LITMIR.BIZ

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kept on, but the fight seems all gone. In the next week or so, the rumors have it, he’ll go into the courthouse, likely plead to a reduced count, and hope the trial judge, Nevins, a harder soul than Miltie, isn’t going to slam him for not giving up the others.

      It was in those days after the arrest that Santoro had seemed to again home in on Quinn. Robbie knew it was a tension that went back to muddy football fields of high school, to fights in the schoolyard, and to rivalries over girls, most of whose names were long forgotten.

      One night here, after the arrest, Santoro had been drunk and smoking and he had an audience, and he began shouting across the bar, asking Quinn how many blowjobs he’d given in his time in prison. Santoro seemed first to be thinking he wouldn’t be going to prison, and then once he did realize he would, he seemed terrified.

      Santoro had squawked at Quinn until it had become obvious it wasn’t ending without a fight, or an attempted one.

      “Did you take it from behind in there?” Santoro had barked.

      “Not the way you will,” Quinn finally shouted back. “You’ll be in the joint so long your ass will be like the Ted Williams Tunnel.”

      Santoro had leapt up as if he’d only been waiting for the cursory provocations.

      Quinn stood up; Robbie knew how much strength his brother had from the years of the work, but still aimed to talk him into backing off. You never knew, with guys like Santoro, what kind of hardware they had in their pockets.

      “Don’t let him take you down with him,” Robbie said. “Why should you end up in a jail cell tonight?”

      “It’s his game,” Quinn said.

      “He’s drunker than shit,” Robbie said. “Why bother?”

      Quinn had nodded, and let Robbie turn him toward the exit. “See you some other time, you pussy,” Santoro shouted in his presumed victory.

      Now, tonight, Robbie sees Santoro getting up and edging toward them.

      “Here he comes,” Robbie says.

      “It’s all right.”

      “He looks hammered.”

      “So I would assume.”

      Now Santoro’s against Quinn, leaning in hard.

      “You didn’t even say hello,” Santoro says. He’s always got an aggressive way about him, and Quinn long ago came to the conclusion he doesn’t always know it.

      “I guess I’ll soon be saying goodbye,” Quinn says.

      “Not funny,” Santoro says.

      “I thought you’d laugh. How long you think you’ll be in for?”

      “It’s either going to be a long time or a real long time. But they were talking worse if I didn’t plead. Like, basically life.”

      “They wouldn’t give you life,” Quinn says. “That’s how they scare chickenshits into pleading guilty.”

      “But they said twenty years. So that’s basically life, I mean, given I don’t take very good care of myself.”

      “That’s rough,” Robbie says, wedging into the conversation to avert another standoff.

      “So I hear you need a sternman,” Santoro says to Quinn.

      “Yeah, you know anybody?”

      “I’m talking about me . . .”

      “I thought you were going to prison.”

      “I have about a week left. Look, I need the money. Every bit I can get. My lawyer isn’t cheap. I don’t want them going after my parents.”

      “You should have gotten a public defender, like I did.”

      “I thought this guy was going to get me off,” Santoro says. “He was talking probation or a year in minimum security, so I kept paying him. Look, any money I can hustle right now, I need real bad.”

      “And it’s worth getting one share from me?”

      “I was thinking two.”

      “And how’s that?”

      “I’ll do two guys’ work. I can do better than any two guys you’re able to sucker on the boat these days. Seriously, I hear about what’s going on. I know it’s been bad, since the Botelho thing. I want to get out there and make a killing. I have a lot of motivation.”

      “This last run wasn’t so good.”

      “So let’s get right back out there. You have an unlucky boat, but I need money bad. For my parents. I’ll make that work. Two shares is more than I can make any other way with the time I have left.”

      “I don’t know, man.”

      “Look, let me go. I’m about to be stuck in a damned cage for at least eight or nine years, and I want to get out on the water, one more time. I want to be able to be out on the ocean, so I can remember it when I’m in a cell. You should understand what I’m saying.”

      “You can’t just remember all the other times?”

      “I want to go out like a goddamned demon. Working hard, using my muscles. I want to be thinking about what I’m doing while I’m out there. I regret now I didn’t think about it enough.”

      “It’s work, Freddy. You’re not supposed to think about it.”

      “You do when you go to prison.”

      “I did go to prison.”

      “A few months, Quinn! That was a vacation!”

      “Well, lucky me.”

      Santoro is getting worked up. “I can’t believe you’re even having to think about it. I’ll make you money, and you know it.”

      “A couple of weeks ago you were calling me out.”

      “This is business,” Santoro says.

      “I’ll think about it,” Quinn says.

      “Jesus Christ,” Santoro says. “You don’t think you owe me something?”

      “I said I’ll think about it. Come down to the boat at four tomorrow morning. If I haven’t gotten a better crew, you’re in.”

      Santoro goes off, head shaking.

      “Quinn, you must be able to find someone else,” Robbie says.

      “It’s gotten a lot harder, Rob. Yeah, the guy is a pain in the ass, but it sounds like he’s got a reason to work.”

      “Why not work inshore, by yourself?”

      “That’s what everybody does, and it shows in their yields. There’s even less money hugging the shore. I need more. I got Gina on me about the child support.”

      “You should keep looking. Get a couple of guys you can depend on, and maybe they’ll stick.”

      “Well,” Quinn says, “I now have high motivation to find these hypothetical guys.”

      8.

      OF COURSE THE PREMISE OF INCARCERATION IS TO wrench away all things one holds dear; Quinn was given to ponder what that might have actually been, as Freddy Santoro will soon do. On that night of his arrest, Quinn was brought off the Coast Guard cutter Monomo, and handed over to Federal agents at Woods Hole. He had conceded the Christine to impoundment, and presumed he had a better-than-even shot at prison. When by dawn they bunked him down in that solitary cell at the Wyatt Detention Center, awaiting federal charges, he presumed it. By the time the lights went out, he’d largely resolved he clearly needed to be punished for Botelho’s disappearance. He’d been in the throes—shaking, hallucinating, witnessing the starburst against his own

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