A Trouble of Fools

by Linda Barnes

  “Got it,” the metallic voice said.

  “Empties call home,” Gloria pleaded into the mike. “Come on, folks, it’s raining out there.”

  “So.” She flipped a switch and turned her attention back to me. “Tell me how I’m gonna get out of this painlessly.”

  “You handle it my way,” I said. “No cops, minimal revenue loss. If anything’s going down, I isolate the perps, and let the cops mop up. Easy.”

  “Carlotta, when you say easy, it makes me sweat.”

  “Come on, Gloria.”

  “Spell it out for me. ABC.”

  “I want to look at your records, driver’s license stuff, and all. You got anybody driving who’s an Irish national?”

  “Some of the old guys were born in Ireland, but they’re all citizens.”

  “Somebody young.”

  “Nope.”

  “You got people driving for you with priors?”

  “What do you think?”

  In Boston, there are four kinds of cabbies: the regular working stiffs; the overeducated, underemployed Ph.D.’s; the undereducated, coffee-colored gents right off the boat from Haiti or Barbados; and the guys with rap sheets.

  “I want to check out your drivers. And borrow your radio log, say, for the past six months.”

  “Anything else? My shoes? Shirt off my back?”

  “Sarcasm goes over big with the cops, Gloria.”

  “Right. Anything else?” This time her voice was sugar and spice.

  “Tell me about the radio. The equipment’s new, right?”

  “This year,” she said proudly. “State of the art. Cabbie can tune in across the band and catch all the calls, or he can fine-tune, and just pick up what I give him. Most of the guys start out taking all the stuff. Gives them a headache, and they quit. It’ll drive you crazy, all that yapping.”

  “Maybe,” I said, deep in thought.

  Gloria was cooperating. All was going as planned. Except the storm kicked up such a fuss I didn’t hear Sam Gianelli come into the office until he was practically dripping rainwater on my sneakers.

  Chapter 17

  I had forgotten how handsome Sam was. Repressed it entirely.

  “Hi, Gloria,” he said, halting three feet inside the doorway, underneath one of the swaying lamps, grinning and shaking water off his dark hair. “Busy night. Hope it rains forever.” He noticed me, and the grin turned mechanical, like he’d been waiting too long for the photographer to snap the shutter. “Carlotta?”

  Warm brown eyes and an easy smile have always attracted me. I find a stubborn chin a challenge. Add to the above a body both well proportioned and taller than my own, and I could see how a younger Carlotta had fallen hard.

  “Sam,” I said.

  He was more elegant at thirty-six than he’d been at—what?—twenty-nine? Grown up. His face was still bony, broad through the cheeks, narrow at the jaw. He walked differently, his stance more erect, more—I don’t know—substantial. His chest filled out a well-cut charcoal suit. He used to look like he was wearing hand-me-downs, and I was never sure if it was the clothes, or the burden of being born the youngest son of Anthony Gianelli.

  Anthony Gianelli, for those outside the immediate area, is as connected as you can get. LCN, La Cosa Nostra, the Mafia, call it what you will. Everybody knows it, and nobody does much about it. Sam, the baby, is supposedly clean. He has bad business sense, which doesn’t matter all that much. Your last name’s Gianelli, your credit’s good.

  Sam hadn’t gone running to Pop or begging for loans to keep G&W afloat. He’d partnered up with Gloria instead, and ran the company on the straight and narrow.

  Maybe that helped the fit of his clothes.

  “Hey,” he said, adjusting his smile, “you slumming?”

  “She wants—” Gloria started, ignoring my silent plea.

  “I need a job, Sam,” I interrupted quickly. “Driving.”

  “I thought you were a cop.” It came out too quickly. He hesitated, and added, “Or something.” Wouldn’t do to let the lady know you’d kept tabs on her.

  “Didn’t like it.”

  “Law school?”

  “Dropped out.”

  “You don’t look like you’re doing so badly,” he said, gazing at me, top to bottom and back again, like I was some naked statue in an art museum. Normally, I hate that, I really do. This time I could feel my face redden because I realized I’d just done the same to him.

