Steel Guitar (17 page)

“You report the handbag theft?”

“Not exactly. I called Joanne Triola, asked her to let me know if my wallet turned up in a Dumpster. I wasn't carrying more than ten bucks.”

“I can't believe you didn't change the locks.”

“Roz was supposed to take care of it. And don't say you can't believe I trusted Roz. I can't believe I trusted Roz. Next time I see her, I'm gonna grab her and dye her hair that nasty old-lady blue—after I pull some of it out.”

“You're damn lucky you weren't home.”

“Somebody left a message on my mirror: Back off.”

“Polite,” Mooney said. “Usually they write dirty words. And you think it has to do with this Willis business?”

“I don't know what else I'm supposed to back off of.”

“I'll come by.”

“No,” I said hurriedly.

“That Gianelli guy with you?”

I should never phone Mooney when I'm naked. Sometimes I swear he can see over the line. “No,” I said truthfully.

“Then I'll come over.”

“Mooney, don't waste your time. Use your best skip-trace artist to see if you can find a guy named David Dunrobie.” I spelled it for him. “He's the old friend Dee was searching for in the park. Then see if you can pull an old file—and this might be tough, if not impossible. A suicide or accidental. Overdose. The friend I told you about. In 1978—yeah, don't yell. I know, but I can't help it. October 28, 1978. Lorraine Holbrook.”

“Sweet Lorraine.” I was almost sure that was one of the song titles from the lawyer's letter, that Davey had claimed Dee's famous “For Tonight” was really his song, “Sweet Lorraine.”

“Lived in Jamaica Plain,” I said to Mooney.

“Street address?”

“Addison? Maybe Addison Court or Lane.”

“Maybe?” Mooney said.

“Sounds right. Look, Mooney, back then, with a presumed suicide—booze and pills—you think they'd have checked for a possible injection site?”

“In '78? Not unless they thought your lady was shooting heroin. Speedballs only got fashionable since Belushi kicked. Now all the hotshot M.E.'s run a check.”

“You got pressure to bust Dee? Make headlines?”

“Nothing I can't handle. But let me get this straight. You think Willis might have killed both these women. Same way?”

“No, Moon, that's not what I think.”

“Well, what do you think?”

“Don't get hostile. I think it would be interesting to find out, that's all. Bye now.”

Cal's eyes were open when I sat down on the bed.

“Eavesdropping?” I asked.

“I stare at naked ladies too.”

I plugged a Rory Block tape into my cassette deck, adjusted the volume, and wriggled in close to him. “That all you do with them?” I asked, batting my eyelashes.

It made us both laugh. He reached for me.

Block sang, “Send the Man Back Home,” and we made love again—better than last night, if not as frenzied. Cal seemed to have learned a few new moves since me.

I made sure he used a condom. Hell, I thought, if you can't trust the louse who walked out on you ten years ago, who can you trust?

I got on top to control speed and depth. His callused fingers touched my breasts. I wondered if he found this morning's lovemaking more enjoyable, less like combat. Last night's had left me wondering when he'd last had a woman.

Afterward, I fluttered the top sheet over our sweaty bodies like a giant fan. Propped on one elbow, he rubbed the bridge of my thrice-broken nose with his index finger. “So why didn't you get married again?” he asked. I closed my eyes and forgot about the glaziers and the clock and the mess downstairs.

“'Cause I'm no fun in bed,” I said.

“Fooled me, all that screaming and wiggling.”

I listened to Block soar a cappella through the end of “Foreign Lander.”

“
I've conquered all my enemies
,

From land and o'er the sea
.

But you, my dearest new love
,

Your beauty has conquered me
.”

Cal said, “Good sound system in here.”

“Surprised?”

“No.”

I couldn't leave his earlier question alone. “So why haven't I remarried? Number one: you. You soured me on the institution, as if my mom and dad hadn't already done their best. Number two: I hate to compromise.” I caught a glimpse of my guitar case lying open on the floor. “Three: I seem to remember you playing me a song last night.”

“You must have been drunk.”

“Come on. What did you play?”

