We left Jack’s house, a modern stone-and-glass con- struct on a bluff overlooking the Merrimac River just east of the city, early the next morning. I’m not exactly sure what time we had left Old Werthan’s, but I was quite sure that neither one of us had logged in the recommended eight hours of slumber. We had three matches to play, the first beginning on the 10th tee at 7:35. We stopped in at a Dunkin’ Donuts shop for some coffee, since I don’t think Jack knew where the kitchen in his house was located.
“How do you feel?” I asked, as we drove back up the river, inhaling a few jelly doughnuts and sipping the hot, black brew.
“Not bad,” Jack said, licking some sugar off his fingers. “But I still can’t understand what went wrong with the young ladies last night.
“I think you lost ‘em when you invited them back to the house for a game of naked leapfrog,” I told him.
“But that’s what everyone was thinking,” he protested.
“Maybe so,” I said, “But the female animal generally responds better to a more subtle, less graphic approach.”
“Oh,” he said, and thought about it for an instant or two. “Well, screw it. I haven’t got time to play games.”
I glanced over at my friend. His hair was tousled and unruly, half of the collar of his polo shirt was sticking up in the air, and neither his shirt not his trousers had seen an iron in months. He rummaged around in the waxy donut bag and pulled out another piece of breakfast. Glancing up, he gave me one of the famous Connolly incandescent grins. I had to laugh.
“You never plan on growing up, do you?” I chided.
“What the hell for?” he asked. “What’s in it for me if I do? Life is for the living, Hack-Man. You gotta grab it by the balls and hang on for dear life.”
He took a huge bite out of his donut and fiddled with the radio, looking for the morning news.
When we arrived at the club, I found a parking spot close to the clubhouse. Jack rummaged around in my backseat and pulled out a garment bag he had stowed there as we were leaving his house.
“What are we wearing today?” I asked.
“Purple,” he said with a grin. “It’s the color of passion. You need passion on the golf course. It’s one of the seven chakras. Very important.”
We went upstairs and changed into the day’s uniform. Bright purple slacks, silk shirts streaked with a pattern of green, yellow and more purple lines, and purple visors emblazoned with the words “The Brothers.” Jack followed me into the bathroom to stare at our reflection in the big mirrors over the line of sinks.
“Awesome,” he said, “We can’t lose in these. We exude passion.”
“We look like a couple of hungover grapes,” I said.
“Whatever,” Jack shrugged. “I need a Bloody Mary to get the blood flowing. You?”
I shook my head and went downstairs. There was a breakfast buffet set up in the main grille, and I grabbed some orange juice and made a plate of fresh fruit. I saw a copy of my newspaper lying on a table and sat down to see what was in the sports section. One of Teddy McDaggert’s assistants came out of the pro shop waving a slip of paper at me.
“Mr. Hacker … you got a phone call,” he said.
I looked at the note. Tony Zec had called from Endicott, New York. Right on schedule. The kid was good at following orders.
I went into the phone booth at the back of the grille and placed the call. I got through to the pressroom at the B.C. Open and Suzy Chapman answered on the second ring. “Press room,” she said in a tired, early morning voice.
“Suze … don’t you ever go home? Does Tim Finchem know how many hours you put in for the Tour?”
“Hacker,” she said wearily. “Finchem doesn’t know shit from shinola about anything other than smoozing either the players or the bigwigs who got bank accounts in the Cayman Islands. He could care less if I work seven hours a week or seventy.”
“So,” I said cheerily. “Going well up there is it?”
“Swimmingly,” she said. “First round got delayed by two hours of heavy rain. Just barely got the second round in yesterday, although the last three groups had to finish in the dark. Which meant I had to be here, oh, I’d guess about 20 hours. I hate golf.”
I laughed. “How’s my young intern doing?” I asked.
“Oh, you mean Warren Beatty Jr.?” Her voice dripped with sarcasm. “He’s doing pretty good, I think. Hasn’t sneezed on anyone’s backswing. Yet. Actually, he’s a nice kid. Reminds me of my little brother, a little. Except for all that acne.”
“Is he there?”
“I think he went out to the practice range to talk to some of the guys,” she said. “Want me to have him call you he gets back?”
“Nah,” I said. “I’m gonna be busy most of the day.”
“I’m sure you are,” she said. “Remember to take it back slow.”
