I pulled her into my arms and nuzzled her hair. “I don’t want to lose you either,” I said. I almost said, “I love you, too,” but the last time I’d said that was during the last month of my marriage, and it had been a lie. The words didn’t feel right in my mouth anymore.
“Have you thought about The Globe?” I asked. “If they hear The Post wants you, they’ll grab you in a second. Boston’s just fifty miles up the interstate. I could drive up every weekend. Maybe we could pool our money and get a box at Fenway.”
“Tell you what,” she said. “If you promise to think about The Post, I’ll promise to think about The Globe. Deal?”
“Yeah, okay.” I felt myself about to say something that wasn’t very romantic. “But if it ends up that you leave town and I stay, how about giving me your source as a going-away present?”
She sighed. “The one leaking me those grand-jury transcripts?”
“Yeah, that one.”
“He’ll never talk to you. He hates your guts.”
Aha! Her source was a he who hated my guts. On the other hand, that didn’t exactly narrow it down.
When I got back to my apartment, it was nearly midnight. I tried to read a Dennis Lehane novel, but the words kept blurring on the page. I couldn’t stop thinking about Veronica. Was there anything I could say to make her stay? I sat up wondering about that until four in the morning, but the little thug didn’t show. He didn’t come the next night either.
54
An attendant helped Gloria out of the wheelchair, wished her good luck, and wheeled it back through the electric doors. I took her good arm as she tottered a few feet to Secretariat. Off to our left, a man with his right arm in a cast raised his left to hail a cab. Gloria saw the arm come up and cowered, burying her face in my chest. Her physical wounds were healing, but the damage cut much deeper.
I held her for a moment, my hand cradling the back of her head. Then I helped her into the front passenger seat. She yelped as I drew the seat belt across her broken ribs. I walked around the front of the Bronco, got in the other side, and cranked the starter.
“You’re looking better.”
“No, I’m not.”
“It must feel good to get out of the hospital.”
“I have to go back.”
“I know.”
There would be another operation to repair the tendon and two plastic surgeries on her nose and right cheek. There was nothing more they could do for her right eye.
I pulled onto I-95 heading south, and we drove silently for a few miles, Gloria squinting through the windshield at an overcast Rhode Island morning.
“Mulligan?”
“Um?”
“It wasn’t your fault.”
“Yes, it was.”
“Did you get it?”
“I did. It’s in the glove box.”
She leaned forward, and the pressure from the seat belt made her yelp again. She opened the box and pulled out a canister of pepper spray.
“Thanks. What do I owe you?”
What does she owe me?
“Nothing, Gloria. Whoosh had a carton of them lying around, and he wanted you to have it. He would have given you a revolver, but I didn’t think that was a good idea.”
She raised her good hand, her thumb a cocked hammer and her index finger a gun barrel, mulling it over.
“You survived, Gloria. You beat him.”
“What if he comes back?”
“He won’t. He’s running for his life now.”
“Are they going to catch him?”
“They will.” The police hadn’t found a match for the fingerprints, but Gloria didn’t need to hear that. She needed to think justice was coming.
It started to rain as I cruised through Cranston on the interstate. When I flipped on the wipers, Gloria tensed. Then she began to moan.
“Oh, no. Oh, no. Oh, no.”
“What’s wrong, Gloria?”
“The rain!” Screaming now. “MAKE IT STOP!” She beat her good hand on the dash.
There was no place to pull over and nothing I could do to comfort her.
“Make it stop!”
As I turned onto the East Avenue exit in Warwick, it did. Gloria’s scream turned to a whimper as I drove a few miles to Vera Street and parked at the curb in front of the little yellow ranch house where she grew up. Her mother was waiting on the sidewalk to help me take her daughter into the house.
55
The lawyers who’d filed the incorporation papers had each signed their names with a self-important flourish of swirls and curlicues. It was easier to read the type below the signatures: Beth J. Harpaz, Irwin M. Fletcher, Patrick R. Connelly III, Yolanda Mosley-Jones, and Daniel Q. Haney.
I’d hoped to find that the same lawyer had filed for all five companies. That would have tied them together, given me something to go on. Instead, all my return trip to the secretary of state’s office had gotten me was five more names I’d never heard of. But I knew somebody who might recognize them.
I got to the newsroom shortly after noon and found Veronica sitting in her cubicle nibbling something green and leafy. I flipped my notebook open to the right page and dropped it on her desk.
“Take a look at these names and tell me if you know any of them.”
She stared at the page for a moment. “Sorry,” she said. “I don’t have the time for this. I’ve got to get to the courthouse. Word is the Arena indictment could be handed up today.”
She pushed herself up from her ergonomically correct desk chair, gave me a peck on the cheek, and headed for the elevators.
An investigative reporter must be resourceful. When the first source fails, he must find another. I opened my desk drawer and pulled out my secret file. Beth J. Harpaz, attorney at law, was listed in the Providence telephone directory.
“McDougall, Young, Coyle, and Limone. How may I direct your call?”
“Beth Harpaz, please,”
“May I ask your name and what this is regarding?”
“My name is Jeb Stuart Magruder. My wife of twenty-two years has taken a lesbian lover, and I wish to initiate divorce proceedings immediately.”
“I am sorry, sir, but Ms. Harpaz doesn’t handle divorce work. I suggest you try a smaller firm.”
I thanked her, hung up, opened the phone book, and started to look up the number for Daniel Q. Haney. Then I thought better of it and hit the redial button.
“McDougall, Young, Coyle, and Limone. How may I direct your call?”
“How ya doin’, sweetheart. I’m wondering if my good buddy Dan Haney is in this afternoon.”
“May I ask your name and what this is regarding?”
“Tell Danny that Chuck Colson is calling to make sure he’s not thinking of chickening out of our Saturday-morning golf date. He bet a grand that he can beat me, and I’ve already spent the money.”
“I see,” she said. “Hold a moment, please, and let me see if he’ll take your call.”
She put me on hold, and I hung up. I spent a couple of minutes practicing another telephone voice and hit redial.
“McDougall, Young, Coyle, and Limone. How may I direct your call?”
“Irwin M. Fletcher, please.”
“May I ask your name and what this is regarding?”
“This is James W. McCord. I need to speak with Mr. Fletcher immediately on a matter of some urgency.”
“I’m sorry, sir, but Mr. Fletcher is out of town on business. Perhaps someone else can assist you.”
“The prick’s never around when I need him,” I said, and hung up.
Ten minutes later, the redial button again.
“McDougall, Young, Coyle, and Limone. How may I direct your call?”
“Patrick Connelly, please.”