All Our Yesterdays

by Robert B. Parker

  Everyone was quiet. Flaherty and Mary Alice and Fiora Gardello nodded.

  “Now a question, for this room only. What’s the priority? Stopping the killing? Or arrest and conviction?”

  “Arrest and conviction would pretty well stop it,” Fiora Gardello said.

  “Not necessarily,” Chris said. He looked at Gus.

  “Depends who you arrested and convicted,” Gus said. “You bust the shooters and it’ll roll along uninterrupted. You get Patrick and Butchie in jail and it might stop, it might not, or there might be a war of succession.”

  “The electorate cares more about peace than justice,” Flaherty said. “Get the shooting stopped.”

  “Sure thing,” Chris said.

  1994

  Voice-Over

  Grace had shifted on the couch. She had put her feet on the floor and was leaning forward, her hands folded in her lap, leaning toward me.

  “That was hard,” Grace said, “to take on that kind of a job with so much at stake—not only the public problems, but your family, us …”

  “I had to,” I said. “I was losing you.”

  “Did you think I required a public figure?”

  “No. I know you didn’t. Don’t. But I knew I had to be a different man than I had been, and here was a thing I’d have never done, before you left me. It was a way to change myself.”

  “What would you have done before we separated?”

  “Stayed home, read some books, published a paper, taken an even-handed view of everything. Stayed safe. Claimed I didn’t need anything but you.”

  Grace smiled.

  “Yeah,” she said, “that sounds about right to me.”

  “And I had to do it alone.”

  “You got to work with your father,” Grace said.

  “Yeah. But I defined alone as being without you.”

  “You got to do your father’s kind of work.”

  “Yeah.”

  “And you’ll be a man, my son?”

  “Oh, hell, Gracie, I don’t know. I did it to change myself. I did it to show you I could change myself. I did it to get you back.”

  “What I’ve never quite gotten,” Grace said, “is that part of it. You’d do anything to get me back, you defined happiness as being with me, but you wouldn’t marry me.”

  “Marriage has not been the road to success in my family.”

  “Sure, but there’s more.”

  I nodded.

  “There was the rage,” I said. “It helped keep me separate from everything. Detached, observational, unengaged. Even from you.”

  “Rage at …?”

  “Everyone I ever loved. My mother, for being what she was, my father for failing to protect me from my mother.”

  “I figured that was my job,” Grace said.

  “Yeah, and I needed you to do it. But, having learned to feel rage for everything I loved, I transferred some of it onto you. And like everything else, too close an entanglement, too full a commitment—in this case, marriage—ran the risk of kicking off that rage, of letting the genie out of the bottle.”

  “Yes,” Grace said. The word came in a soft rush, almost a hiss, almost like a sigh. “That’s it, the at-tracto-repello quality, I never could figure it out.”

  “But you felt it,” I said, “and backed away, and I experienced it as betrayal, and felt more rage. I needed to keep you. But I couldn’t marry you.”

  “And then I left,” Grace said.

  “And took up with another guy.”

  “The final betrayal,” Grace said.

  I grinned.

  “The most recent, at least. I kept working on this thing, and working on this thing—this rage thing—and finally, I had to test it. I had to take Flaherty’s job.”

  “Was it scary?”

  “More than the spoken word can tell,” I said.

  “But you did it,” Grace said.

  “Yeah. And my dad helped me.”

  Gus

  John Cassidy sat in Gus’s office at Berkeley Street. His slim hands were folded in his lap. His eyes behind the gold rims were without expression. He had a white display handkerchief folded into points in the breast pocket of his gray suit. He had unbuttoned his jacket when he sat and the butt of his gun, worn inside the waistband of his trousers, showed against the white broadcloth of his shirt.

  “I gave him Billy Callahan,” Gus said.

  “Billy’s a good man.”

  “Dumber than mud,” Gus said.

  “You wouldn’t want to fight him,” Cassidy said.

  Gus nodded.

