Gin Palace 02 - The Bone Orchard

that’s all that matters.”
    “What do you want from me, Frank?”
    “It’s not just what I want. I’m fairly certain that if you had the chance to get rid of the Chief you wouldn’t pass it up. Even to your way of thinking survival is the top priority.”
    “What does the Chief have to do with all this?”
    “Someone’s pulling his strings. The whole thing looks too much like a puppet show to not be a fucking puppet show. Someone owns the Chief, that’s common knowledge. We find out who, we get proof, and the Chief’s history. And you get your life back.”
    “I didn’t know I lost it.”
    “Knock off the Gandhi shit for a second, MacManus, and take a look at the big picture for once. The man is as corrupt as a man can get. We’d live in a much better town without him as chief of police. If you’re looking for a higher road, I can’t think of one any higher than that.”
    “What I don’t understand is how my destroying the Chief is going to help Augie’s case?”
    “I don’t know what Augie’s told you, but he’s not all that well off. He works for me because he has to, not because he’s bored. His pension is enough to live on if he lived like you, but most humans prefer not to live like that. Tina’s college-bound in a few years and Augie’s scared, and rightfully so. I can put up his bail, but he’s looking at some steep attorney fees, and I can’t help him there. I’ve seen a lot of innocent people bled dry proving it. If Augie’s going to win this case, he’ll need a good lawyer, and a good lawyer’s going to cost him everything he’s got, and probably everything he will have for a long time to come.”
    I looked down at the street again. A second patrol car backed away from the curb and headed north, too. I hadn’t heard its door close or its motor start up.
    Frank said, “I’ve known Augie most of my life. He’s not the kind of man to pop somebody for no reason, I don’t care what happened to him last May. A temporary insanity defense will keep him out of jail, but I don’t believe Augie shot a man just for standing on his lawn, not for one second. Find the man who jumped you. If all this is what I think it is, he’ll lead us to the man pulling the Chief’s strings, and to the partner of the man Augie killed. Between them we just might be able to find the truth about what happened on Augie’s lawn last night. If we’re lucky maybe we can convince one of them that it’s in his best interest to help Augie out. It’s a long shot, but it’s the only hope we have to keep Augie’s life from going down the tubes. I’d dig under every rock in town if I thought it’d help. Wouldn’t you?”
    I glanced at Frank again, then looked out the window. I wondered if Augie was next door still, or if he had been remanded already to Suffolk County Jail. I guess it didn’t matter if he was near or far. Nothing mattered except that he was in trouble. The pieces were slipping out of place, and there was nothing I could do about that.
    “What do I do exactly?”
    “Find the man who jumped you, find out who he works for. He’ll lead us to what we need.”
    “And that’s all?”
    “If that’s as far as you’re willing to go, yeah, that’s all. I have to admit, I’m surprised. I thought you’d do anything for your friend. I would have thought that we were the same in that way.”
    I said nothing to that. I was tired of words and what they did. I was grateful that winter had come; I wanted the quiet that it brought out here, the harsh stillness. I craved silence, days of it, days of sitting at my chair by my window, watching Elm Street and the train station, listening and seeing but thinking of nothing.
    On Main Street now a uniformed cop climbed into the third patrol car and backed away from the curb. He made an illegal reverse U-turn, paused, then started forward, passing below the window of Frank’s office. The car turned left onto Meeting House Lane and headed in the direction of the hospital.
    “Just find the guy who jumped you, MacManus,” he said. “Find him and bring him to me, if that’s all you’re willing to do. I’ve never been afraid of doing what has to be done. Now’s no exception.”
    I kept my eyes on the street and said, “I’d be, if I were you. I’d be very afraid.”
    “That’s the difference between you and me.”
    “That’s one of them.”
    “Is it really that cut and dried from where you sit, MacManus?”
    “I don’t spend my days