The Pariot GAme

by George V. Higgins

  She grinned back at him. “Oh, no, you don’t, you fickle bastard,” she said. “You start that line of stuff on me, and this time I really will tell my husband.”

  “Ruthie, Ruthie,” Riordan said, “you hurt my feelings. Besides, Ben knows my intentions’re honorable.”

  “I don’t think he does, actually,” she said. “I do, because you haven’t got anything in your holster. But Ben’s a suspicious man, and a crack shot, too. I don’t think he trusts you.”

  “Jeez, Ruthie,” Riordan said, “he did the night we had those guys holed up in the cellar in Uxbridge and I got this scar saving his life.” He rolled up his right sleeve. “I did more for Ben that night’n I did for other guys the whole time I was in Nam.”

  “That’s not the way Ben tells it,” she said. “Ben says if it weren’t for him and the other Staties, you wouldn’t be drawing breath now, and it’d probably be just as well. You okay, Riordan? We haven’t seen you since the Japs bombed Pearl Harbor, seems like.”

  “Well,” Riordan said, “yeah, I guess so. I’m doing all right.”

  “You got a girl?” she said.

  “Broads,” Riordan said. “Broads always ask the same question. There’s one thing you can’t stand, it’s the thought of some guy walking around with no responsibilities and no nagging.”

  “Well,” Ruthie said, “there’re some good things about responsibilities and nagging. You had a girl, you probably would’ve taken a bath today. And the chances are you would’ve gotten a decent haircut. Or you wouldn’t’ve gotten yourself into the condition that you’re obviously in.”

  “Now, now, Ruthie,” Riordan said, “I’m in no condition to listen to stuff about the condition I’m in. Which I would have to do if I had a girl, I bet. Besides, you and I and the fellow behind the door’ve got work to do. Can’t stand here all the day long, flirting. He in there?”

  “He’s in there,” Ruthie said. “But, fair warning: he’s got another guy with him.”

  “Dietz?” Riordan said. “I’m used to Dietz.”

  “Oh, sure,” she said, “everybody is, now. Dietz’s just like that, is all. All Assistant Superintendents’re like that. No, this is a new one. Dietz brought him in here, about six months ago, and they go everywhere together, like Flopsy and Mopsy. If Dietz gets hungry, this guy Mayes eats a hot dog. God help us all if they ever find Cottontail and Peter.”

  “What the hell is Mayes?” Riordan said.

  “Good question,” Ruthie said. “Truth of the matter is, he was invented by the legislature, I think. He’s a robot. Oh, Peter, you are going to love Mayes. He’s the new man that’s here to rehabilitate these seven-hundred-plus animals we’ve got waiting around for a chance to do something worse’n they did before. He’s a piece of work, Peter. A day without him is like steak for breakfast and wine with dinner by candlelight.”

  “Uh-huh,” Riordan said. “Counselor?”

  “The very best,” she said. “Just ask him. He’ll make it plain to you, because he’s not sure anybody else is bright enough to park a car straight. Even if you don’t ask him, he will tell you. You know why a man commits rape and then kills and mutilates the victim?”

  “No, as a matter of fact,” Riordan said. “Unless it’s because he’s a madman and so she can’t identify him later.”

  “See?” Ruthie said. “You don’t know anything either. Nobody knows anything about anything except Mayes, and he knows everything about everything. Everything has deep-seated roots in the psyche, see? It’s all very complicated. Mayes is the only one in the world who understands it.”

  “Grand,” Riordan said. “What is he doing at this little gathering? I haven’t raped and mutilated anybody lately. All I do is ask politely, and if I get turned down, well, you can’t win ’em all. I don’t take it personally.”

  “Maybe if you took a bath and got your hair cut, and that sort of thing,” she said, “you wouldn’t get turned down so often.”

  “No,” he said, “I want my chums to love me for my mind, not my body. Can I see Walker now that you’ve prepped for this nitwit in there with him?”

  “Sure,” she said. “But I warn you, I’m going to go get a clean glass and listen through the wall.” She pushed the intercom button.

