A Catskill Eagle

CHAPTER 2

AT SIX FORTY-FIVE IN THE MORNING I WAS AT THE harbor health Club. Henry Cimoli had an apartment on the ground floor past the racquetball courts, and I was drinking coffee with him and making a plan.

“I thought you quit coffee,” Henry said. He was doing handstand push-ups on the beige shag wall-to-wall carpet.

“This is an emergency,” I said. I was not sleepy but I was tired. “You get the idea?”

“Sure,” Henry said. “All the years I was a trainer. I can rig any kind of cast you want. I’ll make it big, and you can slide your foot right in it when you get there.”

“We’ll need to get that little walker sole for it.” Henry eased out of the handstands. There was a chinning bar across the door to the kitchen. At five four Henry had to jump to reach it. He began to do pull-ups, touching the back of his neck to the bar, his arms apart to the width of the doorframe.

“‘There’s a medical supply house up on Beacon Street, just past Kenmore Square. It’s on the left past the old Hotel Buckminster going toward Brookline.”

Henry was wearing gray cotton shorts and nothing else, and his body pumped up and down on the bar like a small piston. There was no suggestion of strain. His voice was normal and unforced, his movements precise and prompt.

“Maybe you should work less on strong,” I said, “and more on tall.”

Henry dropped from the pull-up bar. “Tall enough to kick you in the balls,” he said.

“Take a number,” I said, and went looking for the medical supply house.

The place didn’t open until eight. So I drank three coffees sitting in my car in front of the Dunkin‘ Donuts in Kenmore Square watching punk rockers unlimber for the day. A kid with tie-dyed hair strolled by wearing a white plastic vest and soft boots like Peter Pan. He had no shirt on and his chest was white and hairless and thin. He glanced at himself covertly in the store windows, filled with the pleasure of his outlandishness. He was probably hoping to scare a Republican, though in Kenmore Square they were sparse between ball games.

I had Susan’s letter in my shirt pocket, folded up. I didn’t read it again. I knew what it said. I knew the words. I knew the tone. The tone was frantic. I looked at my watch. Almost eight. There was a nonstop at nine fifty-five. I was packed. All I had to do was rig this leg cast with Henry and get going. I could be there by one o’clock their time. I telescoped the three paper coffee cups and got out of my car and put them in a trash can. Then I got back in and drove up and was the first customer at the medical supply house. By 9:05 Henry had the leg cast made, too big, and I was able to put it on and take it off like a fisherman’s boot. I put it in my Asics Tiger gym bag, under my clean shirts.

“You want a ride?” Henry said.

“I’ll leave the car at the airport.”

“You need any dough?”

“I got out a couple of hundred with the bank card,” I said. “That’s all there is in the account. Plus the American Express card. I can’t leave home without it.”

“You need anything,” Henry said, “you call me. Anything. You need me out there I’ll come.”

“Paul knows to call you if he can’t get me,” I said. “He’s back in school.”

Henry nodded. “Christ, you’d think you were his old man.”

“Sort of,” I said.

Henry put his hand out. I shook it. “You call me,” he said.

I headed for Logan Airport at a high speed, working against the morning traffic. If I missed the plane there were other flights, but this one was nonstop and quicker. I wanted to get there quicker.

I was twenty minutes early. I checked my bag through. If they lost it on me it would be a mess. But I couldn’t carry it on with a handgun in it. At nine fifty-five we were heading out to the runway, at ten we were banking up over the harbor and heading west.