Pastime

by Robert B. Parker

  Outside on Arlington Street, the taxis all had their lights on in the rain and the overcast. The yellow headlights mixed with the neon and the traffic lights to make glistening streaks on the wet pavement-red, green, and yellow mostly. Two young Boston cops strolled past, heading toward Park

  Square, their slickers gleaming in the rain, the plastic covers on their hats looking oddly out of keeping.

  "In all that time," Susan said, "you have spoken maybe for five minutes, total, about your past."

  "My past?"

  "Yes, your past."

  "What is this, an old Bette Davis movie?"

  "No," Susan said. "I know you as I am sure no one in the world knows you.

  But I only know you since we undressed that first time in September 1974.

  I don't to this day know how you got to be what you are. I don't know about other women, about family, about what you were like as a little boy, peeking out at the adult world, trying to grow up, getting scarred in the process."

  "Heavens," I said.

  Susan smiled. Dampened the tip of her tongue with her wine. I drank the rest of my Sam Adams. The waiter noticed and raised an inquiring eyebrow.

  I nodded and he hustled over a fresh bottle on a silver tray.

  "It's a rainy day," Susan said. "We have nothing to do but look at the rain and watch the people go by on whatever street that is out there."

  "You've lived here since the Johnstown flood," I said. "That's Arlington

  Street, runs from Beacon Street in the north to Tremont Street in the South

  End."

  Susan smiled the smile she always smiled when you knew she hadn't the slightest interest in what you were saying, and she knew it, and she knew you knew it.

  "Of course," she said.

  The only other people in the bar were two women at a table, with Bonwit's shopping bags piled on the two empty chairs; and a guy at the bar, reading

  The Wall Street Journal and sipping what looked like a Gibson, up. The women were drinking white wine. Both of them smoked. Susan settled her gaze on me and waited.

  "Well, we had a dog named Pearl," I said.

  "I know that," Susan said. "And I know that you were born in Laramie,

  Wyoming, and that your mother died while she carried you and you were born by caesarean section and your father and your two uncles, who were your mother's brothers, raised you."

  "Me and Macbeth," I said.

  "Not of woman born," Susan said. "But that's all I know."

  "And all ye need to know," I said.

  "Many people would welcome the chance to sit in a quiet bar on a rainy afternoon and talk about themselves to an attentive listener," Susan said.

  "Many people pay one hundred and fifty dollars an hour to come and sit in a quiet office and talk to me about themselves."

  "Do they know you used to wear polka dot panties with a bow?" I said.

  "Most of them don't."

  I drank some beer. I looked out the window at the wet, wind-driven cityscape. The small rain down can rain.

  "My father was a carpenter," I said, "in business with his wife's two brothers. They were very young when I was born. My uncles were seventeen and eighteen. My father was twenty."

  "My God," Susan said. "Children raising children."

  "I suppose so," I said. "But this was the depression, remember, and people grew up early those years. Everyone worked as soon as he could, especially in a place like Laramie."

  "Your father never remarried."

  "No."

  "And your uncles lived with you?"

  "Yeah, until they got married. They both married late. I was in my teens."

  "So you grew up in an all-male household."

  I nodded.

  "My uncles dated a lot, so did my father. There were always girlfriends around. But they didn't have anything to do with the family. The family was us.

  "Three men and a boy," Susan said.

  "Maybe four boys," I said.

  "All unified by a connection to one woman."

  "Yeah."

  "Who was dead," Susan said.

  I nodded.

  "They were all fighters," I said. "My father used to pick up spare money boxing, around the state, at smokers, fairs, stuff like that. And my uncles did the same thing. Heavyweight, all three of them. One uncle fought for a while at light heavy until he filled out."

  "And they taught you."

  "Yeah. I could box as far back as I can remember."

  "What were they like?" Susan said.

  "They were like each other," I said. "Other than that it's hard to summarize. They were fairly wild, tough men. But one thing was clear. We were family, the four of us, and in that family I was the treasure."

  "They loved you."

