The Whole Lie (8 page)

Actually, “parking lot” is generous. It was a dirt path no more than forty yards long that dumped into a service road for the airport. On either side of the dirt, decades of motorcycles had flattened and mostly killed the grass. It looked like the custom was to ride toward the bar for the evening's drinking, turn your bike to face the road, and walk it backward into a parking slot. That way, riders didn't have to do any backing and filling after six hours and sixteen beers: They were already pointed the right way.

There's one other thing worth saying. This happened long enough ago so that Harley-Davidsons hadn't become jokes, toys for fat baby-boomers. The bikes in this lot were old iron—Hardtails and Softails, mostly, though I thought I spotted a couple of Sportsters—stripped of bullshit ornamentation and most anything that added weight. There were no fairings, no whitewalls, no five-thousand-dollar tangerine paint jobs. These were old-school choppers built and ridden hard by outlaw bikers.

Except for one motorcycle that had drawn a small crowd of beer-in-hand guys wearing leather vests with club colors.

It was a goddamn Triumph Bonneville. There wasn't much light out here, but the British bike seemed factory fresh, though it had to be twenty years old. In a lot full of road-grungy Harleys, it looked like a Tiffany lampshade in a steel mill.

Night air, adrenaline, and a need to impress Savvy Kane had knocked the worst of the 'lude-buzz from me. I was still in no shape to talk, but I could think a little. And the Triumph struck me as the kind of bike a cop might ride to a biker bar, thinking it—and he—would fit right in. Especially if that cop believed a gimme cap and a week without shaving could make him look like a Hell's Angel.

I tugged Savvy toward it.

Behind us: “Hey.”

“What are you doing?” Savvy said.

I knew the Triumph was old enough so it wouldn't have a key. If I could kick-start it, we were all set.

I trotted the last few steps to the bike, threw a leg over, hit the choke, threw all my weight down on the starter.

Nothing but a popcorn-fart.

“Hey!” said the cop, sprinting.

Damn. Had to be something other than a choke on the old bike. I finger-felt, found it: a fuel-line petcock. I opened it.

“The fuck you doin', bro?” a very tall biker said as I tried again and got at least a hint of a start. “You messing with another man's bike?”

I chinned in the direction of the cop, who was no more than ten feet away now. He was tugging at the rear of his pants, probably trying to pull his gun. “Hizzacop,” I said.

“He's a cop,” Savvy said.

“I grokked him, sister,” the tall biker said. “I'm fluent in quaalude.”

Then two things happened at once: The Triumph turned over, making a sweet, balanced sound that was nothing like the V-Twin blat of a Harley. And the tall biker stuck his left arm straight out, clotheslining the charging cop.

Here's something I'll never forget about Savannah Kane: She didn't step onto the Bonneville's seat—she
jumped
on, legs in flying V formation, grabbing me tight just as I popped the bike into first gear and spit dirt all the way to the street. I hooked a left, glanced back, saw the knot of bikers closing around the poleaxed cop.

Like I said, this happened a long time ago. Undercover cops sniffing after drug busts were not popular with Harley guys. And Harley guys were serious men. I almost felt sorry for the cop.

*   *   *

We sat on Moe's porch. Planes took off. Planes landed. I noticed a little blue-and-white teapot on a wicker table rattled just before each one. Like a five-second warning. Wondered if Moe even noticed the rattle anymore. Probably not.

I caught him looking at his watch.

“Moe,” I said.

He raised eyebrows.

I held up both hands, made a show of looking around. “What are you doing, Moe?”

“I'm tryna make in one swell foop what I used to make bit by bit at the dog track.”

“Moe, it's
me
here. Cut the shit.”

Because it'd been a few years since he came to Barnburners meetings, he'd probably forgotten how much I knew about him. His mom didn't leave Moe a lot, but the house was free and clear, and even when it's in a Logan flight path, Boston Harbor real estate isn't cheap. And the state cops were no slouches when it came to pensions: Since the day he retired, Moe'd been pulling down half the highest salary he ever earned on the job. No divorce, no kids, no mortgage—Moe Coover's claim that he needed to make a plane-crash score was ridiculous.

