Shallow Graves - Jeremiah Healy (14 page)

"You're around the family, her name wasn't 'Mau
Tim.' It was 'Tina,' right?"

"Thanks."

"Don't mention it."

Zuppone put on his turn signal and pulled out into
the fast lane to go around a garbage truck. As soon as we were by it,
he used the signal again and tiptoed back into the middle lane,
reducing his speed.

"You're a careful guy, Primo."

"Pays to be."

"About the modeling agency?"

"Yeah?"

"What was your read of the situation?"

Another migration of the toothpick. "Year ago
they were clean. Otherwise, the family don't let Tina work for them,
I don't care what she wants to do."

"How could the family stop her?"

"Simple. I pay a visit to the agency, and they
all of a sudden decide to call her and say, 'Sorry. Turns out, we
don't need you after all.' "

"What did you think of the people there?"

"I didn't talk to them direct-like."

"What did you find out about them?"

"The first name — Lind-something?"

"Lindqvist."

"Yeah, that's how somebody told me she says it.
How do you spell that?"

I went through it.

"That's not the usual thing, right? I mean,
usually you put the 'u' after the 'q,' right?"

"Usually in English. I don't know much about
Swedish."

"Swedish, huh? She don't look good enough to be
what I'd call Swedish."

"I thought you didn't talk to them."

The half-smile. "I sat in my car outside there a
coupla days. Watching the door, making sure it looked legit. Kinda
surprised me how tall and plain the model broads were. Out of their
war paint, I mean."

"What about Lindqvist?"

"I got the impression she was the pants, with
the guy — Yulin?"

"Right."

"With the guy Yulin kind of a second banana."

"That's how I read it, too." I stopped. "If
it turns out one of them killed Tina, where does that leave you?"

"Fucked, if I should of seen it." Zuppone
pushed a button on his annrest that lowered his window. He spit the
toothpick into the night air. "Kind of the pot calling the
kettle black, ain't it?"

"What is?"

"What you're thinking. Guy like me calling Yulin
a 'second banana'."

"I hadn't thought about it."

"Yeah, well, I am a second banana, Cuddy. I'm a
guy used to not do so good in school there. You know why?"

"
No."

"I got dyslexia. You know, I see '24' like it's
'42' or 'art' like it's 'rat'."

"Makes the studying tough."

"Yeah. Only Sister Angelica back in the third
grade there didn't call it dyslexia."

"What did she call it?"

"Being stupid. But, turns out, I'm not so stupid
once I'm out of the books. Real world, I do okay because I ain't got
no ambitions."

"Run that by me again?"

"Ambitions. Like to be something I ain't. I'm
good at situations, sizing things up, sizing people up. I'm not
looking to run anything. Last thing you want to be in this business
is the guy somebody in charge of an operation sees when he looks over
his shoulder, get me?"

"I think so. It doesn't bother you, the
organization you size things up for?"

Zuppone looked my way sharply this time, having to
swerve just a bit to get back in lane. He eased five miles per hour
off the speedometer. "You're a college man, right?"

"Uh-huh."

"Holy Cross, a guy said."

"That's right."

"Then you go in the Army, make — what,
captain?"

"Eventually."

"Guy like you, a corporation welcomes you with
open arms. You got a résumé reads like a guy they want to hire."

"I see your point."

"Good. 'Cause this is the only corporation that
thinks my résumé is just fine. It ends after seventh grade, they
don't think that's funny. I can't spell for shit, they don't think
that's stupid. I go into a thing, I scope it out, I get back to them
with what's what. That's what they care about."

"How about their views on capital punishment?"

"Whacking a guy out, you mean."

"That's right."

"We don't whack nobody without a good reason for
it. These new gangs, the Jamaicans — or the fucking Dominicans? —
they're animals. They do a drive-by, waste a fucking street corner
full of fucking people, get the one they want. I never heard a one of
our contracts wasn't specific, I never heard a hitter did anybody
more'n he was told to. I tell you something else, too. You ever see
an execution?"

"A hit?"

"No, I mean a government one. Like gas or the
chair."

"No."

"Well, let me tell you. One of our associates,
he got himself in a fight down in the Land of Grits. Shiwed some
redneck was trying to wrap a tire iron around his head, but that's
not how the witnesses saw it. Anyway, the jury decides to puff him,
then it takes nine years, nine fucking years for the courts to
decide, does he go or not. Finally, they decide he goes, and
somebody's got to travel down there, kind of get him through it, you
know?"

"I think so."

"Well, it turns out I'm it, so I fly down there
and rent a car and drive through some of the worst places I ever
seen. Shit, the shacks with real tarpaper, outhouses, makes the worst
block in Roxbury there look like Beacon fucking Hill. Anyways, I get
to the prison early, I pay my respects to our guy. He's in this room,
it's maybe eight by ten, with a stainless steel sink and john below
it and one fucking bunk. The thing that got me is the colors, though.
The bars are powder blue, powder fucking blue like some broad's
bedroom, and the bulls are the same way, looking like maybe they got
bleached out of the Navy or something. And our guy, he's in this
orange jump suit, only he's sweating so bad, he's gotta change his
jump suit twice in the hour I'm with him.

"He gets to me, Cuddy. He asks, can I stay for
the show? He says it'd mean a lot to him, knowing there was somebody
there he knew. So I tell him, sure I'll stay for it. Christ, like the
guy's last request, you know? Then the bulls tell me, I got to go to
the viewing room so our guy can get prepped. I say okay, and they put
me in this place, looks like something outta a fifties horror movie.
Like I'm in living color but seeing all this in just black and white?
Well, I sit down on a folding chair, maybe ten other people around
me, and they're all making small talk about the weather and the crops
and some high school fucking football team ain't won a game yet and
I'm the only one in the room can say a sentence in like less than
five minutes.

