All Our Yesterdays

by Robert B. Parker

  “Centerpiece of this city, Gus,” Flaherty said.

  He was six feet two inches tall with white hair, a youthful, healthy, ruddy face, and bright blue eyes which seemed never to blink. He played competitive handball every morning before work and his clothes fitted him effortlessly.

  “Sure is, Mayor,” Gus said.

  Gus always addressed the mayor by title, even though he had known Flaherty since Gus was a detective and Flaherty a young prosecutor, newly graduated from BC Law.

  “You go there, Gus?”

  “Every time I need to buy a life-size porcelain llama,” Gus said.

  Flaherty turned and grinned at Gus.

  “Wasn’t designed for you, Gus. Or me either. Pulls a lot of people into the city.”

  Gus nodded. They weren’t enemies. But they weren’t friends either. Gus knew he hadn’t been invited in to talk about Quincy Market.

  Flaherty turned and looked back down at the market complex and the Central Artery beyond it and the waterfront on the other side of the Artery.

  “Never should have been built, that Artery. Cuts the city off from the water.”

  Flaherty stood with his hands in his hip pockets, the soft drape of his suit jacket spilling around his hands. He always said city in boldface.

  “Be glad when we get it underground,” he said.

  He turned suddenly and took his hands from his hip pockets. The suit jacket fell perfectly back into line.

  “Where’s my manners?” Flaherty said. “Sun’s set, and I haven’t offered you a drink.”

  He walked to the sideboard at the other end of the big office.

  “What’ll it be, Gus? Scotch?”

  Gus nodded.

  “Soda,” he said. “Lots of ice.”

  Flaherty made the drinks expertly. He brought one to Gus, and took his own, Scotch on the rocks in a squat thick low ball glass, around behind his desk, and sat down. He put one foot up on a half-open desk drawer and tilted back in his high-backed red leather swivel chair.

  “I been mayor, Gus, for eighteen years,” Flaherty said.

  He rolled the Scotch whiskey around over the ice cubes in his glass. Gus drank some of his Scotch and felt some of the tension leave him. The first drink of the day, tall glass, plenty of ice, and soda, with the clean bite of the whiskey edging through. There were few things that made him feel so good at so little cost.

  “Eighteen years is enough,” Flaherty said.

  “Be enough for me,” Gus said.

  Flaherty grinned and swished his whiskey around some more, watching it slide over the ice cubes.

  “Sometimes I think it was the fucking busing. We’re still fighting with it. Sometimes, Gus, I think it killed this city.”

  Gus shrugged. His drink was nearly gone. Without asking he stood and went to the sideboard and mixed another. He looked at Flaherty, who had barely touched his drink. Flaherty shook his head, and Gus came back and sat.

  “So I’m getting out,” Flaherty said. “I’m not going to go for mayor next November. I’m making a run for the Senate.”

  “Which seat?” Gus said.

  He was comfortable now. There was whiskey in his hand and more where it came from. He could sit in this comfortable chair and let Flaherty talk as long as he wanted to.

  “Walsh is retiring,” Flaherty said. “He’s going to announce next week. Ill health.”

  “What’s wrong with him?”

  “Probably got the clap,” Flaherty said. “Way he spends his free time.”

  Gus nodded. So Flaherty wouldn’t say. Didn’t matter. He didn’t really care what was wrong with Walsh. He drank some Scotch.

  “So I’m going to be the nominee.”

  “How about the primary, and the convention?” Gus said. Just to be saying something.

  Flaherty smiled.

  “I’m confident that the electorate will honor me with the nomination,” he said.

  “So it’s bagged,” Gus said.

  “Yeah.”

  Gus nodded.

  “Congratulations,” he said.

  “But the election’s not bagged. I would if I could, but I can’t. I’m going to have to win the election. What’s going on between the O’Briens and the Malloys in Charlestown?”

  “Somebody killed a head knocker named Corky O’Brien and dumped him in a boatyard in East Boston. Corky was one of Butchie O’Brien’s brothers and Butchie runs half the rackets, approximately, in Charlestown. Week or so later somebody killed Jackie Malloy, in the same way, and dumped him in the same boatyard. Jackie is Pat Malloy’s cousin. Pat Malloy runs everything in Charlestown that Butchie doesn’t. That’s what I know.”

