“Clyde Klaus?” McDermott’s face was beautiful with pleasure.
Klaus’s face flushed slightly.
“Clyde Klaus.” McDermott and Sylvia spoke in unison, their voices breaking on the very edge of a giggle.
Santos said, “You two clowns wanna knock off the horseshit. We got serious work to do here. Cruz got you detached to me on this thing, you know. You listen to what I tell you.”
Sylvia and McDermott forced their faces into solemnity behind which the giggles still smirked.
“Anything else?” Clancy said. He turned his head in a half circle, covering all of us, one at a time. “Okay, let’s go look at the site.”
“I’ll skip that one,” I said. “I’ll take a look at it later. But if any of the bad persons got it under what Klaus would call surveillance I don’t want to be spotted with a group of strange, fuzzy-looking men.”
“And if they see you looking it over on your own,” Santos said, “they’ll assume you’re just careful. Like they are. Yeah. Good idea.”
“You know the place?” Clancy said.
“Yeah.”
“Okay, the Chelsea people are going to be under command of a lieutenant named Kaplan if you want to check on something over there.”
I nodded. “Thanks, Clancy, nice to have met you gentlemen. See you tomorrow.” I went out of Clancy’s office. With the door ajar I reached back in with my right hand, gave it the thumbs-up gesture and said, “Good hunting, Clyde,” and left. Behind me I could hear Sylvia and McDermott giggling again, now openly. Klaus said, “Listen,” as I closed the door.
Outside I bought two hot dogs and a bottle of cream soda from a street vendor and ate sitting by the fountain in City Hall Plaza. A lot of women employed in the Government Center buildings were lunching also on the plaza and I ranked them in the order of general desirability. I was down to sixteenth when my lunch was finished and I had to go to work. I’d have ranked the top twenty-five in that time normally, but there was a three-way tie for seventh and I lost a great deal of time trying to resolve it.
Chelsea is a shabby town, beloved by its residents, across the Mystic River from Boston. There was a scatter of junk dealers, rag merchants and wholesale tire outlets, a large weedy open area where a huge fire had swallowed half the city, leaving what must be the world’s largest vacant lot. On the northwest edge of the city where it abuts Everett is the New England Produce Center, one of two big market terminals on the fringes of Boston that funnel most of the food into the city. It was an ungainly place, next door to the Everett oil farm, but it sports a restaurant housed in an old railroad car. I pulled my car in by the restaurant and went in. It bothered me a little, as I sat at the counter and looked out at it, that my car seemed to integrate so aptly with the surroundings.
I had a piece of custard pie and a cup of black coffee and looked things over. It was a largely idle gesture. There was no way I could know where the swap would take place. There wasn’t a hell of a lot for me to gain by surveying the scene. I had to depend on the buttons to show up, like they would when I put my hands in my hip pockets.
The restaurant wasn’t very busy, more empty than full, and I glanced around to see if anyone was casing me. Or looked suspicious. No one was polishing a machine gun, no one was picking his teeth with a switchblade, no one was paying me any attention at all. I was used to it. I sometimes went days when people paid no attention to me at all. The bottom crust on my custard pie was soggy. I paid the bill and left.
I drove back into Boston through Everett and Charles-town. The elevated had been dismantled in Charlestown and City Square looked strangely naked and vulnerable without it. Like someone without his accustomed eyeglasses. They could have left it up and hung plants from it.
For reasons that have never been clear to me the midday traffic in Boston is as bad as the commuter traffic and it took me nearly thirty-five minutes to get to my apartment. Pam Shepard let me in looking neat but stir- crazy.
“I was just having a cup of soup,” she said. “Want some?”
“I ate lunch,” I said, “but I’ll sit with you and have a cup of coffee while you eat. We’re going to have to spend another night together.”
“And?”
“And then I think we’ll have it whipped. Then I think you can go home.”
We sat at my counter and she had her tomato soup and I had a cup of instant coffee.
“Home,” she said. “My God, that seems so far away.”
“Homesick?”
“Oh, yes, very much. But… I don’t know. I don’t know about going home. I mean, what has changed since I left.”
“I don’t know. I guess you’ll have to go home and find out. Maybe nothing has changed. But tomorrow Rose and Jane are going to be in the jug and you can’t sleep here forever. My restraint is not limitless.”
She smiled. “It’s kind of you to say so.”
“After tomorrow we can talk about it. I won’t kick you out.”
“What happens tomorrow?”
“We do it,” I said. “We go over to the Chelsea Market about six in the morning and we set up the gun sale and when it is what you might call consummated, the cops come with the net and you and Harv get another crack at it.”
“Why do I have to go? I don’t mean I won’t, or shouldn’t, but what good will I do?”
“You’re kind of a hostage… Rose figures if you’re implicated too, I won’t double-cross them. She doesn’t trust me, but she knows I’m looking out for you.”
