Love Nest

by Andrew Coburn

  “Was she that good?”

  “No,” Dawson said. “She was that different.”

  “I told you, Ned, it wasn’t that kind of relationship,” the chief interposed quietly.

  “That’s hard to swallow.”

  “I was getting information from her,” Dawson said.

  “That so?”

  “You know about Alfred Bauer, his past connection with Tony Gardella. Now it’s with Gardella’s sister, who lives right here in town now. The two of them owned the Silver Bell Motor Lodge, at least they did until today. Bauer used to import high-priced hookers to the motel, two and three times a week. He worked it through a shrink named Stickney, an old buddy, who provided classy clients for so-called therapy. The clients were mostly from the town’s high-tech companies.”

  The district attorney absently stroked the back of his neck. “So these clients were patients under professional care.”

  “If you want to be ironic about it.”

  “Situation like that, I’m not sure it’s illegal. I’d have to check. But the chief tells me you put a word in the right ear and Bauer killed the operation. No fuss, no scandal for the town, everything taken care of diplomatically. I’d say that was smart police work. Should’ve ended there. Instead you involved yourself with the girl.”

  “She involved herself with me.”

  “Takes two to tango.”

  “I wanted Bauer.”

  “Why, Sergeant? Was it personal?”

  “Matter of common sense. People like him and Gardella’s sister are too big for the town. A few years from now they’ll be putting selectmen into office, that’s my opinion.”

  “What are you, a crusader?” The district attorney snorted indulgently. “OK, you wanted Bauer, but the girl didn’t give him to you. Did you seriously think she would?” His smile turned chilly and authoritative. “Looking back, do you think Bauer was ever in the least worried?”

  “I don’t know,” Dawson said in a low tone, and the district attorney gave out another snort, louder and less indulgent. With a glance at the narrow door to Chief Chute’s private lavatory, his shoulders straining the open jacket of his suit, he hoisted himself up.

  “Mind if I use your toilet, Chief?”

  Dawson and Chief Chute shifted their eyes to other places, for he did not bother to close the door. He propped an arm against the facing wall and leaned over the open bowl, his trousers worn so low under the arc of his belly that he nearly did not need to bother with the zipper. He spoke above the forceful clatter of his splash.

  “I’ve been D.A. for twelve years, a lawyer for twenty, and before that I was a cop just like you, Sergeant, sin city of Revere. I learned something all those years. A hooker, from the lowest to the highest, never turns in her pimp. That’s her daddy.”

  He finished with a flourish and a shiver, struck the flushing lever, and stepped to the sink. He spoke over the roar.

  “My belief, Sergeant, is deep in your gut you knew this, but you wanted to shack up with her. Who the hell could blame you? I heard she was a knockout. Must’ve had a heart of gold too. Right?”

  Chief Chute, avoiding Dawson’s eyes, lowered his fuzzy head and rearranged something on his desk. The district attorney came out blotting his hands in paper toweling.

  “What I can’t understand is you still fiddling with the case. Far as everybody’s concerned, exception of you, it’s closed. Even if you did come up with something, chances are I couldn’t use it. You’d be suspect. A lawyer would tear you apart, for Christ’s sake.”

  “I did come up with something. Didn’t the chief tell you?”

  “I told him, Sonny.”

  “Yeah, he told me, and it’s bullshit. Who cares why the Bauer kid put a belt around his neck? Either case, he was sick in the head. You’d rather it not be suicide because you don’t want the guilt. I can’t worry about that and neither can the chief. He’s got a town to look after, I got a whole county.”

  The district attorney made a sodden ball of the toweling and tossed it into the chief’s wastebasket. Then he picked up his coat.

  “Something else I learned through the years, Sergeant. Trust your first instinct. Nine times out of ten it’s on the mark.”

  Left alone, Dawson and Chief Chute avoided each other’s eyes, their silence uneasy. The chief opened a desk drawer as if in search of something not quite worth finding and rummaged up a fingernail trimmer. “Well, Sonny, I’m glad the D.A. knows everything.” He pared a nail. “I feel like a load’s been taken off our shoulders, don’t you?”

