Hardware

by Linda Barnes

  Mooney sighed. “You say his name and here he comes. Why don’t you ask him?”

  Oglesby didn’t sit. He seemed strangely elated.

  “You really think this is Mafia related?” I asked him.

  “Yeah,” Oglesby grunted, staring at the glass doors.

  “I told you, Sam’s not a player.”

  “Yeah?”

  “That the only word you know?”

  He opened his mouth to speak, but Mooney stopped him with a glance. I know that glance.

  “What’s going on?” I asked sharply.

  Mooney stared at the rug, avoiding my eyes. “Oglesby’s got a hard-on for anybody named Gianelli is all,” he said so smoothly I knew he was lying. I was almost grateful for his treachery; I didn’t feel guilty about keeping Frank a secret.

  “Mooney,” I said. “Did the Organized Crime Task Force clear it with the Boston Police before they bugged G and W?”

  “Shit,” Mooney murmured. “I don’t believe I’m hearing this.”

  Interdepartmental rivalries in Boston’s law enforcement circles are legendary.

  “You heard the lady, Oglesby,” Mooney said softly, a threat implicit in every word. “If you have tapes, they’re material evidence in a homicide, and I want them. Now!”

  “I don’t know what she’s talking about,” Oglesby said. “Probably, she’s hysterical.”

  “If there are tapes,” Mooney said, biting off each word with the slow precision he uses when he wants to shout, “you might as well give them up. I’ll find out, and when I do—”

  Oglesby stiffened, practically saluted.

  Papa Gianelli and entourage entered. A woman young enough to be his daughter clung to the old man’s arm, trying to slow his pace. She wasn’t his daughter; I’d met his only daughter, a dark-haired, sharp-featured replica of her mother. This woman was fair-haired with an expensive shimmer and plenty of cool allure. Sam’s latest stepmother. Grouped behind were four men in well-cut suits, wearing heavy gold rings and flashy cuff links. I recognized two brothers, Gil and Mitch. Gil looked more like Sam, a squat older version. With Mitch it was harder to tell; he’d gained enough weight to blur his features. The other two men were strangers: uncles, capos, possibly bodyguards. Their eyes scanned the room.

  Oglesby breathed faster. One hand trembled and he stuck it in a pocket. He looked like he felt the urgent need to grab a spiral notebook and scrawl license-plate numbers.

  Papa G surveyed the room as well. His eyes froze when he saw me. He burst into voluble Italian. The only word I understood was putta. Whore.

  Mooney picked up on it too. He took my arm firmly. “Time to go,” he said.

  “I’m staying.”

  “We’ll come back when the troops leave.”

  “They won’t leave.”

  Oglesby backed into a chair and tried to look inconspicuous as Papa G steamrolled his way to the front of the queue. Inconspicuous, hell. He couldn’t tear his eyes away from Gianelli. The dumbest Mob soldier would pick up on Oglesby. He stuck out like a beacon. Might as well put him in uniform.

  “Let’s find Gloria,” Mooney said. “Oglesby, I want an immediate update on any change in Gianelli’s condition.”

  Oglesby gave me a long look and rubbed his jaw slowly.

  “Oglesby,” Mooney said carefully. “It was a punch. You’ve taken worse. You want to hear about it the rest of your life, fine with me. You go into a bar, cops’ll stop talking and point at you. Laugh a little. Carlotta and me, we go way back. We tell a good story.”

  Oglesby grunted.

  Mooney shrugged, looked at me.

  “No charges,” I said.

  “No witnesses,” Mooney said, “no charges.”

  It could have been a promise; it could have been a threat.

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  Time spent in hospital waiting rooms is measured differently. Like dog time: Every minute equals seven minutes; every hour, seven hours. I wasn’t allowed to see Gloria; I wasn’t allowed to see Sam. Doctors were “assessing their condition, please take a seat, ma’am.” It was maddening. Without Mooney at my side, I might have lied my way in. Claimed kinship. Hell, stolen a lab coat and charged into the room.

  If someone would kindly tell me which was the right room.

  As news spread through the cabbie underground, a trickle of vaguely familiar faces became a stream. All asking the same questions. How is she? What can I do? How can I help?

