Heart of the World (7 page)

“Moon, there haven't even been hang-ups. I'm doing everything I can think of—”

“Now we'll do everything the both of us can think of.”

“Thanks.”

He looked away, rubbing his jawline like he was checking to see whether he'd remembered to shave. He used to use the gesture in interrogations, right before springing a tough question on a suspected perp.

“Carlotta,” he said quietly, “did the two of you fight?”

“Jeez, Mooney, I'd have told you if—”

“What about Gianelli?”

“What
about
him?” I snapped the question off, jaw tight. Mooney didn't reply right away, just stared at me, waiting. “Mooney, Sam and Paolina get along fine.”

“Yeah, Carlotta, that's exactly what I'm saying. You ever think that somebody who wants his own back with Gianelli—and that list's gonna run to a couple hundred creeps—might take it out on you or the kid?”

I was shaking my head before he finished the sentence. “Sam's not—”

“Please, Carlotta, don't tell me what he is. You asked me to check out this Gregor Maltic, right? Just because he's seeing Marta? Find out what kinda stuff he's into? Well, I don't have to run any check on Gianelli to know he's big trouble. I hear things that keep me up nights.”

“Mooney—” I held up a hand to stop him, but I guess he'd been hanging on to what he wanted to say so long he couldn't control the flow once the dam broke.

“This old-school North End Boston Mafia crap is over, Carlotta. This isn't some Godfather movie with family loyalty and old men kissing each others' rings. It's big fish chomping little ones, and the Boston Mob is small-time, always has been. New York's coming to town, and Miami, too. Believe me, Gianelli couldn't get a life insurance policy from Lloyds of London. And you want me to check on
Maltic
, see if
he's
trouble?”

I sucked in a deep breath and stood. My head was pounding again and I had to make an effort to keep my voice level. “Look, I just came to let you know what's going on, to say I appreciate anything you can do.”

“Ask Gianelli what he knows about contract killers from Miami. Ask
him
where Paolina is.”

Contract killers from Miami?
I tried to swallow, but the lump was back in my throat. “He doesn't know where she is.”

“How come you think he's telling you the truth, Carlotta? You tell him from me, if he knows anything about this he's not telling—”

“That's enough, Moon. I'm sorry I—”

“Oh? You think that's enough?”

More than enough, I thought.
Stop
, I thought.

“Then you didn't come here to ask if I'd found any Jane Doe teens these past few days?”

I stared at the same blue-gray carpet that ran down the hallway. There were scuff marks near the corner of his desk. A phone rang several offices away, once, twice, three times.

“I'm sorry, Carlotta. That was out of line, and I'm sorry.” His hand was on my shoulder before I realized he'd moved from behind his desk. “Look, give me her picture so I can fax it around. You must have something more recent than this.”

His top desk drawer was open; he must have removed the photo from the drawer. He'd not only kept, but framed Paolina's school shot from two years ago. Why keep a framed photo in a drawer? I thought as I handed him a wallet-sized update.

“I'll messenger a bigger one once we get the copies.”

I could have saved my breath. I don't think he heard me. He was staring at the photo, taking in the changes, eyeing the sleek hair, the curve of a breast in the
V
of the low-cut blouse, the kohl-rimmed eyes.

“God,” he said, “nobody's gonna buy her being underage.”

“She's fifteen, Mooney.”

“How the hell did that happen?” he said, shaking his head from side to side, as though denial could stop time in its tracks. As though anything could.

CHAPTER 5

I made it to my car as quickly
as the icy sidewalk would allow, beating out a meter-reader by a good ten seconds, shoving the keys at the ignition while trying to simultaneously slam the door and eyeball my watch. Didn't work; the keys flew out of my hand and came to rest on the floor at my feet, and then I was leaning my forehead on the steering wheel, blinking to hold back tears, praying the meter maid wouldn't notice and haul me out of the car for a breathalyzer test.

Damn Mooney anyway. He hadn't quizzed me about any crazed felons I'd nailed when I was a cop, any goon recently freed from prison and hungering for revenge. No, he'd gone straight for the jugular, straight for Sam Gianelli. And damn Sam for not saying a word about any work-related troubles. But how could I damn him for not telling me what I'd expressly said I didn't want to hear?

