Free Vulgar Boatman by William G. Tapply Page A

again. Dum dum. Hit the road, Jack. He’s, let’s see. Springfield, I think. Yes. If today’s Thursday Tom’s in Springfield. Whatever today is. Meeting with bigwigs. Plotting and planning. Him and Eddy Curry. They wanna figure out what to do with a son who’s gonna get arrested for murder. What they’re gonna do with the campaign, I mean. Why doesn’t Buddy call his mother, huh?”
    “Joanie, take it easy, will you? Just listen to me. When Tom gets in, tell him I’ve found Buddy. Okay?”
    “Tom’s getting in late. It’s just me in my big old house, my son and my husband gone, sitting here in the dark in my nightgown waiting to get tired. Lonely, Brady. You ever get lonely?”
    “Sometimes, yes. Look. I’m going to hang up now. You understand that Buddy is all right?”
    “Yes,” she said softly. “Thank you. I understand.”
    “Take it easy on the booze.”
    “Sure. Excellent advice. I’ll just sip. Ladylike sips. I’ll be sleepy pretty soon.”
    “Good night, Joanie,” I said, and hung up.
    I was tearing a head of lettuce into a wooden bowl when the buzzer rang. It was the new night man, a skinny Puerto Rican man in his mid-twenties named Hector, telling me I had a visitor. I told him to send Buddy up, and a few minutes later there was a knock at the door.
    Buddy was wearing gray corduroys and a blue sweatshirt, the same outfit he had been wearing the night of Alice Sylvester’s murder. He hadn’t shaved since then, either, I judged. He had his mother’s soft, undefined facial features and his father’s lanky frame.
    “Come on in,” I said to him. “Pizza’s about ready. Oil and vinegar on the salad suit you?”
    “Great,” he said without enthusiasm.
    He went over to the big window and stared at the dots of light out on the ocean. I went to stand beside him. “How you doing?” I said.
    He turned to look at me. He shrugged. “I’m doing.”
    “About Alice.”
    “I’m working on it.”
    “We’ve got some problems,” I said.
    He nodded. “Sure. I know. You got a beer?”
    “I’ve got Pepsi,” I said. I went to the kitchen.
    Buddy followed me. “You shitting me?” he said. “I drink beer at home. I drink beer all the time.”
    “Good for you. But you’re not legal age, and you’re not my kid, and I’m not going to give you a beer.”
    He sat at the table. “I always thought you were fairly cool, Mr. Coyne.”
    “Oh, I am. I’m wicked cool. But I don’t give booze to underage kids. I don’t consider that cool.”
    I slid a plate and a salad bowl in front of him. I retrieved the pizza from the oven, sliced it, and put it on the table. From the refrigerator I got a beer for myself and a can of Pepsi for him. Then I sat down across from him.
    “I didn’t realize you were such a Puritan,” he said.
    “You need a beer that bad?”
    He shrugged. “It’s the principle.”
    “Exactly,” I said.
    He took a sip from the can of Pepsi.
    “I think,” I said, “we have more important principles to talk about, anyway.”
    “Well, yeah. I know. It’s just that I’m old enough to vote against my father, I’m old enough to go to prison, but I’m not old enough to have a beer.”
    “That’s right. That’s the law.”
    “I get it. You’re a lawyer.”
    “Being a lawyer has precious little to do with it, actually,” I said, sliding a wedge of pizza onto my plate. “Anyhow, that’s what we need to discuss. Your being old enough to go to prison. Will you be straight with me?”
    He looked at me for a moment, then nodded. “Sure. What do you want to know?”
    “Did you kill Alice Sylvester?”
    He stared at me, open-faced and childlike. “No, Mr. Coyne. Honest to God, I didn’t. I loved Alice.”
    “I want to know everything that happened night before last.”
    Buddy picked up a triangle of pizza and took a tiny bite from the pointed end. Then he put it back on his plate. “I didn’t kill her,” he said softly. He looked beseechingly up at me. There was a