  Give blood, a passing nurse advised.

  Knowing the blood we donated wouldn’t necessarily go to Gloria, but would be credited to her account, unable to find another task to occupy the hours, we lined up at the blood bank. Cabbies and pols, street people, cops, society matrons, three-piece suits, all waiting patiently. It took me a minute to figure out what was wrong with the picture. Color, that’s what it was: the full spectrum of flesh tones. In Boston, movie theaters cater to black crowds or white crowds. Restaurants rarely attract racially mixed gatherings, although there’s a sprinkling of South End places that manage. At Red Sox games you can spot more blacks on the playing field than in the stands. Same thing at the Garden when the Bruins play. The Celts are marginally better.

  Boston is two separate cities, one black, one white. Gloria had managed to cross the boundaries. People knew her by her voice.

  Roz came and went, provoking raised eyebrows and shocked stares. I issued terse instructions, which she grudgingly accepted. I waited, overhearing tales of Gloria from generations of cabdrivers, from nurses and doctors who’d treated her long ago, helped her cope with her paralysis. I waited. I wished they would stop. The stories sounded elegiac, final. At one point, the line included seventeen nurses.

  I waited.

  When Lee Cochran joined the group, I immediately abandoned my place.

  “Lee.” He was unshaven and his clothes were wrinkled, as if he’d been sleeping in them.

  “Carlotta.”

  “Two things, Lee: Who told you Phil Yancey was behind the beatings?”

  “What?”

  “You seemed certain. Dead sure. Why?”

  He shifted his weight from one foot to the other. “In my job, you hear rumors,” he said uneasily.

  “Rumors?”

  “Yeah. Gloria’s going to make it okay, isn’t she?”

  “Yes,” I said. “Yes. Now, the other question: Did you tell Yancey you were planning to hire me? The truth, Lee.”

  “Jesus, Carlotta, why’d I do a thing like that?”

  “Why didn’t you return my calls? Too busy threatening Yancey?”

  “I don’t know what you’re friggin’ talking about,” Lee said.

  “How’s this sound? You start the rumor that more medallions are going out on the street. Hackney Carriage says it’ll never happen, by the way. But your pal Yancey asks you to talk it up, figures the rumor might scare a few small owners into selling.”

  “Why?” Lee asked.

  “You’re the one who said he was out to corner the market.”

  “Why the hell would I help him?”

  “Money, Lee. Maybe a kickback on every medallion transfer. Yancey could afford it if he’s planning to turn his garages into lease factories, couldn’t he?”

  “I wouldn’t work for Yancey in a million years,” Lee blustered.

  “Not even for a million bucks?”

  “Not for ten million.”

  “Really? Well, Lee, somebody told Yancey you’d talked to me. And I don’t like being used. If you’re working some medallion scam here, if you had anything to do with this thing at Green and White—”

  “You’re accusing me?” He puffed out his chest. “Because if you are, you’d better have the facts to back it up.”

  People were starting to stare at us, murmur uneasily.

  “I mean it, Carlotta,” Lee said. “I’ve worked hard in this town, and I don’t have much to show for it. Just my reputation. You mess with that, I’ll fight you every step of the way.”

  His fists wer
e clenched; so were mine.

  “Enough,” I said, breaking the tension, holding up a hand in surrender, briefly closing my eyes against the merciless lights. “This isn’t the place or the time. I’m sorry, Lee.”

  “We’re all pretty upset,” he mumbled gruffly.

  The woman who’d stood behind me in line allowed my reentry. Time had stopped, after all. No rush.

  If Mooney hadn’t intervened I’d never have crashed hospital security and made it into Gloria’s room. Immediate family only was the decree. Leroy and Geoffrey, the middle brother, dominated the tiny space like lions, massive in presence and threat. They scared me and I knew them; I felt ashamed of my gut reaction. No two imposing white men would have had the same effect.

  I watched Mooney’s police guards, one black, one white, observe Gloria’s brothers. Both kept their hands too close to their weapons for my taste.

  It was easier to keep my eyes on Leroy and Geoffrey or on the police, than to watch Gloria. Gloria, who spent all her waking hours wheelchair-bound, yet never seemed helpless. God knows how she’d accomplished it, perfected it, how she maintained the illusion of self-reliance. It was her special grace.

