Swan Dive

the knot, getting ready to bolt on me, gotta groom this new J.J., take his place.’ Then I push the new man, supplier say, ‘Fuck is this shit? What the hell J.J. doing?’ Then the supplier, he ask himself, ‘How come the last load ain’t hit the street yet?’ I don’t need those kinds of troubles, mon.”
    ”Sounds like you got them. Through your own fault with Marsh.”
    The woeful look dissolved. ”Sound that way to you? Well, let’s us see how this sound. I give Marsh the credit, he don’t pay up. He do that to a bank, what the bank do?”
    I didn’t respond. Braxley reached for his drink and finished it decisively.
    ”Tell you what the bank do. The bank treat that like a family obligation, mon. The bank go take his house and toss his family on the street. Well, you talking to a bank now, the First National Bank of Braxley. Terdell and me visit the missus this morning, polite as can be. We wearing hats, they woulda been in our hands. We give her notice this morning, but I spell it out for you. I get back my shit, or we take the house to cover it.”
    ”You ever hear of duress?”
    Braxley started to laugh, then cut it off. ” ‘Duress,’ huh? That woman own that house now, she can do whatever she want with it. Like she can put it on the market for maybe twenty thousand less than it worth, and sell it like in a few weeks, and she get plenty on it, mon, plenty enough to cover her husband’s debt. And she gonna wanna do it, too. Know why?”
    I still didn’t say anything.
    ”Sure you know why. You just don’t wanna hear the words in the air. You a sensitive son of a bitch. Well, maybe you better brace yourself, ‘cause here they come, ready or not. She gonna wanna do that for me because I like be holding her little child in excrow. The daughter she so careful not to let us see this morning. You know what excrow mean?”
    ”The expression is ‘escrow,’ Braxley, and I know what it means.”
    He sat back, even more pleased with himself. ”You got the benefit of a fine stateside education, my friend. I just a poor immigrant, but I catch on fast. This here an open society, anything possible for a mon who willing. You believe it.”
    I believed it.

    I waited in the bar for half an hour after J.J. left. Then I looped around the blocks the long way and drifted toward my building from the river side. No whiff of Terdell or sign of anyone else. I went inside and upstairs.
    I called the Christideses’ home number.
    ”Who is this?”
    It sounded like one of Eleni’s cousins, so I said, ”My name is John Cuddy. Eleni wanted to see me yesterday.”
    I heard some muffled talk in Greek, then the voice came back to me with ”Wait, wait, she come.” I waited.
    ”John?”
    ”Yes, Eleni. Is everything all right?”
    ”Yes, fine, fine. You want Chris?”
    ”Please.”
    ”He not here, John.”
    ”I really need to speak with him. Do you know when he’ll be back?”
    ”He gone to a meeting two hours already. Can he call you back?”
    ”Yes. I’ll be home.”
    ”I tell him.”
    I thanked her, pushed down the button, and called Murphy again.
    ”Murphy.”
    ”Lieutenant, it’s me, Cuddy.”
    ”Hold on. Holt’s right here.”
    ”Lieutenant, wait—”
    ”Cuddy, this is Holt. Just what the hell you think you’re pulling here?”
    ”Lieutenant, I’d like a meeting with you and Dawkins tomorrow.”
    ”You fucken asshole. Where do you—”
    ”In the morning, if possible. Your office would be fine.”
    ”How about I send a cruiser right now?”
    ”How about I call Senator Kennedy and tell him how you’re violating my civil rights?”
    ”What rights?”
    ”You want to send a cruiser, fine. You want me to tell the papers and TV in a few days how you and yours were responsible for botching a double murder and getting a child hurt on top of it, go ahead.”
    ”What child? The fuck are you talking about?”
    ”I’ll explain it tomorrow. How about ten a.m.?” The gnashing of teeth. ”You be here. If we are, too, we’ll hear what you have to say.”
    I put the receiver down and turned on the news. I sat through sports, weather, and Tom Brokaw. Then I went downstairs, backed the car out of the space, and drove to the waterfront.

    Most of the residential housing on the harbor consists of condominium flats in redeemed warehouses. The warehouses themselves sit on wharves, huge stone and beam intrusions into the water and from another century. Before Boston ’s renaissance fifteen years