  SEATS LOBIANCO left his office in the State House and walked through the cool, dimly lit corridors on the ground level. He exchanged greetings with Capitol police and men in mussed suits and his heels rapped smartly on the tiled floors. He went out through the door leading into the arcade and walked toward the parking lot. There was a guard sitting on a wooden stool in the shade at the end of the arcade. The guard wore a long-sleeved white shirt, dark blue uniform pants, a black tie and a uniform hat. He was smoking a Tiparillo and he was reading Sports Illustrated. “Donald,” Seats said cheerfully, “a hot day like this and you got a necktie on still? Guys inna building took their fuckin’ neckties off, for Christ sake, and we’re supposed to have fuckin’ air conditioning in there. What’re you doing, for Christ sake?”

  The guard lowered the magazine and looked at Seats. “Salvatore,” he said, having inspected him, “you are a fine figure of a man, I must say. You got some whore lined up for nooners I assume, and then after the bump it’s back to the grind, am I right?”

  “Donald,” Seats said, “there you are, movin’ your lips, mostly lookin’ at the pictures, it’s summertime and the baseball teams got no cheerleaders, and so you go around accusing people like me of immoral behavior, and fucking, and things like that. Is this any way for a good family man like yourself to be acting, going around and impugning the integrity of all us public-spirited citizens? I assume you stole the magazine.”

  “Ways and Means Reardon left it in his car this morning,” Donald said. “Gave me so much shit, I took it. Son of a bitch. Drives up here like he’s some kind of goddamned emperor or something, stops inna middle of the street, goin’ the wrong way, sits inna car with the ice goin’ full blast and the windows up, waits till I get up and come down. He can see the lot’s full, for Christ sake. This is a secret? The lot’s full at eight-thirty, No shit, Ways and Means. You ever got here at eight-thirty, maybe you’d know, the lot’s full at eight-fifteen, you guys start fucking around with everything. Park onna street and walk up, you fat shit. Might even lose some weight, which he could afford. Sits there in his fuckin’ white Murr-kedees with the windows up, lookin’ at all the citizens walkin’ around, sweatin’ their asses off, he’s blockin’ the driveway. Does that matter to him? Not him.

  “I get through with the Governor and the Lieutenant Governor and the AG and the Auditor and the Treasurer and everything else,” Donald said, “and then I come down here and I got cars backed up Somerset Street, cars backed up here, cars backed up on Cambridge Street? Shit, I probably had cars backed up in Fall River, all I know, and I see the white fuckin’ Murrkedees and I go up to it and there is Ways and Means Reardon, readin’ his fuckin’ magazine. Like he’s the only guy onna face the fuckin’ earth. And I rap on the window, you know? It was anybody else, I use a brick, but this guy’s a heavy hitter. He oughta get a punch inna mouth. He gets a polite question, all right?

  “He don’t even appreciate that,” Donald said, his voice rising. “The son of a bitch. He looks up at me, like I woke him up when he was sleeping or something. I tell him,” Donald said, rolling his right hand in a circular pattern, “roll downa fuckin’ window. He looks at me. Through the tinted glass of course. Fuckin’ car looks like a whorehouse with a wheel on each corner. I yell at him. ‘Rolla fuckin’ window down, Mister Chairman,’ I say. You know what he does? He looks around and then he finally finds a button. This is his fuckin’ car and he’s inside it and I’m out here inna fuckin’ heat and he’s in there where it’s nice and cool and he dunno where the fuckin’ button is? Bullshit.

  “He gets the fuckin’ window down,” Donald said, “and the son of a bitch looks at me. And he says, ‘Yeah?’ Like I was Cinderella and the glass fuckin’ slipper didn’t fit. The hel
l’s he think I came from, for Christ sake? He lost a tooth and the fairy left me under his fuckin’ pillow, for Christ sake?

  “I don’t get mad,” Donald said. “I am mad, but I do not get mad. I could kill the fuckin’ son of a bitch on less’n a minute’s notice, but I don’t get mad. I say to him, I say: ‘Uh, Mister Chairman. You know, I hate to bother you and everything, but the traffic’s pretty well screwed up here and, well, you’re gonna have to move your car and everything. Okay?’ And he looks at me. He looks at me like I was something he seen floatin’ inna flush or something. ‘I’m the chairman,’ he says. ‘There’s a guy in my place.’

