"Sure. Your bank'll think you're dead, so you can't cash a check."
"Right. Assuming I still had a checkbook."
"How much?"
I cleared my throat. "Seven or eight hundred dollars."
She cleared hers. "What do you want that kind of money for?"
"I'm going to have to buy some information."
"You going to buy anything else?" she asked cautiously.
"Nancy, I believe that whoever blew up my building is still around. As long as he thinks he killed me, I'll be pretty safe. As soon as he realizes he didn't, I'm going to need protection. I've got a firearms card, remember? I won't be breaking any laws buying a gun."
As she considered it, I realized that I should have said I was issued a firearms card, since my wallet was probably ashes, either burned by Curl or with him.
"O.K.," she relented. "Just don't let this get out. I'd hate to have people know I was a shy for a private eye."
"Ogden Nash would be proud of you."
"Where are you staying?"
Her question made me realize that I couldn't be quite over the effects of Ricker and Jacquie. I had less than carfare left in my pocket, and nowhere to sleep.
"I'm going to try the Pine Street Inn," I said, a genuine charity that housed and fed homeless, often derelict, men.
"Forget it," she said. "In cold weather it's full by three P.M. You can stay at my place. Where are you now, I'll pick you up."
"Nancy, you don't—"
"No arguments. Where are you?"
I told her I'd be in the doorway of Elsie's, a Mt. Aubum Street restaurant and the most famous of the Harvard College hamburger hang-outs.
"I'l1 drive by in thirty minutes. Red Honda Civic."
"I remember."
"See you then."
"Nancy?"
"Yes?"
"Thanks."
* * *
When I got into her car, she smiled, her eyes no redder than a winter's evening should have made them. I felt the glow again as she squeezed my left forearm, then returned her right hand to the stickshift and kept it there.
"Put your seatbelt on," she said.
We got onto Memorial Drive, toward Boston. .
"You look pretty shabby," she said.
"Borrowed clothes."
She moved her head in concurrence.
We drove on in silence, halted at the Stop & Shop traffic light.
"What do you like for breakfast?" she asked, glancing at the supermarket.
"Oh," I said, "whatever you have in the house will be fine."
The light changed. We eased forward with the surrounding traffic.
"What happened to the wise-ass PI who nearly gave me heart failure today?"
"He got nervous."
"About what?"
"About being a houseguest."
She laughed, then caught herself. "I'm sorry, John. It's just that . . . well, your place has been blown up, three or four people killed around you, and—" She shook her head. "Staying with me shakes you up."
I squirmed a little under the seatbelt. "I'm an odd one, all right."
"Pity there aren't more like you."
She negotiated the corkscrew ramps up and over the Longfellow Bridge, then down behind North Station. We drove along Commercial Street to Atlan tic Avenue via the nameless byway under the Southeast Expressway. The Honda crossed over the Commonwealth Pier access road and then onto Summer Street toward South Boston.
I told her she was good at avoiding traffic.
She began to say, "Avoidance is . . ." then dropped it.
South Boston is one of the few residential neighborhoods in the city where residents can find a parking place on the street in front of their houses. Nancy maneuvered into a space, and we went inside and up the stairs.
At our footsteps, the door on the second landing opened.
"Hi, Drew," said Nancy cheerily.
"Nancy," said Lynch in reply, closing his door.
She opened her apartment door, and I followed her in.
"Make yourself comfortable in the living room."
"Fine," I said, walking by her.
"Would you like something stronger than ice water this time?"
"Do you have any vodka?"
"Yes."
"Then vodka and anything will be fme."
"Do you prefer orange juice or grapefruit juice for breakfast?"
"Orange."
"Then it's vodka and grapefruit tonight."
"Fine," I repeated, collapsing into her throw pillows, registering the aches in joints and organs from drugs and batterings and train and bus rides. I felt the way over-thirty quarterbacks have described themselves at the end of the season. I closed my eyes.
I opened them as Nancy came in with the drinks, hers a Scotch and water from the look of it. I didn't think I had dropped off, but Nancy had changed from suit to jeans and a red cowlneck sweater. A lot like Jacquie's.
