All Our Yesterdays (36 page)

“I mean, Jesus, Gus. You got no right to just come along and tell me to get in the car. I’ve got banks to run. Laura and I have guests at home this evening. Sometimes you get carried away, you know, with being a policeman.”

Gus took the Route 30 exit.

“Why are we going here?” Tom said. “What on earth reason would you have to take me out here?”

Gus drove through Weston’s minimal downtown and turned right. They drove in silence for several minutes. Gus stopped the car in front of the inconspicuous gate in the tall bushes and took his car keys and got out. He opened the gate and got back in the car and drove in the narrow driveway and over the little bridge and parked in front of the cottage.

“What is this place?” Tom said. “Why are we here?”

Gus again took his keys and got out. He jerked his head at Tom.

“Gus, I don’t like this,” Tom said. “I don’t want to go in here.”

Gus waited and after a moment, Tom got out and stood beside him.

“Why do we have to go here?” he said. “What’s here? I don’t want to be here.”

Gus took hold of Tom’s arm, just above the elbow, and steered him to the front door. Holding Tom’s arm with his left hand, Gus opened the door with his right and they went in. It had been cleaned up since Gus was last there. Everything was neatly put away. They went silently to the bedroom. The bed was made. The sheets were clean.

Gus let go of Tom’s arm and stood against the wall with his arms folded. Tom looked around, and then looked at Gus.

“What is this place, Gus? What the hell is going on?”

There were no lights on in the cottage, and the fall afternoon had darkened, so that the room was dim, full of the coldness and the silence of a place unlived in.

Gus walked to the bedside table and opened the drawer. In the drawer was the old Walther P38. Gus picked it up, and ejected the clip. The clip was full. He put the clip back in, jacked a round into the chamber, and put the gun back and closed the drawer.

“Gus.”

“Everything’s over, Tommy,” Gus said.

“Gus.”

“I’m going to arrest you. I know you killed those two girls.”

Faintly, from out front, came the sound of the small brook.

“You killed at least one of them here, probably both of them.”

Tom’s mouth was open as if he would speak. But no speech came.

“You been a fucking pervert all your life, and I helped you sit on it,” Gus said. “And for forty years, as far as I know, you didn’t kill anybody.”

“I didn’t, Gus. Honest to God I didn’t.”

“Just banged a few little girls,” Gus said. “And sent them on their way when they got older. Until this year when it all fell in on you. And you couldn’t sit on it anymore and you had to do it again.”

“Gus, I couldn’t help it,” Tom said. “I couldn’t help it the first time, I couldn’t help it now. You understand that, Gus. You know. I been good all this time. But everything …” He gestured wordlessly.

“I know, Tommy, and it’s my fault too. But we’re going to clean it up.”

“Gus, you can’t tell. If you tell they’ll get you too. You’ll go to jail too. I can give you tons of money, Gus.”

“You’ve given me tons of money,” Gus said. “That’s what this has been about.”

“I’ve got more. I’ll give it to you. And I’ll never do it again, Gus. I promise I’ll never touch another girl.”

“This is going to be lousy for your wife and kids,” Gus said. “I want you to think about it a little. I’ll be outside. You can come with me, or”—Gus nodded at the drawer where the Walther was—“you can try to shoot your way past me…. Or whatever. You don’t have many choices. Take some time. Think about them.”

“Gus,” Tom Winslow said. His voice was strangled, barely louder than the faint hush of the brook. Gus
went out of the bedroom and closed the door behind him. He walked across the living room and stood by the fireplace, facing the bedroom door. He took out his service pistol and cocked it, and waited.

A
gain, Tommy thought.

