The Town: A Novel (26 page)

“See what I mean about surveillance?”

Dino watched his spacing and tried to take in the house at the same time. “Least he keeps it nice.”

“Oh, it’s not even his. He rents, or shares, I can’t tell. The house is in two names, a sister and a brother, Kristina Coughlin and James Coughlin.”

“Coughlin.”

“Heard the bells that time?”

“Like Christmas morning at the Vatican. Fathers and sons, huh? What a piece of work Jackie Coughlin Sr. was. I think—I
think
—he bought it falling out of a fourth-floor window or something, a B and E. Wouldn’t surprise me if he was pushed by his own partners.”

Frawley remembered the bumping he had received in the cellar bar of the Tap, having matched Coughlin’s foggy, more-white-than-blue eyes to his card in the Lakeville mugs. “Young Coughlin started with DUIs and race crimes in his teens and got more adventurous from there. By some miracle he’s stayed clean for the past thirty months. No arrests, even served out his parole. He and MacRay went down on a bank job together in 1983, still juvees. Amateur hour, Coughlin vaulting the counter, MacRay brandishing a nail gun.”

“Oh, that’s nice.”

“A .22-caliber construction gun loaded with staples. Guy’s got a temper. Couple of months before that, he’d gotten himself drummed out of the AHL for putting another player in the hospital.”

“In hockey you usually earn a bonus for that.”

“Guy he fought was on his own team.”

Dino snickered. “The happy-go-lucky type. What about Coughlin’s sister?”

“Sister? I don’t know. Haven’t even looked at her.”

They bottomed out on Medford and turned left. Dino said, “That makes three.”

“The fourth I’m doing a little conjecture on. We know—or almost know—at least we think that they don’t farm out their car jobs, because if they did, it’s a good bet we’d have had a snitch by now, or at least some whispering on the wind. Coughlin was picked up on a joyriding bid in ’90 or ’91 with an Alfred Magloan. On his own, Magloan is a convicted car thief and a member of Local 25, does some film-crew work as a driver.”

“That’s pretty comprehensive work for file-checking and part-time eyeballing there, Frawl.”

“I’m on them. My sense here is, they smell something. That’s why they’re staying clear of Elden. But I’m having enough trouble watching one, never mind all four. That’s why we’re in your car today.”

“You think you got made?”

Frawley was reluctant to admit it. “Just being real careful. I put in for a new Bureau vehicle, but that’s going to take some time.”

“You want me for some weekend duty.”

“Elden is the only one we’ve got the subpoena for, so I’m all for sticking with him. Build up some paperwork, make a case, grow it out from there.”

“What about this bank Elden’s been cruising? In Chestnut Hill.”

“I don’t know.”

“Come on. Speak.”

The Schrafft’s building came around the corner, the firehouse, Local 25’s headquarters. “Small neighborhood branch. Two exits—a busy parking lot and narrow Route 9. A small-time bank, ATM. I don’t see it.”

Dino signaled and turned back onto Bunker Hill Street, the opposite end, starting up toward the Heights. “So what’s he doing there then?”

“I hope not distracting us.”

M
Y
G
OD!” SHE SAID
, spinning around from the purple flowers she was planting in the ground.

“Hey,” said Doug.

“You
scared
me! Where did you come from?” She looked around like he might have brought a surprise party with him. “What are you doing here?”

Her smile made Doug forget who and what he was, made him forget everything. “I was in the area, thought I’d take a chance.”

She brushed at the browned knees of her jeans, as though he cared that they were dirty. “You spying on me?”

“Maybe just a little.”

“Well, stop it and come on in here.”

The gate catch was a simple wire loop. Inside, he stuck to the neat, S-shaped path of small, crunchy stones. A hello kiss would have come off too forced and awkward, too formal even. She stayed close to him as he looked around. A weathered wooden chest was open behind the bench, stocked with hand tools, fertilizer, Miracle Grow. “This is nice,” he said.

