The Big Dig (2 page)

Keyboarding, filing, and answering the
damn phone.

They were easier on my sore leg than hauling pipe, gentler on my tailbone than driving a 'dozer, but they came with their own set of problems. Secretarial chores meant dressing neatly, obeying orders, and smiling till my cheeks ached.

“This ain't no South Bay, ya know, no effin' wonder of the world.” Harv O'Day, the site super, tried and failed to sound modest. A wiry little guy in his thirties, what he didn't know about the Dig you could probably stick in the corner of one of his cool gray eyes. “At the Bay, they have to freeze the goddam dirt, it's so soft, and tunneljack the highway under the railroad tracks. At South Station, the sandhogs go down a hundred and twenty feet, and they have to worry about the subway overhead, and the trains. Nothin' like that around here.”

It was warm and stuffy in the double-wide trailer that housed the field office of Horgan Construction. The Horgans, Gerry and Liz, husband and wife, ran a local company with major political pull. They camped in the private office behind the thin wooden door to the right. I shared the central section with two desks, four filing cabinets, a chatty coworker named Marian, a Dell computer, and a ton of filed and to-be-filed paperwork. To the left, O'Day ruled an area no larger than a phone booth, watching workers punch timecards, studying specs and schedules, filling out requisition forms.

On a counter along the back wall, a microwave oven sat next to a sink. The tiny bathroom looked good compared to the outdoor Portolets.

Marian, twenty-four, cute, and curvy, had already informed me that Gerry Horgan was her dream boss, referred to his wife as “the big cheese,” and hinted that the Horgans' only child, a “total darling,” was neglected by her workaholic mom. She'd termed O'Day a confirmed bachelor with a sniff that said she might have taken a run in that direction. She said my keyboarding skills needed improvement.

The trailer crouched in the shadow of the doomed elevated interstate, AKA the Central Artery, close to where it met Commercial Avenue. The adjacent site, Site A1520, was—according to O'Day—a relative piece of cake, a top-down job that included rerouting utilities, constructing slurry walls, cutting away the steel and concrete columns supporting the elevated highway, and replacing them with temporary supports built on top of the slurry walls. Then came tunneling between the walls, removing the dirt through openings in the roof deck called glory holes, and the actual construction of roadway and interchanges. All this underneath a major highway that had to remain open to 190,000 or so cars a day. One Dig boss compared it to performing open-heart surgery while the patient played tournament tennis.

We were near the end of the digging phase, getting ready for massive infusions of concrete—enough, O'Day said, to build a sidewalk three feet wide, four inches thick, all the way to San Francisco and back three times. The paperwork to prove it was stacked helter-skelter on my desk.

The trailer door banged and I thought, here we go again, another laborer to inspect the new talent. My first day on the job I'd worn a short skirt, provoking gazes so intent I'd been worried someone would spot my bullet-wound right through my tights. I'm not saying the traffic in and out of the trailer was all about me. By no means. First of all, everybody tramped in and out, engineers, supervisors, consultants for this, consultants for that. Second, it was damned cold outside, and third, Miss Marian Farrell, my co-gofer, dressed like a men's mag covergirl. She also kept a box of chocolate-covered cherries nestled next to a pile of condoms in the lower left-hand drawer of her desk, and glanced in my direction more often than I liked ever since she'd found me “looking for a paper clip” in her blameless top drawer.

I'd been searching for computer passwords. A lot of people write them down, in case they forget.

O'Day headed back to his desk as the door slammed behind a man whose watery blue eyes didn't go with his tough-guy face. He cradled his hard hat in the crook of his arm, marched over to Marian's desk, and announced, “I wanna see Mrs. Horgan,” without so much as a glance in my direction.

“You have an appointment, Kevin? I didn't notice you on the schedule—”

“Oh, she'll see me, okay.”

Marian shot him a glance, and he dropped one eyelid into a wink, a good-looking guy who knew it, strolling into the trailer like he owned it. Some of the workers seemed shy indoors, scraping their boots before entering, ducking their heads like they felt too tall for the ceiling. Kevin's boots were caked with mud.

