Thirty-four steps. That was Michael’s count. He had initially paced it off at a walk and reached a higher number. But his dad had been running and his stride would have lengthened. So Michael ran it, from the end of the access road to the alley, and he counted again, then ran it again and counted again. Thirty-four steps, about half that number of seconds. It had to be wrong. He was missing something. He assumed he was in the jigsawed world of the mystery novel; if the solution was right, the pieces would fit. They would slip together easily. They didn’t.
He went to the alley, stood where the shooter had stood. The killer had beat Dad to this spot, waited for him to come skittering around that corner, and fired. So he had dashed around the corner ahead of Dad, pulled the gun, and was there ready-steady, waiting. A three- or four-second lapse, say.
Michael rehearsed the facts again. Dad and Conroy arrive in a cruiser at the Eastie waterfront, Dad driving. He parks with the driver’s side of the car nearer the access road. Conroy, on the far side of the car, sees the kid and shouts to him, across the roof of the car. The kid, sitting with his back against a wall, looks up, registers cops!, and takes off. Then the thirty-four-steps, then the shot.
So how-if Amy was right-did a lard-ass like Brendan Conroy get into position to fire that shot in the alley? How could he possibly have beat Dad from the parked car to the alley?
Michael adjusted the facts to fit the movie in his head. Maybe Conroy had gone ahead earlier, before the sprint, or something had distracted Dad or drawn him away, giving Conroy a head start. Or maybe the car had been parked the other way (though it would have required backing in). Michael could have dreamt up a thousand scenarios to reach the desired climax. What he could not do was imagine a different climax.
He ran it again. He wanted to feel it, make the experience a physical reality. Thirty-four steps, chick-chick-chick-chick-chick… Michael’s head jostling. On his right the slate-blue emptiness of Boston Harbor. The water was choppy and whitecapped, the colors of a chalky blackboard in school. It made an oceany whishing sound. Beyond the harbor the city rose up on its little hill a mile away, still a nineteenth-century skyline, ten stories tall, a mean little port city without a skyscraper, an American Marseilles. Chick-chick-chick, thirty-two, -three, -four, and the corner. Turn. Gun. Shooter. Bang.
Again. Slow it down.
Turn.
Little four-shot derringer.
Pan up to the shooter’s face-Brendan Conroy’s face. Flushed, maybe a little grimace at having to perform this necessary, distasteful task. Did he say anything first? “Sorry, Joe, hope you understand”?
Dad’s tongue flattens itself against the roof of his mouth, readying to say No!
Bang.