Hardware (24 page)

Roz appeared in the doorway. “The elevator's coming up here,” she said. “Another way down?”

“Stairs. Kitchen.”

Too many locks. A police bar. A deadbolt. I didn't have the keys.

Roz said, “We can jump whoever comes out of the elevator. You move right. I'll take the left.”

“Stay,” I ordered. “I'll talk us out.”

Roz stared through the kitchen window as if measuring the multistory fall. “One elevator,” she said. “Hit 'em first, talk later.”

“Stay,” I mouthed. Sometimes working with Roz is like working with a dog. Loyal, but lacking.

I expected cops. Possibly Organized Crime Task Force. Possibly Mooney. With good fortune, someone I knew, someone who knew me.

I got robbers. Two guys Oglesby would have labeled “goombahs” at a glance. Between them, enough gold chains to open a jewelry store.

“Hey,” said the taller of the two, smirking. “What have we got here?” His teeth were yellowed, oddly spaced.

“How's Sam doing?” I asked as if I fully expected an answer and a good one.

I'd come on too strong; I could see it in their eyes.

I sighed, smoothing my hair with an uplifted hand, kept the hand moving till it rested between my breasts. “I mean, I'm really worried,” I said softly. Their attention was riveted. I used a finger to trace the curve of my bra line. “Is he okay?”

“Girlfriend,” the shorter one observed. “A babe.”

Roz sauntered out of the kitchen. “Two babes,” she said with a dangerous grin. She'd removed the hat and yanked her shirt off one shoulder, giving the guys plenty to stare at.

“Busy fucker,” the taller man said. “Like his old man. Picking up your undies, gals?”

“You guessed it,” Roz said, coming closer, walking slowly so the guys could appreciate the body under the shirt. “Girl's gotta keep track of her intimate apparel, right?”

The small man said appreciatively, “Maybe Sam took dirty pictures. You got any dirty pictures?”

“Maybe,” Roz said. I've never seen anybody bat her eyelashes like that outside a Hollywood film.

The little guy was almost drooling. “What if we wanna make sure that's all you got? You could be hidin' practically anything, you know what I mean?”

Roz kicked her right leg out so fast, so far, I almost ducked reflexively. The shorter man went down in a heap, out cold, hand clamped to his jaw. She kicked the larger guy in the balls, executing a balletic leap over the smaller man. He howled, went to his knees, and I whacked him over the head with a bronze replica of a Degas dancer Sam keeps on the hall table.

Silence.

Then we were in the elevator, heading down.

I leaned against the paneling, shaking my head from side to side. “Sometimes you scare me, Roz.”

“Like seriously, you wanted to talk to
them?
”

We broke into smiles that turned quickly to giggles. I laughed till I slid down the elevator wall, hugging my knees to my chest.

“Those guys,” Roz said when she could speak again, “they watch TV a lot, you think?”

It worries me when smacking people around starts to feel good. But I hadn't laughed in so long I couldn't stop.

THIRTY

Roz and I split, exiting the lobby via different doors in case any other wiseguys were keeping watch. We met at the car.

“Did you finish the transcription?” I asked as soon as we slammed our doors. “‘Frank' leave any words of wisdom on the tape?”

“Nope. I got all the messages, barely. Your boyfriend gets a lot of calls.”

I shot her a look, wheeled out of the space faster than I should have.

“You want me to call him your
former
boyfriend, or what?”

Unlike Roz, I tend toward serial monogamy.

“Roz,” I said, “while you were diddling the computer, you pull any files on me?”

“Nope, but that doesn't mean there're not there. You were printed when you were a cop, right? You've got a credit card. Shit, your mom was a member of the Communist Party.”

“And proud of it,” I said. “Before the Nazi-Soviet pact.”

“Print it all out, there'd be enough paper to wrap presents.”

“Frank teach you how to erase it?”

“Bet he could.”

“When we find him,” I suggested, “let's ask.”

“Where now?” Roz managed in between contemplating her reflection in the mirrored sun visor, fluffing her weird hair, and humming the theme from the old
Addams Family
TV show.

“Mass. General. Find me a space.”

Twenty seconds later she said, “Brown Buick pulling out. Left side, halfway down.”

