A Fine Line Read Online Free PDF

Now what?
    Well, Walt was alive and being treated in one of the best hospitals in the world, and there was nothing I could do for him.
    I went outside and lit a cigarette. I realized my stomach was grumbling. So I walked over to Skeeter’s and had a burger and a glass of ale from a microbrewery in Vermont that Skeeter recommended.
    While I ate, I watched the Red Sox game on one of the big TV’s over the bar, but my mind kept wandering. I was thinking of Walt, how he looked lying on the bricks with blood dribbling out of his nostril and pooling under his head, how his eyelids had fluttered and he’d tried to tell me something before he lost consciousness.
    I assumed he’d fallen and hit his head. Standard police procedure required them to proceed on the assumption that a crime had been committed.
    The crime, if there was one, would be shoving a man on crutches, causing him to fall backward hard enough to make him bleed from the nose.
    Who’d do that?
    The only name I could come up with was Ethan.
    That struck me as far-fetched and unlikely. On the other hand, a lot of unlikely things happened in this world.
    “Another beer, Mr. Coyne?”
    I blinked. Skeeter was leaning his elbows on the other side of the bar frowning at me.
    “No,” I said. “Thanks, Skeets. I’m heading home.”
    “You okay? Nomar hits a home run, you don’t even smile?”
    “A friend of mine’s in the hospital,” I said. “He got hurt pretty bad. I’m worried about him.”
    Skeeter nodded. He’d played a little second base for the Red Sox back in the seventies. When he blew out his knee, he bought this seedy little bar down the alley off State Street, named it Skeeter’s Infield, paneled the walls, installed several big television sets, and turned it into the first sports bar in Boston. Skeeter still wore his faded and stained old Red Sox cap when he was behind his bar.
    “You been to see him?” said Skeeter. “Your friend?”
    I shook my head. “He’s in surgery.”
    He took a swipe at the bar in front of me with his rag. “They do magic with surgery nowadays, Mr. Coyne. If they’d had arthroscopic surgery when I was playing, I might’ve had another four or five years.”
    “My friend banged his head,” I said. “He was bleeding out of his nose.”
    Somebody down at the other end of the bar called to Skeeter for a refill. He reached over and touched my arm. “Your friend, he’ll be okay,” he said.
    I left in the middle of the eighth inning. I didn’t even notice what the score was.
    When I got home, I checked my answering machine. No messages, from Ethan or from Evie or from anybody else.
    I found my portable phone, took it out to the little iron balcony outside my apartment, and tried Evie’s home number.
    She didn’t answer, and I didn’t leave a message. It was a little after eleven o’clock. She had to be home from her solitary picnic at Walden Pond by now. Probably in the tub. Or maybe she was already in bed. She always turned off the ringer on her phone when she went to bed.
    The point was, she hadn’t tried to call me back.
    I lit a cigarette and gazed across the harbor at the lights of East Boston and Logan Airport. Overhead, the moon was an orange wedge that reflected off the water.
    When I finished my cigarette, I called Mass General and asked for surgery. They wouldn’t tell me anything.
    I went inside and poured two fingers of Rebel Yell over three ice cubes. Took it out to the balcony. Smoked another cigarette while I sipped.
    Then I fished out the card Sergeant Andrew Currier had given me. He’d invited me to call any time. So I did.
    “I was wondering if you had any news on Walt Duffy,” I said when he answered.
    “No news,” he said.
    “Did you talk to him?”
    “By the time I got there, they were prepping him for surgery.”
    “The doctors say anything?”
    “Nothing I’m at liberty to share with citizens,” he said.
    “Is he going to be okay?”
    Currier sighed. “Look, Mr. Coyne. I