Except the old man hadn’t accepted his money back then. The old man was fucking annoying that way, asking Marv in his broken Polack (Stipler was an Americanization, and not a very good one, of Stepanski) why he couldn’t work an honest job like his father, mother, and sister.
Marvin Sr. had been a cobbler, his wife worked in a Laundromat for thirty years, and Dottie pushed paper for Allstate. Marv would sooner sell his dick to science than work a coolie career for coolie wages the rest of his life. Wake up at the end of it all and ask, What the fuck happened?
Yet for all their conflict, he loved the old man and, he liked to hope, vice versa. They caught a lot of Sox games together and held their own in the 50 Tenpin Bowling League once a week, the old man a deadeye for picking up the 7–10 split. Then came the stroke, followed a year later by the heart attack, followed three months after that by the second stroke. Now Marvin Stipler Senior sat in a dim room that smelled of mold, and not the kind of mold you found in wet walls but the kind you found in people as they neared the end. Still, Marv held out hope that the old man was in there somewhere and he was coming back. And not just coming back but coming back with a glint in his eyes. Lots of stranger things had happened in this world. Trick was to not give up hope. Not give up hope and go get some money, put him in a place where they believed in miracles, not warehousing.
In the house, he grabbed a beer, a shot of Stoli, and his ashtray and joined Dottie in the small den where they had the TV and the Barcaloungers set up. Dottie was working her way through a bowl of Rocky Road. She claimed it was her second, so Marv knew it was her third, but who was he to begrudge the things that gave a person pleasure? He lit a cigarette and stared at a commercial for motorized floor sweepers, the little fuckers buzzing around some toothy housewife’s floors like things that turned against you in sci-fi movies. Marv figured pretty soon that toothy housewife would open a closet, find a couple of the little robot saucers whispering their conspiracy to each other. And then she’d be the first to go, each of the little fuckers taking an end and just sucking her to pieces.
Marv had a lot of ideas like this. One of these days, he kept telling himself, he needed to write them down.
When American Idol returned, Dottie turned in her recliner and said, “We should join that show.”
“You can’t sing,” he reminded her.
She waved her spoon. “No, the other one—people going around the world looking for the clues and stuff.”
“The Amazing Race?”
She nodded.
Marv patted her arm. “Dottie, you’re my sister and I love you, but between my smokes and your ice cream, they’re, what, gonna run beside us with defibrillators and those fucking shock paddles? Every ten steps we take—Bzzt! Bzzt!”
Dottie’s spoon scraped the bottom of her bowl. “It’d be fun. We’d see things.”
“What things?”
“Other countries, other ways.”
It hit Marv—when they did jack the drop bar, he’d have to leave the country. No way out of that one. Jesus. Say good-bye to Dottie? Not even say good-bye. Just go. Man, oh man, the world asked a lot of ambitious men.
“You see Dad today?”
“I was by.”
“They want their money, Marv.”
Marv looked around the room. “Who?”
“The home,” Dottie said.
“They’ll get it.” Marv stubbed out his cigarette, exhausted suddenly. “They’ll get it.”
Dottie put her bowl on the TV dinner table between them. “It’s collection agencies calling now, not the home. You know? Medicare cuts, me retiring . . . They’ll ship him off.”
“To where?”
“A lesser place.”
“There is one?”
She looked at him carefully. “Maybe it’s time.”
Marv lit a cigarette, even though his throat was still raw meat from the last one. “Just kill him, you’re saying. Our father. He’s inconvenient.”
“He’s dead, Marv.”
“Yeah? What’re those beeps coming out of the machines? Those waves on the screen of the thing? That’s life.”
“That’s electricity.”
Marv closed his eyes. The darkness was warm, inviting. “I put his hand to my face today?” He opened his eyes, looked at his sister. “I could hear his blood.”
Neither of them spoke for so long that American Idol had moved on to a new set of commercials by the time Dottie cleared her throat and opened her mouth.