  The bombing had shattered it completely.

  At first I was worried because she remained unconscious; then I was glad. She was hooked up to machinery that showed stable vital signs. Better oblivion than humiliation and pain. An IV line dripped solution into her veins. No breathing tube; she was managing that on her own, at least. No hospital gown. None could have fit. She was shrouded in gauze. Her forehead had been bandaged. After a few squirming minutes, I couldn’t bear it. There was nothing I could do to help, nothing I could say. I squeezed Leroy’s hand as I left. I don’t think he felt it.

  Mooney couldn’t get me past the Gianelli watchdogs.

  I cabbed home in daylight, my eyes tearing in unexpected sunshine. I shut them, leaned back, and tried to fall asleep despite honking traffic, jostling potholes. Images flooded my mind: the scowl on Papa Gianelli’s face when he refused to let me see Sam; the Christmas decorations dotted like funeral wreaths along the hallways.

  My ear bounced against the windowpane, jarring me awake. The cab halted and I dug in my handbag for the fare. I didn’t know the cabbie, some independent I’d flagged. He asked me whether Gloria was holding her own.

  I couldn’t find my keys. I fumbled with the lock.

  Roz was seated in front of the computer, a pencil thrust through a braided fake-hair topknot, busily punching keys. I caught the scent of peanut butter. An open jar stood guard on the blotter. Sticky keyboard.

  “I know what you told me at the hospital,” she said, immediately seizing the defensive. “But I can’t find Frank. Not a goddamn trace.”

  “Why?” I demanded.

  “You ever heard the expression ‘guy-go’?”

  “What?”

  “Garbage in-garbage out. GIGO. What do you expect me to feed this machine? Nothing old ‘Frank’ told me was real.”

  “He’s got to be there,” I insisted. “Run the phony SSN, see if it turns up any aliases.”

  “Get some sleep. I’ll keep trying.”

  I peered at my wristwatch, blinked. The Roman numerals seemed to be jumping around. “Two hours,” I said. “I’ll set the alarm.”

  “You could use more than that.”

  “Be ready to go when I say.”

  “Where?”

  “Out.”

  “Yeah, Ma, but where?”

  “I’ll let you know,” I said.

  “How are they?”

  I told her I’d seen Gloria.

  “Sam?”

  Sam. Sam undergoing emergency surgery, legs trapped under a beam, the building blazing—

  “Carlotta?”

  “They wouldn’t let me in.”

  “Go to bed,” Roz said. “I’ll call the hospital for updates. Every half hour.”

  “Thanks.”

  I didn’t get any two hours’ sleep. Mooney phoned.

  “The address you gave, on Altamont,” he said without wasting breath on hello. “Thought you might like to know the place is abandoned. No furniture. No fingerprints. No trash. Landlord lives down the street. Tenant paid three months in advance, plus security deposit. Cash. Guy didn’t even know his tenant had scrammed. If we’d had the information earlier …”

  Frank was gone. Why was I not surprised? What the hell kind of old buddy turns up out of the blue, makes a move on your girlfriend, sends you e-mail to get you to a garage, tries to blow you the hell to kingdom come …?

  Probably the dead kind, I thought.

  “Mooney,” I said. “Don’t blame me. Your precious cops got called on a drive-by. According to the drill I remember, they do a careful door-to-door search—”

  “If we’d had the address—”

  “‘If my grandmother had wheels, she’d be a truck,’ Mooney. You know what that means? You’re spinning yours. How about ‘All the king’s horses and all the king’s men’? You heard that one? Is that what they tell little Irish kids?”

  “That’s what they tell little Brit kids,” he said.

  “This missing tenant have a name?”

  “Ben Franklin. Like on the hundred-dollar bills he gave the landlord.”

  “Mooney, is there any … anything new on Sam?”

  “No. But there’s a tentative ID on the second corpse.”

  I expected it to be Frank. No matter what the name.

  “Zachariah Robertson. Ring bells?”

  When I wake suddenly, usually I’m groggy and slow, but sometimes I’m still generating alpha waves, making quick connections.

  “Wait a minute,” I said.