  “And what do you think?” Flaherty said.

  “A Malloy killed an O’Brien, and the O’Briens killed a Malloy for revenge.”

  “Will it stop there?” Flaherty said.

  “I doubt it,” Gus said.

  “That’s a problem,” Flaherty said.

  Gus shrugged.

  “You know these people?” Flaherty said.

  “Yeah.”

  Gus got up and made himself a third Scotch. This time Flaherty took a refill.

  “You see my problem, Gus,” Flaherty said. “So far, no problem. Couple of small-time thugs get dumped. No loss. City’s probably a better place for it. But …” He swirled the Scotch again in his glass and took a taste.

  “If it keeps happening and if a body pops up”—Flaherty pointed with his chin—“in the Market, say … then my Republican opponent will be able to suggest that as mayor I was soft on crime.”

  Gus drank some Scotch. The piercing pleasure of it had passed. Now it was more a matter of maintenance.

  “I want you to do something about this, Gus.”

  “They don’t always do what I tell them, Mayor.”

  “I want you to be on this personally,” Flaherty said. “I want you to find a way. Nobody wants a senator that’s soft on crime.”

  “Do what I can,” Gus said.

  “Do what you must,” Flaherty said.

  Gus smiled, more to himself than anyone, and sipped his drink.

  “You know which dim-witted Wasp the Republicans are going to run against you this time?” Gus said.

  Flaherty was silent for a moment. He swirled his Scotch and drank some and put the glass back in his lap, where he held it in both hands. Then he smiled carefully.

  “Actually, I think you know him,” Flaherty said. “Cabot Winslow.”

  The good feeling went away. Gus felt suddenly very sober. He sat perfectly still, without speaking.

  “Tom Winslow’s boy. You know the family, don’t you?” Flaherty said.

  Gus nodded. He put the half-drunk Scotch and soda on the side table.

  “In fact,” Flaherty said, “doesn’t your boy go with the sister?”

  Gus nodded again.

  “Kind of,” he said.

  Flaherty smiled, and shook his head.

  “And him a fine Irish bucko,” he said. “Times change, Gus.”

  “I don’t want Chris to be a campaign issue,” Gus said. He looked steadily at Flaherty. Flaherty returned the stare. Then he shook his head.

  “Not my style, Gus.”

  Gus didn’t say anything. The ice melting in Gus’s drink made a little clink as one cube slid against another.

  “How’s a Paddy ever get involved with the Wins-lows?” Flaherty said.

  Gus shrugged. “My father knew Tom’s mother and father in Ireland,” he said.

  Flaherty sipped his drink. Gus left his where it was.

  “Cabot’ll run the usual Goo Goo campaign. ‘The Micks have corrupted the city. Trust me, I went to Harvard.’ It won’t help my cause any to have an Irish gang war banging away all over the city.”

  “So far, Mayor, you got two stiffs in a boatyard in East Boston.”

  “I don’t care where they ended up,” Flaherty said. “They’re from Charlestown. And they’re Micks. They get strung out on a point of fucking honor and i
t’ll go on until there’s no one left.”

  “It could,” Gus said.

  “And it’ll spill out,” Flaherty said. “And some yokel from Sudbury will get in the way and the talk shows will go crazy.”

  Flaherty let his chair come forward and leaned over his desk, still holding his drink in both hands.

  “I don’t want Cabot Winslow coming in and flicking up my city.”

  “You’re sure he’d fuck it up,” Gus said.

  “Of course he would. The Goo Goos deal in theories. A city is people, Gus. You know Cabot, Gus?”

  Gus nodded.

  “What do you think?”

  “He’d fuck it up,” Gus said.

  Flaherty nodded his head and kept nodding it.

  “So plug that gang war up for me, Gus.”

  “Sure,” Gus said.

  Gus

  Mary Alice said, “So you’ve been talking with Hizzoner.”