“I’ll get to Europe in another life,” she said.
Marv met her eyes and nodded his thanks.
After a minute, he patted her leg. “You want some more Rocky Road?”
She handed the bowl to him.
CHAPTER 7
Deeds
WHEN EVANDRO TORRES WAS five years old, he got stuck on the Ferris wheel at Paragon Park in Nantasket Beach. His parents had let him go on the ride alone. To this day he couldn’t understand the fuck they’d been thinking or fully comprehend that the park personnel had let a five-year-old sit alone in a seat that went a hundred feet in the air. But back then, shit, child safety wasn’t a big concern to most people; you asked your old man for a seat belt while he was barreling along 95 with a Schlitz tall between his legs, he handed you his tie, told you to figure it out.
So there was little Evandro, sitting at the meridian of the wheel’s rotation when it jammed, sitting under a white sun that beat on his face and head like a bee swarm, and if he looked to his left he could see the park and then the rest of Hull and Weymouth beyond. He could even make out parts of Quincy. To his right though was ocean—ocean and more ocean and then the Harbor Islands followed by the Boston skyline. And he realized he was seeing things as God saw things.
It chilled him to realize how small and breakable everything was—every building, every person.
When they finally got the wheel going again and got him down, they thought he was crying because the height had scared him. And truth was he’d never be a real fan of heights ever again, but that wasn’t why he wept. He wept—and did so for so long that while they were riding home, his father, Hector, threatened to throw him out of the car without coming off the gas—because he understood that life was finite. Yeah, yeah, he’d tell the one shrink he went to after his second demotion, I get it—we all understand life ends. But actually, we don’t. Somewhere in the back of our heads, we think we’re going to beat it. We think something’s going to happen to change the deal—a new scientific discovery, the Second Coming, ETs, something—and we’ll live forever. But at five—at fucking five—he’d known with crystalline clarity that he, Evandro Manolo Torres, was going to die. Maybe not today. But, then again, maybe so.
This knowledge placed a ticking clock in the center of his head and a bell in his heart that tolled on the hour, every hour.
And so Evandro prayed. And he went to mass. And he read his Bible. And he tried to commune every day with the Lord Our Savior and Heavenly Father.
And he drank too much.
And, for a while there, he also smoked too much and chipped cocaine, both nasty habits, but both now more than five years in his rearview.
And he loved his wife and his kids and he tried to make sure they knew it and felt it every day.
But it wasn’t enough. The gap—the fucking chasm, the hole, the abscess at the center of him—would not close. Whatever else the world saw when they looked at him, when Evandro looked at himself, he saw a man running toward a point on the horizon he could never reach. And one day in the middle of the running the lights would simply go out. Never to be turned on again. Not in this world.
And it made the clock tick faster and the bell toll louder, made Evandro Torres feel crazed and helpless and needing something—anything—to anchor him in the now.
That something, since he was old enough to know about it, was flesh.
Which is how he found himself in Lisa Romsey’s bed for the first time in two years, the two of them going at it like th
ey hadn’t missed a beat, finding their rhythm before they even landed on the mattress, their breath and skin smelling of alcohol, but it was hot breath, hot skin. And when he came, Evandro felt it even in the smallest bones in his body. Lisa came at the same time, the moan that escaped her throat so loud it lifted the ceiling.
It took about four seconds for him to get off her and five more for the regret to set in.
She sat up on the bed and reached across him for the bottle of red on the nightstand. She drank from the bottle. She said, “Jesus.” She said, “Man.” She said, “Shit.”
She handed the bottle to Torres.
He took a drink. “Hey, it happens.”
“Don’t mean it should, you asshole.”
“Why am I the asshole?”
“Because you’re married.”
“Not well.”
She took the bottle back. “You mean not happily.”
“No,” Torres said, “I mean, we’re happy mostly, but we just don’t do the whole domestic-faithful thing well. It’s like fucking string theory to us. Man, I got to look my priest in the eye tomorrow and confess this shit.”
