Dennis Lehane - Gone, Baby, Gone

“Ain’t it?” He clapped his hands together and slid down the car hood until his feet rested on the grille and his knees were almost touching my legs.

“You’d be Pat Kenzie.” His hand shot out toward my chest. “Glad to make your acquaintance.”

“Patrick,” I said, and shook the hand.

He gave it two vigorous pumps. “Detective Sergeant Nick Raftopoulos. Call me Poole. Everyone does.” His sharp elfin face tilted toward Angie. “You’d be Angela.”

She shook his hand. “Angie.”

“Pleasure to meet you, Angie. Anyone ever tell you that you have your father’s eyes?”

Angie placed a hand over her eyebrows, took a step toward Nick Raftopoulos. “You knew my father?”

Poole held his palms up on his knees. “In passing. In a member-of-opposing-teams capacity. I liked the man, miss. He had genuine class. To tell you the truth, I mourned his…passing, if that’s the word. He was a rarity.”

Angie gave him a soft smile. “That’s nice of you to say.”

The bar door opened behind us and I could smell stale whiskey again.

The younger cop looked up at whoever stood behind us. “Back inside, mutt. I know someone holding paper on your ass.”

The stale whiskey stench dissipated and the door closed behind us.

Poole jerked his thumb over his shoulder. “That young man there with the sweet disposition is my partner, Detective Remy Broussard.”

We nodded at Broussard, and he nodded back. At closer glance, he was older than he’d first appeared. I put him at forty-three or forty-four. When I’d first come outside I’d pegged him for my age because of the Tom Sawyer innocence in that grin of his, but the crow’s-feet around his eyes, the lines etched in the hollows of his cheeks, and the deep pewter-gray streaked through his curly dirty-blond hair added a decade upon a second look. He had the build of a man who worked out at least four times a week, a physique of solid bulked-up muscle mass that was softened by the double-breasted olive Italian suit he wore over a loosened blue-and-gold Bill Blass tie and subtly pinstriped shirt unbuttoned at the collar.

A clotheshorse, I decided, as he brushed some dust from the edge of his left Florsheim, the kind of man who probably never passed a mirror without casting a lingering glance into it. But as he leaned over the open driver’s door and stared at us, I sensed a piercing calculation in him, a prodigious intelligence. He might pause at mirrors, but I doubted he ever missed anything going on behind him when he did.

“Our dear Lieutenant Jack-the-impassioned Doyle said we should look you up,” Poole said. “So here we are.”

“Here you are,” I said.

“We’re driving up the avenue toward your office,” Poole said, “and we see Skinny Ray Likanski come running out of this alley. Ray’s father, you see, a snitch of snitches in the old days, goes way back with me. Detective Broussard wouldn’t know Skinny Ray from Sugar Ray, but I say, ‘Stop the chariot, Remy. That plebeian is none other than Skinny Ray Likanski and he looks a might distressed.’” Poole smiled and drummed his fingers on his kneecaps. “Ray is screaming about someone waving a gun inside this fine establishment.” He cocked his eyebrow at me. “‘A gun?’ I say to Detective Broussard. ‘In a gentleman’s club like the Filmore Tap? Why, I never.’”

I looked at Broussard. He leaned against the driver’s door, arms folded across his chest. He shrugged as if to say, My partner, what a character.

Poole did a fast drumbeat on the hood of the Taurus to get my attention. I looked back at him, and he smiled up at me with his weathered elf’s face. He was in his late fifties probably, squat, and the hair cropped tight to his head was the color of cigarette ash. He rubbed the bristles and squinted into the midafternoon sunlight. “Would said alleged gun be that Colt Commander I see by your alleged right hip, Mr. Kenzie?”

“Allegedly,” I said.

Poole smiled, looked up at the Filmore Tap. “Our Mr. Big Dave Strand-is he still in one piece in there?”

“Last I checked,” I said.

“Should we be arresting you two for assault?” Broussard pulled a stick of gum from a pack of Wrigley’s popped it in his mouth.

“He’d have to press charges.”

“And you don’t think he will?” Poole said.

“We’re pretty sure he won’t.” Angie said.

Poole looked at us, his eyebrows raised. He turned his head, looked back at his partner. Broussard shrugged and then both of them broke out in wide grins.

“Well, ain’t that terrific,” Poole said.

“Big Dave tried his brand of charm on you, I assume?” Broussard asked Angie.

“‘Tried’ being the operative word,” Angie said.

Broussard chewed his gum, smiling around it, and then straightened to his full height, his eyes locked on Angie as if reconsidering her.

“In all seriousness,” Poole said, though his voice was still light, “did either of you discharge your firearms in there?”

“No,” I said.

Poole held out his hand and snapped his fingers.

I removed my gun from my waistband and handed it to him.

He dropped the clip from the gun butt into his hand. He racked the slide, then peered into the chamber to make sure it was clear before he sniffed the barrel. He nodded to himself. He passed the clip to my left hand, placed the gun in my right.

I placed the gun back in the holster at the small of my back, slid the clip into the pocket of my jacket.

“And your permits?” Broussard said.

“Up-to-date and in our wallets,” Angie said.

Poole and Broussard grinned at each other again. Then they stared at us until we figured out what they were waiting for.

We each produced our permits and handed them over the car hood to Poole. Poole gave them a cursory glance and handed them back.

“Should we interview the patrons, Poole?”

Poole looked back at Broussard. “I’m hungry.”

“I could eat, too,” Broussard said.

Poole raised his eyebrows at us again. “How about you two? You hungry?”

“Not particularly,” I said.

“That’s okay. The place I’m thinking of,” Poole said, and placed his hand gently under my elbow, “the food’s awful anyway. But they got water you wouldn’t believe. Best around. Straight out of the tap.”

The Victoria Diner was in Roxbury, just over the dividing line from my neighborhood, and actually served great food. Nick Raftopoulos had pork chops. Remy Broussard had a turkey club.

Angie and I drank coffee. “So you’re getting nowhere,” Angie said.

Poole dipped a chunk of pork in applesauce. “In truth, no.”

Broussard wiped his mouth with his napkin. “Neither of us has ever worked a case with this much publicity that went on for so long and didn’t turn out bad.”

“You don’t think Helene’s involved?” I said.

“We did at first,” Poole said. “My operating theory was that she sold the kid or else some dealer she owed kidnapped the little girl.”

“What changed your mind?” Angie said.

Poole chewed some food, nudged Broussard to answer.

“Polygraph. She passed with flying colors. Also, this guy wolfing pork chops and me? It’s pretty hard to lie to us when we’re working on you together. Helene lies, don’t get me wrong, but not about her daughter’s disappearance. She honestly doesn’t know what happened to her.”

“What about Helene’s whereabouts the night Amanda disappeared?”

Broussard’s sandwich stalled halfway to his mouth. “What about them?”

“You believe the story she told the press?” Angie said.

“Is there a reason we shouldn’t?” Poole dipped his fork in the applesauce.

“Big Dave told us a different story.”