Hardware

by Linda Barnes

  “He can take care of himself. He’s … resourceful.”

  I breathed. In and out. In and out. Counted to twenty twice. My left hand was shaking and I stuck it between my thighs to steady it.

  “What was that about, Sam?” My breathing was screwed up. It took me three tries to get the words out.

  “A drive-by. What’s the matter? Don’t you read the papers anymore?”

  “A drive-by,” I repeated. “And what else?”

  “Nothing else. You hear them?”

  “I heard you yell and I got tackled.”

  “Fuckers. Leaning out the windows, screaming that ‘kill honky’ bullshit. We are not exactly in an integrated area. One of the neighbors is probably chief whitey watcher for some street gang.”

  “And they never spotted Frank before?”

  “He doesn’t go out.”

  “Did you get a look at them? Were they wearing colors?”

  “What?”

  “Gang colors, Sam. Could you pick ’em out? Bromley-Heath? Academy Homes? Goyas?”

  “No, Carlotta. I did not concentrate on what the fuck they were wearing.”

  “Sam, where are you going?”

  It took him a while to admit that he didn’t exactly know.

  “Pull over. Let me drive.”

  He squealed the brakes and yanked the wheel. We came to a stop under an ailanthus tree. “You know where we are?”

  “Get out and do a fast runaround. I’ll slide over, get us into Franklin Park and back to the Arboretum and we can—”

  “Don’t drive to a police station,” he warned as soon as he hit the passenger seat.

  “I’ll park someplace in J.P.,” I promised. Jamaica Plain is a residential neighborhood where they allow on-street overnight parking. The Nova wouldn’t stick out.

  “Abandon the car,” Sam agreed eagerly.

  “At least check to see if it’s wearing bullet holes. We could be leaking gas or transmission fluid—”

  “Somebody may have seen it. We need to ditch it.”

  “Sam, what the hell is going on?”

  “Carlotta, I am not getting involved in this. It was a racial thing. That’s it. But the minute my name comes into it, it will be a Mafia thing, and you damn well know it.”

  “Sam, it wasn’t your fault. You’re a victim here. You should call the cops.”

  “Listen to you,” he said, shaking his head. “You talk like a child. Fault. My family, everything’s been my fault since I was born.”

  The steering wheel felt warm against my icy hands.

  “After my mother died,” he went on, “when I was a baby—a toddler, I guess—my brothers took me to church and left me there, like they thought God would accept me as an offering, a kind of exchange, and give Mama back.”

  “The priest must have been happy to see you,” I said. Sam doesn’t speak of his childhood often. The gunfire seemed to have loosened his tongue.

  “Oh, they didn’t take me to the local parish. Not that dumb. They wrapped me in rags, stuck me in a stroller they’d pinched from a garbage dump. Not the fancy Gianelli carriage all the mamas in the North End could identify. I was just a baby dumped on a doorstep, well on my way to a wonderful life in foster care.”

  “Who found you?”

  “I only know this from stories, the way it was told to me. Papa jumped to the conclusion that I’d been kidnapped, the biggest crime since the Lindbergh baby. Fired the nanny on the spot. She didn’t have her papers, had to go back to Italy. He wanted her arrested, but he settled for deported.”

  “It wasn’t her fault.”

  “There you go again,” Sam said.

  “How did your father find you?”

  “He heard my brothers praying in the nursery, asking God to take me instead of Mama. Beat the crap out of them till they talked. I remember he said by the time he got me back, I was sick. A cold, but he thought I was really going to die.”

  “Do you believe it?” I asked. “The story? I mean, your brothers were adolescents, teenagers. Old enough to know God doesn’t play Let’s Make a Deal.”

  Sam shrugged. “My father could have made the whole thing up. Any of the boys could have invented it, as a way to let me know they didn’t want me around. That’s the most likely explanation, but hell, I suppose I could have been kidnapped by the Winter Hill Gang. It doesn’t matter.”

  I licked my lips. My hands weren’t shaking anymore. They felt numb.

  “When Gina’s son died, they blamed me,” Sam went on.

