The Pariot GAme (27 page)

“Well,” the bartender said, “you could tell me his name, couldn’t you? That wouldn’t do no harm. Couldn’t bother nobody. I might know the guy. I see him, he’s one the guys comes in here all the time, I could tell him, you wanna see
him, have him call you up, meet you someplace. No harm in that.”

Riordan sat straight on the stool and belched. He shook his head vigorously, puffing his cheeks. “Uh-uh,” he said, when he was finished, “I don’t think he’d do that. I don’t think I wanna depend on him to do that. I gotta take a piss. Goddammit, now I gotta take a piss. Draw me another one there, and leave this one.” He stood off the stool, barely wavering. “Where ’sa pisspot?”

“Over there in back,” the bartender said, gesturing with his right thumb over his right shoulder. “Door right next the television. Behind it.”

“Thanks,” Riordan said. He displayed some difficulty getting under way, and had to grip the bar for balance. He looked at the bartender, somewhat sheepishly. “Didn’t have no supper,” he said. “Oughta know better. Didn’t have no supper and now I got so much ale in me, I don’t want any.” He bumped the stools as he passed them.

“Hey, Patrick,” one of the men yelled at the dark table, “you gonna spend all night over there fallin’ in love with that big drunk, or can we get another round here?” The bartender, watching Riordan lurch around the bar, knocking into one or two of the chairs at the table along the inside wall, refocused his gaze on the darkened table. He went around to the other side of the bar and began to draw Narragansetts.

Riordan reached the darkened table as Patrick started drawing the third beer. “Hey,” he said into the darkness, grinning slightly and weaving a little, “one you guys call me big drunk?”

“Yeah,” said the man in the dark in the corner. “Wanna make something out of it?”

Riordan held up his hands and wove back half a step. “Nope, nope,” he said. He laughed. “Just asking. Man likes to know, who his friends are. Can’t argue with you. I’m sure big,
and I guess I’m kind of drunk. Say, that Patrick there, he always this much talk? Guy talks more’n my wife.” He wiped his nostrils with the back of his left hand, and snuffled.

“You’re not insulting Patrick, are ya?” the voice said. “Patrick’s a friend of ours.”

“No, no,” Riordan said, “just asking.” He put his hands in his pockets. “Well, have to excuse myself, I guess.
Excuuse
me. You like that Steve Martin, huh? Funny guy.” None of the men said anything. “See him on television, alla time.” There was no reply. “Well, okay. Don’t want interfere your private party. Just tryin’, be friendly. Go take a piss.”

Riordan nearly fell against the door and staggered into the narrow hall to the back room. There was a small room with no door. The walls to the left were flaked with green-painted plaster. There was a trough urinal to the left of the entrance, with rust stains on the inlet valve. There was a sink stained with dirty soap, dried on. The flush did not have a seat. There was a fresh pink deodorant cake in a wire basket on the inner side of the upper rim. The light was a sixty-watt bulb. Riordan stood before the flush and banged his shoulder on the wall to the right as he unzipped his pants. He began to urinate copiously and noisily. He could hear the men talking in low voices on the other side of the partition next to the urinal, but he could not hear what they were saying. When he had voided about half the contents of his bladder, he flushed the toilet. As the rushing water began, he exerted tension on his bladder sphincter and shut off the flow from there. When the flush started to quiet down, he relaxed his muscles, so that he resumed urinating. When he thought he had about a quarter of his ballast left, he repeated the procedure with the flush, and when that was ending, finished relieving himself. He forced a large belch. Then resuming his weaving, he left the toilet, opened the door to the bar, and stood on the threshold, fumbling with his fly and grinning to himself. He managed to close his pants, and stepped all the way into the bar.

“Jayzuss,” the voice said in the corner darkness, “you’re a real pisser, aren’t you?” There was something in the tone that was supposed to pass for admiration.

Riordan turned slightly and looked into the gloom. “I been some other places before here tonight,” he said. “Lookin’ for a fuckin’ guy, don’t seem to be around.”

“You a cop?” the voice said.

Riordan put on a drunk’s version of a crafty expression. “Cop?” he said. “Cop? Why, think it might help? Been chasing this guy all over hell and gone, past week’n a half. Can’t find him. Cop helps, I’ll be cop. Sure. I’m a cop.”

“You really a cop?” the voice said.

“Sort of, a cop,” Riordan said. “Yeah. Sort of a cop. That’s what I am. Rules. I go out and … the rules. That’s what.”

