The Penny Ferry da-2

by Rick Boyer

  "Too bad about Johnny," he said with a slow sigh.

  "Yep. Death comes to all of us."

  "Mmmmm. Makes you stop and drink."

  "Okay."

  I had fetched two bottles of Chianti classico and we tasted it. I cut slices of eggplant a quarter-inch thick, as per Joe's instructions, then arranged them on a clean white towel. I put another towel on top, then a thick steel cookie sheet, then a heavy cast-iron skillet for weight.

  "That'll squeeze them out," said Joe, "so they won't be all watery and will soak up the olive oil."

  We put olive oil in a pan with a crushed garlic clove and some onion and let it work on medium heat. That is about my favorite smell in the world. If you aren't hungry when you start, you soon will be.

  "Gee, I forgot to ask Kevin if he wanted to have dinner too. It was only polite. Sorry."

  "Forget it. Kev went up to Wonderland to play the puppies. Guy's got a real mania for the pups. Keep it just between us, Doc, but he dropped almost six grand last year on the pups."

  "Six grand? Wow. He's feeding a habit."

  "I know. And don't ask me where he gets the bread either. Okay, get out some flour, some eggs, and vino blanco and two bowls. I'm going to make some calls."

  He reappeared twenty minutes later, clean shaven. He said he'd called headquarters and the lab and asked them to keep him posted at our house. He'd also called Johnny's partner, Sam Bowman, who had agreed to meet us the next day at nine thirty at the Dependable Messenger Service.

  Joe returned to the veal and resumed the gentle but steady thumping with the mallet. He could have been a Renaissance Florentine stonecutter. From the side his sharp and sensitive features stood out in profile. Like his sister, he had the straight brow and nose seen on Roman statues. He had the high, wide cheekbones so common in the people south of Naples. But unlike- Mary's face, which terminated in a neat chin and clean jawline, Joe's face, at its lower terminus, lacked definition. The fine features were hidden in thick jowls and heavy neck. His body too was heavy, with a paunch over the belt- which he wore lower and lower in front each year- and big legs. He had a powerful upper torso, and could be mistaken for a former boxer or street brawler, except for the eyes. His eyes protruded slightly and his mouth pouted. This gave him a gentle, cocker-spaniel face. His eyes were like those of Marcello Mastroianni. They were hardly killer eyes.

  Joe concentrated on his tasks. He took the pounded scaloppine and drew them through unbleached flour, then tossed them quickly back and forth from hand to hand. I refilled the glasses while he beat up a couple of eggs and added a splash of white wine, seasoning, and a little milk.

  "I saw you eyeing that Bulgari watch on that guy's wrist, Doc. I know your fetish for fine watches. You almost gleeped it."

  I nodded. I hate jewelry, but well-made watches are a weakness. I glanced at the one currently gracing my wrist. It had a big flat black face and band, a movable bezel, three separate dials on the face with different functions, all luminous numbers, and a bunch of buttons on the face rim. It looked great. It weighed as much as a hand grenade and with luck- with a whole lot of luck and twists of fate thrown inI might even actually use it once every decade or so. Joe was staring at me staring at it. He frowned.

  "So tell me, what're all those buttons and dials for?"

  "Well," I explained, "it's kind of complicated. They're all for different things. Now this dial here is for high-speed aviation. Now suppose you're in a military aircraft, say an F-4 Phantom. Okay. You pull out of a dive and go into a barrel roll. There's an enemy tighter on your tail at seven o'clock, what you do is-"

  "I think you and I can skip that one, Doc. How about this one, the one with the red-and-blue outlines?"

  "Glad you asked. Now this is the elapsed-time bezel. It's essential for scuba diving. Okay. Say you're down over two hundred feet- that's when it's really essential- and you're running low on air. This bezel here tells you when to start back, allowing for decompression, and that's important. Now if you've got a complication, like a shark after you-"

  "Yeah yeah, Doc. You can use that in Walden Pond. How about that last one?"

