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  A thousand pounds?

  Jimmy Whistle seemed to read his mind. “That’s right, Bourque. One thousand seventy-one pounds of gold bar. Worth six hundred grand back then, which was a fine haul.” He twisted Eddie’s shirt collar, pinching Eddie’s throat. “I checked the metal markets today and then did the math. That gold is now worth six point six million.”

  Jimmy let the number sink in a few moments, then ground the gun against Eddie’s skull. “Half of that gold is mine,” he said. “Your brother took it from me thirty years ago, and I want it.”

  “Took it from you? You took it together.”

  Jimmy Whistle gave a hoarse growl, stepping in front of Eddie.

  Eddie looked up from his knees. He felt sizzling dread at seeing Jimmy’s purple cheeks and wet, red-rimmed eyes. He looked like a man with nothing to lose. He imagined a ski mask over Jimmy’s face. Could he have been the one who tried to burn him?

  Eddie wanted to tell him to calm down, but when he tried to speak Jimmy Whistle grimaced in rage and jammed the gun into Eddie’s mouth. The steel cracked Eddie’s top front tooth. Pain rocked Eddie’s jaw and made his eyes water, as if he had been stabbed through the roof of the mouth with an icicle.

  “Henry double-crossed us and took all the money!” Whistle thundered.

  He pushed the gun deeper, until Eddie gagged.

  Whistle’s cheeks quivered as he spoke, seething: “I threatened to kill your brother, the son-of-a-bitch, but that animal just laughed. He said it was his insurance, to make sure he was treated on the up-and-up. Well, fuck him!”

  Eddie clamped both hands around Whistle’s wrist and stared up at him. He heard the General scratching at the bathroom door.

  Jimmy Whistle yanked the gun from Eddie’s mouth and pulled Eddie roughly to his feet. Both men lost their balance. Eddie steadied himself against the sofa. The brass lamp was at his elbow. Eddie felt something sharp in his mouth—a triangular shard of tooth that Jimmy’s pistol had sheared off. Eddie rolled his tongue around the fragment; the shard was like a tiny razor.

  Jimmy stepped toward Eddie, his face inches away, the gun between them, in Eddie’s ribs. Eddie could count the pink veins squiggling across the whites of Jimmy’s eyes.

  Then his empty black pupils got bigger.

  He’s going to kill me.

  Eddie tipped up his chin and in a sudden puff of breath blasted out the bone shard.

  Jimmy slapped his free hand over his left eye. “You fucker!” he screamed in shock.

  Eddie grabbed the lamp and swung it like an ax. Its base was heavy and came sluggishly through its arc, but it struck solidly across Jimmy’s wrist and knocked the pistol flying. Jimmy squealed in pain and reached for Eddie. “Bastard!”

  Eddie grit his teeth and drove a palm into Jimmy’s sternum. The older man recoiled and Eddie scrambled for the gun.

  The pistol was L-shaped and black, its handle wet and warm. Eddie was surprised at how heavy it was, how its vampiric touch seemed to bleed away his soul.

  He leveled the gun at Jimmy Whistle.

  Whistle’s left eyeball was stained with a crimson dot where the tooth had cut him. Though ugly, it looked superficial. Whistle touched his wound and then inspected the blood on his finger. “It’s all fun and games,” he said dryly, “until somebody loses an eye.” He nodded to the gun. “What the hell do you expect to do with that thing?”

  Eddie looked at the pistol. What the hell did he expect to do with this thing? Shoot Jimmy Whistle? Of course not. If Jimmy rushed him, Eddie might smack him with the gun, but Eddie knew he would never pull the trigger.

  Jimmy knew it, too.

  “You lack your brother’s killer instinct,” Whistle said. “If he was where you are, I’d be dead three times already.” He laughed, pointing to the pistol. “The safety is on.” He was calm now, and bitterly sarcastic. “You oughta know how to work your own gun—and it is yours, now that your fingerprints are all over it.

  “I’m shocked that you pulled that gun on me,” Jimmy said, “to threaten me for information, after you invited me here to talk about your brother—and that’s my story.” He gave an exaggerated smile. “I guess violence runs in your family. Don’t forget to flick off the safety when you want to kill me.”

