The Snake Tattoo (10 page)

Courting couples wouldn't dream of nighttime necking in Franklin Park. Franklin Park is where you go to get beaten and raped. Franklin Park is where you go to dump a body out of a car.

Tailing was tougher now because there weren't many cars on the road. I hung way back, just catching the faintest glimpse of the taillights. There was a chance I'd lose him, because the roads in the park twist and turn. But he kept bearing right, and I was pretty sure he'd come out onto the Arborway at Forest Hills.

There was nothing behind me and then there was. The car must have been cruising without lights. It wasn't visible until the driver suddenly switched on his brights. They burned in my rearview mirror, momentarily blinding. I squinted and held up my right hand to shield my eyes from the glare. I shouldn't have taken a hand off the wheel.

It happened fast. I felt the rush of speed as the front bumper hit my rear bumper and carried me forward. I hit the brake, but the cab wasn't in my control anymore. I couldn't look at the rearview mirror and drive and stomp the brake and turn the wheel and yell all at the same time. Reflex took over and then I was off the road weaving through high grass, bumping and thrashing, wrestling the wheel. Abruptly, the extra speed was gone. I braked, but the tree in front was too close. I jerked the wheel as hard as I could, counterclockwise, thinking of Gloria's brand-new cab and Gloria's three huge brothers. Right before impact, I turned the key. The engine died. The tree was too damn close.

I jerked forward but the harness seat belt did its stuff. The noise was immediate and surprisingly soft, a series of slow-motion crunches rather than one tearing crash. The car and the tree shuddered. The tree stayed upright, protruding from the right front fender. The boom box hit the dash, then the floor. It kept on playing. I thought maybe I could send it to some advertising company, like the one that does those wristwatch commercials: Timex keeps on ticking.

I jerked my head to the right. Taillights—not the Chevy's—vanished over a rise, and I hoped they were the lights of the bastard who'd forced me off the road. I fumbled under the seat for the hunk of lead pipe most cab drivers keep as standard equipment. It felt cold and heavy.

I turned off the music, killed the headlights. Showing your emergency flashers in Franklin Park is asking for trouble. I sat and breathed, glad of the air, moved my legs, flexed my arms. My right knee ached. My hands tingled but I thought that was just from squeezing the wheel so hard. I could hear the faint hiss of the radiator, nothing else. I might have been on the moon, not in the middle of a city park. I could see the burnt pillars of the clubhouse.

I groped in my purse, found a ballpoint, and scribbled the license number of the gray Caprice on the back of an envelope. My hand shook, but I got it down. I tested out my voice, then I picked up the speaker and called Gloria.

Eight years ago, a drunk hit my cab, racing a red light at Boylston and Tremont. I broke my nose bouncing off the steering wheel, and I've been a seatbelt fanatic ever since. My nose had already been broken twice before: once when the little boy next door smacked it with a hammer; once when a felon pushed my face into a wall. My friends say my nose has character.

While I waited for Gloria's reassuring voice, I found myself rubbing my nose, running my forefinger down the bridge and over the slight bump. I guess I've gotten fond of its shape.

CHAPTER 11

I missed my Thursday morning volleyball game.

I didn't get home till Thursday morning—half past five to be exact—at which time I passed out kitty-cornered across the bed, fully clothed down to my sneakers. I must have set the alarm from force of habit. When it blared, what seemed like seconds later, I stuck out my right arm to shut down the sucker, regretted the movement instantly, and recalled the accident in full-color, 3-D detail. My left shoulder felt like someone had driven a spike deep into the muscle. My knee throbbed. An angry red welt creased my right forearm where I'd bashed it into the steering wheel. When I shut my eyes I could see flashing yellow lights, hear the cry of piercing sirens.

I slithered across the bed to the phone, dialed Kristy, our captain and best setter, and mumbled my excuses.

I hate to miss volleyball. I don't think I've skipped more than a couple of days in four years. We run a hard, tough game, no beach-blanket bimbo stuff. Major league rules, referee, the whole bit. I love the pace, the speed, the intensity—and I like my teammates. We give it all we've got, and we treat each other well. There's always a slap on the back for a flying leap in a losing cause. It makes the black-and-blue knees and elbows easier to bear.

I curled back into the sheets and slept like the dead.

