Hardware

by Linda Barnes

  I took a bite of toast. Jam dripped on the table.

  “Why do you ask?” Keith said. “About hypnosis?”

  “You ever try hypnosis with police witnesses, get them to recall specific details, license plate numbers, that kind of thing?”

  “No.”

  “Would you?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Maybe you could discuss it with your colleagues.”

  “Maybe.”

  I gulped coffee. I needed caffeine to clear my head.

  Lee Cochran. Phil Yancey. Beatings. Medallions. Green & White.

  I chased Keith out as soon as I could, sidestepping his efforts to set up a date for the evening. Do you call it a “date” once you’ve gone ahead and consummated the relationship? Did this relationship have a future?

  I hate the word relationship. I’d enjoyed the night. Enough. I’m not a clinging vine. I didn’t even ask if he’d call.

  Part of me whispered, secretly smug, “Because you know he will.”

  TWENTY-ONE

  I sat in my desk chair and swigged the last of the orange juice. I hoped it was Roz’s day to go grocery shopping.

  Time to go back to the beginning, I thought, propping my foot on my desk. Lee Cochran.

  I’d never before had a potential client accuse a person of wrongdoing, and then, abracadabra, had the good fortune to have said wrongdoer appear on my front porch for a chat.

  Who knew about my appointment with Cochran?

  Answer: everyone Cochran’d mentioned it to. He’d checked me out with his lawyer, somebody Gold. Must be twenty lawyers named Gold in Boston. Or Gould. Lawyers tend toward closemouthedness as a rule. Cops talk. Cochran had discussed hiring me with cops. He’d asked Gloria if I was any good.

  Sam knew; I’d told him. I’d revealed it outside of Gloria’s soundproofed bug-free room. Did Yancey have an in with the Organized Crime Task Force?

  Sunlight glinted off my new computer screen.

  Following the instructions of “Frank,” I logged on, using the password he’d given me: KLPT5ZMX. Whose password it actually was, mine or “Frank’s” or someone else’s, I had no idea. Did the rapidly multiplying number of computer services have a clue about security? Or did they cheerfully disclose secrets to anyone who happened to type in an eight-digit code that clicked? Just one big happy family, eager to share the info that makes the world go ’round.

  With crib sheet in hand, I used a local gateway called Mellon to hook into a major credit bureau. Let’s get this straight: I knew what I was doing was not strictly kosher. Private investigators are not allowed to roam through TRW, CBI, or Trans Union at will. Even if I were paying their exorbitant rates, which somehow, thanks to “Frank,” I was sure I wasn’t, there is the Fair Credit Reporting Act. There is a difference between Full Credit Bureau Files and Header Files.

  As soon as I’d seen what “Frank” yanked up for his credit history, I knew we were deep in computer shadowland. He should have been able to gain access only to so-called header info: name, date of birth, Social Security number, and such. Not the actual credit file.

  But then, he was such a good burglar. Such a talented programmer. It seemed a shame not to use what good fortune had dumped in my lap.

  I typed in Yancey, Philip, and his last known address, which I got from that useful source, the telephone directory.

  Bingo.

  The screen lit up, and I had SSN, DOB, employment, and full credit. I hoped “Frank” was billing the cost directly to the FBI, nonetheless I did a quick download to transfer the file. No reason to run up the phone charges.

  Yancey was rich. Major rich. And the rich are different. They have more and higher mortgages, for instance, because mortgage interest is tax deductible and only suckers pay now and enjoy later. Phil owned property on the Vineyard, in Yarmouth, Falmouth, Plymouth, all over Cape Cod. I wondered when he’d bought, if he’d paid a little in the seventies or a lot in the eighties. What were the properties worth now? I scribbled addresses and banks into my notebook. It would be interesting to find out.

  Why was I bothering to scrawl notes when I could print out the whole report with a couple of keystrokes? I sighed; it was going to take a while for my brain to catch up to my technology.

  Yancey’s credit rating was good. Very good. No bad paper, no bankruptcies.

  I went for Lee Cochran’s vital stats. He was paying off a modest mortgage on a three-family in J.P. His Cutlass Ciera dealer had nothing nasty to say about him.

