A Fine Line

by William G. Tapply

  After a few minutes, I sat up, sipped my drink, lit a cigarette, and called Evie.

  When I told her what had happened, she said, “What did the police say?”

  “I didn’t call the police.”

  “Why not?”

  “What can they do?”

  “Brady,” she said, “you were mugged. That’s a crime. You’re supposed to report crimes. Otherwise, how do you expect the police to capture the criminals?”

  “I don’t expect them to,” I said. “A hundred people get mugged every night in Boston. All he got was my wallet and an eighty-year-old briefcase full of worthless papers.”

  “That’s hardly the point.”

  I sighed. “I know. I’m more pissed at the security around here. This isn’t the first time someone’s been mugged in my garage. It’s why I always walk down with you when you’re leaving.”

  “Call the police, okay?”

  “Sure,” I said.

  “I mean it,” she said. “At least if somebody finds your briefcase, they’ll know who it belongs to. Can you identify the guy, do you think?”

  “Not in a million years. Dark clothing. That’s it. Never saw his face.”

  “Did he say anything?”

  “He just said ‘shit’ when Henry went after him. I think he hit Henry.”

  “Oh, I hate that man. Is Henry all right?”

  “He’s not complaining.”

  “How big was the guy?”

  “I couldn’t tell. Average sized, I guess.”

  “Could it have been a woman?”

  “Me? Mugged by a woman?”

  She laughed. “Silly me. Did you take something for your headache?”

  “Rebel Yell and a cigarette.”

  “Take some aspirin.”

  “Yes, Doctor.”

  “Put an ice pack on your head.”

  “Right.”

  “Call the cops.”

  “Okay.”

  “Promise?”

  “I promise.”

  “Don’t forget to cancel your credit cards.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “And get some sleep.”

  “Sure,” I said. “I’m fine.”

  “I wish I were there to take care of you.”

  “Me, too.”

  After I hung up with Evie, I called the local precinct and reported what had happened. The woman who took the call asked perfunctory questions, and I gave her perfunctory answers. She didn’t promise to send somebody over right away, and I didn’t ask her to. I made sure she wrote down a description of my briefcase. She asked me what it was worth. I told her it had loads of sentimental value.

  She reminded me to cancel my credit cards, too.

  Somewhere along the way, Henry snuck up onto the bed. He lay on his side with his back pressed against my leg. He was sound asleep.

  “Dogs,” I told him, “are supposed to sleep on the floor.”

  He twitched and sighed.

  I didn’t have the energy to press the issue.

  When the phone rang, I was instantly awake. The green glow-in-the-dark numbers on my digital alarm clock read 4:09 A.M.

  “Yes?” I said when I got the phone to my ear. “Who is this?”

  “Fawrivah.” It was that same muffled voice.

  “I didn’t catch what you said,” I said. “Say it again. Who are you, anyway?”

  He hung up.

  I pushed myself into a sitting position and turned on the light. Henry, who was still sprawled on my bed, lifted his head, blinked at me, and went back to sleep.

  I hit star-69 on the telephone and was told that the number I was trying to call couldn’t be “reached by this method.” As expected.

  I lit a cigarette. “Fawrivah,” the voice had said. I repeated it aloud a couple times until I thought I had it. Then I called Lieutenant Keeler’s cell phone.

  He picked up on the fourth ring and grumbled, “Yeah. Keeler.”

  “It’s Brady Coyne,” I said. “I just had another phone call.”

  “Christalmighty,” he said. “A phone call? Oh. A phone call. Another fire, you think?”

  “I don’t know. It was the same voice.”

  “You recognize it?”

  “No.”

  “Well, what’d he say?”

  “Fall River, I think.” Fall River was an old down-on-itsluck fishing city near the Rhode Island border on the Massachusetts south shore.

  “What do you mean, you think?”

  “His voice was muffled, like last time. Like he had the receiver covered. It sounded like he said Fall River.”

  “You try to retrieve his number?”

  “Yes. No luck.”

