Steel Guitar (26 page)

“I'm a security guard,” Ray said firmly. “Shut up. Come on, George, let's go.”

The money had been transferred to four canvas sacks, each zipped and padlocked. Reluctantly, George handed the small brass key to Ray.

Hal caught on at just the wrong time. He stared at the slight, dark-eyed man, and an uncertain smile flickered across his face. “Shit,” he said, “you're no security guard, son. You don't have the build for it.”

Then Hal turned to face me, as if the break in routine was my fault, cooked up by yours truly in conjunction with the Boston Police and the Drug Enforcement Agency. “What the hell is that son of a bitch doing here?” he demanded.

“Just give him the money, Hal,” George urged, wiping a hand across his mouth. “He's got a freaking gun, okay? You just hand him the money. That's what we're supposed to do. It isn't your money; it isn't mine. It's not worth—”

Hal shook his head in disbelief as he listened. Then a grin spread slowly across his face and he interrupted. “Oh, kid,” he said in a sorrowful voice, “have you ever fucked up.” And he reached inside his shirt to show Ray the wire.

“Asshole,” Ray screamed, pulling his gun, “I only want the goddamned money! What's it to you?”

“Don't!” I yelled at the same time.

I tried to shove Hal aside. The office was too small.

Ray shot him. Must have thought he was reaching for a gun.

I hit the floor before the explosion quit reverberating. To minimize myself as a target, to stay as low as possible in the tiny space, I had to spread my legs and bend them at the knee like I was in the middle of a frog kick. My feet pressed against the wall. I could see one of Ray's shoes through the kneehole of the desk. Before he could fire again, I straightened both legs abruptly, shoving myself across the linoleum, grabbing his foot in both hands, and yanking it out from under him. George, fast for his size, thank God, smashed Ray's wrist with the edge of his hand and grabbed the little .22.

Hal was moaning on the floor.

I ripped open his shirt and yelled into the mike, “Get an ambulance up here, for chrissake! What the fuck are you guys doing?”

They were listening to the concert, the DEA man told me later. They were having trouble with the wire; its sound level had suddenly diminished. I didn't enlighten them, didn't tell them I'd asked Hal to turn it off. While they were yelling and blaming each other, I breathed into Hal's mouth, forcing his chest up and down, up and down. I thought he was alive when the paramedics took him.

He died at the hospital, Mooney told me. I didn't go to the party. My green silk shirt was covered with blood. I threw it in the trash when I got home.

I wondered whether I'd remember to add the price of the shirt to MGA/America's bill.

Forty-Two

I went to visit Davey at St. John's the next morning. I told Mooney where he could find me if he wanted to try.

I located my car in the lot, a red parking ticket gracing the driver's window. The Hummingbird, in its hardshell case, was shoved under Davey's mechanical bed.

“Has he seen it?” I asked Dr. Sanderley.

“Yes,” he said with a brief, sad smile, and hurried off.

Davey's sunken eyes looked at me blankly.

“Who am I?” I asked.

“Dee?” he said, clearly uncertain.

“Never mind.”

I slid the case out from under the bed and opened it.

I brushed a G chord, adjusted the E string. Played a few more chords, picked some notes, had to tune again. The strings sounded bright, acted new. I wondered if Cal had replaced them. A spare set of GHS strings nested in the velvet lining of the case. I'd brought my own picks.

I played the instrumentals first. Gary Davis's songs, old Baptist hymns, fiddle tunes, “Mole's Moan.” I didn't trust my voice. Then, when I saw that Davey seemed to appreciate the music, I sang softly, Robert Johnson stuff, Blind Willie McTell.

Gloria's brother Leroy was okay; that was one bright spot. He'd been tripped, shoved down a flight of steps, and trussed like a turkey. He described it as the meanest clip he'd gotten since retiring from pro ball.

The DEA's case against Mickey Manganero was blown like smoke. No Hal to testify. Mimi would probably have her day in court, but not in the immediate future. If Roz's prediction held, maybe she wouldn't live to see it.

