The Snake Tattoo (12 page)

She can outscore me on the target range, either hand.

She hung up, glared at the phone, and started dialing again. I cleared my throat and she looked up, a smile breaking across her face.

“Why, it can't be,” she said. “Why yes, the height is right. Didn't you used to be a cop?”

“Thanks,” I said. “I'd love to sit and chat a while.” I slid into her visitor's chair, thankful to get the weight off my knee. It felt stiff and swollen, and I hoped I wasn't going to have to cut off my very best pair of jeans. What I needed was a long soak in a hot tub.

“I'd ask you to join me in a cup of coffee,” she said, “but I seem to recall—”

“Still that bad?” I said. The woman in black jumped off her chair and swore in good old Anglo-Saxon. The cop who was booking her chuckled and said her English was getting much better.

“Honest to God, Carlotta,” Joanne said, taking no notice of the outburst from across the room, “you stir it with one of those plastic gizmos from McDonald's, and the little spoon dissolves.”

“Coke machine work?” I asked.

“What do you think?”

Her phone rang, so I went over to investigate the vending machine, trying not to favor my left leg. The machine blazed with red warning lights that declared it gave no change and was out of every beverage it was supposed to stock. I gave it a gentle kick for the old days. I'd forgotten the crazy rhythm of the bullpen, the counterpoint of bells and questions and typewriters, entrances and exists, long calm afternoons broken by sudden, brutal emergencies.

Joanne was signing off when I came back.

“Jo,” I said, “I got run off the road last night.”

“Yeah?” she said. “Where?”

“Franklin Park.”

Her eyebrows shot up and she grinned. “Way to go,” she said. “And lived to tell about it.” Then she held up a hand like a traffic cop, requesting silence while she shuffled through a stack of paper.

“Here it is,” she said finally. “Area D. You got a big two sentences in the occurrence book.”

“The jerks wrote it up,” I said. “I'm flattered.”

“It's no big deal,” she said. “Two sentences.”

“Where're they getting the rookies these days?” I asked.

“Well,” said Joanne, “with our incredible benefit package and high starting salary we have to fight off those Harvard MBAs.”

“Yeah,” I said. “I see.”

The woman in black rattled her handcuffs and called the Hispanic cop a son of a mangy yellow dog, in both Spanish and English. It was more effective in Spanish.

“You wanna come back?” Joanne asked.

“No, thanks,” I said.

She smiled. “So who's after your ass?” she said. “You working a case?”

“Sort of,” I said.

“And this is just a social visit, right?” she said.

“I got a license plate,” I said. “I was wondering if you could run it.” A phone rang somewhere, ten times, twelve times, stopped.

“You give it to the boys last night?” she asked.

“No.”

“Carlotta, they may be jerks, but they can run a plate.”

“I've got a plate, but it's not the car that rammed me,” I said. The phone started up again. Six, eight, ten rings before someone mercifully plucked it off the hook.

She said, “Let me get this straight. You just wrote down a license for the hell of it?”

“Hey, it's connected,” I said. The Hispanic cop finished his paperwork and escorted the woman in black to a holding cell. Close up, under her eye makeup, she was a teenager. The right sleeve of her blouse was ripped, and her skinny yellow arm showed needle tracks.

“How?” Joanne asked.

“I'll know once you run it, Jo. Maybe.”

“This have to do with Mooney?” she asked, leaning over her desk and getting all quiet and confidential.

God knows what the station house grapevine says about Mooney and me, but I'm sure it's juicier than reality. “Would that make you run the plate any faster?” I asked.

“I'm just curious, you know,” she said.

“Seen Mooney?” I asked.

“He's not allowed in. It might be catching.”

“I thought he had to come by and testify about something.”

“Oh, that,” she said, elaborately casual. “That's over at county courthouse.”

“What's it about?”

“Confidential?” She shot a careful glance around the bullpen. The old cop, Foley, was learning how to type with two fingers.

“Sure,” I said easily.

“Cheating on paid detail,” she said.

“Mooney?” I said quietly. The Hispanic cop wandered back to his desk. He propped his feet on his blotter, dialed his phone. Joanne waited until he started talking before she answered, very softly.

