Right To Die

"Won't matter to old Beef."

"Thanks again, Lieutenant."

"One more thing."

"Yes?"

"You'd best visit a bank somewheres first."

***

"Pass the Worcestershire, will ya?"

"Sure."

"And maybe some more of that A-1 too."

I put both bottles in front of Neely. He spritzed the Worcestershire on his second cut of prime rib. The meat lapped two inches a side over the platter.

Victoria Station was done in a railroad car motif. It was the one restaurant Neely had said would have prime rib for sure, that time of afternoon. I had offered to cab it, but he said, "It'll look better, I sign out a unit." We were the only people in the room except for our waitress, and even she left, probably to call Central Supply and tell them to butcher another dozen head for the third course.

"My hand to God, I love this joint."

At least, I think that's what Neely said.

"They got – " The tongue wasn't quite quick enough to catch a dribble of jus cascading down his chin and onto his tie. Which was wider than the napkin he'd cornered into his collar. '

"They got real food here, you know? The kinda stuff we fought wars to eat."

Neely had stopped the beer after one stein, switching to tonic water. About six feet tall, counting crew cut, I couldn't even guess his weight. The knot of his tie was only an article of faith under the jowls. He rocked his head after every third or fourth bite, as though he were positioning the food to slide down a different chute. Small eyes were squinched up under the brows, a piece of toilet paper on a shaving cut near his right ear.

Neely generously rested his knife to point at my salad bowl. "That all you're eating?"

"Diet," I said.

He nodded like he'd heard the word but never studied the language that spawned it. I waited until he finished the slab and was tricking with the little veins of meat marbled in the fat.

"Neely?"

"Uh-huh."

"About these threats?"

"Yeah, sure. What about them?"

"What do you think?"

"Think." He put down his utensils, rolled his rump as if to fart, then just wallowed deeper into the booth. "I think this broad's asked for it, what I think."

"Can you tell me what you found out on the notes'?"

"The notes? Jesus, everybody but Jimmy Hoffa handled the things and the envelopes before the little secretary brought 'em in to me. Even so, I followed routine. Had 'em run through the lab."

"You take elimination prints from Andrus's people?"

"Nah. Just sent the notes on through. They even did that Sherlock thing, the computer search out to 1010 Commonwealth there?"

Neely suddenly straightened a little. "Look, Cuddy, I'm no brain trust, but I know what's what, okay? I keep up with things the best I can. The staties didn't find no match with any of the prints they got on file."

"I give you some names, will you run them through too?"

"See if anybody's got a sheet?"

"Yes."

"Sure, I'll do that. Sure." He rifled his pockets for a pad and pen. I gave him O'Brien, Doleman. and Yary from the threat files, then Walter Strock as well.

Neely scratched his forehead. "Strock?"

"Something?"

"Not sure. I'll run it. You got social security numbers on any of these guys?"

"No."

"How about D.O.B.s?"

"Just the addresses."

"Even so, gonna get a hell of a list for the O'Brien, although thank Christ it ain't 'John' or 'James,' computer'd be burping all fuckin' night. I'll still give it a try for you."

The waitress came over with a bowl of salted peanuts. Neely thanked her, his fingers plowing through the nuts like the blades of a backhoe.

He said, "Anything else you need?"

I decided to follow Murphy's advice. "You get many of these threat things, Neely'?"

"Aw, you know how it is. Runs in cycles. Broad like this Andrus, though, she probably could hire a stevedore, haul them away for her."

I told him about the drawerful of folders.

"That's my point. I get one of these, I end up chasing after scumbags write the kinda fan mail you wouldn't wish on Geraldo there. Jesus, Cuddy, every day some shithead sees somebody new on the tube, he decides to make the lady his personal project, you know? Guy can barely read the labels in a Seven-Eleven writes a love poem. I then jerks off into the envelope before he licks it. Whaddaya gonna do?"

"Okay if I follow up on the names? Go talk to them?"

"Fine. Let me just tell you, think about what you want to have happen here."

"What do you mean?"

"Start with the Secret Service, okay?"

The Secret Service. "Okay."

"Now, they got thousands of guys, no shit, got nothing better to do than guard a couple of big shots like the President and all, maybe total with the Kennedy kids and Truman's widow, total twenny, twenny-five."

The Kennedy children were now over-age, and Mrs. Truman left us in the early eighties, but I didn't want to wreck Neely's train of thought.

"And even the Secret Service can't keep track of all the scumbags writing letters and making phone calls. The calling, I gotta admit, that's gonna slow down some, now they got these computers, you can see the number the guy's at with this little screen thing on your phone there. 'Course, soon's the scumbag union finds out about the screens, they'll just call from some pay phone and a different one every time.

"But your letter-writing scumbags, now, they're different. All's you got is the handwriting and the postmark and maybe, just maybe, the saliva or cum juice or whatever the fuck other fluid they leave on the envelope, right? Only there's got to be enough of that for some other kind of test that even 1010 don't do but has to farm out. So, you see what I'm saying here?"

"Even with better physical evidence, not much chance of actually tracing the sender."

"Right, right. And not only that. What does your client really want?"

"Want?"

"Yeah. She want the scumbag to just stop or she want him hung by the balls too?"

"Probably both."

"Yeah, well, probably the best you're gonna be able to do for her is scare him off. Even if you catch the guy in the act somehow, what's a judge gonna do with him? Twenty days down to Bridgewater for observation in the rooms with the cushy walls? Shit, we're letting real bad dudes walk now, there ain't enough cells in all the slams to hold 'em."

"Good point."

"Yeah. Hey, look, I don't wanna come across like some lug, got no feelings. Jesus, I was the one getting these notes, especially the one by hand in the mailbox there, I'd be jumpy as a pregnant nun too. It's just, even if you do the best you can here, it ain't gonna be that much."

"Listen, Neely, I appreciate your being so open with me on all this."

"Don't mention it." He seemed to sniff something in the air. "Say, you pressed or we got time for dessert?"

8

WHEN WE FINALLY LEFT VICTORIA STATION, I ASKED NEELY TO drop me off in South Boston. The weather was bell clear, and I hadn't made a visit since Thanksgiving.

I bent over stiffly, laying the bunched poinsettias lengthwise to her.

You getting old on me?

"No."

John, you're creaking.

"Finally decided to try the marathon, Beth."

What, the Ironman Triathalon was already booked up?

"You're supposed to be supportive of a poor widower rising to a cha1lenge."

Even when he's being stupid?

I looked down at the shoreline, the chop smacking against the foot of her hillside. Half a mile out, a Coast Guard cutter was knifing its way toward the harbor. During every season, the cod boats have to be watched over and the drug smugglers watched for.

Something besides the marathon's on your mind.

"Tommy Kramer approached me to help a professor who's getting threatened."

And?

"The professor is a woman who pushes for the right to die."