“For what? What does Bob Saginowski save up for?”
Bob said nothing until she let it go.
“So if you can come up with the ten . . .” she said.
“It wouldn’t be enough.”
“But that’s what he’s asking for.”
“Sure,” Bob said, “but that’s not what he wants. A starving man sees a bag of potato chips, right? And it’s the only bag for, who knows, ever. He eats three-four chips every four hours, he can make that bag last five days? But do you think he’s going to do that?”
“He’ll eat the whole bag.”
Bob nodded.
“What’re you going to do?”
Rocco made another try for the river’s edge and Bob pulled him back. He bent and tapped the dog’s nose with his index finger. “No. Okay? No.” He looked up at Nadia. “I have no idea.”
CHAPTER 13
Remember Me
ON CAUSEWAY STREET, THE Bruins game was letting out into the rain. Cousin Marv had to pull to the curb with the cops screaming at everyone to keep moving and the crowds jostling past and rocking the chassis of the Honda, the cabs honking their horns, the rain sluicing down the windshield like bouillabaisse. Marv was just about to pull away, loop the block, which, in this traffic, would take half a fucking hour, when Fitz materialized out of the crowd and stopped a few feet short of the door, staring in at Marv with a pale sunken face under a dark vinyl hood.
Marv rolled down the passenger window of the weary, faded-gold Honda. “Come on.”
Fitz stayed where he was.
“What,” Marv said, “you think I got the trunk lined with plastic?” He popped the trunk. “Go see for yourself.”
Fitz flicked his eyes that way but didn’t move. “I ain’t getting in with you.”
“Seriously? We gotta talk.”
“They got my brother,” Fitz shouted through the rain.
Marv nodded, reasonable. “I’m not sure the cop at the intersection heard that. Or that one right behind you there, Fitzy.”
Fitz looked behind him at the young cop working crowd control a few feet away. Oblivious for now. But that could change.
Marv said, “This is retarded. About two thousand people, including cops, have seen us talking by this car. It’s fucking freezing. Get in.”
Fitz took a step toward the car, then stopped. He called, “Hey, Officer! Officer!”
The young cop turned, looked at him.
Fitz pointed at his own chest and then at the Honda. “You remember me. Okay?”
The cop pointed. “Move that car!”
Fitz gave him a thumbs-up. “My name’s Fitz.”
The cop shouted, “Move!”
Fitz opened the door but Marv stopped him. “Shut the trunk, will ya?”
Fitz ran back in the rain, shut the trunk. He climbed in the car. Cousin Marv rolled up the window and they pulled away from the curb.
Soon as they did, Fitz lifted his jacket, flashed the .38 snub in his waistband. “Don’t fuck with me. Don’t you fucking dare. Hear? You hear?”
Cousin Marv said, “Your mommy pack that gun in your lunch box for you? Christ, packing heat like you’re in a fucking Red State, scared the spics are coming for your job and the niggers are coming for your wife. That it?”
Fitz said, “Last time anyone saw my brother alive, he got in a car with a guy.”
Cousin Marv said, “Your brother probably had a gun too.”
“Fuck you, Marv.”
“Listen, I’m sorry, Fitz, I am. But you know me—I ain’t no shooter, man. I’m just a scared shitless bar manager. I want a do-over for this whole fucking year.” Marv looked out the window as they rode the bumper-to-bumper traffic toward Storrow Drive. He glanced at the gun again. “Make your dick bigger if you held that on me all sideways-gangsta-style and shit?”
Fitz said, “You’re an asshole, Marv.”
Marv chuckled. “Tell me something I don’t know.”
The traffic thinned a bit once they got onto Storrow and headed west.
“We’re gonna die,” Fitz said. “That sink in yet for you?”
Cousin Marv said, “This is a risk-versus-reward thing now, Fitzy. We already took the risk, and, yeah, it doesn’t seem to be working out well.”
Fitz lit a cigarette. “But?”
“But I know where the Super Bowl drop’s going to be tomorrow. The drop of drops. You want to hit ’em back for your brother? Hit ’em for a million.”
