The Given Day (51 page)

"Excuse me, Patrolman?"

"It's not enough," Mark said. "You know that. Two hundred a year was a 1913 fi gure."

"It's what you asked for," Parker said.

Danny shook his head. "It's what the BSC coppers in the 1916 negotiations asked for. Cost of living has gone up--"

"Oh cost of living, my eye!" Curtis said.

"--seventy-three percent," Danny said. "In seven months, sir. So two hundred a year? Without health benefits? Without sanitary conditions changing at the station houses?"

"As you well know, I've created committees to look into those issues. Now--"

"Those committees," Danny said, "are made up of precinct captains, sir."

"So?"

"So they have a vested interest in not fi nding anything wrong with the station houses they command."

"Are you questioning the honor of your superiors?"

"No."

"Are you questioning the honor of this department's chain of command?"

Mark Denton spoke before Danny could. "This offer is not going to do, sir."

"It very well will do," Curtis said.

"No," Mark Denton said. "I think we need to look into--"

"Tonight," Herbert Parker said, "is the only night this offer will be on the table. If you don't take it, you'll be back out in the cold where you'll find the doors locked and the knobs removed."

THE GIVEN DAY"We can't agree to this." Danny flapped the page in the air. "It's far too little and far too late."

Curtis shook his head. "I say it's not. Mr. Parker says it's not. So it's not."

"Because you say?" Kevin McRae said.

"Precisely," Herbert Parker said.

Curtis ran his palms over his desktop. "We'll kill you in the press." Parker nodded. "We gave you what you asked for and you turned it down."

"That's not how it is," Danny said.

"But that's how it'll play, son."

Now it was Danny, Kevin, and Mark's turn to trade glances. Eventually, Mark turned back to Commissioner Curtis. "No fucking deal."

Curtis leaned back in his chair. "Good evening, gentlemen."

Luther came down the Coughlins' steps on his way to the streetcar when he noticed Eddie McKenna about ten yards up the sidewalk, leaning against the hood of his Hudson.

"And how's that fine building restoration going? Coming along, she is?" McKenna came off the car and walked toward him.

Luther forced a smile. "Coming along right well, Lieutenant, sir. Right well."

That was, in fact, the truth. He and Clayton had been on a tear lately. Aided on several occasions by men in NAACP chapters all over New England, men Mrs. Giddreaux found a way to get up or down to Boston on weekends and occasional weeknights, they fi nished the demo weeks ago, ran the electrical through the open walls and throughout the house, and were working on the water pipes that branched off the kitchen and the bathrooms to the main water pipe, a clay beauty they'd run from the basement to the roof a month back.

"When do you suppose she'll open?"

Luther'd been wondering that himself lately. He still had plenty of 426DENNIS LEHANE pipe to run and was waiting on a shipment of horsehair plaster before he could start sealing the walls. "Hard to say, sir."

"Not 'suh'? Usually you get a bit more southern for my benefi t, Luther, something I noticed back in the early days of winter."

"I guess it's 'sir,' tonight," Luther said, feeling a different edge in the man than he'd felt before.

McKenna shrugged. "So how long you think?"

"Till I'm done? A few months. Depends on a lot of things, sir." "I'm sure. But the Giddreauxs must be planning a ribbon cutting, that sort of thing, a gathering of their ilk."

"Again, sir, I'm hoping to be done summer's end, somewhere thereabouts."

McKenna placed his arm on the wrought-iron railing that curved out from the Coughlin stoop. "I need you to dig a hole."

"A hole?"

McKenna nodded, his trench coat flapping around his legs in the warm spring breeze. "A vault, really. I'll want you to be sure to make it weather-tight. I'd recommend poured concrete, if I could be so bold."

Luther said, "And where do you want me to build this vault? Your house, sir?"

McKenna leaned back from the suggestion, an odd smile on his face. "I'd never let your kind in my home, Luther. Good Lord." He exhaled a small whoop at the entire idea, and Luther could see the weight of carrying a fake self for Luther's benefit leave him, the man finally ready to show Luther his depths. With pride. "An ebon on Telegraph Hill? Ha. So, no, Luther, the vault is not for my home. It's for these 'headquarters' you're so nobly aspiring to build."