  “Did Gina blame you?”

  “No,” he said with a trace of a smile. “She blamed you. Whatever, what I’m trying to say is, I’m not getting my family involved in this.”

  “Even if it was a Mafia thing,” I said.

  “I don’t know any Italians who hang in that neighborhood,” Sam said.

  “Frank looks Italian. Could it be somebody after Frank?” I asked.

  “The housing inspector, I suppose. Code violations.”

  “What if it was an Organized Crime Task Force thing?” I said. “Considering they’re so interested in you.”

  “Not their style, Carlotta. They’re the good guys.”

  “Sam, I think you should let me inspect the bugs.”

  “Don’t start, Carlotta. I know what I know. When I said I had experts check them out, I meant experts!”

  I drove slowly, stopping at each yellow light. If I piloted a cab like that, I’d get picked up on suspicion.

  “What about you?” Sam asked suddenly. “Is somebody gunning for you?”

  “Who’d you have in mind?”

  “You were a cop.”

  “A while ago.”

  “Are you into something I don’t know about?”

  “Such as?”

  “You working for any crazies?”

  I ran through my almost nonexistent caseload. Two skip-traces that would be speeded up by the acquisition of the computer. One inconclusive store surveillance, possible clerk theft.

  Phil Yancey.

  “Maybe Roz is jealous,” Sam suggested.

  “You think she’s got the hots for you?”

  “The shrink next door. I think he’s got the hots for you.”

  “When Roz wants me dead, she’ll poison leftovers in the fridge. Did you see the guns sticking out of that van? Like Prohibition photos.”

  I turned onto a dark lane off Centre Street.

  “Gas station with a pay phone three blocks from here,” I said, pulling over and parking behind a gray Nissan Stanza.

  “Good. Let’s go,” Sam said.

  “First, you tell me whose car this is. Chances are the cops will get the plate number. And somebody’s gonna talk, and we’re both gonna get roasted. I’ve got my P.I. license at stake. I’m supposed to report crimes, not assist cover-ups.”

  “You’ve never kept anything from the cops before, Carlotta?”

  I didn’t bother with a denial. “The best thing we can do is call the police—”

  “The car’s expendable.”

  “‘Expendable.’” I bet Papa Gianelli used that word a lot. “Frank’s the most likely target, Sam. Why’s he living in a slum like that?”

  “Let’s get to the gas station,” Sam said impatiently. “I’ll carry the computer stuff. We’ll call Gloria and she’ll send a cab.”

  “For chrissakes,” I said. “You’re hopeless. Good thing you didn’t go into the family business. If we’re not gonna report this, at least we gotta wipe our fingerprints off the goddamn steering wheel.”

  If you’re going to break the law, do it right.

  NINE

  “Theater is life.

  Film is art.

  Television is furniture.”

  Roz, my delightful tenant, has taken to adding words to her artwork, black graffiti surrounded by swirling orange, green, and fuchsia acrylics. She field-tests her paintings by hanging them near my bed, the idea being that if I don’t puke when I see them, she might be able to sell th
em. Possibly she considers them more saleable if I vomit.

  She snitches most of her slogans from daytime TV soaps: “Can Catherine prove she’s Dominic’s ill-fated half sister?” “Luke and Laura ponder home decoration.” She uses TV commercials, too, did a whole series based on “It’s not your father’s Oldsmobile.” She despairs of Reebok, insists they parody themselves too perfectly for commentary.

  The theater, film, and television poster is what I saw when I came out of a sweaty nightmare. I liked it enough to wonder if she’d give me a discount.

  I could lie and say that yesterday’s shooting was like a dream. It wasn’t. It was for sure the hell real. I had achy knees and a black-and-blue spot the size of a silver dollar where Sam’s elbow had caught me between the ribs. And a king-size case of the guilts, worse than any hangover.

  A hangover, you drink a quart of O.J., step under a cold shower, hit the Y, play volleyball, swim twenty laps. If you don’t die, you’re cured. The guilts are worse. They require confession, particularly if you grew up in a Jewish-Catholic family. Probably the only thing my mom and dad agreed on was the vital importance of guilt.

