by Chuck Hogan
He had blown it. He'd had his chance, and now he was in an awkward no-man's-land with her: not strangers anymore, but not acquaintances either. Running into her again somewhere else would only raise her antenna, make her skittish.
Maybe it was better this way. Over before it began. Where had he expected to go with it anyway? Ask her to drinks Upstairs at the Tap? Dinner at Olives, then on to the fucking opera?
No sparks. There it was in a nutshell. No fireworks.
Then he remembered her smiling. Twisting her hands anxiously. Looking at him longer than she had to. The suspense in her eyes, shining beyond politeness. This summoned the counterbalancing image of her wearing a blindfold, and Doug remembered how much he wanted that image out of his mind.
She sensed him coming, looking up from her book as he approached her across the washing machines. "Hi," he said. "Slightly creepy Laundromat guy here again."
"No-o," she laughed.
He pressed his fingertips atop the machine before him like a pianist about to launch into a solo. "I was back over there pairing off socks, and you were over here-- and I knew I would never forgive myself if I didn't come over and take a shot."
Her eyebrows flinched at his poor choice of words, making him talk faster.
"Because if I don't take a shot," he said, repeating the offending phrase, pretending that it was not in fact unfortunate, "it's going to wind up haunting me for like the next four weeks at least."
She smiled, changing direction, showing lighthearted concern. "Are you really that hard on yourself?"
"You don't even know," he said, relaxing just a fraction. "It would progress from, say, smacking myself repeatedly on the forehead, to, like, stopping in here a couple of times each day, doing my laundry one sock at a time, hoping you'd come back in alone and that you'd remember me, and we'd get to talking again, and I'd have something incredibly devious to say about the weather...."
She was smiling by the end of it, until some sort of protective instinct closed her lips. "Well," she said, "now that you've taken your shot"-- she kicked the word playfully-- "is that enough? Enough to keep you from hurting yourself, I mean, and spending all your quarters here?"
"No way. Not anymore. See-- now we've talked. Now it's a character issue. If you were to say no to me now, then it's like-- then there's something wrong with me, and this whole haunting thing continues, only much, much worse. Because now what it means is, I'm not fit to attract a quality person like yourself."
She squinted, still smiling but mulling this over, not knowing what to make of him. Which was okay: Doug didn't quite know what to make of him himself.
"Quality?" she said, liking the ring of it, and he felt her giving in.
"For sure," he said, dazzled by his success. "Quality."
12
Checking in
HER MESSAGE ON HIS voice mail went:
"Hi-- Agent Frawley? This is Claire Keesey, um, the branch manager from the robbery-- the one, the BayBanks in Kenmore Square? Hi. I don't have any, this isn't-- I have no pertinent information regarding the robbers or anything like that. I'm just calling to let you know that I'm normal-- that I finally had a little mini-episode, my junior breakdown, and I'm feeling better now, I really am. It was at a Laundromat, and... I guess something made me think of my jacket, the one they cut? And it all came crashing down on me at once. I actually ran off and left my clothes there and now have to get up the nerve to go back and claim them. A total case. Anyway-- I know this is a strange message and I'm probably taking up valuable crime-fighting time, but who else would understand? And I really wanted to thank you, because if you hadn't warned me that something like this might happen, well-- I would think I was headed for Prozac and a group home. So-- thanks. That's all. Bye."
Frawley didn't get the voice mail until a day and a half later. He tried her at the bank first, then reached her at home.
"Oh, hi. Hold on, okay?"
The call-waiting blip.
She came back in a few seconds. "Sorry about that. My overbearing mother."
"No problem, how're you doing?"
Music being turned down. "Good. Doing better. I'm doing well, actually."
"Good. I just got your message."
"Oh, God. Rambling, right? I just-- after feeling so blah for so long, so walking-dead, getting that little bit of relief-- it was almost the same as feeling great."
"I tried to reach you at work."
"Yeah, no, I haven't-- I finally went back today. For the first time, just to look around. They redid my office. Desk, chair, ceiling. It was a little bit of a haunted house, but I'll get there. I start back full-time tomorrow."
"That's good. It's time."
"No, it is good. Otherwise I'm just sitting around here, watching way too much TV."
"You might experience a rush of anxiety or even adrenaline, seeing someone enter the bank with the same body type as the bandits', or a similar demeanor. If so, you might try to remember what it is about them that triggered that, and let me know."
A pause. "Okay. Wow, I hope not."
"Don't stress out about it. Get your clothes back?"
"Oh-- from the Laundromat?" she realized. "God, it was so humiliating. Yes, I got my clothes back. Cleaned and folded."
"Nice. A little service they provide weepy customers?"
"That's right. As advertised in the window."
He could hear her smile in her voice. "You had a coupon or something?"
