A Trouble of Fools

by Linda Barnes

  All uttered in one breath.

  “Pat,” I said for about the tenth time, trying to interrupt his speech before the curtain call. “It’s a friend. From Green and White. An old friend.”

  “Call the cops on you, I will,” continued the refrain from the other side. “And don’t you think I won’t. You can’t scare me. Bums is what you are, bums, the lot of you.”

  “A friend,” I hollered. “A friend with a drink.” If I yelled much louder somebody would call the police.

  Silence from behind the door, followed by a suspicious inquiry. “You’re not selling anything?”

  “No.”

  “What’s your name, then?”

  “Carlotta. I used to work with you, at Green and White.”

  “Carlotta,” he repeated. “A girl.” Long pause, then some more shuffling. “And what color is your hair?”

  “It’s red, Pat, and I don’t dye it.”

  The first of an impressive series of locks clicked. The door creaked open to the limit of a solid three-inch chain. A single reddened eye peered out. The door closed firmly in my face, then swung open wide.

  “And why has it taken you seven years to come courting?” Pat said. “Come in, girl, come in. I’ve got to bar the door against the Huns.”

  Illness had hit him hard, sucking off most of his muscle and fat, leaving a gaunt shadow behind. His face drooped as if somebody had released a valve and deflated it. His feet were encased in huge floppy slippers, which accounted for the shuffling noise. He leaned heavily on a walking stick. That was the tapping. He was wrapped in a chenille bathrobe way too large for him. The ends of the self-tie belt dangled almost to his knees. He was wearing pants under the robe. The cuffs flapped around his waxy ankles. He’d aged twenty years in seven. I’d seen healthier-looking cadavers.

  “Don’t bother telling me how fine I look,” he said quickly, noting the expression on my face. “I know I’m gorgeous. Just give me a kiss, and slip off your clothes, and I’ll die a happy man.”

  “Jeez,” I said, “you haven’t changed.”

  “Come in, come in. You’re more beautiful than I recall. Say thank you for the compliment. A blush would be nice if you could manage it. Are you married yet or still an old maid?”

  Shit. Was I going to interview him, or was he going to interview me? I breathed in a considerable amount of air and was surprised to find it sweet. The place was clean. Pat’s flat was a shabby affair, Spartan, the final resting place of a fussy old flirtatious bachelor. Probably a virgin. A faded print couch anchored one wall. Blowsy off-white curtains framed the windows. A framed picture of Jesus hung on the wall over the sofa, a crucifix next to it. A threadbare easy chair with a fat dented cushion faced off against a huge color TV. The furniture wasn’t arranged with conversational groupings in mind. It was set up for one man watching TV alone.

  Pat flicked the set off quickly, rightfully embarrassed at being caught watching some overwrought evangelist.

  “Where’s the German shepherd?” I asked. “The one who’ll rip me limb from limb?”

  “Died,” he said. “Years ago. I resurrect him when the neighborhood youth come to call. You married or what?”

  “How’s your love life?” I asked.

  “No rings on your fingers,” he said.

  “Nor on yours.”

  “I thought you said something about a drink, or I’d never have let you in.”

  I looked at the pasty color of his skin, and wondered if a drink would finish him off. His cheeks each boasted a dime-sized circle of color. Excitement, or maybe a flush of fever.

  “Be a dear,” he said, “and fetch two glasses from the drain on the kitchen sink. It’ll take you less time than it would me.” He sat heavily in the TV chair.

  The kitchen was as barren and neat as the living room. One plate, one fork, one knife, one spoon in the drain. Two coffee cups, two glasses. I wondered if he’d entertained another guest lately. I hauled a kitchen chair into the living room, and placed it near the TV chair. It was that or sit on the floor. I noticed marks on the cheap carpeting, grooves where chairs and tables and lamps had once stood, and I wondered if Pat had given his furnishings away, paring down his possessions before he died.

  “To the old days” was the toast he chose when I poured the Four Roses, his preferred label, a brand I link to foul taste and worse hangovers. He patted the bottle and said teasingly, “A pint is fine, but a quart would have been better.”

