In Solo Time, page 25
Burton sprang up and stalked toward the house, then his attention was diverted by the scuffed ground at the corner of the house, where Cy had fallen. He called one of the forensic techs out to stake it out, gave me another knowing look, and went inside.
“Shit,” Burton said. “You really do stink. Crack that window.”
We barreled down the left lane of I-95, progress aided by the flashing bubble-gum light on top of Burton’s plain car. I liked the way the traffic parted in front of them, except for the occasional young male who got out of the way as slowly as he dared. Burton didn’t deign to notice them.
Burton seemed to accept my second version without reservation, though to me it sounded less believable than the phony one. I suspected Burton might be going easy so his own incompetence in the case wouldn’t get exposed.
“So Myron was trying to sabotage his own father’s political campaign? Payback?” Burton said.
“Payback for what? Giving him a job, taking care of him?” But even as I said that, I recognized that no logic applied in relations between fathers and sons.
“At first, Myron probably thought he was helping out,” I said. “Removing a threat, cleaning up after himself. I don’t think he was consciously trying to fuck Jacob over, but unconsciously?”
Burton made a rude noise. “Psychobabble alert. Well, if his defense would have been temporary insanity, I’m glad you shot him.”
“Why?”
Burton grinned like a wolf. “Because if he started talking about his unhappy childhood in the courtroom, I would have shot him myself.”
I wondered how Cy was coping with having killed Myron. “What have you heard from Jacob’s side?”
“Not my department. They keep telling me I’m not discreet enough for public contact.” He bared his teeth again.
“But you think you can keep Cy and Alison out of it?”
Burton steered around a rusting pickup full of topsoil. “Unless something really weird happens, we’re not going to trial. I don’t see why not.”
“Weird?”
“You really think Jacob’s going to leave it at that? He’s lost both his sons and his campaign took a huge PR hit. And you were the instigator.”
“He can piss and moan,” I said. “But he won’t do anything while he’s running. I’ll bet you a hundred bucks he stays in the race.”
“No bets.”
“And if he wins the primary, he’ll be focused on the fall election. If he loses, though . . .”
“Well, that will take a few months to roll out. Maybe he’ll forget about it.”
We turned down the long ramp off the Expressway leading downtown. Burton switched off the bubble and moderated his speed.
“We can but hope,” I said, but hope was all it was. Jacob wasn’t a forgive-and-forget kind of fellow.
32
The night Alison was going to sing at the Esposito for the last time, I closed down for the afternoon and invited Alison, Lucinda and Roland, and Cy in for dinner. Marina cooked, then joined us at the table. I wanted to see how Cy and Alison were doing after the events, but the focus of the conversation turned out to be Alison’s career.
The gig at Rile’s had attracted two promoters, one in Boston and one in New York. Both of them offered to set up dates and help her refine a club act, with a goal of releasing a CD in the fall. She was leaning toward New York, though I was trying to talk her out of that, for purely selfish reasons.
“I have to take a shot at the Big Apple, don’t I?” She was irked with me for not agreeing with her.
Roland and Lucinda were at the far end of the table, arguing quietly but fiercely. I thought it had something to do with Cy’s effusive greeting for Lucinda. He’d apparently decided aggression was a viable defense—when he’d seen her tonight, he’d taken both her hands and kissed her on both cheeks. Roland puffed up like a bullfrog in his maroon suit, though he hadn’t said anything.
Marina was sitting next to Cy, chatting away, and while I tried to think of another argument to convince Alison to stay, I realized that all we needed to round out the party of everyone I cared about in Boston was Burton. Not that either Cy or Alison would have wanted him in the room. No charges had been filed in Myron’s death, and nobody had heard much of anything from Jacob, who was still busy with his campaign.
“New York is a tough town, love.” Using the word was strange, but not unsupportable by recent facts. “Nowhere to go from there but down. If it doesn’t work out . . .”
“If I don’t catch on right away,” she said, “It doesn’t mean I can’t keep trying. I can’t turn an opportunity like that down.”
“How long do you think you’ll be down there?”
We hadn’t talked about our future yet, or my drinking, though the fact she’d agreed to sing here one more time gave me some hope.
“There is such a thing as the Amtrak, sweetie. Runs right into Grand Central Station.” She reached out a hand. “But you’re worried about something else.”
I wasn’t going to lose her from not trying.
“I’m worried you and I are missing out on something good.”