  “Okay,” said Keeler. “Thanks. Got it. Go back to sleep.”

  “Wait,” I said.

  “What?”

  “I thought you might be interested to know I got mugged tonight.”

  “Any buildings burn down?”

  “No. He pushed me from behind and I banged my head. Took my wallet and my briefcase.”

  “So why’re you telling me? I’m arson. Call the cops.”

  “I did. They didn’t seem very interested.”

  “What do you want me to do?”

  “That wasn’t my point,” I said. “I just thought, first Walt Duffy gets murdered, then Ben Frye dies in a fire, and these phone calls, and I’ve been lugging those Meriwether Lewis letters around, and—”

  “He got those letters?”

  “No. They’re in a safe place.”

  “So what did he get?”

  “Nothing that matters, really. Some cash. Credit cards. Except my briefcase. My father gave it to me.”

  “No documents in it?”

  “Just photocopies of stuff. Nothing of any interest to anybody.”

  “This mugger . . .”

  “I didn’t get a look at his face,” I said.

  “Well,” said Keeler, “this is something for the local cops, you know.”

  “I just thought it all might be connected,” I said lamely.

  “You have any idea how many people get mugged in Boston?”

  “Sure, but . . .”

  He was silent for a moment. “Okay,” he said. “Maybe it is connected. Maybe you’re lucky you didn’t get the back of your head smashed in, too. Right now, though, I’m more interested in that phone call. Fall River? That was all he had to say?”

  “That was all. He said it once and hung up.”

  “Well,” he said, “let’s see if we can nail somebody setting fires in Fall River, shall we?”

  “I hope you do,” I said. “These phone calls are ruining my sleep.”

  “Mine, too,” he said. “Don’t forget to cancel your credit cards.”

  FIFTEEN

  I lay there in the dark, waiting for sleep to return. I kept hearing that voice on the telephone, muffled and obviously disguised. “Fawrivah,” he’d said. Fall River. I was sure it was the same voice that had whispered “Boomer pierce even” to me the night before the Beau Marc warehouse on Pier Seven in East Boston went up in flames with Ben Frye inside.

  So why tell me about it?

  My head throbbed. Where I touched it, there was a big, tender bump. I staggered out of bed, went into the bathroom, and swallowed three ibuprofen tablets. I peeled off the Band-Aid, and when I looked in the mirror, I saw that the bump on my forehead wasn’t all that big. A little scab had formed over it. I didn’t figure I was a candidate for cosmetic surgery.

  When I turned back to the bedroom, Henry was standing there in the doorway with his head cocked to the side and his little tail wagging.

  “What do you want?” I said to him.

  He went over and sat beside the front door.

  “Do you know what time it is?” I said to him.

  He perked up his ears.

  “It’s quarter of five in the morning,” I told him.

  That information seemed to please him.

  So I got dressed, hooked up Henry’s lea
sh, and started to open the door. Then I went back into the kitchen, found an old spatula and a plastic zip-up bag. I shoved them into my pocket, and Henry and I went down the elevator, out onto the sidewalk, and headed for the park down the street.

  By the time Henry finished his business—and I’d finished scooping it into the plastic bag—the sky had begun to turn silvery in the east, and overhead, the stars were winking out one by one.

  Back home, I got undressed and went back to bed. Smoked a cigarette. Slogged through half a chapter of Moby Dick. Turned off the light. Stared up into the semi-darkness.

  After what seemed like a very long time, I finally started to drift off . . . and that’s when my alarm clanged. I reached over and shut it off without even opening my eyes.

  When the phone woke me up, the sun was streaming through my bedroom window. Judging by its angle, it was the middle of the morning.

  I picked up the phone. “Yeah?”

  “Where are you?” It was Julie.

  “I’m here. Obviously.”

  “You don’t need to be crabby,” she said. “I mean, why aren’t you here? Mr. Alberts’s appointment is in an hour.”

  “Oh, shit. What time is it?”

  “It’s after ten, Brady. Are you all right?”

