“How many?”
“I don’t know, but it’s a lot. Some of ’em do it because they get to be heroes when they put the fires out. Some do it because they love fighting fires with their buddies. Some of them are probably just fuckin’ nuts.”
“So what’s this guy’s name?”
“Uh-uh. You’re not getting that from me. With what I gave you, you can figure it out for yourself.”
Polecki hauled himself to his feet again, Marie calling “Come back and see us” as he headed out. I sat alone for a few minutes, then walked to the door, pushed it open, and studied the street.
It wasn’t being seen coming out of Good Time Charlie’s that worried me; it was being seen with Polecki. By giving him the picture of Mr. Rapture, I’d strayed way over the line. Reporters don’t feed info to cops. Some of us go to jail for contempt rather than answer subpoenas. We have to be loners to do our jobs right. Guys like Zerilli would never talk to us if we smelled like rats.
I’d given Polecki more than a photo. I’d handed the better half of Dumb and Dumber something he could hold over me if he had enough functioning brain cells to recognize it. If he ever told Lomax what I’d done, I’d have to find myself a tin cup and stock up on pencils. But I’d rather be unemployable than have another innocent victim on my conscience.
23
At the Mount Hope firehouse, I asked for Rosie and learned she’d left for the day. In the mess room, a half dozen firefighters were sitting on mismatched chairs at a yellow Formica table, watching Lieutenant Ronan McCoun slide a pan of lasagna out of the oven.
“Jack Centofanti around?” All that got me was angry stares.
I looked at McCoun and raised an eyebrow.
“The old goat’s not here,” he said. “We told him he ain’t welcome here no more.”
I got back in the Bronco, drove to Camp Street, and parked in front of number 53, a grotesque Victorian that had been built as a single-family home more than a hundred years ago. Now, twelve doorbells pocked the front door jamb. They didn’t work, but it didn’t matter. I gave the door a push, it groaned open, and I stepped into a hallway littered with cigarette butts and junk mail.
I climbed the stairs, careful not to trip on the loose rubber treads or put any weight on the rickety banister. Jack’s place was on the second floor at the end of a dimly lit hallway. The brass numbers on the heavy maple door said 23, with the 3 coming loose and hanging upside down. I raised my hand and knocked.
“It’s open.”
I turned the knob and found Jack sitting in a stuffed armchair, his bare feet on a matching hassock and a tumbler in his hand. Beside the chair, a half-empty bottle of Jim Beam rested on a mahogany piecrust table. The room lights were off, and the last light of a dying day seeped feebly through half-closed Venetian blinds. The glow from the tabletop TV, tuned to FOXNews with the sound all the way down, was washing Jack’s face blue. I snapped the switch by the door, the ceiling light came on, and he squinted from the shock of it, raising his left hand to cover his eyes. Now I could see that he’d placed the bottle on a crocheted doily to protect the tabletop.
“Liam? Madonna, it’s good to see you, boy.”
“Good to see you too, Jack.” He, Rosie, and my relatives were the only people allowed to call me Liam.
“Sit. Sit. My place is your place.”
As I settled into a matching chair across from him, I noticed he hadn’t shaved in a few days.
“You wanna drink, right?”
“Love one.”
He got up and limped into the kitchen, the belt from his terry-cloth robe dragging on the floor behind him. I heard water run in the sink. He returned with a wet tumbler in his hand, thrust it at me, sat back down, and passed the bottle.
“So how ya been?”
“I’m fine, Jack.”
“Your beautiful sister? She good?”
“Meg’s great. Teaching school in Nashua. Got her own house in the suburbs. Got married last summer to a nice girl from New Haven.”
“Merda!” He stared at me a moment, then snorted. “Well, if that’s your idea of great, then I guess it’s okay with me too. What about Aidan? You two still not talking?”
“I’m talking. He’s not.”
“Must make it hard to have a conversation.”
“It does.”
“I never did like Dorcas.”
“I know.”
“Pazza stronza. A real rompinalle.”