Romsey said, “You’re the worst Catholic I’ve ever heard of.”
Torres widened his eyes at that and chuckled. “I’m not even close.”
“How’s that possible, Sinnerman?”
“The point isn’t not sinning,” he explained. “The point is accepting that you’re born fallen and life is trying to atone for that.”
Romsey rolled her eyes. “Why don’t you fall your ass out of my bed then and get gone?”
Torres sighed and climbed out from under the sheets. He sat on the edge of the bed and put on his pants, searched for his shirt and socks. He caught Romsey in the mirror watching him, and he knew that despite her best efforts, she liked him.
Thank you, Jesus, for the minor miracles.
Romsey lit a cigarette. “After you left the other day, I did a little surfing regards to your drop bar, Cousin Marv’s.”
Torres found one sock but not the other. “Yeah?”
“It got mentioned in an unsolved from a decade ago.”
Torres stopped looking for the sock for a moment. He looked up the bed at her. “No shit?”
She reached behind her back, returned with something he couldn’t quite make out. She flicked her wrist and his sock landed by his hip. “Kid named Richard Whelan walked out of there one night, no one ever saw him again. If you solved a ten-years-cold 187, Evandro?”
“I could make it back to Homicide.”
She frowned. “You’ll never make it back to Homicide.”
“Why not?”
“Ne-ver.”
“Why not?” he said again. He knew the answer but he was hoping it had somehow changed.
Her eyes bugged. “Because Scarpone runs it.”
“And?”
“And you fucked his wife, you shithead. Then drove her home drunk on duty, and smashed up the fucking unit you were driving.”
Torres closed his eyes. “Okay, so I’ll never make it back to Homicide.”
“But you solve this kind of cold case, you might make it to Major Crimes.”
“Yeah?”
She smiled at him. “Yeah.”
Torres put on his sock, liking that idea a lot.
I was lost, he’d say on the day of his transfer, but now am found.
MARV WALKED OUT OF Cottage Market with two coffees, a bag of pastries, the Herald under his arm, and ten Big Buckaroo scratch tickets from Mass Millions in his coat pocket.
A long time ago, in the proudest but hardest moment of his life, Marv had walked away from cocaine. He’d fallen into some money unexpectedly and he’d done the right thing—paid off his debts and cleaned the fuck up. Until that day, however, he’d been a fucking degenerate with no dignity and no control. But once he paid off that debt and walked away, he took his dignity back. Since then, he may have let his body go to the point that only pros would fuck him, and it was probably true he’d burned more relationships than most people had hair, but he had his dignity.
He also had ten scratch tickets that he’d parcel out to himself slowly tonight while Dottie watched Survivor or Undercover Boss or whatever fucking “reality” show was teed up for the evening.
As he stepped off the curb, a car slowed in front of him.
Then stopped.
The passenger window whirred as it descended.
The driver leaned across the seat and said, “Hey.”
Marv glanced at the car, then the guy. Car was a 2011-or-so Jetta. Kind of car college kids or ones just out of college drove, but this guy was in his early forties. There was something memorably forgettable about him, a face so bland you couldn’t place the features when they were swimming right in front of you. Marv got a whiff of earth tones off the guy—light brown hair, light brown eyes, tan clothes.
The guy said, “You tell me where the hospital is?”
Marv said, “You need to bang a U-ey, go back two–three miles. It’s on the left.”
“On the left?”
“Yeah.”
“My left.”
“Your left.”
“Not yours.”
“We’re both facing the same direction.”
“We are?”
“Generally speaking.”
“Okay then.” The guy smiled at him. It could have been a smile of thanks, but it could have been something else, something off-kilter and unknowable. Impossible to tell. His eyes still on Marv, he pinned the wheel and executed a perfect U-turn.
Marv watched him go and tried to ignore the sweat running down his thighs on a thirty-degree day.
