Rough Trade

by Todd Robinson

  I just couldn’t.

  I had to get comfortable with the fact that I had as many secrets in my closet as anybody else.

  So I drank away my physical pains and the self-doubts that always creeped around, but had recently picked up the pace.

  There were repercussions to that too. The first of which was that Audrey made me remove all the Tom Waits albums out of the jukebox. One more busy night interrupted with a heart-rending ballad, and she was going to stick her corkscrew in my ears first, then her own.

  I was deep into another Sunday afternoon drunk, idly watching the Patriots game, when I saw Audrey’s wide face beam happily, her joyous “Hey!” rattling the glasses. She lumbered around the bar to put Kelly into an uncomfortable bear hug. Uncomfortable for Kelly, anyway, what with her blood-rush reddened face and her shoes dangling three inches off the floor.

  “Where have you been, sweetie? So nice to see you. You’re not here to see this meatball, are you?” Audrey said, tilting her head in my direction.

  “I don’t think she can answer you, Audrey,” I said.

  “Huh?”

  “Not sure she can breathe right now.”

  Audrey released Kelly from her Bigfoot death hug, and Kelly dropped back to the floor, trying gamely to hide the wheezing. “Actually, I am,” she said, looking to me as she smoothed her newly wrinkled black blazer. “Do you have a few minutes?”

  “You’re dressed like you’re here in an official capacity.”

  Kelly’s eyebrows pulled downward, but only for a second.

  Audrey looked confused. “What does that mean?”

  Secrets. Again.

  And I’d reflexively opened with a dick move. I moved to cover it. “It’s Sunday, Audrey. Look at that suit. She looks like she’s going to work at the courthouse.”

  Audrey sniffed. “She’s got some fashion sense, you raggedy bum.” Audrey smoothed the fabric on Kelly’s shoulders with her thick hands. “Don’t you listen to him, honey.”

  “You want to talk here?” I asked.

  “Can you come with me for a bit?” The words were ominous, but the tone wasn’t.

  “Sure. I’ll be back, Audrey.”

  “Okay, hon. I’ll put your beer on the ice,” she said, putting my Bud bottle into the cooler bin. As Kelly led me to the door and I buttoned up my coat, Audrey, forever the mama hen, smiled at me and wiggled her eyebrows.

  If only.

  The small talk on the drive was even more painful than my ribs.

  “How are you feeling?” she asked.

  As loaded a question as any.

  I wanted to say that I felt like a meat-filled piñata. I wanted to say that I was feeling like a guilt-filled donut sprinkled with confusion and angst and paranoia and regrets.

  Instead, I lied and just said,”Better.”

  After fifteen more minutes of silent awkwardness, we pulled into the garage at One Center Plaza and the FBI field office.

  “I’m starting to lose hope that you’re taking me out for a romantic brunch,” I joked awkwardly.

  “Maybe after.”

  “For reals?”

  “Not really.”

  Dammit.

  Through the first door, to the metal detector, where a Republican-looking wooly mammoth in a suit confiscated the brass knuckles that I’d taken to carrying in my coat. The old “better to have it and not need it.” I forgot I had them, and the mammoth was none too pleased at the discovery.

  An additional pat-down and two checkpoints with ID checks later, and we walked through the FBI office, staffed barebones on the Sunday afternoon. That didn’t stop the few suits who were peppering the space from shooting me glances and glares as we passed, each one pegging me for future reference and not trying to hide that they were.

  I didn’t like that. Not one bit.

  Kelly opened the door to what was obviously not an office but an interrogation room. “Can I get you anything?” she said, a newly officious tone in her voice now that we were in the offices.

  “Coffee’d be great.”

  “Make yourself comfortable. I’ll be right back.”

  “How could I not?” I said, gesturing to the white painted walls, the metal desk and chair, the video camera mounted to the ceiling.

  She rolled her baby blues as she walked out, but she was fighting against the smile that my wit, under other circumstances, would have brought out. Maybe.

  Least I think it would have.

