by Peter Colt
“Here, Tomcat, this will help you feel better.”
“I doubt it, but thanks.” I gagged it down and barely contained the revolt in my stomach.
“I called. The ferry is running and you should be able to leave on the noon boat.” Her face was serious.
“Are you eager to get rid of me?”
“No, Tomcat. If you were the type who could get used to living in a house, I would take you in in a heartbeat. But we both know that you aren’t the type who can stay in one place for long. You are an old alley cat, and pretty soon you’d be looking for a way out.” She was smiling, but it was a little brittle, like fall sunshine in the late afternoon.
“I do have my flaws.”
“Don’t we all.” She brushed the hair out of her eyes.
“Do you ever get up to Boston?”
“I do.”
“You could call me. They have restaurants and bars.” I started to look for my pants.
“Or you could call me . . .” She was biting her lower lip.
“I need your number.”
“Hold on.” She left the room. I pulled on my pants and socks and shivered. She came back wearing a sweatshirt and handed me my shirt, which I put on. She went to one of the boxes in the corner and pulled out a flyer advertising one of the gallery shows. She wrote on it in ballpoint pen and handed it to me.
“Don’t you need this for work?” I said, waving the flyer at her.
“Oh, those, no, they were extra from an older show. We ordered too many. I should throw them away, but I can’t bring myself to. Now they have a use. You will remember me and know where to find me.”
“Clever girl.”
She had written her full name and number on a glossy trifold brochure for the show. I put it in my pocket. My head ached too much to look too closely at anything that wasn’t an Anacin. I got dressed, and we kissed and said our goodbyes with minimal fuss.
Outside, last night’s fierce wind was a gentle breeze that ruffled my hair. The sun was bright and hurt my hungover eyes, making me wish that I hadn’t left my sunglasses in the room. I walked back to the hotel, stopping at The Steamship Authority. A nice lady there was able to get me a standby reservation, assuring me that my spot was low enough that I should be able to get on the noon boat.
I walked back up the hill to the Jared Coffin House. I smoked a Player’s on the way, feeling a little better but not ready for food. I stopped at the desk to collect my bill, conscious of smelling like a night on the town and aware of the matronly desk clerk’s disapproving look. Why book a hotel room and stay out all night? I took a hot shower, turning the water cold for as long as I could stand it. I dressed, packed, and went down to settle my bill. The Ghia started, but under protest after all of that rain. I drove around the island and then back to The Steamship Authority. The woman was right; I did make it on.
I parked and went up on deck to smoke my pipe and watch the island as the ferry pulled out. The gulls were turning in the sky above and around the boat, but there was nothing to feed them. From the deck, I could see Shelly’s apartment. I imagined I could see her curled up on the couch by the fire. I could almost picture myself there next to her.
The ferry began to pull away from the slip, and I could see an old Dodge pickup truck with a wooden frame driving up Broad Street, away from the ferry as it pulled out. I watched it as it grew smaller and smaller, then turned and was gone. My theory about Ed Harriet and Charlie Hammond was growing smaller and smaller, until it was gone.
Chapter 19
The drive home was a morose affair. There was nothing good on the radio, the sun was in my eyes, the taste of defeat was bitter in my mouth, and I got caught in traffic. The traffic in Boston was bad enough to make me wonder if I couldn’t walk into the city faster. I detoured through Chinatown for takeout and made it back to Back Bay by the time my stomach was rumbling.
I spent the evening sitting at the kitchen table eating Chinese food, drinking Löwenbräu, and reviewing my case notes. I rewrote and consolidated my case notes on a yellow legal pad. It was a long summary of a short failure.
I would send them out to the service that would type them up. I had an IBM electric typewriter, but for clients I used a professional service. It didn’t cost much, and it made an impression. I worked through what was left of the pack of Player’s and couldn’t help but feel that I had been on some expensive fool’s errand.
