Looking for Rachel Wallace (15 page)

“Or maybe it doesn’t mean a goddamned thing,” I said. “Maybe you’re making a big goddamned event out of nothing.” I was leaning back in my chair, one foot propped against the edge of Quirk’s desk. He leaned over and slapped the foot away.

“And get your goddamned foot off my desk,” he said.

I stood up and so did Quirk.

“Dynamite,” Belson said. “You guys fight to the death, and the winner gets to look for Rachel Wallace.” He scratched a wooden match on the sole of his shoe and lit a new cigar.

Still standing, Quirk said, “How much do you pay for those goddamned weeds anyway?”

Between puffs to get the cigar going Belson said, “Fifteen cents apiece.”

Quirk sat down. “You get screwed,” he said.

“They’re cheap,” Belson said, “but they smell bad.”

I sat down.

Quirk said, “Okay. Julie Wells is a member of the English family.” He was leaning back now in his swivel chair, his head tipped, staring up at the ceiling, his hands resting on the arms. The rubber grip squeezer lay on the nearly empty desk in front of him. “She is also an intimate of Rachel Wallace. Which means she’s gay or at least bisexual.” I put one foot up on Quirk’s desk again. “Her brother on the other hand is out picketing Rachel Wallace and calling her a dyke and telling her she’s immoral and must be stopped,” Quirk said.

“We have here a family conflict,” Belson said. “And at least an odd coincidence.”

“It could be only that,” I said.

Quirk’s eyes came down from the ceiling and he let the swivel chair come forward until his feet touched the floor.

“It could be,” he said. “But it don’t do us a lot of good to assume that it is.”

“We better get together on how we’re going to handle this,” I said. “We don’t want to charge in and hit her with it, do we?”

“You had your chance to get together with us on this, hot shot,, and you didn’t take it. We’ll decide how to handle it.”

“You want to teach me a lesson, Quirk,” I said, “or you want to find Rachel Wallace?”

“Both,” he said. “Take a walk.”

“How about an address for Cody and Mulready?”

“Blow,” Quirk said.

I toyed with saying, “I shall return.” Figured it was not appropriate and left without a word. As I left Belson blew a smoke ring at me.

I went home feeling lousy. My face hurt, so did my ribs. I’d been making people mad at me all day. I needed someone to tell me I was swell. I called Susan. She wasn’t home. I had a bottle of Molson ale, took two aspirin, made a meatloaf sandwich with lettuce, ate it, drank two more ales with it, and went to bed. I dreamed I was locked in a castle room and Susan kept walking by and smiling when I yelled for help. I woke up mad at her, at five minutes of seven in the morning.

When I got up, I forgot about being mad at Susan. I was mad at my body. I could barely walk. I clanked over to the bathroom, and got under the hot water in the shower, and stretched a little while the hot water ran over me. I was in there for maybe half an hour, and when I got out I had cornbread and country sausage and broiled tomato for breakfast and read the
Globe
. Then I put on my gun and went looking for Mulready and Cody.

It was snowing again as I drove on the Southeast Expressway to Dorchester, and the wind was blowing hard so that the snow swirled and eddied in the air. I was going against the commuter rush, but still the traffic was slow, cautious in the snowfall. I slithered off the exit ramp at the big Sears warehouse, stopped at the guard shack, got directions to the main pick-up point, and drove to it.

Quirk had been childish not to give me the addresses. He’d already mentioned that they worked at the Sears warehouse, and he knew I’d go out and find them that way. Immature. Churlish.

I turned up the fleece collar of my jacket before I got out of the car. I put on a blue navy watch cap and a pair of sunglasses. I checked myself in the rearview mirror. Unrecognizable. One of my cleverest disguises. I was impersonating a man dressed for winter. I got out and walked to the warehouse pick-up office.

“Swisher or Michael around?” I said to the young woman behind the call desk.

“Cody and Mulready?”

I nodded.

“They’re out back. I can call them on the horn here.”

“Yeah, would ya? Tell them Mingo’s out here.”

She said into the microphone, “Swisher Cody, Michael Mulready, please report to the call desk. A Mr. Mingo is here.”

There were three other people in the call office, two of them men. I stood behind the others as we waited. In less than two minutes two men came through the swinging doors behind the desk and glanced around the room. One of them was tall with a big red broken-veined nose and long sideburns. His short hair was reddish with a sprinkling of gray. The other man was much younger. He had blow-dried black hair, a thick black mustache, and a seashell necklace tight around his throat. Contemporary.

