I couldn’t believe I’d made it. I took a deep breath, but the situation had me flowing with its energy and before I’d even thought about what had happened I had the bag open and was staring at a pair of sneakers wrapped in T-shirts. I dropped the bag and went back up to Telegraph to badmouth those cats. The whole number lasted maybe twenty minutes.
Give or take ten years.
40
I DIDN’T WANT TO GET into that kind of scene again, but I didn’t know what else to do. So finally I went to see if Herbie was still up and about, and I found him wide-eyed and stoned out of his mind but ready to rip.
“I thought you’d show,” Herbie said as I came into the room. “Want to get some breakfast?”
I was surprised. “It’s that late?”
“Yeah.” He checked his watch. “Seven-thirty.” He stepped out the door, and came back in holding the morning paper. “Your old lady ought to have gotten a big write-up,” he said. “Big splash.” He sighed. “Wish I could help,” he said, “but …”
I nodded. There was nothing he could do. Obviously, there was nothing that any of us could do. “A forty-brick bust,” I said. “That’s a hell of a big bust.”
“She got anything else going for her?” Herbie said.
“No prior offenses, no record,” I said. “That’s something.”
He nodded. “College student?”
“No.”
“Too bad. Work history? Can she prove she doesn’t do this for a living?”
“She hasn’t worked at some job for five years, if that’s what you mean.”
“Psychiatric history?”
“Nothing,” I said. That was the last resort, so far as defense went, but for young defendants it often helped.
Herbie sighed again, and shook his head. Then he looked up suddenly. “How many bricks did you say?”
“What?”
“How many bricks was she busted for holding?”
“Forty,” I said.
“Forty kilos?”
“That’s what I said.”
“That’s odd,” Herbie said. As I’d been talking he’d been leafing through the paper. “Because it says here … wait a minute … dadadadedah … umm … Here. It says ‘Susan Blake, busted for forty pounds in twenty kilos.’”
“Well, they made a mistake,” I said. “Fucking newspapers can’t even get the facts on a goddamn local bust down right. Anyway,” I shrugged, “it was forty keys.”
Herbie stared at the paper some more. “No,” he said.
“No, what?”
“No, they did not make a mistake. The sentence is internally consistent. Forty pounds would be just under twenty kilograms. That’s accurate.”
“Yeah, well, she had forty keys, forty bricks—”
“What did they say on the news last night?”
I shrugged. “I don’t remember.”
“Well,” Herbie said, “it’s important, because if it’s only twenty keys, her bail might be lower.”
“Far out,” I said, and felt momentarily encouraged. Until I began to think of some other things that I had never thought of. Things I should have considered right off, especially with Murphy involved.
“Herbie,” I said, “this is far out. This is very far out.” Herbie looked interested. “Dig it: I know that there were forty keys in that shipment. Sukie was holding down two suitcases, twenty keys to a suitcase. Total value, ten thousand dollars. I mailed the check to her myself.”
“That is far out,” Herbie said. “The boys in blue seem to have gotten pretty arrogant.” He smiled, and buried his nose in the newspaper. “’Cause it says here ‘one suitcase,’ and that means that … Where do you think it’s being dumped?”
“Roxbury,” I said, “or Somerville. That’s a beginning, anyway.”
“Okay,” Herbie said, getting off on the whole idea of fucking up the pigs. “Now we need a car, and binoculars. I have both. Also, we have to stop off at the drugstore …”
“What?”
“I’ll meet you in the courtyard in ten minutes,” Herbie said on his way out the door.
41
AN HOUR LATER WE FOUND ourselves in Herbie’s VW, parked across the street from District Station House Number Four. It was still raining slightly, and on a Sunday afternoon this part of town, on the east edge of Roxbury, was quiet. Herbie gave me the binoculars. “Here,” he said. “You’re the one who knows what he looks like.”
