Onstage, Senator Callaghan was describing Commissioner Harrison as a “great American,” “civic treasure,” and “courageous crimefighter.” Forget the hemlock and give me a noose. I couldn’t take even another minute of this oral flatulence.
I mean, don’t get me wrong. Harrison was a good enough cop, I’m sure. At least the city never seemed ready to tilt out of control under his leadership. But my God, politicians laying it on thick for other politicians — that I’ve always found to be an unseemly sight.
Across the room, I noticed that Mac Foley had settled into another table and was talking intently to yet another cop in a navy blazer and loosely knotted tie. I think they were talking about me. I think this because at one point, the jackass Foley was talking to pointed right at me and Foley said what looked to be “That’s him.” I don’t think they were trying to pick out the guy in the crowd with the most defined abs. This was most definitely strange.
From the podium, all I heard was more blah-blah-blah, and then amid the white noise and nothingness, I heard a word — or maybe it was a phrase — that struck a nerve. It was as if someone had just slapped me across the face. I quickly dialed back into Stu Callaghan, thinking I must have misunderstood something that he had said.
“…when the city was in crisis, and he was the one to bring order to it all by cracking that case open like an egg, saving lives and creating calm. He put the Phantom Fiend behind bars for the rest of his dangerous life…”
My package. My tip. My note. I looked reflexively toward Mac Foley, who happened to be looking directly back at me, a stern look now, his brow furrowed, his eyes cold. He quickly averted his gaze.
When he did, I got up out of my seat in that crouched way you do when you’re trying to be unobtrusive. The crowd was applauding the senator, who was paying tribute to the commissioner. As I slid past Mongillo, I noticed that he was most definitely not clapping. “I’ll see you tomorrow morning,” I whispered to him. And I was gone. The night had paid off in the oddest way.
5
Once in a cab on Arlington Street, I belted out the number to the Record morgue, which isn’t really a morgue at all, even if the people in it can seem half-dead some of the time. No, it’s journalese for the newspaper library. I asked them to check again what I had already failed to find, which was any reference to the term Phantom Fiend in our computer database of Record stories.
“Where to?” the cabdriver asked as I flipped the telephone shut.
Good question. I checked my watch — ten o’clock — and thought about how the plane I was supposed to be aboard with Maggie Kane was just touching down in Los Angeles. The plan had been to spend our wedding night at Raffles L’Ermitage in Beverly Hills before grabbing an early-morning connection to Hawaii and enjoying a blissful week of sun and sex at a world-class resort.
And here I was, the brokenhearted pen pal to a possible murderer, sitting in the back of an idling cab with what smelled like a quasi-eaten Big Mac in a discarded bag on the floor.
But back to the question at hand: Where to? My head hurt. My muscles ached. I felt like the entire world was a crowded elevator ride, only the elevator was broken and we were all standing still, looking at the numbers above the doors, frozen in time and place.
“The Hatch Shell, please. Over on the Esplanade.”
The cabdriver, an older gentleman with a graying ponytail, turned and looked at me for the first time. “Excuse me?” he asked, not so much curious as incredulous.
“You know, the Hatch Shell. The Fourth of July concert and all that. ‘Stars and Stripes Forever.’ ”
“You’re aware that this is March twenty-first, right, not the fricking Fourth of July?”
I replied, “Can you roll the window down? Now that I’m with you, I might as well fling my Palm Pilot away.”
Truth is, I didn’t actually use a Palm Pilot, but still thought the line was pretty good. He didn’t. Rather, he turned back around with something of an eye roll and a huff, and lurched away from the front doors of the Ritz, bound for Storrow Drive.
You see, I had an idea, one that involved exercise for the body and therapy for the mind. My gym was closed at this hour, so that option was taken off the table. Last time I shot baskets at the court near my waterfront condominium, someone nearly shot me, so I preferred not to do that. I was indulging in the next best thing.
My phone rang. It was Howard from the Record library.
“I’m getting no hits off the phrase Phantom Fiend,” he said. He said this in a voice so soft and a tone so flat that I had to wonder if he was taking this morgue nickname to an unhealthy extreme.
I thanked him. He returned to his coffin or wherever it is that he goes between pesky calls from reporters. I looked up as the cabdriver was pulling off Storrow Drive into a little parking area next to the famed Hatch Shell, an open-air stage that sits hard by the Charles River in downtown Boston.
“Where?” he asked, not very polite now.
“Here’s fine.” I paid him as if this was the most normal destination in the city, and casually got out of the car. He pulled back into traffic. I took a minute to let my eyes adjust to the dark.
The wind was blowing downriver from the west, colder than I had anticipated, but invigorating just the same. To my left was the lawn where thousands upon thousands of people would cram in with coolers, baskets, and blankets for the annual Fourth of July concert and fireworks celebration. At the moment, it was dark and empty, the grass still brown and spare from a long, snowy winter. To my right was the stage that would be filled with the Boston Pops Orchestra on that same holiday night. Now it was vacant and forlorn, looking like the open mouth of a ventriloquist’s dummy abandoned in the corner of a dark bedroom. I bundled my overcoat around myself and set off toward the water.
With each step, the traffic noise of the roadway faded, and the sounds of my wingtips on the gravelly pavement grew more pronounced. I felt my muscles start to twitch with adrenaline. I felt my head begin to lighten with the anticipation of exercise.
I approached the old brick edifice of the Union Boat Club, a rare building on the miles-long expanse of the Esplanade, which is the local name for the grassy bank of this storied river. I pulled my key chain from my pocket and fidgeted beneath a floodlight for the right key. I put it inside a rusty lock on a rickety knob, pushed the door open, and stepped inside.
The smell was one of all-encompassing mustiness, like another year, a different season, had sat here frozen in time. I flicked a wall switch and an overhead light came on, illuminating a small, barely furnished office. I had taken up rowing the year before, and the club was nice enough to accept me as a member in good standing.
I opened yet another door and walked into a vast, dark space. Again, I flicked a wall switch and the large storage garage lit up, revealing stacks of sculling boats hanging on all four walls, as well as piles of weathered oars.
I yanked open the garage door, which made more noise than I expected, carried the shell down to the nearby dock, and returned to the building. I grabbed a couple of oars, wriggled into a life vest, donned an old down parka that had probably been hanging on a peg since the first Roosevelt administration, and headed back to the dock.
Let’s not kid around here: it was cold out, and given that I had just taken up the sport of crew, I had never been on the water in this kind of weather. For that matter, I had never been on the water this deep into a dark night. But the moon was bright and the sight lines were good and I’d heat up within the down jacket as soon as I began rowing. The wingtips might be a little awkward, but hey, life’s a little bit awkward most of the time.