Hardware (The Carlotta Carlyle Mysteries)

by Linda Barnes

  “You broke into my house.”

  “You should have your security parameters checked.”

  “I think I just did,” I said. “They’re not up to par.”

  “Don’t get upset,” he said. “You’re very well protected from the average thief.”

  “Makes me feel all warm and fuzzy,” I said, “knowing the above-average can break and enter at will.”

  “Your foot. Did that happen when we were shot at? I saw Sam tackle you.”

  “It happened later. I lead an exciting life.”

  “Please. Let me help you.”

  “Leave me alone, okay?”

  “Perhaps I should go.”

  “Perhaps you should tell me how you got in first,” I said, “so I can make sure it won’t happen again.”

  “You’re angry.”

  “No kidding.”

  “I thought I might be able to help—with your work.”

  “Yeah, you’ve already done so much. I can’t tell what the hell’s on my desktop, much less what I should do with it.”

  “That’s why I’m here. To straighten things out about the computer.”

  This Frank not only had clean hair, he had different mannerisms, a new body language. He’d acquired a nontechnical vocabulary, a slower, more relaxed speech pattern. Which was the real man? The one I’d met in Mattapan or this guy? Was he an accomplished actor as well as a computer nut?

  Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth, my mother used to say. I wondered if she knew a similar saying about wolves. Don’t look a gift wolf in the eye.

  “I’m not paying more money,” I said. “If this is some kind of scam, some new con game, count me out.”

  “You don’t understand,” he said.

  “No,” I admitted. “I don’t.”

  “You’re Sam’s friend, I’m Sam’s friend. He’s my family, for chrissakes, more than a friend. Anything I can do for his friends, it’s like settling an old debt. A debt of honor.”

  “So you honorably broke into my house.”

  “Do you want to see how I did it?”

  “Sure. Just let me get this splint off, and pack my foot in ice, and you can tell me the whole damn story.”

  “Can I help?”

  “Talk. I’ll listen.”

  I’d known the kitchen window was ripe for a burglar. I just hadn’t expected one so soon, or one so determinedly friendly. Sam’s buddy foraged for ice slivers in the freezer. He stuck them in Saran Wrap so that the ends of the ice pack adhered to each other, no paper clips required. We sat at the kitchen table while he described his B&E technique.

  “Great neighbors I’ve got,” I commented when he’d finished. “You’d think one of them would have called the cops.”

  “Don’t blame them,” he said earnestly. “I wasn’t furtive. I came in broad daylight. Just went up a ladder. I was a repairman, a phone lineman, a painter. Come on, tell the truth, haven’t you ever forgotten your key and used the kitchen window?”

  “To be honest, I haven’t.”

  “I’ll bet Roz has,” he said. “It’s a breeze.”

  “Why do I get the idea you’ve done this sort of work before?”

  “Your foot’s swollen,” he said.

  “I can see that.”

  The silence in the kitchen stretched till I broke it, uneasy under his scrutiny.

  “Why did you suddenly decide I needed a better computer?”

  “I like your house,” he said.

  We were having one of the least responsive conversations I’d had in a while, two kids in a sandbox each constructing a separate castle.

  “Sam has good taste,” he said finally.

  “In what?” I asked.

  “Women.”

  “Why don’t you give me my computer lesson and save the shit? I’m tired. My dance card’s full. I’m not in a flirting mood. Get it?”

  “Are you ever in a flirting mood?”

  “Are you Sam’s friend?”

  “Where is Sam?” he asked.

  “I don’t keep tabs on him.”

  “He’s spending a lot of time in Washington. You ever think about what he’s doing there?”

  I kept the memory of my recent phone call off my face. “I don’t brood about it excessively.”

  “Maybe he ought to keep closer tabs on you.”

  “I don’t need a keeper. Back off.”

  “Computer lesson. Then I leave.”

  “The way you’ve got the new stuff hooked up, could you find something for me, something the cops might have on-line?”

  His eyes glittered. “What?”