  Goddam him, he was right. The gun was black market treasure, bought off a street corner, no doubt, with no paper trail connecting it to Jimmy Whistle. Detective Orr would never believe that Eddie had pulled a gun, but some other cop might. Who could say? Eddie decided that the authorities would not hear about his scuffle with Jimmy Whistle.

  He looked Jimmy over again, seeing him in more detail now that he was disarmed. Whistle wore red tennis shoes, black socks, and blue polyester suit pants that were too short because they were hiked too high on his belly. His baby blue polo shirt squeezed him. His rough red face sagged around the jowls. He looked pitiful, like an unemployed clown who could no longer afford his makeup.

  Had he really been about to kill Eddie?

  Jimmy had admitted he was a good actor—he must have been to fool Detective Orr. Eddie rubbed his tongue against his chipped tooth. The hole felt like a canyon. Adrenaline that had dulled the pain was wearing off, and his jaw throbbed.

  “Who killed those guards thirty years ago after the armored car robbery?” Eddie demanded. It was a prosecutor’s question. If Henry hadn’t killed the guards, Jimmy Whistle might have.

  Whistle shrugged. “Henry, I assume.”

  He assumed? What Jimmy assumed was not evidence against Henry, only what he saw. “Did you see Henry do it?”

  “Didn’t have to.” He hiked his pants even higher. “I know Henry Bourque. There’s something sinister in that boy. I saw it the day my ma hired him on her farm, the Lord rest her soul.” Jimmy made the Sign of the Cross, which seemed an odd gesture coming from him.

  Eddie lowered the gun. He had never imagined Henry working a job, like a real person. But of course he would have had to work. It wasn’t hard to picture his muscled brother on a farm, a hay bale over each shoulder.

  “So that’s how you met him?” Eddie asked.

  “I saw him work—the boy was strong—so when I needed muscle I knew where to go,” Jimmy said. He bit his bottom lip. “But Henry was a fuckin’ wacko. Should’ve trusted my instincts, but I didn’t.” He held out his arms so Eddie could see the whole of him, the husk left over after three decades of life had been wrung away in federal prison. “Look what it got me.”

  “I’m not after the gold,” Eddie said.

  “Whatever you say—you got the gun.”

  “I want to help Henry prove he didn’t kill those guards.”

  Whistle laughed bitterly. “Like I said, the truth is in your hand.”

  “Maybe you killed them.”

  “Open your eyes,” Whistle said. His thumb and forefinger spread the lids of his wounded eye, and he gazed spitefully at Eddie with the little pupil of blood. “Henry killed them, Henry hid the bodies and Henry stole the money. There’s no other possibility.” He let go of his eye and rubbed the spot on his chest where Eddie had shoved him.

  “I need the money, Bourque,” Whistle said. “Not all of it, not half, not even a third. I just need enough.” He jabbed a finger at Eddie. “Yeah, I got secrets—a few good ones, lots of bad ones. But I didn’t whack those guards.”

  Eddie didn’t necessarily believe him, but he left the option open. “Well,” Eddie said, “maybe nobody killed them.”

  Jimmy squinted at him, an ironic smile over his face.

  “A thousand pounds of gold would buy two blue-collar guards a nice life in the Cayman Islands,” Eddie said. “You said you never saw them murdered.”

  Jimmy sounded doubtful. “They had families.”

  “Maybe girlfriends, too.”

  “They were tied up with rope.” He hiked his pants again. “I thought maybe we could sell them for ransom.”

  “I read the news reports,” Eddie said
. “One of the three guards escaped. If one could, they all could. So maybe two of them—”

  “Dumas and Forte.”

  “—those two escaped with the gold. Henry was charged with their murders and wrongly convicted so nobody ever looked for them. They could be the elders in some tropical village by now.”

  Jimmy chuckled softly. “I’m done telling you what to believe, Bourque.” He rubbed his hands together as if to clean them of something. “I’ll be leaving now so I can pedal home before dark—unless you’re going to kill me in your living room.”

  “No, I just vacuumed.”

  Jimmy Whistle let himself out. He looked back to Eddie from the front steps. “I don’t need much of the money, Bourque. You’ll never miss it.”

  Eddie didn’t bother to argue. He locked the bolt behind Jimmy Whistle, and then inched the sofa against the door.

