Wanda Emmett, wearing her Northeast uniform, took the counter seat next to Corporal Vardenais. “You say hello to your friends since you got promoted, Roge?” she said.
“Hey, Wanda,” Corporal Vardenais said, “how you hitting them?”
“Not bad,” she said. “Not good. You know.”
“You coming or going?” Vardenais said.
“I just got in,” she said. “I got the Miami run now. Out yesterday, back today.”
“Good trip?” he said.
“You know,” she said, “not much business this time of year. I kind of like it this way, but then I start thinking how it’ll be in a month or so, whole plane filled, screaming kids, women always wanting something. I get just as down thinking about it as I do when it actually happens. Funny, huh?”
“What’re you doing over here?” Vardenais said.
“I left my car here,” she said. “I was late getting here when I went out and the lot was full. So I left it here.”
“I wouldn’t think you’d drive,” Vardenais said. “Ought to be simpler to take a cab over, I should think.”
“Oh,” she said, “I don’t live over Beacon Street any more. I moved out.”
“How come?” he said.
“Well,” she said, “I got a better offer. At least I thought it was a better offer at the time. I was sick of Susie and her goddamned curlers, and then I heard about this other thing, so I moved out.”
“Where you living now?” he said.
“You aren’t gonna believe this,” she said. “Up in Orange. I live up in Orange.”
“God,” Vardenais said, “that’s way up and hell and gone. How far is that, about a three hour drive?”
“Couple hours,” she said. “I was thinking, it’d be good for skiing and all. It wasn’t a very good idea.”
“You got an apartment up there?” he said.
“Trailer,” she said. “I live in a trailer.”
“How are them things?” he said. “I was thinking, I got my tax bill last week, and I was thinking maybe I should look into one of those things. Are they all right?”
“You couldn’t do it,” she said. “You got, how many, two kids? It’d drive your wife nuts. I mean, there’s only two of us, and sometimes I’m not there, and still, it’s awful cramped and all. I don’t think you could do it. There isn’t any place to put anything, you know? And you can’t get any privacy at all. You wouldn’t like it.”
“I guess not,” Vardenais said. “Jesus, though, it just about breaks your heart when you get that tax bill. I start thinking, it’s costing me about two, three dollars a day just to live in that town.”
“Hey Roge,” Wanda said, “we’re still friends now, aren’t we?”
“Sure,” he said.
“Well,” she said, “why I ask, if I was to tell you something, as a friend and all, could you sort of keep my name out of it, you know?”
“Sure,” he said. “I could at least try, anyway.”
“Uh, uh,” she said. “Trying’s not good enough. You got to really keep my name out of it. Otherwise I’m not gonna tell you.”
“Okay,” he said, “your name’s out of it.”
Wanda opened her handbag and removed a light green bank-book. On the cover it said: “First Florida Federal Savings and Loan.”
“See this?” she said.
“Yeah,” he said.
“I just made a deposit yesterday,” she said. “Opened the account. Five hundred dollars.”
“Yeah,” he said.
Wanda opened the handbag again. She produced a packet of red, blue, tan, and green bankbooks, held together with a thick rubber band. “Same with these,” she said. “I made deposits in all of these yesterday too.”
“All Florida banks,” he said.
“All Florida,” she said. “Two weeks ago I took a comp trip, I went over to Nassau. I opened some bank accounts there, too. And I got some more bankbooks up in Orange, too.”
“How many’ve you got, all together?” Vardenais said.
“I think it’s about thirty-five, now,” she said. “About thirty-five, maybe forty.”
“How much in them,” she said.
“Well,” she said, “offh and I would say about forty-five thousand dollars. More or less, something like that.”
“That’s a lot of money for a working girl to have,” Vardenais said.
“It sure is,” she said. “And the funny thing is, it was all in cash. Nothing bigger’n fifties.”
