Trust (11 page)

“Is he going to talk Waldo into doing it?” Cobb said. “I’ve got to tell you, Don: I can’t do it again. If Earl gets in the shit again, and gets convicted of something, I can’t make it go away twice.”

“Ed,” Beale said, “Waldo’s kind of a funny mixture of ingredients, like that stuff they sell for headaches—‘a combination of ingredients.’ Only none of them match each other. He’s got no compunction at all
about selling cars to people who can’t afford them and should be getting new kids’ shoes instead of buying a new car. And he runs the cheapest operation I have ever seen. But he’s also got this mammoth motorboat that costs a whole bundle for gas, and he’s still playing basketball with guys half his age, and cripes, you should see his wife’s clothes.
She
’s pretty plain looking, but her clothes’re gorgeous. Waldo knows exactly where the lines are, and he doesn’t step over them. Waldo wouldn’t touch a thing that even remotely smelled, and Earl knows this. Which is why he was so pissed off. Because he wasted a day going down to see Battles, and he blames me for making him do it. ‘Just a good thing for me that I ran into Sally,’ he said. ‘Least I got something, this weekend.’ ”

“He’s liable to get another spell in the cooler,” Cobb said, “if this car deal’s got something wrong. Jimmy’s a real wrong number. Wished I never heard of the guy.”

“What’d he do for you, anyway?” Beale said. “How is it you owe this guy something? He does not sound, to me at least, like your type of guy at all.”

“Ah,” Cobb said, “I’m not gonna tell you that much. I knew a guy that got in some trouble, one night down in Rhode Island. Nothing came of it, but it could’ve and it looked like it was going to. And he called me from the road and asked me if I could help him. Well, I didn’t know anybody down there, really, but I knew my guy in Washington who knows everybody, everywhere, met him at the ‘sixty convention, he was for Johnson, I wasn’t, but we still got along all right. And I called him up and asked him, and he naturally knew somebody from Providence that could pull
a string down there, and I called
him
up and he said ‘Battaglia,’ and he took care of it for me. I knew it was going to cost me. I didn’t know when, and I didn’t know what, but I knew it would, sooner or later. And now it did. Two things. This is the second thing, here. And now my guess is: I’m still not paid up, because Earl didn’t do what he wanted. And I couldn’t do the other thing. Or I’m not sure I did, at least, but I don’t think I did.”

“What two things?” Beale said.

“Ahh,” Cobb said, “he wanted a guy that could do things with cars. And I of course thought of you. Which meant that I thought of Earl. And he wanted a guy, this was first on his list, that could do things with the army.”

“The army,” Beale said. “What’d he want? Some country invaded? Didn’t he hear about the Bay of Pigs?”

“No,” Cobb said, “his kid’s in the army. And the kid wants to go to Vietnam. He’s a hero, all right? He wants to prove it. And Battles thinks he’ll get killed, and the kid has got this wife that Battles says looks like a toad, and she had a kid that Battles says looks like he should live under a bridge and live off of fish that he catches with his hands, and Battles says he doesn’t care to support them and live with them, and if
his
kid gets killed, he will have to. So he does not want his kid to go to Vietnam, and he wanted me to make sure he doesn’t.”

“Can you do that?” Beale said. “You’re gonna be the most popular pol in the country, if you can pull that stunt off. You’ve got the daddy vote wrapped up, my friend, if you can bring that one off.”

“Of course I can’t do it,” Cobb said. “All I can do’s what I said I could do. Make a call. And I made the call. To the guy I called in Washington, who is getting sick of these calls, that gave me the name of the guy in Rhode Island that knows Jimmy Battles. Which is how I got into the whole gonfalon in the first place. And the guy down in Washington laughed at me, naturally. So I said: ‘Well, you see? This’s why we need a Democratic congressman up here. So
he
gets all the calls, and
we
meet only for drinks.’ But I did what I said I would do. And that is all I can do.”

“So what happens when the kid goes to Vietnam and gets dead?” Beale said.

“Look,” Cobb said, “that’s what I’m trying to tell you. This car that you’ve got here. We know it’s hot. You sell it and you get in trouble. You’re going to sell it, and you’ll get in trouble. This is
fait accompli.
”

“Hey,” Beale said, “pretty good. You would’ve flunked French in college, if I hadn’t sat next to you.”

