“So one of them goes like this:
Veronica snickered and tossed her hair. I liked it when she did that.
“They ought to change the name back,” she said. “
It’s also apt. For more than a hundred years, pirates slipped from Narragansett Bay’s hidden coves to prey on merchant shipping. In the late 1700s and early 1800s, Rhode Island shipmasters dominated the American slave trade. During the French and Indian War and again during the Revolution, heavily armed privateers skulked out of Providence and Newport to seize prizes with little regard for the flags they flew. After the Civil War, Boss Anthony, a co-owner of
“Of course, we do know how Providence got its name,” I said. “Roger Williams christened his city in thanksgiving for God’s divine guidance. Cotton Mather’s suggestions, ‘the fag end of creation’ and ‘the sewer of New England,’ mercifully didn’t stick.”
“And this is why you like it here?”
“I grew up here. I know the cops and the robbers, the barbers and the bartenders, the judges and the hit men, the whores and the priests. I know the state legislature and the Mafia inside out, and they’re pretty much the same thing. When I write about a politician buying votes or a cop on the pad, the jaded citizenry just chuckles and shrugs its shoulders. That used to bother me. It doesn’t anymore. Rogue Island is a theme park for investigative reporters. It never closes, and I can ride the roller coaster free all day.
“Besides, if I tried to write about some place I don’t know, I could never do it as well.”
“Sure you could,” she said. “Think of how much fun you’d have going after all the crooks in Washington.”
Washington? That was the second time she mentioned Washington.
“You’ve applied to
“Let me tell you something about my family, Mulligan. My sister Lucy? She starts Harvard Medical School in the fall. My brother Charles? At thirty he’s already a VP at Price Waterhouse. Me? I bust my ass covering ‘the fag end of creation’ for a third-rate newspaper that pays me six hundred dollars a week. Daddy feels so sorry for me that he sends me five hundred a month, and I’d be living like you if I had the pride to send it back.
“My parents are ambitious people. When I told them I was going to be a reporter, they sat me down and told me I was making a big mistake. When I wouldn’t listen, they didn’t nag or threaten. After I graduated from Princeton, they paid the whole bill for Columbia J-School and never once complained. But I think they’re a little ashamed of me. I want them to be as proud of me as they are of Charles and Lucy. I want to be proud of myself. I’m my parents’ daughter, Mulligan. I’m ambitious, too.”
The speech was nice, but I was more concerned about when I’d be sleeping alone again.
“So what did
“I sent them my resume and clips a month ago. Last week, Bob Woodward called me.
This was all happening too fast. I tried to keep the desperation out of my voice. “So when do you start?”
“He said he’ll have an opening for a federal-courts reporter in a month or two. I’d write daily news briefs for the Web site and news analysis pieces for the paper. It’s a great job, and it’s mine if I want it.”
“Now you’re going to say you told him about me.”
“Better than that. I wrote a kick-ass resume for you and gave it to him with a package of your best clips.”
“Did you also tell him that I’m Chinese?”
“Mulligan!”
“Would it help if we got married and I took your name?”
“Please stop with the jokes. He wants you to call him. Will you at least think about it? I love you, baby. I don’t want to lose you.”
I pulled her into my arms and nuzzled her hair. “I don’t want to lose you either,” I said. I almost said, “I love you, too,” but the last time I’d said that was during the last month of my marriage, and it had been a lie. The words didn’t feel right in my mouth anymore.
“Have you thought about
“Tell you what,” she said. “If you promise to think about
“Yeah, okay.” I felt myself about to say something that wasn’t very romantic. “But if it ends up that you leave town and I stay, how about giving me your source as a going-away present?”
She sighed. “The one leaking me those grand-jury transcripts?”
“Yeah, that one.”
“He’ll never talk to you. He hates your guts.”
Aha! Her source was a he who hated my guts. On the other hand, that didn’t exactly narrow it down.
When I got back to my apartment, it was nearly midnight. I tried to read a Dennis Lehane novel, but the words kept blurring on the page. I couldn’t stop thinking about Veronica. Was there anything I could say to make her stay? I sat up wondering about that until four in the morning, but the little thug didn’t show. He didn’t come the next night either.
54
An attendant helped Gloria out of the wheelchair, wished her good luck, and wheeled it back through the electric doors. I took her good arm as she tottered a few feet to Secretariat. Off to our left, a man with his right arm in a cast raised his left to hail a cab. Gloria saw the arm come up and cowered, burying her face in my chest. Her physical wounds were healing, but the damage cut much deeper.
I held her for a moment, my hand cradling the back of her head. Then I helped her into the front passenger seat. She yelped as I drew the seat belt across her broken ribs. I walked around the front of the Bronco, got in the other side, and cranked the starter.
“You’re looking better.”
“No, I’m not.”
“It must feel good to get out of the hospital.”
“I have to go back.”
“I know.”
There would be another operation to repair the tendon and two plastic surgeries on her nose and right cheek. There was nothing more they could do for her right eye.
I pulled onto I-95 heading south, and we drove silently for a few miles, Gloria squinting through the windshield at an overcast Rhode Island morning.
“Mulligan?”
“Um?”
“It wasn’t your fault.”
“Yes, it was.”
