Pastime (16 page)

Vinnie started to close the door and Joe shook his head. "Wait in the car,

Vinnie," he said. "Joe?" Vinnie said. "In the car, Vinnie. This is family." "I'm not family, Joe?" Broz shook his head again. "No," he said.

"Not quite, Vinnie. Not on this." "I'll be in the corridor," Vinnie said.

Again Broz shook his head. "No, Vinnie-in the car."

Vinnie hesitated with the door half open, his hand on the knob. He was looking at Joe.

"Go, Vinnie. Do it."

Vinnie nodded and went out without looking at me and shut the door behind him. Gerry started to pull up one of my client chairs.

"No," Broz said. "Don't sit. We ain't here to sit."

"Jesus, you got to tell me everything to do. Stand? Sit? In front of this creep?"

"Spenser ain't no creep," Joe said. "One of your many problems, Gerry. You don't think about who you're dealing with."

"So whaddya going to do, explain him to me?"

Joe stared at me. It was almost as if we were friends, which we weren't.

Then he inhaled slowly and turned to look at his son.

"Man gave you a break," Joe said. "He could have dropped you in the woods."

"He knew what would happen to him if he did," Gerry said.

Gerry was a little taller than his father, but softer. He was dressed on the cutting edge with baggy, stone-washed jeans and an oversized black leather jacket with big lapels. Joe wore a dark suit and a gray tweed overcoat with -a black velvet collar. Both were hatless.

"What would have happened?" Joe said.

"You'd have had Vinnie pop him."

Joe nodded without saying anything. I waited. At the moment this had to do with Joe and Gerry.

"And what should I do now?" Joe said.

"Since when do you ask me, Pa? You don't ask me shit. You asking me now?"

Joe nodded.

"Okay-we'll have Vinnie pop him, like you shoulda done a long time ago."

Joe was looking only at Gerry. Gerry's eyes shifted back and forth between

Joe, and, obliquely, me.

"You think he's got to go, Gerry?"

Gerry shifted, glanced again at me, and away again.

"For crissake, Pa, I already told you. Yeah. He's trouble. He's in the way.

We'd have had Beaumont out west if he hadn't been there."

"And you chased him into the woods with four guys besides yourself, and he took you."

` Pa. 11

"With a fucking bullet in him."

"Pa, for crissake. You gotta do this here, in front of him?"

Gerry's face was flushed. And his voice sounded thick.

"And he got away with it," Joe said. His voice was flat, scraped bare of feeling by the effort of saying it.

"Pa." Gerry's breathing was very short. Each exhalation was audible, as if the air was too thin. "Pa, don't."

Joe nodded vigorously.

"I got to, Gerry," he said. "I thought about this for three four days now.

I haven't thought about anything else. I got to."

The flush left Gerry's face. It became suddenly very pale, and his voice pitched up a notch.

"What? You got to what?"

"One of these days I'm going to die and the thing will be yours. The whole fucking thing."

Gerry was frozen, staring at his father. I could have been in Eugene,

Oregon, for all I mattered right then.

"And when you get it you got to be able to take care of it or they'll bite you in two, you unnerstand, like a fucking chum fish, they'll swallow you."

Gerry seemed to lean backwards. He opened his mouth and closed it and opened it again and said, "Vinnie…"

"I wish you was like Vinnie," Joe said. "But you don't take care of this thing by having a guy do it for you. Vinnie can't be tough for you."

"You think I need Vinnie? You think Vinnie has to take care of me? Fuck

Vinnie. I'm sick of Vinnie. Who's your son anyway, for crissake? Fucking

Vinnie? Is he your son? Whyn't you leave the fucking thing to him, he's so great?"

"Because he's not my son," Joe said.

All of us were still. Outside, there was the sound of traffic on Berkeley

Street, dimmed by distance and walls. Inside my office the silence swelled.

Finally Gerry spoke. His voice was small and flat. "What do you want me to do?"

"I want you to deal with him," Joe said and tilted his head toward me.

"I been telling you that," Gerry said. "I been saying that Vinnie-"

"No," Joe said. "Not Vinnie. You. You got to deal with Spenser. You run our thing and there will be people worse to deal with than him. You got to be able to do it, not have it done. You think I started out with Vinnie?"

"You had Phil," Gerry said.

"Before Phil, before anybody, there was me. Me. And after me there's got to be you. Not Vinnie, not four guys from Providence. You."

"You want me to take him out," Gerry said. "You're telling me that right in front of him."

"Right in front," Joe said. "So he knows. So there's no back-shooting and sneaking around. You tell him he's gone and then you take him out."

"Right now?" Gerry's voice was barely audible.

"Now you tell him. You take him out when you're ready to."

"Joe," I said.

They both turned and stared at me as if I'd been eavesdropping.

"He can't," I said. "He's not good enough. You'll get him killed."

Joe was looking sort of up at me with his chin lowered. He shook his head as if there was something buzzing in his ears.

"They'll take everything away from him," Joe said.

"He could find other work," I said.

Joe shook his head.

