“Well,” Oakes said, “if that was all there was to it. Maybe it’s just a case of Earl ducking out on another girlfriend. Like you say, he’s done it enough before. And not just on girlfriends, either—family, friends, Earl plays no favorites. Maybe that’s all it is—he was sick of her, and he didn’t have the guts to face her. That would be typical.”
“I’ve kept trying to tell myself that,” Beale said, “ever since I hung up. And I couldn’t get it down. Couldn’t choke it down. What little I know, that I got from her, it’s got to be more than that. I know he’s gone—that part’s true. I know he left in a hurry, and a mess behind him. Like you say: typical. I know she doesn’t know where he is, and I know Waldo that took him on doesn’t know, either, if he thinks he came up here.
“What I don’t know,” Beale said, “is why he left a false trail. If he hadn’t’ve left her the note, and gone to all the trouble of giving his boss a load of shit, then I’d be worried about him. Somebody from his noisy past finally caught up with him after all these years and grabbed him, to settle an old score. But he knew he was going. And he had time enough to write the note, and time enough before that to spin his yarn at the car lot. This wasn’t some kidnapping thing. This was something Earl planned. And it was something, it was something he planned without letting her in on it. This girl is no virgin. It wouldn’t bother her if something was illegal, if it looked like she could do it without getting caught and make some money at it. Hell, that’s how she makes her living. Her job’s doing something that’s against the law, peddling her ass for money. So if Earl didn’t tell her what he was up to, and did lie to her about it, then it figures it was either something pretty dangerous, or else it wasn’t dangerous but he didn’t want to share the loot with her. But it was still illegal.”
“You sold that car, didn’t you?” Oakes said. “You sold that Mercedes. You sold it to that flashy dame from over in Manchester.”
“I had the bill of sale,” Beale said. “Earl did send me that. Kathie Derwood. Morristown, New Jersey. To Earl Beale. Notarized. And another one, also notarized, from Earl to me.”
“I farted once, in a high wind,” Oakes said. “Worth about as much. Lasted about as long.”
“Well,” Beale said, “that deal was down the line. But this call put me on tenterhooks, and I’ve been on them ever since. The suspense is what does it, you know? If Earl’s doing something, Earl will get caught. The only real questions’re when, and for what. So that call amounts to an early Christmas card from Earl: ‘Happy holidays, Don. Guess what I’m up to, and how I’m gonna screw up your Christmas.’ ”
Oakes frowned. “I hope that’s all it amounts to,” he said. “For your sake, I mean. That lady from Manchester, she’s not from here.”
“Nobody’s from here anymore,” Beale said. “They all came from some other place. For some reason I don’t know, her husband’s sick of her. She bought him the car to revive him. Revive her. It won’t work. It never works. But I owned the car, and I sold the car, and she bought the car, and she gave it to him. That’s all there is to the thing.”
“I hope so,” Oakes said. “I sure hope so.”
14
Ed Cobb was not sympathetic. He sat in the chair in front of Don Beale’s desk in the upstairs office and let his displeasure show on his face. “There is one situation where we get in trouble, you and me,” he said. “It is when we have talked about something, and we either have not agreed on what to do about it, or else we have agreed on what to do about it. And then one of us goes out and does something that the two of us didn’t agree on. Oakesie tells me you sold that car.”
“Look,” Beale said, “the car is the least of my worries. Hell, it’s none of my worries at all. The car is fine. It’s Earl that’s my trouble.”
“That car came from Earl,” Cobb said. “Earl is trouble, and what comes from Earl is trouble, and you’re telling me that you got trouble with Earl? You better hope that woman’s husband is one lucky, damned good driver. If he ever gets a parking ticket on that thing, and some rookie cop, going by the book, runs a title check on that thing, there’ll be shit flying through the air like confetti, and all of us’ll get some on our clothes.”
“Leave me alone,” Beale said. “You said it was Briggs on your mind.”
