Goldilocks (17 page)

“I saw you go in.”

“Nothing personal,” Cole said, “but I don’t like you coming after me.”

“Just doing what I’m told, Barney. I’ve been doing that since I was a kid.”

The courthouse exuded its age, its grime, its intricate and irreplaceable architecture of a dead era. Police officers and bondsmen, lawyers with their clients, assistant district attorneys floated in hazes of dust through wide corridors and up expansive stairways. Gray-haired clerks filtered through the dim, the women indistinguishable from the men, as if age had made them androgynous, especially in that part of the building that seemed like a mausoleum. “Where the hell are we going?” Cole asked, for they had passed the district attorney’s offices and were descending stairs into the pit of the building, where the fluorescent lighting hung low.

“D.A.'s interested in privacy,” the deputy said over the hum of a dehumidifier stirring up ancient odors. Each door they passed bore the legend
Records.
Finally the deputy halted at one and opened it while giving a quick rap. “I’ll leave you now,” he said, and vanished.

The room, lined with fireproof file cabinets, looked into an inner chamber, where the district attorney was sitting at a table with two men who looked like high-powered insurance salesmen and sure winners of company achievement awards. The district attorney struggled to his feet, and his feedbag of a body moved slowly toward Cole, no strength of purpose in the short stout legs. The smile on his face seemed an aberration.

“I don’t like this,” Cole said in a low voice.

“I don’t either, Barney, but what can I do? They’re feds.”

• • •

Mrs. Whipple’s polo shirt was bright yellow, her red shorts even brighter. Whenever she moved to rake or dig or pull up weeds, Henry Witlo glimpsed the colors. They flashed between the low-hanging branches of a tree and through the boundary of shrubs. Moving closer, he saw the movement of her arms and the spring of her legs. He cut through the foliage, smiled boyishly, and said, “Excuse me, ma’am.”

She turned with a bamboo rake in her hands and gave him a quick inquiring look. “Yes, Henry?”

He was pleased she remembered his name, though he had been reasonably sure she would, mostly from a glimpse he had once gotten of her husband, unsparingly bland, which gave him a clue to the tempo of the marriage. “I don’t mean to bother you.”

“It’s OK,” she said. “What is it?”

He liked the way the sun iced the gray cracks in her blond hair, and he liked the sound of her voice, though it reminded him of an elementary school teacher who had jacked him out of a chair and boxed his ears. “I don’t mean to cause trouble,” he said.

“Don’t keep me in suspense.”

“It’s the stereo. Sometimes you’re not home, your daughter plays it loud. I don’t mind, but it kinda gets on my aunt’s nerves. You know how old ladies are.”

“Tell Mrs. Goss I’m sorry. I’ll try to make sure it doesn’t happen again.”

“I didn’t want to mention it.”

Mrs. Whipple tipped her head. “You’re very good to her.”

“She’s a nice lady, only family I got.”

“What do you do for work, Henry?”

“I draw disability. I got banged up pretty bad in Vietnam.”

“That was a terrible war. My husband missed it, thank God.”

“I was proud to serve.”

“And your aunt must’ve been proud of you.”

“She wrote me twice a week, and she sent me a lot of packages.”

Mrs. Whipple wound the leather loop of the rake handle around a finger. “Are you married, Henry?”

“No, but I’ve come close a few times,” he said. He liked the way her eyes played upon him, some sort of promise implicit in the playfulness, which was no less than what he had expected. “Long as my aunt needs me,” he said, “I’ve got no plans.”

“She’s lucky to have such a nephew.”

“We’re both lucky.”

Mrs. Whipple smiled. “May I tell you something, you won’t get mad?”

He smiled back. “I won’t get mad.”

“You promise?”

“Sure.”

All of a sudden a mask slipped away. Mrs. Whipple’s face was bald and shiny. She said, “I think you’re bullshit shoveled high.”

He needed a telltale second to look his most innocent. “I don’t follow.”

“Whose idea you call her Auntie? Hers or yours?” Mrs. Whipple’s smile was as smug as it could get, which brought out the creases beneath her eyes, the dimples in her cheeks. “I never would have suspected the old girl, so prim and proper, but the old cliché about the quiet ones is usually true.”

Henry kept his mouth shut, deferring to her smile. Everything inside him that had gone tight now relaxed.

“The time she was in the car with you, I never saw anybody looking so guilty.”

Henry hung his head forward, somewhat contritely. “I guess something like this, you don’t fool anybody.”

“Not for long, Henry, not the way you two do it.”

