Pulse

by Michael Harvey

  “Left at the end of the block.”

  Barkley started to roll. He figured they’d start in the Zone, but Tommy was taking them deeper into the neighborhood.

  “You going local on this?”

  Tommy shrugged. He was a million miles away now, playing with the silver-and-turquoise watch on his wrist, staring out the window as ciphers slipped past. Names, faces, connections only he could see. “Left here.”

  Barkley hung the left. “I talked to the ME this morning.”

  “What’d that bitch have to say?”

  Tommy actually liked Cat, but talking that way about women made him feel like a big man. Barkley didn’t give a damn. All he wanted was an address.

  “She was going on about the wound patterns on Fitzsimmons. Said there were two different types. The first was nonlethal, in the belly. Made by a knife like the one in the picture. And then there were the wounds that killed him. Three of ’em, all deep puncture wounds.”

  “How deep?”

  “Ran the kid right through.”

  “Not with the knife?”

  “ME says no way.”

  Tommy let that sit for a minute. “Does it really matter? One knife, another knife. I mean, who gives a fuck? We got the photo. Let’s just grab this guy and call it a day. Right here.”

  Barkley pulled up to a single-story wooden shack painted pure black for some godforsaken reason only someone from Southie would understand. A Schlitz sign hung off a rusted piece of pipe; green neon tubes spelled out THE IRISH TAP in the only working window. Barkley nodded toward the front door. “What are we gonna find in here?”

  “People talk, B. Even in Southie, people love to fucking talk.” Tommy popped his door and got out, then stuck his head back in. “Do me a favor.”

  “What’s that?”

  “When we get inside, order a beer and sit right in front. Fucking bartender will love it.”

  27

  A COUPLE of smoke hounds were set up at the far end of the bar, fluorescent skin, yellow teeth, eyes like two sets of pissholes in the snow. One of them hacked into his sleeve and spit into a paper cup while the other rounded his mouth into an “O” and popped out a parade of smoke rings that floated through layers of runny light toward the ceiling where they joined the rest of the ghosts drinking in the rafters. Tommy touched Barkley on the shoulder and nodded to a booth at the back of the place. Two women were staring out of the gloom like a pair of feral cats. Tommy headed their way with a cigarette angled between his teeth and a fresh bottle of Bud. Barkley watched his partner go, then settled on a stool directly behind the taps. The snow-capped barkeep had skinny legs, no ass, and the swollen belly they gave out as the door prize for a lifetime of drinking. He poured Barkley a thin draft and reached up to turn on a TV slotted over the register.

  The Eyewitness News update led with Harry Fitzsimmons’s murder. What else? Three guys played pinball beside a window boarded up with cardboard Schlitz cases. Closer to the TV another threesome looked to be fresh off the job—arms, neck, and hair splattered in smears of whitewash. Barkley had never met a painter who wasn’t a drunk and was guessing this crew to be no different. The detective winced inwardly as his face popped up on the TV, assuring the city that the Boston PD was on the job and the unidentified assailant, a young black male, would be apprehended soon enough.

  One of the painters, the thickest of the bunch, pointed at Barkley’s face on the screen. “We lose one monkey, we send another one out to look for it. What the fuck?”

  The painter had salt-and-pepper hair and a fox face that creased into a smile as he lifted a bottle of beer to his lips and slitted his eyes toward Barkley. His pal snickered nervously beside him while the third guy, by far the youngest of the crew, slinked off to the jukebox.

  “What do you think, Willie?” Salt and Pepper yelled. “Hey, Willie, whaddaya think?”

  The old bartender took his time walking back toward the painters, wiping the counter with a rag as he went. “Why don’t you take your business down the street?”

  “You barring me?”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “Then what?”

  The barkeep didn’t need a scrape in his joint, especially not with a Boston cop. “You boys have had enough. Go home and get some dinner.”

  Salt and Pepper ignored him, draining a shot that was sitting on the bar, then heading over to the jukebox where the youngster was picking out some tunes. Barkley glanced toward the back. Tommy was huddled up with the women. Overhead the speakers cranked out the Stones’ “Monkey Man”—Nicky Hopkins on piano, Keith on the slide. Salt and Pepper put his bottle of beer to his lips and offered up his best Jagger, lip-synching about a fleabit peanut monkey and again slipping his eyes toward the big, black Boston cop.

