TWENTY-EIGHT
Boyle drank slowly and silently through happy hour. Buddy, Bubba, and Richard sat at the far end of the bar and drained a pitcher, their shoulders touching. Melvin Jeffers sang ballads softly through two gin martinis before walking out with a cheerful wave, and Happy knocked back several Manhattans as he dented a deck of Chesterfields. Ramon and Darnell stood in the kitchen, Ramon demonstrating his proficiency with a switchblade knife. I leaned against the call rack, my arms folded across my chest, moving occasionally to empty an ashtray or fill a pitcher. John Hiatt’s Bring the Family played through the house speakers.
By eight o’clock, Buddy, Bubba, and Richard were gone. Buddy had sneered on his way out, doing his Tasmanian-devil-with-stretch-marks walkont, and Bubba had followed, scratching his head. Happy had fallen asleep at the bar, a half-inch of hot Chesterfield wedged between his yellowed fingers. I phoned him a cab and walked him outside, and put the cab on his weekly tab.
When I returned, Boyle had gone to the head. I retrieved two bottles of Bud from the cooler and buried them in the ice chest. Darnell was in the kitchen placing dishes in the soak sink, his back to Ramon. Ramon touched his knife to Darnell’s back and pushed on the blade. Darnell turned with a balled fist. Ramon laughed and pursed his lips in a kiss, but stepped back. I poked my head in and asked them to keep an eye on the bar while I shot down to the basement for some beer.
The Spot’s dirt-floored basement was long and dusty and lit by a single naked bulb. I went down a narrow set of wooden stairs and walked through powdered poison. Rat tracks were etched in the powder, and the smell of death hovered in the room like a heat. I set up two cases of Bud and a case of Heineken on top of that and got under all of them, lifting with my knees. By the time I reached the top of the stairs and reentered the bar, a line of sweat had formed across my forehead.
Boyle was back on his stool, his hand around a mug of fresh draught. A Marlboro burned in the ashtray, next to the draught. I set the beer at the foot of the cooler and locked the front door.
I returned to the cooler and pulled out all the cold Buds and Heinekens. Then I ripped open the cardboard cases and stocked the warm beer on the bottom of the cooler, placing the cold beer back on top. I slid the cooler lid to the left, closing it. Boyle asked for another shot of Jack. I poured it, replaced the bottle on the shelf, walked back down to the deck, and slipped in Winter Hours’ EP, Wait till the Morning. The rumble of “Hyacinth Girl” came forward.
On the walk back toward Boyle I dimmed the rheostat and took the lights down in the bar. I pulled a Bud out of the ice by its neck and popped the cap. I set it on the bar next to a heavy shot glass and poured Grand-Dad. Boyle raised his glass and tapped it against mine.
“Here’s to you, Boyle.”
“And to you.”
I closed my eyes and felt the bourbon numb my lips and gums and the back of my throat. I waited for the warmth to fill my chest and followed it then with a deep pull of beer. The beer was cold and good, and a chip of ice slid down the neck and touched my hand as I drank. I placed the bottle back on the bar and bent down over the three sinks and began to wash the last of the night’s glasses.
Boyle said, “You ready to talk?”
I looked into the foamy wash sink as I plunged a collins glass over a black-bristled brush. “Go ahead.”
Boyle lit a cigarette and dropped the match into the ashtray. A wisp of smoke climbed off the match. “What you told me last night,” he said. “It was an awful lot to swallow. So I did some checking today, called in some favors, ran plates-the whole shooting match.”
“And?”
“Goloria was on the William Henry case from day one. Hrom whole shoe collected the evidence from the newspaper where Henry worked, and he buried it, and he probably bought or threatened a phony witness to testify to that ‘light-skinned man in a blue shirt’ crap. The Pie Shack arsons are all listed as electrical fires. Somebody got bought there too.”
“What about Wallace. She in on it?”
“I don’t think so. Goloria’s her hero, and they’re fuckin’ the hell out of each other-that’s no secret-but aside from her being a strange bird on the edge, that’s as far as it goes. Believe it or not, I think she’s an honest cop. She just happens to be in love with a disease.”
I finished grouping the clean glasses on the ridged drain area of the sink. Then I hung them upside down by their stems in the glass rack above the bar. I watched Boyle as I worked. He sipped his mash, and as he lifted his glass to his lips the lapels of his Harris tweed jacket spread apart. The stock of his Colt Python angled out from the shoulder holster lashed to his chest. A second holster hung empty below the opposite arm.
“Anything on Bonanno?”
Boyle put his glass down on the bar and switched his hand to the beer mug’s handle. “The plate numbers you gave me checked out. Both Lincolns are registered to the Olde World. Bonanno’s down as the owner. No criminal record on Bonanno locally, or on Frank Martin.”
“And Solanis?”
“He’s what you think he is. I called a DEA buddy of mine, on a hunch. Solanis was an enforcer in the Miami drug trade, and he’s on the Fed’s hot list. Took out an undercover cop.” Boyle’s skittish blues eyes settled on mine. “Knife job.”
I shook a cigarette out of Boyle’s pack. Boyle produced a Zippo from his jacket pocket and thumbed open its lid. I leaned toward the flame, hit it, and took in a drag that burned deeply into my chest. My smoke found his and drifted up through the misty cones of light that opened out from the lamps above.
“You tell your DEA buddy that Solanis was in town?”
“No.”
“How about the Metro cops?” Boyle shook his head and gave me a twisted smile. “Why not?” I said.
Boyle said, “You called me. Thought you might have something else in mind.”
I turned to the left and saw Darnell and Ramon, their heads framed in the reach-through, looking at Boyle. Ramon stepped away, and I watched him hand Darnell his closed knife, passing it palm to palm. Darnell slid the knife into his back pocket.
Ramon walked out of the kitchen, his coat in his hand. He nodded to me with his chin and walked to the front door. I let him out, locked the door behind him, and returned to the bar. I pointed to Boyle’s glass.
“You ready?”
“Yeah.”
I topped him off, then had a pull of Bud. “Island of Jewels” ’s ” clean guitar filled the room. Boyle ran a hand through his short dirty blond hair.
“What you got in mind, Boyle?”
Boyle smiled. “What you got in mind?”
“I’m not sure.” I looked at him carefully. “You said you’d help, and now I need it. I think you’re honest, and I think you’ve got a cast-iron set of nuts. And I think you’re a little bit crazy, Boyle.”
“Sure I am,” he said. “But how crazy are you?”
“I’m here,” I said, “and I’m listening.”
Darnell shut the kitchen light down and stepped out into the room. His kufi was tilted crookedly on his head, and he had folded his brown overcoat over his arm. He placed the overcoat on a stool and leaned his mantis arms on the service bar.
Boyle’s eyes shifted to Darnell, then to me. “Just you and me on this.”
“I want him to stay,” I said.
“He’s a con,” Boyle said.
Darnell said, “You got a problem with that, redneck?”
“ Do you?” I said.
Boyle smiled as he looked Darnell over. “He’s all right, you know it? I like this guy.”
I sipped bourbon and placed the shot glass on the bar. “Then let’s get to it.”
“Okay,” Boyle said. “Here it is. I can turn all this information over to the proper channels, and maybe something will shake out. Maybe they’ll bust Bonanno on a tax rap or even the arsons. Maybe Solanis will go down on the murder charge, but that’s a long shot too-you can believe the knife he used is long gone. And without that security guard, maybe Goloria will go up on charges, and maybe he’ll walk. A shitload of maybes.”