“You know how big a thing the drinking is for me.” she said.
As easily as that, we moved beyond her lie that this was the most important thing. She looked away, down the table.
Lucinda looked up and smiled unconvincingly, then turned back with a pointed finger to Roland.
“I shouldn’t have forced you to promise,” Alison said.
“We can agree on that. But I should have known what I can and can’t do. Wishing isn’t doing.”
“You tried to tell me.”
“Yes.”
“Anything change on that front?”
I shook my head. “It isn’t going to happen all at once. But it is going to happen.”
“One day at a time?”
“Right now, more like one minute at a time. But you’re a powerful incentive.”
“Aren’t you just substituting one drug for another then?” But she smiled.
“Might be.”
“Oh, it is addiction. And will continue to be. For me, too.”
“What about Roland and Lucinda?” I said.
“I won’t have too hard a time convincing them. Lucinda’s more a softie than Roland.”
“It must be nice to have people looking out for you.”
She covered my hand with hers, then looked at them as if comparing the shades of skin.
“I am so sorry about your daddy. I wished I’d had a little time to get to know him.”
I squeezed her hand. “I wish you could have been at the service.”
“Wouldn’t that have been a sight?” She swayed to the opening notes of the Diana Krall cover of Popsicle Toes. “So we’re going where from here?”
“I think after the show tonight, you come home with me. And we’ll see where it goes from there.”
She glanced at the stage, blue-lit and ready for her solo act, then down the table.
I breathed. Whatever she decided, I could live with it, though for once, I knew what I wanted.
She nodded once. “I believe you’re right.”
And my heart cracked open and let in the dawn.
At seven, I climbed the stairs to open the door for the show. I was shocked to see a line of fifty people, waiting patiently on the Mercy Street sidewalk. A scattered cheer went up as I unlocked and retreated down the stairs.
Cy sat at a small table at the bottom, collecting the cover charge and stamping hands with a red G-clef stamp. Until I saw Burton at the top of the stairs, I had thought having Cy there was a good idea.
“Cy!”
Cy looked up from changing a fifty and almost lost his yellow kepi. I pointed up the stairs at Burton. Cy raised his eyebrows, then nodded.
I gestured the cop down the stairs past the line. As he passed, Burton said something that made Cy smile.
“Let me get you a drink before the shit hits the fan,” I said. “Irish?”
“Beer.”
“Anything new?” I dreaded the answer.
“Quincy’s making noises about suing the city. He hasn’t got a prayer. It’s nuisance shit, see if they’ll settle and give him some money.”
“That’s what worries me most,” I said. “He could run me out of business with half a lawyer and his pocket change.”
“You’ll be OK for a while. The Firefighters’ Union just endorsed him.”
“That’s rich.”
Burton tipped his beer bottle toward me. “Thanks.”
“For the drink? You haven’t paid for a drink in here since I met you.”
“For the rest. I won’t say I owe you, but you have a little credit on the books.”
“I guess I’ll let it ride for now.”
I thought Burton might say something else, but the fact that he’d come to the Esposito to deliver his message was good enough.
“Later.” Burton set down the bottle and headed for the stairs.
Laughter and conversation swept across the bar from the genial crowd. Marina carried the last of their dinner dishes into the kitchen.
“Hey, Elder!” Someone shouted from the service bar. “Is this teetotalers’ night or what?”
I laughed and started down to take the orders. I might hold onto the Esposito a little longer, even if it turned out I didn’t have to work any more. The place had started out in solo time for me, but it was starting to play the kind of music I liked to hear, a more complicated rhythm than I’d thought I could handle. Maybe in the end, I could build something more useful and pleasurable than another place to get drunk. Maybe it would turn out to be more than a semblance of life, a life of its own.
About the Author
Richard Cass is the author of Solo Act, the first volume in the Elder Darrow series, which was nominated for a Maine Literary Award in 2017. In Solo Time is the prequel to that book, the origin story for Elder and his friend, Boston Homicide detective Dan Burton. Cass’s short fiction has won prizes from magazines like Redbook, Writers’ Digest, and Playboy. His first collection of stories was called Gleam of Bone. He is active with the Maine Crime Writers group, which blogs at Maine Crime Writers and serves on the board of Mystery Writers of America’s New England chapter.
He lives in Cape Elizabeth, Maine with his wife Anne, and a Maine Coon cat named Tinker, where he writes full time. You can reach him on Facebook at: Richard Cass – Writer or on Twitter at: @DickCass.
