Hardware (The Carlotta Carlyle Mysteries)

by Linda Barnes

  At first I thought Sam had slowed due to potholes. I was startled when I realized he was looking for a parking place.

  I was glad I hadn’t come alone.

  SEVEN

  Sam wedged the car across from a gray tripledecker that should have sported a CONDEMNED sign. By mutual agreement we left the battered Nova unlocked. That kind of neighborhood, locking a car is an unspoken challenge, street shorthand signifying that something inside might be worth stealing.

  I peered at the three closest dwellings; two were boarded up.

  “Coming?” Sam was heading briskly up the walkway toward the deserted triple, skirting puddles. I stared at the house again, shielding my eyes with a gloved hand. No curtains. No mailbox. I could smell rotten wood through the peeling paint. Boards gave as I climbed three warped steps to the spongy porch.

  Ignoring four doorbells—the house evidently included a basement flat—Sam rapped on the left-hand door, three long, two short, two long, a pause, and then a single rap.

  “Your friend sells crack? This a crack house?” I asked.

  “Shhh.”

  We waited while the wind whipped my hair into a knotted tangle. I’d already decided that the mysterious Frank wasn’t home when Sam knocked two more times.

  The door creaked.

  “In,” ordered a low-pitched voice. “Come on. Move it.”

  “Take it easy,” Sam said soothingly.

  “Get up the stairs. I don’t want the door open too long.”

  A nutcase, I thought. The stairs were steep and narrow, the stairwell smelly and dark.

  Frank’s second-floor digs featured cardboard-covered windows and overhead fluorescents, one of which was at the drive-you-crazy blinking stage just before burnout. Bolts turned and chains rattled into place. Then Frank scurried upstairs and proceeded to pace like a caged animal. If Sam had a case of the nerves, he’d caught it from Frank.

  I was torn between staring at Frank—as tall and skinny a specimen as I’ve encountered—and examining his dwelling. Since he seemed to be gawking at me, I concentrated on the surroundings, a cross between a computer warehouse and a junk shop. It didn’t take long to catalog the furniture.: two tables, two metal folding chairs, four gunmetal-gray bookcases jammed with technical manuals and unbound printouts. Everything else was machinery, cable, or cardboard box. Of the eight or nine visible monitors, none was a TV.

  While I gazed, Frank jabbered nonstop. Sam’s contribution to the mostly incomprehensible monologue was to toss in an occasional “slow down.”

  Since they’d terrorized Sister Xavier Marie together, I figured Frank must be the same age as Sam, pushing forty. I’d have guessed him younger or older. Younger due to his sheer nervous energy. Older since his hairline was receding, his long, dark hair graying at the temples, with flickers of silver throughout. His beard was shot with silver, too, shaggy and unkempt. His face was thin, his cheeks hollow, his temples sheer, bony plates.

  He wore brown leather pants and an open-necked white shirt, clothes with a decidedly foreign air. His accent was the same as Sam’s, pure Boston. Affected by education and travel, yes, but definitely more Revere than Riviera.

  Frank grabbed Sam by the shoulders. Staring at each other, they grinned hugely, then clinched in a bear hug, patting each other on the back, speaking rapid Italian. I tried to follow, becoming more and more aware of the limitations of my sole Romance language. I’d seen Sam with his four older siblings, three brothers and one sister, only a few times. They’d never embraced or kissed; they’d hardly smiled.

  This, I thought, is how I picture brothers from a big Italian family reuniting after a long separation.

  Frank, both delighted and frightened, exhilarated by our arrival, extended a grimy hand in my direction. I shook it. He held on too long, pressed too hard.

  “Miss Carlyle.” His voice was pleasantly deep, but he spoke quickly, with a jerky rhythm. “Miss Carlyle, I’m happy to meet you, so very glad. Heard about you, uh, heard about you so very much.” He swallowed the beginning and ending of each sentence. I had to watch his mouth to catch the words, practically lip-read.

  “I don’t know your last name,” I said.

  He glanced approvingly at Sam. “She doesn’t … uh, Frank. Just Frank. Frank will do.”

  “So will Carlotta.”

