” I said. “Gimme the number.”

*  *  *

Secretariat was right where I left him in front of the chop shop. As we walked up, Deegan popped out of the garage and threw me the keys.

“You’re all set,” he said. “Sorry for your trouble.”

As I pulled away from the curb, I pushed the play button. The opening guitar lick of Tommy Castro’s “Mammer-Jammer,” the first cut on the CD that was in the player when it was ripped from the dash, screeched from the speakers.

Mason’s hands went to his ears. “Would you mind turning that down?”

I reached over and turned it up.

A moment later, a battle of the bands ensued as Deep Purple broke in with “Smoke on the Water.” I punched the CD player off and flipped the cell open.

“You!

fucking!

bastard!”

“Sorry, Dorcas, but I don’t have time to chat right now.”

As my favorite philosopher, Kinky Friedman, once said, “In the sky of every love affair are little tickets to hell, falling like confetti from the stars.”

I found a space in front of the welfare building just down the street from the paper and yanked the “Out of Order” hood over the head of the parking meter. I didn’t see the humor in it, but Mason thought it was hilarious. Princes never fully appreciate the survival tactics of their serfs. He was still giggling like a schoolgirl three minutes later as we stepped off the elevator into the newsroom.

I was reading a computer printout of Veronica’s unedited copy about the arrest when Lomax walked up. “Good they finally caught the bastard,” he said.

It didn’t feel right, but I just nodded.

“It’s a court story now, so from here on out it belongs to Veronica. Time to get cracking on that cadaver-dogs story.”

“Sure thing, boss.”

I decided to keep operating on the assumption he was kidding. If the Sassy/Sugar affair hadn’t soured him on doggy features, nothing ever would.

I waited till he was out of earshot before placing a call to my Aunt Ruthie in the customer-service department at Fleet Bank headquarters in Boston.

“Liam! How’s my favorite nephew?”

We chatted about how her son Conor was doing, his one-year parole on a Fenway ticket-scalping bust almost up, before I told her what I needed. I’d just hung up when Mason sauntered over.

“So,” he said. “What do we work on next?”

“Manhole covers.”

“Pardon?”

“Manhole covers.”

“What about them?”

“You’re supposed to be a reporter, Thanks-Dad. Got yourself a notepad, a trench coat, a fedora, a sheepskin from a fancy journalism school. Try to figure it out. Start with the city purchasing department. See if you can come up with something worth printing.”

“You’re giving me an assignment?” He sounded positively giddy.

“Something like that.”

“Thanks, Mulligan! I was afraid you really didn’t like me.”

Manhole covers. I almost laughed. That should keep his inbred ass out of my business for a while.