  "They loved me without reservation," I said. "No conditions. Nothing about their love depended on my grades or my behavior. They expected me to learn how to act by observing them. And God save anyone who didn't treat me properly."

  "Like what?" Susan said. I could see how she'd gotten to be such a good shrink. Her interest was luminous. She listened with her whole self. Her eyes picked up every movement of my hands, every gesture of my soul.

  "I went to the store once," I said, "and on the wayback, past a saloon, a couple of drunks gave me a hard time. I was probably sort of mouthy."

  "Hard to believe," Susan murmured.

  "Anyway-I was maybe around ten-the bottle of milk I was carrying got broken. I went home and told my uncle Bob, who was the only one there. One of them was always home. I never had a babysitter. And he grinned and said we'd take care of it, and later that afternoon, we all went down to the place. It was called the Blind Pig Saloon, and my father and my uncles cleaned it out. It was like one of those old John Wayne movies, where bodies would come flying out through the front window. I didn't know if the culprits were even in there when we arrived. Didn't matter. By the time the cops came the place was empty except for me, and everything in there was broken."

  "Where were you," Susan said, "while all this was happening?"

  "Mostly behind the bar, watching, like the kid in Shane. Even had the dog with me."

  We were quiet. Susan twirled the stem of her nearly full wineglass. There was the imprint of her lipstick on the rim. I thought about what it might be like going through life with everything having a faint raspberry flavor.

  "Parents' day at school was an event," I said. "They'd always come. The three of them. All six feet or more. All around two hundred pounds and hard as the handle on a pickax, and they'd sit in the back row, at the little desks, with their arms folded and not say a word. But they always came."

  Across Arlington Street, past the wrought-iron fence that rimmed the Public

  Gardens, beyond the initial stand of big trees, I could see the weeping willows that stood around the lagoon where the swan boats drifted in pleasant weather. Through the rain the willows had a misty green blur about them, softened by the weather, almost lacy.

  "When I was ten or twelve," I said, "we moved east. I think my father and my uncles thought it was a better place for a kid to grow up."

  "Boston?" Susan said.

  "Yeah. The Athens of America. My father read a lot. My uncles didn't, except to me. Every night one of them would read to me after dinner while the other two cleaned up."

  "What did they read?"

  "To me? Uncle Remus, Winnie-the-Pooh, Joseph Altscheler, John R. Tunis, stuff like that."

  "And what did your father read, to himself?" Susan said.

  "He had no formal education, so he had no master plan," I said. "He read whatever came along: Shakespeare, Kenneth Roberts, Faulkner, C. S.

  Forester, Dos Passos, Rex Stout. Actually I think he was reading Marquand when he decided to move us to Boston. Or Oliver Wendell Holmes, or Henry

  Adams, somebody like that."

  "Because he thought it would be good for you?"

  "Yeah. He believed all that Hub of the Universe stuff."

/>   "So you all came."

  "Oh yeah, the four of us and Pearl."

  "And what about love? Was there someone before me?"

  "There were a lot of women before you."

  "No. I mean, did you ever love anyone before me?"

  "Just once," I said.

  "Was she as pretty, sexy, and smart as I am?" Susan said.

  "Would you believe, prettier, sexier, and smarter."

  "No," Susan said.

  "How about younger?" I said.

  "Younger is possible."

  CHAPTER 9

  R B Hot Top and Paving was behind a ragged shopping center off the Revere Beach Parkway in Everett. A red sign with yellow letters that appeared to have been hand painted on a piece of 4 X 8 plywood was nailed to a utility pole out front. There were a couple of asphalt-stained dump trucks parked on the hot-top turnaround, and, next to the Quonset but that served as an office, a power roller was parked on a trailer. The hot-top apron was maybe four inches thick and gleamed the way new hot top does, but no one had bothered to retain it and it was crumbly and scattered along the edges.

  In the backseat Pearl growled in an entirely uncute way, and the hair along her spine went up. A black and tan pit bull terrier appeared in the door of the Quonset with his head down and stared out at the car.

  "Pearl appears to want a piece of that pit bull," Paul said.

