by Ace Atkins
There was the buzz of a dial tone. The heavyset woman returned to lead him back to his cell. I hung up the phone.
I looked at the time. And to think I had planned the day so well.
37
I stopped off on Old Colony on my way back downtown. I checked in at the convenience store where Theresa Donovan worked to ask a few more questions. Instead, I found an old woman behind the register. She was short and fat, and wore a sparkly sweater vest. Her hair was white. The sweater vest featured a pair of teddy bears raking autumn leaves.
The woman said Theresa hadn’t shown up for the last week. She kept the long pauses alive by smacking gum.
I asked if she knew where Theresa lived.
She smacked her gum some more. She said she didn’t.
I didn’t believe her.
“Has she picked up her check?”
She frowned and told me to call the manager. I didn’t bother. I called a cute paralegal at Cone, Oaks who helped me out in such matters. Cute paralegals could not resist me.
It turned out a Theresa Donovan, a white female of that age and general neighborhood, lived up by Dorchester Heights. The paralegal called me back after a few minutes and confirmed it was the same Theresa Donovan who’d graduated from South Boston High School the same year Julie Sullivan graduated.
It was early afternoon when I parked my rental beside a hydrant. Rita had started the process of getting my car back from Buffalo. But I had grown used to the rental in the way a cowboy gets used to a new horse.
I got out of the car and stretched, looking down upon Carson Beach and Old Harbor. Dorchester Heights, as the name implied, was a long way up. A good place to watch if the British ever decided to invade again.
Theresa’s apartment was in a boxy, four-story brick building at the foot of Thomas Park. She lived on the first floor. I buzzed her apartment five times. She did not answer. I checked her mail slot. The bills were plentiful and crammed inside.
I walked back to my rental and drove around until I found a Subway. Properly equipped with a foot-long turkey sub on wheat and a cup of coffee, I returned and parked in a nice spot with a view of Theresa’s building and her apartment. If Theresa came home, I’d see her. If she walked in front of her windows, I’d see her.
The watching part of the job always made you feel like a pervert. Maybe eating a sandwich while watching windows made you less of a pervert. Or maybe it just made you a gluttonous pervert.
I ate and thought of such matters. I drank a little coffee. I listened to the news. In keeping with the spirit of perversion, I recalled great sexual adventures with Susan. I tried to control myself with thoughts of the 2004 Red Sox and Margaret Hamilton naked. I recalled more great sexual adventures with Susan. One in particular caused me to blush.
I ate the first half of the sandwich and wisely saved the next half for later. If I’d known I’d be on watch, I would have brought a thermos of coffee. Subway should not go into the coffee business.
But it was coffee and fully caffeinated. It would keep me focused.
I turned the radio to WICN. The Ray Brown Trio was playing “Bye, Bye, Blackbird.” This was followed by an upbeat Sonny Rollins tune, “Blues for Philly Joe.”
The hours passed. I recalled the great shows of the late Tony Cennamo. How I missed Tony.
I tapped the steering wheel. Soon it was time to pick up Mattie, and I pulled out and headed back to Gavin Middle School. I had gotten pretty good at the pickup process. The crossing guard smiled at me and waved me in front of the school. I smiled back and wheeled up.
I unlocked the passenger door.
She slung in her backpack and climbed aboard with a heavy sigh.
“Eighth grade is a bitch,” I said.
“You went to see Mickey Green,” she said.
“I did.”
“And didn’t take me.”
“I didn’t know I needed permission.”
I waited for the crossing guard to wave me into the flow of traffic.
“Mickey left me a message,” she said. “He was pissed.”
“Pissed at me?”
“Pissed at me,” she said. “Mickey said he didn’t want you coming around unless I was there.”
“Did I hurt his feelings?”
“He said you asked a bunch of useless questions,” she said. “Said you and Theresa Donovan wanted to make sure he was locked up for good.”
“You believe that?”
“Shit.” She hugged the backpack in her lap like a stuffed animal. “I don’t know what to believe.”
“Does Mickey Green take you grocery shopping?”
“He’s a good guy,” she said. “He loved my ma.”
I shrugged. It was the best I could come up with at the moment. When in doubt, follow a trend.
“Where we going?” she said as we passed the Andrew T station, looping back down to the Mary Ellen McCormack.
“Home again, home again.”
Mattie didn’t speak for a while. She leaned into the door frame, head resting against the window.
“I can’t take you everywhere.”
“It’s not what you promised,” she said.
“I have been up front with you,” I said. “To do what I do best, sometimes I got to go at it alone.”
“Or with Hawk.”
“If the situation calls for it.”
“Does it call for it today?” Mattie asked.
“No.”
“Then why can’t I come?”
“You would find it very boring.”
“And I should wash behind my ears and do my homework?”
“Your ears look pretty clean,” I said.
I slowed on Kemp Street. Other children with backpacks were shuffling their way home from school. Some stopped to share a smoke in slanting shadows of the old brick buildings. Other kids walked alone down icy paths, letting themselves into their empty apartments. Many of the children reminded me of Mattie. Self-sufficient.