Crazy bitch. A real ball-breaker. The closest Jack had ever been to Italy was the three-cheese-and-meatball pizza at Casserta’s, but he’d mastered the art of cursing in Italian.
“I’ll never understand what the two of you saw in her, Liam. I told Aidan when she married you that he was the lucky one.”
“Turns out you were right.”
“Yeah. You’d think he would have figured that out by now.”
“He probably has, but we Mulligans know how to hold a grudge.”
Jack laughed. “Man, I could tell you some stories. One time, out at the Shad Factory, I pulled in a dozen beauties. But your papa? He couldn’t catch a thing. I busted his balls about it on the drive home, and he got so incazzato he wouldn’t speak to me for six months. Over a little thing like that.”
Jack’s tumbler was empty now. I passed him the bottle, and he refilled his glass. Then he carefully put the bottle down on the doily. That’s when I noticed the framed photo propped beside it on the table. I got out of my chair and picked it up. Jack and my father, wearing their waders, standing on the shore of Shad Factory Pond holding long strings of fish. I felt a twinge of guilt for not keeping more in touch with my father’s best friend.
“He was a stubborn mick, your papa, but I miss him.”
“So do I.”
He sighed and took a swig from his glass. “Famiglia. Famiglia.”
Jack never married. The Mulligans were the nearest thing to family he had, once his parents died, and that was a long time ago. I returned the photo to the table and eased back into my chair.
“So what’s up with you, Jack?”
“Still got my health, so I can’t complain.”
“I stopped at the firehouse on my way over. Thought you might be there.”
“Nah. I gave enough of my life in that place. I don’t hang out there anymore.”
I just looked at him for a moment.
“Want to talk about it, Jack?”
“Ah, shit. I guess you heard.”
“I did, but I’d like to hear it from you.”
“The fellas at the firehouse? Great guys, each and every one. Give ya the shirt off their backs and the pants too if ya needed them. And the girl? That Rosie? I had my doubts when they made her captain. Weren’t no women firefighters in my day, that’s for damned sure. But she’s a real pisser. I don’t blame any of them none.”
“But?”
“But those two arson cops, Polecki and Roselli? They come waltzing into the firehouse last Monday afternoon, asking me fuckin’ questions in front of everybody. Then started in with the fellas. Asked ’em why I was always hangin’ around. If they knew where I was when the fires started. If they ever saw me doing anything suspicious. Put it in their heads that I was a suspect. Me. A fireman for thirty years. The fuckers.”
“What’d you tell ’em?”
“I told ’em, ‘Vaffanculo!’ Next thing you know, they’re knockin’ on my neighbors’ doors asking more questions. Now everybody’s lookin’ at me funny, and nobody even says hello when I tip my hat.”
“Tell me where you were when the fires started, and maybe I can get them off your back.”
“I was right here. Alone. Watching my shows just like every night. So unless Bill O’Reilly can see me through the TV, I ain’t got no alibi.”
“What about the fire in the rooming house? That one was in the afternoon.”
“I was at the firehouse. That’s what I told those two cogliones. But they asked the fellas, and none of ’em could remember if I was there
the whole time or maybe ducked out for a while.”
“Okay, Jack. Here’s what I want you to do. I want you to get out of that chair and go fishing.”
“It ain’t fishin’ season.”
“It is somewhere. Alaska, maybe? Florida? Pack up your gear, get on a plane, and don’t tell anyone where you’re going. Hold on to your airline and hotel receipts, and the next time there’s a fire, you’ll have your alibi. I’ll call your cell and let you know when it’s okay to come back.”
“Hell, Liam. I ain’t got that kinda money.”
“It’s on me.”
“Can’t let you do that.”
“Sure you can.”
“No, Liam. I can’t.” His voice was stern now, letting me know he meant it.
I sighed, crossed my arms, and thought for a minute. Then I slipped two Cubans out of my pocket and offered him one.
“No thanks,” he said, “but you go ahead.”
I clipped the tip with my cigar cutter, fired it up, leaned back in the chair, and blew a couple of smoke rings.
