The Snake Tattoo (16 page)

Besides my tabloid reader, there were three male customers. One was a sailor, a foreigner by the oddly shaped cap. The other two were medium-sized men. Brown hair, average height, average build, nondescript in every way. Guys who'd perfected the art of hiding in plain sight.

No wonder Mooney had recalled so few witnesses.

The Jack Daniel's burned the back of my throat.

A man came in with a surge of cold air and sat at a table in the back, nodding to the two hookers as he passed. He wore a lined raincoat that masked his bulk, belted without defining a waist. Something about the way he moved was familiar. I watched his reflection in the dusty mirror behind the bar. He waved at the bartender, who poured a double scotch and hustled over.

A regular.

He had dark, greasy hair, big ears, a pear-shaped face with cheeks so plump they bulged. His thin lips seemed stretched by the cheeks, fixed in a permanent, but not a friendly, grin. He wore wire-rimmed glasses.

The bartender answered my wave. I was about to slide my card on the bar and ask him where he'd been the night Mooney had a fight when the man in the raincoat yelled for another drink.

I don't forget voices. I remembered his. He was a cop.

“Beer,” I said hastily, slipping my card back in my pocket. I wanted to stay undercover, too.

The bartender raised an eyebrow.

“Whatever's on draft,” I said.

I couldn't recall the cop's name. I don't think our paths had crossed more than twice during my whole six-year tenure, but I'd talked to him on the phone. So he must have worked out of another division. Area D, maybe. Yeah, Area D.

The man next to me flipped the page. P
RINCESS
D
I
S
PEAKS TO
UFO A
LIENS
, it said.

The bartender and the cop repeated the business with the double scotch, but this time there was a whispered discussion between the two men. I couldn't hear a word. I nursed my drink. It was almost closing time.

The bartender disappeared into a back room, came out with a middle-aged guy who walked with a stutter and a limp, leaning heavily on a cane. The man made his way over to where the cop sat. I watched the confrontation in the mirror.

They didn't say much, but what they said was soft and furious. Then the man in the raincoat lifted his untouched second drink and slowly, very slowly, poured it on the floor. The limping man lifted his cane like a weapon. The cop said something and the man reconsidered. The hand and the cane came down. He turned with as much dignity as he could muster and limped away. Then the cop in the raincoat headed out the door. I didn't see him pay his tab.

I laid my money on the bar and followed.

CHAPTER 18

Imitating drunks I have known, I turned right when I came out the door, hesitated, then veered left as if I couldn't make up my mind which way to go. A teenager in a T-shirt and jeans hurried by, clutching a white paper bag. I stumbled twenty paces and peered down a dismal alley. The man in the raincoat had disappeared. He must have had a car waiting nearby.

I shivered and zipped my vest against the wind. It had picked up, whirling the Styrofoam fast-food cartons down the gutter, stinging my ears. I stuck my hands in my pockets, fumbled for the car keys, and made my way back to the loading zone. No ticket. No broken windows. No dented fenders.

Was the Blue Note a regular cop watering hole? Was the guy in wire-rims keeping the place under surveillance? Did the bartender know the guy was a cop, or just that he drank Johnny Walker doubles on the rocks?

And what was this pouring-liquor-on-the-floor routine? Not the best way to stay incognito.

I decided on a few more passes. Closing time is a good time to circulate. When the bars shut down, the hookers come out.

I was letting my questions stew, driving on automatic pilot, when I saw Marla.

Marla's a regular, a lady I used to arrest maybe once every three months. She's got four kids in state care, and a drug habit that keeps her working the streets. A detox veteran, she never seems to take the cure for long. I keep hoping she'll change, but I guess she's doing the best she can.

In a red mini topped by a shiny black jacket, she must have been freezing. Her high heels were sprained-ankle specials. I have no idea of Marla's age. Her oldest kid must be fifteen.

I blocked the crosswalk and she hollered nasty things about me and my ancestors until I stuck my head out the window and waved.

“Hop in,” I said.

“How come?” She is, like most hookers, suspicious.

I brandished the cash my last fare had donated.

“Who you supposed to be tonight, girl?” she said, opening the door and climbing into the passenger seat. “Turn up the heater, for Christ's sake.”