  “Your shoulders,” Dawson said, rising. “Not mine.”

  A couple of minutes later he approached the desk sergeant, who was munching a Danish that bore a passing resemblance to a pizza. The front doors of the station were open, letting in sunshine and a breeze. With sticky fingers the desk sergeant held out a yellow slip of paper. “Dispatcher left a message for you. Number, no name.”

  Dawson stared at the scribbled telephone number. It was local and familiar.

  “Beautiful day, huh, Sonny?” the desk sergeant said with icing in his mustache. “But a tease. You know what’s coming, right?”

  “No,” Dawson said, “I wish I did.”

  He turned left, stepped into the small interrogation room, and made the call from there. The number belonged to Bauer Associates. The voice in his ear belonged to the receptionist, Eve James. He said, “I’m returning Alfred Bauer’s call.”

  She said, “No, Sonny, you’re returning mine.”

  • • •

  When Fran Lovell emerged from the back door of the bank, the sun had vanished, but the air was still warm, fraudulent in its promise. Walking toward her car with her weighty coat open, she saw Sergeant Dawson waiting for her. She smiled wryly. “Is this a pinch?”

  “I’d like to buy you a cup of coffee,” he said, and she pulled a face.

  “I’ve got a bunch of errands to do and a kid to pick up. Unless you’re planning to ask me to run away with you, I’ll take a rain check.”

  “Could we talk in your car? Just for a minute.”

  “Sure, why not. If you play it right, you might grab yourself a cheap feel. On second thought, you’d better not. I’m a little sore.”

  Her car was a small economical model with an overloaded ashtray and coffee-mug rings on the narrow top of the dash. Settled in, she lowered her window and lit a cigarette. Dawson shoved back the passenger seat to prevent his knees from nudging his chin. He said, “Do you remember Eve James from high school?”

  “Of course I remember her. I hated her, naturally.”

  “Why naturally?”

  “I was pretty, more than pretty, but she was beautiful. Remember that gorgeous red hair of hers, so thick it must have taken three hours to dry when she washed it?”

  “She had her problems.”

  “Didn’t we all. But you’re right, she got heavy into drugs, senior year.”

  “What happened to her after graduation?”

  “Her father’s company transferred him to Houston or some foolish place like that. Eve stayed, or rather she moved to Boston. Somebody told me she went to work in a health club. She wanted to become a model, but talk was she became something else, if you know what I mean. Christ, how many years ago was that? Don’t tell me.”

  “She’s back in town. She works for Bauer Associates.”

  “I know. I ran into her there on bank business. She was arranging flowers in a vase for her boss’s office.”

  “She’s the receptionist.”

  Fran Lovell laughed. “She’s more than that. The dress she was wearing cost at least three hundred dollars.”

  “I didn’t recognize her at first.”

  “I knew her right away, even with her hair cut so short, but I had to tell her who I was, which pissed me off. Have I changed so much?”

  “We all have.”

  “Not you, not her. She’s hard in the face, but she’s still got the same great shape, which is more than I can s
ay. I tried to get her into conversation, but she wasn’t interested in talking over old times. I’m an assistant vice-president in the town’s biggest bank, and she looked at me like I’m some old cow. Bitch!” She pitched her cigarette out the window. “Why are you so interested in her?”

  “She’s asked me out to dinner tonight. Her treat.”

  Fran Lovell’s face stiffened. “Lucky you.” She jammed in the ignition key. “Get out. I’ve got things to do.”

  “Why are you so mad?”

  “I’m not. I’m in a hurry.”

  “I have another question, not about Eve. About Paige Gately buying the Silver Bell. That was a major league purchase. How’d she get the bank to go along with her?”

  “Come on, Sonny. You know she and Ed Fellows have always had a special relationship. Same as I’ve always had one with him, though mine’s not as special.”

  He gave out a mock look of innocence, and she bristled with impatience and irritation.

  “Don’t tell me you never wondered how I made it in the bank? I was no big brain in high school, was I? A surprise I graduated.”

