Sweetheart (21 page)

“Why are you telling me something I already know? Why are you even calling?”

“I’ll be there too.”

“No,” she said. “I don’t want you up here.”

“You can’t stop me.”

“I’ll leave.”

“No, you can’t do that either.”

“Why can’t I?”

“You need me,” he said.

• • •

The body, meant to rest forever in the bed of the river, wriggled free of its weights, floated serenely to the surface, and drifted with the current. Two boys fishing for hornpout and dragging up nothing but eels spotted it in the moonlight. The river was the Shawsheen in Andover.

Local police were presently at the scene and, using poles, coaxed the body out of the sedge where it had settled and guided it to shore, where they stretched it out on the bank. A state trooper, who just arrived from the Andover barracks, bent over it with a flashlight and illuminated the face. “He couldn’t have been in the water long,” he opined. The mosquitoes were brutal. Swatting at them with his free hand, he flashed the light on the sodden shirt and said, “That looks like a bullet wound, what d’you think?”

An Andover policeman, who had never seen a bullet wound before, said, “Could be.”

The trooper, a corporal named Denton, returned the light to the face. “I used to be stationed in Lee,” he said. “I swear, there’s a cop in Greenwood looks just like this guy.”

C
HRISTOPHER
W
ADE AND
A
NTHONY GARDELLA
walked over wet flats of sand, leaving behind squishy footprints. Gardella had the wider foot. Wade had the longer one, the lighter one. He was unencumbered, unwired, at ease for the present. He had packed brilliant swim trunks and was wearing them, along with a loose and open short-sleeved shirt to protect his shoulders from the sun. Gardella, bare-chested, darker-skinned, didn’t worry about the rays. He said, “How are you doing?”

“Enjoying,” Wade replied, his eye glancing over people they came upon, a mother doling out sandwiches from a basket, a girl improving her tan.

“Good,” said Gardella. “I want you to relax.”

“Any special reason?”

“Does there have to be one?”

“Sometimes it helps.”

Gardella veered away and waded into the surf, dipping a hand into the water to bless himself and then hurling himself headfirst into the onslaught of a wave. Stripping off his shirt, Wade followed but was slow to plunge in. The current around his legs was frigid. It was only when he saw Gardella watching him that he doused his face and challenged a wave. When they came out of the water, Gardella said, “I could live here.”

“You’ve mentioned it.”

“Year round. Forever.” Gardella gave Wade a sideways look of irony. “But I could be kidding myself.”

“People do that.” Wade, still wet, put his shirt back on. Gardella flexed his arms, letting the sun dry him.

“Since my first wife died, maybe I’ve been kidding myself a lot.”

“Meaning?”

“I’m thinking out loud, Wade. Pay no attention.”

They walked on, past children using shovels and pails. Gulls, which had arrayed themselves on the beach as if for a charge, scattered reluctantly but soon regrouped, like tactical geniuses.

Gardella said, “My boys were little, they couldn’t wait for summer to come here. They knew every inch of the beach. Then they got older, you couldn’t drag them here. How do you figure that?”

“Typical, I guess.”

“My oldest son, the marine, he’s too cocky for his own good. He got promoted and demoted in the same week. Two black guys in the mess hall gave him a hard time, and he went at them both. Could’ve got himself killed. But I don’t worry about him. He’s tough. It’s Tommy I think about — you met him, the tender one. His mother always thought I’d be hard on him because of the way he is, but the truth is I favor him.”

“What’s the matter with him?’

“Nothing,” said Gardella darkly. “Nothing you’d notice.”

When they returned to the house, Jane Gardella began preparing a small meal for the three of them. She set a table on the patio, laying out cornflower-blue napkins to complement the color of the crockery. She looked especially leggy in an overlarge sweatshirt that covered her shorts. Slipping an arm around her, Gardella drew her close and smiled at Wade. “Don’t you think I’m lucky?” he said with something ambiguous in his voice that caused Wade to look away.

“I hope you like crabmeat,” Jane Gardella said quickly to Wade.

The table was slightly unsteady and trembled throughout the meal, the conversation guided by Gardella, who kept it casual, interesting, at times witty. Bantering about Ronald Reagan, he said, “I finally figured out what he’s really got against the Russians. They’re there.” He told a joke. “What’s endless love?” he asked, and answered, “Ray Charles and Stevie Wonder playing tennis.” He nodded to his wife. “I’ll have some more bread.” She passed the plate, eyes lowered.

When the meal was over, Wade excused himself. He was out of cigarettes, he said, and was going to Philbrick’s to buy some. Gardella said, “Pick me up a paper.”

Outside Philbrick’s, he counted his change and telephoned Thurston, reaching him after a short delay. “In case you’re wondering,” he said, “I’m in Rye. I’ll be here for a few days.”

