by Chuck Hogan
Frawley lifted out his capped felt pen and used it to flip the note. On the back was the familiar pink and orange Dunkin’ Donuts logo. Dino appeared on the other side of the teller window like a customer. “Still smell the coffee,” said Dino. “There’s one across the street here—right, ladies? And you can see the bank from the window, correct?”
Yes, mm-hmm, they all nodded.
Frawley said, “He sat there and wrote out the note, crossed the street with it in his hand inside his pocket.…”
“Impulse, maybe,” said Dino.
“Not a hypo.” “Not a bomber either.” Frawley turned back to the Vietnamese teller. “The note mentions a bag. The same bag the bomb was in?”
She was sniffling now. “No, a white bag, trash bag. He took with him.”
“And just left? Walked right out?”
She turned to the head teller then. “I need the lady room now.”
The head teller said to Frawley, “He got nervous. I think it was me noticing him. He turned right on his heels.”
Frawley looked back at Dino. “Guy needs money, like now.”
Dino nodded. “Trolley’s free outbound from here.”
Frawley said to the head teller, “What’s the next bank down the line?”
“A… another BayBanks branch. Washington Square.”
Dino said, “Ladies, I need their telephone number, pronto.”
Frawley was moving past the head teller toward the opened security door. “Hat? Jacket?” he said over his shoulder.
“Bucket hat,” she answered. “Some kind of golf thing on the crest. Jacket was short, tight. Heavy for spring, but not cheap. Hunter green—he dressed nice.”
“Dino?” said Frawley, moving fast.
Dino waved him on, picking up a phone, “Go, go.”
Frawley stopped on the wet curb outside. Dino’s Taurus was pulled up there, his grille blues and headlamps flashing. Double-parked cruisers had jammed up traffic in all four directions.
A trolley came clanging up the rise, the only thing moving. Frawley crossed the street and ran to intercept it, darting inside the opened doors. “I need you to go straight through to Washington Square,” he told the toothpick-chewing conductor.
The guy squinted doubtfully at Frawley’s creds. “Small badge.”
“It’s real enough.” This was Frawley’s first commandeered vehicle. “Let’s go.”
The driver thought a moment, then shrugged and closed the doors. “Fine by me.”
The trolley nosed through the honking cars, gaining speed past the intersection, passing boutiques, a high-end pastry shop, a RadioShack, apartment houses.
“So what kinda money you people make?” the driver asked.
“Huh?” said Frawley, standing next to him, heart pounding, creds still in hand. “Less than you probably.”
“Any overtime?”
“Mandatory ten-hour day.”
“Thought you guys supposed to be smart.”
The driver sounded his horn as they failed to slow for waiting raincoats and umbrellas at the next stop. “Hello, excuse me!” said a woman behind Frawley, grocery bags sagging at her feet like sleepy dogs.
“FBI’s driving the car now, ma’am,” said the driver.
They blew another stop to a chorus of middle fingers. Then, suddenly, the roadside on Frawley’s right separated from the track, rising on a hill above them. “Hey! Where’s that going?”
“It’ll be back, don’t worry,” said the driver. “Listen. You people gotta unionize. It’s every American’s right.”
“Yeah, noted,” said Frawley, looking for the road. “Where the hell is Washington Square?”
“Washington Square, next stop!” sang out the driver.
The roadside plummeted back down to realign with them, the joined road opening into another intersection. Frawley saw the green and white BayBanks sign on the near right corner. The trolley braked, wheels squealing, turning every head in the square—but none so dramatically as that of the man in the green jacket, tan scarf, and bucket hat exiting the bank door with a travel satchel on his shoulder, a white plastic trash bag in his hand.
The nature of his work dictated that Frawley dealt almost exclusively with crime scenes. In his eight years of chasing bank bandits, he had never once witnessed one in action.
“Open!” said Frawley, banging on the door. The driver opened it before he stopped, and Frawley jumped out and hit the ground running, sprinting into the intersection, suit jacket flapping, darting around cars.
The suspect strode across the side street as though unaware of this man yelling, “Hey!” and running after him. A car in Frawley’s way forced him to go wide and intercept the suspect at the far curb.