  “Hey, Salvatore, all right?” Donald said. “How many chairmen I got? How many chairs are there inna Commonwealth? That’s how many chairmen I got. Every asshole that can get his asshole onto a chair, he’s a chairman and I am supposed to get him a parking space, inna lot. Where there is room enough for maybe two hundred fifty cars.” He gestured toward the lot. “If I pack ’em in the aisles and also put maybe two or three in my pocket and the rest onna street and tell the cop, leave them alone. All right? I am a nice guy.”

  “You are a nice guy, Donald,” Lobianco said.

  “Exactly,” the guard said.

  “I know lots of guys who would say that,” Lobianco said.

  “Shove it up your ass, all right?” the guard said. “I know you, you fat guinea son of a bitch. Just because I save your place every day and make a whole bunch of fat-ass committee chairmen park onna street and walk up the hill and get all sweaty, you think you can give me a lotta goddamned shit and make me believe it? You think I’m stupid, you dumb fuckin’ wop?”

  Lobianco started laughing.

  “Motherfucker,” Donald said. “Anyway, the cocksucker looks at me like I was pigeon shit and I look at him and I say: ‘Excuse me, Mister Chairman, but there isn’t anybody who’s got a space in this here yard. We take as many as we can. That’s all.’ And he starts to climb all over me. Called me a son of a bitch.”

  “No,” Lobianco said. He did not bother to conceal his laughter.

  “Yes,” Donald said. “Ways and Means Reardon, that filthy little fat fucker that never bought a goddamned beer for anybody in his whole life, calling me a son of a bitch.” He started laughing.

  “Outrageous,” Seats said.

  “It is,” Donald said, still laughing. “Here I am out here, sweating my ass off, and that miserable cocksucker comes around in his Murrkedees and starts giving me a whole lot of shit? It’s not right.”

  “You’re right, Donald,” Seats said, “it is definitely not right.”

  “No,” Donald said.

  “What’d you do to him?” Seats said.

  Donald recoiled on the stool. “Do? I am a public servant.”

  “Sorry,” Seats said, “I forgot.”

  “I exist to serve the elected officials of the public in the Great and General Court,” Donald said.

  “Of course,” Seats said.

  “The Chairman of the Ways and Means Committee gave me a direct order to park his car and get things off his mind So, I did. And I stole his magazine.”

  “What else did you do, if I may ask,” Lobianco said.

  “I didn’t do anything else,” Donald said. “I parked his car like he said.”

  “How does it look?” Lobianco said.

  “Hey,” Donald said, “this is a crowded lot.”

  “Taillights, huh?” Seats said.

  “There was some problem with them,” Donald said.

  “Both of them?” Seats said.

  “Hey,” Donald said, “it’s a crowded lot.”

  “Yup,” Seats said. “Reardon got foglights on the Mercedes?”

  “He did,” Donald said. He laughed very loudly.

  “Donald,” Seats said, “I’m not sure I want to hear the answer, but how is my car?”

  “The Electra?” Donald said. He stood up. “Very fine, sir. Right down in the usual spot. Shall I keep it open for you? Little lunch and so forth?”

  “Yes,” Lobianco said.

  “Fine,” Donald said. “Have the space waiting for you.”

  “Appreciate it,” Lobianco said. “Hearing this after.”

  “I know,” Donald said.

  “Yup,” Lobianco said. “Two more judges. Just a snap.”

  “Better you’n me,” Donald said.

  “Nope,” Lobianco said. “Need some cash?”

  “Tigers,” Donald said.

  “Not Sunday,” Seats said. “Sunday’s tough.”

  “Sunday,” Donald said.

  “Oh, Jesus,” Seats said.

  “Taillights?” Donald said.

  “Sunday,” Lobianco said.

  TICKER GREENAN bummed a ride to Copley Square with Lorraine Bedell from the Suffolk Franklin Savings Bank branch in Roslindale Square. Lorraine was the branch manager. She was a capable woman of forty-three who had been widowed four years earlier when her husband, Eugene, reached the age of forty-six and discovered once and for all that the doctors were not kidding about hypertension. Lorraine wore silk blouses which had more buttons on the front than she thought necessary, tailored suits which consisted of no more material than was absolutely necessary, and shoes that showed off her legs. Lorraine had many friends and several firm opinions, among them the certitude that Mel Parnell was a great left-handed pitcher for the Red Sox only when the game did not mean much.