“This is bullshit.”
“So you have told me.”
“But you don’t care?” she asked.
“Take care of your sisters,” I said. “Your grandma.”
“You’re a real jerk.”
She blew out a long breath and opened the door in a hard, violent way. She stomped off down the path to her apartment. She left the car door open. The car chirped to alert me until I closed it.
At least I had half a sandwich.
38
I watched a couple teenage boys racing up the long, icy steps to the Revolutionary War monument in Thomas Park. One slipped on the ice and fell. The other laughed and kept running. The other shouted to his buddy that he was “a real piece of crap.” That amused me for a good two minutes.
Every thirty minutes, I cranked the car and let the heat run. Not much happened here in the dead of winter. Cars circled Thomas Park. Old ladies walked their dogs. I recalled a Fourth of July long ago when I’d watched a fireworks display high on the hill with a woman named Brenda Loring. I wondered what ever became of her as I ate the second half of my sandwich.
Night came early. It grew quite cold. I watched some other tenants enter the building. I waited another hour.
By ten, I was pretty sure Theresa wasn’t coming home. So I buzzed her door again. And then I buzzed a few neighbors.
I finally got the “Yeah” I needed.
“Bill Lee,” I said. “Spaceman Products.”
The door buzzed and unlocked. I walked inside. My next trick would be pitching the World Series while under the influence.
I knocked on Theresa’s door. Nothing.
I knocked again.
I kept an eight-piece lock-picking set in my jacket. It was so easy to pick a lock, I wondered at the use in locking doors at all. Within ten seconds, I was inside her apartment, a studio unit with a pull-out sofa and a small kitchen.
Art on the walls was of the discount-store variety, framed prints of Paris, Picasso, and one of a monkey drinking some kind
of Italian dessert wine. In the kitchen, someone had left a half-eaten Lean Cuisine lasagna next to a saucer filled with cigarette ashes. A bottle of Sprite had been left open. The lasagna had congealed into a solid mass. The Sprite had gone flat.
A dirty fork had fallen on the floor, along with a glass. There was a puddle around the broken glass. I searched for more signs of a struggle but saw none. No telltale smears of blood or bullet holes. No scuffed heel marks on the vinyl floor. I sniffed the air for the sweet smell of chloroform.
The food on the counter had not started to mold, but it probably had a shelf life of a hundred years. I checked the phone for a voice-mail service, but the line was dead. So few use actual landlines these days. Theresa would rely only on her cell.
A suitcase lay open on the unmade sofa bed. The suitcase was half filled with jeans, sweatshirts, wool socks, and underthings. I checked a chest of drawers, finding mainly clothes. Theresa had a collection of maybe thirty CDs of singers and groups I didn’t know or care to know. She had magazines that told about the private lives of celebrities. One was open to a page of Hollywood weight-loss tips.
I found her bathroom cabinet fully stocked with makeup, lipstick, and other women’s products.
I walked back into the studio. The light was weak from an imitation Tiffany lamp. On the wall hung a shellacked picture of Saint Jude with the words PRAY FOR US. On top of a small chest was a collection of pictures in cheap plastic frames. One snapshot showed a young man in a Marines uniform before an American flag. Another was of a frail old woman in a large recliner. The other was of Theresa and Julie Sullivan at their high school graduation, smiles full of optimism and hope. Faces unmarked by living hard lives.
I read some mail and went through her bills. She owed more than five grand to a cut-rate credit card company. She had been offered many other credit cards. Another letter offered her good luck and prayers if she’d give a donation. I turned off the lights to the bathroom and studio.
I cracked open the door to the hall, listening for neighbors. Not a creature stirred.
I let myself out and walked back to the street facing Thomas Park. The wind blew harder and colder up in the Heights. I pulled my Braves ball cap down over my eyes. I wore no gloves and sank my hands deep into my pockets.
I did not like where this was heading.
39
A light was visible at the sill of my apartment door. I thought it was perhaps karma. Someone was creeping me while I was creeping Theresa Donovan.
I pulled the .38 from under my leather jacket and lightly felt the knob.
The door was unlocked. I heard shuffling inside. It sounded as if someone was going through my papers and drawers. I wondered if they’d find my autograph of Hank Aaron tucked inside Zane Grey’s Code of the West. Or my sexy pictures of Lotte Lenya.
I opened the door fast, gun in hand.
Pearl tilted her head. She’d been drinking from a bowl of water and slobber dripped from her jowls.
I put away the gun and closed the door behind me.
Susan had made a fire and sat on the couch, drinking a glass of wine and reading a Charles Portis novel. She looked up from the book for a moment to smile at me. She took another sip and dog-eared the page.
“I might have shot Pearl.”
“Pearl was unarmed,” Susan said.
Pearl trotted up and offered her head for me to pat. I patted her head.
“Been here long?”
“Oh, since five,” she said. “Last appointment canceled. He’s the commitment-phobe.”
I nodded.
“I brought takeout from Chez Henri.”
“Cuban sandwich?”
“Also got you that selection of cheeses you like. That thingy with the fruit and toasted nuts.”