So what was it? What was really going on?

We had a staredown, each knowing more or less what the other was thinking.

A drunk like me was always going to assume one thing. A drunk like Moe knew it. Switch us up, him in the visitor's chair and me waiting for a plane crash, and he'd be wondering, too.

He said it before I could ask. “I'm sober, Conway. Jesus, I'm sober how long now … once you get a half-century, do you even need to keep track?”

“What I was wondering,” I said, “is drugs. Pills.”

“Go fuck yourself.”

“Doctors these days,” I said, “they're kids. An oldster like you drops in, says he's feeling blue, they'll prescribe a happy pill like
that.
They hand out pills like candy corn.”

“Go.”

“Did you visit the doc and come home with a bottle of happy pills, Moe?”

“Go.”

“You want to find a meeting somewhere?”

“Get out, Conway.” Chin in hand, dead voice, unable to meet my eyes. “Just get the hell out.”

CHAPTER TEN

You wouldn't believe how hard it is to tail a guy. It's not like TV at all.

Barnburner duties had taught me the only way to follow a car was to stick your nose right up his back bumper, make sure you got through the same lights he did, and hope like hell he wasn't paying attention.

Which, I'd also learned, he never was. That was the good news. Even guys with warrants, guys with a rock of cocaine in the cup holder, and guys headed for their exes' homes with ball-bats in the backseat never tipped to the fact they were being followed. It just never crossed their minds, far as I could tell.

I guess I was no smarter than the ball-bat guys and the cocaine guys, because after leaving Moe's I doodled through Winthrop into East Boston without noticing the forest-green Ford Expedition.

Hunger saved me. Hunger and the fact I'd left two Royal Roast Beef sandwiches untouched at Moe's place. Deluxes with horseradish and a large order of curly fries. As I drove I cursed Moe, who'd hit that old-man phase where he no longer ate or slept, for ignoring them.

Rolling west on East Boston's main drag, I thought about grabbing another sandwich and fries to make up for the ones I'd abandoned. I sat at a red light, staring at Royal Roast Beef & Seafood kitty-corner to my right. My wallet said no: Go straight, funnel into the Ted Williams Tunnel, shoot under Boston Harbor, and make a fast run west. Back to Charlene's, where the food was free.

My stomach said hang a right and eat.

While my wallet fought my stomach, my eyeballs ignored the Expedition that was riding my ass.

The light went green. My stomach won. As usual. I grabbed the quick right turn.

Talk about dumb luck.

I heard commotion behind me, checked the mirror. The Expedition had started through the intersection, then stopped dead. It was now fighting across two lanes of traffic to follow me into the parking lot. The driver had jammed himself in an awkward wedge and was trying to straighten out his wheel. He was having a tough time of it because pissed-off locals were leaning on their horns and not giving him room.

Even with all this, my stomach would have betrayed me if the Expedition's driver had played it cool. I rolled into Royal's lot and headed for a parking spot—just in time to see the desperate SUV chirp its tires, free itself from the traffic mess, and bounce over the curb to join me in the lot.

“Shit,” I said out loud,
finally
figuring out the deal. I sat for maybe three seconds smelling fried clams and roast beef and delicious curly fries. The whole day was shaping up as a conspiracy to keep me from eating a damn meal.

I got a decent look at the driver, who wasn't more than thirty feet dead ahead.

I knew him.

But where from?

Click: The guy who'd sat next to me in the barbecue joint. The weird guy. He'd crowded me, had started a conversation out of nowhere. What was it he'd said?
Folks who involve theirselves in the business of others … slice their balls off and stuff 'em down their throats.

Jesus. Had he followed me from Moe's?

Had he followed me
to
Moe's?

Who was he? Who sent him?

Option: Jump out, trot over, and pull him out.

Problem: He'd just lock the doors, flip me off, and drive away.

Option: Ram him.

Problem: What the hell for? From the looks of his bumper cover, he was no stranger to contact. In fact, it looked like he enjoyed it. The bumper was misshapen and gouged, its two-tone green-and-gold all chipped up. And if I hit him hard enough for airbags to deploy, a half-dozen looky-loos would call the cops.