I took the binoculars and tried to look through them. Herbie had focused them for his own eyes, and they were completely blurred for me. While I changed the focus, Herbie took off his glasses and wiped them on his tie. “You know,” he said conversationally, “Boston has the lowest pay scales for police of any place in the country.”
“That right?” I said. I was now focused on the front steps.
“Yes,” Herbie said. “That’s what’s behind it all. That and the mail.”
“The mail?” I repeated, still looking through the binoculars. A man came out of the station, talking to a cop in uniform. The man wasn’t Murphy.
“Yes,” Herbie said. “Cops get mail just like everybody else. Last year’s murder rate in Boston went up sixty percent over the year before. But the mail doesn’t say ‘Stop the murders.’ The mail says ‘Get those nasty kids with their nasty drugs.’”
“Oh,” I said.
Another man came out of the station. He wasn’t Murphy, either. I sighed.
“Better relax,” Herbie said, lighting a joint and passing it to me. “It could be a long time. You know, you can’t really blame them.”
“Who?”
“Whom. The police,” Herbie said. “Dope is money, you know. Why not make a little extra?”
“Yeah,” I said. And I added, “I hope Murphy’s broke.”
“That probably isn’t the motivating factor,” Herbie said. He said it in a cryptic, dry way and I suddenly flashed on what Herbie was doing here: weak, nearsighted, brilliant little Herbie, who was still working up to his first Big Date at the age of seventeen. Herbie was here because it was a manipulation trip, action at a distance, control from afar, guess and second-guess, with cops-and-robbers overtones. He was playing it hot and heavy, and loving every minute of it.
“I’m going to work on the gun,” he said, and leaned into the back seat to get it.
One hour passed, then two, then three. I began to get depressed. It seemed that things like this were always coming down on me, waiting things, dependent things, things where I wasn’t in control and had to bide my time, see what developed. It happened to everybody, of course, but that didn’t make it any better. Waiting to get out of high school so you could get away from Main Street. Waiting to get your degree so you could go out and wait for a job. Waiting for the bank loan. Waiting for the kids to grow up. Waiting for the draft to blow your neck. Waiting for the record to end—the same dismal, crummy record that played the same dismal, crummy song over and over, the song that went “When does it end, and who is it that’s won, and will I die, too, before it’s begun?”
Three and a half hours later the VW seemed very cramped, the air very stale. Herbie said he’d go across the street to a sandwich shop and get a couple of subs, while I stayed with the binoculars. He asked me what I wanted and I said a meatball sandwich. He came back with it for me, and it was terrible, a true crapball concoction, to be washed down by an artificially flavored, artificially colored beverage of some sort. I frowned when I bit into it and he asked me if it was what I had wanted. It wasn’t, of course. I thought about how I could never seem to get what I wanted. Nobody in America could, for that matter, unless of course you happened to want something that you could purchase, in which case you had an immense variety of guaranteed satisfactions. But even that had been going on too long. Too many people had been getting all the new cars and the new tubes and the new refrigerators that they’d wanted for so long. And now they wanted something else. But they didn’t know what.
Four hours passed.
&nb
sp; Herbie got the latest papers, to see if there was more about Sukie or the size of the bust. There wasn’t.
Another half hour.
And then, suddenly, stepping out into the afternoon light, rubbing the bald spot on the back of his head, was The Pig. “Herbie,” I said, “that’s him.”
Herbie put down the paper. “What’s six letters meaning determination?”
I pointed to Murphy, walking alone down the steps with a small briefcase in one hand. “That’s him.”
“Well, what are you waiting for?” Herbie said. “Let’s get going.”
I started the engine, and put the VW in gear.
42
MURPHY DROVE A GREEN PLYMOUTH sedan. It was dusty and needed to be washed, and it had the usual 415 narc plates. Murphy climbed in and carefully put on a large pair of Highway Patrol-type shades, and then started off.
I followed the car through the Boston traffic. As we went, I said, “Herbie, there’s one problem.”