  The gun felt like an alien life form in his hand. He wanted to get rid of it. Down the storm drain? Off University Bridge into the Merrimack? Or something less public. Eddie sealed the gun in a plastic zipper bag and brought it into the bathroom. The General was cautiously trying to sip from the dripping spout in the tub. The cat drank daintily, like a well-bred old lady.

  Eddie removed the toilet tank cover. He dropped the gun in the tank and watched it sink, listened to the thunk when it landed. He replaced the cover thinking of what Jimmy had said. Then Eddie heard Henry’s voice in his head.

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

  Henry Bourque had worked for Jimmy’s mother.

  His partner’s old lady.

  Chapter 17

  The night was long, sleepless and frustrating. In the morning—Sunday morning—Eddie brewed an organic Mexican Arabica and guzzled it black. It was weak, and he realized in disappointment that he had been too damn sleepy to make the coffee right.

  Eddie’s Washington Post was intact for the first time in days, but he was too distracted to read it. General VonKatz sat on the kitchen table and pawed at the paper in its little plastic bag, trying to coax it to life, so he could chase it and slay it. As an indoor cat, the General didn’t have many opportunities to hunt. Eddie had long considered importing a few live mice from the pet store, but he couldn’t overcome his moral resistance to what amounted to throwing slaves to the lion, even if the mice had originally been bred as snake food.

  Eddie scratched the cat behind the ears.

  Outside, a few sprinkles fell from a grim sky. Low clouds pushed down on the neighborhood, crushing Pawtucketville like a claustrophobic’s nightmare.

  Eddie tuned his TV to one of the Sunday political talk shows, just for the background noise, and then wandered to his bedroom and booted up his computer.

  A few students had emailed their mid-term papers. Eddie opened Margaret’s. His eyebrows lifted; she had covered a Zoning Board meeting. That was a difficult board for a novice in municipal government; zoning can get technical. Eddie printed a paper copy and read Margaret’s opening:

  Mr. Brown said that the setback requirement couldn’t be applied because the applicant cannot be building on a “optioned lot” though Mrs. Curry thought it was fine since the “purchase and sales” is pending, so why couldn’t the board, with the advice and consent of the assistant solicitor, recommend a “temporary” easement to allow for the vehicular traffic to Lexington Garage, which had earlier, through an attorney from out-of-state, raised the point that traffic cannot “go around the bend” because Allen Street is one way, and would it be better to seek an opinion from the city planner? “You really can’t approve this without site plan review,” said a man named Paul, who addressed the board but didn’t give a last name because they knew who he was.

  Oh God! Eddie grabbed a red pen to recommend some edits, but couldn’t imagine where to begin. What was the building project? What was the outcome of the hearing? Who the hell were the people being quoted? This story didn’t need editing, it needed to be burned, the ashes stuffed into a space capsule and blasted into the sun.

  I’m the worst teacher alive.

  He gave up and printed another paper, from Gerard, who had decided to cover a School Committee meeting. Fine choice; that’s where most of the tax money was spent in municipalities. He read:

  With the poignant memories of chalk dust and the clap, clap, clapping of erasers echoing in my mind, and, alas, the empty recollections of lost schoolboy love, I descended the creaky steps into the bowels of the concrete beast known as the School Administration Building. It was here that I found them, seated upon a stage as if actors in a real-life educational drama—the School Committee. What decisions awaited me and my pen of blue? My empty pad thirsted for knowledge, for quotes, for statistics.

  Eddie gently put the paper down. Gerard had made the story about himself. This article was a sin against community journalism. It needed to be executed in a public square.

  I’m the worst teacher who ever lived.

  He wandered back to the living room and checked the clock. Ten-fifty in the morning.

  This was going to be a long day.

  Assuming that the farm Jimmy Whistle’s mother had owned was in the greater Lowell region, the Registry of Deeds would have land records on it. The registry was closed on Sunday. It would open in the morning. Whistle’s old lady was dead; her farm probably had been diced into housing lots by now, but Eddie wanted to know where the farm had been. It was his only lead.

  His cell phone rang.

  “Hello?”

  “Knock, knock, little brother.”

  “Hey, Bobbi.”