The office door opened and Liz Horgan stepped out, smoothing a slim navy suit. The man's eyes lit up.

She couldn't have been much older than me, mid-thirties tops. Her oval face was the kind that looks different from different angles, her silky blonde hair long enough to yank back in a ponytail. A nitpicker might have said her lips were too full. Too many expressions played over her features too quickly for me to read them. At first I thought she was pleased to see the man named Kevin, then displeased.

All she said was, “Oh.” The sound stretched and hung in the air.

“Why don't we—” Kevin began.

“I'm just leaving,” she said at the same time.

The inner door reopened and Gerry Horgan emerged, head down as usual, a short bull of a man, with heavy shoulders and a barrel chest. He halted at the sight of his wife and Kevin, and it suddenly seemed as if too many people were crowded into our little trailer.

Horgan was third-generation construction. Old man Horgan, builder of City Hall, was dead and his son, Leonard, builder of hospitals and office towers, was tucked away on corporate boards, confident the business was in good hands. And why not? Gerry was a double eagle, meaning he'd graduated from Boston College High and Boston College, like a lot of area movers and shakers. Liz was an architect and an engineer as well as a looker, and a full partner in Horgan Construction. The gossip mill said she owed her partnership to the feds; on a big project like this they held plum contracts open for minority and woman-owned businesses.

“Meeting's gonna start without you, Liz.” Horgan's voice boomed in the small space.

“I'm going, Gerry. On my way.” She patted her skirt nervously and flashed a distracted smile in my direction before hurrying out the door. It could have been aimed at Kevin, but it warmed like sunshine and I had the feeling that of all the trailer's inmates, she was most likely to remember my name. For this job it was Carla. Carla Evans.

“Help you with something?” Horgan's voice hadn't lost its edge. It held Fournier in place.

“Never mind.”

“Why did you want to see Liz?”

Fournier shifted his hard hat. “Look, I heard they're going to twenty-four/seven next door.”

“So?”

“Well, a lot of us are wondering when we're gonna go twenty-four/seven.”

“You'll know when I tell ya.”

“They're saying the other guys'll be moving on to other sites—”

“Our guys will still be working while the guys next door are sitting around with their thumbs up their asses.”

“Or maybe those guys'll be working new sites, and when we're ready, the new work'll be gone.”

I noticed that Harv O'Day had left his cluttered desk and was standing behind a filing cabinet. Man moved like a cat, on springy, noiseless feet. He took two more silent steps and entered the fray.

“Hey, a guy has problems with the schedule, he goes through channels, Fournier. And I'm the channel. You talk to me when—”

“Horgan asked me—”

“And what
Mr.
Horgan says goes, you know that.”

“Just next door they're going to twenty-four.”

Horgan said, “We'll go to twenty-four when we need to. How'd it go today?”

“Today's good. But you can't count on weather like today.”

“You can't count on weather, period.”

“Right, so I figure we should go twenty-four while it's clear. I was talking to Mrs. H, and she seemed like she agreed with me, so I thought I'd—”

“Fournier, maybe you don't hear so good.” O'Day was getting red in the face. “Look, Gerry, I'll handle this.” He clapped Fournier on the shoulder, turned him around, and hustled the larger man out the door. Their voices trailed off, arguing but with less vigor. O'Day was going to win and he knew it.

Horgan didn't return to his office. He stood frozen, fixed, as though he couldn't quite remember where he was. Marian leaned on her elbow, accentuating the cleavage in her deep V, and stared up at the dream boss with big eyes. Something going on there.

Something going on, all right. The tension in the trailer was so thick I could almost grab it like a rope. I hadn't been on the job long, but already it reminded me of other poisonous workplaces, of the squad room when reprimands were in the air, when wrong choices had been made, when a big case was going nowhere, nowhere, nowhere.

Eddie had instructed me to report, acclimatize myself, get familiar with the operation and personnel. He'd given me nothing else, not a name, not a clue as to what had caught the Inspector General's eye.

“Gerry,” Marian said softly, “is Tess doing okay?”