“Gwendolyn,” Cobb said, “my wife, has culture. But the U.S. Army does not. The U.S. Army operates according to the principles of government management, which are that if it is possible to screw up, do it. The Battles kid puts in to win the hearts and minds of all those folks in Vietnam? He really wants to go? They may very likely say: ‘Hey. Whoa. This kid is nuts. We’re not sending
him
over there.’ Or they may lose his papers. Or they may not lose his papers, but a guy that meant to stamp ’em ‘Go’ will stamp ’em ‘Stop,’ because he has to go to the bathroom, and besides then it’s time for coffee. The kid doesn’t go? I get the credit. The kid goes? I never said I could stop it.”

“But Battles thinks you did,” Beale said.

“Battles
wants
to think I did,” Cobb said. “I can’t help what Battles wants. I can help what you want, I hope, which is to sell this stolen car and get in trouble as a result. Will you listen to me, please?”

“How’d you get to know this guy again?” Beale said.

Cobb sighed. “I told you. I won’t tell you.”

“Henry Briggs,” Beale said.

“What about him?” Cobb said.

“He’s the guy that called you,” Beale said. “Middle of the night. Has to be Henry Briggs. There’s only about four guys you know who would think of your name when they got into some mess in a cheap motel somewhere else. And two of them you probably wouldn’t help. You would help me, and you might help Paul Whipple, and maybe there’s two or three more. But it has to be someone you knew a long time, which is Henry, and someone who traveled a lot, which is also him, and someone with a habit of getting into the kind of trouble that guys find in cheap motels. And that is also Henry. What’d he do? Screw an underage girl? Ball club would’ve liked that a lot, one of their players gets himself arrested for statutory rape.”

Cobb said nothing.

“Jesus, Ed,” Beale said, “you met the guy, ’d you adopt him? Is that what it is? I realize you grew up with the guy and all that, but how far back can the guy make you go? And when you get there, how the hell’s he gonna pay you back?”

“Ah,” Cobb said, “that forest warden job there, that was nothing. I’d put a word in on that job, for anyone I knew. And Henry really knows that stuff, the trees and the hairy woodland creatures. Besides, that was a very popular appointment. Everybody knows him, everybody
likes him, and everyone that doesn’t like him lies and says they do. I actually made friends with that. Henry’s still a young man, you know, Don. Those ball players finish up early. They need something to do with their life.”

“Yeah,” Beale said, “they probably do, and you probably did. Make some friends for yourself for a change. But that’s not what I’m talking about. What I’m talking about is: Henry’s your man. Your guy to run against Wainright.”

Cobb chuckled. “Shit,” he said, “Henry wasn’t even registered to vote, till I went and got him his job. ‘Well, hell, Ed, sure I’ll do it. It’s something you want me to do. But why the hell do I have to? The animals won’t care.’ The animals in the woods maybe won’t,’ I tell him, ‘but the animals where I work will, if I give out a soft job to a friend of mine, and he turns out another Republican.’ ”

“Ed, Ed,” Beale said, “what’re you telling me? That I should ‘think creative’? That stuff you were saying about Earl there, remember that? What it was he did? Well, I doubt you’re right, in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred. Maybe five out of a hundred remember the rigged games, and that some of the players went to jail, but only a real college basketball nut, one in a thousand, maybe, remembers the names of the players. And there’s none of those guys around here. Dad went bullshit when Earl got arrested. Said it’d ruin the business, he’d be closing down in a year. You know how many people ever even mentioned it? Two. One was the basketball coach at the university, and he said he was sorry, and he bought a new car from us. The other one was Russ Stanley at the paper. Called Dad up and said
he thought it was Saint Stephen’s fault for bringing these green kids down from the country and not warning them about gangsters. Nobody up here follows that sport. Nobody knows who plays it. The Celtics, maybe. Some follow them. But otherwise our sport is baseball. Well, baseball and winter, of course.

“Now,” he said, “the only guy I know of that ever came from here and made a big name for himself by playing baseball, well, that was Henry Briggs. Christ, the bars around this town, the veterans’ organizations and the church groups—all that stuff? When he was with the Red Sox, and the Red Sox were in town, every single weekend I bet you could’ve had your choice of ten or fifteen buses, you’d’ve asked around statewide. I’d go so far as to say I bet Bob Wainwright’s
not
the best-known man in his district. I bet Henry Briggs is that. And not everyone who knows Bob is a fan of his. He used to be a banker, remember, and bankers make people unhappy. He’s been in Washington a long time now, and he’s made some enemies, I’m sure, people who needed favors here.”

Cobb did not say anything.