“Good for you,” Thurston said. “While you’re there ask Gardella why he wasted Hunkins.”

Wade went cold in the heat. “What are you talking about?”

“Get yourself a newspaper. You can read about it.” Thurston seemed in a strangely good mood, which chilled Wade even more. “Listen, I’m glad I’ve got you on the line. I want you to think back to the first time you went to Gardella’s place in Rye. You had dinner. He had a woman there for you. Called herself Laura.”

“I gave you a full report.”

“Now I’ve got questions.”

• • •

Agents Danley and Dane drove Laura thirty miles out of the city to a Holiday Inn, where they checked her in under a fictitious name and checked themselves into the unit next to hers. Dane took his shoes off and stretched out on one of the beds to watch television. Danley went next door to see how she was doing. She was undressing. “Next time knock, for Christ’s sake!” she said and snatched up her robe.

“I’m sorry,” said Danley. “I thought you might be hungry. If you don’t like the food here, I can go out for something.”

“I can’t chew. All I can have is soup or something soft.”

“You tell me what you want, I’ll get it.”

“What I want to know is how long I’ll be here.”

“You have to ask the boss that. Could be a while. But anything you want, all you have to do is ask. Those are his orders.”

She said, “I want Deputy Superintendent Scatamacchia’s balls on a platter.”

Danley, blushing a little, said, “Yes, ma’am.”

“But nobody else’s. I don’t think your boss understands that yet.”

“Yes, ma’am,” he said, reaching for the door. “I’ll pass that on to him.”

“One other thing,” she said. “Don’t patronize me.”

• • •

Sara Dillon, standing on the landing, could hear Rita O’Dea’s voice in the room being converted to a nursery. “I want pretty things on the wall, lots of bright colors. Babies, soon as they can see, notice those things.” Rita O’Dea’s voice was fluting, breathy, aggressive. She was instructing an interior decorator, who had arrived with a flourish but had wilted fast. “Mobiles we want, right? And the furniture’s going to be white. I like white.”

Sara Dillon heard a sound on the stairs behind her and turned to see Alvaro, who was also listening. He said, “I bet you wonder about us. Me and Rita.”

“No, I don’t wonder at all.”

“In bed, I mean. It’s an experience, I’ll tell you.”

“I’m not interested.”

His eyes traveled over her. “You’re getting big in the belly,” he said and passed a hand over it.

“Don’t do that.”

“My mother was pregnant, she always let us kids touch her. Feel. Listen. Put our ear right there. She said it was a miracle.”

“It is,” Sara Dillon said, “but I’m not your mother.”

“My mother used to show her tits. Used to shake ’em at us. At the time it made me sick. Now all I do is think about it.”

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I can’t help you.”

“I’d pay you.”

“Go away, Alvaro,” she said with a throb of discomfort. Her legs were swollen and her back was bothering her. For a moment her eyes failed to focus.

“Go ahead, fall,” he said. “I’ll catch you.” She reached for the rail. He said, “You were my lady, you’d still be getting your lovin’, believe me.”

“If I were your lady, I wouldn’t have a future.”

From the room came Rita O’Dea’s voice, sharply pitched. “Who’s out there? That you, Sara? Come in here, I want your advice on something.”

“She’s crazy, you know,” he said.

“No,” said Sara Dillon, looking at him a little sadly. “She’s as sane as you are.”

In his office at the Area D station, Deputy Superintendent Scatamacchia had stripped off his uniform shirt and was sitting at his desk in a coarse gray T-shirt, the sort athletes wear. At his elbow was a half-consumed can of Pepsi. He was about to turn the page of the police newsletter he was reading when he sensed eyes upon him. A man was peering in from the open doorway.

“Remember me?” Russell Thurston asked. Behind him was Agent Blodgett. “We were in the neighborhood, thought we’d drop in.”

“Yeah, I remember. Fed with a smart mouth. You came here to see me, too bad. I got no time for you.”

Thurston raised a hand and exhibited a space between forefinger and thumb. “This thick, we’ve got a file on you.”

“You guys got files on everybody, like the fuckin’ Gestapo. All you got against me are the vowels in my name.”

Thurston smiled with unlimited confidence. “I’ve got plenty on you. In a week, maybe two, I give it to the U.S. Attorney, and he passes it to a grand jury. In the meantime, my friend, you sweat.”

“You’re fuckin’ crazy,” Scatamacchia said with a degree of discomposure.

“You know why I’m taking my time? I want to make sure everything I got on you is perfect, air-tight. When that happens, there’ll be somebody wanting you to look at her, but it’s me you’ll be seeing.
Me
, Scatamacchia. You’ll come on your knees and ask to deal.”

Upsetting the Pepsi can, Scatamacchia rose from his desk and stood with a deadly stillness. “I’d stick my face in a bucket of shit first.”

“You’ll do that too,” Thurston said. “Then you’ll give me Gardella.”