I opened the refrigerator and found a bottle of Amstel. I pulled out the containers from Chez Henri. I placed the Cuban sandwich in my toaster oven and set it to warm. I cracked open the beer and picked at the fruit and cheese.
“I ever tell you that you are a saint?” I asked.
“Not as often as you should,” she said. “I hoped you’d come home tonight.”
“You could have called.”
“I knew you’d be home when you were ready.”
“Like a stray cat.”
“Exactly.”
Susan stood and finished her wine. She was wearing an old gray Boston College sweatshirt given to me by the football weight coach, and not much else.
“I like your style,” I said.
“This old thing?” Susan asked. She opened the refrigerator and poured herself more wine. Chateau Ste. Michelle Riesling. “Why, I only wear it when I don’t care how I look.”
I studied her butt as she bent over to replace the wine in the low section of the fridge. I smiled. I sipped some more beer.
“I spent the night looking into a young woman’s windows and checking out her drawers.”
“Creepy.”
“A chest of drawers.”
“Oh.”
Susan sipped her wine. I found a cookie for Pearl in the cookie jar. Pearl nearly took my fingers off chomping it down.
I hung up my leather jacket on a rack by the front door. I unclipped the holster from my belt and put away the gun.
“Wyatt Earp,” she said.
“You ever get used to what I do?”
“Nope,” Susan said.
“Does it excite you?”
“Not really.”
“You eat?”
“I had the paella. Would you rather have had the paella?”
“No,” I said. I removed the Cuban sandwich from the toaster oven. The cheese was again the proper gooeyness. The slow-roasted pork inside the pressed bread was very good. Citrusy.
“How’s Mattie?”
“As she’d say, she’s ‘royally pissed.’”
“What did you do?”
“I did not take her for another field trip to Cedar Junction state prison.”
“To see the man who may have killed her mother.”
“We’re beyond that,” I said. “She actually likes the goober.”
I ate more of the sandwich, properly chased with the Amstel.
“She would,” Susan said. “She’ll see paternal traits in him no matter how horrid he seems to you.”
“Come again?”
“His conviction feels like an injustice to her. She’s built him up in her head—with a little prompting from him—as the only man who cared about her mother. She could identify with his plight, and in turn as a father.”
“I would hope she’d pick a better role model.”
“She may be pissed at you because you’re challenging that,” she said. “You are probably very different from Mickey Green.”
“God, I hope so.”
“Does he stand a chance?”
“I got Rita to take his case.”
“That’s a hell of a favor for someone you don’t like,” Susan said.
I shrugged. I ate more of the sandwich. I found another bottle of Amstel.
“The kid’s damn sure Green didn’t do it,” I said. “Cops never asked her what she saw that night.”
“At this point, are we sure he’s innocent?”
I sighed. “Not really. He knows more than he’s telling. And he’s definitely no heroic father figure. Mattie deserves a lot more than Mickey Green.”
Susan nodded. I stood there and drank and ate. I studied her long, shapely legs and was quiet for a moment.
“Oh, God,” Susan said. “You don’t have plans to take her in? The way you did with Paul?”
“Nope.”
“Or mentor her.”
“Mattie doesn’t need anyone to teach her how to fight,” I said. “She could bring Mike Tyson to tears.”
“Or be self-sufficient.”
“Nope.”
“Is that frustrating?”
“That she’s so damn self-sufficient?”
“That you can’t teach her anything the way
you taught Paul how to dress and how to act and how to be a man? Or what you did for Z.”
“Perhaps,” I said. “She can’t see anything beyond freeing Mickey Green and nailing her mom’s killers.”
“You may not be able to make it all better,” she said.
“The thought had crossed my mind.”
“You understand, her unhappiness is a form of self-flagellation,” she said. “That doesn’t just go away.”
“I figured that,” I said. “I told her I’d take her to a ball game this spring. Hard to flagellate at Fenway. You’d get arrested.”
“Momentary happiness, enjoyment of life, may be the only thing you can teach her.”
“Tall order, but I’m trying.”
“Who better?” Susan said. “You choose to work in an ugly, violent world yet find enjoyment.”
“Sometimes I whistle while I beat people up.”
“Even if you free Mickey Green and put those men in jail, Mattie will continue to beat herself up.”
I nodded.
“It could help initially,” she said. “But she’ll need some help. And a lot of time.”
I nodded again.
“You ready for that?” Susan asked.
“A work in progress?”
“Yes.”
“She’s worth it.”
“Why?”
“I respect her sense of justice.”
“And you will teach her how to live until she finds it.”
I nodded.
Both of us found a place on my couch to watch the fire. Pearl ambled into the room and jumped between us.
“She missed you,” Susan said.
“She tell you that?”
“Doesn’t she talk to you?”
“Depends on how much I drink.”
“I suppose you’re going to keep at this all weekend?” Susan asked. She tucked her bare feet up under her.
“Yep.”
“What are you going to do?”
“Start from the beginning,” I said. “Follow Red and Moon.”
“Can you take Hawk with you?”
“If Hawk is available.”
“Hawk will make time,” she said. “As always.”