“The way I heard it, is somebody offered him five bills to alter records, right after the probe started. It wasn't that obvious. Oblique as hell, really, but Mooney, well, you can imagine.”

I felt my stomach muscles unknot. “I knew it,” I said. “He frothed at the mouth, right? He's cooperating with Internal Affairs.” I smiled and issued a silent apology for my thoughts over the morning
Herald
.

“Keep it down,” Joanne said. “He's a perfect witness. These cops are gonna get strung by their thumbs.” She walked over to the bullpen's central table, picked up a pink-and-white box, and came back. “Want a doughnut?” she asked.

The box was half-full. Cinnamon and chocolate. I liked glazed and jelly.

“No, thanks,” I said. “But there is something else you can do for me, besides running the plate, I mean. I'm looking for a runaway.”

“Good luck,” she said, her voice back to full volume now.

“A repeater. There ought to be paper,” I said. Two cops, one black, one white, came through the swinging doors, supporting a man between them. He could have been drunk or doped or dead. They passed by and the smell made me glad I hadn't taken the doughnut.

“Juvie?” Joanne asked. Nothing seemed to sway her, not the noise, not the smells. I must have been like that once, before I got rid of the badge.

“Yep,” I said.

“Probably sealed.”

“I don't think it went to court. It's just paper lying around someplace.”

“Look, are you helping Mooney?” she asked.

“I'm trying,” I said.

She pushed a sheet of paper across the desk. “Write down the plate, and give me the girl's name while you're at it.”

“Thanks,” I said. “I owe you.”

“Say something nice about your local police department,” she said with a heartfelt sigh. “We can use it.”

CHAPTER 13

My car sported a parking ticket under the windshield wiper. I swear they find me everywhere, those meter maids. I hated the idea of one of them making such an easy score, right in front of the damn station.

A Boston ticket used to be a laugh. You bisected it on the spot, end of crisis. Recently, the traffic cops and the registry have sharpened up their act. You can still rip the tickets, but when you try to renew your driver's license, boy, will you be sorry. Better yet, if you rip five tickets, you can get acquainted with the Denver Boot, a yellow eyesore that instantly converts your car from a means of transportation to a hunk of modern sculpture.

The ticket was a five-buck job. If I'd parked in a lot it would have cost me four easy, so I didn't feel so bad. I'd slip it on Haslam's bill under parking fees.

I checked my watch: 2:05. School in session. Just letting out by the time I motored to Lincoln. Maybe a good time to talk to Mr. Geoffrey Reardon. Not that I put a lot of stock in Haslam's theory. I couldn't see the staid Emerson putting up with a “cult” drama club. On the other hand, there were those photo albums with the girls in leotards.

I tuned the radio to WUMB, 91.9 FM, and came in on Chris Smither singing that the sun was gonna shine in my back door someday.

I patted my knee cautiously and wondered who I could call who owned a functional bathtub and wouldn't misunderstand a request to use it. God, I ought to belong to some whoop-de-do health spa instead of the Y. I could waltz into, say, La Pli in Harvard Square, and get my aches pampered and petted and Jacuzzied. Sure thing, girl, I told myself. Membership at La Pli probably cost more than my rent. And in my jeans, with my hair wild, I looked more like a candidate for Madame Floozey's message parlor.

Used to be I could call Mooney. Back when we worked together, he'd have loaned me his key, no questions. But now there's his mom who probably wouldn't understand, but would think she did.

I let my mind wander to Sam Gianelli. His place at Charles River Park has a great bathtub, a giant bathtub, a queen of bathtubs, a five-by-five blue-tiled sunken square. I tried to imagine my approach: “Sam, it's me, Carlotta. Yeah. I know I screwed up your life and you never want to see me again—but could I use your tub?”

Maybe I could rent one of those hooker hotel rooms for an hour. “Just yourself, lady?” the sleazebag on the desk would inquire. The thought of the bathtub in a place like that made me itch. Oh, God, let the Twin Brothers put my tub back in.

There was always Gloria's room at the back of the garage, but, shit, all those pulleys and bars and stuff. I've heard about these places where you can rent a hot tub for an hour, but it seems like something you ought to do with somebody else, a social occasion calling for a date and a bottle of wine. It also seems much too “California” for a Bostonian. Bostonians are more aware of social diseases than social occasions.