Up close, the guy looked like a blank, not at all menacing, a nose and a mouth under a gray rain hat, big sunglasses, and the coiled caramel scarf. The L.L. Bean walking shoes, mossy corduroys, and gray travel bag—those did not compute. Not your standard note-passing outfit. Frawley was close enough to him now to see loose fifties static-pressed against the white, one-ply trash bag hanging limp in his left hand.
“Hold it!” said Frawley, one hand opened toward the man, his other up on the butt of his holstered gun. The suspect’s jacket was zipped to the collar; any move he made would have to be a clumsy one. “FBI,” announced Frawley, feeling good as he said it, the suspect stopped before him in the light, misting rain.
There was a crackling sound that was almost fuselike, coming from somewhere on the suspect. Frawley remembered the guy’s bomb threat—then the sidewalk went blind red.
Frawley reeled backward, certain the guy had exploded into pieces in front of him. Something struck him hard—the pavement—and his throat began to burn, eyes stinging and tearing. He brought one hand in front of his face and saw it painted red.
Frawley tried to right himself on the sidewalk, his respiratory system closing up on him. Through slitted eyes he saw the suspect on the move, stumbling backward, tripping off the curb. Something fluttered up into Frawley’s face like a bloody bird and he fought it off—then another, and another, one sticking to his hand. Gray-green and red. He held it before his swelling eyes, trying to focus.
It was a fifty-dollar bill, stained and burned.
A dye pack. Not a bomb but half an ounce of red dye and tear gas bursting from a tiny, pressurized CO2 canister sandwiched inside a hollowed-out stack of retired bills.
Frawley turned on his knee, forcing open his bleary eyes and seeing the dappled bills fluttering across the square like fall leaves off a money tree. The redsplashed trash bag tumbled empty and dreamlike toward the stalled Green Line trolley.
Frawley got to his feet. He found his way off the curb. His pace grew more certain with every step, and he yelled both to stop the suspect and to keep his airway open.
The form before him trailed a long scarf. Something small lay in the road—the dropped satchel—and Frawley followed the vague shape between two parked cars. It turned right at the end of a fence, the fringed scarf slithering away.
A chorus of high-pitched screams as Frawley reached the corner. An elementary-school playground, Frawley’s appearance sending them squealing toward the school.
The sight of the children slowed the suspect just enough for Frawley to dive for the end of the scarf, clotheslining the guy, bringing him down. Frawley got on him fast, wrestling the guy’s flailing arms behind him and kneeing his face into the turf.
Frawley carried no handcuffs. He hadn’t collared anyone without an arrest warrant since his first office assignment. He whipped off the perp’s gloves and squeezed the guy’s thumbs together, pulling up hard on his arms, immobilizing him with pain.
The guy spat something into the dirt. “What?” said Frawley, adrenalized to the max, ears ringing, nose running.
“Shoot me,” the guy said. Frawley realized then that the guy wasn’t fighting him, only sobbing.
Sirens coming now. Kids still dropping off the monkey bars, Frawley yelling
at teachers to get them indoors. He eased up on the guy, unwinding the muddy scarf from his neck. The guy looked maybe forty, despairing, already ashamed.
“Mortgage or sick kid?” said Frawley.
“Huh?” the guy sniffed.
“Mortgage or sick kid?”
A defeated, wincing sigh between sobs: “Mortgage.”
Frawley fished out his creds yet again, holding the gold badge high for the screaming cruisers. “Should have refinanced.”
The cops came up all loaded for bear, weapons drawn, and Frawley shielded the bandit with his body, bellowing at them, “It’s okay, back off!”
They finally holstered, Frawley so furious by then that he snatched a pair of handcuffs out of one of the patrolmen’s hands and hooked up the bandit himself. Then he stalked off toward the now vacant playground, stopping at the short fence, wiping his draining eyes and nose on his suit sleeve and checking himself out. The suit was ruined, his shoes, belt, and tie, all stained. He rubbed at his left hand, his palm a bright red, the clinging aerosol powder already adhered to his skin. He looked up to clear his vision and found rows of little faces at the classroom windows, teachers trying to pull them away. He touched his own face, cringing, fearing the worst.
