Sweetheart (20 page)

Twenty minutes later he swerved off the central artery and left his car on Commercial Street. Passing tourists and children with balloons, he hiked to the end of one of the wharves and, when no one was looking, reluctantly dropped the magnum into Boston Harbor.

When he returned to his office in the Area D station, he picked up the phone and called the bookie at the dry cleaning shop. “How’d Laura’s Boy do?” he asked.

“You’re a lucky son of a bitch, Scat. It paid twelve to one.”

“It ain’t luck,” Scatamacchia said. “It’s instinct.”

I
NSIDE A
C
AMBRIDGE HEALTH CLUB
, Russell Thurston came off the handball court breathing hard, sweating profusely, and scowling. He grabbed a bottle of spring water out of his locker and took a long swig. His opponent, a rangy young man who had beaten him decisively, said, “You don’t like to lose, do you?”

“That’s exactly right,” Thurston said, putting the bottle back and pulling off his sodden T-shirt. “It’s not my style.”

“It’s just a game.”

“That’s what makes it so important,” Thurston said cryptically. “Give me another couple of days, I’ll beat you.”

The young man grinned. “Want to put money on it?”

“You could lose, kid.”

“I’m faster.”

“I’ve got better reflexes,” Thurston said and looked at the young man squarely. “You’re a Harvard boy, aren’t you? You’ve got the world by the balls. I hope you realize it.”

“You make me want to apologize.”

“You’d be a jerk if you did. Just learn when and how to squeeze, you’ll never go wrong.”

They pattered into the shower room. A woman in a white smock looked in on them and smiled. Thurston asked her whether she had towels, and she brought in two. “Either of you going to want me later?” she asked, and the young man shook his head.

Thurston said, “Probably.”

Moments later he bent his head under a hot needle spray, as hot as he could bear, to the point where he felt afire. Then, gradually, while lifting his face, he cooled it. By the time he dropped his hand from the dial, the water was ice-cold, and he was benumbed.

“How the hell can you do that?” the young man asked.

“You have to be special.”

The woman in the smock was waiting in an adjoining room. Without a word, he stretched out on a padded table for a body rub. She oiled her palms and went to work. “You’ve got nice muscles,” she said professionally, “almost as nice as the kid’s.”

“When I was his age,” Thurston murmured, “you couldn’t have compared us.”

“Jesus,” she quipped. “You must’ve been Superman.”

He disdained to reply.

When she finished she slipped a pillow under his head and he closed his eyes. “Wake me in twenty minutes,” he said.

• • •

Ty O’Dea took a taxi home. The driver had to wake him. He responded at once, blue eyes popping out of a scarlet face, and paid the fare with a balled-up bill. He walked precisely up the brick path and swung his arms just so. As he was searching for his key, the front door flew open and Sara Dillon pulled him inside. Her mouth quivered. “Damn it, Ty. Don’t do this to me!”

“I’m all right,” he said. “I’m perfectly all right.”

“No, you’re not,” she said, gripping his arm. “You’re loaded. How can we talk?”

“What are we supposed to talk about?”

“Her. Us.” She shut the door and pushed him deeper into the house. “The baby. She’s not getting it.”

“Shhh,” he said, his eyes rolling.

“It’s all right, we’re alone,” she said, but he was not totally convinced. Apprehensively, he looked one way and then another, as if expecting Rita O’Dea to pounce upon them. Sara Dillon said, “You have a decision to make.”

“I’ve already decided.” He gathered up one of her hands in his and kissed it. “I love you. The baby’s ours.”

“What’s talking, Ty? The booze or you?”

“Me.”

“Then we’ll pack up and leave now. Just leave.”

“It’s not that easy,” he said sadly, “believe me.”

“Then what do we do?”

“I have a plan,” he said, and seemed to shudder. “Let me work it out.”

• • •

The day turned hot, temperatures creeping well into the nineties, the humidity oppressive. Christopher Wade stayed in his air-conditioned office in the Saltonstall Building. He read newspapers,
Sports Illustrated
, and two-thirds of a spy novel about a professional assassin who didn’t know whether he was working for the CIA or for a confederation of American corporations. The telephone rang periodically, once at length, but he never answered it. Midafternoon, he went into his inner office and napped for an hour on his sleeping bag. He woke when he heard agents Danley and Dane banging out reports that were not for him but for Thurston. When one of them looked in on him, he said, “Put in your report that you found your boss sleeping.”

