Hardware (12 page)

“Bet you got an earful. Look, Moon, I understand your curiosity, but don't give me any rot about how you're so damned concerned for my safety. If I were a cop, you'd have my ass riding decoy in a cab.”

“I might,” he admitted.

“What rips you is you can't order me around. So, please, don't try.”

“What rips me is I see a lot of pieces and none of them fit.” He paused for a moment, lowered his voice, and composed himself. “So, you wanna make a bet?”

In the squad room, Mooney and I bet on everything, from how long it would take to close a particular case to how many pimps we could ID in a single night patrolling the bus station.

“Terms?” I said.

“If you're telling the truth, I'll let Roz cut my hair. That's how sure I am you're lying.”

What a lost opportunity.

“If I'm not telling the truth?”

He gave me a look. “Buy a gun or take a vacation. If you want to talk, you know my number.” He shoved his chair back with a scrape that sent shivers up my spine. “Bye.”

After he'd been gone thirty seconds, I grabbed my crutches and hobbled to the door. “Thanks for the goddamn flowers,” I yelled down the empty corridor.

A cheery nurse poked her head around the corner and shook her head reproachfully.

At 2
P
.
M
. I was formally released. At 2:05 Gloria sent a Green & White to take me home.

FOURTEEN

I sat on a lobby bench until Leroy, Gloria's youngest and most polished brother, the one who reputedly bit the ear off a fellow NFL player, squealed the cab's tires against the curb, jumped out, and attempted to carry me from the hospital portico to the backseat.

“Front seat,” I protested. “I'll smack you with a crutch.”

He glared at me. He had his orders.

“Leroy,” I murmured, with a touch of flirtatious guile. “Come on. How can we talk if I'm in back?” Gloria doesn't realize how vulnerable her brother is to feminine wiles. If I could con him, with my raccoon-bruised eyes and heavily bandaged leg, he was way too easy.

I had no intention of screaming my demands through a bulletproof, practically soundproof shield.

“Where's Marvin?” I inquired as soon as the cab was under way, bumping along Brookline Avenue. City workers had strung skimpy greenery studded with the occasional Christmas light between streetlamps. The half-hearted attempt at festivity made the afternoon gloom more intense. I opened the passenger window a chilly crack and breathed deeply. After a day and a half of canned hospital air, exhaust fumes smelled sweet. “How is he?.”

“Fine,” was the cryptic reply, which I found hard to credit.

“Takes a lot to bust up Marvin,” Leroy continued. “Me and my brother, Geoffrey, tried it all the time when we was kids. That's why prizefightin' came so natural to him.”

“I want to see him.”

“Gloria says he needs to rest up first.”

“Now.”

“No way. Gloria says—”

“Get her on the horn.”

“Don't give me no sass.”

“Take me to Marvin,” I said. “I can feel my memory returning. If I don't see him today, I'm going to the police, or maybe the Hackney Carriage Bureau.”

“Gloria warned me,” Leroy said dourly.

“What did she say?”

“Said you're the only other woman she knows stubborn as she is.”

“So?”

He pulled a sudden U-turn that left openmouthed commuters aghast, their horns bleating. “So we go visit Marvin. You relax now.”

He crossed Huntington Avenue and headed southeast toward Roxbury, the heart of black Boston, increasingly known as “the 'bury,” pronounced like a fruit, neither luscious nor sweet. After we crossed Melnea Cass Boulevard, Leroy started making a slew of turns, some so unnecessary we circled the block.

“Lost?” I inquired.

He eyeballed the rearview mirror.

“White Chevrolet Caprice. You know who that might be?”

“You sure he's following?”

“Look for yourself.”

“Unmarked unit,” I said disgustedly. Ah, Mooney, trusting Mooney. “The cops didn't buy the amnesia thing.”

“I'll lose 'em,” Leroy said calmly. “Check and see if they're doin' a two-car box. One car I can shake easy.”

“It's a single,” I said after a couple blocks of clear sailing. “Unless they're playing fancy with radios. Remember, if they flash their cherry, stop. Gloria'll get in trouble if one of her cabs breaks the law.”