  She started up the car, and he climbed out. Before he could shut the door, she bent her head and looked out at him, her hair falling over half her face.

  “You poor fool.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “Eve James will eat you up.”

  • • •

  Rita O’Dea served supper in her spacious eat-in kitchen. The meal was lamb chops, baked squash, and apple sauce. Her guest was Attorney Rollins, who sat tensely at her table, as if he felt he should have been waiting on her. He took small bites. She watched him and smiled. “You’ve got such dainty hands, Willy. Like I had when I was ten.” She deposited a chunk of butter into her shell of squash. “Miss your mama?” she asked, and he went silent. “I’m not making fun of you. I know how it is. I miss my brother. How long’s your mother been dead?”

  “All my adult life.”

  “But you had her when it counted. Thank God for something.” She salted her food and then placed the shaker near him, but he made no move for it. “Don’t you use salt, Willy?”

  “I try to avoid it.”

  “I’ve been told to.”

  He said, “Who told you about my mother?”

  “The girl told me. We talked a lot when she did my back — I’ve got a bad one, you know. She said you were a perfect gentleman, treated her like a sister. You even gave her a key to your house.”

  “It pleased me when she chose to use it.”

  “Pleased you a lot.”

  “Yes.”

  “You a lonely man, Willy?” She paused, filling her mouth. Her gaze was steady. “I already know, but you can tell me. How lonely?”

  He used his knife and fork on a thick lamb chop, which had been broiled medium-rare and was full of juice. “There are times I don’t want to go home at night, but it passes.”

  “There are times in this big house, Willy, I want to scream. Loneliness can tear you up inside. But like you I don’t let it last long. Instead I think about business. I think about it all the time.”

  She had poured wine. Now she poured more, her bare arm close to him, the fat in it packed deep. Her full, handsome face hovered.

  “People look at you and me, they might think we’re soft inside. They don’t know us. They don’t know I’ve got my brother’s balls. These same people look at Alfred and Harriet, they see something different, but they don’t know them either. See what I’m saying?”

  He was beginning to, but the look he gave her was at once searching and cautious.

  “You and me, Willy, we’ve dealt with tragedy. We can handle it, but I worry about the Bauers. I don’t know if they’re made of the same stuff.”

  Uncertain whether to speak, he continued to eat. The chop gave him trouble, and his knife slipped.

  She said, “Something happens, I want to know I can depend on you. I want to know you can step in, keep things moving. The thing that’s important, Willy, is every minute of the day I’ve got to know you’re my man.”

  All of her face claimed his attention, and he nodded emphatically and unequivocally. Her voice, in some phantom way, sounded like his mother’s.

  “I like your name,” she said. “You’re Yankee, you’re Andover. In time maybe we can change the name from Bauer Associates to Rollins. How’s that sound?”

  It sounded overwhelming, life-changing, heady. It was too much for him to think about at that moment, and he let his confusion linger as if it were something to savor.

  “The only thing is, Willy, you’ve got a black mark against you.”

  He tightened. “I don’t understand.”

  “The Silver Bell.”

  “The price was right,” he said rapidly.

  “It was too right. If I knew that, you should’ve.”

  Afraid to look at her, he busied himself with the chop, his knife struggling with the remaining meat. Inside, he was ice.

  “Pick it up,” she said. “Eat off the bone. Get grease on your face like a man.” Her voice had gone unusually low. “It’s the way you eat when you’re alone, isn’t it?”

  “Yes.” He reached into his plate. “Yes, it is.”

  “In the old days anybody did me or my brother wrong, Ralph Roselli could go after him in a hundred different ways, each one looking like an accident. But I don’t do business that way anymore. Not if I can help it.”

  He gnawed on the bone, his eyes squeezed shut behind his amber glasses.

  She said, “You owe me.”

