Bubba nodded. “He just called you to his house to shoot the shit?”
“Something like that.”
“Sure,” Bubba said.
I cleared my throat. “He told me Wesley Dawe has diplomatic immunity. I’m to stay away.”
Bubba rolled down his window as we approached the tollbooths outside the Sumner Tunnel. “What could some yuppie psycho be worth to Stevie Zambuca?”
“Apparently a lot.”
Somehow Bubba managed to squeeze his Hummer in between the tollbooths, handed the operator three bucks, and rolled his window back up as we joined the eight lanes trying to cram their way into two.
“But how?” he said, and maneuvered the double-wide freakish machine through the throng of metal like it was a letter opener.
I shrugged as we entered the tunnel. “Wesley’s already proven he has access to one psychiatrist’s files. Maybe he has access to others.”
“And?”
“And,” I said, “that access could give him private information on judges, cops, contractors, you name it.”
“So what are you gonna do?” Bubba asked.
“Back off,” I said.
His faced was bathed in the sickly yellow wash of the tunnel lights when he turned his head and looked at me. “You?”
“Yeah,” I said. “I’m no dummy.”
“Huh,” Bubba said softly, and looked back out the windshield.
“I’ll just let things cool down,” I said, hating the hint of desperation I heard in my voice. “Figure out another way to come at Wesley.”
“There ain’t no other way,” Bubba said. “You either take this guy down or you don’t. You do, and Stevie’ll figure out it was you no matter how you cover your tracks.”
“So, what, you’re saying I should take down Wesley and hand over the rest of my life to Stevie Zambuca?”
“I can talk to him,” Bubba said. “Reason with him.”
“No.”
“No?”
“Yeah, no. You talk to him, right? And let’s say his position doesn’t change. Where’s that put you? Asking for something he ain’t going to give.”
“So then I ice his ass.”
“And then? You whack a made guy, everyone’s going to say, No problem?”
Bubba shrugged as we rolled through the mouth of the tunnel and out into the North End. “I don’t think that far ahead.”
“I do.”
He gave me another shrug, a harder one. “So you’re just going to back down?”
“Yeah. That okay with you?”
“Fine,” he said distantly. “Fine, man. Whatever.”
He didn’t look at me when he dropped me off. He kept his eyes on the road, his head moving slightly in time with the chug of the engine.
I got out of the Hummer and Bubba spoke with his eyes still locked on the avenue. “Maybe you should get out.”
“Get out of where?”
“This business.”
“Why’s that?”
“Fear kills, man. Shut the door, will you?”
I closed the door and watched him drive off.
When he reached the light, he slammed on the brakes and then the Hummer was suddenly careening back toward me in reverse. I looked down the avenue, saw a red Escort moving forward in Bubba’s lane. The driver looked up, saw the Hummer hurtling backward toward her. She veered left into the passing lane put her hand on the horn, and passed Bubba in a blare of indignant noise, middle finger predictably extended so that for a moment neither of her hands were steering.
Bubba flipped his own bird at the rear of the Escort as he hopped out of the Hummer and slammed his hand on the hood.
“It’s me.”
“What?”
“It’s me!” he bellowed. “That piece of shit is using me, ain’t he?”
“No, he-”
“He can’t threaten Angie, ’cause she’s connected. So it was me.”
“Bubba, he threatened me. Okay?”
He threw back his head and screamed, “Bullshit!” at the sky. He dropped his head and came around the car, and for a moment I was pretty sure he was going to pummel me.
“You,” he screamed, shoving a finger in my face, “don’t back down. You never have, which is why my second fucking career has been saving your ass.”
“Bubba-”
“And I don’t mind!” he yelled.
A group of kids turned the corner, saw Bubba in full horror tilt, and made a beeline for the other side of the avenue.
“Don’t fucking lie to me anymore,” Bubba said. “Don’t. If you or her lie to me, it fucking hurts. It makes me want to go maim someone. Anyone!” He punched his own chest so hard that if it had belonged to anyone else the sternum would have shattered like crockery. “Stevie threatened me, didn’t he?”
“What if he did?”
Bubba wheeled at the air with his huge flailing arms and spittle shot from his mouth. “I’ll fucking kill him. I’ll fucking rip his goddamn large intestine out and strangle him with it. I’ll squeeze his fucking head until-”
“No,” I said. “Don’t you get it?”
“Get what?”
“That’s the bind. That’s what Wesley wants. This threat didn’t come from Stevie, it came from Wesley. That’s how the fucker works.”
Bubba bent, took a long breath. He looked like a hunk of granite about to come gradually to life.
“You lost me,” he said eventually.
“I’ll bet,” I said slowly, “that Wesley knows Angie’s connected, knows the only way to get to me is through you. I’m telling you, he gave Stevie the idea to threaten you, knowing that, worst-case scenario, you’d find out, flip out, and get us all killed.”
“Huh,” he said softly. “This guy’s smart.”
A blue and white pulled alongside us and the cop riding shotgun rolled down his window.
“Everything okay, gents?” He looked vaguely familiar.
“Fine,” I said.
“Hey, you, big fella.”
Bubba turned his head, met the cop’s gaze with a grimace.
“You’re Bubba Rogowski, ain’t you?”
Bubba looked off down the avenue.
“Kill anyone lately, Bubba?”
“It’s been, like, hours, Officer.”
The cop chuckled. “That your Hummer?”
Bubba nodded.
“Move it into a space, or I’ll ticket it.”
“Fine.” Bubba turned back to me.
