Sacred

We found Bubba in the back, shooting pool with Nelson Ferrare and the Twoomey brothers, Danny and Iggy. Not exactly a brain trust, and they seemed to be burning through whatever cells were left by trading shots of grain alcohol.

Nelson was Bubba’s sometime partner and knockabout pal. He was a small guy, dark and wiry, with a face that seemed set in a perpetual angry question mark. He rarely spoke, and when he did, he did so softly, as if afraid the wrong ears would hear, and there was something endearing about his shyness around women. But it wasn’t always easy feeling endearment toward a guy who’d once bitten off another guy’s nose in a barfight. And took it home as a souvenier.

The Twoomey brothers were small-time button men for the Winter Hill Gang in Somerville, supposedly good with guns and driving getaway cars, but if a thought ever entered either of their heads it died from malnourishment. Bubba looked up from the pool table as we came into the back, bounded over to us.

“Hot shit!” he said. “I knew you two wouldn’t let me down.”

Angie kissed him and slid a pint of vodka into his hand. “Perish the thought, you knucklehead.”

Bubba, far more effusive than usual, hugged me so hard I was sure I felt one of my ribs cave in.

“Come on,” he said. “Do a shot with me. Hell, do two.”

So it was going to be that kind of night.

My recollection of that evening remains a bit hazy. Grain alcohol and vodka and beer will do that to you. But I remember betting on Angie as she ran the table against every guy stupid enough to put his quarters on it. And I remember sitting for a while with Nelson, apologizing profusely for getting his ribs broken four months ago during the height of hysteria in the Gerry Glynn case.

“’S okay,” he said. “Really. I met a nurse in the hospital. I think I love her.”

“And how does she feel about you?”

“I’m not sure. Something’s wrong with her phone, and I think she mighta moved and forgot to tell me.”

Later, as Nelson and the Twoomey brothers ate really questionable-looking pizza at the bar, Angie and I sat with Bubba, our three pairs of heels up on the pool table, backs against the wall.

“I’m going to miss all my shows,” Bubba said bitterly.

“They have TV in prison,” I reminded him.

“Yeah, but they’re monopolized by either the brothers or the Aryans. So you’re either watching sitcoms on Fox or Chuck Norris movies. Either way, it sucks.”

“We can tape your shows for you,” I said.

“Yeah?”

“Sure,” Angie said.

“It’s not a problem? I don’t want to put you out.”

“No problem,” I said.

“Good,” he said, reaching into his pocket. “Here’s my list.”

Angie and I looked at it.

“Tiny Toons?” I said. “Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman?”

He leaned in to me, his huge face an inch from mine. “There’s a problem?”

“Nope,” I said. “No problem.”

“Entertainment Tonight,” Angie said. “You want a full year’s worth of Entertainment Tonight?”

“I like to keep up with the stars,” Bubba said and belched loudly.

“You never know when you could run into Michelle Pfeiffer,” I said. “If you’ve been watching ET, you might just know the right thing to say.”

Bubba nudged Angie, jerked his thumb at me. “See Patrick knows. Patrick understands.”

“Men,” she said, shaking her head. Then, “No, wait, that doesn’t apply to you two.”

Bubba belched again, looked at me. “What’s her point?”

When the tab finally came, I ripped it out of Bubba’s hand. “On us,” I said.

“No,” he said. “You two haven’t worked in four months.”

“Until today,” Angie said. “Today we got a big job. Big money. So let us pay for you, big boy.”

I gave the waitress my credit card (after making sure they knew what one was in this place) and she came back a few minutes later to tell me it had been declined.

Bubba loved that. “Big job,” he crowed. “Big money.”

“Are you sure?” I said.

The waitress was wide and old with skin as hard and beaten as a Hell’s Angel’s leather jacket. She said, “You’re right. Maybe the first six times I punched your number in, I did it wrong. Lemmee try again.”

I took the card from her as Nelson and the Twoomey brothers joined in Bubba’s snickering.

“Moneybags,” one of the Twoomey nitwits cackled. “Musta maxed out the card buying that jet last week.”

“Funny,” I said. “Ha,” I said.

Angie paid the tab with some of the cash we’d gotten from Trevor Stone that morning and we all stumbled out of the place.

On Stoughton Street, Bubba and Nelson argued over which strip club best fit their refined aesthetic tastes, and the Twoomey brothers tackled each other in a pile of frozen snow, started rabbit-punching each other.

“Which creditor did you piss off this time?” Angie said.

“That’s the thing,” I said, “I’m sure this is paid off.”

“Patrick,” she said in a tone my mother used to use. She even wore the same frown.

“You’re not going to shake your finger at me and call me by my first, middle, and last name, are you, Ange?”

“Obviously they didn’t get the check,” she said.

“Hmm,” I said because I couldn’t think of anything else to say.

“So you guys coming with us?” Bubba said.

“Where?” I asked, just to be polite.

“Mons Honey. In Saugus.”

“Yeah,” Angie said. “Sure, Bubba. Let me just go break a fifty so I have something to shove in their G-strings.”

“Okay.” Bubba leaned back on his heels.

“Bubba,” I said.

He looked at me, then at Angie, then back at me. “Oh,” he said suddenly, throwing back his head, “you were kidding.”

“Was I?” Angie said, touching her hand to her chest.

Bubba grabbed her by the waist and scooped her off the ground, hugged her to him one-handed, her heels up by his knees. “I’m going to miss you.”

“We’ll see you tomorrow,” she said. “Now put me down.”

“Tomorrow?”

“We agreed to drive you to jail,” I reminded him.