Читать книгу Follow the Sun - Edward J. Delaney - Страница 14

7.

WHEN HE’D GOTTEN OUT OF COLLEGE AND WAS HIRED at the local paper, Robbie drew what was known in that business as the “lobster shift,” the 11 p.m. to 6 a.m. yawner, sitting in a dark newsroom with the police scanners, listening for anything at all out of the static crackle. He always found himself nervous about what might happen in those dark hours, but in the silence he learned the true measure of his boring town. The occasional closing-time fight at a local bar, or a car driven off the curve on Middle Highway and into the woods, or the full-lunged domestic disturbance in the depths of the hours.

He did his hitch in the wee hours, and in time was granted his request to shift to the sports department, where he spent his first year taking phone-ins from coaches, to fill the agate columns of minor schools playing minor sports, still thinking then of how he’d soon enough make it to the Fenway Park press box, writing for some big metro newspaper. He has the occasional pang of nostalgia for all his thwarted ambitions. He’s not ashamed that he once aspired, even as he does no more.

Again, he cools it barside, awaiting his brother and another round of medicinal drinking. He spotted Quinn’s boat coming in by the breakwater as he sat at the window desk in the sports department, the third-floor long view like a widow’s walk. There’s a game later he’ll need to cover, but he sits now, happy for the respite.

And there’s Jean, the woman from the other night. She looks over and he gives her a nod, and surprisingly she’s on her feet, approaching.

“Happy happy hour,” she says. “You seem to spend a lot of time in bars.”

“But you’re here enough to notice. I’m waiting for my brother, again. He just got in.”

“From where?”

“Out there,” Robbie says. “He’s a lobsterman.”

“I hear they’re trouble.”

“At least three-quarters of them. But about that murder thing, it was a guy falling off his boat. The guy’s own fault.”

“I know, I already asked around on that.”

“Yeah,” Robbie says. “Most people in this town know the story.”

She isn’t backing off, to his surprise.

“Care to join us?” she says. “I’m with some friends.”

“If you stay here instead, I’ll buy the drinks.”

Jean slides onto the stool. “Fair enough,” she says.

She orders a glass of wine from Peg, who notes that their selection is rather limited, “red or white, but I think we’re out of white.” But when the glass is put in front of her, Jean doesn’t touch it anyway.

“How’s the sports writing?” she says.

“Same as always. And you? Did I ask you what you do?”

“You didn’t. Medical records. They transferred me up to manage the office up here.”

“Do you like it?”

“I like the pay, is what I like.”

The door kicks open and it’s Quinn, who comes shuffling over, bringing in the usual ocean gloom, and stands by Robbie at the bar.

“Jean, my brother, Quinn,” he says.

“You remembered my name,” she says.

“And how close are you two?” Quinn says, shaking her extended hand.

“This is our second date,” Jean says, to Quinn’s puzzlement.

“Kidding,” Jean says. “Just saying hello.”

“We’ll do a real date sometime,” Robbie says.

“Is that a declaration or an invitation?” Jean says. She digs her card out of her bag, hands it to him, and says, “Use the cell phone number.” And she’s off to her friends.

“And how did it go?” Robbie says, but already knowing.

“Not good,” Quinn says. “So bad, in fact, that you’re buying the beer today.”

Quinn is looking off at something, and now Robbie can see what it is. Freddy Santoro, who sits in the corner booth, chainsmoking as he has since they were all in high school. It’s a surprise to see him: he’s waiting to go on trial on a trafficking rap far more serious than anything Quinn ever got himself into. Santoro looks over, raising his head as if he’s about to say something, but Quinn looks away. He nods to Peg for a draft and waits for people to show up.

Robbie is aware of the outlines of Santoro’s story, more from dock gossip than from The Record, where Santoro’s troubles were reported briefly and without undue excitement. It involved a massive amount of hash oil packaged in plastic shampoo bottles, more than a hundred pounds, at a thousand dollars a pound of street value, in watertight boxes under the false bottom of the deck. The boat was not Santoro’s but didn’t seem to be anyone else’s. Santoro was the only person on the boat, a cabin cruiser that had been leased in Florida using a false front company. The boat had been boarded a few miles from the harbor, where he was sometimes employed running a shuttle skiff for day sailors to get to their boats. And Santoro wasn’t talking; always a nervous type, he’d spent a lot of nervous months in which the feds had tried to turn him. Whereas Quinn’s indiscretion was incidental to the lobstering, the amount of product and the matter of the boat made Santoro’s fishing (the stated purpose) mere camouflage to the true commerce. There had to have been some big hitters in the shadows of this deal, and even Freddie Santoro knew to say nothing.

Santoro’s family, the parents and two sisters, have all put up their meager houses as surety for the bonding; even with that, there was some surprise when the judge granted bail. The Honorable Judge Milton Paiva, known across Rhode Island as “Not Guilty Miltie” for his forgiving ways. Santoro has kept on, but the fight seems all gone. In the next week or so, the rumors have it, he’ll go into the courthouse, likely plead to a reduced count, and hope the trial judge, Nevins, a harder soul than Miltie, isn’t going to slam him for not giving up the others.

