Pale Kings and Princes

“Yeah, cops are cops. This is a small town, but if it’s cocaine central then it’s a pretty tough town and the cops straight or crooked are going to be more like city cops. These guys were shit kickers. They weren’t tough, they were mean. Cops are confident, or if they’re not, they make you think they are. They’re used to confrontation. They’re not uncomfortable with it.”

“And your, ah, assailants weren’t comfortable with it?”

I shook my head. “And they didn’t know what to do with the gunshot wound,” I said. “They should have if they were cops.”

Gert brought my chicken potpie and Susan’s shrimp. “You through with your salad?” she said.

Susan said, “No, I’ll keep it, thanks.”

“You want me to bring the shrimp back later,” Gert said.

“No, I’ll eat them both,” Susan said.

“You want another beer,” Gert said.

I shook my head. “Three’s about right,” I said.

Gert shrugged and went away.

I consulted my chicken potpie.

“What a disappointment,” I said to Susan.

“Canned?” Susan said.

“No, I was hoping for canned. I think they made this themselves.”

“Will you be able to finish?” Susan said.

“I think so,” I said.

“So, if they weren’t cops who were they,” Susan said.

“Don’t know. Maybe friends of cops, maybe non-Colombian coke workers, maybe guys hired to do the nasty stuff while the cops blocked off the highway.”

“Or maybe somebody that you don’t know anything about,” Susan said.

“That would be consistent,” I said.

“In that you’re trying to operate in a circumstance you don’t understand.”

“Yes.”

“That is consistent with everyone’s experience. You’re just more aware of it,” Susan said.

“Was that philosophical?” I said.

“I think so,” Susan said.

11

I drove Susan back to Boston Sunday night and kept her car.

“I’ll rent one,” she said. “You can pay for it.”

“The Argus can pay for it,” I said.

Then it was Monday morning and Susan was gone and I was back to hanging around Wheaton looking for a clue. I felt like an ugly guy at a dating bar. I went into the Friendly restaurant and sat at the counter and had an English muffin and a cup of coffee.

“I heard there was some kind of excitement out on the Quabbin Road the other night,” I said. The young woman behind the counter looked at me blankly.

“Really?” she said. “What kind of excitement?”

“I’m not sure,” I said. I turned to the guy next to me, who was wearing a gray satin sweatsuit and black loafers. “You hear about it?” I said.

He was dipping a corner of his toast into the yellow of a fried egg. He finished doing that and looked up and shrugged.

“Nope,” he said. He had a two-day growth of beard and while his hair was brown, the beard was mostly gray.

“What’d you hear, mister?” The girl behind the counter was maybe nineteen and already was starting to look haggard.

“Oh, some kind of accident, out there, guy got shot or something.”

“Shot? Honest to God?”

“What I heard,” I said.

Gray stubble next to me said, “Know his name?”

“No,” I said. “Heard a car got burned too.”

“Honest to God,” the counter girl said.

Two cops came into the restaurant. They sat down at the counter three stools past gray stubble.

“Hey, Lenny,” the counter girl said to one of them, “what happened out on Quabbin Road the other night? This guy says somebody got shot.”

She poured coffee for both of them without being asked.

Lenny was maybe twenty-five with a thick blond moustache and his police cap crushed like a bomber pilot on his fifty-third mission. He looked down the counter at me.

“What’s this?” he said.

“I heard there was a shooting out on Quabbin Road,” I said. “Heard a car got burned too.”

“Where’d you hear that,” Lenny said.

“Got it from an eyewitness,” I said.

Lenny looked at his partner. “You know anything about a shooting, Chuck?”

Chuck was blond too, but taller than Lenny and clean-shaven. Chuck drank from his coffee cup holding it in both hands, his wrists limp, his shoulders hunched, the way Jack Palance did it in Shane. He sipped another sip and then put the cup down slowly and looked at me, turning only his head.

“Don’t know anything about it,” he said. “I would be real careful about the rumors I was spreading in this town, pal.”

“Oh, sure,” I said. “I’m probably wrong, just talk you hear around.”

“You know something,” Lenny said, “you report it to us, otherwise you do yourself a favor and keep your trap shut, you understand?”

Chuck kept gazing at me with his best baleful gaze. Baleful gazes are more effective if you aren’t twenty-five and blond and can’t grow a moustache.

“Gotcha,” I said. “Thanks for clearing that up, officers.” I left three one-dollar bills on the counter and got up and strolled out onto the street.