Speak Ill of the Living Read online

  “Amsterdam?”

  “It was like Oz to the younger version of myself. Booze and hookers, no rules if you don’t hurt nobody, and I figured that with my share of the money I could afford not to hurt anyone ever again.” He gazed off and seemed to lose himself in an old regret.

  “And Henry?” Eddie prompted.

  “He wanted a big house right here in Lowell, the best part of Upper Belvedere.” He snapped at Eddie, as if a thought had suddenly occurred to him: “Do you live up that way?”

  “At the moment I couldn’t afford a refrigerator crate in Belvedere.”

  Jimmy Whistle smiled, pleased by the answer. “Your brother had a place picked out—don’t ask me where after all these years. Said it had land where he could build himself a workshop, someplace to put his tools.”

  Eddie jumped in, “He used tools? Woodworking tools?”

  Whistle nodded. “I think he did. You know, I remember him whittling now and then, too—not really making anything, just shaving away a stick. But he seemed to enjoy it. So, yeah, I suppose he might have been a woodworker—I can’t say I knew the kid too personally.”

  Eddie wiped his sweaty hands on his pants. Whistle’s recollections seemed as close to confirmation as Eddie was going to get. The first part of Henry’s story checked out, sort of—he could have made the five-sided table. But the second part—what Henry had done with his creation—would be harder to confirm.

  I gave away the table I made to my partner’s old lady.

  How to bring up the subject? Eddie stalled, strolling toward a dusty window, high on the wall, which looked out to the weeds in the backyard. He had a hundred questions about Henry for Jimmy Whistle. “What was my brother like?”

  Whistle snorted. “You really don’t know, do you?”

  “I’ve met him once.”

  “It was like that kid was made of electricity,” Whistle said. “Nothing but nerve—raw nerves twisted together and stretched tight, like those power lines that are so fucking dangerous they put them on towers a hundred feet tall. He was all nerve, and no brain. He didn’t understand there could be a downside to risk.” Whistle paused, looked at Eddie. “Henry Bourque was a beast.”

  Eddie felt a sting in his throat, like he had been punched in the Adam’s apple. He tried to swallow the feeling, but it wouldn’t go away. “There’s a lot I don’t understand about the robbery,” he said. “How’d Henry get involved? How’d you guys ever plan it? How did you get control of the truck?”

  “Too long ago,” Whistle said. “Who can remember?”

  “Can we at least start with how you got the truck open?”

  Whistle shifted, uncomfortably. “Like I said at the trial, I didn’t deal with the details.” He looked at his wristwatch. “I got things to do, Bourque. We’re almost finished, right?”

  Eddie didn’t believe him. He couldn’t imagine Jimmy Whistle had anything to do but drink soda and watch the calendar from this little basement prison cell he had created for himself. And Eddie didn’t believe that Whistle had forgotten the details of the heist. Whistle had paid his debt to society in prison, so why wouldn’t he talk about the robbery? After all these years, what was there to hide?

  Eddie stepped to a faded color picture in a plain black frame, hung eye-high on a wall. A redheaded little boy in the picture, probably five years old, had his right arm cocked back, holding a softball. The ball looked huge in his hand. His face was determined; he was going to make a good throw.

  Eddie turned. Jimmy Whistle was watching him watch the picture.

  “My kid,” Whistle said. “Jimmy junior.” His lip quivered.

  “Jimmy junior,” Eddie repeated, marveling at the revelation that Whistle was a father. He studied the picture again. Maybe there was a resemblance, around the chin. The boy in the photo didn’t fit Eddie’s image of James J. Whistle. He had pegged Whistle as a former street thug, nothing more. He reached a hand toward the picture, to take it off the wall for a closer look.

  Whistle thundered, “Leave him ALONE!”

  Eddie’s hand jerked back as if scalded. “I was just—”

  “Just NOTHING! You wanna talk to me? I’m over here.”

  Eddie felt the interview crumbling. He grasped for better footing. “What’s your boy like now?”

