A Trouble of Fools (4 page)

The letter was tacked low on the refrigerator door, with one of those magnets that looks like a hamburger. A gift from Roz. All my plain silver disk magnets have disappeared. Roz again. She borrows various household objects with the intent of immortalizing them in acrylics. A vase here, a box of steel wool pads there. Her variations on the theme of dead Smurfs trapped in Windex bottles are impressive. Sometimes the magnet, the vase, the Windex will return as mysteriously as it flew. Sometimes substitution occurs.

I tucked the phone between my left shoulder and ear, and stooped to get a better look.

“How about A-198306?”

“Congratulations.”

“This is for real? Twenty thousand dollars?”

“Or the trip to Italy. For the entire family. Up to eight individuals.

Deluxe accommodations, first class all the way.”

“My, my,” I said.

“You’ll want to make an appointment,” he said firmly.

“I will? Oh—yes, I will.”

“Already more than half the two-bedroom units at exciting Cedar Wash are pre-sold, but if you place your order within the next thirty days, you and your husband can select a custom-colored hot-tub.”

“About the twenty thousand—”

“In order to win the grand prize, all you have to do is view the property. No obligation to buy. Would next Saturday be convenient?”

“My husband is out of town. I’d be available.”

“Both you and your husband must be present.”

“Like I said, my husband is out of town.”

“Well, as long as the two of you collect your prize within fourteen days, we can be quite flexible.”

“Flexible” probably didn’t extend to cats.

“Thomas is overseas,” I said gravely. “It might take me a while to contact him.”

I pictured an imaginary Thomas C. Carlyle, traveling through remote and rugged mountains with a band of Afghan guerrillas, burnoose waving in the breeze. He looked like Robert Redford. Younger.

T.C. rubbed against my leg. He didn’t look at all like Robert Redford.

“That is too bad,” the man on the phone said. He sounded sincerely concerned.

“Any possibility of an extension on those fourteen days?”

I asked.

“Well, it’s very unusual. I would have to speak to my superiors.”

“Why

don’t you do that,” I said, “and I’ll call back.”

‘Try to get in touch with your husband, Mrs. Carlyle.”

“Right,” I said.

I hung up and stared balefully at T.C. I mean, you can kiss a frog on the nose and have a chance at a prince, but what the hell can you do with a cat?

I suppose I could have tried the direct approach, sidling up to one of the Geezers, buying him a whiskey or three in memory of our former camaraderie at Green & White, then easing in the crucial questions: So where’s old Gene Devens?

What’s he up to these days? But I suspected that some of the old coots might remember my transformation from cabbie to cop. And if they hadn’t told Gloria about Eugene’s disappearance, I figured they weren’t about to give me the inside scoop.

The situation called for subterfuge. Sneakiness. I live and breathe for that kind of stuff. If I thought I could possibly agree with half—well, a quarter—of their activities, I might have joined the CIA. Spying has its attractions for me. Government does not.

I knew one important fact about Eugene Devens. He drank.

I could have tried every Irish bar in Boston, beginning with the Eire Pub in Southie, grandaddy of them all, but that would have taken six months of hard drinking, and Margaret Devens didn’t look like a lady who’d take kindly to footing the bill for a six-month bar tab.

Now a man might give up his home. He might stray to the arms of a thoroughly unsuitable suburban divorcee, say, or even hit the skids and forget the joys of domestic life with a devoted elderly sister. But if that man has a history of drink, and a group of buddies with whom he regularly takes a drop, odds are he will show up in their company one night.

Gloria declared she hadn’t the faintest clue where Gene and the Geezers did their boozing. So starting fresh Monday night, I hung out with her—keeping away from the Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups by sheer force of will—until, with a nod, her mouth too full of Twinkie for polite conversation, she informed me that a couple of Eugene’s cronies were bringing their cabs in for the night.

The first time I tried to follow them, they split, and zoomed off in different directions. I took a chance and tailed old Sean Boyle, who went straight home to bed.

So did I.

The second night was more of the same, except Gloria’s brother Leroy, a mere bruiser of six three, took ten bucks off me at five-card stud. When Leroy wins, I always breathe a sigh of relief. This time, I followed Joe Fergus home to his apparently blameless sheets.