I said, “Hey, Swisher.”

The tall one with the red hair turned first, then they both looked at me.

“I got a message for you guys from Mingo,” I said. “Can you come around?”

Mustache started toward the hinged end of the counter and Red Hair stopped him. He said something I couldn’t hear, then they both looked at me again. Then Mustache said something I couldn’t hear, then they both bolted through the swinging doors back into the warehouse. So much for my disguise wizardry.

I said, “Excuse me,” to the woman waiting for her pick-up and vaulted the counter.

The young lady behind the counter said, “Sir, you can’t … ”

I was through the swinging doors and into the warehouse. There were vast aisles of merchandise and down the center aisle Cody and Mulready were hot-footing it to the rear. The one with the mustache, Mulready, was a step or two behind Cody. I only needed one. I caught them as they were fumbling with a door that said Emergency Only. Cody had it open when I took Mulready from behind. Cody went on out into the snow. I dragged Mulready back.

He turned and tried to knee me in the groin. I turned my hip into his body and blocked him. I got a good grip of shirt front with both hands and pressed him up and backwards until his feet were off the ground and his back was against the wall beside the door. The door had a pneumatic closer and swung slowly shut. I put my face close up to Mulready’s and said, “You really got a cousin named Mingo Mulready?”

“What the fuck’s wrong with you?” he said. “Lemme the fuck down. What are you, crazy?”

“You know what I’m doing, Michael baby,” I said. “You know ‘cause you ran when you recognized me.”

“I don’t know you. Lemme the fuck down.”

I banged him once, hard, against the wall.

“You tried to run me and Rachel Wallace off the road a while ago in Lynn. I’m looking for Rachel Wallace, and I’m going to find her, and I don’t mind if I have to break things to do it.”

Behind me I could hear footsteps coming at a trot. Someone yelled, “Hey, you!”

I pulled Mulready away from the wall and banged him against the safety bar on the emergency door. It opened, and I shoved him through, sprawling into the snow. I followed him outside. The door swung shut behind me. Mulready tried to scramble to his feet. I kicked him in the stomach. I was wearing my Herman survivor boots, double-insulated with a heavy sole. He gasped. The kick rolled him over onto his back in the snow. He tried to keep rolling. I landed on his chest with both knees. He made a croaking noise.

I said, “I will beat you into whipped cream, Michael, if you don’t do just what I say.” Then I stood up, yanked him to his feet, got a hold on the back of his collar, and ran him toward my car. He was doubled over with pain, and the wind was knocked out of him and he was easy to move. I shoved him into the front seat, driver’s side, put my foot on his backside, and shoved him across to the passenger’s

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side, got in after him, and skidded into reverse. In the rearview mirror I could see three, then four men and the girl from the call counter coming out the emergency exit. I shifted into third and pulled out of the parking lot and past the gate house; the guard gestured at us. I turned right through the parking lot at the Howard Johnson’s motel and out onto the Southeast Expressway.

In the rearview mirror all was serene. The snow slanted in across the road steadily. Beside me Mulready was getting his breath back.

“Where you going with me?” he said. His voice was husky with strain.

“Just riding,” I said. “I’m going to ask you questions, and when you’ve answered them all, and I’m happy with what you’ve said, I’ll drop you off somewhere convenient.”

“I don’t know anything about anything.”

“In that case,” I said, “I will pull in somewhere and maybe kill you.”

“For what, man? We didn’t do you no harm. We didn’t plan to do you in. We were supposed to scare you and the broad.”

“You mean Ms. Wallace, scumbag.”

“Huh?”

“Call her Ms. Wallace. Don’t call her ‘the broad.’”

“Okay, sure, Ms. Wallace. Okay by me. We weren’t trying to hurt Ms. Wallace or you, man.”

“Who told you to do that?”

“Whaddya mean?”

I shook my head. “You are going to get yourself in very bad trouble,” I said. I reached under my coat and brought out my gun and showed it to him. “Smith and Wesson,” I said, “thirty-eight caliber, four-inch barrel. Not good for long range, but perfect for shooting a guy sitting next to you.”

“Jesus, man, put the piece down. I just didn’t understand the question, you know? I mean, What is it you’re asking, man? I’ll try. You don’t need the fucking piece, you know?”