I U-turned across four lanes of Cambridge Street traffic and nosed in ahead of an overconfident T-bird. Under other circumstances I might have ceded him the spot.

“Put your hat back on,” I suggested.

Roz grumbled. But she did it, carefully tucking her bangs out of sight.

Sam was in surgery, his outlook “guarded.”

Gloria was guarded as well. Leroy and Geoffrey bracketed her door like matching bookends. I wondered if they'd spent the night. Whatever the hospital rules, I wouldn't have asked either one to move.

“Can I see her?”

“Shrink in there,” Leroy said, glowering. “Why'd you send over a headshrinker? You think Gloria's crazy?”

“Leroy, when you're crazy they send you to McLean's Hospital, out in Belmont.”

“Just if you're rich, white, and crazy. Black and crazy, you do your time at Walpole State Prison.”

I said, “I was worried Gloria might blame herself for what happened.”

“She didn't set no bomb,” Geoffrey said.

“She moved Marvin into the back room,” I said.

Geoffrey, I thought, might not look so scary if he didn't shave and oil his skull.

“Yeah, well, she was only tryin' to help,” Leroy said.

“I know that,” I said. “You know that. The shrink—whose name is Keith Donovan, by the way—knows that.”

“Gloria's gonna be fine,” Geoffrey said, as if daring anyone to contradict him.

“You eat anything lately?” I asked after a brief silence.

Leroy said, “I don't remember.”

“There's a cafeteria. You trust Roz to get you stuff?”

Geoffrey nodded immediately. Leroy eyed Roz; he knows her better.

“Stick to sandwiches and cookies,” I advised her. “Don't get fancy.”

“That shrink is makin' her cry,” Geoffrey said. His mouth barely moved.

“I need to check on Sam,” I said. “Geoffrey, maybe crying's the best thing Gloria can do right now. Don't smack the guy if he comes out, okay? I like him.”

“You like him so that means he's a good doc?”

It was a legitimate question and deserved a better answer than I had. I escaped to the waiting room on the surgical floor.

Oglesby, wearing the same cheap navy suit, lurked by the watercooler. A web of wrinkles starting at the backs of both knees and spreading down his calves told me he'd spent the night in a chair. His jacket had fared better; he must have hung it up. I hadn't awarded him more than a glance last night. His sandy-haired plainness surprised me; he was hardly the devil incarnate. His lower lip, swollen and cracked by two vertical gashes, gave me pause. When he opened his mouth to speak, I noticed dark blood trapped under his gum, rimming an upper incisor.

Maybe I owed the guy an apology. Maybe not. I said, “Oglesby, who's here from the family?”

“The Mob?”

“The Gianelli family,” I said. “The
family
.”

“One of the brothers. Mitch.”

I grimaced. Mitch would have to do.

“What are you gonna—?”

I didn't hear the end of Oglesby's query. I was on my way to confront Mitchell, seated in one of a row of chairs bolted to the floor to maintain orderly aisles. Massive in his dark suit and tie, he almost overflowed the chair. His tie had been loosened; its dark silk was stained. Belly folded over his belt, head canted to one side, he could have been asleep.

The Gianelli constellation of sons began with Gil, leader, eldest, and heir apparent. Tony, the third son, Papa Anthony's namesake—movie-star handsome, a bit of a rake—was the apple of Papa's eye. Mitch, the middle boy, was just Mitch, a little too obedient, a little too eager to please. None too bright, not too quick. Most likely to be sent out for coffee.

I got the feeling Sam felt sorry for Mitch, when he thought of him at all.

Sam, born twelve years later than Tony, raised by nannies and stepmothers, had always seen himself as separate, an afterthought, a member of a different generation.

Figured the family'd leave Mitch on duty. Old reliable Mitch.

“Wake up,” I said.

He stirred, snorted, sat up. “Huh? Something happen?”

I stuck out my hand, offered a smile. “When Sam was growing up, who were his best friends?”

“Huh?”

“Mitch, you remember me, right?”

He yanked his hand back. “Oh, yeah, I remember you, okay. Maybe you're bad luck for the Gianellis, ever think of that?”

“I'm going to find out who did this to Sam.”

