The Shadow Box (58 page)

“You heard Maureen. Moon's clean.”

“Yeah, well
...
we need to have a talk about excessive
force. The stiff in your office looked like birds were
eating him.”

“Marty
...
I don't know where he is.”

A weary sigh. “Those names I gave you a few weeks
back. You remember I asked you if this was about Jake?’'

Doyle only shrugged.

“
Those two worked for Parker. So did the stiff in your
office. Parker works for Hobbs.
Michael also worked for
Hobbs. Is Michael alive, by the way?”

“Michael's out of this.”

Hennessy grunted. “Meanwhile,” he continued,
“there's an arson epidemic
all up and down the East
Coast. There's another stiff, who someone rotisseried, at
Hobbs's place in Florida. Guess who all these arson vic
tims work for.”

Doyle shouldn't have said it but he did. “Victims, my
ass.”

A pained expression. “Brendan
...
the word ‘vendetta’
comes to mind.”

Doyle said nothing.

“Now . . . stay with me on this. I think vendetta and I
say, This is an Italian word.’ I think Italian and I say,
The Giordano brothers are Italian.’ Not to jump to conclu
sions or anything but then I say, ‘Gee. I wonder if they're
in this. I wonder if my friend, Brendan Doyle, has been
conferring with Julie and Johnny Giordano.’ ”

Fucking bartender, thought Doyle.

“Last time I saw them,” said Hennessy, “was at Jake's
funeral. I told Johnny we were looking for a cab driver.
Was one of those stiffs a cab driver, Brendan?”

”I don't know, Marty. That's the truth.”

The policeman didn't seem to care that much. He made a gesture, as if to erase that question and get back to his
train of thought.

”I think Giordano and I think money. I think Hobbs,
who is this big investment banker, and again I think
money. How do these two thoughts connect, Brendan?”

The lawyer in him wanted to say, “Who says they do?”
But you don't tapdance with friends. “It's privileged, Marty. I'll tell you when I can.”

“Michael's the client?”

A nod.

“Is Michael rich?”

“Jake left him a few bucks. He's clean, Marty.”

”I believe you. But I'm just me.”

“Who else is there?”

“The D.A. He smells money too. More than that, he
smells headlines.”

Doyle held his gaze. “What would they say?”

“You remember how Rudy Giuliani got famous? He
nailed Ivan Boesky, Michael Milken, and—who's the fat
one?—Levine. He nailed that whole Jewish mafia down on Wall Street and
next thing you know he’s
our mayor.
The D.A. is mindful of this.”

Doyle waited

“He's thinking, if the papers liked that one, they might
like a bunch of Harvards and Yalies who are suddenly
homeless even better. Especially when one is a former
U.S. senator. Added to the mix we have some Brooklyn
wise guys who, if he can nail them, lets him say that he cleaned up the Brooklyn docks. Fuck the mayor's office,
Brendan. This has governor written all over it.”

Doyle still said nothing. Hennessy studied him.

“It's bigger, isn't it, Brendan. It's even bigger than
that.”

Doyle rubbed his chin and stared ahead.
“
Tell him no
press, Marty. Tell him to go real slow.”

“He'll want a reason. I'll ask you again. Is this why
Jake died?”

”I think it's why a lot of people died.”

It was late Thursday evening.

Megan, with Michael, had watched her tape of
Aladdin.
It pleased her that he enjoyed it so much.

And they did make love afterward. It wasn't quite the
rip-snorter Megan had in mind because while she was
trying to vamp him he was sneaking a hit on the rewind
button to go back to his favorite parts. There were things
about men that would take some getting used to.

His very favorite part was the “Whole New World”
duet—a whole new world for you and me. On the replay,
he began to sing along with it. He was singing it to her.

She had to get up and go sit in the bathroom. Otherwise
he'd have noticed that she was starting to cry.

While there, other feelings began to pull at her. The
damned grave was one. For a moment, back at Woods
Hole, she'd almost seen the man. She almost could have
reached out and touched him but he was moving away
too quickly.

The other was that Michael's troubles
...
the ones that
brought him here . . . didn't feel so distant anymore. Some
felt nearer than others. But it's all mixed up. It's as if
...

Oh, Megan. She sighed. You stop this right now.

If you were anyone else, she told herself, you'd know
an anxiety attack when you see it. You're becoming a
drag, a downer, a mope. As in, if Michael makes you
happy, it follows that heartbreak must be just around the
corner. Enough, already.

Here's what you do. Have you noticed that you have a
body? And that Michael thinks it's beautiful? Even your
boobs? Even though you think they're a little boyish?

Go back in there, put
Awakenings
on, then sit way down
at the foot of the bed watching it. Sit up on your heels,
naked, but just out of his reach. You want to play psychic?
Predict how long he can stand it. Predict how long you'll
feel his eyes moving up and down your back before he lunges at you.

“Be right out,” she called through the door.

She did fall asleep during
Awakenings.

She slept curled up against Michael, which was a first, but only after two more intermissions. There were also a
few more tears but these were over scenes in the movie.
One time was over the part when the hospital nurses and
orderlies handed back their paychecks so that Robin Wil
liams could buy more L-Dopa for his patients so that he
could wake them from their comas the way he woke Rob
ert De Niro. Even Michael had to wipe his eye. She liked
that. And that he didn't try to hide it.

Megan had seen that movie a dozen times.
She would
never have been able to watch it if anyone but Robin
Williams had played the lead. It was just too close to
home. Her shrink, no doubt, would have an opinion as to
why she chose to watch it with Michael. He'd think she's
saying, “You wanted to know about me? Just watch this.
It's not the whole picture but this is a start.”

She slept soundly for most of the night. But as dawn
approached she began to dream. There were several. Or a jumble of many. The first was a mixture of her own recur
ring dream—men in white standing over her, in the dark,
touching her, she could smell their sweat—and of Mi
chael's dream. The one he told her about.

In her dream, Michael was in bed with her when the
men in white came. But another man came for Michael.
He had no face. He had a baseball bat in his hand and he
had dug a grave, right there in the ward. Next to it was a
gasoline can. Sometimes where they were was a hospital
and sometimes it was Michael's inn. Outside, sometimes
it was New York and sometimes it was Edgartown. When
it was Edgartown, the man she had seen at that wooded grave was standing outside the inn, just watching. But in
his arms he was carrying that bundle wrapped in blankets.
The one she had seen him bury.

Megan shook herself awake. She almost panicked when
she saw a man in bed with her but the fog lifted quickly
and she realized it was Michael. She didn't want to dream
again. Carefully, not to wake him, she eased out of the
bed and took the coverlet that was gathered at its foot.
She wrapped herself in it and walked to the window where
the first light of dawn had made the water a silver-gray. She looked down on North Water Street where the dark
man of her dream had been standing. He was gone. There
was no one.

She wanted to believe that it was just a dream, that
she'd had no vision, no intuition. But she could feel him
there. She backed away from the window, toward Mi
chael's side of the bed. He was on his stomach, snoring
softly. She reached for the drawer of his night table and opened it soundlessly. The big chrome revolver was still
there, way in the back. Toward the front, partially conceal
ing it, there was an operating manual for the VCR and a
copy of the TV listings. The revolver looked forgotten.
She reached for it, and quietly slid it out. She returned to
the window where she held it against her chest.

The man this gun was taken from . . . Michael said he
was dark. She'd felt that man when she first touched his
weapon but not now. He wasn't near. He wasn't anywhere.
She didn't seem to feel him at all.

As she stood looking out, the certainty that
anyone
had
been out there faded. It was, after all, only a dream.
Dreams don't reveal, they don't foretell, and most mean
absolutely nothing.