A Scourge of Vipers Read online

  Jefferson dropped the ball, toppled to the floor, grabbed his foot, and screamed. In the stands behind the bench, his wife screamed, too. Then she jumped up and ran to him with their son in her arms.

  Martin and his two assistants bent over Jefferson. I got out of the way and cursed under my breath. When they pulled the kid off the floor, he couldn’t put any weight on his right leg, so they lowered him back onto the hardwood. Martin walked to the bench, pulled his cell phone from a gym bag, and called for an ambulance.

  When Jefferson’s wife began to weep, my heart sank.

  “Hey, Mulligan,” Jefferson shouted. “It’s not your fault.”

  But that’s not the way it felt.

  After the EMTs carted Jefferson away, his wife and son trailing behind, the somber coaches assembled the players on the sideline and told Benton that he’d made the team. They wished the rest of us well and told us it was time to go home.

  As the others filed into the locker room, I remained behind on the bench, holding my head in my hands. Martin wandered over and sat beside me.

  “How bad?” I asked.

  “Real bad. It’s his Achilles.”

  “Snapped?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Oh, Jesus.”

  He draped an arm over my shoulder.

  “Don’t blame yourself, Mulligan. Shit happens.”

  This particular shit that had happened meant surgery and a year’s worth of painful physical therapy. Keenan Jefferson’s dream of a basketball career was almost certainly over. He could look forward to a lifetime of flipping burgers now.

  By the time I shuffled into the locker room, the other players had already showered and were getting dressed. Krueger, furious that he hadn’t made the team, shouted “Fuck” a dozen times and dented a locker door with his fist.

  Benton came over and sadly shook his head.

  “I guess I’m supposed to be happy,” he said, “but I feel like shit. I think I got the spot that was gonna go to Jefferson.”

  “That’s not what happened,” I said. “Both of you were going to make it.”

  “You think?”

  I wasn’t sure about that, but what I said was, “Absolutely.”

  He looked at the floor and thought it over.

  “Either way, I owe you big time,” he said. “I’d never have gotten this far without your help.”

  And then he grabbed my hand and shook it.

  A minute later, only Sears and I remained behind.

  “Too bad about Jefferson,” he said as he stuffed his Converse All-Stars into his gym bag. “That was a tough break.”

  “It was.”

  “When he went down, my first thought was that my chances were better with him out of the way. And then I felt like such an asshole.”

  “Um.”

  “So, listen,” he said. “The guys have had a good time playing together. We talked it over and decided to meet for a regular pickup game at Begley Arena every Saturday morning. Can we count you in?”

  “I don’t think so, Chris. I don’t know if I’ll ever want to play basketball again.”

  * * *

  Late that afternoon, Joseph and I pulled on hooded sweatshirts and walked the mile and a half to Hopes. My plan was to get shit-faced on Bushmills shots and Killian’s. Knowing how Joseph liked to pound ’Gansett, I didn’t want either of us behind the wheel tonight.

  As the empties piled up on our table, my mind wandered to Yolanda. I was angry and hurt that she hadn’t trusted me—or at least given me a chance to explain. I’d expected her to call me after the governor’s press conference, but she hadn’t. I resisted the urge to call her. I figured it was her move. I kept glancing at the door, longing to see her to stride in on those long legs and scan the sparse crowd for me. But she didn’t.

  Instead, shortly before nine, it was Twisdale who wandered in. He took a quick look around and then headed straight for us. It was the first time I’d ever seen him in the place.

  “Mind if I join you?”

  “Suit yourself.”

  He dragged a chair across the grimy linoleum and sat beside us.

  “Are you okay?” he asked.

  I smirked and cocked one eyebrow at him.

  “You know the hot new catchphrase that’s on everyone’s lips, right? None of your fucking business.”

  “I heard about what happened with you and Jefferson. A real shame.”

  “I don’t want to talk about it.”

  “Okay. I can understand that.” There was an uncomfortable pause. “So, have you found work yet?”

  I looked away and studied the label on the Killian’s bottle. “I’ve decided to loaf for a while and catch up on my drinking.”

