11

I sat at my desk and ran both hands through my hair, searching for knots, tangles, split ends. Examining and yanking the offending strands, a few nonoffenders as well. The medical term is “trichotillomania;” that’s what doctors call the compulsion to pull hair. In extreme form, it leads to total baldness.

I become a trichotillomaniac when I’m frustrated, when my judgment, which I rely on, has proved utterly false. I’d fallen for Mayhew and his missing author. And now I’d lied, refused to return the suspect manuscript.

Good thing I have an overabundance of hair. Unmanageable bushy red hair. I bisected a strand, wound it around my index finger. Maybe I could tie it there, as a reminder not to believe every nutcase who walked in my door.

When the phone rang I almost let the machine handle it. I practice, but I never quite manage the seemingly simple process of call screening. I think it’s because my mom always grabbed the phone first ring, answering in a quavery alto, convinced my cop dad was lying in a gutter bleeding to death. Never happened. He was never injured in the line of duty. Nicotine killed him, not lead.

The hello was pleasant, deep, warm, and female. Gloria’s voice is a gospel-tinged marvel, welcome as fresh air. That’s why she’s the best damn cab dispatcher in Boston. Or was, until they blew the company out from under her.

“Babe,” she said, “you givin’ my phone number to strangers?”

“How are you, Gloria?”

“Fine. Pretty good for the shape I’m in.”

Gloria’s shape is round. Rotund. Fat, to put it bluntly. I thought she’d keep off the pounds she’d shed in the hospital. For a while, after her brother Marvin died, she’d refused her favorite junk food delights. Then one day, potato chips, malted balls, M&M’s, and Reese’s Pieces called to her soul and brought her back to the land of the living. She eats, therefore she is.

She said, “I got a call here from a Mr. Emerson—we’re talkin’ ’bout a man so stiff he sounds like he wears a coat and tie to bed—inquirin’ for a Miss Carlyle. Am I your secretary these days?”

I keep a variety of business cards on my person-Some identify me as a realtor, some an insurance company employee. They’re cheap to print and seem to give people confidence. They feature different phone numbers.

“Sorry,” I said. “I must have played the wrong card. Did you string him along?”

“Of course, babe.”

“What did Mr. Emerson want?”

“Just that you return his call immediately: 555-8330. You got that? Emphasis on fast, as in right now. Hell, I’m scared to keep you on the line.”

“Might as well.” I’d been fired. I had no further interest in the Avon Hill School and their precious alumnae. That’s what half of me was thinking. The other half was busily refusing to accept what Mooney had said, what Mayhew hadn’t denied. I wanted to hang on to this case, hang on to Thea.

Thea Janis, murdered, all her promise laid to rest.

“Heard from Sam?” Gloria asked, way too casually.

My antennae tingled. Gloria has a deep-seated interest in keeping Sam and me together. I don’t know why, but in the depths of her fantasies, Sam and I are Gloria’s dream couple. Maybe it’s because she introduced us, watched as we made the too-quick transition from boss and worker to friends and finally lovers, enjoyed each step vicariously. We couldn’t be more different, Sam and I, more ill-matched. Mix one former cop with the son of a family of robbers: It’s no recipe for bliss.

“Postcard or two,” I said tersely.

“Honey, I been meaning to say this for some time—”

Whenever someone says that to you, take my advice, hang up.

Gloria said, “Why the hell don’t you drop that shrink? You think you need some kinda analysis, go ahead and pay for it. That man’s no good for you.”

“Gloria, what makes you think you know what’s good for me?”

“If Sam was good for you, that headshrinker can’t be. No way.”

“I’ll tell you a secret, Gloria.”

“Yeah.”

“Sam wasn’t that good.”

“Come on.”

“Gloria, let’s change the subject and stay friends.”

“You ain’t gonna marry that doc?”

“Marry? Gloria, I tried it once, I’m not going to try it again. If I ever send you a wedding invitation, call Mooney and have him lock me up. I mean it.”

Her laugh was a gigantic musical bubble. I gave it the raspberry.

She said, “Paolina call you?”

“No.”

“She called me. From a pay phone in town. Paid with her own money.” There was immense satisfaction in her voice. For a corresponding moment, I felt deserted and jealous. Why hadn’t my little sister phoned me?

“That gal is such a sweetie, wanted to know how I was doin’ and all. Maybe being alone up at that camp made her understand a little bit what I been feeling since Marvin died. She’s one darlin’ child.”

I said, “Do you think she’s lonely? Is she making any friends?”

I could almost see Gloria shrug her enormous shoulders. She can move her torso. The auto accident that left her paralyzed at nineteen did its damage from the waist down.

“Did she want anything?” I asked.