“This thing you got Henry out of,” Beale said. “Is it the kind of thing, you know, that if it got out it’d kill him?”

Cobb shrugged. “A youthful indiscretion,” he said.

“Meaning yes,” Beale said. “Next question. How many people know about it?”

“Not many,” Cobb said. “They don’t
because
he got out. If he didn’t get out, a lot would’ve.
Every
body, in fact. From sea to shining sea. But he did get out, so there’s only, well, three, maybe five of us at the outside.”

“Any of them include the guy in Washington?” Beale said. “Or the guy that knew Battles down there?”

“Nope,” Cobb said. “All I told them was what I needed. The name of a guy that could help with a thing. Not what the thing itself was.”

“How many can talk without hurting themselves?” Beale said.

Cobb pursed his lips. “I would say none,” he said. “I can’t. My friend can’t. And Battles, he certainly can’t. Not that he would, in a million or so years, but if he’d like to, he couldn’t.”

“So then,” Beale said, “then it won’t come out. And Henry’s the pure driven snow.”

Cobb nodded. “You’re a very smart man, Donald Beale,” he said. “I think, I think maybe in the next couple weeks or so, I’ll visit a few towns. Talk to some people we trust. Get what their reaction is, to this crackpot idea.”

“Good idea,” Beale said, slapping him on the back. “And if it’s what I would expect, well then, go talk to Henry. I bet you won’t even need to remind him that what you want he has to do.”

Earl Beale had the late shift at Centre Street Motors in West Roxbury on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving. He had been tempted, starting shortly after Roy Fritchie left at 7:00
P.M.
, to turn out the lights and lock up well before the scheduled closing time of 9:00, but after four straight successful “bagouts,” as Penny called them, Waldo had caught him twice, and had promised to fire him the next time. “I get a base, you know, Earl,” Waldo had said. “I know there isn’t much business, some nights when we stay open late. But you never can tell, when impulse’ll hit ’em, and those’re the easiest sells. They get themselves a few beers, have something to eat, and all of a sudden they’re hot to trot. Who knows what happens, that starts it? The old buggy wouldn’t start without a jump, they went out to go to work inna morning? Their lousy fuckin’ brother-in-law just got himself a new one and’s rubbing their noses in it? There was a little snow, the ground, if it’s wintertime, and they got stuck, their own driveways, and said: ‘Screw it, I’m not getting new tires for this junker’? Or it’s in the summer and the junker
boiled over? Who the hell knows, sets them off? But it happens, and when it happens, well, they got to get a car
tonight.
Half the time they don’t even bother, try to jew you down. Just pay what the numbers are on the windshield. Those’re the gravy commissions, and if we’re not open to get them, my friend, someone else’ll get them instead.”

“Yeah,” Earl had said to Penny the night before, “but I never get any gravy. And I’m never gonna, either, long’s the nights they give to me’re just before some holiday, three-day weekend or like that. Now you just look at me working till nine tonight. Nobody’s gonna come in. You know where they’re all gonna be? Down at the super, getting their turkeys, buying their veggies and ice cream. Stop-and-Shop and Star’ll sell three trainloads of cranberries, and I won’t sell any cars. Sit around on my ass all night, waiting for someone, come in.”

“Take something to read,” she had said. “That’s what I’m gonna do. Sit around that damned courthouse all morning. Damn, who they kidding? I got to be there by eight forty-five, report to Probation and that crap, and I know I’ll be lucky if I’m through by lunch. If my case is called before lunch.”

“You should call up Nancy,” he had said. “It was her grass anyway. Make her go waste her time, stand up when they finally call you.”

“Huh,” Penny had said. “Easier said’n done, I think, buddy. No one’s seen Nancy in months. I run into Roberta, down at the hairdresser’s, she’s got a new guy named Arigo. And apparently this’s gonna be his first, you know, Thanksgiving since he walked out, his wife. So, he doesn’t wanna be around here, on the holiday
and he doesn’t have a real girlfriend yet, so he asked Roberta, go out of town with him. You ever heard of Aruba? Anyone going there, I mean?”

Earl had said he had not. “Well, that’s where they’re going, she tells me. ‘This is gonna be good. Three years ago I’m cheerleading, right? Yelling that English beats Latin. Freezing my tight little ass off, going home to my mom’s lousy turkey. And now here I am, it’s Thanksgiving again, and I’m gonna be down in the sun. Down on the beach, South America way, they’ll probably feed me a lizard.’ ” Penny had paused. “You know what, Earl?” she’d said. “That’s what we should do.”