  “Actually, no,” I said. “I’ve got a terrible headache. I slept lousy. Must’ve turned off the alarm. See if you can reschedule Herm Alberts, will you?”

  “You never have headaches,” she said skeptically.

  “I fell and banged my head last night. It bled all over me. Now I’ve got a goose egg. I’ll be fine.”

  “Take some aspirin.”

  I sighed. “I did.”

  “Put ice on it.”

  “Yes,” I said. “Good idea.”

  “I’ll call Mr. Alberts,” she said. “What time will you be here?”

  “What’ve we got this afternoon?”

  “No appointments. We need to go over that paperwork I gave you.”

  “Oh,” I said. “That.”

  She hesitated, then said, “What do you mean, ‘Oh, that’?”

  I told her about getting mugged and banging my head and having my wallet and my briefcase stolen.

  “Your Harlan Fiske Stone briefcase?”

  “Yes.”

  “You love that briefcase,” she said.

  “Yes, I do.”

  “What about all that paperwork I gave you?”

  I sighed. “What do you think?”

  “Gone, huh?”

  “Gone.”

  “Hm,” she said. “So what did the police say?”

  “They thanked me for reporting it.” I cleared my throat. “I think I’m going to take the day off. See if I can go back to sleep, get rid of this damn headache.”

  “Well, sure,” she said. “Certainly if you’re not feeling well . . .”

  “I feel lousy,” I said.

  It reminded me of lying to my mother when I was a kid, pretending to be sick because I didn’t want to go to school. I felt a little guilty about it.

  I figured I’d get over it.

  After I hung up with Julie, I called to report the theft of my credit cards. As expected, it took longer than it should have, and the headache I ended up with had nothing to do with whacking it against the door frame of my car.

  So I went back to bed.

  I woke up a little after two o’clock in the afternoon, feeling fuzzy-headed and disoriented and vaguely depressed. A pot of coffee, sipped slowly, one mug at a time out on my balcony, helped.

  After Henry and I returned from another tour of the park, I fried some bacon, scrambled four eggs, made some toast, and he and I had brunch.

  Around six I told Henry I was going out for a while and he shouldn’t bother waiting up for me.

  He went over and sat by the door.

  “No,” I said. “I’m going. Just me. You’re staying here.”

  He cocked his head and looked at me for a minute, then went to the sofa, hopped up on it, twirled around a couple of times, lay down, sighed, and closed his eyes.

  “You’re not supposed to get up on the furniture.”

  He ignored me.

  “Well, don’t chew anything,” I told him.

  He opened his eyes, glared at me, then shut them again.

  “I’ll only be a couple of hours, for Christ’s sake,” I told him. “You can’t come everywhere with me.”

  I left Henry sulking on the sofa.

  By the time I got to Central Square and found a parking space, it was after seven o’clock. A “Closed” sign hung in the window of Vintage Vinyl, but there were lights on inside.

  I tried the knob, and the door opened. When I stepped inside, I recognized Benny Goodman’s clarinet playing over the speakers.

  There appeared to be no one in the store, but I saw an open door in the rear. I went back there and peeked in. Conrad Henshall was sprawled in a reclining desk chair with a keyboard on his lap. He was staring through his tinted glasses at the large computer monitor on his desk, and his fingers were flicking at the keys. He was wearing chino pants with sharp creases, a starchy white shirt, and a bow tie.

  I knocked on the door frame. He glanced up at me, said, “Sorry, sir. We’re closed,” and returned his attention to the computer screen.

  I stood there for a minute, and when it became apparent that he intended to ignore me, I said, “I’m Brady Coyne. We met the other day. I was looking for Ethan Duffy. I still am.”

  He didn’t shift his eyes from his computer screen. “I am occupied and my shop is closed. That sign is hanging in the window to deter people from entering.”

  “The door was unlocked.”

  “My mistake.” He looked up at me and jerked his head toward the front of the store. “Lock it on the way out for me, if you’d be so kind.” He turned back to his computer and hit a couple of keys.

