Vulgar Boatman

by William G. Tapply

  “I will. Is that what Curry called me about?”

  “I don’t know. Yeah. Probably.”

  “Tom, are you okay?”

  “I’m hurting. That’s a good sign.”

  “Give my love to Joanie.”

  “She asked after you a couple times. Be nice, maybe you could come see her.”

  “I’ll see what I can do.”

  Tom thanked me several times. He seemed reluctant to disconnect. I couldn’t blame him. Not that I offered him much comfort, but his alternative was sitting in the house where he had raised his son and staring at the memories, with his wife’s hysteria to deal with when she awakened from her drugged sleep.

  After we finally hung up, I went over to the cabinet in my office and found my special bottle of Jack Daniel’s. Normally it’s for ceremonial occasions—the generous settlement of a lawsuit, a not-guilty verdict, the reconciliation of an estranged couple.

  This time I poured myself a shot and downed it neat, just like a brassy lawman in a hostile saloon. For nerves, for courage. Whatever, it never works for me, but it always seems like a good idea.

  I went to the closet. My old briefcase was on the floor in back. I took it out and put it on top of my desk. I brushed the dust off it.

  It wasn’t one of those sleek attaché cases that most of my colleagues fancy. This one was the size of a small suitcase. I could have fit a pair of six-packs into the bottom of it comfortably. It had accordion sides and opened from the top. My father had given it to me when I graduated from Yale Law. It hadn’t been new, even then. It had the initials H.F.S. engraved in gold on the side. “Harlan Fiske Stone,” my father told me. “A very great lawyer and Supreme Court Justice. This was his. I think you’re ready at least to carry Stone’s briefcase now.”

  Actually, I didn’t carry the briefcase. I valued it the way I would an old classic car. I didn’t want to get it soiled or rained on. It was to own, not to use. Anyway, I didn’t have that many occasions when I needed to lug around big sheaves of legal papers. When I did, carrying them in that big old clunker would constitute some kind of overkill. I had a slender attaché case of my own for that.

  This time, though, I decided to use Harlan Fiske Stone’s old briefcase. I stuffed it with the papers that lay on my desk and added two lawbooks that contained precedents for the Fallon case.

  Then I went over to my office safe, opened it, and took out my Smith and Wesson .38 revolver. I snapped open the cylinder to confirm that I had left it unloaded. There was a box of cartridges in there, too. I loaded the gun and put it into the briefcase.

  Zerk Garrett, when he worked with me, used to shriek and giggle when I carried the weapon with me. He was right—I was uncomfortable with it. In my pocket it bagged noticeably and bumped awkwardly against my hip. Nor did it feel natural in my hand.

  The one time that I had occasion to take it out and aim it at another man, it was taken away from me. It had, in fact, been used to kill a man. Since that time it had left my safe only once, and that was when I was invited by a policeman I knew to shoot with him at the police range. I was impressed, at that time, by the noise it made, and by the way it bucked and leaped in my hand. It felt alive and powerful and I did not shoot it particularly accurately.

  I wasn’t sure if I could ever fire it at a human being. But I could point it and threaten with it. And I figured there was no harm having it with me. It was, at least, a minor comfort, when I reflected on the fact that somebody had killed Buddy Baron at my kitchen table.

  I wondered if perhaps there was one man I could actually shoot at.

  Nine

  JULIE WAS AT HER desk when I got to the office Monday morning.

  “Nice weekend?” she said.

  “Don’t ask.” I plunked my battered old briefcase onto her desk, unclasped the top, and reached inside. I fumbled for the sheaf of papers I had worked on all day Sunday. My hand touched the cold metal of the Smith and Wesson. Foolishness, I thought. I removed the papers and quickly snapped shut the briefcase.

  I flourished the papers at Julie and set them atop her desk.

  “My, my,” she said, picking them up and flipping through them. “No fishing trips? On the outs with all your lady friends?”

  “I found a little spare time.”

  “It was a bad weekend.”

  “You don’t know the half of it.”

  “Going to tell me?”

  “You bring me a cup of coffee, I’ll tell you.”

  “I’ll bring you coffee because it’s my turn.”