  “You sound exhausted, boy.”

  “Didn’t sleep,” Eddie said. He glanced into his empty mug. “Made weak coffee this morning, too. Listen, did Henry ever mention a farm job he had as a teenager, before he went to prison?”

  She was quiet a moment, and then said: “Your brother doesn’t talk much about the past. I can barely get him to talk about our future. He’s stuck in right now. I think that’s part of the reason he has trouble getting excited to fight for his freedom.” She was quiet a little more, and then asked brightly, “Why are you asking? Have you found something?”

  Eddie considered telling her about Jimmy Whistle, about Jimmy’s old lady and the gun in the toilet tank, but he couldn’t. He didn’t want to raise her hopes before he had something solid that Henry could use to persuade a jury—and which Eddie could use to persuade Henry. And he didn’t want Bobbi interfering with his research, demanding to be taken along. He brushed her off with, “I don’t know what I’ve got, probably nothing. I’ll know better tomorrow.”

  She sputtered, prying for more.

  Eddie steered the conversation away, asking: “How did you meet my brother?”

  She cooed, “Oooo, I’ve always loved men in barbed wire.” She laughed. “Actually, I got sick of cheaters. Married two of them, dated about a hundred. I call them ‘excuses guys.’ Always got a good excuse for why they’re late, why they didn’t call, why they can’t drop by the restaurant and meet my friends. I told this one guy: if you’re really working all that overtime, why do you drive such a piece of shit?”

  “You should have been a detective.”

  “Naw, not that I have any great brain for it. I’ve just heard every excuse ever written, so none of them work on me anymore.”

  “Anybody ever use the grandparent’s funeral excuse on you?”

  She snorted. “I was dumb and love-struck, but I’m no idiot,” she said. “Nobody ever had the stones to pull that one on me, at least not without an obituary in the paper as proof.”

  Eddie thumped the empty coffee mug against his forehead. No more grandma exemptions in class.

  Bobbi said, “When I was sick of scrubbing other women’s body odors out of my man’s undershirts, I swore that I wouldn’t settle down until I had somebody I could trust.”

  “You can bet Henry won’t be cruising the bars tonight.”

  “No, he�
�ll be trying to keep from getting knifed,” she said, suddenly shading toward serious. “I was looking for a man with golden character. I didn’t expect to find him in the federal pen. A friend of mine came across this Web site that matches prisoners with pen pals around the country. It’s run by an ex-con who learned computer programming in the joint. This guy posts letters from inmates on the Internet, so people like me can read them and decide if they want to write to one particular inmate or another. I noticed a bunch of letters from men in the prison in my town.”

  “Tough way to date,” Eddie cracked. “The closest you can get to sex is to both screw the same postman.”

  “It’s not all about romance,” she corrected. “It’s about men desperate for some human contact outside those walls.”

  Something in her tone suggested that Eddie was being shallow with his wisecracks. Or maybe the suggestion had come from inside Eddie. Either way, he was embarrassed. He tossed the empty mug onto the couch, sat on the piano bench and rubbed his eyes. “You’re right, of course,” he said, chastened. “So why did you decide to write to Henry?”

  “His letter was different than the others.”

  “I’ll bet.”

  “I could see that he was smart, though he didn’t stick it in your face,” she said. “He didn’t use a lot of two-dollar words. Just made his point in clear language that I thought was pretty. He wanted somebody who traveled a lot, who could describe things for him, so he could travel, too. I’m surprised he even wrote me back. I mean—where do I ever go?”

  “Why do you think he wrote you back?”

  She laughed. “I smelled good.”

  “You told him so?”

  “He liked the way my letter smelled. I didn’t drench it in perfume or nothing—like I said, this wasn’t about romance in the beginning—but whatever scent I was wearing on my wrist must have gotten on the note. Henry wrote me back to say it was…hmmm…how did he put it? The first time in nearly thirty years he had enjoyed a direct sensation of unchained humanity.” She giggled. “For you and me it’s such a little thing. A dab of perfume. Who cares? Henry Bourque cared. I knew that he wouldn’t take one minute for granted if I gave him a little of my time. So we exchanged a couple notes, and then I invited myself for a visit. The question, ‘My place or yours?’ never came up.” She giggled again.