Dimly Tommy could hear the sound of the brook out front. Where Gus was. All this time from Conn to Gus. All this time and Tommy was back trapped in a little room by a cop named Sheridan. All this time.
And Mommy can’t help Tommy now
. It made Tommy feel hot to think that Mommy knew. She never talked about it, but she had to know. The other cop had told on Tommy. Tommy could kill him for that, the mean bastard. Tommy could kill Gus too, why couldn’t they leave poor Tommy alone? All this time, all the money, the deals with gangsters, all the time scared. Sick with being scared. Now Cabot would know, and Grace and Laura. Unless Tommy killed Gus.
He’s right out there
. Tommy could walk through that door and kill the spoil-everything-sonova-bitchen-bastard. And no one would know anything. No one knew they were there. Tommy looked at the door. He cocked the gun. Then Tommy’s legs got suddenly weak, too weak, too weak even to hold him up, and Tommy sat suddenly on the bed. The gun that had belonged to his father was heavy. Too heavy. Tommy had to hold it in both hands. Gus was too big. He had no kindness. Tommy thought of him standing outside the door like a rock. A bad hard fearful rock … Tommy can’t kill Gus…. I wish my mother were here…-. He put the muzzle of the gun in his mouth and bit down hard on the barrel and pulled the trigger.

T
here were four of them in Gus’s car, plus six uniforms in squad cars, with body armor and shotguns. They parked in the little turnaround in front of the liquor store with the blue lights turning on the squad cars. Gus got out with Chris and John Cassidy. Billy Callahan waited behind the wheel. Cassidy leaned on the car.

“It might make sense,” Cassidy said, “if we knew what we were busting these people for.”

“Chris and I know why,” Gus said.

Cassidy nodded.

“Maybe, when I’m older,” he said.

“I’ll go in with Chris,” Gus said. “If we don’t bring him out in five minutes, John, you and Billy know how it works.”

Billy Callahan said, “You should wear a vest, Captain.”

Gus shook his head.

“Chris?” he said.

“Like father like son,” Chris said.

Gus started to say something and stopped. He tucked his badge in its leather holder into his breast pocket, so it showed, and started for the liquor store. Chris walked beside him. Butchie was out front when they came in. The pale clerk was expressionless behind the counter.

“This is my son Chris,” Gus said.

Butchie nodded at Chris and then looked back at Gus.

“Two carloads, Gus?”

“I know we don’t need them,” Gus said. “But we’re going to collar Patrick too.”

“What for?” Butchie said.

“Same as you.”

“What for?”

“Money laundering.”

Butchie stared at Gus.

“You have the right to remain silent,” Gus recited.

“I know my rights,” Butchie said.

Gus ignored him and recited the rest of it rote. Butchie waited.

When Gus finished, Butchie said, “I think maybe you have gone over the fucking edge, Gus.”

“We come in here straight up,” Gus said. “No body armor, no guns showing. We walk out together, ride downtown pleasant.”

“Gus, this is dangerous.”

“We need to be going, Butchie,” Gus said.

Butchie looked straight at Chris for a moment. “You know how dangerous this is?”

“I guess I’ll find out,” Chris said. He felt surprisingly steady. Part of it, he knew, was being with his father. But part of it … Have to think about that.

“We need to be going,” Gus said.

“Gus, you’re jumping off a fucking bridge here,” Butchie said. “You don’t think I’m going alone?”

“Don’t matter none to me,” Gus said.

Butchie looked first at Gus and then at Chris, then back at Gus. Then he shrugged.

“Gus, we know each other a long time.”

Gus nodded.

“I tell you something you can take it to the bank.”

Gus nodded again.

“I don’t like riding downtown in no squad car. Don’t look good in the neighborhood.”

“True,” Gus said.

“I’ll come in with Barry, today, before five.”

“Sure,” Gus said.

He turned and left the store. Chris paused for a moment. He looked at Butchie.

“You’ll be there,” he said. “Won’t you?”

“Honor,” Butchie said, “among thieves.”

G
us took off his jacket outside the three-story frame house. He slid into the fiberglass vest and tightened the strap. Everyone was out of the cars. Three of the uniforms carried shotguns. Two of the uniforms went around to the back of the house.

“Chris, wait in the car,” Gus said. “This one won’t go smooth.”

“No,” Chris said. “I’m the special investigator. In theory I’m in charge.”

Gus started to speak, stopped, looked at his son.

“That’s right,” he said. “Billy, get him a vest.”

Billy Callahan got a vest from the trunk and helped Chris put it on.

“You know what to do,” Gus said.

Billy nodded.

