The Town: A Novel

by Chuck Hogan

  Frawley nodded to Sergeant Somebody, the older cop rolling his eyes at her and moving to the break in the curtain. “Five minutes,” Frawley told him.

  Krista called after him, “I take mine milk, three sugars!” She smiled over tightly folded arms as Frawley closed the curtain. His card rested on the bed, on top of the folded johnny she had refused to wear. She flicked her fingernails and bobbed her crossed foot—a black shoe with a broken heel—restlessly. “I was on my way to see you.”

  “That’s interesting,” said Frawley. “Considering you don’t have my address.”

  “You’re in the yard.” She shrugged. “I would of found you.”

  One look at her eyes told Frawley she was good and dusted. Recognizing this slowed him down a bit. “What happened?”

  “I don’t know. Guess someone left an anchor in the middle of the road.” She shrugged the grin of someone for whom life was such a daily absurdity in and of itself that a car accident made for a welcome start to the week. In that grin Frawley discerned the bullying contempt of her brother.

  He saw the empty car seat in the corner—blue plaid fabric crumb-dusted and milk-stained—its vacancy like a mouth opened to scream.

  Krista saw him looking, sucked in her smile, swallowed it down. “She wasn’t hurt,” she said proudly. “Not a scratch.”

  “Then you could be looking at Mother of the Year here,” he said, unable to help himself.

  “What do you know, what I go through? Look at you.” She broke the knot of her arms. “People make mistakes sometimes—and who are you, Mr. Tsk-Tsk college boy? The mistake catcher? A fucking hall monitor with a badge, what do you know about someone like me? I am a real person. I am a single mother.”

  “Your daughter is in the backseat of a state van, being driven by a stranger to the Department of Social Services. How long do you want to talk here?”

  Krista stared, eyes dampening. Frawley was being hard, but it was working.

  “What were you coming to see me about? You needed a babysitter? I tried to call you twice, you hung up both times.”

  She glowered at the waxy curtain, keeping her dusted emotions in check. “DSS only holds her for a while. There’s an evaluation. Nothing happens until the evaluation.”

  “So maybe you want a lawyer here, then. Not the FBI.”

  She looked at him again, nearly amazed. “Why is it I’m always the one who gets used? Every man I know.”

  “Who’s using you here? Who called who? Who’s asking for help—me? I’m pretty sure I’m here because you want your daughter back. Because you can use me to get her.”

  “Real people make real mistakes—”

  He talked over her. “This is not about you anymore, this is about your daughter. Look at this empty car seat.”

  She did, her eyes blinking wet.

  Frawley went on, “You’re going to need some sort of plea agreement on these charges now, in order to retain custody.”

  She looked up fast. “And my house. I want your guarantee.”

  “Whoa, hold up. I never said I could guarantee. I said I could try.”

  “You said—”

  “I said I could try. And that is what I will do, Krista, that is my promise, provided you’re straight with me here. And if that isn’t good enough, maybe you want to wait for a better offer. How many more Get Out of Jail Free cards you got on you? Could your brother get you out of this jam? MacRay? Who? Fergie?”

  Her eyes sparked to that.

  “What, Fergie’s your benefactor, is he? Why should a degenerate dust dealer help you out with your daughter?”

  Nothing in her low-eyed look was telling—except the duration.

  Frawley’s stomach curdled. “Oh, Jesus.”

  She kept looking at him: defiantly, then starting to fall apart.

  “You and the Florist …” Frawley had to stop himself from saying more. He was picturing the gangster’s mashed face in a spasm of feral ecstasy, looming over her.

  Krista’s chin trembled. A hard woman crumbling was an awful thing to see. “Why you have to lean on me so hard? Why make me beg for everything I get? Treating me like I’m nothing, I don’t matter. All you men.”

  Frawley summoned the memory of MacRay coming after him in the parking garage in order to sustain his anger, counterbalancing his sympathy for Coughlin’s sister here. “You called me. That means you have something to trade.”

  She looked down, taking deep, shuddering breaths. “Duggy’s going away with her after.”

  “Her?” Frawley stepped up. “What do you mean, with her?”

