Reach the Shining River by Kevin Stevens Page A

here of a Friday. You’d know that if you spent as much time with your own people as you do in niggertown.”
    “You lazy fat prick.”
    “Such language, counsellor. That the way they talk in Mission Hills?”
    Fat Jack stared, daring him to do something. Mickey was quickly between them, hands pressed against Emmett’s shoulders.
    “Emmo and I have to see a man about a dog.”
    “Don’t let us keep you,” Fat Jack sneered. “To the spalpeens belong the spoils.”
    Mickey guided him to the other side of the room.
    “Goddamn it,” Emmett said, “what are you gabbing with them for? Talking about me behind my back.”
    “Hey, cool down. You were supposed to be here an hour ago. O’Malley’s watch ends at two, and if I don’t have the jacket back by then, we’re both in trouble.”
    “Fat bastard. Ass like a handball alley and he has the gall to say that. Was my old man here?”
    “I didn’t see him.”
    “Fucker.”
    “It wouldn’t do to make an enemy of him. He knows everybody in this town.”
    Emmett stared across the crowded room. Boyle stared back.
    “Give me the jacket,” Mickey said.
    “Hold your horses. What did you tell them about the case?”
    “Fuck all.”
    “So where did the niggertown comment come from? Last thing I need is fucking Boyle catching wind of this. Company he keeps.”
    “The Sweeney case. The cop who killed the colored kid.”
    “I remember the case, Mickey. I tried it.”
    “Yeah. So don’t be surprised when you’re called a coon-lover. No one knows about the other thing. Not unless you told them.”
    “I didn’t tell anybody.”
    “That makes two of us.” Mickey pointed at the briefcase. “C’mon. The jacket.”
    “Wait. Few things we have to discuss.”
    The singing had started. “The Croppy Boy.” Next it would be “A Nation Once Again” or “Four Green Fields”. Emmett bought Mickey a whiskey and chaser, and they pressed through the swaying mass and out the back door. Billy kept a quiet courtyard for conversations more back room than the back room itself. Picnic tables. Candles stuck in beer bottles. A juniper bush. The night was warm and clear and the stars were dense. Emmett sipped his soda water to calm himself. Mickey grinned.
    “What are you laughing at?” Emmett said.
    “Like the old days. When you used to drink and get pissed off. ”
    Emmett opened his briefcase, took out the manila file, and handed it across the table.
    “So?” Mickey asked.
    “Fuck all use.”
    “What did you expect?”
    “More than a token report and a near-empty log. We’re supposed to believe there was no ballistic evidence at the crime scene? No footprints, tire tracks, bloodstains? We don’t even know where the crime scene is . South bank. That’s ten miles of riverfront. If it was the south bank. This guy didn’t even go through the motions.”
    “Why would he bother?”
    “To avoid raising the suspicions of guys like me who might come across it, for one.”
    “You weren’t supposed to come across it.”
    “And he wasn’t supposed to forget a lifetime of police training. But he did.”
    Mickey drank his short in one go. “Let’s say he dressed it up with phony witness statements and planted evidence. You would have bought it?”
    “Doubt it. I got the autopsy straight from Joe Healy. He found three .38 slugs in the body, but they’ve since disappeared. Slugs have gone missing.”
    “I heard you the first time.”
    Emmett opened the jacket, glanced at the name. “You know this dick? Timmons?”
    “Richard Timmons, a.k.a. Richie T. One of Otto Higgins’s vice boys. Inner circle.”
    “Has the ear of the North End lads.”
    “He would.”
    “Not a guy you’d expect to be doing a river run at two in the morning. It’s like he was specially chosen.”
    “Emmo. Can we cut to the chase here? I’ve got a half hour. Tops.”
    Richie T. The moniker rang a bell. Emmett trawled through his memory and came up empty while Mickey lit a cigarette from the