It was in those days after the arrest that Santoro had seemed to again home in on Quinn. Robbie knew it was a tension that went back to muddy football fields of high school, to fights in the schoolyard, and to rivalries over girls, most of whose names were long forgotten.

One night here, after the arrest, Santoro had been drunk and smoking and he had an audience, and he began shouting across the bar, asking Quinn how many blowjobs he’d given in his time in prison. Santoro seemed first to be thinking he wouldn’t be going to prison, and then once he did realize he would, he seemed terrified.

Santoro had squawked at Quinn until it had become obvious it wasn’t ending without a fight, or an attempted one.

“Did you take it from behind in there?” Santoro had barked.

“Not the way you will,” Quinn finally shouted back. “You’ll be in the joint so long your ass will be like the Ted Williams Tunnel.”

Santoro had leapt up as if he’d only been waiting for the cursory provocations.

Quinn stood up; Robbie knew how much strength his brother had from the years of the work, but still aimed to talk him into backing off. You never knew, with guys like Santoro, what kind of hardware they had in their pockets.

“Don’t let him take you down with him,” Robbie said. “Why should you end up in a jail cell tonight?”

“It’s his game,” Quinn said.

“He’s drunker than shit,” Robbie said. “Why bother?”

Quinn had nodded, and let Robbie turn him toward the exit. “See you some other time, you pussy,” Santoro shouted in his presumed victory.

Now, tonight, Robbie sees Santoro getting up and edging toward them.

“Here he comes,” Robbie says.

“It’s all right.”

“He looks hammered.”

“So I would assume.”

Now Santoro’s against Quinn, leaning in hard.

“You didn’t even say hello,” Santoro says. He’s always got an aggressive way about him, and Quinn long ago came to the conclusion he doesn’t always know it.

“I guess I’ll soon be saying goodbye,” Quinn says.

“Not funny,” Santoro says.

“I thought you’d laugh. How long you think you’ll be in for?”

“It’s either going to be a long time or a real long time. But they were talking worse if I didn’t plead. Like, basically life.”

“They wouldn’t give you life,” Quinn says. “That’s how they scare chickenshits into pleading guilty.”

“But they said twenty years. So that’s basically life, I mean, given I don’t take very good care of myself.”

“That’s rough,” Robbie says, wedging into the conversation to avert another standoff.

“So I hear you need a sternman,” Santoro says to Quinn.

“Yeah, you know anybody?”

“I’m talking about me . . .”

“I thought you were going to prison.”

“I have about a week left. Look, I need the money. Every bit I can get. My lawyer isn’t cheap. I don’t want them going after my parents.”

“You should have gotten a public defender, like I did.”

“I thought this guy was going to get me off,” Santoro says. “He was talking probation or a year in minimum security, so I kept paying him. Look, any money I can hustle right now, I need real bad.”

“And it’s worth getting one share from me?”

“I was thinking two.”

“And how’s that?”

“I’ll do two guys’ work. I can do better than any two guys you’re able to sucker on the boat these days. Seriously, I hear about what’s going on. I know it’s been bad, since the Botelho thing. I want to get out there and make a killing. I have a lot of motivation.”

“This last run wasn’t so good.”

“So let’s get right back out there. You have an unlucky boat, but I need money bad. For my parents. I’ll make that work. Two shares is more than I can make any other way with the time I have left.”

“I don’t know, man.”

“Look, let me go. I’m about to be stuck in a damned cage for at least eight or nine years, and I want to get out on the water, one more time. I want to be able to be out on the ocean, so I can remember it when I’m in a cell. You should understand what I’m saying.”

“You can’t just remember all the other times?”

“I want to go out like a goddamned demon. Working hard, using my muscles. I want to be thinking about what I’m doing while I’m out there. I regret now I didn’t think about it enough.”

“It’s work, Freddy. You’re not supposed to think about it.”

“You do when you go to prison.”

“I did go to prison.”

“A few months, Quinn! That was a vacation!”

“Well, lucky me.”

Santoro is getting worked up. “I can’t believe you’re even having to think about it. I’ll make you money, and you know it.”

“A couple of weeks ago you were calling me out.”

“This is business,” Santoro says.

“I’ll think about it,” Quinn says.

“Jesus Christ,” Santoro says. “You don’t think you owe me something?”

“I said I’ll think about it. Come down to the boat at four tomorrow morning. If I haven’t gotten a better crew, you’re in.”

Santoro goes off, head shaking.

“Quinn, you must be able to find someone else,” Robbie says.

“It’s gotten a lot harder, Rob. Yeah, the guy is a pain in the ass, but it sounds like he’s got a reason to work.”

“Why not work inshore, by yourself?”

“That’s what everybody does, and it shows in their yields. There’s even less money hugging the shore. I need more. I got Gina on me about the child support.”

“You should keep looking. Get a couple of guys you can depend on, and maybe they’ll stick.”

“Well,” Quinn says, “I now have high motivation to find these hypothetical guys.”