Pot Shot

by Gerry Boyle

  She grinned.

  “Not today. You’re safe.”

  But was she safe?

  “Don’t try to talk them into dropping the guard,” I said.

  “Why?”

  “Because your crazy lady is still calling. Sounds like she’s losing it. And she’s focused on you. I don’t want to worry you, but I guess you should know.”

  “Of course I should know.”

  “And they can’t find her.”

  “As long as she stays high, she’s no threat,” Roxanne said.

  “What about her friends?”

  “I don’t know,” she said, looking, for the first time that day, a little concerned. “That, I don’t know.”

  I sat there. Hesitated.

  “I have to tell you,” I said. “Things were a little crazy in Massachusetts.”

  “I figured that,” Roxanne said.

  “See right through me, huh?”

  “I just know you.”

  “Some gang guys tried to stick us up for drug money.”

  “What?”

  “Clair had to slam this kid pretty good. To get him to drop his gun.”

  “His gun?”

  “It wasn’t much of one. Cheap sawed-off shotgun. Kid didn’t weigh a hundred and twenty pounds.”

  “Oh, Jack. So you’re both okay?”

  “Fine. But they found Bobby’s car with a body in it. All burned up.”

  “God, Jack.”

  “But I don’t know that it was him. It could have been somebody else.”

  “When will they know?”

  “Tomorrow probably.”

  “How’s the wife?”

  “Prepared for the worst,” I said.

  “Well, that’s good, I guess.”

  “I’m not so sure. I think it’s sort of unnatural. Wouldn’t you cling to the hope that somebody was alive?”

  “I don’t know,” Roxanne said. “Not if I’d clung before and been disappointed.”

  So I clung there for three hours. Roxanne dozed and talked and dozed some more. I bought orange juice from a machine down the hall and ate fruit from Roxanne’s basket. Two women from her office stopped at seven but Roxanne was sleeping. They added to the jungle of flowers and left. At nine, the guard changed to an older patrolman with a gut and a paperback about World War II. I gave him a pear and an apple. He told me it was a wonder these socialworker girls didn’t get in more scrapes, the scum they had to deal with. I didn’t disagree.

  At ten-thirty, Roxanne had been asleep for an hour. I told the patrolman I was going home to eat but I’d be back. He said to take it easy, that the little lady was in good hands. I didn’t disagree with that, either.

  The truck was at the far end of the parking lot. It was a cool night, still cloudy, no stars. I went to the truck, unlocked the door, and felt for the rifle. It was there, cold and hard and reassuring. I paid the sleepy kid at the gate and drove through the city and down the hill to the bridge to South Portland. The water was shiny blue-black and as I looked out, I could see the lights of the condos in Roxanne’s complex. Roxanne’s place was dark when I pulled in, and it still was when, rifle in hand, I unlocked the door. I put the gun by the door, went to the refrigerator, and got three cans of Ballantine ale. I sat down in the big chair that looked out at the water and swallowed one can whole, and drank the other. The third I sipped until my head went back and I was asleep.

  And then it was light and my mouth was open and dry and my boots were still on. The half-empty beer was on the table in front of me and I was in an achy stupor. I looked at my watch. It was quarter to nine.

  The phone rang.

  “Roxanne,” I said, and heaved myself to my feet. I said “hello” a couple of times to get ready and then I was in the living room.

  “Hello,” I said.

  “Jack.”

  “Clair.”

  “Hate to bother you, but this reporter from the Valley newspaper, he called here a few minutes ago.”

  “He called there?”

  “Persistent bugger. Called the town office and asked who you were close to in town.”

  “Not bad. What’d he say?”

  “He said he needed to talk to you. Said it was urgent. I said, ‘How urgent?,’ and he said, ‘Very urgent.’ He was all hot and bothered. Left me two numbers. Pager and all this stuff.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Jack, he said they identified the body.”

  My stomach rolled.

  “Who is it?”

  “He wouldn’t say.”

