Steel Guitar

by Linda Barnes

  Lockwood said, “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  “Can you describe the man who came to you, who called himself David Dunrobie?”

  “I only saw him twice.”

  “Short? Tall?”

  “Short,” Lockwood said, swallowing.

  Baines and I exchanged glances.

  “Did he limp?” I asked.

  “No,” Lockwood said. “He was short and I didn’t notice anything odd about the way he walked.”

  “Then chances are,” I said coldly, “he wasn’t Davey Dunrobie.”

  Twenty-Nine

  “You can’t squeeze blood from a turnip” was another of my grandmother’s Yiddish standbys. It was fun to watch Taylor Baines try, but he couldn’t get an address other than 825 Winter Street out of Stuart Lockwood, Esquire.

  I went home. A man who was either a bold thief or a genuine locksmith was in the process of drilling out the main lock on my front door.

  I introduced myself as the owner of the door.

  “Closing up the barn after the horses, I understand,” he said cheerfully. “Hi. Jack Daly. Gloria asked me to come by.”

  Roz appeared on the front stoop, looking particularly fetching in a fifties-vintage housedress, with a tomato-red apron around her waist, and sporting yellow rubber gloves. Electric eye-makeup, possibly left over from the night before, and her striped hair completed the look. “I did call somebody,” she said defensively. “This guy just turned up first so I canceled the other one. Okay?”

  “You have some ID?” I asked the locksmith.

  “Sure.” He produced a printed business card, a driver’s license.

  “Pleased to meet you.” We shook hands.

  “Carlotta,” Roz said, practically dancing in her impatience, “I gotta talk to you.”

  “I’ve been meaning to talk to you too.”

  She led me into the kitchen.

  “I see my kitchen floor will never look the same,” I said. All in all, that’s not such a bad thing. It never looked great to begin with.

  “Look,” Roz said, “I know I screwed up about the locks, and about the red mailing tube, and about everything, but—”

  “Hold that thought,” I said. “I’ve got to make a phone call. I’ve got to call Gloria and—”

  “Call Gloria! That’s what I’m supposed to tell you!”

  “So shut up a minute, and I will!”

  When you call Green & White Cab, ninety percent of the time you get Gloria. She answers the phones, practically nonstop. I don’t know when she has time to sleep, let alone attend to other body functions.

  “Good to hear from you, babe,” she said in as rich and fine a voice as you’re likely to hear offstage.

  “You send me a lock man? Jack Daly?”

  “Yeah. My brother Leroy recommends him highly. Says he’s good.”

  “White guy. Thirties? Sandy hair?”

  “You gettin’ cautious in your old age?”

  “Hoping to stay alive long enough to enjoy one. Thanks.”

  “Don’t hang up, babe. Sam asked me to call.” Besides being my on-again, off-again boyfriend, Sam is also the co-owner of Gloria’s cab company. He put up most of the money; she put up most of the savvy.

  Sam’s been scarce since he got back from Italy. I’m sure he met some hot madonna in Florence. My voice iced over. “He’s got a tongue, and a phone as I recall,” I said.

  “Shut up and listen,” Gloria said. “He wasn’t sure his line was clear. He says he heard your name come up in a bad situation.”

  “Great. What kind of a message is that?”

  “He’s gonna try take care of it, but he says you might want to back off.”

  “‘Back off.’ Very nice. I appreciate that. ‘Back off’ is what some goon wrote on my bathroom mirror last night. If Sam Gianelli knew about it—”

  “Whoa, babe. When he came by this morning, I told him about somebody trashing your place. He made a few calls. That’s where he got this. He didn’t know anything last night. You two still seeing each other or what?”

  Gloria likes to keep tabs on my love life.

  “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you,” I said. She never liked Cal.

  “Go on, tell me anyway,” Gloria said. “You want to come by, do some driving tonight?”

  “Can’t.”

  “You sound troubled, babe.”

  “I am, and not about my love life either.”

  “What else is there?” Gloria asked. She reads romance magazines when she’s not answering the phone.

