26
THE MONEY was stuffed in a coffee can on a shelf in the closet. Bobby counted it at the kitchen table—just shy of twenty-two K. He could get his hands on more, but it would do for now. Bobby took out a couple hundred, wrapped the rest in newspaper, and packed it in a suitcase along with three days’ worth of clothes. He hadn’t figured on disappearing until tomorrow. Still, there was a lot to do before he left. And maybe, if things broke right, he wouldn’t have to leave at all. Under some loose floorboards he found a nickel-plated nine-millimeter with a black grip. He checked the clip and set the pistol on the table. Outside cars were lined up at the light, everyone doing the long shuffle up Market Street, heading home from work. Bobby took out the old picture of Paragon Park and laid it down beside the gun. The last thing was the knife. He’d wiped it clean with bleach and was about to strap it to his ankle when he heard a sound on the stairs. Bobby slid the suitcase into the closet and crept to the door for a look through the peephole. Seamus Slattery was on the other side, good eye flicking back and forth. It was the nervous patter of a man who’d pushed in his chips and called for the dice. A man who was already dead but just didn’t know it. Bobby felt the knife handle, hard and dry in the hollow of his palm. The Irishman raised his knuckles and hesitated, then rapped on the door.
27
IT WAS nearly eleven and Joey’s was wall-to-wall with drinkers. Kevin sat in his car and watched the windows—rusted red with barroom light and alive with a floor show of men and women, drinking and smoking, cussing and conspiring, flirting, fighting, and one couple, Kevin was quite certain, fucking in a shadowed corner by the ladies’ room. Laughter bellied out into the night as the door opened and four women in tight dresses, high heels, and higher hair wobbled out of the place. They gave Kevin’s car a passing glance as they helped one another across Market Street. After a stop at the ATM, they made their way into an Irish joint called Porter Belly’s. As the door swung open, Kevin caught a glimpse of a coarse, immigrant face muddied with heat and alcohol. He was standing on a stage with a mike in his hand, crooning to Marvin Gaye’s “Sexual Healing” for all he was worth. At his feet were a tight coterie of big-hipped women, swaying in perfect tempo with the singer’s beer belly, freed from its flannel shirt and having a hell of a good time hanging out half a foot over his belt. Kevin caught it all in the space of a door opening, perfectly framed and mercifully covered up again as said door swung closed. He dropped his head against the driver’s-side window and thought about his visit home. The memory left him cold and sick and hollow inside, Bridget’s words tumbling through his head like a can being kicked down an empty street.
The radio was tuned to an all-news station, every hour on the eights. The weather sucked. Boston drivers, even worse. He turned up the volume as they got to the news. Sandra Patterson was the lead. Late that afternoon the Suffolk County D.A. had gone public with an ID. DeMateo hadn’t given many details, except to say that Patterson was a state cop, she’d been murdered somewhere in the Allston-Brighton area, and a task force would be formed to handle the investigation. Kevin switched off the radio and checked his phone. No message from Lisa. He wondered if she’d attended the presser. DeMateo tried to get her on TV every chance he got. Never allowed her to speak, but always gave her a prominent spot just behind him. The D.A. was nobody’s fool. Lisa was black—but not too much so—and looked fucking amazing. On screen or off. Kevin cut his eyes across the street. A man walked past Joey’s in a buttoned-up peacoat and sheltered in the lee of the building. His face was a smudge, but Kevin thought he recognized something in the bow of his legs and the way he shifted his weight on his feet. The man reached into his pocket for a can of Copenhagen and Kevin was sure of it. He was looking at Billy Sweeney—yet another stillborn legend conceived in a place that was full of them.