“There are no problems,” Herbie said flatly.
“Yes,” I said, “there’s one: what if he’s already unloaded the stuff? What if he unloaded it last night?”
“That’s not a problem,” Herbie said. “That’s a factor we’ve taken into account.”
“We have?”
“Yes. It’s been perfectly clear from the start that if he has already unloaded the dope, or if he’s not the one who’s doing it, then we are wasting our time.”
“Oh,” I said.
Murphy drove to the South End of town, pulled up at a bus stop, parked, and got out. I pulled over beside a hydrant a few yards back. We watched Murphy go into a church.
“I don’t like it,” Herbie said.
“Why?” I said.
“He’s taking that briefcase with him,” Herbie said, getting out of the car. I started to follow him. “No,” Herbie said, “not you. He’d recognize you.”
So I got back into the car and waited while Herbie scurried up to the church, and disappeared inside. Several minutes passed. I turned on the radio but all I could get was Connie Francis singing “Who’s Sorry Now?” and some damned symphony. I turned the radio off and smoked a cigarette. Several more minutes passed. I turned the radio back on. This time I found a talk show, with Tony Curtis. They asked Tony whether he thought he was successful and Tony said it depended on how you defined it. He defined success as doing better than his best friend. And he said he was successful, on that basis. He didn’t name the best friend.
Then Murphy came out of the church, still carrying the briefcase. Herbie was nowhere to be seen. Murphy got into his car, threw the briefcase into the back seat, started the engine, and waited. I watched him, wondering where Herbie was, and why Murphy was waiting.
At that moment, Herbie came out of the church, moving very fast. I glanced over at Murphy. Murphy was looking at Herbie. Christ, I thought, it’s all over. Herbie jumped into the seat next to me. “All set,” he said. “Why’s he waiting?”
“Don’t know,” I said. But then I saw him lean forward, take out the dashboard lighter, and light the cigarette between his lips. I sighed. “There’s your answer. Just getting a nic hit.”
At that moment, Murphy took off. He patched out, leaving a blue cloud of exhaust and the smell of rubber, and streaked down the street.
“Shit,” I said, slamming the car into gear.
“I wonder what he has under that hood,” Herbie said thoughtfully.
Murphy was now moving very fast, heading toward the Expressway. He went up the ramp and I followed him, running a red light to make it. “What was he doing in the church?”
“Praying,” said Herbie.
Murphy screamed forward onto the Expressway. He wove among the lanes of traffic, trying to lose us.
The VW didn’t have enough power to touch the Plymouth, which moved steadily away from us. For a while, Herbie was able to keep track of him with the binoculars, while I took some bad chances, slipping in and out among the cars. But finally, near Milton, we came over a rise in the Expressway and looked down over the far slope, and he was gone.
Completely gone.
Herbie kept on scanning the road ahead. Then he put down the binoculars. “Get off at the next exit,” he said. “We’ve lost him.”
43
THE TOWN OF MILTON WAS established in 1710, according to the welcome sign, and from the looks of that sign and the looks of the houses, it had kept a tight ass-hole ever since. It would be hard to build a community that looked more prim. It was all very neat and clean and historical and nauseating. Herbie directed me through it. He didn’t seem discouraged, but I was discouraged as hell.
“What are we doing here?” I said.
“Playing the odds,” Herbie said. “You have your money?” I nodded. “How much?”
“Thirty-six dollars.”
“That should be enough,” Herbie said, “if we can get enough change. We’re going to have a problem.”
“Change?”
“Dimes,” Herbie said. He directed me to a large, modern drugstore. We walked to the back, past the counters of Nytol, E-Z Doz, Sleeptite, Awake!, Rouse, Bufferin, Anacin, Contac, and all the other pills. Behind the druggists’ counter there were giant bottles of pills, the tranqs, bennies, and sleepers that you needed a prescription for. We went straight to the back, where there were three telephone booths, with the phone books hanging from a wall rack.
