Boston Noir (11 page)

Anna threw the rest of the beer onto the floor, followed it with the last of the wine from the bottle. No sense in taking chances. She had a long night ahead of her. She could barely move Hook on her own. Slender though she was, she was strong from hauling water and kegs and wood from the time she could walk, but he was nearly two hundred pounds of dead meat. She'd planned this, though, with as much meticulousness as she planned everything in her life. Everything that could be anticipated, that is. Thomas's ill-conceived greediness she hadn't counted on, nor Miller's interest in her place. These were hard lessons and dearly bought.

She would be better. She would manage.

She went to the back, brought out the barrow used to move stock. With careful work, and a little luck, Anna tipped Miller from his chair into the barrow, and, struggling to keep her balance, wheeled him out of the public room into the back kitchen ell. She left him there, out of sight, and checked again that the back door was still barred. She twitched the curtain so that it hung completely over the small window.

Lighting a taper from the fireplace, she considered her plan. A change of clothes, from silk into something for scut work. She had hours of dirty business ahead of her, as bad and dirty as slaughtering season, but really, it was no different from butchering a hog.

A small price to pay for her freedom and the time to plan how better to keep it.

Holding the taper, she hurried up the narrow back stairs to the chamber over the public room. When she opened the door, her breath caught in her throat. There was a lit candle on the table across from her bed.

Adam Seaver was sitting in her best chair.

Anna felt her mouth parch. Although she'd half expected to be interrupted in her work, she hadn't thought it would be in her own chamber. But Seaver had wanted to see what she'd do--he'd said so himself. She swallowed two or three times before she could ask.

"How?"

"You should nail up that kitchen window. It's too easy to reach in and shove the bar from the door. Then up the stairs, just as you yourself came. But not before I watched you with Miller." He pulled an unopened bottle from his pocket, cut the red wax from the stopper, opened it. "I'll pour my own drinks, thanks. What is the verse?
After she gave him drink, Jael went unto him with a peg of the tent and smote the nail into his temple
?"

"Near enough."

"A mistake teaching women to read. But then, if you couldn't read, you couldn't figure your books, and you wouldn't have such a brisk business as you do." He drank. "A double-edged sword. But as nice a bit of needlework as I've ever seen from a lady."

Keep breathing, Anna. You're not done yet. "What now?" She thought of the pistol in the trunk by the bed, the knife under her pillow. They might as well have been at the bottom of the harbor.

"A bargain. You're a widow with a tavern, I'm the agent of an important man. You also have a prime piece of real estate, and an eye on everything that happens along here. And, it seems, an eye to advancement. I think we can deal amiably enough, and to our mutual benefit."

At that moment, Anna almost wished Seaver would just cut her throat. She'd never be free of this succession of men, never able to manage by herself. The rage welled up in her, as it had never done before, and she thought she would choke on it. Then she remembered the paper hidden in her shoe, the document that made the tavern and its business wholly her own, and how she'd fought for it. She'd be damned before she handed it over to another man.

But she saw Seaver watching her carefully and it came to her. Perhaps like Miller not immediately grasping that the obvious next move for him was civil life and nearly legitimate trade--with all its fat skimming--she was not ambitious enough. Instead of mere survival, relying on the tavern, she could parlay it into more. Working with Seaver, who, after all, was only the errand boy of one of the most powerful--and dangerous--men in New England, she might do more than survive. She saw the beginning of a much wider, much richer future.

The whole world open to her, if she kept sharp. If she could be better than she was.

She went over to the mantel, took down a new bottle, opened it, poured herself a drink. Raised the glass.

She would pour her own drinks, and Seaver would pour his own.

She would manage.

"To our mutual benefit," she toasted.

