The Town: A Novel

by Chuck Hogan

  29

  ROUNDUP

  DOUG STEPPED OUT OF Lori-Ann’s coffee shop and saw two uniformed patrolmen waiting at the curb. Only a split-second reluctance to spill the large tea in his hand saved him from obeying his first, immediate, and not entirely irrational impulse, which was to take off running. Illness rose in his chest, a gut reaction to these two uniforms and the death of freedom they represented. But running would have been a huge mistake, and this near catastrophe was a second cup of ice water down his back.

  Everything else looked normal for 7:30 A.M. on lower Bunker Hill Street: cars moving, civilians waiting for the 93 bus into the city, two project kids sitting on basketballs at the corner. For the arrest of an armed-robbery suspect, the G would have shut down the street like it was parade day, or else dispatched plainclothes federal marshals to serve the warrant.

  The cops stepped up to him. “Douglas MacRay?”

  He elected to go with them rather than follow in his own car. That they gave him the choice after patting him down was another good sign. The backseat of the cruiser was torn up and cramped, with the usual foot or so of legroom. Nice to be in there without handcuffs for a change.

  He set his copy of the subpoena down on the duct-taped vinyl next to him and pulled out a glazed doughnut and bit in, relaxing. “Might want to go Prison Point instead of the C-town bridge,” he told them through the plastic partition, “unless you’re gonna light up your roof.”

  Instead they sat for minutes on the groaning iron skeleton of the Charlestown Bridge. Doug finished his second doughnut, a Boston crème, while reading through his subpoena.

  United States District Court, it headlined. SUBPOENA TO TESTIFY BEFORE GRAND JURY, below that. Under SUBPOENA FOR, there were check boxes, and an X was drawn through the box next to DOCUMENTS OR OBJECT(S), leaving the box for PERSON unchecked.

  Area A-1 was the police district that covered Downtown Boston and Charlestown. The station was a big brick box around the corner from City Hall Plaza. They parked between two other blue-and-whites angled along Sudbury Street and led Doug down the steps to the glass doors and the lobby. It was a shift change, the halls crowded as they moved left past the women’s detention room to the booking area, in sight of the holding cells and the slumbering prisoners.

  The cop opened the ink pad and Doug licked sugar off his fingers. “What happened, you guys lose the prints you had?”

  They printed his palm also, and the soft side of his hand opposite his thumb, then they had him make fists and printed each of his bottom knuckles before handing him a tissue. This was strange and worrisome, though Doug went along like he was enjoying the tour.

  They took photographs with the height marker, front and profile, no booking number around his neck. Doug didn’t smile, but he didn’t not smile either, going for a borderline-amused Sure, why not?

  They took a DNA swab from the pockets of his cheeks with a double-sized Q-tip that screwed into a plastic tube. Then they plucked eleven strands of hair from his scalp. “You want some piss too, I drank a large tea on the way over.”

  They declined his offer, handing him a script instead and making him recite witness-remembered sentences into a digital recorder:

  Arnold Washton, 311 Hazer Street, Quincy.

  Morton Harford, 27 Counting Lane, Randolph.

  Take the coin tray off the cart, open up the safe, and start stacking bags.

  Remember this ain’t your money and how nice it’s gonna be to get back home.

  Ain’t gonna be no rematch. Say hello to my little friend.

  We’re here for the popcorn, Mugsy. Yeaaahh, see?

  They made him do the last line three times over until he read it straight, then allowed him into the bathroom for his unwanted piss before shutting him inside an interrogation room and leaving him alone for the better part of an hour. Soft carpeting covered the soundproof walls. Doug got up once to check the thermostat—he had heard this was how interrogators turned on hidden microphones—but couldn’t tell anything without lifting off the box. Instead he dropped a little whistling on his imagined audience, “The Rose of Tralee,” and hoped they liked it.

  The one who came in introduced himself as a detective lieutenant assigned to the Bank Robbery Task Force, name of Drysler. He was long-armed and walked with the stoop of a tall man getting older. He set down a clipboard with Doug’s print card on top and pulled off a pair of reading glasses, folding his long arms like someone collapsing the legs of a card table.

