“Go ahead.”
“Or maybe one of your kneecaps?”
“Go ahead.”
We were all quiet. The Chow had stopped growling and was sitting on his haunches with his jaw hanging and his purple tongue out. He was panting quietly.
“Paul,” I said. “You see before you an example of the law of compensation. The little weasel is ugly and stupid and mean and he smells bad. But he’s tough.”
“You’ll find fucking out how tough I am,” Harry said. “You may as well stick that thing in your mouth and pull the trigger. ’Cause you’re a dead man. You unnerstand that. I’m looking at a dead fucking man.”
“On the other hand,” I said to Paul. “I am handsome, good, intelligent, and sweet-smelling. And much tougher than Harry. Let’s go.”
Paul went out the door. I backed out after him. The Bronco was right in front of the station. “Go around,” I said, “and go fast. Get in the other side and crouch down.”
He did what I told him and I followed, backing, my gun steady at the open door. Then we were in the car and out of the lot, and heading toward Brighton on Commonwealth Avenue.
Beside me Paul was very white. He swallowed several times, audibly.
“Scary,” I said.
He nodded.
“Scared me too,” I said.
“Did it really?” he said.
“Sure. Still does. But there’s nothing to be done about it. Best just to go ahead with your program. Being scared is normal, but it shouldn’t change anything.”
“You didn’t seem scared.”
“Best not to,” I said.
“Why would he let you shoot him? If he’s doing something with my father, he must really want to keep it quiet”
“Maybe. Or maybe he’s just stubborn. Won’t be pushed. He didn’t get to be as big a deal in this town as he is by being a piece of angel cake. Even garbage has pride sometimes. Maybe you need to have more if you’re garbage.”
I U-turned where Commonwealth curves off toward BU and headed back downtown.
“What did you get out of that?” Paul asked.
“Found out a little,” I said.
“What?”
“Found out that your father’s connection to Harry Cotton is worth covering up.”
“Maybe that other guy was lying,” Paul said.
“Buddy? No. If he lied, it wouldn’t be like that. If Cotton ever heard that Buddy had fingered him, he’d have Buddy killed. Buddy would lie to get out of trouble. But not that way.”
“If that guy Cotton is so rich and everything,” Paul said, “why is he so junky?”
“I suppose he figures it doesn’t attract attention,” I said. “Maybe he’s just thrifty. I don’t know. But don’t let it fool you.”
“What are we going to do now?”
“Your father have an office set up at his apartment?”
“Yes.”
“We’re going to burgle it”
CHAPTER 26
Paul and I spent the night in my apartment in Boston. And the next morning about ten thirty we broke into his father’s apartment in Andover. There was no one home. Like all the other good suburban business types, Mel Giacomin was out laying nose to grindstone.
“His office is in back where I slept when I was here,” Paul said.
Through the dining room with the kitchen opening to the right and down a very short hall there were two bedrooms and a bath. Mel wasn’t a neat guy. The breakfast dishes were still laying around the kitchen. Coffee for one, I noticed, and a Rice Krispies box. A health food addict. Mel’s bed in the right-hand bedroom was unmade and there were dirty clothes on the floor. There were wet towels on the bathroom floor. The other door was closed and locked with a padlock. I stepped as far back as the narrow hall would let me, raised my right foot, and kicked the door with the flat of my foot The padlock hasp tore loose from the wood. We went in. The office was neat. There was a studio couch. A table that once functioned in a kitchen, a straight chair, and a two-drawer metal file with a lock. On the table were a phone, a lamp, a beer mug holding pencils and pens, and a card file. The card file was locked too. There was a small Oriental rug on the floor, an air conditioner in the room’s one window, and nothing else.
“Let’s just take the files,” I said. “Simpler than breaking them open and going through them here.”