“I think I’m in the wrong line of work,” Vardenais said. “The last time I saw a bankbook with my name on it, it said something about a mortgage. I didn’t know there was anybody who actually had money to put away for himself. I thought money was for paying for things.”
“I didn’t say my name was on any of these,” she said.
“Whose name is?” he said. “You think I’d recognize it if I was to hear it?”
“There’s more’n one name,” she said. “I don’t think you’d recognize any of them. See, I know the guy who made them up, and I don’t think any of them are really real people, you know? I think they’re all just him.”
“He must be a very wealthy guy,” Vardenais said.
“He hid it pretty well, if he was,” she said. “I sure didn’t know anything about it, if he was.”
“He have a rich uncle die and leave him some money?” Vardenais said.
“Three rich uncles,” she said, “and all of them died this month or so.”
“Isn’t that funny?” Vardenais said.
“Isn’t it,” she said. “I understand there’s another one that’s in pretty poor health, too.”
“Were they all in the banking business?” Vardenais said.
“He doesn’t tell me much about them,” she said. “The only way I know is, he gets up very early in the morning and leaves, and then he comes back in the afternoon, maybe, and he’s very excited. He’ll drink, say, eight or nine scotches and he’s very interested in the papers that day, and watching television. Around suppertime he’s always got a headache, so he can’t drive, and I have to go out and get the papers. Oh yeah, and he’s got one of them big, eight-band radios, that get, you know, AM and FM and short wave and airplanes, and what’s the other one, police calls. That’s it, police calls. When he goes out to visit one of his uncles he takes that radio with him in the car, and when he comes back, he brings the radio inside, and he listens to that all night, too. But anyway, that’s when I know one of his uncles isn’t feeling well, and he’s been out visiting him.”
“Does anybody else go with him?” Vardenais said.
“Not that I know about,” she said. “Sometimes there’s a man comes to see him, and they talk, and the man leaves a paper bag that’s awful heavy, like it had something made of metal in it. That happened once. It was just before one of the uncles died, too. He also gets very tense when he thinks one of his uncles is getting sick. There isn’t any phone in the trailer, you know? And when he thinks one of his uncles is getting sick, he’s always going out for a little while, to make some calls.”
“Checking on the health,” Vardenais said.
“I suppose so,” she said. “Then, a few days or so later, he gives me these envelopes, ordinary white envelopes, and he tells me to take them and he gives me this list of names that I think he made up, and I have to spend my whole layover running around down there in Florida, opening bank accounts.”
“How long do you think it’ll be before the one that’s sick now passes away?” Vardenais said.
“That’s hard to say,” she said. “One just died, the day before yesterday, and it’s funny, but they usually don’t die right together. It seems like they die about a week or so apart, and they always get sick, like I said, very early in the morning, he has to go and see them. I wouldn’t be surprised if the one that’s still alive made it into next week. But if I was that uncle, I think I wouldn’t make any plans beyond, say, Tuesday morning.”
“You woul
dn’t have any idea where the one that’s still alive lives, would you?” Vardenais said.
“I tell you,” she said. “I was home the other day and this guy he calls Arthur came up, but I was in the bathroom at the time and so he answered the door himself, which he doesn’t generally do. I guess he figures, I’m a stew, I ought to stay in condition for waiting on people hand and foot. Anyway, he was in a real mean mood. He was all lathered up about something, I could tell because he was forgetting how nice I been to him, and how I used up all my layovers running around doing his banking for him, and he clipped me a couple times because I guess I said something he didn’t like. So I was in the bathroom fixing my hair, and he lets this Arthur in, and I couldn’t hear everything they were saying, but Arthur was all upset too. So they’re talking, and this and that, and very low voices, and Arthur says, ‘Well, what does this do to Lynn?’ And my friend there says, ‘Well, it isn’t going to do anything to Lynn, is all,’ and what they have to do, all they have to do, is make damned sure Fritzie doesn’t go off half-cocked again, is all. They just take him to Whelan’s and leave Donnie at the bank this time, because nobody’s figured anything out yet and they can finish what they started. Then he says, my friend says: ‘And keep your goddamned voice down, will you? She’s in there. You know you can’t trust no woman.’ ”
“So you think this other uncle lives in Lynn,” Vardenais said. “You got any idea where in Lynn?”
