Vineyard Shadows (8 page)

“No,” said Todd.

Three pints of Guinness were deposited on our table and we drank.

“Now,” said Whelen, “what is it you want to talk about, Mr. Jackson?”

I held my glass in one hand and put my other hand flat on the table where Whelen and Todd could both see that it was empty.

“The day before yesterday,” I said, “two guys who work for you, Pat Logan and Howie Trucker, came to my house on Martha's Vineyard looking for a guy named Tom Rimini. I wasn't there, but my wife and little daughter were. My wife told them that Rimini wasn't there and that she'd never heard of him, which was true, but they didn't believe her. Trucker put a knife to my daughter's throat, and Logan beat my wife and was about to beat her some more. But that didn't happen because she killed Logan and shot Trucker to pieces. I want to know what you had to do with it.”

No one spoke. Then Whelen's eyes narrowed.

“Do you know where you are?”

“I'm sitting in a pub talking with a man who says he's Sonny Whelen, but I never heard of Sonny Whelen sending strong-arm men to cut little girls' throats and beat up women. Or did I hear wrong?”

“Sonny, you don't have to put up with this shit,” said Todd.

“Be quiet,” said Whelen. He looked at Quinn. “Did you know this was why he wanted to see me?”

Quinn shook his head. “No, I didn't. But maybe I should have guessed.” He touched my shoulder. “Come on, J.W., let's ease out of here before you make any more friends. Is that okay, Sonny?”

“Wait,” said Whelen. The pale eyes switched back to me. “Your wife killed The Pilot? You're the guy who owns the house?”

“That's right, and that's why I'm here. I don't like trouble, and I don't want any more of it. From you or anybody else.”

The tension went out of Whelen's face. He picked up his glass and drank.

“You must be married to some kind of woman. The Pilot was a pretty tough guy, they say. The papers are making quite a lot out of it. The Pilot shot down while attacking civilians, and stuff like that.” He glanced at Quinn.

“I don't write the headlines,” said Quinn. “Just the stories.”

“People are having a lot of laughs,” said Whelen. “Gunmen outgunned by mother of two. Big-city mobsters pick on the wrong country girl. Cute. I even seen the story on television. If I was the crime boss that some people think I am, I might be pretty pissed off to have people laughing at my gang like that. It's not good for business to have people laugh at you. Of course, I'm not a crime boss, and I barely even knew those two guys, so you're talking to the wrong man, Mr. Jackson.”

“Not according to Howie Trucker. I managed to have a chat with him before they flew him up here to the hospital. Howie said you sent them to find Rimini.”

Whelen turned to Todd. “Howie Trucker. Ain't he the famous liar? The crook that's never told the truth in his life?”

“Yeah,” said Todd. “That's him.”

Whelen turned back to me. “This Trucker guy has been bad-mouthing me for years. Every time he does something illegal he tries to blame me for it. I don't know what's wrong with him. I guess he's sick or something. Maybe he got kicked by a horse or something when he was a kid.”

“Maybe,” I said.

“So I guess we got nothing to talk about, Mr. Jackson. Sounds like those bums your wife shot got what was coming to them.”

“I think so. Here's the thing, Mr. Whelen. Maybe you sent those goons down there to find Rimini, and maybe you didn't, but you're said to be an influential man in these parts, so you can do me a favor by spreading the word that I want no more Charlestown muscle in my life, ever. I want me and mine to be left alone. You do that
and we're square. We'll write off what happened as just a mistake made by a couple of wiseguys on their own.”

Whelen sipped his Guinness, and smiled. “And what if I don't spread the word?”

“I'll be unhappy.”

“So what?” said Todd.

I didn't look at him. I looked into Sonny's snowy eyes.

Sonny turned his glass on the table, making small damp circles. “You'll be unhappy, eh? Are you hinting that you're dangerous when you're unhappy, Mr. Jackson?”

“Unhappy people are always more dangerous than happy ones,” I said. “You know that. But you don't have to worry about me. You're surrounded by people who are more dangerous to you than I'll ever be.”

Sonny studied me without expression, then he said, “You say your wife never heard of Rimini. You ever hear of him?”

“Of course I've heard of him,” I said, telling him what I was sure he already knew. “Carla, my first wife, left me and married him. He's a schoolteacher. When things started to pile up on him, Carla remembered the place where we used to vacation on the Vineyard and told him to hide out there with me. Then she got squeezed by your toughs and told them what she'd told Rimini. The thing is, she never told me anything. Maybe she planned to, but she never did; anyway, your goons showed up before he did.”

The pale eyes brightened. “You telling me that Rimini's there now?”

“No.” I leaned forward. “Rimini showed up that afternoon. After talking to him and to my ex on the phone I finally got the picture. She said she sent him to my house because it was the safest place she could think of. But all she'd brought me was grief, and I didn't
want him there, so I sent him on his way. I'd had enough of Tom Rimini's problems.”

“Where is he now?”

Time to lie. “I don't know.”

“Don't you now? All right, where might he have gone?”

“I advised him to go to the cops.”

He looked at me with those white-ice eyes. “And did he do that?”

I looked back. “I don't know what he did or where he went. But I know this: he's not at my house and I want no more of him or of you.”

“Well, Mr. Jackson, we don't always get what we want, do we? There are some people here in town, for instance, who want to see Tom Rimini and probably won't stop looking until they find him. Those people will take it bad if they find out people have been sheltering him and lying about it.”