“What?” Horgan sounded perplexed, as though he'd been woken abruptly.

Krissi was the neglected child, a super-smart thirteen-year-old, according to Marian. Tess was a new one on me.

“We had such a great time together,” she went on enthusiastically, not noticing Horgan's increasing irritation. “At least, I thought—”

The dream boss cut her off. “Did I ask you to get me the specs on the finish work for the Channel tunnel?”

“I don't think so.”

“Sure I did. Jesus, Marian, try to stay on top of things, okay? I'm sure I—Hell, hold my calls for awhile. And get me those specs ASAP.” He disappeared into the inner office.

Marian shifted her posture, bit her cherry-red lower lip. “What are you lookin' at?” she asked me.

I hit the keyboard, but I kept wondering why Kevin Fournier really wanted to see Mrs. H. The intensity in his gaze, the catch in his voice hadn't been provoked by any scheduling anxiety. No way.

I posted OSHA regulations, double-checked
invoice figures, fielded insurance information requests from inquiring hard hats. Since I didn't know whether I was documenting substandard building techniques or counting fewer workers than were carried on the payroll, I concentrated on the computer system, memorizing what I could while the phone rang non-stop. Marian did most of the answering, polite and well-informed, an oasis of calm, and my opinion of her competence soared. I was studying the make and model of the trailer's alarm system when she invited me to join her for lunch. Nothing beats office gossip, so I said sure, I was practically starving.

With half an hour and all of downtown to choose from, I'd have headed back to Chinatown like a homing pigeon. But I wanted Marian to be my new best friend, so I let her pick a lunch spot, and wound up slogging through the food court at nearby Quincy Market elbow-to-elbow with a scrum of tourists. Marian was partial to Regina's pizza slices, which was a better outcome than the single-lettuce-leaf salad for which I'd braced myself. She grabbed two slices of sausage and cheese, ordered a diet cola to wash it down. There was a wait for anchovy, so I made do with pepperoni and mushroom.

“Mostly, the hard hats don't come here; more guys from offices.” She gave a passing man in a three-piece suit the glad eye while settling at a crowded table in the rotunda. “The guys at the site bring sack lunches, eat sitting on the ground.”

More comfortable than this joint,
I thought grimly, moving aside undiscarded trash and wedging my backless chair between a group of teenagers arguing over who was going to pay for dessert and a hostile husband and wife.

“You seeing somebody?”

“Huh?” I managed through a mouthful of pizza.

“You got a boyfriend? You don't wear a ring.”

I let her interrogate me for awhile, had some fun making up my life as I went along. I kept fairly close to reality, the best lies being nearest the truth. I got sympathy points for my brief marriage, the weird respect that young unmarried women have for women who've already been there, done that. As soon as I could, I turned the conversational tide back to Marian's life and woes, clucking over the fiancé who'd developed cold feet at the last minute, skyrocketing Boston rents, and other single-girl-in-the-city blues.

She'd started working for Gerry Horgan right out of school, learning the ropes from the fearsome Miss Farlock, a demon with no apparent first name. Miss Farlock hadn't resigned, she'd simply died at her desk, the only way Gerry could get rid of her since she'd been Daddy's secretary and came with the company. Since Miss Farlock's demise, there'd been a bunch of unsatisfactory hires and temporary fill-ins. Marian sure hoped I'd work out.

She had started as a Dig enthusiast, she told me, proud to be a part of it. The project was great, historic even, and although it got cold and drafty in the trailer, she'd been gung-ho, because the Dig was great for business. Now she wasn't sure, what with all the delays and cost over-runs. Gerry and Liz kept giving orders, then contradicting them. Really, O'Day was a saint the way he coped. I tried to get specifics, but she wanted to detail more personal stories, like the time the iron-workers banged on the trailer wall when she wore this red dress, and she'd been so embarrassed that she hadn't worn that dress to work ever again, and really, maybe, it was just a shade too tight for her. Did I think she needed to diet?

I reassured her, then added, “Don't get down on yourself just because Horgan gave you a hard time. You didn't warn me he had such a short fuse.”

