him down. It was all good.”
I felt like it was time for Dione to announce another bummer alert, but she was in the kitchen, so I filled in as best I could.
“I’m ready for another. Anyone else?”
Spirits returned and stayed aloft throughout a giant multi-course dinner, at which all of Dione’s fresh baked loaves of bread were devoured. Bottles of red and white circulated continuously and everyone but Evelyn was eager to jump in and out of the zigzag of conversation that seemed a feature of the gang’s interaction. She was civil enough, but to my sorrow I easily recognized the situation. Amanda tried to engage her a few times, with some success, but it looked like her prime objective was to get some nourishment and then get the hell out of there.
In the Grand Prix on the way back Amanda entertained me with a description of how Dione prepared the meal, in succulent detail, adding to the feeling of satiation.
“So what did you men talk about out on the porch?” she asked. “I’m guessing not baseball or the stock market.”
“Reliving old times in Boston.”
“It’s amazing to think they’ve been together for so long.”
“Lot of ways to make a living.”
“A handsome one, if you go by Butch’s bank statements, which I already said I can’t reveal, so don’t ask.”
“Then quit bringing it up.”
“I guess I shouldn’t be so voyeuristic about it, but it’s impressive when you think how hard it is for artists to make money, much less a whole lot of money”
“So I guess Osvaldo really screwed the pooch.”
“I guess so. I only met him a few times. Seemed just like the rest of them, only with a very nice Italian accent to go with a beautiful Italian face. And athletic build.”
“Quit being so negative.”
“You think Butch doesn’t talk about him, don’t even bring up the name around Dione. Unless you want to see all that kumbaya, love and brotherhood go right out the window.”
“They said he got too radical politically, quite an accomplishment.”
“That’s what I heard, but I never saw it.”
“Too distracted.”
“I’d say the same about you, except for the accent. Maybe not the face either, but you are athletic.”
“Tell me more about how Dione made the creme brulee.”
Eddie was over at Amanda’s house when we pulled into our common drive. So much for loyalty. She made it worse by giving him another Big Dog biscuit. I might have protested, but she had a reward in mind for me as well, and being as susceptible to placation as the next guy, I acquiesced without further comment.
TWENTY-TWO
Tom split, creep. New sublet. Balcony! Hours long, pay short. So what else is new. Tom split, boo. Oh shit, if you really want to know.
SHE INCLUDED the address of her new place in type so tiny I needed a magnifying glass to read it. Allison liked to do tricky things like this with her computer, but I saw some significance in the act of diminishing the move. Or maybe I was projecting my own anxiety on her behalf. Or maybe I’d been overexposed lately to symbolism and metaphor.
It was a good time to go to the gym and beat on something for a while. A purification ritual for brutes.
When I got there the guy who handed out towels asked me about Sullivan. I’d never heard him utter a sound, much less a word before, so it almost made me jump.
“He’s okay.” I said. “Coming around. You’ll see him in here before you know it.”
The towel guy took that in, then nodded. Satisfied with the report, a good return on the investment of breath. I just hoped I wouldn’t have to talk to him now every time I needed a towel.
Several other guys ask me about Sullivan, mostly other cops, which surprised me. Partly because I didn’t know anyone gave a shit about him, or that I’d be the one you’d want to ask if you did. Since I’d brought him in, it transferred to me all rights to knowledge of his well-being. Even Ronny got in on the act.
“So he’s comin’ around and all, gettin’ back his functionality” he said to me while I was trying to work the speed bag.
“Yeah. Can’t talk to all the functions, but the doc says he’s basically sound. Or will be.”
“What the hell happened?”
“I don’t know. If Ross does, he’s not reporting to me.”
“Ross only reports to the Planet Zircon.”
“He’s okay. He’s on it.”
“Hasn’t talked to me.”
I stopped the chattering bag with my gloves.
“Does he usually?” I asked.
“No, but the bitch of it is I seen Sullie that day. Came in late to sit in the whirlpool for an hour. Said he was tired, had pulled a time and a half, and felt like crap from eating too much the night before.”
“Doesn’t sound like a man itching to run out and get stabbed.”
“I don’t know what it sounds like, but it don’t mean nothin.”
Ronny had been a cop himself, first with the NYPD, then out in West Hampton Beach. You can be tempted watching cop shows to think there’s not a lot of difference between police and civilians. But that would be a mistake. The only people in the world who thought like cops were cops.
“He didn’t have his service revolver with him when I found him,” I told Ronny. “It was still at his house.”
“He wasn’t big on carrying off-duty I know that from the chumps who come in here armed to the teeth. I got a rule, check em at the door. Nothin’ in the locker. Kids in here ll boost it faster than you can say gangsta rap.”
“Or Mel Torme.”
“But he’d carry if he had to. Sullivan’s a tight-ass but he’s good at being a cop. It’s hard to like him, but you got to respect him.”
“So if it doesn’t mean nothing, what does it mean?”
Ronny was also a really big man, in a tall, fleshy kind of way. Big head with a full scalp of dyed black hair. Always in a set of dark blue sweatpants and sweatshirt, though I never saw him work out or spar with anybody. Everybody just assumed since he owned the place and trained the kids that he could kick anybody’s ass he wanted to. I never saw any reason to challenge the assumption.
“Got set up. Bushwhacked. Never saw it coming.”
“That’s what I’m thinking,” I had to tell him. “You should tell Ross. He’d want to know.”
“Fair enough.”
“Joe got in a few rights before they knocked him on the head. Don’t tell him I told you.”
Ronny liked hearing that.
“Like I said, you got to respect him.”
He let me go back to the bag, which I got humming like an oversized bumblebee. I was always good at the speed bag, changing up rhythms and modulating the monotonous patter. There was something hypnotic about it, the blur of brown leather as backdrop to my scruffy maroon workout gloves. And it was something I could still do as I got older. Took more style than muscle. A good way to signal the hormone-crazed kids that I’d be tougher game than I looked without having to actually demonstrate it in the ring. Anything to stay the hell out of the ring.
I don’t know how long I was lost in the bag before I realized Ronny was standing there again.
“I remembered something,” he said when I dropped my gloves. “Actually it was the thing I was going to tell you when I saw you come in, only I forgot it till now. I got the short-term memory of a brain-damaged gnat.”
“I’m listening.”
“Sullivan said his wife was planning to work late and that he’d have to figure out how to feed himself. In