I fumbled on the floor mat till my hand found the keys. Studied my watch in disbelief. There are times when the clock moves slowly and times when it speeds; it had sprinted for the finish line while I was closeted with Mooney. I'd be hard pressed to meet Roz at the high school. I ran a hand through my hair and promised myself time for a full-blown breakdown at a later date. The meter maid was watching, her face carefully blank. I gave her a smile that must have looked more like a grimace and gunned the engine.

Cutting behind the Museum School, speeding down Fenway to Park
Drive, I tried to outrace what Mooney had said about Sam. And failed. I'd need to talk to him, mention the unmentionable. I couldn't avoid the consequences of my actions any more than Josefina Parte could—or Marta Fuentes, for that matter. Across the BU Bridge, traffic crawled on Putnam Street. The question wasn't whether anyone was crazy enough to take their hatred for Sam out on Paolina; people are looney enough to hijack airplanes and shoot up their local elementary schools. A line of cars waited to cross Mass. Ave. at Putnam Circle, delayed by semi-frozen pedestrians darting suicidally across the street against the light.

Cambridge Rindge and Latin, a huge concrete bunker located next to the public library, has been remodeled and restructured and redesigned so many times I never know what to expect when I walk past the metal detectors. Those, I expect. And the smell of chalk dust, unwashed bodies, wet sneakers; the smell manages to stay the same.

Quarter to three. I sucked in a deep breath. Where had the long hours gone? The bell had chimed to end the day; the kids had fled, loosed into the community. One had left a backpack and a torn blue sweater at the curb, lying in a heap like a forlorn abandoned pet. They weren't Paolina's; her backpack is worn and red. Someone else, or maybe the same careless teen, had left a battered French horn case on the front stoop.

Roz was in the lobby, sipping from a steaming Styrofoam cup, sitting on a bench with her knees drawn up, staring at nothing while two loitering teenage boys watched her out of the corners of their eyes, trying to look up her skirt. She wore ripped black tights, high-heeled boots, a short red wool skirt, and a low-cut plum-colored top that clung to her breasts like paint. Her hair was silvery white, her lipstick deep purple. A silver stud pierced her left nostril. When she saw me, she lowered her legs, and the boys averted their gaze. Slowly she got to her feet and wandered in my direction. I kept walking. We strolled past the principal's office, turned a corner, and stopped near a deserted stairwell.

“I dunno.” She shook her head slowly, frowning. “These kids, man, like to them, I'm old. I'm not sure they're dealing straight up with me.”

“The dudes in the lobby thought you were hot,” I said to comfort her, and the thought cheered her enough to give me what little she had. Aurelia Gutierrez, Paolina's best friend, insisted that Paolina hadn't said word one about running away. The truant officer, recently returned to
duty, was clueless, an old townie more eager to reminisce about other missing kids who'd eventually turned up than reveal anything about current cases. Paolina's homeroom teacher had treated Roz to a lecture on school overcrowding, Proposition 2
¹
/2,
and local property taxes, his way of saying he had too many kids to grade, much less monitor for quality of life.

“Get back to Aurelia; go for gossip. Any point in me talking to the homeroom guy?” I was thinking maybe he hadn't responded positively to Roz's outfit.

“You need a lecture, go right ahead.” She glanced at the back of her hand where numerals were scrawled in bright blue ink. “I got her locker number: 2336. The bastard wouldn't open it, so I pled my case with the janitor. Read me the riot act on First Amendment rights.”

Where else but Cambridge can you find a janitor in touch with the First Amendment? “When does he go home?” I asked.

She shrugged. “You know the kind of guy, looks like he lives here. Oh, yeah, I got the flyers. Guy at Kinko's said it was his third missing-kid sheet this week.”

It was going to come to that, sticking her picture up on street signs and telephone poles, on community bulletin boards in Shaw's and Whole Foods, like a lost dog. I tried not to think about all those kids with their faces on the backs of milk cartons.

I said, “Where's the janitor now?”

“I told you, he's not gonna—”

“Find him and stay with him, come on to him, whatever. I'm gonna do her locker and I don't want interruptions.” “Bust the lock?” she said eagerly.

“Keep him occupied.”