  “I can’t seem to get a handle on things,” I said lamely. “I keep thinking I’ll do some more grad school—”

  “Do we have an opening?” he asked Gloria. He said it without looking at her, without taking his eyes off my face.

  “We could use somebody nights,” she said crisply. “To replace Eugene Devens.”

  “Imagine him taking off like that,” Sam said. “After all those years.”

  I watched him with hawk eyes, but I couldn’t see any discomfort in his eyes or hear any secret knowledge in his voice. But then Gianellis have been lying to grand juries since before I was born.

  “Somebody nights,” he repeated, smiling. “Well, she’ll do fine. You still at the old place?”

  What he was really asking was if I had the same phone number.

  “My aunt died—”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “It was a long time ago. She left me her house.”

  “That old Victorian in Cambridge? The big one? You live there alone?”

  What he was really asking was if I was married.

  “I’m the landlord,” I said.

  He smiled. “I can’t picture that,” he said.

  There was one of those pauses. I could hear Gloria breathing, and I wished she’d say something, say something or disappear.

  “I’m still at the same apartment,” he said finally. “Same phone. Here.” He reached in his pocket and brought out a slim leather billfold that was as ritzy as his apartment’s Charles River Park address. He dug out a business card and passed it over. I took it, and our hands brushed for an instant. “Day or night,” he said. “Anytime. Give me a call. I’ve got one of those machines, but leave a message and I’ll definitely get back.”

  “I’ve got a machine, too,” I said, kind of inanely, I admit, but I was still feeling the fine wispy hairs on the back of his hand.

  I have unerring chemistry with men. If I breathe faster when they enter the room, if the hairs on the nape of my neck stand up, and my pulse races, I know, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that I have found the wrong guy for me. The kind of man I like, and the kind of man who’d be good for me, make up two nonintersecting sets.

  He’d stopped by for cash and the books. Gloria passed over a tin lockbox and a black ledger. He left, and I swear, the lights in the room dimmed.

  “Shit,” I said, letting my breath out slowly. “You could have warned me he was coming.”

  “Whoo-eee,” Gloria said. “Now that’s better than the soaps. What’s that I smell in here? Ozone? Smells like lightning hit this very spot.”

  “Fuck off, Glory,” I said halfheartedly. I don’t swear that much anymore, which I guess comes from being raised half a Jewish princess. Now when I was a cop, boy, did I cuss. When I put on the badge, I put on the mouth. I was tougher than tough. It took me a while to realize that I didn’t much like the person I was turning into. Anyhow, when the spirit moves me I can still say shitass-motherfucker with the best of them, but mostly I don’t.

  “Temper, temper,” Gloria said. “I never know exactly when Sam’s going to drop by. Or who’s gonna come with him.”

  “If you’re talking about Sam’s girlfriends, I couldn’t care less,” I lied. “If he brings his daddy around, I’m not sure I want to risk driving for you.”

  “Temper,” Gloria repeated, but her lips twitched. “Just trying to see how big a torch you’re carrying. I always thought you married that bum Cal on the rebound.”

  “Look, Gloria,” I said. “About the records.”

 
“The books flew the coop with Sam. You better give him a call, like he said.”

  “Employment applications, driver’s license stuff.”

  I could tell she was deep in thought because she wasn’t eating. “Sam is my partner, Carlotta. I should let him in on this.”

  Would anybody with the name Gianelli be an avid promoter of the IRA? I didn’t think so, but I didn’t trust Sam. He got accustomed to having his own way while he was still in the cradle. He got used to calling all the shots, and back when I knew him, he wasn’t about to give up any of the God-given privileges of the Gianelli male.

  “You think he lets you in on everything he’s up to?” I said.

  “He’s not going to like this.”

  “He’s not going to know.”

  “Yeah. Sure.”

  “If the shit hits, tell him I lied to you, Gloria. Tell him I stole the stuff.”

  “That’s right, babe. That’s what I’ll do.”

  Somehow I didn’t think she would. We exchanged frozen smiles that gradually broadened and turned into the real thing, and I accepted another one of the chicken things, taking it as a sort of peace offering. It tasted like fried dough.