I laughed again. “Tell him I’ll call tonight. O-seven hundred.”
“That’s what it is right now, you dumbshit,” she said. “You probably mean nineteen hundred. Seven o’clock pee emm in civilian?”
“Oh, right,” I said. “I was a draft dodger. What you said.”
“Ten-four,” she said and hung up.
I went back and finished my breakfast. Frank Donatello had given the B.C. Open all of three inches of wire service crap, and run an inch of the leaderboard. That covered the first ten golfers. But the hapless Patriots got six pages of breathless coverage, in which our readers learned everything about every player up to and almost including the names of their kindergarten teachers. It would have been more interesting if we published the names and reputed side effects of the steroids each member of the team was taking, but I guess that wasn’t in the cards.
With another cup of strong black coffee inside, I felt half human again. I walked into the pro shop to pick up some balls for the day. Teddy McDaggert was standing in the doorway the led back to his little cramped warren of an office, just off the back of the shop behind the counter. He was leaning against the door jamb, staring at nothing.
I walked up and greeted him. “Mornin’ Ted,” I said. “Coupla sleeves of Titleists please.”
He didn’t answer. Still staring off at nothing, he slowly raised a hand containing a cigarette to his lips and took a deep pull. I couldn’t help but notice that his hand was shaking. He blew the smoke out in a long, slow cloud.
I waved my hand in front of his face.
“Yo! Earth to McDaggert! Customer needs service. Come in please!”
He started upright, his face beginning to color red, and he grinned at me sheepishly. “Sorry, Hacker,” he said. “Guess I’m not awake yet. Whaddya need?”
I repeated my order and he bent to get the balls out of the glass counter, putting the cigarette in his mouth to free up his hands.
“I didn’t know you smoked,” I said. “Those things’ll kill ya.”
“If this place don’t,” he answered. “One way or another, I’m goin’ toes up someday anyway.” He put the balls on the counter, I slipped him some bills and he turned away. I looked at the back of his head for a moment, then shrugged and turned away. Teddy looked like he had just lost his best friend. I shrugged and put it down to tournament stress. Couldn’t be easy running this three-day circus, trying to make everyone happy and having Vitus Papageorge looking over your shoulder the whole time. I glanced at my watch and, seeing that I had only about ten minutes before we were due on the tee, decided against going to hit some balls. I figured I had time to hit a few putts and that’s it. Not as good as warming up properly, but what the hell. Guy’s gotta adjust to the circumstances. And it was going to be a long day, anyway.
I went outside and began to scan the long line of golf carts to find the one that held our clubs. To save time and energy, the crew just kept the golf bags on the carts at night and drove them back into the cart barn to plug them in to the chargers overnight. I couldn’t see my bag, and walked up and down the line for a minute. Finally, I caught the attention of an older teen holding a clipboard that looked like he was the caddie master.
“You got Connolly’s cart somewhere?” I asked the kid. “We’re going off ten in about fifteen minutes.”
The kid checked the list. “They should be out here,” he said. “There might be a couple wagons still in the barn haven’t been wheeled out yet. I can run down and look.”
“Don’t bother,” I said. “You got stuff to do here. I’ll go. I just need my putter.”
The kid pointed to a wooden shed behind a hedgerow at the back of the parking lot and I strolled across the asphalt. It was another gorgeous early fall day, and the sun was burning off the early morning chill. A light breeze ruffled the leaves in the trees. It was going to be a perfect day for golf.
The cart barn was an old wooden structure with a pitched roof, stained with age, with two large swinging doors on either end. Pine needles draped on the roof and spilled out of the gutters on the side. One of the front doors was open, but it was still dark and gloomy inside. I could see the metal framing overhead, which held the big electrical transformers from which the plug-in wires dangled. I walked in the open door, and saw the shadows of some carts parked at the rear. Because there were no windows, it got darker and darker inside as I walked deeper into the shed. The air was hot and stagnant and slightly acrid. A low humming sound from the electrical chargers filled the barn.
Halfway back into the barn, it became pitch black. I turned around and walked back towards the open door. I looked on both sides and finally found a bank of light switches. I flipped them to the on position. There were maybe ten carts still parked at the back, still connected to their thick yellow umbilicals dangling down from the overhead framework.
I walked back. About halfway down the length of the barn, I stopped. Walking and breathing. Behind the last cart, something was hanging from the overhead grid. Something dressed in golf clothes. Something with a thick yellow electrical cord wrapped tightly around its neck. Something that was obviously dead.