The last time I saw Marla I was decked out as a sister hooker. She could have killed my cover, but she kept quiet.

“I'm looking for somebody,” I said.

“Where we going?”

“Just cruising. I'll put you down wherever you say.”

“Looking for somebody,” she repeated. “Down here.”

“Right.”

“Honey, down here is where you come not to be somebody,” she said. “Ain't got no somebodies 'round here.” She chuckled and nodded and I wondered what she was using to get high. I wanted to launch into a speech about AIDS and clean needles, but figured she was in no shape to pay me any mind.

“Remember Janine, with the tattoos?” I asked.

“The tattooed lady?” Marla stared out the side window. Her voice was low, the words slurred. “I think she gone away from here. Is this all the heat this junk heap puts out?”

“I saw her last night,” I said.

Marla shook her head. “Lots of gals look like Janine. Seems to me I heard she got sick or something.”

“Remember who you heard that from?” I asked.

“Nah.”

“Remember when?”

“Nah.”

I sighed and said, “How about a new one? A real young white chickie, brown hair, brown eyes, five-four?”

“She a somebody?”

“Family in Lincoln,” I said.

“You ever try kicking that heater?” Marla asked.

I passed over my picture of Valerie. It was getting a handled look to it, edged curved and worn. I flicked on the dome light so she could see better. The streets were empty and the driving easy. Most of the boys and girls had scored for the night or given up and found shelter. There was a little action in front of the bus depot, but the bitter wind was an effective crackdown on prostitution.

Dead time, the cops used to call it.

Marla stared at the picture so long I thought she'd nodded off. Then she said, “I think I could have seen her—for what it's worth.”

“If it's true, it's worth. If it's not, it's not.”

“Honey, I don't tell lies to no ex-policewoman. I expect you got friends.”

“A couple,” I said.

“I know you ain't gonna sic 'em on me. But I do think maybe I saw this child. She wearing shoes like you wear to the senior fucking prom. White silky stuff, and I think they ain't gonna stay that color long, girl.”

“Where was she?”

“Corner,” Marla said. “Under some lamppost. I tell you I wasn't takin' too much note exactly where I was.”

“She alone?”

“A couple gals with her. Rhonda, I think, maybe. You remember Rhonda? She talking to some dude, your girl.”

“Pimp?”

“A john, maybe. White boy. Maybe a hustler. Maybe chickenhawk. Prettiest dude I ever seen. Gold hair like a picture in a church.”

“When was this?” I asked.

“Dunno,” she said. “Days, you know, they go on by.”

“Prettiest dude I ever seen” sounded like Geoffrey Reardon to me.

“It wasn't tonight, was it?” I asked.

“I don't think so. I remember tonight okay, I think,” she said.

So Reardon had lied. If it was Reardon.

“Tell me more about this guy,” I said.

“Honey, I got to be going. You can let me off at the bus station, okay?”

“This guy with the blonde hair,” I said.

“Yeah? So what about him?”

“Seen him around?”

“Just the once. Kind of boy you remember.”

We haggled a little for old times' sake, and then I gave her a twenty and dropped her at the corner of St. James. I spent the next hour holed up near my alleyway, trying to keep warm and awake. The lights never went on at Renney's. No Valerie. No Caprice. No Janine. No unnamed cop in a bulky raincoat.

On the bright side, I didn't even put a ding in the cab.

CHAPTER 19

Back home, I spent fifteen bleary-eyed minutes deciphering notes stuck under the magnets on my refrigerator door. Roz had scrawled a message from Spider telling someone, probably herself, not to miss ProtoSlime at the Rat, ProtoSlime being some rock group and the Rat being Rathskeller in Kenmore Square, a hangout of bizarre repute. There was a note that said “peanut butter,” meaning she was running out of it, and one that said “check out toilet!”

Sometimes Roz answers the phone and sometimes she doesn't, depending on her mood and hair color du jour, so I have a telephone answering machine. Its red light glowed steadily. Either Reardon hadn't gotten around to reading Valerie's diary, hadn't found anything relevant therein, or had ripped up my card as soon as he'd ushered me out his office door.