  Krista looked up. She read the desire in his eyes, the anger, and said, “You too?”

  He lost it. “What do you mean, with her?”

  Krista was aghast. “What is she anyway? What does she have—Jesus Christ—to make all of you so fucking crazy over her?”

  Frawley remembered himself, stepped back. “You said after. Going away with her after. After what?”

  Krista turned to look at the clock—and Frawley’s blood came crashing.

  “Today?” he said, pouncing on her look. “Not Tuesday—today? Where? When?”

  Her jaw quivered like mortar cracking off a facade. “My daughter.…”

  “You need to be smart now, Krista. A life full of bad decisions, this is the one that could do you good, help turn things around. But their clock is your clock too.”

  “My daughter,” Krista said, finally breaking. “She’s retarded.”

  Frawley’s breath was gone. He stood very still.

  Krista spilled tears, her face collapsing in despair and defeat. “She’s going to need things… special things… special schools…”

  “Right,” he gasped out. “Uh-huh.”

  She looked up, her face tired and tear-streaked. “For her I’m doing this. Not me.”

  “No,” said Frawley, stealing another glance at the clock. 8:25. “Of course not.”

  “It’s not for me… not for me…”

  51

  THE MOURNING OF

  THE FOUR OF THEM standing around the hotel room, all in cop uniforms, guns and folded black duffel bags on the bed.

  Rain fell hard outside the shaded window. A punishing rain was almost as good for a job as snow. It darkened the day, obscured loud noises, kept by-standers off the streets, and gummed up the city in general. Gloansy had picked up four bright safety-orange raincoats at the army/navy store the day before. The coats covered up the armored vests that bulked out their cop uniforms.

  “Rain’s good,” Jem was muttering, walking back and forth from the drawn window curtains. “Rain’s good. Rain’s good. Rain’s good.”

  Doug looked at the phone. He was barely there, the crashing of the rain outside like the shit coming down all around his head. He answered when spoken to and moved when it was required of him, but everything felt distant and rehearsed, occurring outside himself while he watched. The four of them going through their pregame rituals. He was having trouble placing himself in time, figuring out what led to what and how he had arrived at this hotel room at the end of the world, dressed like a Boston cop.

  Dez cursed the bathroom mirror, having trouble with the hard contact lenses he wore on jobs. His face looked undressed without glasses, his nearsighted eyes small and lost in his face. What’s up? Dez had said at the door, the last to arrive. Nothing, said Doug, until then hoping that Dez might stay away.

  Gloansy gobbled down two pancaked slices of cold Domino’s, while Jem’s pacing and muttering and knuckle-cracking bordered on the lunatic. Where was the prejob ragging and the goofing that used to drive Doug nuts? Gone was all that crazy joy.

  Would the G even let them leave the hotel? Or wait until they were going into the ballpark and nail them there, all packed up and loaded, a headline bust? Or would agents be waiting inside, wearing can guards’ uniforms—a reverse Morning Glory?

  Worse than the doomed feeling of the trap was knowing that he was the only one aware of it. Asshole that he was.
Falling for this creature of his imagination, this all-forgiving, all-healing girl—this magic, winning ticket. Trusting her. Needing her. What was it about him that wanted a wounded girl to vanish into? If the phone rang now, it would only be the G calling from the lobby, telling them the place was surrounded and ordering them out, hands behind their heads, one at a time.

  It was not too late. He could tell the others what he’d done. They could all change back into street clothes and ditch the uniforms and guns and walk away clean—three of them heading back into Town, and Doug in a different direction. He had some money, he’d be all right. For a while.

  But part of him still held out hope. Arguing that if there was going to be a takedown, it would have happened already, there at the hotel. The G didn’t want them out on the streets, armed and unpredictable. Maybe Claire hadn’t told them anything. Every second that ticked toward Go time, Doug’s hope grew.

  He went around wiping down the dresser and table with rubbing alcohol, removing his prints from the room. Krazy Glue on his hands, krazy thoughts in his mind. Glugging bleach in the bathroom sink and shower, blitzing the drains, obliterating his DNA. Erasing every trace of his existence. The bundle of cash he had buried shallow in the garden of a girl who hated him, and the clothes piled up in Mac’s old army bag by the door: they were all he had in the world now. And these three guys.

