Close to the Bone Read Online Free PDF Page A

and go live in a cabin out West with Alex.”
    “You want to give God a big chuckle?” said Charlie.
    “Huh?”
    “Just tell Him you’ve got plans,” he said.
    I left the office around five-thirty. The city was dark and bone-chilling cold. The wind off the water funneled between the buildings and knifed into my body. I walked briskly, hunched into my topcoat, up Boylston, past the Public Gardens, diagonally across the Common, left on Tremont, and then down Court Street to the alley off State Street to Skeeter’s Infield.
    I walked in, rubbed the cold out of my palms, and looked around. The bar was crowded and the early sports news was playing on the two big television sets at the ends. Skeeter was hustling behind the bar. When he saw me he lifted his chin in greeting.
    Paul wasn’t at the bar. I spotted him in the last booth. A short man in a camel-hair topcoat and felt hat was standing in the aisle, bent over with both hands on Paul’s table. The man seemed to be talking intently. Paul was looking down into a glass of beer.
    I went over to the booth. Paul glanced up, frowned for an instant, then said, “Oh, Brady. You’re a little early.”
    I nodded. “Sorry. I walked fast. It’s too damn cold out there to dawdle.”
    He smiled. “Don’t be sorry. Have a seat.”
    The man who’d been talking to Paul straightened up, and I slipped into the booth across from Paul.
    “Mr. Coyne,” said Paul, tipping his head in the direction of the man in the camel-hair coat, “Mr. Vaccaro.”
    Mr. Vaccaro mumbled, “Hiya,” without offering his hand, so I didn’t offer mine.
    “Mr. Vaccaro was just leaving,” said Paul.
    “Yeah,” the man said to Paul. “We’ll talk, though, huh, Mr. C?”
    “I’ll think about what you’ve told me,” said Paul. “Okay?”
    “Sure. Sorry. I’m on my way. I just—we gotta talk sometime, you know what I mean?”
    “I know what you mean, Eddie.”
    The man stood there for a moment, then shrugged, turned, and left.
    Paul lifted his glass of dark beer and took a sip. “Nippy out there tonight,” he said.
    “Radiational cooling, they call it,” I said. “Makes you wonder if this is the year spring will never come. Was that a client?”
    “Former client.” Paul looked toward the bar and lifted his hand, and a minute later Skeeter came over and placed a bottle of Sam Adams in front of me. “Howya doin’ tonight, Mr. Coyne?” he said.
    “Cold of limb and cold of heart,” I said.
    “Ain’t it the way, though.” He pointed at Paul’s glass. “You okay, Mr. Cizek?”
    Paul gave him a wave. “Fine for now, Skeets.”
    After Skeeter went back to his post behind the bar, I lit a cigarette and said, “So what’s up, Paul? It’s been a while.”
    “If my fucked-up sense of ethics didn’t forbid it,” he said, “I’d dump this damn Falconer case.”
    “Roger bothering you?”
    He ran his fingers through his hair. “Not anymore. I fired the old bastard a month ago.”
    “You fired him?”
    “Yep. He raised the bail, and that was fine, but I guess he figured that entitled him to plan the defense.”
    “I suspect he’s not pleased with the kind of ink he’s been getting,” I said mildly.
    “I’m just trying to win a case,” said Paul. “If he cares more for his own image than whether his son spends the next ten years at MCI Concord, we should just plead guilty and take what they give us. I don’t even ask my clients for their advice on how to run a trial, never mind their relatives. I guess Roger’s not used to not being consulted. He second-guessed every move I made, and as polite as I tried to be to him, I finally just had it up to here. Told him I didn’t want to see him ever again. Told him the next time he showed up with Glen, I was outta there. Surprised he didn’t go running to you. I think you’re the only person he listens to.”
    I shrugged. “He knows what I would’ve told him.”
    Paul sipped his beer. “I don’t like Glen, either.