  "Oh, simple. Auto racing. Okay. You're negotiating a turn at, say, Watkins Glen, and you're in the middle of the pack and go into a four-wheel drift, why all you do is-"

  "Can you check the eggplant, Doc? It should be about ready to dip. There's no apparatus on that watch for checking eggplant? Or timing eggs?"

  "Of course not. This is an expensive watch."

  "Pardon me."

  "You can make fun, but remember, I went scuba diving, you know."

  "Wasn't it in the YMCA pool?"

  "You've gotta start somewhere. And also, I thought about taking flying lessons at Hanscom. You never know. By the way, how come you don't even wear a watch?"

  "Don't need to. Always got somebody yelling at me. To wake up I got my clock radio. Then before I even get to headquarters I got the dispatcher on the box: 'Brindelli, it's eight forty-five, where are you?' Later it's 'Lieutenant, hurry up! It's after eleven.' And so on. I always got people telling me what time it is; I don't need a watch. But that Bulgari, I bet it cost over a grand. Maybe two. What do you think?"

  "Lots of bucks. And lots of class too. Look, I'm no fashion plate and neither are you. But I do notice nice things. The guy was dressed expensively and with taste. I would think your average Outfit hoodlum would be a tad more flashy."

  "I agree. Double-knit suit instead of wool and silk. He'd wear lizard-skin shoes, or something else obnoxious…"

  The phone rang. Joe went to answer it and I kept talking. I followed him over to the wall phone and spoke loudly. "There's two things here. On the one hand we assume it was a local grudge and done by the Outfit. On the other hand-"

  "Hello," said Joe into the phone. He was getting egg batter on the receiver.

  "- there's this Italian thread," I continued, "if the guy in the chimney was really Italian. Maybe one of the killers double-crossed the other…"

  Joe hugged the phone closer and held up his hand for silence. I saw his eyes widen a bit.

  “Really?" he said. "They just took the prints and there's no way? Uh-huh… uh-huh… snipped off? Like with wire cutters? Uh-huh

  …"

  Well, I assumed the phone call was for him. I went in and checked on Mary. I kissed her on the cheek. She murmured to me in the manner of dying. men in movies.

  "… coffee…"

  Of course. I'd forgotten Mary's all-purpose elixir. If she ever gets seriously injured, I'll just have the attendants hang a sterile bottle of coffee over her with an IV. The Krups machine whirred and whined and seconds later I handed her a big mug, and soon she appeared in the kitchen, her chipper self.

  Joe hung up the phone, looked at it, wiped it off', and looked me in the eye.

  "Guess what? What is it you always say, Doc? Funnier and funnier? No…"

  "Curiouser and curiouser?"

  "Yeah. Well get this: we found two fingers in the dog's mouth, right? And a guy with two missing fingers on the rubble heap, right? Well they don't match. They compared prints and the fingers the doggie had aren't the property of the guy with the fancy clothes and watch. Tommy did tear off those fingers lodged in his mouth. That's certain. But the guy in the chimney, his fingers were cut off with cutters. Curiouser and curiouser."

  "But there's some sense to be made of it," I said after a few seconds' thought. "It's a frame. Mr. X kills Robinson with a lethal gas bomb and in the process loses two fingers. He also kills this young Italian guy. Incidentally, we keep saying he's Italian but we don't know for sure-"

  "He's Italian," said Joe firmly.

  "So he kills this second guy with a knife. He probably used a knife because it was silent.".

  "Or…" said Joe, "or because he couldn't get a gun. He couldn't get a gun if… he's just come to the States. He couldn't buy a handgun here. And he couldn't bring one with him even in his checked luggage because of the possibility of a customs search."
<
br />   "Hey Joey, that's good," said Mary. I

  "Go on, Doc."

  "Well he's looking down at this young man he's just killed and gets an idea: if he removes the kid's fingers the police will automatically assume- at least for a while- that the kid did it.

  This gives him an open field for an end run."

  Joe sipped his vino rosso meditatively.

  "Shit!" he said, and jumped for the phone. He punched in a familiar number with lightning speed. He used his drill-sergeant tone of voice, telling headquarters to check all clinics and emergency wards in New England for treatment to amputated fingers.

  "Everything from Providence to Portland," he growled, "and let me know at this number."

