“Broken?”
“No.”
“Too bad.”
He flagged Marie down, and we sat quietly as she fetched him another beer. Who says cops can’t drink on the job?
“Well,” he said, “what you got isn’t much. Doesn’t prove a damn thing. But it is a lead, and we don’t have many. What do I have to do to get my hands on those pictures?”
I pulled the envelope back out of my jacket, slid out the best picture of Mr. Rapture, and laid it on the table between us. I kept my hand on it and looked at him hard.
“I’m going to give you just this one,” I said, “but there is a condition.”
“I’m listening.”
“You didn’t get it from me, and we never had this conversation.”
“Figured it was something like that.”
“Deal?”
“Deal.”
Polecki drained his beer, picked up the picture, and hauled himself to his feet.
“Hold on a minute. You don’t have many? Is that what you said?”
“Huh?”
“Leads, Polecki. You said you don’t have many. That means you must have some, right?”
He sat back down and said, “Why should I tell you?”
“I gave you something. Your turn to give me something.”
“This ain’t Let’s Make a Deal, asshole.”
“Look at it this way. If Mr. Rapture turns out to be the guy, I just cracked the case for you. But until we know, I’m going to keep digging, and some of the people who talk to me aren’t ever gonna talk to you.”
He stared hard at me for a minute.
“If you learn something you’ll call me?”
“Called you today, didn’t I?”
He sat silently for a moment, fiddling with the gold wedding band he still wore. Maybe because he still loved her. Maybe because the extra pounds he’d packed on made it impossible to get it off.
“Off the record?” he said.
“Absolutely.”
“ ’Cause I don’t wanna be reading this in the fuckin’ paper.”
“You won’t be.”
“Okay, Mulligan. We’re lookin’ at a retired fireman, an old fart who has nothing better to do than hang around the Mount Hope Firehouse every afternoon and get in everybody’s way. Likes to show up at fires and hand out coffee to the crew.”
Oh, shit. That sounded like Jack.
“Anything solid makes you thing it’s him?”
“Nothing yet, but his alibi sucks. Claims he’s home alone every night watching cop shows and FOXNews. ’Stead of being helpful and answering our questions, he got all indignant when we braced him. Roselli’s got a hunch this is our guy. Me, I’m not so sure. But he does seem the type.”
“How’s that?”
“Lives alone. Something of a loser. Spent thirty years in the department and never got a promotion. And somebody who used to put out fires would know how to set them.”
“You think an ex-fireman would do this?”
“You got any idea how many arsonists turn out to be firemen or former firemen?
“How many?”
“I don’t know, but it’s a lot. Some of ’em do it because they get to be heroes when they put the fires out. Some do it because they love fighting fires with their buddies. Some of them are probably just fuckin’ nuts.”
“So what’s this guy’s name?”
“Uh-uh. You’re not getting that from me. With what I gave you, you can figure it out for yourself.”
Polecki hauled himself to his feet again, Marie calling “Come back and see us” as he headed out. I sat alone for a few minutes, then walked to the door, pushed it open, and studied the street.
It wasn’t being seen coming out of Good Time Charlie’s that worried me; it was being seen with Polecki. By giving him the picture of Mr. Rapture, I’d strayed way over the line. Reporters don’t feed info to cops. Some of us go to jail for contempt rather than answer subpoenas. We have to be loners to do our jobs right. Guys like Zerilli would never talk to us if we smelled like rats.
I’d given Polecki more than a photo. I’d handed the better half of Dumb and Dumber something he could hold over me if he had enough functioning brain cells to recognize it. If he ever told Lomax what I’d done, I’d have to find myself a tin cup and stock up on pencils. But I’d rather be unemployable than have another innocent victim on my conscience.
23
At the Mount Hope firehouse, I asked for Rosie and learned she’d left for the day. In the mess room, a half dozen firefighters were sitting on mismatched chairs at a yellow Formica table, watching Lieutenant Ronan McCoun slide a pan of lasagna out of the oven.
“Jack Centofanti around?” All that got me was angry stares.
I looked at McCoun and raised an eyebrow.
“The old goat’s not here,” he said. “We told him he ain’t welcome here no more.”
I got back in the Bronco, drove to Camp Street, and parked in front of number 53, a grotesque Victorian that had been built as a single-family home more than a hundred years ago. Now, twelve doorbells pocked the front door jamb. They didn’t work, but it didn’t matter. I gave the door a push, it groaned open, and I stepped into a hallway littered with cigarette butts and junk mail.
I climbed the stairs, careful not to trip on the loose rubber treads or put any weight on the rickety banister. Jack’s place was on the second floor at the end of a dimly lit hallway. The brass numbers on the heavy maple door said 23, with the 3 coming loose and hanging upside down. I raised my hand and knocked.
“It’s open.”
I turned the knob and found Jack sitting in a stuffed armchair, his bare feet on a matching hassock and a tumbler in his hand. Beside the chair, a half-empty bottle of Jim Beam rested on a mahogany piecrust table. The room lights were off, and the last light of a dying day seeped feebly through half-closed Venetian blinds. The glow from the tabletop TV, tuned to FOXNews with the sound all the way down, was washing Jack’s face blue. I snapped the switch by the door, the ceiling light came on, and he squinted from the shock of it, raising his left hand to cover his eyes. Now I could see that he’d placed the bottle on a crocheted doily to protect the tabletop.
“Liam? Madonna, it’s good to see you, boy.”
“Good to see you too, Jack.” He, Rosie, and my relatives were the only people allowed to call me Liam.
“Sit. Sit. My place is your place.”
As I settled into a matching chair across from him, I noticed he hadn’t shaved in a few days.
“You wanna drink, right?”
“Love one.”
He got up and limped into the kitchen, the belt from his terry-cloth robe dragging on the floor behind him. I heard water run in the sink. He returned with a wet tumbler in his hand, thrust it at me, sat back down, and passed the bottle.
“So how ya been?”
“I’m fine, Jack.”
“Your beautiful sister? She good?”
“Meg’s great. Teaching school in Nashua. Got her own house in the suburbs. Got married last summer to a nice girl from New Haven.”
“Merda!” He stared at me a moment, then snorted. “Well, if that’s your idea of great, then I guess it’s okay with me too. What about Aidan? You two still not talking?”
“I’m talking. He’s not.”
“Must make it hard to have a conversation.”
“It does.”
“I never did like Dorcas.”
“I know.”
“Pazza stronza. A real rompinalle.”
Crazy bitch. A real ball-breaker. The closest Jack had ever been to Italy was the three-cheese-and-meatball pizza at Casserta’s, but he’d mastered the art of cursing in Italian.
“I’ll never understand what the two of you saw in her, Liam. I told Aidan when she married you that he was the lucky one.”