The Sox cleanup hitter grounded weakly back to the pitcher, and the inning was over. One — zip Boston. Bad, but not a humiliating disaster. Yet.
Reacher said, “If we keep on talking about him like this, eventually he might clue us in.”
Heller said, “Why would he?”
“He’s in trouble.”
“What are you, Santa Claus?”
“I don’t like our pitching. I’m looking for a diversion.”
“Suck it up.”
“Like you did for a hundred years?”
At that point the bar was quiet. Just the natural ebb and flow, but the barman heard what Reacher said, and he stared, hard.
Reacher said, “What?”
Heller said, “It’s okay, Sully.”
And then Jerry DeLong looked left, looked right, and said, “I’m waiting for someone to break my legs.”
Heller gave Reacher a glance.
Reacher seemed to have an intuition about the fat guy. He knew something was off, somehow. Something was wrong. Funny, Heller’d had the same sort of intuition. Same way he realized pretty quickly that this Reacher guy was really sharp.
The fat man had blurted it out. He was genuinely terrified.
But then he said no more.
The top of the second started. Two balls, a strike, ball three. The Boston pitcher stared in. He didn’t want to give up a lead-off walk.
“Changeup coming,” Reacher said. “Right down the pike.”
The Yankee batter knew it. He smiled like a wolf.
Not a changeup. A full-on fastball. The batter swung as the ball hit the catcher’s glove.
Reacher looked away.
He said, “Maybe this guy’ll tell us what’s going on. With his legs and all.”
“Ya think?” Heller replied.
“Or not,” Reacher said.
“Not unless I want my arms broken, too,” the fat man said.
Full count, and another fastball. Another whiff. One down.
Heller gave the fat guy a searching look. “Haven’t seen you here before, have I?”
“I haven’t been here before, no.”
“But you’re from here.”
From here: very Boston. Bostonians always want to know if you’re one of them or not. You can’t always tell from the accent. But there’s the language. Do you drink soda or “tonic”? Is something a “pisser”? Do you go to a liquor store or a packie? Take a U-turn or “bang a uey”? They’re expert at sussing out fakes and posers. Heller was born outside New York but moved as a teenager to a town north of Boston called Melrose. A working-class place. Heller’s father went to prison and his mother was left with nothing. So Heller could sound Boston if and when he wanted. Or not.
And this guy DeLong was definitely from around here.
DeLong shrugged. “Yeah.”
“You work around here?”
DeLong shrugged again. “Government Center.”
“Don’t like the Irish pub right there?”
“Well, my office is on Cambridge Street.”
DeLong was stingy with the information. For some reason he didn’t want to talk about what he did or where he worked, which was, for Heller, like a blinking neon arrow. That meant he did something sensitive, or classified, or unpleasant. But he had the look of a bureaucrat, a government functionary, and Heller took a guess.
“The good old Saltonstall Building.” One of the office towers in the bleak ghetto of big government buildings at the foot of Beacon Hill. “How’s the asbestos?”
The Saltonstall Building, which held an assortment of state bureaucracies, had been abandoned after it was found to be contaminated with asbestos. They did some renovation and dragged the office workers back in, and some of them were mad as a wasp’s nest that’s been kicked.
“Yeah, that’s gone.”
“Uh-huh.” Heller smiled. A state worker, for sure. He thought of maps of America where the states are resized by population and Rhode Island is twice the size of Wyoming. If you did a map of state employees in the Saltonstall building, the biggest state would be the Department of Revenue.
“So you’re a tax man.”
“Something like that,” DeLong said. He didn’t look happy about it. Like he was being put down somehow. But at the same time he didn’t seem to want to say more.
“One of those forensic accountant types, aren’t you?”
DeLong looked away uneasily, which just confirmed Heller’s theory.
“What do you say, Reacher?” Heller said, reaching around DeLong and bumping Reacher’s shoulder. “Someone’s trying to dodge an audit by some direct means, wouldn’t you say?”
“Sounds like it,” Reacher said. “Wonder how often that works.”
Jerry DeLong said, “It’s not going to work this time.” He sounded like he was trying to be brave, but without much success.
“Huh,” Heller said, looking into the mirror behind the bar. He saw a blinged-out guy sitting by himself at a small table near the front. Tinted sunglasses, necklaces, and rings. A curious upright posture. The chief enforcer for the Albanian gang in Boston, Alek Dushku. Allie Boy, as he was called, was known for all sorts of colorful executions, including strangling an old man with a shoelace until his eyes popped out of his head. On the table in front of him was a grocery sack, bulky with something.
Heller said, “You’re meeting Allie Boy?”
Jerry DeLong looked in the mirror and his face paled.
He said, “Is that him?”
“Sure is.” Heller gestured with his head, straight at the guy. “No time like the present.”
DeLong said nothing.
Reacher said, “What’s in the grocery sack?”
DeLong said, “Money. A hundred grand.”
“What for?”
“Me.”
“So what is this? A bribe or a threat?”
“Both.”
“He’s going to break your legs and then give you a hundred grand?”
“Maybe the money first.”
“Why?”
DeLong didn’t answer.
Heller said, “It’s an Albanian thing. One of them read a law book. They like to give good and valuable consideration. They think it cements the deal. And legs heal. Money never goes away. It’s either in your house or your bank. It means you’re theirs forever.”
Reacher said, “I never heard of that before.”
“You’re not from here.”
“Ethical gangsters?”
“Not really. Like I said, legs heal.”
“But it’s definitely a two-part deal?”
“All part of the culture.”
The top of the second ended with a limp swing-and-miss, strike three. Still one — zip Boston. The zip didn’t look likely to change. The one did. Reacher turned to the fat guy and said, “He’s supposed to make contact with you, right?”
DeLong nodded yes.
“When?”
“I’m not sure. Soon, I guess. I don’t really know what he’s waiting for.”
“Maybe he’s watching the game.”
“He isn’t,” Heller said.
“Not as dumb as he looks, then.”
“You thinking what I’m thinking?”
“Depends when the audit starts, I guess.”
“Tomorrow morning,” DeLong said.
“And what happens if you’re in the orthopedic ward?”
“Someone else does it. Less well.”
The bottom of the second started. A four-pitch lead-off walk. Hopeless. Reacher rocked back and looked at Heller and said, “Do you live here?”
Heller said, “Not in this actual bar.”
“But in town?”
“Shouldn’t I?”
“I guess someone has to. You worried about these Albanians?”
“Altogether less hassle if Allie Boy doesn’t remember my face.”
“Where did you serve?”
“With General Hood.”
“Did you get out in time?”