“Don’t get me wrong,” she said. “Those kids did well. If you think about it they did very well. But that’s when you think about it. I did make more than Roosevelt did, and I brought it home. But every time I made a little more, somebody who was selling things I had to have charged me a little more. I kept on doing better, but nothing got better. We were still right where we started, only I was working harder and harder to keep us there.
“That’s what’s the matter with Alfred,” she said. “He looks around this place with the cracked linoleums on the floor and the busted screens and the plumbing that clogs up, and he looks out that window at all the junk. He knows about the rats and bugs, and he knows the air conditioner went to pay the tax amp; and fuel adjustment, and he gets mad. Alfred’s not a bad boy, Mister Mack, even though he did do time. He’s frustrated, but the things that frustrate him are things that he can’t do anything about and I can’t either, so he picks out this guy Peters and gets mad at him.
“I know Donald Peters,” she said. “I haven’t seen him for a long time, but back when I still lived with the kids in Roxbury, I used to see Donald’s mother all the time at church. Irma Peters, her name was. She always looked tired, and I suppose I always looked tired, and that was probably why we started talking. We used to chat now and then when we would see each other on the street, and after a while I found out that her husband Richard was chasing every skirt in town and she never did know where he was. And her son Donald does the same thing.
“Now,” Mavis Davis said, “there isn’t anything I can do to stop Donald from chasing after my little daughter’s ass. I wish there were, but there is not. Selene is a young lady now, and she is having thoughts. I have explained to her about older fellows like Donald, and what it is that interests them, and how long they will remain interested in it, after they get it. I believe she understood what I was saying. I do not believe she knows what it means. There is no way I can tell her what it means. Maybe she takes after her mother the same way that Donald takes after his father, and she needs a little experience of her own before she understands what is going on, and what it means. You may not think much of Officer Peters, Mister Mack, and I guess I don’t, myself, but Officer Peters is not the first man who took a look at some young honey and decided he might like to try a little of that. Nor will he be the last one. I’d like it better if he landed his eye on somebody else’s girl child, but he picked mine and there is nothing I can do about it except tell her that I see her doing up the top three buttons on her uniform blouse when she comes up the street at night and she might have less trouble with Officer Peters if she kept them done up in the first place, the way they were when she left the house.
“Alfred,” she said, “Alfred does not know about things like that. Alfred knows that he wants to get into every pair of pants that he sees on a woman, and he thinks that is perfectly all right and the way things should be. He does it all the time, as much of the time as he can anyway, and he thinks that is all right. He does not understand that the pants he gets into are being worn by young women who want him in there as much as he wants to be in there. He thinks he gets in there because he is handsome and charming, and they cannot resist him.
“Officer Peters, as far as Alfred is concerned, is raping Selene. Alfred does not approve of Selene having a man, or of a man having Selene. That is not what bothers him the most, so he starts in on Donald Peters. Alfred doesn’t know he can’t do anything about Peters, either, and neither can you.”
“Well,” Mack said, getting up, “I guess that pretty much covers it then. There isn’t anything I can do.”
“Well,” she said, “there might be. You might speak to Mister Fein about this rathole that we live in. That would be a help.”
12
“Where the fuck is Sweeney?” Roscommon said.
“Lieutenant,” Carbone said, “you have got to stop coming into the office like this and getting your bowels in an uproar. You don’t and the first thing you know, you will have a stroke for yourself and the left side of your face’ll fall down, so’s you’ll only be able to maneuver the right side and you’ll look like something just about half finished.”
“Shut up,” Roscommon said.
“You’ll lose control of yourself,” Carbone said. “You’ll piss in your pants all the time and when you talk it’ll sound like you had a mouthful of spit. And you would have, too, if you could only stop drooling and slobbering all the time, so it runs right down your chin and into your shirt pocket. Get your undershirt all wet.”
“Where the fuck is Sweeney?” Roscommon said.
“Sweeney is at home and Sweeney is in bed,” Carbone said. “He’s been carrying one of those summer colds around with him for about a month now, and it finally took him out.”
“He’s dogging it,” Roscommon said.
“He’s not dogging it,” Carbone said. “He’s got a temperature and he’s got a fever and he’s got the trots. He’s dizzy and his body aches. You keep him out till four in the morning, four or five nights a week, following that jerk Malatesta around, and he finally got so run-down he collapsed from it.”
“You’re supposedly doing the same thing,” Roscommon said. “He’s doing it, you’re doing it. He’s sick, you’re not sick. How’d that happen?”
“Told you and told you, Lieutenant,” Carbone said, “us dagos’re tough.”
“Too dumb to get sick and lie down, most likely,” Roscommon said.
“Too proud,” Carbone said.
“Uh-huh,” Roscommon said. “Okay, enough of this shit. You guys had close to a month. Have you got something for me, maybe, I can take over and tell Mooney and get that little shitbird back in his nest without listening to another fucking lecture about the law enforcement responsibility to society? Please? Tell me you got something, Don. Tell me I’m not a total failure and I’m doomed to Purgatory.”
“We haven’t got a hell of a lot,” Carbone said.
“Grand,” Roscommon said.
Carbone reached into his jacket pocket and took out a steno pad, spiral-bound at the top. “I haven’t had a chance to dictate this stuff yet. Some of it’s mine and some of it’s what Mickey told me on the phone that he’s been doing.”
“No reports, then,” Roscommon said.
“Not typed, Lieutenant,” Carbone said.
“Go ahead,” Roscommon said. “I wish I’d stayed in the Airborne. I could be retired by now.”
“First,” Carbone said, “what Mickey’s getting. Near as we can tell, Jimma Dannaher thinks his feet are wet and he’s telling people that they’re starting to get cold. He’s not exactly saying that, but he’s been doing a lot of work on his thirst in a couple bars down on Old Colony Boulevard and Broadway, and Jimma can’t drink so well.”
“Which bars,” Roscommon said.
“Dunno,” Carbone said. “Mickey just sort of rattled this stuff off at me and he sounded awful, so I didn’t ask a whole lot of questions. He’s got the ins down there, though, which is why he’s working them. Says Dannaher was yapping and bitching about how Proctor’s making him do all kinds of crazy shit and he’s afraid he’s gonna get hurt.”
“What’s he mean, hurt?” Roscommon said.
“Not exactly sure,” Carbone said. “I did ask Mickey that and he told me his guys didn’t know either. Seems like Proctor’s making Dannaher go out late at night and he’s taking him into the woods and Dannaher don’t like the woods.”
“Woods, for Christ sake?” Roscommon said. “Shit, where the hell’re there woods around Bristol Road? No woods out around there. Woods in Jammy Plain, woods in West Roxbury. No woods around Symphony Hall. Some bushes, maybe, you go out the Fenway and jump into the Victory Gardens there, tromp all over the old people’s tomato vines. But there’s no woods around at all.”
“I know,” Carbone said.
“Well, for Christ sake,” Roscommon said, “then what the hell’s Proctor taking the guy in the woods for? Where’s he taking him in the woods? They drop Fein’s stuff and go to work for some guy who wants his crop of Christmas trees torched? They’re going to start a forest fire, they don’t need Malatesta. He’s not in charge of fucking forest fires, god-damnit.”