Free The Drop by Dennis Lehane Page B

him.”
    Eric reached into his shirt pocket. He pulled out a cigarette and popped it in his mouth. He lit it, shook out the match, and tossed it on Bob’s kitchen table.
    “You can’t smoke in here.”
    Eric considered Bob with a level gaze and kept smoking. “I beat him?”
    “Yeah.”
    “Uh, so what?” Eric flicked some ash on the floor. “I’m taking the dog, Bob.”
    Bob stood to his full height. He held tight to Rocco, who squirmed a bit in his arms and nipped at the flat of his hand. If it came to it, Bob decided, he’d drop all six foot three inches and 250 pounds of himself on Eric Deeds, who couldn’t weigh more than a buck-seventy. Not now, not just standing there, but if Eric reached for Rocco, well then . . .
    Eric Deeds smiled up at him. “You’re getting all yippee ki-yay on my shit, Bob? Sit down. Really.” Eric leaned back in the chair and blew a stream of smoke at the ceiling. “I asked you if you knew Nadia because I know Nadia. She lives on my block, has since we were kids. It’s the funny thing about a neighborhood, you might not know a lot of people, particularly if they’re not your age, but you know everyone on your block.” He looked over at Bob as Bob sat back down. “I saw you that night. I was feeling bad, you know, about my temper? So I went back to see if the hound was really dead or not and I watched you pluck him out of the trash and then go up to Nadia’s porch. You all into her, Bob?”
    Bob said, “I really think you should go.”
    “I wouldn’t blame you. She’s no beauty queen but she’s not a schnauzer. And you’re no pinup, are you, Bob?”
    Bob pulled his cell from his pocket and flipped it open. “I’m calling 911.”
    “Be my guest.” Eric nodded. “You register him, all that? City says you gotta register your dog, license it. How about a chip?”
    Bob said, “What?”
    Eric said, “A security chip. They implant them in the dogs. Pooch goes missing, shows up at a vet, the vet scans the dog, up pops a bar code and all the owner’s info. The owner, meanwhile, he’s walking around with a slip of paper, has the security chip account number on it. Like this.”
    Eric pulled a small slip of paper out of his wallet and held it up so Bob could see it. Had the bar code on it and everything. He returned it to his wallet.
    Eric said, “You got my dog, Bob.”
    “He’s my dog.”
    Eric met his eyes and shook his head.
    Bob carried Rocco across the kitchen. When he opened the crate, he could feel Eric Deeds’s eyes on his back. He put Rocco inside the crate. Straightened. Turned back to Eric and said, “We’re going now.”
    “We are?”
    “Yeah.”
    Eric clapped his hands on his thighs and stood. “Then I guess we’re going, aren’t we?”
    He and Bob walked down the dark hall and ended up in the foyer again.
    Eric spied an umbrella in the stand to the right of the front door. He picked it up, looked at Bob. He slid the runner up and down the shaft a few times.
    “You beat him,” Bob said again because it seemed an important detail.
    “But I’ll tell the police you did.” Eric continued to slide the runner back and forth, flapping the cover a bit.
    Bob said, “What do you want?”
    Eric gave that small private smile. He wrapped the strap around the umbrella until it was tight. He opened the front door. He looked out at the day, then back at Bob.
    Eric said, “It’s sunny now, but you never know.”
    When he reached the sidewalk, Eric Deeds took a big sniff of air and walked up the street under a bright sky with the umbrella under his arm.

CHAPTER 8
Rules and Regulations
    E RIC DEEDS HAD BEEN born and raised (if you could call it that) in East Buckingham, but he’d spent a few years away—hard years—before ending back in the house he’d grown up in a little over a year ago. For those few years he was gone, though, he’d been stuck in South Carolina.
    He went down there to do a crime and the crime didn’t work out too well, left a