Steel Guitar

by Linda Barnes

“Is it too late to list him in the credits?”

  “Davey Dunrobie never wrote one word or one note of any song I sing.”

  “So ignore it. Throw it away. Let him sue you.”

  She pulled over a rickety wooden chair, turned it backward, and sat on it. “Let me explain a few facts of life here, Carlotta. This could kill me. Really. You know for four whole years I couldn’t get a studio to back me on an album? For four years, I’m like this fucking over-the-hill has-been. And those are the nice rejections. I put my money, damn near every dime, into Change Up, and I got Jimmy Ranger to mix it on spec. Now that it’s platinum for MGA/America, they’re looking for a long-term contract. But with this kind of shit, I don’t know. I mean, MGA’s the deep pockets here. They can live without a lawsuit.”

  “They’ll shrug it off,” I said. “You’re making money for them, Dee.”

  “Listen to me,” she said. “I’m not willing to take the chance. I don’t want them to hear about it. I waited for a big label for ten years, playing bars between catcalls, hauling ass around the country, and earning enough to eat. I want something to show for it besides a scrapbook.

  “There are fifty kids waiting out there for my slot with MGA and any one of them could be a major star with the right backing. Record company execs eat their young, I swear to God. Used to be, I never tried for a name. Kind of songs I do aren’t exactly top-ten material. I was born poor, I’m gonna die poor, I told myself. Used to be, I just wanted to make enough money to do what I’m doing, play the music. But now I like my suite at the Four Winds just fine. I like riding in limousines. And I keep thinking about those old black guys, the bluesmen who taught me, the ones who wound up in pine boxes with nothing.”

  “They were black,” I said. “That had something to do with it.”

  “Yeah,” Dee said. “And I’m a woman in a business where not many women front bands, write songs, choose their own arrangements, and play their own guitar.”

  “You gave me a whole song and dance about Dunrobie being a bum. Any of that true?”

  “All of it.”

  “You talked to the lawyer?”

  “I talked to him,” Dee muttered. “He said to me, Davey wants three hundred thousand bucks.”

  I gave a low whistle.

  “You need a lawyer,” I said. “Lawyers like to duke it out with other lawyers. MGA’s got lawyers earn more in an hour than I do in a month.”

  “Yeah, well, I hate lawyers,” Dee said. “And MGA’s lawyers aren’t going to give a good goddamn about me. I want you. These new people, the ones who suck up to me and call me ‘Miss Willis,’ I don’t trust any of them. They read my damn mail.”

  “Do they?”

  “The National Enquirer hasn’t printed anything about Dee Willis, song thief. Not yet.”

  “If you know what Dunrobie wants, and you know how to get in touch with his lawyer, what do you want from me? Why do you want me to find Davey?”

  “Because the damn lawyer won’t let me talk to him, says it would be—what did he say?—tantamount to harassing his client.”

  “Well, I’m not up on the fine points, but legally he may be right. Once suit is filed—”

  She tapped the letter with a stubby fingernail. “You see anything in here about a suit being filed? I need to see Dunrobie before this goes any further.”

  “And you think if you talk to him, Davey will change his mind about the three hundred thousand, just like that?”

  Dee nodded earnestly. She thinks if she talks to a stone, she’ll wear it down.

  She may be right. She talked me into another day’s work.

  Twelve

  “Detective Triola,” I said.

  “Hang on.”

  The police department doesn’t try to soothe you with canned music while they keep you on hold. I appreciate that. Canned music makes me grind my teeth.

  Joanne Triola and I went to the police academy together. She’s still a cop, and I admire her for sticking it out. If you met her on the street, with her round gentle face and cloud of softly permed hair, you’d pick her for a librarian or a social worker. If you tried to shoot it out with her, you’d be dead.

  “Triola,” she said gruffly.

  I said, “I’m looking for a cushy city job with short hours and long pay. A chance for a few bribes on the side. Have I got the right number?”

  “What do you want, Carlyle?” she said. “Make it quick.” She’s good at recognizing voices.

  “If you had your handbag snatched at Mass. Ave. and Boylston Street, kid took off toward Symphony Hall, where would you look for it?”