S
he was waiting for me when I came back from the corner store and I stopped, giving her a quick scan. She had on a dark blue dress, black sensible shoes, and a small blue hat balanced on the back of thick brown hair. She held a small black leather purse in her hands, like she knew she was in a dangerous place and was frightened to lose it. On that last part, she was right, for it was evening and she was standing in Scollay Square, with its lights, horns, music, honky-tonks, burlesque houses, and hordes of people with sharp tastes who came here looking for trouble, and more often than not, found it.

I brushed past a group of drunk sailors in their dress blues as I got up to my corner, the sailors no doubt happy that with the war over, they didn't have to worry about crazed kamikazes smashing into their gun turrets, burning to death out there in the Pacific. They were obviously headed to one of the nearby bars. There were other guys out there as well, though I could always identify the ones who were recently discharged vets: they moved quickly, their eyes flicking around, and whenever there was a loud horn or a backfire from a passing truck, they would freeze in place.

And then, of course, they would unfreeze. There were years of drinking and raising hell to catch up on.

I shifted my paper grocery sack from one hand to the other and approached the woman, touched the brim of my fedora with my free hand. "Are you waiting for me?" I asked.

Her face was pale and frightened, like a young mom seeing blood on her child for the very first time. "Are you Billy Sullivan?"

"Yep."

"Yes, I'm here to see you."

I shrugged. "Then follow me, miss."

I moved past her and opened the wooden door that led to a small foyer, and then upstairs, the wooden steps creaking under our footfalls. At the top, a narrow hallway led off, three doors on each side, each door with a half-frame of frosted glass. Mine said,
B. Sullivan, Investigations
, and two of the windows down the hallway were blank. The other three announced a watchmaker, a piano teacher, and a press agent.

I unlocked the door, flicked on the light, and walked in. There was an old oak desk in the center with my chair, a Remington typewriter on a stand, and two solid filing cabinets with locks. In front of the desk were two wooden chairs, and I motioned my guest to the nearest one. A single window that hadn't been washed since Hoover was president overlooked the square and its flickering neon lights.

"Be right back," I said, ducking through a curtain off to the side. Beyond the curtain was a small room with a bed, radio, easy chair, table lamp, and icebox. A closed door led to a small bathroom that most days had plenty of hot water. I put a bottle of milk away, tossed the bread on a counter next to the toaster and hot plate, and returned to the office. I took off my coat and hat, and hung both on a coat rack.

The woman sat there, leaning forward a bit, like she didn't want her back to be spoiled by whatever cooties resided in my office. She looked at me and tried to smile. "I thought all private detectives carried guns."

I shook my head. "Like the movies? Roscoes, heaters, gats, all that nonsense? Nah, I saw enough guns the last couple of years. I don't need one, not for what I do."

At my desk, I uncapped my Parker pen and grabbed a legal pad. "You know my name, don't you think you should return the favor?"

She nodded quickly. "Of course. The name is Mandy Williams...I'm from Seattle."

I looked up. "You're a long way from home."

Tears formed in the corners of her eyes. "I know, I know...and it's all going to sound silly, but I hope you can help me find something."

"Something or some
one
?" I asked.

"Something," she said. "Something that means the world to me."

"Go on."

"This is going to sound crazy, Mister Sullivan, so please...bear with me, all right?"

"Sure."

She took a deep breath. "My fiance, Roger Thompson, he was in the army and was stationed here, before he was shipped overseas."

I made a few notes on the pad, kept my eye on her.

"We kept in touch, almost every day, writing letters back and forth, sending each other mementos. Photos, souvenirs, stuff like that...and he told me he kept everything I sent to him in a shoe box in his barracks. And I told him I did the same...kept everything that he sent to me."

Now she opened her purse, took out a white tissue, which she dabbed at her eyes. "Silly, isn't it...it's been nearly a year...I know I'm not making sense, it's just that Roger didn't come back. He was killed a few months before the war was over."

My hand tightened on the pen. "Sorry to hear that."

"Oh, what can you do, you know? And ever since then, well, I've gone on, you know? Have even thought about dating again...and then..."

