I never understood how some women can dress so simply yet ooze elegance. Yolanda was encased in a black silk suit that must have been made for her. Beneath the jacket, buttoned just low enough to jump-start my imagination, no blouse was evident. Instead, a cascade of thin gold chains sparked against skin so black it was nearly blue, and fell there.
“Sit,” she said, patting the adjacent barstool. “Our table will be ready in a couple of minutes.”
I sat and discovered my blazer didn’t fit as well as I thought. The top button strained to hold the fabric across my belly.
“What are you drinking?” I asked.
“A wildberry apple vodka Hawaiian sherbet.”
Good God, I thought, but what I said was, “Ready for another?”
“Not quite yet.” Her voice was so smoky I could smell it.
The bartender sidled over, and I asked for a Killian’s. They didn’t carry it, so I settled for a Samuel Adams.
“I hear they gave you Brady Coyle’s old corner office,” I said.
“Yes.”
“And made you a partner.”
“True.”
“Things are working out for you, then.”
“They are.”
“No blowback from that favor you did for me last year?”
“I have no idea what you are talking about.”
“No, of course not. It never happened. But if it had happened and you’d gotten caught, which you didn’t, you could have been fired. Even disbarred. I don’t think I ever properly thanked you. That was a noble thing you never did.”
She stared at me now as if she were being accosted by a lunatic. I was about to blabber something equally incoherent when the maître d’ came to the rescue. He seated us at a cozy table for two, and romance was in the air. Or maybe it was just the smell of something spicy she’d dabbed on her skin.
Yolanda studied the menu while an elderly waiter too short to ride the Cyclone at Six Flags fetched fresh drinks and filled our water glasses. I scanned the prices. The Dispatch’s bean counters might have preferred paying for that blow job.
“Claus,” she said without looking up, “I’ll start with the pan-fried calamari and hot cherry peppers. And for my entrée, the sushi-grade sesame seared tuna with gingered rice.”
“An excellent choice! And for the gentleman?”
“Ah … I’m gonna skip the appetizer and have the signature cheeseburger with fries.”
Claus sniffed at me and went away.
“I’ve been reading about the layoffs at the Dispatch,” Yolanda said. “I guess they must be clamping down on expense account lunches, too, huh?”
“That they are.”
“Oh, Claus?” She waved the little waiter back. “Scratch the gentleman’s order and bring him the smoked salmon appetizer and the sliced filet mignon with cipollini onions and wild mushrooms.”
“Certainly, madam,” he said. Then he smirked at me and turned away.
“Trying to get me fired?” I said.
“No worries. It’s on the firm.”
“I can’t let you do that.”
“Why not?”
“It’s against Dispatch policy.”
“And why would that be?”
“Afraid it might make me beholden, I guess.” Her lips parted in a half smile, as if she knew what I wanted to be holdin’.
“So we won’t tell them,” she said.
“Ah,” I said. “You lawyers know all the tricks.”
“Besides,” she said, “this way I can snatch a few morsels from your plate.” And when Claus returned with the appetizers, she pinched a sliver of my salmon with her fingers and popped it into that mouth.
“So I understand you are representing Vanessa Maniella,” I said.
“I’m not at liberty to confirm that.”
“She gave your name to the state police, Yolanda.”
“I can’t confirm that, either.”
“Do you also represent her father?”
“Same answer.”
“He is dead, right?”
“I couldn’t say.” She lifted another chunk of my smoked salmon and added, “I warned you I wasn’t going to be much help.”
“So far, you haven’t been any.”
“Told ya.”
“Except, of course, for the inspiration I get from your presence.”
“There is always that,” she said. That half smile again.
“You know what puzzles me most?” I asked.
“Rap music? Black Republicans? How we lawyers can live with ourselves?”
“Well, yeah, but I was also wondering why Vanessa Maniella refuses to go to the morgue to ID the body.”
“Maybe you should ask her about that.”