  I went into my office and she followed a minute later, bearing two mugs of coffee. We sat on the sofa. I told her about finding Buddy’s body in my kitchen Friday evening, and my subsequent conversations with the police and Tom Baron. As I talked, Julie stared solemnly at me. When I was done, I shrugged. “So that’s how it was.”

  “How horrible,” she whispered. “Those poor, poor people.”

  “I think Tom and Joanie expect some wisdom out of me. I don’t seem to have any.”

  She regarded me solemnly. “And you,” she said after a minute. “How are you doing?”

  I shrugged. “I’m tough.”

  “Oh, right.”

  “I’m okay.”

  “Bullshit,” said Julie.

  “Okay, so I’m not all right. So I can’t get Buddy Baron out of my mind. So I keep thinking about my own boys, and how it must be for Tom.”

  “You don’t need to be tough, you know, Counselor. It’s okay to be objective and rational for other people. You can still have your own feelings.”

  “Well, you’re right. Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome. So what are you going to do?”

  “Do? Nothing. Nothing different. Life goes on, right?”

  “Right.” She stood up and smoothed the front of her skirt against her thighs. “Life goes on. You get to work now.”

  “I can’t stop thinking about Buddy.”

  “Think about him. That’s okay. But get to work.”

  I flipped her a mock salute. “Aye, aye, sir.”

  She went out to her desk and I moved wearily to mine. I owed myself a vacation, I decided. I had determined a long time ago to be a one-man office precisely so that I could take vacations whenever I wanted to. Things kept happening to get in the way. I should have been an oral surgeon like Doc Adams. He kept taking lengthy, tax-deductible boondoggles to exotic places, in the guise of medical conferences, where days were spent flycasting for bonefish and tarpon, and evenings were devoted to drinking expensive whiskey and listening to other medical folks discuss the states of their arts.

  The Commonwealth of Massachusetts requires these sessions of medical folks licensed here. I made a mental note to see what the state’s bar association might come up with for us barristers.

  In the meantime, I didn’t have Doc’s self-righteous explanation for his periodic ten-day abandonments of his practice. “Professional development, old chum,” he liked to say. “Must stay au courant, don’t you know.”

  When I’d ask him how hearing about new techniques in bowel surgery helped him extract impacted wisdom teeth, he’d waggle an eyebrow at me and give me some double-talk about holistic medicine.

  He knew I didn’t buy it. And he always came back with a great tan and photos of the fish he had snagged. Made me sick.

  I vowed to get away at least once before the snow flew.

  I was enjoying a mental debate between the Florida Keys and Mexico when Julie buzzed me. “Mr. Curry for you,” she said.

  “You were supposed to call me,” said Curry when he came on the line.

  “Busy as hell,” I lied. “You were on my agenda. What’s up?”

  “I want to buy you lunch.”

  “You want to buy me lunch, you want something. What is it?”

  “Let’s discuss it over lunch, okay? Say at the men’s bar at Locke Ober’s at twelve-thirty?”

  “In the first place, I’m always game for lunch at Locke’s, but it’s n
ot the men’s bar anymore. Ladies are shown every courtesy. In the second place, I want to know what this is about.”

  “Good. See you then.”

  “Wait a minute. This about Tom’s campaign? Because if it is—”

  “Twelve-thirty,” repeated Curry, and he hung up.

  “Son of a bitch,” I growled into the dead telephone.

  I hate being hung up on. I found the Boston phone number I had jotted down from Curry’s message on my answering machine and I punched it out. An efficient female voice answered. “Republican headquarters. Baron for governor. May I help you?”

  I asked for Eddy Curry and was placed on hold. I expected to hear a tape of “Happy Days Are Here Again.” Or was that Democratic music? All I got was empty static.

  A minute later Curry’s voice said, “Curry.”

  I paused before I replaced the receiver on the hook. I felt much better.

  Locke Ober’s is located down a little dead-end alley off one of the streets that connect Tremont with Washington Street, just across from the Common. I walked to it from my office, sniffing the sharp autumn air and reconfirming the importance of a vacation. I arrived, as intended, a fashionable—and, I hoped, an insulting—twenty minutes late. The maître d’ steered me to a table in the corner near the bar. Curry was already there, stirring a Manhattan. I guessed it wasn’t his first.

