A Drink Before the War

by Dennis Lehane

  He turned his head slowly, looked across the street, didn’t see anything that alarmed him. “So?”

  “The roof, Marion. Look at the roof.”

  All he could see was a target scope and the muzzle of Bubba’s rifle. Big target scope, though. The only way to miss with a scope that big would be in the event of an instant solar eclipse. Even then, you’d have to be lucky.

  I said, “We’re all in this together, Marion. If I nod, you go first.”

  Socia said, “I’ll take your girlfriend with me. Believe it.”

  I shrugged. “She ain’t my girlfriend.”

  Socia said, “Like you don’t care, Kenzie. Try that shit on someone who—”

  I said, “Look, Marion, you’re probably not used to this, but what you got here is a no-win situation and not much time to think about it.” I looked at Lollipop. I couldn’t see his eyes, but drops of sweat were doing relay races down his forehead. Not easy holding a gun steady all this time. I looked back at Socia. “The guy on the roof, he might just get ideas of his own real soon. Figure he can pull the trigger fast, twice”—I glanced at Lollipop—“and take the two of you out before you get a shot off. He might decide to do that on his own, before I nod. Before I do anything. He’s been known to…act on his own inner voice before. He’s not real stable. You listening, Marion?”

  Socia was in his Place—wherever it is people like him go to hide their fear and emotion. He looked around slowly, up and down Washington Street, but never once at the roof. He took his time about it, then looked back at me. “What’s my guarantee I put my gun back in my pocket?”

  “Nothing,” I said. “You want guarantees, go to Sears. I can guarantee you’ll be dead if you don’t.” I looked at Lollipop. “Hell, I’m fixing to use this kid’s gun on him as it is.”

  Lollipop said, “Sure you are, man,” but his voice sounded hoarse, an untaken breath sitting atop his esophagus.

  Socia looked up and down the street again, then shrugged. His hand came out from behind Angie’s back. He held the gun where I could see it—a Bren nine millimeter—then stepped from behind Angie and put it inside his jacket. He said, “Lollipop, put it away.”

  The kid’s name was actually “Lollipop.” Patrick Kenzie, Psychic Detective. Lollipop’s lip was curled upward toward his nose and his breathing was hard, showing me how tough he was, the gun still in my side, but the hammer down. Stupid. He looked ready to prove his manhood, not because he wasn’t terrified, but because he was. Usually the way it works. But he was too busy watching my face, proving how much of a man he was. I pivoted slightly with my hip, no big movement, and the gun was suddenly pointed at air. I took the gun hand in mine, snapped my forehead off the bridge of his nose, cracking the Vuarnets in half, and shoved the gun into his stomach with his own hand. I pulled back the hammer. “You want to die?”

  Socia said, “Kenzie, let the boy go.”

  Lollipop said, “I die if I have to,” and bucked against my hand, a line of blood running thickly down his nose. He didn’t look pleased at the prospect, but he didn’t look unwilling.

  I said, “Good. Because next time you pull a gun on me, Lollipop, that’s exactly what’ll happen.” I eased the hammer back down and flicked the safety forward, then ripped the gun from his sweaty hand and put it in my pocket. I raised my hand and Bubba’s rifle disappeared.

  Lollipop was breathing hard and his eyes never left mine. I’d taken a lot more than his gun. I’d taken his pride, the only commodity worth a damn in his world, and he’d definitely kill me if there was a next time. I was getting real popular these days.

  Socia said, “Lollipop, disappear. Tell everyone else to pull back too. I catch up with you later.”

  Lollipop gave me one last look and entered the stream of people heading down the street toward Jordan Marsh. He wasn’t going anywhere. I knew that much. He and the rest of them, whoever and wherever they were, would stay in the crowd, keeping watch on their king. Socia was way too smart to leave himself unprotected. He said, “Come on, let’s go sit—”

  I said, “Let’s sit down right over there.”

  He said, “I got a better place in mind.”

  Angie tilted her head in the direction of Barnes and Noble. “You don’t have any choice, Socia.”

