Part 19 (1/2)
”One or two a day, yeah.”
”Drink a lot of coffee?”
”Gallons.”
”Skip meals? Eat at odd times?”
”Goes with the job.”
”Well, there you go.”
”So now what?”
He pulled some drug samples from the side pocket of his jacket and dropped them on the bedside table. ”Amoxicillin to kill the bacteria and omeprazole to suppress stomach acid. I'll give you a prescription for the amoxicillin, which I want you to take twice a day for two weeks. You can buy omeprazole over the counter, and you'll be on that for life. Rolaids or Tums several times a day are a good idea, too. They protect the stomach lining.”
”Anything else?”
”Yeah. Stop smoking, eat regular meals, and stick to a bland diet. No fried food, spices, cheese, caffeine, carbonated beverages, or alcohol.”
”Aw, s.h.i.+t. You just described my entire diet,” I said, and he chuckled like he thought I was kidding.
”Look, you need to take this seriously, Mulligan. If you don't, we might have to remove a piece of your stomach. Worst case, it could even be fatal.”
”Okay, okay. So when do I get out of here?”
”Tomorrow morning,” he said, so twenty-four hours later I walked out the door of Rhode Island Hospital, found Secretariat where I'd left him in the emergency room parking lot, took a Partags from the glove box, and fired it up. I knew I'd have to cut back, but one or two a week probably wouldn't kill me.
28.
It was getting dark when I swung the Bronco left onto Route 6, glanced in my side mirror, and saw a white Hummer lurch across two lines of traffic to make the same turn. It was three cars back when I turned north onto Route 295 and still behind me when I took the exit for Hartford Avenue in Johnston. I turned into a gas station, pulled up to the pumps, and watched the Hummer slowly roll by and keep on going. I couldn't see anything through its tinted windows.
Johnston Town Hall marked the halfway point between the Dispatch and state police headquarters in Scituate. When I turned into the parking lot, Parisi was already there. I nosed in beside his Crown Vic, and we both slid our windows down.
”Can't believe you're still driving that heap,” he said.
”Shhh! You're going to hurt Secretariat's feelings.”
”You named your car?”
”I did, but don't let it fool you. He's slower than he looks.”
”Doesn't seem possible,” he said. ”So tell me, did you ever talk to the Maniellas' lawyer?”
”I did.”
”She tell you anything?”
”She told me she doesn't date white guys.”
His eyes narrowed. ”I don't give a s.h.i.+t about your love life, Mulligan. Did she tell you anything that would interest me?”
”That depends.”
”On what?”
”On whether your interests include chitlins, the Chicago Cubs, and the blues.”
”They don't.”
”Well then, no.”
He looked at me hard for a moment, then said, ”We finally got a formal ID on Sal.”
”How'd you manage that?” I asked, the question triggering Parisi's trademark five-second time delay.
”I did a little digging and found out the Maniellas illegally filled a thousand square yards of wetlands when they put their dock in last spring. If the state Environmental Protection Agency gets wind of it, they'll have to rip the whole thing out. I told Vanessa it could be our little secret if she agreed to cooperate.”
”So she made the ID?”
”At the morgue, she claimed she couldn't bear to look at the body, so she had her sixty-two-year-old mother do it.”
”That's cold,” I said.
”That's what I thought.”
”Anything else on Sal?”
Five seconds of silence, and then: ”Not that I can tell you.”
”What about the body parts at the pig farm?”
”Still a dead end,” he said. ”Now your turn.”
”I hear that a prominent citizen is worried his name might surface in the Providence PD's child p.o.r.n case.”
”Is that so?”
”Yeah.”
”What's his name?”
”Right now it's just a rumor, so I'd rather not say.”
”Are you suggesting a connection between that case and the Maniellas?” Parisi asked.