  “You got your—”

  “No gloating, Jo. Let’s keep this hypothetical. Where are the regular dumps?”

  On the whole, purse snatchers are creatures of habit, not leather fetishists. They don’t collect handbags and wallets; they want money and credit cards. So when they get what they want, they dump the container as soon as possible, preferably in an unlighted alleyway or a convenient Dumpster.

  “Hang on,” Jo said. “I’ll ask Rudy.”

  “Okay, write this down,” Jo said when she got back on the line. She’d been gone so long I’d had to push five more dimes into the pay phone. “Alleyway behind the Amalfi. There’s a Dumpster. Hope it’s there.”

  I didn’t like the way she said that. “Why?”

  “Because the runner-up spot is the reflecting pool near the Mother Church.”

  “No,” I said.

  “Wear your rubber boots.”

  “I am not going wading tonight.”

  “Good. I wouldn’t recommend it. Let me put out the word, and when somebody finds it I’ll give you a call. Much cash?”

  “Bastard didn’t even get ten.”

  “Credit cards?”

  “Harvard Coop. Visa. Period.”

  “Poor thief’s sure sorry he picked you, lady.”

  “I’ll grieve for him,” I said, “while I’m standing in a three-mile line at the Registry getting a replacement driver’s license. While I’m having new keys made.”

  “Yeah, it’s a bitch,” Jo said.

  “And one more thing.”

  “Yeah?” Jo’s voice was wary. I must have sounded a little too casual.

  “There’s a guy runs with the Gianellis. Mickey. Big Mickey something. I can’t remember his last name. Eighteen-inch neck. Looks like an ex-football player. You know who I mean?”

  “Vague memory.”

  “You know what line he’s into?”

  “Like drugs, prostitution, gambling, etcetera?”

  “Like that.”

  “I’d have thought you’d be better placed to find out that sort of thing than I am.”

  “Jo,” I said, “you ever call your boyfriend and ask him which of his dad’s hoodlums runs broads? It’s delicate.”

  “I’ll see what I can find out,” Jo said with a sigh. “And keep your hands on your purse at all times.”

  “Uh, Jo, could you do me a favor?”

  “I thought that’s what I was doing. Two favors.”

  “About the Gianelli thing?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Don’t ask Mooney.”

  Thirteen

  Stuart Lockwood, Esquire’s office didn’t look like his stationery. His stationery looked like money. His office looked like poverty. Single practice in downscale Somerville, shared space with a CPA. An orthodontist down the hall seemed to be the only one earning enough to gild the letters on his door.

  Usually I visit law offices by appointment. I wear the closest thing I’ve got to a power suit, a navy blue number I picked up last year at a Filene’s Basement close-out sale. After all, most of my high-paying clients are lawyers who want me to prove some dude was somewhere other than where the cops think he was last Saturday night.

  I’d put on the navy blue for Lockwood, even though I had made no appointment, it was another steamer of a day, and he was an unknown quantity. I’d phoned a lot of friends and nobody could make him
. The State Bar Association said he’d passed the North Dakota bar two years ago, the Massachusetts bar just last May. New boy on the block.

  I’d been waiting outside his office door since eleven. No one had gone in or out. At eleven forty-five, I opened the door.

  His secretary or paralegal or whatever, a thin blond kid in his early twenties, glanced up from an old swimsuit issue of Sports Illustrated.

  “Hi,” I said. “Mr. Lockwood in?”

  Both inner office doors were closed. Behind one, I could hear someone talking. The voice droned on; it could have been a tape recording or a phone-message machine.

  The lobby was six by ten and well-filled by a desk, a chair, and a low plaid couch that looked like it had come straight from the Salvation Army store. Framed prints of hunting dogs covered cracks in the plaster.

  The young guy put his magazine down hastily, like I’d caught him red-handed.

  “Do you have an appointment?” he asked, fumbling for a desk calendar.

  “No,” I said. “Mr. Lockwood was recommended to me by a friend at Palmer and Dodge.”

