“How many?”
“I don’t know, but it’s a lot. Some of ’em do it because they get to be heroes when they put the fires out. Some do it because they love fighting fires with their buddies. Some of them are probably just fuckin’ nuts.”
“So what’s this guy’s name?”
“Uh-uh. You’re not getting that from me. With what I gave you, you can figure it out for yourself.”
Polecki hauled himself to his feet again, Marie calling “Come back and see us” as he headed out. I sat alone for a few minutes, then walked to the door, pushed it open, and studied the street.
It wasn’t being seen coming out of Good Time Charlie’s that worried me; it was being seen with Polecki. By giving him the picture of Mr. Rapture, I’d strayed way over the line. Reporters don’t feed info to cops. Some of us go to jail for contempt rather than answer subpoenas. We have to be loners to do our jobs right. Guys like Zerilli would never talk to us if we smelled like rats.
I’d given Polecki more than a photo. I’d handed the better half of Dumb and Dumber something he could hold over me if he had enough functioning brain cells to recognize it. If he ever told Lomax what I’d done, I’d have to find myself a tin cup and stock up on pencils. But I’d rather be unemployable than have another innocent victim on my conscience.
23
At the Mount Hope firehouse, I asked for Rosie and learned she’d left for the day. In the mess room, a half dozen firefighters were sitting on mismatched chairs at a yellow Formica table, watching Lieutenant Ronan McCoun slide a pan of lasagna out of the oven.
“Jack Centofanti around?” All that got me was angry stares.
I looked at McCoun and raised an eyebrow.
“The old goat’s not here,” he said. “We told him he ain’t welcome here no more.”
I got back in the Bronco, drove to Camp Street, and parked in front of number 53, a grotesque Victorian that had been built as a single-family home more than a hundred years ago. Now, twelve doorbells pocked the front door jamb. They didn’t work, but it didn’t matter. I gave the door a push, it groaned open, and I stepped into a hallway littered with cigarette butts and junk mail.
I climbed the stairs, careful not to trip on the loose rubber treads or put any weight on the rickety banister. Jack’s place was on the second floor at the end of a dimly lit hallway. The brass numbers on the heavy maple door said 23, with the 3 coming loose and hanging upside down. I raised my hand and knocked.
“It’s open.”
I turned the knob and found Jack sitting in a stuffed armchair, his bare feet on a matching hassock and a tumbler in his hand. Beside the chair, a half-empty bottle of Jim Beam rested on a mahogany piecrust table. The room lights were off, and the last light of a dying day seeped feebly through half-closed Venetian blinds. The glow from the tabletop TV, tuned to FOXNews with the sound all the way down, was washing Jack’s face blue. I snapped the switch by the door, the ceiling light came on, and he squinted from the shock of it, raising his left hand to cover his eyes. Now I could see that he’d placed the bottle on a crocheted doily to protect the tabletop.
“Liam?
“Good to see you too, Jack.” He, Rosie, and my relatives were the only people allowed to call me Liam.
“Sit. Sit. My place is your place.”
As I settled into a matching chair across from him, I noticed he hadn’t shaved in a few days.
“You wanna drink, right?”
“Love one.”
He got up and limped into the kitchen, the belt from his terry-cloth robe dragging on the floor behind him. I heard water run in the sink. He returned with a wet tumbler in his hand, thrust it at me, sat back down, and passed the bottle.
“So how ya been?”
“I’m fine, Jack.”
“Your beautiful sister? She good?”
“Meg’s great. Teaching school in Nashua. Got her own house in the suburbs. Got married last summer to a nice girl from New Haven.”
“I’m talking. He’s not.”
“Must make it hard to have a conversation.”
“It does.”
“I never did like Dorcas.”
“I know.”
“
Crazy bitch. A real ball-breaker. The closest Jack had ever been to Italy was the three-cheese-and-meatball pizza at Casserta’s, but he’d mastered the art of cursing in Italian.
“I’ll never understand what the two of you saw in her, Liam. I told Aidan when she married you that he was the lucky one.”
“Turns out you were right.”
“Yeah. You’d think he would have figured that out by now.”
“He probably has, but we Mulligans know how to hold a grudge.”
Jack laughed. “Man, I could tell you some stories. One time, out at the Shad Factory, I pulled in a dozen beauties. But your papa? He couldn’t catch a thing. I busted his balls about it on the drive home, and he got so
Jack’s tumbler was empty now. I passed him the bottle, and he refilled his glass. Then he carefully put the bottle down on the doily. That’s when I noticed the framed photo propped beside it on the table. I got out of my chair and picked it up. Jack and my father, wearing their waders, standing on the shore of Shad Factory Pond holding long strings of fish. I felt a twinge of guilt for not keeping more in touch with my father’s best friend.
“He was a stubborn mick, your papa, but I miss him.”
“So do I.”
He sighed and took a swig from his glass
Jack never married. The Mulligans were the nearest thing to family he had, once his parents died, and that was a long time ago. I returned the photo to the table and eased back into my chair.
“So what’s up with you, Jack?”
“Still got my health, so I can’t complain.”
“I stopped at the firehouse on my way over. Thought you might be there.”
“Nah. I gave enough of my life in that place. I don’t hang out there anymore.”
I just looked at him for a moment.
“Want to talk about it, Jack?”
“Ah, shit. I guess you heard.”
“I did, but I’d like to hear it from you.”
“The fellas at the firehouse? Great guys, each and every one. Give ya the shirt off their backs and the pants too if ya needed them. And the girl? That Rosie? I had my doubts when they made her captain. Weren’t no women firefighters in my day, that’s for damned sure. But she’s a real pisser. I don’t blame any of them none.”
“But?”
“But those two arson cops, Polecki and Roselli? They come waltzing into the firehouse last Monday afternoon, asking me fuckin’ questions in front of everybody. Then started in with the fellas. Asked ’em why I was always hangin’ around. If they knew where I was when the fires started. If they ever saw me doing anything suspicious. Put it in their heads that I was a suspect. Me. A fireman for thirty years. The fuckers.”
“What’d you tell ’em?”
“I told ’em,