I forgot to reset the alarm and was almost late for lunch with Preston Haslam. Valerie's dad had left two messages on my answering machine the night before: the first, asking me to get in touch; the second, setting a time and place for a meeting. Compared to his dithery wife, the husband seemed a model of clear thinking.

The only reason I didn't slumber through lunchtime was Twin Brothers Plumbing, who came by bright, early, and noisy. I crept out of bed, gingerly peeled off my dirty clothes, shrugged into a bathrobe that was suddenly getting a good deal of use, and scurried downstairs to the tiny half-bath.

While attempting to take a shower in the sink, I checked out my contusions. In addition to the aching knee and the red welt on my arm, I had a nicely purpling bruise on my left collarbone and a long scratch on my left thigh. I tried to remember when I last had a tetanus shot. I almost dislocated my shoulder trying to inspect it in the five-by-eight-inch mirror over the sink.

Back in my room, I found a roll of Ace bandage in the bottom drawer under a moth-eaten sweater, wrapped it securely around my knee, dressed in a white silk V-neck shirt and jeans tight enough to hold the bandage in place. I didn't have the time or patience to deal with my hair.

When I was two years old, I used to wail whenever my mother approached, comb in hand. My hair was too thick and wild to control without pain. As a teenager, I hated curly hair. I used to roll it wet onto giant orange-juice cans and actually sleep like that till it dried, waking with astounding headaches. I even ironed it a few times. I can still see the look of total disbelief in my mother's eyes as she watched me wielding the iron, my head bent over the ironing board, long red curls splayed out from my nape across its surface, steam rising with the odor of singed hair.

Sleek, straight hair was so damn
vital
then, at what? fourteen? fifteen? Valerie Haslam's age.

Now I find my curly hair a blessing. I wash it and give it a shake or two as it dries. It has a will of its own and it suits me: laziness as a fashion statement.

I surveyed myself in the full-length mirror on the back of my closet door and added Aunt Bea's oval gold locket. I was glad I wasn't meeting Haslam in a posh Back Bay eatery. Chinatown is more my style.

If I hadn't had to park the car, I'd have been early. That's Boston. If you brave the MBTA, you have to allow for the inevitable train breakdown. If you choose your car, you need to search the city for a parking space. It used to be bad, but now, since they've done away with half the legal parking spaces, it's ludicrous. The city's been converting them to pedestrian malls, or—my favorite—Resident Only Parking.

This is how Resident Only Parking operates: There are, say, nine hundred parking spaces in the South End, so the registry issues thirty-six hundred Resident Parking Permits. Works like a charm.

I deserted my Toyota in a loading zone. It was either that or block a fire hydrant.

Chinatown is a scant block from the Combat Zone and a world away. Limping down Kneeland Street, I passed a butcher shop. Duck carcasses hung in the window, meat smoked to a deep maroon, necks elongated, eyes glistening. A jewelry shop featured a carved jade Buddha surrounded by red silk fans. The air smelled of ginger root, scallions, and five-spice powder. The phone booths had curved pagoda roofs.

The Imperial Tea House is big—two floors and a neon sign. Three leather-jacketed Vietnamese teens came out as I entered. They did not hold the door.

I stepped inside, removed my peacoat with a jolt of shoulder pain, hung it on a twisted wire hanger, and jammed it into an already crowded rack. A man approached.

I wouldn't have pulled Haslam out of a file labeled “distraught parents,” that's for sure. At first glance, he looked too young to be the father of a teenager. He was maybe an inch taller than me, with medium brown hair, a small patrician nose, full lips. His face was tanned, and his eyes had nice creases in the corners when he greeted me.

I tried to see a resemblance between him and his daughter. Maybe the eyes. His tortoiseshell glasses made them look smaller than they were.

“Ms. Carlyle?” he said. “Jerry described you. He didn't think I'd have trouble picking you out.”

I was glad for the “Ms.” I find my prefix situation somewhat ambiguous. I'm not technically Miss Carlyle, having been married. And I'm not Mrs. Anybody, never having taken my ex's last name as my own. And I don't think my marital history should be of any concern to people who don't know me well enough to call me by my first name.