  "That's because she's in here," I said. Paul and I got out of the car carefully so Pearl would stay put. She was stiff-legged in the backseat, growling a low serious growl. The pit bull gazed at us, his yellow eyes unblinking.

  "Nice doggie," Paul murmured.

  "I'm not sure that's going to work," I said.

  We walked toward the door. A squat man appeared in it wearing a gold tank top and blue workout pants with red trim. He had dark curly hair, worn longish, over his ears, and there was a lot of dark hair on his chest and arms. As we got close I could see that he was wearing a small gold loop in his left ear. There were two gold chains around his neck, a gold bracelet on his right wrist, a gold Rolex watch on his left one. On his feet he wore woven leather sandals.

  The pit bull growled briefly. The man bent over slightly and took hold of the loose end of the dog's choke collar.

  "He won't bother you unless I tell him," the man said.

  "Good to know," I said.

  "We're looking for Marty Martinelli," Paul said.

  "What for?" the man said. The pit bull was motionless, his expressionless yellow eyes staring at us. There was a barely audible rumble in his throat.

  The man had a forefinger hooked less firmly than I would have liked through the ring on the choke collar. On the back of his wrist, in blue script, was tattooed the name Marty.

  "We need to ask him a couple of questions about some people," Paul said.

  "I do hot top, you know. I put a nice driveway in your yard, put a nice sealer on it. Charge you a fair price. That's what I do. I don't go around answering questions about nobody. Gets you in trouble."

  "Sure," Paul said. "I understand that, but I'm looking for my mother, and your sister said you might know something."

  "My sister?"

  "Caitlin," Paul said. "She said you might be able to help us."

  The pit bull kept up his very low rumbling growl.

  "What makes you think I got a sister named Caitlin?"

  "Well," Paul said, "you've got Marty tattooed on your left wrist. I took a sort of guess based on that."

  "Smart guy," Marty said.

  "Smart enough not to tattoo his name on his arm if he doesn't want people to know it," I said.

  "Lot of guys named Marty," he said.

  Paul didn't say anything. Neither did I. The dog kept growling. Marty looked at me.

  "You a cop?"

  "Sort of," I said.

  "What the hell is sort of a cop?"

  "Private detective," I said.

  Marty shook his head. "Caitlin," he said. "The queen of the yuppies. What the fuck kind of name is that for an Italian broad, Caitlin?"

  Paul started to speak. I shook my head. We waited.

  "I don't know nothing about nobody's mother," Marty said.

  "Patty Giacomin," Paul said.

  "That your old lady?"

  "Yes."

  "Hey, that's a good paisano name."

  Paul nodded. "Her boyfriend is Rich Beaumont."

  Marty grinned. "Hey," he said. "Richie."

  "You know him?"

  "Sure. Richie's my main man."

  "We think he and my mother have gone off together," Paul said, "and we're trying to find them."

  "Hey, if she went off with Richie, she's having a good time. Why not leave them be?"

  "We just want to know that she's okay," Paul said.

  "She's with Richie, kid, she's okay. Hell, she probably…"

  "Probably what?"

  "Nothing. I forgot for a minute she's your mother, you know?"

  "You know where they might be?" I said.

  Marty shrugged. To do so, he had to let go of the dog. I shrugged my left shoulder slightly to feel the pleasant weight of the Browning under my arm.

  The dog maintained the steady sound. Maybe he was bored. Maybe he was humming to himself.

  "Hell, no."

  "You know where Beaumont lives?"

  "Sure. Lives on the beach in Revere. One of them new condos."

  "Address?"

  "Richie won't like it, me giving you his address."

  "We won't like it if you don't," I said.

  "You getting tough with me, buddy, you like to wrestle with Buster here?"

  "Buster's overmatched," I said, "unless he's carrying."

  "What's that dog you got, a Doberman?"

  I grinned. "Not quite," I said. "What's Rich Beaumont's address?"

  Marty hesitated.