  He half rose when I was deposited smoothly at my seat. “Hey, Brady,” he began.

  I ignored the hand he held to me and turned instead to the waiter who had materialized at my elbow. “Bourbon old-fashioned on the rocks,” I told him.

  “You don’t need to be pissed off at me,” said Curry.

  “Who said I was pissed off?”

  “You had to call back and hang up on me, right?”

  I shrugged. “I didn’t do that.”

  Curry grinned. “Right.”

  I grinned back and lit a cigarette.

  Curry settled his head into his jowls like a turtle retreating into his shell. He regarded me out of hooded eyes. “Okay,” I said. “So what’s this all about?”

  His eyes shifted to the glass he was slowly rotating on top of the table. “The candidate thinks very highly of you,” he said. “For that matter, so does the candidate’s wife.” He glanced up at me and grinned. It was not a grin that conveyed humor, or good nature. Curry’s grin was the expression of a large fish—a Northern pike, perhaps—with its eye on a wounded minnow. “Matter of fact,” he continued, “it wouldn’t surprise me if the candidate’s wife had the old-fashioned hots for you.”

  “I’ve already talked to Tom about all this,” I said.

  Curry shook his ponderous head. “I doubt that.”

  “He asked me to be legal adviser to his campaign.”

  “Did he, now.” It was not a question.

  “Yes. He did. I told him I’d think about it.”

  The waiter slid my drink in front of me and hesitated. “Bring us another round in about ten minutes,” said Curry. “We’ll order lunch then.”

  “Very good,” murmured the waiter. He pronounced it “vezzy.” He looked Greek, or maybe Turkish.

  When the waiter slipped away, Curry leaned forward. “No one knows better than you how tough this whole business has been on Tom and Joanie,” he said. “I’ve been with them most of the weekend. Tom’s a zombie. Joanie’s a total basket case. I’m no shrink, but I don’t see Tom making any kind of sudden recovery.” He lifted his eyebrows at me.

  I nodded. “I’m beginning to get your drift.”

  “Well. That’s good.”

  “But why don’t you spell it out for me anyway.”

  He shrugged. “Why not. Sure. Here it is. Tom Baron’s a loser. No way in the six weeks between now and election can he recoup. Shit, a campaign based on law and order, old-fashioned morality, targeting drug pushers, no less, and his kid gets these kinds of headlines? The papers are chuckling up their sleeves and rubbing their hands together. And the polls are already disastrous. He lost four percentage points over the weekend.” Curry peered at me. “Now do you get it?”

  “Keep going.”

  He sighed. “Okay.” He spread his hands flat on the table. “We want him to resign. It could be done gracefully, with class. Nice speech on the television. Family reasons. Mourning, right? Doing the grief thing. Wants to be with his wife. Everybody would understand. Tom would introduce his replacement. The party’s got him all picked out. Perfect for the situation.”

  “Who?”

  He shook his head. “Aw, I couldn’t say right now.”

  “So you want Tom to resign. And Tom doesn’t want to, right?”

  “You got it.”

  “So where do I come in? How do I rate lunch at Locke Ober’s? You think I’m important enough, you’ve got to let me in on all this smoke-filled-room stuff? Hell, you could have told me this on the phone. For that matter, you didn’t have to tell me at all. None of my business. I never vote Republican anyway. Not since Frank Sargent. I wasn’t going to vote for Tom Baron, and I’m not going to vote for his stand-in. So you don’t have to feed me a fancy lunch.”

  “Come on, Coyne. Don’t give me a hard time. You know what I want.”

  I shrugged. “I haven’t heard it.”

  At this point our waiter returned with a manhattan for Curry and another old-fashioned for me. He slid menus in front of us, bowed, and moved discreetly away. I picked up the menu and scrutinized it. “What looks good to you?” I said.

  “Dammit, Coyne. You wanna make me grovel, is that it?”

  I nodded, very serious. “I want you to speak plainly. If that’s groveling, okay. But first I think we should order.”

  Curry rolled his eyes.

