Cliff Walk: A Liam Mulligan Novel (16 page)

It was just as well. I wasn’t in a festive mood. Last night, the little girl with no arms told me her name was Allison, that she loved the Celtics, and that she missed her mom. She’d become a regular nighttime visitor.

“I don’t have any plans,” I told Lomax. “Why don’t I work the holiday so you can give somebody else the day off?”

“You sure?”

“I am. Otherwise I’ll just be sitting alone at home, guzzling beer and watching football on TV.”

“Okay,” he said. “Come in at seven
A.M.
and you can play city editor. All you’ll have to do is monitor the police radio, edit whatever breaking news the holiday skeleton crew scares up, and look over a couple of bullshit Thanksgiving Day features. Hardcastle will come in to relieve you at four.”

“Give him the day off, too,” I said. “I’ll pull a double shift.”

“You sure?”

“I am.”

“No way I can pay you overtime.”

“Didn’t figure you could.”

That evening I bumped into my neighbor Angela Anselmo in the hallway outside our apartment doors. She was on her way out, buttoning a cloth coat over a pale blue maternity dress. She looked to be about five months along now, but there didn’t seem to be a man in the picture.

“Big plans for Thanksgiving?” she asked.

“No. It’s just another workday for me.”

“Oh. Well, the kids and I are having our turkey dinner around seven,” she said. “Would you like to join us?”

“That’s sweet of you, but I’m afraid I can’t.”

“You sure? I cook a mean turkey, and I could use a man to carve the bird and help wash all the dishes.”

“I’m working a double shift, Angela. I won’t be home till eleven.”

And so two days later I was sitting in Lomax’s chair, editing a lame feature on cranberry bogs and watching the Cowboys bully the Raiders, when the desk phone rang.

“City desk, Mulligan.”

“I’ve got an Angela Anselmo and her two kids down here,” the guard in the lobby said. “They’re asking can they come up.”

“They look dangerous to you?” I asked.

“Not really.”

“Then what are you waiting for?”

A minute later, Angela, Marta, and her fifteen-year-old brother, Nico, stepped off the elevator. Marta was carrying her violin case. Angela and Nico hefted plastic grocery bags.

“Happy Thanksgiving!” Angela and Marta cried in unison while Nico looked sullen and embarrassed to be in their company. Angela unpacked the bags, covering the city desk with Tupperware containers filled with what turned out to be roasted turkey, pomegranate-and-giblet gravy, sausage-and-mozzarella stuffing, sweet potatoes flavored with lime and ginger, and an assortment of Italian pastries. They’d also brought paper plates, plastic utensils, and a ten-cup Dunkin’ Donuts Box ’O Joe.

“You didn’t need to do this,” I said.

“We wanted to!” Marta said.

“It was Marta’s idea,” said her proud mama.

The little girl beamed, opened her violin case, tucked the instrument under her chin, and began to play “We Plow the Fields and Scatter.” The holiday skeleton crew, a half-dozen reporters and copy editors, stopped tapping their keyboards to listen. When she was done, everyone in the room except Nico, who looked even more uncomfortable than before, applauded the performance.

“Enjoy your meal,” Angela said as Marta packed up her violin. She and Marta both hugged me and then turned for the elevator, Nico slouching along behind them. I picked up a plastic fork and dug in. The food was as good as it looked, tasty but mild enough to soothe the gnawing pain in my stomach.

Late that night, I cracked open a fresh pint of Bushmills, collapsed on my mattress, and sipped from the bottle. The Irish whiskey did its job, keeping the little girl with no arms at bay. But in the morning, I woke up with a hot poker in my gut. I shuffled to the bathroom, felt the bile rise to my throat, and threw up in the sink. The vomit looked like bloody coffee grounds.

I drove myself to the hospital, where an emergency room doctor gave me a quick going-over and promptly admitted me. I spent the rest of the day getting studied, stabbed, and prodded.

*   *   *

Next morning, I awoke to find Brian Israel sitting by my hospital bed, a stethoscope draped over his Hugo Boss suit jacket so the hot young nurses would know he’s a doctor.

“How long have you had pain in your abdomen?” he asked.

“Couple of years.”

“And you didn’t think it was worth seeing me about it?”

“I’ve been a little busy.”

“So you’ve been self-medicating.”