Richard J. Cass, In Solo Time
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“Shit,” Burton said. “You really do stink. Crack that window.”
We barreled down the left lane of I-95, progress aided by the flashing bubble-gum light on top of Burton’s plain car. I liked the way the traffic parted in front of them, except for the occasional young male who got out of the way as slowly as he dared. Burton didn’t deign to notice them.
Burton seemed to accept my second version without reservation, though to me it sounded less believable than the phony one. I suspected Burton might be going easy so his own incompetence in the case wouldn’t get exposed.
“So Myron was trying to sabotage his own father’s political campaign? Payback?” Burton said.
“Payback for what? Giving him a job, taking care of him?” But even as I said that, I recognized that no logic applied in relations between fathers and sons.
“At first, Myron probably thought he was helping out,” I said. “Removing a threat, cleaning up after himself. I don’t think he was consciously trying to fuck Jacob over, but unconsciously?”
Burton made a rude noise. “Psychobabble alert. Well, if his defense would have been temporary insanity, I’m glad you shot him.”
“Why?”
Burton grinned like a wolf. “Because if he started talking about his unhappy childhood in the courtroom, I would have shot him myself.”
I wondered how Cy was coping with having killed Myron. “What have you heard from Jacob’s side?”
“Not my department. They keep telling me I’m not discreet enough for public contact.” He bared his teeth again.
“But you think you can keep Cy and Alison out of it?”
Burton steered around a rusting pickup full of topsoil. “Unless something really weird happens, we’re not going to trial. I don’t see why not.”
“Weird?”
“You really think Jacob’s going to leave it at that? He’s lost both his sons and his campaign took a huge PR hit. And you were the instigator.”
“He can piss and moan,” I said. “But he won’t do anything while he’s running. I’ll bet you a hundred bucks he stays in the race.”
“No bets.”
“And if he wins the primary, he’ll be focused on the fall election. If he loses, though . . .”
“Well, that will take a few months to roll out. Maybe he’ll forget about it.”
We turned down the long ramp off the Expressway leading downtown. Burton switched off the bubble and moderated his speed.
“We can but hope,” I said, but hope was all it was. Jacob wasn’t a forgive-and-forget kind of fellow.
32
The night Alison was going to sing at the Esposito for the last time, I closed down for the afternoon and invited Alison, Lucinda and Roland, and Cy in for dinner. Marina cooked, then joined us at the table. I wanted to see how Cy and Alison were doing after the events, but the focus of the conversation turned out to be Alison’s career.
The gig at Rile’s had attracted two promoters, one in Boston and one in New York. Both of them offered to set up dates and help her refine a club act, with a goal of releasing a CD in the fall. She was leaning toward New York, though I was trying to talk her out of that, for purely selfish reasons.
“I have to take a shot at the Big Apple, don’t I?” She was irked with me for not agreeing with her.
Roland and Lucinda were at the far end of the table, arguing quietly but fiercely. I thought it had something to do with Cy’s effusive greeting for Lucinda. He’d apparently decided aggression was a viable defense—when he’d seen her tonight, he’d taken both her hands and kissed her on both cheeks. Roland puffed up like a bullfrog in his maroon suit, though he hadn’t said anything.
Marina was sitting next to Cy, chatting away, and while I tried to think of another argument to convince Alison to stay, I realized that all we needed to round out the party of everyone I cared about in Boston was Burton. Not that either Cy or Alison would have wanted him in the room. No charges had been filed in Myron’s death, and nobody had heard much of anything from Jacob, who was still busy with his campaign.
“New York is a tough town, love.” Using the word was strange, but not unsupportable by recent facts. “Nowhere to go from there but down. If it doesn’t work out . . .”
“If I don’t catch on right away,” she said, “It doesn’t mean I can’t keep trying. I can’t turn an opportunity like that down.”
“How long do you think you’ll be down there?”
We hadn’t talked about our future yet, or my drinking, though the fact she’d agreed to sing here one more time gave me some hope.
“There is such a thing as the Amtrak, sweetie. Runs right into Grand Central Station.” She reached out a hand. “But you’re worried about something else.”
I wasn’t going to lose her from not trying.
“I’m worried you and I are missing out on something good.”
“You know how big a thing the drinking is for me.” she said.
As easily as that, we moved beyond her lie that this was the most important thing. She looked away, down the table.
