Storrow Drive would be standing still at this time. And so would the Mass. Pike. Shrewdly, I stayed off both and went straight out Commonwealth. So did everyone else. I hit every red light, and got to Newton at five thirty-five. Bobby and Madelaine were having cocktails. There was a pitcher of martinis on the coffee table. No one offered me one.
'Brooklyn will go for it,' I told Deegan.
He was sitting in a Barcalounger wearing a white cotton sweater over a crimson polo shirt, collar up. His acid- washed jeans were carefully ironed and his Top-Siders were new.
'You turn on the OTB thing and they give you immunity and protection.'
'And you?' he said. Madelaine sat on the foot of the Barcalounger, near his ankles, her left hand resting on his knee, sipping a martini from a thick lowball glass. She had her shoes off but otherwise looked as if she'd just come from work in a gray wrap-around dress.
'Me? You don't mention Dwayne, and he and I don't mention you,' I said. 'Nobody ever fixed a Taft game.'
'What happens about Davis?'
'I got no control over that,' I said. 'But if there's no gambling case, I don't know how they'll make you for Davis.'
'Danny Davis?' Madelaine said.
Deegan made a shushing motion with his hand.
'What about Danny?' Madelaine said. 'Bobby, did you...'
'Put a lid on it, Madelaine. How do you know this guy hasn't got a wire?'
Madelaine looked as if she'd bitten into a sawdust donut. Her mouth shut and stayed shut.
'He's not going down for it,' I said, 'but Bobby had Danny Davis killed. Tried to have Dwayne killed. If he were going down for it you'd probably be an accessory to murder.'
'I never . . .' she said, and that's as far as she got. Deegan leaned forward and grabbed her arm and yanked her over, so that she was sprawled on top of him on the lounger. With his face against hers, and his lips actually touching her lips, he said, 'Shut up, you understand that? Shut your fucking trap.'
I could see by the whiteness of his knuckles that he was squeezing her arm hard. She squirmed, pulling at his fingers.
'You understand?' he said again in a hoarse voice, holding her head in place with his left hand.
'Yes,' she whispered, and he let her go. She got up abruptly and went and stood near the fireplace rubbing her arm where he'd squeezed it.
'You say what you want,' Deegan said to me calmly. 'I'm not saying anything at all about any murder stuff, that's not part of this deal. I had nothing to do with any murders.'
'I'm not wired, Bobby,' I said. 'And I just wanted Madelaine to know who she was sleeping with. But for the record the deal doesn't include any murders.'
'Fine,' Deegan said. 'Who do I talk to?'
'I'll set it up,' I said. 'You'll be here?'
'Right here,' Deegan said.
35
THE next morning Dwayne bolted. He went into a washroom at the Lancaster Tap, opened the pebble glass window and went out and down the alley, leaving two campus cops having cheeseburgers and coffee and wondering what took Dwayne so long.
Chantel met him at the foot of the alley and they were off in the Trans Am, with Hawk behind them. He followed them to a house off Blue Hill Ave. near Mattapan Square. Watched them for a while until they settled in, and then he carne and told me about it.
'You stuck with Chantel,' I said. 'You knew he wouldn't go without her.'
Hawk nodded. 'Dwayne can't drive,' he said.
'He could have taken a cab,' I said.
'Sure,' Hawk said.
'Let's go see him,' I said.
'Might make him run again,' Hawk said. 'I'm getting sick of chasing him.'
'We need to talk,' I said.
We went in Hawk's car. Out the expressway and onto Columbia Road toward Mattapan Square. Hawk was listening to an album by Kinky Friedman and the Texas Jewboys.
'What happened to Hugh Masekela?' I said.
'Next tape,' Hawk said.
Hawk turned the jag down Blue Hill Ave. and in another ten minutes we were pulling up in front of a three decker like a thousand others in Boston. Porches on the front of each floor with wooden railings. Shingle siding. Flat roof. The small yard out front was neatly trimmed. There were flowers in flower boxes on each floor. The house had been painted recently.
