Hardware

by Linda Barnes

  “Hi, Glory. How’re you doing?” His greeting was so perfunctory she didn’t even try to answer. “Doctors gave me permission to snatch one of your visitors. Carlotta? Paolina, you can stay two more minutes and don’t tire the lady out.” He pecked Gloria quickly on the cheek.

  “Wait a minute, Moon,” I said. “How’s Paolina supposed to get home? I’m not leaving her here.”

  “Roz can drive her.”

  “Hey …” I said as he seized my hand and tugged me toward the door. I didn’t want to make a scene in front of Paolina. He must have counted on that.

  “Roz.” I regained my voice as soon as we were out in the hall.

  “Keep walking,” Mooney warned.

  “I need to give her the damn car keys, Mooney, or she’ll be stuck here with Paolina.”

  I thought I’d slip Roz the computer diskettes I’d lifted from Sam’s place, but I couldn’t bring it off. Mooney never took his eyes off me even as he commiserated with the brothers. Donovan had done a disappearing act, which was just as well. Mooney’d met him once, on a recent case. Donovan had dared to offer a possible psychiatric defense. They’d clashed immediately. Mooney hates shrinks.

  “Roz,” I said quickly, handing over the keys. “When you take Paolina home, make sure her mother’s actually in the apartment. If she’s hungry, stop at McDonald’s first. And tell her I’ll call the minute I hear any news about Sam.”

  “Let’s go,” Mooney said.

  “Is this a kidnapping?” I murmured on our way past the nurses’ station. “If I yell, Leroy will—”

  “Leroy will do squat unless he wants a traffic ticket every time he forgets to fasten his seat belt.”

  “Am I under arrest?”

  “It can be arranged.”

  “Moon, if you’re going to hold this assault shit over me for the rest of my life, I’d rather fight it now. I’ll call my lawyer while you soak your head.”

  A unit, with driver, was poised at the front door. Mooney dismissed the chauffeur, stared at me dourly while I worked the passenger-door handle. He made sure my door was locked before he slid behind the wheel.

  As if I couldn’t unlock a door and run.

  Run where?

  “Oh, Mooney.” I sighed, shaking my head.

  “What?” His voice was sharp, defensive.

  “You have that look about you.”

  “What look?”

  “Righteous renegade. That’s what the department brass called it. I prefer Caped Crusader.”

  “Dammit to hell.”

  Mooney rarely swears in the presence of women. Good Catholic upbringing.

  “Did you happen to notice that Gloria didn’t ask you a thing, Mooney?” I said.

  “I know.”

  “Is that because you already filled her in?”

  “Partially,” Mooney said. “She knows we identified Zachariah Robertson’s body.”

  “She didn’t ask how Zach got ahold of whatever he used to blow the place? Dynamite? Plastic?”

  “Not a peep.”

  “She didn’t yell? Demand that you find out who’s behind it? Didn’t point out that the police would be out chasing down leads if it was a white man who got killed?”

  “Didn’t say a single word, Carlotta,” Mooney stated with deliberate emphasis. “You saw how she is.”

  I’d seen. It scared me silly, Gloria’s passive acceptance.

  “Where are we going?” I demanded.

  “Do you have money?”

  Did I ever. Mattresses of money. Litter boxes of money.

  “On me?” I asked.

  “Credit card?”

  “One.”

  “Visa? Master?”

  “Visa.”

  “Fine.”

  He wasn’t driving in the direction of the airport. I’d be spared that Western sheriff classic: “Catch the next stagecoach out of Dodge.”

  “I had to close the case,” he said, changing lanes abruptly, provoking a VW into an outraged honk.

  My sympathies were with the VW’s driver. I said nothing.

  “It sucks, this case,” he went on. “It’s got teeny little bows on it, it’s so neat.”

  “We think alike, Moon.”

  “First off,” he said, “the drive-by stinks.”

  “Why?”

  “Nobody’s bragging,” he said. “Bragging follows gunfire like night follows day. After a drive-by, the next few weeks, every punk we pick up on a felony rap wants to talk, trade what he knows for a lesser charge. Nobody’s chatting about that drive-by.”

  “You arrested the wrong punks. Big deal.”

