deck of Marlboros, then spies the Colibri display behind the counter, says he wants to see one. You can tell by his face he likes the feel of it in his hand—probably thinkin’ about using it to burn somethin’ down.
“Hawes and Bennett walk in carryin’ Louisville Sluggers they grabbed off the display rack out front the fuckin’ store. Asshole pays for his goods, lighter included, heads for the door, sees my boys standin’ in front of it. Asshole says Excuse me, tries to push past them. Hawes gives him a little tap, and he topples over into the Cheez Doodles rack. My boys stand over him with their bats, and he gets this scared-shitless look.
“That’s when he yells somethin’ really fuckin’ funny in his dumb-ass chink accent. He says, ‘Hep! Caw duh porice!’ ”
Mason winced and looked up from his notepad. “He wanted you to call the police?”
“So I did,” Zerilli said. “Sorry I fucked it up, Mulligan. Shoulda called you first.”
“Don’t worry about it, Officer Whoosh.”
“Fuck you. I told you before, that ain’t funny.”
“Call Veronica,” I told Thanks-Dad, “and read her your notes.”
I took a corned-beef sandwich and an ice tea from the cooler and found a seat at a little round table under the awning out front. A few minutes later, Mason sat down across from me with a bag of chips and a Coke.
“Reach Veronica?”
“I did.”
“Give her all the quotes?”
“Yeah. She asked if I had one Lomax would print, one without the words
“Give her all the details?”
“Uh-huh.”
“The part about the asshole buying the lighter?”
“Uh-huh.”
“The part about the Marlboros and the
“I didn’t think that was important.”
“The part about Cheez Doodles spilled all over the floor by the door?”
“Didn’t think that was important either.”
“You can’t write a good story without details, Thanks-Dad. Call her back, and this time give her all of it.”
While he was making the call, I tossed my sandwich wrapper in the barrel by the door and walked back into the store. Zerilli was bent over, scooping Cheez Doodles packages from the scuffed tile floor.
“Hey, Whoosh. How’d the asshole pay for his purchases?”
“Credit card.”
“Visa? Discover? MasterCard?”
“Sheila!” Whoosh shouted to the clerk. “What kinda plastic did the asshole use?”
“Visa.”
“Great.” I said. “Gimme the number.”
* * *
Secretariat was right where I left him in front of the chop shop. As we walked up, Deegan popped out of the garage and threw me the keys.
“You’re all set,” he said. “Sorry for your trouble.”
As I pulled away from the curb, I pushed the play button. The opening guitar lick of Tommy Castro’s “Mammer-Jammer,” the first cut on the CD that was in the player when it was ripped from the dash, screeched from the speakers.
Mason’s hands went to his ears. “Would you mind turning that down?”
I reached over and turned it up.
A moment later, a battle of the bands ensued as Deep Purple broke in with “Smoke on the Water.” I punched the CD player off and flipped the cell open.
“You!
fucking!
bastard!”
“Sorry, Dorcas, but I don’t have time to chat right now.”
As my favorite philosopher, Kinky Friedman, once said, “In the sky of every love affair are little tickets to hell, falling like confetti from the stars.”
I found a space in front of the welfare building just down the street from the paper and yanked the “Out of Order” hood over the head of the parking meter. I didn’t see the humor in it, but Mason thought it was hilarious. Princes never fully appreciate the survival tactics of their serfs. He was still giggling like a schoolgirl three minutes later as we stepped off the elevator into the newsroom.
I was reading a computer printout of Veronica’s unedited copy about the arrest when Lomax walked up. “Good they finally caught the bastard,” he said.
It didn’t feel right, but I just nodded.
“It’s a court story now, so from here on out it belongs to Veronica. Time to get cracking on that cadaver-dogs story.”
“Sure thing, boss.”
I decided to keep operating on the assumption he was kidding. If the Sassy/Sugar affair hadn’t soured him on doggy features, nothing ever would.
I waited till he was out of earshot before placing a call to my Aunt Ruthie in the customer-service department at Fleet Bank headquarters in Boston.
“Liam! How’s my favorite nephew?”
We chatted about how her son Conor was doing, his one-year parole on a Fenway ticket-scalping bust almost up, before I told her what I needed. I’d just hung up when Mason sauntered over.
“So,” he said. “What do we work on next?”
“Manhole covers.”
“Pardon?”
“Manhole covers.”
“What about them?”
“You’re supposed to be a reporter, Thanks-Dad. Got yourself a notepad, a trench coat, a fedora, a sheepskin from a fancy journalism school. Try to figure it out. Start with the city purchasing department. See if you can come up with something worth printing.”
“You’re giving me an assignment?” He sounded positively giddy.
“Something like that.”
“Thanks, Mulligan! I was afraid you really didn’t like me.”
Manhole covers. I almost laughed. That should keep his inbred ass out of my business for a while.
32
Gloria leaned in close, her blond hair caressing the side of my face as we studied the perp-walk pictures on her camera’s LCD screen. We were perched on adjoining bar stools. Moisture beaded the sides of our tumblers, hers filled with draft beer and mine with club soda.
We were still in a huddle when Veronica strolled into Hopes and wrapped her arms around my neck, staking her claim. She smirked at Gloria, and Gloria smirked back. Maybe later they’d mud-wrestle. The bartender brought Veronica a chardonnay without being asked, and the two of us carried our glasses to a table with a decent view of the TV over the bar. Gloria teetered in place, wondering whether to tag along. Then she caught Veronica’s eye and thought better of it.
Channel 10’s operatic Action News theme heralded Logan Bedford’s cliche-riddled teaser for the six o’clock report: “Our long municipal nightmare is over! Our gallant men in blue have made an arrest in the Mount Hope arson case that has terrorized our fair city. Wait till you find out how they caught him. You’ll be