  I typed in my own name and SSN. Downloaded. Interesting reading for later.

  I used Mellon to hook into the Globe index, yanked all stories dealing with cab robberies. Downloaded. Printed.

  Matters had come to such an ugly head that a recent Globe had neatly summarized matters under the heading BOSTON’S CABDRIVERS HAVE THEIR WORST YEAR YET. A black-boxed article listed the attacks.

  I could see why Jean Halle was alarmed. Most of the injured drivers had Haitian surnames. I read quickly. No mention of three attackers. No arrests.

  I turned back to the keyboard, typed Cab Medallions. Drew a blank, which seemed odd, since Lee Cochran had insisted that the medallion wars were heating up again. Tried Taxi Medallions.

  Nothing. The big zip. It was incredibly frustrating, all this information at my disposal, and no way to get at it. I felt like a rotten speller confronted with a full set of the Oxford English Dictionary.

  The phone rescued me. Seldom have I welcomed its jarring ring with such enthusiasm.

  “Hello?”

  “Well, hi there!”

  “Lucinda,” I said, leaning back in my chair with a grin. “How y’all doin’? Feds treating you right?”

  “Don’t y’all mimic my accent; it’s rude.”

  “I apologize. I can’t help myself, it’s so—”

  “Temptin’?” Lucinda said.

  “Charming, I was going to say. Pervasive. There.”

  “Hon, those photos you sent, that’s why I called. Mail, honest to God! Don’t you Yankees know what a fax machine is?”

  “Don’t start, Lucinda,” I said. “What are they?”

  “The microphones? Our own little birdies returning to the nest. Oldies, but moldies.”

  “So if you saw these things in person, Lucinda, you’d definitely say they were FBI mikes.”

  “They are FBI mikes, hon. Our celebrities. Same kind brought down the whole Patriarcha family in your neck of the woods.”

  “Lucinda, have some been stolen, say, in the past few months? Have you heard of any of that breed that have gone missing?”

  “Stolen?” she echoed. “I dunno. More to the point, I don’t know why. They’re out-of-date crap. Anybody wants ’em is probably a few sandwiches shy of a picnic. If you’re interested in good stuff, I got some babies down here’ll knock your socks off.”

  I smothered a laugh. Lucinda spreads her accent thicker than jam when she knows I’m listening, laces her sentences with extra down-home phrases for my amusement. She can’t help it any more than I can help imitating her dialect.

  “I’m not in the market,” I said. “But thanks for the help, Lucinda.”

  “Come on down and visit,” she said. “Weather must stink up there.”

  “Thanks. It sure does.” I eased the receiver back into the cradle.

  Sam’s bugging expert agreed with my bugging expert.

  With a sigh, I returned to the monitor, immersed myself in the general index: taxi drivers: rate hikes; rules and regulations …

  Damn. Exasperated, I logged out, made a call to the Hackney Carriage Bureau, part of the Boston Police. The BPD has the final say about cabs—they set rates, issue medallions, and better still, I know a guy there, a fixture, one Lieutenant Brennan, assigned to taxi because he used to violate Miranda six ways from Sunday. He liked taxi, took root there.

  “How many cabs are there in the city?” I asked.

  “Fifteen hundred and twenty-five,” he told me.

  “Wh
at about the forty wheelchair-accessibles?”

  “Yeah. So it’s up to fifteen sixty-five. A real growth industry. Up forty since 1945.”

  “What’s a medallion go for these days?”

  “This month, seventy-five thou. You hit the lottery?”

  “Why’d the Department of Public Utilities back down in ’91? They were going to issue hundreds of new medallions.”

  “Maybe the right question is, why’d they start up? Why mess with the status quo?”

  “Things have changed since 1945,” I said.

  “Not the streets of Boston,” Brennan maintained. “Still overcrowded cow paths.”

  “The hotel owners wanted more cabs, right?”

  “Them and the Tourist Bureau. Convention Center. We even got a la-di-da Film Cooperation Bureau, like Hollywood’s beating down the door. I mean, why’d anybody shoot their film in Palm Beach or Vegas when they could party in Boston?”

