Terminated

by Ray Daniel

  “Good job on that, by the way. It’ll be tough for him to hide those cuts. Much as I hate to admit it, you’re probably my best chance to catch these people.”

  “What do you mean ‘these people’?”

  Bobby took a chicken bone off the plate and laid it on the table. He said, “First you’ve got the guy who just tried to kill you.”

  “OK. That’s one bone.”

  He put down another chicken bone. “Then there’s the guy who killed Alice. The Duct Tape Killer.”

  “That’s not the same guy?”

  “Fuck no. The guy who killed Kevin and tried to kill you had a motive. Serial killers don’t have motives. They just want to get their rocks off.”

  “So that’s two bones.”

  Bobby grabbed a handful of bones and scattered them on the table. He said, “You got a merger, you got a couple of murders, you got money flying around, and you got a serial killer. It’s a fucking mess.”

  I looked at the bones. It was a fucking mess. There was no rhyme or reason to the pile. But I had seen messes like this before.

  I picked up a bone and said, “There’s one thing holding all this together.”

  Bobby looked at the pile and asked, “What?”

  “I don’t know. But I solve shit like this all the time. Whenever it looks like there’s a random pile of bugs, they always come from one central problem. One single key with lots of locks.”

  Bobby took the bone out of my hand and pounded fists with me. He said, “Let’s find the key. I’ve got a plan.”

  I said, “Good. So what do I do?”

  “Just keep doing what you do best.”

  “What do I do best?”

  “You stick your nose in the wrong places and piss people off. Keep trolling around like that until they come after you and expose themselves.”

  “So I’m bait?”

  “No, not bait. You’re an irritant. Like in an oyster.”

  “Great.”

  “They’re gonna do some stupid shit if you tweak them. I guaran-fucking-tee it. Then we catch them,” Bobby said, and drained his beer.

  “What kind of stupid shit? Killing me?”

  “Well, we’d have to prevent that.”

  “How?”

  “I have someone you need to meet.”

  “A bodyguard?”

  “You’ll love her. Just don’t piss her off. She owes me a favor.”

  I slid out of the booth and stood.

  Bobby asked, “Where are you going?”

  “It’s time to go visit Charlene,” I said. “I need to make things right with her.”

  Bobby shook his head and said, “Ho boy. I talked to Charlene. She hates you. I’m not sure a bodyguard will help.”

  “All the more reason to see her.”

  Bobby slid out of the booth and rose. He said, “I’ll set up a meeting for you in Revere. Bring a hat and a cell phone.”

  “What for?”

  “The hat is for identification. The cell phone is so I can check that Charlene didn’t kill you.”

  thirty

  I parked my Mini Cooper Zipcar at the end of Kevin’s dead-end street, climbed out, and took a moment to admire the view. Kevin had bought a house in Revere so he could stay close to his family. He had bought this particular house in Revere because it stood on the edge of a bluff and offered a broad panorama.

  I watched a Boeing 737 descend toward a landing at Logan Airport. The plane passed over Suffolk Downs, a horse track, and then over triple-decker houses in East Boston. Enormous gasoline tanks sprawled across the flat ground in front of me, before a hill in East Boston with a cross on it. Beyond the tanks and the cross was the city of Boston. I could see the Prudential Center and thought about my apartment near its base. I wished I were there.

  Kevin’s driveway had three cars in it. His close-knit family was not going to let Charlene, Nicky, and Mary go through this alone. I knocked on the front door, and Charlene’s father, Lou Giovenese, answered. He was a broad man whose muscles had gone to fat. His combover was skewed, as if he’d been rubbing his bald head.

  I put out my hand and said, “I’m so sorry, Mr. G.” I had known the Gioveneses since college, yet I had never graduated to calling Mr. Giovenese by his first name.