"A competitor's coupon, for emotional distress, which they honored. But seriously-- the weirdest thing?"
"What?"
"Some guy there asked me out on a date. Another customer, the guy who pulled my clothes out. He's actually the one who folded them. It was funny-- he definitely seemed not the type for folding women's clothes."
"Really," said Frawley, intrigued by the competitiveness this news triggered in him. "What did you say?"
"I actually said yes, because it was sort of in-the-moment. But I think he's like a furniture mover or something. I mean, I don't think my head's quite right yet. A guy I met in a Laundromat? I'm sure I'll just end up blowing him off."
Frawley smiled, feeling oddly energized. "You would laugh out loud if you could see me right now."
"Why? Are you undercover or something?"
"My neck and cheek, and my left hand-- they're all stained red. A dye pack exploded on me."
"A dye pack? Get out."
"A robbery in Brookline, I chased the guy down and it went off. And of course it takes a lot longer to fade than the three days they claim. So I'm sort of out of commission here for a while, at least socially. But maybe next time we see each other I'll tell you my tale."
"Sure. That sounds good."
"Good," he said, buzzed. "And, hey, good luck tomorrow."
"Oh, yeah. Yuck. I'll be fine."
As Frawley hung up, Dino's voice surprised him from behind. "What was that?"
Dino was sitting on the edge of Flott's desk inside the Lakeville bull pen. "Branch manager from the Morning Glory."
"What's she got?"
"Nothing. Just checking in."
"Checking in, huh? Thought you cleared her."
"I did."
"Uh-huh." Dino smiled. "Okay. Just watch yourself there."
"No, no."
"They love cops in their life after something goes wrong."
Frawley shook that off. Dino was holding a legal-sized manila envelope in his hairy hands. "What's that? Congress Street subpoena already? The Nynex records?"
Dino danced it out of Frawley's grasp. "Like a kid on Christmas morning. Say please."
Frawley pulled his hand down contritely-- then lunged and swiped the envelope out of Dino's hands, sitting back again and smiling and ripping it open. "Please."
13
AM Gold
DOUG PLAYED A RARE street-hockey matinee up where Washington Street dead-ended beside the rink on a paved bluff. In terms of the neighborhood, this was an event, like if native son Howie L
ong had come back to play touch football over at the Barry Playground. Doug didn't skate much anymore, and never out on the streets, because the game to him was freighted now with too many negative connotations: his youth, faded dreams, his father. Pulling on the skates and pads was like climbing inside his younger self again, and that kid was a royal screwup. Doug had to be feeling good to want to play-- and today he felt really, really good.
A kid from Chappie Street who fancied himself a street Gretzky faced off against Doug, and got schooled. Doug put on a clinic. Jem, who lived for this shit, was a conspicuous no-show, leaving Gloansy to dust off Doug's old high school handle, hooting, "Stick came to play!" as Doug finished the third game with a rising slap shot that nicked the crotch of the goalie's droopy jeans-- a wannabe-black white kid from the Mishawum houses-- the orange-ball puck finding a tear in the net and arcing away down the slope to the streets below. Doug skated a victory lap backward, pumping his fist under the wide blue sky.
Fast-forward to a quarter after eight that evening, Doug MacRay rearranging the appetizer card, the glass salt and pepper shakers, the purple petunia in the tiny black vase. He had sent the aproned server away twice and now felt the other Tap diners looking his way, entertaining themselves, watching some Townie bozo get stood up but good.
He tried hard to appear relaxed, not pissed, like everything was cool and going according to plan. But first of all: Why the Tap? Why pick a place where he might get made? Secondly: Why Upstairs? Who the fuck was he trying to be? These frauds he despised?
Bottom line was, he'd panicked at the Laundromat. She said yes and he blanked, because he had no strategy beyond that, the Tap Upstairs the first thing that jumped into his head.
Like a teenager, he had been idealizing their date. She'll sit there, I'll sit here. I'll say this, she'll laugh. A fucking little boy. And this "oatmeal"-colored pullover tugging tight across his shoulders, that he had bought off a headless mannequin on a last-minute run to the Galleria-- after spending half an hour going through his closet? Fucking God-- look at yourself. Black pants with the crotch cut too high. A braided leather belt, soft black shoes.
Huge mistake, this whole thing. Hiding in the back of the place, taking this table because he couldn't risk being seen up front. He scanned the appetizer menu for the eighth fucking time. He watched the glass doors, the color bleeding out of his vision.
He deserved this humiliation. He deserved to be stood up. A mistake from the word go.
Five more minutes he waited. Then another five beyond that-- his punishment, sticking his nose in it, forcing himself to soak in his own shame. Learn from this. What was it Frank G. had said? Aside from not walking into a bar alone, this is the most important decision you're ever gonna make. Nice work. Fucked up on both counts.