Mitch rolled his eyes at a soldier across the aisle. A dismissive gesture. An I've-got-the-situation-in-control kiss-off. “You can leave that to guys who know how,” he said. “Cops already know who did it. Creep's dead. Blown to hell.”

“Maybe.”

“You don't buy it?” Something moved behind his eyes. I wondered if he was as dim as his family seemed to think. Maybe just slow.

“I'd like to make sure,” I said.

“Sam said … Wait a fucking minute. You think I might pay you for this? Private heat, whatever the hell you call yourself, you think anybody's gonna pay you?”

“Forget about money. What did Sam say?”

“Shit. Nothing … Just that he might be selling the cabs. Too bad he didn't get out before this shit went down. That crazy bitch he works with fires some geek and then this happens.”

“Sam wanted to sell? You sure?”

Mitch shook his head wearily, shrugged. “He had other irons in the fire, I guess.”

“A new business?”

“I don't know.”

I wondered if the new venture might have included a move to the nation's capital. A clean break. I blinked, refocused.

I was going to need sleep soon. Lots of sleep.

I went back to the beginning, to “Frank.”

“What about the kids Sam hung out with, Mitch? When he was young? You remember any names?”

“Childhood pals? That's how you investigate?”

“Names, Mitch.”

“I'm about a hundred years older than the kid. I don't know who the fuck he played with.”

“He go to the same grammar school as you?”

“I guess. We lived in the same house after Mama died. No big difference. She was sick all the time anyway, barely moved out of bed.”

“What school?”

“St. Cecilia's Star of the Sea.”

“You have a teacher named Sister Xavier Marie?”

“Christ, they were all named Sister Something Mary or Marie or the other way around. I don't remember any Mary Xavier or Xavier Marie. They closed the old school years ago. Not enough white kids left in town.”

Damn.

“The church is still there, right?” I asked. “St. Cecilia's?”

“Where's it gonna go? It can't move to the 'burbs like everybody else. Cardinal Law, he'd kinda miss it, you know.”

I paused. “Sam holding his own?”

“What's it to you?”

“A lot,” I said.

“I was with him a couple hours. What with the drugs, he's out of it. But, hey, I could share this with you. You'd appreciate it. He keeps calling a woman's name: Lauren or Laura. Not you, babe.”

He aimed to hurt, so I smiled sweetly and said, “Thanks, Mitch.”

“Hey,” he muttered, “if I helped you any, I'm sorry.”

Oglesby tried to corner me on the way out. “What did you get?” he demanded.

“You haven't got a mike planted in Mitch's lapel? What kind of crummy task force are you on?”

“I'm going to tell you something in confidence. We never bugged the cab company. Seeing what went down, looks like we should have, but we didn't.”

“I'm supposed to believe you, right?” I said. “Maybe you should cross your heart and hope to die.”

“I didn't file charges. Don't you think you owe me one?”

I said, “Maybe I'll feel like reciprocating if you answer a question.”

“Shoot,” he said in a resigned tone.

“If the cops have it wrapped, why are you here?”

“'Cause it stinks.”

“What? Why?”

“A Gianelli doesn't get blown up 'cause some—pardon me, is it
African American
or
black
this week?—some darkie broad fires a cabbie. It's gotta be somebody hates Papa and can't kill him. He's like Fort Knox, you know, you can't get next to him. Lotta thugs would like to take him down. Can't nail him, so nail his kid. Didn't used to be like that. The old-style Eye-ties kept kids out of it. Jamaicans, Colombians, it's fun for the whole family.”

I thought about informing him that
broad
had gone out the same year as
Eye-tie
.

“So what did Mitch say?” he asked, leaning close.

Speak up for the microphone, Carlotta
.

I said, “Told me to fuck off. Advised you to do likewise.”

His face burned red. I didn't care. I'd noticed the top of her head peeking over the back of a chair, dark hair fastened with a white barrette, thin legs dangling an inch off the floor.

Paolina. My Little Sister. Who should have been in school.

THIRTY-ONE

I spun around, abandoning Oglesby with his mouth mid-flap, dodged through a row of seats, tripping over extended legs. I didn't speak until I had a grip on her shoulder. I've spent too much time chasing slippery preteens down hallways.