by Linda Barnes
“Her height and weight are almost the same. She’s wearing a wig. No way is Clinton going to spot the substitution.”
“Mooney,” I protested, “you promised. Nothing funny until Paolina’s away.”
“I can’t give him Ana,” Mooney said.
“Mooney—”
“He needs distance, Carlotta. To get away. He’s not going to get close to you. It’s too goddamn dangerous for him. From a distance she’s perfect. Just keep the bastard at a distance.”
“Yeah, but …” I began, thinking of a hundred, a thousand, a million things that could blow up in my face, in Paolina’s face.
“It’s time.”
“Goddammit, you could have told me before. You should have said—”
“What good would it have done, Carlotta?” Joanne chimed in. “This is the way it’s going to be.”
Ana was staring at her look-alike, her savior. The two of them rattled away in Spanish. Ana’s eyes lost their haunted look.
Mooney said, “You okay, Ramirez?”
“Ready.”
The church clock tolled three.
“You’re on,” Mooney said.
The two of us got out of the car. Me from the front seat, her from the rear. Just like last time. Except different.
We waited in line, bought our tokens, went downstairs. Ramirez huddled into Ana’s raincoat.
I blinked, heading from the bright daylight into the artificial cave. The stairs were jammed with people and I kept my gaze on those closest. I didn’t want Clinton edging up to me before I was ready, seeing the fake Ana. How well had he known the woman? God, if he’d had sex with her at that camp in Texas, I hoped he’d done it in the dark.
I stared at Ramirez. Ana’s face was a little broader, younger. They both had round brown eyes. The hair was perfect.
We pushed through the turnstiles alongside shoppers hefting paper bags, students with backpacks, suited businessmen stealing an early march on the commuter crowds.
The C trains, heading outbound to Cleveland Circle, loaded on the right side of the main platform, halfway down, in front of a refreshment stand that sold newspapers, doughnuts, coffee, popcorn. I took a deep breath. The popcorn oil smelled rancid.
Ramirez and I took up a position in front of the stand. She turned automatically to face me. It was a good move, averting her face from the majority of the crowd. I wanted to ask her first name. It didn’t seem like the time or place for small talk.
After eight minutes that felt like eight hours, a young black kid in a leather jacket came up to me and said, “You Carlotta?”
I nodded. He handed me a folded sheet of paper and ran off.
I read the typed instructions aloud. I didn’t have much faith in the wire. The train noise was deafening. I could barely hear myself.
The note said, “You and the girl board the next train. Stand rear door right side. Both hands on pole. Don’t talk to strangers. Get off at Arlington. Bring this message with you.”
So much for crumpling the note and throwing it on the ground for one of Mooney’s cleaners to find. If the wire wasn’t working, nobody would know where we’d gone.
A young man was pushing a broom nearby. I said to Ramirez, “We’re going to Arlington.” The broom pusher didn’t look up. I hoped he’d heard. I hoped he was one of Mooney’s guys.
The next train was crowded. We had to push and shove our way on. An elderly lady glared at me as I shoved past her. I kept an arm on Ramirez’s shoulder. We didn’t speak. I wondered how much they’d had time to tell her.
More people piled on at Boylston. I was still busy examining the crowd that had boarded at Park and previous points. Clinton wasn’t on the train, not standing up anyway. Maybe seated behind the barrier of torsos. Maybe in another car. Maybe already at Arlingon. I hoped so. Distance, keep him at a distance.
I thought of all the cleverly concealed cops watching the exits from Park Street. Would Mooney blow their cover and try to run them over to Arlington? How many exits were there from that station? Damn near as many. Four on the corner of Boylston and Arlington. Then there was the tunnel to Berkeley Street. And the trains.
We got off with a burst of others at Arlington, stood while the crowd rushed around us, some making for the exits, some piling onto the train. A hand touched me from behind. I whirled, saw nothing, heard a voice from the level of my waistline.
A small boy tugged at my shirt. “Man said give you this.”
Again a sheet of paper. I read it aloud. If Clinton was watching, I hoped he’d think I was reading it to Ana.
“‘Look across the tracks.’”