  O.J. and a cold shower had no effect.

  As soon as I went downstairs I spied last night’s spoils, the hardware—keyboard, computer, and screen—on my desk. I mentally tagged them Exhibit A.

  I snagged the plastic-bagged morning Globe off the snow-covered stoop and spread it across my desk. I drank more orange juice, from a glass this time.

  The cat, T.C., rubbed against my ankles. I didn’t respond with food, so he stalked off in a huff.

  The drive-by hadn’t made the front page. Slaughter in Bosnia, the umpteenth series of Senate hearings on organized crime, remembrances of the Warsaw Ghetto.

  It took two runs through the Metro section to find mention of my crime. It rated barely two inches of column space on page 26, under the fold. Frank must have escaped unscathed. Injuries would make for more drama, greater detail.

  I found my hand wandering to the phone, caught it and brought it back.

  Dammit, I wanted to call Mooney.

  Mooney is my main contact with the Boston PD. He used to be my boss. He’s achieved his dream job: lieutenant in charge of homicide. My fingers inched toward the phone buttons, hesitated. It wasn’t like I could provide blinding insight. I’d never seen the shooters, wouldn’t be able to ID the vehicle. I could point the police at Frank, but the cops would have done a routine door-to-door.

  It came down to personal loyalty to Sam, compounded by a question of law and order. A question, also, of getting in trouble. I felt like a gawky adolescent, deciding whether or not to tattle on a schoolmate: Judy’s smoking in the girls’ room.

  Where was Sister Xavier Marie when you needed moral guidance?

  I telephoned area hospitals and inquired about gunshot wounds. The paper hadn’t mentioned injuries, but half of what they print is filler and the other half is dubious. That’s what cops tell me.

  Most gunshots are admitted to Boston City Hospital. It’s got location, location, location, as the realtors say. I used my social engineering skills to determine that none of their bullet-ridden patients was a tall, gaunt white man. It galled me that I didn’t know Frank’s last name.

  When the phone rang I jumped, expecting Mooney. Our knack for reading each other’s thoughts helped when I was on the force. Now that I’m off, it scares me.

  Sam’s deep baritone sounds soothing even when his words don’t.

  “Just checking,” he said.

  “On what?”

  “You know.”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Your line’s been busy.”

  “Is this the loyalty oath part, Sam?” I said icily. “My mother once told me the great grief of my grandmother’s life was that she never got to testify before the House Committee on Un-American Activities. She used to rehearse her speech in front of the mirror, telling HUAC how they ought to be ashamed of themselves, hounding good Communists when they could sink their teeth into J. Edgar Hoover without half trying.”

  “What are you trying to tell me, Carlotta?”

  “I have a bad attitude about loyalty oaths.”

  “You feeling okay?” Sam asked. “Otherwise?”

  “Bruises. Do you know if our, uh, companion is also in good health?”

  “He’s fine,” Sam said.

  “You want to hire me now? To find out who wanted to waste your friend—or you?”

  “What I want to do is forget it. It had nothing to do with us. It wasn’t personal, Carlotta.”

  “When I get shot at, I take it personally.”

  “Well, do it on your own dime. If you’re dying to find out which gang we ticked off, waste your own time and money. Leave me out of it.”

  “Suppose I need to find Frank,” I said. “Suppose his junk doesn’t do squat when I plug it in?”

  “He’ll find you,” Sam said. “He’ll want to know that the computer’s okay. That it didn’t get hit by a stray round.”

  “What about me?”

  “He asked after your health.”

  “Should I be flattered?”

  “Are you?”

  “What’s Frank’s last name?”

  “He doesn’t use it.”

  “He serve with you in Vietnam?”

  “Why?”

  “Something about the way you both hit the ground together. Like teamwork. Like you both knew the ropes.”

  “Carlotta, neighborhood we grew up in, we didn’t have to visit Southeast Asia.”

  I waited. He’d called me, not the other way around.

  “I have some advice,” he said finally.