“I would,” I said, “but some very large men in her employ have advised against it.”
“I see.”
“I was going to tell them where to go,” I said, “but I was afraid I might scare them to death.”
Claus was back now, refilling water glasses and whisking our empty plates away to the kitchen. Moments later he returned with the entrées, and we dug in.
“Mulligan?”
“Um?”
“Know what puzzles me most?”
“What would that be?”
“Why haven’t you unbuttoned that blazer? It’s obviously a bit tight on you, and I can tell you’re uncomfortable.”
“Not as uncomfortable as I’d be if I unbuttoned it.”
“And why is that?”
“It’s embarrassing.”
“Tell me.”
“Well, it’s like this. There was an old coffee cup on my desk. I thought it was empty, but…”
She was chuckling now, and I hadn’t even reached the good part.
“When I stood up to come here,” I said, “I knocked it over and, uh … I didn’t have time to go home to change.”
“So you have a coffee stain on your nice white shirt.”
“A little spot, yeah.”
“Open up,” she said, nodding toward the groaning button.
“What for?”
“Because it would amuse me.”
“If that’s what it takes,” I said, and unbuttoned the jacket.
“Oh, snap!”
“Yeah.”
“You sure it was just a cup? Looks like the whole damn pot.”
She was laughing harder now, her head thrown back. It made her look even more beautiful.
That’s when Claus reappeared and said, “Are we ready for dessert? Coffee, perhaps?” His timing was impeccable.
“No coffee for me,” I said. “I already have some.”
Yolanda put her elbows on the table, folded her hands, and rested her chin on them.
“You really are charming in a klutzy sort of way.”
“Thanks. I think.”
Claus spotted the stain and smirked at me again.
“Two Irish coffees,” Yolanda told him, “and we’ll share a slice of cheesecake with strawberries.”
“Right away.”
“And Claus?”
“Yes, madam.”
“Stop throwin’ shade at my friend if you expect the usual tip.”
Claus skittered away. I’d never seen anyone skitter before, but I’m pretty sure that’s what it was.
“You didn’t have to defend me,” I said after he’d gone. “I think I could have taken him.”
She rested her chin on her hands again and gave me an appraising look. I tried my best to appear irresistible, no easy thing with my torso drenched in Folgers.
“Hey,” I said, “do you like the blues?”
“I’m a Chicago girl, West Side. Damn right I like the blues. On the drive in from East Greenwich this morning, I jammed all the Littles on my iPod.”
“The Littles?”
“You know. Little Milton, Little Walter, Little Buddy Doyle…”
“Cool.”
“On the way home, I’m gonna switch to the Bigs. Big Bill Dolson, Big Pete Pearso
n, Big Time Sarah…”
“I never thought to sort them by weight class.”
I opened my mouth to say something more, but Claus was back with the coffee and cheesecake, and I saw no need to make him a party to my imminent rejection. Yolanda scooped a bit of the cheesecake into her mouth, closed her eyes, and went, “Mmmm.” I wanted to hear that sound again, but without cheesecake in the picture.
“So listen,” I said when Claus was gone, “Buddy Guy’s at the House of Blues in Boston a week from Saturday. Why don’t we go?”
“Not happenin’, Mulligan.”
“You don’t like Buddy Guy?”
“You just don’t know. I adore Buddy Guy. It’s you I’ve got a problem with.”
“Problem?”
“I told you before, Mulligan. I’m not into white boys.”
“It’s been a long time since I was a boy.”
“I’ll give you that, but you can’t outgrow being white.”
“Didn’t I tell you? I’m black Irish.”
“Doesn’t count,” she said, but her eyes were dancing.
“I’ve got rhythm, too.”
“Yeah, right,” she said. “You’re a regular James Brown.”
“We have so much in common, Yolanda.”
“This I’ve got to hear.”
“There’s the blues, for starters. We both dig Buddy Guy. And we’re city kids, both of us raised in one of America’s throbbing metropolises.”
