violation of federal statutes and should be prosecuted. While I can offer no proof about who is behind these leaks, they benefit the prosecution in that they tend to poison the jury pool against my innocent client. For the newspaper to print this material would be both outrageous and irresponsible.
“Guess you pissed
“Brady? Nah. He’s just blowing smoke to impress his client. He’s really a sweetie.”
“Sweetie”? I’d heard Brady Coyle called a lot of things: Arrogant. Contemptuous. A prick. But never sweetie. I don’t think I’d ever been called sweetie. I felt a twinge in my gut. Probably just the pepperoni pizza I’d recklessly wolfed at Casserta’s.
“You know something, Veronica? I’ve been cultivating sources on both sides of the law for eighteen years, and I’ve never persuaded anyone to leak me grand-jury testimony. How the hell are you doing it?”
“Sorry, baby. Sharing your bed is one thing. Sharing my source is another thing altogether.”
I was trying to think of a comeback when she stripped to her panties and slipped under the covers, her hip nudging my erection. Eleven more days till the test results. Sometimes eleven days is a long, long time—15,840 minutes, to be exact.
I could hear the clock ticking.
30
In the morning I found an empty space right in front of the newspaper office. A red Providence Police Department “Out of Order” hood had been tugged over the head of the meter. Free parking? Must be my lucky day.
A postal box brimming with press releases waited for me on my office chair. Apparently I’d done something to piss off Lomax again. What? No idea.
I made a show of sorting through them for a few minutes, intending to toss the whole batch, when one envelope caught my eye. It was from the Rhode Island Economic Development Council, and on it was a picture of Mr. Potato Head in his moustache-and-glasses incarnation. I couldn’t resist tearing that one open. Inside was this:
MR. POTATO HEAD STATUES TO “CROP UP”
STATEWIDE TO PROMOTE TRAVEL
TO THE OCEAN STATE!
Hasbro, which makes Mr. Potato Head right here in Little Rhody, is teaming up with the Rhode Island Economic Development Council to promote the state as an ideal location for a family vacation! The promotion will include full-color ads in national magazines, a toll-free number to call for a free Family Fun Vacation Kit, and a bumper crop of six-foot-tall Mr. Potato Head statues that will sprout up at visitor attractions all over the state. Keep your eyes peeled! We anticipate increased excitement as each new Mr. Potato Head statue is unveiled.
The promotion, the state’s economic development director concluded, was “not half baked!” Oh, really? I banged out four hundred words, along with a table listing the locations where the spuds would be “sprouting up.” For Little Rhody’s teen vandals, it was “news you can use.”
That done, I checked my computer messages and learned why I was being spanked. Coyle had called Lomax to complain about my attire at the funeral. Said it showed a lack of respect.
Damn right.
The opening lick of “Smoke on the Water” rumbled from the jean jacket draped over the back of my chair. I pulled my cell from the inside pocket and flipped it open.
“We caught the chink,” a familiar voice said. “Get your butt over here fast, and maybe you can have a few words with the asshole before the cops snatch him up.”
31
I rode the elevator down to the lobby and ran smack into Thanks-Dad, arriving for work fashionably late in full
“Where we going?” he said.
“I’m going out. You’re going to your desk.”
I brushed by him, banged through the front door, and sprinted across the street. A red newspaper delivery truck blasted its horn at me, its brakes squealing. I snatched the “Out of Order” hood off the meter, figuring it would come in handy, and climbed in behind the wheel. Before I could snap the lock on the passenger-side door, Mason popped it open and slid in.
No time to argue. Leaning on the horn, I ran the red at the foot of Fountain Street, roared past city hall, and sped across the Providence River. Mason’s manicured fingers dug into Secretariat’s armrest.
“Another fire?”
“You’ll find out when we get there.”
Three Providence police cruisers, blue lights slashing the storefront, were parked diagonal to the curb, blocking most of the street in front of Zerilli’s. Braking to a stop, I saw a uniformed patrolman slap a beefy paw on top of Mr. Rapture’s head and shove it down, bulling him into the backseat of one of the cruisers. The cops took off, sirens shrieking.
“Shit!”
I grabbed the cell, caught Veronica at her desk, and told her to find a photographer and get over to the police station, which was just a block from the paper.
“If you hurry,” I said, “you can be there in time for the perp walk.”
Mason threw me a puzzled look.
“Don’t you want the byline?”
“Fuck it. Let Veronica have it.”
I’d get a description of the arrest from Zerilli and feed it to her later, but there was no need to rush now. I pulled away from the curb, cruised north on Doyle, and pulled into a space in front of the chop shop.
“Wait in the car, Thanks-Dad.”
Mike Deegan was inside, watching a worker in paint-splattered overalls spray a new black identity on a burgundy Chrysler Sebring convertible.
“Been expecting you,” he said. “Toss me the keys, leave your ride out front, and come back in an hour.”
I collected Mason and headed back to Zerilli’s, a short, sunny walk down a cracked sidewalk. The sooty mush in the gutter was all that remained of a hard Rhode Island winter.
The brass bell over the door tinkled as I pushed it open and walked into the market with Thanks-Dad.
“Where the hell you been?” Zerilli said. “You missed the whole fuckin’ show.”
He was standing by the register, not quite looking like himself with his suit pants on. He snatched a blue Bic disposable, lit a Lucky, and returned the lighter to the display rack.
“Should we adjourn to your office, Whoosh?”
“Nah! Just spilled the whole story to the cops, so I don’t have anything to say what your lapdog can’t hear.”
“My name is Edward,” the lapdog said, extending his hand.
Zerilli ignored it.
“ ’Bout eleven o’clock this mornin’,” he said, “just as the Budweiser guy finishes stocking the cooler, I glance down from my office window, and what the fuck do I see? The chink we been lookin’ for all over the fuckin’ neighborhood waltzing into my store big as life.”
“Do something useful,” I told Mason. “Pull out your notepad and take notes.”
“Couple of the DiMaggios—Gunther Hawes and Whimpy Bennett—work just up the street at Deegan’s, so I ring ’em up, tell ’em to haul ass over here. Then I come out, see if I can stall him. Asshole pokes around the store, then heads to the counter with a