I parked the Toyota under a cherry tree just beginning to bud. It wasn't green yet, but it had turned that fuzzy kind of gray that promises green. The wind was bitter, but the Emerson's campus was calm, sheltered by pines. Kids chattered as they walked to class, yanking on mittens, tightening scarves.

I stuck my hands in the pockets of my coat and started off toward Reardon's office.

I saw Elsie McLintock first, then Jerry Toland, both standing in the middle of the soccer field, waving their arms at each other. I couldn't hear them clearly, but Jerry's voice was raised and angry. I detoured.

The minute Elsie saw me, she practically ran. Jerry flicked a glance over his shoulder, called out to Elsie, then turned back to me. He strolled over, unhurried, feet shuffling through the damp grass, hands in his pockets. His mouth was slightly puffy, healing nicely. He wore khaki slacks and a white knit shirt with yellow stripes that looked expensive and warm. A yellow windbreaker was tied across his shoulders by the sleeves.

“Hi,” he said, leaning down to pick up a soccer ball someone had abandoned in the grass. “That is you, isn't it?”

This from a kid who'd seen me in my cab driver outfit and my bathrobe. “It's me,” I reassured him. “What's with Elsie?”

He shrugged, dismissing her. “Oh, you know. She doesn't think I should have hired you, and everything.” He started kicking the ball around, standing in place, bouncing it off one knee then the other.

“Me in particular?” I said.

“Anybody.”

“Why?” I asked.

The ball got away. He retrieved it, started the game over. “She's a pain in the ass, you know. That's why. Hell, I don't know.”

“You think she knows where Valerie is?”

“Elsie?” He flashed me a grin. He'd kneed the ball five times in a row. He had good balance. “No way.”

“Why? Elsie's her best friend, right?”

“Right,” he said.

“Could you just hold on to the ball for a while?” I said.

He took a step toward me. “Elsie blabs, you know. If she had a line on anything, half her friends would know, and everybody'd be yapping about it. Valerie's not dumb enough to tell Elsie.”

This kid on the soccer field had a lot more confidence than the one who'd hid in my cab and bled in my kitchen. From the way he talked about her, Elsie was not Jerry's favorite person.

He said, “Elsie says I just hired you because you're, uh, you're a woman,” he said. It took me a minute but I finally caught on. This
kid
on the soccer field was flirting with me.

“You know,” Jerry said, looking me over from top to tail, “they don't allow blue jeans.”

“Huh? Who? The Kremlin?”

“On campus. The Emerson doesn't allow blue jeans.”

“Yeah,” I said, “but I don't work for them.”

“You look great,” he said. He fired the soccer ball at me, hard. I caught it and fired it back. Reflex. I should have held it. The puppy wanted to play.

“Good toss,” he said. “How old are you, anyway?” He took another step forward. He was my height. I should have worn heels. My hair in a bun. A raging-hormone repellent spray.

“I could be your mom,” I said sternly, biting the inside of my cheek to keep from laughing, “if I'd started early.”

“Oedipus, right?” he said.

Ah, the benefits of a classical education, I thought.

“Can it,” I said elegantly. “Look, I work for you. Or I did. Now I work for Preston Haslam.”

“Mr. Haslam?” That took him back a step.

“We met for lunch. He's my client now.”

“I thought I was your client. I thought you said—”

I said, “He didn't talk to you about it?”

“He asked me about you, but geez—” The little kid was back. Even his posture was different. He was the younger brother of the guy who'd been coming on to me a minute ago. “I mean, I suppose it would be okay. My folks are giving me kind of a hard time, you know. They say save my bucks for college. I'm not sure I want to go to college in the first place, you know. It seems kind of dumb. But I've got plenty of money if I want to go. I don't see what their problem is.”

“I thought you and Haslam had settled it,” I said. “I took his check, but I can rip it up.”

“Hey,” Jerry said, “that reminds me. I owe you some bucks. Cab fare, right, and the five for the sandwich. Man, that saved my life.” He was digging in his pockets while he spoke. He pulled out a gold money clip in the shape of a dollar sign, peeled off one of a wad of twenties. “Keep the change,” he said. “For the iodine and stuff.”