I stopped, did. They were there. He had Paolina by the hand.
“‘Look across the tracks,’” I said again. “‘Walk up the staircase, stay at the top where I can see you. I’ll send Paolina when you send the girl. Then go back down and get on first train.’”
Damn. I glanced to my left. The staircase loomed some sixty feet away. There was an identical staircase on Clinton’s side of the tracks. Both led to the fare collector’s plaza, a concrete island the width of the subway tunnel. I remembered the setup at Arlington Street; the staircase landings were only forty feet apart. I stole a glance at Ramirez.
Why couldn’t we pull the switch now, me sending the fake Ana up the stairs, him parting with Paolina at the same time?
I answered my own question. Because that way both Ana and Paolina would be out of sight for a few seconds during the crossover, because Ramirez could grab Paolina, take shelter in a fare collector’s booth, run for an exit.
We started to walk toward the stairs. Ramirez stayed to my left. It looked natural, and I silently applauded her for keeping out of clear sight. But once upstairs, at forty feet, maybe less …
I wondered if Ramirez was armed, wired. Hell, I didn’t know anything. Damn Mooney. Damn their convenient timing. The staircase seemed to stretch forever. I kept my eyes right, focused across the tracks where Clinton and Paolina were mimicking our movements. He had his hand in the pocket of his light jacket. The pocket bulged.
There was a very brief moment when we lost sight of each other. I said “Staircase, Arlington Street Station. Gun in jacket pocket” as fast and as loud as I could.
Then I could see him again. He clutched Paolina by the hand, yanking her along in front of him. He paused at the top of the steps and we faced each other across the span. Too close, I thought despairingly.
Someone jostled me from behind, snapped “Excuse me.” Throngs of rushing homeward-bound commuters tried to shove Ramirez and me aside. I didn’t want to take any more steps forward. I grabbed the fake Ana and we dodged to the left. The station was dense with people. I stared across the too-narrow gulf and saw that Clinton was having as much trouble as I was with the shoving, rushing pedestrians. He was trying to keep a firm grip on Paolina, on the gun in his pocket, and still get a clear view of Ana. I could see him easily, but then we were both taller than the crowd. Paolina was practically invisible. Ana must have been nearly as hard to see.
I held my breath.
The noise level increased threefold as a rush of local high-school kids, freed from class, poured down the stairs and through the turnstiles, waving their T passes, moving to deafening rap music from a red-lining boom box. Instead of neatly splitting between the two staircases, heading inbound or outbound, they stood mid-platform, arguing and gesturing, finishing off some school dispute.
I could barely see Clinton. I heard him shout. Then I saw Paolina twisting and weaving through the crowd. Clinton yanked something from his pocket and I yelled “Down!” I hollered at full volume, with desperation behind the shout, but my voice was lost in the uproar.
Paolina was a just a flash between somebody’s legs, trying to push her way through to me. I could see that her mouth was open, but I couldn’t tell if she was screaming or what she was screaming. Clinton raised his weapon. He wasn’t sighting on Paolina. I turned and knocked Ramirez to the ground.
The first s
hot brought silence, the second panic. Paolina was in front of me, her arms wrapped around me, almost knocking me over. I whirled and thrust her behind me, pushing her down two steps behind a cement barrier.
“Stay here,” I yelled. “Let go.”
I stood and surveyed chaos. One of the school-kids was down. I couldn’t see Ramirez. Clinton turned, stuffed his gun back in his pocket, joined the race downstairs. Bewildered commuters stood and screamed. Guards in MBTA uniform swarmed and shouted. I caught a glimpse of Ramirez hauling herself to her feet. There was blood high on the shoulder of Ana’s raincoat. She had a gun in her hand. She sank back on the ground. I yelled, “Officer down! Officer in need of assistance!” as loudly as I could, praying somebody was picking up something from the damn machine strapped tight to my ribs. Then I pushed in close to her, grabbed the gun from her unresisting hand, and plunged through the crowd, down the staircase, after Harry Clinton.