The tissue went back to work and I waited. So much of my professional life is waiting, waiting for a phone call, waiting for someone to show up, waiting for a bill to be paid.

She coughed and continued: "Then, last month, I got a letter from a buddy of his. Name of Greg Fleming. Said they were bunkmates here. And they shipped out together, first to France and then to the frontlines. And Greg told me that Roger said that before he left, he hid that shoe box in his barracks. He was afraid the box would get lost or spoiled if he brought it overseas with him."

"I see," I said, though I was practically lying. "And why do you need me? Why not go to the base and sweet talk the duty officer, and find the barracks your fiance was staying at?"

"Because...because the place he was training at, it's been closed since the war was over. And it's not easy to get to."

"Where is it?"

Another dab of the tissue. "It's out on Boston Harbor. On one of the islands. Gallops Island. That's where Roger was stationed."

The place was familiar to me. "Yeah, I remember Gallops. It was used as a training facility. For cooks, radiomen, and medics. What did your man train for?"

"Radioman," she said simply. "Later...later I found out that being a radioman was so very dangerous. You were out in the open, and German snipers liked to shoot at a radioman and the officer standing next to him...that's, that's what happened to Roger. There was some very fierce fighting and he was...he was...oh God, they blew his head off..."

And then she bowed and started weeping in her tissue, and I sat there, feeling like my limbs were made of cement, for I didn't know what the hell to do. Finally I cleared my throat and said, "Sorry, miss...Look, can I get you something to drink?"

The tissue was up against her face and she shook her head. "No, no, I don't drink."

I pushed away from my desk. "I was thinking of something a bit less potent. I'll be right back."

About ten minutes later, I came back with two chipped white china mugs and passed one over to her. She took a sip and seemed surprised. "Tea?"

"Yeah," I said, sitting back down. "A bit of a secret, so please don't tell on me, okay? You know the reputation we guys like to maintain."

She smiled, and I felt I had won a tiny victory. "How in the world did you ever start drinking tea?"

I shrugged. "Picked up the habit when I was stationed in England."

"You were in the army?"

I nodded. "Yep."

"What did you do?"

I took a sip from my own mug. "Military police. Spent a lot of time guarding fences and ammo dumps or directing traffic. Pretty boring. Never really heard a shot fired in anger, though a couple of times I did hear Kraut artillery as we were heading east when I got over to France."

"So you know war, then."

"I do."

"And I'm sure you know loss as well."

Again, the tightening of my hand. "Yeah, I know loss."

And she must have sensed a change in my voice, for she stared harder at me and said, "Who was he?"

I couldn't speak for a moment, and then I said, "My older brother. Paul."

"What happened?"

I suppose I should have kept my mouth shut, but there was something about her teary eyes that just got to me. I cleared my throat. "He was 82nd Airborne. Wounded at the Battle of the Bulge. Mortar shrapnel. They were surrounded by the Krauts, and I guess it took a long time for him to die..."

"Then we both know, don't we."

"Yeah." I looked down at the pad of paper. "So. What do you need me for?"

She twisted the crumpled bit of tissue in her hands. "I...I don't know how to get to that island. I've sent letters to everyone I can think of, in the army and in Congress, and no one can help me out...and I found out that the island is now restricted. There's some sort of new radar installation being built there...no one can land on the island."

I knew where this was going but I wanted to hear it from her. "All right, but let me say again, Miss Williams, why do you need me?"

She waited, waited for what seemed to be a long time. She took a long sip from her tea. There were horns from outside, a siren, and I could hear music from the nearest burlesque hall. "Um...well, I've been here for a week...asking around...at the local police station...asking about a detective who might help me, one from around here, one who knows the harbor islands..."

"And my name came up? Really? From who?"

"A...a desk sergeant. Name of O'Connor."

I grimaced. Fat bastard, never got over the fact that my dad beat up his dad ten or fifteen years ago at some Irish tavern in Southie; he always gave me crap, every time he saw me. "All right. What did he tell you?"