“I really don’t,” she said. “That’s all I heard, what I told you.”
“You think maybe you could find out where in Lynn, and give me a call?” Vardenais said.
“No,” she said, “I really don’t. Like I said, they don’t say very much in front of me, except my friend likes to talk about fucking me in front of his friends, he does that, it’s okay to talk about that. But otherwise they generally include me out of things, you know?”
“Yeah,” Vardenais said. “Well, I appreciate this, Wanda.”
“That’s all right,” she said. “Hey, my name’s out of it, all right? No maybes, now, because I could get hurt.”
“Yeah,” Vardenais said. “Hey, this is Jimmy we’re talking about, that’s got all the uncles, right?”
“I can’t think of his name right this minute,” she said. “It’ll probably come to me, though.”
“Thanks, Wanda,” Vardenais said.
“It’s all right, Roge,” she said. “You always been a pretty nice guy.”
23
Dillon said he wasn’t sure that Foley would be interested in what he had. “I thought about it some,” he said, “I don’t like to drag a man out for something that probably isn’t so important, I mean, you got things to do and all. Then I think, well, let him decide for himself, if it’s not important, okay, but it might be, you know? So I appreciate you coming out.”
They stood in front of the Waldorf and faced the Public Garden. On the other side of the intersection of Arlington and Boylston Streets there was an organ grinder with a sign that asked for business at parties and social occasions. Well-dressed people avoided him as they emerged from Shreve’s; one plump man in a tweed jacket stood in the chill gray air with a fatuous smile on his face.
“You want to go inside for some coffee?” Foley said.
“I don’t think so,” Dillon said. “I been having some trouble with my stomach, and I think probably it’s all the coffee I been drinking. I keep a pot there behind the bar, you know, so while I’m selling the booze to the people, I’m swigging that stuff all the time. I generally put away about two and a half pots in a day, and I guess probably that’s too much. I feel like I wanta throw up, you know?”
Across the street from the organ grinder several boys and girls with extremely long hair stood around in Army parkas. A few sat on the steps of the Arlington Street Church. On each side of Arlington Street there was a tall young man selling papers.
“We could have some tea,” Foley said.
“No thanks,” Dillon said. “I hate tea. My old lady, when I was married, there, she was always throwing down the tea. I can’t stand the stuff. If I was to drink something it’d be coffee, you know. I’ll drink a glass of buttermilk when I get somewhere, and that’ll make it feel better.”
The tall young man on the Public Garden side of Arlington Street stepped off the curb each time the traffic lights halted a group of cars. He walked between the lanes, waving his papers and bending to look into car windows.
“Now what the fuck is he selling?” Dillon asked. “Is that the thing that got banned, there?”
“It’s probably The Phoenix,” Foley said. “I come through there the other night and it was The Phoenix then.”
“What’s that?” Dillon said. “Is that the one they got arrested for selling, there?”
“I don’t think so,” Foley said. “I think that was another one, I forget the name of it. I dunno what that thing is. I didn’t buy one.”
“Probably sells maybe two a day,” Dillon said. “What the hell’s he trying to prove, anyway?”
“Look,” Foley said, “it’s something to do.”
“Yeah,” Dillon said. “Something to do. Crazy bastards, they could go out and work, you know, they want something to do. I had a guy come in the other night, he had this thing, Screw, that’s the name of it. You know what they got in that?”
“Dirty pictures,” Foley said.
“Everything,” Dillon said. “Christ, they had this one picture there, apparently the guy sent it in himself. There he is inna park in the snow, stark staring bare-ass naked, and his big cock hanging down there. Got a big grin on his face. Figure that one out.”