After they left he washed his face in the sink and slicked his hair back with wet hands. He did not quite know what to do with himself. He considered leaving for the day but did not want to face the heat. He returned to the novel and identified with the protagonist. As he was ending a chapter, the outer door opened and a woman walked in. It was his wife.

“I tried phoning, but there was no answer,” she said as he rose to greet her. She was wearing a simple shirtdress, a part of it damp. “Don’t you even have a secretary?” she asked, and he shook his head. Her eyes roamed. “This doesn’t seem like your place. It doesn’t seem … worked in.”

He drew a chair for her, but she did not want to sit. She had come to tell him something and wanted to do it fast. He was not sure he wanted to hear it.

“I’d like to sell the house, Chris. Do you mind?”

He minded very much, but his expression did not change. “Where will you live?” he asked, his eyes dwelling on her. She was distant, enigmatic, no longer someone he knew.

“I’d like to get away for a while,” she said. “Probably California. It’ll be a whole new world for me,” she added, and he felt a growing chill.

“How will you support yourself?”

“No matter where I go, I’ll find a job, Chris. I know that much about myself now.”

“You’re a whole new woman.”

“Not quite.”

“Why do you want to leave?”

“You’re still too much of a shadow over me, Chris. What you do — and I don’t even know what it is anymore — comes at me.”

“I don’t know what you mean by that.”

“It’s not important,” she said, standing inflexible. They gazed at each other without expression.

“Is it really necessary to sell the house?” he asked, and she nodded. “I suppose,” he said, lowering his voice, “you want a divorce.”

“When you feel up to it.”

He looked away, his forehead wrinkling. “Please, do me a favor.”

“What is it, Chris?”

“Get out,” he said softly.

• • •

She walked out into the swelter, the heat of the city rushing at her. With a light head and a stunning sense of freedom, she floated into the crowd, found it congenial, allowed it to dictate her direction, which was to the plaza of the Kennedy Building. At first she did not recognize the black man coming toward her. He was wearing dark glasses and had his suitcoat slung over his shoulder. They jostled each other. The impact was slight.

“I know you,” she said. “You were baby-sitting me.”

“You knew,” he said without surprise, his face shining from a patina of sweat. People slid looks at them in passing. She nodded.

“I called the Wellesley police when I was sure you were watching my house. They told me not to worry about it. They said you were keeping an eye on the neighborhood, to prevent break-ins. That made me feel safe, even though I knew it was a lie.”

“Why did you think I was there?” he asked.

“Something to do with my husband. Maybe somebody was trying to get at him through me. I’ve been a cop’s wife for a long time, you see. Or maybe I’m reading this all wrong. Who are you?”

“I’m a special agent, FBI.”

Her face darkened. “Is my husband in trouble?” she asked, and Agent Blue immediately shook his head. “We’re separated,” she said, “but I still worry about him.”

“I understand,” Blue said. The crowd pushed them closer. Two teenage girls shuffling by in sandals stopped abruptly to peer at him for a second, as if they thought he might be a celebrity of sorts, a singer or a comic.

Susan Wade said, “Will you let me take you to dinner? I don’t feel like going home and eating alone.”

He looked down at his shoes.

“I’m sorry,” she said quickly, “I should’ve asked if you’re married.”

“Yes,” he said, meeting her gaze. “I am.”

“Your wife could come too. That would be nice.” She paused, aware of her own growing embarrassment. “No … I guess she wouldn’t understand.”

“I think she would,” Blue said and offered his arm.

• • •

The sun vanished, but the air was still stifling. In the North End people sat on kitchen chairs placed in front of buildings and fanned themselves. Anthony Gardella, leaving his real estate office, spoke to people he knew, which was nearly everybody. A woman smiled at him proudly. She was sitting with a fat, bald-headed baby who looked like a miniature masseur. The baby, wearing only a diaper, had an unsightly rash, which did not prevent Gardella from petting the child’s head. The woman said, “That was terrible about Augie.”

“Yes, it was terrible,” he said and turned a censorious eye on a passing dark-haired girl whose underpants, patterned with daisies, blossomed through her tight, thin shorts. It was the woman’s niece. “Tell her,” he said, “if she leaves the neighborhood that way she won’t be safe.”

He crossed the street, spoke to others, and entered the Caffè Pompei. A table in the rear was cleaned off for him, and a glass of lime juice topped with crushed ice was soon served. Cigarette smoke spiraled at him, and he asked the man at the next table to reposition his ashtray. Instead, the man ground the cigarette. Halfway through his drink he sensed a movement beside him and glanced up sharply. “What are you doing here?”