  “No, Ticker,” she said when he called, “I do not happen to be driving in to the Colonnade Hotel today. I happen to be riding in to the Copley Plaza Hotel, where a friend of mine is taking me to lunch. He is sending his car for me. It’s a very nice car, Ticker. It’s a Lincoln Town Car, and it comes complete with a little man who wears a hat and sits up front and takes you where you want to go. Wonderful. He parks it, too. He does something with it, anyway. He goes away after he lets you off, and then he comes back when you have finished what you are doing and you want to go somewhere else. Everyone should have one.

  “Yes, Ticker,” she said, “as a matter of fact it is quite a large car. Very comfortable. It’s bigger’n my house, as a matter of fact. But it’s just a delightful way of going to the ballgame. I enjoy it.

  “No, Ticker,” she said, “I will not have the driver drop you off at the Colonnade on the way to the ballpark. In the first place, I am not going directly to the ballpark. In the second place, if I were going directly to the ballpark, I wouldn’t be going anywhere near the Colonnade, you cheap bastard. I am going to the Copley Plaza. If you want to scrounge a ride with me, in exchange for a favor, I will drop you off at the hotel on my way to lunch. You’re on your own when it comes to getting home. You could thumb, maybe.

  “Now, Ticker,” she said as the rose-colored Lincoln pulled up at the Copley Plaza, “here is the bag.” Greenan looked miserable. He wore a Haspel double-knit glen plaid suit and a white shirt and a clip-on bow tie, red. “Filene’s Basement,” he said.

  “Wrong, Ticker,” she said. “My gentleman friends don’t give me marked-down crap from Eff-Bee. This is intimate apparel from Lord and Taylor, and it’s on your way to the hotel. All you have to do is drop it off and get a merchandise credit for me. You can give it to me the next time you need a ride someplace.”

  “I wish you wouldn’t make me do this,” he said.

  “Ticker,” she said, “it’s good for you. This is your constituent service that you’re always bragging about. You’re too cheap to keep a car and too weak to do without one, so you can take my see-through nighties back to Lord and Taylor and congratulate yourself on saving all that lovely money. Who’re you beating out of lunch at the Colonnade, Ticker? Some poor bastard that doesn’t know you?”

  “No,” he said, “Charlie Lobianco. Seats. And he’s beating me.”

  “My God,” she said, “no wonder you look so down in the mouth. You poor old skinflint, you. You must want something big, you’re buying lunch.”

  “I guess I do,” he said. “Seats seems to think so.” />
  SUPERINTENDENT KENNETH WALKER was in his early fifties. He had gray hair cut very short over an angular face that was pallid. He wore a dark blue suit and a blue tie with white stripes on a light blue shirt. He had the beginnings of a gut, but he had been working on keeping firm. He sat at the head of a long oak table that needed varnish. There was one file folder in front of him. He did not get up when Riordan entered the office. He did not change his expression. He said: “Peter.”

  “Ken,” Riordan said. Walker cocked his right eyebrow as the two men seated at his left and right stood up and faced Riordan, extending their right hands. Riordan responded the same way. “You know Oscar, here,” Walker said nodding to his right. Riordan took Dietz’s hand and shook it. “Oscar,” Riordan said, “nice to see you again.” Dietz was about thirty-five, wearing a blue-and-white cord suit, half-frame glasses, an open-collared blue shirt and a serious expression. He was smoking a bulldog briar pipe, which he removed from his mouth when he spoke.

  “Peter,” Dietz said. He looked at Riordan critically. “You’re still abusing your health, I see.”

  “That’s a common belief,” Riordan said. “I’ve heard it from many people who’re going to need the embalmer before I do.”

  Walker grinned. “And this,” he said, “is Fred Mayes.”

  “Fred,” Riordan said, extending his right hand over the table. Mayes was about thirty-two. He was stocky. He had a short brown beard. His hairline was receding at the forehead. He wore a blue madras sports coat over a blue-and-white-striped button-down shirt, with a green-and-blue-striped tie. He did not smile. “You may call me Doctor,” he said.

  “Oh?” Riordan said. “What of? Medicine?”

  “Psychology,” Mayes said.

  “Fine,” Riordan said. “And you, Doctor, may call me Doctor.”

  Mayes said: “What of?”

  “Philosophy,” Riordan said.

  “I obtained my doctorate from the University of California at Berkeley,” Mayes said. “I have published in many of the leading journals.”