  Gus said, “You don’t miss much, do you?” and dropped his raincoat over the back of the straight chair in the foyer, the way he always did.

  “Us City Hall insiders,” Mary Alice said. “See all, know all.”

  She came over and kissed him on the mouth and leaned against him and let the kiss linger. Then she went to the sideboard and made him a drink.

  “He wanted to talk to you about the election,” Mary Alice said.

  Gus sat in his chair and put his feet up and tipped his head back against the cushions and closed his eyes.

  “How’d you know that?” he said.

  “That’s all he talks to anyone about,” Mary Alice said. “Senator Flaherty. The chance to finish out with a little class, national recognition. He wants this worse than I’ve ever seen him want anything.”

  “He wants me to prevent a gang war,” Gus said.

  “Those murders in the boatyard?”

  “Yeah.”

  Mary Alice came over and sat on the footstool beside him. She had on high heels and jeans and a man’s blue shirt, with the shirttails tied in front. Pearls showed at her throat. Her nails were manicured and done with a neutral polish. She wore no rings.

  “You think there will be a war?” she said.

  “Um-hum,” Gus said.

  He rested the cold glass against his forehead for a moment.

  “Like the Hatfields and the McCoys,” he said.

  “Anything you can do to stop it?”

  Gus shook his head.

  “These guys aren’t punks,” Gus said. “They are bad guys, and brutal, and the world would be better off without them. But they keep their word. They protect their own. They require respect. They have rules and they’re willing to do whatever it takes to keep them intact. This thing will go on until one side is gone.”

  “Gone?”

  “Nobody left.”

  “You mean dead?”

  Gus opened his eyes and smiled at her.

  “Yeah,” he said. “Dead.”

  Mary Alice hunched her shoulders as if to ward off the cold.

  “You sound like you admire them,” she said.

  “There’s things they stand for,” Gus said. “They got rules.”

  “And that makes them good?”

  Gus shrugged.

  He held his glass out and Mary Alice took it and made him another drink. She handed it to him and sat on the arm of his chair with white wine in one hand. With her free hand she massaged his neck.

  “You got any rules, Gus?” she said.

  He shrugged again.

  “You know who the Republicans are going to run against Flaherty?” Gus said.

  “Un-uh.”

  “Cabot Winslow.”

  She continued to rub his neck while she thought about this.

  “Your son’s girlfriend’s brother,” she said.

  “Yeah.”

  “Is your son serious about her?”

  “I think so,” Gus said.

  “Will they get married?”

  “Don’t know,” Gus said.

  The Scotch wasn’t doing much yet. He’d had several with Flaherty and now two with Mary Alice. But the time between had probably ruined it. He felt heavy and slow.

  “Well, shit,” Mary Alice said. “I don’t know what I think about that. It might be kind of complicated, I guess. I mean with you and Flaherty and all. On the other hand it’s got nothing much to do with you, really.”

  “I don’t like it for the kid,” Gus said. His glass was empty. He heaved himself up, leaving her sitting on the arm of the chair, and went and got the jug wine from the refrigerator and freshened her glass. Then he made himself a big drink, mostly Scotch, a splash of soda, and sat down again. She put her chin gently on top of his head.

  “I don’t see what harm would come to Chris,” she said.

  “Hard to figure,” Gus said.

  The third Scotch began to lift him a little.

  “Flaherty mentioned it to me tonight. I don’t like it. Flaherty’s a mean prick.”

  “I don’t see how Chris could get hurt, Gus. You worry about him too much.”

  “What else do I have to worry about?” Gus said.

  His eyes were closed again. Mary Alice continued to rub his neck, up where the base of the skull sits on the big neck muscles.

  “You might worry a little about yourself, now and then.”

  Gus shook his head.

  “You might,” Mary Alice said. “You’re worth worrying about.”

  “I’m worth shit,” Gus said. “Just like my old man, two generations of fucking bog-trotting Paddies, married to the wrong broad. Hired muscle, rattling doorknobs and busting heads, working for the Yankee dollar.”

  “Gus!”