"I don't want to kill him, Joe," I said.

"You motherfucker," Gerry said. His voice cracked a little as it went up. "You won't kill me. I'll fucking kill you, you fuck."

"Talks good, too," I said to Joe.

"You heard him," Joe said. "Be looking for him. Not Vinnie, not me, Gerry.

You heard him."

"Goddamn it, Joe," I said. "Let him up. He's not good enough."

"You heard him," Joe said and turned on his heel and went out of the room.

Gerry and I looked at each other for a silent pause, then Gerry turned on his heel, just like his poppa, and went out. Nobody shut the door.

I sat for a while and looked at the open door and the empty corridor. I looked at the S W.357 in the open drawer by my right hand. I closed the drawer, got up, and closed the door. Then I went back and sat down and swiveled my chair and looked out the window for a while.

Spenser, rite of passage.

Pearl was strolling about the apartment with a yellow tennis ball clamped in her jaws. She was working it the way a pitcher chews tobacco. "So that's her," Paul said. "That's my mom." "Yes, it is," I said. "Not exactly June Cleaver." "Nobody is," I said. "Not exactly an adult woman,"

Paul said. "No," I said. "Do you know where Hawk took them?" No. "I wonder if I'll ever hear from her." "Yes," I said. "I think you will." "Because she'll miss her baby boy?" I shrugged. "Because the relationship with

Beaumont won't last and she'll need help and she'll call me." "Yes."

"You think Beaumont loves her?"

"I think he has some kind of feeling for her," I said. "But love is not usually an issue for guys like Beaumont."

"She's crazy about him."

"Maybe."

"Or she needs him, or someone like him."

Pearl came by and nudged my arm. I tried to ignore her. I didn't want to play ball right now. She nudged again and made a low sound.

"Always a loser," Paul said. "From my father on. Always some flashy second-rate jerk. Like she's not good enough for a decent guy and she knows it, or chooses these guys to punish herself for being… whatever she is: sexual, irresponsible, a bad wife, a bad mother, a bad girl instead of the boy her father wanted? How the fuck do I know? Sometimes I think I've talked too long with the shrinks."

"Saved your life at one point," I said.

"Sure," Paul said. He drank some beer from the bottle. His elbows were on the counter and he had to dip his neck to get enough tilt to the bottle.

Pearl made another low sound and nudged my arm again. I patted her head and she shied away, hoping to lure me into a grab for the ball. I was too smart for her. I drank a little beer instead.

"Well, we found her," Paul said.

"Yes."

"I needed to find her."

"I know."

"I won't have to find her again."

Pearl stood close to my knee and dropped the tennis ball suggestively and looked at me with her head canted to the right.

The ball bounced twice and lay still on the floor. I paid no heed.

"She has no control," Paul said. He bounced his clenched fist gently on the counter top. "She has never taken control of her life-Who are you? I'm the woman in that man's life-Jesus Christ!"

"She needs to be alone for a while," I said.

"Of course she does," Paul said. "You think she ever will be?"

"Not by choice," I said.

"She doesn't do anything by choice," Paul said.

"You're not like her," I said.

"Christ what a gene pool, though, her and old Mel, the paterfamilias."

"You're not like your father either," I said.

We were quiet. Pearl had picked up the ball again and was mouthing it at me. Paul got off the stool and got two more beers out of the refrigerator and opened them and handed me one.

"Why don't you and Susan get married?" Paul said.

"I'm not sure," I said. "It's probably in the area of if it's not broke, don't fix it."

"You love her."

"Absolutely."

"You're so sure," Paul said.

"Like I know I'm alive," I said.

"I'm not sure everyone is like you," Paul said.

"Probably just as well," I said. "But…" I shrugged. "I don't know. I don't know if I really love Paige."

I nodded.

"You don't know either, do you?" Paul said.

"If you really love Paige? No, I don't."

"No advice?"

"None."

"It helped, you know, finding my mother," Paul said.

"I know."

"Metaphorically, as well as really," he said.

"I know."

Pearl had the ball again and nudged my arm and murmured at me. I made a lightning move for the ball, and she moved her head half an inch and I missed. She growled and wagged her tail. I grabbed again. She moved her head again. If I'd had her reflexes I'd have beaten Joe Walcott… and my nose would be straight. On the third try I grabbed her collar and held her while I pried the ball loose. Then I fired it into the living room where it ricocheted around with Pearl in lickety-split pursuit, her claws scrabbling on the hardwood floors. She got it and brought it back and nudged my arm and made a low sound.

"You needed to find your mother, and you did and you got the chance to look straight at her and now you know what she's like," I said. "That's prog ress.

"The truth will set you free," Paul said. His voice was angry.

"Not necessarily," I said. "But pretend sure as hell doesn't do it."

Paul turned and looked at me for a minute andthen raised his bottle and drank and put it back down on the counter top and grinned.

"Malt does more than Milton can," he said, "to justify God's ways to man."

Pearl nudged my arm again. I grabbed at the ball. And missed.