The maître d' asked if we'd like upstairs or downstairs. Haslam said up. The waiter ushered us to a central table. Haslam asked for a booth in the back. He told the waiter he didn't have a lot of time, so I waived the menu and we ordered, agreeing quickly on hot and sour soup, spring rolls, Kung Pao chicken, and spicy green beans with pork.

The waiter left, scrawling characters on a yellow pad, and Haslam did a careful survey of the room. It was two-thirds full, the clientele equally split between Oriental and Occidental. At a table to my right a tight-lipped man and his son argued over car insurance.

“I'm sorry,” Haslam said, catching my eye, keeping his voice low. “This seems so—I don't know—crazy. Going to work, going to lunch, with Valerie missing.” He shook his head and repeated the word. “‘Missing.' It sounds so stupid, so melodramatic.” He rubbed his forehead with his hands, circling his temples with his fingertips. “I can't do any good staying home. I know that. This morning I drove around before I went to the office, looking for her. And why would she hang out near my office unless she wants me to find her? And if she wants me to find her, why doesn't she come home?”

He had a faint nervous tic on the left side of his jaw. On closer inspection he fit pretty neatly into the “distraught” category. He just put up a better front than most.

He extended both hands, stared at them like they belonged to somebody else, and folded them on the table. Then he sucked in a couple of deep breaths. “Excuse me,” he said, his voice calmer. “I'm Preston Haslam. That's how I meant to start.”

His handshake was firm and cool.

He leaned closer to me, spoke softly and quickly. “I'm grateful to Jerry for hiring you. But now that I'm back—I mean, Jerry's a kid. I'd like to join him or replace him or whatever. No conflict of interest. We both want you to find my daughter. I'd just like to, well, take over. His family wouldn't miss the money or anything, but it's not right. They shouldn't be paying for my family. Okay?”

“Did you talk this over with Jerry?”

“Yeah. Sure. Can I write you a check or what? Jerry said five hundred for a retainer.” He had his checkbook out on the table. He hunched over it like he was hiding evidence of a drug deal.

“Let's talk first,” I said to slow him down. I wondered if he always spoke at top speed or if it was another sign of nervousness. “When did you see Jerry?”

“I see him all the time. He's out in the driveway trying to make his old hulk of a car work. I wave to him in the morning and he's still there at night.”

“Do you think he could be feeling, uh, guilty about Valerie?”

His hand hesitated over the checkbook. “Well, if he did, that would make two of us,” he said, glancing up abruptly. Beneath the glasses he had soft brown eyes, long-lashed. “Look, you want a drink? I'm going to have a bourbon and water. I don't usually, but—” He waved and the waiter flew over, took my order for a screwdriver—orange juice for breakfast, right?—and Haslam's Jim Beam.

“Why should Jerry feel guilty?” Haslam asked, picking up where he'd left off. “He's a terrific kid, like a brother to Valerie.”

I said, “Why do you feel guilty?”

He finished writing, ripped the check out, and replaced the folder in his breast pocket. “Because I didn't know,” he said more slowly. “I've been in Chicago the past week, on business.”

“Your wife didn't mention it?”

“My wife is not—well, she's not in good health. I try to avoid traveling, but sometimes I have to go.”

Our drinks came with the soup. The screwdriver was strong. Haslam drank his bourbon like a thirsty man.

“What is it you do?” I asked. I'm always interested in the occupations of people who can write five-hundred-dollar checks without looking worried, and pay tuition at places like the Emerson.

“Investments,” he said. “Stockbroking, analysis. A little work with the commodities market. That's why I had to be in Chicago. It's mostly plodding stuff, but I'm good at it. I can't let this business at home get to me at work,” he said as if he was trying to convince himself instead of me. “Oh, hell. I probably should have had you come to the house instead of trying to squeeze this into the workday, but I didn't want to upset my wife. She's feeling very guilty, very depressed. I thought maybe if I handled it here … I don't know.…”

I took another sip of my drink. My interrogation technique can be summed up in three words: Let them talk.

While he talked I watched. He had a trick of fiddling with his glasses, sliding them up and down his nose. His navy suit was expensive, probably custom tailored. He seemed intense, but not worried. I imagine a worried-looking stockbroker would not last long. The glasses gave him a solid, respectable look. Intellectual, but jovial. Good eyes. Long fingers; buffed, manicured nails. Onyx cuff links.