  “You were there. Sam was there. Sam’s been hit. Are you listening to me, Carlotta?”

  “I hear you.”

  “Then there’s the crap about paying off hit men to beat cabbies. I talked to your duo, by the way.”

  Jean and Louis. “I’m sure you made their day.”

  “The one who got beaten, Jean, yanked Robertson’s photo from a six-pack. No hesitation.”

  “You happened to have a photo? Don’t tell me, the girlfriend dropped off an eight-by-ten glossy.”

  “Mug shot,” he said.

  “Arson?”

  “Possession, arson, car theft.”

  “You showed Jean other pictures, I assume. Robertson’s pals. Known accomplices. Associates. Family members. Former cell mates. Anybody else seem familiar?” I could hear my voice growing increasingly sharp.

  “Nope. So listen up. Gloria doesn’t need a guard. She’s got her brothers. Sam’s got the whole goddamned Mafia. You, I’m worried about.”

  “I’ll keep busy,” I promised, glaring at my watch for Mooney’s benefit.

  We were heading outbound on Storrow Drive. Mooney didn’t have his emergency flasher stuck on the roof, but he was racing well over the limit. If I jumped out, I’d have to join the party at MGH.

  I settled back in my seat. “Wake me when the fun starts,” I said. “I’m fuckin’ tired.”

  Mooney seethes when I swear. For a while, when I was a cop, I foulmouthed deliberately, to rile him.

  “You carrying?” he asked quietly.

  “No,” I said.

  “Firearms card?”

  “In my wallet. And my license to carry.”

  “We’ll stop at your place, pick up your thirty-eight. You might be able to get a deal on a trade-in.”

  “This is not a good time to go shopping, Mooney.”

  “Dammit, aren’t you hearing anything I say? I had to close the case. I’ve got other things on my plate. This is it. This is all I can do for you.”

  I opened my mouth to protest further, closed it without a word. Home, I could dump Sam’s computer diskettes. Maybe scrawl a note to Roz.

  “Mooney,” I said, “what about the Organized Crime Task Force? Did you get the tapes?”

  “Officially, there are no tapes. Officially, they weren’t bugging G and W.”

  “Do you have any reason to believe them, Moon? Do you know anybody on the squad?”

  “Nobody who wouldn’t look me straight in the eye, swear on his mother’s grave, and lie, Carlotta.”

  “Did you talk to Brennan at Hackney Carriage?” I asked.

  “Something wrong with your hearing? I’m off the case.”

  “Mooney.”

  “Brennan doesn’t know shit. I went to see Yancey. He’s up to something. Or maybe just full of himself. Hard to tell.”

  “I wonder if he has any buddies on the task force,” I said.

  “I doubt that creep has any buddies at all.”

  “Could you nose around? Find out?”

  “To repeat: I don’t have any pals on Organized Crime.”

  “Moon, could you?”

  “Yeah,” he said gruffly. “Sure.”

  “Yancey has money,” I said.

  “What?”

  “Just musing aloud, Mooney. Money can buy you friends.”

  “Can’t buy you love,” Mooney said, his voice harsh and unfo
rgiving. I spent the rest of the journey staring out the window.

  THIRTY-THREE

  Big city turns to small town fast in New England. Sometimes I forget how compressed the Northeast is, a tiny corner of the map weighed down by its vast population.

  Arlington, to the north and west of Cambridge, isn’t small compared to some tiny burg in upstate Maine. The town has flavors all its own: upscale Arlington near the golf courses; downscale Arlington, its public schools in continual crisis; the town within a town called Arlington Heights. Up the hill past the water tower lurks Classic Main Street, Any Town, USA, lined with small grocery stores, a musty hardware emporium, a soda fountain, a pharmacy that’s not linked to a major franchise, and a gun shop.

  WE BUY, WE SELL shouted letters blazoned across the display window. If you live nearby, you know who owns it. If you don’t, well, we don’t coddle outsiders.

  Many cops prefer to buy their personal artillery outside the Boston-Cambridge axis. Mooney was probably not an outsider.

  “I don’t like this,” I told Mooney as he parked across the street.

  “Your ankle okay?”