All I could see was the back. One arm hung limply by its side. The fingers of the other arm were tucked underneath the electrical cord, frozen in a terrible and unsuccessful battle to loosen the noose. The body began to turn slowly. And slowly, inexorably, the purple face of Vitus Papageorge swung into sight. His open eyes bulged and his tongue hung out of his silently crying mouth in horrible rictus. The diamonds in the rings on the hand that had been scratching at his neck twinkled cheerfully at me in the artificial light. But there was no light at all in his eyes.
I don’t know how long I stood there, staring, frozen in place. I don’t know how long it was before the kid with the clipboard came whistling through the doorway behind me.
“Found your clubs?” he asked cheerfully.
Then he saw what I was staring at.
“Holy Christ,” the kid said. He dropped the clipboard in a clatter and started forward as if to try and save Papageorge from his fate. I stuck out my hand and grabbed him.
“Go and have Teddy call the cops,” I told him, trying to keep my voice calm and steady. “Nobody should be allowed in here until the cops get here. Go tell McDaggert. Now.”
“Holy Christ,” the kid said again. Then he turned and ran out.
Bedlam broke out quickly in the quiet environs of the Shuttlecock Club. Murder will do that. Throw a professional-size monkey wrench into anyone’s day. The kid came running back to the cart barn with Teddy McDaggert at his heels. Ted took one look at Vitus dangling from the rafters of his cart barn, said “fuck” rather softly under his breath and turned and ran out again. I’m not sure, but I’ll bet the PGA of America operations manual doesn’t have a chapter on what to do when the president of your club is found hung by the neck in the cart barn. Teddy would have to wing this one. The kid stayed and gazed at the body of Vitus Papageorge as it continued to twist slowly on the electrical cord.
Pretty soon, a crowd of gasping, whispering onlookers gathered at the door to the cart barn, trying to peer inside. For some reason, people tend to whisper in the presence of death. Don’t know why. At this point Vitus Papageorge certainly could care less if they whispered or shouted. And I can’t say I gave much of a damn about it either.
Jack Connolly pushed his way through the crowd and came and stood beside me. Together, silently, we watched Vitus hanging there. He stopped twisting. Thankfully, he stopped with his face to the back wall. I was getting tired of looking at those bulging eyes and ugly tongue.
“Hmmm,” Jack said after a minute. “Looks dead.”
“Yup,” I said.
“You didn’t do it, did you?”
“Nope,” I said. “You?”
“Nope,” he said. “Good idea, though.”
We were vetting some emotional steam, of course, but I glanced over at Jackie and saw that he was doing what I had first done. He was studying the scene, trying to see if he could figure out what happened. How it happened. It’s a reporter’s first instinct at a crime scene. Piece together the story. Find the beginning and work it through to the end. Who, what, when, where and how. That way, you don’t get caught up in the raw emotion of death, bloodshed and violence and the various unspeakable ways in which human beings often treat each other.
I don’t know what Jackie saw, but I noticed that Vitus’ body hung some three feet away from the back of an empty golf cart that had been pulled forward, out of line with the final row of carts at the back of the barn. I noticed his huge staff bag filled with shiny clubs leaning against the back wall of the barn, next to a smaller, slightly care-worn bag of clubs that probably belonged to Fred Adamek. Since they were walking, their clubs wouldn’t have been strapped into a golf cart. There were three other golf carts still parked in a neat row, the yellow electrical cords still hooked up to the overhead transformers. One of those carts held my clubs and Jackie’s.
“Looks like he was propped up on the back of that cart, the cord wrapped around his neck and the cart was then driven forward, leaving him dangling,” I said.
“Umm,” Jackie nodded agreement. “Just like a hanging in the Wild, Wild West.”
Behind us, I heard Teddy McDaggert chasing the onlookers away from the cart barn. “Cops on the way,” he said. “Stay away from the barn. Don’t want to mess up the crime scene.” Teddy had obviously been watching all the cop shows on TV.
When he got the other golfers out of the way, he shut the two swinging doors on the front of the barn. The overhead fluorescent lights that I had switched on now provided the only illumination.
With the doors closed, the air got closer and hotter almost immediately. And something changed in the air pressure, causing Vitus to swing around one more time, facing us.
