In solo time, p.17
In Solo Time, page 17
I trembled as I stepped toward her in the streetlight-lit bedroom. Her skin was sleek as cashmere, alive as a moving river. As we slipped into sleep sometime close to dawn, I tried to remember to brake my runaway emotions. There were a million ways to ruin something like this, and I could let myself dive too deep in a heartbeat.
I woke to the smell of fresh coffee and a weight pressing down the mattress by the side of my head. Dressed in a pair of navy blue UCONN sweatpants and my shirt from the night before, she waited until I sat up, then handed me the mug.
“I guess I’m going to have to buy you some herbal tea,” she said. “I couldn’t absorb that much caffeine on a bet.”
The implication she expected to be here again made my heart jump. She stood up and gathered her clothes.
“My aunt is going to kill me,” she said. “The last time I stayed out all night, she called the police.”
“Last time?” I laughed at my own jealousy, part of a collection of unfamiliar emotions I would have to reacquaint myself with.
She smiled. “A high school swim party. Not that you have a right to know.”
I sipped the coffee. “In case it wasn’t completely obvious, this is not a one-shot deal with me.”
“It most certainly wasn’t.”
I tried not to take myself so seriously. “You understand what I’m saying?”
She turned her back, picked up the wig, set it back down. In the first long quarter hour last night, I had luxuriated in the feel of her skull bones, so close to the surface.
“Elder, you’re sweet. Last night was sweet. And I’m not a hit-and-run kind of girl, either. But you know my priorities.”
I did.
“We both have priorities.”
I climbed out of bed and took my bathrobe off the back of the door. I didn’t want to be in bed when she came out of the shower.
“Damn straight. There’s no reason we can’t be the sweetest of lovers and still do the things we need to do.”
I wasn’t sure there was a choice or if I wanted to pretend. She went into the bathroom and I headed for the kitchen. Her coffee wasn’t strong enough.
Once she showered and dressed, I grabbed a quick rinse, threw on some jeans and a flannel shirt. It was only eight-thirty, and I had the whole Sunday free. It was the first time in years that had mattered.
“You want some breakfast?” I said. “We could go to the Italian’s.”
“That nasty old place? Honey, I’m just fine. Would you mind running me over to Lucinda’s so I can mend my fences?”
I made a face. I wouldn’t have wanted to face her aunt.
“You sure you want them to know something’s going on?”
She gave me an arch look. “Something to be embarrassed about? They’re sure as shit going to know something’s going on, and the Esposito was the last place I was seen. I think it’ll actually reassure them.”
She laid a palm against my cheek.
“Don’t worry. I can handle Aunt Lucinda.”
Into the reality of the day, I saw there was a whole complex of things I couldn’t assume just because we’d slept together.
I walked her down the carpeted steps and out through the street door onto Commonwealth Avenue, picked up the Globe in its thick plastic bag, and locked the door. She kept on down the outside stairs, her gown folded over her arm, the turquoise train case in her other hand.
As we reached the sidewalk, the brisk April breeze almost bowled us over. Then a deep bass voice boomed from the curb, half a block down the street.
“Motherfucker!” Cy shouted, stalking up the sidewalk. “I knew you two were trying to fuck me over.”
She tensed. I knew in my heart that if Cy wanted to get physical I was going to get creamed. But both of us were too old to fist-fight in the street.
Alison stepped off the bottom step and planted herself in front of Cy like a parking meter. He skidded to a stop.
“Are you yelling at me, you lecherous old son of a bitch?” she said. “No. I didn’t think so. I think you’re just worried you’re not going to get paid your share.”
Cy looked at the meter maid down at the end of the street. She was still writing her ticket, but the noise had caught her attention.
“Sister,” Cy said. “You are right. I happen to remember another gig or two where something like that happened.”
Alison blushed. I added it to the list of things I wanted to ask her about some day.
She handed the gown and the train case to me, reached in her pocket, and slipped out a single fifty-dollar bill.
“You’re the one who kept saying it was about the relationships,” she said. “Am I right? So here’s what our relationship is all about.”
She snapped the fifty in the air like a dog treat, but Cy didn’t hesitate.
“I want you to remember,” she said. “In years to come. That you were willing to blow a long-term professional relationship with me over fifty bucks. It’s supposed to be about trust, but I can’t trust you to do anything but take the money.”
Holding the fifty calmed Cy down. I handed Alison her clothes and makeup and unlocked the Cougar, as the meter maid moved a few cars closer. As Alison walked around to the passenger’s side and stowed her bags, I lowered my voice.
“Don’t do anything crazy,” I said to Cy. “Come to the club later on and we’ll talk.”
Cy stared at Alison with bleak and disappointed anger.
“Cy?” I said.
Alison slid into the bucket seat, slammed her door, and stared straight ahead through the windshield.
Cy stuck the fifty in his pocket. “You’re both going to regret this.” He walked off down Commonwealth Avenue toward the T station.
I went cold all over. Had Cy just threatened us, or was he just saying that I would regret a relationship with Alison? I shook my head and climbed into the Cougar.