  “Any prospects?” he asked.

  “Oodles of ’em. I’m a hot commodity.”

  “Given the sorry state of the news business, I really doubt that.”

  “I don’t give a shit what you think, Chuckie-boy.”

  “How about coming back to The Dispatch?”

  I raised my eyes from the bottle and gave him a hard look. “You gotta be shittin’ me.” I was suddenly aware that I was slurring my words.

  “I’m serious.”

  “Ain’t gonna happen.”

  “Corporate has authorized me to offer you a forty-dollar-a-week raise.”

  “Not interested.”

  “And a formal apology.”

  “You know where you can shove that.”

  He sighed and got to his feet. “I’m trying to help you out, here, Mulligan. When you sober up, give me a call.”

  With that, Twisdale turned for the door. Joseph’s eyes flashed laser beams, boring a pair of holes in his back.

  “Fuckin’ jerk,” he said. “Want I should punch his lights out for you?”

  “I’ve got a better idea.”

  I yanked the cell phone from my jeans, fumbled it, dropped it on the floor, got down on my knees, found it under the table, and called for a cab. Ten minutes later, the driver pulled up out front and honked.

  “Sit tight,” I said. “I’ll be back in a half hour.”

  Joseph nodded. He didn’t ask where I was going.

  I directed the cabby to the Walmart on Silver Spring Street. When he pulled into the parking lot, I asked him to keep the meter running and wait.

  Inside, I grabbed a shopping cart and rummaged through the hardware aisles. I’d planned on buying tubes of silicone sealant, but when I squinted at the print on the packaging, I learned that the stuff took twenty-four hours to cure. I didn’t have that kind of time. I interrogated the other suspects on the shelves and learned that epoxy sealant cured in four hours. Still on the long side, but I could work with it. I swept twenty tubes into the cart. I also tossed in two caulking guns, a forty-foot garden hose, and two pair of cotton work gloves. On my way to checkout, I passed through the toy section and, on impulse, picked up a dozen red, blue, and yellow plastic fish.

  Ten minutes later, I lugged my shopping bags into Hopes and plopped them on the floor next to our table. Joseph didn’t ask. He just waved at the waitress and ordered another round. And then another. And another.

  At closing time, Joseph bullied the bartender into illegally selling us a half-dozen bottles of beer to go. We staggered out of the place with our purchases and walked three blocks to The Dispatch. There, the big garage doors on the northeast side of the building were raised so the box trucks could roll in to load bundles of the final edition.

  We tugged the sweatshirt hoods over our heads and averted our faces as we passed the building’s surveillance cameras. Once we slipped inside, we walked swiftly toward an unlocked steel door that opened onto a concrete and steel staircase. We climbed two flights and emerged inside the newsroom. It was empty, only a couple of overhead lights left burning.

  The aquarium, my pet name for Twisdale’s office, stood in the middle of the vast newsroom. Its four glass walls were eight feet high, leaving a gap between them and the newsroom’s ten-foot ceiling. We dro
pped our bags beside it, pulled on the gloves, loaded epoxy tubes into the caulking guns, and set to work.

  Sealing the seams at the corners and along the tile-covered concrete floor took about twenty minutes. When we were done with that, we sealed the door, laying the epoxy on thick. I’d overbought. We had three tubes left over.

  “Now what?” Joseph said.

  “We wait until it cures.”

  “And if somebody walks in on us?”

  “We hide in the toilet stalls. Probably won’t happen, though. The morning shift isn’t due in until eight.”

  We slumped into chairs at the horseshoe-shaped desk where the copy editors used to work, popped open a couple of bottles, and got back to serious drinking. After my second beer, I turned my cell on and started playing Angry Birds. In my inebriated state, it didn’t go well. Joseph got up, rummaged through the reporter cubicles, emerged with a crime fiction short story collection, and sat down beside me to read. After a half hour or so, the book slipped from his hands. He began to snore.

  At quarter past five, I roused him.

  “It’s time,” I said.

  For years, I’d imagined how funny it would be if someone sealed the aquarium and filled it with water, but it had taken a night of heavy drinking to make me realize what a brilliant idea it really was.