  • • •

  The town, in Sergeant Dawson’s estimation, had two reasonable restaurants, but he liked neither. One, Backstreet, he considered too cramped and crowded, and the other, Rembrandt’s, he regarded as too roomy and impersonal, with the aura of its past existence, a mortuary, still clinging to it. Eve James suggested the Andover Inn, which he felt was too rich for his blood. “I’ve already made reservations,” she said with cheerful finality. She had frosted paint on her mouth which, pursed, looked like a shiny coin. “Remember, Sonny, it’s my treat.”

  They were in her car, a sporty Mazda much like the one, except for the year and color, that Melody Haines had driven to the Silver Bell. “Nice wheels,” he said. “Buy it local?”

  “I didn’t buy it at all.”

  “A gift?”

  “A bonus.”

  The inn was elegantly nestled on the grounds of Phillips Academy, just beyond the chapel. The parking lot was full. She drove up onto the grass and was out of the car before he was. “Shall I lock it?” he asked.

  “I already did. Just shut it.”

  Inside the inn, he smoothed his hair back in a worried way and looked down at himself. His tie was regimental and went well with his button-down shirt and herringbone jacket. His trousers were fresh from the cleaners. “You look super,” she said wryly.

  “You’re not so bad yourself.”

  She had on a silky dress with a scoop neckline and cinched waist. Her bobbed red hair, brushed back in a dense natural wave, emphasized her tight, hard face, which had worn well. She was a little fleshy under the chin, but not enough to matter. The maître d’ led them to a table set with fresh flowers, and a waiter’s helper, his features cherubic, arrived presently with smoked salmon coronets, cherry tomatoes, and stuffed sections of celery.

  “I could make a meal of this,” Dawson said.

  “But you won’t.”

  “No, I wouldn’t want to shame you.”

  The waiter, brisk and efficient, soon returned with their drink orders, Harvey’s Bristol Cream on the rocks, and then moved smartly to tend to a table of elderly ladies dressed in soft pinks, lilacs, and watery blues. The piano player, with eyes that appeared half-shut, was rippling through a medley of nostalgic tunes. Eve lifted her drink.

  “Cheers.”

  “Cheers,” he said, and one of the elderly ladies smiled at them as if she thought they were celebrating an anniversary or a reconci
liation.

  “Suspicious of me, aren’t you?” Eve said.

  “Very.”

  “You’re wondering why I phoned. Simple enough, Sonny. Old times.”

  “That’s hard to believe.”

  “It shouldn’t be. We’re old friends.”

  He opened the impressive covers of the menu and examined the list of entrées. “I hope you can afford this,” he said, and she gave him a clear gaze.

  “You know I can.”

  “You’ve done well.”

  “More or less.”

  “I take it you’ve been with Bauer for a long time.”

  Her eyebrows were dark circumflexes, her smile droll. “In one way or another.”

  “Are you still a hooker?”

  “No, Sonny. I’m a good girl now.”

  Later she smiled up at the dashing wine waiter and selected a moderately priced bottle of Graves, which immediately gained the waiter’s approval: a perfect choice, a good year, an excellent buy. He backed off with a bow. “That’s what I would’ve picked,” Dawson said.

  “You’re kidding.”

  “Of course.”

  They chose rack of veal for dinner, which was served with anchovy fillets, creamed potatoes, and an exotic vegetable. Usually a fast eater, Dawson took his time, occasionally dabbed his mouth with a linen napkin, sampled the wine, and listened to the piano music. She said, “You’ve got another question. I can feel it coming.”

  “Did you know her?”

  “Who?”

  “Melody.”

  “I made it a point not to.”

  “Why?”

  “She was Alfred’s pet. I used to be. We all get older.”

  “But he still takes care of you.”

  “And I wouldn’t want to disturb that.”

  “Yes, I can understand.”

  “I thought you would. It’s one of the things I remember about you.” She rested an elbow on the table, and her bare arm seemed to float out of the silky sleeve. The only ring she wore was Andover High School, Class of 1967. “Innocents at play, weren’t we, Sonny? Junior year, as I remember. Backseat of your car.”

  “Your car. You didn’t like mine. You may have been ashamed of it.”

  “Wasn’t that. Mine had more room.”

  “Yours was smaller.”