When I finished, I stood up and stretched out my back, which was stiff from being hunched over the table for hours. I neatened the table and went to find a glass, ice, and the bottle of scotch. I found The Raymond Chandler Omnibus and turned on the local radio station that played jazz at night. Nina Simone sang to me, the scotch warmed me, and I was able to let Chandler transport me to the exotic world of 1940s Los Angeles. Philip Marlowe made it all look so easy. In his sun-dappled, rain-soaked Los Angeles, there were beautiful dames, glib lines, and a man who knew how to take a punch. In the end, Marlowe always figured out the case and got the bad guy. I was no Marlowe. I was more like a private version of Inspector Clouseau.
I drank and read and must have fallen asleep. I woke up to the sound of birds singing from my radio. The local station had switched over to its classical music programming. A deep voice came out of the speaker telling me about Handel. I switched the thing off and went to shower.
A hot shower and a couple of cups of strong black coffee didn’t do much to make me feel better. I put my case notes in a folder and put the final draft in an envelope. I put the Colt in its holster under my arm and set out for the office. My office wasn’t far, and the morning was crisp and sunny. I stopped at the typists’ to drop off my notes, which they said they would have done late that afternoon. They charged extra for the rush. I picked up my other jobs from them—a divorce and two workers’ comp cases—paid them for everything and walked two more blocks to my office.
My office was a two-room affair in a five-story building. I was above a pizza place, facing out over a busy street. All day long I could smell dough, pepperoni, and sausage cooking. The door was half-frosted glass with my name and profession on it in gold paint. The front room was taken up by a couch and two chairs that I had gotten at the Salvation Army and lots of filing cabinets. The inner room was my office proper. It had an old wooden desk with a squeaky wooden office chair, two wooden chairs in front of the desk, and filing cabinets along one wall. On the other side of the room was an old safe the same height as the filing cabinets but twice as wide. It had come with the office as a leftover from some business that had been here for years. Over time, the businesses had come and gone, but no one wanted to move the big, heavy safe, and it sat, as it always had. I kept it for show. It made the clients think that their cases were safe in the big safe. A locksmith friend of mine had been able to open it and reset the combination for me.
The desk had a banker’s lamp on it and a black telephone. Built into the desk, where there used to be a place for a typewriter stand, was a small safe. In the safe I usually kept my checkbook, some keys, some private notes, and a heavy Ruger .357 Magnum revolver. It was big, with a four-inch barrel, and was just too heavy to carry. I kept it for those times when angry ex-husbands or paramours came by looking to settle some sort of score.
The office was dusty and the air was stale. I opened the window a few inches to let out the stale air. I could hear the street noises—traffic, horns, and somewhere far off a jackhammer was pounding away its staccato beat. I took out my newly acquired pipe, packed the bowl, and lit it. I sat puffing it into life, watching the people wander by outside. Some went into the coffee shop across the street, others just moved on through the crowds. That was one of the advantages of being self-employed: I could smoke my pipe in my office and watch people walking around outside.
I typed up and sent out a few bills to clients. They had not been interesting cases, and the only travel involved had been to places in and around Boston. It had been the usual tour of cheating spouses and workers’ compens
ation fraud cases. When that was done, I took out the checkbook and sent money to the bill collectors. In between, I nursed, cajoled, and relit my pipe half a dozen times. I was definitely new to it and still hadn’t figured out what I was doing.
At lunchtime, I went downstairs to Marconi’s for a bite. The old man liked me and would never let me eat reheated pizza. He usually fed me what he had going on in the kitchen. Today it was mushroom risotto with sausage made from wild boar. I heard that he harvested the wild mushrooms himself from a hidden location somewhere in New England. Some people had said that he went north to Vermont or New Hampshire. Others said he went to Providence, Rhode Island, to Roger Williams Park, where he had a secret spot. Either way, they were fantastic. The sausage was an even greater secret. I only know that it was homemade and was not shy about garlic.