“Just asked if she could send me some candy.”

“Look, Gloria, are you busy?”

“Why?”

“I need information on Paolina’s biological father. Do you have access to phones?”

“I’m dispatching for ITOA.”

“I wouldn’t want to get the indies in trouble,” I said. ITOA is the Independent Taxi Owners Association.

“What kind of trouble?”

“The guy with the goods is a nasty Florida drug lawyer. Number one: I’m sure he’s got caller ID, and he’s not going to respond to any calls from my line. Number two: DEA’s got his phone tapped.”

“So you want me to dial him? Mess with the DEA? No thanks.”

“What I was about to say, Glory, is that the ideal situation would be to place calls from folks we don’t particularly like, let the DEA get a fix on them.”

Gloria said, “I do enjoy the way your mind works.”

“I’ve got a little list,” I said. “Operation Rescue. Citizens for Limited Taxation, Mass. Militia.”

Gloria chimed in with, “How ’bout that guy at Harvard, one wrote The Bell Curve? Book saying how blacks are generally just stupider than whites? I think the DEA ought to pay him a visit.”

“You get his number and figure out how to make the calls from his office, you can dial Thurman W. Vandenburg ten times a day.”

“I know somebody who can work pure magic with call forwarding.”

“I knew you were the one to handle this.”

“I’ll need some money for a payoff or two, but I’ll do it. It’s a deal. What should the message be?”

“Ought to be in my voice.”

For a while all I could hear was the whirr of Gloria’s mechanized wheelchair. “I got tape spooling. Go right ahead.”

It took a few tries to get it right.

“Thurman, babe,” I said, like I’d called the shark “Thurman” all my life. “Urgent I know CRG’s status pronto. Call C., in loco parentis.”

“Guess that’s okay,” Gloria said doubtfully. “Can’t we add some stuff about wanting that shipment of coke fast? So people get in deep shit?”

“Long as it’s not me.”

“Trust me, babe. I got contacts everywhere. Phone company practically has to ask my permission before they install a new line.”

I believed her. Gloria isn’t mobile. She uses phones like weapons. She’s the spider at the center of a communications network that puts the Internet to shame.

I tried again. “Thurman, babe, you want those twenty keys, you gotta tell C. about CRG. Pronto.” I left out the “parentis” bit. The fewer people who had any idea that Carlos Roldan Gonzales had a kid, the better.

“He might ignore it,” Gloria said.

“Not if he gets the call every hour,” I said. “Twenty-four hours a day.”

“Heavy annoyance,” she said.

“That’s what I want, Gloria. Heavy annoyance.”

“You came to the right place.”

“Anybody pisses you off, call from there.”

I gave Gloria Thurman W. Vandenburg’s private number with confidence. We share the same set of pet peeves: rich folks who resent paying for government services, Bible-thumping folks who want everybody to act the way they do, hypocrites, bedroom peepers, privacy invaders.

“Make me a copy of the tape, okay?” I said. “Any place you can’t get access, I’ll turn Roz loose.”

“Fun, fun, fun at the DEA this week,” Gloria said. “Paolina’s daddy up to something?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “I’d like to find out.”

Gloria said, “I plan to enjoy this.”

“And if I happen to find myself at a creep’s house, I’ll give Vandenburg a ring,” I said.

“You do that, but make sure you use the exact same words as the tape, okay, so we get the DEA going.” Gloria’s voice got soft and sweet. “You might try calling from your shrink’s house.”

I hung up, quickly punched the number she’d given me.

Two rings. Pickup.

“Avon Hill School. Emerson speaking.”

“Hi,” I said. “This is the woman who visited your campus today, Carlotta Carlyle.”

“Miss Carlyle, I’m so glad you rang back. My wife was unaware that several of our prospective students have chosen to attend other—”

“It doesn’t matter,” I said. “I don’t have any Colombian nieces who want to go to Avon Hill.”

“You’re—”

“Not interested. It’s okay, Mr. Emerson. I was hired to find a former student. I found her.”

“You’re some sort of investigator?”

“Private sort.”

Silence. He didn’t end the call. Neither did I.

“May I ask for whom you were looking?”

Confidentiality didn’t seem to matter.

“Thea Janis. Dorothy Cameron. Either name ring a bell? Was she a classmate of yours?”

Silence.

“Would you mind coming over?” he asked very softly.

“Why?”

“It seems odd that Thea should be of such interest after all these years.”

“What do you mean?”

“I’d prefer to discuss the matter in person.”

“I can be there in ten minutes,” I said. Chatting with Anthony Emerson might make me feel as if I’d done something to earn the cash Mayhew’d left behind.

“Come to the school,” he said hurriedly. “Not the house.”