Killers by Howie Carr

doesn’t have any sources other than yours? And how would it look if you had to tell them that when you were at the Herald you sometimes took tips from a guy who won a photo finish with a federal grand jury.”
    â€œAre you carrying a foreign load, Sunshine?” Another local-color expression she’d picked up from me. What must her family in Wenham, especially Uncle Dudley, make of her jaunty urban patter every November at Thanksgiving dinner?
    She said, “I figure you must be on something. Most of the time you wouldn’t tell me or anybody else if their coat was on fire.”
    â€œYou called me, Sunshine. Feel free to call some of your other sources. I’m not stopping you.” I stood up and walked to the refrigerator to get another can of Ballantine.
    I knew she must have heard the “ pssst ” when I popped the top. But she let it slide. For someone whose father ate lunch every afternoon at the Somerset Club, she was very pragmatic, especially when she needed information.
    She said, “Can’t we get along, Jack? Some men, they even go on vacations with their ex-wives. You haven’t talked to yours in ten years, and now you barely even talk to me, and all we were was—”
    â€œI wasn’t the kind of guy you could bring to a Globe party, was I? That’s the bottom line, isn’t it? I helped you get over there, but once you were there, I didn’t fit. White. Irish. Catholic. Heterosexual. From Boston. Want me to think of some more reasons you had to drop me?”
    I heard a deep sigh on the other end of the line.
    â€œI’ve told you a million times, they don’t care if you’re Irish. They really don’t. You’ve got this ancient James Michael Curley chip on your shoulder about something nobody else cares about anymore. The fact that I went over to the Globe had nothing to do with…” Her voice trailed off again.
    I thought about asking her how she was getting along with her new boyfriend, who had a trust fund, used “summer” as a verb, had a family “cottage” on Nantucket, a Yale degree and a closet full of bow ties that he wore to his job as metro editor, whatever that meant. I was pretty sure he’d never covered a fire, let alone set one. Metro editor—did that mean he was a metrosexual too? But the Vicodin had kicked in. I was more comfortably numb by the moment.
    â€œWhat do you want, Katy? Go ahead, ask.” Then she could go back to her boyfriend and tell him how she’d just been talking to one of her lowlife sources, whom she couldn’t name of course, to maintain an air of mystery about her extraordinary talent for enduring the foul breath of the plebeians while hobnobbing with those beneath her on the socioeconomic totem pole.
    â€œI’m just wondering if there’s a gang war about to break out,” she said. “What do you hear? Is Bench making a move against the Italians?”
    â€œHow would I know?” I asked her. “You know me, I’m just a dirty cop with a phony disability pension.”
    â€œSo what were you doing at the Alibi this afternoon?” She’d always been able to surprise me, and now she’d done it again.
    â€œThe Alibi? Isn’t that Bench’s place over on Winter Hill?”
    â€œYeah, and you were there. We had the place staked out, wanted a shot of Bench. I’m right now looking at a photo of you walking in. You didn’t even pull the collar on your coat up around your neck. What were you doing there?”
    â€œWould you believe me if I told you I had a thirst so great it would cast a shadow?”
    â€œYes, I would, considering how well I know you. But I also remember you don’t much like hanging around wiseguys, so I’m guessing there had to be some money on the table for you to make the drive over to Somerville.”
    â€œYou got me,” I said. “There was money involved.” I said no