"That you used to work with your dad in the harbor, pulling in lobster pots, working after school and summers, and he said...well, he said..."

"Go on, Miss Williams. What did he say?"

"He said that if anyone could get me out to the islands and back, it'd be that thick-skulled mick Billy Sullivan."

I tried not to smile. "Yeah, that sounds like the good sergeant."

Her voice softened. "Please, Mister Sullivan. I...I don't know what else to do. I can't make it out there without your help, and getting those memories from my man...that would mean the world to me."

"If the island is off-limits during the day, it means we'll have to go out at night. Do you understand, Miss Williams?"

She seemed a bit surprised. "I...I thought I could draw you a map, a description, something like that."

I shook my head. "Not going to work. I'm not going out to Gallops Island at night without you. If I find that box of mementos for you, I want you right there, to check it out."

"But--"

"If that's going to be a problem, Miss Williams, then I'm afraid I can't help you."

My potential client sounded meek. "I...I don't like boats...but no, it won't be a problem."

"Good. My rate is fifty dollars a day, plus expenses...but this should be relatively easy. And that fifty dollars has to be paid in advance."

She opened her purse, deftly pulled out three tens and a twenty, which I scooped up and put into my top desk drawer. I tore off a sheet of paper, wrote something down, and slid it over to her. "There. Address in South Boston. Little fishing and tackle shop, with a dock to the harbor. I'll see you there tomorrow at 6 p.m. Weather permitting, it should be easy."

My new client folded up the piece of paper and put it in her purse, and then stood up, held out a hand with manicured red nails. "Oh, I can't thank you enough, Mister Sullivan. This means so much to me, and..."

I shook her hand and said, "It's too early to thank me, Miss Williams. If we get there and get your shoe box, then you can thank me."

She smiled and walked to the door, and I eyed her legs and the way she moved. "Tomorrow, then."

"Tomorrow," I said.

She stepped out of the office and shut the door behind her.

I counted about fifteen seconds, and then, no doubt to the surprise of my new client had she known, I immediately went to work.

I put on my hat and coat and went out, locking the door behind me. I took the steps two at a time, out to the chaos that was Scollay Square, and then I spotted her, heading up Tremont Street. I dodged more sailors and some loud, red-faced businessmen, the kind who had leather cases full of samples and liked to raise hell in big bad Boston before crawling back to their safe little homes in Maine or New Hampshire.

My client went around the corner, and I quickly lost her.

Damn.

I looked up and down the street, saw some traffic, more guys moving around, but not my client. A few feet away I stopped a man in a wheelchair, with a tartan blanket covering the stumps that used to be his legs. Tony Blawkowski, holding a cardboard sign:
HELP AN INJURED VET
. I went over and greeted him: "Ski."

"Yeah?" He was staring out at the people going by, shaking a cardboard coffee cup filled with coins.

"You see a young gal come this way?"

"Good lookin', small leather purse in her hands, hat on top of her pretty little head?"

"That's the one."

"Nope, didn't see a damn thing." He smiled, showing off yellow teeth.

I reached into my pocket, tossed a quarter in his cup.

"Well, that's nice, refreshin' my memory like that," Ski said. "Thing is, she came right by here, wigglin' that fine bottom of hers, gave me no money, the stuck-up broad, and then she got into a car and left."

Somehow the noise of the horns and the music from the burlesque hall seemed to drill into my head. "You sure?"

"Damn straight. A nice Packard, clean and shiny. It was parked there for a while, then she got in and left."

"You see who was in the Packard?"

"You got another quarter?"

I reached back into my pocket, and there was another clink as the coin fell into his cup. He laughed. "Nope. Didn't see who was in there or who was driving. They jus' left. That's all."

"All right, Ski. Tell you what, you see that Packard come back, you let me know, all right?"

"What's in it for me?"

I smiled. "Keeping your secret, for one."

He shook his head. "Bastard. You do drive a hard bargain."