“I have.”

“With what?”

“Rolaids and Maalox.”

“And about a month ago that stopped working, right?”

“Pretty much.”

“And still you didn’t come see me?”

“I was going to, soon as I could make the time.”

“When did your clothes stop fitting right?”

“How’d you know about that?”

“Just answer the question.”

“Couple of weeks ago, I guess. Figured I’d just gained a little weight.”

“More likely you were bloating.”

“Because of what I’ve got?”

“Yeah.”

“And what I’ve got is an ulcer,” I said.

“Looked up your symptoms on WebMD, did you?”

“Matter of fact, I did.”

“The EGD—the tube with the little camera on it that we stuck down your throat—told us you’ve got a one-centimeter gastric ulcer.”

“How big is that in English?”

“About the size of a dime.”

“Okay.”

“Because you didn’t get it treated, it perforated your stomach lining.”

“That explains the bloody vomit?”

“Exactly. When we did the EGD, we cauterized the wound. We also biopsied your stomach lining and found
Helicobacter pylori
.”

“I’d
heard
he was missing.”

The doc didn’t crack a smile. “It’s a bacteria,” he said. “It’s what caused your problem, but there were probably contributing factors.”

“Such as?”

“Still smoking cigars?”

“One or two a day, yeah.”

“Drink a lot of coffee?”

“Gallons.”

“Skip meals? Eat at odd times?”

“Goes with the job.”

“Well, there you go.”

“So now what?”

He pulled some drug samples from the side pocket of his jacket and dropped them on the bedside table. “Amoxicillin to kill the bacteria and omeprazole to suppress stomach acid. I’ll give you a prescription for the amoxicillin, which I want you to take twice a day for two weeks. You can buy omeprazole over the counter, and you’ll be on that for life. Rolaids or Tums several times a day are a good idea, too. They protect the stomach lining.”

“Anything else?”

“Yeah. Stop smoking, eat regular meals, and stick to a bland diet. No fried food, spices, cheese, caffeine, carbonated beverages, or alcohol.”

“Aw, shit. You just described my entire diet,” I said, and he chuckled like he thought I was kidding.

“Look, you need to take this seriously, Mulligan. If you don’t, we might have to remove a piece of your stomach. Worst case, it could even be fatal.”

“Okay, okay. So when do I get out of here?”

“Tomorrow morning,” he said, so twenty-four hours later I walked out the door of Rhode Island Hospital, found Secretariat where I’d left him in the emergency room parking lot, took a Partagás from the glove box, and fired it up. I knew I’d have to cut back, but one or two a week probably wouldn’t kill me.

28

It was getting dark when I swung the Bronco left onto Route 6, glanced in my side mirror, and saw a white Hummer lurch across two lines of traffic to make the same turn. It was three cars back when I turned north onto Route 295 and still behind me when I took the exit for Hartford Avenue in Johnston. I turned into a gas station, pulled up to the pumps, and watched the Hummer slowly roll by and keep on going. I couldn’t see anything through its tinted windows.

Johnston Town Hall marked the halfway point between the
Dispatch
and state police headquarters in Scituate. When I turned into the parking lot, Parisi was already there. I nosed in beside his Crown Vic, and we both slid our windows down.

“Can’t believe you’re still driving that heap,” he said.

“Shhh! You’re going to hurt Secretariat’s feelings.”

“You named your car?”

“I did, but don’t let it fool you. He’s slower than he looks.”

“Doesn’t seem possible,” he said. “So tell me, did you ever talk to the Maniellas’ lawyer?”

“I did.”

“She tell you anything?”

“She told me she doesn’t date white guys.”

His eyes narrowed. “I don’t give a shit about your love life, Mulligan. Did she tell you anything that would
interest
me?”

“That depends.”

“On what?”

“On whether your interests include chitlins, the Chicago Cubs, and the blues.”

“They don’t.”

“Well then, no.”

He looked at me hard for a moment, then said, “We finally got a formal ID on Sal.”

“How’d you manage that?” I asked, the question triggering Parisi’s trademark five-second time delay.

“I did a little digging and found out the Maniellas illegally filled a thousand square yards of wetlands when they put their dock in last spring. If the state Environmental Protection Agency gets wind of it, they’ll have to rip the whole thing out. I told Vanessa it could be our little secret if she agreed to cooperate.”

