A Drink Before the War

by Dennis Lehane

  He answered the phone on the first ring. He always does. He said, “This is George Higby,” and I half expected him to follow it with, “Want to be friends?”

  “Hi, George, it’s Patrick Kenzie.”

  “Patrick!” George said, and I have to admit that the enthusiasm in his voice made me happy to be me all of a sudden. I felt as if I’d been put on this earth for one reason: to call George on July 2 and make his day. He said, “How are you?”

  “I’m great, George. How about yourself?”

  “Very good, Patrick. Very good. I can’t complain.”

  George was the kind who never could.

  I said, “George, I’m afraid this isn’t a strictly social call,” and realized with more than a small measure of guilt that I’d never made a “strictly social call” to George and probably never would.

  “Well, no problem, Patrick,” he said, his voice dropping an octave for a moment. “You’re a busy man. What can I do for you?”

  “How’s Cindy?” I asked.

  “You know kids today,” he said. “At this point in her life, her father is hardly the most important thing to her. That will change, of course.”

  “Of course,” I said.

  “Got to let them grow up.”

  “Sure,” I said.

  “And then they come back to you.”

  “They do,” I said. Sure they do.

  “But enough about me,” he said. “I saw you in the papers the other day. Are you all right?”

  “Fine, George. The media blew it all out of proportion.”

  “They’ll do that sometimes,” he said. “But then, where would we be without them?”

  I said, “The reason I called, George, I need a license number and I can’t wait until tomorrow.”

  “You can’t get it through the police?”

  “No. I need to play this one out by myself for a little while longer before I take it to them.”

  “OK, Patrick,” he said, thinking about it. “OK,” he repeated, brightening a bit. “Yeah, we can do that. You’ll have to give me ten minutes or so to access the computer down there. Is that all right? Can you wait that long?”

  “You’re doing me the favor, George. Take all the time you need.” I gave him Jenna’s name, driver’s license number, and address.

  “OK. Fifteen minutes at most. I’ll call you back.”

  “You have my number?”

  “Of course,” he said, as if we all keep the phone numbers of people we met twice two years ago.

  “Thanks, George,” I said and hung up before he could say, “No, thank you.”

  We waited. Angie shot a Nerf ball through the hoop above the boom box, and I tossed it back to her each time. She’s got a nice arc, but she doesn’t use the backboard enough. She leaned back in the chair and sent one up in a high arc. Before the foam ball swished through the hoop she said, “We going to call Devin in on this one?”

  I tossed the ball back to her. “Nope.”

  “Why not, exactly?” She put another one up and missed.

  “Because we’re not. Use the backboard a little more.”

  She tossed the ball up above her, bouncing it off the ceiling. “It’s not standard procedure,” she said in singsong.

  “Standard procedure? What, we’re the army now?”

  “No,” she said, the Nerf bouncing off her fingers, down her leg, and across the floor. She turned in her chair. “We’re detectives who have a pretty good relationship with the police, and I’m wondering why we’re risking that by not letting them in on evidence in a Murder One investigation.”

  “What evidence?” I leaned out of my chair and scooped up the ball.

  “The picture of Socia and Paulson.”

  “Doesn’t prove anything.”

  “That’s for them to decide. Either way, it was the last thing the murder victim gave you before she was killed. That definitely makes it something they’d be interested in.”

  “So?”

  “So, this should be a dual investigation is ‘so.’ We should be telling them we’re going to look at Jenna’s car. We should be asking them for the plate number, not having poor George break into the Registry computers.”

  “And if they were to come across the evidence our clients hired us to find before we do?”

  “Then, once they’re finished with it, they hand it over to us.”

  “Just like that?”

  “Just like that.”

  “And if it’s incriminating? If it’s against our clients’ best interests to have the police see it, what then? How good is our business then? If Mulkern wanted to get the police to look for those ‘documents’ he would have. Instead, he hired us. We’re not law enforcement, Ange, we’re private investigators.”