“Sort of a cop, is it now?” the voice said. The other two men at the table smiled at the voice. “Sort of a cop. You mean, a private eye? One of them jamokes?”

“Yeah,” Riordan said, his face showing consideration of the idea. “Private eye.”

“Got a license?” the voice said.

“License,” Riordan said reflectively, “oh, sure License. I got a license.”

“Private eye license, I mean,” the voice said.

“Private eye license,” Riordan said. “Sure. I got privates eyes’ licenses. Yeah.”

“Let’s see it,” the voice said.

At the front of the bar, two men in gray sweaters came in. Riordan saw them from the corner of his left eye, but gave no sign. He saw Patrick incline his head to his left. The men walked down behind Riordan’s stool and took a table behind it.

Riordan shook his head. “Uh-uh,” he said. “Secret. Secret license. Can’t show it, anybody. ’Gainst the law.”

“Let’s see where it says on it you can’t show it to anybody,” the voice said.

Riordan broke into a big grin. He extended his right forefinger and shook it at the voice. “Uh-uh,” he said, “you’re tryin’,
trick
me. Too smart for you.”

“Got a gun?” the voice said.

“Sure,” Riordan said, “got a gun.
Big
gun.”

“You can show us that, can’t you,” the man next to Riordan’s left elbow at the aisle said. He had iron-gray hair, a big belly, and thick, tanned forearms. The left one was tattooed with a fouled anchor. “Uh-uh,” Riordan said. “Secret gun. Very secret. Lookin’ for somebody. Can’t show gun.”

“Well,” the man said, “maybe we can help you. Whore you looking for?”

“Secret too,” Riordan said triumphantly. “Secret party.”

“Okay,” the man said, “nice talking to you, big fella. Go have your beer with Clement there. Everything’ll be all right in the morning, ‘cept for maybe your belly.”

“Yup,” Riordan said. He wove around the bar to his stool. There were four full glasses in front of it, in addition to the half-glass he had left. “Hey,” he said, “Patrick. Where’d all these brews come from, huh?”

The bartender came around to Riordan’s side of the bar as he clambered onto the seat. The two new customers were behind him now. “Your new friends over there,” Patrick said. “Told me they decided after you went in the head, they’d been too rough on you.”

“Gee,” Riordan said. He raised his voice. “Hey, fellas,” he said, “thanks, thanks a lot.” He waved.

“Thing of it is,” Patrick said, “they insisted, but the way you’re goin’, if I was you I don’t think I’d drink them things. No supper and everything, you know? You’re gettin’ pretty stiff. You got to drive somewhere or something, you know?” Riordan heard the two gray-sweatered men behind him stirring in their chairs. “Nah,” he said, waving his left hand and picking up the half-glass first. He drained it. He put it
down and picked up the first of the four full glasses. He drained that. He put it down. “Insult guy like that, buy you drinks. Can’t do that. Finish these. Go home. Honest. Perfectly fine.” He belched. He leaned forward over the bar and beckoned Patrick closer. “Say,” he said, whispering, “confidentially, you ever hear a guy named Scanlan around this neighborhood? Just asking, huh? Don’t tell anybody.”

“Scanlan the guy you’re looking for?” the bartender said.

Riordan nodded. “Scanlan,” he said. “Dunno his first name, where he lives. Gettin’ sick of this, runnin’ around night after night, Cambridge, Charlestown, Somerville, lookin’ for Scanlan. Wanna go home.”

Patrick straightened up. “Never heard of no Scanlan in this neighborhood,” he said, in a normal tone of voice.

“Shh, shh,” Riordan said. “Maybe he lives here, you just don’t know him. Could be.” The gray-haired man got up from the end of the corner table across the bar.

“Hey, Patrick, see you for a minute,” he said. Then he stared at Clement across the bar. From the corner of his eye, Riordan could see Clement put down half a glass of beer and slide off the stool. Patrick crossed behind the island in the bar.

Clement walked rapidly up the aisle. Riordan heard the two chairs scrape again behind him. Clement brushed behind Riordan’s back, then stopped at his left shoulder and put his right hand on it. “Hey, mister,” he said.

Riordan hunched over the bar. He nudged the ale glasses away from him, up to the edges of the rubber mat. He turned his head to Clement. “Yeah, old pal?”

“Listen,” Clement said, wetting his lips, “I gotta go home now, all right?”

“Home?” Riordan said. He fumbled at his cuff and peeked at the Rolex without showing it. “ ’S only little after ten-thirty. Patrick told me, you never leave ’fore midnight, these days.
Got lots of time. Guys buying drinks’n everything. Nice place. Stay awhile.”