“Do you see something under his eye?” I asked Jackie, pointing.
“The right one?” he asked, peering. “Looks like the beginning of a mouse.”
“Could be where someone slugged him,” I said.
“Maybe knocked him out so they could string him up,” Jackie nodded.
“So who do you think?” I asked.
“Shit Hacker,” Jackie sighed loudly. “Could have been almost anyone in the club, plus maybe a thousand people in both Lowell and half the state of New Hampshire. I don’t know too many people who actually liked the son-of-a-bitch.”
“Cops should have fun with this one,” I said.
“Yeah,” Jackie said. “Which reminds me. I ought to go call this one in. We might actually want to run something in tomorrow’s newspaper.”
“Sure it won’t offend any advertisers?”
“Up yours,” he snorted and left the barn.
I glanced at my watch. 7:45. I still had about four hours before the first deadline for the early blue-star edition of my newspaper. Which would be just about enough time for me to come up with an explanation for Frankie Donatello as to why I was playing golf at the Shuttlecock Club in Lowell when he thought I was covering the PGA Tour in Endicott, New York. But rather than call the city desk right away, I decided to hang around for a bit and see what happened next.
I heard a faint siren in the distance and listened as its insistent whoop-whoop got louder and louder. The first car skidded to a halt outside the cart barn and the doors flew open again. A uniformed cop came through first, his gun drawn and held down by his side. A short and plump man with dark hair, black slacks, white shirt, black shiny shoes, sticking a plastic case holding his shiny gold badge into his breast pocket, followed him. The uniform cop went over to Vitus, looked at him for a moment, then felt for a pulse in the carotid artery. He glanced over at the short guy standing next to me and shook his head once, briefly.
The short guy blew out a breath, short and loud. He turned to look at me.
“Tierney,” he said. “Lowell PD. Who’re you?”
“Hacker,” I said. “Guest here. Came in to find my clubs. Found him hanging there.”
“Was he dead?” Tierney asked.
“Well, he wasn’t exactly doing the cha-cha,” I said.Tierney gave me the hard look cops do so well. I guess it was a little early in the morning to smart off. The uniformed cop was speaking softly into his shoulder-mounted microphone. Calling in the crime, requesting the medical examiner, photographer, crime-scene unit. Maybe ordering some coffee and doughnuts, too.
Tierney turned to Ted McDaggert. “What’s your story?” he barked.
“I’m Ted McDaggert, the golf pro here. This is the annual member-guest tournament here…all weekend. This guy…” he nodded at the dangling Vitus, “Is … was … the club president. Name is Vitus Papageorge.”
“The banker?” Tierney asked. I noticed the uniform cop had whipped out a notebook and pencil and was taking all this down.
“Yeah,” Ted nodded. “I was in the pro shop when my caddie master came running in to tell me Hacker here had found a body in the cart barn. I came to see, then called it in.”
Jack Connolly strolled back into the barn as if he was dropping by Cumberland Farms to pick up a gallon of milk and some crullers. “Mornin’ Leo,” he said to the short cop in a pleasant, lilting tone.
Tierney looked at Jack and his eyes got narrow. “Shit,” he said. “We got enough trouble here without the goddam press getting in the way, too. Especially a lace doily like you. Outta here.”
“Fuck you, Leo,” Jack said, just as pleasantly. “Have you met my partner here? Hacker’s with the Boston Journal.”
“Holy crap,” Tierney exploded. “Billy, get these asswipes outta here. Get their statements. Then, tape off the barn. Nobody goes home until we talk to them. That goes double for you two idiots,” he said, glaring at Jack and me. “I don’t care what amendment to the Constitution you throw at me, you’re both material witnesses and you don’t get off this island until I say so. Got it?”
Jackie gave him the upright, one-finger salute and we walked outside the barn and stood there waiting to be interrogated.
“He doesn’t seem to like you,” I said.
“Well, most of the Lowell cops don’t,” Jack said with a smile. “We’ve kinda hammered the police union about all the political promotions and cheating on the tests and stuff. They seem to think I’m some cop hater or something.”
“Are you?”
“Oh, hell yes,” Jack said. “Cops these days are greased more than an old Ford in the pits at Darlington. Not that I blame them, really. If I had people trying to stab, spit on or shoot me every working day, I’d wanna get a little extra for the trouble, too. But it’s the political crap that offends me. Anyway, there are still a few good ones, and I think Leo Tierney is actually a close as we get these days to an honest cop. He comes from a long line of cops. It’s in his DNA.”