  “No shit, Sherlock. But—”

  “But what? Where the hell’s this coming from? You’re talking like a novice.”

  “I’m no fucking novice, Skid. I just think you should level with your partner about your motives.”

  “My motives. And what are my motives, Ange?”

  “You don’t want the police to get their hands on this, not because you’re afraid of what they’ll do with it. You’re afraid of what they won’t do. You’re afraid it might just be so bad, as bad as Jenna said, and someone in the State House will make a phone call and the evidence will disappear.”

  I kneaded the foam ball in my hand. “You’re suggesting my motives are contrary to the interests of our clients?”

  “You’re damn right I am. If these ‘documents’ are as bad as Jenna said, if they incriminate Paulson or Mulkern, what’re you going to do then? Huh?”

  “We’ll have to see.”

  “Bullshit we’ll have to see. Bullshit. This job should have been over half an hour after we found Jenna in Wickham. But you wanted to play things out, be a goddamn social worker. We’re private investigators. Remember? Not moralists. Our job is to turn over what we’re hired to find to the people who hired us to find it. And if they cover it up, if they buy off the police, fine. Because we’re out of it. We do our job and we get paid. And if—”

  “Wait a minute—”

  “—you don’t do this, if you turn this into some sort of personal crusade to get back at your father through Mulkern, we can kiss this business and this partnership goodbye.”

  I sat forward, my face two feet from hers. I said, “My father? My fucking father? Where’s he come into this?”

  “He’s been in this. He’s Mulkern, he’s Paulson, he’s every politician you ever met who shakes your hand with one hand and stabs you in the back with the other. He’s—”

  “Don’t you talk about my father, Angie.”

  “He’s dead,” she yelled. “Dead. And I’m real sorry to inform you but lung cancer took care of him before you got the chance to do it yourself.”

  I moved closer. “You my analyst now, Ange?” My face felt warm and the blood rippled through my forearms, tingling my fingers.

  “No, I’m not your fucking analyst, Patrick, and why don’t you back the fuck up?”

  I didn’t move. The trip switch on my temper had been kicked over and I stared into her eyes. They were zipping from side to side with bolts of anger. I said, “No, Ange, you back the fuck up, and take your pop psychology degree and your sentiments about my father with you. And maybe I won’t try and analyze your relationship with that Husband of the Year who treats you so well.”

  The phone rang.

  Neither of us moved. Neither of us looked at it. Neither of us softened or backed up.

  Two more rings.

  “Patrick.”

  “What?”

  Another ring.

  “That’s probably George.”

  I felt my jaw unclench a bit, and I turned and picked up the phone. “Patrick Kenzie.”

  “Hi, Patrick. It’s George.”

  “Georgie,” I said, working some false excitement through my vocal cords.

  “Do you have a pencil?”

&nbs
p; “Detectives always have pencils, George.”

  “Ha. Of course. Jenna Angeline’s car is a nineteen seventy-nine Chevy Malibu. Light blue. License number DRW-four seven nine. There’s a boot order in effect on it as of June third.”

  I felt the rush building from the pit of my stomach, the blood pounding into my heart from open valves. “A boot order?”

  “Yes,” George said. “The Denver boot. Ms. Angeline didn’t like paying her parking tickets it seems.”

  The Denver boot. The yellow, immovable tire lock. The blue Malibu Jerome’s friends had been sitting on when I went to Jenna’s place. Parked in front of the house. Not going anywhere anytime soon.

  I said, “George, you are the greatest. Swear to God.”

  “I helped?”

  “Damn right you helped.”

  “Hey, how about having a beer together sometime soon?”

  I looked at Angie. She was peering at something on her lap, her hair covering her face, but the anger hung in the room like exhaust fumes. I said, “I’d really like that, George. Give me a call at the end of next week? I should have wrapped this up by then.” Or died trying.