  “Yeah?” I thought he was going to issue a dire warning about the consequences of calling the cops.

  “Leave Frank out of it. I know it’s a good story, but leave Frank out. If you can’t live with your goddamn conscience, make it you and me, but leave him out completely.”

  “That could be part of the deal,” I said.

  “What deal?”

  “I don’t go to the cops, and I won’t mention Frank, on one condition.”

  “What?”

  “You tell Gloria that G and W’s bugged.”

  “Why?” he said. “You think she runs numbers out of there in her spare time?”

  “She deserves to know,” I said.

  “Her room isn’t bugged. I had it swept. It’s soundproof. The G and W bugs can’t touch it.”

  “Tell her or I call the cops. Simple as that.”

  I could hear him breathing over the line.

  “Okay,” he said finally. “Deal.”

  “Tell her if she doesn’t like it, she can start playing loud music. Lots of garages play music.”

  “That wasn’t part of the deal,” he said.

  I waited.

  “I’ll mention it,” he said. “You want me to recommend any tunes?”

  “Depends,” I said. “If Gloria’s tired of the Geezers, I’d go with rap. If she enjoys inhaling stogie smoke, she should find some Irish stuff. The Chieftains.”

  “I’m sure the task force would prefer The Chieftains,” Sam said.

  “Now, why the big hush-hush about Frank?”

  “I don’t ask a lot of favors, Carlotta. I’m asking. Don’t do anything to hurt him.”

  I drummed my fingers on the desk top.

  “Please,” he said quietly. “It’s important to me.”

  Maybe he sensed I was about to argue.

  He hung up. I held the receiver to my ear until the phone company beep drove me off the line.

  TEN

  Life sputtered on. Newspaper recipes for turkey leftovers gave way to instructions for homemade Christmas stocking stuffers. All roads leading to shopping malls were impassable. I dumped the summer clothes out of my closet and into one of the empty rooms I could rent to a Harvard student if I got truly cash poor.

  With manuals in hand, cursing whoever had laboriously translated them from the Taiwanes
e, I managed to hook up my computer, only to find it utterly useless without Frank’s promised software. I wound up locating my skip-traces the old-fashioned way, using guile and fast talk.

  I did not hear from Frank.

  Lee Cochran did not return my calls. I went to his office. He was out. I shoved a note under his door: Please call.

  I cleaned the birdcage and the litter box. After re-caulking my bedroom windows for the forty-seventh time, I started reading the replacement-window ads in the Globe. I was developing a craving for heat, a phenomenon enhanced by too many nights at Sam Gianelli’s cozy apartment.

  When the phone rang in the middle of the night, it took me a minute to realize I was sleeping at my place. The socks nailed it; I never wear socks when I sleep with Sam.

  “How much you charge an hour?”

  “Gloria?” I could hardly make out her voice over the relentless beat of a rap tune.

  “You asleep?”

  I groped for the light. “It’s what? Four in the morning? You’re calling about food, you’re a dead woman.”

  “I asked a question.” Impatience underlined her mellow voice. “Two questions: Are you available? And what do you charge?”

  “I can barely hear you,” I said.

  “What do you charge?”

  “Depends who I’m working for.”

  “Working for me.”

  “Call it a favor.”

  “Straight rates.”

  “Two fifty a day,” I said, giving her a quick half-price deal. “Less if it waits till morning.”

  “Get in your car and come over. Now. You’ll need a cab for this, a radio.”

  “For what?”

  “Don’t shout at me.”

  “Gloria, should I wear my ball gown?”

  “Dress for driving.”

  “You don’t need a cabbie bad enough to pay P.I. rates.”

  “Marvin’s in trouble.”

  Marvin is Gloria’s largest and oldest brother. He is trouble, but I didn’t say that to Gloria.

  “I can’t raise him on the radio,” she said. Either she’d turned the music down a notch or I was getting used to its roar.

  “Marvin’s piloting a cab?” Far as I knew, Marvin’s cabbie license had expired for good during his last stint on the state. No convicted felons driving cabs in the Commonwealth.