Wilderness

CHAPTER 4.

Lieutenant Vincent stood with his hips resting against his desk and his arms folded across his chest. Croft sat on one straight chair and Newman on the other.

Croft shrugged. "So that's it, Lieutenant. He says he can't make the ID in court. Says he was mistaken."

"Has anyone threatened you, Mr. Newman?"

Newman shook his head.

"No one has said or done anything to change your mind?"

Newman shook his head again. Vincent looked at Croft. They were silent.

Newman said, "I'm sorry, but…" Without looking at him Vincent said, "Shut up." Croft said to Vincent, "Who knew?" Vincent said, "You tell me, Bobby. Who knew we had a witness and what his name was?"

"You, me, people in the squad room People in Smithfield. Valences from Essex County DA's office." He spread his hands. "Too many, Murray. Got no way to know who they talked to."

"We better try, Bobby. They knew before Newman left this fucking office. You hear what I'm saying?"

Croft nodded.

Newman said, "Wait a minute. Nobody…"

Vincent turned toward him. He unfolded his arms and placed his hands palm down on the edge of the desk behind him. "You close it up, scum bag. I got no use for you. You tucked your fucking tail between your fucking legs and hauled ass at the first sign of trouble."

"The hell I…"

"Shut up." Vincent straightened from his desk and shoved his face toward Newman, bending forward slightly. "I know somebody threatened you, and I know you're not going to say shit because you think if you're quiet it'll all go away. Maybe it will and maybe Dolph Karl will blast somebody else and it won't be you and you'll shake your head and say

"My my ain't that awful. Why don't those stupid cops do something about it?" Or maybe Dolph will worry about you and maybe he'll send somebody around to make double sure you stay scared and stay quiet."

Newman was silent. The fear twitched and tickled in his stomach.

"You can end it here and now, you got the guts. Or you can be scared and jump at shadows the rest of your life. Or maybe you and your wife and who knows who else can be dead."

Newman could hear that flat uneducated Boston voice on the phone. He shook his head again. "I made an honest mistake, Lieutenant," he said.

"I simply made an honest mistake." Vincent said, "Bobby, get him the fuck away from me." He turned his back and stood looking down at the picture of his family on his desk.

Croft jerked his head and he and Newman got up and left.

"Lieutenant's pissed," Croft said in the hall.

"Corporal Croft, I tell you it was simply a mistake. He wouldn't want me to put an innocent man in jail, would he?"

"Aw, don't bullshit me, Mr. Newman. I know you were threatened or bribed. Lieutenant knows it. You know it. So, I don't know, maybe I don't blame you. Maybe they leaned hard. Maybe they got your wife or kids, it happens. But don't bullshit me." "Vincent got family?" Newman said.

"Sure," Croft said. "Wife, five kids, I think."

"I suppose he wouldn't back off if they were threatened."

"Vincent? Hell no. He wouldn't back off for anything."

"So what would he do, risk their lives?" Croft smiled a little. "No, you haven't seen Murray work. I have. He wouldn't back off, and if somebody threatened his family he'd blow him away."

"If he could," Newman said.

Croft was still smiling. "He could, " Croft said. "I've seen him work."

They walked down the corridor toward the parking lot.

"The thing is," Croft said, "Murray's probably right. You're making a mistake. You let them do this and they'll be around for the rest of your life. It won't be done like you think it will be. Remember, I told you before. Dolph Karl is a fucking psychopath. We had him on the hook and you let him off. There's no way to know what he'll do."

At the door they stopped. "You change your mind," Croft said, "you give me a call. You have my card."

Newman nodded. "Vincent would kill them?"

Croft nodded. "No doubt in my mind."

"And you?"

Croft was silent for a minute, his hands in his hip pockets. "I guess I'd have to be in the situation. Then I'd see. I don't see too much point to figuring ahead."

Newman started to shake hands, hesitated, and Croft said, "Hell, I'll shake hands with you." He put out his hand and Newman shook it. Then Newman went out into the bright parking lot.

After the air-conditioned building the heat was tangible and startling.

His bright blue jeep was parked against the far wall. As he walked across the half-empty lot he felt obvious and isolated. As if a high camera shot were focused on him. He'd taken the top off the jeep for the summer, and with the big wheels and the high clearance he felt exposed still as he pulled out onto Commonwealth Avenue.

Christ I'm scared, he thought as he drove along Commonwealth. He wished he had a gun. He wished Croft were with him. Maybe he could tell the Smithfield police he'd had anonymous threatening phone calls.