Late afternoon. The world quiet and empty save for the chatter of hockey sticks, one against the other, and plumes of breath like cold, white smoke, billowing bright against an achingly blue sky. Kevin and a pack just like him were hard at work, chasing Billy Sweeney’s flickering form across Chandler’s Pond. While everyone else strained and struggled, chopping up the rough ice with their skates and hacking at each other’s shins, Billy floated through, around and above it all, turning this way and that, puck tethered to his stick on an invisible string, blades flashing and hissing as they cut smooth, fast curves across the pond. Three years older than Kevin, Billy had scored a scholarship to Catholic Memorial and centered their first line as a freshman. In his sophomore year CM won the state title and Billy was named the Globe’s player of the year. By the time he was a junior, BC and BU were drooling over him even though he barely weighed a buck-twenty. There were a dozen Sweeneys in all and no money except the change their mother found in the cushions of the couch every morning, but it didn’t matter. For Billy, everything was gonna be comped. Boy fucking wonder. Kevin was fourteen and Billy a senior at CM when he pulled up one summer night in a fire red Monte Carlo with a white kid from the Faneuil projects everyone called Shifter. They asked if Kevin wanted to go for a ride. It was hot and still and Kevin was bored as hell so he climbed in the back. Shifter was driving. He was an albino with hairless brows and lids and eyes that glowed like the sun. They had a cooler filled with ice and a dozen Rolling Rocks in the front seat. He wasn’t gonna ask, but Billy offered so Kevin popped a beer and sank into the padded seating, feeling the AC on his feet and watching the tops of the houses float past. They’d gone almost a mile before Kevin noticed the screwdriver stuck in the ignition. Billy told him it was a hotbox, but not to worry. They’d taken it from the lot of a car dealership in Allston and the owner wouldn’t report it until morning. Kevin was planning to jump out at the next light when police flashers lit up the back window of the Monte. Shifter would have run, but they were stuck in a line of traffic. When a second cruiser pulled alongside, Shifter nudged the car to the curb. Billy swore once and Shifter’s red eyes flicked to the glove compartment. Kevin felt like one of those Roman galley slaves lashed to his oar as the captain rammed into some other fucking boat and all the losers below drowned like rats. The cop ran a quick light across the interior and ordered everyone to the curb. The glovie contained a bag of weed, a gram and a half of coke, and some pills. Kevin was supposed to be headed to college someday. Billy Sweeney, the NH fucking L. But now something else was going on. They were cuffed and taken in the back of a wagon to Station Fourteen. Kevin had been in his cell less than an hour when Bobby came down the hall. Somewhere behind him, there was a whirr of gears and a short, sharp buzzing, then the door to Kevin’s cell popped open.
“Let’s get you the fuck out of here.”
There was no paperwork to fill out, no statement to sign, no court date. Just him and Bobby walking out the front door of the cop shop, Bobby’s arm slung protectively across his shoulders. At that age, Kevin didn’t know what love was, but he sure as shit knew loyalty. And he knew he could count on Bobby to have his back. A lot of guys in the neighborhood talked that kind of game, but damn few backed it up. Bobby always did.
Shifter and Billy Sweeney walked that night as well. Just because Billy Sweeney was Billy Sweeney. And Shifter was with him. Not that any great lesson was learned. Two weeks later, Billy climbed out of another hotbox in Somerville and started running toward the bright lights of the Mystic projects. A cop yelled at him to stop and fired a warning shot. The bullet came up off the pavement and caught Billy in the hip. He managed to get away, but his lottery ticket to BU, the NHL, wherever, got ripped up and tossed in the trash. From then on, he was just like the rest of them, nothing but a wannabe pond player.
Kevin watched from the front seat of his car as Billy crossed Market Street, head down, chin tucked into his chest, moving like an old man before his time with the Herald stuck in his pocket and a pronounced limp. He disappeared around a corner and Kevin got out. More forms, huddled in a pack and covered up in thick jackets, stumbled out of Joey’s as he approached. A guy in a long gray coat
knocked into him, staggered against his buddies, and kept going, leaving behind nothing save a perfunctory “asshole” for Kevin to ponder. A bouncer in a black T-shirt stood at the front door of the bar, arms crossed, impervious to the cold. He shook his head, shaved and oiled to a high sheen and gleaming under light from the street. “Fucking booze, right?”
Kevin waved it off and walked around the corner to the entrance for Bobby’s apartment. He hiked up the stairs and rapped on the door.