  “Where they roll up the sidewalks at midnight,” I said.

  “Yep,” he agreed.

  “And there’s winter,” I said.

  “Middle of blizzard gulch,” he said. “Some people think the weather’s a matter of fucking public relations.”

  “Brennan, why would somebody want to scare cabbies out of business?” I asked.

  “Hell,” he said. “Got me. Most of the cabbies in this town don’t earn enough to eat at McDonald’s. Guys live in their cars, sleep there. Divorced guys. Wife’s got the house and kids, they get squat. Conk out over at the lot at Logan, shower at the L-Street bathhouse—”

  “So why scare ’em off?”

  “Ask me why so many convenience stores get robbed. Gas stations. Excuse me, Carlotta, but I could be napping at my desk.”

  “Sorry to bother you.”

  For a minute I thought he’d hung up on me. Then his world-weary voice came over the line. “I can’t figure it, what with the economy like it is, but there’s action.”

  “What kind of action?” I asked, trying not to sound too eager.

  “Two things. Neither of ’em makes a nickel’s worth of sense, far as I’m concerned.”

  I waited.

  “You didn’t hear this from me,” he said, lowering his voice.

  “’Course not,” I said.

  “Rumor is, the hotel people, the restaurant people, the convention team, they’re coming back. Hired themselves a fancy law firm, got a new stooge, some cabbie wants a medallion so bad he’s got a hard-on, and they say this time they think they’re gonna get maybe seven hundred new cabs on the street. You heard it here first.”

  No, I hadn’t.

  “You know which law firm?” I asked.

  “What I know is with the economy like it is, they ain’t got a snowball’s chance in hell.”

  “So why?” I said, thinking out loud.

  “Got me,” he said. “Doesn’t sound like the kind of case a lawyer would handle on contingency.”

  “Brennan, you said there were two things bothering you. What’s the other?”

  “Lots of medallion transfers lately.”

  “Phil Yancey,” I muttered under my breath. “Brennan, this is important. Is Yancey buying?”

  “Now, there’s a thought,” Brennan said.

  “Is he?”

  “You ever heard of ‘straws’?”

  I said, “In real estate, they’re phony buyers.”

  “Right. Sometimes they’re in on the action. Sometimes they’re dummies, like folks in nursing homes, never know their names are used.”

  “I get it,” I said.

  “If Phil Yancey’s buying medallions, he’s using straws. Of course, anybody could be behind it, even your guy, Gianelli.”

  “Wouldn’t it be dumb to buy now, with even the barest possibility of the department issuing new medallions?”

  “It’s not going to happen. No way.”

  “One more question and I’ll let you go. Any rumors about big conversions to leasing?”

  “Interesting,” Brennan said. “If Yancey was planning to change even thirty percent of his cabs to leased vehicles, he’d make a pile.”

  “But you haven’t heard any rumors?”

  “Haven’t heard shit about leases. Mind you, nothing Yancey tries would surprise me. Shit, Carlotta. Instead of spending the rest of the day asleep like an honest cop, I guess I’d better check out some of these new medallion owners, see if they’re on the up-and-up.”

  “I owe you one,” I said.

  “You can buy me a drink,” he said. “And give my regards to Mooney.”

  Half the police force thinks I’m sleeping with Mooney. And I never did. I swear.

  TWENTY-TWO

  “How’s the foot?” Gloria asked when I showed up at Green & White at two that afternoon. I don’t know when the woman sleeps.

  “Okay,” I said. Thanks to the air splint. A few more days of rest and rehab, with frequent foot and body massage administered by a qualified psychiatrist, I’d be back on the volleyball court.

  Music blared: vintage Aretha Franklin.

  “Good sound,” I said approvingly. “How’s Marvin?”

  Worry creased her forehead. “Moved him here yesterday, into the back room. Didn’t seem like that Yvonne knew much about nursing, just a lot about cuddling. I had to get one of my own drivers to take me down there, fetch him back. Like hauling a hungry tiger without a cage, but all Leroy and Geoffrey ever tell me is he’s gonna be fine, gonna be fine. Protect your little sister, you know? Take over my life if I let ’em.”

