Gone, Baby, Gone - Dennis Lehane [51]
No matter how much bigger, craftier, and more dangerously psychotic Cheese became over the years, he maintained an almost sycophantic persona in Bubba’s presence, even going so far as to personally feed and groom Bubba’s dogs when Bubba was overseas on various weapons buys.
That’s Bubba for you. The people who terrify you and me feed his dogs.
“‘Mother institutionalized when subject was seventeen,’” Broussard read from Cheese Olamon’s file, as Poole drove past Walden Pond Nature Preserve toward Concord Prison. “‘Father released from Norfolk a year later, disappeared.’”
“Rumor has it Cheese killed him,” I said. I lounged in the backseat, head against the window, Concord’s glorious trees floating past.
After Broussard and Poole had called in the double homicide at Wee David’s, Angie and I took the bag of money and drove Helene back to Lionel’s house. We dropped her off and drove to Bubba’s warehouse.
Two o’clock in the afternoon is prime sleeping time for Bubba, and we were greeted at the door by the sight of him in a flaming red Japanese kimono and a somewhat irritated look on that deranged cherub’s face of his.
“Why am I awake?” he said.
“We need your safe,” Angie said.
“You own a safe.” He glowered at me.
I looked up into his glare. “Ours doesn’t have a minefield protecting it.”
He held out his hand, and Angie placed the bag in it.
“Contents?” Bubba said.
“Two hundred grand.”
Bubba nodded as if we’d just said Grandmother’s heirlooms. We could have told him Proof of extraterrestrials, and the reaction would have been the same. Unless you could hook him up on a date with Jane Seymour, Bubba’s pretty hard to impress.
Angie pulled the pictures of Corwin Earle and Leon and Roberta Trett from her bag, fanned them up in front of Bubba’s sleepy face. “Know any of them?”
“Hot goddamn!” he said.
“You do?” Angie said.
“Huh?” He shook his head. “No. That’s one big hairy bitch, though. She walk upright and everything?”
Angie sighed and put the photos back in her bag.
“The other two were cons,” Bubba said. “Never met ’em, but you can always tell.”
He yawned, nodded, and shut the door in our faces.
“It wasn’t his presence I missed when he was in jail,” Angie said.
“It was the engaging verbal discourse,” I said.
Angie dropped me back at my apartment, where I waited for Poole and Broussard, while she drove over to Chris Mullen’s condo building to begin surveillance. She opted for the duty because she’s never been real keen on entering men’s prisons. Besides, Cheese gets kind of funny around her, takes to blushing and asking her who she’s dating these days. I took the ride with Poole and Broussard because I was an allegedly friendly face, and Cheese has never been known for cooperating with the men in blue.
“Suspect in the death of one Jo Jo McDaniel, 1986,” Broussard said, as we wound our way up Route 2.
“Cheese’s mentor in the drug trade,” I said.
Broussard nodded. “Suspect in the disappearance and suspected death of Daniel Caleb, 1991.”
“Didn’t hear about that one.”
“Accountant.” Broussard flipped a page. “Supposedly cooked books for a few unsavory characters.”
“Cheese caught him with his hand in the till.”
“Apparently.”
Poole caught my eyes in the rearview mirror. “Quite the association you have with the criminal element, Patrick.”
I sat up in the seat. “Gee, Poole, whatever could you mean?”
“Friends with Cheese Olamon and Chris Mullen,” Broussard said.
“They’re not friends. Just guys I grew up with.”
“Didn’t you also grow up with the late Kevin Hurlihy?” Poole brought the car to a stop in the left lane, waiting for a break in traffic on the other side of the road so he could cross Route 2 and enter the prison driveway.
“Last I heard, Kevin was just missing,” I said.
Broussard smiled over