Dino was climbing out of his Taurus, hustling across the sidewalk toward Frawley, then seeing Frawley was okay, slowing down. “Now this,” he said, baring dentures perfect and white, “is a definite first.”
Frawley held his arms out from his sides as though he were soaking wet. “You okay there, Dean?” Frawley said, congested. “All that getting in and out of the car, I was worried.”
Dino took in the full view. “Everything but the paint can over the head. Do me a favor? Hold out your gold badge like this, say, ‘Jerry Lewis, FBI.’”
Frawley showed him a brilliant red middle finger instead. He looked back to the bandit, now bent over a cruiser for a pat-down, his ear to the hood like it was whispering his children’s future. Then they straightened him up, folding him sobbing into a cruiser.
Dino said, coming up next to Frawley, “Fun job, innit?”
11
JAY’S ON THE CORNER
NEW DRY CLEANERS WERE popping up all over the Town. The modern career woman required first and foremost a dependable local launderer. So much so, even old-style wash-’n’-drys such as Jay’s on the Corner were putting in lacquered black counters, advertising overnight send-out service, playing “continuous soft hits” inside, and prettifying themselves in general: squeegeeing the windows clean every morning, hosing off the sidewalk, repainting signs, power-washing stubborn brick.
The message there was that the renewing power of capitalism was a lot like falling in love. No other force in the universe could have moved old man Charlestown to run a new razor over his cheeks, close his collar with a necktie, check his manners, splash on a little cologne. Springtime was in bloom all over the Town, and free-market commerce was a pretty girl in a sundress and heels.
Jay’s was narrow like a tobacconist’s, new-Town up front—chrome fixtures on the counter, free coffee—while still old-Town in back—corkboard walls stuck with business cards and guitar lesson flyers, the ancient soap machine, and a broken wooden-bead maze table for the kids. The washing machines were lined up in back-to-back rows under a high center shelf, double-decker dryers facing them along both long walls. The newer dollar-accepting washers were up front; the older, thudding, coin-tray jalopies rattling in back.
Doug was positioned halfway down the left lane of washers, sitting atop the last clean machine before the dials got crusty. He was feigning interest in the free Boston Phoenix, riding out his churning clothes, with Claire Keesey’s loads tumbling almost directly behind him. She had been there a while now—long enough for Doug to book home to grab up some dirty clothes, get back, follow her inside. His hamper bag lay empty on the floor now, one of the few things of his father’s that Doug had held on to: a strap-tie army sack with faded black stenciling, MACRAY, D.
Now what? He had acted on instinct, or else simple insanity, sensing opportunity but now not knowing how to follow through. He was just a few yards away from her, and they were basically alone—the guy behind the counter rubbing his bald head and talking Greek into the phone—yet he could think of no good way to bridge that final gap. Borrow some soap? Be that obvious? Hey, you wash your clothes here often? Sure, why not just scare her off for good?
Even if she did happen to look over at him now and didn’t immediately turn away—even if some small smile were to appear on her face—it was the middle of the morning: no matter what, he looked like an out-of-work Townie making a clumsy play.
Hey, haven’t I seen you at the Foodmaster?
A brilliant, foolproof plan. Except for his clothes getting clean, this whole thing was a colossal waste of time. He imagined the others walking in and seeing him there trying to work up the courage to bump into the manager of the bank they had robbed.
Her first load finished while he sat there berating himself. She started pulling out warm clothes one by one, folding and packing them into a custard-yellow laundry basket. Her other dryer load was nearly done, along with a pair of tennis sneakers rumbling alone in a third machine, going pum-pum-pum-pum like the drumbeat of battle.
He closed the newspaper and threw it down, determined now, stand or fall. His boots hit the floor, hands vigorously rubbing his face to rouse himself from wussyland. What could he say here that didn’t make him seem like a pantycruising creep?
