MANNY stayed with Childs’s Studebaker from the jail island, three winding miles past the Naval Air Station and the salt marshes. Childs made a few attempts to scope a tail, changing lanes, stopping short, amateur hour. Manny was more afraid that Childs would ram a bus or get pulled over for DWI than he was that the doc would make the tail. Manny knew that Childs led to Mears and Mears was the key to everything. Lose the Stude with the shitbum County shrink and lose the only line to Mears and to the load of LSD, probably forever.
Childs took the expressway north. Manny hung back, figuring Childs would go westbound on the turnpike to meet Mears and do the handoff somewhere on Childs’s turf, Fens, Back Bay, maybe Cambridge. He nearly lost the Stude when Childs took the Park Square exit. It was close to eight o’clock, an off-the-harbor rain sprinkling, a raw April night. Manny put on his wipers and got up close, one car back, past Columbus, onto Stuart.
Childs was going downtown, driving straight for wherever he was headed, confident that he had shaken any tail. Manny, who had spent several thousand hours following people in cars, sensed as much from the way the Stude’s brake lights went off and on, from the set of Childs’s head in the front seat.
Childs pulled up on Stuart and parked. There were whores toward the pike. Childs sat in his car, looking every bit the up-tight cauc john here to hire a beating or a blowjob. Hookers strolled past the Stude in tight, loud skirts, thighs shivering. Manny, a half block up and across the street, could see them hawk Childs. Wanna party, mister? Childs shook his head stiffly, definitely not, probably scared they’d snap off his car antenna. What the hell else could he be here for? Manny looked up Stuart. The Greyhound depot was lit like Vegas: runaways, college kids, winos, grifters. Manny eyed the Studebaker and then the terminal. Childs was meeting a bus.
A half hour passed. The Stude entered traffic and squared the block, pulling up in front of the depot. Childs left it parked under the neon, locking all doors, and went in. Manny slipped around to the side, where the buses pulled in, and caught Childs talking to a ticket-taker. He let Childs leave, then showed his tin to the ticket-taker and asked about the old bald guy.
“Him?” the ticket-taker said, pointing out the door.
Manny turned his back to Stuart and rasped, “Don’t point, it’s rude. What he wanna know?”
“New York bus. Due in at seven.”
It was ten past.
“Heavy snow far down as Jersey,” the ticket-taker jawed, “and it’s coming our way. Channel Four says it’s gonna get down to twenty tonight—”
“When’s the goddam bus due?”
“Eight, they’re saying. Got out of Port Authority late.”
The Stude was gone. Manny cruised the neighborhood, mostly to keep warm, then set up across from Greyhound, knowing Childs would be back. He called Ray from a pay phone.
“Startin’ to snow out here,” he said.
“Where’s Childs?”
“Around Greyhound someplace. He’s meeting the New York bus at eight.”
“The pickup,” Ray said.
Ray told Manny about Childs’s checking account, the big withdrawal a week before.
“So he paid up front and today’s the delivery,” Manny said.
“Yeah. He’s getting a huge load, Manny—maybe six million hits of the shit. By street value, it’s the biggest drug deal you ever staked out.”
Manny yawned, unimpressed. He still thought LSD was for dips. Heroin, there was a man’s drug. “Biff turn up?” he asked.
“No,” Ray said. “The troopers are still on it.”
“Them pricks, Jackson and Green. You hear they went to my house, nearly collared my neighbor’s kid ’cause they couldn’t find any of mine?” Manny coughed smoke into the phone. “What do I do when Childs meets his connect?”
“Nothing,” Ray said. “Childs’ll go from the depot straight to Mears with the LSD. We want the package and we want Mears.”
“So I let Childs pick up his product and lead me to Mears. Good plan.”
“Beats the alternatives, as if we had any,” Ray said.
“Only thing, it’s gotta be tonight. You know about Operation Clambake? I’m in a blue suit guarding the Archbishop bright and early tomorrow, no matter what. No excuses, no exceptions.”
“Clambake?”
“Mass in English,” Manny said. “Can you believe it?”
“Worry about tomorrow tomorrow. Childs will meet Mears before LSD goes criminal. Stay on Childs.”
The Stude reappeared on Stuart at quarter to eight. Childs double-parked in the same spot under the neon, ducked in, ducked out, and pulled up a few car lengths to wait. The bus lumbered around the corner, coming from the pike, at ten past. Wet snow was falling fast. Manny watched Childs get out of his car. The Greyhound came up Stuart, diesel laboring in low gear, and pulled wide into the bays. Childs scampered into the depot. Manny skipped after him through traffic across Stuart, flicking his butt high into the air, unzippering his jacket, squeezing his gun in his armpit to keep it from jostling.
Inside the door, Manny scanned the busy terminal for Childs. That was always the first thing, find your guy and get out of his line of sight. Then watch him meet the mule. Maybe they do the handoff here, maybe they take the package someplace private to purity-test. In a heroin deal, a test would be mandatory. Coke, probably not. LSD, Manny had no idea—he realized he didn’t even know what the load would look like. How big is six million hits of LSD?
The New York crowd straggled into the depot. Childs stood to the side, fidgeting like a worried daddy from the suburbs, surveying the arrivals. Manny stepped behind a cement pillar. A waif type, female cauc, long dirty-brown hair, was last through the gate. Childs was on and off tiptoes, looking everybody over. The girl stopped, as if remembering something, and went into her shoulder bag, coming out with a shapeless denim cap. Childs saw the cap, and waded into the crowd, moving toward the girl, right hand out to part bodies. Manny felt suddenly lighthearted. He slid from behind the pillar. This was too easy.
“Freeze,” said a quiet voice behind him. “You’re packing a Smith .38 under your left shoulder, which makes you a rightie. Don’t go for it.”
Childs meets the girl, says five words. She nods. They head together for the door. Manny steps to follow, and feels a muzzle at the base of his spine.
“I’m Trooper Green,” the voice said. “This is Trooper Jackson.”
“Christ almighty, you two!” Manny half-wheeled but was stopped by a jab of muzzle.
“Don’t. You’re here to meet Biff Dunn. He lams for a few days, figures the heat’s off, now he’s sneaking back, right? Tell us which bus and we’ll try not to waste him.”
Manny watched Childs and the waif disappear through the Stuart Street doors.
“Excuse me, douchebags,” he said, “but I’m staking out a couple of druggies just now. Them two. The ones getting ready to drive away. Do you see Biff Dunn in this bus station? Me neither. Now I’m gonna walk out the door to find my marks. Here I go. Do me in the back if you got the nuts.”
Manny took a slow, careful step, then another, waiting to hear himself get shot. Then he ran across the depot and through the doors. He slid and stumbled in the slush. Big flakes swirled. Childs and the girl were gone.
Manny hustled back inside to stick his gun up Trooper Green’s ass, but Green and Jackson were also gone. For a moment Manny stood alone. Passengers and baggage came and went.
He found a pay phone and called Ray. “They’re gone,” he said. “We lose.”