  “One chance,” he told Doug. “I’m giving you one shot, and this is it.”

  Doug nodded like he was interested.

  “You’re the first one brought in,” said Drysler. “So lucky you gets first crack at setting up a deal.”

  Doug nodded and leaned close to him. “Okay, I did it,” he confessed. “Tell O.J. the search is over. I killed Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman.”

  Drysler stared, too old and too pro to get pissy. “Did you like prison, MacRay?”

  “To that I’d have to answer no.”

  “They say life is full of choices, MacRay, but it’s not. Life is lived choice by choice by choice. What you eat, what you wear, when you sleep, who you sleep with. You choose wrong here, MacRay, and you may never get the opportunity to choose anything again. That’s what life in prison means—the death of choice.”

  Doug swallowed, the older detective’s words going down like razors, but he smiled through his pain. “If you got that printed on a bumper sticker or something, I’ll take one home with me.”

  Drysler nodded after a long moment of consideration. “Okay, you can go.”

  On his way out to the lobby, Doug passed a guy standing near the watercooler, jacketless like Drysler, a simple blue tie on a long-sleeved white shirt tucked deep into tan dress pants, shoulder rig prominent beneath his left arm. He was drinking water from a cone paper cup, watching Doug over the rim, and Doug found something in the guy’s eyes that was familiar.

  The cup came down and the guy looked at Doug as he swallowed, showing attitude. Doug was past him before he realized who it was and stopped, turning back.

  “Hey,” said Doug with a nod. “Rash cleared up, huh?”

  The G-man just kept looking, wearing the same I’m-smarter-than-you face as do all the true believers in the Cult of the Gold Badge. The only thing different about this one was his hair, not straight and tight like a boy’s regular but a tawny morass of rings and tangles. Doug had two or three good inches on him, and at least forty pounds.

  Doug said, “What, a little penicillin from the clinic took care of that?”

  The look became a stare. Drysler came up on them to shoo Doug along, and Doug should probably have kept going to the lobby and out the door, but he couldn’t resist. He stopped again and snapped his fingers, pointing back at the G-man and his professionally insolent face.

  “Red Cavalier, right?”

  No answer, the G’s hand a tight fist at his side, trying to compress the paper cup into a diamond. Doug grinned, then turned and walked through the lobby, though by the time he hit the outside steps rising to the sidewalk, his grin was well gone.

  * * *

  SPENCER GIFTS SOLD ASS-SHAPED beer mugs that farted when tipped to drink. The mall store was deep, dark, and disorientingly loud, the clerk behind the counter—looking like a cross between an Orthodox rabbi and the Red Hot Chili Peppers’ Flea—mouthing the anguished lyrics of a screeching Nine Inch Nails song like a man mumbling prayers at work.

  Doug felt ridiculous himself, having outgrown this place ten years ago, but the store was G-proof and the music made it virtually unsnoopable.

  Dez arrived late, his black eyeglass rims achieving a kind of retro rightness as he passed a jewelry counter of body art and skull rings. He was all worked up, Doug holding out a hand to slow him down, giving him a quick fist-rap of reassurance.

  “They picked me up in the parking lot at work,” said Dez. “This is after paying my boss a visit, checking on my story.”


  Doug nodded, keeping an eye on the store entrance. “Easy, kid. Take a breath.”

  “Trying to make me lose my job.” Dez brought his voice down. “This is a federal grand jury.”

  “Relax. All that means is a roomful of citizens sitting around deciding if evidence is evidence.”

  “Oh? That’s all?” Wild sarcasm didn’t look good on Dez.

  “The cops. What’d you tell them?”

  “What’d I tell them? I didn’t tell them anything! They didn’t even ask me anything, just, ‘Smile for the camera, open your mouth.’ I don’t even know if it was for the”—Dez looked back cautiously at two kids looking through Tupac and marijuana-leaf posters—“the most recent thing, or what. They didn’t say anything.”

  “And neither did you.”

  “Christ, of course not. Jesus. They take that swab thing of your mouth?”

  “Yep. Your palm, knuckles?”

  “Sure. That’s not normal?”