I started to stand. She pushed me back and handed me my drink.
"To life," she said, lightly pinging her glass against mine.
"To life,” I agreed.
We sipped. She nestled down Indian-style on the floor.
"Tell you what," she said, carefully placing her drink on the low table. "Let's pretend, O.K.?"
"Pretend?" I said.
"Yes, let's pretend that I've already fed us two steaks from my freezer, and plied you with liquor, and asked you if you were ready for bed. Let's pretend that you said you were and that I gave you the choice of my room or the couch and you chose the couch.
O.K.?"
I grinned sheepishly. "O.K."
"Good. Now we can both relax and maybe even enjoy each other's company." She picked up her glass and took a long draw.
"Well," she said, replacing the glass and cradling back on her elbows, "tell me about what happened."
I told her. It took through dinner and beyond, but I told her. Most of it.
TWENTY-ONE
-•-
I WOKE UP WITH A START. THERE WAS A LOT OF SUNSHINE in the room. Too much. Then I remembered Nancy's parlor would have southeastem exposure and get a lot of morning sun, even in winter. I wondered why she didn't grow more plants. I also wondered what time it was.
I didn't hear any stirrings in the apartment. I swung my legs out from under the covers and off the couch, sitting up. I felt about fifty percent better than I had the night before. I walked to the bay window and looked down at the street. Her car was gone.
I went into the kitchen. A pencil and a note were on the table.
John, I'm going to the bank and one other stop.
Be back by 10:30. N.M. 8:45
P.S. I looked in on you twice. Your face is angelic
when you're asleep. Maybe you can tell a book by
its cover.
I smiled and glanced up at her wall clock. 9:10 A.M. I penciled a circle around the "10:30" on her note and wrote, "So will I."
The door to Nancy's bedroom closet was open, and she had a couple of oversized T-shirts at the bottom of it. She probably used them as nightgowns. Beth always did.
I tugged on a couple of T-shirts for insulation and tried not to notice her perfume or feel like a transvestite. I pulled on Amie's clothes and figured I was warm enough for the short walk, even in March. There was a chance that somebody would spot me, so I rummaged rudely through Nancy's closet shelf till I found a watch cap that wasn't too feminine looking. I pulled the cap down and put the collar up.
I looked in the mirror. Only one person would recognize me. The only one who really mattered. By the time I entered the gate, I was hungry. I walked up the main car path, then took the second right-hand walkway, as always.
As I approached her, I thought how most people felt that snow on the ground made places more dreary. Sorry, but that was not possible here. Neither spring flowers nor winter storms affect a cemetery. It's always the lost part of lost and found, even though labeled by marble markers.
I reached he
r, hunching my shoulders a little against an edge of wind from the harbor.
"It's been a while, Beth," I said.
She agreed.
"I saw Al's family, out in Pittsburgh. Martha, his wife, is taking it well. His son, Al Junior, is too young to realize yet. They're really strapped, though, so he'll realize it pretty soon. You see, Al let everything go. No insurance, no support from his company. Martha has some real close friends out there, a woman with a little boy older than Al Junior, and a gay guy across the street. With just a chunk of money, maybe twenty-five or thirty thousand, they'd be 0.K. They could hold onto the house, at least long enough to sell it reasonably instead of at sacrifice. But that means finding somebody to pay, that means . . ."
Beth asked me about the "other woman" in Pittsburgh.
I winked and laughed. "Well, she was pretty cute. She hasn't had it too easy either, a bum for a husband, but that was years ago, the divorce, I mean, and now she's pretty solid."
I sighed and went on. "At least I hope she's solid. I had to tell someone out there what I thought about Al's death being a cover-up for something else. Martha was in no shape, she was just coming out of it, the shock and all. Dale—that's the gay guy—I think he was in the process of losing his lover, and I think he knew it. That pretty much left Carol, Al's boss being a schmuck on any list."
I paused to let her get a word in edgewise. I heard a car door slam behind me. An elderly woman and a small boy left the car, the boy bounding ahead.
