A Trouble of Fools (20 page)

I told him I hoped he had herpes, too. I hardly had time to pull my head out the window before he took off.

A shiny Olds shrieked to a halt right in front of me. The door opened and a new addition to the hooker brigade got out. I pivoted as soon as I saw her face. I knew the lady. God, I’d booked her, what was her name? Maria? Marlene? Hell, I’d booked her so often we were practically best friends.

I backed off, closed my eyes, hunched down, and nodded against the lamppost.

“Babe, you okay?” Maria knelt down next to me. She was the motherly type. Maybe that’s why she had six kids, all in state care. I didn’t open my eyes. I could hear her breathing, smell her musky scent. “Hey,” she said, “hey, don’t I know you?”

Adrenaline pumped. I hadn’t decided between fight and flight.

“Lemme see now, what’s your name, girl?”

I opened my eyes. She stared at me with a puzzled frown, then caught her breath. My legs tensed.

Our eyes locked for a moment that seemed to last a half hour. Then she put her hand to her mouth, giggled, and said, “Bitch, cain’t you do nuthin’ ‘bout that hair?” She slapped me on the shoulder in a friendly fashion, and the other ladies relaxed.

Maria’s hair was a different color than it used to be. 1

think she was wearing a wig. Five years ago, she’d been a looker, high Cherokee cheekbones, and legs that wouldn’t quit. She’d put on weight. She had deep carved circles under her eyes, and wore too much makeup to hide them. At the moment, she looked beautiful to me.

“Maria, babe, long time,” I said. “Hey, let’s walk.”

We strolled the block. She asked if she was under arrest, in the kind of hopeful tone that said she didn’t have a place 149

to flop for the night. I said I was no longer a cop, and she shot me a glance of shocked disbelief.

“You ain’t hookin’?” she said.

“Look,” I said, “you want to make some stand-up money?”

“What I gotta do?” She was in a profession where wariness pays off.

“I want some pictures of a house, and anybody who comes out of it. If we stand right over there, about two feet from that fire hydrant, and gab, and you shield me so they can’t see what I’m doing, I’ll give you fifty.”

“Seventy-five,” she said. “I get caught, I can’t work this corner no more.”

“Sixty-five,” I said, because she expected me to bargain.

“You one tight-ass bitch,” she said, smiling.

“You doing okay?” I asked.

“Now and then,” she said. “The kids are growin’ so fast.

Where you want me to stand? And how long? Any bad dudes involved, they gonna notice us for sure.”

That was true enough, considering my outfit and hers.

She made me look downright conservative. Her satin boxer shorts were cut up the thighs, leaving very little to the imagination.

She wore a lace-up fake gold-lame vest, with nothing underneath, and the laces spread wide. I tugged my sweater to get more shoulder exposure. We’d get noticed all right. But noticed as part of the scenery, if we were lucky.

We were hiding in plain sight, playing statues.

I decided to give Wispy Beard another hour. My thighs were getting goosebumps, and my self-esteem was suffering, but like I said, I am stubborn.

Sometimes, very rarely, it pays off.

Maybe twenty minutes later, it went down. Probably the last thing I expected.

A cab, a Green & White cab, pulled up in front of the house. The driver didn’t sound the horn, just sat there, waiting.

I could read the number on the front right fender: 863.

Maria and I had our routine down pretty well by then. We turned together, giggling and chatting like old comrades, and I snapped the camera’s shutter. 863 was Sean Boyle’s cab, the Old Geezer himself. I caught a glimpse of his white hair.

He waited all of two minutes, then the upstairs lights in the house went out. Fifteen seconds later the front door opened. Three men came out.

The first man seemed in charge. He wore a conservative suit, a white shirt that gleamed in the darkness, and a fashionably narrow tie. His features were shadowed by a dignified fedora. He looked Irish. I’d never seen him before.

The other two walked half a step behind him, like bodyguards.

The one on the left had a set of impressive muscles.

He carried a gym bag. I’d snapped four pictures before I realized the one on the right was Wispy Beard.

The well-dressed man got into the cab. The gym bag was passed to him. Everybody kept a careful eye on that bag.

I took pictures until the cab disappeared, and Wispy Beard and his friend went back in the house. I gave Maria her sixty-five, plus a ten-dollar bonus of IRA-gotten gains.