The third night, Wednesday, was more promising from the start.,Three of the old coots piled into a yellow Dodge Charger that looked like a graduate of a demolition derby.

Now cabbies aren’t easy to follow. They do the damndest things with the most righteous air, secure in the knowledge that traffic laws apply only to nonprofessionals. I’d almost forgotten the thrill of the illegal U-turn, the music of the two-wheeled corner, the joy of navigating the narrow back street. These guys had a route that took them along roads no full-sized car had discovered, at speeds never intended by Chrysler. I don’t think I breathed until that Dodge pulled into the parking lot of the Rebellion.

The Rebellion is the Irish bar in Brighton. It’s on Harvard Street, in the middle of a working-class block that’s experiencing Vietnamization. “Vietnam Eggrolls” reads the neon on the new take-out joint. The laundries have signs in an alphabet I can’t read, and so does the Kao Palace Fish Store and Restaurant, which, by the way, is a great place for softshell crabs.

I could see that the shamrock was still the bumper sticker of choice on the beat-up Chevys and rusty Fords in the Rebellion’s pocket-sized parking lot. Two G&W cabs were

tucked into the lot as well, which would have given Gloria apoplexy. She wants those cabs on the road every second.

I pulled around the corner and ditched my Toyota in a loading zone, locking it carefully. The thing I miss most about being a Boston cop is that little sticker you put on your windshield that keeps you from getting a parking ticket every hour on the hour. It also has a sobering effect on potential car thieves, if they can read.

It was close to midnight. I was glad it was Wednesday, because Wednesday is not pick-up-a-date-at-a-bar-and-take her-home-for-the-night night.

I can pass for Irish. I’ve got that kind of coloring, red hair, green eyes. I am part Irish, for the record. Also part Scots, and half Russian Jew. Somewhere back in the misty past, I am reputed to have had a great-grandma, on my mother’s side, who stood well over six feet, accounting for my otherwise surprising height. My parents were both shorties, Mom a passionate union organizer, Dad a Scots-Irish Catholic cop, at war with himself when he wasn’t doing battle with Mom.

It not being Saint Patrick’s Day, I didn’t wear green. I aimed for working-class chic: skinny black jeans and a blue and black lumberjack plaid shirt, belted. Shoes tell all; if I’d worn four-inch black spikes with that outfit, not that I own any four-inch black spikes, I’d have looked like a working girl. In sneakers, I was okay—as okay as any woman gets who walks into a bar solo.

Someday unescorted women will walk into bars without getting the glad eyeball from every guy who can still lift his face from his beer. But that great day has not yet arrived. Oh, I’m not making a fuss—I’m not bitter, don’t get me wrong. I just hate feeling like I’ve got a price tag hung on my ass.

There’s no way to stop it. No way to win or get even. Once I spent an entire summer wolf-whistling at construction workers, reaching new heights of hollow achievement when I made some poor jerk blush.

The Rebellion’s management eased my entrance by choosing a dim orangey light that made me suspect they didn’t want to draw attention to their food. Baseball, the Red Sox vs. the Orioles, lit up a big TV screen over a scratched dark wood bar. Smoke laced the air, and the place smelled like they emptied the ashtrays every Easter, need it or not.

A wood partition shielded half a dozen tables from the bar. Most were square, and big enough to accommodate a four-person card game. A platform at the back of the room had space for a microphone and a folding chair. “Entertainment Weekends,” a hand-lettered sign promised. “Authentic Irish music.” In a rear corner, two tables had been shoved together, making a decent-sized table for eight. The table for eight had twelve chairs squeezed around it.

My three cabbies were making themselves at home at the big table, joining friends, judging from the handshakes and smiles all around. Their table was the farthest from the bar, wouldn’t you know it, tucked in the corner near the restrooms.

My threesome sat together, an oddly matched trio. Sean Boyle first caught my eye, the Old Geezer I’d followed home Monday night. He had a shock of white hair and a round flabby face. Red veins stood out in his doughy nose, making him look like a cross between Santa Claus and a wino.

If I’d hailed his cab I would have demanded to smell his breath before climbing aboard. Then again, I’m not sure I’d have wanted to get that close.