The latter possibility seemed the most likely, what with his lying about not seeing Valerie, so I tossed the place until I found the phone book most likely to contain the address of a man who worked in Lincoln. The Metro West Directory—Ma Bell's attempt to forge an identity for Boston's western suburbs—was underneath a potted plant in my bedroom.

No Reardon, Geoffrey. I searched some more and found the Boston phone book propping open a kitchen closet.

Reardon, Geoffrey L., lived at 228 Dudley Street, Somerville—a low-rent address. Since I have little respect for the sleep of people who lie to me, I dialed, 4
A.M.
notwithstanding. I got no answer. A deep sleeper, or a man who slept away from home.

With his looks he could sleep anyplace he wanted, I thought, summoning courage to check out the second-floor bathroom. I eased open the door, saw chocolate tile, holes and pipes. A large carton rested in a corner. Peeking inside I thought I saw, yes, I did see, a perfectly appalling electric blue toilet.

Must be in transit to another bathroom, I told myself. I thought about rousing Roz. Maybe she was sleeping with someone I could question concerning the blue toilet. I decided this was not something I wanted to deal with in the wee hours and contented myself with writing a note: “Do not install this toilet!!!” and taping it to the box. Then I got undressed, unwound the Ace bandage from my knee, and pulled the covers over my head.

I dreamed about Sam Gianelli and bathtubs, bathtubs and Sam.

I don't need a lot of sleep. Not quite four hours later, I woke with the alarm, flexed my knee cautiously, and decided to try the Y. Even if I couldn't play volleyball, I could take a long hot soapy shower.

My knee loosened up as I played, and I put in a creditable game-and-a-half, once scoring three kills in a row. I don't particularly like the terminology, but there it is, and it's one of the things I do best. I'm an indifferent server, but a fine outside hitter, and outside hitters spike for a living. A kill is just a successful spike. You take a full 180-degree preparation, jump, meet the ball over the net, and smash it down and away from their blockers. If you've placed it out of diving setter range, it smacks the floor, bounces back six feet high, and is extremely satisfying.

So was the shower. I mean, it wasn't a long, luxurious bath, but compared to what I could have anticipated in my first-floor bathroom, it was great. My first-floor bathroom cannot rightly be called a bathroom, because it has no bath. It's a water closet, slightly larger than a phone booth. The sink is wedged in a corner next to the toilet, and I have to hold my breath to get the door closed once I'm inside. The sink is one of those old-fashioned types, with separate hot and cold spigots and a rubber plug on a metal chain so that warm water can be blended in the basin. I don't have the patience for that, so I either scald myself or freeze myself whenever I use it, which is not often. I used the second-floor bath, the one that now has the holes and pipes and chocolate tile and vile blue toilet.

Maybe I could move into the Y until Twin Brothers finished the job.

I phoned Reardon's home from the Dunkin' Donuts in Central Square between bites of glazed donuts and sips of strong coffee. No answer. I dialed the Emerson, getting the number from Information. A woman with a silky voice connected me to Reardon's office. The phone rang twelve times before she came back on the line and told me that Mr. Reardon was not answering. Hot news flash.

In between the time she'd disappeared and the time I'd questioned him, someone who looked like Reardon had visited someone who looked like Valerie in the Zone. I have what Mooney always called an “overactive imagination,” so I could come up with any number of explanations, ranging from the bizarre—Reardon running a chain of high-priced prep-school hookers—to the ridiculous—Reardon discovering one of his students by chance while cruising for a lady of the night. Somehow I couldn't see gorgeous Geoffrey paying for sex. None of my explanations had the nice simple ring of probable truth.

I headed down Route 2 to the Emerson, one eye on the speedometer, the other seeking traffic cops, hoping Reardon could dish up a story I'd believe. It was a good day for a little speed, brisk and bright, and once I crested the hill into Lexington I surrendered to the impulse. Someday, a sports car.

I parked under my cherry tree and headed through the main gate and across the quadrangle to Reardon's office. A bunch of teenage boys kicked a soccer ball on the muddy field. One of the tame squirrels crossed my path and flew up a tree. It was as big as a cat. Not as big as T.C., but then he's tall for his age.