  Pulling on the cotton gloves again, I uncoiled the garden hose, tossed the business end over the aquarium wall, and dragged the other end into the men’s room. There, I screwed it onto the threaded faucet in the custodian sink and turned the water on. Then I turned to the urinal and emptied my beer-swollen bladder.

  When I emerged, Joseph was standing in front of the aquarium, hands on his hips.

  “Think it’ll fill by the time the morning shift comes in?” he asked.

  I watched the water gush from the hose, spread over the floor, and begin to rise.

  “Should be half full, at least.”

  We’d worn gloves when we worked with the hose, caulking guns, and epoxy tubes, but somehow, I had the presence of mind to remember that I’d plucked them from the Walmart shelves with bare hands. I went back into the bathroom and came back out with a stack of paper towels. Together, we went to work wiping away my prints. When that was done, we did the same with the twelve empty beer bottles. Then, for no good reason I can think of now, we cleaned up after ourselves, tossing all the refuse into a trash can.

  We were wiping down the desk and chairs we’d used when something occurred to me.

  “Oh, shit,” I said.

  “What?”

  “I almost forgot the best part.”

  Where was that other shopping bag? Had I left it behind at Hopes? Then I spotted it under the copy desk next to the chair I’d spent much of the night in. I opened it, took out the plastic fish, and tossed them one by one into the aquarium.

  Joseph giggled. I did, too.

  “Time to go,” I said.

  It was all we could do to stifle our laughter as we dashed down a different interior stairway and pushed through a steel exterior door. As soon as we burst outside, the burglar alarm went off. We ran across the street, ducked into an alley, and turned toward home.

  * * *

  Later that Sunday, I rose well after noon. My head was pounding. I pulled on some clothes, stumbled into the kitchen, and found Joseph stirring a pitcher filled with his vile hangover remedy. He poured the mixture into two tall glasses and handed me one.

  “I may be a drunk,” I said, “but I’m not crazy.”

  A hangover is a symptom of alcohol withdrawal, so the surest cure is more booze. I poured myself a shot of Bushmills and threw it down. Together we wandered into the living room, collapsed on the couch, and snapped on the TV. We watched the Red Sox all Sunday afternoon before switching the channel to ESPN. Our stomachs begged us to leave them alone, and for once we listened. Sometime during the third or fourth replay of SportsCenter, we fell asleep.

  Monday morning I got up late again, stumbled down the stairs, and collected my mail from the box in the hall. Then I opened the outside door and fetched the daily paper from the stoop. Upstairs, I tossed four frozen sausage, egg, and cheese sandwiches into the microwave and started a pot of coffee. When I dropped the sandwiches on the kitchen table, the smell roused Joseph from the couch. He trudged in and snagged the sports page. I scanned page one and spotted a two-deck, one-column headline at the bottom of page one.

  VANDALS ATTACK DISPATCH NEWSROOM.

  It was accompanied by a photo of Twisdale’s office, where plastic fish bobbed in what looked like about six feet of water. According to the story, the damage was estimated at seven thousand dollars.

  I slid the front page to Joseph. He glanced at it and laughed. Now that I’d sobered up, I didn’t find our escapade all that funny.

  “Think they suspect you?” he asked.

  “Oh, sure,” I said, “along with the forty other people the company let go in the last year and everybody who’s got a beef with anything they printed.”

  “A lot of suspects, then?”

  “Hundreds.”

  I finished the paper and turned to the mail. A credit card bill, three offers for more credit cards I didn’t want, and a little package. I didn’t remember ordering anything. Puzzled, I tore it open and found a pale blue box with gold lettering. Inside were a gift card and a heavy sterling chain, each link in the shape of an old-fashioned typewriter. It looked expensive. I flipped the card open.

  I’m sorry. I was wrong to doubt you. Please call me.—Yolanda.

  I draped the chain over my head and let it settle on my neck. I liked the way it felt.

  “Sweet,” Joseph said. “Is it from her?”

  “It is.”

  I snatched my cell from the table and placed a call.

  “Good morning, beautiful.”

