* * *
Rosie settled onto a bar stool between me and McCracken just as Derek Jeter dug in against our ace, Josh Beckett. Mike Mussina matched him pitch for pitch until Ramirez homered in the bottom of the fifth. A long rain delay provided plenty of time for beer and for McCracken to give it another try with Rosie.
“Sorry,” she said, “but you’re not my type.”
“What is your type?”
“That’s my type right there,” she said, pointing to the TV over the bar. The rain had finally stopped, and Manny Ramirez was running through the wet grass to take his position in front of the Green Monster. “Oh, my God, he’s so hot.”
Papelbon slammed the door on the Pinstripes in the ninth, Hopes erupted in the traditional “Yankees Suck” chant, somebody dumped a beer on an asshole in a Jeter jersey, and Annie grabbed the remote, switching the TV to the Channel 10 News. Then she made the rounds of the tables, snatching dollar bills and hiking her skirt up those long legs. A good time was had by all. Except the guy in the Jeter jersey.
That night, I stayed up late with a Tim Dorsey novel, hoping the little thug would finally make an appearance. About three in the morning, he did.
57
He announced his presence with the sound of splintering wood.
I rushed my shattered front door, looked down at the top of the little thug’s head, and threw a left. He blocked it effortlessly with his right and kicked me square in the groin, an area he seemed to favor. Then he slammed into me, bulled me across the room into the kitchen wall, and went to work on my ribs.
My counter-punches bounced harmlessly off the top of his skull. I tried to shove him off to get punching room, but it was like trying to move a boxcar. His arms were jackhammers, pounding lefts and rights to my body. Why didn’t he go for my jaw? Maybe it was too high for him to reach. When his fists finally tired of me, he took a step back, and I discovered he’d been the only thing holding me up.
I slid down the wall to the floor. He swung his short right arm and backhanded me across the face.
“Asshole,” he said. “I warned you to stop snooping around the manhole covers.”
Manhole covers? I felt like I’d been hit with one. That’s what this was about?
I tried to form the question, but the little thug was gone, taking my dignity with him.
58
In the morning, there wasn’t much blood in my urine, but my ribs hurt when I moved and even when I didn’t. I walked stiffly into the newsroom and went straight to Mason’s desk.
“What happened to you?” he said. “You look terrible.”
“Never mind that, Thanks-Dad. Just tell me this. Is there any reason someone might think I was working on the manhole-covers story?”
“Heck, Mulligan. I’ve been telling everybody I’ve been working with you.”
Great.
“Mulligan!” Lomax beckoned me over to the city desk. “Some squawk on the police scanner about a body at a construction site near Rhode Island Hospital.”
Then he raised his eyes from his computer and looked me up and down. “Looks like somebody had a rough night. Are you up to this?”
“Sure,” I said, but I really wasn’t. Still, the assignment
* * *
The corpse was sprawled on its belly near an idle Dio Construction front-end loader. Judging by the mess she’d left in the dirt, the victim had crawled five yards toward the hospital before her pump quit. The three big holes in her back looked like exit wounds.
A detective rolled the body over. A yellow logo was sewn over the breast pocket of her dark green blazer. “Little Rhody Realty.” A few feet away, a uniformed cop rummaged in her purse and pulled out a driver’s license.
“Hey, Eddie. Got an ID?”
“Come on, Mulligan. You know we can’t release that till we notify next of kin.”
“Suppose I tell you?”
He just looked at me.
“Cheryl Scibelli of 22 Nelson Street.”
“You recognize her?”
“Something like that.”
* * *
I spent two hours in the emergency room waiting my turn behind five traffic-accident victims, a dozen squalling kids with high fevers, three middle-aged men with chest pains, and a couple of elderly slip-and-falls.
My best lead, the little thug, had nothing to do with the fires. My second best lead was dead, and the message I’d left her might have been the reason why. I didn’t have a clue what to do next.
The X-ray showed four broken ribs, one on the left, three on the right.
The intern who turned me into an Egyptian mummy put it all in perspective: “A couple more punches and one of these ribs would have punctured a lung.”
“I guess it’s my lucky day.”
When I got back, Lomax watched me shuffle across the newsroom and settle gingerly into my desk chair. I was pounding out a lead on the shooting for our online edition when he walked up and sat on the corner of my desk.
“What the hell happened to you?”
I didn’t want to talk about it. “I ran into a couple of New York fans who didn’t appreciate my ‘Yankees Suck’ T-shirt.”
“Ribs?”
“Yeah.”
“Broken?”
“Four of them.”
“After you write this up, why don’t you go home?”
I didn’t argue. Tonight, the Sox were starting a two-game series against the Indians, the team we beat in last year’s league-championship series, and I was going to need more time than usual to suit up.
59
Getting out of my T-shirt was agony. Once I got it off, it took me five minutes to ease into my team jersey and button it up the front. By the time Veronica called, the Sox were up 1–0 in the third.
“Hey, baby. What’s the plan for tonight?”
“I think we’ll be staying in.”
“You’re kidding, right?”
“ ’Fraid not.”
Even talking hurt.
“I need you to do me a favor.” I said. “Could you get us some takeout and stop off at the Walgreens on Atwells Ave. to pick up a prescription for me?”
