Cliff Walk: A Liam Mulligan Novel by Bruce DeSilva Page B

front door. My mouth watered. I switched off my iPod speakers so I could listen to Marta, Angela’s ten-year-old daughter, practice the violin. She was getting really good.
    She was in the middle of Hungarian Dance no. 5, for the fifth time, I think, when I heard someone trudging up the worn wooden stairs to the second-floor landing. Someone heavy, by the sound of it. Then a sharp rap on my door. I got up, walked into the kitchen, peered out the peephole, and got a good look at the center of a massive chest. Not a someone my door could keep out if he wanted to get in, so I unlocked it and turned the knob.
    The someone turned out to be two someones. Both wore their hair military style. It was a chilly night, but they wore no jackets over their muscle shirts, one black and the other gray. I could see they were in shape, but there’s a difference between iron-pumping shape and fighting shape. Then I spotted their matching tattoos—an eagle clutching an anchor and a Navy SEALs trident in its talons—and I knew these two were both.
    They stepped inside, and Black Shirt gently closed the door.
    “Mind if we sit?” he asked.
    “Anywhere you’d like.”
    They looked around the kitchen and saw nothing but a greasy stove and a wheezing twenty-year-old Frigidaire.
    “Sorry,” I said. “The wife got all the furniture.” I squatted on the floor, my back against the wall. They chose to remain standing.
    “You dropped in on the Maniellas’ place at the lake yesterday afternoon,” Black Shirt said.
    “Guilty,” I said.
    “Never a good idea to go there uninvited,” he said.
    “Thanks for letting me know.”
    “You’ve also been hanging around the clubs,” Gray Shirt said.
    “Didn’t know I needed an invitation for that.”
    “You’re welcome there anytime,” he said. “But you were asking questions.”
    “Kinda goes with the job.”
    “Miss Maniella would like you to stop,” Black Shirt said.
    “Okay,” I said.
    “Cuz we might not be so polite if we have to come back,” he said.
    “And none of us want that,” I said.
    “We understand each other?” Gray Shirt said.
    “We do.”
    That’s when Black Shirt spotted my only piece of artwork suspended in a shadow box on the chipped plaster wall.
    “What’s with the forty-five auto?”
    “My grandfather carried it when he was on the force,” I said.
    “Providence PD?”
    “Yeah. I keep it there to remind me of him.”
    “Is it in working order?”
    “I don’t really know. I don’t think so. It’s pretty old.”
    “Good,” Black Shirt said. “Listen, Miss Maniella said to give you this.”
    He reached into his hip pocket, pulled out a thin piece of plastic the size of a credit card, and handed it to me. On the front, a glossy picture of Marical in her birthday suit and the words “Compliments of Tongue and Groove.”
    “What’s this?”
    “Good for one trip around the world with the whore of your choice,” Gray Shirt said. “Compliments of the house.”
    “Gee, thanks! And I thought you guys didn’t like me.”
    “We don’t,” Black Shirt said.
    “How about another one for Shakehouse?”
    “Don’t think so,” Gray Shirt said. “The girls there are out of your league.”
    “Hey,” I said, “a boy can dream.”
    “Who’s playing the violin?” Black Shirt asked.
    “Neighbor’s daughter,” I said.
    “She’s good,” he said. And with that, they took their leave.
    When they were gone, I turned the dead bolt and took the shadow box down from the wall. I pried the pistol from the frame, fetched the gun oil and the cartridges from the cabinet over the refrigerator, and spread an oilcloth on my scuffed, fake-brick linoleum kitchen floor. I’d gotten a permit to carry last year, after the trouble in Mount Hope. I’d never made use of it, but if I broke my promise to Black Shirt and Gray Shirt, it might come in handy.
    I sat on the floor, broke down the weapon, cleaned it, and reassembled it. Then I got up, assumed the combat