  “Lots.” Like pairing up Hal Grady with Mickey Manganero. Quite a team. One man who moves money for the mob, another who handles receipts for a hot ticket like Dee.

  “Look,” I said to Gloria. “Let me try out a couple questions. Who handles your night deposits?”

  “I suppose you got a good reason for asking.”

  “Trust me,” I said.

  “My brother Leroy comes by. I figure nobody’s gonna mess with Leroy.”

  “Are you or Sam or Leroy on some kind of exempt list, for making large deposits without filing one of those government forms?”

  “The bank only has to fill in the blanks whenever somebody deposits or withdraws ten thou or more. We don’t turn that kind of cash at night with only eight vehicles on the road. I’m not on any exempt list and neither is Sam, far as I know.”

  “Who would be on the exempt list?”

  “Grocery stores. Sports stadiums, for sure. Fenway takes in more than ten thousand every time the Red Sox lose one.”

  “What bank do you do business with?”

  “Bank of New England.”

  “Got a friend there?”

  There is no place Gloria doesn’t have a friend. She gave an affirmative grunt over the line.

  “See if you can find out where the Berklee Performance Center makes deposits, okay? And the name of the guy on the exempt list would be a real bonus.”

  “I’ll see what I can come up with. Take care, now.”

  Roz said, “Seriously, I think I found something important.”

  “It’s hard to take somebody seriously,” I said to Roz, “when they dress like Donna Reed on speed.”

  “Well, can I at least show you what I found?”

  “Looks like you discovered a brand-new layer of kitchen floor. You taking up archeology?”

  Roz said, “What do you think of this?”

  “I think it’s a dustpan,” I said. “I’m glad you found it. Do you know how to use it?”

  “Shit. Look inside, Carlotta. I’m not fooling around here.”

  She carefully positioned the dustpan on the kitchen counter, a place where I frequently eat my meals, not always taking time for a sit-down dinner. I wondered if Roz would wash the counter off afterward. I wondered if I’d ever be able to eat there again without thinking of the filthy gray dustpan.

  In the tray were three blonde hairs.

  “You haven’t swept the floor since you were a blonde?” I guessed. “How long ago is that? Two months?”

  “These were stuck in the goo in the kitchen. If you’ll take a good look, you’ll see they’re longer than my hair’s ever been.”

  I picked one out of the tray. “Curly,” I said.

  “Dyed,” Roz said. “Permed. Heat-damaged, like from a crimping iron. You know somebody with hair like that?”

  I trust Roz on matters of hair. Anyone who spends the kind of time on dye jobs that she does ought to know her stuff. “You know, Roz, you have just taken a long step on the road to redemption.”

  She beamed. Roz likes living where she does, likes her work, or lack of it.

  “Of course,” I said, half to myself, “the next step is a lulu.”

  That’s when the doorbell interrupted. I figured it was the locksmith. I was wrong. The locksmith could have let himself in.

  Thirty

  “Come with me,” I said to Roz on my way to answer the bell. We hadn’t finished our chat, an
d it never hurts to have a karate expert tag along.

  Cal was idling on the stoop, trading August heat tales with the locksmith.

  I flashed on the chorus of Dee’s song “For Tonight.”

  “For tonight, for a while, I want you.”

  Last night I had practically ached to touch him, from the moment he’d walked onstage, eyes downcast, from the moment he’d thumbed his first note.

  But not tonight. Definitely not for a string of nights.

  “I found him,” Cal said.

  It wasn’t what I’d expected him to say. His voice sounded funny.

  “Davey?”

  “Davey.”

  “Terrific. Wonderful. Where? Come on in and tell me the whole story. I’ll get you a drink, uh, a soft drink. Orange juice.”

  “No. I, uh, I’d rather not.”

  “Well, where is he?”

  “We have to go there.”

  “Cal? Are you okay?”

  “We have to go there,” he repeated, his tone harsh, almost angry. He stared at the steps. I couldn’t see his eyes.

  “Now?”

  “Yeah. Now would be good.”

  One look at the set of Cal’s jaw, and I knew I’d get no further with questions. “Okay, be like that,” I said. “Roz, have you ever considered a future as a groupie?”

