7

By the time I got home—a little past two A.M.—it seemed like weeks had passed since Manuela Estefan’s visit. Part of me felt I’d already earned her advance. Hell, I’d earned it just listening to that INS jerk at lunch, not to mention paying for the ads in the Globe and the Herald, not to mention the gas I’d used traveling to places where I’d earned nothing but gringa insults.

Five hundred bucks a day is what I charge my high-toned, Gucci-shoed lawyer clients. I don’t have a lot of those. The rest pay on a sliding scale. I go by shoes a lot. I remembered Manuela’s worn heels. Five hundred would buy her another day or two.

While making a sandwich—hard salami, Swiss cheese, and fairly suspicious turkey on rye—I checked the refrigerator door for messages. It’s our communal bulletin board. Roz is in charge of keeping it neat and tidy, and it will soon qualify for federal disaster funds. She leaves hastily scrawled messages on crumpled scraps of paper under an assortment of magnets, ranging from the plain silver disks I originally bought to the beer cans, horses’ asses, and Day-Glo hamburgers she prefers. There were two notes—one from Roz to Roz to buy more peanut butter, the other warning that T. C. was running low on liver and bacon, his preferred flavor of FancyFeast.

I’ve learned it’s wise to cater to T. C.’s culinary whims.

I was down to the last bite of my sandwich before I noticed the flashing red light on the answering machine. I punched the buttons that ran the Panasonic through its paces. There was a message from Sam—still in Italy, dammit. He has a wonderfully deep voice even transcontinental phone connections can’t screw up. He thought he’d be home in a week, maybe a week and a half. He was stuck in some hotel in Turin in a room with a huge canopied bed.

There was a beep signaling the end of his message and then a long enough pause that I thought the machine had gone into some kind of trance. I could hear breathing, shallow and fast.

“Señorita,” the voice whispered. “Es … es Manuela. ¡Ayúdame, por favor! Yo sé que usted me va a ayudar. Veinte uno Westland. ¡Pronto, señorita!”

I replayed the message because the voice was so soft. It came in gasps and starts, and that made it harder to understand. The Spanish was basic enough: “It’s Manuela. Help me, please. I know you will help me. Twenty-one Westland. Hurry.”

I tugged at a strand of my hair, a rotten habit that will one day leave me bald. A single hair came loose. I ran it through my fingers.

I’ve gotten messages like that before, and one thing I have learned is that hurrying to the rescue is one thing and racing off without thinking is another.

I knew where Westland Avenue was, in a student-infested area near Northeastern and the Fens. I thought the voice was Manuela’s, but I couldn’t be sure. I’m good with voices, but the woman who’d called sounded terrified. Her whispery voice was high and breathy, and I couldn’t be sure it belonged to the same woman I’d talked to last night.

Wednesday evening. And it was well into Friday morning now.

Nor did I know when the call had come in.

I’d have to roust Roz, no matter what she and Lemon were up to. I knew Lemon was still around because I’d noticed his van blocking the RESIDENT PARKING ONLY sign. I made my tread especially heavy on the narrow wooden steps leading to the third floor, knocked loudly, and opened the door carefully, which was just as well, because Lemon, clad only in Jockey shorts, was standing behind the door ready to clobber me.

Roz was sound asleep, mouth open, snoring faintly. I roused her by tugging and hollering.

“When did the phone ring?” I asked when she finally sat up, covering herself with the sheet. She sleeps on these tumbling mats she’s got all over the floor. Tumbling mats and old black-and-white TVs are her major furniture. It was nice to know she used sheets and pillows. Maybe she’d hauled them out in Lemon’s honor.

“Phone,” she mumbled.

“There was a call at ten and another maybe half an hour later,” Lemon said briskly. I shouldn’t have bothered waking Roz.

“Want to earn a few bucks?” I asked Lemon. His illustrious family had cut him off without a cent, and his performance-art career is mainly doing juggling and mime in Harvard Square and passing the hat afterward. I don’t know whether Roz pays for her karate lessons or not.

“Sure,” he said.

“Me too,” Roz said, struggling naked out of the sheets and pulling a selection from her incredible wardrobe of T-shirts over her head. This one was electric blue and said CAPTAIN CONDOM across the front. It was illustrated.

Before we left for Westland Avenue, I dialed Homicide. Mooney wasn’t in.