  “Oh,” the kid said, impressed by the mention of one of the wealthiest practices in town. “Who?”

  Palmer and Dodge has so many partners, you could pick a name out of the phone book. “Laura Breen,” I said quickly. I’m sure he couldn’t tell if I’d said Laura or Laurel, Breen or Green.

  “Oh,” he said again. “I’ll see if Mr. Lockwood has a moment. You may have to wait.”

  “That’s okay,” I said. “Thank you.”

  The lobby didn’t have a single magazine except for the Sports Illustrated. He didn’t offer to share.

  The kid disappeared into the office on the right and came back with a man older than I’d expected, someone who must have taken to the law later than the average student. He was runner-thin, graying. On second look, he seemed younger. The gray hair aged him.

  He had a too hearty handshake, and a too toothy grin. He wore an elbow-rubbed blue shirt and baggy suit pants. He ushered me into an airless cube. His jacket and tie hung from a coat tree by a narrow window. The window was open, but didn’t provide enough breeze to rustle the tie.

  We established my name and his. The secretary lounged against the doorframe until he was dismissed.

  Lockwood consulted his watch. Damned inconsiderate of somebody to call just before lunchtime. I concealed a grin at his irritation.

  “I understand you represent David Dunrobie,” I said.

  “Where do you get your information?” he said. Trust a lawyer to respond with a question.

  “A crystal ball,” I said. “I see you giving me Dunrobie’s address.”

  “Do you work for a collection agency?”

  I’ve been called worse things. I gave him my card. Some people feel business cards prove your identity. The print shop never asks for my license when I order.

  He stuck my card between the thumb and index finger of his right hand, tapped it on his desk. “Are you currently in the employ of an attorney?” he asked.

  “Do I get to ask you a question if I answer that one?”

  “Sit down, Miss, uh, Carlyle,” he said.

  “Thank you.” There were only two chairs in the room: a worn easy-chair behind his desk and a guest chair that would have looked at home in a funky diner.

  We studied each other for a while.

  “You want me to divulge a client’s address.”

  “I’d like you to write it down on a piece of paper,” I said earnestly. “But I’ll copy it if I have to.”

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “You’re wasting my time.” He spoke as if he had a crowd of clients waiting on his sprung plaid sofa. Maybe he had a gold-mine practice, with billable hours to burn and no front. It’s hard to tell.

  “Mr. Dunrobie is an old friend,” I said. “Perhaps if you give him my card, he might get in touch with me. He might like to see me.”

  “I’ll do that,” he said.

  I hadn’t expected him to prolong the interview, any more than I expected Davey to drop by the next day.

  We didn’t shake hands when I left.

  The one thing I’d managed to learn from my morning phone calls was that Mr. Lockwood would be unavailable after twelve o’clock today.

  He exited the office soon after I did, still knotting his necktie. From a niche down the hallway, I saw him enter the elevator. I waited until I heard it descend.

  Then I walked back up the hallway and opened the door.

  “Oh.” The kid was back into the swimsuit issue. He wasn’t drooling, but close. “Forget something?” he asked.

  “David Dunrobie,” I said. “Does he live in Winchester or Woburn?” I showed him a small spiral-bound notebook. “I just wrote down a W. I’m almost sure it’s Winchester, but I’d hate to drive all the way out there and then it’s Woburn.”

  “No problem,” the kid said generously.

  He disappeared into Lockwood’s office and I could hear him riffling through files. He carried a manila folder with him when he returned, but his face was closed and suspicious. Oh, well, a lot of towns around Boston begin with W. It could have worked.

  “It’s neither,” he said. “What is this? You a server?”

  He was sharper than I’d given him credit for. Maybe Lockwood did a lot of business with the avoid-a-subpoena crowd.

  “You like music?” I asked, indicating the magazine. “Or just sports?”

  I got the address in exchange for two comps to Dee’s concert. Some things money can’t buy.

  “You sure about that?” I asked while I was writing it down.

  “825 Winter Street. Boston,” he said. “Suite 505D.”

  “It doesn’t sound residential.”

  “It’s all he’s got. No phone, even.”

  I already knew that.