Allston. Pearl was in the backseat, with her head on my right shoulder, and every once in a while I would give her a piece of donut. I had bought with that in mind, so there were enough. I was studying Cabin Hobbes when Vinnie Morris opened the door on the passenger side and got in.

"I been looking for you," he said.

"You been following me," I said.

Vinnie shrugged.

"Usually they don't make me," he said.

"Usually they're not me," I said. "You alone?" "Yeah."

I didn't double-check him in the rearview mirror. Vinnie would kill you, but he wouldn't lie to you. "Get some coffee," I said. "We'll talk."

Vinnie nodded and opened the car door.

"If you get donuts, get extra. The dog likes them."

Vinnie looked at me without comment for a moment and closed the car door.

By the time he came back, I had finished the comics and folded the paper and put it on the floor in the backseat. He had two cups of coffee and a bag of donuts.

Pearl wagged her tail and nosed at the bag.

"Can you control this fucking hound?" Vinnie said.

"No," I said.

He handed me the bag and I took out a donut and broke it in two and gave

Pearl the smaller half. I took a bite of my half and pried the cover off the fresh coffee. It had been a rainy fall, and it was raining again.

Market Street was a bright wet black. The traffic was sporadic and slow.

And the parking lot at the discount lumberyard across the street was nearly empty except for one guy in an emergency slicker he'd made from a green trash bag, tying a piece of surplus plywood to the roof of a ten-year-old

Subaru wagon.

"I been trying to figure this out," Vinnie said.

Pearl was gazing at the cinnamon donut Vinnie was holding. Her head moved as his hand moved.

"Dog's supposed to get a bite," I said.

"Fuck," Vinnie said, and broke off a small piece and fed it to her gingerly. He wiped his hand on his pants leg.

"I been trying to figure out where I stand in this between you and Gerry and Joe," Vinnie said.

"Un huh."

"Joe figures the only way Gerry's ever going to be a man is to face up to something bad-"

"Which is me," I said.

"Which is you," Vinnie said. He trolled the coffee cup a little to stir it, and had a sip. "To face up to you and to win."

"Except he won't win," I said.

"No," Vinnie said. "He won't. He ain't that kind of man."

"More than one kind," I said.

"Maybe, but Joe don't know that."

"Neither does Gerry," I said.

"No, he don't, and it fucks him up worse than you'd think anything could."

"You think he'll try?" I said.

"Yeah."

Vinnie broke off another small bit of donut and fed Pearl.

"Joe want you to help him?" I said.

"No." Vinnie stared out the window down the nearly empty street at the car wash standing idle, looking better in the rain, like everything seemed to.

"No. It's family. You saw him send me out when he come to talk with you.

Him and Gerry."

"I always kind of figured you were family, Vin. ю me.

Vinnie shrugged. "Well, I ain't. I been with Joe since I was seventeen. I was a jerk kid, but I was willing, you know? Nobody too tough. No alley too dark. Nobody too special for me to kill. I was always willing. I was never scared."

"Always for Joe," I said.

"I never had nobody else."

"So Gerry will come after me without backup?" I said.

Vinnie shook his head. "Joe'll send him out alone," Vinnie said. "I know

Joe. Because he thinks that's the only way the kid can ever be anything but a sleazy little punk. But he knows he's no good, and he don't want something to happen to him. So he'll come too. He'll trail along behind to protect the kid."

"So if he's right, he'll undercut the kid even if I don't kill him."

"Yeah. Joe loves the kid."

"So he'll either get him killed or he'll take away his victory by not letting him do it alone."

"Yeah."

"Kid would be better off if Joe didn't love him."

"Yeah."

We were quiet. The rain sliding down the front windshield made the traffic lights fluid and impressionistic at the intersection.

"The thing is," Vinnie said, "Joe ain't that good anymore.

I nodded and drank some coffee and took another piece of donut and shared it with Pearl.

"He gets involved," Vinnie said, "and you'll clip him -too."

"If I have to," I said.

"I thought about taking you out for him," Vinnie said.

"Which is why you've been following me."

"Yeah."

"But if you do that," I said, "Joe will never forgive you. Because you ruined it for his kid."

"Yeah."

"Easier, wasn't it," I said, "when some guy gave Joe trouble all you had to do was go round and drill him."

Vinnie drank a little more coffee, staring at the rain. He took another donut, and automatically gave Pearl a piece, and ate the rest.

"I'm getting out," Vinnie said. "I'm quitting Joe."

I stared at `iim. I couldn't think of anything to say.

"You do what you gotta do," Vinnie said. "You have to kill them, you have to kill them. I won't come around asking you about it. I'm out of it."

He drank the last of his coffee. He took the final donut out of the bag and looked at it for a moment, then put the whole donut back for Pearl to take.

Which she did. Vinnie opened the door and put one foot out onto the ground.

I put out my hand. Vinnie took it. We shook hands. Then he got out and closed the door. He turned the collar up on his raincoat and walked back to his car and got in. I saw the wipers start. The headlights went on. And he drove away. From the backseat Pearl nosed at my ear. Her breath smelled of donuts.