“It’s open.” Bobby was sitting in a chair, remote in his lap, TV tuned to some cop movie in black and white. A suitcase sat on the bed. “There’s beer in the fridge.” Bobby pointed without taking his eyes off the tube.
“No, thanks.”
“Sit down, then.”
Kevin took a seat on the edge of the bed.
“You ever watch Andy Griffith?”
“Not in a while.”
“Ever tell you Opie reminds me of you?” Bobby finally looked over. Kevin shook his head.
“There’s one episode where he kills a bird and you can see the whole world in his face. Great acting.”
“Ronnie Howard played Opie.”
Bobby clicked off the set and dropped the remote to the floor. He had a thick bandage wrapped around his left hand. “I thought I told you not to come back.”
“There’s something I didn’t tell you this morning. Something you need to see.” Kevin pulled out the pages he’d copied from the original murder file on Curtis Jordan. Bobby gave them a quick read.
“Curtis Jordan got what he deserved.”
“I know that.”
“But it still eats at you.”
“I went into Fidelis today. Asked around about Jordan.”
“And?”
Kevin touched the bruising near his temple. “The locals weren’t too happy.”
“Fucking Opie.” Bobby gave Kevin a hard-skinned smile and went back to reading. “Where did you get all this?”
“My girlfriend’s a prosecutor with the D.A.’s office. I lifted it out of her bag.”
“That’s gotta be good for the relationship.”
“They’re shaking the tree, Bobby.”
“No one gave a shit back then. Why would they care now?”
“There’s more.” Kevin took out Bobby’s business card. “You hear about that dead cop? Woman by the name of Sandra Patterson?”
“Just saw her picture on the news.”
“She worked at Habitat for Humanity. In fact, they found her dead inside one of your houses. Radnor Road.”
Bobby hooded his eyes, plucking the card from Kevin and flashing it between the tips of two fingers. “You talk to anyone else about this?”
“What do you think?”
Bobby pointed his chin at the door Kevin had just walked through. “Go downstairs and grab a beer. I’ll be down in five.”
Kevin found a corner walled off from the main crush. Just him, a bumper pool table, and three Irishmen sitting at the other end of the bar and inventing new ways to use the words fuck and cunt. A fourth old-timer wearing a beat-up Red Sox hat joined them and ordered a round of drinks. Then Bobby came in. He was wearing a long black overcoat that nearly touched the floor. Kevin watched his progress in a Powers Whiskey mirror. So did the rest of the room. The bartender threw down a coaster as Bobby pulled out a stool.
“Bud?”
“Thanks, Ray.”
The bartender returned with a longneck bottle. Bobby took a healthy pull before swinging his face closer in the smoke and light.
“Grew up here,” Kevin said. “Don’t know a soul.”
Bobby laughed.
“What’s so funny?”
“Tommy.” The beat-up Sox hat surfaced from the end of the bar like a cartoon prairie dog popping out of its hole.
“Come here.” Bobby pushed out a stool with his boot. The old-timer took a seat. Up close his skin looked sallow and was covered with rough splotches of brown, two or three of which were growing hair. One eye wandered, with a black pupil that was as big and round as a nickel. The other shivered in its socket, bouncing from Bobby to Kevin, wondering what they wanted and why.
“Tommy, you recognize my friend?”
The eye stopped bouncing and tightened in on Kevin.
“This is your old shortstop, Kevin Pearce. Kevin, your second baseman, Tommy Doucette.”
Doucette’s face split into a grin, revealing tiny teeth peppered with bubbles of brown saliva in the cracks and crevices. “Kevin fucking Pearce. I thought you were dead.”
Bobby tapped Doucette lightly on the arm. “He writes for the Globe now.”
“Sports?”
“I’m an investigative reporter.”
“No kidding.” Doucette circled his finger once in the air. “Ray, give us a round.”
“My treat, Tommy.” Bobby nodded for the bartender to set up Doucette’s buddies. Ray obliged, pouring a fresh rum and Coke for Doucette and placing three overturned shot glasses in front of his companions. They lifted their drinks Bobby’s way and went back to cursing.
“Kevin, what happened to you?” Doucette said, as if his own life was anything but a walking, talking, fucking train wreck.