  Whistle rubbed a knuckle beneath his nose and grumbled, “How would I fucking know? I took that picture the month I got pinched. Last time I saw my kid, I was in the back of a squad car. He was crying and I think he pissed his pants.” He laughed, sad and ironic. “I think we had both pissed ourselves. Five years of fathering was all that boy ever got. I hope it was enough. I saw to it that he was taken care of, protected—but you can’t be a father through a wall.”

  It was the opening Eddie needed. He made a seamless transition to the question he needed to ask.

  “What about his mother?”

  Whistle bristled. He grew belligerent again. “What of her?”

  “Who was she? What happened to her?” He hesitated. “Did she know my brother, too?”

  “Hah! I wouldn’t have let Henry Bourque within a mile of her, or anybody else I cared about.”

  Jimmy Whistle seemed to gather himself, as if preparing for a great leap. He said bitterly: “Not that it’s any of your goddam business, but what happened to her? What happens every day to women like her? The trusting types—the one’s who get conned by bad men? You need to know what happened to her? She wrote me in the county jail every day before my trial. She said she knew I’d never hurt nobody—and that’s gotta make you laugh, because back then I hurt everybody. She couldn’t wait for my trial because she knew no jury could ever convict me.”

  His eyes glistened. He ranted, within reach of the gun: “So then I pled out—took the thirty years. And still she don’t believe who I am.” He mocked a woman’s voice: “ ‘Why’d you take the rap, Jimmy? Who are you protecting, Jimmy?’

  “Uhhhh,” he groaned. “She didn’t get it. She came to the joint every week to see me. Said she’d wait, which was stupid on it’s face, wasn’t it?” He whipped off his glasses and shook them at Eddie, as if expecting an answer.

  “Stupid? I dunno…”

  “Oh, the hell you don’t. To promise yourself to a man who can’t touch you until he’s too old to want to?” He slid his glasses back on. “I should have let her go, but I didn’t. I wanted her to wait. To be locked behind that door, and know she was outside…” He suddenly dropped his head and was quiet.

  Eddie put the gun out of his mind. He forgot about news stories and deadlines, about what he might write tomorrow. James Whistle had ranted his way to the edge of the truth. In a voice firm and gentle, Eddie pushed him over the edge.

  “Tell me what happened, Mr. Whistle.”

  Whistle gave a little shrug. He said, “Her letters stopped coming so often, and she’d miss a visit now and then—always for something important, it seemed. But ten months into a thirty-year sentence, I had to ask if there was somebody else. She couldn’t get the words out, but she didn’t have to. We were never married, so there was no paperwork. A small thing in the big scheme, I guess, but I appreciated it at the time.

  “She kept coming to see me, regardless, out of guilt maybe. A man in prison—with nothing to do and all day to do it—gets to be a good observer. I noticed the strain on her, and then I noticed the bruises. Her boyfriend was slapping her around. She denied it, protected him, told me she had fallen on ice or fell off her bike.”

  “You didn’t believe her?”

  “She lied like shit—never learned to do it right, even after being with me. If you’ve never been locked up you can’t understand the frustrations of a powerless man. Imagination is a potent evil. I could imagine her, falling under a fist, with Jimmy junior hiding in a closet. Well, one day she showed up with makeup smeared over a black eye. I went back to my cell, tore the metal frame off my mirror and ground it all night against the concrete, until it was sharp enou
gh to cut the last page of Revelations from my Bible.

  “I could have been a killer that night,” he said. “If I could have reached this cocksucker who was hitting her, I would have gouged out his heart and pissed down the hole. But the only person I could punish for hurting her…was me.” He turned his palms up and showed Eddie the faded scars, from biceps to wrists, like he had tried to unzip his arms and dump the life out. “Well, she heard about what I had done and couldn’t handle it. She was getting engaged, she told me, and moving to New Hampshire.”

  Whistle flushed with anger. “I begged her not to go. I demanded.” His voice cracked, and he screamed, “I threatened her!”

  He looked at Eddie, his face twisted in smoldering rage.

  Eddie felt a stab of guilt at dragging Jimmy Whistle backward in time over the jagged parts of his life. But he needed to find this woman, to see if Henry had given her what he had made from wood. The table might lead to Roger Lime, but more importantly for Eddie, it would be evidence that Henry had been telling the truth, that maybe he wasn’t as crazy as he seemed. Eddie needed this woman’s name. Married name, maiden name—anything he could use to find her. He sensed that Jimmy Whistle was about to throw him out. He had one more question.