  “I need to talk to you,” I said. “About Ethan.”

  “This is not a good time, I’m afraid.” He kept his eyes on his computer monitor. “Another day, perhaps.”

  I stood there for a minute. Henshall made a good show of pretending I wasn’t there. So I stepped into the room, reached around behind his computer, and yanked out a handful of cords.

  Henshall yelled, “Hey!” and an instant later, without warning, someone slipped up behind me and clamped his forearm around my throat.

  He wedged his arm up under my chin and yanked me back against him. His breath smelled of peppermint. He had the bony part of his wrist pressed against my windpipe. I tried to drag in a breath, and found I couldn’t. Tears sprang into my eyes.

  I stomped down on his instep with my heel and at the same time drove my elbow back into his ribs. I’d seen James Bond do that a dozen times, and it always worked.

  It did this time, too. He grunted, and his grip on my throat loosened, and I twisted away from him.

  When I turned to face him, I saw that it was the balding guy with the ponytail who’d been in the store on my previous visit. Phil was his name.

  “Where the hell did you come from?” I said.

  He was bent over rubbing his foot. “Fuck,” he muttered. “That hurt.”

  Henshall was shaking his head. “Awfully inept, Philip,” he said. “I appreciate the effort, however.” He dismissed Philip with a backward wave of his hand.

  Phil shrugged, frowned at me, and went limping back into the store whence, apparently, he’d come, although I hadn’t seen him on my way in.

  “If he’s supposed to be your bodyguard,” I said to Henshall, “you’re in trouble.”

  He leaned back in his chair, and blinked at me. “If you don’t leave right now,” he said, “I’m going to call the police.”

  “Fine,” I said. “I’ll give you Detective Saundra Mendoza’s number. She’s with homicide. If you don’t want to talk to me, you can talk to her.”

  “I don’t want to talk to anybody,” he said. “I just want you out of my store.”

  “I’m sorry
,” I said. “I’m not going to do that. Not until we talk.”

  He scowled at me. I scowled right back at him.

  After a minute he shrugged. “I can’t persuade you to leave, then?”

  I shook my head.

  “Even if I sic Phil on you?”

  I smiled.

  “You better not have broken any of those cords.”

  “I don’t think I did,” I said. “I just pulled out some plugs.”

  “That was unnecessary.”

  “I considered punching you in the stomach,” I said.

  He shrugged. “People have tried to intimidate me all my life. It doesn’t work anymore.”

  “I just wanted to get your attention.”

  “Is that why you used the word homicide?”

  “The word homicide should get your attention.”

  “I confess it did,” he said. “So what about Ethan Duffy?”

  “He works here.”

  “Worked. Past tense. I fired him, as I believe I told you the other evening. He just doesn’t know it yet.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because he hasn’t showed up when he’s supposed to for a week, and he hasn’t called me, and he doesn’t answer his phone, so I haven’t had a chance to tell him.”

  “I understand you’re not just Ethan’s employer,” I said, “but also a friend of his.”

  Henshall took off his glasses and looked at me. “What do you want with Ethan Duffy, sir?”

  “He seems to have gone missing. His mother’s worried about him.”

  “You work for the mother?”

  “Who I work for is none of your business,” I said. “Do you know where Ethan is?”

  “No.”

  “Talked to him, seen him, gotten any message from him since last Wednesday?”

  He shook his head. “I told you—”

  “Any idea where he might go if he didn’t want to be found?”

  “Listen—”

  “No,” I said. “You listen. Ethan’s in trouble, and I need to talk to him.”

  Henshall was shaking his head. “I’m telling you. I don’t know anything.”

  I glared at him. He avoided my eyes. I felt sure he was lying. But short of beating him up, I didn’t think I was going to convince him to tell me the truth.

  I blew out a long breath. “Okay, Mr. Henshall,” I said. “Here’s what I want you to do. If you should happen to run into Ethan, talk to him on the phone, get an e-mail, anything, you tell him he should call Brady Coyne right away. Understand?”