  He took my hand and pulled me close, pulling me into him over his belly. He smelled of oregano. He said, “Ah, it’s a hell of a thing, Tucker.” He released me and said, “The world we live in, eh?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “But I don’t have to tell you. With your wife? They’re animals out there.”

  I nodded. Animals for sure.

  “Come on in. Want something to eat? There’s plenty of food.”

  I entered the small front hallway, a finished porch actually, and then stepped into the dining room of a house in mourning. Dead-quiet energy suffused the place. The kids were nowhere to be seen, probably upstairs in bed. Kevin’s little house had three rooms on the first floor and three on the second. The living room was in the front of the house and the kitchen was in the back. The dining room was in the middle. Charlene’s mother sat at the oval dining room table with Kevin’s mom.

  The pain in the house was slipping into my gut and twisting it. I wanted to get away, jump in my car, get home, and lose myself in mindless web surfing. Instead, I ignored my tightening chest, stepped forward, and took Kevin’s mother’s hand. It was light, and small, and she looked at me with bewildered, searching eyes.

  “I’m so sorry.”

  She nodded and pulled me close. I kissed her cheek. She held me and said, “You’re a good boy, Tucker.” I let her hold me as long as she wanted. She loosened her grip and I rose.

  Charlene’s mother had stood, all five feet of her in a light-blue summer dress. She hugged me and said, “Come on. Have something to eat.” She pulled me into the kitchen, sat at the kitchen table, and poured herself wine from a jug. She glanced at my stitches and pursed her lips. But she didn’t say anything.

  The kitchen was full of condolence casseroles. I had learned years ago to never turn down food from the Gioveneses. It only led to more offers and finally recriminations. I wasn’t hungry, but I picked up a plate and scooped some lasagna onto it. I sat at the kitchen table across from Mrs. G. Smiled at her and took a forkful of lasagna. But I had no heart to eat lasagna. My stomach was too busy trying to digest itself.

  Mrs. G. sat with me and said, “First you lose your wife. Now this. What are we? Cursed?”

  I stabbed at the lasagna and stared into the plate.

  “Are you OK, Tucker?”

  I wasn’t OK. I was drowning. I was sitting in a chair, sitting in my dead friend’s kitchen, balancing a piece of lasagna on a fork, and drowning. My breath was coming shorter, and the sorrow was about to overwhelm me.

  I looked at her and said, “I’m doing OK.”

  “Did they ever catch the guy?”

  “No.”

  “Ah, what do we pay taxes for?” asked Mrs. Giovenese, waving her hand in the air.

  Charlene said, “We pay taxes so people like my husband can get murdered trying to catch Carol’s killer.”

  I jumped from the chair and spun. She had been standing right behind me. Charlene was tall. Taller than me. Taller than Kevin. Taller than almost any woman you’d meet. She was proud of her height, and unlike many tall women who tried to hide behind bad posture, Charlene had always thrown her shoulders back, worn high heels, and dared people to live up to her standards. I had never understood how Kevin had tamed her.

  I said, “Charlene, I’m so sorry.”

  Charlene said, “What are you doing here?”

  I said nothing.

  “I asked you what you are doing here, but never mind. I can see for myself. You’re sitting in my kitchen, eating my food, and breathing my air.”

>   Mrs. Giovenese said, “Now, Charlene.”

  “You stay out of this, Ma. Do you know what Tucker did? He got Kevin killed. I told Kevin to stay in his office and chase the porn sites and spammers. But no. He had a big lead and was going to catch the guy who killed Carol.” She turned to me. “You put him up to it, didn’t you? What are you doing here?”

  I was mute.

  Charlene continued, “I asked you what you were doing here.”

  Mrs. Giovenese said, “He’s paying his respects. He’s doing the right thing.”

  I said, “When is the wake?”

  “What?”

  “The wake. When is the wake? And where is it? Just tell me and I can leave.”

  “Don’t you get it, Tucker? I don’t want you at the wake. I don’t want you anywhere near me, or the kids, or my family. I never want to see you again.”