Two uniforms took up positions in front, and two, one with a shotgun, followed Gus and Chris and the two detectives up onto the front porch of the house. They spread out on either side of the front door. Callahan stood between Chris and the door. He and Cassidy both had their guns out, at their sides. Gus rang the bell. No sound. He rang it again. Some women walking baby carriages on the narrow street stopped. One of the uniforms spoke to them and they moved down the street and lingered near the corner watching. Nearby someone was cooking onions. Gus tried the knob. It didn’t turn. He turned and nodded to
Billy Callahan. Billy stepped forward and drove his foot against the door near the knob. The wooden jamb gave way, and the door burst inward. Gus and John Cassidy went in. Billy came behind them in the cabbage-smelling hallway, still in front of Chris, and the three of them headed toward the back door, open at the far end. They paused at the back door. There was movement in the yard, and someone shouted. Gus and Cassidy went through the door and down the back stairs with the two uniforms. The uniforms fanned out to either side of Gus; the one with the shotgun had it at his shoulder. The yard was shallow, mostly dirt with some unsuccessful grass scattered in occasional patches. Two weedy sumacs shadowed most of the yard, and some unhealthy-looking shrubs marked the boundaries. The two uniforms who had been guarding the rear stood one on either side of the back stairs to the next three-decker, weapons aimed.

Pat Malloy stood near one of the sumacs. He was red faced and breathing hard. There was sweat on his forehead. He held a big pistol in his hand, by his side, pointed at the ground. Chris thought it looked like the Colt .45’s that the army used to issue. Pat’s brother, Kevin, was beside him, with no weapon showing, and a third man whom Gus didn’t know.

“I ain’t going in, Gus,” Pat said. His voice was raspy.

“You got to, Patrick,” Gus said.

“No.”

“Don’t be art asshole,” Gus said. “Look around.”

“Fuck you,” Patrick said, and brought the gun up. Chris was trying to see, blocked as he was by Billy Callahan’s bulk. He knew that wasn’t accidental. It was what Gus had meant by
You know what to do
. Everyone
fired, the sound of the police-issue 9-mm’s sharper than the heavy boom of two shotguns. Kevin Malloy, and the man Gus didn’t know, fell flat, facedown. Pat Malloy was turned half around by the gunfire, the front of his shirt was suddenly rich with blood, and he fell all at once, landing on his left: side with his legs twisted under him and the big .45 still in his hand.

The silence after the gunfire was ringing. Gus thought for a moment how it was always like that, as if all life had been suspended and there was only silence and the smell of the gunfire. He looked at Chris. He seemed steady. Facedown on the ground Kevin Malloy kept repeating, “No trouble, no trouble.” He and the other man had their hands clasped behind their heads.

“Heard about Butchie,” Cassidy said with no emotion in his voice.

“Yeah,” Gus said.

He looked at Kevin and the other man.

“I got no interest in you, beat it.”

Kevin stayed flat on the ground.

“You ain’t going to shoot us and say we were trying to escape?”

“No. We need you well come get you.”

Both men got up carefully, and moved very slowly toward the back stairs. They went up the stairs and into the hallway.

“Wrap this up,” Gus said to Chris. “I’m going.”

Chris nodded.

“Captain,” Cassidy said, “you can’t—”

“Chris will handle it,” Gus said.

“For Crissake, Captain, I don’t even know why we came to get him.”

“Go ahead,” Chris said to his father.

They looked at each other for a moment, and Gus smiled suddenly.

Then he walked through the house and out the front door to his car.

Behind him he heard Cassidy saying, “What do I tell the shooting team?”

“I’ll take care of it,” Chris said.

E
ach with a drink, Gus sat across the kitchen table from Peggy. The table was white enamel, with folding leaves at either end. When he used to come home for supper, he had sat on this side and she had sat on that side, and Chris had sat at the end, with one of the leaves folded out to make room for him. Peggy had always cooked simple things adequately—with the emphasis on hamburgers, and Kraft dinner, frozen peas, and meat loaf. She was proud of her meat loaf, which she made with packaged stuffing mix.

It hadn’t been so bad once. The child was there, and it gave their lives a center, and their purpose a commonality. When he was with them they talked with him. When they were alone, they talked about him. Even at night, lying in their twin beds, they would talk sometimes about Chris.

Then he grew up and went away, and there was nothing to talk about, and the distance between their beds became unbridgeable.

And now it was about to end.

“So how was work?” Peggy said. It was her first drink and she wasn’t slurring her words yet.

Gus gave a small laugh.