“No.”
“What’s Mike say?”
“He says he doesn’t know anything. Terry asked him to go along and hold a gun. He says they were supposed to take some girl out of there. Says he didn’t even know your name.”
“You believe him?” I said.
“I can’t turn him. We got him on attempted murder. I tell him if he’ll give us who sent him he can get a lot lighter charge.”
“And he stays with his story,” I said.
“Un huh.”
“Which means either it’s true, or whoever sent them is too scary to turn on.”
“Yep.”
“You have any theories?”
“I’m inclined to think he’s telling us everything he knows. He’s looking at serious time. I think he’d rat out Al Capone if it got him a deal.”
“You talked with Bucko Meehan yet?”
“Not yet, want to go with me?”
I looked at my watch. Ten-thirty. I had to be home by four, when Spike went to work.
“Sure,” I said.
We talked with Bucko Meehan at the far end of the counter in a Dunkin’ Donut shop across from Assembly Square in Somerville.
“Boston cremes,” Bucko said. “The best.”
I looked at the chocolate-covered things Bucko had in front of him and decided on a plain donut and a coffee. Brian just had coffee.
“You’re missing out,” Bucko said.
“I’m used to it,” Brian said. “Bucko Meehan, Sunny Randall.”
“How ya doin’?” Bucko said.
“Fine.”
Bucko was a fat muscleman. Hard fat, my father used to call it. He was obviously strong, but his neck disappeared into several chins. He was wearing a Patriots jacket over a gray sweatshirt. The sweatshirt gapped at the waist and his belly spilled out through the gap. The donut shop was empty, except for us and a couple of people at the take-out counter. A middle-aged Hispanic woman was taking their order.
“Whaddya need from me today, Brian?”
“Couple guys that hang with you got in some trouble,” Brian said.
“Who’s ‘at?”
“Terry Nee and Mike Leary.”
Bucko shrugged. The shrug didn’t say he knew them. It didn’t say he didn’t. People who’d spent a lifetime talking to cops learned, if they weren’t stupid, to find out what the cop knew before they admitted anything.
“What kinda trouble,” he said.
“Attempted murder.”
“Don’t know nothing about it,” Bucko said.
He broke one of his donuts in two. It had a creamy filling. He took a bite, and wiped his mouth with a napkin.
“I thought Terry was part of your crew,” Brian said.
“I got no crew.”
“You know Terry?” I said.
“See him around,” Bucko said.
“How about Mike Leary?”
“Don’t know him,” Bucko said.
“Terry run with anybody but you?” Brian said.
“Hell, Brian, I don’t know. Terry’s a good guy. He’s got a lot of friends.”
“He tried to break into a home in Fort Point,” Brian said. “And the homeowner shot him.”
“Terry?”
“Un huh.”
“He dead?”
“Un huh.”
“Terry’s a tough guy.”
“Not anymore,” I said.
“Who shot him?”
“Doesn’t matter,” Brian said.
“Housebreak?”
“He was there for a purpose,” I said. “If you didn’t send him there, maybe you can speculate who did.”
“Speculate? Jesus Christ, Sunny, I’m too fucking stupid to fucking speculate. What’s the other guy say?”
“Says you sent them,” Brian said.
“That lying sack of shit,” Bucko said. “I don’t even know the guy I got nothing to do with anything in Fort Point, for crissake. I don’t get east of Lechmere Square.”
“Maybe doing somebody a favor?” Brian said.
“I don’t know a fucking thing about it, Brian. Swear on my mother. Terry’s over in Fort Point doing a B & E, I got nothing to do with it. I don’t care what lies some guy is telling you.”
“Why would he lie?” I said.
“He’s trying to deal,” Bucko said. “You know the fucking game, Sunny. He’ll say whatever you want to hear.”
“And maybe he’ll say it in court about you, Bucko.”
Bucko spread his arms palms up.
“What can I tell you. I got nothing to do with whatever Terry and this other jamoke was doing.”
Brian nodded.
“How many times have you been up,” I said.
Bucko held up two fingers.
“Three would be a really unlucky number for you,” I said.
Bucko shrugged and made his palms-up gesture again. Brian and I stood up. Brian gave Bucko his card.
“You find out anything to help your case,” Brian said, “Give me a ringy dingy.”
“Thank you for the coffee,” I said.
When we were in Brian’s car again, I said, “Mike didn’t tell you Bucko sent him.”
“I lied,” Brian said.
“It’s a lie that might get Mike in trouble with Bucko,” I said.
“What a shame,” Brian said. “You believe Bucko?”
“He swore on his mother, didn’t he?”
“Oh, yeah, I forgot.”
He looked at his watch.
“That donut was enough,” he said, “or can you eat some lunch?”
“I could eat some lunch,” I said.
“Good.”
Chapter 27
Spike was dressed for work when I got home. Millicent was on the couch in Spike’s living room watching a talk show on television. Rosie rushed out of the living room when I opened the front door and chased her tail for a time before I picked her up and we exchanged kisses.
“I made her linguine with white clam sauce for lunch,” Spike said. “She hated it.”
“She’s just not an educated eater,” I said. “What did she have instead.”
“Crackers and peanut butter.”
Spike’s disgust was palpable.
“She’ll learn,” I said.
Spike took the big Army .45 from his hip pocket and handed it to me, butt first.
“Put that in my desk drawer,” he said.
I took the gun and Spike went out the front door and closed it behind him. I put the gun away and went into the living room. On television two fat women wearing a lot of makeup were screaming at each other. Between them sat a skinny guy with a sparse beard and long hair. He looked pleased. I shut it off.
“I was listening,” Millicent said.
“What are they fighting about,” I said.
“He’s married to one of them and cheating on her with the other one.”
“He got two women to sleep with him?” I said.
“I guess so.”
“You should never sleep with someone who can’t grow a beard,” I said.
“Why not?”
“Just sort of an anti-PC joke,” I said.
“What’s PC?”
“Politically correct,” I said.
“What’s that mean?”
I sat down and looked at her. Rosie jumped up and squeezed in beside me on the chair.
“I guess you could say it’s a set of humorless rules about speech and behavior articulated publicly and privately meaningless.”
“Sure,” Millicent said. “You ever have sex with somebody that had a bad beard?”
I laughed.
“Not that I can recall.”
“You have sex a lot?” Millicent said.
She was looking blankly at the inanimate television screen.
“Define ‘a lot,’” I said.
“You know, do you screw a lot of guys?”
“If I like a man I am happy to sleep with him,” I said. “But I don’t meet that many men that I like.”
“You have to like them?”
“Yep.”
“Why have sex at all?”
I thought about that for a minute. It wasn’t a question anyone had asked me in a while.