"You want me to put a vault in the NAACP?"

"Yes. Under the floor. I believe last time I was over there, you'd yet to lay in the floor of the rear room in the east corner. Used to be a kitchen, I believe?"

Last time he was over there?

"What of it?" Luther said.

THE GIVEN DAY"Dig the hole there. The size of a man, we'll say. Weatherproof it, then cover it with the flooring of your choice, but make sure that flooring is easy to lift. I don't presume to tell you how to do your job, but you may consider hinges in that regard, an inconspicuous handle of some sort."

Luther, standing on the sidewalk by now, waited for the punch line. "I don't understand, Lieutenant, sir."

"You know who's proven my most irreplaceable intelligence source these last couple of years? Do you?"

"No," Luther said.

"Edison. They're grand ones for tracking the movements of a person." McKenna lit a half- smoked cigar and waved at the air between them once he got it going. "You, for example, terminated your electric service in Columbus in September. Took my Edison friends some time to discover where you started it up again, but eventually we got it. In Tulsa, Oklahoma, in October. It's still being supplied to your Tulsa address, so I can only assume you left a woman there. Maybe a family? You're on the run, Luther. Knew it the moment I laid eyes on you, but it was nice to have it confirmed. When I asked the Tulsa PD if they had any unsolved crimes of note, they mentioned a nightclub in niggertown that someone shot the hell out of, left three dead. A full day's labor someone did."

Luther said, "Don't know what you're talking about, sir."

"Of course, of course." McKenna nodded. "Tulsa PD said folks there don't get too riled up when their niggers start shooting each other, 'specially when they can put the blame on one of the dead niggers. Far as they're concerned, it's a closed case with three coons in the grave no one'll miss. So on that score, you are in the clear." McKenna raised his index finger. "Unless I were to call Tulsa PD back and ask them, as a professional courtesy, to question the sole survivor of said bloodbath and in the course of questioning mention that a certain Luther Laurence, late of Tulsa, was living up here in Boston." His eyes glittered. "Then I'd have to wonder how many places you've got left to hide."

428DENNIS LEHANE

Luther felt all the fight in him just roll up and die. Just lie down. Just wither away. "What do you want?"

"I want a vault." McKenna's eyes sparkled. "Oh, I want the Crisis mailing list."

"What?"

"The Crisis. The newsletter of the National Association for the Advancement of Chimpanzees."

"I know what it is. Where would I get the mailing list?"

"Well, Isaiah Giddreaux must have access to it. There must be a copy of it somewhere in that nigger-bourgeoisie palace you call home. Find it."

"And if I build your vault and find your mailing list?"

"Don't adopt the tone of someone who has options, Luther." "Fine. What do you want me to put in this vault?" Luther asked.

"You keep asking questions?" McKenna draped his arm over Luther's shoulders. "Maybe it'll be you."

Leaving another ineffectual BSC meeting, Danny was exhausted as he headed for the el stop at Roxbury Crossing, and Steve Coyle fell in beside him as Danny knew he would. Steve was still coming to meetings, still making people wish he'd go away, still talking about grander and grander fool-ambitions. Danny had to report for duty in four hours and wished only to lay his head to his pillow and sleep for a day or so.

"She's still here," Steve said as they walked up the stairs to the el. "Who?"

"Tessa Ficara," Steve said. "Don't pretend you've forgotten her." "I'm not pretending anything," Danny said, and it came out too sharp.

"I've been talking to people," Steve said quickly. "People who owe me from when I worked the streets."

Danny wondered just who these people could be. Cops were always under the misguided impression that people felt gratitude or indebtedness toward them when nothing could be further from the truth.

THE GIVEN DAYUnless you were saving their lives or their wallets, people resented cops. They did not want you around.

"Talking to people is a bit dangerous," he said. "In the North End particularly."

"I told you," Steve said, "my sources owe me. They trust me. Anyway, she's not in the North End. She's over here in Roxbury."

The train entered the station with screaming brakes, and they boarded it and took seats on the empty car. "Roxbury, uh?"

"Yeah. Somewhere between Columbus and Warren, and she's working with Galleani himself on something big."

"Something bigger than the landmass between Columbus and Warren?"