“It was,” Cobb said, “until Oakesie told me you sold the car, and you told me Earl’s on the run. Here I’ve been out on the road like a sheriff, taking my good friend’s advice, and finding as usual, like I always do, his advice is pretty damned good. And then I come back, to thank my good friend, and what do I learn’s going on? My friend’s been ignoring my good advice, and absolutely jeopardizing all the possibilities that something good’ll happen, because I followed his.”
Beale sighed. “Ed,” he said, “If it’s good news, let me have it. I could use some. Just give it to me. Don’t make me pay for it. All right?”
Cobb exhaled loudly. “Shit,” he said. “In my next life I’ll do something simple, like my mother said. Be a jewel thief or something. This business of dealing with people’s beginning to get on my nerves.
“I did what you made me think of,” he said. “The first thing I did was sound out Danisi and Shaw: what’d they think of this idea. And they loved it. They both said the same thing that you said. That Henry’s the best-known guy in the Second, better’n Wainwright himself. And I said: ‘That’s fine. Glad to hear it. But that just means people know him. Does it mean also they’ll vote for him?’ And both of them said: ‘Why the hell not? Since when did the voters vote for a guy because he’s the best qualified? They vote for the guy because they like the guy, not ’cause they think he’s the best. They like him the best? Then he is the best. And everyone likes Henry Briggs.’ ‘But,’ I say, ‘sure, but like him enough? Like him enough to beat Wainwright?’ And they say: ‘Who cares? What difference does it make? They like him a lot more’n Greenberg.’ See, I’m losing sight of my own object here. What we’ve got to do is beat Greenberg. And when they remind me of that, well, okay, I’ll go and see if they’re right.
“I went down to Occident,” Cobb said. “I went down and I saw Paul Whipple. There’re other people I’m going to see there, but Paul is the power in Occident. It’s okay to talk to the rest of the people that know things and keep up on things, but if you talk to them before you talk to Paul, then Paul will not talk to you. So I went in his IGA store there, and I had a cup of coffee with him. And I told him what it was I had on my mind, and I asked him what he might think.
“He looked at me like I had two noses. ‘For Congress?’ he says. ‘Henry Briggs?’ I said: Yes. He’s an old friend of yours, right?’ It was like you had him to dinner, and he ate it, and then you told him you just served him a casserole of his cat. ‘Well, Jesus Christ,’ he said, ‘I don’t know. Don’t know as I ever considered it.’
“ ‘You grew up with him too,’ I said, ‘just like me. You know him better’n I do. Did you ever think, when we were growing up, well, let me put it to you this way: Did you ever think, when we were growing up, that Henry’d pitch for the Red Sox?’
“ ‘No,’ he said. ‘I knew he was a good ball player, but, no, I never did.’
“ ‘And he did, didn’t he?’ I said And Paul said: ‘Yup.’ And I said: ‘All right, then why shouldn’t he run for the Congress?’
“ ‘Well,’ Whip said, ‘well, for one thing, Henry practiced the baseball. I never knew Henry to practice the politics. Never knew him to do that.’
“ ‘And if he had,’ I said, ‘you’d look at him like you look at me, an’ you’d call him a damned politician.’
“ ‘Yup,’ says Whip. ‘And you’d vote against him, for that,’ I said. ‘Wouldn’t vote for him,’ Whip said. ‘Do you think most people feel that way?’ I said. ‘Couldn’t say,’ Whip said. ‘Never know what people’re thinking.’
“ ‘Well,’ I said, ‘take a stab at it. If I could get Henry, think about this some, would you say that he had a chance?’
&
nbsp; “He got this strange look on his face. ‘Guess I would,’ ’s what he said. ‘Guess I’d have to say that. Henry’s got friends all around here. Don’t know as there’s enough, to win an election, but Henry’s got friends all around here.’
“I went over to Charlotte, saw Father Morissette. Asked him the same sort of questions. And I got the same kind of answers. Nobody ever thought about voting against Bob Wainwright. No one’s ever done it, really. Never had the chance. Now if they happened to get one, and the man was someone they liked, well, sure, they’d give it some serious thought. And many’d come down for Henry.