  25

  I dialed the Chronicle. Asked for the newsroom. They said Mendoza was out but he’d be back. I dialed the pager and left a message with Roxanne’s number. I waited. Went and brushed my teeth and found some orange juice. Came back. Dialed the Chronicle again. Mendoza still wasn’t there. Stood by the phone and drank the juice. Picked up the receiver and put it back down. Reached for it again.

  It rang.

  “Yeah,” I said.

  “Mr. McMorrow. Joe Mendoza. You got my message. Sorry to bother your friend, but I called your house a bunch of times. I left messages. Don’t you check your messages?”

  “No. Who is it?”

  “It’s your man. Mullaney.”

  “Shit.”

  I felt myself wilt.

  “Dental records. They FedExed them yesterday from Maine. Got them in late last night. I camped at the coroner’s office. I was right there when they made the ID. Assistant who did the autopsy said they matched like fingerprints. It’s him.”

  “Son of a bitch.”

  “You’re surprised?”

  “I don’t know. I guess so. I just thought . . . I don’t know what I thought. I just can’t believe it’s him.”

  “Start believing. I’m on deadline. I gotta get back and file the story for this afternoon’s paper. I’m at the police station.”

  “Find out anything else?”

  “Yeah, he had a record. Nothing too heavy. Possession of marijuana. Some bad checks. Worst one was eleven years ago. Got picked up with, like, eight ounces of coke. Pleaded to possession with intent to distribute. But he got thirty days’ probation.”

  “They turned him?”

  “Flipped him right over, I’d say.”

  “And he took off for the woods,” I said. “To save his hide.”

  “Maybe he thought there was a statute of limitations for selling somebody out,” Mendoza said.

  “And there isn’t.”

  “Depends on who you sell. Some people have memories like elephants, or their friends do.”

  “And the penalty is death.”

  “Well, these guys don’t want to appear soft,” he said.

  “Heaven forbid,” I said.

  Mendoza had more questions but I was only half listening. He wanted more, any little shred I could give him. What was Florence, Maine, like? Was this guy like a guru to the others in the pot group? Could I give him some names of pot people in Maine to call?

  I didn’t give him much. I had my own story to write, my own living to make.

  “Have they called his wife yet?” I interrupted.

  “I don’t know. I would think so by now.”

  “I gotta go.”

  “Hey, McMorrow. You really haven’t given me squat.”

  “I’ll call you,” I said, and I hung up and called Melanie Mullaney.

  Melanie’s number was busy the first time, but rang the second. I waited. It clicked. Stephen said, “Hullo?”

  “Hi, Stephen. This is Jack McMorrow. How are you doing?”

  “Pretty shitty,” he said.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Yeah, right.”

  “I mean it.”

  “Whatever.”

  He didn’t say anything.

  “How’s your mother?”

  “Pretty shitty.”

  “She there?”

  “She’s outside.”

  Silence.

  “Can I talk to her?”
/>   “I don’t know. I’ll ask her.”

  The phone clattered like it had been thrown on the floor. I waited. Heard a door slam, Stephen’s sullen voice calling “Mom.” His shoulder was not one you’d cry on.

  I waited some more. Heard the door slam again. The phone clattered, more softly this time.

  “Hello.”

  It was Melanie. Her voice was expressionless and dead.

  “Hi, this is Jack.”

  “Yeah?”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Oh. Thanks.”

  “How are you doing?”

  “Fine.”

  “You sure?”

  “Yeah. It was no surprise.”

  “It was for me,” I said. “I still, I don’t know, I still can’t believe it.”

  “Well, what are you gonna do? Shit happens.”

  “I guess.”

  “I know,” she said.

  I paused. Heard Melanie sniff behind her quavering bravado. I wondered if she was cried out yet.

  “No sign of Coyote?”

  “No. They probably killed him, too.”

  “How were the cops?”

  “Fine,” Melanie said. “I mean, what could they say? My husband was killed by drug dealers.”

  “Is that what they said?”

  “More or less.”

  “Are they working on it? I mean, trying to find the guys?”

  Melanie sighed.