  Frank drew in a deep breath and crossed his arms over his chest. “You haven’t married this one, Sam. How come?” He seemed to realize that his question wasn’t exactly tactful, and sped on quickly. Nothing about the man stayed put, his arms were in constant motion, he jigged and jogged even when he wasn’t pacing. If I stayed in the same room with him long enough, I thought, I’d develop a tic.

  “How’s the blessed family?” he asked Sam. “How’s the holy trinity?”

  “My older brothers,” Sam explained to me with a grin.

  “Gilbert, Mitchell, and Anthony,” Frank sang in a pseudo-operatic falsetto.

  Sam laughed.

  “Which one’s the fattest?”

  “Mitch. Can’t keep away from Mexican food. Drives Papa crazy.”

  “‘Old Mitch the Mooch,’ we called him,” Frank said. “He’d steal your lunch money so fast you didn’t know it was gone.”

  “He wasn’t so fast; you were slow.”

  “And Tony, can’t keep away from the girls?”

  “Right,” Sam said.

  Frank folded his arms and walked stiff-legged around the room. I realized it was an imitation of Papa Gianelli even before the voice came out, and the voice was superb, mimicry worthy of applause. “It’s a good thing I hava da one boy screwed together straight. Gilberto, son of my heart.”

  “Gil’s carrying on the family tradition,” Sam said. He’d heard the routine once too often, or else he didn’t like the way Frank was trying to impress me.

  “Your heavenly sister’s married?” Frank inquired, standing very still.

  “Separated.”

  “That bum, Carlo?”

  “No, she married Irish. Papa had fits.”

  “Good for her. They have kids?”

  “Three girls. Boy died.”

  Sam bit his lip to keep from saying more, and I wanted to blurt out that the boy’s—the man’s—death was not my fault. It wasn’t. It was past history. Sam and I had managed to come to terms with the disaster. Far as I was concerned it was none of Frank’s business.

  “Papa still keep a shrine to your sainted mama?” Frank asked.

  “It stayed up a long time,” Sam said. “Flowers and candles and pictures. I almost feel like I remember her. Pop’s working on wife number four now.”

  I decided to turn the Q and A on our host.

  “And your family?” I said to him. “They live close by?” It was the only way I could see him choosing this house. An elderly mom, dad, or aunt who refused to leave the downstairs flat.

  “Sit,” he said. “Please, sit.” He glanced at the room as if he’d never seen it before. “Uh, sorry. I’ll get another chair.” He disappeared and returned instantly with a third metal folding job, banged it into a semi-conversational grouping. “I’ve got cold beer. Potato chips.”

  “You were telling me about your family,” I said, amused by his attempt at kid-in-a-dorm hospitality.

  “Dead,” he said bluntly. “I’m an orphan.”

  “Married?”

  “No.”

  “Never?”

  “Not now,” he said, his mouth twitching into what could have been a smile. He didn’t look at me when I questioned him. If I’d been a cop and he’d been a suspect in the interrogation room, I’d have read him his rights and dialed a public defender. He had to be a perp. Jumpy, nervous as a cat, afraid to make eye contact.

  I checked out his pallor and his clothes again. Maybe not a foreign country. Maybe prison. Solitary confinement, a place where he hadn’t needed to communicate with humans.

  Maybe a speech impediment or a hearing deficiency. I wished Sam had told me more about the man.
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br />   “You have kids?” I asked.

  “You?” he responded.

  Sam rocked back in his metal chair, uncomfortable with the exchange. “Look,” he said. “Let’s forget the small talk and do business.”

  Frank frowned. “That’s no way to treat an old buddy, Sam. You look terrific. Life’s been treating you pretty damned good.”

  Sam stayed silent. What could he have said: “You look like hell”?

  “We can’t stay long, Frank.”

  Frank stretched his lips over his teeth in an attempt at a grin. “Uh, okay. That’s okay, I guess. I won’t need to know much. How will she treat the equipment? I mean basics, is she okay? You sure about her? Positively, I mean?”

  Sam replied solemnly, “She’s good with machines. A good driver.”

  “Stick shift?”

  “I change my own oil,” I said. “What the hell is this?”