“Family stuff,” Kevin said.
“You just disappeared.”
“I know.”
“We would have won the city that year. I swear it . . .” Doucette’s voice trailed off, his good eye contemplating the past floating belly-up in his glass.
“I’m sorry, Tommy. It was just a thing.”
Doucette waved him off. “Fuck it. We were kids.”
“Kevin just won a Pulitzer,” Bobby said, measuring the old teammates, one against the other.
“Oh, yeah?” Whatever joy there might have been in Tommy Doucette had been drawn out long ago, leaving behind nothing but a rattling, rasping emptiness. “Congratulations.” He toasted Kevin and polished off his drink in two swallows. “I better get back. Bobby?”
“Next Tuesday, Tommy.”
Doucette scrambled to his feet. Bobby gripped his arm and put him back on the stool. “What you owe plus another point.”
Doucette nodded. Bobby let him go and watched as he scurried back to his pals. “The old double-play combination.”
“What happened to him?” Kevin said.
“Guy’s a fucking wreck. Did five years in Walpole for boosting cars. Word is they passed him around pretty good.”
Kevin recalled a blazingly hot July afternoon—Tommy Doucette getting beat like a bitch by some kid from Rogers Park. The other kid was bigger, sure, but Tommy didn’t even try to fight. Just covered up on the melting blacktop and let the kid put it on blast until he’d punched himself out. Doucette was thirteen at the time and there was nothing he could have done, short of killing someone, to get back what he’d given away that day. So he became what he’d become—fresh meat in someone else’s food chain.
“How much does he owe you?” Kevin said.
Bobby shook his head. “Doesn’t matter. Tommy ain’t going nowhere.”
Kevin felt the sleeping dogs of childhood, awake again and growling in his gut. “I saw Billy Sweeney tonight.”
“Oh, yeah. You say hello?”
“He probably wouldn’t even know who I was.”
Bobby didn’t respond.
“What’s he doing now?”
“Used to work for the T. Now he collects disability and drinks down the Stockyard. Gets pissed on drafties and starts telling everyone how fucking great he could have been. Why?”
“No reason. Who else is around?”
“Most of ’em are gone. Your first baseman . . .”
“Brian Tarpey?”
“Polished off the better part of a quart of vodka driving home from New York. Killed himself and a couple of high school kids on the Pike.” Bobby began to count off the dead on his fingers. “Joey Nagle, found in his car behind the Corrib. Blew his heart out with a speedball. Sully died of fucking hepatitis, if you can believe that.”
/> “Jimmy Fitz?”
“Liver went three years ago. They waked him in the Grill. Laid the body out on the bar and everything. Cops said it violated the health laws or something, but they wound up letting it go.”
“How about the Coreys?”
“Paulie’s a punk. David ate a bullet in the bathroom of a YMCA in Mattapan. You met Finn at the park.”
“Yeah, I met Finn. Told me he sells T-shirts for a living.”
“His best seller last year had STEINBRENNER SUCKS on the front and JETER SWALLOWS on the back.”
“I saw that one outside the Cask.”
“Probably Finn. You ever get down to Champney?”
“Bridget scares me.”
“She should. Your sister likes to collect information. Then she collects people. Keeps them on a little string in her pocket. It’s all petty stuff, but she’s mean as hell about it.”
“Have you seen Colleen?”
“Not lately, why?”
“Nothing.”
“Hey, look at me.” Bobby’s presence muscled its way into the conversation, his voice low and punishing. “It’s that fucking husband, isn’t it?”
“How did you know?”
“Shitbag drinks in here every now and then. Tries to bang anything that moves. I wanted to tell Coll, but you know . . .” Bobby shrugged off the thought of getting involved. Someone shoved quarters into the bumper pool table. The balls rolled smoothly under the table along wooden rails and clicked against each other as they came to a halt. Bobby ordered a couple shots of Jack. Strains of Van Morrison’s “Wonderful Remark” lifted and floated in from the other room.
“Great fucking song,” Bobby said.
“Yeah.”
“Any idea what it means?”
Kevin shook his head.
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