Bruce DeSilva - Providence Rag

Halfway to Newport, the radio station faded to static. Mason flashed through the dial in search of more classical music. He was about to give up when he stumbled onto WTOP, where talk show host Iggy Rock was interviewing Chief Matea of the Hopkinton police. Matea was deflecting a question about Eric Kessler’s secret journal when Iggy interrupted:

“Joining us now, just calling in, is Brian Freeman’s father, Gordon. Mr. Freeman, you are on the air.”

There was a moment of dead air. A cough. Then, “Chief?”

“Yes, Mr. Freeman. I’m here.”

“Chief, I want to read that journal.” Each word was stressed like the punch of a fist.

“As I’ve told you before, I can’t let you do that, Mr. Freeman. It’s been sealed by court order. Besides, what’s in it is something no father should ever see.”

“But I have to, Chief. Eric Kessler destroyed my family. He killed my wife too. She died of a broken heart. And I’ve been drinking since they found my boy.” His voice quavered a little. “I need to know what that monster did to Brian, so when he gets out I can do the same thing to him.”

“Damn!” Mason thought. Or maybe he said it out loud.

Until now, he hadn’t considered how the families of Diggs’s victims were going to feel when they found out his investigation could result in the killer’s release from prison. The thought made him shudder.

Mulligan pushed open the door to Hopes and shrugged off his dripping raincoat. He draped it over a rickety bar stool, slid onto an adjoining one, and grabbed a handful of cocktail napkins to sop the rain from his hair.

It was a little after four in the afternoon, and the local press hangout was nearly deserted. Since Lee Dykas’s death, the place had fallen into new hands, but otherwise it hadn’t changed much since Mulligan and Rosie started drinking there more than twenty years ago.

Annie, the leggy Rhode Island School of Design teaching assistant who moonlighted as barmaid, was just starting her shift. She poured a club soda, plopped in a lemon wedge, and clunked the drink in front of Mulligan on the scarred mahogany bar.

“Thanks, but I was going to order Bushmills straight up and a bottle of Killian’s Irish Red.”

“You sure about that?”

“I am.”

“What about your ulcer?”

“Doc Israel says it’s healed up good.”

Annie dumped the glass and filled his order. Mulligan downed the shot and sipped from his beer. Then he slid an illegal Cuban out of his shirt pocket, clipped the end, and fired it up. Rhode Island prohibited smoking in public accommodations, but nobody at the local press hangout gave a shit about the nanny-state law. Tobacco-phobes had plenty of other places to drink.

Mulligan was on his second beer, watching Boston Bruins highlights on the TV over the bar, when Gloria came through the door and unfurled her umbrella. She stripped off her raincoat, laid it on top of his, and climbed onto a bar stool. He studied her reflection in the mirror as she did her breathing exercise, thinking she must have had a pressing reason to walk all the way over here through the rain. She was still at it when Annie swung by and dropped Gloria’s usual, a bottle of Bud, on the bar.

Gloria opened her eyes, turned to Mulligan, and said, “You’re drinking again.”

“Thanks to God, I am.”

“In defiance of doctor’s orders?”

“Not this time, no. He cleared me to get back in the game.”

“You should probably still go easy.”

“I’ll try,” Mulligan said.

Gloria’s breathing had not yet completely calmed. Mulligan fought the urge to pull her into a bear hug and tell her everything was all right. The platitude would sound empty, and he wasn’t sure how much he believed it with people like Kwame Diggs in the world. Besides, he knew how much Gloria hated being coddled, how determined she was not to let dread rule her life. Except for his old friend Rosie, she was the most fearless woman he knew. That was just one of the reasons he admired her. She was a fine news photographer, too-better than any of the paper’s two-eyed shooters.

“So, Gloria,” he said, “what brings you out on this godforsaken afternoon?”

“I needed to talk to you, but I never saw you come in today. I thought I might find you here.”

“I was out working on something.”

“What?”

“A follow on Kessler.”

“Are they going to find a way to keep him in prison?”

“Doesn’t look like it.” He swigged from his longneck and asked, “So what’s on your mind?”

“Mason,” she said.

“What about him?”

“Did you hear what he’s working on?”

“He told me.”

“What the hell is he thinking?”

“He’s thinking that a whole bunch of our public servants have been conspiring to break the law.”

“If he can prove it, will they have to let Diggs out, too?”

“Probably.”

She squeezed her eyes shut.

“Jesus.”

“Don’t worry about it, Gloria. Mason’s not that good.”

“He may be better than you think. He learned a lot working with you on that pornography investigation.”

“Um.”

“Can’t you talk him out of this?”

“I tried. Lomax tried, too.”

Gloria picked up her beer and took a long swallow.

“We’ve got to do something,” she said.

“I already have.”

“What?”

“Mason asked me to help him.”

“And?”

“And he thinks that I am.”

Gloria smiled at that.

“What did you do?”

“I suggested he go through all the transcripts of Diggs’s trials, find the names of the witnesses who testified about the drug charge and the prison assaults, and interview them.”

“Ha! When he talks to them, they aren’t going to tell him anything, are they?”

“They’ll swear that their lies were the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.”

“So help them God,” Gloria said.

“You bet.”

“That should slow him down,” she said, “but it probably won’t stop him.”

“Maybe he’ll get discouraged and give up.”

“Does he strike you as the kind who gives up?”

“No,” Mulligan said.

Gloria shook her head, then pushed damp strands of hair back from her good eye.

“We’ve got to make sure Diggs doesn’t get out,” she said.

“We?”

“Uh-huh.”

“You’re a photographer, Gloria.”

“I’m a journalist. Mostly I use a camera; but I know how to ask questions, and I know how to take notes.”

Mulligan gave her a searching look.

“Don’t take this wrong,” he said, “but after what you’ve been through, I don’t think it’s a good idea for you to get involved in this.”

“It’s because of what I’ve been through that I have to get involved in this.”

Mulligan puffed on his cigar, drained his beer, and asked Annie for another.

“Okay, Gloria,” he said. “What do you have in mind?”

February 2000

The worst thing is the boredom, every day the same as the last.

Wake up at seven A.M. Three tasteless meals a day shoved through the bars. A half hour of exercise in the yard every afternoon. Lights out at ten P.M. The asshole in the next cell howling the same off-key Motown song, “Papa Was a Rollin’ Stone,” for what seems like an hour every night. The Mob hit man three cells down screaming at him to shut the fuck up.

It’s so bad that he actually looks forward to the weekly visits from his mother, even though the only thing she ever talks about is Jesus.

He pulls the thin blanket up to his chin, rolls over to face the cinder-block wall, and closes his eyes. Tonight, he chooses A Nightmare on Elm Street, the opening scene playing on the inside of his eyelids.