“Get down! Get out of the way!” The stolid citizens on the staircase had no eyes, no ears. They hadn’t heard shots, just backfires, hadn’t seen anything out of the ordinary, just a guy racing to catch some train. Damn inconsiderate of people, rushing around, shoving on a staircase. Somebody could get hurt, dammit.
I kept the automatic at my side, pointed at the ground, invisible. Ramirez had already clicked the safety off. From ten steps up I surveyed the station platform. It was a blur, a whirl of shapes and colors. My eyes picked out bits of movement. A boy grabbed his father’s hand. A flash of red turned into a young woman’s scarf. Blue was a book bag, an umbrella. Most of the faces were in profile or turned three-quarters away, gazing down the tunnel for the headlight of the train. Where was he? Racing for the Berkeley Street exit? On a train back to Park Street? Behind a pillar? My breath was coming in starts and stops. The train rumble hammered my ears. My hand shook. I wanted to shoot the bastard, kill him. Shoot bullet after bullet into his dying body, yelling their names, Manuela, Aurelia, Delores, Amalia—
An Arborway–Huntington train lurched into the station. I watched the doors part, spilling new innocents onto the platform. I knew if I saw Clinton, I’d never get a clear shot off. I’d hit some poor kid reaching for his father’s hand.
I remembered Ramirez, bleeding on the ground. And the anonymous kid who’d fallen. And Paolina, crouched on the staircase, vulnerable.
I swallowed and shoved the safety on the automatic. My mouth tasted like metal. I crammed the gun in my pocket, turned, and raced back up the stairs, making myself small against the banister, pushing against the crowd every step of the way. The sound of approaching sirens added to the cacophony.
Paolina was where I’d left her, eyes wide and staring. A gray-haired woman was trying to comfort her, but Paolina was deaf to her soothing words. She moaned softly. I knelt in front of her, called her name. Her eyes focused slowly on my face, and then she was in my arms. I picked her up, and it seemed as if she had no weight. She crushed the transmitter into my ribs and the pain felt good.
39
At eight-thirty the next morning, dressed in shorts and long-sleeved top, I was resting my butt on the hard wooden bench of the Huntington Avenue Y’s gym, listening to the smack of sneakers on floorboards, the referee’s shrill whistle, sporadic yells, and brief bursts of applause. Mainly I heard the cheers of the rival squad. We were down a game.
And I was decorating the bench.
My nose and cheekbone were fine. An ice pack wrapped my left ankle, more or less secured with an Ace bandage. I’d played only the opening two points. I must have slipped on the damn staircase at Arlington Street station, maybe when I’d lifted Paolina. I hadn’t noticed the pain, not till this morning.
Kristy had given me a long look when I’d limped in. Ordinarily I hate missing a practice, much less a match—and this was the championship, and here I sat on the bench. I stretched out a hand and rested it on Paolina’s knee. She turned and gave me a tentative smile.
“Maybe you can go back in,” she said earnestly. I reached over and tucked a strand of shiny hair behind her ear so I could see her better.
“Maybe.”
“I’m sorry you hurt your ankle.”
“It’s not your fault.”
Her hand crept into mine. She was okay. A bruise or two, hidden by her striped shirt. A scraped knee under blue-green pants. Her fingers toyed with a goldfish pendant, suspended on a black silk cord, the twin of the one I’d found in my house. She was physically okay, but much, much too quiet.
While I was changing in the locker room pretty Edna had asked about handsome Harry, the Olympic scout. Would he be watching today’s game, cheering for me?
I hadn’t told her Harry Clinton was locked in a cell at Charles Street Jail. The wire hadn’t worked well on the station platforms. Too far underground. But Mooney had gotten the message to move to Arlington from the broom man at Park Street. And up on the staircase in Arlington, only ten feet beneath the street, my voice had carried loud and true. Harry Clinton had emerged at Berkeley Street to the hostile stares of six cops and two FBI men. With no hostage in tow.
He wasn’t talking about the killings, not to the cops at least, except to say that they must be the work of a crazy man, and since he wasn’t crazy, he couldn’t be the murderer. Not crazy. This from a man who’d chopped off Manuela’s hands to prevent her identification, and then repeated the pattern so the later deaths would seem like the work of a ritualistic killer who chose his victims at random.