“Okay,” Herbie said. “We assume, because we have to, that he’s going home. And home is south of Boston, since he was on the Southeast Expressway. And probably within an hour of commuting. Okay. We know his last name is Murphy. What’s his first name?”
I tried to remember. “Roger, I think. Anyway, something with R.”
“Good. And his rank?”
“Lieutenant.”
“Good,” Herbie said, opening the directory. “Go get your change.”
And then we began. We each took one column of Murphys. I took the left column, beginning with Murphy, Ralph A. Herbie took the right column, beginning with Murphy, Roland J. And we called. All of my calls were the same.
“Hello?”
“Hello,” I would say, “is Lieutenant Murphy there?”
“Who?”
For the first few, I would mumble some excuse, or say wrong number. Later, I got so that when I heard “Who?” I just hung up. Alongside me, in the next booth, Herbie was doing the same thing. I heard the clink each time he put in another dime.
Finally, around the fifteenth time: “Hello?”
“Hello, is Lieutenant Murphy there?”
“Not at the moment.”
I sighed and smiled. At last. “When do you expect him back?”
“Not until tomorrow night. He’s on weekend maneuvers at Fort Devens. Who’s calling please?”
“Sorry,” I said, “wrong number.”
At the bottom of my column were the Roger Murphys. I missed on Roger A., Roger J., Roger M., Roger N. Finally I got Roger V.
“Hello, is Lieutenant Murphy there?”
“No, but I expect him any minute. Who’s calling?”
“Uh, this is Captain Fry.”
“Captain Fry?” She obviously didn’t know any Captain Fry.
“Yes. I’m down at the Fourth stationhouse now. I wanted to see your husband. I guess I just missed him.”
“Yes,” she said, “you must have. Can I have him call you back?”
“No, thanks,” I said. “I’ll call back later on.”
“What did you say your name was again?” she asked.
“Nice to talk to you, Mrs. Murphy,” I said, and hung up.
I had my finger on the line. Murphy, Roger V., 43 Crescent Lane, Ackley.
44
“HOW MUCH LEFT?” HERBIE SAID, as we drove away from the drugstore.
“How much what?”
“Money,” Herbie said.
I shrugged, and handed him all the dimes I had, and the few dollar bills the drugstore hadn’t been able to change.
“You’re in luck,” Herbie said. “Fifteen dollars.”
“Why am I in luck?”
“Make your next left, and the left after that.”
I followed his directions, and came to the E-Z Car Rental. Lowest Rates on Compacts and Other Fine Cars.
I parked. “What are we doing?”
“Getting a new car,” Herbie said. “They’ll take fifteen dollars here as a deposit.”
We got out and went inside and talked to H. Lewis, Prop. It turned out he wouldn’t take fifteen dollars as the deposit. He would take fifty dollars, and not a penny less.
“We don’t have fifty dollars,” Herbie said patiently.
“That’s it, then,” Mr. Lewis said, behind the counter.
“Come on,” Herbie said. “Give us a break.”
“Sorry.”
“Come on. We’ll leave the VW with you.”
Mr. Lewis looked out the window at Herbie’s VW. “Probably hot,” he said.
“Come on,” Herbie said. “Who’d steal a VW?” The man squinted at him. “Look,” Herbie said, “I’ve got the registration for it and everything. It’s not stolen. Give us a car for fifteen.”
“No.”
“Come on, Mister, we got dates tonight, and if we don’t get there …”
“Use your VW.”
“We can’t. It’s overheating. It’ll blow out on us if we drive any farther.”
The man sighed. We both tried to look as pitiable as possible. Finally he said, “Where’re the girls from?”
“What girls?”
“Your dates.”
“Oh. Currier College.”
Mr. Lewis sighed. His face softened. He looked at me, then at Herbie, and he smiled.
Dealing or The Berkeley-to-Boston Forty-Brick Lost-Bag Blues Page 15