“Look, Jack,” I said. “They’re probably going to question you again. If they do, don’t say anything. If they ask you to go with them to the station, ask if you are under arrest. If they say no, don’t go with them. If they say yes, ask for a lawyer, and don’t say a word until he shows up. You can do that for me, right?”
“Yeah. I can do that.”
“And don’t tell Polecki and Roselli I told you not to talk, okay?”
“Got it.”
“This won’t last forever, Jack. One of these days, the arsonist will make a mistake. He’ll get caught. And you’ll have your life back.”
“I hope you’re right, boy.”
I smoked some more, he drank some more, and we reminisced some more about my father. When the cigar burned down to the ring, I dropped it into the tumbler and got up to leave. Jack rose to see me to the door.
“Wish your dad was around to talk to,” he said. “I can’t tell you how this feels, the neighbors lookin’ at me the way they do.”
As I stepped into the hall, he snapped off the light and pulled the door closed. I trudged down the stairs, picturing him alone in the dark, drinking from his tumbler of whiskey.
24
That evening, when the cops came for Sassy/Sugar, Ralph and Gladys Fleming barricaded themselves inside their little house.
Guns drawn, the cops tried to negotiate with them through a megaphone. When that didn’t work, they lugged a battering ram to the front door. As they swung it, they slipped on the icy stoop and toppled onto the crusted snow, giving Logan some great footage for the six o’clock news. The cops scrambled to their feet, picked up the ram, and were about to swing it again when Martin Lippitt, the dog’s presumed rightful owner, pointed out that they were being ridiculous. For a while, a dozen cops stood around looking sheepish. Then they jumped into their prowl cars and drove off.
Logan ended his report with the news that Channel 10 had stepped in to settle the dispute. X-rays of the dog’s legs and an examination of the pads on its feet could determine conclusively whether Sassy/Sugar had crossed the country or only crossed the street. Tufts University’s Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine in Grafton, Massachusetts, would do the examination, Channel 10 would foot the bill, and Lippitt and the Flemings had agreed to abide by the result.
“You know,” I said as the TV over the bar broke for commercial, “it’s a sad commentary that an idiot like Logan has more sense than the Providence Police Department.”
“Wouldn’t it be easier for somebody to get in touch with those people out in Oregon and see if they still have the dog?” Veronica said.
Edna Stinson told me a week ago that Sassy had been dismembered by a logging truck, but it was a little late to be bringing that up. So what I said was, “Hardcastle tried, but the Stinsons took off for their annual fishing trip to British Columbia and aren’t expected back for a month.”
Veronica fished a pack of Virginia Slims from her purse and put one between her lips. I leaned over with the Colibri and gave her a light. She took a puff, then thought better of it and ground the cigarette out in the ashtray.
“Can’t smoke at work anymore,” she said, “so this is a good time to quit.”
I was craving another Cuban, but this seemed like a bad time to fire one up.
Veronica rose from her chair, fed quarters into the jukebox, and punched up some slow songs. When the Garth Brooks cover of Dylan’s “To Make You Feel My Love” came on, we got up and danced a little in a cramped space between the tables, our shoes making scraping sounds on the gritty wooden floor. I loved the way her body fit against mine. Then we walked out of Hopes hand in hand into the first clear night in a month.
A bright moon floated over city hall. We stood on the sidewalk and kissed. It was still early, but we agreed we’d both had too many late nights lately. We got into our separate cars and drove to our separate apartments.
25
After bedding Secretariat down for the evening, I climbed the narrow flight of stairs to my place, where Veronica’s toothbrush still sat reassuringly in the porcelain fixture.
I tuned the TV to a Law & Order rerun and started reading a U.S. government publication titled 21st Century Guide to the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (ATF): Includes Arson and Explosives, Bomb Threat and Detection, Bomb Task Force, Ballistics Technology to Solve Crimes, Commerce in Firearms, Brady Law, Gang Resistance Education and Training, Special Agent Recruiting, Safety Info, Laws, Regulations, and Manuals, Field Divisions, Laboratories, Forms, ATF Bulletins, Church Arson Task Force (Core Federal Information Series).