Wispy Beard and Sean Boyle. Together.

Faith and begorra.

Or, as my grandmother used to say: All is not butter that comes from a cow.

As soon as I turned the corner, out of sight of both the hookers and the house on Norfolk Street, I broke into a run and almost killed myself racing to the Toyota in those damn sandals. I kicked them off as soon as I sat down. Then I gunned the motor and took off.

Damn. Damn. Damn. I’d never catch Sean Boyle. If I’d had my cab, the cab I should have picked up two hours ago, I could have flipped on the radio, called Gloria, and found out where Boyle was heading. I screeched a tarn, and told myself to cool it. I didn’t want to get picked up by the cops; not wearing this classy outfit, I didn’t.

I saw a cab’s roof lights up ahead, and jammed the accelerator to the floor. It was an innocent Red Cab, idling along, no fare in the backseat.

I braked, hesitated, and decided to head for Green &

White. I doubted Gloria would be in a helpful mood, what with my tardiness, but I wasn’t about to give up following any guy with a gym bag who took G&W cabs and hung out with scum like Wispy Beard. At the first traffic light, the guy next to me honked, raced his motor, and yelled something out the window. I yanked tissues out of my purse, and managed to smear most of the lipstick off my face. At the second light, I untied the rope around my waist and pulled my sweater down to its full length. I groped in the backseat for my pants, with no luck.

Instead of taking the shortcut, I decided to scoot down Harvard Street. It’s not far out of the way, and I wanted to check the Rebellion. John Flaherty had driven his gym bag there like a homing pigeon. Why not Sean Boyle?

Boyle’s cab was in the parking lot.

I shot right past, sure my eyes must be deceiving me.

Some of the same cabs I’d noted the night before were parked on the street. The bar’s neon sign was dead black tubing.

The front door was barred, and a steel-mesh curtain shuttered the windows, but something was going on inside.

Just like last night. I glanced in my rearview mirror, hoping Mooney hadn’t sicced more cops on me. I reviewed last night’s thoughts: What next? Wait? Take pictures? Risk entering the bar?

I parked illegally around the corner from the lot. I made up my mind. I couldn’t find my jeans, so I wriggled into my gym shorts. They didn’t show under the long sweater, but they made me feel better. So did my bra. I found both my sneakers, but only one sock. I tossed it into the backseat, and laced my shoes onto bare feet.

I have broken into cars before. I have used everything from bent wire coat hangers to your latest high-tech wonder tools, courtesy of a car thief I once arrested, a man eager to prove his superiority to your average car-stealing punk. If he hadn’t been absolutely wasted on dope—and hadn’t thought himself one of the hunky ladykillers of the world—I doubt he’d have shown off his prize collection of boosters with such pride of ownership. He’s doing five at Concord Reformatory, which should curb his desire to impress girls.

Breaking into Sean Boyle’s cab was not without challenge.

The parking lot was brightly lit, and Harvard Street’s a main drag, patrolled by many a police cruiser. Since I hadn’t been able to watch last night’s gathering of the Gaelic Brotherhood, I had no idea how long tonight’s meeting might last. An adrenaline spurt propelled me to the cab faster than my intended casual stroll.

Sean Boyle hadn’t bothered to lock the cab, in direct disregard of Gloria’s oft-repeated warning. He hadn’t been dumb enough to leave the keys in the ignition, which was too bad because “stealing” the cab and searching it at my leisure seemed like a fine idea. I got inside, and quietly pulled the door shut. No need to advertise by leaving the domelight glowing.

I reached under the front seat and found a handful of dirty leaves, got awkwardly down on all fours, and peered under the seat. The rough carpeting scratched my cheek. It smelled of stale cigar ashes and dried mud. I stuck my hands into the cushion cracks and got an assortment of small change, which I pocketed. The dash compartment was locked. I never lock my cab’s dash compartment.

Now I can open most locks. Give me time and decent lighting, and I can do the job. It’s one of those small hand coordination things I do well, like picking the guitar. Time was the problem. It seemed like I’d been in cab 863 long enough for Boyle to drink his weight in Guinness. My hands were sweating.

I inhaled deeply, hauled myself up onto the passenger seat, and staffed my handbag between my legs. I fished out my flashlight on the first plunge, scrounged around for eternity before I located my leather case of metal odds and ends.