Leaving the station, passing ranking police officials, who regarded them warily, Blodgett said, “Maybe you shouldn’t have warned him.”

“It’s the best thing I could have done,” Thurston said.

Anthony Gardella and his wife were in the sauna, wrapped in vapors, their bodies moist-to-wet, when Christopher Wade rapped tentatively on the door. “Come on in,” Gardella said cavalierly through a cupped hand. “Jane’s not bashful.” She shot him a look of surprise and distress.

“Stop it, Tony.” She grabbed a towel and twisted it around herself. He stayed naked. “Why are you doing this to me?”

“Doing what?” he asked in a tone of innocence as her eyes lunged at him through the steam.

“The way you’ve been acting toward me. It’s different.”

“I wasn’t aware of it. Sorry.” He called out, “Hold up, I think she is bashful. You’ll have to wait.”

“I don’t want to come in,” Wade said. “I just want to know how long you’ll be in there.”

“Why?”

“Something’s come up.”

“You want to talk to me?”

“Yes.”

Five minutes later they walked down to the surf, where a young couple were frisking in the waves, the boy splashing, the girl squealing. Wade had a suburban newspaper under his arm. He unfolded the paper and passed it to Gardella, pointing to a headline. Gardella, squinting as dark clouds shortened the day, read only two paragraphs and said, “I swear to God, I know nothing about it.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“I lie when I have to, I never think twice about it. This time there’s no need. That’s the truth, Wade.”

“But you know something.”

“No, nothing, but I can make guesses.”

“What are they?”

“They’re not for your ears.” Gardella slapped the paper back into Wade’s hands. Wade looked at the young couple in the water. They had quieted down, as if the clouds had tempered their mood. The girl was floating on her back, hair awash. Gardella, also looking, said tightly, “Why do they do that?”

“What?”

“Show their stuff.” Gardella reached out. “Give me the paper back. I’m going to take it with me.”

“Where are you going?”

“Boston. I won’t be back until late tonight, maybe not until early tomorrow. Depends.”

“I’ll leave too.”

“You don’t have to.”

“Then I’ll stay,” Wade said.

Gardella sped from Rye through thunder and lightning but no rain and arrived in the North End within the hour, slipping out of the air-conditioned Cadillac into the savage heat of the street. He phoned Victor Scandura from the Caffè Pompei, waited for him at a table, and shoved the newspaper at him when he arrived. “Why didn’t I hear from you right away on this?” he asked in anger, watching Scandura quietly place the paper to one side.

“I’m sorry. I was tied up most of the day at Mass. General.”

“What were you doing there?”

“My stomach, Anthony. You know.”

“You okay?”

“Yeah.” The waiter came, and Scandura asked for milk and got it.

Gardella said, “Was it Scat?”

“Yeah.”

“That fucking fool,” Gardella said in a whisper. Scandura drank the milk, which gave him a creamy mustache.

“He said he didn’t have a choice. You know I don’t particularly like Scatamacchia, but I believe him on this. Too bad the body came up.”

“He did it right, it wouldn’t have. Otherwise, was it clean?”

“He says so.”

Gardella propped an elbow on the table and rubbed his brow against the heel of his hand as if he had a headache. “What are we going to do?”

“I don’t know what we can do, Anthony. I guess just let it lie.”

Gardella lifted his face and stared at a table of tourists, the children spooning up spumoni, the mother wiping mouths. “Would you like to be young again, Victor? Have everything to do over?”

“I don’t know,” Scandura said. “I don’t think about it.”

“Give me some good news, Victor. Make me happy.”

“The thing in Florida is better than ever. The new guy knows his stuff.”

“How about the people in Providence? They happy with their cut?”

“It’s fair, Anthony, they gave us the guy. We shouldn’t begrudge them.”

“I don’t begrudge anybody anything. Everybody should be happy. Rich. Have nice children.”

“You okay, Anthony?”

“Sure I’m okay. I was not okay, I’d be home in bed, thermometer in my mouth. You’re the one doesn’t look so hot. Go home, Victor. Sorry I dragged you out.”

Scandura stood up, his face gray, his eyes small behind the spectacles. He wanted to leave. “How about you? You going back to the beach?”

“I got more business to do,” Gardella said.

At the health club in Cambridge, members gravitated to the handball court to watch the match, which almost looked as if it were being waged for blood. The play was furious, the ball a blur ricocheting off walls and ceiling. Bets were made. The woman who gave rubdowns said, “The older guy’s going to win, you watch.”

Russell Thurston made an impossible return and said, “You can’t beat me, kid. I’m on a roll.” He had lost the first game after playing out a tie but was winning the second with demon energy and uncanny moves. It was no contest. In the middle of the final game he turned an ankle and lamed himself, but he continued to play and continued to win, exhausting his opponent.