“I thought you grew up here.”
“That I did.”
“Providence throbs?”
“Daily.”
“I haven’t noticed any throbbing.”
A thought popped into my head, but I suppressed it before it escaped. Instead, I said, “Buddy Guy’s from Chicago, too.”
“Actually, he was born in Louisiana.”
“Well, yeah. But his club’s in Chicago.”
“Before I moved here,” she said, “I used to hang out at his joint all the time. Don’t hear music like that anywhere else. Sometimes Buddy even showed up to jam.”
“You’re talking about Legends,” I said.
“Damn straight.” She eyed the colossal coffee stain. “Maybe you’re smarter than you look.”
“I’d almost have to be.”
She smiled at that, but part of her was still in Chicago. “The chitlins and cornbread at Legends were as good as my mama’s.”
I’d never met a chitlin, but it seemed unwise to bring that up. Instead, I played another card.
“My favorite poet’s from Chicago. She’s West Side, just like you.”
“Gwendolyn Brooks?”
“Patricia Smith.”
Yolanda looked skeptical, so I tossed out a few lines:
I always shudder when I pray,
so your name must be a prayer.
Saying your name colors my mouth,
frees loose this river, changes my skin,
turns my spine to string. I pray all the time now.
Amen.
“My, my,” she said. “Aren’t you full of surprises. What next? Maybe warble a verse or two of ‘Lift Every Voice and Sing’?”
“I can if you want me to,” I said, “but Claus would ask us to leave.”
“Better wait till we finish dessert.”
“You know,” I said, “Patricia reads in Boston every now and then. Next time, we should go see her.”
“Got a thing for sistas from Chi-Town, do you?”
“Just two of them.”
“Maybe you should ask her out.”
“She’s married.”
“So are you, last heard.”
“Yeah, but mine’s all over except for the lawyering.”
She thought about that for a moment while I idly compared her with Dorcas and almost laughed out loud.
“So Buddy Guy’s in Boston next week,” she said.
“Yes, he is.”
“Buddy’s no joke.”
“And I have two tickets.”
“Okay, let’s do this.”
“Great.”
“But we’re just going together. We’re not goin’ together.”
“Of course not.”
“So you better keep that mouth and those hands to yourself.”
Not the final disposition of the case, I hoped. After a change of venue, perhaps she might entertain a plea bargain.
18
I was on my way back to the office when Peggi called.
“I didn’t find anything weird on his desktop,” she said.
“What about the laptop?”
“He left it behind when he headed out a few minutes ago for a meeting at the Rhode Island Hospital. I’ve got it open in front of me, but it’s password protected.”
“Try his birthday?”
“Yeah. Forward and backward. Also tried his wedding anniversary, his wife’s name, his kids’ names, his dog’s name, and all their birthdays. Except for the dog’s. I don’t know that one.”
“Well, it’s not something random,” I said. “He would have picked a name or number that means something him. Does he have a boat?”
“Yeah. The Caped Crusader. I tried it already.”
“His wife’s maiden name?”
“Tried it.”
“Siblings?”
“Tried them, too.”
“Parents’ names?”
“Don’t know what they were.”
“What about his middle name?”
“It’s Bruce. Already tried it.”
“Charles Bruce Wayne?”
“Yeah.”
“That explains the boat. Try ‘Batman.’”
She chuckled and said, “Didn’t think of that.… Nope. Doesn’t work.… Hold on a sec.” She put down the phone, and it was several minutes before she picked it up again. “I tried Robin, Batgirl, Joker, Penguin, Riddler, Catwoman, Poison Ivy, Two-Face, Commissioner Gordon, Gotham, and Batmobile. None of them worked.”
“Try Alfred.”
“Oh, right. The butler.… Nope.”
“Dark Knight?”
“Bingo! I’ll go through his files and call you back.”
An hour later, she did.
“I didn’t find any videos at all,” she said. “He must keep them on a home computer, or maybe a portable hard drive.”
