At End of Day by George V. Higgins Read Free Book Online Page B

“And you,
Superintendent
Naughton,” she said, inclining her head. “I trust you’ve been keepin’ well.” Three years before, the first time he and Dowd had met for lunch after his promotion, she had as usual called him “Emmett” instead of “Lieutenant,” as he had requested several years previously, and Dowd had told her facetiously she mustn’t do that any more. “He’s no longer one of us ordinary mortals—he’s a
superintendent
now.”
    Naughton feigned an expression of disapproval. “Still givin’ a convincing impression, I’m happy to say,” he said. “They haven’t caught up with me yet.”
    “I’ll be back in a moment or two for your orders,” she said.
    “How long has that kid been working in here?” Dowd said, after the waitress had gone away. Long ago in the aftermath of a state police captain’s discharge in disgrace—“after twenty-one spotless years in the uniform,” the commander’s angry-grieving statement said—for being the third party in a lovers’ triangle concluded by the husband’s shotgun murder of the wife, Dowd had decided that only a woman who was absolutely perfect could ever bring him to risk both his marriage and career. Two or three years later he had joined Naughton for lunch and met Ettie Hanifin. It had taken him three or four more encounters to register that overbite and realize with great relief that she was“not quite perfect,” so he was safe after all. He remembered that each time he saw her, silently toasting a narrow escape once again as he raised his pint and drank some of the stout through the foamy head.
    “Cripes,” Naughton said, having known that Dowd was tempted since shortly after Dowd had, but never having said anything about it because Dowd never had, “ever since her First Communion, I guess. When was it Danas bought the place, The Ground Round then, wasn’t it? Not that I came in then.”
    “Danas bought it, turned it around, but then two-three years ago Harry Dana got the cancer, and seeing what was coming he sold out to Marvin Scotti, well-known Boston restaurateur and realtor with no money of his own who fronts for Nick Cistaro—who’s here today, I might add.”
    Naughton’s displeasure showed on his face. “Eileen told me he’s in the back. With his rat-faced little sidekick.”
    “Figured,” Dowd said. “Saw his ride in the parking lot, I came in. Maroon Expedition. Who’s he meeting?”
    “Eileen didn’t know,” Naughton said. “Only notable’s gone through since I sat down’s Al Bryson—runs that ‘Stars in the Summer Sky’ thing out on Route Nine there, gets all the washed-up, drugged-out rock stars to do weekend concerts by the lake. Pleasant enough, I suppose, you don’t ever wanna grow up, and the night you’ve got tickets it doesn’t rain too hard. I recall, Al was in his fifties, he went down that delinquency-of-minors charge—feeding smack to that fourteen-year-old boy-toy singer, OD’ed in Detroit after that. All slack in the belly, but here he is, mincin’ through here in the gold silk shirt and tight pants, hair standing up and dyed green; like he’s a rock star himself.”
    “Some union’s getting fucked, then,” Dowd said. “Nickie’s selling out the stagehands and electricians for a mess of pottage they’re not even gonna get to see—him and McKeach’re gonna keep it for themselves.”
    Naughton laughed. “Most likely,” he said. “What a son-of-a-whore that Cistaro is, huh? Long’s there’s a dollar in it, he must not give a shit what kind of trash he has to see to get it.”
    “No big need to, I guess,” Dowd said. “ ’til we catch him at something, at least.”
    “And how long we been trying?” Naughton said. “Eighteen, twenty years, I bet. I
know
it’s gotta be at least that. Remember the first time I took any notice of him. Came in one night, line of duty, right after the Danas reopened it. Someone heard Abie Sayer’d relocated here; this joint was gonna be