“Make Me a Pallet on Your Floor,” he admitted sheepishly. “Seemed appropriate at the time. Don't get up yet.”

“It's late,” I said.

“We'll shower together. I'll scrub your back.”

He sang to me in the tub while I tried to hurry up, and he tried to slow me down. We attempted “Make Me a Pallet” in ragged harmony, then Cal scat-sang a bass line while I held the melody and he soaped my shoulders.

“
Don't you ever turn a stranger from your door
,

Don't you ever turn a stranger from your door
,

For the day may come you'll be a stranger too
,

Just looking for a pallet on the floor
.”

“I'm supposed to be working,” I said firmly, when Cal's hands started sliding their way around to my breasts.

“Give yourself a break, Carly. Me, too. Relax.” He snuggled in closer, pressing his lips to my neck.

I took a deep breath. “Working,” I repeated. “Now.”

“Okay, lady,” he said. “Rinse cycle.”

I yanked open the shower curtain and got out first.

Cal towel-dried his hair, watched me fasten my bra in the steamy mirror. “You sleep with everybody you want answers from?”

“Sure,” I said with no inflection in my voice. “And they always tell me the absolute truth.”

“What absolute truths do I know?”

“Start with Davey Dunrobie,” I said.

“You slept with him. I know that for an absolute truth. He told me.”

I said, “You slept with Dee Willis. Christ, you slept with every woman who ever admired the way you play.”

He backed off and said, “What's going on with Davey?”

“No. You tell me what's going on with Davey.”

“We tried AA together, but it didn't stick to him. So I cooled it. It's one of the rules. You can't stay clean when you're hanging with junkies.”

“Last time you saw him?”

“Hell, years ago. Three years at least.”

“Living where?”

“Some kind of communal thing. Mission Hill.”

“Religion?” There are a lot of cult houses in that part of town.

“Vegetarianism and alcohol. Playing reggae.”

“Remember any names?”

“Sorry. Maybe something'll come. Malcolm somebody.”

“Did Davey ever write songs? When he was playing with Dee?”

“Why?”

I didn't feel like telling him, so I switched the subject. “Why did you leave Dee?”

“I thought you were asking about Davey.”

“Why?”

He stuck his wallet into his back pocket. “I didn't leave. I got fired.”

I studied his face in the mirror.

“Too doped and too drunk to know when I had it good,” he went on. “And I don't mean Dee. By that time we weren't sleeping together. Carly, you know, I kick myself every day for pissing away that music. Dee—whatever it is, whatever it takes to front a band—she's got it. She lets you out, gives you plenty of room to breathe, and then reels you back in like a fish on a line. She works free, but she's grounded. She's just—she's
home
in the blues. She knows where the music starts, and where it ends.”

I didn't think I'd ever heard Cal string so many words together. I wondered if he knew Dee would be needing a bass player.

“You're giving me that cop look,” he said. “I remember that look.”

I said, “Tell me about this Malcolm Somebody.”

“Guru type on the Hill. I could find where he lived. We had some parties there, outrageous parties. On second thought, maybe I couldn't find it. Maybe I'd have to get stoned to find it.”

“Let's give it a try,” I said. “Now. With you sober.”

“Carly,” he said. “Am I good sober?”

“Good at what?”

“What I do.”

“Play bass or make love?”

“Yeah,” he said.

“You hold back, Cal,” I said, turning to face the mirror and brushing my hair hard. “From everything but the music. How come you need to ask?”

Twenty-Six

Downstairs, the window men had arrived, and Lemon was helping them hold panes in place with huge suction cups. Roz, looking as contrite as I've ever seen her, was scrubbing the kitchen floor with what looked like an assortment of paint scrapers. A mop and bucket stood in a corner. Her skunk-striped hair was wound in a turban.

“I'm just gonna stay on my knees,” she said. “I forgot about the locks. I'm sorry.”

I hate it when people apologize before I get a chance to yell at them.

“Hi,” Roz said to Cal, deftly changing the subject. “Do I know you?”

“I'm the ex-husband,” Cal said.