  We walked past Filene’s and sat on a stone bench in the small cement plaza next door. The scope appeared on the roof again, tilted in our direction. Socia saw it too.

  I said, “So, Marion, tell me why I shouldn’t do you right here, right now.”

  He smiled. “Shit. You already in enough trouble with my people as it is. I’m like a god to these boys. You want to fuck with that, be the target of a holy war, go on ahead.”

  I hate when people are right.

  I said, “OK. Why don’t you tell me why you’re allowing me to live?”

  “I’m swell that way sometimes.”

  “Marion.”

  “No matter what, though,” he said, “I might just kill you for calling me ‘Marion’ all the time.” He sat back on the bench, one leg up there with him, his hands clasped around the knee. A man out for some fresh air.

  Angie said, “Well, what do you want from us, Socia?”

  “Hell, little girl, you ain’t even a part of this. We might let you go on about your life after this is done.” He pointed a finger at me. “Him, though, he stick his nose in where it don’t belong, shoot one of my best men, fuck with all this shit that ain’t his to fuck with.”

  Angie said, “A common complaint among the married men in our neighborhood.” That Angie, what a hoot.

  Socia said, “Joke all you want.” He looked at me. “But you know this ain’t a joke, don’t you? This is the end of your life, Kenzie, and it’s happening.”

  I wanted to say something funny, but nothing came to mind. Nothing came even close. It was definitely happening.

  Socia smiled. “Uh-huh. You know it. Only reason you’re alive right now is because Jenna gave you something, and she told you something else. Now, where’s it at?”

  I said, “In a safe place.”

  “In a safe place,” he repeated, rolling it off his tongue, slightly nasal inflection. His imitation of Whitespeak. “Yeah, well, whyn’t you tell me where this safe place is,” he said.

  “Don’t know it,” I said. “Jenna never told me.”

  “Bullshit,” he said and leaned toward me.

  “I’m not busting my ass to convince you here, Marion. I’m just telling you so that when you toss my office and apartment and don’t find anything, you won’t be too surprised.”

  “Maybe I get some friends, we toss you.”

  “Your prerogative,” I said. “But you and your friends better be real good.”

  “Why? You think you’re real good, Kenzie?”

  I nodded. “At this, yeah, I’m real good. And so’s Angie, maybe better. And that guy on the roof, he’s better than both of us.”

  “And he’s not too fond of black people,” Angie said.

  “So, you two real proud of yourselves? Got yourselves a three-man KKK to keep the black man from your door?”

  I said, “Oh, please, Socia, this ain’t color. You’re a fucking criminal. You’re a douche bag who uses kids to do his dirty work. Black or white, that wouldn’t change. And if you try and stop me on this, chances are you’ll succeed and I’ll die. But you won’t stop him.” Socia looked up at the roof. “He’ll come at you and your whole gang and take you all out and probably half the ’Bury with you. He has about as much conscience as you and even less of a sense of public relations.”

  Socia laughed. “You trying to scare me?”

  I shook my head. “You don’t scare, Marion. People like you never do. But you do die. And if I die, so do you. Simple fact.”

  He sat back on the bench again. Crowds passed us in a steady stream and Bubba’s target scope never moved. Socia tilted his head forward again. “All right, Kenzie. We’ll give you this round. But, either way, don’t matter what, you�
��ll pay up for Curtis.”

  I shrugged, a heavy weight behind my eyes.

  “You got twenty-four hours to find what we’re both looking for. If I find it before you, or you find it and don’t get it right over to me, your life won’t be worth piss.”

  “Neither will yours.”

  He stood up. “Lotta people tried to kill me over the years, white boy. No one figured a way to do it right yet. Either way, that’s the workings of the world.”

  He walked off into the crowd, the big scope on the roof following him every inch of the way.

  21

  Bubba met us at the parking garage on Bromfield Street where Angie had parked the Vobeast. He was standing out front as we came up the street, chewing a wad of gum the size of a chicken, blowing bubbles big enough to drive passersby to the curb. He said, “Hey,” as we approached, then started on a fresh bubble. A verbal treasure trove, our Bubba.