  “A list of recent cab robberies. I need the name of the cab company each driver worked for. I’d like to know if any independent drivers have been attacked, whether or not they’re affiliated with radio associations. Whether more cabbies have been attacked after radio calls or flag downs.”

  “Hold it. Robberies. You’re trying to track someone who robbed you? Who injured your foot?”

  “Yeah.”

  He considered it. “I can get you the past few months of the Globe or the Herald.”

  “I doubt these robberies made the news. What about police files?”

  “The Boston system’s too primitive.”

  “Too bad. Have to rely on my old sources.”

  I didn’t feel bad about it. I felt good. Better. Superior. Smug. I was glad he couldn’t just press some damn buttons and ace all the answers.

  “I can get you other things,” he volunteered eagerly. “Library access anywhere in the world. Credit access. Terrific for missing persons.”

  “Show me.”

  “You want to start with somebody famous? Pick a movie star. You want to know Nancy Reagan’s dress bill at Neiman-Marcus?”

  We moved into the living room, settled behind the desk.

  I said, “Let’s start with you, Frank. Why not enter your Social Security number?”

  No hesitation. “Okay.”

  I took notes as he typed the magic passwords, sequences of letters, numbers, and punctuation marks.

  “It’s not too interesting,” he muttered apologetically as he punched in his nine-digit code.

  Francis Tallifiero’s credit history zipped across the screen. Visa. MasterCard. AmEx. Most of the major purchases came from unsurprising sources: CompuAdd, Dell Computer, Radio Shack.

  “I don’t consider it boring, Frank,” I said. “I find it fascinating.”

  “Yeah?” He edged his chair a little closer to mine.

  “I’ll bet there aren’t many dead little kids with credit records like this.”

  His eyes panicked seconds before the rest of him pushed back his chair in such a rush that it fell over, smacking against the hardwood floor.

  Hammering at the front door echoed the crash. I hobbled to answer it. Before I could get there, Frank yanked open the door, shouldering Keith Donovan out of the way. Frank’s steps raced down the walk, growing fainter, distant, disappearing into silence.

  “You shouldn’t be walking on that foot,” the psychiatrist commented.

  “I agree completely,” I said.

  NINETEEN

  A powerful act of betrayal, sex. A simple consummation of desire, it seemed at the time.

  I’m not looking for absolution, but maybe I was searching for guilt. Blame it on pain medication. Blame it on anger—at Roz for allowing Frank’s invasion of privacy; at Frank for his broad hint at Sam’s infidelity. At Sam, somewhere in Washington.

  Or accept responsibility. I wanted Keith; he wanted me. Bonnie Raitt sings it, over a thumping bass: “When I hear that siren call, just can’t help myself.”

  It started with an innocent foot massage. He lingered at a pressure point on my instep. I gave a brief moan and closed my eyes. So simple, a thumb pressed against the arch of my foot. So sensual it drew a sound that belonged in the bedroom. After that, I let his hands stray. I kept quiet when I could have said stop, maybe should have said stop. I didn’t want to. I didn�
��t choose to. The warm feeling in my stomach spread through my body and the dark ache of wanting him, wanting his touch and taste and smell, made the responsible adult in me mute before the eager animal.

  Something to it, this business about doctors knowing their anatomy …

  Cold morning light filtered through the bedroom curtains. Keith stirred and murmured in his sleep. Too young, I scolded myself, inwardly grinning ear to ear. The man was easily five years my junior. Hell with that. Wasn’t I years younger than Sam? Ouch, a subject to avoid.

  Either my ankle was much improved or the rest of my body, raw with the rhythm of lovemaking, had silenced my ankle to a whimper. I felt good. Physically alert. Healthy, almost sated.

  I ruffled Donovan’s stubbly, too-short hair. I couldn’t say with dead certainty that I’d never had a more fair-haired lover. There’d been a time, right after my divorce, when I’d specialized in self-punitive onenight stands. But Keith’s astonishing blondness, his almost hairless chest, seemed both erotic and endearing.