Roz's eyebrows shot halfway up her forehead, but she didn't say a word.

Tiptoeing through the glop, I opened the refrigerator. Cal followed me, stared critically at the shelves, and eagerly agreed when I suggested we grab a bite on the way to Mission Hill.

Charlie's Kitchen in Harvard Square does good fried eggs, but Cal and I used to share them a long time ago, and I didn't want any memories on the side. We bought Egg McMuffins in a bag at the drive-thru McDonald's near Fenway Park. Not much to wax nostalgic about, but quick.

Mission Hill is an integrated zone in color-divided Boston. White residents tend to say they live near the Brigham, short for Brigham and Women's Hospital, the monolith created when Women's Lying-In merged with Peter Bent Brigham Hospital. Black residents say they live on the Hill. For a while the city tried calling it the Parker Hill/Fenway neighborhood in an attempt to improve its tone. Tucked between Boston and Brookline, with Roxbury its closest neighbor, the Hill has a bad reputation. I make sure my cab doors are locked before I take a night fare to the Hill.

“You drive yet?” I asked Cal as we made our way slowly up Huntington Avenue, dodging the trolley tracks.

“I learned, but I don't have a car.”

“Automatic or stick?”

“Automatic.”

I don't really consider that anybody who only drives an automatic knows how to drive a car. I said, “You in touch with anybody from the old days?”

“Just what I read about Dee in the papers. Denny lives in England, I think.”

“I've had a hell of a time tracking people down.”

“I'm not surprised,” Cal said. “I mean, we all ran away after Lorraine died.”

“Yeah, I guess.”

“Jeff checked himself into McLean's. Guess he was afraid he might try to do himself in too.”

“I can't remember Jeff's last name.”

“Welch, I think. I wonder if he's still alive. Drove his car into a cement abutment, I heard. Maybe he liked hospitals.”

I scooted around a slow VW, slid back into the right-hand lane.

“If Lorraine hadn't killed herself,” Cal said with a sidelong glance at me, “we'd probably still be married. I'd have a steady job. Mild-mannered reporter, salesman, accountant. Maybe we'd have kids.”

I got caught at a red light, a yellow, really. I would have blitzed through, but the guy in front of me stopped. “You laying all that at Lorraine's door?”

“Don't you? I remember that week like I remember yesterday. Maybe better. The funeral home. All those yellow chrysanthemums. I remember thinking, if life can end in one minute—so damn quickly with no damn warning—you better do what you want to do now, Calvin, right this minute. Because your next minute might not happen.”

I was listening to Cal and keeping an eye out for potholes big enough to swallow my Toyota, but my mind kept swinging from Lorraine to Brenda, Brenda to Lorraine. One dead in a ratty apartment; one dead in a fancy hotel suite. Booze and pills. Pills and booze. And an injection.

“Dee ever use hard stuff when you were with her? Shoot up?”

Cal said, “I don't think so. Half the time I was so whacked out, I'm not sure what anybody else did. I'm not sure what I did.”

I remembered Dee's odd small voice on the phone, sounding so far away, saying: “I should have called the doctor. Maybe she was alive.”

Cal had me drive back and forth down Huntington, a challenge with all the potholes and trolley tracks. He did a lot of muttering, complained that he'd probably do better on foot. I drove the trolley route, stopping at all the train stops, asking questions. Do you remember this dry cleaner? This liquor store look familiar?

“Stop pushing,” Cal said. “It'll come.”

He told me to take a left near Parker Hill Hospital. We cruised the one-way streets until we passed a gravel parking lot, a rundown playground, a housing project.

“These trees,” he said slowly. “I think I remember being with Davey, ducking behind these trees to take a leak.”

“These particular trees?” I said skeptically. They didn't look remarkable to me.

“They smell bad. Ailanthus. City trees. You can't kill them. They grow through concrete. Turn left up here.”

“Okay.”

“One of these buildings,” he said. “Something on this block anyway.”

“Thanks,” I said. “Truly.” I maneuvered the car into a tight but legal slot. “Maybe this'll help.”

“What are you going to do?” Cal said.