  “Hey,” Angie said in a deep baritone that matched his own. She slid her arm around his waist and squeezed. “My God, Bubba, is that a Russian assault rifle under your coat or are you just happy to see me?”

  Bubba blushed and his chubby face bloomed for a moment like a cherubic schoolboy. A schoolboy who would put nitro in the toilets, but just the same. He said, “Get her off me, Kenzie.”

  Angie raised her head and chewed on his earlobe. “Bubba, you’re all the man I need.”

  He giggled. This psychopathic behemoth with a bad attitude and he giggled and pushed her away gently. He looked sort of like the Cowardly Lion when he did it, and I waited for him to say, “Aww g’won.” Instead he said, “Cut it out, you tramp,” and then checked to see if she was offended.

  She caught the look of mortification on his face and it was her turn to giggle, hand over her mouth.

  That Bubba. Such a lovable sociopath.

  We headed up the garage ramp and I said, “Bubba, you going to be able to stick around for a while, keep a watch on us mere mortals?”

  “Course I am, man. I’m there. The whole ride.” He reached out and punched my arm playfully. All the feeling drained out of it and it would be a good ten minutes, maybe more, before it came back. Still, it was better than an angry Bubba punch. I’d taken one of those a few years ago—the only time I was ever stupid enough to argue with him—and after I came to, it took a week for my head to stop echoing.

  We reached the car and climbed in. As we were leaving the garage, Bubba said, “So, we gonna blow these homeboys back to Africa or what?”

  Angie said, “Now, Bubba…”

  I knew better than to try and enlighten Bubba on racial matters. I said, “I don’t think it’ll be necessary.”

  He said, “Shit,” and sat back.

  Poor Bubba. All dressed up and no one to shoot.

  We dropped Bubba off at the playground near his home. He walked up the cement steps and trudged past the jungle gym, kicked a beer bottle out of his way, his shoulders hunched up to his ears. He kicked another bottle and it spun off a picnic table and shattered against the fence. Some of the punks hanging out by the picnic table looked away. No one wanted to catch his eye by mistake. He didn’t notice them though. He just kept walking to the fence at the back of the playground, found the jagged hole there and pushed through it. He walked through some weeds and disappeared around the corner of the abandoned factory where he lives.

  He has a bare mattress tossed down in the middle of the third floor, a couple of cartons of Jack Daniels, and a stereo that plays nothing but his collection of Aerosmith recordings. The second floor is where he keeps his arsenal and two pit bulls named Belker and Sergeant Esterhaus. A rottweiler named Steve prowls the front yard. If all this and Bubba isn’t enough to deter trespassers or government officials, almost every other floorboard in the place is booby-trapped. Only Bubba knows the right ones to step on. Some walking suicide once tried to get to Bubba’s stash by forcing him to lead him there at gunpoint. Every other month or so, for about a year after that, pieces of the guy were popping up all over the city.

  Angie said, “If Bubba could have been born in another time, like say the Bronze Age, he would have been all set.”

  I looked at the lonely hole in the fence. “Least he would have had someone who shares his sensibilities.”

  We drove back to the office, and inside, began kicking around Jenna’s possible hiding places.

  “The room above the bar?”

  I shook my head. “If she had, she’d have never left them behind when we came and got her. Place didn’t look very burglar proof to me.”

  She nodded. “OK. Where else?”

  “Not the safety-deposit box. Devin wouldn’t lie about that. Simone’s?”

  She shook her head. “You’re the first person she showed anything to, right?”

  “I think we’re working under that assumption, yeah.”

  “So, that means you’re the first person she trusted. She probably figured Simone’s view of Socia was too naive. And she was right, I’d say.”

  I said, “If they were in her apartment in Mattapan, someone would have them by now and there’d be no reason for any of this.”

  “So, what’s that leave?”

  We spent a good ten minutes not coming up with an answer to that one.

  “Shit!” Angie said at the end of those ten minutes.

  “Apt,” I said. “Not too helpful though.”

  She lit a cigarette, placed her feet up on the desk, and stared at the ceiling. More Sam Spade than I’d ever be. She said, “What do we know about Jenna?”