“Well, that was fun.”
Alison’s expression was calm and serene, but I knew it must be costing her.
“He pushes my buttons,” she said. “I wish he didn’t, but he does. I’m sorry, that wasn’t my best behavior.”
As I turned right off the Avenue and headed for Roxbury, I hoped she wasn’t going to judge our relationship the same way, by how well it supported her professional life. The encounter with Cy had burned away some of the good feeling from the night before, though I knew it would recharge, that I would want her again before long. Whether she would want me remained an open question, though. I wondered how and when I’d know.
Friday morning, I was reading the Globe’s sports page, the first few stories about the beginning of baseball season, when Burton jogged down the steps. It was nine-thirty, and I was only here because I hadn’t been sleeping well. I could drink coffee and read the paper at the bar as well as anywhere, and I might have an early customer, too. But I hadn’t been hoping for Burton.
“You. I was hoping we’d seen the last of each other.”
Burton was sharp this morning, the suit a very fine wool pinstripe in caramel, not the usual cheap one.
I pointed. “You’re pretty sure you’re not getting called out to a murder scene today.”
Burton seemed surprised I had figured out the clothes thing.
“It’s a calculated risk. I have to go to court. Then the memorial.” He peered at me. “Ms. Robillard’s?”
The mysterious Hal had called me at home on Sunday night, and I was so surprised that I didn’t argue at all when Hal said he would arrange a service. I promised Hal the money Burton had put up and I would throw in some money of my own. I was relieved not to have to think about it.
“I was surprised the husband actually existed,” I said.
“You know where the service is?”
“McGurn’s funeral home, viewing four-thirty to eight.”
“Up off of Broadway? You are going?”
I nodded. I hated to ask Marina to cover, but it was unavoidable. It was the last thing I owed Jacquie.
“What’s Hal’s story?” Burton said.
“He’s pretty broken up. Either he was playing dumb about the Berkshires, or she never contacted him.”
“She told you she was going there to meet him.”
“Before you arrested her, though. He says he was visiting clients in New Jersey.”
“Clients,” Burton said. “I’ll have to talk to them. Why else would she head West, then?”
“My question exactly.”
“Is it possible to get a drink in this place, by the way?” Burton said. “Or are we feeling a little smug for the common people this morning?”
“Fuck does that mean?” I poured some Irish.
Burton smirked. “Sounds to me like you had a pretty good Saturday night.”
“You’ve got someone following me?”
Burton patted the bar with his hands. “Calm down. I popped in Saturday for a few minutes. You had a huge crowd, so I assume you made some money. You better be careful, the place might become a success.”
“You went into a bar and didn’t order a drink?” I said.
Burton flushed, but his smile didn’t move. “Can be done.”
“I would think the precinct would be pleased. The quality of the clientele is improving. I haven’t had to call them in months.”
“Are you going to the service or not?”
“Are you deaf? Or are you ignoring me?”
“I’ll pick you up around five. I want to talk to you about something else.”
“You’re going all cloak and dagger on me at this late date?”
“I could use a cloak,” Burton said. “To cover my ass. There’s some other shit I think you can help me with.”
“We live to serve. You don’t want to preview it, let me think about it?”
Burton rolled his eyes. “Jesus. All right. I need some advice about how to work with rich folks without getting stepped on. Like you. Shit. I suppose we should just do this now.”
He sat down again.
“Someone’s been putting pressure on you,” I guessed. “One of the principals. My father?”
Burton shook his head. I was relieved. Thomas didn’t usually threaten—he went ahead and did what he wanted—but I didn’t want to have to mediate that kind of conflict.
“I don’t know exactly who it is,” Burton said. “But I have an idea and it’s enough to make me curious. But if I don’t come on like Mr. Friendly, I don’t think I’m going to get anywhere.”
“Who?” I said.
Burton shook his head. “Just give me some background on some of these local richies. Hypothetically. Like the Quincy family. What do you know about them?”
Slick he wasn’t.
“My father’s known Jacob a long time. The old man, the one who’s running for governor. But they were never anything but business cronies, which tells me Thomas doesn’t trust him.”
“Your father has a business relationship with Jacob Quincy?”
I noticed how quickly we’d shifted to the subject of my father and wondered if I’d misread Burton’s intentions.
“Had,” I said. “This is my take, by the way. You’d get a better read talking to him directly. My father, I mean. He doesn’t bite.”
Burton shrugged off the insult. “So Jacob Quincy has been a big-deal commercial real estate guy in Boston for thirty-some years. How does that translate into political success?”
“I’m definitely the wrong guy to ask,” I said. “Money is what turns anyone into a politician: making more, keeping more, helping your friends make more. Beyond that, who knows what?”
“That’s what I’m looking for,” Burton said. “Motivation. I go to these guys and they pretend they’re so clean they don’t have to wipe themselves. I can’t figure out where to put the pressure.”
I doubted Burton was really this naive.
“The kind of pressure you’re used to putting on people? Won’t work. Upper-class folks spend a lot of money insulating themselves from day-to-day crap. Wouldn’t you? But what drives them is what drives everyone else: money, power, lust. All desire. They’re just better at obfuscating.”