A relevant question. Something about separating colors from whites. No—any fucking idiot knows that. Just ask, What do I wash in cold, what do I wash in hot? Simple. Like, Feed a fever, or starve a cold?
He quickly examined this gambit for offensiveness: Maybe there was something somehow antifeminist about assuming that women knew more than men about laundry? Then he realized that, hey, that was exactly what he assumed, and if steam blew out of the top of her head when he asked, then good, he had his answer, he could head on home.
He shook his fists loose and cracked his neck—even as he felt himself pussying out again. Fuck you! Thinking about the hours of agony his backing out here would cause him—that was the only thing that started him toward her.
He crossed the break in the rows of washers, hands stuffed unthreateningly into his pockets. She had paused in her folding, her back to him, a white blouse in her hands.
“Uh, hey, excuse me?”
She turned fast, startled to find him there.
“Hi, uh, I was wondering if you knew…”
So focused was he on his delivery that it took him until then to register the tears in her eyes. She swiped at them, fast and guilty, dismayed at having been discovered—then tried to brush off the whole thing with a fake smile.
Doug said, “I… oh.”
The tears reappeared and she tried to smile him off again, then gave up, turning away. She tipped her head up to the ceiling fans in an Oh, God type of gesture, then resumed her folding, faster now, as though he weren’t there.
“You okay?” said Doug, though it came out sounding wrong.
She turned her head in profile, blinking, waiting for peace. Then she turned all the way, glaring, her quick, harsh look imploring him, Please go away.
Which he should have done. His presence was only making her more upset. But he was stuck. If he stepped away now, it would be forever.
She scooped out the rest of her load with him hovering at her back, dumping her clothes unfolded into her laundry basket, a tennis sock and a pair of lilac panties dropping softly to the floor. She wanted to be done, to leave. She dragged her basket of warm clothes off the washing machine and started past him, head down, rushing toward the front door—her other load still going around the next dryer.
“Hey,” he said after her, “you forgot…”
But she had turned out onto the sidewalk and was gone. The bald guy behind the counter craned his neck, holding the phone to his chest. A male customer balancing his checkbook lo
oked to the door too, his girlfriend staring accusingly down the row at Doug.
Doug turned back to the spinning dryers and the sneakers bouncing pum-pum-pum, wondering what the hell had just happened.
NORTH OF THE TOWN, the Malden Bridge crossed the Mystic into Everett, the sky opening up over a dire patch of industry lit like a Batman movie, road signs reading Factory Street and Chemical Lane. Main Street in West Everett drew tired multifamily homes to the sidewalks like spectators waiting half a century for a promised parade.
Doug parked the Caprice outside a darkened funeral home and walked three blocks to a side street, a D’Angelo sandwich and a True Value Hardware plastic bag in one hand, a Valvoline carton the size of two VCRs under his arm.
The houses at the end of the side street were single-family, postwar Capes and cottages with square yards front and back. The door he went to was unlit, and he set his things down on the step. He knocked gently before going to work on the lamp over the door, unscrewing the glass cap, brushing out the dead bugs.
“Here I am, Douglas,” sang Mrs. Seavey, unlocking the door and pulling it wide of her walker. She wore an Irish sweater buttoned over a red flannel housecoat, her gray face smiling moon-bright. She had seemed old to Doug back when she was his third-grade teacher.
“I’m a little late,” said Doug, hearing the Wheel of Fortune theme song behind her. “How’s that leg? Nurse come today?”
“Oh, yes. I think so.”
“Getting around okay?”
With a mischievous, half-dreaming smile, she released the walker and shuffled back and forth in her foam slippers, arms out for balance, singing, “Da-daadee-da…”
Doug’s class had been Mrs. Seavey’s last before retirement. She cleaned everything out of her legendary coatroom closet during their last week of school, offering the contents to whoever wished to carry them home. Doug claimed as many workbooks, activity packs, phonics flash cards, and dried-up markers as he could get his little hands on, so anxious was he to take home pieces of her. But the Forneys—the foster family he was living with at the time—had hardly any room for him and made him throw out most of it anyway. His mother had been gone two years by then, his father away on a twenty-one-month tour at MCI Concord.