  “I want you to work for Chris too,” Gus said.

  “How about him?”

  “He needs an investigator. He wants you.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I told him you were the right one.”

  “Me and Billy Callahan, huh?”

  “One each,” Gus said. “Brains and muscle.”

  “This voluntary?”

  “No.”

  Cassidy smiled. There was no warmth in the smile. It was simply a technical recognition of something amusing.

  “I’m proud to accept, Captain.”

  “I knew you would be,” Gus said.

  Cassidy raised his folded hands from his lap and examined them for a time, then he placed them back in his lap and looked back at Gus.

  “Can we talk a little, Captain?”

  “Yes.”

  “I see why you want Billy Callahan with your son. He’s been with you forever. And he’s good with trouble.”

  “And I trust him,” Gus said.

  Cassidy nodded.

  “We never gave each other no grief,” Cassidy said. “But we don’t really like each other.”

  “No,” Gus said. “We don’t.”

  “I got no complaint about that. People get along; people don’t. You always been square with me.”

  Gus didn’t say anything.

  “But why me?” Cassidy said. “Why do you want me to work for your son?”

  “I trust you,” Gus said.

  “To do what?”

  “To do your job,” Gus said.

  “Which is?”

  “To stop the gang killings.”

  “And you figure I’m the man for that?”

  “You’re the best cop in the department,” Gus said.

  Cassidy sat still while he thought about that. He didn’t argue the point. Gus knew he thought so too. He sat with his pale fingers laced in his lap, one leg crossed over the other. Gus could imagine him like that on the other side of the confessional, in a turned-around collar, carefully deciding the appropriate penance.

  “We all know who’s doing the killings, Captain.”

  “That’s right.”

  Cassidy was silent again, looking at his hands. After a time he looked back at Gus. His eyes were mild and blank through the round gold-rimmed glasses.

  “You want me to push this, Captain?”

  “All the way,” Gus said.

  “You push something like this really hard, Captain, things come out.”

  “I know,” Gus said.

  “No secrets, Captain?”

  “None.”

  “We both know these guys are connected, Captain.”

  “That’s right.”

  “I follow it where it leads,” Cassidy said.

  “That’s right.”

  “Even if it leads right back into the department.”

  “That’s right.”

  Again Cassidy paused.

  “You’ll get what you need,” Gus said. “Commissioner’s behind this. Mayor’s behind this.”

  “Sure,” Cassidy said. “Where do I report?”

  “Chris is working out of City Hall,” Gus said. “See Mary Alice Burke in the mayor’s office. She’ll direct you.”

  “Starting today?”

  “Starting right now,” Gus said. “I’ll take care of reassigning your caseload.”

  “Yes, sir,” Cassidy said.

&nbs
p; He stood and turned toward the door, and stopped and looked back at Gus. For a moment he looked awkward. Gus had never seen him look awkward.

  “Maybe I was a little wrong about you, Captain.”

  “Maybe it doesn’t matter if you were or not,” Gus said.

  Cassidy nodded and went out. Gus sat quietly and drummed with the blunt end of a ballpoint pen on his desktop. Then he put the pen down and got up and looked out his window at Stanhope Street.

  Gus

  In the food court of a shopping mall, on the Cambridge Canal, across the bridge from Thompson Square, Butchie O’Brien sat at a pedestal table with Gus, eating a green pepper pizza and drinking coffee.

  “Kid’s doing good, huh?” Butchie said.

  “They’re going to wire you,” Gus said.

  “Phone tap?” Butchie said. “Or a bug?”

  “Both,” Gus said.

  Butchie nodded. He tipped his pizza slice so that he could bite off a corner. He bit, chewed for a while, and swallowed.

  “So”—Butchie shrugged his shoulders—“I’m careful.”

  “That’s the way to be,” Gus said.

  “Course, you never know,” Butchie said. “You could be wearing a wire.”

  “Sure could,” Gus said.

  “Maybe I should give you a pat,” Butchie said.