  Maybe the van didn’t burn right. Maybe Jem did something asinine, like taking off a glove while eating candy at the glass counter. Or maybe it was nothing. “They’re just shaking the trees, trying to get lucky. Stirring us up.”

  “Well—it fucking worked!”

  Doug nodded, shushing him. “Newspaper said they brought in some fifteen other Town guys. A dragnet, all of them players—except you. Calling you in with no armed-robbery record, that shows they’re onto the other capers.”

  “But how? How do they know?”

  “Knowing means nothing more than a hassle. It’s what they can or cannot prove.”

  Dez looked at a disco ball twirling on the ceiling. “Trying to make me lose my job.…”

  Doug shook his head, amazed that Dez was worried about his job here. Two people walked in the front, just girls, not thirty years between them, with skunked hair and pierced ears more metal than flesh.

  “Jem thinks it’s the branch manager from the Kenmore thing,” said Dez.

  Doug looked hard at him. “Where’s that coming from? You talk to him?”

  “No, not recently. This is from before.”

  “When before? What’d he say?”

  Dez shrugged. “Just that. That she told them something, or she knew something—I couldn’t really follow him. She’s bad luck anyway, you gotta admit.”

  “How’s that?”

  “Ever since then, you know? It’s been one thing after another.”

  Doug looked away to hide his annoyance, his eyes falling on a Jenny McCarthy poster, the topless blonde clutching her tits like she was going to rip them off her chest and chuck them at his head. “Jem’s fucking up all over the place,” said Doug. “He went Full Metal Jacket in the movie theater lobby. Shot it up with one of the guard’s guns—for no sane reason.”

  “He say anything about me?”

  “About you? What, like you blabbed?”

  “No. Wait—he thinks that?”

  “Whoa, I don’t know what the hell Jem thinks, I haven’t seen him. What are you talking about?”

  Dez tried to say it once, failed, exhaled, tried again. “Krista.”

  Doug stared. With everything else he had completely forgotten about that. “Aw, for Christ,” he said in semidisgust.

  “I ran into her at the Tap, the night of you guys’ thing.” Dez assessed Doug, wondering whether he should say anything more. “We hung out awhile, then she wanted to go back, watch the robbery coverage on the late news.”

  Doug knew how Krista got when she drank. So did a lot of other guys. And so, now, did Dez.

  “Kid, I’m gonna say this just once. You’re being played. She’s putting you in the middle of what she thinks is this epic tug-of-war battle between her and me, not understanding that that’s a rope I let go of a long time ago.”

  “Duggy—”

  “On top of that…” A guy in a polo shirt and a ballcap passed the entrance without looking in, Doug getting antsy, starting to feel trapped. “On top of all that, she’s running all over town doing errands for the guy who killed your dad.”

  “Her uncle. She works for him, does his books.”

  “A distant, distant cousin at best. And Krista’s not known for her algebra, Dezi.”

  “What are you saying? About what she does for him?”

  So idiotic, Dez getting all twisted up over Krista with these bombs going off around them. “Christ, will you cool it? What I’m saying is, she helps out Fergie the Florist from time to time, and I know what the Florist peddles and so do you. Clean those specs of yours.”

  “My specs are clean, Doug.”

  “Fucking fantastic for you. Oh, and one last little thing.”

  Sour now, pissed. “What?”

  “That guy in the Cavalier outside your ma’s house? He was at the police station when I was there.”

  Dez’s face breaking, getting nervous again. “No.”

  “And no rash disguise this time. He is the G, and he’s coming after all of us.” Doug thumped Dez in the chest with his finger. “You want something to worry about, kid, start worrying about that.”

  30

  BUY YOU SOMETHING

  HE WATCHED HER THERE a moment, kneeling and working in her garden, before making his presence known. The riot of color and life that surrounded her was at its peak, this long late week in June. Though gardening in general struck Doug as the ultimate in futility—bringing a plot of land to life only to watch it die again, a chore doomed from the beginning—something in the way she threw everything she had into it, regardless of the outcome, was lovable.

