Don Winslow: A Cool Breeze on the Underground

“Maybe if you hadn’t pronged his wife,” Graham said.

The train was pulling into the grimy Providence suburbs.

“She wasn’t his wife then,” Neal said. He’d been over this ground so many times. “Christ, I introduced them.”

“Maybe Ed just figures you got everything he should have had. First.” Neal shrugged. Maybe that was true. But he hadn’t asked for any of it.

Providence is the kind of city where all the men still wear hats. The soul of the city was stuck back in the good old Forties, when you kept a lid on things and rooted against the Japs, the Germans, and the Yankees, not necessarily in that order. A hat was a symbol of respectability, a nod to the order of things, to a city run by Irish politicians, Sicilian gangs, and French priests, all of whom came together for Knights of Columbus breakfasts and Providence College basketball games and otherwise stayed in their respective realms.

Union Station was a perfect representative of the city. Sad, drab, dirty, and hopeless, it was the right place to enter Providence. You didn’t get your hopes up.

Levine greeted them as they got off the train. “Laurel and Hardy,” he said. “Hello, Ed,” said Graham.

Levine ignored Neal. He said to Graham, “Anybody follow you?” Graham and Neal exchanged an amused glance. “I think we’re clean, Ed.” “You better be.”

“Well, there was that guy with dark glasses, a fake mustache, and a trench coat. You don’t suppose…” Ed didn’t laugh. “C’mon.”

He led them downstairs into the old terminal, where a few old winos held some ragged newspapers down on the old wooden benches. A couple of them were watching the dust filtered through the dirty, yellow windows.

As they walked past a stand of metal lockers, Ed grabbed Neal by the neck and pushed him none too gently against a locker. He lifted Neal until only his toes touched the floor. Graham started to move in but was stopped by a straight-arm and an ice-cold look.

Neal tried to slide out of the hold, but Ed’s big arms held him tight. He managed to get his own arms inside Ed’s and grab him by the collar. It was merely a symbolic hold.

“Now listen to me, you little bastard,” Ed whispered. “This job is important. Got it? Important. You’re going to do just what you’re told, just the way you’re told to do it. None of your smart mouth or your smart ideas.

“You are the last person in the world I’d pick for this job, but The Man wants you, so it’s you. So you don’t fuck around and you don’t fuck up. Because if you do, I’m going to bust you up. I’m going to hurt you real bad. Got it?”

“Jesus, Ed,” said Graham.

“Got it?”

“You’re going to do this to me sometime, Ed, and I’m…”

Ed tightened his grip and laughed. “You’re going to do what, Neal? Huh? What are you going to do?”

Neal could barely breathe. He needed air-even Providence air. Levine could break him into little bits without breaking a sweat. The book said to hit Ed in the nose with the heel of his palm. The book wasn’t going to get killed.

So Neal did the best thing he could under the circumstances. He kept his mouth shut. After a few long seconds, Ed let him go and walked away. Graham rolled his eyes at Neal and hurried after Ed.

Neal slouched against the lockers and caught his breath. Then he shouted after Levine, “So, Ed! How’s the little woman?”

He watched as Graham nudged Levine through the door. Neal was getting tired of this shit-very tired.

At forty, ethan Kitteredge looked younger than Neal thought he would. A lock of ash blond hair fell over his forehead and the pale blue eyes that peered from behind his wire-rim glasses. He was about five ten, Neal guessed, and weighed maybe one seventy, one seventy-five. The body under the gray banker’s suit was trim: tennis or handball.

Then Neal quit playing Sherlock Holmes, because The Man was reaching out his hand and smiling.

“You must be Mr. Carey,” he said. His handshake was firm and quick: nothing to prove.

“And you’re Mr. Kitteredge.” Witty, Neal, he thought. Great first impression.

“I’ve heard a lot about you,” Kitteredge said. “How is your graduate work coming?”

“I’m missing an exam as we speak. Otherwise, it’s going great, thanks.”

Graham found something fascinating on the floor to stare at. Levine stared at Neal and shook his head.

“Yes, I chatted with Professor Boskin about it,” Kitteredge said. If he was bugged, he didn’t show it. “He mumbled something about giving you an Incomplete.”

“That was nice of you to do, Mr. Kitteredge, but I like to finish what I start.”

“Just so. Gentlemen, please sit down. Coffee, tea?” Three wooden chairs had been placed in an arc facing Kitteredge’s desk. Levine sat down on the right, Graham on the left. Neal plunked himself down in the remaining chair. The center of attention.

Kitteredge stepped to a silver coffee service. Neal noticed he moved in the awkward manner produced by generations of New England breeding-stops and starts which imply that any choice of motion is merely a necessary evil, that the real virtue is to remain still. Nevertheless, he managed to pour four cups of coffee and serve them around.

This took a while, and Neal used the quiet moments to study the office, which was pure bank, pure Kitteredge. The twentieth century had yet to intrude its vulgarities. Sunlight shone a soft, filtered amber on a room ruled by mahogany and oak. Glass-enclosed bookshelves lining the walls housed leather-bound sets of Dickens, Emerson, Thoreau, and, of course, Melville. Bowditch’s Navigation held a prominent spot, flanked by various obscure whaling memoirs and sailing treatises. Wooden models of old China clippers completed the decor. These were the vessels that had carried Kitteredge tea, Kitteredge guns, Kitteredge opium, and Kitteredge slaves across the oceans, and Neal imagined that the profits from these voyages still rested beneath his feet in Kitteredge vaults.

One modern memento held the pride of place. An exquisite scale model of the sloop Haridan sat on the glossy polished oak of Ethan’s desk. Some skilled craftsman had faithfully rendered the boat’s sleek structure and clean lines. Ethan spent every free moment on Haridan, sailing Narragansett Bay, Long Island Sound, and the open Atlantic. He often docked on Block Island, where he kept a summer home. For Ethan Kitteredge, responsible banker, responsible husband, responsible father, Haridan meant rare and precious moments of heady freedom.

The coffee successfully served, Kitteredge took his seat behind his desk and pulled a file from the top center drawer. He looked at the file for a moment, shook his head, and handed it across the desk to Neal. Then he sat back in his chair and pressed his fingers together in “This is the church, this is the steeple” fashion.

Kitteredge talked like he walked. “Some… uh… old family friends have a bit of a… problem, and we have offered our… services… to assist them in finding a resolution.”

He smiled, as if to suggest that disorderly people were amusing, weren’t they, and a bit of a bother, but they are our friends, and we must do our best. He paused for a moment to allow Neal to open the file.

“Senator John Chase comes from a prominent Rhode Island family,” said Kitteredge. “The family name has undoubtedly been an asset… in his political progress, but I hasten to add that the Senator is a talented, intelligent, and… ah… energetic man.”

Okay.

Kitteredge Continued: “The Senator sits on several important committees, where his performance has attracted… national attention, from the press as well as party professionals. Despite the somewhat distasteful fact that John is a Democrat… we support him in his ambitions.”