back.
He turned and tried to knee me in the groin. I turned my hip into his body and blocked him. I got a good grip of shirt front with both hands and pressed him up and backwards until his feet were off the ground and his back was against the wall beside the door. The door had a pneumatic closer and swung slowly shut. I put my face close up to Mulready’s and said, “You really got a cousin named Mingo Mulready?”
“What the fuck’s wrong with you?” he said. “Lemme the fuck down. What are you, crazy?”
“You know what I’m doing, Michael baby,” I said. “You know ‘cause you ran when you recognized me.”
“I don’t know you. Lemme the fuck down.”
I banged him once, hard, against the wall.
“You tried to run me and Rachel Wallace off the road a while ago in Lynn. I’m looking for Rachel Wallace, and I’m going to find her, and I don’t mind if I have to break things to do it.”
Behind me I could hear footsteps coming at a trot. Someone yelled, “Hey, you!”
I pulled Mulready away from the wall and banged him against the safety bar on the emergency door. It opened, and I shoved him through, sprawling into the snow. I followed him outside. The door swung shut behind me. Mulready tried to scramble to his feet. I kicked him in the stomach. I was wearing my Herman survivor boots, double-insulated with a heavy sole. He gasped. The kick rolled him over onto his back in the snow. He tried to keep rolling. I landed on his chest with both knees. He made a croaking noise.
I said, “I will beat you into whipped cream, Michael, if you don’t do just what I say.” Then I stood up, yanked him to his feet, got a hold on the back of his collar, and ran him toward my car. He was doubled over with pain, and the wind was knocked out of him and he was easy to move. I shoved him into the front seat, driver’s side, put my foot on his backside, and shoved him across to the passenger’s
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side, got in after him, and skidded into reverse. In the rearview mirror I could see three, then four men and the girl from the call counter coming out the emergency exit. I shifted into third and pulled out of the parking lot and past the gate house; the guard gestured at us. I turned right through the parking lot at the Howard Johnson’s motel and out onto the Southeast Expressway.
In the rearview mirror all was serene. The snow slanted in across the road steadily. Beside me Mulready was getting his breath back.
“Where you going with me?” he said. His voice was husky with strain.
“Just riding,” I said. “I’m going to ask you questions, and when you’ve answered them all, and I’m happy with what you’ve said, I’ll drop you off somewhere convenient.”
“I don’t know anything about anything.”
“In that case,” I said, “I will pull in somewhere and maybe kill you.”
“For what, man? We didn’t do you no harm. We didn’t plan to do you in. We were supposed to scare you and the broad.”
“You mean Ms. Wallace, scumbag.”
“Huh?”
“Call her Ms. Wallace. Don’t call her ‘the broad.’”
“Okay, sure, Ms. Wallace. Okay by me. We weren’t trying to hurt Ms. Wallace or you, man.”
“Who told you to do that?”
“Whaddya mean?”
I shook my head. “You are going to get yourself in very bad trouble,” I said. I reached under my coat and brought out my gun and showed it to him. “Smith and Wesson,” I said, “thirty-eight caliber, four-inch barrel. Not good for long range, but perfect for shooting a guy sitting next to you.”
“Jesus, man, put the piece down. I just didn’t understand the question, you know? I mean, What is it you’re asking, man? I’ll try. You don’t need the fucking piece, you know?”
I put the gun back. We were in Milton now; traffic was very thin in the snow. “I said, Who told you to scare us up on the Lynnway that night?”
“My cousin, man—Mingo. He told us about doing it. Said there was a deuce in it for us. Said we could split a deuce for doing it. Mingo, man. You know him?”
“Why did Mingo want you to scare me and Ms. Wallace?”
“I don’t know, man, it was just an easy two bills. Swisher says it’s a tit. Says he knows how to work it easy. He done time, Swisher. Mingo don’t say why, man. He just lays the deuce on us—we ain’t asking no questions. A couple hours’ drive for that kind of bread, man, we don’t even know who you are.”
“Then how’d you pick us up?”
“Mingo gave us a picture of the bro—Ms. Wallace. We followed her when you took her out to Marblehead. We hung around till you took her home, and there wasn’t much traffic. You know? Then we made our move like he said—Mingo.”
“What’s Mingo do?”
“You mean for a living?”
“Yeah.”
“He works for some rich broad in Belmont.”
“Doing what?”