  “Did she marry him, Jimmy?”

  The answer came from someplace deep in Whistle’s belly. It roared out in a spray of spit, “That night,” he thundered, “he fucking killed her!”

  Chapter 12

  Eddie slumped in the back of the cab.

  She was dead? Dead thirty years?

  He massaged his temples.

  …my partner’s old lady.

  Jimmy Whistle had seemed sure that Henry had never known this woman. Could Henry have known her behind Jimmy’s back?

  Perhaps, but what about the five-sided table? Eddie muttered out loud, “It’s a table, not a piece of jewelry. You don’t give a table to a secret lover.”

  The cabbie checked out Eddie in the mirror. “You all right, man?” He was maybe thirty-five, fair skinned and boyish. Eddie saw his profile for a moment as he turned to glance over his shoulder. His nose was long and pointed, with a bump just below the bridge. The back of his head was a thatch of brown cowlicks.

  “I don’t give up easy,” Eddie said. “But I can’t imagine what to do next.” He stared out the window, feeling no need to explain.

  “Gotcha—no specifics,” the cabbie said. “Who needs ’em? I drove the night shift seven years, picking up people after last call, so I’ve heard every problem any guy could have. Lemme give you my standard advice package, no charge.” He smiled at Eddie in the mirror. “If it’s a woman, say you’re sorry. If it’s a man, bust him in the jaw. If it’s a bottle or a needle, be tough enough to get some help. If it’s your boss, tell him to screw—pardon my English—and then walk outta there with your pride. If it’s family, well, then you’ve got real problems. Just bite on a piece of leather and think happy thoughts until the throbbing in your head goes away.” He laughed.

  Eddie chuckled. “Are these seats leather?”

  “From high-tech synthetic cows.”

  “I’m low-tech,” Eddie admitted. “My razor only has two blades.” His cell phone buzzed in his pocket. “Excuse me,” he told the driver. He checked the caller-ID and saw his own home number.

  My number? What the hell?

  Eddie had once tried to teach General VonKatz to turn on the VCR whenever the cat wanted to watch his bird tapes, but the General never got it; he would just fall asleep on the clicker. Had he figured out the phone? Ed? It’s the cat. On your way home, pick up a salmon.

  Eddie answered, “Bourque, here. Who’s this?”

  The phone squealed, “Hey little brother, it’s Bobbi.”

  “Bobbi? What are you doing there? How’d you get in my house?”

  “Oh, come on—your security is a joke, Eddie. It’s like breaking into kindergarten.”

  “I don’t know what that’s supposed to mean….”

  She cut him off with a laugh, and then said urgently: “Remember the pasta salad in the pink Tupperware? That wouldn’t be spoiled, would it?”

  She had lost him. No wonder Bobbi and Henry got along so well—neither believed in smooth transitions between ideas. Eddie struggled to understand. Pasta salad?

  “In your fridge,” she added. “In the crisper drawer.”

  “Oh! From the land of forgotten leftovers? Sheesh, I wouldn’t eat that. It’s still there because the landfill won’t take hazardous materials.” He laughed.

  She paused. “But I already ate it.”

  Eddie slapped his palm against his head. “Oh, well, it’s probably all right.” The cabbie was smiling at Eddie in the mirror. Eddie shrugged and gave him a look: see what I mean? “I’m on my way home now,” he said. “Maybe we can have dinner, or something.”

  Penicillin, maybe?

  “No time,” she said. “Busy, busy, busy. I’ll be gone by the time you get here, but I’ll see you in the morning.”

  “Gone? Then why did you break in?”

  “I needed a telephone, silly. You Bourque boys!” She laughed. “I’ll see you at seven tomorrow, so be ready to go.”

  Eddie had lost his will to argue, and nearly his will to live. He held his head and said in a small voice, “Where are we going?”

  “To see Sandra Lime, the so-called widow Lime.”

  “Roger Lime’s wife?