Maybe they'd put a cruiser nearby. But if they're watching and they see the cops they'll get us.

He drove past Boston University into Kenmore Square. One foot was cocked up on the door frame. He wore a blue Levi shirt, washed often.

The sleeves were rolled, the top three buttons were open. As he moved the steering wheel the muscles in his arms swelled beneath his tan.

"Machismo," he said aloud. Jiving it in self-mockery. He looked in the rear-view mirror at the thick brown column of his neck, the strong jaw, the square tanned face. In circles where there weren't any, he was thought a tough guy.

Past Kenmore Square he pulled onto Park Drive and drove through the Fenway. Automatically he looked, as he always did, at the light towers of Fenway Park as they showed above the apartment buildings. They had loomed for him, when he was a boy, like the towers of Camelot.

He went past the Museum of Fine Arts and pulled into the faculty parking lot at Northeastern University. His wife's parking sticker entitled him. Northeastern was an urban university of unrelieved ugliness. Janet's office was in a converted industrial building.

Inside, the brick walls and hardwood floors had been veneered with paint and vinyl and the open spaces partitioned with wallboard. It was air-conditioned. In Janet's office there were another woman and two men. Newman knew them. He didn't like them much. He was jealous of Janet's work and her friends at work and her commitment to both the work and the friends.

As he came to her door she was talking animatedly. Her eyes were bright and wide, her hands moved. Her color was high. Goddamn isn't she something. There was a faint red line on her left wrist, where last night the rope had marked it. He felt anxiety heavy in his stomach, but also faintly, around the edges, desire as he remembered her naked helplessness.

He stepped around the corner of her office door and said, "Newman's the name, words are my game." Janet stopped talking and smiled at him and waved.

"Margie," he said, "how are you? Jim? Charles?"

They spoke to him. He made them a little uneasy, he knew. He had been reviewed in Time and Newsweek and been on the Today show. For them he was a celebrity. And a celebrity in the field where they would care.

They were all English professors, he was a writer. Always inside them was the war; Newman understood it. Always there was the disdain for his popularity and envy of his success. He liked making them uncomfortable.

Janet said, "What are you doing here? Did you have your appointment?"

"Yeah," Newman said. "I had it. It went okay. They were a little upset, but nothing they could do."

Margie was small and very slim with perfectly black hair and good features. She was much younger than Janet. "Anything wrong?" she said.

"No," Janet said. "Just some business that had to be done. It involved returning some merchandise and I was afraid it could be unpleasant." She smiled. "That's why I had Aaron do it."

"Man's work," he said. They were very liberated here in the English department. He loved to scandalize them. If only mildly. "How about you and me, little lady, we go down to Chris's Place and have a few drinks and dinner." "Aaron, I have my car," she said.

"So drive down, meet me there. Or drive down in the jeep with me and we'll come back and get your car."

"I'm not riding in the jeep and having my hair blow all over the place."

He took a big breath. "Okay, then, ride down in your car and meet me."

"Okay, but I'll be late. There's a curriculum committee meeting and it's important. I won't be able to get there for another hour."

"Course, don't want to miss that curriculum committee meeting. Probably couldn't have it without you. What are you going to do at this meeting, plan the next meeting?"

"Aaron, don't be a pain in the ass. You go down and have a few beers with Chris and I'll come down after our meeting."

"Yeah, okay, when can I expect you? You know how you are." He looked at the two men. One was tall and willowy with a full beard and small round gold-rimmed glasses. The other was middle-sized and trim with a European-cut three-piece suit and a Phi Beta Kappa key on his watch chain. Half his salary on the goddamned suit.

"I'll be there in an hour, I already said that. The meeting will have to end at six because people have classes at six-thirty. Go ahead.

I'll be there." He nodded, smiled at the four of them, and turned to go. He paused next to the medium man in the three-piece suit. "Charles," he said.

"You are a regular fashion plate."

He was close to Charles and was aware of how much bigger he was than Charles. He wanted Charles to feel that, to let the sense of his mass sink in. Charles smiled vaguely.

"I wish I could dress as you do, Aaron, and stay home all day and cash big checks, but some of us aren't so lucky, or talented, maybe." Newman grinned. "That's true," he said. He waved his hand at all of them again and went out. Jesus Christ, we got the biggest problem of our fucking life and she's got a curriculum meeting. Nice how she'd give up anything to be with me. Nice how she's always there when I'm feeling bad. Very fucking nice. He got in his jeep and drove toward the waterfront. His eyes stung as if he would cry. But there were no tears.