  “You got it,” he said. “You got it.”

  “Take care, George.”

  I hung up and looked at my partner. She was doing the pencil against her tooth thing again, looking at me, her eyes flat and impersonal. Her voice was pretty much the same. “I was out of line.”

  “Maybe not. Maybe I’m just not ready to probe that part of my psyche yet.”

  “Maybe you’ll never be.”

  “Maybe,” I said. “What about you?”

  “And the Asshole, as you so kindly refer to him?”

  “That guy, yeah.”

  “Things are coming,” she said. “They’re coming.”

  “What do you want to do about the case?”

  She shrugged. “You know what I want to do. But, then, I’m not the one who had to watch Jenna die, so I’ll let you call it. Just remember, you owe me one.”

  I nodded. I held out my hand. “Pals?”

  She grimaced and reached across and slapped my palm. “When weren’t we?”

  “About five minutes ago.” I laughed.

  She chuckled. “Oh, yeah.”

  We parked at the top of the hill, looking down on Jenna’s three-decker and the blue Malibu parked out front. The yellow boot was apparent even in the fading light. Bostonians get parking tickets and traffic citations with a consistency most pro sports teams would envy. They also tend to wait until their driver’s licenses are about to be renewed before paying attention to them. City officials realized this after a while, took a look at their dwindling coffers, wondered where the graft necessary to put their children through college and their asses on the Vineyard was going to come from, and brought in the Denver boot. It comes, obviously, from Denver, and it clamps around your tire, and that car ain’t going anywhere until all those parking fines are paid in full. Tampering with one is a serious offense, punishable by prison and/or a stiff fine. This doesn’t deter anyone half as much as the fact that the damn things are almost as hard to remove as an old chastity belt. A friend of mine did it once, with a ballpeen hammer, a chisel, and a whack in just the right place. But the boot must have been defective, because he could never repeat the feat. Depressed the hell out of him too; he could have been set for life—boot destroyer for hire. Making more money than Michael Jackson.

  If Jenna had hidden something in that car, it would make a perverse bit of sense. Sure, a car sitting untended in Boston for more than four or five minutes usually loses its stereo and speakers, and more often than not, the rest of it as well. But the chopping block market for fifteen-year-old Chevies ain’t what it used to be, and no self-respecting car thief is going to waste precious time screwing around with the boot. So, unless she hid it in her stereo, there was a good chance it was still there. If she’d hidden anything there in the first place. Big if.

  We sat and watched the car, waiting for darkness to fall. The sun had set but the sky still held its warmth, a canvas of beige streaked with wisps of orange. Somewhere behind or in front of us—in a tree, on a roof, in a bush, at one with the natural urban world—Bubba lurked in wait, his eyes as constant and emotionless as T. J. Eckleburg’s.

  We had no music going, because the Vobeast has no radio, and it was damn near killing me. God only knows how people kept their sanity before rock and roll. I considered what Angie had said about my motives, about my father, about taking my anger out on Mulkern and his cronies, anger at a world that had settled the score with my father before I had a chance to. If she was wrong, we’d find out when we finally got our hands on the evidence and I turned it over for another signed check, including the bonus. If she was right, we’d find out about that too. Either way, I didn’t like thinking about it.

  There was, come to think about it, way too much happening lately that required pauses for introspection. I’ve never made any bones about it—I love investigating things, as long as I’m not one of them. But suddenly, there were all these hot-blooded confrontations with people in my life—Richie, Mulkern, Angie. All of a sudden I was being asked to reevaluate myself in terms of racism, politics, and the Hero. My three least favorite subjects. Much more introspection and I’d end up growing a long white beard, maybe wearing a white smock, sipping a glass of hemlock while I read The Crito. Maybe I’d move to Tibet, climb a mountain with the Dalai Lama or head to Paris and wear nothing but black, grow myself a keen goatee and talk about jazz all the time.