Fitz said, “Fucking suicide.”
Cousin Marv said, “This point, we’re both waiting around to die anyway. I’d rather go on the run with a chest of money than hit the road broke.”
Fitz gave it some thought, his right knee tap-tap-tapping against the underside of the glove box. “I’m not doing another one, man.”
Cousin Marv said, “Your choice. I won’t beg your help carving up a seven-figure payday.”
“I never saw my cut of a lousy five grand we took the first time.”
Cousin Marv said, “But you had it.”
Fitz said, “Bri had it.”
The traffic had thinned considerably as they drove past Harvard Stadium, first football stadium in the country and yet one more building that seemed to mock Marv, one more place he’d have been laughed out of if he’d ever tried to walk in. That’s what this city did—it placed its history in your face at every turn so you could feel less significant in its shadow.
Cousin Marv turned west with the river and now there was no one on the road. “I’ll square it with you then.”
Fitz said, “What?”
“Seriously. But I’m buying something with it—first, you don’t say a fucking thing about what I told you. And second, you got a place I can hole up a couple days?”
Fitz said, “You’re on the street?”
A metallic slapping sound found them now, and Marv looked in the rearview, saw the trunk quivering up and down in the rain.
“Fucking trunk. You didn’t close it.”
Fitz said, “I closed it.”
“Not well.”
The trunk continued to flap up and down.
Cousin Marv said, “And no, I’m not on the street, but everyone knows where I live. You, on the other hand, I don’t even know where you live.”
The trunk swung down against the car and then bounced back up again.
Fitz said, “I closed that thing.”
“So you say.”
“Fuck it, pull over. Let me get it.”
Marv pulled into one of the parking lots along the Charles rumored to be a hookup place for queers married to women in their daily lives. The only other car in the entire lot was an old American shitbox that looked like it had been there a week, old snow on the grille fighting a losing battle against the rain. It was Saturday, Marv remembered, which meant the queers were probably home with the wives and kids, pretending not to like cock and Kate Hudson movies. Place was desolate.
Marv said to Fitz, “Can I shack up with you or not? Just tonight and maybe, okay, tomorrow night?”
He pulled the car to a stop.
Fitz said, “Not with me, but I know a place.”
Cousin Marv said, “It got cable?”
Fitz, getting out of the car, said, “Motherfucker, what?”
He ran to the back of the car and slammed down the trunk with one hand. He came back to the passenger door and his head snapped as the trunk opened again.
Marv watched Fitz’s face tighten in rage. He ran to the back again, grabbed the top of the trunk with both hands, and slammed it down so hard the entire car moved, Marv and all.
Then the brake lights that were bathing his face red vanished. He locked eyes with Marv in the rearview and in that last second he saw the play. The hate that found his eyes seemed less directed at Marv and more at his own dumb ass.
The Honda rocked on all fours when Marv slammed it into reverse and drove over Fitz. He heard a yelp, just one, and even that was distant, and it was easy to imagine that what was
scraping the underside of the car was a bag of potatoes or a really fucking huge holiday turkey.
“Fuck, man.” Marv heard his own voice in the rain. “Fuck, fuck, fuck.”
And then he drove forward over Fitz. Hit the brakes. Shifted into reverse. Did it all over again.
After a few more times, he left the body and drove over to his own car. He didn’t need to wipe down the Honda—the best thing about winter was that everyone wore gloves. You could keep them on going to bed at night and no one got suspicious, just asked where they could get themselves a pair.
When he got out of the Honda, he looked across the parking lot to where Fitz’s body lay. You could barely see it from here. From this distance, it could have been a pile of wet leaves or old snow eroding under the steady rain. Hell, from here, what he thought was Fitz’s body could be just a trick of light and shadow.
I am, Marv realized in that moment, as dangerous as the most dangerous man alive right now. I have taken life.
It wasn’t an unpleasant thought.
Marv got in his car and drove off. For the second time that week, he reminded himself that he needed new wipers.