“He was probably hot,” Foley said.
“Yeah,” Dillon said, “that’s probably it. This friend of mine, he’s got one of them bookstores down there, you know? Sells, I figure he sells beaver pictures. And he does. He tells me, though, he does a pretty good business in pictures of boys, too, boys with big dicks. I ask him, who buys them, and he says, the same guys that buy the other stuff, the ones of the girls.”
“It’s a funny world,” Foley said.
“The longer I’m in it the funnier it gets,” Dillon said. “I wouldn’t think they could bring that kind of stuff inna the country, you know? Why the hell don’t you guys stop chasing around bothering people that’re minding their own business there, and stop some of that crap that’s coming in?”
“Hey,” Foley said, “you’re not getting me on the pussy posse. That’s Post Office, or Customs or something. I don’t want nothing to do with that shit. Besides, that’d put your friend out of business. You wouldn’t want to do that?”
“Dave,” Dillon said, “I got a strong notion you couldn’t put my friend outa business with anything short of a bomb, you know? I know this guy about six years now, I never see him take a bust, I never see him in any kind of trouble, he’s always got a few dollars on him, dresses fucking respectable, always got a shirt and tie on, and I think this is probably about the ninth thing he’s been doing. He hadda bar for a while, then he was doing something in show business, I see him last year at the track, he’s got a nice Cadillac. Last year he invited me to go down to New Orleans, there, to the Super Bowl, and he picks up the whole tab for me, plane fare, ticket, everything, and I say to him, what do you want from me, and you know what he says? He says: ‘I thought you’d like to see the game, is all.’ And it really was. A genuine nice guy.”
“What’s he doing selling beaver pictures, then?” Foley said.
“Well,” Dillon said, “that’s what I mean. I asked him and he said: ‘Hey, people want to buy the stuff. You think I care what turns a guy on? That’s his business. He wants to buy something, who the hell am I to say he can’t? Huh? I happen to like something else, that’s my business, I never see one of the people that buy these things coming around and saying I can’t do what I like, so where’s the problem?’ I ask him, I say, don’t you think, maybe the guys that buy these things go around getting little kids, and he says: ‘No,
I think they go home and beat the hog over them, is what I think.’ So how do you know, a thing like that? I can’t figure it out.”
“Hey, look,” Foley said, “what is going on, anyway?”
“Oh,” Dillon said, “yeah. Well, I don’t know as I really know, you know? But there was this thing, well, you remember we were talking about Eddie Fingers, there, last time I see you?”
“He was getting a lot of telephone calls,” Foley said.
“Yeah,” Dillon said. “From Jimmy Scal.”
“And he was all upset,” Foley said.
“All upset,” Dillon said. “Beating the hell out of the sauce and everything.”
“Yeah,” Foley said.
“Well, I see now where he’s got a lot of money,” Dillon said. “That’s unusual for him. He goes along all right usually, seems to have a couple of dollars on him, but he’s got a lot of money now.”
“Like how much?” Foley said.
“Well, I couldn’t tell you, exactly,” Dillon said. “I just had a glimpse of the roll, you know? But there was some fair-sized bills in there, and I would have to say, probably he’s got a couple of thousand dollars there, at least.”
“How’d you happen to see it?” Foley said.
“He was in the other night,” Dillon said. “He orders up a shot and a beer, comes in about seven, seven-thirty or so, which is another thing that’s unusual for him, you know? Either he comes in in the afternoon or else you won’t see him until probably pretty late. But he comes in right after supper the other day and orders up, and I serve him, and he sits there, reading the Seven Races and so on, doesn’t want to make any conversation, and then this other guy comes in, a little time goes by and this other guy comes in.”
“You know the other guy?” Foley said.
“Well, let’s say I know him, I’d recognize him if I was to see him again, all right? But I don’t happen to remember his name right now, if it’s all the same to you. I’d rather leave him out of this if I can.”
The Friends of Eddie Coyle Page 12