  “Who knows Roger Lime better? Maybe we can learn something the police overlooked that could help us find him. Rescuing Lime would prove that Dr. Crane was a fraud, and then Henry can get a new trial. If nothing else, we have to persuade your block-headed big brother that it’s worth hiring the best lawyer to fight for his freedom.”

  Eddie admired her certainty. Envied it, too. “I’m amazed you were able to get us an appointment with Sandra Lime.”

  “Eh,” she said, like it was no big deal. “I told her secretary that you were Roger Lime’s off-shore bookie, and you had dog track winnings to present to Sandra.”

  “What!” Eddie bolted up. He banged his head on the roof and crumpled in a heap on the back seat.

  Bobbi snickered. “My gawd!” she said. “You Bourque brothers are gullible. I told Mrs. Lime that you were a writer working on her husband’s biography, and you needed her help to write the ending.”

  “But that’s not true, either,” Eddie complained, unsure if she was kidding again.

  “It’s closer to true.”

  “Bobbi,” Eddie said, pausing to calm down before he flung himself from the cab, “I’m a journalist. I can’t lie to sources when I’m working on a story.”

  “You didn’t—I did.” She giggled. “See you at seven. Gotta go, I think that pasta salad is repeating on me.”

  “But…”

  “Don’t forget to have some cash on hand tomorrow to pay for our cab! Ta-ta!”

  She hung up, leaving Eddie sputtering into his telephone.

  ***

  General VonKatz woke Eddie twice in the morning.

  The first time was shortly after daybreak, when the General trampolined off Eddie’s chest on a running jump to the window. Eddie gasped awake, then groaned. The cat whined at whatever was outside. In a half-dreamy state, Eddie thought of the man in the ski mask, and then snapped awake. He listened. A gentle rustling outside quickly grew distant and disappeared. The General got bored and hopped down.

  Eddie grumbled, “Noisy damn raccoons.” He drifted toward sleep, close to where the subconscious takes over, when stupid ideas make perfect sense. He thought about how easy it would be to catch raccoons with a giant pit trap in the front yard…

  Maybe an hour later, General VonKatz stampeded Eddie and woke him again, when Bobbi slammed open the screen door at two past six.

  She pounded the door. “Hoo! Hoo! Hoo! Little brother!”

  Eddie squinted at the clock, failed to grasp the significance of the numerals, collapsed on the pillow
and mumbled, “Too early.”

  “Oh Eddie!”

  Giant pit trap…

  Sharply Bobbi yelled, “Eddie! We gotta go!”

  Her voice ripped Eddie from the happy warm palace of sleep and dumped him, cranky and fuzzyheaded, onto the dark tundra of consciousness, an unfriendly place at this time of day, before he had adjusted his perspective with caffeine.

  “I’m up,” Eddie yelled. He threw off the sheet and walked heavy-footed in his boxers to the front door. As he reached to unlock it, the door popped open. Bobbi stepped in, an American Express card in her hand. She wore white slacks, a floral print top with matching sheer scarf, and an oversized fabric pin in her hair, shaped like a dragonfly. She had an armful of loose newspaper.

  “Some jerk threw your paper all over the lawn,” she said.

  “Bobbi, please don’t force my door with a credit card,” Eddie scolded.

  She gave him a wide-eyed innocent look. “I was just letting myself in to save you the trip. What’s wrong with that?”

  Eddie knew there had to be something wrong with it, but he couldn’t think of exactly what. He frowned. “Never mind,” he said. “Just come in while I make some coffee.”

  “You going to put some pants on?”

  “No,” he said as he walked away. “I thought I’d try my luck with Mrs. Sandy Lime by showing up in my underwear. I hear she’s loaded.”

  Bobbi laughed. “Somebody’s bitchy in the morning.”

  “It’s still night.”

  Eddie chose a potent bean from Zimbabwe for his morning quart of joe. While it dripped, he slid into his one good outfit: gray worsted wool trousers, white dress shirt, blue Brooks Brothers blazer with gold buttons. After debating a moment, he chose his lucky necktie, a beige silk dotted with tiny blue circles, each with a red letter “B,” the emblem of the Boston Red Sox.

  The General bounced onto the piano keys and played a dark chord as he bounded to the top of the instrument.

  “Your cat needs another piano lesson,” Bobbi said.