Locker 2336 was on the second floor down a long hallway of locker-lined walls broken by classroom doorways. The linoleum gleamed underfoot, and the low hum of a polisher buzzed along an intersecting corridor. The tubby janitor had his back toward me as he shoved the machine, heading away from my destination with a long path yet to shine. If he was the same janitor who'd given Roz the legal two-step, I hoped she'd have the brains to let him work.

I'd transferred a prybar from the car trunk to my backpack, just in case, and I was tempted to use it simply because it would have felt good,
the exertion, the satisfaction of twisting metal. I hadn't played volleyball or gone swimming at the Y, hadn't gotten any of the physical exercise I normally get, and I could feel tension knotting my neck and shoulders. I regretted the prybar as I manipulated the lock, but there was no need for it. You're a PI and you can't bust a school locker without a bar, it's time to find a new racket.

My cell rang, and I grabbed it, willing Paolina's voice, hoping the janitor hadn't heard the sound.

“Dinner?” Sam's baritone. “We could try the Harvest.”

Not Paolina. I tried not to let either disappointment or accusation seep into my response. “I don't think I'll have time.”

“You haven't found her?”

“No. Sam—”

“You gotta eat—”

I might have to stuff fuel down my throat, but there was no way I could see myself sitting at a white-tablecloth restaurant poring over a menu. “This isn't a great time to talk.” I'd follow up on Mooney's idea later; I had the locker to crack now.

“You think I oughta talk to Marta? She might—”

“Sam, no. I appreciate it, but…” He believes women confide in him. What they do—what Marta does, anyway—is flirt with him. She'd shoot the breeze all night, tell him anything he wanted to hear.

“Let me do
something,”
he said.

I closed my eyes and listened to the faint hum of the polishing machine. Should I ask whether some organized crime hit man might have snatched my little sister? Instead I said, “Marta's got a new guy named Gregor Maltic.” I spelled it. “You might—”

“I'll see if anybody knows him. And you gotta sleep, right, so I'll come by later.”

He hung up before I had time to reply. Plenty of time to ask about Mob-related complications tonight, I figured, so I stowed the phone and opened the locker as noiselessly as possible, imagining my little sister's hand, warm on the same metal, less than a week ago.

The first thing that hit me was the smell, a combination of scents, floral, citrusy, musky, overwhelming. Lined on the top shelf, a row of tiny bottles and flasks glittered: perfume, cologne, and toilet water. My little sister started collecting cosmetic-counter giveaways at the age of
eight. Probably a line of girls at her locker each morning, begging to borrow the latest fragrance.

A pink sweatshirt on a hook, a brief tie-dyed tee beneath it, stuff she'd have worn in early fall when it was still warm. A plastic bag held gym clothes, navy shorts and a white shirt, wrinkled and smelly.

The hall lighting was dim. I got a flashlight from my backpack, took every item out of the lower part of the locker and placed it on the floor for further inspection, fighting against the rising conviction that there was nothing to find, that I was wasting my time, that she'd been snatched randomly off the street. I unrolled a pair of socks and shook them out. I unfolded pages of lined three-hole paper to discover rough drafts of homework assignments, reassembled a sheet that had been ripped to pieces to find a “D” on a quiz for act 2, scene 2 of
Julius Caesar
. Used spiral notebooks, broken pens. Where was her backpack? If she was using it as a suitcase, I'd have expected to find her textbooks abandoned somewhere. They weren't at my house. They weren't at the Water-town house. They weren't here.

I aimed the flashlight beam into the back corner of the locker floor, then the rear of the high shelf behind the row of perfume vials. Something was jammed in the back corner, an envelope, maybe. I didn't want to knock over all the scent bottles, so I took each container out, one by one, placing them on the floor in a rickety row. A few more scraps of paper, scrunched exams, discarded attempts at essays. I reached into the corner recess, touched cloth, and withdrew a small drawstring bag made of rough brown felt.

It was maybe three inches by four, with a thin brown cord gathered tightly at the top, and pinked edges. The bottom of the pouch felt lumpy. I tugged at the top edges to spread the cord, held the sack in my right hand, and spilled the contents into my left. Something tumbled out, wrapped tightly in white tissue paper.