  “Let’s talk.”

  “Lock your door.”

  “Talk.”

  “Carlotta, I can’t assign you a bodyguard; your gun’s a relic. It’s that simple.”

  “You’re overreacting, Moon.”

  “Save the psychological insights for the new beau.”

  I blew out an exasperated breath. “You have a mole in my house? A videocam?”

  “Saw him at the hospital.”

  “He works there. Doctor, hospital, get it?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  I tried another tack. “Mooney, this may not be the best timing.”

  “Agreed. You should have done it sooner.”

  “Within the past forty-eight hours, I slugged a cop, I hit a …”

  “Yeah?”

  If he didn’t know about the goons at Sam’s apartment, I wasn’t going to enlighten him. “Never mind.”

  “It’s time to ditch the thirty-eight and get real.”

  “I like the thirty-eight.”

  “For sentimental reasons?”

  “You keep lobbing ’em back, don’t you, Mooney?” I muttered as I reluctantly left the car. I’m not fond of guns. They’re necessary; that’s it.

  A chain of bells tinkled when Mooney opened the metal door. So much for security. Your average mall jewelry shop boasts better protection against theft, a uniformed rent-a-cop at least.

  Guns. Racks of rifles and shotguns. Display cabinets lined with light gray velveteen, packed with revolvers and pistols. New and used. Antiques. Signs advertising Colts, Berettas, Winchester rifles.

  I liked the mounted ten-point deer’s head over the doorway, enjoyed its casual juxtaposition to the semiautomatics. Gotta have a semi to take down Bambi’s mom.

  A man in his fifties, wearing a baggy sweatshirt over jeans, emerged from a back room, smiling. He smelled of gun oil and rubbed his hands on his pants.

  “Hey,” he said by way of greeting.

  Mooney nodded in response. Noncommittal. Possibly a browser.

  “For you or her?” the man asked.

  Mooney nodded at me.

  “Rifle?”

  “Handgun.”

  “Protection?”

  Another curt nod.

  “Twenty-two?”

  “Mister,” I said, tired of being talked around. “I shoot a thirty-eight. I’m taller than you are.” Stronger, I almost said, but I didn’t want to wind up with a defective weapon.

  Mooney interrupted before I challenged the clerk to arm wrestle. “The lady wants to move to a stopper.”

  “What’s she using now?”

  “Chiefs Special,” I said.

  “Trade?”

  “Depends on the price.”

  “She got the card?” he asked Mooney, more comfortable talking to a man. I should have gone over to Collector’s in Stoneham, I thought. The guys there always talk to me.

  “Yep,” Mooney said.

  “S and W makes a nice nine. The Nine Fifteen DA Auto. Fifteen in the magazine,” the clerk said.

  “How much?” I asked.

  “Four sixty-seven’s list price.”

  “Let’s go cheaper,” I said. “A lot cheaper.”

  “When’s your birthday, Carlotta?” Mooney asked. “I might kick in a few bucks.”

  “I’d prefer flowers,” I said.

  He grabbed me by the shoulder and spun me around to face him. The movement stunned me into silence.

  “I’m not planning to lay them on your grave,” he said. A muscle in his chin clenched and relaxed. “Understand?”

  The clerk scuttled into the back room, quick as a cockroach exposed to sudden light. I wondered if he might call the cops or if he just wanted to take cover in case we started shooting.

  He scurried back again with three black cases, the size of the Sanders candy boxes my dad used to bring home every Valentine’s Day. No chocolates. Shiny, deadly toys.

  “If you’re really after stopping power,” he suggested, “you might consider a ten. FBI’s going to tens.”

  As I touched each gun, hefting and sighting it, I started to get into the game, recalling trips to gun shops with my cop dad, trips that had made me the talk and envy of eighth-grade pimple-faced boys. The satin-finished metal felt smooth beneath my fingers. A SIG—Sauer P228 fit my hand like it had been made for me. Eight hundred bucks. S&W’s compact 9 wasn’t bad. If it’s life and death, I want to side with the winning team. I want the best toy on the market. We talked price. I started to waver.

  A gun’s an investment, the clerk insisted. A collectible.

  I’d rather collect spiders, I thought. Brown recluses.