Lucinda looked up and smiled unconvincingly, then turned back with a pointed finger to Roland.
“I shouldn’t have forced you to promise,” Alison said.
“We can agree on that. But I should have known what I can and can’t do. Wishing isn’t doing.”
“You tried to tell me.”
“Yes.”
“Anything change on that front?”
I shook my head. “It isn’t going to happen all at once. But it is going to happen.”
“One day at a time?”
“Right now, more like one minute at a time. But you’re a powerful incentive.”
“Aren’t you just substituting one drug for another then?” But she smiled.
“Might be.”
“Oh, it is addiction. And will continue to be. For me, too.”
“What about Roland and Lucinda?” I said.
“I won’t have too hard a time convincing them. Lucinda’s more a softie than Roland.”
“It must be nice to have people looking out for you.”
She covered my hand with hers, then looked at them as if comparing the shades of skin.
“I am so sorry about your daddy. I wished I’d had a little time to get to know him.”
I squeezed her hand. “I wish you could have been at the service.”
“Wouldn’t that have been a sight?” She swayed to the opening notes of the Diana Krall cover of Popsicle Toes. “So we’re going where from here?”
“I think after the show tonight, you come home with me. And we’ll see where it goes from there.”
She glanced at the stage, blue-lit and ready for her solo act, then down the table.
I breathed. Whatever she decided, I could live with it, though for once, I knew what I wanted.
She nodded once. “I believe you’re right.”
And my heart cracked open and let in the dawn.
At seven, I climbed the stairs to open the door for the show. I was shocked to see a line of fifty people, waiting patiently on the Mercy Street sidewalk. A scattered cheer went up as I unlocked and retreated down the stairs.
Cy sat at a small table at the bottom, collecting the cover charge and stamping hands with a red G-clef stamp. Until I saw Burton at the top of the stairs, I had thought having Cy there was a good idea.
“Cy!”
Cy looked up from changing a fifty and almost lost his yellow kepi. I pointed up the stairs at Burton. Cy raised his eyebrows, then nodded.
I gestured the cop down the stairs past the line. As he passed, Burton said something that made Cy smile.
“Let me get you a drink before the shit hits the fan,” I said. “Irish?”
“Beer.”
“Anything new?” I dreaded the answer.
“Quincy’s making noises about suing the city. He hasn’t got a prayer. It’s nuisance shit, see if they’ll settle and give him some money.”
“That’s what worries me most,” I said. “He could run me out of business with half a lawyer and his pocket change.”
“You’ll be OK for a while. The Firefighters’ Union just endorsed him.”
“That’s rich.”
Burton tipped his beer bottle toward me. “Thanks.”
“For the drink? You haven’t paid for a drink in here since I met you.”
“For the rest. I won’t say I owe you, but you have a little credit on the books.”
“I guess I’ll let it ride for now.”
I thought Burton might say something else, but the fact that he’d come to the Esposito to deliver his message was good enough.
“Later.” Burton set down the bottle and headed for the stairs.
Laughter and conversation swept across the bar from the genial crowd. Marina carried the last of their dinner dishes into the kitchen.
“Hey, Elder!” Someone shouted from the service bar. “Is this teetotalers’ night or what?”
I laughed and started down to take the orders. I might hold onto the Esposito a little longer, even if it turned out I didn’t have to work any more. The place had started out in solo time for me, but it was starting to play the kind of music I liked to hear, a more complicated rhythm than I’d thought I could handle. Maybe in the end, I could build something more useful and pleasurable than another place to get drunk. Maybe it would turn out to be more than a semblance of life, a life of its own.
About the Author
Richard Cass is the author of Solo Act, the first volume in the Elder Darrow series, which was nominated for a Maine Literary Award in 2017. In Solo Time is the prequel to that book, the origin story for Elder and his friend, Boston Homicide detective Dan Burton. Cass’s short fiction has won prizes from magazines like Redbook, Writers’ Digest, and Playboy. His first collection of stories was called Gleam of Bone. He is active with the Maine Crime Writers group, which blogs at Maine Crime Writers and serves on the board of Mystery Writers of America’s New England chapter.
He lives in Cape Elizabeth, Maine with his wife Anne, and a Maine Coon cat named Tinker, where he writes full time. You can reach him on Facebook at: Richard Cass – Writer or on Twitter at: @DickCass.
Richard J. Cass, In Solo Time