  I grabbed the list Gloria’d written, the names of drivers she’d fired.

  No Zachariah Robertson, but certainly a Zachary Robards, the one who’d quit his job so theatrically, abandoning his cab in Southie.

  “I know a lot about him,” I said. “I think. The question is how do you?” Nobody does an autopsy that fast.

  “Anonymous phone tip. Woman. Young. Lover boy didn’t come home after taking off with a can of gasoline tucked under his arm. Worried about him.”

  “Touching,” I said.

  “Now give.”

  “He used a slightly different name.”

  Mooney listened. “Revenge,” he said. His voice was cool, like he was ticking off an item on a grocery list. “Makes sense. Lately you fire somebody, they come back with an AK-47. Bastard.”

  “Very neat,” I muttered, propping the phone on one shoulder, swinging my legs out from under the quilt. “Positively tidy.”

  “Go back to bed,” Mooney said. “Sorry I woke you.”

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  Go back to bed. Sure. I punched, patted, and smoothed my pillow. It was burning hot on one side, icy on the other. No way could I sleep. I stripped off my clothes and let them lie where they fell as I marched to the bathroom and turned the shower taps on full. Would Roz hear if I shrieked over the pounding water? I wanted to scream. Shatter my grim reflection in the mirror. Smash someone in the face, feel the soft cartilage give. Feel blood.

  I lowered the lid of the toilet seat, sat abruptly. Cold. I felt gooseflesh as I folded my arms, hugged them to my chest.

  Zachary Robards. Zachariah Robertson. A name on a list, a list I hadn’t bothered to pick up till yesterday. A phony name. But with the same initials. I should have checked with the cops, seen if they’d come up with any aliases when they’d run his name for Gloria. He should have been my first interview. Would have been … if my ankle hadn’t hurt. If I hadn’t taken time out to screw the shrink next door. If Gloria hadn’t asked me to drive. If …

  I stepped into the shower, adjusted the spray, needle sharp, hot. Soaped and rinsed, soaped and rinsed, washed my hair twice. I sniffed, swore I could still smell smoke. I scrubbed as if I were trying to scour away scenes seared on my eyeballs, images I was afraid I’d never forget.

  Zachary Robards was dead. No medal
lion plot. No cab scam. Just a crazed ex-employee with access to explosives.

  The e-mail message? A coincidence.

  And at “Frank’s”? A drive-by. A racial thing. A nothing.

  I didn’t believe it; I didn’t want to believe it.

  I dressed in jeans and a baggy blue sweater. High-top boots. I bent from the waist, shook out my hair, toweled it semidry.

  Roz, computer bound, gamely plunked keys with one finger, as if she were seated at a piano, never having taken lessons.

  “Find anything?” I asked.

  “Phone wake you?”

  “Guy who died with Marvin’s been ID’d. Tentatively. A phone-in tip.”

  “Friend of Marvin’s?” she asked.

  “I figure the second corpse for the perp. Marvin surprised him. A bomb went off early, a match got lit too soon.”

  “Perp’s idea to blow G and W? Or somebody else’s?”

  “Gloria may have fired this guy a few months back.”

  “Grudge?”

  It was a rote response. Anyone would think that.

  I shrugged. “Is there more peanut butter?”

  “Help yourself.”

  In the kitchen, I rummaged for a clean spoon. Roz uses her finger. A utensil makes me feel more civilized.

  One spoonful of peanut butter made me realize I was ravenous. I found a loaf of bread, blue with mold, and dumped it in the trash. The Ritz crackers were merely stale. I smeared some with cream cheese, some with peanut butter. I brought a carton of orange juice into the living room, swigged it from the container, watching Roz.

  “What have you got?” I asked her.

  “We’re not exactly legal here. This setup, I mean.”

  “No kidding.”

  “‘Frank’ doesn’t want your hard-earned bucks going to the phone company or the National Credit Information Network. I bet he wants you to give me a raise instead.”

  “Roz.”

  She blew out a breath that shot her bangs, her longest remaining tuft of variegated hair, into the air. They stayed aloft, a triumph of mousse over gravity.

  “From what I can tell, he set you up as a phony business, an employment agency based in the Cayman Islands. Where the fuck are they?”