To Boyle’s right sat a man who still had muscle instead of fat. Maybe fifty, I guessed, his hair flecked gray, he looked like a former Hell’s Angel, but maybe that was just the black leather jacket. He had a thin, sharp nose and a thin-lipped mouth. Mean-looking eyes. I thought he might be Costello, a guy who’d worked the day shift while I was at G&W. I didn’t think he’d remember me.

Third was Joe Fergus, as mild-looking a little man as you might want to meet. He’d shrunk since I’d seen him last, and he couldn’t have been more than five feet six then. He was wiry and wrinkled, and possessed of a legendary temper. I’d never seen him blow, but I’d heard stories. Drivers who cut Fergus off on lane changes came out the worse for wear.

Of the eleven men at the table, maybe six looked familiar.

G&W drivers, no doubt, but I couldn’t recall their names.

They seemed to be in their fifties or sixties, except for one.

He seemed younger than the rest, although I couldn’t be sure because his back was toward me. He moved his hands around a lot when he talked. The old guys smiled and nodded, and apparently agreed with everything he said.

All I could hear was the Red Sox score, and that was depressing.

Four

pitchers of beer, untouched, squatted along the dividing line between the two tables. There was a formality about the setting that seemed odd in view of the orange light, and the smoke, and the TV glare. Hands were solemnly shaken before the brew was poured, and the men murmured as the glasses clicked. It had the air of a toast. If there’d been a fireplace in the immediate vicinity, maybe they’d have tossed their glasses in the grate. I couldn’t catch the words over the canned excitement of the sportscaster.

I’d never worked this section of town when I was a cop.

I’d been a downtowner, combing the Combat Zone for strung-out hookers, trying to nab their pimps. But it took me only about two seconds to figure out that the cops were here.

Not uniformed cops either, plainclothes detectives.

Ah, you say, what perception. Able to ID a cop by the smell, by the distinctive air of authority. Much as I hate to disillusion you, I knew the guys. Or one of them anyway.

Mooney.

Chatting with Mooney was one of the few things I’d liked about being a cop. Moon and I got on so well together I wouldn’t even consider dating him, although he is not bad looking. Plenty of guys are good at sex, but conversation, now there’s an art. Staring at him across the smoky room, his brow furrowed, his face animated with talking and listening, I wondered if it might be time to reconsider.

He was deep in discussion with two other gents at a table near the makeshift stage. He hadn’t spotted me yet, and I wasn’t sure discovery would be to my advantage. Did I want to be associated with cops? Would cops want to associate with me? Were they working? Just drinking? Would Mooney want to know if I was working? Margaret Devens had ordered me not to file a missing persons, not to breathe the sainted name of brother Eugene near the cops.

From my perch on a black leather barstool I couldn’t see any kingpins of organized crime, but I figured I’d let Mooney make any approach. Far be it from me to blow a man’s cover.

I gave up smoking years ago, but when I’m in a bar I still get the urge. It’s so natural. Slide onto your barstool, light up, it’s springtime. Cancer waits till autumn. My dad died of lung cancer. They should have made a Marlboro commercial out of his last few days of tubes and pain and small indignities.

Still, the craving for smoke tugged at my stomach, and my hand reached automatically for my bag, as if I’d find a pack of Kools inside.

“What’ll it be?” The bartender smoked and I inhaled. I know it’s cheating and dangerous and all that, but hell, you can always get hit by a gold Mercedes and go out in a quick flash of glory.

I ordered Harp on tap, and earned an appreciative smile for my Irish expertise. I dated an Irish guy from Boston College once. The bartender sped off and I settled back to observe my three cabbies in the mirror. They didn’t seem to be waiting for a companion to fill the single empty chair. Intense discussion was taking place back there. I wished they’d raise their voices so I could hear.

The bartender came back with a foaming glass and set it before me so gently he didn’t disturb the suds. He had an engaging gap-toothed grin in a youthful florid face. He looked like he sampled his own wares. He looked like he ought to arrest himself for serving somebody underage.

Never go to bars to pick up men. A few young guys in one corner were slapping each other on the back and giggling and pretty soon one of them would come over and make me an offer I could easily refuse. Maybe it was their collective leer that made me slide my license out of my wallet when I put down my money for the beer. The bartender gave it the eye.