  "You got all the proper licenses here?" I said. "I don't see any on that hound, for instance. You got the proper permits for everything? Asphalt storage? Vehicle's been inspected lately? That Quonset built to code?"

  "Hey," Marty said. "Hey. What the fuck?"

  "It'll save us a little time if you give us the address," Paul said. "We can find it anyway. Just take a little longer. You save us some time, we'd be very grateful. We won't tell him where we got it."

  Marty looked down at the dog, looked at me, and looked back at Paul.

  "Sure," he said. "You seem like; nice kid." He gave Paul an address on

  Revere Beach Boulevard. Then he looked at me. "You catch more flies with honey," he said, "than you do with vinegar. You know?"

  "I've heard that," I said. "I've not found it to be true."

  CHAPTER 10

  Richie Beaumont wasn't home. He had a condominium on the top floor of a twelve-story concrete building full of condominia that faced the Atlantic, across Revere Beach. From his living room you could probably see the oil tankers easing into Chelsea Creek. Rich wasn't the only one that wasn't home. Still and clean and smelling strongly of recently cured concrete, the place echoed with emptiness. "They must have built this place as the condo boom was peaking," Paul said.

  "Or slightly after," I said.

  Pearl skittered down the empty corridor ahead of us, her claws sliding on the new vinyl. At the elevator she pressed her nose at the crack where the closed doors met and snuffled loudly.

  "I thought she only pointed birds," Paul said.

  The elevator arrived, the doors opened, and we got in. When we got to the lobby there were two guys in it. One of them was a stocky guy with a highblack pompadour. He had on a black, thigh-length leather coat and black pegged pants. His black boots were badly worn at the heels and had sharp toes. The other guy was a slugger. Maybe three hundred pounds, his chin sunk into the folds of fat around his neck. Pearl went directly to them, her tail wagging, her ears pricked, her tongue lolling happily. The slugger backed up involuntarily.

  "Watch it," he said to the guy with the hairdo. "That's a Doberman, it'll take your hand off." />
  The guy with the pompadour barely glanced at him. He put one hand down absently and scratched Pearl behind the ear.

  "You the guys looking for Richie Beaumont?" he said.

  I looked at Paul. "Now you say, `Who wants to know?'"

  "Who wants to know?" Paul said.

  "Good," I said. "Now you." I pointed at Pompadour.

  "What are you, a comedian?" he said.

  "Breaking the kid in," I said. "I'd appreciate if you answered right. Say,

  1 want to know."

  The fat slugger was looking nervously at Pearl. She turned her head toward him and he flinched a little, and put his hand inside his Members Only windbreaker.

  "Listen, asshole. Vinnie Morris is outside and he wants to talk with you.

  Now."

  "We can do this easy or hard," Sluggo said.

  "Careful I don't sic my Doberman on you," I said. "It ain't a fucking Doberman," Pompadour said,"it's a fucking pointer. Tiny don't know shit from dogs."

  "Among other things," I said. "We'll talk with Vinnie."

  I put Pearl's leash on and we went out through the wide glass doors and down the empty capacious steps. The light had the brightness of nearby ocean in it, and there was traffic moving on the boulevard. In the turnaround in front of the near empty condominium complex a white Lincoln

  Town Car was parked. When we reached it, the rear window went down, and there was Vinnie. He still had the thick black mustache, but his hair was shorter now. He still dressed like a GQ cover boy.

  "What the hell is that on the end of the leash?" he said. "You finally get married?"

  "That's Pearl," I said. "This is Paul Giacomin. Vinnie Morris. You still with Joe, Vinnie?"

  "You been trying to find Richie Beaumont," Vinnie said.

  "Actually we've been trying to find Patty Giacomin," I said. "Beaumont is her boyfriend."

  "Why you want her?"

  "She's my mother," Paul said.

  Vinnie nodded. "She sort of took off on you, huh? And didn't tell you where she was going."

  "Yes," Paul said. "Or not. I don't know where she is."

  "And you're looking for Richie because he's her boyfriend and you figure he'll know?"

  Paul nodded.

  "You know Richie Beaumont?" Vinnie said.