  “Going nowhere, worth nothing. Married to a hysterical fucking cow. No, he’s the one. My son. Break the chain. Be something decent. Have some land. Dogs.”

  The image was there again. The hunting dogs coursing the meadow, barking excitedly, rolling over each other in play, looking back up the hill at him. And beyond them the dark river with the sun glinting off it.

  “Gus, don’t say things like that. You’re a successful man. You’re a police captain. Homicide commander. You make good money.”

  “Better than you know,” Gus said into the black void behind his closed eyes.

  Mary Alice stopped rubbing his neck. She sat upright and stared down at his face.

  “Are you on the take?” she said softly.

  He didn’t speak or move. He sat with his eyes closed and his face expressionless.

  “Are you, Gus?” she said.

  He was still. She didn’t ask again. He drank. She sipped her wine. Then she put her hand back down and began to rub his neck again.

  “You asked me if I had rules,” he said.

  She nodded.

  “The kid is my rules. He’s what I stand for. He’s all I believe in. You understand? Him only, nothing else.”

  “Not even me, Gus?” Mary Alice said. “A little bit?”

  He opened his eyes then and stared up at her.

  “I like you, Mary Alice,” he said, “and I don’t lie to you. Settle for that.”

  She took his glass and put it on the floor and slid onto his lap and kissed him. Her mouth opened. Her tongue moved insistently. He opened his mouth to hers, allowed her tongue in. His arms were around her loosely. She put hers around his neck and twisted herself against him, her back arching, her thighs sprawled openly across him. She took one of his hands and placed it between her thighs.

  “Jeans are kind of tough,” Gus said softly.

  “You could take them off,” she said with her mouth against his.

  “I may be getting a little long in the tooth for fucking in chairs too,” Gus said.

  Mary Alice giggled.

  “I’m not thinking about the length of your tooth,” she said, and stood up in a quick fluid movement. She stepped out of high heels, unzipped her jeans, and slid them down her thighs. She used one foot to step herself out of the jeans. Gus looked at her
from the chair as she thought he looked at everything. His face was nearly empty, touched only with a hint of amusement, or contempt, she never knew which, and if it was contempt, she was never sure for whom. His eyes ran slowly over her body, looked at her breasts, which were still good, she knew, and down the slope of her stomach, which had softened a little, but not too much. She put her hands on her hips and stared back at him, and for a moment there was no sound, and no movement in the room, as if the two of them were locked in this fierce tableau.

  Then he smiled and said, “You still look good, Mary Alice.”

  And he stood and put her suddenly on her back on the floor, and made love to her without removing his clothes. As always, she was noisy: moaning, and talking, wildly antic through every experienced ritual of foreplay and culmination. As always, he was silent: focused and skillful until the moment of ejaculation, when he buried his face against her neck and clung to her savagely while the spasms passed. Sometimes when he did that she thought he might be crying, but there were never tears, and when it was over his eyes were always dry.

  They lay beside each other on the floor. Her head rested on his arm. She rolled her head toward him.

  “Is it like this when you fuck Peggy, Gus?”

  He didn’t answer for a time, staring up at the smooth white ceiling. Plasterboard skim coated, he thought. You don’t see an actual plastered ceiling much anymore. Then he rolled his head over and met her eyes.

  “I don’t fuck Peggy,” he said.

  Gus

  “You don’t fuck her, Gus?”

  He was sitting at her kitchen table while she cooked some eggs. She had put her shirt back on, and buttoned it up. The tails of it hung to her thighs. He drank some Scotch. The pleasure was gone from it. He no longer felt good, but he knew he’d feel worse if he stopped. Now he just had the heavy feeling, and the hard need not to let it go.

  “No,” Gus said.

  “Never?” she said.

  Mary Alice tilted the pan and pried the edge of her omelet so that the still-runny center would cook. Gus smiled.

  “Hardly ever,” he said.

  “Jesus, Gus. That’s no marriage.”

  “What the hell do you know about marriage?” he said.

  “I had a lousy one,” Mary Alice said. She dropped some mushrooms into the center of her omelet and folded it over. “I know one when I see it.”