  “A gallon, maybe.”

  “An ocean,” he said. He gulped his drink. His smile turned into a grimace, and he shifted uncomfortably in the chair. “What do you want from me?” he asked sharply. “Nobody comes by here anymore unless they want something.”

  It was a sudden mood change. Pain can do that to you.

  “Margaret Devens sent me.”

  “Margaret.”

  “Her brother’s missing.”

  “Eugene’s not come home?”

  “No.”

  “How long has this been going on, with nobody saying a word about it to me?”

  “Two weeks.”

  Pat started to pour another drink. His hand shook, and he replaced the bottle on the table. “Well, I don’t know where he is. If I did, I’d tell Margaret. I admire that woman, always have.”

  “She’s worried about him,” I said.

  “Every right to be,” he agreed.

  I let his words hang there for a minute. Then I said, “Why?”

  “The way things are out there,” Pat said, gesturing vaguely. “Pour me another, will you? And don’t ask me whether I’ll be okay, will you do me that favor? I’ve been drinking this stuff since before you were hatched.”

  “What’s going on at G and W, Pat?”

  “I left,” he said.

  “Because you were sick.”

  “Sick and tired,” he said. “Sick and tired.”

  I had hoped he’d notice my lapel pin, but he didn’t. “Margaret says you used to be a big shot in the GBA,” I hazarded.

  “The old GBA,” he said. “Those were good times.” He drank down the whiskey I’d poured in one practiced gulp, sucked air, and twitched in the chair. It hurt him to drink, but he was drinking defiantly. “If anything’s happened to Eugene…”

  “Why would anything happen to him?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “What does the GBA do, now?”

  “We started meeting again, maybe a year back, harmless enough. A bunch of us old men with no better way to pass the time. We wanted to help the Cause. Everybody was down on the Provos, you know, and we thought, well, maybe we should help them out again, and it started very small. We were all cabbies and we’d just collect the donations, pick up the canisters at the bars, you know. Cabbies have a lot of loose bills and change, from tips, and sometimes we go to the bank with rolls of quarters and dimes and nickels, and the tellers know what we do, so they don’t think it’s odd. We’d pick up the canisters and get ten- and twenty-dollar bills instead of quarters and nickels, and pass it on, that’s all. That’s what we did. Small stuff, but regular. Nothing sinister about it, but secretive-like, and we enjoyed it. A little spice in your life can’t hurt.”

  Yeah. Dimes and nickels to kill small children in Belfast. Terrific. I kept my mouth shut about the morality of the whole affair, but I shot a glance at the picture of Jesus on the wall. I wondered if Pat and I were talking about the same bunch of guys. It takes a whole lot of quarters and nickels to tote up to twelve thousand dollars.

  “You said it started small,” I prompted.

  “Huh? Oh, yes, the GBA. Now why did you want to hear about that?”

  I moved the bottle of whiskey out of his reach.

  “Gaelic Brotherhood,” he muttered. “Fine Gaelic Brotherhood.” He swallowed another mouthful. “A young man, a man from Ireland, came to us, and he said he’d heard about us, and would we be willing to risk more.”

  “What was his name?”

  “Jackie’s all I kn
ow. From Ireland. Doesn’t sound any more Irish than I do. Maybe he was born over here, and went back to fight. A few of them do, you know.”

  “What were you supposed to do?”

  “That’s when I left, and had my operation.”

  “But Eugene would have told you.”

  “Friends don’t come around much when you’re ill. Oh, they visit at the hospital, but then, well, you start to get the smell of death on you, and it scares the old folks off.”

  “Anything you remember could help.”

  “Memory’s a funny thing with me these days. I remember you clear as a bell, with that silly hat you used to wear. But ask me what I ate for dinner yesterday, and I’m not sure I could oblige you.”

  He was clearly chatting for the sound of it, hesitating. “Pour me another drink,” he said.

  “I want your memory to stay sharp.”

  “Come on, why do you want to know? Why would Margaret send you?”

  “She can’t come herself, because two thugs beat her up.”

  “Holy Mother! She’s okay? Margaret?”