“I only talked to about ten people,” Cobb said, “but those ten people represent just about every kind of life we’ve got, in the Second District. And all of them deal with the public, every single day. What struck me was just what you said: everybody likes Henry. They all know who Henry is, and they all admired him. He’ll leave that Greenberg kid for dead, in the primary. He’s a natural.”
“Good,” Beale said. He rubbed his forehead. “Like I say, I was in the market for good news.”
“Yeah,” Cobb said, “but what you did could turn good news into a hurricane warning. Do you know where that car came from?”
“New Jersey,” Beale said, yawning
“If it came from New Jersey,” Cobb said, “it came from New Jersey because Battaglia sent Earl to New Jersey to get it, and there’s something wrong with it. And if that something wrong floats to the surface someday, Battaglia’s going to float op with it, and that’s where Henry’s vulnerable. The people that like Henry now will not like Henry if that wop begins to run his mouth.”
“Ahh,” Beale said. “It’ll never happen. The lady gave it to her husband. It’s his brand-new toy. Go and talk to Henry now, and put the boots to him. I’d like to see Bob Wainwright’s face, when this news gets to him.”
15
The bar and billiard room at the back of the third floor of the Wampanoag Club on Boylston Street in Boston was empty when Allen Simmons emerged from the wire cage of the elevator shortly after 7:30 in the evening. The Oriental rugs and the tapestries hanging from the oak paneling of the walls of the broad corridor and wide staircase absorbed most of the conversational noises and muted the occasional rattle of dishes and silverware from the dining room overlooking the street. He found the switch for the fluorescent lights that illuminated the stainless-steel sinks and Formica working space under the ornate oak bar; that and his own memory enabled him to locate the bottle of Campari on the back bar, and the ice maker enclosed next to the sinks. He took a bottle of club soda from the refrigerator next to that and mixed the drink with a long silver spoon. There was another panel of switches to the right of the bar entrance. He chose one at random, and a hundred-watt bulb shrouded by a green-glass circular shade threw all of its glare onto the green baize surface of the billiard table in the corner farthest from the bar. Two cue sticks and a wooden triangle lay at the far end of the table; the cue ball was against the near rail. He went over to the table and put his drink on the sill of the high window near the farthest end. He bent to retrieve the balls from the bin under the table, racking them in no particular order except for the eight ball, which he placed at the center. He hung the rack on the peg under the far end, and put one of the cues in the holder on the wall behind him.
He had broken the formation with a sharp shot that dispersed the balls, sinking both the thirteen and the two, when Sidney Roth entered the room. Simmons did not look up at his soft entrance; he chalked the tip of the cue and lined up a combination shot, intending to sink the three ball in the corner pocket by caroming the seven ball off the cue ball, dropping the three, and leaving the cue and the seven lined up for his next shot at the same pocket. Roth put his attaché case on an oak chair next to the entrance and hit the switch to his left that turned on the lights overhanging the bar. He went behind it and poured white rum into a rocks glass, adding two cubes of ice and a twist of lemon from the shot glass at the service area. He joined Simmons at the table as the seven ball kissed the three too hard and slightly off the angle he had chosen, so that it rattled against the edges of the pocket and halted on its brink; the seven rebounded from the cushion at the end and stopped amid a cluster of balls near the center of the table. The cue ball came to rest against the rail. Simmons straightened up and studied his situation. Roth set his drink on the windowsill and took a cue from the holder. Simmons stepped back from the table. Roth chalked his cue, frowning. He leaned over the surface of the table and tapped the end of the cue on the corner pocket farthest from him on the right. He drew his shot to put overspin on the cue ball and hit it sharply, so that it struck hard on the twelve ball, sending it crisply into, the pocket, and ricocheted into the cluster at the center of the table.
“Nice,” Simmons said.