  Different. Not better, not worse, I admitted, but gloriously different. I’d been with one man too long; routine had set in, confining as a straitjacket. I don’t mean that Sam and I had bad sex. We had easy sex, comfy sex. We’d quit stretching borders, exploring boundaries.

  I moved against Keith and he opened his eyes. Blue eyes, with a hint of gray. He smiled, and closed them again.

  “If you say anything about ‘the psychological moment,’” I murmured softly, “anything at all ‘psychological,’ I’ll strangle you.”

  “No analysis,” he agreed, stretching his arms wide. “I’m off duty.”

  Just pleasure, I thought. That’s it. Now. This moment. Desire. Uncomplicated coupling. Two adults. One bed. One groan. A tight gasp of delight. The expected and the unexpected, and the joy of forgetfulness in release.

  The jangling phone had the courtesy to wait till we lay back exhausted and giggling, billowing the sheets over our sweaty bodies. I held a stern warning finger to my lips.

  Gloria.

  I sat, tucking the top sheet under my arms, across my breasts. Keith yanked it down. I batted my eyelashes in his direction and tried to keep an office-crisp voice for my client.

  “You sound good,” she said suspiciously.

  “I’m fine. And you?”

  “Okay. You see the Haitians?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Just yeah?”

  “One of them got beaten up. Could have been the same perps.”

  “Time to call the police?”

  “Only if you want your former drivers visiting illegal-immigrant detention camps in Florida.”

  “Don’t like the sound of that,” she said.

  “What I need to know is this: Why would a person want fewer cabs on the road?”

  “Honey, I want every one of my cabs on the road every minute of the day. You know that. Soon as your foot’s okay, you haul your ass over here and take a shift—”

  “No, Gloria. Why would someone, some hypothetical person, want cabbies off the road?”

  “Wait up, got to take a call.”

  “I love you,” Keith Donovan breathed into my left ear.

  That was news I did not want to hear.

  I listened to dead air with feigned attention till Gloria got back on the line. “Some psycho,” she suggested. “Got a thing about cabdrivers.”

  “Give me better than ‘psycho,’ Gloria. ‘Psycho,’ and we wait for the cops to catch him in the act.”

  “Hmmmph,” she snorted. “If it was cops gettin’ beat up, we’d see some action.”

  “It’s not cops,” I said. “You make that list for me?”

  “Ready and waitin’.”

  “You fire anybody for cause lately?”

  “How lately? You didn’t tell me to put that on the list.”

  “Last few months. This year.”

  “Why?”

  “I’m not a cop, Gloria. I’m working for you. Answer the question.”

  “Answer mine.”

  “One of the perps might be a cabbie. Or an excabbie.”

  She considered it. “Okay, that’s reasonable. I’ll go through my files. Nobody sticks out, but that’s ’cause I deal with so much riffraff. Guy woulda had to be some kind of special before he’d stand out from the run of losers come through here.”

  “Anybody have a grudge against you personally, Gloria?”

  “Honey, I’m sweetness personified.”

  “Grudge against the company?”

  “Well, that would either be ’cause I fired somebody or Sam ticked ’em off.”

  “Nothing else?”

  “Hold on. Phones’re ringing.”

  “Don’t do that!” I said to Keith Donovan. “Christ, wait till I’m off the phone.”

  “Then can I?”

  “What about medallions?” I asked Gloria when she returned.

  “What about ’em?”

  “The number’s fixed by law, right?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Lee Cochran thinks somebody’s trying to corner the market.”

  “Possible,” Gloria agreed. She didn’t sound enthusiastic. “I mean, say some guys wanted to buy medallions and couldn’t, they might start attacking independent owners, encouraging ’em to get out of the business and sell their medallions to the highest bidder.”

  “But Marvin’s not a medallion owner. Your Haitians aren’t owners,” I objected.

  “No, but they were all drivin’ for me, and if I can’t keep eight cabs on the road, I might have to sell medallions to keep the company afloat.”

  “You thinking about it?”

  “I’m thinking ’bout a lot of things. I got to get going.”

  “Gloria—”

  “You sure you’re okay, Carlotta?”