“Breaks the law?” Leroy feigned innocence. Then he floored the accelerator and two-wheeled a turn through a crowded Purity Supreme parking lot. A battle-scarred Pontiac Bonneville backed out of a space. Leroy swerved, a paint scrape away. The driver slammed on his brakes, his horn, and raised one finger in a derisive salute. Heads craned, and other horns joined in the song. More brakes screeched. Leroy gunned the car out of the lot, turned right and right again, then stopped dead in an alleyway, concealed behind an overfed Dumpster.

He turned to me, brown eyes aglow. “Hope that didn't mess your foot up.”

I swallowed. “No sweat. But if our tail's a cop, he'll radio our plate.”

Leroy said, “Keep your eyes open. Anybody else takes an interest in us, we'll head back to your place and try again tonight.”

“You didn't arrange this little show for my benefit, did you, Leroy? You and Gloria. To discourage me from seeing Marvin?”

“Girl, you don't trust anybody.”

“Occupational hazard,” I said.

“Keep an eye out, okay?”

I rolled down the window and aimed the side mirror so I'd get a better view of the street. I didn't see the white Chevy.

“Good,” Leroy said, hanging another horn-blasting U-turn.

The bar, on a cross street off Columbus Avenue, was not a familiar one. Hardly looked like a bar; a lone flickering Bud Light sign differentiated it from residential dwellings on either side. We parked in a back alley and headed for what appeared to be a solid slat-boarded wall. Leroy kept a protective hand on my arm.

“Gloria said it'd be better to wait till Marvin could come to you,” Leroy remarked as we picked our way through discarded trash and broken bottles.

“I hate waiting,” I said.

“Huh,” he muttered disparagingly. “Lot you're gonna do hoppin' on crutches.”

He banged on a section of wall twice in quick succession. A beautiful caramel-skinned woman wearing floral-print bike shorts, a black bra, and earrings that dangled past her shoulders, opened a well-camouflaged door. Her hair was braided and piled regally high, twined into a coronet.

“Leroy, you're crazy,” she whispered, staring at me and shaking her head.

“Yvonne,” he said, “this woman gets it into her head to do something, takes more than me to stop her. Carlotta, meet Yvonne.”

I held out my hand. She regarded me with disfavor bordering on disgust. When confronted with glares directed at my light skin and red hair, I feel a dread compulsion to defend my political beliefs, announce my racial awareness—which isn't perfect by a long shot, but what outsider's can be?

Yvonne didn't look like she cared about my voting record.

“Marvin feel up to talking?” I asked into hostile silence.

His gravelly voice came from a distance. “'Vonne, this gal's okay. You don't have to kiss her, but please, invite her in.”

Wordlessly, Yvonne swung the door open. She walked away with graceful dignity, head high.

Leroy locked the door behind us with the snick of a massive bolt.

Marvin's sickroom suggested a hastily converted warehouse, with liquor cases stacked so high around the brick walls they almost made walls themselves. The place smelled musty, with a sharp undercurrent of spilled whiskey. Light from one overhead bulb, partially shaded by a tattered paper party lantern, revealed a linoleum floor, its seams buckled with age.

I half swung, half walked toward a corner partially blocked by cartons. I'd forgotten how hard it is to use crutches, how much space the damn things take, how much upper-body strength.

“You're lookin' good,” Marvin lied, blinking his eyes and inching up on one elbow.

“You too,” I lied in return. “Sorry if I woke you.”

He made it to a sitting position, gritting his teeth so he wouldn't groan with the effort, shook my hand with a firm, dry grip, then lay back. A bloodstained sheet covered the narrow cot. Marvin's bare feet hung about eight inches over the edge. He wore a stained T-shirt and boxer shorts. His swollen face had purpled around the eyes and nose. A gauze bandage wrapped his forehead. Unlike the clothes and bed linens, it looked fresh.

“Yvonne a nurse?” I asked.

“She knows about nursin'. Knows more about runnin' a joint.”

I became aware of background noises: the faint rumble of conversation, hand slapping, cash register. Somebody called out numbers with precise regularity. Bar noises. Gambling noises.

“Leroy,” Marvin said, “fetch the lady a chair, don't just stand there. Get her a drink. Me too. Something cold.”