“Just because her husband’s gone doesn’t mean she has to rot.” Henry rose on his toes. “She’s got a right to a life same as the rest of us.”

“More power to her,” Mrs. Whipple said with amused condescension.

“I respect her, ma’am. Don’t say anything against her.”

Beginning to turn away, Mrs. Whipple smiled her sweetest. “I wouldn’t dream of it.”

• • •

The district attorney introduced Barney Cole to the two men seated at the far side of the table, agents Cruickshank and Blue, each clad in a pinstripe suit that would have pleased a Boston banker. Cruickshank, who looked a little like Max Headroom with less of a smile, gripped Cole’s hand. Blue, a slender black man in gold-rimmed glasses, half rose and immediately sank back, indicating that his function was merely to monitor. The district attorney quickly removed himself to a distant chair, which he sat in tentatively, as if his presence were provisional and his departure imminent. Cole sat directly across from Cruickshank, whose demeanor was placid and poised.

“Relax, Mr. Cole. Nobody’s going to bite you.”

“I hope not,” Cole said. “This is the age of infection.”

Without a smile, Cruickshank drew his chair closer to the table. His fair hair seemed molded to his tall head. A deep note crept into his voice, which resonated. “Do you know what this is about?”

“No,” Cole lied.

“The district attorney didn’t tell you?”

From his outpost, the district attorney also lied. “I was vague.”

“The assault on Louise Leone Baker,” Cruickshank said. “Apparently you were the only eyewitness.”

“Yes, apparently,” Cole said.

“You said it was an attempted mugging.”

Cole seemed to nod, and Cruickshank opened a vinyl folder and extracted a sheet of paper, which he did not look at. “According to the police report, you said a man tried to rip jewelry from Mrs. Baker’s neck.”

“Yes, that’s what it looked like.”

“You seem to be hedging.”

“It was dark.”

“She was in the light, no?”

“It happened fast.”

“Bang, bang. Two shots.”

“That’s what it sounded like.”

“That part rings right, Mr. Cole, but I’ll tell you my problem. It’s like I’m doing a puzzle and I have pieces that don’t belong. I hate it when that happens. What do you think, Blue?”

Cole was suddenly aware that the other agent had been observing him with excruciating care, scrutinizing each movement in his face. “If you have pieces that don’t belong,” Blue said, “you should throw them out.”

“Yes,” said Cruickshank. “My theory, Mr. Cole, is that it was an attempted assassination that was botched.”

Cole shrugged. “It’s possible, anything’s possible, but that’s not the way I saw it.”

“You could be wrong. You’re aware that Mrs. Baker has Mafia connections.”

“I’ve heard people say that.”

“You’re an old friend of hers.”

“Yes, but I don’t see much of her. She lives across the state.”

“But she’s been sticking around here now, recuperating, I guess. Or else biding her time. What do you think, Blue?”

Blue kneaded his chin with fingers extraordinarily long and tapered. “Perhaps Mr. Cole knows.”

“I’m sure you know much more than I do,” Cole said. “I don’t make her my business.”

“We’d like you to make her your business,” Cruickshank said flatly, with the vestige of a smile. “We’re not asking you to wear a wire or anything dramatic like that. We merely want you to glean as much information from her as you can. We know something’s going to happen, Mr. Cole, surely as all of us are sitting here. We’d like to be on top of it.”

Cole, in a frozen pose of amiability, said, “I’m a lawyer, gentlemen, not an informer.”

“We’re all officers of the court,” Cruickshank said, “which is why we find it so easy to talk to you. By the way, you’d be compensated for your time.”

“Mrs. Baker doesn’t confide in me, and if she did it would probably be privileged.”

Blue suddenly placed his well-sculpted hands on the table, the fingers fascinating both Cole and the district attorney. He spoke with cold formality. “We don’t want you to answer now. We want you to think about it.”

Cruickshank returned the sheet of paper to the vinyl folder, and both agents got to their feet, vividly aloof, sartorially correct. Blue gazed down with sphinx eyes through the gold glasses. Cruickshank, slipping the folder under an arm, said, “No need to tell you this is confidential.”

Blue, moving gracefully past Cole, said, “We’ll be in touch.”

Left alone, neither Cole nor the district attorney spoke for several seconds. The district attorney was absorbed with his fingernails and then with the front of a thumb. Finally he said, “I want you to know I’m not a part of this.”

“A piece of the puzzle that doesn’t belong,” Cole said without spirit. “Is that it?”