  “You know, it might not be a bad idea,” I said.

  “What?”

  “Driving for you.”

  “What?”

  Cab number 403 got free, and called in his location. His voice was a little scratchy and distorted, but I thought I recognized Sean Boyle. Gloria informed him that Maudie waited at 44 Audubon Court.

  “Seriously,” I said. “You need a replacement for Eugene, right?”

  “Yeah, but—”

  “If anybody asks, you just say I’m coming back for a while because I’m not making it on my own.”

  “Sam bought it,” she said. “Anybody ever tell you you’re one fine liar?”

  “All the time.”

  “And no need to say you’re not making it as a private cop.”

  “No need to mention it.” I warmed to the idea. “From the inside, I can figure the patterns out. Who talks together, drinks together.”

  “A regular fly on the wall.”

  More like a roach in the corner, around that place. “I know the ropes, so I won’t be any bother at all,” I said breezily. If I had my own cab, I could listen to all the radio calls.

  Cab 827 called in and got his new assignment. The list was dwindling, the console lights flashing, the rain holding steady.

  While Gloria deployed her army, I slid Sam’s card into my pocket. I thought I’d done it unobtrusively, but Gloria gave me one of her complacent Buddha looks. I had no intention of calling Sam. I should have tossed the card in the trash can.

  It took Gloria some time to dust the cobwebs and cookie crumbs off the employment records. Then we argued about when I’d start driving, what my hours would be, whether I’d actually pick up fares, and if I did, what I should get paid. I could get flush, working two jobs, getting paid for both. Better catfood for T.C. High-class birdseed for the budgie. Steak.

  Just being in Gloria’s company makes me fixate on food.

  Chapter 18

  Saturday, I picked up Paolina five minutes early, because she gets jumpy if I’m not right on time. She came charging out the door, pigtails streaming behind her, hollering good-bye to Marta and hello to me at the same time, wearing sneakers and jeans and a pink hooded sweatshirt with a double-front kangaroo pocket.

  After buckling her seatbelt, she tucked her hands in the pocket pouch, and we drove out Route 2 to 128 to 3 while she filled me in on all the school gossip. Who was cute and who was “fresh,” which means “cool,” and who was in and who was out. Ten-year-olds these days—at least urban, street-smart ten-year-olds—have the kind of dividing lines that I don’t remember showing up till high school. Remember? The jocks and the preppies and the hoods? Except Paolina calls them the fresh, the freaks, and the nerds. The week’s news update was highlighted by the adventures of one Emanuel Rodriguez, a twelve-year-old dreamboat too fresh for words.

  “He even told that jerky old guy where to go,” Paolina said proudly.

  “What jerky old guy?”

  “Nobody. Just this freak who sits on the stoop all the time.”

  “Emanuel walked you home?”

  “We walk together sometimes,” she admitted, “with some of the other kids.”

  “T-shirt? Leather bag? The old guy have a beard?” Wispy Beard didn’t seem old to me, but to a ten-year-old, everybody’s ancient.

  “Yeah.”

  I breathed, in and out. “Listen, tell Emanuel to stay away from him.”

  “Yeah, well, he better stay away from Emanuel.”

  “Paolina,” I said quietly, “I mean it.”

  “Yeah, sure,” she said.

  “That guy ever bother you?”

  “No.”

  “He talk to you?”

  “No.”

  Her second “no” came out after a pause. I didn’t say anything. It didn’t sound right.

  “He sells stuff,” she said finally. “You know, Carlotta, drugs and stuff like that.”

  It’s a good thing traffic wasn’t heavy, because I had a moment of what people must mean when they say “blind anger.” I couldn’t see. I could hear, faintly, and Paolina was talking.

  “I’m okay,” she said. “You know that. But he goes right over to the school. You know, where there are really little kids, second-graders, dumb kids who’ll do anything on a dare.”

  I didn’t say anything. For once I wished I was still a cop. If I were a cop, that jerk would be in a cell.

  “Carlotta—”

  “Listen, Paolina. He ever bothers you, he ever talks to you again, you tell me. Call me.”

  “Okay.”