“So far,” I said, “all Tom Rimini has been to me is trouble. I moved to Martha's Vineyard to get away from trouble.”

“You want to know a funny thing?” asked Whelen. “I hear that The Pilot and Howie Trucker didn't go down there to find Rimini. I hear that they were already there, on vacation with their wives in a place Trucker owns down there. Not a bad place. I was down there once or twice myself. I hear that they got a call from Boston or somewhere and went over to collect Rimini as a sort of favor before they went to the beach. What do you think of that? You never know what's going to happen, do you? You're on vacation, you're going to the beach, then you do a friend a favor and you end up dead.”

“Even Attila the Hun probably went on vacation,” I said, “and we all end up dead sooner or later. But Howie
Trucker's not dead yet. I imagine the cops will want to keep him alive so he can talk to them.”

“Fuck Howie Trucker,” said Todd.

“The Pilot was a stupid man,” said Whelen. “His brain was in his crotch. I hear that Howie was supposed to keep him in line on this caper, but I guess he didn't do his job. Your wife a looker, Mr. Jackson?”

I saw the bruises on her face. “Yes.”

He nodded. “Yeah. Well, The Pilot never could keep his hands off a good-looking woman.” His glacier eyes bored into mine. “Whoever sent him made a mistake. People make mistakes.”

I thought it was as near as I was going to get to an admission of error.

“Yeah,” I said. “I guess The Pilot paid for his own, and for the one made by whoever sent him. I don't want any more mistakes.”

“Yeah,” said Whelen. He sat back. “Well, thanks for the drink, Mr. Jackson. See you around, Mr. Quinn.”

I got up and Quinn slid out of the booth and stood beside me.

“One other thing,” said Whelen, looking up at me.

“What's that?”

“You sure you don't know where Rimini is?”

“I know where he isn't. He isn't at my house, and I don't want any more wiseguys looking for him there.”

He cocked his head to one side. “Don't try to be too smart or too tough, Mr. Jackson. It's not healthy. You happen to run into Tom Rimini, you tell him to go home. Tell him his friends miss him.”

“I'm hungry,” I said to Quinn, “but I've changed my mind about having pub grub. Take me to the nearest Big Mac.”

“Sure,” said Quinn, and we walked out of the Green Harp feeling Irish eyes on our backs.

“You're terrific,” said Quinn. “You should take up politics. You're a born diplomat. You're lucky Todd didn't shoot your balls off.”

“I doubt if anybody does much shooting in the Green Harp,” I said. “Sonny likes a nice Irish bar and likes to keep his own life quiet and peaceful. Todd probably does his shooting somewhere else, when Sonny isn't around. Was Pete McBride there just now?”

“Yeah. Chunky fellow at the far end of the bar. Works the docks, mostly. Collects from the unions and shippers both, they say. And they say he skims from Sonny's take but never enough to make Sonny mad. Why?”

I remembered the man at the end of the bar, and stored his face away in my mental files.

“No reason,” I said. “You know where he lives?”

“No. Why?”

“No reason. You think you can find out?”

“Probably.”

“Let me know, if you find out.”

We got into the old Toyota and found a McDonald's.

“Why don't you eat decent food?” complained Quinn, as I worked my way through a Quarter Pounder with cheese, big fries, and a small Coke. “You cook like a dream at home but whenever you get on the mainland you pig out on fast food.”

“You don't know how good you've got it,” I said. “You can eat like this anytime you want to, but over on the Blessed Isle we repelled the Big Mac Attack when they tried to build in Vineyard Haven a while back, so now we don't have any McDonald's or Taco Bells, or KFCs, or any place to get decent, cheap, fast, dependable food. So when I come across the sound to America I eat as much
of this stuff as I can.” I waved a fry. “The whole world can't be wrong, Quinn. The U.S.A. makes the most popular fast food on the planet, for God's sake. Wise up. This is manna from heaven!”

Quinn gave me a sad look.

I took him back to his office building, and thanked him for his time and his help. “I hope this doesn't put you in wrong with Sonny,” I said.

“Well, it might not have helped, but it probably didn't hurt. Sonny never said anything incriminating. I could have taped the whole thing and I'd still have nothing worth writing about.”

“How about
AGGRIEVED HUSBAND CONFRONTS GANGSTER IN CHARLESTOWN BAR.
That's a story.”

“You want that in the paper?”

“No, no, and no.”

“You going to tell me why you want to know where Pete McBride lives?”

“Sure. So I can track him down if I have to. I want his address. And his phone number, if you can get it. And find Graham, while you're at it. For the same reason.”

“You're something else,” said Quinn. He walked into the building and I drove to Jamaica Plain.

The Riminis lived in a big house on a quiet side street. I could see how a couple of schoolteachers might have a hard time paying the mortgage on a place like that.

I parked and went up to the door. The lawn was newly mowed, and there were flowers under the windows and on both sides of the walk. I knocked. The door opened and I was looking into the eyes of the woman I'd loved and married long ago. My heart seemed to hesitate then start again.

“Jeff!”

“Hello, Carla.”

“Oh, Jeff, I'm so glad to see you.” She put her arms around my neck and pulled my lips down to hers. They were warm, familiar lips and they held mine for a long kiss. Then she put her head on my chest and began to cry.