"I know you."
"I want your name. Tell me your name."
"No," Crease said.
There was always a problem with talking too much, even if you only did it to squeeze a little entertainment out of the situation for yourself. You got to chattering and pretty soon the others started believing you weren't going to do anything more. You were all talk. It gave them time to quell their nerves and pump themselves up again. Crease knew he should shut up, but he couldn't help himself. Talking to Jimmy was scratching a few places deep inside him that he hadn't fully realized he still had.
He could see these four on the streets of New York, swaggering downtown in the East Village. Looking for a place to get a brew and the first spot they hit is a gay bar. They walk in and see two guys holding hands and suddenly they need to start bashing in order to prove to each other they didn't want to take bubble baths together. They'd get half an insult out before they got their asses kicked.
Crease sighed again.
Another Jimmy said, "Answer the man. The man wants an answer. You should give him one. You're being rude."
"What's that?"
"You're being very disagreeable!"
It got Crease grinning. He thought, That's the worst the guy can say? That I'm disagreeable?
Another Jimmy said, "Yeah, who do you think you are? You coming around here causing all kinds of trouble. Irritating our friend. Screwing around with his girl. Asking sick questions. We don't like people who ask sick questions around here."
Jimmy with the. 32 said, "Don't make us do something we don't want to do."
"Like what?" Crease asked.
"Like what we don't want to do."
"Yeah, but what is it you don't you want to do?"
"We don't want to do something you might make us do!"
"What am I making you do?"
"Just get in your car and get out of here. Or else you might make us-"
Taking a step forward and getting back in line with the others Jimmy Devlin said, "Just stay away from Rebecca. She's my girl."
"You sure about that?"
"You don't know her, you don't know who you're dealing with. You got no idea what she's all about." He let out that laugh again, the one from the old days. "You should've listened to me when I was talking to you the other night. She'll spit you out. I love her. You can't handle her."
Crease heard that laugh and everything that went along with it, the sound of the Camaro's engine kicking into fourth gear. The tires squealing down Main Street, the smash of the beer bottle. His old man saying, "Take cover."
The four Jimmys moved up another step, the two on the ends easing out in a wide spread, cutting off any exit. All of them dropping their shoulders, shifting their weight. They were on the front line. Coach had them by the birdcage. They probably saw bleachers around them all the time, girls waving in the stands. Talent scouts taking notes.
They were stupid and they would be easy, but the chances were high that at least one of them would get hurt badly. Or somebody would get a lucky punch in. Crease couldn't afford to be off his game when it came to the final drop with Tucco. He didn't need any more trouble right now. Not when the real thing would be coming along soon enough.
Crease said to Jimmy Devlin, "Let me get this straight, okay?"
"Okay," Jimmy Devlin said, being very agreeable.
"You gave Reb four hundred bucks for bills, then two weeks later she tells you that you stink, sends you to the shower, steals two bottles of Jack and a hundred and eighty bucks out of your wallet." Crease had a good memory too. It threw guys off, hearing their own stories word for word coming back at them. "Then she lures you to the diner fifteen miles out of town, steals the plastic jug at the gas station, makes you an accomplice after the fact, then tries to ride off with a trucker. You slap her around some and she runs inside, meets me, has me work you over even while she's telling you to work me over. All this, and she's still your girl, you want her back. You love her. That right?"
The other three Jimmys looked at the fourth, waiting to hear his answer. Nobody could put the pressure on you like your best friends. Especially when they thought you were losing your manhood to a chick who treated you like trash.
Crease lit a cigarette and leaned back against the phone, letting their eyes do all the work for him.
Jimmy Devlin said, "This isn't about her right now, it's about you jumping me the other night. Doctor's bill was eighty bucks and he couldn't do anything for me but tape my face up. I'm pissing blood from those cheap shots you gave me."
Enough of the tension had dispersed from the situation. Crease walked up close. The Jimmys had a tough time holding their ground. They didn't move their feet but they reared their chins back. Jimmy with the. 32 stuck his chest out, like the pistol would protect him somehow even in his pocket.
Crease said, "She's not worth the aggravation. You're a bigger man than that, Jimmy Devlin. Go on out with your boys tonight and they'll help you hook up with a real woman, one who won't treat you as poorly as Reb has. You deserve much better. Give your heart away more carefully, to someone who will value it."
He'd been forced to say much more important things with a straight face before, but it had never been quite so tough. He stuck the cigarette between his teeth and champed on it.
Another Jimmy said, "I never liked her much, to tell the truth. She always seemed to have an agenda, that one."
Another Jimmy said, "We're only thinking of you, man. You need somebody new. Wife material, like my Betty. She's got friends, I think we could probably fix you up with somebody nice, if you want."
Jimmy with the. 32 said, "Remember Lydia Miller? You always liked her. She's getting divorced and only has one kid. A four-year-old. They're not much trouble at that age. They usually sleep through the night."
Jimmy Devlin said, "Lydia's getting divorced? I didn't know that."
"I told you."
"You never told me."
"I told you over at Bammer's house a couple of weeks ago, but you were stewing over Reb. It happened fast, Lydia and Stan breaking up. Stan had a gambling problem, was always at the Indian Reservation."
"I saw him there a couple times."
"He took a second mortgage out without even telling her and eventually lost his job. Pretended to go to work every day and would go to the strip clubs for their brunch buffet."
"I didn't know that."
"Lydia was in the dark until one day she answers the door and it's the bank, guy serving her papers. She packed up the kid and her belongings on the spot and went home to her parents. They got a nice basement apartment."
Another Jimmy said, "She's got to look after her kid's welfare. I bet a responsible guy would impress her-"
The music and laughter inside throbbed out an invitation. The parking lot lights snapped on, humming and burning. Beyond, the dark sky frothed over the final rays of the sun.
Crease finished up his cigarette, flicked the butt off into the dark, turned back to the phone and started dialing a number, thinking that the Greenwich Village boys definitely would've had a frickin' field day.
Chapter Eleven
Tucco's tech whiz kids weren't really in the loop so Crease figured it was safe enough to give them a whirl. The word that Crease was a cop probably hadn't filtered down yet, even though they're the ones who would've looked up his father's badge number. They had the info and didn't have the info, that's what the tech boys were so good for.
He got a whiz kid and gave him Sarah Burke's name and all the relevant information he had on hand, which wasn't much. It didn't have to be. Within two minutes the kid spit back the name of a state-run assisted living group home where she'd been shuffled off to after banging around mental hospitals for the better part of a decade. The kid MapQuested the address and gave Crease the directions. Turned out to be just over the New Hampshire state line in a town called Langdaff.