"Then through the glass we see the bulls come
in, and everybody sits down. The bulls work the door with this wheel
on it, like in a submarine, but it's not my guy's time yet, they're
just testing the fucking gas chamber. And get this, right? We're in
the Old South, so what do they use to test it with? They use this
little black rabbit, black as a jigaboo. It's in a cage like a milk
crate, and they put it in the chair. Then they clear out and drop the
pill or whatever, and there's a little cloud, like somebody's
grabbing a smoke under the seat. And this rabbit starts twitching,
then hops hard around the crate, so hard you figure he's breaking
bones, fracturing his fucking skull banging it into the top of the
cage.

"Well, I'll tell you something, Cuddy. I had to
get out of there. I had to get out. I'm a made fucking member of our
organization, and I couldn't take what one of our governments does to
a guy. You want to croak somebody for what they did? Fine. They know
going in they fuck up, you're going to croak them, fine. They do
something real fucking bad, like plank your sister, then you torture
them a little. Maybe cut off their fucking wang and stick it in their
fucking mouth, that's fine too. Everybody understands why it
happened. But for chrissake, don't keep a guy on ice for nine fucking
years and feed him and play with his fucking mind over it. Do him,
then move the fuck on."

The music ended. Zuppone took a breath, then said,
"Let's try a little Wim Mertens, lighten things up."

He popped in a new tape. This was mostly piano, but
not entirely, and was the best I'd heard in the car. Solid but
varied, eerie but thoughtful.

I said, "I like that."

"You serious?"

"I'm serious."

"It's yours."

"Primo, don't — "

"No. Really. I got a dozen of them. They ain't
so easy to find, this way you'll have it."

"Thank you."

We were within sight of the Pru and the Hancock, the
lights from the smaller buildings downtown giving a halo to the
horizon. "Primo, did you know Tina that well?"

A shrug. "I seen her from time to time. She was
younger, I'd give her rides here and there."

"Talk to her much?"

"Naw. It was just like, 'Uncle Primo, please
take me to the mall, please?' Like that."

"Uncle Primo?"

"Yeah." The half-smile. "I'm not
really family, but her mother, she's a real stickler for respect to
elders. So Tina'd call me 'Uncle Primo' instead of 'Mr. Zuppone,' you
know?"

"
What do you know about her life since?"

The smile winked out. "Just what I told you. She
was a daughter and a model and now she's dead."

"Anything about boyfriends, enemies?"

”
No. She was outta the house down there and into
the South End for — what, like a year?"

”
I think so."

"
Girl that age, Cuddy, a year's like a fucking
century to you and me."

I waited a minute, trying to figure a back way to
asking where Zuppone was when Mau Tim was killed. "How did you
hear she was dead?"

"I was out, running around for this gentleman I
know. Got the word her mother'd called with the news."

"Who was the gentleman?"

Just the half-smile. "No big secret, Cuddy. I
was grocery shopping."

"On a Friday night?"

"I go to the Star over by Fenway Park. The
college kids, they got partying on their minds. So long as the Sox
are playing on the road, it ain't too crowded."

Fenway Park was less than a mile from the apartment
building on Falmouth Street. "You drive all the way across town
from the North End to go food shopping?"

Zuppone caressed the steering wheel, the way he had
on the drive south. "They got good parking, nice wide spaces. I
buy the big items, the heavy stuff there, then shop the specialty
stores back in the neighborhood."

Speaking of neighborhoods, we were approaching the
Chinatown exit.

I said, "This time of night, probably Kneeland
would be the fastest way back to my place."

Zuppone went by the turnoff and down into the tunnel
without slowing. "We ain't finished with your visiting yet."

The lights inside the tunnel shimmered briefly across
the hood and windshield. Then we were out and heading up on the
Central Artery toward the Boston Garden/North End exit. Zuppone
picked up the telephone, hit the number "one," and waited.
Then, "It's Primo . . . Yes, Mister — . . . Less than that .
. . Right."

I moved my tongue around in my mouth. There wasn't
much doubt who we were seeing next. "Should I be getting
worried, Primo?"

The turn and half-smile. "Hey-ey-ey, enjoy the
music, huh?"
 
 

-12-

WE INCHED DOWN A NORTH END STREET NO WIDER THAN THE
alleys in other parts of the city. Cars were parked up and onto the
sidewalk but didn't sport any orange tickets beneath their windshield
wipers. Zuppone pulled the Lincoln past a driveway that was barely a
curb cut, then used the power steering to back into it. I figured I'd
wait for him to get out first.

Primo turned off the ignition and shifted sidesaddle
in his seat. He nodded toward a nondescript doorway with a small
aluminum awning. The door led into one of the buildings off the
driveway. "I think it's just gonna be you and me and this other
gentleman upstairs, but he's got like a rule of the house."

"Which is?"

"Guests, they got to check their guns at the
door."

I looked at him.

"Hey-ey-ey, Cuddy, we're gonna clip you, we let
you take it inside, then we hit you over the fucking head, take it
away from you."

"I don't like the number of times you've told me
how I don't have to worry about getting killed just yet."

"You have my personal word, you got nothing to
worry about up there. The gentleman wants you out, it ain't gonna be
in his living room, right?"

I took the Smith 8 Wesson Chief's Special from the
holster over my right buttock, swinging out the cylinder and
unloading it. I put the bullets in my right jacket pocket and
extended the weapon to Zuppone, cylinder still out.