While we stood there in the bright morning sunshine, we watched a round little man in an ill-fitting black suit come running down the sidewalk from the main clubhouse. As he drew nearer, I noticed his well-gelled, slicked-back hair, his jowls that bounced as he ran, and the two pinky rings that glistened in the sun. He nodded rather frantically at Jack as he passed us and bustled into the barn. He was halfway through the door when we heard his outrushing exclamation of horror.
“And that would be?” I asked my partner
.“Herbert Incavaglia, our club manager,” Jack said. “Obsequious little twerp who kisses up to everyone. In fact, I think that’s Herbie’s main job description: Kiss up to all members. He’s particularly good at berating the staff in public. You know, snaps his fingers and demands loudly that the waitress go immediately to the kitchen and tell them Mrs. Pennington wants her garlic-mashed potatoes instead of these cold au gratins. Stuff like that. There aren’t enough drugs in the world that would enable me to do that job.”
“Bet his nose was solidly welded to Vitus’ butt,” I said.
“Oh yeah,” Jack said. “Vitus hired the guy. Some of us think that Herbie tattled to Vitus whenever he heard someone making critical or negative comments.”
“Hmmm,” I said thoughtfully.
The uniformed cop came out of the barn, took us over near his squad car and flipped open his notebook. Licking the end of his pencil – why does anyone do that? I wondered – he looked at me and said “Start at the beginning.” I suppressed my urge to smart off to the guy, or make his life difficult, and just told him our story. What time we arrived at the club, what we did, and how I came to walk into the cart barn looking for my putter and discovering instead the corpus delecti.
“Corpus what?” the cop said, writing furiously.
Jack and I looked at each other and tried not to laugh. “Never mind,” I said. “Change it to ‘body.’”
“Right,” the cop said. He looked at Jackie. “And you?”
Jackie stuck his thumb in my direction. “What he said,” he said.
The cop nodded. “Tierney says he’ll want to talk to you his own self later on. Don’t leave before he does.”
We solemnly swore not to make a break for the border. Crossed our hearts and hoped to die. The cop nodded, satisfied, flipped his notebook closed and turned to get the yellow crime scene tape out of the trunk of his squad car. We strolled back into the main grille, where most of the contestants in the Shuttlecock Invitational had gathered. Most of the men wore shocked looks, and some seemed disappointed. I guessed they were the ones who had had good days on the course yesterday and were leading their flights. Now some dead guy was keeping them from competing. Murder can throw a double bogey into anyone’s day. I didn’t think Vitus Papageorge’s was off to a good start, either.
The assembled group of golfers had obviously been talking about the events in the cart barn, and everyone fell silent when Jackie and I walked in. Apparently, everyone knew that I had discovered the body, and they had seen us getting the third degree from the cop even if it was only the first degree. Still, a hundred pair of eyes stared at us. I let Jackie make the first move.
“Well, hell, boys,” he finally said. “Somebody get me a drink and I’ll tell you what I know.”
There was a rush to get a cocktail into my partner’s hand, and the members crowded round to hear Jack’s story. He began to spin out a good yarn, embellished with some Gothic flourishes, obviously in his element as the center of attention. I drifted away from the crush and headed off to the telephone closet. I dialed the city room.
“Journal news,” said a bored voice. I recognized the voice of the day shift rim editor, Howard Purcell.
“Purce?” I said. “Hacker.”
“Hack-Man!” he chirped. “How’s things on the links?”
“Deadly,” I answered and quickly filled him in on the events of the morning at the Shuttlecock Club. Purcell listened silently, and I could hear his pen scratching furiously as I relayed what I knew about the victim.
“Yeah, Papageorge was a player in the Merrimack Valley,” Purcell said. “Known to have a heavy hand in politics. Probably a thousand guys up there woulda liked to wring his scrawny little neck.”
“Listen, Purce, can you do me a small favor?” I asked. “Donatelli thinks I’m covering the PGA tournament upstate New York. I sent an intern instead so I could play in this tournament. I’d work this one for ya, since I’m here and all, but I gotta do it on the Q.T.”
“I hear ya, Hacker,” Purcell said. “I think Angela Murphy is in Lowell this morning, filing something on the city manager getting indicted for corruption. Gee, go figure, huh? Corruption in a Massachusetts city government? I’ll track her down and send her over.”