  Gloansy and Dez went around rapping fists, pulling on orange coats and slipping out one at a time, down the hallway stairs to the rear door. Doug watched from the window, the slapping rain providing decent cover for two bright orange cops ducking out of a hotel and into a stolen car. They were leaving early to snarl the morning city commute before returning to the ballpark. Doug watched them roll around the corner out of sight and envisioned them being pulled over just outside the parking lot, boxed in at gunpoint by a roadblock shutting down Boylston Street. He closed the curtains as though tear-gas canisters were about to come crashing through the window, smoke filling the room.

  Jem stood there with his 9mm drawn on Doug. Doug froze, losing it a moment in Jem’s sight, Jem holding the pose, grinning—then returning the gun to his holster and snapping the leather catch. “You want the Tec-9?”

  “Don’t care,” Doug said, dizzy. “Just put a gun in my hand.”

  Jem tossed him a loaded Beretta, Doug basket-catching it. Jem admired the Tec in his hand, an oversized pistol with a clip feed in front of the trigger. “Yeah,” he said, then put it down on the bed and fit his thumbs into the front of his gun belt, strutting around the room. “All those years watching Cops finally paying off.” He smiled, enjoying himself, grinding his jaw the way dust makes you do. “I’d’ve made a good cop. A rich cop.” He stopped and tried his delivery—“License and registration, ma’am”—impressing himself, continuing his cop strut around the room. “Fucking ticket to ride, man. How you ever gonna walk away from this?”

  Doug couldn’t see any way to go forward or backward. To walk or to stay. He looked at the gun in his hand. I’m not that guy anymore. But here he was.

  “By the way,” said Jem. “I put you in after all.”

  Doug shook his head. “Put me in what?”

  “The third floor. Shyne’s dollhouse. I took the chance. Maybe you’ll change your mind. You walked away once before and found your way back again.”

  FRAWLEY WAS STALLED IN traffic downtown, grappling with his car phone, wipers slashing rain. He couldn’t get any numbers for Fenway Park from information. Nobody from the Task Force was in the Lakeville office yet, so the field office was calling New York for Provident Armored’s headquarters number. He did manage to catch Dino at home and stop him from heading out to Lakeville. Now Dino was calling him back.

  “My captain took it straight to the commissioner. You’re sure now.”

  Frawley leaned on his horn. “I got it from the sister.”

  “Coughlin’s sister?”

  “They’re going in strong. Some bullshit about a ‘last job,’ MacRay leaving after. That’s all I know.”

  “Any clue how security works at Fenway?”

  “None, but Dean—you gotta keep patrol cops away.”

  “There’ll be nothing on the radio.”

  “And no helicopters to scare them off.”

  “Easy now, Frawl. We got Entry and Apprehension Team suiting up as we speak. That’s our SWAT. They’re on a scrambled freq. Do we know where these tea-pissers are jumping from?”

  “We know nothing but the time.” Frawley looked at his radio clock. “And it’s fucking eight forty-five now! What’s with this traffic?”

  “That’s another thing. It’s the rain, but also my cap says they got two separate major jams, one westbound on Storrow, one in Kenmore Square.”

  “Kenmore Square?” said Frawley, punching the thin ceiling of the Tempo. “That’s our guys!”

  “A semi stalled across the intersection. The one on Storrow is an oversized rental van jammed under one of those height-restricted bridges. Both vehicles were abandoned, left locked up and running.”

  “Fucking—it’s them, Dean!”

  Frawley hung up and threw his phone, unable to bear the thought of missing these guys. Of not being there to hook up MacRay.

  Screw the field office. Frawley bumped over a curb, gouging the Tempo’s undercarriage on the street corner, swinging up one of the side streets climbing Beacon Hill, heading directly to Fenway.

  DOUG SAT NEXT TO Jem in the backseat of the big Thunderbird, parked at the corner of Yawkey and Van Ness. Gloansy sat behind the popped ignition in front, Dez next to him. The windows were all cracked open in the drumming rain to keep their view from fogging. Doug saw the G everywhere, on the spilling rooftops, in surrounding windows, in every car that passed.

