“Well,” Barry said, “that’s him all right then. He’s got one with about a forty-inch setta boobs on her in there. He practically didn’t even get his coat off before he spotted her, and he was right next to her before I could even get a dime inna box to call you. He don’t waste any time.”

“He’s been at it a long time,” Steve said. “You know that guy, except for when he first gets married, he goes out every fuckin’ night? Every night. When he gets married, for a little while he doesn’t. Then pretty soon, he does it again. So naturally, the broads he marries, there’s always something that tips them off, they’re all lizards themselves and he’s not home and they start figuring. But you imagine that? The guy’s close to fifty, and he’s, he’s not married, he’s never home. Never. You can say what you want about the guy, he is still one strong bastard.”

“I hope he’s quick, too,” Barry said. “This fuckin’ dampness.”

“He’ll be out,” Steve said. “All we got to do is be here and wait, just like whoever the broad is. Markie don’t waste no time. He knows what he’s doing. Half the gash went into that place, looking to get laid, they ended up inna rack with Markie. And he gives them what they’re looking for, too. They all, you know something? They don’t even know who he is.”

“How come?” Barry said.

“Onna one-night stand,” Steve said, “he don’t give his right name.”

“Who’s he say he is?” Barry said.

“Well,” Steve said, “he knows us, right? And he knows Dillon and he knows a lot of guys. And then there’s some guys he doesn’t know, some guys that, he just makes up their names. Depends on how he feels. So the thing is, there’s probably four, five broads, come in here or some place else one night all pissed off at their husbands, and they think they fucked us.”

“That cocksucker,” Barry said.

“Hey,” Steve said, “you got to give the guy credit.”

“Sure,” Barry said, “and suppose one of them broads that he fucked and he said he was me, and Ginny finds out, huh? Then I’m deep in the shit and I didn’t even do it.”

“Hell, Barry,” Steve said, “I mean, nobody could recognize you. What’s the matter, I thought Ginny trusted you.”

“She does,” Barry said, “because she knows I don’t do that.”

“Well,” Steve said, “look, he probably didn’t say he was you very much anyway. And the girls he meets, they probably don’t even hear the name. They’re just out to get laid. It’s always, he’s the head of the fuckin’ Mafia. He’s got this whole routine he goes through. ‘Just in town for a couple days. I’m in and out of town a lot.’ He is, too. Except the nights he runs the game, he’s here, he’s in Danvers, he’s in Lawrence, he’s all over the place. Then he pulls out this big roll. He’s got himself about eighty fifties there, and it’s nothing but fifties, either. And he’s got the rings. And then pretty soon: I’m staying with a guy. Can’t take no chances onna hotel, you got to sign everything. Can we, can we maybe use your place?’ And of course the broad, she hasn’t got a place. Well, she’s got one, but the old man and the kids’re there, and besides, she don’t want nobody to know she’s from around here. So the next thing you know they’re in a hotel and the broad’s paying for it. ‘He can’t take them to his place,’ Dillon told me. ‘There’s no bugs in there, for Christ sake. Bug’d be ashamed to live in that place.’ But he’s got the Cad and the gold rings and he goes around telling broads all kinds of things and they all believe him and he fucks them all. He’s done more for the world’n Christmas, you add it all up.”

“Why’d you say that about Danvers?” Barry said.

“Because he goes there,” Steve said. “There’s this club he goes to some times, up in Danvers. He goes over the Beach, too. The guy gets around.”

“Ginny’s ma lives in Danvers,” Barry said.

“I doubt he fucked Ginny’s ma, Barry,” Steve said. “You wanna know, though, I’ll call her up and ask her for you.”

“Some day I’m gonna break your fuckin’ long nose for you, Steve,” Barry said.

Trattman, wearing a mouse-colored, double-breasted overcoat, emerged from the Lobster Tail with a dark-haired woman in her forties. He raised his right arm, using his left hand to guide her toward the curb. An attendant in a snorkel coat pulled up in a tan Coupe de Ville. Trattman opened the passenger door for the woman as the attendant got out on the driver’s side. Trattman closed the passenger door and walked around the front of the car. He handed a folded bill to the attendant. The attendant said: “Thanks,” with no sign of recognition. Trattman got into the Cadillac.

Steve and Barry got into Steve’s metallic blue LTD hardtop, black vinyl roof, and shut the doors.

The Coupe de Ville headed east on Boylston Street. It crossed the intersections at Hereford, Gloucester, Fairfield and Exeter streets on green lights. Steve kept the LTD three car lengths back, one lane to the right. He went through the Fairfield and Exeter intersections on yellow lights.

“This isn’t a bad car either,” Barry said.

“You ever decide,” Steve said, “stop fuckin’ around and do something, you can get something for yourself instead of bitching all the time about how everybody else’s got something and you don’t.”

“Fuck you,” Barry said. “Last month I hadda lay out close to two hundred and fifty bucks for the fuckin’ dentist. Every time I get a couple bucks ahead, something comes along to fuck it up.”

The Cadillac stopped for a red light at Dartmouth Street.

“I must be gettin’ old,” Steve said. “All my friends’re having trouble with their teeth. Jackie was telling me, his wife’s all hot and bothered, she’s gotta have, what’re those things, root canals. ‘Which is gonna set me back about nine hundred bucks, I suppose, I’m through.’ I didn’t know stuff like that cost so much.”

The light at Dartmouth changed and the Cadillac moved forward. The woman in the Cadillac moved closer to Trattman.

“He’s telling her what he’s gonna do to her now,” Steve said.

“The thing that really did it to me,” Barry said, “you know what that son of a bitch whacked me for Maine? Five hundred a day and expenses. I hadda pay him almost thirty-nine hundred dollars. Plus what I hadda give him before, a thousand, take the case in the first place.”

The Cadillac had green lights at Clarendon and Berkeley. The Caprio car went through on yellow.

“That’s because you’re a stupid shit,” Steve said. “No asshole inna world would’ve gone up there the way you did. You, you haven’t got no complaint. I think he did all right by you. You had anybody else, you would’ve gotten hooked again.”

The Cadillac stopped for a red light at Arlington Street.

“I’m not putting the hammer on Mike,” Barry said. “He’s just expensive, is all.”

The light changed and Steve followed the Cadillac, turning right on Arlington Street. A man in a light gray Chesterfield, carrying a briefcase, crossed the street in front of the LTD, walking fast and catching up with a tall albino man who wore a lavender cape lined with red satin, and platform shoes. Steve Caprio changed lanes to the right and closed the distance between the LTD and the Cadillac.

“Looks like he’s going down the Envoy,” Steve said. “Must’ve got a cheap one this time, gotta pay for it himself. No, I was just saying, ah, it’s the same thing. You just fuck around too much. You did something, you could get something. You don’t see me or Jackie going up to Maine and being stupid like that, chasing guys around when they’re staying with their families and stuff.”

“Well,” Barry said, “he wasn’t gonna pay. He took the dough off of Bloom and then he wasn’t gonna pay it back. Bloom hadda get his dough outa the guy. You can’t go around letting guys get away with stuff like that.”

The Cadillac moved into the left lane at the Statler Hilton and turned left.

“No, he’s not going down the Envoy,” Steve said. “He’s going down the Terrace. She must have some dough after all. Sure, and Bloom gets his dough, and you get, what’d Bloom give you for that shitty thing?”