  I displayed my .38. The clerk disassembled it with practiced fingers, quoted a price. Mooney called a conference at the other end of the store.

  He’d reconsidered; I shouldn’t trade the .38. He could arrange a sale to a police buff. There were guys who’d pay top dollar for a gun used in the line of duty. A killer gun.

  I’d drawn it once. Killed a man. Quit the force.

  “Look at some tens,” Mooney urged.

  “The S and W forties are nice,” the clerk said.

  Twenty-five minutes later, I owned a slightly used S&W 4053, with a single-stack seven-shot magazine, and two boxes of Glaser Safety Slugs. The gun was on sale, and Mooney’d talked the guy down another fifty bucks, but it was still pricey. I was tempted to buy a fanny-pack holster with a string pull, decided to keep my reputation as a cheapskate and stick to my waistband clip.

  “I’ll have to put in hours at the range,” I complained when we got back in the car. “The weight’s different, the sight’s different.”

  Mooney said, “Time at the range’ll be good. Keep you off the street. You wanna shoot with me?”

  “At the department range? Fuel the rumor mill? No, thanks.”

  “What rumors?”

  I filed the question under disingenuous, ignored it. “That was easier than cashing a check,” I said.

  “What?”

  “Buying a deadly weapon.”

  “You were with a cop.”

  “Clerk know that?”

  “I’ve bought there before.”

  “You could have been fired. He didn’t run any kind of check. Guy’s computer terminal had dust on the keys.”

  “You have a valid firearms card, Carlotta. He asked to see it.”

  “I could have stolen it.”

  “Well, you didn’t.”

  “I’ve had more trouble using my credit card to buy underwear.”

  “‘If guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns,’” Mooney quoted cheerfully. The slogan had been cross-stitched into a sampler over the cash register.

  “Wrong, Mooney. If guns are outlawed, only cops and outlaws will have guns. Then the good guys and the bad guys can play cowboys, and let the civilians live in peace.”

 
“Tell me, who are the civilians?”

  I shrugged.

  We were silent. I wanted music, but Mooney’s unit had nothing to offer but police band and AM. A new Chris Smither tune danced in my head: “The devil’s not a legend, the devil’s real.”

  “Kids,” I said. “They’re civilians.”

  Mooney said, “I see ten-year-olds, twelve-year-olds packing all the time.”

  “There have to be civilians, or who the hell are you sworn to protect and defend, Mooney?”

  We turned onto Route 2. From Arlington Heights you can see all of Boston, a city in miniature. Just needs a model train running through it, over the bridges and the rivers, steaming and belching. Fourth of July, couples park along the verge of the highway, fool around till the fireworks start on the Esplanade. Tune the radio in and listen to the Pops play the “1812” one more time.

  Mooney coasted down the hill, braking near the bowling alley. “Carry the forty, okay?” he said. “Keep it with you. No desk-drawer crap till this blows over.”

  “And when will that be?”

  “You know that better than I do, Carlotta.”

  All I knew was the name of an old nun who might or might not be alive, who might or might not remember a kid named Sam Gianelli and his best friend, “Frank.”

  At the Concord Avenue rotary Mooney said, “Has Sam ever mentioned any trips to Providence?”

  “As in Rhode Island?” I asked.

  “As in the Mafia capital of New England,” he responded.

  “What if he has?” I said, thinking of Sam’s “sick uncle.”

  “Federal penitentiary there. Sam’s name’s on the guest list, visiting old man Frascatti, former, and some say future, crime boss.”

  That was it, the secret Oglesby and Mooney had shared in the MGH waiting room, the information Mooney’d withheld from me.

  “So?” I said, keeping my tone level, casual. Frascatti could be Sam’s uncle, for all I knew. “Seeing an old guy, maybe bringing him a basket of fruit, doesn’t mean Sam’s involved in the Mob. Or does Oglesby think otherwise?”

  “Try this one,” Mooney said. “When Sam travels to Washington, does he get dressed up?”

  “Huh?”

  “Suit and tie?”

  “You looking to change tailors?”

  “I’m looking for a simple yes or no.”

  “Why?”

  “Do I look like a lawyer?”