  The can was three minutes overdue; the news radio station was in hysterics over the traffic tie-ups. Jem thumped his black shoes into the floor, marching in place as he sat, the sound like a pounding heart.

  “I don’t know,” said Doug, going secretly crazy. “I don’t know about this.”

  “Can’s stuck in traffic with the rest of them,” said Gloansy.

  “I don’t know.”

  Dez turned his head. “What do you mean?”

  Doug was trying to give them at least a chance. “Doesn’t feel right.”

  Jem said, “Everything’s cool. We’re gonna do this.”

  “I think something’s up.”

  “Check this out.” Jem unbuckled the clips on the front of his raincoat. In addition to the Glock in his holster and the semiauto Tec-9 strapped off his shoulder, he wore four fat pinecone grenades, World War style, affixed to his cop belt with black electrical tape. “From my gramps,” Jem said. “Guy was a fuckin’ war hero.” He flicked at the little metal pins, still in place.

  Dez said, “Those live?”

  Gloansy said, “For Christ. You’re gonna blow us up in here.”

  “Insurance, ant-dicks. You think they’d let anything happen to historic Fenway? These are our tickets out. One for each.”

  Dez glanced over the seatback at Doug, Doug fed up with his altar-boy disapproval.

  Jem clipped up his coat again, white-blue eyes brimming with dusted confidence. “We’re gonna do this. We’re gonna do this.”

  Lightning brightened the street, Doug thinking it was a flash-bang charge, the G swooping down on them. He waited for thunder. There was none.

  He couldn’t sit still another moment. He opened his door and stood out of the T-bird, shutting the door before any of them could say anything, starting away through the rain.

  He turned onto Boylston, the chime ringing as he pushed inside the package store. Bewildering, the lights, the colorful promotions—it had been a long time. He cut down a long aisle of wines to the back cooler. Two sixes of High Life longnecks waited for him on the rack. He grabbed both and brought them to the counter.

  There was a cop waiting there: Dez, dripping on the floor. “What are you doing?”

  Doug had no mo
ney in his uniform pockets. “Give me some money.”

  Dez said, “Put it down. Come on. Let’s go—”

  “Shut the fuck up.” Doug turned to the cashier. “Put these on the police account.” Without waiting for an acknowledgment, he walked out past Dez.

  Dez caught up with him on the rainy sidewalk. “Duggy! What’s happening to you? You don’t need this—”

  Doug shoved Dez back with an elbow. “I fucking told you not to come.”

  Doug returned to the car first, his wet coat crinkling as he sat. “The fuck was that?” said Jem, before seeing the twin caddies of tall boys.

  Doug said, “Thought you wanted to be there for my first one back.”

  Jem’s smile grew wide and fierce, all-encompassing.

  “Duggy Mac is back.” Doug passed one of the sixes over the seat to Gloansy as Dez returned, settling in, not removing his orange hood. Doug reached for his Leatherman, finding it missing. A twinge of panic as he pictured it sitting forgotten on his bureau—a tool he had carried with him on every job.

  No matter. The trick, when you don’t have an opener, is to use one beer for leverage, inverting it and hooking the cap of the beer to be popped, then twisting and pulling back the top one like snapping a stick in two. Doug cracked one for Jem and one for himself.

  Genie mist escaped out of its small mouth. Doug’s chest was pounding.

  Jem waited for Gloansy to crack two, then said reverently, “To the Town.”

  Jem rapped fists with Doug, neither one spilling a drop. Doug said, “Here’s how.”

  He brought the bottle to his lips, the beer splashing hard to the back of his throat, tasteless at first, swallowed like seawater. Then came the tang, the bite. His throat worked the brew along until the bottle was empty and weightless, the taste settling into his tongue like surf foam sinking into sand.

  The first belch was an echo from a dark abyss. He popped open another and caught sight of Dez, slow to drink his first, disappointment and disapproval evident in the sag of his shoulders. Doug drank harder.