  What the hell did I know anymore?

  But like the good old days, I gave her butt a tight eyeballing as she exited.

  I was still me, despite it all.

  I waited a few seconds, then tried the door. It was unlocked, so there was that. An agent with a white military flattop and a gray suit was passing the door when it opened. He gave me a quizzical glance as I popped my head into the hallway.

  “Wait a minute…this isn’t Narnia,” I said to him as I shut the door again.

  I sat down in the incredibly uncomfortable chair as Kelly came back with two steaming cups in Styrofoam, placing one in front of me. I took a sip. Not bad.

  “One sugar, just a touch of milk, right?”

  “You remembered.”

  “We have it all on file,” she said with a sly smirk that hinted she was only half joking. She opened her leather messenger bag and placed a yellow pad and pens to her right and a small digital recorder to her left. She pressed the record button and began. “January the second, two fourteen p.m., follow-up interview with William Malone regarding case number 12BC44.” She scribbled onto the pad and slid it to me.

  Cameras aren’t on. Feel free to play dumb.

  I wrote underneath that as she continued. “It is noted for the record that Mr. Malone, also known as ‘Boo,’ is here of his own volition and any information that he offers up in assistance to this investigation is given freely and of his own accord.”

  I slid the notebook back to her.

  Kinda my natural state, but OK.

  Then underneath that:

  Faaaaaaart.

  Which made her turn three shades of purple as she tried to keep it together. She shook her head and shot me a glare with lips pursed tighter than a frog’s butt.

  I covered my own smile with my hand. Maybe it was just me, but man, even in the circumstances we were in, I wanted to pull her over the table and plant a kiss on her mouth. Hard. “How can I help you today, Agent…”

  She paused. “Agent Regan.”

  “Huh,” was all I said. Another goddamn secret. She’d introduced herself to me as Kelly Reese when we’d met, and since then, I’d had no reason to doubt that I at least had her damn name right. “Okay, Agent Regan. How can I help you?”

  “Are you familiar with the name Galal Shaughness?”

  Whoopsie.

  I shifted in my seat and winced. No way she didn’t notice my reaction.

  “Are you all right?”

  I grabbed my side. “Ribs. These chairs aren’t exactly Barcaloungers.”

  “I’ll try to make this quick. Are you familiar with the name?”

  “That a brand of Irish babaganoush?”

  “Not exactly.”

  “Syrian whiskey?”

  “He works for a subsidiary of IronClad Security, doing club security. He’s also reputed to be working for one John ‘The Butcher’ Bass out of New York City.”

  “Nope.” Didn’t know that name, at least. Kind of glad I didn’t with a nickname like that.

  “Our field office in Manhattan sent us an alert that he might be on his way to Boston at the behest of Marcus Beauchamp.”

  “Don’t know the guy. Maybe Marcus was short-handed on staff since he and his were too busy chasing me and mine around with all these shenanigans.”

  “That’s possible, but not likely, considering the work he has allegedly performed for Jonathan Bass.”

  “Either way, never heard of the guy. Should I be concerned?”

  “He hasn’t shown his face yet, but her
e’s a picture, should he attempt to contact you in any way.”

  She handed me a printout of an old mugshot and I looked into the eyes of the man whose body I’d stuffed into Miss Kitty’s trunk. “I’ll keep my eyes open.” I handed her back the paper.

  “At the time of the incident, you had a large amount of cash taped to your body, money that allegedly belonged to Ian Summerfield.”

  “Allegedly.”

  “A large amount of that money was destroyed when Mr. Summerfield shot you in the chest with a shotgun.”

  “That is less alleged.”

  “We were able to reconstruct a portion of the cash, and the amount that you had taped to yourself was approximately seventy-four thousand dollars.”

  “If you say so.”

  “You didn’t count it?”

  “I didn’t care. Wasn’t mine.” I took a long sip of my coffee.

  “Reportedly, and according to numbers that I myself heard stated from Mr. Summerfield, the missing number was closer to a hundred and twenty thousand.”

