The Penny Ferry - Rick Boyer (29 page)

"You're not?"

"No. Not my jurisdiction here, dummy. Although
as an off duty policeman I'd be well within line if I did."

"It surprises me that you're not."

"Yeah, well I figure that after Mary gets
through with you, you'll wish you were in Walpole instead."

I thought of what awaited me back home. It made my
forehead ache, so I must have been wincing to myself.

"
Can I spend the night in the Concord jail?"

"No. You may not."

We drove on into Concord, and I noticed that Brian
seemed to doze off and on. I didn't like this, or his slurred speech.
I pulled into the emergency parking lot at Emerson Hospital, where we
dragged ourselves out of the car, across the lot, and into the
waiting room. We were a couple of tough guys, all right. We were
right out of a Charles Bronson or Clint Eastwood flick.

"You poor, poor old men," purred the young
nurse who examined us.

"We're not old," snarled Brian.

"Aaaannything you say, sweetie," she said,
patting him on his stubbly cheek. Then she went to get us booked for
the CAT scan. The very fact that they thought we should have the
scans disturbed me. When the attending physician said he thought
everything appeared normal I felt better, but Brian was diagnosed as
having a mid-sized concussion. Needless to say, I didn't feel good
about this, and neither did he. They laid him down in a bed with his
head between sandbags, and he was to remain in situ for at least
twenty-four hours.

"
I'm going to get you for this, Doc. Count on
it. Sooner or later you're gonna pay. And I'm in this case now too.
I've got my damaged skull invested in it. I'm going to be hanging
around like a wind chime."

A dark hand shot in front of me and swept gently over
Brian's forehead. He smiled at its owner. .

"
Hi Mary. See what your husband did?"

She bent down and kissed him and murmured kind words.
He reached up and squeezed her arm. It was a touching scene.

"That's nice of you, honey," I said. "I'm
sure that—"

"
You be quiet!" she snapped without turning
around. "The car's outside waiting. We're going home and you're
going to stay there. You're grounded."

"You can't do that to me."

"Hell I can't." She turned around and
looked at me for the first time. "So you'd better get—
Charlie! Your head!"

She stared at me for a few seconds and then started
crying and swearing at me. I was glad she was letting off the steam,
anyway. But closer examination of my head convinced her that I needed
stitches. It was good to be with her; it almost made me forget the
pain.

They had to drain the swelling first, since enough
time had elapsed for the lump to grow and spread the cut wide apart.
They were able to use butterfly bandages instead of sutures. Scarring
would then be absent or minimal, and my forehead would not look like
something Dr. Frankenstein put together.

After it was over they had me wait in the recovery
room. It was a sit-up recovery room and had a TV. After all I'd been
through I sat rather mesmerized, watching a special report on the
upcoming gubernatorial race. Apparently the reporters expected a
close race, with Joseph Critchfield III having announced his I
candidacy a week before.

Mary sat with me, her gaze leaving the television now
and then to glare in my direction. At quarter to ten we were finally
ready to leave. We went in and said goodnight to Brian. He was not in
a particularly good mood. Neither was Mary, considering other minor
matters like my stolen wallet and car keys. I sat in front on the way
home in Mary's Audi. We got settled on the couch and she wanted to
hear all about what happened in the little gray house up in Lowell,
and I told her. She listened intently, and I felt confident she'd
approve of the way I attacked old Four-Eyes, since he had whopped her
with his loaded coat as well. But she just sat there holding the
bridge of her nose and squinting. She was repeating a word over and
over, mumbling it. I listened close and heard it: "dumb . . .
dumb . . . dumb."

