Small Mercies

They left the colored guy on his back on the platform and climbed the stairs to the Columbia Road exit, and when they pushed open the doors, Frankie Toomey was standing against his car, waiting for them. Frank didn’t acknowledge any of them but Jules. That was par for the course. Jules claimed to Brenda that he could be funny and surprisingly tender but, if so, he saved that part of himself for private or for the little kids he charmed up and down Broadway. Otherwise, he was as cold and hard as the nickname Tombstone implied. His body was hard, his face was hard, his eyes were as dead as a GI Joe doll’s. He opened his car door and Jules got in. That’s where they split up — George and Brenda left in George’s car, Frankie and Jules left in Frankie’s car. And Rum, odd man out as always, walked home.

“Let’s back up,” Bobby says.

Rum gulps from the cup of water they brought him, a look on his face like he knows he’s never gonna sell this bullshit to anyone. “Sure, sure.”

“How’d Auggie Williamson end up under the platform?”

“I don’t know. Maybe he, like, rolled?”

“Okay...”

“We left him where he was.”

“On the platform with white foam coming out of his mouth?”

“Just one side of his mouth.”

“So, you go upstairs,” Vincent says, “and find Frank Toomey waiting?”

A nod.

“What’s his mood?”

A shrug.

“Come on. What’s the groove coming off the man?”

Rum looks extremely uncomfortable, as if maybe the cut under his balls is showing the first signs of infection. Either that or he’s acclimating to a new source of terror. “I don’t know. I don’t know him. I can’t judge his ‘groove.’”

“You know him,” Bobby says. “You grew up seeing him around. He’s famous for walking into candy stores and buying a round of sweets for all the kids. He’s like every kid’s favorite uncle on Broadway.”

“Yeah, well, that was then.”

“Plus, you’re his beard,” Vincent says.

“Good point,” Bobby says.

“His what?”

“His beard.” Vincent explains, “You covered for him by pretending to be Jules Fennessy’s boyfriend so his wife wouldn’t know Frank was fucking a sixteen-year-old.”

“Jules is seventeen.”

“Ah.” Bobby wags a finger at him. “She wasn’t when she started up with Frankie, though, was she?”

Rum’s eyes zip in the sockets like marbles flung into a bowl. “I’m not here to talk about fucking Frankie.”

“Yet here we are, talking about him.”

“You want his ‘groove’? He’s death. That’s his fucking groove. He’s the coldest, scariest motherfucker I ever met.” Rum holds up his hands. “I’m not saying nothing about Frankie Toomey.”

“Nothing?”

Rum gives them his best tough-guy impression — hooded eyes, small sneer — and shakes his head slow. “Not one fucking thing.”

“Then you,” Bobby walks to the door and opens it, “are free to go.”

Rum watches Vincent close his notebook and return the pen to the inside of his pleather sport coat.

“Chop-chop,” Bobby says to Rum. “I wanna get home.”

Rum says, “You guys said you’d charge me.”

“For what?” Vincent lights a cigarette with his imitation gold lighter that works only a third of the time.

“For what happened.”

“You didn’t tell us what happened,” Bobby says. “You told us some bullshit about Auggie Williamson running into a train, which, since you were chasing him, would maybe lead to a third-degree involuntary manslaughter charge...”

“Which no DA’s gonna waste his fucking time on.” Vincent reaches the door alongside Bobby. “I’m gonna pop down to JJ’s. You?”

“I might join you.”

“Nickle ’Gansies from midnight to two.”

“Draft?”

“Yeah.”

Bobby makes a face. “Draft Narragansetts give me the shits the next day.”

“Me too. But hey, I’m off tomorrow.”

They leave the interview room. Wander into the bullpen. Bobby sees he has three messages taped to the shade of his small banker’s lamp. He checks them.

“Come back!” Rum calls from the interview room.

“Are you really going to JJ’s?” Bobby asks Vincent.

“Thinking about it. Hungry too. Might grab a spuckie somewhere on my way. You?”

“I was supposed to be off tonight,” Bobby says. “I just want to go home.”

“Come back!”

Vincent lowers his voice slightly. “You know that chick in Property? One with the big brown eyes? The lips?”

Bobby laughs.

“What?” Vincent’s already half indignant. “You know who I’m talking about?”

“Deb DePitrio?” Bobby says.