"Yes."
Is that helpful?
"Depends. If we can come up with another slug, they might be able to tell they came from the same batch and maybe even the same weapon. On the other hand, there haven't been any more notes since the shots were fired."
What about the gay man who…
"He's been doing pretty well, I think. He left a message for me to call him early this week. I've tried three times since, but his answering service says he's out of the office for a few days. The professor isn't due back from the West Coast till April, so everything else is kind of on hold for another month."
Does that mean you and Nancy can enjoy the parade today at Chuck's house?
"I will. Nancy's working on a murder one, which means we're just going to have dinner together afterward at my place."
So you're going to the party stag?
"Not exactly."
Not exactly?
"There's somebody I think could use some cheering up."
Inés Roja tugged on the bottom of her green sweater. "I have never seen a St. Patrick's Day parade."
I inched the Prelude through the traffic just east of the veterinary clinic. "I thought New York staged a pretty big one?"
"I never knew anyone to go with before."
The last time I'd checked in with Roja about notes and Maisy Andrus, the secretary had apologized for not being more available. She'd been putting in extra time with the vet because another volunteer had been sick. I'd asked her if that included Sundays. Inés said yes, but just in the morning. Knowing Nancy couldn't make it, I'd insisted over Roja's protestations that I'd be over to get her. At noon, in green.
I said, "Nice sweater."
Inés looked at me solemnly, as if to see if I was kidding. Apparently satisfied, she said, "Filene's Basement. A wonderful place."
I persuaded two barricades of cops to let us through on the strength of the address printed on our invitation. Chuck was born into the Lithuanian enclave in South Boston, his dad a marine wounded on Guadalcanal. Chuck left the city, making his fortune by wise investments. He returned to buy a huge white house occupying one of the few large pieces of land in Southie. A piece of land at the intersection where the parade wheels ninety degrees.
A big Irish flag in green, white, and orange rippled in the breeze over Chuck's front door. I parked the Prelude in his long driveway. As I killed the engine, Roja said, "Please don't leave me alone with people."
"I won't."
As it turned out, Inés was the hit of the party, a mixture of fifty or sixty people, only half of whom were descended from the Emerald Isle. We ate superb corned beef, drank enough Harp to float a PT boat, and got tours of the renovated house from Chuck himself, a rangy guy in a chartreuse shirt and cowboy hat. I took some good-natured ribbing about Nancy and heard Inés laugh for the first time, a merry, musical sound.
A whoop spread through the first floor, a lead element of the parade just reaching our corner. We joined the others carrying green beer and stronger spirits into the cold. Standing on the lawn, everyone applauded the bands and toasted the heroes and jeered the politicians. In between targets there were good stories and silly jokes and painful attempts to affect a brogue.
Back inside, folks opted for coffee and soft drinks to dilute the alcohol. As the party broke up around five, Inés and I said good-bye to Chuck, she helping me jockey the Prelude around the couple of cars that were staying later.
Stopping for a traffic light on Summer Street, Inés made a purring noise, then gave a tempered version of the merry laugh. "That was a wonderful party, John."
"It's a good time."
"The parade. You went to it every year?"
"When I was in the city. Even during Vietnam, when there wasn't much support for things military, the parade was a big thing because every block in the neighborhood had somebody in the service, many of them overseas."
"Tell me, from when you were a little boy, do you remember the parade the same way?"
"No, not really. I remember it being bigger and sharper and better. But I think that's just a function of growing up."
"Yes. Yes, you are right. We remember as better the things from when we were young."
I was about to keep the conversation going when I noticed a tear running down Roja's left cheek. I turned back to the windshield and watched the traffic instead.
At the Andrus house I pulled onto the sidewalk and came around to open the passenger door.
Inés got out and stood tall, still blinking away tears. Looking up into my eyes, she said, "That was the best time I have had in many years, John. If only…"
At which point Roja shook her head and pushed past me, fumbling out a key to open and close the front door as fast as she could.
"You didn't have enough at Chuck's?"
I took the wineglass from Nancy's hand. "Just carbos so far today."
" 'Carbos'?"
"Bread and beer."
"I hope you're learning more about running than you have about nutrition." She pushed the sleeves of a cowl-necked sweater up to her elbows. Topping off her glass, she raised it. "To St. Patrick?"
"Not after work kept you from the party. How about 'To forever'."
Nancy clinked her glass against mine with that half smile that makes a little ping in my chest. "To forever."
A minute later I had two hands on the steak tray, aiming it for the oven, when the phone rang in the living room.
"Nance, can you get that?"
"Sure."
I centered the steaks and flipped the dial to Broil. I was just setting the timer when Nancy's head came around the corner, minus the smile.
"It's Del Wonsley."
27
THE MEDICAL FACILITY WAS ONE I'D NEVER HEARD 0F, TUCKED away in the Longwood Avenue area near Brigham's and Women's Hospital. I found the right floor and suite, but the door was closed.
"John."
I turned around as Del Wonsley got up from a tub chair. Closing the current Newsweek, he looked bushed. "Thank you for coming. It'll only be a minute. They're… treating just now."
"What happened?"
Wonsley dropped the magazine onto the seat behind him. "AIDS leaves you open for a lot of complications. The diabetes is playing yo-yo with his waking hours. Usually these things are pretty predictable, but this episode is lasting longer than the others. So, Alec wanted to be sure to see you."
Wonsley read my face and managed a smile. "No, no. I think he's going to pull through this time. Weaker, but he'll make it. It's just that in seeing you now, Alec is playing the percentages?
"Is there anything I can do?"
"Be straight with him. No hearts and flowers. Just talk business or whatever, like he was laid up with a broken leg and had to meet people here as an inconvenience."
The suite door opened. A black female nurse with a round face came out. She held a metal pan, discreetly shrouded by a towel to conceal the contents. An East Indian female doctor followed the nurse and beckoned to Wonsley. They moved off to talk, Wonsley coming back as the doctor continued briskly on her way.
"You can go in now, John. But only a few minutes, all right?"
"Come get me if I overstay my welcome."
Wonsley went back to the chair.
I knocked, heard something, and went in.
They would have to invent a new kind of bleach to make the sheets whiter than his face.
Alec Bacall nodded to me, one fist compressing a little sponge ball. The arm had a clear plastic tube in it, some not-so-clear liquid pulsing downward and into him. I moved closer.
His eyes strained from the sockets, sunken and shriveled. The flesh sagged at his jawline, bruises of purple and blue providing the only color on the bed. I'd seen Bacall at his office in January, eight weeks before. Given the changes, it could have been eight years.
"Alec."
He nodded again. "I'd say sit, but Del probably told you not to stay that long."