But little by little she
began to calm as we sat and visited. Some music, some beer (I was
still terribly thirsty), and some rock lobster tails and we were as
good as new. Except that during dinner I realized that my left rib
cage had been aching. I pulled up my shirt to reveal a mass of dark
bruises there. The sumbitches had kicked me when I was down. I swore
inwardly to get even with them. But I didn't tell Mary. We had hot
raspberry tarts and vanilla ice cream for dessert, and Irish coffee.
I had talked myself into believing I really wasn't beat up and weak.
But halfway through the laced coffee I felt the room shift a bit, as
though we were dining in a stateroom on the Cunard Line. I began to
nod, and Mary helped me into the bedroom and into the sack.

* * *

When I woke up I realized how seriously I'd been
hurt. My left side had stiffened up badly, and I had a permanent
headache from the blow to the head and a forehead that itched and
stung from the dressing. I sat up in bed and drained the ice water
waiting for me on the bed table. Under the big frosty tumbler was a
note:

Dear Charlie:
I
meant what I said: you're grounded. I will be out till four. I had
Susan cancel all your appointments. Stay in bed. If you get up, don't
leave the house. Joe's coming for dinner.
M.

Well of all the nerve, I thought as I drew on my
clothes. I'd show her who ran things; I was going to hop in the car
and go in to Louis's and buy a sport coat, then go over to the Rod
and Gun Club for some silhouette shooting. Grounded my ass. But as I
was eating breakfast it occurred to me that I had no car; it I was
sitting up in Lowell on a side street. I had no car keys, and Mary
had taken the other car. I looked at the key rack and noticed she had
also taken my motorcycle keys. That made me angry.

But I had a spare set hidden away in the garage. I
put on my jacket, grabbed my helmet and the extra keys, straddled the
big BMW, and started it. Those big transverse cylinders thumped and
purred with about as much fuss as a Singer. I would show her who was
grounded. Then I tried to put on my helmet and almost fell off the
bike from the pain. There was no way that that snug Simpson full-face
brain bucket was going to fit around my swollen and bandaged head.
And also, I considered as I hefted the big machine back onto its
stand, riding a bike when you're not 1oo percent fit is just dumb. I
switched it off, dismounted, and went back inside.

Well, she was right. Two hours were spent calling
emergency credit-card numbers to report my lost cards. I wanted to
run but knew it was unwise. So I took my ten-speed out and rode over
to the hospital to see Brian, who was due to be released that
evening. His mood had not improved, and in fact he had reported the
incident to Joe, who was none too pleased either. As I left the
hospital I was considering joining the Foreign Legion, except I
doubted they'd take me.

It was only half a block to the Concord Professional
Building, so I went to the office and did some paperwork and went
over some castings. A gaunt, shaggy head poked in through the
doorway.

"Well well well, if it isn't da cat burgIar,"
said Moe. "I saw Mary earlier when she was chewing out Susan for
letting you sneak off like dat. Wow! Some clout, eh? Did they knock
any sense into your thick skull?"

"No. I'm still the same."

"Pity."

"Where's Lolly? I need to be cheered up; the
sight of her prancing around bare-assed does me a world of good."

He frowned and tsk-tsked at me.

"
Loretta is a problem. She's too old for a
foster home and I can't have her staying wid me. It's just . . .
well, it's not right. So she's both too old and too young. I'm
putting her up for now in a rental room with an older couple; it
seems to be working."

"She happy?"

"Uhh. No. But there's nothing gI can do right
now."

"Listen: if you want to help somebody, call the
Dedham jail and help spring a guy named Amos Railford who's being
held there on the most tenuous grounds? I told him the story of the
big Jamaican, which I knew would touch his soft heart. "It's the
least we can do in memory of Nick and Bart, Moe." He agreed.

I pedaled back home and saw a New England Telephone
van parked in the driveway. I eyed it warily, considering the
untoward events of late. But it appeared to be a genuine phone
company truck. As I passed it I heard a loud psssssst."

