The Lovers

“Gary Maser gave me twenty-four hours’ notice, then left,” said Dave, as he juggled mixing a brandy Alexander with keeping an eye on three pints that were pouring simultaneously. “Pity. I liked him. I figured he might stay on. Any idea what happened there?”

“None,” I said.

“Well, you hired him.”

“My mistake.”

“What the hell. It wasn’t fatal.” He gestured at the dressing on my neck. “Although that looks like it could have been. I guess I shouldn’t ask.”

“You could ask, but I’d have to lie to you.”

One of the taps began to splutter and froth.

“Damn it all,” said Dave. He looked at me. “Do a favor for an old friend?”

“I’m on it,” I said. I went in back and changed the keg. While I was there, two more ran down, so I changed those too. When I came back out, Dave was taking care of the service bar, which dealt with orders from the restaurant, and there were at least ten people waiting for drinks, and only one bartender to deal with them.

So, for one more night, I slipped back into my old role. I didn’t mind. I knew now that I would be returning to what I did best, so I enjoyed working one last time for Dave, and quickly fell into all the old routines. Customers came in, and I remembered them by their orders even if I couldn’t recall their names: Tanqueray Guy; Margarita Girl; five guys in their thirties who came in every Friday and always ordered five of the same beer, never once experimenting with some of the more exotic brews, so that their arrival was always known as the Charge of the Coors Light Brigade. The Fulci brothers arrived with Jackie Garner in tow, and Dave contrived to look pleased to see them. He owed them for keeping reporters away from the bar after Mickey Wallace died, even if he suspected that their presence had scared off regular customers too. Now, though, they were sitting in a corner, eating burgers and knocking back Belfast Bay Lobster Red like men who were about to be returned to prison the next day, an experience with which the Fulcis were not unfamiliar.

And so the evening passed.

Eddie Grace woke to the sound of a match being struck in the darkness of his bedroom. The drugs had dulled the pain some, but they had also dulled his senses, so that he struggled for a moment to figure out what time it was, and why he was awake. He thought that he might have dreamed the sound. After all, nobody in the house smoked.

Then a cigarette flared red and a figure shifted in the easy chair to his left; he caught a glimpse of a man’s face. He looked thin and unhealthy, his hair slicked back from his head, his fingernails long and, it seemed, nicotine tinged with yellow. His clothes were dark. Even in his own stinking sickbed, Eddie could smell the dankness of him.

“What are you doing here?” said Eddie. “Who are you?”

The man leaned forward. In his hand he was holding an old police whistle on a silver chain. It had belonged to Eddie’s father, and had been passed on to him when the old man retired.

c%" quo“I like this,” said the stranger, dangling the whistle by its chain. “I think I’ll add it to my collection.”

Eddie’s right hand sought the alarm that summoned Amanda to him. It would ring in her bedroom, and she or Mike would come. His finger pressed down on the button, but he heard nothing.

“I took the trouble of disco

“I asked what you were doing here,” Eddie croaked. He was frightened now. It was the only appropriate response in the face of this man’s presence. Everything about him was wrong. Everything.

“I’m here to punish you for your sins.”

“For my sins?”

“For betraying your friend. For putting his son at risk. For the death of Caroline Carr. For the girls you hurt. I’m here to make you pay for all of them. You have been judged, and found wanting.”

Eddie laughed hollowly. “Fuck you,” he said. “Look at me. I’m dying. Every day I’m in pain. What can you do to me that hasn’t been done already?”

And suddenly the whistle was replaced by a sliver of sharp metal as the man rose and leaned over Eddie, and Eddie thought that he saw other figures crowding behind him, men with hollow eyes and dark mouths who were both there and not there.

“Oh,” whispered the Collector, “I’m sure I can think of something…”

By midnight, the bar was almost empty. The weather report had promised more snow after midnight, and most people had opted to leave early rather than risk driving in a blizzard. Jackie and the Fulcis still remained, bottles racked up before them, but the rest of the customers in the restaurant area were already standing and putting on their coats. Two men at the far end of the bar called for their check, wished me good night, and then departed, leaving only one other drinker at the counter. She had been with a group of Portland cops earlier in the evening, but when they had gone she had stayed, taking a book from her bag and reading it quietly. Nobody bothered her. Although she was small and dark and pretty, she gave off a vibe, and even the International Players of the World kept their distance from her. Still, she looked familiar to me from somewhere. It took me a moment or two, and then I had it. She glanced up and saw me staring at her.

“It’s okay,” she said. “I’m leaving.”

“You don’t have to,” I replied. “The staff usually stay on for a drink, maybe something to eat, on Friday nights. You’re not in anybody’s way.”

I indicated the glass of red wine at her right hand. There was only a single mouthful left.

“Fill that up for you?” I asked. “It’s on the house.”

“Isn’t that illegal after hours?”

“You going to report me, Officer Macy?”

Her nose wrinkled. “You know who I am?”

“Read about you in c abe wthe papers, and I’ve seen you around some. You were involved in that business out on Sanctuary.”

“As were you.”

“Only at the edges.” I reached out a hand. “My friends call me Charlie.”

“Mine call me Sharon.”

We shook hands.

“Shaving cut?” she asked, pointing at my neck.

“I have an unsteady hand,” I said.

“Bad news for a bartender.”

“That’s why I quit. Tonight’s a favor for an old friend.”

“What will you do instead?”

“What I used to do. They took away my license for a time. Soon, I’ll have it back.”

“Evildoers beware,” she said. There was a smile on her face, but her eyes were serious.

“Something like that.”

I replaced her glass with a clean one, and filled it with the best California we had in the house.

“Will you join me?” she said, and when she said those words they seemed to promise, at some point in the future, more than a drink in a dimly lit bar.

“Sure,” I said. “It would be a pleasure.”

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I AM IMMENSELY GRATEFUL to a number of people who gave generously of their time, and their knowledge, when it came to the research for this book. In particular, I would like to thank Peter English, formerly of the Ninth Precinct in New York, who brought its streets to life for me, and without whom this book would be much poorer. Dave Evans and all the staff at the Great Lost Bear (www.greatlostbear.com), the best bar in Portland, Maine, were immensely hospitable, and willing to give a job to a detective who was down on his luck. My thanks also to Joe Long, Seth Kavanagh, Christina Guglielmetti, Clair Lamb (www.answergirl.net), Mark Hall, and Jane and Shane Phalen, all of whom helped me to mask my ignorance at various stages in the writing. Any mistakes are my own, and I apologize for them.

Books and articles that proved useful include New York: An Illustrated History by Ric Burns and James Sanders, with Lisa Ades (Alfred A. Knopf, 1999); The Columbia Guide to America in the 1960s by David Farber and Beth Bailey (Columbia University Press, 2001); The Sixties: Years of Hope, Days of Rage by Todd Gitlin (Bantam, 1993); The Movement and the Sixties: Protest in America from Queensboro to Wounded Knee by Terry H. Anderson (Oxford University Press, 1995); The Neighborhoods of Brooklyn, John B. Manbeck, consulting editor (Yale University Press, 1998); and “Spider manipulation by a wasp larva” (Nature, vol. 406, July 20, 2000).