“Yeah, well.…” She surveyed it with the backs of her wrists curled against her hips. “My perennials are perennially frustrating, and my annuals are a semiannual disappointment. Oh, and the spearmint is strangling my phlox.”

“I thought I smelled gum.”

“Other than that—welcome to my little patch of heaven. I was just putting in some impatiens for color. If you want to wait, I’m almost done.”

“I’ll sit.”

His shoulders rustled some weeping-willow tendrils—and just like that he was sitting on her stone garden bench. He was in. He tried to see across to where he used to watch her from, but couldn’t make it out now.

She knelt on a foam pad, facing away from him, planting and patting the rest of the flowers in a bed of overturned dirt. The lilac band of her panties showed over the stressed belt of her jeans, panties he had once picked up off the Laundromat floor.

“This is a surprise,” she said.

“Time on my hands. I was in the area, and I remembered you raving about this place at dinner.”

“Right. Now—were you really in the area? Or did you sort of
put
yourself in the area?”

“I put myself here, definitely.”

She looked back at him over her shoulder with a smile. “Good.”

“Plus I’m a big fan of flowers.”

“I could tell.” She returned to them. “What’s your favorite kind?”

“Oh, lilac.”

She reached forward, patting the soil around a short stem in the manner of one tucking in a blanket around a baby. “You can see my underwear from there, can’t you.”

“It’s all right. I don’t mind.”

She didn’t straighten, didn’t cover up, a very simple, sexy thing, just letting it be. She finished and splashed some hose water on the beds and her own dirty hands, then packed away her tools, smoothed her hair back into a scrunchy, and took him for a stroll through the gardens.

“I have to tell you,” she said, twirling a green leaf by the stem as they walked, “I did a terrible thing yesterday.”

“What was that?”

“I watched a soap opera. Used to schedule my college classes around them. Anyway, there was this typically ridiculous scene where two people stand across the room from each other and talk, talk, talk, until the woman turns to the window, gazing off for her big close-up, sighing, ‘Why am I falling for you?’ It was so crazy and overblown, I was smiling when I turned it off. But then I got to thinking.” She glanced at him. “Why
am
I falling for you?”

“Wow,” he said, the words hitting him like booze.

“You’re not at all my type. My girlfriends, I’ve told them about you, and they think it’s just, like, big rebound. And I’m like—rebound from what? The robbery? I mean—are we that different? Really? I think we have more in common than we have differences.”

“Agreed.”

“We both love flowers.”

He laughed. “Right.”

“Anyway, my friends.” She shook her hands like she couldn’t express herself clearly. “I feel sort of estranged from them, I think maybe that’s what they’re picking up on. I have changed. I can feel it. They still have this, like, carelessness about them—which I sort of envy, but at the same time, I don’t really understand anymore. It’s scary to think that I might be, you know, leaving them behind.”

“Yeah,” Doug said, following this closely. “I think I know exactly what you mean.”

They turned the corner at a double-wide plot with pebble paths and a big bonsai tree. A barefoot Asian woman was practicing slow-motion, invisible-wall-pushing tai chi.

“But this, you and me—it’s happening too fast,” said Claire. “I don’t trust it. I think about you and I feel like… I can picture you in my mind for a second, but then you’re gone. It’s like I know you really well, but almost not at all. Like you’re not real—like I invented you, or you invented me, some Zen thing like that. Are you real, Doug?”

“I think so.”

“Because I can’t root you in anything. Charlestown, I guess, but that’s too vague. I don’t even have your phone number. I can’t call you. Or your address—no house to drive by and torment myself and wonder, ‘Is he home? Is he thinking about me?’”

“You mean you want references?”

“Yes! And a look at your driver’s license and another valid form of ID. I want to stand in your bathroom. I want five minutes alone in your closet. I want to know that you’re not just going to turn to smoke on me someday.”

“I’m not.”