  “You’re the first woman who’s been in this apartment,” Frank said, so softly I almost missed it.

  Now, that surprised me. If Frank reminded me of an animal pacing his lair, the beast was wolf-like.

  “You move in recently?” I asked.

  He laughed, stood, and slapped Sam on the shoulder. “I like her,” he murmured to Sam. “It’s a deal.”

  What had Frank looked like as a child, what manner of blood-brother oaths had the two little boys exchanged? I’ve met a few of Sam’s male friends over the years, although he tends to keep me away from his family since cops and robbers don’t mix. They aren’t all handsome, but they all share a certain level of polish.

  Not this one.

  Frank’s flat smelled greasy. Burger King wrappers were strewn in the corners. God knows what else.

  To hurry things up, I said, “Sam tells me you’ve got some extra computer equipment.”

  His chest swelled. “Whatever you need.”

  “A basic PC and a modem.”

  “That’s all?” He seemed disappointed.

  “That’s all.”

  “You into reading BBSs?”

  “I want to link into an information database, a major one.”

  “An infomart like PC Profile or—”

  “I was thinking U.S. Datalink.”

  “They’re all available,” he said. “But as far as a PC goes, you’ll need something decent or you’re gonna work up a hell of a phone bill. Something where you can program a macro search strategy off-line. Datalink has good front-end software. Very compatible. I could fix you up with ProComm, maybe, or CrossTalk, or there might be something pirated. I’ll scan the BBSs. The bulletin boards. BBSs is short for bulletin boards.”

  “Pirated?” I repeated. It was one of the few words I’d picked out of his rushed babble. “I’m not interested in merchandise that fell off the back of a truck.”

  “No, no, no,” he said quickly. “I’m talking software. The hardware’s bought and paid for; it’s obsolete for what I do, that’s all. I’d like to give it a good home. Software’s different; it belongs to everyone. Information belongs to everyone. You think we should padlock libraries, give the librarians the keys? Give the keys to AT&T and the goddamn technocracy, so the masses can be worker bees for the rest of their lives?”

  “Frank,” Sam said firmly, “we’ll take the equipment, not the sermon.”

  “An old PC/XT,” Frank mumbled, as if he were talking to himself. “That’s the ticket, that’s what you need. With a modem card.”

  “How much would a PC/XT set me back? With this modem card?”

  “You plug it into any phone jack.”

  “How much?” I asked.

  “Good home?” He looked at Sam.

  “Excellent. Highest recommendation.”

  “A gift, then.”

  “No,” I said.

  “She’s got a cat,” Sam amended.

  “A cat.” Frank looked horrified. “Is she going to get rid of it?”

  “What are we talking about here?” I asked. “I have a bird too. The world’s oldest, nastiest parakeet.”

  “Cat hair’s bad for computers,” Frank said hurriedly. “So is dust. And you have to get a static protector if you’re working on carpet. And …”

  I glanced at Sam, eyebrows raised.

  “It’s a good home,” Sam said earnestly. “She’ll do right by your PC, Frank.”

  “Since there’s a cat, fifty bucks,” he said, crossing his arms. “Fifty firm.”

  I felt like I was slipping through the looking glass with a skinny version of Tweedledee holding out a helping hand.

  “Done,” I said. I’d never envisioned paying less than three hundred to get myself on-line. I’d feared the price tag might go higher.

  And much as I hated to admit it, on-line was the future. If I was going to keep cutting it as a private eye in this town—a less sexist place than some, but still not a utopia where many seek the help of a female P.I.—I was going to have to keep up-to-date.

  Computers have arrived. There it is. Pretty soon there’ll be a different kind of cop show on TV. Uniforms’ll sit around and punch keyboards and discover—gasp—who checked out porno tapes from Videosmith today. I wish I could get into computers, but they have a level of abstraction that doesn’t make me tingle. Cars are truly the only machines I enjoy tinkering with, probably because I grew up in Detroit when cars were sacred chariots.

  Things change. I drive a Toyota. I need a computer.

  “You want a Coke?” Frank asked, as if suddenly remembering that he ought to inquire. He couldn’t seem to decide whether to rush us out the door or hold us hostage. “I mean, if you’re not into beer?”