"Washington? Oh, I had a ball in Washington. First I got mugged, then I got set up by J.T. From the army, remember? Then . . ."
I phrased my situation with Jacquie and rescue as delicately as I could. "You saved me, Beth. As usual. But I felt badly about having to deck the MP. I hope J.T. at least has the balls to own up and not use the kid as a scapegoat. I . . ."
The boy from the car pulled even with us and stared at me. Maybe I was talking a little loudly. It's hard for me to tell sometimes. The boy, who was about seven years old, twisted around and darted off, stopping briefly at each gravestone before running to the next. Then a voice from behind me. "Harleee! Harley. You come back now, you heah? Right now. Harley?" The woman was dressed in a light blue pantsuit and a heavy, ill-fitting outer coat.
"He must be over here, Gram," Harley replied.
The boy had none of the woman's strong Southern accent.
"Harley, he can't be over theah, boy! That's the Fs and the Gs. He's over theah. In the Ls, where he belongs. Harley!"
I was tempted to tell the woman that this cemetery wasn't alphabetical, that the assignment of resting places was a function of price and chronology.
"I see an L over here, Gram! In fact, two Ls."
"Harley, Gramps is over theah. He has been over theah for seventeen months. To the left, Harley, to the left. By the Ls."
"I see another L!" called Harley back, and continued his survey.
The elderly woman muttered none too sweetly under her breath. She began to stomp doggedly down the path to the left.
I looked down at Beth's headstone. Elizabeth Mary Devlin Cuddy. Would she be in the Cs for Cuddy, or the Ds for Devlin, or even the Bs for Beth .... You jerk! The Bs. "I had a lotta luck with the Bs, John-boy." Al, who never expressed a liking for hockey, or betting on it, but who always loved looking through phone books for people he knew. Blowing half an R-and-R on the Honolulu directory. Now I knew how Al had found his killer. And I knew I could find him, too.
I turned back to Beth. I started to tell her about Nancy, and the glow, but after a few sentences she could tell my heart wasn't in it. She shooed me off.
* * *
I got back to Nancy's place and realized I had no key to her building's front door. I debated pushing the Lyuches' bell for about two minutes, shivering on the front steps and anxious to go through the telephone book. I was about to buzz them when I heard two quick honks from the street. It was Nancy.
She got out with a grocery bag in the crook of her right arm. She strode up to me. She had the spring of an athlete, even with the bag.
"You don't look any better in that hat than I do." She laughed, more with her eyes than her voice.
I smiled and thought about offering to take the bag. I decided not to, chivalry yielding to feminism.
"Here," she said, shoving the bag into my arms. "Hold this."
She keyed the lock. We went in and upstairs, me carrying the bag.
"Set it on the kitchen table."
I did. She tossed off her coat and crossed to the table. She rummaged around in the bag, producing a packet of disposable Bic razors, some shaving cream, a toothbrush, and some Old Spice stick deodorant. I scratched elaborately under my arms. "That bad, huh?"
She laughed again, music.
"It occurred to me this morning that I wasn't too well stocked for male guests with no luggage." She pulled out a package of nondescript briefs and two exceptionally cheap-looking dress shirts.
"I guessed on size but skimped on quality." She shrugged. "I didn't want to buy good stuff that wouldn't iit.”
I thanked her and pulled off the watch cap. Reilexively she put her fist in her mouth to stifle a shriek. "Maybe I should have favored a hairbrush over the toothbrush."
I popped in the bathroom. I looked like a punk rocker only halfway down the assembly line. I came back out and scooped up the things she'd bought for me.
"Maybe I should just shave my head while I'm at it."
"Oh, do. That'll certainly make you inconspicuous."
We both laughed. She gave me a quick, strong hug and asked if I'd had breakfast. I said no. She told me to shower and shave while she made it, and pointed to the narrow vertical shutter on the wall that hid the towels.
It was a simple, silly domestic scene. Maybe the best few minutes I'd had in a couple of years.
When I came out of the bathroom, we had bacon, eggs, orange juice, and English muffins with choice of jam or marmalade. The bacon was a bit overdone for my taste, but I wasn't shy about seconds.