BOB SHRUGGED INTO HIS coat, ready for another day at the bar. He went into the kitchen where Rocco was chewing the hell out of a rawhide stick. He filled Rocco’s water bowl, looked around the kitchen until he spied the yellow duck chew toy Rocco carried everywhere. He laid it in the corner of the crate. He put the water bowl in the other corner. He snapped his fingers lightly.
Bob said, “Come on, boy. Crate.”
Rocco trotted into the crate and curled up against the yellow duck. Bob petted his face, then closed the door.
“See you tonight.” Bob passed down the hall to the front door and opened it.
The guy on the porch was thin. Not weak-thin. Hard-thin. As if whatever burned inside of him burned so hot that fat couldn’t survive. His blue eyes were so pale they were almost gray. His lanky hair was as blond as the goatee that clung to his lips and chin. Bob recognized him immediately—the kid who’d passed him in the park the other day and said Rocco was a good-looking dog.
Upon closer inspection, no kid actually. Probably thirty when you got a close look.
He smiled and stuck out his hand. “Mr. Saginowski?”
Bob shook the hand. “Yes.”
“Bob Saginowski?” The man shook Bob’s large hand with his small one, and there was a lot of power in the grip.
“Yeah.”
“Eric Deeds, Bob.” The kid let go of his hand. “I believe you have my dog.”
Bob felt like he’d been slapped across the face with a bag of ice. “What?”
Eric Deeds hugged himself. “Brrrr. Cold out here, Bob. Not fit for man nor . . . Where is he by the way?”
He made to go past Bob. Bob stepped in front of him. He sized Bob up, smiled.
“I bet he’s back there. You keep him in the kitchen? Or down the cellar?”
Bob said, “What’re you talking about?”
Eric said, “The dog.”
Bob said, “Look, you liked my dog in the park the other day, but—”
Eric said, “He’s not your dog.”
Bob said, “What? He’s mine.”
Eric shook his head the way nuns did when they’d caught you dead in your lie. “You got a minute to talk?” He held his index finger up. “Just one minute.”
IN THE KITCHEN, ERIC Deeds said, “Hey, there he is.” He said, “That’s my guy.” He said, “He
got big.” He said, “The size of him.”
When Bob opened the crate, it broke his heart to see Rocco slink over to Eric Deeds. He even climbed up on his lap when Eric, unbidden, took a seat at Bob’s kitchen table and patted his inner thigh twice. Bob couldn’t even say how it was the guy had talked his way into the house; he was just one of those people had a way about him, like cops and Teamsters—he wanted in, he was coming in.
“Bob,” Eric Deeds said, “you know a chick name of Nadia Dunn?” He rubbed Rocco’s belly. Bob felt a prick of envy as Rocco kicked his left leg, even though a constant shiver—almost a palsy—ran through his fur.
“Nadia Dunn?” Bob said.
“It’s not a I-know-so-many-Nadias-I-get-’em-confused kinda name, man.” Eric Deeds scratched under Rocco’s chin. Rocco’s ears and tail stayed pressed flat to his body. He looked ashamed, his eyes staring down into their own sockets.
“I know her.” Bob reached out and lifted Rocco off Eric’s lap, plopped him down on his own, scratched behind his ears. “She’s helped me walk Rocco a few times.”
The act was between them now, Bob lifting the puppy off Eric’s lap without any warning, Eric looking at him for just a second, like, The fuck was that all about? Eric still had a smile on his face, but it wasn’t big anymore, and it wasn’t happy. His forehead narrowed, and it gave his eyes a surprised cast, as if they’d never expected to find themselves on his face. In that moment, he looked cruel, the kind of guy, if he was feeling sorry for himself, took a shit on the whole world.
“Rocco?” he said.
Bob nodded as Rocco’s ears unfurled from his head and he licked Bob’s wrist. “That’s his name. What did you call him?”
“Called him Dog mostly. Sometimes Hound.”