Smart didn’t rule out crazy.
Ramirez was in Boston City Hospital with a broken collarbone. The kid who’d gone down had a shattered kneecap.
“It’s just I thought I saw him today,” Edna said, double-tying her shoelaces, a puzzled frown creasing her brow.
I wondered if she’d ever link the Olympic scout with the mug shots of Harry Clinton on the front pages of both dailies.
James Hunneman was at police headquarters, practically stuttering in his eagerness to talk. The factory owner swore he didn’t know a damn thing about murder. He was only bribing Clinton. It had been going on for a long time.
He’d always gotten cheap labor from Clinton, no questions, no papers, dollars changing hands. When the new law took effect, making him vulnerable to fines for employing illegals, he’d started paying Clinton more, to avoid INS raids. He made ends meet by sticking some of the illegals in his brother-in-law’s rental apartments on Westland. Canfield charged what the traffic would bear and kicked back a percentage to Hunneman. Still, Hunneman thought it was getting out of hand. He could barely make a profit. American workers wanted more and more. Unions and benefits. Health care, for chrissake.
Hunneman’s lawyer tried to get him to shut up at this point, but he was a man with a grievance and he wanted to set the record straight.
And Manuela, and the other women who so suddenly disappeared after supposedly getting their green cards?
Well, he blustered, he wasn’t in business to ask questions. He didn’t give a damn. They were just a bunch of illegals.
I hoped he’d see the inside of prison for a long time to come, he and his brother-in-law both. It wasn’t enough. If there was a hell, I wanted them booked for an endless shift, stitching and stuffing pillows in a sweltering, unventilated closet.
The people in the stands came alive as Kristy made a terrific dig, and my replacement, a black woman named Nina, spiked a kill. Fourth game even at eight all. I yelled encouragement. It felt funny to watch. The perspective was wrong.
“I’m all mixed up in my head,” Paolina mumbled, leaning against me.
“Let’s talk about it.”
“Not now. You wanna watch.”
“Well take a walk. I’ll test my ankle.”
I leaned over and murmured to a teammate. If everybody else broke a leg, she could find me wandering the first-floor corridors. I took Paolina by the hand and we went out the big double doors. The noise of the game receded behind us.
“What’s all mixed up in your head?” I asked after
we’d walked awhile in silence. The ice bag thumped against my ankle.
“Does your ankle hurt?”
“Only when I tap-dance.”
“Mom said not to tell you about the factory.”
“Is that what’s bothering you?”
“I gave Amalia your card. She was in the bathroom, crying, and she said no one could help her. I remembered how I always used to cry when I was a little girl, and I said maybe you could help her like you helped me.”
When she was a little girl. When had a ten-year-old ceased being a little girl?
“I wish I could have helped her,” I said. “She didn’t tell me enough.”
Paolina said, “She was crying. I hate it when grown-ups cry.”
We were near a staircase, and I sat heavily on the third step up. I leaned forward and probed my swollen ankle with tentative fingers.
“If she’d told the truth,” Paolina said hesitantly, “would you have helped her? No matter who she was? No matter if she was illegal and everything?”
“I’d have done my best. I might not have helped, but I’d have tried.”
“What if—what if she had a secret that was too awful to share?”
“Sometimes if you tell secrets, they don’t seem so bad,” I said.
She twisted the wire fish that dangled around her neck, ran her fingers over the black silk cord. “Mom lied to me,” she said, “about my dad.”
“Tell me about it,” I murmured, almost afraid to talk for fear she’d shut me out again.
She went on and I breathed a little easier. “I just wanted to tell the truth and not hurt anybody.”
“That’s tough,” I said. “Sometimes you can’t tell the truth and not hurt somebody.”
“I thought if I went to—to that man, he could help me because he worked for Immigration and everything, and because you liked him. I thought he was okay.”
She stared at the floor. Her fingers were busy with the fish again.
“You saw him the night you stayed at my house with Roz. You took his card off the hall table.”
“You kissed him,” she said accusingly.