A large and heavy-set lineman sat smoking a cigarette
and listening on a phone in the van's driver's seat. He was sitting
sideways on the seat with the door open and had his hard hat on,
which was a white helmet with a blue telephone-company symbol in
front. He annoyed me, sitting casually and uninvited in my drive. I
heard a thumping sound and the van rocked slightly. The smoker had
friends in the back. I liked the whole scene less and less, but
considering the shape I was in, I sure didn't feel like getting
tough. The man nodded, said good-bye, and put the phone back. He
looked up at me.

"Hiya Doc," said Joe. "Where's Mare?"

I approached him and saw Kevin O'Hearn, also dressed
as a lineman, peer around the corner.

"Hi Doc," he said. "Hey kid, you're in
trouble."

"Oh really, what else is new?" I said,
leaning the bicycle on its kickstand and moving over to the door.
"What's all this for anyway?" '

"We're going to go and get Carmen DeLucca in
about half an hour, that's what," said O'Hearn.

"
We know he's holed up in Lynn, right above a
sub shop," said Joe. "Been watching the place two days. Way
he's moving lately, we figure it's time to make the tag. I'm just
waiting here to get the word to start up there; Don't want too many
of us , converging on the place at once. But Kev's right, you know.
You are in trouble. You wanna take a fall for B and E?"

"Of course not."

"
Then stay out of it, Doc. Really. You're either
going to get yourself killed or get me canned."

"Can't I just go up to Lynn and watch you nail
DeLucca?"

"Naw," said O'Hearn. "It might get
rough. DeLucca's no pussycat."

"What you could do, though," said Joe, "is
to drive up to Lynn so I can get a ride back here for supper."

"I don't have a car. I'm grounded."

"
Oh. Well look, I'll do you a favor. If you
promise to stay out of this thing, I'll write a little note to Sis
saying you're riding up with us. You can watch all the preparations
too. But when the hammer's about to fall I want you safe in the back
of this vehicle, on the floor. Deal?"

"Deal."

"Okay with you, Kev? After all, we're only the
communications 5 team. The SWAT boys will pull the dirty stuff.
Remember, Doc: mum's the word."

So I parked my bike and climbed in. The inside of the
van was crowded but comfortable. A phone-company van was perfect
cover; it allowed the fuzz to plant stakeouts just about anywhere and
stay as long as they liked without attracting attention. Most
important, the cops wore headsets or talked into phones as they
waited around the van or up on poles. Thus they could stay in close
touch without attracting the least suspicion— and they could tap
into common phone lines to do it, which meant their messages weren't
subject to radio surveillance.

I sat amidst a sea of props, most of them functional.
There were orange traffic cones, Mm Working signs, yellow blinkers .
. . The van was equipped for protracted engagements too. There was a
chemical toilet and a tiny gas cylinder stove for making coffee. The
cops had added all these touches after they purchased the vehicle
from Ma Bell.  

We bounced and swerved along Route 2, then around the
rotary at Fresh Pond and on to 16, which is called Alewife Brook
Parkway there and soon becomes Revere Beach Parkway. I sat hunched on
a carton right behind the two men in front. Before long the view
opened up a bit, revealing distant smokestacks and fuel storage
tanks, factories and warehouses.

"Where's my wop lighter?" asked Joe,
frisking himself. He found it and lit a Benson & Hedges and
Kevin's Kent. The smoke in the tiny van was awful, and I scooted back
to open the plastic rooftop vent with a steel crank. It worked; the
smoke got sucked out the tiny hole faster than the two smokers could
put it in. I liked the cozy van, which reminded me slightly of the
cabin in our little cat-sloop, the
Ella
Hatton
.

"You really love that lighter don't you?"
said Kevin.

"Yeah, and I know you do too. Listen, Doc, we
got the lead on this place from a snitch in the sub shop. But anyway,
it was the hospital where DeLucca got sewed up that helped us focus
in on the North Shore. Then up comes this little snitch, see, who's a
two-time loser under suspicion for a string of robberies which he
knows— he knows, see— we're gonna pin on him. So what does he do
but comes forward last Thursday with a nice leak for us if he can
work out some kind of deal when we go to sock the rap to him."