“And fine, I know this is stupid, it’s only been two dates. I
know
that I’m crazy, okay? But I can’t help this feeling that there’s something…” She shook her head, throwing the leaf to the dirt path. “Are you married?”

Doug sputtered. “You said
married
?”

“Can’t you see—you’re making me ask!
Making
me embarrass myself here.”

“Married?”
he said, wanting to scoff and laugh at the same time.

“I need to know that there’s water in the pool. Even if—okay, fine, even if I’ve already jumped, I still want to know whether or not there’s water in the pool.”

“There’s—there’s water in the pool,” he said, confused.

“We could go to your apartment. You could show me where you live.”

He started to say no.

“Five minutes.” She showed him that many fingers, growing frantic. “So I can
plant
you somewhere in my mind, so you’re not this, this sandman. I met you in a
Laundromat,
Doug MacRay. It is Doug MacRay—right?”

He couldn’t give in here, and she slowed along the path, hands falling to her sides. “See, this is—now my mind is filling with possibilities.”

“Whoa, what? Like centerfolds all over the walls or something? Dirty laundry hanging from the ceiling fan?”

“That’s…
minimum
.”

“I am not married.” That time he did laugh, angering her.

“Neither am I,” she said. “So far as you know.”

“My place—” He stopped himself. “I was going to blame it on my neighbors, but that’s not true, it’s me, all me. See, I’m making some changes in my life”—Doug was hearing this himself for the first time—“and my place—that’s the old me. Something I’m trying to fix.”

She jumped on that. “But I want to see—”

“The old me? No, you don’t. Would you want me poking around your college dorm room to find out about you now?”

“But, wait—”

“Listen. I just grew up. Just a little while ago. The day I met you, maybe. Already, I’ve turned over so many bad cards for you.”

“And I’m still here.”

“And you’re still here. So what I’m asking for now is, please—let me work on trying to impress you for a change. Please.”

She nodded, unconvinced.

Doug made a pretend move for his wallet. “I have a license and a Blockbuster card.”

“Just tell me, Doug.” She reached out and gripped his wrists. “Tell me if I’m making a mistake. I will still make the mistake. That’s no problem. I just want to know now.”

“I’m saying there is no—”

“Aaah!”
Her tiny scream startled a nearby family of ducks. She pulled on his arms, staring into his eyes. “Yes or no. Am I making a mistake here, or not?”

Doug looked down at her hands manacling his wrists. He knew what he wanted to say, and he knew what she was waiting for him to say. All he had to do was say it.

“No.”

She stared hard, then let go of him, pointing a finger at his chest. “You promised.”

Doug nodded. “Okay.”

A bird fluttering to a nearby trellis caught her eye, and she watched it peck at some vines, softening her mood a bit. “So much agitation around me these days,” she said. “Stuff swirling. But with you, when I’m alone with you—there’s a silence, there’s peace. You make all that other stuff go away.” The bird disappeared to a high branch. “But again—whether any of this is real or not, I have no idea.”

“Maybe if we just stop talking about it. Maybe if we just let it be.”

“I’m not looking for a guarantee. Just good faith.”

Doug nodded, feeling better about it now himself. “And that’s what I gave you.”

She relented then, turning to start back, one hand finding its way to the pocket of her jeans, the other into his hand. “Do you think that was our first fight?”

“Was it?”

“Maybe just my first freak-out.”

Relief filled him like breath. “Our first
discussion,
maybe.”

“That’s it, a
discussion
.” She swung their joined hands a little. “I don’t even think true fights are possible between a couple until sex enters the equation.”

“Yeah,” said Doug at first. “Wait. Is that a vote for fighting, or… ?”

“A relationship filled only with firsts. Wouldn’t that be the best? No past, no history to worry about, things moving too fast. You and me up on the rooftop, over and over again. Everything light and new.”

“We could do that.”

“Could we? Every date our first?”

“Why not?” He let go of her hand. “Hey, I’m Doug.”