  “Hi, Mulligan. Did you get my peace offering?”

  “I did. Not sure it’s appropriate, though.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I’m not a writer anymore.”

  “Baby, you’ll always be a writer. Nobody can ever take that away from you.”

  “Thanks for saying that.”

  “How about coming over tonight and giving me a look at those infamous Bruins boxers? I’ll cook for you.”

  I hesitated. One glance in the mirror this morning told me that my lost weekend had done some damage.

  “Can we make it Tuesday? I’ve got some things I need to do today.”

  44

  Tearing Jefferson’s Achilles had cost me more than heartache. I’d lost fifty bucks betting he’d make the team. Then again, my winning wager on Benton was worth two bills, so Whoosh owed me a hundred and fifty dollars. Leaving Joseph behind in the apartment, I skipped down the stairs and fetched Secretariat.

  I’d just cranked the ignition when it occurred to me that Mario Zerilli and Marco Alfano were out there somewhere and probably still nursing a grudge. I went back upstairs for my nine mil, stuck it in my waistband, and headed out again. Ten minutes later, I pulled up to Zerilli’s Market and parked on the street a few car lengths in front of an unoccupied gray Honda Civic. Christ! The damned things were everywhere.

  The store lights were burning; but the place was locked up tight, a “Closed” sign hanging on the front door. That was odd. I shaded my eyes with my right hand and peered through a gap in the beer and cigarette advertising posters plastered all over the front window.

  At first, I saw only Doreen, the latest in a series of gum-chomping high-school dropouts Whoosh had hired to man the register. She was standing halfway down the center grocery aisle. She looked terrified. Then Whoosh appeared and beckoned her to follow him. They turned left at the end of the aisle, and I lost sight of them. I shifted to look through another gap in the window and spotted them climbing the short flight of stairs to Whoosh’s private office. A tall, scrawny guy in jeans and a black T-shirt followed them up. He had a silver pistol in his hand.

  I pulled the cell phone from my pocket
and called 911.

  Unless a patrol car was in the area, it was going to take the Providence cops at least ten minutes to get there. I sprinted around the building to the back door and tried the knob. It wouldn’t turn, but the lockset looked cheap. I slid a credit card from my wallet, shoved it between the door and the frame, and felt the lock give. But if the dead bolt was thrown, I was sunk.

  It wasn’t. I pulled my gun, pushed the door open, and stepped into a storage room piled high with cartons of cheap beer and boxes of Doritos, Ding Dongs, and cigarettes. I tiptoed through it, found another door, nudged it open, and emerged just a few feet from the stairs to the office. At the top, the steel door stood slightly ajar. Angry voices floated down, but I couldn’t make out the words. I put my foot on the first step and started up.

  I was halfway there when I heard a grunt. Then, in quick succession, a thump, a growl, a shriek, and a single gunshot. A heartbeat later, a woman screamed. Leading with my gun, I burst through the door.

  Doreen was standing beside the keyhole desk, her face contorted as if she were about to scream again. Whoosh was sprawled on the carpet, bleeding from a gash on his head. The man who’d held the gun was doubled over in pain, the weapon lying uselessly on the floor. Shortstop, his jaws locked on the man’s gun arm, dug his back paws into the carpet and dragged the creep down.

  Mario Zerilli’s head made a cracking sound as it hit the thin carpet. I pointed my pistol at him and kicked him once in the ribs. Hard. When he didn’t react, I knew he was out cold, embarked on an exciting new career as a canine chew toy. I looked closer and saw that he was also bleeding from what appeared to be a bullet wound in his right foot.

  I squatted, grabbed the silver pistol, and slipped it in my back pocket. Then I went to Whoosh, helped him up, and deposited him in his desk chair.

  “Are you okay?”

  “I don’t fuckin’ know.”

  “Want to call off your dog?”

  “Why the hell should I?”

  “He’s gonna kill Mario if you don’t.”

  Whoosh took a couple of seconds to decide whether he gave a shit.

  “Shortstop! Come here, boy.”

  The big mutt unlocked his jaws from Mario’s arm, loped over, and rested his bloody maw in his master’s lap.