I put the gun back. We were in Milton now; traffic was very thin in the snow. “I said, Who told you to scare us up on the Lynnway that night?”

“My cousin, man—Mingo. He told us about doing it. Said there was a deuce in it for us. Said we could split a deuce for doing it. Mingo, man. You know him?”

“Why did Mingo want you to scare me and Ms. Wallace?”

“I don’t know, man, it was just an easy two bills. Swisher says it’s a tit. Says he knows how to work it easy. He done time, Swisher. Mingo don’t say why, man. He just lays the deuce on us—we ain’t asking no questions. A couple hours’ drive for that kind of bread, man, we don’t even know who you are.”

“Then how’d you pick us up?”

“Mingo gave us a picture of the bro—Ms. Wallace. We followed her when you took her out to Marblehead. We hung around till you took her home, and there wasn’t much traffic. You know? Then we made our move like he said—Mingo.”

“What’s Mingo do?”

“You mean for a living?”

“Yeah.”

“He works for some rich broad in Belmont.”

“Doing what?”

“I don’t know. Everything. Drives her around. Carry stuff when she shops. Errands. That shit. He’s got it made, man.”

“What’s her name?”

“The rich broad?” Mulready shrugged. His breath was back. I had put the gun away. He was talking, which was something he obviously had practiced at. He was beginning to relax a little. “I don’t know,” he said. “I don’t think Mingo ever said.”

At Furnace Brook Parkway I went off the expressway, reversed directions, and came back on heading north.

“Where we going now?” Mulready said.

“We’re going to go visit Cousin Mingo,” I said. “You’re going to show me where he lives.”

“Oh, fuck me, man. I can’t do that. Mingo will fucking kill me.”

“But that will be later,” I said. “If you don’t show me I’ll kill you now.”

“No, man, you don’t know Mingo. He is a bad-ass son of a bitch. I’m telling you now, man, you don’t want to fuck with Mingo.”

“I told you, Michael. I’m looking for Rachel Wallace. I told you back in the warehouse that I’d break things if I had to. You’re one of the things I’ll break.”

“Well, shit, man, lemme tell you, and then drop me off. Man, I don’t want Mingo to know it was me. You don’t know what he’s fucking like, man.”

“What’s his real name?” I said.

“Eugene, Eugene Ignatius Mulready.”

“We’ll check a phonebook,” I said.

In Milton I pulled off the expressway and we checked the listing in an outdoor phonebooth. It didn’t list Watertown.

“That’s in the West Suburban book,” Michael said. “They only got Boston and South Suburban here.”

“Observant,” I said. “We’ll try Information.”

“Christ, you think I’m lying? Hey, man, no way. You know? No way I’m going to bullshit you, man, with the piece you’re carrying. I mean my old lady didn’t raise no stupid kids, you know?”

I put in a dime and dialed Information. “In Watertown,” I said. “The number for Eugene I. Mulready—what’s the address, Michael?”

He told me. I told the operator.

“The number is eight-nine-nine,” she said, “seven-three-seven-oh.”

I said thank you and hung up. The dime came back.

“Okay, Michael, you’re on your way.”

“From here?”

“Yep.”

“Man, I got no coat—I’ll freeze my ass.”

“Call a cab.”

“A cab? From here? I ain’t got that kind of bread, man.”

I took the dime out of the return slot. “Here,” I said. “Call your buddy Swisher. Have him come get you.”

“What if he ain’t home?”

“You’re a grown-up person, Michael. You’ll figure something out. But I’ll tell you one thing—you call and warn Mingo, and you won’t grow up any more.”

“I ain’t going to call Mingo, man. I’d have to tell him I tipped you.”

“That’s what I figure,” I said. I got in my car. Michael Mulready was standing shivering in his shirt sleeves, his hands in his pants pocket, his shoulders hunched.

“I give you one tip though, pal,” he said. “You got a big surprise coming, you think you can fuck around with Mingo like you done with me. Mingo will fucking destroy you.”

“Watch,” I said and let the clutch out and left him on the sidewalk.

Watertown was next to Belmont, but only in location. It was mostly working-class and the houses were shabby, often two-family, and packed close together on streets that weren’t plowed well. It was slow going now, the snow coming hard and the traffic overcautious and crawling.

Mingo Mulready’s house was square, two stories, with a wide front porch. The cedar shingle siding was painted blue. The asbestos shingles on the roof were multi-colored. I parked on the street and walked across.