The Penny Ferry - Rick Boyer (6 page)

"Curiouser and curiouser?"

"
Yeah. Well get this: we found two fingers in
the dog's mouth, right? And a guy with two missing fingers on the
rubble heap, right? Well they don't match. They compared prints and
the fingers the doggie had aren't the property of the guy with the
fancy clothes and watch. Tommy did tear off those fingers lodged in
his mouth. That's certain. But the guy in the chimney, his fingers
were cut off with cutters. Curiouser and curiouser."

"But there's some sense to be made of it,"
I said after a few seconds' thought. "It's a frame. Mr. X kills
Robinson with a lethal gas bomb and in the process loses two fingers.
He also kills this young Italian guy. Incidentally, we keep saying
he's Italian but we don't know for sure—"

"
He's Italian," said Joe firmly.

"So he kills this second guy with a knife. He
probably used a knife because it was silent." .

"Or . . ." said Joe, "or because he
couldn't get a gun. He couldn't get a gun if . . . he's just come to
the States. He couldn't buy a handgun here. And he couldn't bring one
with him even in his checked luggage because of the possibility of a
customs search."

"Hey Joey, that's good," said Mary. I

"Go on, Doc."

"Well he's looking down at this young man he's
just killed and gets an idea: if he removes the kid's fingers the
police will automatically assume— at least for a while— that the
kid did it.
This gives him an open field for
an end run."

Joe sipped his
vino rosso
meditatively.

"Shit!" he said, and jumped for the phone.
He punched in a familiar number with lightning speed. He used his
drill-sergeant tone of voice, telling headquarters to check all
clinics and emergency wards in New England for treatment to amputated
fingers.

"Everything from Providence to Portland,"
he growled, "and let me know at this number."

Still grumbling, he returned to the veal, which he
dipped in the batter and then in the seasoned bread crumbs and
Parmesan cheese. Then he set them on a rack to set, and helped Mary
and me dip the eggplant slices in egg and Hour. We began frying them.

"You're right about one thing," he said
over the sizzling skillet. "The corpse with the missing fingers
fooled us enough so we didn't put the hospital call out. Damn! Gonna
have my ass handed to me Monday morning—"

"But Joey, it wasn't even your day to work—"

"A good cop's always on duty, Mare. Hell, if I'd
just come out here and loafed around . . . Nah, we did the right
thing. We just got a little tripped up by a clever ruse. Actually,
it's s.o.p. to do the clinic check. Maybe somebody did it already and
I wasn't told."

With the veal and the eggplant slices lightly browned
in the olive oil, Joe now stacked them alternately, with thin layers
of Parmesan sprinkled between each piece, in a baking dish. There
were four big stacks in the dish when he was finished. He covered
them with more cheese and then lots of tomato sauce. He put it in a
very hot oven to bake for twenty minutes.

When it was ready we lit into it like a pack of
orcae. we needed an extra bottle of wine because in tasting it we had
killed the first one. And the second was gone in a twinkling. The
third took longer. The Krups machine whirred and whined, and shot out
cup after cup of cappucino. We sat in the living room sipping it and
eating ice cream. After that Mary took us on a tour of her atelier,
showing us all the latest pots and standing sculpture she'd made. The
dogs were with us the whole time, wagging around and whining. Then
the phone rang again and Joe went to answer it. He came back saying
it was Tom Costello on the line for me.

"And he sounds mad. Without his teeth he also
sounds like a fairy," said Joe.

Tom was mad. I explained I was on the track of the
bridge and hoped to have it to him shortly.

"Well leth hope tho! I'm thick of thounding like
a goddamn panthy . . .'Would you buy thtockth or bondth from thomeone
who thounded like thith?"

"
No, I would not—"

"I'll thue."' he promised, and hung up. I
joined Mary and Joe. Joe was yawning.

I stared at my watch again, this time with some
newfound distrust. Joe saw me staring at it.

"Any other fancy things that watch can do?"
he asked.