BOB DESCENDED THE CELLAR stairs with Rocco in his arms. The main room was empty and spotless, the stone floor and stone walls painted white. Against the wall, opposite the base of the stairs, stood a black oil tank. Bob walked past it the way he always did—quickly and with his head down—and carried Rocco to one corner of the cellar where his father had installed a sink many years ago. Beside the sink was some shelving with old tools and boots and paint cans on it. Above the sink was a cupboard. Bob put Rocco down in the sink.
He opened the cupboard. It was filled with spray paint cans and jars of screws and nails, a few cans of paint remover. He pulled down a Chock full o’Nuts coffee can and placed it beside the sink. With Rocco staring at him, he removed a plastic Baggie filled with small bolts. He then pulled out a roll of hundred-dollar bills. There were other rolls in there as well. Five more of them. Bob had always figured that someday, when he died, someone would come across this can while they were cleaning out the house and pocket the money, swear themselves to secrecy. But, of course, that never worked, and word would leak out and become urban legend—the guy who found over fifty thousand dollars in a coffee can in the cellar of a lonely old man’s house. The idea had always pleased Bob for some reason. He put the roll in his pocket and the plastic Baggie of screws back on top and closed the coffee can. He placed it back in the cupboard, then closed and locked the cupboard.
Bob counted the money with the speed only bartenders and casino dealers had. All there. Ten grand. He waved the sheaf of money in front of Rocco, fanning his face with it.
Bob said, “You worth it?”
The puppy looked back at him, head cocked.
“I don’t know,” Bob said. “It’s a lot of money.”
Rocco put his front paws on the edge of the sink and nibbled Bob’s wrist with those sharp, spiky puppy teeth.
Bob scooped him up with his free hand and pressed their faces together. “I’m kidding, I’m kidding. You’re worth it.”
He and Rocco and walked out of the back room. This time, when he reached the black oil tank, he stopped. He stood in front of it with his head down, and then he looked up. For the first time in years, he stared directly at it. The pipes that had once been coupled to it—a receiving pipe to receive oil via the outside wall and a heating pipe to heat the house—had long since been removed and the holes sealed.
Inside, instead of oil, were lye, rock salt, and, by this point, bones. Just bones.
In his darkest days, when he’d nearly lost faith and hope, when he’d danced with despair and wrestled her in his sheets at night, he’d felt pieces of his mind detach, like the heat shields of starships that had glanced off an asteroid. He imagined those pieces of him spinning off into space, never to return.
But they did come back. And most of the rest of him came back too.
He climbed the stairs with Rocco and looked back down at the oil tank one last time.
Bless me, Father . . .
He shut off the light. He could hear his and the dog’s breathing in the dark.
. . . for I have sinned.
CHAPTER 14
Other Selves
SUPER BOWL SUNDAY.
More money bet than would be bet the rest of the year on the NCAA Final Four, the Kentucky Derby, the NBA Championship Series, the Stanley Cup, and the World Series combined. If paper money hadn’t been invented yet, they would have created it just to handle the weight and volume of today’s wagers. Little old ladies who couldn’t tell pigskin from pigs’ feet had a feeling about the Seahawks; Guatemalan illegals who carried the clean-up buckets on construction sights thought Manning was the closest thing to the second coming of our Lord and savior. Everyone bet, everyone watched.
As he waited for Eric Deeds to drop by his house, Bob indulged himself in a second cup of coffee because he knew the longest day of his year awaited. Rocco lay on the floor at his feet, chewing on a rope chew toy. Bob had placed the ten thousand dollars in the center of the table. He arranged the chairs just so. He placed his chair next to the counter drawer with his old man’s .32 in there, just in case. Just in case. He opened the drawer, looked inside. He moved the drawer back and forth for the twentieth time, made sure it was loose. He sat and tried to read the Globe and then the Herald. He placed his hands on the tabletop.
Eric never showed.
Bob didn’t know what to make of it, but it sat badly in the pit of his stomach, sat there like a fiddler crab, scratching its way from side to side, scuttling in fear.
Bob waited some more and then waited some more past that, but finally it was too late to do any more waiting around.