“I’ve got a right.”

“Sure you do,” he said as Christopher Wade sat down. “I’m just surprised.” He gestured to a waiter. “Usually I’d recommend a cappuccino, but on a night like — ”

“What you have looks good,” Wade said, and the waiter brought him one. He wrapped his hands around the glass as if to cool them.

“That’s a nice ring you’ve got,” Gardella said. “I meant to mention it before.”

Wade looked at it, seemed to study it. “Emerald, my birthstone. My wife gave it to me years ago.”

“Okay, Wade, what’s the story? We got a problem?”

“No.”

“Something you want to tell me or ask me?”

“I don’t think so.”

“I see,” Gardella said dryly. “You dropped in for nothing.”

“I didn’t feel like going to my apartment. No air conditioning.”

“I’ll tell you your problem,” Gardella said. “It’s what I told you a long time ago. No guy should live alone. You live alone, you don’t eat right, you don’t make your bed, you don’t pick up after yourself. Pretty soon you start looking seedy. You want to know something? Right now you look seedy.”

“It’s the heat.”

“It’s going to be hotter tomorrow and stay that way through the week. I’m beating it. I’m leaving for Rye tomorrow afternoon. You’re smart, you’ll come with me. You could use a few days’ rest.”

Wade was silent for some time. He was wearing a body microphone and a tape recorder beneath his clothes. For a giddy second he considered opening his shirt and exposing them. “You’re sure I wouldn’t be in the way?”

Gardella laughed. “That happens, I’ll tell you.”

• • •

Russell Thurston left his car in the dark off Dewey Square and walked to South Station, whose grandeur was now confined to its Ionic columns and its weathered eagle perched atop the building. Inside, vagrants momentarily got in his way, shuffling toward him like gray ghosts and then drifting off, as if they could tell from his face that he was not the sort to give. The floor of the concourse was cracked and grimy. Merchants’ booths were boarded up, some for the night, some forever. People waiting for Amtrak trains were few. Thurston looked for a woman wearing a headscarf and saw her right away. Dropping down beside her on the bench, he said, “Do I know you?”

“You will,” she said in the same slow and forced voice that she had used much earlier on the telephone. Her voice had intrigued him, along with what she had to say.

He said, “What’s the matter with your face?”

“My jaw was broken. I still have some wire in it.”

“I still don’t know your name.”

“Laura will do.”

He scrutinized her carefully, openly, from the polish on her mouth to the pumps on her feet. He estimated the cost of her clothes, the rings on her fingers, and the bracelet on her incredibly thin wrist. Her scent was subtle, which also told him something. “You look too intelligent for the business you’re in,” he said.

“You don’t know what business I’m in.”

“Do you want me to tell you?”

She retreated from his stare by gazing off toward a section of the station where marble had been sledgehammered away, as if in a burst of energy from a workman without purpose. An Amtrak patrolman, finishing off a candy bar, tossed the wrapper into the rubble. She said, “Are you ready to listen?”

“That’s why I’m here.”

She talked without looking at him, in her labored voice, which had soft breaks in it, sudden catches, at odd times a wheeze. Her mouth began to look sore, then her whole face. “Rest if you want,” he said, but she continued talking. When she finished, he again scrutinized her, this time as if she were someone much more valuable. He said, “This is bigger than just Scatamacchia, you understand that. If you give me him, you’ve got to give Scandura too, maybe even Gardella.”

“No,” she said, “you take what I give you or nothing.”

“We’ll work something out,” he said. “We’ll do it slow and easy, okay?”

“There’s a condition,” she stated flatly. “When you arrest him, I want to be there. I want him to see me.”

Thurston’s smile was instantaneous. “You know something, Laura? I could learn to like you.”

• • •

Christopher Wade left the Caffè Pompei and returned to the deserted Saltonstall Building, where a security guard let him in and walked him to the elevator. When he learned that Wade was staying the night, he joked with him. “What have you got up there, a bed?”

“No,” said Wade. “A bag.”

In his office, after giving a quick look at his watch, he plucked up the phone, pressed numbers, and held the receiver hard against his ear. He counted the rings. When Jane Gardella picked up on the fifth, he said, “This is Sweetheart.” There was silence. He said, “Your husband’s joining you tomorrow.”