“See?” Burton said. “That’s exactly what I mean. I go in and talk to these people and they start hitting me up with these Latin School vocabulary words.”
“Don’t give me the dumb kid from the projects shit,” I said. “You want to know what Jacob’s most afraid of losing at this moment. That’s his pressure point.”
“His chance to be governor.”
“And why is that?”
Burton made a face at my schoolmaster tone. “He’s put big money into it, and he can’t afford to lose momentum.”
“Regardless of why he wants to be governor, it’s the only thing he’s focused on right now. Your pressure point is that he knows any bad publicity will screw the campaign. But don’t go head to head —let him infer you’re threatening to go public with something damaging. Rich people are paranoid enough to fill in the blanks all by themselves. They’ll dream up worse consequences than you could think of.”
“That was helpful. Thanks.” Burton stood up.
For a wonder, he wasn’t being sarcastic.
“You’re still going to have to pay for your drinks,” I said. “I can’t afford to carry you.”
Burton blew me a raspberry and headed up the stairs.
22
I smoothed the edges of the tape securing the cardboard sign to the front door: “Closed until 7—family funeral.” It wasn’t a lie. Jacquie had been part of the Esposito family, however loose and ill-defined it might be right now.
It seemed ridiculous that Marina was inside, refusing to work behind the bar for a few hours. Bartending must have been even lower-class work than I thought. Cy probably would have filled in, but I didn’t want to call him until he’d had time to cool off.
Burton honked the horn of the metallic-blue four-door Taurus, so plain it had to be an undercover car.
I checked the lock, walked across the sidewalk and got into the car. The floor of the front seat was immaculate, not even muddy, although it had rained off and on for a couple of days. Burton turned down the radio, which was playing a Johnny Hodges ballad.
“This neighborhood still gives me the creeps,” he said. “Even if it is starting to clean up. Doesn’t it depress you coming to work in the ghetto every day?”
“Just trying to do my part for a better world.”
Burton groaned. “If you start singing Enya, I’ll drop you off in Franklin Park. I can only stay at this thing for a couple minutes.”
“Fine.” I buckled my seat belt. “We’ll pay our respects and then go.”
The service was an obligation, not something I was looking forward to. I didn’t know Hal, and I hoped Jacquie’s body wouldn’t be on display.
McGurn’s Funeral Home occupied the better part of a block on Broadway, in what was becoming a marginal area, fighting the urban decay but losing. We pulled into a cracked circular driveway behind a beat-up orange and primer-black Nova. Burton got out, leaving the engine running.
“Keep it near the front.” He flashed his badge at the parking attendant. “I may need to get out fast.” The kid shivered in a thin maroon polo shirt with the funeral home’s logo.
“Shouldn’t you be wearing a jacket?”
The teenager gave Burton the cop-hater look all of them, even the ones who did their homework and worked two jobs, learned from cable TV. He climbed into the Taurus and ground the gears as it moved.
“And you didn’t like my neighborhood,” I said.
We walked up the wide granite steps, scalloped from the wear of mourners’ soles.
“You could always go live in the suburbs, with the rest of your ilk,” Burton said.
I shook my head.
Jacquie’s service was in the smallest of McGurn’s four viewing rooms. A short balding man in his mid-thirties stood by the door, wearing a wide-lapelled beige linen suit and a pastel green shirt.
“Just flew in from Hialeah,” Burton said under his breath.
While Hal pumped my hand, I smelled the old booze on his breath. The pale jacket gapped open and showed a pack of Pall Malls in his front shirt pocket, a hardcore smoke. He followed my look.
“Hadn’t had one in ten years, until I heard. Hal McReady, gentlemen. You here for the Robillard function?”
Interesting word for it. I was glad to see there wasn’t a casket, only a three by four-foot photograph of Jacquie, ten years younger and smiling with an unfamiliar lightness. I stepped across the front of the room, suddenly sad that I’d never known her that way.
“Dan Burton, Hal. Boston Police Department. The wanderer over there is Elder Darrow.”
Hal brightened, showing his dingy teeth.
“Jacquie’s boss? She enjoyed working for you. She told me that several times.”
I had no doubt, what with her eating my lobster and drinking my liquor every night.
Hal waved his hand around the room. “She hadn’t made many friends in Boston yet.”
I would have laughed, if it hadn’t been so cruel. She’d had plenty of friends, just none who wanted to meet her husband.
“Since you’re with the police.” Hal looked at Burton. “Maybe you can tell me. What happened at this pick-up in Ashburnham?”
I stepped out of earshot, not wanting to hear Burton’s explanation. I wandered the perimeter, signed our names on separate lines in the white vinyl remembrance book, and realized why I felt so awful.
The waste of her death had finally registered. Jacquie had been basically harmless, a good-time girl who liked her laughs, warmth, the company of men. Someone had plucked her from a life of minor pleasures, in service of something as useless, I suspected, as greed. By killing her, the murderer had made a point that her life was less valuable than something else.