  “That’s not a future, that’s a past.”

  “Dress weird,” I said. “Hell, dress normally. And get over to the Four Winds Hotel. Seventh floor, some of them may still be on the eighth, but the seventh’s your best bet. Tell anybody who asks that you’re with Dee Willis’s band. The drummer’s name is Freddie. Ron’s the lead guitar. I don’t know the keyboard man. He seems to evaporate into thin air every time I come near. Hal Grady’s the road manager.”

  “Yeah. Ron and Freddie and Hal. Which one am I interested in?”

  “None of the above. Get tight with a camp follower named Mimi. Looks sixteen. Dyed blonde curly hair.”

  “Oooh,” said Roz, “long hair. I get it. I’m your undercover agent.”

  I blew out a deep breath. “Keep it that way, Roz,” I said. “I want to know everything about this girl—who she talks to, who she sleeps with, whether she deals, what she deals, whether she uses, what she uses. I want you to be her new best friend.”

  “And if some of the boys come on to me?”

  “That’s your business. Just make sure you’re with Mimi most of the time.”

  “I’ll be great,” Roz promised. “I know the exact outfit. I’ll make up for the tube and the locks—”

  “Whoa, Roz. Don’t go in like a sledgehammer, okay? Be subtle. It could be dangerous.”

  “If she’s the one messed up the kitchen floor,” Roz said, peeling off her rubber gloves, “it could be fucking dangerous for her.”

  Thirty-One

  “Why are you looking for Davey?” Cal slammed the passenger door of my red Toyota and made a grab for the seat belt. He used to swear I was the reason he never learned to drive.

  “What difference does it make? You didn’t ask last night—or this morning.”

  “I’m asking now.”

  “I was hired to find him.”

  “By?”

  “A client.”

  I remembered last night’s taxi ride in the pouring rain, my intense awareness of Cal’s wet denim jacket, the bass jutting between his legs, his thigh pressed close to mine, the strangely familiar smell of him. In daylight, in the front seat of my own car, everything seemed different, all tension spent. Maybe that was all we ever shared, the tension and release, tension and release of coupling. Possibly the tension would build again over the next few hours.

  I doubted it.

  “Is Davey in jail?” I asked.

  “No.”

  “Is he alive?”

  “You could say so.”

  “Come on, Cal. No more guessing games.”

  “I think I’m the one who’s doing most of the guessing here, Carly.”

  “I can’t help what you think, Cal.”

  I turned the key in the ignition, counted to an imaginary ten, and held my temper. “It would help if I knew where we were going.”

  “Saint John of God Hospital.”

  “On Allston Street?”

  “Yeah.”

  “But that’s a—”

  “A hospice.” Cal finished the sentence before I could get the word out. Staring through the windshield, his face a mask, he said, “Davey’s dying. Davey’s got AIDS.”

  Thirty-Two

  I have trouble with hospitals. Big deal, right? Who doesn’t? I especially have trouble with the idea of a hospice—a hospital of no return. Even when I knew beyond doubt, beyond reason—confirmed by every doctor worth his stethoscope—that this attack of emphysema was Dad’s final round, there was still that tiny undeniable ray of hope. Maybe this time, this once, one puny human will confound the experts and defy the odds.

  My dad’s Scots-Irish Catholic family believed in miracles; maybe they passed that on to me. My mom believed God had cleared out of the miracle business, left people to create their own if they could. She also believed human beings had gravely disappointed their maker.

  The only miracle I was praying for was that Cal’s informant had made a mistake.

  St. John of God Hospital is a small place that keeps a low profile. Unless you drive directly down Allston Street between Summit Avenue and Washington Street, you’d never know it existed. It’s on a taxi route, a good shortcut between Brookline and Cambridge; otherwise I’d never have heard of it, much less known the way there.

  I pulled my Toyota into the cement square of parking lot. There weren’t many cars.

  The lobby looked too cheery, like Christmas in August. The front desk was staffed by two women, one heavy, one thin. The thin one wore a cardigan sweater in spite of the heat, and was busily filing a broken fingernail; the plump one was tapping at a computer keyboard.

