I left the building and drove over to the YMCU gym on Boylston Street. I glanced at the watch: 11:45. Tommy Desmond would be there. He never missed his noon workout.
I parked the car in a sleazy lot just on the edge of the Combat Zone and gave the attendant five bucks.
I found Tommy working the speedbag. He circled the tiny teardrop-shaped bag doing a slow foxtrot, pawing at it with his mitts in small circles like a kid imitating a choo-choo train. The bag bounced under the platform and spoke like a conga drum: whackata-whackata-whackata-whackata, faster than the eye could follow.
I told him I wanted to buy him lunch and talk. He nodded. An hour later we were in J. J. Foley's bar and grill, wrapping our faces around a couple of cheeseburgers and inhaling beer.
"Liatis is in trouble again, Doc. You heah?"
"No. Same thing again? Bar fight?"
He nodded.
"Punk started it. As usual."
"And Liatis finished it."
"Uh huh. Four seconds. Cops aren't sure the kid'll live though. It's serious this time. He could go to trial and everything. Even all his friends on the force can't save him."
"Jesus. Chest kick?"
"Naw. Throat punch."
"He's got to quit getting bombed in those sleazy bars, Tommy."
He nodded sagely and chewed.
Let me tell you: if you ever find yourself in one of Boston's sleazy bars in the Combat Zone and a short, stocky man with a drooping moustache and thick accent asks you what you think of the Patriots' chances, or who you're voting for, or anything… your best bet is to place your drink back on the bar, make hand signs as if you're deaf and dumb, and back out of there smiling and bowing, And take the next plane to Fresno.
When he asked me what it was I wanted to talk about I mentioned NORAID, the IRA, arms smuggling in general, and my strange nocturnal meeting in the Buzarski barn. Tommy's big blue eyes changed. They took on a steely coolness, rather like the Vaughan Lewis Glacier. They had a piercing, laserlike gleam of intense feeling that could cut through a bank vault door. Sensing his change in mood I made it emphatically clear that I didn't wish to pry into his personal life or activities, or those of his friends and acquaintances. I just wanted an idea if the man I had met was, in his estimation, an IRA Provo.
His replies were cool and clipped, though polite. No, he thought. The IRA was infinitely more sophisticated than most people thought. What I had bumped into sounded to him like a half-assed outfit, though certainly a dangerous one. He advised me as a friend to heed the man's warnings. But if he is IRA, he'l1 kill you next time, Doc. Count on it. If not, he still might. But I know for a fact that most of the guns used in the North are smuggled through New York and New Orleans now-even though the money comes from here. Also, they're getting more and more of their stuff from other terrorist groups like the PLO. Hello, Joe!"
"Hi ya, Tommy. May God bless-"
His name was Joe Berry, and he wore thick horn-rimmed glasses and had snow-white hair capped with a snap brim hat. His nose was long and cherry red. Tommy bought him a beer and he sat down, listening to Tommy telling me about the British domination and exploitation of the Northern six counties.
"Fookin' Brits!" he piped.
The waitress had stopped by our booth an inordinate number of times.
Her name was Mauneen-she told Tommy this. She was very pretty. She was pretty all over, as a matter of fact. She couldn't take her eyes off Tommy. She was looking at him the way a cat looks at tuna fish. She leaned over to collect our plates,. staring at Tommy dead level and moving the damp rag around on the Formica as if she were working a Ouija board.
"Did you like it?"
"Excellent," I answered.
She didn't hear me; she was looking at Tommy.
Tommy's eyes were darting between her face and chest, face and chest. He wore a huge smile.
"But Tommy," I said, "the guy gave me back my gun. Tommy?"
"… Oh from Cork, eh? Hey Joey, Maureen's from Cork. Oh yeah. Hey, don't they make 'em pretty in Cork, eh?"
"And not only that, but the guns could be going somewhere else. Like maybe South Africa, or even Quebec. Tommy?"
"And you're staying in Wollaston now are you? Well, I live there too-oh yeah."
Several patrons were holding their empty bottles aloft. The batman was glaring impatiently at Maureen.
"Uh Tommy, just one more, uh…" I began.
To hell with it. I gave Joey the money to pay for the meal and began to slide out of the booth. He nodded and winked at me.
"Happens alla time to 'im. Like a fookin' broken reoord-"
"Uh huh. I know. See you, Joe."
"Same to you. Watch yerself!"
I left J. J. Foley's and retrieved the car. At home, Mary showed me one of the big Chinese pots.
"Angel's head's in there, Charlie. I want you to dig a deep hole in the garden and bury it."
She had worked days on the pot.
"You sure?"
"Uh huh. And I'll tell you something else. I'm never going to feel good until they're found. I could kill them myself."
"Forget it, honey. They'll be caught; there's enough people looking for them, now, including the United States Army. When I get back let's go buy a puppy."
We returned in late afternoon with a cardboard carton filled with strips of newspaper and a four pound composition of sinew, wiry fur, big brown eyes, and needle teeth. Mary picked her up out of the box at least a dozen times on our way home.
"We've got troubles now, Charlie," she said, kissing the mutt on the side of her muzzle. She was smiling.
"Then let's name her that."
"What?"
"Troubles. You said, 'We've got troubles now.' So let's name her Troubles."
"Where have you guys been?" asked Joe. He was standing at the sideboard, having just made himself a generous gin and tonic.
"Gee why don't you just come right in and make yourself at home?" I asked.
"Thanks, I did already. That's why I was given a key. What the hell's thar?"
So we spent the next half-hour with drinks and the doggie. She pranced around the kitchen, sliding on the Spanish tile. She looked into strange places and whined and yelped-scampered back. We let the other two in, and Danny and Flack took to her immediately. Joe and I sat watching the animals frolic. I looked up and saw Mary pause at the window. She was looking at the newly spaded patch of ground in the Japanese garden. It was right next to the bronze lotus flower, the Asian symbol of immortality.
"C'mon hon. Time to forget. It's all part of the Great Going On."
"Well what you call the Great Going On is sad… and scary."
"Yep. And unfair too. But we're stuck with it. Come on, let's go destroy our intestinal tracts."
On the way to the Yangtze River, Joe said he had some promising news.
"We've located the Rose, Charlie. And you'll never guess where she is."
"Probably not."
"C'mon, guess."
"Gloucester."
"Shit. How the hell did you know?"
"Lucky guess I guess."
"How did you know, Charlie?" asked Mary.
"Because it's the most unlikely place for a man of Schilling's cunning to leave her."
"Is there something you're not telling me?" asked Joe.
" 'Course not. Now look, here's a parking place."
Two hours later, after ingesting gobs and gobs of hot sour soup, fried dumplings with hot sesame oil and white vinegar, moo-shi pork, Szechwan spicy beef, garlic shrimp, peppered broccoli, and so on, and having wreaked perhaps terminal damage on our alimentary canals (the top half of which we were now conscious of, and the bottom half of which would manifest itself during the next several days), we returned home.
And speaking of digestive systems, when we opened the kitchen door and saw our new friend, I again pondered that most ancient of nature's mysteries: how is it possible that a four-pound dog can produce-in an incredibly short time-eight pounds of excreta?