  “Barely.”

  “Holy Mother of God,” he said under his breath. “Eugene gone and Margaret beaten up.”

  “It’s time to talk.”

  “Why would I talk to you? There are police officers. Not that you can tell around here most days, with the kids smoking that stuff on the stairs.”

  I pulled out the photostat of my license. “I’m working for Margaret Devens.”

  “I can’t read small print.”

  “I’m a licensed private investigator in the state of Massachusetts.”

  “Glory be, what will they think of next? No wonder she’s got no time to marry me.”

  “Come on, Pat. You’re cute as hell, but I need more than cute.”

  “And she swears, too. What’s the world coming to?”

  “Pat.”

  “One more shot of whiskey. I can be bribed.”

  One more shot, and he’d probably fall off the chair. I made it a short one.

  His voice lowered to a fuzzy conspiratorial whisper. “I only know what Eugene told me, you understand, and most of it he told me in the hospital, and you know, they kept me under a lot, this drug and that drug, until I thought I was half-crazy. But it seems to me that Jackie had a way for them to move a lot of money, IRA money, around the area, bring it in from Logan, and get it to sources at the air force base who could change the money into guns and ammunition. A really big deal, something to make a difference against the damned Brits, you should excuse me for mentioning them.”

  “How did it work?”

  “I remember how pleased Eugene was, at first. It was something poetic, I think, something having to do with the radios, maybe, the cab radios.”

  I plied him with liquor. I told him the story of my life. I scrambled two eggs, and watched while he made a pathetic attempt to eat. But that was all I got out of him until the shadows were starting to darken, and I’d made my excuses, and headed for the door.

  “Carlotta,” he said blearily, “thanks for coming by, dear. The whiskey was grand.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “Likewise.”

  “It was something about a woman’s name, I think,” he said. “That’s what tickled Eugene. A woman’s name.”

  I left my card so he could call if any more pieces of the puzzle came floating back.

  Chapter 16

  I thought about calling the cops, spilling what I knew, and letting them take it from there. I remembered one of my mother’s favorite sayings, straight from my grandmother and the old country. I wish I could say it in Yiddish, because it sounds so funny you don’t even need the translation to get a laugh out of it. The best approximation my mom could come up with was something like: “With a stranger’s hands, you can tie a string around a cat’s neck.” In other words: If you care about the results, do it yourself.

  The best time to approach Gloria would be the quiet hour after the 11 P.M. shift change, but I hesitated, feeling increasingly uncomfortable as the time drew closer. Finally, I let myself admit why I was worried. If Green & White was involved in more than the hackney carriage trade, I had to face the fact that my pal Gloria could be deep in the shady side of things.

  I tried to envision Gloria as a secret IRA powerhouse.

  Failed utterly.

  Possibly a sympathizer. Comandante Gloria of United Oppressed Peoples, or some such group. Even my imagination, which Mooney has called excessive, refused to provide a believable link between Gloria and the Provisional Branch of the IRA. Matter of fact, the image that sprang unbidden to my mind, Gloria as Grand Marshal of the Saint Patrick’s Day Parade, an annual South Boston affair at which blacks are conspicuous by their absence, tickled me so much I laughed out loud, and scared T. C. under the bed.

  I decided to risk Gloria. Gloria, but not her partner, not Sam. Maybe it was the memory of last night’s noisy third-floor lovemaking that did it, maybe it was Pat’s repeated queries about my marital state, but my face heated up when I thought about Sam. He was a Gianelli, I reminded myself, and somehow hoods in stocking masks, the kind who’d roughed up Margaret, said Gianelli. I wouldn’t risk Sam. Personally or professionally, I told myself sternly. I always give myself such good advice.

  I left the house at eleven, wearing jeans and a windbreaker, my hair tucked up under the slouch cap I used to wear for driving.

  Renewing my vow to take nighttime walks, I parked a half-mile from G&W, under a streetlamp to discourage car thieves. The first drops started slowly, a single leisurely splash against my cheek, another on my hand, then a heavy wet plop on the bridge of my nose. The drops ganged up quickly, and turned into an unexpected shower. A sudden gust of northeasterly wind tried to steal my hat, and the rain began battering the pavement, bouncing back inches high. I walked briskly. I ran.