  In an earlier life, Barkley would have already been picking bits of the guy’s teeth out of his knuckles. Fucking maturity. Sometimes it really sucked. He threw down a five and got up to go. Didn’t even get halfway to the front door.

  “You know who this is?” Salt and Pepper grabbed his baby-faced drinking buddy by the back of the shirt like he was a fish he’d just pulled out of the surf at Castle Island.

  “Afraid not.” Barkley cracked a hard grin and kept moving toward the door.

  “This here’s Billy Randall.”

  Barkley knew the name. Six months ago, Randall had been standing next to the guy who’d attacked a black man with an American flag during an antibusing rally at Government Center. A photographer from the Herald caught the moment. Two days later, it was national news.

  “That ain’t Randall,” Barkley said, taking a step closer and brushing the gun on his hip with the tips of his fingers.

  “He was there, though.” Salt and Pepper shifted his story just as easy as that cuz that’s how liars worked, especially when they were bigots. “Stood right behind Randall. Didn’t you, Timmer?”

  Timmer nodded and looked like he wanted nothing better than to crawl back to his barstool and be left the fuck alone. Barkley could have told Timmer what was gonna happen if he stayed in Southie. He’d always be the kid who was standing behind the kid who was standing next to the kid who went after the smoke with the American flag and got his face on the cover of the Herald, Newsweek, and who the fuck knows what else. He’d never have to buy another beer in the neighborhood. And he’d never have a life beyond it.

  “Sorry, boys, I don’t have the time for your happy horseshit today. Now, go back to the bar and sit the fuck down before I lose my patience.”

  Barkley turned and headed for the door. His fingers had just brushed the curve of the knob when someone’s head hit something hard and flat. Barkley knew it wasn’t gonna be good and turned anyway. Tommy had been listening. Fuck, yeah, he’d been listening. And now he had Salt and Pepper pegged up against a wooden post that held up one end of the sorry-ass, saggy-ass bar. Tommy had a hand gripped around Salt and Pepper’s fleshy throat. In the other hand, Tommy held a small, sharp blade that was pressed against Salt and Pepper’s cheek.

  “This one bothering you, B?”

  “Forget it, Tommy.”

  Barkley’s partner pressed the knife in, drawing a line of bright blood. “I don’t fucking think so.”

  The three guys from the pinball machine came up behind Tommy. Two of them had bottles in their hands. The bartender pulled a billy club from underneath the taps. Barkley drew his gun.

  “Tommy?” Barkley could see the crazy circling in his partner’s eyes. “Not worth it, bud.”

  Tommy moved his knife from the cheek to just inside the left nostril. Salt and Pepper whimpered a little in the back of his throat. No one else moved.

  “I go inch and a half and you never breathe out of this side again. Six months of rehab, plastic surgery, and you look like a fucking freak the rest of your life. Trust me, brother.”

  “Tommy.”

  “I know this guy, B. Fucking puke always running his mouth.”

  Maybe Tommy knew the guy. Maybe he knew h
is brother. Or his cousin. Or maybe Tommy bumped into him once at the grocery store. Didn’t matter cuz no one manufactured rage like Tommy. He adjusted the knife.

  “This here’s an inch. You could live with this one. Still need surgery, but you could live with it. Might even help your looks. What do you think, Bark? Could you see this boy sucking some cock up the Brompton?” Tommy leaned close and dropped his voice. “That there’s a Boston cop, motherfucker. And my partner. You know what that means?”

  Salt and Pepper had lifted his chin as high as it would go. Anything to get away from Tommy’s knife. “I understand.”

  “You understand what?”

  “I understand, sir.”

  Barkley holstered his weapon and moved closer, kicking at a couple of plastic cups on the floor.

  “Fucking cunts,” Tommy said.