The old man was there and made me an espresso with a machine that he brought over from Italy. When I came in in the morning, he made me a cappuccino, but later in the day it was always espresso. On really cold days or days when I looked like I had been through it, he made me a Correctto with a shot of sambuca in it.
After lunch, I went back upstairs and spent time watching the comings and goings on the street below. I watched the owner in the market next to the coffee shop chase out some kids who were no doubt helping themselves to some candy. I watched people in business clothes walk by, moving without ever looking at anyone. I saw the bum sitting over the grate, catching some warm air and holding out a cup. No one gave him much, but it didn’t seem like he expected anything.
When I got bored of trying my hand at keeping the pipe lit and waiting for the phone to ring, I went downstairs and across the street to the market. I took a Globe and an apple. I left him a handful of coins, and we wasted a few minutes talking about the Patriots. Then I went back upstairs to wait. Wait for the phone to ring. I knew that I was going to be summoned by Danny. He was waiting for my final bill. Over the years, we hadn’t bothered with the mail, secretaries, or offices. He would call, and we would meet in some bar or restaurant. We did our business over cigarettes and meals. We talked cases and reminisced. I knew him well enough to know that he was pissed about my coming up empty-handed. It wasn’t so much that it didn’t happen. Sometimes there isn’t any resolution. The missing person can’t be found, or fraud can’t be proved, or spouses aren’t cheating.
What was going to piss Danny off was that Deborah Swift was a big name. She could steer a lot of business his way. She could do a lot of business. Danny didn’t need the money. His regular client base of mobsters, both Italian and Irish, were paying through the nose. He also had a steady clientele of robbers, con men, rapists, loan sharks, and drug dealers. Danny didn’t need new clients for their money. He was rolling in it. Some part of Danny wanted to have respectable clients. He wanted to have the type of clients, to be the type of lawyer whom his lace curtain Irish wife and her family could be proud of. Danny wanted that respectability badly.
He called at four and told me the name of a bar that we both liked. We didn’t have a regular place. Danny tried to keep our show on the road so as to minimize his colleagues seeing him out too often. I didn’t care either way. Danny had the cunning of an old jungle fighter, but he worked with lawyers, and they are a ruthless bunch.
I read the paper to kill time. There wasn’t much of interest on the international front, and the city news was bad. There was a one paragraph blurb in the regional news about a fire on the Cape. Ruth Silvia was killed when her house burned down in the night. The police and fire department said that it appeared accidental and ruled out foul play. They said there was evidence that she had been smoking in bed. Ruth Silvia smoking in bed . . . probably for the last fifty years. Her paintings would now go up in value, and it seemed that a large piece of Cape Cod was going to become available for development, because, according to the Globe, she didn’t have any living relatives. More proof of my wild-goose chase.
Something about all of it was bothering me. I just couldn’t put together what it was. Was it coincidence that just days after I visited her that her farm burned down and she was dead? Did it have anything to do with her talking to me? She had all the weed at her house, was it a competitor? Why? I couldn’t see the percentage in killing an old hippie painter. I could see the percentage in killing her and stealing all that weed.
Were her paintings worth anything? Was she a forger? Her stuff looked a lot like O’Keeffe’s. The most likely reason was the pot. Unless she was tied up in some art racket. Maybe a private detective sniffing around had made someone nervous. Nervous enough to kill her? I was getting ahead of myself; so far, the fire was deemed accidental. I could head out there and take a look. Arson leaves marks.
I left at half past three for the twenty-minute walk to the bar. The sun was still out, and the wind wasn’t bad. For the most part, Boston is a walkable city. The area I live and work in is made up of old brick buildings, none of which is too tall, and certainly not someone’s idea of an essay in architectural experimentation. When they built the John Hancock building, everyone complained about how the glass was going to ruin the look and feel of old Boston. What no one counted on was the glass reflecting the proud old buildings in the proud old city.