  Or maybe I’d do what I always do—hang out and see what develops. Fatalist to the core.

  Angie said, “What do you think?”

  The sky was turning to ink, and there wasn’t a working streetlight for miles. I said, “Time for a little B and E.”

  There was no one on the stoops as we came down the hill, but that wouldn’t last much longer on a humid Sunday night. This wasn’t the type of neighborhood where people took off to the Cape for the Fourth of July. We had to get in, find whatever it was we were looking for, and get out. People who don’t have much usually protect what they’ve got in lethal ways. Whether the trigger’s pulled by a Bobby Royce or a little old lady, the damage can often be damn similar.

  Angie pulled the slim jim from her jacket as we approached the car, and before you could say “grand theft auto,” she’d slid it down beside the window and popped the lock. I had no idea what sort of house Jenna had kept—the only time I’d seen it someone had gone through it like a storm front—but she kept a pristine car. Angie took the backseat, reaching down under the seat and behind it, pulling up the mats, looking for telltale tears in the carpet.

  I did pretty much the same in the front seat. I pulled open the ashtray, found it brimming with Marlboro butts, closed it. I took what looked like warranties and repair records and an owner’s manual from the glove compartment, but I stuffed it all in the plastic bag I’d brought anyway. Easier to check through it all when we got out of here. I reached under the dashboard, ran my hand around, didn’t find anything taped there. I checked the door panels for rips or cuts in the seams. Nada. I took a screwdriver to the running panel on the passenger side; maybe Jenna’d seen The French Connection. I opened it: Maybe she hadn’t.

  Angie was doing the same to the panel on the driver’s side. When she removed it, she didn’t shout “Eureka,” so I figured she hadn’t found any more than I had. We were steadily getting nowhere when someone said, “Ain’t they pretty?”

  I sat up in the seat, my hand on my gun, and saw the girl who’d been sitting on the steps the last time I’d been here. Jerome was standing beside her and they were holding hands. Jerome said, “You meet Roland yet?”

  I sat up in the seat. “Haven’t had the pleasure.”

  Jerome looked at Angie, kept looking, not wide-eyed, just interested. He said, “The fuck you doing in his mother’s car, man?”

  “Working.”

  His girlfriend lit a cigarette. She took a dr
ag, blew the smoke in my direction. A thick ring of red lipstick looped around the white filter. She said, “He’s the man was there when Jenna got herself killed by Curtis.”

  Jerome said, “I know that, Sheila. Damn.” He looked at me. “You’re a detective, right?”

  I looked at Sheila’s cigarette again. Something about it annoyed me, but I couldn’t figure out what yet. I said, “Yeah, Jerome. Got a badge and everything.”

  Jerome said, “Beats working for a living.”

  Sheila took another hit off her cigarette, placed another red ring slightly above the first.

  Angie sat up in the seat and lit one too. Carcinogen city.

  I looked at Sheila, then at Angie. I said, “Ange.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Did Jenna wear lipstick?”

  Jerome was watching us with a cocked eyebrow, his arms folded across his chest. Angie thought about it. She took a few more drags off her cigarette, blew the smoke out in slow streams. She said, “Yeah. Come to think of it. It was subtle, a light pink, but yeah.”

  I flipped open the car ashtray. “What kind of cigarettes she smoke, you remember?”

  “Lights, I think. Or Vantage, maybe. Definitely something with a white filter.”

  “But she’d just started again,” I said, remembering Jenna’s claim that she hadn’t smoked in ten years until the events of the past few weeks caused her to start back up.

  The cigarettes in the ashtray had cork filters and no lipstick rings on them. I yanked the ashtray out, swung my legs out of the car. “Step back for a sec’ please, Jerome.”

  “Yassuh, bawse, whatever you say.”

  “I said ‘please,’ Jerome.”

  Jerome and Sheila took two steps back. I dumped the ashtray on the sidewalk. Jerome said, “Hey, man, some of us got to live here.”