"Glad you asked. Actually, I forgot one of the
most important things of all: the para-drop function."

"
What the hell is the para-drop function? As if
I can escape finding out."

"For paratroopers doing delayed-opening jumps.
Let's say you're a commando ten thousand feet up in a transport plane
over El Salvador. Okay. You want to pull your chute at exactly
fifteen hundred, not before, to maximize speed and concealment. Okay.
You set the outer ring for ten thousand . . . your rate of fall, and
the altitude your chute should open at. Then when the jump light goes
green, just before you leap out the door, you—"

"
Goodnight, Doc. Night, Mare," he said,
kissing her. He shuffled toward the stairs. "Uh, Doc? Happy
landings."

"Hey wait a sec, Joe. There you are, see, with
all this combat gear on, and the ground's rushing up to you at a
hundred forty per. . . you've got to know when . . .James0e?"

"He went up, Charlie."

"Oh."

She came over and sat down next to me.

"Was that watch expensive, Charlie?"

"
Kind of."

She undid the black band and removed it, hefted it.

"It's really heavy. You don't really use all
these things do you?"

"Well not yet. But—"

"Whatever happened to that nice Omega I bought
you?"

"Upstairs in the drawer with the rest. Honey,
it's a nice watch. But it doesn't have . . . you know—"

"The gadgets?"

She read the tiny words on the instrument's face.

"Blackwatch Chronograph Adventurer. Adventurer?
Adventurer, Charlie?"

"Can I help it if that's what they call it?
You've got to admit it's handsome."

"I don't know about you sometimes, Charlie. The
handgun shooting, the karate lessons from Liatis Roantis . . . then
there's the motorcycle. And now this."

I thought about it for a moment.

"Well, next to the other things it's pretty
innocent."

"You know, for most people having a nice house,
a good family and friends, a good career in medicine, plenty of money
. . . is enough. Hell Charlie, it's more than enough. I mean, you've
got everything."

I stared at the wall, looking at nothing, like a
character in a Hemingway story.

"I know. That's my problem."

She shook her head sadly and clicked her tongue at me
in a quiet scold.

"I just don't understand I guess. Why can't you
be content, like Joe?"

"Like Joe! Joe's miserable half the time. The
other half he's desperate. How would you, like to go around nailing
psychopaths? How would you like to have hardly a month go by without
mopping up some poor battered teenage hooker from under a railroad
bridge? That's what he did last Christmas Day, remember?"

She lowered her head and nodded slowly.

"And think of his previous incarnation. A
priest! You've gotta be kidding—"

"He was so good at that. I don't see why—"

"He became a cop? He had to, don't you remember?
He kept hitting those city punks in the kisser. He kept kicking ass,
which is the only realistic way to deal with the situation, and the
bishop didn't like it. Don't tell me how happy Joe is."

"I just don't see why you seem to need all these
. . . adult toys, Charlie."

"I guess it's because I think we need to have
adventures. When you strip off all the icing and poetry, Mary, life
is a pretty grim enterprise. Grim and brief, to paraphrase Thomas
Hobbes. And you better get in a few licks while you can. Otherwise
you wind up spending your life reading
The New
Yorker
, listening to your stereo and worrying
about the IRS. And then you're in the ground for keeps."

We turned the lights out and went upstairs with our
arms around each other.

How could I explain to her the desperate ache in the
breasts of middle-aged men? Our fanatical devotion to the world of
sports and our adoration of its heroes? Is it the heroes or their
lives? The license for violence, the strength and endurance, danger
and courage . . . all the elemental things so sadly missing in a
world filled with glass-and-steel buildings, air conditioning, and
Muzak? Why do we secretly yearn to follow the guy with the mustache
and cowboy hat who spends his life roping mustangs, chasing horses
that charge through clouds of red range dust? The guy we all want to
be but can't, and so we smoke his cigarette or drink his beer
instead?

How to explain this longing?

"I just think we need to have adventures,"
I repeated.

