letters to and from the Boston Policemen’s Association.
That drawer was only half full. The lower one held files about John Hancock Insurance, T. Rowe Price investments, correspondence about a prize for the biggest fish, sponsored by the RCEB—Retired City Employees of Boston. A folder labeled ET CETERA was empty.
Behind the folders, in the back of the drawer, were stacked three blue-black American passports: William Michael Pierce, George Terrence Morris, Gregory Arn Shahan. The picture had been pried from each one. English thumbed them through, squatting on his heels by the open drawer, suddenly light-headed and unable to read, and then put them back stained with the sweat of his hands.
Things he’d seen at the movies prodded him to a nerve-racked microscopic study of the drawers he’d opened. Had Sands put a piece of tape or thread across their seams, in the hope of detecting any tampering? He picked up the tennis ball from the swivel chair and rattled it—for God’s sake, it was a tennis ball, a tennis ball. In the single left-hand drawer he found two more tennis balls, and a couple of chewy rubber toys with tin bells inside, for pets.
He left fast, and outdoors, as he found a cigarette, he promised the dark street that he’d keep his nose out of other people’s desk drawers and other people’s business, their phony passport business, or whatever it was.
A s he waited in his Volkswagen beside Leanna’s building, English rolled down the window to let the cigarette smoke out and let in the chilly smoke of wood stoves in the houses up and down this quaint street of trees. He checked the contents of his billfold and prayed over his gas gauge, that it stay above Empty round-trip. In Leanna’s apartment the light went off. The hotel was dark now—three floors of historic wooden architecture, with assorted outbuildings named for famous women, most of them entertainers and none of them saints. “I got about thirty bucks,” he told Leanna when she reached the car. “Don’t break me.”
“It’s Dutch treat,” she said. “Is money tight?”
“I had car trouble on the way up here in December. The repairs ate up all my savings.”
They drove in what was for English a nerve-unraveling silence to that part of Hyannis, fifty miles down the Cape, where two shopping centers faced each other across the highway. “We’ll never find this vehicle again,” he told her. In the parking lot the million cars of late shoppers diminished from horizon to horizon. In his mind, the Cape’s population exploded. He’d thought himself almost alone on this peninsula, but now he felt crowded. It was almost eight, but all the stores were open. English and Leanna found their way across the random paths of citizens into the mall, past one goods-glutted window after another, and down into a tiny basement restaurant something like a cave. “Are we dealing with Italian or Mexican?” English couldn’t tell. Candles in Chianti bottles on the tables and sombreros stuck flat against the walls mixed up his expectations. “It’s omni-cuisine,” Leanna told him. “Shopping-centeranian, I guess. But the food’s wonderful. This is the best table, right here.”
“Is there more than one?” His eyes were getting used to the dimness.
He had it in mind to locate a phone and tell Sands that Jerry Twinbrook was well known in Marshfield, a report he felt he’d promised to make quickly, but he got interested in the cocktail menu instead. “One margarita. Just one. Uno,” he told the waiter, who was elderly and dressed in a black uniform like a miniature cop. “Two,” Leanna said. “Dos,” the waiter said, enjoying himself.
“I have to watch out about how much I drink in this town,” English confessed to Leanna. “One of the cops on the late shift gave me a warning.”
“When was this?”
“Well, it was the car trouble I said I had. Actually, it was more of a small wreck. The guy said he wouldn’t give me a
That drawer was only half full. The lower one held files about John Hancock Insurance, T. Rowe Price investments, correspondence about a prize for the biggest fish, sponsored by the RCEB—Retired City Employees of Boston. A folder labeled ET CETERA was empty.
Behind the folders, in the back of the drawer, were stacked three blue-black American passports: William Michael Pierce, George Terrence Morris, Gregory Arn Shahan. The picture had been pried from each one. English thumbed them through, squatting on his heels by the open drawer, suddenly light-headed and unable to read, and then put them back stained with the sweat of his hands.
Things he’d seen at the movies prodded him to a nerve-racked microscopic study of the drawers he’d opened. Had Sands put a piece of tape or thread across their seams, in the hope of detecting any tampering? He picked up the tennis ball from the swivel chair and rattled it—for God’s sake, it was a tennis ball, a tennis ball. In the single left-hand drawer he found two more tennis balls, and a couple of chewy rubber toys with tin bells inside, for pets.
He left fast, and outdoors, as he found a cigarette, he promised the dark street that he’d keep his nose out of other people’s desk drawers and other people’s business, their phony passport business, or whatever it was.
A s he waited in his Volkswagen beside Leanna’s building, English rolled down the window to let the cigarette smoke out and let in the chilly smoke of wood stoves in the houses up and down this quaint street of trees. He checked the contents of his billfold and prayed over his gas gauge, that it stay above Empty round-trip. In Leanna’s apartment the light went off. The hotel was dark now—three floors of historic wooden architecture, with assorted outbuildings named for famous women, most of them entertainers and none of them saints. “I got about thirty bucks,” he told Leanna when she reached the car. “Don’t break me.”
“It’s Dutch treat,” she said. “Is money tight?”
“I had car trouble on the way up here in December. The repairs ate up all my savings.”
They drove in what was for English a nerve-unraveling silence to that part of Hyannis, fifty miles down the Cape, where two shopping centers faced each other across the highway. “We’ll never find this vehicle again,” he told her. In the parking lot the million cars of late shoppers diminished from horizon to horizon. In his mind, the Cape’s population exploded. He’d thought himself almost alone on this peninsula, but now he felt crowded. It was almost eight, but all the stores were open. English and Leanna found their way across the random paths of citizens into the mall, past one goods-glutted window after another, and down into a tiny basement restaurant something like a cave. “Are we dealing with Italian or Mexican?” English couldn’t tell. Candles in Chianti bottles on the tables and sombreros stuck flat against the walls mixed up his expectations. “It’s omni-cuisine,” Leanna told him. “Shopping-centeranian, I guess. But the food’s wonderful. This is the best table, right here.”
“Is there more than one?” His eyes were getting used to the dimness.
He had it in mind to locate a phone and tell Sands that Jerry Twinbrook was well known in Marshfield, a report he felt he’d promised to make quickly, but he got interested in the cocktail menu instead. “One margarita. Just one. Uno,” he told the waiter, who was elderly and dressed in a black uniform like a miniature cop. “Two,” Leanna said. “Dos,” the waiter said, enjoying himself.
“I have to watch out about how much I drink in this town,” English confessed to Leanna. “One of the cops on the late shift gave me a warning.”
“When was this?”
“Well, it was the car trouble I said I had. Actually, it was more of a small wreck. The guy said he wouldn’t give me a
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