Yesterday's News by Jeremiah Healy Page A

cocoa.”
    â€œI … she drank cocoa a lot, but I don’t see her doing that. I think she’d sooner get a shot.”
    â€œFrom a needle, you mean?”
    â€œYes, of course from a needle.” He toned down. “But I was wrong enough about her as it was. I could be wrong there, too.” He got up and walked to the window, sticking his hands into his side pockets. “Look, just what do you want from me?”
    â€œJane hired me to look into things down here. One of the stories she was working on involved some projects out of this office.”
    â€œProject. Singular. The only live one I’ve got is a condo site down by the waterfront.”
    â€œIs that Richard Dykestra’s complex?”
    â€œYes. It’s called Harborside. And right now it’s the best thing this town’s got going for it.”
    â€œWhy is that?”
    Fetch gestured with his hand across the street. “This town could have been dead. Dead and buried. Fall River and New Bedford were bigger, Taunton and North Attleboro were attracting new industry. We didn’t have beaches like the Cape, or nice ponds, or even unspoiled meadows. What we had was a waterfront you couldn’t breathe next to for three months starting Memorial Day and a welfare list the size of the telephone book.”
    â€œAnd what changed that?”
    â€œDykestra. He made some money commercially and started buying up parcels here and there privately. Then he lobbied with our state rep and senator and got a sewer project that made the harbor tolerable. He got funding for this office to push things along. I’ve got ten, maybe twelve projects that’ll fly once Harborside makes it.”
    â€œWhen, not if?”
    He turned to me. “That’s right. A developer can get all the approvals in the world, but it doesn’t mean squat if he can’t sell the project once it’s built. Richie can do that.”
    â€œI’m told he’s been a little pressed in the cash flow sense.”
    â€œYou know of anybody trying to accomplish anything who isn’t? It’s the nature of the beast. You’ve got to work on a shoestring because you don’t know which parcel or project might go. But you can’t attract investors without giving the impression that a particular project is the one that will go.”
    â€œSounds like you understand the industry pretty well.”
    â€œMy job. Part of it, anyway. The part that drives all the other parts.” He came back toward me. “If Richie’s project makes it, then all the guys, and women, he has working are drawing paychecks, not welfare checks. Harborside will need, the residents of it will need, all sorts of services. Those other ten or twelve projects I mentioned jump off the boards to supplement and eventually expand what Richie does down there.”
    â€œAll this boom talk put any people off?”
    â€œOff? No. Well, there’s always going to be some opposition to any change, even if it is for the better. But we’re not exactly raping virgin forests here, you know? You seen our waterfront?”
    â€œSome of it.”
    â€œWell, let me tell you. Nobody in his or her right mind is going to miss the relics Richie will replace. He gets the right support now, the whole character of this area will change. I’m telling you, this city is perched on the edge of greatness.”
    â€œWhat edge was Jane perched on?”
    He cooled off and turned away again. “I don’t know.”
    â€œShe told me she was under a lot of pressure at work. Was that all the pressure on her?”
    â€œI told you once, that’s none of your business.”
    â€œShe also told me her personal life was a mess. Was that your business?”
    Fetch cried out and came at me, quicker than I would have credited him. He swung an amateurish right at me before I could get all the way up from the chair. I took most of it on my left forearm, and I