  I caught a faint quiver of interest when I asked for David Dunrobie.

  “He doesn’t get many visitors,” I ventured.

  “You’re the only ones I’ve seen,” the woman working at the terminal replied. The other woman nodded her head in solemn agreement.

  “Are there, like, visiting hours?” Cal said. He’d stayed half a foot behind me. I could hear the faint snap of his fingers, a nervous habit I’d long forgotten.

  The thin woman picked up a phone receiver and said, “Let me check whether one of Mr. Dunrobie’s doctors is available. See if it’s a good day for a visit.”

  “Sometimes he’s not well enough for visitors?” Cal asked, a little too quickly.

  The heavy woman at the keyboard exchanged a glance with the nail-filer, then spoke in a confidential whisper. “He’s got a sort of, uh, amnesia, as a symptom of the disease. He fades in and out. Some days he talks up a storm. Some days …” She shrugged her massive shoulders.

  Suddenly I didn’t want to see him. I wanted to keep a picture of him in my mind: Davey Dunrobie, young, talented, graceful, on his way to the top.

  Cal voiced my misgivings. “Do we need to do this?”

  “I have to,” I said. “You can wait for me, take a walk, go home, whatever.”

  The thin woman murmured, “Here comes the doctor now.” I noticed that her nail file had disappeared discreetly into a pocket. She bent her head and diligently sorted forms.

  The man in the white lab coat, white shirt, and red bow tie had entered the lobby through swinging doors. The nameplate on his breast pocket read: Dr. Sanderley. He spoke in a reedy tenor. “Are you related to Mr. Dunrobie?” he asked.

  “Close friends,” I said. “We just found out.”

  “He’s been with us six months,” the doctor replied.

  “Off and on?” I asked.

  “Six months.”

  “Does he go out much? Travel?”

  “I’m not sure I understand,” the doctor said. “When he goes out, which isn’t frequently, it’s in a wheelchair. Sometimes
we get a chair-van for day trips. Not often.” He seemed puzzled by my questions.

  “How is he?” I said. The doctor seemed more comfortable with that one.

  He consulted his wristwatch as if to figure out exactly how much detail he could fit into his schedule. “Well, he’s had several bouts of pneumonia,” he began. “Pneumocystic, the kind most HIV patients get. Each attack has left him a bit weaker, more open to other infections. He had a go with meningitis. He has thrush, an infection that interferes with the clarity of his speech.”

  “Break it to us gently, doc,” Cal muttered in a bitter tone I remembered like a whiplash.

  “I’m sorry,” the doctor said gently, taking no offense. “But if you intend to see him, you ought to be prepared. He’s also losing his eyesight. And in addition to attacking the immune system, HIV may also attack and destroy brain cells, causing dementia.”

  “The nurse up front told us he sometimes had amnesia,” I said.

  “She’s not a nurse; she’s a receptionist. And she has no business discussing the patients. Absolutely no business.” Doctor Sanderley’s anger subsided abruptly. “It’s often difficult to get good people to work in a place like this,” he said with a sigh.

  I swallowed. “Does Davey know where he is? What’s happening to him?”

  “Sometimes, yes. Sometimes, no.”

  I bit my lip. “Look, I need to see him.”

  “You need to see him? This isn’t a social call?”

  “It may be a police matter,” I said. If I’d had the photostat of my license, the one in my stolen purse, I’d have shown it to him. All I had was a business card. “I’d like to keep the police out of it.”

  “Would Mr. Dunrobie recognize your names?”

  “If he recognizes anything. Tell him Carlotta and Cal are here.”

  “I’ll try.”

  We were left in the lobby for five minutes, maybe four, maybe fewer, but it felt like forever. I had time to memorize the burgundy carpet, the blue sofas and chairs, the framed landscapes, the portraits of long-dead benefactors. There were too many vases of overblown flowers in the room, too many smelly plants.

  The double doors opened and the stink of disinfectant invaded my nostrils. I thought of Dee in her four-star hotel suite, Davey in his hospice bed. A lucky toss of the dice. An unlucky one.