The bar was not far from the Common but not near it, either. It was half-full with the slip-out-of-work-to-drink crowd, which was better than the I-started-at-lunch-and-never-stopped crowd. Also, knowing Danny, he was the only member of the local Bar Association in the place. He liked to polish his veneer of respectability more than a housewife with antique furniture in the front room.
His suit was a three-piece blue pinstripe from Brooks Brothers that seemed to accentuate his slight but growing paunch. I sat next to him at the bar, and he turned to look at me. He had a glass of some sort of scotch, and the bartender brought me a Löwenbräu when asked. When the bartender had moved off to dry some glasses with a rag, Danny turned to face me. “How am I going to explain to the client that I very dearly want to keep, that you, the investigator that I recommended, not only didn’t find anything but went on an all-expense paid vacation courtesy of her checkbook?”
“Tell her I followed a lead and it didn’t pan out. Sometimes cases like this don’t go anywhere.”
“That is what you want me to tell her? Bullshit! You milked this one.” Danny’s voice crept up a little.
“Danny, this isn’t like some TV show. The case isn’t wrapped up in an hour after a word from our sponsors. The only other thing I could do is waste more of her money by going to every address that he ever lived at and seeing if anyone there remembers him. That would be a huge waste of time and money.”
“Considering Pinkerton has already done all of that, I agree. That doesn’t solve my problem of trying to explain to her that we spent a lot of her money to tell her what she already knows. I don’t know if I made this clear, but cultivating her as a client is important to me.” His voice was just a notch south of accusatory. It was almost impossible to explain to a client that sometimes the case doesn’t turn out the way they want it to.
“Tell her your investigator did his job and that he didn’t find anything. Her father disappeared and doesn’t seem likely to reappear anytime soon. Tell her she got her money’s worth.”
“That is what you call it? You lark off to Nantucket and probably shacked up with some broad and had a great time, and you don’t have a thing to show for it. This is typical.” I had known Danny forever, and this wasn’t like him.
“Typical? Typical of what?” I was not enjoying his tone of voice. We were now a couple of drinks in and both feeling our Irish or, in my case, half-Irish.
“You have been a flake ever since Nam. You couldn’t stay in college, you couldn’t stay with the cops, you only take easy cases, workers’ comp, divorce work . . . you could have gone far with the cops, gone far, been a lawyer, anything.” Now he was sounding like the mother I never had.
“Lawyer . . . fuck you. I might be a keyhole peeper, but there are so
me things I won’t do for money.”
He threw a punch at me. Actually, he did punch me. It glanced off my chin and knocked me off my barstool onto my feet. It wasn’t much of a punch. Danny hadn’t been in a fight since ninth grade, when he figured out how to get bigger guys to fight people for him. I looked at him, and the moment for apologies never came. He looked at me and said, “You’re a fuckup.”
He pushed his way through the crowd and outside. It was just as well. Maybe he was right, maybe I was a fuckup. I was going to pay for my beer and leave when I felt a hand on my elbow and a voice in my ear asking if she could buy me a drink. I said yes to the woman with honey-colored hair. She was wearing a business suit of navy blue and pearls. Up close, she radiated the same type of physical confidence that athletes had. Only she was wearing perfume and it smelled good.
“What did you do to make your friend so mad at you?”
“I’m still trying to figure that out. I feel like he’s been mad at me for years.”
The drinks came. Apparently I wanted bourbon and she white wine. Who was I to argue? “No, seriously, he wants me to get a normal job, get married, have kids, and live in the suburbs. In his words, he wants me to grow up.”
“You don’t have a normal job?”
“Not normal enough for him.” We made small talk for a while and had more drinks.
“You can’t blame Danny, he’s under a great deal of stress. Andy, he’s hoping that you are his ticket out of it.” By the time my mind recognized that I hadn’t told her my name, much less Danny’s, she was gesturing to her open purse. I saw the butt of a Smith & Wesson revolver and her open badge case. The badge was gold and federal, the ID photo was smudgy, but the FBI in blue letters left no doubts.