“Or maybe I was mistaken, Peggi. Go home, cuddle with Brady, and try to forget the whole thing.”
19
A state police cruiser, its lights flashing, had the entrance to the driveway blocked, so I pulled off the country road and parked Secretariat in weeds beside a rusted barbed-wire fence. Gloria Costa and I had smelled pig excrement a half mile down the road, and as we got out of the car, it was all we could do not to retch.
“Scalici lives here?” Gloria asked.
“He does. With his wife and two young daughters.”
“How do they stand it?”
“I don’t know. Guess they’ve gotten used to it.”
I fired up a cigar, and Gloria gave me a dirty look.
“That,” she said, “isn’t helping the situation any.”
“Is for me,” I said.
Gloria, one of the Dispatch’s few remaining photographers, had lost some weight during her comeback from a vicious assault last year. Her emotional recovery was still a work in progress, but physically she looked strong now, with curves reemerging in all the right places. Except for the black, pirate-style patch over her right eye, she resembled a young Sharon Stone.
“They gave me a glass eye, but I think it makes me look deranged,” she’d told me. I told her the eye patch was hot. I would have been tempted if I didn’t know Gloria had started seeing somebody—and if I weren’t looking to lawyer up.
Gloria was the best one-eyed photographer I knew, better than most shooters with two. I opened the back of the Bronco, and she fetched her camera bag. Cops can be squeamish about citizens carrying concealed weapons, so I left the Colt locked in the glove box.
As we approached the
driveway, a trooper rolled down the window of the cruiser, looked us up and down, and said, “The Dispatch, right?”
“Right.”
“The captain figured you’d show. Said you should go up to the house and ring the bell.”
Halfway up the long gravel driveway, we veered away from the house and slogged across a muddy field toward the hog pens. There, three grim detectives wearing rubber boots and plastic gloves were pawing through an SUV-size mound of garbage. On the ground beside them, a sky-blue tarp had been spread on the ground. In the middle of the tarp, a small lump.
“Hey, Sully,” I shouted over the grunts and squeals from nine hundred tons of breakfast meat on the hoof. “Hope that isn’t what it looks like.”
“Mulligan? You’re not supposed to be here,” he shouted back. “The captain said to send you up to the house.”
“Okay.”
“And tell your photographer to stop taking pictures.”
Gloria dropped her camera, letting it dangle from its strap while I inquired about the well-being of Sergeant Sullivan’s wife and kids. That gave her time to shoot from the hip, sneaking in a few more frames. When she nodded that she was ready, we turned and walked toward the white-shingled two-story house. A few curled brown leaves clung to the red oak that shaded Cosmo’s porch in summer.
“Your photographer?” Gloria said. “I hate that. Just once, I’d like to hear you addressed as my reporter.”
We stepped onto the wide farmer’s porch and wiped our muddy feet on the Three Little Pigs welcome mat. Gloria stretched out a finger to poke the bell.
“Hold on,” I said.
“What?”
“Let’s see if we can learn something first.”
Captain Parisi’s muffled voice leaked through the door, but I couldn’t make out his words over the symphony of the swine. They butchered the vocals to Aerosmith’s “Walk This Way” and segued into a raucous, off-key rendition of Led Zeppelin’s “Whole Lotta Love.” But whatever Parisi was saying pushed the pig farmer’s buttons.
“It’s Friday morning,” Cosmo bellowed. “Where the fuck do you think they are?”
Parisi said something else I couldn’t make out. Then Cosmo again:
“In school, asshole! They’re in fuckin’ school!”
I caught the sound of a woman’s voice then, and whatever she said seemed to calm Cosmo down. After a few more unproductive minutes of ear strain, I rang the doorbell. A uniformed state trooper with bowling-ball shoulders opened the door, a buff broad-brimmed Stetson clutched in his left hand.
Cliff Walk: A Liam Mulligan Novel Page 9