  “Nobody puts his hands on me,” Gus said.

  “Gus,” Butchie said, almost gently, “I want to put my hands on you, I got enough people to hold you while I do it”

  “You think I need a wire to hang you, Butchie?”

  Butchie tipped his head to concede the point. “It ain’t your style, Gus. But I’ll ask it straight. You wearing a wire?”

  “No.”

  Butchie nodded. Outside it was raining, dimpling the dark water of the canal, distorting the light that came through the wet windows.

  “Just me?” Butchie said.

  “No,” Gus said. “Patrick too. It’s about the war. They want the war over.”

  “I ain’t thrilled about them bringing your kid in on this thing. Makes me worry about you.”

  Gus shrugged.

  “This is between me and Patrick,” Butchie said. “Got nothing to do with some Harvard guy who’s read a lot of books.”

  Gus drank his coffee without comment.

  “Can you control the kid, Gus?”

  “No.”

  “If you could, would you?”

  “No.”

  “You got to pick sides, Gus, you gonna be with the kid?”

  “Yes.”

  “Family is family,” Butchie said. “But it don’t help our deal none, you know?”

  “Am I here,” Gus said, “talking to you?”

  “So far,” Butchie said.

  “Settle for that.”

  Butchie looked out the window at the rain on the canal. He nodded slowly.

  “You want some more coffee?” Butchie said. “Some pizza? Pizza’s pretty good, for selling it by the slice, huh?”

  Gus shook his head. He finished his coffee and put the empty cup down on the table and stood up.

  “I got to take sides, Butchie, I’ll let you know. I won’t blindside you.”

  “You’re a thief, Gus,” Butchie said. “But your word’s good. We’ll do what we got to.”

  Gus nodded and walked away.

  Gus

  Mary Alice sat astride him naked on the bed, her hips moving, her head thrown back, moaning softly to herself. Gus had his hands clasped behind his head on the pillow. He looked up at her, at her breasts tightened by the passionate arch of her back. He wondered if that made her choose this position. Probably not. Probably had to do with her ability to control her sensations. He smiled silently. Might have something to do with the fact that he weighed 240.

  She was intense and noisy for a brief time, her hands pressed flat against the tops of her thighs, and then she relaxed and leaned forward and lay on top of him. She pressed her face against his chest, and then she rolled off of him and lay beside him with her head on his shoulder.

  “You didn’t come,” she murmured.

  “True,” Gus said.

  “You mind?”

  “No.”

  “You don’t come a lot,” she said.

  “Un-huh.”

  “You don’t mind?”

  “No.”

  “Maybe it’s because you’re never all there.”

  “I’m there,” Gus said. “Whose dick you think you were just sitting on?”

  “Not what I mean. I mean no matter what we’re doing, you never let go completely. It’s like there’s always something else you’re thinking about too.”

  “And you were thinking about me, while you were up there squirming and squealing?” Gus said.

  “Thanks for saying it so sweetly,” Mary Alice said. “I’m into the experience, Gus—you and me. What it feels like. You’re checking what my tits look like, or watching the way the light falls on the ceiling, or thinking about who else you’ve fucked.”

  Gus was silent.

  “You got anything to say about that?” Mary Alice said.

  “You’re probably right,” Gus said.

  Mary Alice waited. Gus didn’t say anything else.

  “That’s it?” Mary Alice said.

  “Yes.”

  “And that’s the way it is?”

  “I’m sixty-one years old, Mary Alice. I am what I am.”

  “You won’t be sixty-one until fall,” Mary Alice said. “Stop talking like you’re old. Is it me?”

  “I don’t understand the question,” Gus said.

  “Is it me? Do I fail to excite you? Am I boring? Why are you only partly there always?”

  “I don’t know, Mary Alice. You get everything available.”

  She put her left hand up and patted his chest for a moment.

  “I know,” she said. “That’s the hell of it, isn’t it?”

  They were quiet for a time. The rain, driven by wind against the window, made a soft rattle.

