“I have a plan,” I said.
Paul ate part of a taco. He nodded.
“I am going to try to find out things about your parents that will let me blackmail them.”
Paul swallowed. “Blackmail?”
“Not for money. Or at least not for money for me. I want to have some leverage so that I can get them off your back and off mine and maybe get you their support in what you want.”
“How can you do that?”
“Well, your father knows some ugly people. I thought I might look into how come.”
“Will he go to jail?”
“Would you mind if he did?”
Paul shook his head.
“Do you feel anything for him?” I said.
“I don’t like him,” Paul said.
“‘Course it’s not that simple,” I said. “You’re bound to care something about his opinions, his expectations. You couldn’t avoid it.”
“I don’t like him,” Paul said.
“It’s something we’ll need to talk about, probably with Susan. But we don’t have to do it right now.” I ate some avocado-and-cheese sandwich. Paul started on his lobster roll.
“You want to help me look into this?” I said.
“About my father?”
“Yes. And your mother. We may find out things that you won’t like to know.”
“I don’t care.”
“If you help?”
“No. I don’t care if I hear things about my mother and father.”
“Okay. We’ll do it. But remember, you probably will care. It probably will hurt. It’s okay for it to hurt. It’s very sensible that it should hurt.”
“I don’t like them,” Paul said. He finished off his lobster roll.
“All right,” I said. “Let’s get to it.”
I was parked in a slot behind the Customs House Tower by a sign that said U.S. GOVT. EMPLOYEES ONLY. As we walked to the car Paul was a few steps ahead. He’d gotten taller since I’d had him. And he was starting to fill out. He wore jeans and a dark blue T-shirt that said ADIDAS on it. His shoes were green Nikes with a blue swoosh. The hint of definition showed in his triceps at the back of his arms. And there was, I thought, a small broadening of his back as the latissimus dorsi developed. He walked straighter and there was some spring. He had a lot of color, reddish more than tan, as he was fair-skinned.
“You look good,” I said as we got into the car.
He didn’t say anything. I drove down Atlantic Avenue, across the Charlestown Bridge, and pulled up near a bar off City Square, not far from the Navy Yard. The front of the bar was done in imitation fieldstone. There was a plate glass window to the left of the doorway. In it a neon sign said PABST BLUE RIBBON. Across the window behind the neon was a dirty chintz curtain. Paul and I went in. Bar along the right, tables and chairs to the left. A color TV on a high shelf braced with two-by-fours. The Sox game was on. They were playing Milwaukee. I slid onto a barstool and nodded Paul onto the one next to me. The bartender came down the bar. He had white hair and tattoos on both forearms.
“Kid ain’t supposed to sit at the bar,” he said.
“He’s a midget,” I said, “and he wants a Coke. I’ll have a draft.”
The bartender shrugged and moved down the bar. He poured some Coke from a quart bottle into a glass, drew a small draft beer from the tap, and set them in front of us.
“I don’t care,” he said. “But it’s a state law, you know.”
I put a five-dollar bill on the bar. “Buddy Hartman around,” I said.
“I don’t know him,” the bartender said.
“Sure you do,” I said. “He hangs out here. He hangs out here and he hangs out at Farrell’s on Rutherford Avenue.”
“So?”
“So I want to give him some business.” I put another five on top of the first one without looking at it. Like I’d seen Bogie do once in a movie. The bartender took the top five, rang it up, brought me the change. He put it on the bar on top of the first five.
“He don’t usually come in here till about three,” he said. “Sleeps late. And he comes in here and has a fried egg sandwich, ya know.” It was two twenty-five.
“We’ll wait,” I said.
“Sure, but the kid can’t sit at the bar. Whyn’t you take that table over there.”
I nodded and Paul and I went to a table in the back of the bar near the door to the washroom. I left the change