  “I’m not real happy about leaving a car on the street,” Sam said.

  “You brought your own car?”

  “I borrowed something.”

  “And you parked in front? What are you trying to do to me? Jesus. You better get going.”

  “Let’s get the stuff first. You know where this PC happens to be?”

  “Of course I do. Original carton. I’ll help you load it.”

  “I can carry it, Frank.”

  “I could use the air.”

  I could see his point. I wanted out and I’d only been there fifteen minutes.

  It took another twenty for the three of us to locate the correct equipment plus manuals, and for Frank to swear that he’d run a search for whatever software could get me the best bang per buck on Datalink. He spoke in initials and put his phrases together so oddly, with no apparent punctuation, that I didn’t understand half of what he said. I kept looking to Sam to translate as if Frank were speaking Italian, and then I’d realize that the words were English, just double-timed and oddly used. Verbs for nouns. Nouns for verbs. Acronyms sprinkled throughout.

  “Getting dark” was one phrase I caught.

  “We’ll be going,” Sam said. I tried not to nod agreement too vigorously.

  “You can’t stick this baby in the trunk, Sam. You want to rest it on the floor of the backseat, on a blanket, or better, she could hold it, maybe.”

  “Yeah, ‘she’ could hold it,” I said. I counted two twenties and a ten into his hand and decided not to give advice about what to do with the cash. A moving van sprang to mind.

  “You could pay me later,” he said. His dark eyes had short, bristly lashes. His eyebrows almost met, knitting themselves into an angry slash across his face.

  “I like to settle up as I go along,” I said.

  Sam carried the computer. Frank grabbed the manuals away from me. Also a carton of diskettes he’d insisted on tossing in as a last-minute bonus. I had to promise not to let the cat shed on them.

  The deepening twilight hadn’t improved the block’s appearance. It obscured the mush puddles. My feet were soaked in an instant. Sam had parked close to a streetlamp. Its feeble bulb provided little light. The borrowed car appeared unmolested, but it could have had an additional dent or five. I wouldn’t have noticed.

  Frank fiddled and fussed and decided the computer carton was
too large for me to hold on my lap. He took his time arguing about safe stowage, then set off on a lengthy cautionary tale about surge suppressors.

  I was starting to follow his accelerated speech, but it took concentration.

  I didn’t see the black van turn the corner. I heard the screech of tires. It should have had its headlights on. It shouldn’t have been going so fast, I thought as Sam crashed into me, shoving me to the ground, yelling at Frank to get down, get down. I was falling by the time I heard shots. Instinctively I turned my head, too late to keep my gaping mouth from filling with slush. I spat and felt Sam’s weight on top of me. I saw the flash, coming from the passenger side of the black van. Flash and flash again. Automatic fire lit the sky like lightning.

  I could feel Sam’s heart beating furiously. I tried to shift him off me, but he raised his hand, covering my mouth. With both hands trapped underneath me there wasn’t much I could do about the imposed hush. I breathed deeply, flexed my arms and legs, found them in working order.

  What struck me was the silence. If I could have, I would have screamed, just to release tension. Nobody cracked a window, nobody yelled.

  I couldn’t expect much from the graveyard residents, but one of the living neighbors might have roused himself from TV-induced stupor or drug-dealer-bred fear, inquired if we were living or dead.

  Mush fell.

  EIGHT

  The first noise, other than my rasping breath, was cop cars, sirens pulsing.

  Sam’s bulk shifted and moved. “Get in the car!” His voice seemed too loud.

  “We’ve gotta wait—”

  “Get in, Carlotta.”

  “Dammit, how’s Frank? Are you okay? Am I okay?”

  “Frank’s gone. We’re gone.” He yanked me to my feet and pushed me toward the Nova.

  I found myself unceremoniously shoved inside. “What the hell?” I could have invited a broken shoulder by butting against the slamming door. Instead I wriggled closer to the steering wheel, my teeth chattering.

  Sam gunned the motor before he shut the door. He didn’t burn rubber taking off; neither did he imitate a Sunday driver heading to church.