She sighed.

"
Well the last adventure you had almost got you
killed. You weren't the same for months afterward."

"Still not. But I'm not sorry it happened."

In the bedroom I stared at the watch in my hand, then
put it into the bureau drawer. I picked up the Omega. Octagonal face,
Roman numerals, gold case— it was almost as handsome as the watch
worn by the murder victim. A perfect watch for a successful
suburbanite. A bit boring perhaps, but we mustn't quibble . . .

Mary had disappeared momentarily. She reappeared at
my elbow.

"Found it, Charlie. In Jack's room. Here, this
is more your speed."

She grabbed my wrist and fastened it on.

"Aw Mary. It's such a comedown after my
Chronograph Adventurer. And a red plastic band too."

"It's the real you, dear."

"Thanks a lot. Gee, I bet his arms get tired.
How come he's wearing white gloves?"

"They always wear white gloves. See the little
bird that flies around the face? That's the second hand—"

She slipped off her panties and tugged at my belt.

"C'mon Charlie. This watch has a real neat
function on it. Better than scuba diving . . ." '

I stepped out of my pants and took off my undershirt.
She was grabbing at me. Tacky broad.

"Ow!"

"C'mon Charlie . . . get in."

"Hey, the ears wiggle too, with every tick . . .
Hey!"

"Better than race-car driving too—"

I looked at the watch again before I climbed into the
sack. The little guy on the face smiled back at me.

"Hiya Mickey," I said, "long time no
see."
 
 

CHAPTER FIVE

Joe came in and sat down on the foot of our bed. He
was wearing nothing but his drawers.

"Good morning everybody," he said.

'
jeez, Joe, can't you get dressed before you come in
here?"

"Why? It's only you and Sis, She's seen me like
this a lot, right, Mare?"

She laughed a sleepy laugh. Sometimes, I thought,
these Italians get too cozy for comfort. I got up and walked over to
the bureau.

"Well look who's talking, for Chrissake! At
least I've got pants on!" said Joe.

"It's different. I'm married to her," I
said.

"
Okay, you two. I think I've seen enough beef
for this morning," said Mary wearily. "Especially
considering it's not prime cut. Now I'm not going to get out of bed
bare-assed in front of both of you, so get out."

"This any better, guy?" I held out my wrist
to Joe and he laughed. I replaced the Mickey Mouse watch with the
gold Omega, threw on my clothes, and went down to make coffee. Mary
called after me from the bedroom. Were we going to church? No, Joe
answered from the guest room, we had to go into Cambridge. We had a
quick breakfast of coffee and croissants, then Joe and I left for the
city in his car. Mary retired to her workshop. At a stoplight on
Route 2 Joe didn't budge when the light turned green. Cars behind us
honked.

"What's wrong?"

Joe looked as if he'd seen a ghost. He turned to me
and said in a half-whisper: "His pouch."

"Whose pouch? Hey, move or pull over, guy, these
polite Massachusetts drivers are getting impatient."

We moved ahead and Joe took the slow lane, staring
ahead with his brows furrowed.

"Here we are with a dead courier, and the one
thing we overlook is his carrying pouch. Hell, I never saw Johnny
without it. It was an old newsboy's pouch. Gray canvas with a
shoulder strap. It had the words Lowell Sun on it in dark-blue
letters. Now he could have left it at his office. But as I remember,
he usually took it home with him. Do you remember seeing it up in
Lowell?"

"No. You know it wasn't there. I think the
killers took it."

"Hmmm. That could be the motive. Gee, I remember
Johnny telling me all about the pouch. Had it since he was a kid
delivering papers up in Lowell. There weren't that many blacks in
Lowell then. He'd have to go into white neighborhoods to make his
route. He took a lot of abuse. As a result he learned to fight. But
he told me it was the pouch that most often saved him. It was his
badge of legitimacy, his reason for being in the strange
neighborhood, It was his Saint Christopher's medal. I think that's
why he kept it all these years."