  Listening to the Boston weather report is a pure waste of time.

  In G&W’s office, the phones almost drowned out the storm. So much for quiet time at the cab company.

  Gloria, erect in her wheelchair, was massaging buttons on the switchboard, playing it like a church organ, and crooning into the mike, her deep voice commanding, soothing, cajoling. A vast box of Chicken McNuggets sat within easy reach.

  Ten hectic minutes later, she punched a button, and the bells abruptly halted, cut off mid-jangle. Lights still flashed and flickered, but she ignored them, and pushed the McNuggets in my direction. I eyed them suspiciously. I like my chicken in identifiable parts. Legs. Wings.

  “Downpour like this, I can’t pick up anybody in less than an hour,” she said with a shrug. “You tell folks it’ll take an hour for them to get a cab, they get downright surly. Call you names. Soon as some of the cabs get loose, I’ll pick up again.”

  She pressed a button on the mike and said, “Free cabs call home, everybody. Free cabs call home. Forget those hailers out there, even the ones waving twenty-dollar bills. I got a list, so call home to Momma.”

  The storm whistled and sang. I shook water off my hat, and sat in the plastic guest chair.

  “See Pat?” Gloria asked.

  “Yeah. He looks bad.”

  “Can’t sleep?” Gloria divided her attention between me and the honey-mustard dipping sauce.

  “Nope,” I said.

  “Warm milk’s good,” she said. “Or a man, so I hear.”

  “I have nightmares.”

  “Got to watch what you eat,” she said, smiling through a mouthful of McNuggets.

  “I have this recurrent dream—that your cabbies are collecting IRA cash on the side, maybe dealing for weapons.”

  “Weird,” she said.

  “Not so weird, Gloria. True.”

  She ate a handful of homogenized chicken things in a thoughtful manner, then said, “This is a joke, right?”

  “Nope.”

  “Are we talking IRA, as in Individual Retirement Account? Because I don’t know much about banking.”

  “Irish Republican Army.”r />
  “Whoo-eee,” she said.

  “Exactly.”

  “Has this got something to do with your looking for Eugene Devens?” she asked, plainly skeptical.

  “Eugene was fund-raising,” I said.

  “Why would you think a thing like that?” Her eyes narrowed. No dummy, Gloria.

  “Trust me,” I said. I trusted her, to a point, but I had no intention of mentioning the cash in T.C.’s litter box.

  “IRA, huh?” She made a noise that could only be described as a snort. “Whoo-eee. I tell you, I wouldn’t put much past some of these old farts. I’m just glad they’re not collecting for the KKK.”

  “Maybe they are. On the side.”

  She made a face and moaned, “Why me, O Lord? Why not Town Taxi? Why not Red Cab? I’ve got the Hackney Bureau crawling all over me. You read about those new regulations? A dress code for cabbies and all. I ask you, shirts with button-up collars, no shorts? What kind of—”

  “It doesn’t have to be so bad,” I said quietly, before she launched into a full-blown tirade.

  “Carlotta—”

  “Listen to me. If I took what I’ve got to the police, what would happen? A mess. A couple undercover cops prancing in here to get hired. Maybe FBI. Maybe ATF.”

  “ATF?”

  “Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms. Everybody makes them for cops within two seconds, right, and the surveillance lasts forever.”

  “While I’m stuck with two cabs full of cops doing squat,” Gloria said, glaring at the ceiling. “Lose me a bundle.”

  “Eleven,” blared a voice over the loudspeaker. “I’m at Beacon and Exeter.”

  “Yo, eleven,” Gloria said, grabbing the microphone as if it would steady her. “Comm. Ave. one-seventy-six. Guy named Ervine. That’s one-seventy-six Comm. Ave.” The lights were flashing like crazy on the switchboard. Gloria penciled a line through one of the top entries on a narrow pad. Her fingers, grasping the skinny stump of pencil, looked like plump sausages.