Roz had dyed her hair a curious shade of copper.

Stuart Lockwood had refused Ray's case. It would be assigned to a public defender. Nobody had figured out who Manganero's contact was among MGA's top brass. DEA was willing to wait for him to start signing checks.

Whoever it was, it wouldn't affect Dee. Nothing did.

I started a twelve-bar blues, so old it's labeled traditional; nobody knows who wrote the lines.

“
I'm goin' away, babe, I won't be back 'til fall
.

If I find me a new man, I won't be back at all
.”

I didn't hear the door open, but other voices joined in. I held the melody line, letting the others harmonize.

“Nice,” a familiar alto murmured at the end.

I said, “Davey, Dee's come to say hello.”

The roommate stared till his eyes bugged out.

I tried to hand off the guitar to Dee, but she'd brought Miss Gibson. Cal had brought a mandolin, a banjo, a bass. If it's got strings he can play it. The three of us sang and played till I was hoarse, till my calluses blistered and bled.

“I thought you'd be in Baltimore,” I said to Dee.

“Postponed the show, the whole tour. We need a new road manager, a new bass.” She gave a sidelong glance at Cal.

Davey faded in and out. Sometimes he'd close his eyes and we could only tell he was awake by the rhythmic tapping of a finger on the blanket. Sometimes he'd hold one of the instruments, his skeletal hands barely able to sound a note. He couldn't remember who we were, but his long-term memory seemed fine, so we played the old songs, and a few times he tried to join in with his ruined raspy voice.

“
I was born in Tennessee
,

I miss my friends and they miss me
.”

That's where I lost it. I set the guitar down carefully by the side of the bed and walked out.

Dee and Cal stayed. I hope they work it out. I hope he joins her tour, gets his music back.

I ripped the ticket off my window and shredded it without remorse, scattering the bits over the parking lot. Then I opened the door with my spare key, and retrieved the other from the dash. I planned to drive, drive all day, all night, all the next morning, until I found a bright yellow kite, a kite with a young Hispanic girl hanging on to the string.

I'm good at missing persons.

Once again, my thanks to the illustrious, if somewhat altered, reading committee: James Morrow, Susan Linn, Richard Barnes, and Ann Sievers. Chris Smither provided insight into the music scene: all the correct information is his; all errors are my own. I'm grateful to Linda Kalver for introducing me to the man who played “Miss Gibson” and to Maxine Aaronson for her legal expertise. Oh, and Roz would like me to thank the ever-vigilant T-shirt squad: John Hummel, Cynthia Mark-Hummel, and Michelle Forsythe.

My agent, Gina Maccoby, continues to watch over Carlotta's affairs with tender care, and I would also like to commend my editor, Brian DeFiore, for his humor, patience, and criticism.

Turn the page to continue reading from the Carlotta Carlyle Mysteries

1

Every April my mother used to host her own version of the traditional Passover seder. A mishmash of Hebrew, Yiddish, English, and Russian, it involved all Mom's old union pals—Jews, Christians, Muslims, and pagans—who'd give rapid-fire thanks for the release of the ancient Hebrews from Egyptian bondage, and then launch into pre-chicken-soup tirades against General Motors, J. Edgar Hoover, and the FBI. I grew up thinking they were part of the religion.

I liked the Passover songs best. One of my favorites, “Dayenu,” a lively, repetitive reminder that “It would have been enough” had God brought us out of Egypt but not given us the Torah, and “It would have been enough” had God given us the Torah but not given us the land of Israel, must have had about twenty-seven verses. Sung after the ritual consumption of four glasses of wine, sometimes it had forty-three.

Dayenu
, I found myself thinking when the whole mess was over. It would have been enough to get the snapshots in the mail.