Option: Park and eat a sandwich.

Problem: I wasn't hungry anymore. Was pissed off instead. Pissed that I'd led some clown to Moe Coover's house, pissed that I'd been so easy to tail. When you came down to it, I was mostly pissed that Savvy Kane had walked into my shop and screwed everything up just when I was doing okay for a change.

One option left.

I took off.

Dropped the tranny in drive and bounced over the low curb into the street. Got lucky: The curb could have peeled back my oil pan and banged up my custom exhaust, but it didn't. Behind me, the Expedition slammed over the curb and never even knew it was there. Tall truck, high ground clearance, thick-sidewall tires. If we got into city-warfare driving, vacant lots and speed bumps and more curbs, he'd have the edge.

I thought this through as I hammered west on Bennington Street. Kept one eye on the rearview, saw the Expedition come around a corner like a cow on ice skates.

Decided to see what the big ugly dude in the big ugly SUV wanted.

I slowed, let him pull within four car-lengths. Then I spun a quick right onto a typical Eastie residential street: narrow, cars parked on both sides, triple-decker houses stuffed right next to each other.

I took it slow. Wouldn't do me much good to run over a kid in here. The question: Was the Expedition running a loose tail, or would he truly come after me?

Answer: loose tail. As I chugged through tight streets, the guy had plenty of chances to ram me, even pin me against a car if that was his job. He didn't. Stayed behind me instead, never more than five car lengths back.

I took rights, circling back to the main drag. What kind of guy, when he knows he's been made like that, hangs on your bumper? Why not throw in the towel, motor off, and come at me again another time?

He might be a flunky, an order-taker. And not a smart one. His boss had said follow that car or else—and he was, by God, even when the tail turned sour.

Or he might be a nutcase.

From what he'd shown me in the barbecue joint, that seemed like the smart bet.

But who
was
he?

I knew how to find out.

I hit Route 1-A, took it to the new section of Route 90—the Mass Turnpike extension that was part of the Big Dig boondoggle—and, in light traffic, used my rearview to learn more about the Expedition.

Like me, he used a FAST LANE transponder to zip through tollbooths. But whereas mine, like most everybody else's, was Velcro'd high on the windshield, the guy in the Expedition had to fumble his from the center console at each toll, then aim it at the electronic reader.

Which might mean he'd stolen the transponder from another vehicle. Or might mean nothing.

As we dipped into the Ted Williams Tunnel, lit up bright as day, I learned more. No state inspection sticker in the lower right corner of the windshield, so it wasn't a Massachusetts vehicle. And no front license plate on that chewed-up bumper to help me figure out what state it
was
from.

We cleared the tunnel. I hit the throttle.

The Expedition disappeared.

He tried to stay with me, but there were just enough curves and dips on this chunk of the Pike to make him uncomfortable when our speed topped a hundred. I kept my foot in it and pulled away.

After the exit for Cambridge and Brighton, there was a long flat stretch. I looked ahead and to the right, hoping for help.

Got some, in the form of a bus smoking along in the slow lane.

I dove in front of the bus and matched its speed, keeping an eye on my side-view mirror. In thirty seconds I spotted the Expedition, honking along, still thinking he could catch me.

I eyeballed the breakdown lane—clear—and watched the green SUV and timed everything just right.

As the Expedition drew level with me, I slashed into the breakdown lane and tapped the brakes. The bus threw me one pissed-off honk and kept moving, shielding me from the driver of the SUV.

I rolled into the gas, checked mirrors, cut back into the slow lane, looked ahead and to my left.

There he was. Green Expedition with gold bumpers, highballing along, trying like hell to catch a glimpse of me.

He was looking in the wrong direction.

I might have smiled.

But not for long.

I sat a full two hundred yards behind the Expedition. I could afford to. Knew where the exits were, knew a squirt of throttle would pull me to him anytime I wanted. There were a bunch of cars between us. One of them was a sensible-shoes Nissan Sentra in that boring silver-gold color.

In the light traffic, it soon became clear the Sentra was tailing the SUV. It darted lane to lane whenever he did, rode his bumper too close, then too far—an amateur-hour tail-job.