Роберт Паркер - All Our Yesterdays

“My God, Mother. What about you?”

“I was brought up in a time, and by a family, which believed that sex was something women provided in return for home, family, financial security. Women did not initiate sex, they lay still and accepted it, as was their responsibility.”

“But, I mean you haven’t been in a vacuum. You know there’s another way to think about it.”

“Passionate sexual response frightens your father.”

They sat still, looking at each other’s face. The ambient buzz of conversation seemed at a great distance. Laura’s eyes were wet. The waiter came and asked if they needed anything else. Grace shook her head. The waiter put the check down on the table between them and went away.

“Oh,” Grace said.

“Exactly,” Laura said. “Oh.”

“Does it frighten you?”

“I don’t think so,” Laura said.

“And you never thought of looking for it elsewhere?”

“No. It was not a condition of my upbringing. I had two children to think about. And truthfully, the opportunity has not, so far, presented itself.”

“If it did,” Grace said, looking directly at her mother, “would you take it?”

“I think so,” Laura said.

Tom Winslow sat at a small table in the middle of the food court at Cityplace in the Transportation Center. A styrofoam cup of black coffee sat untouched in front of him. Across the table with two honey-dipped crullers, and a cup of his own, was Barry Levine.

Tom Winslow’s face felt frozen. His body felt stiff and clumsy. Barry Levine picked a piece of lint off his lapel and flicked it away. Nothing else marred his appearance. He was slim, tanned, tailored. He wore a double-breasted blue pinstriped suit, and a blue shirt with a white pin collar. His black shoes were Italian. His tie was scarlet with a white geometric pattern, and his display handkerchief was white. He knew he was worth money. He was Butchie O’Brien’s lawyer.

“I don’t think I’ve ever been in here,” Tom Winslow said.

“Yes, it’s a bit scruffy, but then we don’t want anyone listening in on our conversation, Tom.”

“We’ve done business in my office for years. You think someone would listen in?”

Barry Levine smiled.

“It seems prudent, Tom.”

“You think I’m under suspicion?”

“Oh, I’m sure not, Tom. Just a lawyer’s natural caution is all.”

Barry Levine took a bite of his cruller, leaning carefully forward to make sure no crumbs fell on his shirt-front.

“Boy, I’m a sucker for these things,” Barry Levine said. “I try to eat right, exercise, stay fit. But I get near a Dunkin’ Donuts stand and I lose all resolve.”

Tom Winslow didn’t say anything. He sat stiffly and waited. The public sound system in the atrium area was playing a Frank Sinatra album over the buzz of mostly adolescent conversation and the sounds of fast food being sold.

“You sure you don’t want anything, Tom?”

Tom Winslow shook his head.

“Well, you’re a man of firmer resolve than I,” Barry Levine said.

He finished his first cruller and drank some coffee and carefully patted his lips dry with a paper napkin.

“We’ve got to do something about Gus Sheridan,” he said.

“Gus?”

“Gus. He’s the loose cannon in this whole situation. He pulled a gun on Butchie, for God’s sake.”

Barry Levine broke off a small piece of cruller and ate it over the table.

“The special prosecutor’s office can be annoying, but as long as we all remain steadfast, they can be frustrated. They can prove nothing.”

He drank coffee carefully, savoring the swallow. He touched his lips again with the napkin.

“Gus, on the other hand, knows most of our intimate secrets. And he can probably prove them.”

“Gus, my God, why would he? He’d have to incriminate himself.”

“Butchie’s theory is that Gus is crazy, and that he might do anything. He’s very supportive of his son.”

Barry Levine leaned back in his small chair and stretched, arching his back. He shook his head.

“You get older, you pay more and more for the time you put in at the health club,” he said.

“You think he would confess,” Tom Winslow said, “—implicate me, us?”

Barry Levine shrugged broadly.

“You prepare for what your enemy is able to do, not what you think he will do,” he said.

“Well, I mean, Jesus, can’t we do something to stop him?”

“Butchie was hoping you’d talk some sense to him.”

“Me? What can I say to him?”

“Butchie thinks, and I must say I agree, that what you say and how you control him is largely your problem. Butchie, and rightly, I think, simply wants him controlled.”

“But I can’t control Gus Sheridan. For God’s sake, he controls me.”

“Butchie feels that you have a long family relationship, including his son and your daughter.”

“They’re, ah, separated or whatever, right now,” Tom Winslow said.

“Shame,” Barry Levine said. “But they have been together. The point is Butchie figures that there may be some basis for you and Gus to reason together. And Butchie would like you to try.”

Tom Winslow was shaking his head.

“I can’t—”

“Tom,” Barry Levine said, “get real. Butchie isn’t making a suggestion, if you see what I mean. Butchie wants you to get Gus Sheridan under control.”

“What if I can’t?”

“Butchie is in business. If he were to control Gus in some more direct way, it would add to the difficulty of doing business in the current climate.”

“Direct way?”

Barry Levine was impatient. It was like talking to a child.

“If Butchie kills him,” Barry Levine said. “It would solve the problem, but create others.”

“Kill him?”

“Yes, Tom. It’s part of the way Butchie does business. If he must. And he would not, of course, hesitate to kill you if it made sense to him. But right now it makes sense to him for you to talk with Gus.”

“Jesus.”

“Now I’m aware, as is Butchie, that you also do some business with Patrick Malloy. It is Butchie’s intention that Patrick will be out of business in a while, and all the business will be done with Butchie. Butchie is very businesslike.”

Tom Winslow was rigid in his chair. There was no color in his face. And the corners of his mouth were pinched with anxiety as he watched Barry Levine finish his second cruller.

“Unfortunately,” Barry Levine said, “Pat is somewhat less businesslike than Butchie. More given to impulse. Butchie suggests, and I concur, that you be careful of Pat.”

As he spoke, Barry Levine unconsciously wiped the corners of his mouth with the thumb and forefinger of his right hand.

“He’s impulsive,” Barry Levine said, “but he’s not stupid. It will occur to him that you and Gus know too much. And, being less businesslike...” Barry Levine spread his hands, and raised his eyebrows.

Tom Winslow sat like a stone. Barry Levine smiled at him and stood.

“Anyway,” he said, “it is important to you, I think, to get this situation under control before anything bad happens.”

“To me?” Tom Winslow’s voice squeezed out thinly.

“To all of us, Tom. To all of us.”

Barry Levine nodded pleasantly, and turned and walked away toward the door that led to Boylston Place where, already, upscale young people were gathering for fun at outdoor tables, under bright umbrellas.

The first big leisurely raindrop hit the hot sidewalk near the small bandstand on the Tremont Street end of the Common and faded. And then another came and another more quickly, and soon it was raining.

“This will not help the look I spent so much time putting on,” Laura Winslow said.