Free Haunted Hearts by John Lawrence Reynolds Page B

him to whisper, “Yes I will,” and kissed his cheek.
    â€œNo can do.”
    Sleeman’s words over the telephone meant he’d done enough for McGuire. Four bottles of good Scotch could only go so far.
    Behind Sleeman’s voice, McGuire could hear the murmur of conversation and a telephone endlessly ringing. “He’s got a record, there’s a picture on file,” McGuire said.
    â€œTold ya,” Sleeman said. He dropped his voice. “Verbals I’ll help you with, Joe. Copies are another thing. DeLisle’s on one of his moral housecleaning trips again. And everybody’s uptight over changes around here. Guys gettin’ transferred in and out, moved up and down. I mean, you gotta be careful. The toe you step on today might be attached to the ass you have to kiss tomorrow.”
    â€œSo go get the mug shot and tell me what he looks like.”
    â€œWhat, you want me to buff and cuff him too? Jesus, McGuire, we’re all up to our asses here trying to find that Hayhurst lowlife.”
    â€œWho’s that?”
    â€œThe gold-tooth kid, the one with the Beretta, who tried to shake you down. I told you about him. He’s working solo now, and he’s wired all the time, probably doing crack by the bucket load. He’s one for the books. Been a bad-ass since grade school. He took two shots at a couple of old ladies, schoolteachers from Indiana, last night. He was so wired up he missed them both. One thing nobody around here wants is a couple of schoolteachers from little towns in Indiana getting their scrawny butts shot off by a hopped-up street hood, right? So now we got a task force and I’m heading it. DeLisle wants Hayhurst and his Beretta off the street, with or without his gold tooth, and I’m the guy supposed to do it.”
    â€œTell me what you know about Myers,” McGuire said. He leaned back in his chair, his feet on a corner of the desk.
    â€œMarried twice, no kids,” Sleeman answered. “Charged with assaulting one of his ex-wives, roughed up another guy who owed him money. Thinks he’s got muscle to use, I guess. Got himself probation on a weapons charge, too. Then he beat some heavy-duty embezzling charges that his partner took a three-year government vacation for, and did six months for income tax that the IRS said he didn’t pay, on money the court said he didn’t embezzle. Usual crock of shit.”
    â€œSo you’re not making a copy of his mug shot.”
    â€œSorry. Maybe your buddy Rosen’s got a picture of him. Myers and Rosen, they probably threw a big party when he beat the embezzlement charge, for which he was facing five to ten.”
    â€œRosen?” McGuire sat up in his chair.
    â€œHe was Myers’s lawyer.” Sleeman gave a dry laugh. “Hell, McGuire, you can always threaten to introduce your knuckles to his beak again, he doesn’t come through for you.”
    McGuire muttered a goodbye to Sleeman and sat staring at the telephone. Then, as though his thoughts had flipped some switch within the instrument, it rang.
    â€œI just wanted to thank you for lunch again,” Lorna said. McGuire could feel the closeness of her lips against the receiver and he pictured her a floor above him, maybe toying with her hair.
    â€œNot necessary,” he said. “I enjoyed it.”
    â€œPlease don’t lose that telephone number.”
    â€œI won’t.” He thought about Saturday night, about all the Saturday nights over the past several months he had spent in the house on Revere Beach, watching television with Ollie and Ronnie, and thinking of sand flowing in massive quantities through a narrow opening into darkness. “Look,” he said, hearing himself speak, almost eavesdropping on his own thoughts. “Why don’t we make it a sure thing? Is there some place you’d like to go for dinner? Somewhere you haven’t been in years?”
    He heard a sharp