Two choices: either resume drinking, hard, and right now-- piss away two goddamn years for a stuck-up yuppie bitch-- or get up, walk to the door-- Maybe stop at the ladies' room on your way out-- and walk his tight-crotch pants back home.
As always, Doug fell back to the one thing he knew he could count on. The one thing Doug had that no one could take away from him. His criminal eye. Others-- maybe it was a wife or kids they took shelter in. Someone or something to run to where they could feel like a success no matter how often the rest of the world humiliated them.
Double up on the armored-car surveillance. Focus on the big multiscreen movie theaters, Revere, Fresh Pond, Braintree. With the "summer" releases starting in early May, all he needed to do was zero in on a place and a time.
The front windows were darkening with night, headlights finding their way along Main. Dim enough for Doug to make a clean escape and drag his sorry ass back up the hill. He waited for his server to get busy at another table, then stood and started heavy-legged for the door, head down, his exit slowed by two chicks picking through the basket of mints at the hostess station.
That's where he was when Claire Keesey came rushing in. She gave the tight-skirted hostess a quick once-over, then looked right past Doug to the central bar.
The chicks in front of him exited, and he could smell the street and the night, and he started to follow them out, wanting to be done with it. He had already torn her down beyond repair in his mind-- himself too-- and the moment had passed.
"My God! You're right here!" She reached out and squeezed his elbow. "I am so late, I know. Were you leaving? My God, I'm so sorry. I don't even-- but you're still here, I can't believe it."
Believe it. Or, maybe, Hey, I don't believe it either, cutting her dead-- and then walk out on her, take his anger on home.
But she was looking up at him and smiling, catching her breath. "It's Doug, right?"
"Right."
"I didn't, when I came in... you look different."
"Do I, yeah."
Sizing him up. "I didn't... hmm." Concerned about her own clothes now, a white cotton button-up blouse fitted nicely at the waist, distressed jeans, black shoe boots. "I was running late. I thought more casual..."
"Doesn't matter. I think I folded those jeans."
She checked them out with a smile. "I think you did."
He started to feel good again, despite himself. "Searched the pockets for loose change and everything."
She smiled brightly, her eyes fully involved. He realized he was standing inside the entrance to the Tap, the door to the Downstairs five steps behind him. He nodded to the back of the room. "Maybe I haven't lost our table yet."
They threaded through the tabletops to the back wall. She tucked her little red key-chain purse in next to the flower vase, Doug sitting across from her on a cushioned, bar-height chair, his back to the wall. The low-watt overhead lamp sprayed soft light onto her honeyed hair, the rest of the lounge room fading from view behind her.
Doug patted the table, smiling, exhaling.
"Well," she said. She leaned forward a moment, the overhead lamp creating a mask of shadow around her eyes. Doug leaned back reflexively, not wanting her to see any masks on him. "So why am I thirty minutes late?" She looked away for the answer, but became distracted. "I'm still shocked you waited. I mean-- I'm glad. And I'm sorry. But I'm also amazed."
"Well, really only about fifteen minutes of it was me waiting for you. The other fifteen was me pouting, knocking myself in the head."
"Oh, no! You warned me about that."
"It's a problem I have."
"You don't-- I think I tried to tell you this at the Laundromat-- but you don't strike me as the type to be so, I guess, tough on yourself."
"I'm a fragile sort."
She smiled at his arms, his shoulders. "Right. You bruise easy."
"I put too much pressure on myself, I guess. Some things I take too seriously."
"Please, you're sitting across from the original life-or-death, agonizing-over-everything girl."
She went off searching for that answer again as their server arrived, a short-haired platinum blonde with one ear rimmed with copper clips. She smiled at Claire. "You made it."
"I made it," said Claire, pleasant, appraising.
"He looked very worried," she said, hugging her leather order pad, nodding cheerily at Doug. "Actually, he looked pissed off."
Doug said, "Thought I was hiding it."
Claire said, "Was he really hitting himself in the head?"
"Close to it. My name is Drea, what can I get you?"
Claire asked for a wine recommendation and settled on something Italian called a valpolicella.
"Glass or bottle?" said Drea, looking at them both.
"Bottle," said Doug.
"Terrific." Drea started to leave.
"And I'll have a soda water, lime," said Doug.
Drea paused a second before nodding and flipping her pad back open and scribbling that in. "I'll be right back." And she was gone.
Claire looked at the table, wondering about his order.
"I'm driving," Doug told her.
She looked up at him. "Okay."
"For the rest of m
y life."
Claire nodding, then gesturing after Drea. "I don't even have to..."
"Nope," he said, rocking gently. "It's cool. Really."
"Why did you get a bottle then?"
"I don't even know," he said, his head pounding. She was looking at him differently now. Questions popping in her mind like flashbulbs. "You were saying..."