Swan Dive

might not recognize Felicia as one of Teri’s regulars. And Felicia had a very deep pocket, plenty enough to pay off J.J. and get Hanna off the hook.
    Feeling optimistic for the first time in four days, I finished my meatball sub and soggy potato chips. Then I used the outside booth to call my answering service. There was a message from Ed, my friend at the South Boston courthouse. Now that I had Stansfield tying Felicia to Teri, I really didn’t need Ed’s help anymore. However, he must have jumped through hoops to get the information for me that quickly, so I called him back.
    ”Clerk’s Office.”
    ”Ed?”
    ”Ed? No, I think... just a second.” The voice yelled off the line. ”Hey, Charley? Charley! Hey, you seen Ed? Yeah, that’s what I thought.” He came back to me, conversationally. ”Yeah, it’s like I thought. Ed’s covering the second session, might be there all—hold it, he’s coming through the door now. Hey, Ed?”
    There was a clunking noise, then, ”Hell-o.”
    ”Ed, John Cuddy.”
    ”Ah, oh, yes, Lieutenant, that file just came in. Hold on, will you?”
    ”Thanks, Ed.”
    About twenty seconds passed. ”Lieutenant?”
    ”Right here.”
    ”Yeah, I got this so quick ‘cause I knew you really needed it. We don’t have no Federal fucking Express on these, you know?”
    ”How does dinner at Amrheins strike you?”
    ”That should just about cover the postage, all right. I got your ‘Papangelis, Theresa A.’ right in front of me here. Now, what do you want?”
    ”Charge and date?”
    ”Soliciting, November of seventy-eight. Knocked down to a disorderly, she agreed to facts sufficient.”
    ”Meaning the lawyer basically got her off on the soliciting charge in exchange for her admitting there were facts sufficient to find her guilty of disorderly conduct?”
    ”That’s how I’d read it. Anything else?”
    ”Yeah, who’ve they got as her lawyer?”
    ”Oh, right. Just a second... Yeah, here it is.”
    Ed told me, and the sky began to fall.

The Pontiac looked more rusted, the converted garage more shoddy. I opened the door without knocking, but there was no cousin in the waiting area. Chris sat at the secretary’s desk, efficiently hunting and pecking at a form in the typewriter and looking up in embarrassment when he saw it was me.
    ”Jeez, John, this temp service, I gotta change—”
    ”I know, Chris.”
    ”About the temp place?”
    ”No. About Marsh, Teri, everything.”
    His eyes went out of focus. Standing shakily, he said, ”Maybe we better... the office.”

    I didn’t have to ask him to start at the beginning. ”It was the MS, John, swear to God it was. Don’t let nobody kid you, you can’t fight something like that. Before, Eleni and I were doing okay, hell, I was doing better than okay in the office by the courthouse there. hen the MS hit her, and it all, I don’t know, just dribbled away. The money, the clients, her and me.”
    ”You represented Teri back in 1978, a long time before the MS.”
    ”Huh? Oh, yeah, I did, but I didn’t start... start going to see her then. That was just how I met her, doing a courtesy thing for somebody up where she lived. Just like I got involved with that fucking Marsh, helping somebody out.”
    ”When did you first start seeing Teri?”
    ”Maybe a year ago. I had this closing in Boston , at three. The lawyers down there, they think everybody’s in a big-time firm, you know? They schedule everything figuring that the guy on the other side’s just gonna catch the five-ten for Wellesley . Or maybe is gonna go back to his State Street office and put in another five hours before calling it a day. You come in like I have to, though, that Route One’s a nightmare anywhere from four to seven going north out of the city. So I finished up with the closing at like four-fifteen and walked over to the Parker House. Have a few drinks, wait out the traffic, you know?”
    ”I know. And Teri was there?”
    ”Yeah. Oh, not hooking or anything, the Parker House’d never stand for that. No, she was just having a drink at the bar, and some salesman with a garment bag under his stool was kind of hitting on her, and she sees me and drops him to come over and say hi.” Chris took a deep breath. ”Christ, John, you shoulda seen her. Beautiful, like somebody’s dream of what a woman should look like. The legs, not like... anyway, we started talking and drinking and I lost track of the time, and next thing I know we’re in the