  “I suppose. But they’ve got a lot to do. I don’t expect much. I don’t even care, at this point. He’s gone. They’re not gonna bring him back, so the hell with it. I just don’t care, McMorrow. I really just don’t care.”

  “I understand,” I said. “But there are some holes still. I’m sorry, I shouldn’t bother you now. But there are some questions still.”

  “No, there aren’t, McMorrow. No questions. No answers. No nothing. Just a memorial service.”

  “I’d like to come, if that would be okay.”

  “Sure. Hey, Bobby liked you. It’s gonna be in Florence. The cemetery right up the road. Day after tomorrow. In the morning. Bobby was a morning person. The cremation is supposed to be tomorrow. Down there. We won’t really have anything to bury, but I figure you’ve got to do something. One of the people here is making this wooden cross, and Kathy, you met Kathy, she’s going to read something from the Bible.”

  “People pretty upset?”

  “Yeah. People liked Bobby. Mr. Happy-Go-Lucky.”

  “He was a very likable guy,” I said. “That’s why I’ve never been quite able to figure out why he went to Lewiston like that. He could talk the fruit off the trees. Why get so wound up? And who was the Valley dealer who was in Lewiston? He shouldn’t be too hard to find.”

  “Leave it, McMorrow,” Melanie said. Her voice was hard.

  “But, Melanie, there should be some sort of justice done.”

  “Just leave it. Drop it. There is no justice. Bobby’s dead. Leave it alone.”

  No way.

  I felt for Melanie, even for Stephen, but their tragedy was my story. And my story still had holes. I had to fill them. It was what I did.

  Still standing there in the living room, my back to Portland harbor, I took out my notebook and scrawled notes of my conversation with Melanie. Then I flipped through the pages and found the number of the Valley PD. I dialed it and asked for Detective Martucci. I waited and she answered.

  My lucky day.

  “I’ve been calling you, McMorrow.”

  “I haven’t been home.”

  “I thought maybe you were hiding.”

  “Nope. I’m right here. And I wondered what you could tell me about Bobby.”

  “You took the question right out of my mouth.”

  “I asked first.”

  “I’m a cop.”

  “I’m a reporter. So I hear the teeth fit.”

  Martucci cleared her throat.

  “Yeah. Like a glove. Good thing, ’cause that was about all that was left of Mr. Mullaney.”

  “Was he dismembered?”

  “Nope, but you’re close.”

  “Busted up?”

  “Arms and legs.”

  “Jeez. Dead before the car burned?”

  “They think so. Maybe for some time.”

  “So they kept him around the house a while and then took him for a ride?”

  “I don’t know. Stranger things have happened.”

  “Maine dentist didn’t waste any time. Where was it?”

  “I don’t know. Someplace up there in the woods. Hartigan? Addison?”

  “Madison?”

  “That’s it. Dentists are usually glad to help out.”

  “Mainers are like that.”

  “Good,” Martucci said. “Now it’s your turn.”

  She asked me to start at the beginning, and I did. The fair, Florence, the plants in the woods, the apartment in Lewiston, Paco in the cathedral, Coyote in Valley. The hooker, Dora Santos, and the old man downstairs.

  “I want Paco,” Martucci said.

  “Lewiston PD ought to be able to round him up.”

  “And I want Coyote. I want his real name.”

  “The name you can probably get. I think his first name is Bernie. But I talked to Bobby’s wife this morning, and nobody’s seen him.”

  “I talked to her, too. I had to tell her the news, but I figured I’d show some manners and wait a few hours before I started grilling her.”

  “I waited a few minutes,” I said. “She said she hasn’t heard from or of Coyote since they left.”

  “He’s got to be someplace.”

  “Could be dead.”

  “That’s why I need Paco,” Martucci said. “I want to know who Bobby left with.”

  “So do I.”

  “And I’m gonna need you, too, McMorrow.”

  “I figured that.”

  “So can you come back down?”

  “Well, I’m tied up here. While I was gone, a good friend had an accident.”

  “Oh?”