  Still grumbling, he returned to the veal, which he dipped in the batter and then in the seasoned bread crumbs and Parmesan cheese. Then he set them on a rack to set, and helped Mary and me dip the eggplant slices in egg and Hour. We began frying them.

  "You're right about one thing," he said over the sizzling skillet. "The corpse with the missing fingers fooled us enough so we didn't put the hospital call out. Damn! Gonna have my ass handed to me Monday morning-"

  "But Joey, it wasn't even your day to work-"

  "A good cop's always on duty, Mare. Hell, if I'd just come out here and loafed around… Nah, we did the right thing. We just got a little tripped up by a clever ruse. Actually, it's s.o.p. to do the clinic check. Maybe somebody did it already and I wasn't told."

  With the veal and the eggplant slices lightly browned in the olive oil, Joe now stacked them alternately, with thin layers of Parmesan sprinkled between each piece, in a baking dish. There were four big stacks in the dish when he was finished. He covered them with more cheese and then lots of tomato sauce. He put it in a very hot oven to bake for twenty minutes.

  When it was ready we lit into it like a pack of orcae. we needed an extra bottle of wine because in tasting it we had killed the first one. And the second was gone in a twinkling. The third took longer. The Krups machine whirred and whined, and shot out cup after cup of cappucino. We sat in the living room sipping it and eating ice cream. After that Mary took us on a tour of her atelier, showing us all the latest pots and standing sculpture she'd made. The dogs were with us the whole time, wagging around and whining. Then the phone rang again and Joe went to answer it. He came back saying it was Tom Costello on the line for me.

  "And he sounds mad. Without his teeth he also sounds like a fairy," said Joe.

  Tom was mad. I explained I was on the track of the bridge and hoped to have it to him shortly.

  "Well leth hope tho! I'm thick of thounding like a goddamn panthy

  …'Would you buy thtockth or bondth from thomeone who thounded like thith?"

  "No, I would not-"

  "I'll thue."' he promised, and hung up. I joined Mary and Joe. Joe was yawning.

  I stared at my watch again, this time with some newfound distrust. Joe saw me staring at it.

  "Any other fancy things that watch can do?" he asked.

  "Glad you asked. Actually, I forgot one of the most important things of all: the para-drop function."

  "What the hell is the para-drop function? As if I can escape finding out."

  "For paratroopers doing delayed-opening jumps. Let's say you're a commando ten thousand feet up in a transport plane over El Salvador. Okay. You want to pull your chute at exactly fifteen hundred, not before, to maximize speed and concealment. Okay. You set the outer ring for ten thousand… your rate of fall, and the altitude your chute should open at. Then when the jump light goes green, just before you leap out the door, you-"

  "Goodnight, Doc. Night, Mare," he said, kissing her. He shuffled toward the stairs. "Uh, Doc? Happy landings."

  "Hey wait a sec, Joe. There you are, see, with all this combat gear on, and the ground's rushing up to you at a hundred forty per.. . you've got to know when… James0e?"

  "He went up, Charlie."

  "Oh."

  She came over and sat down next to me.

  "Was that watch expensive, Charlie?"

  "Kind of."

  She undid the black band and removed it, hefted it.

  "It's really heavy. You don't really use all these things do you?"

  "Well not yet. But-"

  "Whatever happened to that nice Omega I bought you?"

  "Upstairs in the drawer with the rest. Honey, it's a nice watch. But it doesn't have… you know-"

  "The gadgets?"

  She read the tiny words on the instrument's face.

  "Blackwatch Chronograph Adventurer. Adventurer? Adventurer, Charlie?"

  "Can I help it if that's what they call it? You've got to admit it's handsome."

  "I don't know about you sometimes, Charlie. The handgun shooting, the karate lessons from Liatis Roantis… then there's the motorcycle. And now this."

  I thought about it for a moment.

  "Well, next to the other things it's pretty innocent."

  "You know, for most people having a nice house, a good family and friends, a good career in medicine, plenty of money… is enough. Hell Charlie, it's more than enough. I mean, you've got everything."