  “Fine,” I said.

  If the roughed-up cabbies who didn’t personally own medallions all drove for small companies, I wondered, and if they suddenly quit, would that be enough to shut down the mom-and-pop operations? Would the moms and pops sell their businesses to Phil Yancey? Would he buy? At what price?

  Keith eased his hands back under the covers.

  “Carlotta,” Gloria said. “Is Sam with you?”

  I swear she’s got radar.

  “I don’t know where the hell he is,” I said, sounding exactly like I was lying.

  “You see him, have him call me,” she said dryly.

  “Sure. And, on the list, put a star by the name of anybody you fired. Anybody who quit mad.” I hung up before she could protest. Or think up more questions about Sam.

  Keith said, “If I can’t talk about anything psychological, what can I talk about?”

  “Bed stuff,” I said firmly.

  “Like who was your first, were you a virgin when you got married?”

  “No, no, no,” I protested. “That’s psych stuff. Talk about baseball. Try to name the Seven Dwarfs.”

  He was momentarily silent. Maybe he was too young to have seen the movie.

  “Music is also good,” I suggested.

  “Mostly I listen to New Age stuff. Soothing. Enya. I like her.”

  I sighed. “No Robert Johnson, no Son House?”

  “Don’t know who they are.”

  “Were,” I corrected. An old blues junkie, I’m a sucker for Mississippi Delta guitar. I keep my National steel under the bed, practice less than I should.

  “Do you play sports?” I asked.

  “I fence.”

  “You sell stolen goods?”

  “Like in the movies. Like the Three Musketeers.”

  “You must have grown up rich,” I said.

  “Is that a psychological probe?” he responded.

  “Seen any good movies lately?” I asked after a long first-date pause.

  We both burst out laughing.

  “Why do you fence?” I asked.

  “I’m good at it. Why do you play volleyball?”

  He knew about that. Must have questioned Roz.
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  “I’m good at it,” I said.

  “Something in common,” he observed with satisfaction.

  “I like pillow fights,” I said. “Then we can try to name the eight reindeer.”

  “Happy, Dopey, Sneezy—”

  I said, “You’re getting the hang of it.”

  “How about a shower?” he said. “A bubble bath?”

  “Long as it’s foreplay,” I said.

  TWENTY

  I kept glancing over my shoulder while we foraged for breakfast, wondering why in hell we’d wound up in my bed rather than moving two houses down to the relative privacy of the doctor’s digs. Had the heat of passion made me careless? Was I really that angry at Roz? Did Keith want her to get the picture as soon as possible?

  Roz does the weekly shopping and cleaning in exchange for greatly reduced rent. I doubt she could do a lousier job at either task, but she might try.

  I opened another cupboard. Can after can of fruit cocktail. Why? Who eats this candy-colored stuff? I make a shopping list, I honestly do, but Roz, using Stop & Shop coupons as her bible, buys whatever’s on sale.

  What would I say if she waltzed in and discovered us in flagrante munching stale toast and jam, smiling across the table, holding hands, basking in the shiny afterglow? Roz has studied karate for years. She’s barely five feet tall, but I don’t underestimate her. I don’t understand her, either, which made me increasingly nervous. She might blitz through the door, grin, and bellow “Hi! Have fun screwing?” Or take one look and kick me in the teeth and Keith in the balls.

  It’s not like she’s monogamous. Her karate instructor is far more than her karate instructor. When they work out on the third-floor gym mats—the same mats currently substituting for a bank vault—they make noises I’ve never considered remotely martial.

  “How’s the ankle?” Keith asked. I liked the fact that he hadn’t criticized the meager fare, hadn’t sat like a stone and watched me fetch and carry. He could put dishes on the table, find the butter in the fridge, make coffee.

  “Better,” I said. A testimonial in favor of a steamy tub and a professionally wrapped Ace bandage. “Do you hypnotize people?”

  “You saying that’s how I got you into bed?”

  “Professionally,” I said. “In the line of therapy.”

  “I’ve done it, but I’d generally defer to a specialist. It would depend.”