  “Can I talk to him?”

  “I had a doc come by, friend of mine. That bang on the head sure made Marvin cranky.”

  That or being forced to leave the lovely Yvonne, I thought.

  “Doctor gave him some stuff to help him sleep,” Gloria said. “Knocked him right out. You wanna talk, come by later.”

  I was hitting brick walls everywhere I went.

  “Lee Cochran ever hire you?” Gloria asked.

  “Funny you should ask,” I said. “No.”

  “Look, Carlotta, all I did was tell him you were an okay P.I. when he asked. I’m sorry if I did something wrong. I won’t do it again.”

  “Did you happen to spread the news of my upcoming meeting with Mr. Cochran?” I asked.

  “Honey, I don’t gossip unless I mean to gossip. Lee didn’t exactly tell me the gruesome details, so I didn’t have anything juicy to pass along.”

  I believed her.

  “Now, if you want to tell me what it’s all about,” she continued, “if Lee’s wife’s leaving him, or he wants you to kidnap his kids and deprogram them from the Church of the Holy Nutritionist, I’ll be happy to put it out over the radio.”

  “Diet getting on your nerves?” I asked.

  “Huh,” she said. “With Marvin living here, it’s gonna be rough on me. I only get to eat when he sleeps.”

  She was taking advantage of the opportunity. Hostess Sno Ball wrappers covered her desk. An almost empty sack of M&M’s drooped near the phone console. She opened a desk drawer, hauled out a jar of Planters peanuts, and twisted the lid.

  “Want some?”

  “No, thanks. You got that list of former employees who hate your guts?” I asked.

  “Why’s that important? You think somebody’s beating on cabbies ’cause they hate me? Just as easy to come by and beat on me.”

  “People are devious.”

  “Most of ’em are plain stupid, Carlotta. Look how they’re willin’ to pay to lose weight. These diet places charge more than a fine restaurant would. That’s crazy.”

  “Hackney Carriage Bureau says the hotel lobby’s gearing up for a new push. Talking about adding seven hundred medallions.”

  “See,” she said. “People are crazy.”

  “Gloria, would the cabbie organizations, like Cochran’s STA, be telling the truth if they told the Hackney Bureau there aren’t enough drivers to handle the cabs already on the road?”

  She stopped eating for
a moment. “There’s heavy unemployment. Heavy unemployment usually means plenty of drivers.”

  “But you’re having trouble staffing the night shift.”

  “Yeah. So?”

  “So if a lot of cabbies got beaten up and stopped working …”

  “Carlotta, what are you saying? That the small owners are rousting their own cabbies so they can tell the city there’s no point issuing more medallions ’cause nobody’s willin’ to drive?”

  Didn’t sound likely, phrased that way. “Let me have the list, Gloria.”

  “Take the phones. I got it in the back room and I don’t want you wakin’ Marvin.”

  “I never mess with hungry tigers.”

  “Just pick up the calls. You know the routine. I could use a little movement.”

  Probably had a stash of potato chips in the back room along with Marvin.

  I got busy on the console, plugging one ear with my index finger so Aretha’s “Respect” wouldn’t block out the callers. A man wanted a cab on Hemenway Street—right now, please—and a woman with a high, prissy voice needed one near Boston College. I took names, addresses, apartment numbers, and gave out the standard ten-minute spiel. Lots of cabstands near Symphony Hall. I wasn’t sure who was out near B.C. I punched buttons.

  “Who wants four fifty-eight Hemenway?” I asked.

  “I do. Number forty-three. You ain’t Gloria talking.”

  “I know. Can you take Hemenway?”

  “Got it. That you, Carlotta?”

  “Yeah, who’s that?”

  “Come on, you remember Al DiMag?”

  “How you been, Al?”

  “Thriving. You?”

  “Okay.”

  “Haven’t seen you. You riding dispatch?”

  “Filling in.”

  “Take care.”

  “Al, hold it a minute. You, or anybody out there, you been robbed or threatened lately?”

  “I heard some guys got their butts kicked real good,” Al said.