  All this passed through him in the instant before she saw him: Doug watching her kneeling on the dark rug of soil that held his treasure, in the thin, sidelong light of the setting sun, her shadow reaching across her garden sanctuary.

  “I WANT TO BUY you something,” he said.

  They were in the plaza outside Trinity Church, part of an early-evening crowd surrounding a street performer juggling two bowling pins, a bowling ball, and a pair of bowling shoes. Only Claire watched the juggler—Doug watched the amusement in her face. The act ended to applause, Claire clapping prayer-handed under her chin.

  “What do you want to buy me?”

  “What do you want?”

  “Hmm.” She retook his hand, twisting slightly on her heels. “How about a new car?”

  “What kind?”

  “I was kidding. I don’t want a car.”

  He said nothing, waiting.

  “You’re serious,” she said.

  “It’s the first thing that came into your mind.”

  “That’s because I was joking.”

  “If we trade in your Saturn on top of it, you could do pretty well.”

  She smiled, mystified by him. “I don’t. Want. A new car.”

  “What do you want then?”

  She laughed. “I don’t want anything.”

  “Think. Something you wouldn’t buy for yourself.”

  She made a thinking face, playing along. “Got it. Frozen yogurt at Emack’s.”

  “Not bad. But I was thinking more along the lines of jewelry.”

  “Oh?” She smiled at the sidewalk ahead of them. “Yogurt or jewelry. I could be up all night wrestling with that choice.”

  Earrings didn’t excite him. He looked at her neck: graceful, bare. “How about a chain? Where would we go to look for something like that?”

  She put her free hand to her throat. “Why—Tiffany, of course.”

  “Okay. Tiffany it is.”

  “You know I’m still joking.”

  “I know you were joking before, when we were talking about a car. But once the topic of jewelry came up—I think you got a tiny bit serious.”

  She laughed like she should have been insulted and hit him lightly in the chest. Then she looked at him more closely. “What’s gotten into you tonight?”

  “I want to do this,” he said. “Let me.”

  THE BROAD-HIPPED SALESWOMAN with the jailer’s ring of ca
binet keys waited as Claire turned and gathered up her hair. The woman worked the clasp and Claire turned to the framed mirror on the counter, opening her eyes and fixing on the diamond pebble glittering in the freckled scoop of her neck. Ringed in gold, the solitaire rode out a deep swallow.

  “This is crazy,” she breathed.

  “It looks good on you.”

  “How can you… you can’t afford this.”

  “It’s cheaper than a car.”

  “Lasts longer too,” said the saleswoman, smiling.

  Claire’s eyes never left the diamond. “I almost wish you wouldn’t.” She turned her head and watched it sparkle. “I did say almost, didn’t I?”

  The saleswoman nodded. “Will that be credit, or do you need to finance?”

  “Cash,” said Doug, reaching for his pocket.

  CLAIRE STOPPED BEFORE A window a few shops away, checking her reflection again, this time over a display of fountain pens and sport knives. She touched her collarbone in exactly the same manner as the women in diamond advertisements. “I have to buy a whole new wardrobe now, just based around this.”

  Doug noticed her bare wrist. “There was a matching bracelet too, you play your cards right.”

  She admired it a few more moments before her hand fell away. “I should never have let you buy me this.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because. Because the intent on your part was enough. The impulse you felt—I love it, whatever prompted it. That was the magic. A stronger person maybe, she would have told you that—and meant it—and let it go right there. A more secure person, maybe. But you didn’t have to do this.”

  “The guilt,” marveled Doug. “It’s immediate.”

  “It is, isn’t it?” she admitted, smiling a moment. Then she turned toward him, the smile gone. “Doug—I did something today, I have news.”

  A little heat came into his forehead. “What’s that?”

  “I quit my job.”

  Doug nodded slowly. “The bank.”

  “I had to. And really it was only a matter of time before they fired my ass.” A flash of a smile at her slang, again quickly replaced by earnestness. “I was slacking off so much, I was no use to them anyway. Ever since the robbery… I won’t bore you with that again, but I just couldn’t do it anymore. Not because of what happened there. Because of me. I needed to make a clean break. I just—I can’t believe I actually did it.”