  Barkley touched the knot of muscle that was his partner’s shoulder. Tommy slowly withdrew the knife. Salt and Pepper came down off his tiptoes. The bartender dropped his club. Everyone exhaled. Quicker than the grin of a deformed freak show walking the streets of Southie with a scar that told everyone everything they needed to know, Tommy flicked the blade and laid open Salt and Pepper’s nose. Blood geysered as the painter screamed and tried to hold his face together. Tommy snapped the knife shut and slid it back in his pocket. Barkley’s gun was out again, covering their exit. Five minutes later, they were driving through a warren of side streets. Tommy had his elbow out the window, smoking a menthol cigarette and enjoying the cold air.

  “No one’s gonna say shit, B.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Took a quarter inch. Half, tops. I call it the Chinatown cut.” Tommy laughed at his joke and streamed smoke out the window.

  “Not funny, Tommy.”

  “Seriously, two, three stitches, tiny little scar, no big deal. What the fuck, man’s calling you a monkey. I’m supposed to sit there and take that?”

  “We better not get a call.”

  “What did I tell ya? Ain’t gonna be no call. Now, listen, I got a line on our boy.”

  Barkley bumped through an intersection just as the light went red. “Go ahead.”

  “Word is he’s headed to the Bury.”

  “Who we getting this from?”

  “Couple of broads I know buy from him.”

  “They sure?”

  “They’d already heard rumors this guy was good for it.”

  “No shit.”

  “Price is a bottom-feeder. No one wants to help him. No one likes seeing the Harvard kid dead. Bad for business, bad all around.”

  “So you got an address?”

  Tommy launched his cigarette butt with a flick of his finger and rolled up the window. “I told you he’s headed to the Bury. One of the girls is gonna call with an address. Hang a louie.”

  Barkley took the left and two rights. They pulled up in front of Tommy’s three-decker.

  “Your source calling you at home?”

  “Why not? You wanna come in and wait?”

  “Nah, I gotta hit it. What time’s the call coming in?”

  “If it’s happening tonight, it’ll be in the next hour or so. Otherwise, tomorrow. Where can I get hold of you?”

  “Try the station. If I’m not there, leave a message.”

  Tommy started to get out of the car and stopped. “I know what Katie told you.”

  “How’s that?”

  “I know what she told you in the kitchen.”

  Barkley pulled the bag of coke from his pocket and dropped it on the dashboard. “Says she found it in the house.”

  “And what do you say?”

  “What do I say? I say, ‘What the fuck?’”

  “That it?”

  “You know how it works. One of us got a problem, we deal with it. No one else. Just us.”

  Tommy picked up the baggie, holding it between a thumb and forefinger. “I got a bunch more inside.”

  “Fucking great.”

  “Signed ’em out of Evidence last week. Cleared it with the captain and everything.”

  “Why don’t I know?”

  “Told him you did. Figured I’d catch you up later.”

  Barkley believed him. The story could be checked easy enough so what was the point in lying?

  “Why you needing a bunch of blow, Tommy?”

  “Sweetens the pot. Some of these lowlifes, you give ’em a toot and they’re your best pal. Start talking and don’t know when to stop.”

  “I never seen anyone cop to a homicide cuz he got fixed up with a couple lines of blow.”

  “Maybe it ain’t about a homicide.”

  Barkley killed the engine and turned so he was facing his partner. “Let me guess. This is the other thing you wanted to talk about before.”

  Tommy nodded, eyes roaming around the car, searching for someplace safe to land. Barkley waited.

  “Talking product, B. High-grade shit. Trunks full of it.”

  “And how’d you get hooked into that?”

  “I’m an ex-junkie. I know this fucking world.”

  “Which is why you’re the last person who should be working it.”

  Tommy offered up his best Is what it fucking is look. Barkley sighed and massaged his temple with the side of his thumb. “Who else knows about it?”

  “No one knows shit. We clear the Harvard thing, then I need another week or so. After that, I bring you in and we decide what to do.”

  “We got options?”

  “This is forever money, B.” Tommy held up a hand. “Listen first. I’m not saying you need to be bent or nothing like that. In fact, we make the fucking bust. But maybe we think about breaking off a piece. Just this once. Stash the money somewhere for a couple of years, then pack it in. Early retirement, place in Florida, California, big-ass boat, some fucking thing.”

