A Drink Before the War by Dennis Lehane Page A

provincialtown—very pleasing to the eye, but functionally a disaster. A truck stopped for a delivery on the Hill can back up traffic for a mile. The streets are apt to be one-way in a northern direction for two or three blocks, then arbitrarily turn one-way to the south. This usually captures the average driver unaware and forces him to turn onto yet another narrow street with much the same problem, and before he knows it, he’s back on Cambridge or Charles or Beacon Street, looking up at the Hill, wondering how the hell he ever ended up down here again, but getting the distinct, if irrational, impression that the Hill itself threw him off.
    It’s a wonderful place to be a snob. The homes are gorgeous red brick. The parking spaces are guarded by the Boston Police. The small cafés and shops are manned by imperious owners who close their doors whenever someone they don’t recognize looks as if he may want to enter. And no one can find your address unless you, personally, draw them a map.
    I looked in my rearview as I crested the Hill, the gold dome of the State House peeking out through the wrought-iron fence of a roof garden ahead of me. Two blocks behind me, I saw a car driving slowly, the driver’s head turning left and right as if looking for an unfamiliar address.
    I took a left on Joy Street and coasted the four blocks down to Cambridge Street. As the light turned green and I crossed the intersection, I saw the same car coasting down the hill behind me. At the very top of Joy Street, another car appeared—a station wagon with a broken luggage rack on the roof. I couldn’t see the driver, but I knew it was Angie. She’d busted the luggage rack with a hammer one morning, pretending the flimsy metal was Phil.
    I turned left on Cambridge Street and drove a few blocks to the Charles Plaza. I pulled into the parking lot, took the ticket at the gate—only three dollars per half hour; what a bargain—and pulled across the lot until I was in front of the Holiday Inn. I walked inside the hotel like I had business there, turned right past the front desk and hopped theelevator to the third floor. I walked down the corridor until I found a window and stared down into the parking lot.
    Blue Cap wasn’t wearing a blue cap today. He had on a white bicycler’s cap, the brim pushed back flat against his forehead. He still wore the wraparounds, though, and a white Nike T-shirt and black sweatpants. He stood just outside of his car—a white Nissan Pulsar with black racing stripes—and leaned on the open door while he decided if he should follow me in or not. I couldn’t see his license plate numbers from this angle, and from this height, I could only guess at his age, but I put him at twenty to twenty-five. He was big—six two or so—and he looked like he knew his way around a Nautilus machine.
    Out on Cambridge Street, Angie’s car idled, double-parked.
    I looked back at Blue Cap. No point sticking around. He’d follow me into the hotel or he wouldn’t. Either way, it didn’t make any difference.
    I took the stairs down to the basement, opened a door onto a service driveway that smelled of exhaust fumes, and jumped off the loading dock. I walked past a dumpster that reeked of slowly stewing fruit and worked my way down onto Blossom Street. I took my time, but before you could say slick-as-a-wet-goose, I was back on Cambridge Street.
    All over Boston, in places you’d never notice, there are garages. It doesn’t compensate for a city as short on parking space as Moscow is on toilet paper, but at least the rental fees are exorbitant. I stepped into one between a hair salon and a florist, strolled along the garage until I came to space number eighteen, and removed the slipcover from my baby.
    Every boy needs a toy. Mine is a 1959 Porsche Roadster convertible. It’s royal blue, with a wood finish steering wheel and a twin cowl cockpit. True,