The Snake Eater by William G. Tapply

Author:William G. Tapply [Tapply, William G.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781784088699
Publisher: Head of Zeus Ltd
Published: 2013-06-28T21:55:00+00:00

16

GOVERNMENT CENTER OCCUPIES SEVERAL city blocks between Cambridge and Congress streets, on the back side of Beacon Hill. It was erected on the corpse of Scollay Square back in the sixties, and there are still some of us who mourn the demolition. Gone is the Old Howard, where a kid could pay two bits to hear a bald man tell dirty jokes and then watch a fat lady strip down to pasties and a G-string. Gone, too, the Blue Parrot, where a teenaged boy could buy a beer, no questions asked, get propositioned by a forty-year-old hooker, and be invited to step into an alley for a fistfight with a sailor, all in the same evening.

Now it’s all massive concrete-and-glass buildings and brick plazas. Progress.

Charlie McDevitt’s office is high in the J.F.K. Federal Building. I got there around four on Wednesday afternoon. Charlie had called that morning and said he didn’t want to talk about it on the phone.

When Shirley, his secretary, saw me walk into the reception area, she beamed at me. I went over and kissed her cheek. She stood up and hugged me against her great pillowy bosom. “Ah, Mr. Coyne. ’Tis good to see ye.”

“You’re looking terrific, sweetheart,” I said.

Which was true. She had snow-white hair permed into an elaborate do, smooth pink skin, and a healthy abundance of flesh. The prototypical grandma.

“Will ye be takin’ him fishin’, Mr. Coyne?” she said.

“No, alas,” I said. “Fishing season’s about ended for the year.”

“Maybe come winter some of that silly ice fishing, then.”

I nodded. “Maybe.”

“Ye should. Himself’s needin’ some distracting.”

“I’ll see what I can do.”

“Well, go on right in, then. He’s expecting you.”

I pushed open the door. Charlie was at his desk talking into his phone. He raised his eyebrows when he saw me and jerked his head at the empty chair by his desk. I sat. He rummaged in his bottom drawer and came up with a half-full pint of Early Times. He set it on his desk. I reached over to the sideboard and snagged two water glasses. I poured two fingers into each and slid one of them to Charlie’s waiting hand.

Charlie said, “Yeah, okay, get back to me, then,” and hung up the phone. He let out a long sigh. “Hey,” he said to me.

“Hey, yourself.”

He picked up his glass, gestured toward me with it, and took a sip. I did the same.

He rummaged among the papers on his desk top and found a sheet of computer paper. He unfolded it in front of him. “Those names,” he said, looking up at me.

I nodded.

“You were hoping to locate them.”

“Yes.”

“Well,” he said, “I located six of them. But it’s not going to help you.”

“Why not?”

He shrugged. “They’re all dead.”

I lit a cigarette. “Dead, huh?”

“Yup.”

“And the other two?”

He shook his head. “Couldn’t locate them.”

“Meaning what?”

“Meaning they seem to have disappeared themselves.”

“Disappeared?”

“Vanished. Run away. Who the hell knows?”

“Dead, maybe.”

Charlie nodded. “Maybe.”

I swallowed some Early Times. It burned all the way down. “So what do you think?”

“About the connection with Daniel McCloud, you mean?”

I nodded.

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