BOILER

Chapter 8

Somebody'd left a tip on a table at Gert's. The guy mopping up pocketed it. Toland was almost done with his breakfast and was getting started with his paper when Charlie joined him with a couple of files.

'I take it you have the goods,' Toland said, putting the paper down.

'Yeah, he's got an apartment in Green Hill.'

'Well, that's just a terrific start to the day. What else is in there?'

'Same sort of business to her, really. He did get shot jumping a counter.'

'Really?'

'Yeah. I mean, not really shot. Grazed.'

'Don't suppose that scared him straight, did it?'

'Not even a little bit.'

***

There was nothing green or hilly about the place. Just a block of apartments with small windows and balconies big enough to fit a chair and a small table. They took the stairs up to the first floor and counted down the door numbers until they came to number seven. Toland knocked the door. Charlie noticed the peep hole and watched the light under the door and the shadow moving in it. He watched it move away.

'He's running,' Charlie said. He stood back and drove his heel at the door. A man screamed inside. Toland drew his pistol. Charlie went at the door again and went through it the third time of asking. Toland went in first and told the man on the couch to stay still. Charlie went to the kitchen and grabbed an ankle that was disappearing out the window. He dragged it back and took a heel to the chest. He held the leg and dragged him back through the window. The two men tumbled to the kitchen floor. Roy tried getting up. Charlie hit him in the neck and in the head. Roy took a half-hearted swing at Charlie, then put his hands up in surrender.

'Sorry,' Roy said.

There was a lot of bone and little muscle to Roy. He seemed to have thick collarbones, and there was a greyness to his skin that was darker around his eyes. He had a sloppily drawn skull on his left breast. He scowled at Charlie from his corner of the kitchen. A scuff mark was getting red on his cheek.

'Do us all a favour and sit still,' Charlie said. He called in to Toland to ask how things were.

The man on the couch rocked slightly. Toland holstered his weapon and said, 'Fine.'

'I didn't do anything,' Roy said.

'Then why'd you run?'

'Habit?'

There was cigarette ash all over the furniture and the smell of it was baked into the air in that room. There were used butts on the floor where the man's feet would be if he released himself from that ball and put them down. There was burned foil on the floor under the couch. Toland picked it up and left it on the table. Roy put on a T-shirt and sat next to the man whose black eyes stared from behind his knees.

'I didn't do anything, man.'

'I'm sure that's not true,' Toland said. He tucked a thumb under his belt buckle and surveyed the place. 'You've been in trouble a few times already. Where were you Sunday night?'

'Work.'

'Where's work?' Charlie asked.

'Carmine's Groceries. You can see it from the window.'

'Can someone confirm that?'

'He can' — he nudged the man next to him — 'And they got security cameras. I sign in and out.'