“Thanks, Purce,” I said. “I owe ya one.”
“More than one, pally,” he said, and rang off.
Next, I called the press room in Endicott and got connected with Tony Zec. He told me that Jeff Sluman was now leading by two shots over Brad Faxon heading into the weekend. Be still my heart, I thought.
We talked over some story lines for a few minutes and I told him to email me his stuff by six that night, so I could look it over and resend it down to the sports desk. Might as well keep the charade going as long as I could.
I walked back into the grille about the same time that Teddy McDaggert came in from his pro shop, carrying a clipboard and looking even more frazzled than normal. His face was flushed and sweat gathered at his brow. A yellow pencil was stuck behind his ear where it disappeared into the curly regions of his hair.
“Okay, gentlemen, if I can have your attention, please?” he called out in a wavering voice. The room slowly fell silent. When he had our attention, McDaggert began talking.
“First of all, you are all obviously aware of the tragic events of the morning,” he said. “This is a terribly sad day for the Shuttlecock Club and for all of us who knew and were touched by Vitus Papageorge.” He paused, his hands shaking a bit. I waited for someone to make a snide comment, but the assembled crowd was as silent as death.
“I have talked to police detective Tierney who tells me that he wants to talk to everyone who had arrived at the club this morning before 8 a.m., which is probably most of you,” McDaggert continued. “I have given him a list of all participants in the tournament, and he has requested that no one leave the premises today before one of the Lowell police officers has a chance to interview you and check your name off this list.” He held out his clipboard.
“Because of this, and because the Lowell police will need several hours to examine the crime scene, we’ve decided to cancel today’s rounds. We’ll try and start up again tomorrow, once I figure out a way to rejigger the board so we can try and have a competition. Thanks for your understanding and patience. Just hang tight here until the police are ready.”
“Do you think that’s the best plan, Teddy?” a quiet voice said from the back. We all turned. It was Dr. Bainbridge.
“The tournament committee has discussed it, Walter,” McDaggert said. “We all think that Vitus would have wanted us to continue the Invitational. We need to keep out of the police’s way for a few hours and let them do their job. Later, we can sort things out.”
There were murmurs throughout the room as the contestants looked at each other and began talking. There were obviously divided feelings. McDaggert finally raised his hands and called for attention again. The debates stopped.
“It’s only fair, I think, to let you guys decide,” he said. “If you don’t want to continue, that’s OK with me. But I think we should honor Vitus Papageorge’s life and keep playing the game he loved. If you agree, then I’ll reschedule the matches to begin early tomorrow morning.”
The room was silent for a few moments, then, with a roar of approval, everyone began to applaud. The decision made, there was a rush for the bar, as the golfers in the room girded themselves for a wait to be interviewed. Others filtered into the locker rooms or upstairs to the card room.
I followed Ted McDaggert as he walked back into his small office at the back of the pro shop, where he picked up a walkie-talkie and began barking orders. One of his assistants began working at the computer, trying to get two days worth of tee times rescheduled into one. Another one was glued to the telephone, trying to call all the members who had late tee times to let them know the day’s events had been cancelled. Ted let out a deep sigh.
“Strange morning, huh?” I said, trying to sound sympathetic.
“One that’ll live in infamy,” Ted said, smiling weakly.
“How are you doing?”
“What?”
“Well, you must have worked pretty closely with Vitus over the years,” I observed. “This thing has gotta hit you pretty hard. You holding up?”
McDaggert rubbed his chin, his eyes closed for a moment. His hands were still shaking slightly, I noticed.
“Hell, Hacker,” he said finally, his voice thin and high. “Papageorge was one of my original backers when I tried the Tour years ago. He helped me get this job. I’ve known him for years. I … I guess I’m kinda shook. But I got a job to do here, y’know? Hundred guys waiting for me to tell ‘em what to do.”
His voice trailed off and his eyes came back from some point out in space and turned on me. I saw some pain, some fright, some uncertainly. And something else too. The eyes of the condemned? I reached over and squeezed his shoulder reassuringly.
“Okay,” I said quietly. “Let me know if I can do anything to help.”
He nodded, then reached under the counter and found a pack of cigarettes. With a trembling hand, he shook one out, lit it, took a deep drag and let the smoke out in a billowing rush.