  “Tommy, the Irish sailor.”

  Dillon laughed like hell. “Can’t you see it? Listen, I don’t wanna talk about this now. Not with the Harvard kid and everything. Just think about it. And if it’s no, it’s no. We move on. Not a problem. But think about it. Okay?”

  What choice did he have? Tommy was Tommy was Tommy. Hopefully he didn’t get himself killed in the process. And then there was the money. Barkley would be lying if he said he wasn’t wondering how much money his partner thought qualified as “forever.”

  “How’d you know Katie told me about the baggie?”

  “When I came back into the kitchen, there was something between the two of you. Mostly her, but you were acting a little funny. That’s right, B, even you give it away, so fucking watch it.” Tommy grinned that easy, crazy, spinning Tommy grin. “Just kidding. I was short a bag. She seen one I must have left out and grabbed it. All made sense then.”

  Barkley grunted and turned over the engine.

  “We good?” Tommy said.

  “Next time, fucking tell me. And tell your wife. She’s worried sick.”

  “Will do. And we talk about the other thing later?”

  “We’ll talk.”

  Tommy got out of the car and stuck his head back in. “You don’t wanna come in? Homemade spaghetti and meatballs.”

  “Rain check. And talk to your wife.”

  Tommy slammed the door and banged on the roof as the car pulled away. Barkley drove until he found the expressway and jumped on. The pint of Jack he kept in the glovie was out and sitting against his thigh. By the time he circled back to the station, he’d knocked back an inch and a half and Tommy had left his message. No address on Price tonight. Tomorrow, for sure. Probably just as well.

  Cat McShane’s preliminary autopsy report sat on the corner of his desk. Barkley tucked it under his arm and headed out again. There was a dive called Early’s where no one knew he was a cop and no one cared he was black. He walked the five blocks and planted himself on a stool, the ghosts he was trying so hard to ignore settling all around. One of them grinned just like Tommy and thudded a sack full of coins on the bar.

  “Forever money,�
� he said.

  Barkley toasted the phantom motherfucker with a water glass full of whiskey and drained it.

  28

  CAT McSHANE kept herself busy counting ceiling tiles. When she finished with those, she started on the slats in the venetian blinds. She was halfway down the second window when the door opened and Boston City Hospital’s assistant superintendent walked in. Ruth Davis was thirty years older than Cat and everything about her seemed lovely. Straight spine, perfect posture, gray hair cut in fashionable layers, and a designer suit that hugged her exceedingly neat frame. Davis didn’t say a word, keeping her shoulders square to Cat as she ran a finger along the edge of her desk, then found the wall and finally her chair. It was only after she was seated that Cat realized the woman was blind. Or as good as.

  “Cataracts.” Davis blinked a pair of milky whites from behind silver-rimmed glasses.

  “How bad?”

  “Left one’s ninety percent gone. Other’s a little better. They’ve tried a half-dozen procedures, but it’s at the end now.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “I can still see shapes, which is probably more than I deserve. Ruth Davis, by the way.” The woman didn’t offer her hand.

  “Cat McShane.”

  “I’ve heard good things.”

  “Thanks.”

  “My fault for not arranging something sooner.”

  “Please, we’re all busy.”

  “Yes, but we’re both women. And there aren’t a lot of us in Boston’s medical community. At least not in jobs where we can make a difference.”

  She was right, of course. Cat knew her position as medical examiner came with a larger set of responsibilities. It was just that the whole thing was still new and she needed to get her own house in order before thinking about the bigger picture. Ruth Davis wasn’t interested in excuses. Women from her generation typically weren’t.

  “My assistant says you wanted information on a case.”

  “Daniel Fitzsimmons.”

  Davis opened a drawer to her left and pulled out a file. “I usually have a member of my staff go through any paperwork and get me up to speed.”

  “Usually?”

  “It wasn’t necessary here.” Davis nudged the file across the desk. It was thick enough, although perhaps not quite as thick as Cat expected.