The first snapshot came on March 20, camouflaged by a sheaf of “urgent” political messages, market circulars, coupon giveaways, and appeals from various charities about to go belly-up unless I forked over twenty-five bucks. My cat and I have an arrangement that allows me to throw most of my mail directly into the wastebasket. It is he, T.C., Thomas C. Carlyle, aka Tom Cat, who subscribes to
Mother Jones
and
The New York Times Book Review
. It is he who fearlessly lists his full name in the phone directory, warding off the heavy-breathers that mere initials invite. When I scoop the mail off the foyer floor, I sort it into two piles, one for me, one for the cat. His stack is always twice as high as mine, but I hold my jealousy in check.

T.C. gets nothing but junk. I used to read it; I know.

Not that the mail with my name on it is such hot stuff. Most of it might as well be addressed to Occupant.

But on March 20 the mail included one hand-addressed envelope, which I suspiciously examined for the telltale return address of a famous person. Some marketing gurus out there genuinely believe I'll rip open a flap just to see what my old buddy Ed McMahon wants to tell me.

My tongue made an abrupt clicking noise, an involuntary response to the lack of a return address on the blue envelope—a shockingly misplaced statement of faith in the U.S. Postal Service as far as I was concerned.

Red Emma, my inherited parakeet, thinking I'd addressed her, began a stream of “pretty birds” and similar pap.

“Stick your head in a water dish,” I suggested. I've been trying to rid myself of that bird ever since my aunt Bea died. Or at least teach it to swear.

The envelope was party-invitation size, a bit larger than three by five. Not dime-store stuff either; it had the feel of stationery from a fancy box instead of a banded pack. I allowed myself a brief moment of speculation before slitting the top fold. I don't know a lot of people who issue formal party invitations.

I might as well not have bothered to dredge up the few sociable names. Inside was no invitation, no letter, no card, just a color snapshot of a baby, an anonymous wrinkled raisin of a face swathed in a multicolored pastel thing the name of which I'd forgotten. My aunt used to knit them for the expected grandchildren of her mah-jongg ladies. They—the outfits, not the ladies—looked like little bags with zippers down the front and tiny hoods. I flipped the photo over, expecting some kind of birth announcement.

Just
KODAK QUALITY PAPER
repeated on a series of slanted lines from the upper-left-hand corner to the lower right.

A guessing game: Name that baby. On my desk I keep a magnifying glass, pencils, pens, scissors, and rubber bands in a coffee can. I polished the lens with spit and Kleenex. Under closer scrutiny, the baby's face looked like a wrinkled prune. Turning my attention to the envelope—specifically, to the postmark: Winchester, Massachusetts—I flipped through a mental Rolodex.

I don't know a soul in Winchester.

I slipped the photo under a corner of the blotter and proceeded with the bills. I study the phone statement like a hawk ever since Roz, my third-floor tenant, housecleaner, and sometime assistant, had a late-night vision and dialed a chatty Tibetan monk at my expense.

Exactly one week later, the second photo arrived. The envelope was the same sky-blue. No return address. Postmark: Winchester.

I'm no baby expert, nor do I wish to become one, but I pegged this tot for about a year old. Fair hair, light complexion, with wind-whipped crimson circles of excitement on her cheeks. I say “her” because the baby was wearing a frilly pink dress and tiny black patent Mary Janes so glossy they'd probably never touched the ground. The occasion could have been a first birthday party, although no cake was in evidence.

Nothing, as a matter of fact, was in evidence, just green grass and a couple of leafy elms.

I located last week's photo and got out my trusty magnifying lens. Could have been the same baby, a year older. Could have been another kid altogether.

I was in no mood for games and thought about tossing the snaps in the trash along with T.C.'s Sharper Image catalog and his invitation to use a $6,000 line of credit with Citibank MasterCard.

But I didn't.

The third came on April 3, one week later, right on schedule. I almost expected it. The little girl was wearing bibbed pink overalls and a matching pink-and-white-striped shirt. Same girl as in the second photo; I could see that now. She'd changed, maybe aged another year, but the eyes were the same shape, the mouth had the identical bow.