Boston Noir

“What’s TJ saying?” Paul asked. He leaned in the passenger side as he pulled off his warm-up pants. Underneath a bulky turtleneck sweater he wore a white shirt and a red silk tie.

“Nothing, post-game jitters. You’re all dolled up.”

“Late date.” Paul turned back and closed the trunk of the Falcon. He threw the trunk key over the fence, out into the growth of bulrushes in the marsh.

Larry got into the front passenger seat of the Chevy. He had worn a Patriots jersey during the robbery, now he had on a Led Zeppelin T-shirt.

“Rock on, man!” Michael said. He held his hand up for a high five.

Larry sneered. “One of these days, Michael.”

Paul and TJ got back in the Chevy and Michael dropped each of the three at their own cars, which they had driven to the lot earlier that night.

Michael parked the Chevy, fished the vodka out, and took a drink. He got a rag from his back pocket, soaked it with vodka, and wiped down all the surfaces in the car that anyone might have touched. Then he tossed the Chevy key over the fence. He drank the last of the vodka, dropped back, and tried to spiral the bottle over, hoping to reach the oily creek, but it fell short and smashed into something solid, silencing the marsh.

He walked up two rows to his car, a black GTO. He put his key in the door, and felt the top end of his throat stretch itself wide. He turned his head and threw up beside the car. Wiping his mouth with the rag, he muttered, “Fuckin’ egg salad.”

He placed his feet carefully around the puddle, opened the door, and dropped backwards onto the driver’s seat, pulling his feet in.

When he was done shaking, he woke the Goat and drove it to North Quincy.

The Sagamore Grill was the name on the liquor license, but it was commonly known as The Sag, partly because there was no actual grill. The only grill any of the patrons ever saw was the cross-worked iron bars at the Quincy police station.

On Saturday morning, Michael sidled up and placed his order with Bud, the day bartender. “Hi, neighbor, I’ll have a ’Gansett, please.”

Larry and TJ came in together, stopped at the far end, and ordered. Bud lifted the hose from behind the bar and squirted soda into a couple of glasses. They crossed the room to sit at a red square Formica table, way at the back. Michael took his beer and followed.

“Look at this guy,” Larry said to TJ. “Beer for breakfast. My aunt’s dying of cancer and her son’s getting gassed every time I see him.”

“When you’re not here, I drink milk,” Michael said. “I see you, I lose the will to live.”

The front door opened and Paul came in followed by the sun, and by the time the door chopped off the outside light, he was cutting a path through the tables. Michael watched him move; fast, without hurrying; covering a lot of ground with deceptive speed. Paul sat down at the small table.

“Hey,” Michael said. “I forgot to ask, how was your date last Saturday?”

“Good. Nice girl, but not the one. The search continues,” Paul replied.

“Girl from work?” Larry asked.

“In a way. I met her when I took a customer to lunch. She was our waitress.”

Paul was a sales rep for Triple-T Trucking, a union carrier that operated in the New England and the metro New York-New Jersey area.

“Which customer?” Michael asked. He was a driver for Triple-T, jockeying trailers around, making local deliveries and pickups.

“The traffic manager from Schrafft’s Candy, he suggested this place, which, I found out too late, doesn’t take credit cards. I didn’t want to look like a chump, so when the check came, I pretended to go to the restroom, flagged down the waitress, said I didn’t have enough cash on me. I was short a buck for the bill and had no money for a tip. I told her if she lent me a dollar and waited for the tip, it would be a good one. I went back the next day, gave her a fifty, and asked her out for Saturday. She said she was working; I said after. I’d be in the area.”

Michael watched Larry and TJ do the quick nod, polite but impatient, waiting for Paul to get to the good part: their share of the robbery. Michael took a drink from his beer, brought the bottle down, and rapped the bottom against the tabletop a few times.

“Get it?” Michael said. Larry and TJ stopped nodding and looked over at him.

“Cash only,” Michael said. “No cards? That was our restaurant last Saturday night.”

Larry’s jaw fell like the trapdoor on a gallows. TJ shook his head.

“And you went back to pick up the girl?” Larry asked.

“Shhh. Turn it down,” Paul said. He leaned back against the booth in his bright white starched shirt. No matter how grimy the environment, somehow Paul remained spotless.

“Did you know?” TJ asked Michael.

“I just figured it out,” Michael said. “Anyway, how did we do?”

Paul shrugged. “Better than we’d do tonight, now that they’re going to start taking credit cards. That’s what they get for trying to shortchange the IRS.” He flashed a phony smile, followed by a real one; he was charmed by his own insincerity.

“My brother, the patriot,” Michael said.

“You get eighteen hundred each,” Paul said.