Serpents in the Cold Read Online Free PDF Page A

bother you, miss, but could we get some coffee here?”
    The waitress glanced at Dante and went to move away, but Cal held her elbow. “Some coffee for me and my friend here.”
    She hesitated for a moment, and then responded dully, “I’ll see what I can do.”
    In a moment, the waitress was back. “Only coffee. The boss says I can’t serve you breakfast.” She gestured with her head toward Dante. “Not with him looking like that.”
    “We’d die for some of that apple pie. Don’t have to cook nothing, just wrap it all up and we’ll be on our way.”
    “I’ll do it, honey, but then you have to go. Take your friend down to Burke’s or Joey Glynn’s. That’s the place for you.”
    Cal nodded, watched the waitress walk away. “They closed down Joey Glynn’s a month ago. The wrecking ball will have it in a week or so. Half the Square is going.”
    “Going to hell,” Dante said. He dabbed at his bloodied mouth with napkins he’d pulled from the dispenser.
    Nemo’s brother was looking up from his paper and staring at them. The waitress took the long way about the restaurant, checking in on her other tables before she went behind the counter, filled up two paper cups with coffee, and wrapped the pie. When she returned, Cal took the paper bag from her hand and left two quarters on the table.
      
    THEY STEPPED INTO the Peabody Street alley. Before them the recently excavated lot of Cassidy’s Bar jutted out into the barren expanse toward Tremont Street, and a wind whipped down through the avenue with nothing to cut it.
    “I need more than coffee,” Cal said, and Dante followed him across the street to Court Street Liquors. The lights were off inside, and the narrow aisles were dark in shadow and illuminated by meager slants of daylight poking through the ice-covered windows at the front of the store.
    Cal’s breath hung in the air. “Why’s it so damn cold in here?” he asked. The old cashier wore a multitude of multicolored sweaters, one over the other. His emaciated wrists poked from their ragged cuffs as he reached up to a shelf and grabbed four nips of whiskey, and his hands shook when he handed Cal his change. A red wool cap was pulled tightly down over his ears. He chewed on his thick lips and sputtered when he spoke. “They turned the damn electric and heat off on me, the fuckers.”
    Back outside, Cal and Dante poured the whiskey into their coffee as they rested against a brick wall and stared at the broken stone and mortar where Cassidy’s had been. A crane with wide tracks and a wrecking ball sat immobile, covered with a dusting of snow from the previous night.
    They hugged their coats about them as they drank, watched the low clouds churning over the city; traffic rumbled on distant streets, and navy frigates leaving the Charlestown locks blew their long, plaintive horns as they made their way out into the harbor.
    “My cousin Owen called me this morning,” he said. “The Dorchester detective. You know the guy.”
    Dante looked up from his stupor and stared at him. A hard wind blew icy crystals against their faces so that they squinted at each other. The bottoms of their overcoats whipped against their legs.
    Cal finished the last of his coffee dregs, sucked the whiskey from them with his teeth. He turned against the wind and, with his head bowed, managed to light a cigarette. He exhaled, tried to smile, and then gave it up. “Sheila was found murdered this morning, Dante. I’m sorry.”
    Dante cocked his head like a dog and smiled, his grotesque, deformed grin searching for the joke, and perhaps trying to make sense of what he’d just heard. Cal reached for his shoulder, put his hand there, and held it. “I’m sorry.”
    Dante’s mouth parted as if to say something. After a moment he looked out across the barren lot, gazed blankly at the traffic and the pedestrians passing hunched into themselves against the cold. Cal watched him, studied the damage to his face. He took him by the