Robert B. Parker’s Fallout

Forty-Five

Nellie slid in next to Hal Fortin. Molly sat across from him. “Mind if we join you, Coach?” she said.

“Yes, I do mind,” Fortin said, “not that it seems to matter.”

“Bitches,” Nellie said, sadly shaking her head. “What can you do about them?”

“You’re both out of line,” Fortin said.

“Are you going to make us run some laps?” Nellie said.

“I’m expecting someone,” Fortin said.

“No worries, this won’t take long,” Molly said.

Fortin was stuck and knew it, unless he decided to shove Nellie out of the booth, or climb over the table to escape.

Nellie had her chin in her left hand, and was smiling at the coach of the Paradise High baseball team.

“I’ve got nothing to say to you,” Fortin said to Molly. When he turned just enough to look directly at Nellie he said, “And I never had anything to say to you.”

“But you hid it so, so well,” Nellie said.

A waitress came over, ready to take a drink order.

“I’ll have a Sam Adams in a bottle,” Fortin said. “The ladies are just leaving.”

The waitress looked at Nellie and then Molly, somewhat uncertainly, then turned and walked away.

“We are leaving,” Molly said. “Just not this second.”

“You can’t just accost somebody like this in a public place,” Fortin said.

Molly grinned. “Want to call a cop?”

Fortin’s face was starting to redden. “What the hell do you want?”

“Well, for starters,” Molly said, “Chief Stone and I continue to be of the belief that we are not getting your full cooperation regarding the death of Jack Carlisle. So I have embraced this opportunity to ask you myself why that might be.”

The waitress came back with Fortin’s beer, and placed it in front of him. He ignored it, and her.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Fortin said.

“From the start you have gone out of your way to tell your players not to cooperate with our investigation,” Molly said. “I find that odd.”

“I would, too, if I’d done it. But I haven’t.”

“Coach,” Nellie said, admonishing him. “We all know better than that.”

“It is also our belief,” Molly said, “that you are either hiding something about Jack or hiding something about your team. Frankly, nothing else makes sense.”

“In your opinion,” Fortin said.

“What promise to Jack or about Jack are your players keeping?” Nellie asked.

“News to me if they are.”

“Is it?” Molly said.

“You calling me a liar?” Hal Fortin said.

“You tell me,” Molly said.

Before Fortin could answer her, Nellie said, “I know you’ve heard this before, Hal, but we are eventually going to find out if you are hiding something. And when we do, it is probably going to burn your ass when I put it in the newspaper.”

“All I am trying to do at the moment is try to win a state tournament for these kids, without the kid who might have been the best ballplayer his age in the whole goddamn Commonwealth of Massachusetts.”

“I saw you slap one of those kids,” Molly said. She grinned again. “I thought there weren’t supposed to be any black eyes in team.”

“Clever,” Fortin said.

“Still thinking there might have been more to that slap than you’ve indicated,” Molly said.

“I told you already,” he said. “I lost my head for a second. Everybody’s been under a lot of pressure lately, including me.”

Now he drank some of his beer.

“What do you think happened to Jack?” Molly said.

Nellie was giving her room.

“I was under the impression that it’s the police’s job to find out,” Fortin said. “Now, for the last time, will the two of you please leave me alone? My dinner guest is here.”

Molly’s back was to the front door. She turned now in the booth to see that Hillary More had just walked into the Gull.

But she wasn’t there for long.

As soon as she saw who was sitting with Hal Fortin she turned and left.