  I jerked my head at the waiter, who came over and said, “Sir?”

  I ordered the swordfish, knowing it would still be twitching when they slid it under the broiler. Curry had something with a French name, which he pronounced badly.

  After the waiter left, I said, “So why don’t you fire him?”

  “You can’t just fire him. Christ, anybody knows that. He’s gotta resign, and he’s gotta resign gracefully, with dignity. And you’re the only one who can talk him into it, dammit.”

  “What if I can’t?”

  Curry shrugged. “He loses.”

  “And what if I refuse to try?”

  “Same damn thing.”

  “I’m a little slow,” I said. “Let’s see if I’ve finally got it. Tom Baron can’t win. You want him to quit. But he doesn’t want to. And you can’t make him. So you want me to talk him into it. If I don’t, he runs and loses. Right?”

  “Exactly.”

  “We’ve got a problem, then.”

  Curry sighed.

  “Because,” I continued, “I’m not going to do it. He’s been after me to be his legal adviser. I’ve been saying no. It’s been selfish of me. I disagree with his politics. But then I see you. You’re a useful example, Eddy. Know why?”

  He shrugged his massive shoulders.

  “Because you don’t even have any politics, but you don’t have a problem working with Tom. As far as I know, you do a good job. It doesn’t matter what you believe or what kind of a human being you happen to be. You can help a candidate. Right?”

  “If you say so.”

  “So it makes me realize there’s no reason not to be Tom’s legal adviser. I can vote any way I want and still work for him. And it happens that, among other advice I might offer him, one thing I’ll say is to go ahead and run. Keep on with the campaign. The hell with your polls.”

  “So you’re on, then.”

  “I’m on.”

  “Congratulations, I guess.”

  “You want to know why I’m on?”

  Curry shrugged. “Go ahead. Tell me.”

  “Two reasons. One, I hate to see a man being treated like a piece of shit, kicked when he’s down, abandoned when he needs support. I won’t be a party to any of that. Second, Tom Baron has one compelling re
ason to continue his campaign, and becoming governor has nothing to do with it.”

  “And what could that be?”

  “To clear his son’s name. And his own. If he quits, people are going to assume that Buddy was a drug dealer and maybe a killer to boot.”

  Curry shrugged again. “Well…”

  “See? You’re assuming the same thing. Am I right?”

  He spread his hands. “Who knows?”

  “Guilty until proven innocent, right? Listen. I don’t think Buddy Baron did anything wrong. I think he was a good kid who went through a bad time and had the spine to get through it. And then circumstances got him. If freedom and democracy and justice mean anything—if Tom’s speeches mean anything at all—they mean that Buddy Baron shouldn’t be tried and found guilty and punished after he’s dead and can’t defend himself. Tom can defend him. He’ll have to, right? Now it’s a campaign issue. See, I can help him with this. And I’m going to.”

  Curry stared at me for a minute, then hunched his neck. “This is a mistake,” he said.

  I shook my head. “I don’t think so. I’m willing to live with it.”

  “Think it over. You’ll change your mind.”

  “Nope.”

  “Well,” he said, “we’ll just have to try something else, then.”

  “You got any dirty tricks up your sleeve, you better think twice,” I said. “Because Tom Baron’s legal adviser is going to be on the alert for them.”

  Curry smiled placidly. “I don’t think you wanna play hardball with us, Mr. Coyne.”

  “Oh, I don’t know. I’m sort of looking forward to it.” I pushed myself back from the table and stood up. “You can cancel my order. Or eat it yourself. Thanks for the drinks.”

  Curry waved his hand. “Aw, sit down. Relax. This is politics, for crissake, not anything serious. Hey, you win some, you lose some. For now, you win. It’s okay. We can still have lunch together, some nice conversation. Come on. Sit.”

  I remained standing. “What do you want to talk about?”

  “You follow the Patriots?”

  I shrugged and sat. “Rather talk fishing.”

  Curry smiled. “I can talk anything. That’s part of my charm.”

  The swordfish was, as expected, excellent, the Bibb lettuce salad crisp and cool. Curry regaled me with political stories. And he did turn out to have a sort of crude charm, at that.