  “She’s dead.”

  She nodded. Softly she said, “Besides that.”

  “We know she was married to Socia. Common-law or legal, I don’t know, but married.”

  “And had his child. Roland.”

  “And has three sisters from Alabama.”

  She sat up in her chair, her feet banging off the floor. “Alabama,” she said. “She sent it down to Alabama.”

  I thought about it. How well did Jenna know these sisters anymore? How much could she trust them? Hell, how much could she trust the mail? This was her chance to be needed, to get a little “justice.” To do a little of what people had been doing to her all her life. Would she risk that by putting the major proponent of her vengeance in transit?

  “I don’t think so,” I said.

  Angie said, “Why not?” She said it sharply. Her idea—she wasn’t going to just let go of it.

  I explained my reasoning.

  “Maybe,” she said, her voice slightly deflated. “Let’s keep it on the burner though.”

  “Agreed.” It wasn’t a bad idea, and if it came to it, we’d follow it down, but it didn’t quite fit.

  It goes like this a lot. We sit around the office and bounce ideas off each other and wait for divine intervention. When that doesn’t come, we chase down each possibility, and usually—not always, but usually—we end up tripping over something that should have been obvious from the beginning.

  I said, “We know she had trouble with creditors a few years back.”

  Angie said, “Yeah. So?”

  “I’m brainstorming here. I never promised pearls of wisdom.”

  She frowned. “She has no record, right?”

  “Except for a bunch of parking tickets.”

  Angie flicked her cigarette out the window.

  I started thinking about the beers in my apartment. Heard them calling me, asking for company.

  Angie said, “Well, if she had all those parking tickets…”

  We looked at each other and said it together: “Where’s the car?”

  22

  We called George Higby at the Registry of Motor Vehicles. It took us fifteen tries to get past the busy signal, and then, once we did, a recorded voice told us that all the lines were busy. Our call would be taken in the order it was received and please stay on the line. I hadn’t been planning on doing much till the end of the month anyway, so I cradled the phone against my neck and waited.


  The silence ended after about fifteen minutes and the phone rang on the other end—once, twice, three times; four, five, six. A voice said, “Registry of Motor Vehicles.”

  I said, “George Higby, Vehicle Registration, please.”

  The voice hadn’t heard me. It said, “You have reached the Registry of Motor Vehicles. Our business hours are nine to five P.M., Monday through Friday. If you need further assistance and have a Touch-Tone phone, please press ‘one’ now.” A sonic beep went off in my ear about the same time I realized it was Sunday. If I pressed “one,” I’d get another computer that would gladly connect me to another computer and by the time I got pissed off enough to throw my phone through the window, all the Registry computers would be having a good old yuck for themselves.

  I just fucking love modern technology.

  I hung up and said, “It’s Sunday.”

  Angie looked at me. “Yes, it is. Tell me the date and you’ll be my idol.”

  “Do we have George’s home number around here?”

  “Possibly. Would you like me to find out?”

  “That’d be peachy.”

  She wheeled her chair over to the PC and entered her password. She waited a moment and her fingers began singing over the keys so fast the computer had a hard time keeping up. Served it right. Probably hung out with the Registry computers on its off days.

  Angie said, “Got it.”

  “Give it to me, baby.”

  She didn’t, but she gave me the number.

  George Higby is one of those hapless souls who goes through life expecting the rest of the world to be as nice as he is. Since he gets out of bed each morning with the desire to make the world a better place, a slightly easier place to get along in—he doesn’t understand that there are actually people who get up with the desire to make the rest of the world suffer. Even after his daughter eloped with a guitar player twice her age who left her strung out in a Reno motel room; even after she then ran into some especially nasty people and ended up working her sixteen-year-old body on the back streets of Vegas; even after Angie and I flew out there and took her away from these nasty people with the assistance of the Nevada State Police; even after this sweet apple of his eye blamed the mess she’d made completely on him; even after all this—George still meets the world with the nervous smile of someone who only knows how to be open and decent and prays that, maybe just once, the world might reward him. George is the sort of raw material out of which most organized religions create their foundations.