Clint Eastwood owns the movie rights.
I must have dozed off, because the rap on the door startled me. Half asleep, I padded barefoot across the cold linoleum, turned the dead bolt, and found Sharon Stone wiping her white vinyl boots on my straw welcome mat. That was odd. I wasn’t expecting anyone from Hollywood. The only person I knew who’d even been to Hollywood was a Rhode Island–born comedian named Ruth Buzzi, and she hadn’t been heard from since Laugh-In was canceled.
“Well?” said Sharon Stone. “Aren’t you going to invite me in?”
“Excuse my manners, Gloria,” I said as synapses fired and a handful of brain cells clicked on. “If I knew it was you, I would have put on a shirt.”
“Nice pecs,” she said as she stepped across the threshold.
Yes, indeed, I thought. She was wearing a white cable-knit sweater that showed the swell of her breasts while concealing that pudgy waist. Two Nikons, one with a wide-angle lens and the other with a telephoto, hung from her neck, the black leather straps digging into her cleavage. She looked around for someplace to hang the green parka that was slung over her right shoulder. Seeing nothing, she let it drop to the floor.
I offered her something to drink, but she declined both Veronica’s leftover Russian River and my Maalox. We were sitting now on the edge of my bed, me in an old Pedro Martínez Red Sox jersey I’d shrugged on despite her insistence that I not go to the trouble. Sam Waterston and an anorexic starlet who looked nothing like any assistant district attorney I’d ever seen finished celebrating another triumph of the American criminal-justice system, and the Verizon “Can you hear me now?” guy, who pissed me off every time I looked at him, opened his mouth to sell me phone service. I couldn’t reach him with a left hook, so I shut him up with the remote.
“So,” she said. “That how you plan to spend the evening? Watching actors pretend to solve crimes? Or do you want to hit the streets again and try to solve a real one?”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning I hear you’ve been prowling around Mount Hope at night,” she said.
“Where’d you hear that?”
“A cop I know.”
“Yeah, I blew a few nights cruising around because I couldn’t think of anything else to do. But it’s a waste of time, Gloria. I’m not doing that anymore.”
“It’s not a waste
of time,” she said. “You might get lucky. I already did once.”
“How’s that?”
“Night of the rooming-house fire, I was the one who pulled the alarm. I shot forty frames before the first fire truck got to the scene.”
“I thought you said you ran into it on your way home.”
“I lied,” she said.
Turned out she’d been haunting the neighborhood after dark almost every night for two weeks, mostly driving, sometimes parking her Ford Focus on the street and getting out to stretch her legs. That figure I’d seen my first night out, the one carrying something that might have been a camera? Chances are it was Gloria.
“So you got lucky once,” I said. “It’s not likely to happen again.”
“A photographer makes her own luck. Those fire pictures? They got me out of the lab. I start as a full-time shooter next week.”
“That’s great, Gloria. It’s long overdue. But I don’t much like the idea of you prowling around alone at night.”
“So come with me,” she said. “That’s why I came by, to invite you to keep me company.”
“How about we just stay here and watch Craig Ferguson?”
“Come on, Mulligan. It’s a clear night with a big old moon. I’ve got a thermos full of hot coffee and Buddy Guy on the CD player. You can smoke in my car if you want. Or maybe kiss me a little. I think I might like that.”
She leaned over and put her lips on mine, trying it out.
“Yes,” she said, “I think that might work.”
“Worked for me,” I said, “but, ah …”
“But you’re thinking Veronica might not like it.”
“Uh-huh.”
“You two getting serious?”
“No. I don’t know. Maybe.”
“Think a night with me might help you figure it out?”
It might at that. It was a perfectly logical and appealing proposition. Still, I had the feeling there might be a flaw in it somewhere. I started dressing for the cold.
I was in the bathroom with the door closed, changing into some warm pants, when the phone rang.
Rogue Island Page 9
