Rescue

a mental list of what had to be done to move forward in finding Eddie. I stopped at the condo to clean up and change clothes. The only message on my telephone machine was from Nancy , calling the night before around eight, she said on the tape. I checked with my answering service. A message from Chief Kyle Pettengill, asking me to get in touch with him.
    I dialed Nancy first. A secretary in the DA’s office told me she was on trial and did I want to leave a message. I said yes, that I’d pick Nancy up by the front door of the courthouse building at six that night unless I heard back to the contrary.
    I called Pettengill next and drew a female voice that sounded like it should still be home, nursing the flu. She said Pettengill was out, but would return my call as soon as possible. I told her I was just returning his, no rush, but that I’d probably be away for a while, and therefore not reachable. She said she’d tell him, and I figured I’d done what I could on that front.
    After showering, I let my hair dry naturally while I performed an actual count on the money from Severn’s toilet tank. It totalled $14,350, still a lot of cash for a man who’d just gotten a new pickup. The truck. I kicked myself for not checking the glove compartment for a registration, to see if he really owned it, and any paperwork that might have told me where it had been.
    I put most of the bills in my own hidey-hole and the rest in a briefcase in packs of five hundred. Then I got into another suit and went down to the Prelude.

    “Sneezer, how’ve you been?“
    The man who looked at me through the crack in his door didn’t seem all that happy to see me. From what I could see, given the length of the security chain, his hair was a little more shot with gray and his allergies no better than they had been. Sneezer always claimed it was the allergies that made him anorexic, an albino ant in clothes meant for a human being.
    He started to say something, then sneezed. Three times, reflexively.
    I said, “What is it, this time of year?“
    During a reprieve in the sneezing jag, he said, “You don’t got time to hear them all. What do you want?“
    “To start with, I’d like to come in.“
    “Come in? You got any idea how many airborne particles get caught on your suit there? You’re like a rat from the Black Plague.“
    “You want, Sneezer, I can strip naked out here in the hall, but that might start the neighbors wondering more about your business than they do already.“
    “Awright, awright. Let me get a mask on first, though.“
    I waited while the door closed, then after a bit heard the sound of the chain coming off, and the door opening. I stepped into the apartment, one of four on the third floor of a wooden mammoth in Somerville, the blue-collar town Wedged between East Cambridge and Boston . Sneezer had lived there for at least five years I knew about, a virtual Prisoner of his allergies.
    Another jag, Sneezer first pulling the surgical mask away from his face. Then he shook his head. “Geez, it’s bad and getting worse, Cuddy.“
    “You ever thought of relocating?“
    He just looked at me. “I can’t afford to rent nowheres else around here but Somerville.“
    “I don’t mean around here. I mean like Arizona, New Mexico maybe.“
    “Huh. You know what’s happened out there?“
    “No.“
    “The snowbirds, all these people from like the Midwest—* Michigan, Ill-a-noise, wherever—these people, they get to the desert and they look around and say, ‘Hey, it’s wärm and everything, but where’s the trees and the lawns?’ So they start planting away and draw down their fucking water to make Arizona look like Grand Rapids or wherever, and guess what?“
    “They bring the pollen along with them.“
    “Right. That’s exact-a-mundo right. Now the stupid fuckers have no water to drink, and the asthmatics and people like me are bug-fucked. Again.“
    “Sorry to hear it, Sneezer.“
    He rubbed a skeletal finger against his nose under the mask, the eyes above it runny and red. “So, what do you want?“
    “I need a package.“
    “A package. A package of what?“
    “Sneezer.“ I looked to the closed door behind him where a bedroom ought to be. Only the bed was against the wall of the living room where we were standing, unmade with a couple of throw pillows on it.
    He looked with me, then back to me. “What is this, some kinda entrapment?“
    “This is unofficial, Sneezer. I need enough fake ID to look