Cold? The room was frigid. I wasn't tempted to remove my coat. I unbuttoned it, so he wouldn't think I was eager to leave. I noticed a blanket heaped on the floor at the end of the bed, asked Marvin if he'd like help retrieving it.

“Nope,” he said. Probably didn't have a fever, I thought.

We chatted about his injuries till Leroy returned. Marvin seemed proud of the fact that only two of his ribs had been broken. With no X-ray setup I didn't see how he could be so sure.

“Okay,” I said, seated on a wooden bar stool, the neck of a frosty beer bottle numbing my hand. “Tell me.”

“Temporary amnesia?” Marvin said.

“Don't even try it.”

“Just a joke.”

“You're allowed one joke. Okay? I just spent the night with nurses poking needles in my butt, my Little Sister says she hates me, and I lied to the only cop I like. Make me feel righteous about it, Marvin.”

“It's not like I've been out havin' a high time, Carlotta.”

“Sorry,” I said. “Really, I apologize. Can I start over?”

“I'm not goin' anyplace special,” he said. “I've got time.”

I said, “Gloria thinks somebody might be out to shut down G and W. Did you tell anybody you were driving?”

“No.”

“Mention it on the radio?”

“Just used my cab number. I'm no fool.”

“A girlfriend?” I asked, thinking of Yvonne.

He swallowed a good third of the amber-colored liquid in his tall glass.

“It was a radio call,” he said slowly. “Pickup on the corner of Shandon and Harvard.”

“Near Franklin Field,” I said.

“Gloria gave me a name. She's got it written down. Stevens, maybe.”

A useless alias unless we were dealing with truly stupid crooks.

“Go on,” I said.

“I see a brother on the corner, looks okay to me. He's standin' under a streetlamp, so I see he's wearin' a cap and a raincoat, and I think it's one hell of a long coat, and right away I wonder does he have somethin' under it. But it's just one guy and mostly, people take a good look, size of my neck and shoulders, nobody bothers me. I check, though, to see if anything's stickin' out of that coat, 'cause I heard a baseball bat'll take out a partition. Or a shotgun. Less than a shotgun or a bat, I'll drive him, I figure. Not much worries me.”

Marvin lifted a hand to scratch his forehead. The bandage interfered. He rubbed it hard and scowled.

“Well, my fare's already got the door open right back of me when two men come outta no place. Runnin', and they ain't dumb. Don't waste time tryin' the other doors, like they know I would've had 'em locked. Before I can hit the accelerator, one's got his piece, big as a cannon, pressed against my side window. Guy gettin' in the backseat says, ‘Roll your window down.' That's the first I know my fare's in on it. I figure
he's
the one gonna get robbed until he talks.”

“You recognize his voice?”

“Nope. I roll down the window. Man reaches in and flips off my top lights and shuts off my radio.”

“He ask you how to do it?”

“Nope. So I say, easy as I can, ‘This is your lucky day, boys. You just earned yourselves some money.' I always carry a hundred on me, five twenties, on account of robberies. You don't give 'em somethin', they kill you.”

“They weren't interested?”

“Oh, they took it. But the man by my open window hits the door-lock string, and a second guy with another cannon slides in front, right next to me. That makes two in the back, and the front guy says nothin' but ‘Keep your hands where I can see 'em' and ‘Turn right here,' ‘Turn left here.' Don't ask for more money. Don't seem to hear nothin' I say.”

“What did you say?”

“What would you be saying, honey,'sides your prayers? The one up front is white, and I ain't seen the third one good, but I know there's a brother in back. I try bluffin' that I got a tracer on the cab, and this white guy laughs real evil. Says then he'll have to kill me quicker. I figure it's just talk; wants me to sweat, so I act cocky, like I would if somebody's trying to psych me out in the ring.”

“What did the white man look like?”

“Young and mean. Evil face. Skinny and sharp, like he ain't never had enough to eat.”

“Hair, eyes, height?”

“Light brown. Buzz cut. Pale eyes. Medium height.”

“Five ten?”

“No taller than that.”

Marvin ran out of booze and signaled his brother for a refill. While Leroy was gone, Marvin asked me to help him get more comfortable. I stuffed pillows behind his back. He didn't quite muffle his groans this time. Had to keep up the bravado for baby brother, I guess.

“We could do this another time if you're hurting,” I said.