“He doesn't, really.”

“Who's Tess? An old girlfriend?” She'd drawn a harsh rebuff for even mentioning the name to the boss.

“Nothing like that. Tess is Gerry's dog.” Marian pressed her lips together in a thin, anxious line.

“He brings his dog to work?” I wondered whether it was a guard dog, and whether it stayed behind after the work crews had gone.

“No, it's just I used to sometimes take care of his dog. It's not like he made me walk it or buy dogfood or anything. Gerry would never ask me to do stuff like that. Liz, now—”

“She makes you run errands?”

“Well, she's not that bad.” The admission was made grudgingly. “Every once in a while she'll ask me to take something out to this ritzy school. Krissi, their kid, is practically a boarder. Honestly, you'd think a mother could take an hour off to see her kid.”

She told me that Tess was the
cutest
dog, a yellow lab, really
adorable
. It was daughter Krissi's dog, really, and Krissi was adorable too.

I smiled and chewed. The pepperoni was oily and spicy, and I was considering going back for another slice when she abruptly asked if I could keep a secret.

I felt like I ought to cross my heart and hope to die; she looked that young, gazing at me earnestly from under miles-long eyelashes.

“Sure,” I said. “Try me.”

“I may have
done something
to Tess.”

She'd been baby-sitting the pup one day, a Sunday she thought it was, a day off, anyway. Tess had been fine at the apartment, even though they couldn't horse around much because she wasn't supposed to have a pet, and the prissy old fart on the second floor would be sure to tell the landlord if he heard barking. It wasn't till after she'd brought the dog back to the Horgans that she'd realized the needle was missing.

“Needle?”

“I was gonna sew a button on my coat.”

Visions of syringes and drugs faded.
A sewing needle.
It's not that I hang with druggies; it's an ex-cop thing. Or maybe it's an anti-housework thing. I haven't sewn a stitch in so many years I doubt I'd remember how to start. In high school, the homemaking teacher recommended I take shop.

“I had it threaded and knotted,” Marian went on, “and then the phone rang and I must have put it down. After I took Tess home, I really looked for it, but I absolutely couldn't find it. So, big deal, I thought, but then Gerry didn't bring the dog around anymore, and when I asked, he sort of brushed me off, and next thing I heard, the dog's at the vet. I mean, what if she ate it? A needle and thread?”

“They have X-ray machines.”

She went on like she hadn't heard me. “Do you think I ought to tell Gerry? I mean, it's so dumb. I tried calling the stupid vet, and he wouldn't tell me anything, wanted to know
who I was
. I thought about calling back, pretending to be Liz, but I could never pull it off. And I mean, what if Tess just has some dog thing, like worms or something. I don't want Gerry to think I'm like careless or—”

“I could pull it off,” I said.

“You? You mean, call the vet?”

“If you want me to.”

“You would? That would be so great, but what if they, like,
know
Liz, what if they'd, like, recognize her voice?”

“I'm good with voices. I could probably do a decent Liz.”

“Would you?”

I was about to say yes, but two men in jeans and heavy boots were making their way through the crowd, waving and smiling in our direction. “You know those guys?”

Marian rolled her eyes, ran her tongue over her lips, and quickly asked if she had anything stuck between her teeth. Her improved posture and gleaming smile seemed to be automatic responses, some sort of reaction to testosterone.

Waves of it flooded off the cuter one. Dark and curly-haired, he greeted Marian with a “Hey” and a lingering pat on the back. The other one jerked his neck in a silent nod. He was tall and stringy with a pronounced Adam's apple and too little chin. The crowd of dessert-eating teens decided to clear out and the guys sank into their abandoned seats, kicking back from the table to insure legroom.

“Pizza good?” Curly-hair extended his hand in my direction. “I'm Joey. Mason. This is Hector. You the new girl?”

I nodded, lowering my eyes, accepting “girl” so the new secretary wouldn't get a rep as an uppity snot.

“I'm a mason. What I do, not my name. You one a the Hingham Evanses?”

