“Once Vice, always Vice,” Devin said. “Those fucking guys.”
“We’ll get ’em next year,” Oscar said.
“Won’t be the same guys,” Devin said bitterly. “Broussard’s packing it in, so’s Vreeman. Corkery hits his thirty in January, heard he’s already bought the place in Arizona.”
I nudged his elbow. “What about you? You gotta be close to thirty in.”
He snorted. “I’m going to retire? To what?” He shook his head, threw back a shot of Wild Turkey.
“Only way we’re leaving the job is on stretchers,” Oscar said, and he and Devin clinked their pint glasses.
“Why the interest in Broussard?” Devin said. “Thought you two were bonded in blood after Trett’s house.” He turned his head, slapped my shoulder with the back of his hand. “Which, by the way, was a righteous piece of work.”
I ignored the compliment. “Broussard just interests me.”
Oscar said, “That why he slapped a water bottle out of your hand?”
I looked at Oscar. I’d been pretty sure Broussard had blocked the move with his body.
“You saw that?”
Oscar nodded his huge head. “Saw the look he gave you after he clotheslined Rog Doleman, too.”
Devin said, “And I can see how he keeps looking over here while we talk so friendly and casually.”
One of the Johns nudged his way between us, called out for two pitchers and three shots of Beam. He looked down at me, his elbow all but resting on my shoulder, then at Devin and Oscar.
“How’s it going, boys?”
“Fuck you, Pasquale,” Devin said.
Pasquale laughed. “I know you mean that in the most loving way.”
“But of course,” Devin said.
Pasquale chuckled to himself as the bartender brought the pitchers of beer. I leaned out of the way as Pasquale passed them back to John Lawn. He turned back to the bar, waited for his shots, drummed the bar with his fingers.
“You guys hear what our buddy Kenzie did in the Trett house?” He winked at me.
“Some of it,” Oscar said.
Pasquale said, “Roberta Trett, I hear, had Kenzie dead to rights in the kitchen. But Kenzie ducked and Roberta shot her own husband in the face instead.”
“Nice ducking,” Devin said.
Pasquale received his shots, tossed some cash down on the bar. “He’s a good ducker,” he said, and his elbow grazed my ear as he pulled his shots off the bar. He caught my eye as he turned. “That’s more luck than talent, though. Ducking. Don’t you think?” He turned so that his back was to Oscar and Devin, his eyes locked with mine as he threw back one of the shots. “And the thing about luck, man, it always runs out.”
Devin and Oscar turned on their stools and watched him as he walked back through the crowd toward the back.
Oscar pulled a half-smoked cigar from his shirt pocket and lit it, his flat gaze staying on Pasquale. He sucked back on the cigar, and the black, torn tobacco cackled.
“Subtle,” he said, and tossed his match into the ashtray.
“What’s going on, Patrick?” Devin’s voice was a monotone, his eyes on the empty shot glass Pasquale had left behind.
“I’m not sure,” I said.
“You made an enemy of the cowboys,” Oscar said. “Never a bright move.”
“Wasn’t intentional,” I said.
“You got something on Broussard?” Devin said.
“Maybe,” I said. “Yeah.”
Devin nodded and his right hand dropped off the bar, gripped my elbow tight. “Whatever it is,” he said, and smiled tightly in Broussard’s direction, “let it go.”
“What if I can’t?”
Oscar’s head loomed around Devin’s shoulder, and he looked at me with that dead gaze of his. “Walk away, Patrick.”
“What if I can’t?” I repeated.
Devin sighed. “Then you might not be able to walk anywhere soon.”
30
In the blind hope that it might make a difference, we decided to drive over to see Poole.
The New England Medical Center sprawls across two city blocks, its various buildings and skywalks occupying a linchpin spot between Chinatown, the theater district, and what remains, gasping and gulping, of the old Combat Zone.
On an early Sunday morning, it’s tough to find an open parking meter around New England Med: on a Thursday night, it’s impossible. The Schubert was playing its upteenth revival of Miss Saigon and the Wang was showing the latest bombastic Andrew Lloyd Webber or someone similar’s piece of sold-out, overwrought, overdone, singing dung extravaganza, and lower Tremont Street was teeming with taxis, limos, black ties, and blond fur, angry cops blowing whistles and waving traffic in a wide arc around the triple-parked throng.
We didn’t even bother circling the block, just turned into New England Med’s parking garage, took our ticket, and drove up six levels before we found a spot. After I’d exited the car, I held Angie’s door for her as she struggled onto her crutches, shut the door behind her as she worked her way out between the cars.
“Which way to the elevator?” she called back to me.
A young man with the tall, ropy build of a basketball player said, “That way,” and pointed to his left. He leaned against the hatch of a black Chevy Suburban and smoked a slim cigar with the red Cohiba label still wrapped around it near the base.
“Thanks,” Angie said, and we proffered stock-friendly smiles as we passed him.
He smiled back, gave a small wave with the cigar.
“He’s dead.”
We stopped, and I turned back and looked at the guy. He wore a navy-blue fleece jacket with a brown leather collar over a black V-neck and black jeans. His black cowboy boots were as weathered as a rodeo rider’s. He tapped some ash from the cigar, put it back in his mouth, and looked at me.
“This is the part where you say, ‘Who’s dead?’” He looked down at his boots.
“Who’s dead?” I said.
“Nick Raftopoulos,” he said.
Angie turned fully around on her crutches. “Excuse me?”
“That’s who you came to see, right?” He held out his hands, shrugged. “Well, you can’t, because he died an hour ago. Cardiac arrest due to massive trauma as a result of gunshot injuries incurred on Leon Trett’s front porch. Perfectly natural, given the circumstances.”
Angie swung her crutches and I took a few steps until we were both standing in front of the man.
He smiled. “Your next line is, ‘How do you know who we’re here to see?’” he said. “Take it, either one of you.”
“Who are you?” I said.
He slung his hand low in my direction. “Neal Ryerson. Call me Neal. Wish I had a cool nickname, but some of us aren’t so blessed. You’re Patrick Kenzie, and you’re Angela Gennaro. And I must say, ma’am, even with the cast and all, your picture doesn’t do you justice. You’re what my daddy’d call a looker.”
“Poole’s dead?” Angie said.
“Yes, ma’am. ’Fraid so. Say, Patrick, could you shake my hand? It’s a little tiring holding it out like this.”
I gave it a light squeeze, and he offered it to Angie. She leaned back on her crutches and ignored it, looked up into Neal Ryerson’s face. She shook her head.
He glanced at me. “Fear of cooties?”