  “But I’ll catch the guy, Charlene. I swear I will.”

  Charlene’s voice became deadly quiet. “Do you think that matters to me? Get out.”

  “Huh?”

  She opened the back door out of the kitchen, the one that led into the yard. She said, “Get out. Out. I want you out of my house.”

  Mrs. Giovenese put her hand to her mouth and said, “Charlene!”

  “Out! Now!” shouted Charlene.

  I walked past her, through the door, and into the back yard. The door slammed behind me. I stood in the short grass and then walked around the back of the house past the cars in the driveway. Mr. Giovenese was standing by my car.

  “She doesn’t mean it,” he said as he passed me a card with the wake arrangement on it.

  I sat in the car and watched Boston shimmering in the distance. I was waiting for my guts to relax and my hands to stop shaking. My phone rang.

  “I got you your meeting with a bodyguard,” said Bobby. “Get your ass down to Revere Beach.”

  “What’s his name?”

  “It’s a woman.”

  “What’s her name?”

  “She’ll tell you. She doesn’t like me to give it out.”

  “OK.” I hung up. That was strange, but what did I know of bodyguards?

  I put the wake card in my pocket and started the car. There was only one way I was going to that wake: as the guy who caught Kevin’s killer. I just needed the bodyguard to keep me alive until I could do that.

  I made a three-point turn from the dead end, drove down the street, and turned down Centennial Ave toward the beach.

  thirty-one

  At one time, Revere Beach was the place to be. That time was 1908. Revere Beach was, as is usual for Boston, America’s first public beach. It was established in 1896, and in ten years it became a hot tourist attraction. The beach thronged with people who came up from Boston to enjoy the Wonderland amusement park, dance at Ocean Pier Ballroom, and watch the thirty-foot-tall smoking volcano that had been built into the sand of the smooth, curving shoreline.

  That was a long time ago. The amusement parks went out of business, and today “Wonderland” is the name of a train station. The beach still curves gracefully toward Nahant, but the only noted attraction is Kelly’s Roast Beef, which is “World Famous,” according to its sign. I’d once asked some folks from Budapest if they had heard of Kelly’s Roast Beef in Revere and they had not. It was very disappointing.

  I was standing on the sand, holding a Kelly’s milkshake and wearing an orange Worcester Tornadoes hat, black polo shirt, and blue jeans. The hat was the only one on the beach, which was the idea. Wearing a Red Sox cap would have only blended me into the crowd.

  The sun was setting. The beach crowd had dwindled with the onset of evening. I was alone on the warm sand looking out toward Graves Light, watching its blink-blink-pause pattern as the sun descended behind me.

  “Enjoying the view, baby?”

  Carol was standing next to me, looking out into the sea.

  “This place reminds me of the Cape,” I said.

  “I loved the Cape,” she said. “We decided to get married down there.”

  “Yeah, after that camping trip at the Audubon place. If there’s one test for marriage, it has to be camping,” I said.

  “It rained for three days. We couldn’t leave the tent.”

  “That was a good three days.”

  “Then we went to Coast Guard Beach and got sunburned. We couldn’t touch each other for the rest of trip.”

  “I seem to remember that we could touch each other. Thank God for tan lines.”

  Carol blushed.

  “Are you blushing?” I asked.

  “No.” It wasn’t Carol.

  Carol was gone, replaced by a woman with black hair, high cheekbones, and an olive complexion. She had a trim form, high breasts, and long legs. A pair of black sunglasses rested on a hawkish nose. She carried a black leather purse. I looked at her and followed Bobby’s instructions to say nothing. She was supposed to make the first contact.

  “Are you Mr. Tucker?” she asked.

  “Yes,” I said. “Can’t you tell by the Worcester Tornadoes hat?”

  She cocked her head and looked at me. She said, “The hat could be wrong. I have never heard of Worcester.” She had an accent I couldn’t place.

