A Picture of Guilt by Libby Fischer Hellmann Page B

didn’t much like Johnnie.”
    A small boat chugged down the waterway. The barge rocked gently in its wake.
    “Why not?”
    “Johnnie was one of those guys who always wanted something for nothin’. You know what I mean? Thought just because his father worked down here, he was—entitled.” He folded his arms.
    “Did he work regularly as a longshoreman?”
    Sweeney scoffed. “Not much. And when he did, he was always struttin’ around like he owned the place. Mouthing off, too.”
    “About what?”
    “His friends. His deals. How he was gonna score big. Bullshit like that.”
    “Deals? Was Santoro dealing?”
    “Don’t know.” He looked off onto the water.
    I waited.
    He coughed hard, a smoker’s hack, and took out another cigarette. “But seems to me, a couple months before he got busted, I can remember him sayin’ he wouldn’t have to be doing this much longer.”
    “Doing what?”
    “You know. Scroungin’ work down here.”
    “Why not?”
    “Said he was working a big deal.”
    “But you never asked about the details.”
    He looked at me under hooded eyes. “Ain’t none of my business, now, was it?”
    “Did he ever mention a guy named Sammy?”
    He dug out the Italian Garden matches, frowning. “Not so’s I remember.”
    He lit another cigarette, waved out the match, and let it drop to the cracked concrete.
    I cleared my throat, phrasing my next question carefully. “Did Johnnie have a union card?”
    “Oh yeah, his daddy made sure of that. That was part of the problem. Charlie couldn’t say no to Johnnie.”
    I paused. “Well, given the way things are down here, you think he might have been mixed up with the wrong people? People who didn’t like the way he behaved, and—”
    “You mean like the people what still control who gets hired and how much of our pension they’re gonna rip off, even though there ain’t no work? Those kind of people who you mean?”
    I nodded.
    He hesitated. “I couldn’t say. All I can say is Charlie and I weren’t never mixed up with that crowd. Those guys’ll bleed you dry.” He sniffed. “Of course, twenty years ago, it didn’t matter. There was plenty of work. You could still make it. But now…it ain’t never been this bad. A boat don’t tie up but maybe once a week. No way you can live on that.”
    He stole a glance at me, then unexpectedly grinned, baring a set of yellow, stained teeth. “Now, I ain’t gonna deny that Charlie and I mighta helped something fall off the back of the boat once or twice. Like the time a bunch of Corvette engines came in on a freighter. Some of ’em ended up in cars all up and down the South Shore. I heard the FBI took to casing the McDonald’s over at Seventy-ninth and Phillips, making all them high school kids lift up their hoods so’s they could check out what was inside their Chevys.” His belly shook with quiet laughter. “But those days are gone. There ain’t nothing left to steal. I mean, who’d want a load of steel coils?”
    “So, it’s not likely Johnnie was—”
    “Like I told you. I keep my head down.”
    “I understand.” I looked out over the waterway. The sun was sewing the surface of the water with tiny bursts of light. “Tell me something, Mr. Sweeney. Has anybody else come down here asking questions about Santoro?”
    “Like who?”
    “Cops, investigators, lawyers. Anyone.”
    “Not so’s I’d notice. But this ain’t the kind of place people come if they don’t have to.”
    “Yeah. Well, thanks. You’ve been a big help.”
    He straightened up. “Like I said, Charlie was my friend.”
    I headed toward the car. Just before I rounded the corner, I turned around. Sweeney was gazing out over the water, as if the docks had stolen his soul, but it wasn’t worth the effort to get it back.

C HAPTER S EVENTEEN
    As I drove north on the Bishop Ford, a giant pair of red lips on a white billboard reminded me of Rhonda Disapio. How her mouth squeezed into a tight, crimson ball against her