“
No
,” Clement said, “listen. Why’ncha go home now, all right? Like me. Go home, sleep it off. Be all right in the morning.”

Riordan saw the gray-haired man straighten up. Patrick ducked under the bar and went into the back room, the door swinging shut behind him. The gray-haired man nodded. Riordan heard the chairs scrape fast behind him. He saw Clement’s face change before he fled. The heel of a hand snapped down against the base of Riordan’s skull. His face slammed down against the bar, his nose striking the rounded rim. As he hit, another hand grabbed him by his left shoulder and began to spin him toward the door.

Riordan ignored the blood streaming from his nose onto his shirt and coat. He let the momentum of the turning stool go into the leverage of his right leg, the knee locked, as he brought the heavy boot up from the floor into the crotch of the man who had grabbed him. As the kick landed, he brought his left fist back over his right shoulder, swung it back in a flat arc and caught the left side of the jaw of the man who had rabbit-punched him. The hinge of the jaw broke loudly. The puncher was stunned. He reeled off to his own right, into the tables. The man on the floor was screaming and holding his testicles. Riordan bent down, grabbed him by the gray sweater, hoisted him up, held him with his left hand and used the flat of his right fist to break the right hinge of the grabber’s jaw. The man screamed again. Riordan dropped him to the floor. He took the rabbit-puncher out of the tangle of tables and chairs, stood him erect, spun him around so that he was back-to, yanked his hands down from his jaw, brought them behind the man in a double lock, and jacked them upward together until the elbows shattered. The rabbit-puncher screamed for the first time. Riordan threw him on
the floor. He turned toward the door. The grabber was lying on the floor, whimpering. He held his hands up before his face. Riordan raised his left leg about eighteen inches and stomped down on the man’s knee, breaking most of it. The man gave a garbled scream through his shattered jaw.

“Souvenir, shitbag,” Riordan said. “Something to tell your fuckin’ grandchildren. What a tough guy you were, the night you and your buddy got wrecked tryin’ to roll one stupid drunk. Tell ’em what you got isn’t quite as good as the one the drunk had, but it was all they had available at the store. You’ll still know when it’s gonna rain, though. Shitbirds.” Riordan looked around. Except for the three of them, the bar was empty.

He reached over the bar and found a clean dry towel. He dipped one end of it in the soapy water and washed the blood off his hands. He dried his hands on the other end. He reached into his breast pocket and took out a Ray-Ban case. He opened it and took out clear aviator glasses with oversize lenses and frames. He put the case back into his pocket. He reached inside his jacket and drew the magnum. He checked the load, and snapped the cylinder shut. He carried the gun in his right hand. He looked at his watch. It was 10:46.

Riordan opened the outside door slowly, letting his left arm hang slack in the opening. After a few seconds, he dragged his body around the edge of the door. Carrying his right arm stiffly against his side, with the gun against his pant leg, he limped slowly out into the street, his head down, his left leg dragging slightly. When he reached the illumination from the street light, he paused as though out of breath. He raised his head back, displaying the blood, and used his left hand to massage the neck and the base of the skull. He staggered now and then, weaving also, sometimes quite abruptly, although he looked as though he was walking slowly. There was no one
in sight when he reached West Broadway. Dangling his right arm in his own shadow, so that it would seem useless, he crossed on the southerly side of the intersection to the other side of West Broadway. He kept well away from the parked cars and doorways. He lurched back and forth. The curtains billowed out of the windows, and the light from television screens flickered against the curtains from the inside.

He was three cars behind his own when the passenger-side door of a dark sedan opened fast at the curb. The man in the gray scalley cap dove out of the door, in the act of turning and firing a single-shot sawed-off shotgun at Riordan. The range was too great for a sawed-off to do much damage. Some of the pellets spattered off the shooting glasses, but Riordan paid no attention to them or the ones that dug into his forehead and neck. He brought the magnum up precisely in his right hand, clamped his right wrist in his left hand, and fired one round that hit the man dead center on the sternum. He was not a very big man—the shot knocked him into the gutter, under the right front wheel of the car.

Crouching, Riordan moved quickly between two parked cars and into the street. Lights were coming on in the apartments now. As he trotted down the street, outside the cars, he saw a muzzle flash above the trunk of his car, on the sidewalk side. He stopped in his tracks and counted to fifteen. He stood up just as the gray-haired man stuck his head up over the trunk of the car, the automatic gleaming in his hand. Riordan shot him in the face. A large red spray erupted from the back of his head, and he fell into Oakleigh Street, on his back.