I jammed the flashlight under my right thigh, aiming its narrow beam as close to the lock as I could manage.

The adrenaline was really pumping now. Slow and easy, I muttered to myself. You can’t force a lock. You have to tease it, gentle it along until it’s good and ready. Mooney used to make a lot of pointed remarks about my lock-picking skills, but I wish he could have seen me do that lock. If I can’t make it as a private investigator, I can always burgle.

I jumped when the light inside die dash compartment lit up. It must have been all of five watts, but it seemed like a wailing burglar alarm. My heart quit leaping around when I saw the package.

It was a four-by-six-by-two box, wrapped in brown mailing paper. No address. Instead of string or tape, it was sealed with ornate green wax seals, initialed GBA. I hefted it.

Light. I shook it. Nothing. I smelled it. Not a clue. I figured a gym bag could hold maybe thirty boxes.

I couldn’t open the box because of the damn seals, one on each end, two across the main seam of the brown paper. I could steal it, but Boyle would be sure to notice. Not only that, I could see myself explaining to Mooney how I’d come by the damn thing, hear him reciting rules of evidence. Reluctantly, I put it back in the dash compartment, took pictures, hoping the film was fast enough for the available light.

While taking photos, I noticed another item in the dash compartment, a whitish rectangle half hidden under a map of the city. It was a postcard from Ireland, a landscape of green hills and contented sheep. It was signed “Gene.”

That puzzled me, so I stole it. I figure people misplace postcards all the time.

155

You had to hand it to Margaret Devens. One day removed from her hospital bed, and she was the perfect hostess.

Margaret’s living room seemed less resilient than the lady herself. Odds and ends of mismatched furniture filled the floor space. Roz and Lemon had hauled an old couch down from the second floor to replace the one the goons had ruined. An armchair wore a temporary splint on one wobbly leg. The rug had been sent to the cleaners. The doors of the curio cabinets were missing, sent to a local repairman. An unbroken vase sat dead center on the mantle, inadequate for such pride of place. It made the absence of other knickknacks more noticeable.

The “guests” arrived in straggly groups of twos and threes. They had the pasty faces of men who worked nights, slept days.

They squirmed on the ugly sofa, they teetered on card table chairs imported for the occasion, the old men of Green & White, the iron core of the Gaelic Brotherhood. Margaret Devens had handpicked the invitees, her brother’s friends, ten in all.

If Eugene and Flaherty had been present, we’d have had enough for a jury.

Sean Boyle, looking more sober than usual, was one of the first to arrive. Joe Fergus was grumpy, ready to pick a fight. O’Keefe, O’Callahan, Corcoran followed, Irish every one. All over fifty, some closer to sixty, some older, with glazed, glittery eyes that had seen days when the Irish weren’t welcome in Boston, when they were “Micks” and “Harps” and names less specific and less flattering.

The old men stared at the living room’s blank walls and unshaded lamps, at the long extension cord looping toward the slide projector. They spoke warily, in low, speculative tones. It reminded me of a wake without a body.

I’d volunteered to start things off, but Margaret had firmly, politely refused. She would handle it, thank you. Her sweet, fussy disguise was gone, maybe for good. No flowered dress, no feathered hat. She wore plain black, buttoned to a high, stiff collar. Her face was pale, her right eye blotched with pale bruises. One knee was bandaged. She didn’t smile in welcome as the men trooped dutifully through the foyer. She didn’t seem to notice anyone enter the living room.

She took her stand at the entrance to the living room, underneath the archway, and her presence stilled the men’s voices. She carried a sheet of paper in her hand. It rustled as she raised it to her eyes.

“No Second Troy,” she announced.

The men on the couch gave each other that look, the dotty-old-biddy look, the let’s-get-out-of-here look.

Her voice was shaky, not with weakness, but with suppressed emotion. She sounded infinitely old, infinitely weary. “This poem, gentlemen, was found in my brother’s room. William Butler Yeats wrote it, about a woman he loved with a hopeless passion. She was a heroine of the Irish Rebellion.

Maud was her name, Maud Gonne. And for some

reason, my brother, who was no lover of poetry, saw fit to copy it in his own hand. If he could take the time to copy it, surely you can have the courtesy to listen. Possibly, some of you know it already. Please excuse me if I speak too softly— or too slowly.”