  “Could you tell me if there’s anything else in the file?” I asked.

  “Nope,” he said.

  “There’s nothing else, or you don’t want to tell me. Which?”

  “Got any more tickets?”

  “I could manage one more,” I said. “That’s tops.”

  “An envelope,” he said. “Sealed.”

  “Big? Little?”

  “Eight by ten.”

  “Postmark?”

  “Man, this is too weird,” he said, closing the file and sliding it under the magazine. “I’m not telling you anything else.”

  “You don’t have to,” I said.

  Fourteen

  What with having to ditch the car—no one with more brains than a goose drives downtown—I didn’t get to 825 Winter Street until a little past two in the afternoon.

  Number 825 was an office building just like the ones on either side. A second-floor window advertised a realtor, a fourth-floor window a podiatrist. The remainder were unadorned. I noted the fifth floor particularly, figuring Suite 505D had to be on five, but it kept its secrets behind filmy curtains.

  The lobby was cool and dark, marble-floored. There was no nameplate, no mail slot, for Suite 505D. There was, however, a Suite 500 with a doorbell. I pressed it, got an answering buzz, and entered. I ignored the old cage-elevator and righteously used the steps.

  I’m no physical fitness nut, but I do play volleyball, the real kind, three days a week. Afterward, I swim. Today’s match had taken longer than expected and I’d done only ten laps instead of my usual twenty. I took the steps to make up for it. Guilt is the major motivating force in my life.

  High-pitched chatter leaked out under the door marked 500. I checked all the doors on five, but there was no 505D. On the pebbled glass window of 500 I read the words “Hemstead Secretarial Services.” I turned the knob and went inside.

  The room couldn’t have been more than eight by twelve, but there must have been eight women in it, one at each of the narrow, putty-colored desks, one to each twenty or so phone lines by the look of the complex switchboards. One wall was partitioned off into cubicles containing pieces of mail, brown-wrapped
parcels as well as letters and brochures.

  Each cubicle was numbered. 501A, B, C, 502A, B, C, and so on. No names.

  A few of the women glanced up at me, but nobody seemed to be in charge. There was no receptionist’s counter, no adjoining room. Hemstead, like Lockwood the lawyer, didn’t put up much of a front. A phone rang.

  I was still wearing my navy suit. Definitely overdressed for a visit to a mail drop.

  “Mail drop” sounds so sinister, far worse than secretarial service. And a lot of people use them for perfectly legit purposes. Say your ex-husband regularly threatens to come by and check up on your morals; you might not want him to have your current address, especially if he outweighs your current beau by a hundred pounds and has a rep for using his fists. While you might choose not to announce your true address in the phone book, you might still wish to communicate with the outside world. So you have your mail sent to 825 Winter Street, Suite five-oh-whatever. Your “suite” is the little cubicle on the wall. When ex-hubby comes by to see who you’re sleeping with, he won’t get far.

  Of course, a lot of the shady mail-order crowd use them too. I mean, would you rather send your money order to a post office box or to a street address in a good part of town, a suite number even? Suite conjures up such soothing imagery. Hotel suite. Doctor’s office suite.

  Post office box says beware. Red flag. Keep your money.

  A woman in her fifties with frizzy brown hair, who’d been glaring around the office with a who’s-going-to-take-care-of-this air, finally walked over to me.

  “Can I help you?” she inquired with a martyr’s sigh.

  “Uh, I’m looking for Delores Fox,” I said in my best airhead manner. “She still work here?”

  “Delores?” The woman knitted her brow in concentration. “I don’t think we’ve ever had a Delores. Not in the past three years anyway.”

  “Geez, I was sure she said the fifth floor,” I mumbled. “I dunno. Maybe I got the address wrong.”

  “This is 825,” the woman said helpfully.

  I pawed through my substitute purse, an old navy leather bag I’ve never liked. “I know I got it in here somewhere. I just can’t find it, and I thought I remembered …”

  “Well, I have to get back to—”

  “Sure. Sorry I interrupted. Thanks. I’ll find her.” I muttered my way out, grinning while I closed the door behind me.