“Feds are funny guys, Barney. All my life I’ve never known ‘em to play fair. Christ, they even throw a black guy at you. Did you see his fucking fingers?”

“They must be expecting something from you, Chugger.”

“They expect everything. You know why? Because they know everything, all the right and wrong stuff on everybody. True or false, doesn’t matter, it all goes into the files. Christ, they must have bigger computers than the Pentagon.”

“What do they know about me?”

“Nothing bad, Barney. Considering you were born and bred in Lawrence, you’re an angel. No, it’s your father and me. They know I went to bat for him. They know I went to bat for a lot of people.” He gave out a harsh laugh. “Christ, if I had gone after those indictments there’d have been nobody left to run the city.”

“Do they know Scampy was your friend?”

“Course they know. I told you, they know everything, half of it wrong.”

“Can they get you on any of it?” Cole asked gently.

“Naw.” He tugged at the purse of skin under his chin. “But they could throw shit at me come election time.”

Cole stared off at a row of file cabinets, at the bars and bolts securing them. “I’m sorry, Chugger.”

“Not your fault, for Christ’s sake. None of it’s your fault.”

“What do they want you to tell me?”

“That it would suit everybody, including yourself, if you cooperated.”

“That’s all?”

“They don’t threaten, Barney. They insinuate.”

Cole lifted himself from the chair, tugged at his suit jacket, and smiled distantly. “What’s your advice, Chugger?”

“Fuck the feds. We take care of our own.”

• • •

“When are you coming home, Lou?” The voice was plaintive. It could have belonged to a six-year-old, and for a quicksilvery moment she thought it did.

“Soon as I can, Ben. I promise.”

“How soon?”

“Soon. My mother’s still not herself. You wouldn’t want me to leave her that way, would you?”

“You could bring her here. Then we’d both have you.”

“She wouldn’t do that, Ben. Too far from my father’s grave.” She shifted the receiver to her other ear and glanced over her shoulder. A woman was waiting to use the phone. “I’m going to be a while,” she said with a hand over the mouthpiece, and the woman turned away.

“Where are you, Lou?”

“In the lobby of a bank, downtown Lawrence. I needed to cash a check, and they know me here. In fact, I still have an account.”

“You’re really coming back, aren’t you?”

“Ben,” she said in a disappointed tone.

“I need you to tell me. Just tell me.”

“You have my word,” she said forcefully. They continued to talk, she in reassuring tones, but an undercurrent of doubt remained in his voice, along with a suggestion of weariness. “Let me speak to Mrs. Mennick now,” she said.

Waiting, she gazed over at a man tapping the buttons on a money machine, his posture tense, as if he feared the machine might not accommodate him. The building was old, the lobby floor marble, the walls megalithic, the windows vaulted. She cast her gaze over the expanse to the teller’s window where her father had once cashed checks that did not belong to him and avoided prosecution only because of Scampy’s intervention.

Mrs. Mennick came on the line.

“Can you talk?” Louise asked.

“Yes. He’s gone to the bathroom.”

“How’s he doing?”

“He refused his medication yesterday, but I managed to get it into him today. I have my tricks.”

A worried expression took hold of Louise’s face. “So does he. Are you going to be able to control him?”

“I’m doing my best, Mrs. Baker, but it’s you he needs. I’m his nanny, but you’re his mommy.”

Louise stiffened and did not respond, fearful of what she might say.

“I’m sorry,” Mrs. Mennick said. “I didn’t mean to say it exactly like that. It’s just that I see how much he misses you.”

“I’m aware of that,” Louise said evenly. “But I know you can handle the situation. I’ll be home as soon as I possibly can.”

“I don’t mean to trouble you,” Mrs. Mennick said quickly. “You’ve been through a lot yourself. And you sound so tired.”

“Worry about him, Mrs. Mennick, not me.”

“I worry about you both.”

“I know you do,” Louise said, lowering her voice, relenting. “I don’t mean to be harsh.”

“I understand.”

“You always do.”

A few minutes later Louise stepped out of the bank into a balmy breeze on Essex Street, where, despite millions of federal dollars spent to prettify it, many buildings stood in varying phases of decay and abandonment. Too many gaps, blank façades, and clouded windows; too many lengths of loneliness, which hollowed her step. Gone were the big stores like Sears and Sutherland’s and the charming ones like Peter’s Sweet Shop and Ritzy’s Diner. Gone were the gimcrack goods of the Racquet Store, where her mother had once bought a toaster her father later hocked for fifty cents. The hockshop was gone too, swallowed by a block of elderly housing.