“So she made the ID?”

“At the morgue, she claimed she couldn’t bear to look at the body, so she had her sixty-two-year-old mother do it.”

“That’s cold,” I said.

“That’s what I thought.”

“Anything else on Sal?”

Five seconds of silence, and then: “Not that I can tell you.”

“What about the body parts at the pig farm?”

“Still a dead end,” he said. “Now your turn.”

“I hear that a prominent citizen is worried his name might surface in the Providence PD’s child porn case.”

“Is that so?”

“Yeah.”

“What’s his name?”

“Right now it’s just a rumor, so I’d rather not say.”

“Are you suggesting a connection between that case and the Maniellas?” Parisi asked.

“Do you think there could be one?”

“As far as I know, Sal has never stooped to child porn, so I doubt it,” he said, “but I’ll keep an open mind. What else you got?”

“I dropped in on King Felix a few days before the shooting at the Tongue and Groove.”

“And?”

“He was still popping Vicodin from the beating DeLucca gave him.”

“Meet his baby hit squad?”

“I did,” I said. “Got to see Jamal before the Providence cops shot him full of holes.”

“What about the other one?”

“Felix called him Marcus. A couple of inches taller and maybe a year or two older than Jamal.”

“How’d he strike you?”

“Like a snake coiled to strike.”

“His full name is Marcus Washington and he’s sixteen,” Parisi said. “We’ve got surveillance video of him shooting beer cans at twenty feet behind the Calvary Baptist Church.”

“With a little nickel pistol?”

“Yeah.”

“He hit any of them?”

“About a quarter of the time, yeah.”

“That’s pretty good shooting.”

“It is,” Parisi said. “If Felix sent
him
after DeLucca, things might have turned out different.”

“Wonder why he didn’t.”

“Maybe he’s saving him for something else.”

“Think Felix had Sal whacked?” I asked.

Parisi took longer than usual to consider his answer. “I doubt it. His beef is with DeLucca. The dumb shit probably doesn’t even know who Sal is. So what else you got?”

“That’s it.”

“Then you got jack shit.”

“No disrespect, Captain, but so do you.”

“Unless I know more than I’m telling.”

“You usually do,” I said.

“You gonna stay on this?”

“Whenever I can break away from the routine crap.”

“Let’s compare notes again in a week or so,” he said. “And get that muffler replaced, or next time I’m writing you up.” With that, he cranked the engine of his Crown Vic and fishtailed out of the lot.

As I pulled onto Hartford Avenue, I didn’t see the Hummer lurking. I drove less than a mile to the Subway on Atwood Avenue, ordered a veggie sandwich, and ate the vile thing standing up. Then I walked out of the place into a light rain and found the white monstrosity parked beside my Bronco. The Hummer’s front doors swung open, and Black Shirt and Gray Shirt climbed out. This time, though, they wore matching XXXL Patriots jerseys. That made it hard to tell them apart. They leaned against the back of the Bronco and slowly shook their heads, letting me know I’d disappointed them.

“You and your pal Mason have been asking questions again,” said the one on the left.

“Which we asked you nicely not to do,” said the one on the right.

“So one of us is going to have to teach you a lesson,” said the one on the left. He flexed and added, “You get to choose.”

“What if I win?”

“If you pick
him,
” said the one on the right, “you might have a one-in-a-thousand shot, but then you’ll just have to fight me.”

“Are you two carrying?” I asked, and they burst out laughing. The idea that they’d need a weapon to deal with me struck them as hilarious.

“Well, I am,” I said, and I showed them the Colt. They didn’t wet their pants, but they didn’t come for me, either.

“You told us it wasn’t in working condition,” said the one on the right.

“I lied.”

“Know how to use it?”

I thumbed the safety off and assumed a shooter’s stance.

They shrugged, got back in the Hummer, and drove away. I wondered if they were going home to fetch their guns.

29

Nighttime at Swan Point Cemetery was the perfect spot for a gunfight—plenty of cover and no one around to hear the shots—but I probably hadn’t irritated Vanessa enough to provoke anything more than a savage beating. I had no trouble finding Rosie in the dark. I unfolded the Manny Ramirez jersey and draped it over her headstone.

“Rosie, I’m horny,” I said. But she was in no position to help me with that.