  “If you say so. I had seventy-four.”

  “Is there any way that you can account for the disparity between those two numbers?”

  I frowned and shook my head. “Nope. The money wasn’t in my possession the entire time. Maybe Byron squirreled away or spent a portion of the money before I wound up with it.”

  “Byron?”

  “Byron Walsh. The original employee of Mr. Summerfield who caused all of the aforementioned shenanigans.”

  Kelly’s fingers traced over the notepad again, hovering close to the words “play dumb.” “Are you sure? Possession of this money could lead to charges of not only larceny, but obstruction in a federal case.”

  I wasn’t sure if she was trying to throw me another signal. I went with what was natural anyway. “Got no answers for you, Agent Regan.”

  “Thank you for your time, Mr. Malone. There may be follow-up questions from either myself or another agent at your convenience.”

  “Okey dokey, artichokey.”

  She threw her pen at me.

  “This concludes the interview regarding case number 12BC44. Time is marked at two twenty in the p.m.” She shut off the recorder.

  “Regan?” I said. “Agent Regan?”

  “Please don’t.”

  “What was going on when you were…when we were—”

  “I was working.” She began placing her items back into the leather bag. “I couldn’t say anything.”

  “You were investigating Donnelly?”

  “And Barnes. Mostly Barnes. Best way to get next to Barnes was to get into Donnelly’s offices and campaign. He was tied into things other than politics and police work.”

  All of which I found out about a little too late, but found out about nonetheless.

  “And I was…”

  Yeah. I said that.

  Sigh.

  Kelly tilted her head and smiled sadly. “You were fun. And a good guy. And potentially a lot of trouble for me. I’m a Federal agent, Boo. But I’m still a person who can like people.”

  “I get that.”

  “Once it all imploded, I wanted to tell you everything, even though I knew I shouldn’t. So when you shut me out, you made it easier for me not to.”

  I’d shut her out because I didn’t want to see another woman I’d loved hurt or killed. “So what now? Can I buy you lunch? Dinner? A trip to Vegas?”

  “Can you suddenly afford a trip to Vegas?” she asked, eyebrow arched.

  “Oh yeah,” I said with a big grin and exaggerated nodding. “I mean…nooo.”

  She squeezed her eyes shut tightly. “Forget I asked that.”

  “So…”

  “I’m being transferred out of Boston tomorrow. Clearly my status as an undercover has been severely compromised.”

  “Guess it has.”

  Kelly stood and started packing the materials into her professional-looking leather valise. “Can I ask you a personal question?”

  “Why not?”

  “Did you ever look up Emily?”

  And the blade sank into my heart. “Thought that was you.”

  After the whole Donnelly family drama, someone had left me a packet of information at The Cellar regarding the whereabouts of my sister, Emily—the information that Jack Donnelly had dangled in front of me like a carrot.

  Problem was, after twenty plus years of State separation, I was pretty sure she was better off without me. I’d buried that dream, the idea of a blood family, and tried every day not to think about it. I failed most days, but the sharpest edges of the hurt had been dulled over the last months.

  I swallowed hard and thought about what to say in response.

  Kelly read my expression well. “I’m sorry. It’s none of my business.”

  “No…no,” I said, a sick feeling in my gut. “It’s okay.”

  “You burned it, the envelope, didn’t you?”

  My eyebrows shot up. How the fuck could she know that?

  Once again, she read me like a book with lots of pictures. “I saw the fire department report that came in the night after I slid the information under the office door.”

  Oh yeah. She was a Fed. That was how. “Yeah,” was all I said.

  “If you ever want that information, Boo, just ask me, okay? But promise me that you won’t burn down the bar again if I give it to you.”

  “Deal,” I said. I was trying to come up with more than one word at a clip, but the parts inside that processed emotions had gone haywire. Those parts that all us tough guys thought we’d carved out with broken beer bottles before puberty.

  “I’m serious. You’re a good man, Boo Malone. She deserves to know you.”