I insisted on clearing away and washing the dishes. I started getting itchy about the telephone book, but didn't want Nancy to see it.
As I dried the last of them and turned around, Nancy reached into her purse and put an envelope on the table. She nudged it toward me. I dried my hands and opened it. Mostly twenties and tens.
I arched my eyebrows at her.
"There's eight hundred dollars. In smaller bills, no higher than a twenty. And old ones. I told the teller I was going on a trip and didn't want to risk giving away too new bills on some Caribbean island. She recommended travelers' checks for safety, but I stood firm on cash and carry."
"Just an old—fashioned girl, huh?"
Nancy blinked a few times. "In most ways," she said, softly.
I felt dangerously close. Close to saying something and close to her. "Shouldn't you be getting off to work?"
She hid most of her disappointment with a good effort at a smile. She stood up and crossed to a cabinet drawer. "Yes, I should. I called the office and told them I had a doctor's appointment I'd forgotten and absolutely couldn't break again. I just drew bail appeal this morning, anyway."
She turned and tossed something to me. "Catch."
Two keys held together on a paper clip. "Big key, downstairs door. Little key, upstairs door."
I hefted them in my palm. "What do I say to Mrs. Lynch?"
Nancy disappeared into her bedroom to change. "Better tell her you're my cousin." She closed the door.
No, Nance, I don't think I'll tell her that. Nancy had said she'd be home about six. I told her not to wait for me. She had asked if there was anything else she could do for me. I thanked her and said no.
I watched her get into the Honda and drive off before grabbing the telephone book. I dialed Murphy's special number as I traced down through the Bs to Ba, Be, Bea ....
"Murphy here."
Bee, Beg. "Hello, Lieutenant. Just reporting in." Bek.
"Hold on a second.
" I heard him yell at Cross to close the door.
Bel! "Listen, one of my people fouled up. You better hear about it."
I looked away from the telephone book. "Fouled up? What do you mean?"
"A reporter was pressing Daley. Remember, the guy from the morgue?"
"I remember him."
"Well, it was a woman reporter and the damn fool sort of confirmed that the corpse in the building was you."
"So?"
"So you're on page fucking four of the morning Globe. "
"Photograph?"
"No, just a short three-inch follow-up, ID'ing you as the dead man. I'm gonna chew his ass good."
"You know, Lieutenant, he may have helped rather than hurt. I've got no family in the area to be upset, and I should be through before any friends volunteer to shepherd my remains through the formalities."
"I can hold that up anyway. Glad it's no trouble for you." Murphy grunted. "Course, I'm still gonna chew his ass." .
"I'll call you tonight."
"You got anything?"
"Not yet. I'll still call tonight."
"Sooner if you get something."
"I will."
He rang off.
I went back to the Bels. Beldow, Belgrade, Bell, dozens of Bells, then Belson, then . . . wait a minute. K before L. I went back. No Belk's. No Belker. I threw the white pages across the room.
I went through the Yellow Pages. Nothing. They landed just to the left of the white pages. Some guest I was.
Guest? Al was a guest in a hotel. Probably just Boston white and yellow pages in the rooms, but the lobby?
I closed my eyes and could picture a bank of pay phones I'd used just outside the bar entrance at Al's hotel. With a library of phone books below them. Al, just killing time, thumbing through them.
I took Nancy's money and hopped a Summer Street bus to South Station. I cabbed it from there to my rent-a-car place. Luck was with me. The guy behind the counter had dealt with me before and didn't look like he read comic books much less newspapers. A ten persuaded him that I'd left my wallet in my other coat and that the license number I gave him was accurate. I got into the late model Chrysler and drove to the hotel.
The clerk at the desk was the striking blonde the uniformed Keller had tried to pick up. I dodged her glance successfully and went to the phone bank out of her field of vision. Hanging under them were eight or ten phone books in those black, metallic, swivel looseleafs. I levered up one suburban directory after another. Nothing.
The Staked Goat - Jeremiah Healy Page 18