  “Yeah, she’s in the hospital, and I’d really rather not leave right now.”

  “Good friend, as in lady friend?”

  “Yeah.”

  “What kind of accident?” Martucci asked.

  “Well, she sort of got trampled. She’s a social worker. Works with abused kids. Some people don’t like to see her coming.”

  “Is she going to be okay?”

  “Yeah. A broken leg and collarbone. And she’s still being threatened, so I really can’t leave.”

  “I thought Maine was this really peaceful place,” she said.

  “Only from a distance,” I said.

  When I got to the hospital the cop was gone. So was Roxanne. I went back to the nurses’ station and asked where she had gone, and the man there asked who I was. I told him I was Roxanne’s friend, Jack. He said they’d brought her down to X-ray. I asked if something was wrong and he said no, it was just that another surgeon had come in and he wanted more pictures. I asked the nurse if the cop had gone with her, and he said he didn’t know.

  I said I sure as hell hoped so. He looked at me but didn’t say anything.

  So I sat in the room with the banks of flowers and waited. Roxanne was right. The flowers did make the room seem funereal, and the bed seem like a casket. I got up and looked out the window at the highway, the bank towers that sprouted from the jumble of brick buildings like trees from low shrubs.

  There was a noise and I turned. A young guy, maybe twenty, was standing there with a flowerpot in his arms. The guy was chubby. The pot, pressed against his soft belly, was wrapped in green foil.

  “Masterson?” he asked.

  “Yeah.”

  He looked around for a place to put them.

  “Just what you need, huh?”

  “What’s one more,” I said. “I’ll take it.”

  I took the pot and the guy left. There was a little space on the radiator next to the window if I shoved the other pots over. I did and
put the new one down and peeled back the wrapping.

  The flowers were carnations. They were black.

  “Damn,” I said.

  I dug in the greenery for a card. It was in a small envelope. The envelope had “Roxanne” written on it in black marker. I started to rip it, then hesitated.

  Should Roxanne open it? Should she have the choice?

  I held the envelope by the edges, then looked at the tag on the flowers. The florist was on Forest Avenue, a couple of miles from the hospital. I went to the phone and called.

  A woman answered.

  I chuckled and asked her if she could tell me who sent the black flowers to the hospital. She chuckled, too, and told me she thought it was pretty hysterical. I agreed, and said I thought I had an idea of which of our friends had sent the flowers, but I just wanted to make sure. She said the guy didn’t leave his name.

  “Guy?”

  “Yeah. He came in and the lady waited outside. They said it was an old joke. Since high school. They said you’d know.”

  “I think I do. But what did the lady look like?”

  “Well, I didn’t go out and stare at her. I don’t know. Blonde. Very blonde. Hair pulled back. Actually, she looked kind of rumpled.”

  “Rumpled?”

  “Kind of mussed up. No offense.”

  “And the guy who filled out the card?”

  “Yeah, well, I don’t know. He was okay. Leather jacket. Beard. Shades. I mean, I don’t know what else to tell you.”

  “That’s fine,” I said, and I thanked her and hung up.

  I looked again at the envelope. Squeezed it. There was something hard inside. I held it up to the light and could see something rectangular. I slit the envelope open and shook it upside down.

  A razor blade landed in my hand.

  I put it down on the radiator. Slipped out the card and turned it over.

  Do it yourself or we’ll do it for you!!!

  26

  “So we just have to find Will and tell him to cease and desist,” Roxanne said, smiling from the bed.

  “I’d prefer to take him out and shoot him.”

  “They’d put you in jail.”

  “So?”

  “And you’d never see me again. Except for through that glass.”

  “Okay. I’ll have Clair shoot him.”

  “Oh, Jack, don’t worry about it. And don’t think you have to guard me. I’ve had this happen before. Once somebody mailed me a bag of, well, feces. I mean, these people are pathetic. They aren’t going to really do anything. That’s why they call on the phone. It’s why they send silly flowers. They’re weak. Cowards. That’s why they abuse their kids.”