He left the gun where it was. He wrapped the money in a plastic Shaw’s bag and put it in the pocket of his coat and got the leash.
In his car, he’d placed the dog crate, folded up, in the backseat along with a blanket, some chew toys, a bowl, and dog food. He’d placed a towel on the front passenger seat and he lifted Rocco onto it and they set off into their day.
AT COUSIN MARV’S HOUSE, Bob made sure the car was locked and the alarm on before he left Rocco snoozing inside and knocked on the door to Marv’s.
Dottie was shrugging into her coat when she let him in. Bob stood in the foyer with her, kicking the salt off the bottom of his boots.
“Where you heading?” he asked Dottie.
“Work. Time-and-a-half on weekends, Bobby.”
“I thought you took the early retirement.”
Dottie said, “To what? I’ll do another year or two, hope the phlebitis don’t get too bad, see where I’m at. Get my baby brother to eat something. I left a plate in the fridge.”
Bob said, “Okay.”
Dottie said, “He just has to microwave it a minute and a half. Have a good day.”
Bob said, “You too, Dottie.”
Dottie screamed back into the house at the top of her lungs, “I’m off to work!”
Cousin Marv said, “Good day, Dot’.”
Dottie screamed, “You too! Eat something!”
Dottie and Bob exchanged kisses on the cheek and then she was gone.
Bob walked down the hall to the den, found Cousin Marv sitting in a Barcalounger staring at the TV. A pregame show on there now, Dan Marino and Bill Cowher doing X’s and O’s on a board in their four-thousand-dollar suits.
Bob said, “Dottie says you need to eat.”
Cousin Marv said, “Dottie says a lot of things. At tip-top fucking volume too.”
Bob said, “She might have to, get you to listen.”
Cousin Marv said, “And that means what exactly? ’Cause I’m slow.”
Bob said, “Biggest day of the year today and I can’t get you on the phone.”
Cousin Marv said, “I’m not coming in. Call BarTemps.”
“‘Call BarTemps.’” Bob said, “Jesus. I already did. It’s Super Bowl.”
&nbs
p; Cousin Marv said, “So why do you need me?”
Bob sat in the other Barcalounger. As a kid, he’d liked this room, but as the years passed and it stayed exactly the same except for a new TV every five years, it felt like heartbreak to him. Like a calendar page no one bothered to turn anymore.
Bob said, “I don’t need you. But you’re blowing off the biggest tip day of the year?”
“Oh, I work for tips now.” Cousin Marv stared at the screen, wearing a ridiculous red, white, and blue Patriots jersey and matching sweats. “You ever see the name on the bar? It’s mine. Know why? ’Cause I owned it once.”
Bob said, “You nurse that loss like it was your one good lung.”
Cousin Marv whipped his head around, glared at him, “You’ve been getting awful fucking fresh since you picked up that dog you confuse with a kid.”
Bob said, “You can’t redo it. They pressed, you blinked, it’s over. It’s been over.”
Cousin Marv reached for the lever on the side of the chair. “I’m not the one wasted my whole life waiting for it to start.”
Bob said, “That’s what I did?”
Cousin Marv pulled the lever, let his feet down to the floor. “Yeah. So fuck you and your eeney-weeny fucking dreams. I was feared once. That fucking barstool where you let that old biddy sit? That was my barstool. And no one sat there because it was Cousin Marv’s seat. That meant something.”
“No, Marv,” Bob said, “it was just a chair.”
Cousin Marv’s eyes returned to the TV. Boomer and JB on there now, yucking it up.
Bob leaned in, spoke very softly but very clearly. “You doing something desperate again? Marv, listen to me. Hear me. Are you doing something we won’t be able to clean up this time?”
Cousin Marv leaned back in the chair until the footrest rose under his legs again. He wouldn’t look at Bob. He lit a cigarette. “Get the fuck out. Really.”
IN THE BACK OF the bar, Bob set up the crate, laid the blanket in it, and tossed in the chew toys, but he let Rocco run around for a while. Worst that would happen is the puppy would take a shit somewhere, and they had cleaning supplies and a hose for that.