  “You’re quiet about too much, Gus,” Mary Alice said. “You keep too much in.”

  “Like what?” Gus felt tired.

  “Like your work. Like your marriage.”

  Gus rolled out of the bed.

  “Drink?” he said.

  Mary Alice said no. He mixed a tall Scotch and soda and brought it back with him to the bedroom, and stood at the foot of the bed, looking at Mary Alice.

  “Talk some more about you and Peggy,” Mary Alice said. “Did you ever love her? Why did you marry her?”

  Gus closed his eyes and took a long pull on the drink.

  “My mother wanted me to be a priest,” he said.

  Mary Alice liked to leave a light on when she made love and the hundred-watt bulb in the ceiling fixture glared down on him. The big window behind him was black and wet with rain. His clothes were folded neatly over a chair by the bedroom door. Mary Alice’s were in a pile on the floor. His gun, in its holster, was on the bureau. Mary Alice had propped the pillows behind her and sat half upright watching him.

  “It wasn’t the religious part,” he said. “It was the celibacy.”

  Mary Alice smiled. Gus walked to the window with his drink and looked out.

  “Never saw a person hated sex so much,” Gus said.

  “Except Peggy,” Mary Alice said.

  “Yeah. Except her.”

  “What a coincidence,” Mary Alice said.

  He drank more of his Scotch, looked at the glass, drank the rest, and went to the kitchen for a refill.

  “You can bring me some wine,” Mary Alice called after him.

  He came back with the two glasses and gave one to her and went back to the window.

  “Aren’t you afraid someone will look up and see your dinky?” Mary Alice said.

  “Not from that distance,” Gus said. “I’m Irish.”

  Mary Alice laughed. Cars went past on Storrow Drive, below him. Their headlights made the wet road gleam. Beyond that
was the wide darkness of the river.

  “Her and the goddamned priests,” Gus said. “Both of them telling me how women were a deadly danger.”

  “That’s why they became priests,” Mary Alice said.

  “Yeah? I thought it was so they could diddle altar boys in the sacristy,” Gus said. “Anyway, my mother didn’t like me to date. And I never had much luck with women.”

  “Might be a connection, huh?”

  Gus turned from the window and smiled at her. His drink was empty and he went for a refill. She still had most of her wine.

  “So I’m a young guy, on the cops, and I’m single and not getting much,” Gus said when he came back. “And I get fixed up with this peppy little broad, who went to school with the nuns, and won’t wear patent leather shoes. She talks all the time so I don’t have to, she likes to drink, and she only lets me kiss her with her mouth closed.”

  “That’s it?”

  “That’s it, no French kisses, no feeling the boobs under the sweater, no hanky-panky under the skirt. Just some hugging and some cute kisses.”

  “Perfect,” Mary Alice said.

  “We were married in six months,” Gus said. He drank most of the rest of his drink. “And the rest is fucking history.”

  “Or no fucking history,” Mary Alice said.

  Gus laughed. It was a harsh sound, and Mary Alice knew it had nothing to do with amusement.

  “So here I am, Mary Alice, an old fat guy walking around bare assed getting drunk with his mistress and whining about his wife.”

  “You’re not fat, Gus. You still got a back like a stonemason.”

  “Need it to support my stomach,” Gus said.

  “And I asked you about your wife, and I like being your mistress.”

  “Think I’ll go to hell, Mary Alice?” Gus said.

  Mary Alice felt her eyes fill.

  “You probably have, Gus,” she said. “Already.”

  “I hadn’t married her, I wouldn’t have the kid,” Gus said.

  Tommy

  He went to the couch, and sat down. She came immediately and sat on his lap.

  “She glad to see Tommy?” he said.

  She nodded, her eyes wide as she looked obliquely up at him.

  “Tommy’s glad to see her too,” he said. “It’s been very hard out there for Tommy.”

  “You want some Pepsi?” she said.

  He shook his head. She giggled.