  I stared at the wall, looking at nothing, like a character in a Hemingway story.

  "I know. That's my problem."

  She shook her head sadly and clicked her tongue at me in a quiet scold.

  "I just don't understand I guess. Why can't you be content, like Joe?"

  "Like Joe! Joe's miserable half the time. The other half he's desperate. How would you, like to go around nailing psychopaths? How would you like to have hardly a month go by without mopping up some poor battered teenage hooker from under a railroad bridge? That's what he did last Christmas Day, remember?"

  She lowered her head and nodded slowly.

  "And think of his previous incarnation. A priest! You've gotta be kidding-"

  "He was so good at that. I don't see why-"

  "He became a cop? He had to, don't you remember? He kept hitting those city punks in the kisser. He kept kicking ass, which is the only realistic way to deal with the situation, and the bishop didn't like it. Don't tell me how happy Joe is."

  "I just don't see why you seem to need all these… adult toys, Charlie."

  "I guess it's because I think we need to have adventures. When you strip off all the icing and poetry, Mary, life is a pretty grim enterprise. Grim and brief, to paraphrase Thomas Hobbes. And you better get in a few licks while you can. Otherwise you wind up spending your life reading The New Yorker, listening to your stereo and worrying about the IRS. And then you're in the ground for keeps."

  We turned the lights out and went upstairs with our arms around each other.

  How could I explain to her the desperate ache in the breasts of middle-aged men? Our fanatical devotion to the world of sports and our adoration of its heroes? Is it the heroes or their lives? The license for violence, the strength and endurance, danger and courage… all the elemental things so sadly missing in a world filled with glass-and-steel buildings, air conditioning, and Muzak? Why do we secretly yearn to follow the guy with the mustache and cowboy hat who spends his life roping mustangs, chasing horses that charge through clouds of red range dust? The guy we all want to be but can't, and so we smoke his cigarette or drink his beer instead?

  How to explain this longing?

  "I just think we need to have adventures," I repeated.

  She sighed.

  "Well the last adventure you had almost got you killed. You weren't the same for months afterward."

  "Still not. But I'm not sorry it happened."

  In the bedroom I stared at the watch in my hand, then put it into the bureau drawer. I picked up the Omega. Octagonal face, Roman numerals, gold case- it was almost as handsome as the watch worn by the murder victim. A perfect watch for a successful suburbanite. A bit boring perhaps, but we mustn't quibble…

  Mary had disappeared momentarily. She reappeared at my elbow.

  "Found it, Charlie. In Jack
's room. Here, this is more your speed."

  She grabbed my wrist and fastened it on.

  "Aw Mary. It's such a comedown after my Chronograph Adventurer. And a red plastic band too."

  "It's the real you, dear."

  "Thanks a lot. Gee, I bet his arms get tired. How come he's wearing white gloves?"

  "They always wear white gloves. See the little bird that flies around the face? That's the second hand-"

  She slipped off her panties and tugged at my belt.

  "C'mon Charlie. This watch has a real neat function on it. Better than scuba diving…" '

  I stepped out of my pants and took off my undershirt. She was grabbing at me. Tacky broad.

  "Ow!"

  "C'mon Charlie… get in."

  "Hey, the ears wiggle too, with every tick… Hey!"

  "Better than race-car driving too-"

  I looked at the watch again before I climbed into the sack. The little guy on the face smiled back at me.

  "Hiya Mickey," I said, "long time no see."

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Joe came in and sat down on the foot of our bed. He was wearing nothing but his drawers.

  "Good morning everybody," he said.

  'jeez, Joe, can't you get dressed before you come in here?"

  "Why? It's only you and Sis, She's seen me like this a lot, right, Mare?"

  She laughed a sleepy laugh. Sometimes, I thought, these Italians get too cozy for comfort. I got up and walked over to the bureau.

  "Well look who's talking, for Chrissake! At least I've got pants on!" said Joe.

  "It's different. I'm married to her," I said.

  "Okay, you two. I think I've seen enough beef for this morning," said Mary wearily. "Especially considering it's not prime cut. Now I'm not going to get out of bed bare-assed in front of both of you, so get out."