  “Keep away from that guy.”

  “No big deal. I’m sorry I said anything.” She dug her hands deeper into her pocket and stared at the floor, sure she was at fault for wrecking my mood.

  Damn that druggie bastard.

  I reached over to pat her shoulder, and after a while she relaxed, and started seeing what was out the window.

  “Hey, Paolina,” I said, “I’m glad you told me about that guy. Thanks.”

  “No big deal,” she said. It’s her favorite phrase.

  After that we oohed and aahed over every red and gold leaf. I didn’t want to think about that damn drug pusher. It made my hands tense on the steering wheel. I thought about Paolina’s crush on Emanuel Rodriguez instead. I don’t talk to Paolina much about boys. I haven’t got a lot to say on the subject. Sometimes I worry about her. I mean, neither Marta nor I is a terrific role model in that respect. But how many kids have that perfect role model, that perfect marriage to shelter and nurture them as they grow up? Anyway, we admired the trees, and I let my mind wander.…

  I’d had a busy morning. I’d filed a missing persons report, bemused as always by the bureaucratic blandness with which the guardians of law and order greet a sudden disappearance. I’d spoken briefly to an overworked, ornery Mooney, who informed me that he hadn’t a single extra officer to guard Margaret Devens’s hospital room, and what the hell was she paying me for anyway?

  Then I drove over to Boston City, to check on my client’s progress and drop off an updated copy of the case report. It looked so skimpy, typed out single-spaced on plain white bond, that I was all set for Margaret to say forget the whole thing. I’d gone so far as to itemize my bill.

  Her face looked bad, but I knew, from grim experience, that the most colorful bruises are not the most painful. She sported a single large bandage on her scalp, but the IV line was no longer attached, and she was sitting up, supported by a nest of pillows, knitting something the color of oatmeal. The TV was blank.

  Her face was so swollen she couldn’t perch her reading glasses on the bridge of her nose, so I read the report aloud. She had me read some parts twice, while she knitted and nodded her head. She didn’t seem to be concentrating on my voice, but then she didn’t seem to be
concentrating on her knitting either, and a complicated pattern was rapidly taking shape, with the tension even and no stitches dropped.

  “Working at the cab company,” she said when I’d finished. “I suppose that’s the best way.”

  “Considering what Pat said, yes.”

  “How’s he doing, the poor man?”

  “He’s dying, and he knows it, and he’s still making jokes.”

  “Ah, Patrick,” she murmured. “I wish he’d never retired. He could always talk sense into Eugene.” She turned her attention back to her knitting and for a moment I thought the conference was over, but then she said, “This cab driving, would it be dangerous for you?”

  “Driving in Boston is always dangerous.”

  “Will it help you find my brother?”

  “If you want me to go on, it’s the only lead I’ve got. I suspect your brother was doing something illegal. I suspect it’s connected to an organization of cabbies. I’m not saying it’s guaranteed, but if I can gain the cabbies’ trust, they might tell me something. Your brother could be in hiding. He may be wanted by the police for questioning. By the FBI.”

  I thought it far more likely that he was wanted by the IRA, not for something he’d done, but for something he hadn’t done, like passing along the cash. I didn’t say that because I didn’t want to scare Margaret. I saw this BBC documentary once, and one scene chilled me to the bone. A parade of maybe ten IRA “soldiers,” armed with machine guns, was marching through throngs of cheering civilians. Each member of the army was anonymous, a black hood tied over his head, eyeholes slit for vision. While nine of the Provos emptied their machine guns toward the sky, one calmly blew the head off an informer. I remembered wondering what the hell the filmmakers thought they were doing, and why hadn’t they stopped filming and done something, anything, to save the poor man’s life. It was the only execution I’ve ever seen where the executioners wore masks instead of the condemned.

  Margaret sighed. “No matter,” she said softly, “we have to keep on. What they’re doing, it’s got to stop somewhere.”

  “I’ll keep in touch.”

  “I’m tired,” Margaret said fretfully. “The kind of bone-tired you get when you have to fight the battle over again, after you thought you’d won. Grinding tired, and I do wish they’d let me go home.”