  I bit my lip and nodded. “Noted,” I said, even if I didn’t believe wholeheartedly in Kelly’s asesment.

  Kelly took a deep breath and blew it upward, making an unruly curl jump along her brow. “Okay, then. You’re free to go, Boo, unless you have any questions?”

  “One more.”

  “Okay.”

  “Your name even Kelly?”

  She gave me a Cheshire smile. “Nice knowing you, Boo Malone,” she said, giving me a long, slow kiss on the cheek before she put her hand on the door handle.

  Fuck that noise.

  I grabbed her hand, pulled her to me, and planted the King Kong of romantic kisses right on her beautiful mouth. She tensed for a moment, then grabbed the back of my head and really dug into my hair.

  Fireworks detonated behind my eyes as I let her go.

  Then I let her go.

  “Goodbye, whoever the hell you are,” I said.

  And she walked out.

  I had to wait a minute for my boner to go away before I followed suit.

  ***

  I went back to The Cellar and drank some more. I kept myself together, though. For the first time in a long time, I just wanted to drink, not necessarily get drunk. Mostly, I didn’t want to be alone. Mitch and Junior kept the peace, Mitch particularly thrilled to be back in the mix. He was grinning from ear to ear the whole night. I’d given him a call once G.G.’s threats of both quitting and hurting me took on tones of truth.

  We needed staff.

  Mitch needed some dignity back.

  Hell, we all did.

  I found myself looking to the door every time a brunette walked in, hoping. But, this being The Cellar, a few of those long curly-haired brunettes were dudes.

  Audrey kept the whiskey in front of me, and I kept my thoughts as quiet as I could.

  Junior seemed to have regained a certain amount of spring to his step. He was on the path to recovery. I was on the path to…what?

  Who knows?

  Ginny came on her shift at seven, gave me a weird half-smile, half-wince when she walked in. I tipped my scally cap at her and winked, but it all felt automatic and hollow.

  Just after nine, the band started their set, moving most of the upstairs business down into the dank pit where the stage resided. They left behind
tables of empty glasses, dirty napkins. Ginny scrambled to clear them off for the next round of customers. I decided to get off my self-pitying ass and give her a hand. I met her at the large double table at the back and started wiping condensation off the tabletop with the leftover napkins.

  “I got it,” she said softly. Might have been the only thing Ginny had said to me softly in the entirety of the time I’d known her.

  “Meh, got nothing else to do,” I said.

  We both reached for the same pint at the same time, my hand falling on top of hers. She pulled her hand back as if my fingers had sprouted teeth and sunk them into her flesh. With a choked sigh, she turned and walked into the ladies’ room.

  The one goddamn place I couldn’t follow her in the entire bar. From outside the thin door, I could hear her sobbing.

  I’m not good with emotional women.

  In all honestly—and it should be pretty clear by this point—I’m not great with women in general. At all.

  Emotionally distraught was at the top of the Shit About Women That I’m Unable To Deal With scale.

  “Uh…Ginny?” I said to the door.

  “Go away, Boo.”

  Yep. Definitely crying. Could this be about our not-so-daring rescue? Maybe I shouldn’t have mentioned the fact that we weren’t, in fact, there to save her.

  That might have been a tactical error on my part.

  Maybe our hook-up was more to her than it was to me. Honestly, I’d always thought she kind of hated me. Well, maybe not hated. She at least liked me enough for a drunken, angry pickle tickle.

  More female complexity that I wasn’t ever going to wrap my mind around, it would seem.

  Enough already. I walked into No Man’s Land.

  Ginny leaned over the bathroom sink, wiping away thick runnels of tears from her cheeks. “Fuck off, Boo.”

  “Listen, we gotta talk.”

  “There’s nothing to talk about.”

  “Will you take a second? Come up to the office.”

  “Oh my God,” she said. “Are you trying to have sex with me again?”

  “No!” I said a bit too strenuously. “No. It’s a little more private than it is in here. I’d like to talk to you.”

  Behind me, the door opened and a thick goth broad yelled. “Get outta here, dude!”