“How'd you know my name?”

“Gets around, Carla, names, stuff like that. I knew a guy from Hingham name a Evans. Police commissioner's an Evans. Irish, right?”

That's Boston. People hear your name, they've got to place you and label you, and around here, Irish and Italian are the major categories.

“I grew up in Detroit,” I said, which usually puts a stop to it.

“It's all Arab there now, Detroit, right?” With that, Joey, amateur sociologist, bit into a hot dog. He kept shooting Hector sidelong glances and I thought I had them placed and labeled. Shy Hector was sweet on Marian, or at least got a kick out of staring down her shirt, and Joey, his buddy, was bringing him by to get a better look.

“You on break?” Marian's eyes narrowed suspiciously.

“Why we're here, most a the cement trucks, they're not here. Another fuck-up, ya should 'scuse me.”

“Shit.” Marian immediately started collecting paper plates and napkins.

“Trucks stuck at some other site, ya know, and nobody knows if they're on the way or what. So Hector and I figure we'll grab a couple hot dogs, watch the babes.”

“Winter,” I said. “You're not gonna see much.”

“Hah,” said Hector, his biggest contribution thus far.

“I'm gonna go, Carla. Gerry might want me to make calls.”

“Marian, you're way too good to him.” Joey hid a smile behind a Coke can. “Whyn't ya stay a while, Carla?”

“Heh,” Hector said.

“I'll stick with Marian.”

She flashed me a smile as I helped her jam trash into an overstuffed can. We made good time over the cobblestones, no more than two minutes from the rotunda to the barriers and the chain-link fence.

Wonder of the world it may have been, but to me it looked like a huge hole in the ground, a gaping horizontal wound bridged by decking, stuffed with scaffolding, trucks, and mysterious machinery, bristling with pipes and hoses. One guy was pushing a broom around the hard-packed earth at the bottom of the massive trench. The rest were milling aimlessly, leaning against corrugated metal storage sheds, sitting on piles of iron bars. At union wages, they were an expensive bunch of bench-warmers.

Horgan was up top, yelling at a driver sitting high in the cab of a red truck with
NORRELLI AND CO.
painted in white letters on the door. The boss waved his arms angrily, pointed and shouted. The truck driver had the world's weariest expression on his heavily lined face, as though he'd heard every argument a hundred times and nothing could faze him, certainly not a red-faced construction company boss. He shrugged as though it were an effort.

Horgan's hands were curling into fists, uncurling, curling again, and I wasn't sure he wasn't about to reach for the door handle and take a poke at the driver. O'Day was nearby, yakking into a cell phone. I didn't recognize any of the hard hats. Those that weren't down in the trench were keeping well back, eyeing the scene like it was on television.

Marian made a beeline for her dream boss. I hung back, not eager to make myself conspicuous. Just because I didn't recognize any of the laborers, didn't mean there was no one on-site who wouldn't recognize me. Not that there are a bunch of jailbirds on union construction crews, but I'd be kidding myself if I thought there was no crossover, no risk of being made as a former cop, especially if I stepped up and defused a situation that looked like it might turn violent.

O'Day stuck his cell phone back in his tool belt. “Norrelli's kid says we're definitely on for tomorrow. He's real sorry about today.”

“Fuckin' bet he is.”

“Leave it, Gerry.”

“And let the whole damn crew sit?”

“We'll pour first thing tomorrow.”

“We're ready now!”

“Mr. Horgan? Maybe you could help me take a look at the man-loading charts.” Marian's voice was as smooth as milk and twice as soothing. “They'll need revision, and when we transferred them onto the new system, I'm not sure I got the procedure straight.”

I could almost see Horgan's blood pressure recede. He smiled down at her automatically, and it was then that I noticed his wife. She'd changed from suit to jeans and a heavy sweatshirt. Wearing a hard hat and vest, she melted into the crowd. I gave a quick glance at the workers closest to her, but Kevin Fournier wasn't among them. If I'd had a camera I'd have taken her picture. I've never seen anyone look so alone in a crowd, so lost, so scared.