  “You’re not from around here, are you?”

  “No.”

  I stuck out my hand. “Please, just call me Tucker. What’s your name?”

  The woman ignored my hand, and I put it back by my side. She asked, “Agent Miller didn’t give you my name?”

  “No. He said you had a thing about that.”

  The corner of the woman’s mouth twitched up. A smile?

  She said, “From what Agent Miller told me, I am not certain that I want to have my name involved with you.”

  “Because of my reputation?”

  “Because you may be dead soon.”

  “Well, that’s a cheery thought. What makes you think I’ll be dead?”

  “You are very bad at this sort of work.”

  “What? Detective work?”

  “Dangerous work.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Earlier today, an amateur tried to garrote you. One would expect you to be nervous. What do they say, ‘Have your neck in a swivel?’”

  “Head on a swivel,” I corrected.

  “Yet you are so distracted that I was able to surprise you on an open beach.”

  I could have blamed Carol, but that didn’t seem like it would help my cause. I changed the subject.

  “Why do you say he was an amateur?”

  “Because if he were a professional, you would be dead. The garrote is very effective.”

  “I cut him with my Mr. Coffee.”

  “You should have been on the floor.”

  “Well, I fought him.”

  She stepped forward and pushed my chest. I was surprised and tried to step back, but her left foot was in my way. I fell on my ass in the sand.

  She said, “You see how easy it should have been. He was an amateur.”

  I looked up and said, “All right, Mata Hari, I get your point.”

  The woman turned and started walking back up the beach.

  I got up and ran after her.

  I said, “Hey, wait.” She kept walking.

  If I lost her, I was doomed. I caught up with her. “Wait a second.”

  She walked on and I put my hand on her upper arm to get her attention. She stopped and looked at my hand, then into my eyes. A chill ran through me. I put up my hands in surrender.

  I looked around the beach. The setting sun was still hot and the air smelled of fried food and seaweed. I felt the familiar feeling of helplessness that came just after I had spoken hastily and my words were still floating around doing damage.

  I said, “I’m sorry. I spoke without thin
king.”

  “It seems to me, Mr. Tucker, that you do many things without thinking.”

  “I know. Look, I really need your help.”

  “Why?”

  “Well, you said it. That amateur is trying to kill me. He already killed Kevin.”

  “You should run away. The man who tried to kill you is a criminal and a bully. He is not an assassin. Once you are out of his sight, he will forget about you. His kind does not have the attention span for a long hunt. You would be safe if you went overseas for a year.”

  “Yeah, but here’s the thing. I want to catch him.”

  “Why?”

  Why? Why did I want to risk my life to catch some killer? I didn’t know, but an image formed in my mind. It was a movie of Carol fighting for her life as this bastard cut her open in our kitchen. I thought about how frightened she must have been as she lay there, trying to stop the bleeding with her hand and thrashing.

  I felt a burning in my throat, different from the pain from the garrote. It was a familiar knot that I usually washed away with Scotch. I looked at the woman in gray, and my lip quivered. This absolutely wouldn’t do. I turned and walked back down the beach, toward the ocean. Sobs began worming their way past my chest, and my lower lip contorted. I didn’t want to break down in front of her.

  I walked into the water. My sneakers filled. Dead seaweed made the ocean into a broth. Brown waves slapped at my knees and I knelt, taking dirty seawater and splashing it onto my face. It worked. The cold water, wet shoes, and salty smell pulled me away from the abyss. I turned to go back up the beach and … dammit! There she was, standing in the water right behind me.

  “Why?” she repeated.

  I took a deep breath and talked past the subsiding constriction in my throat. It was time for the truth.

  “You were able to sneak up on me today because I was talking to my wife.”

  “Your wife? Detective Miller told me that she is dead.”

  “She is.”

  “I see.”

  “She haunts me. She’s haunted me ever since she died. She comes when I’m alone. We were talking when you arrived. Am I crazy?”