"Look," Steve said as they burst from a tunnel and the lights of the city suddenly dipped below them as the track rose, "this one guy told me he'll get me an exact address for fi fty bucks."

"Fifty bucks?"

"Why do you keep repeating what I say?"

Danny held up a hand. "I'm tired. Sorry. Steve, I don't have fifty bucks."

"I know, I know."

"That's over two weeks' pay."

"I said I know. Jesus."

"I could lay my hands on three. Maybe four?"

"Yeah, sure. I mean, whatever you can do. I mean, we want to get this bitch, right?"

Truth was, ever since he'd shot Federico, Danny hadn't given Tessa a sole thought. He couldn't explain why that was, just that it was.

"If we don't get her," he said, "someone else will, Steve. She's a federal problem. You understand."

"I'll be careful. Don't you worry."

That wasn't the point, but Danny'd grown used to Steve missing the point lately. He closed his eyes, head back against the window, as the el car bumped and rattled along.

"You think you can get me the four bucks soon?" Steve asked.

430DENNIS LEHANE

Danny kept his eyes closed because he feared Steve would see the contempt in them if he opened them. He kept them closed and nodded once.

At Batterymarch station, he declined Steve's offer of a drink, and they went their separate ways. By the time Danny reached Salem Street, he was starting to see spots. He could picture his bed, the white sheets, the cool pillow. . . .

"And how've you been keeping then, Danny?"

Nora crossed the street toward him, stepping between a horse- drawn wagon and a sputtering tin lizzy that chucked great bursts of ink-colored smoke from its tailpipe. When she reached the curb, he stopped and turned fully toward her. Her eyes were false and bright and she wore a pale gray blouse he'd always liked and a blue skirt that left her ankles exposed. Her coat looked thin, even for the warming air, and her cheekbones were too pronounced. Her eyes sat back in her head.

"Nora."

She held out a hand to him in a manner he found comically formal and he shook it as if it were a man's.

"So?" she said, still working the brightness into her eyes. "So?" Danny said.

"How've you been keeping?" she said a second time.

"I've been fair," he said. "You?"

"Tip-top," she said.

"Swell news."

"Aye."

Even at eight in the evening, the North End sidewalks were thick with people. Danny, tired of being jostled, took Nora by the elbow and led her to a cafe that was nearly empty. They took a seat by the small window that overlooked the street.

She removed her coat as the proprietor came out of the back, tying his apron on, and caught Danny's eye.

"Due caffe, per favore."

"Si, signore. Venire a destra in su."

THE GIVEN DAY"Grazie."

Nora gave him a hesitant smile. "I forgot how much pleasure that gave me."

"What's that?"

"Your Italian. The sound of it, yeah?" She looked around the cafe and then out at the street. "You seem at home here, Danny."

"It is home." Danny suppressed a yawn. "Always has been."

"And now how about that molasses flood?" She removed her hat and placed it on a chair. She smoothed her hair. "They're saying it was definitely the company's fault?"

Danny nodded. "Looks to be the case."

"The stench is awful still."

It was. Every brick and gutter and cobblestone crack in the North End held some residual evidence of the flood. The warmer it got, the worse it smelled. Insects and rodents had tripled in number, and the disease rate among children erupted.

The proprietor returned from the back and placed their coffees in front of them. "Qui andate, signore, signora."

"Grazie cosi tan to, signore."

"Siete benvenuti. Siete per avere cosi bello fortunato una moglie, signore." The man clapped his hands and gave them a broad smile and went back behind the counter.

"What did he say?" Nora said.

"He said it was a nice night out." Danny stirred a lump of sugar into his coffee. "What brings you here?"

"I was out for a walk."

"Long walk," he said.

She reached for the cup of sugar between them. "How would you know how long a walk it is? That would mean you know where I live."

He placed his pack of Murads on the table. Christ, he was fucking exhausted. "Let's not."

"What?"

"Do this back-and-forth."

432DENNIS LEHANE

She added two lumps to her own coffee and followed it with cream. "How's Joe?"

"He's fine," Danny said, wondering if he was. It had been so long since he'd been by the house. Work kept him away mostly, meetings at the social club, but something more, too, something he didn't want to put his fi nger on.