“Misspent youth,” Roth said. He chalked again and tapped the side pocket to his left. He struck the cue ball softly, so that the eleven rolled slowly into the side pocket and the cue ball came to rest against the ten. He tapped the corner pocket on his left at the other end and executed another soft shot, sinking the ten and leaving the cue ball still at the center. Walking quickly to the side of the table opposite the window, he sank the fourteen in the corner opposite to the one at which Simmons had left the three, the carom sending the cue ball off the rail in perfect position to drop the nine in the side. When that clunked home, the cue ball was precisely positioned to drop the fifteen in the corner, the white ball stopping after that shot at a tough but possible angle to sink the eight ball in the far corner, or a three-rail shot into the side pocket nearest him. “What the hell,” Roth said, chalking, “faint heart, fair lady, all that kind of shit.” He tapped the far rail, the near rail, and the far rail again, and said, “Eight the side.” He hit the cue ball crisply and launched the eight hard against the far rail on precisely the path he had wanted. It moved back and forth across the cloth three times, as he had predicted, changing its angle slightly with each impact, slowing gradually until it lay poised on the lip of the side pocket. “Come on, come on,” Roth said. The eight ball dropped. He straightened up, his face disappearing into the gloom above the lamp, and looked where Simmons stood near the window in the gloom. “Now,” Roth said, “my secret’s out. Now you know what I was really doing all those cold winter nights when I should’ve been studying Real Property.”
Simmons went over to the holder on the wall and put his cue stick away. “If what I wanted was a guy who knows the Rule in Shelley’s Case,” he said, “1 would’ve called somebody else.” He returned to the window and retrieved his drink.
Roth put his cue in the holder and joined Simmons at the window. “We take a seat?” he said, nodding toward the tables and the captain’s chairs grouped around the bar.
“Might as well,” Simmons said. “You up to dinner afterwards? I told Mario I’d be coming in.”
“Good,” Roth said. “Man cannot live by airline snacks alone.”
“It’s very simple,” Simmons said when they were seated. “The facts, I mean, are simple. What to do about them—that’s where it gets complicated.”
“Start with the facts,” Roth said. “That’s where I always feel more comfortable. The law’s what you go looking for when you’ve decided what you want to do, and when you want it done. Lots and lots of law. You can almost always find some that’ll suit your purposes. Facts’re the hard part.”
“There’s no question what’s being done to me,” Simmons said. “Neither is there any question about who is doing it. Or trying to, at least. A man is trying to blackmail me. He may or may not be in cahoots with a woman I’ve been dating.”
“Screwing,” Roth said absently. “This’d be the bounteous Miss Slate. Penny wise, pound foolish—didn’t I read that somewhere?”
“Screwing,” Simmons said. “That man’s name is Earl Beale. At least that’s the one he went by when I met him, and he didn’t change it. If he was lying, he was at least consistent. And I recognized his voi
ce when he called me on the phone.”
“You met him,” Roth said. “More than once?”
“Every time she went away with me,” Simmons said. “Well, at least every time since she took up with him. Originally I met her through Nancy.”
“Whom you were also screwing,” Roth said.
“Sid,” Simmons said, “I didn’t ask you to come here and ratify my life.”
“That’s good, Allen,” Roth said. “Because I’m not doing that, and if I’d thought that’s what you wanted, I would’ve stayed in New York. Because I’m not up to it. But we are gonna call things by their right names here, Allen. You’ve been playing with the pros a long time now, ever since I’ve known you. When you’ve asked me for advice, I have given it to you. You never asked me for advice on that subject, so I never gave it. If this is that request, well, I think it’s kind of late but I’ll do the best I can. What was this Earl’s function, as near as you could tell? Did he act as her pimp or something? Is that what you’re telling me?”
“Not to my knowledge,” Simmons said. “He moved in with her after Nancy moved out. Initially, though I’ve sure changed my mind since then, I was glad when this all happened. Nancy was a very busy lady. And I was never sure exactly what their relationship was—hers and Penny’s, I mean.”
“Wouldn’t be unusual,” Roth said. “I’ve seen more’n one guy fall ass-over-teakettle with a pair of sculptured marble tits he rented out in Vegas, and turn completely oblivious to the obvious fact that she considered men work, and other women fun.”
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