14

I reclaimed the car. The expired meter said I’d violated the parking laws, but no one had caught me at it. I felt a warm glow at the sight of my ticketless window.

My satisfaction lasted the length of the B.U. Bridge, which I almost always choose over the Longfellow. Longfellow’s too crowded. I could have taken the Mass. Ave. Bridge, the one closest to Marta’s apartment, but construction’s got the traffic so fouled up, I haven’t crossed it in years. The Mass. Ave. Bridge, which is really named the Harvard Bridge, is a joke. It’s right near M.I.T., but rumor says the Techie engineers didn’t want their name sullied by such an architectural botch and gracefully allowed Harvard the honor—and the snickers that accompany it each time the bridge needs to be closed for repairs. Now the state’s in the process of rebuilding it completely, and the real confrontation is over whether or not to renew the Smoots.

Smoot was an M.I.T. student in the early sixties or so, and one night his frat brothers got the idea of spray-painting the bridge in Smoot-lengths. Whether they picked him up and carried him along, lying him down and using him as a gigantic ruler, or whether they made him roll over the bridge—marking his shoulder-to-shoulder width as a single “Smoot—” is an item of hot debate. It made both local papers, proving the late Andy Warhol right.

Smoots kept my mind clicking most of the way to Marta’s, so I didn’t start worrying about whether she’d lied to me about knowing Manuela until I started looking for a parking place. Sometimes it seems as if my days are one continual search for a parking place. That’s probably why I like driving a cab. You never need a space.

A car pulled out up the street, maybe five hundred yards ahead, and I gunned the Toyota into the slot before somebody could ace me out of it. A sign at the curb read RESIDENT PARKING ONLY. I parked even though I had the wrong color resident sticker. My area of Cambridge has a different color code. Resident parking stickers follow a bizarre color code even most meter maids can’t crack. I hoped the one on this beat hadn’t figured it out.

The car in front of me was a white one, late-model, boxy. It reminded me of the white Aries.

Either Marta wasn’t home or she wasn’t answering the damn door. I thought she might be ignoring the bell, what with her arthritis kicking up, so after pounding on the door for fifteen minutes I found an unvandalized pay phone and punched her number. I let the line ring twenty times, then slammed the receiver back into the cradle.

The door to Marta’s building opened, and an old man came out, bent and stooped, with a jaunty hat covering his head. His skin was beaded with liver spots, but behind heavy glasses his eyes seemed bright.

“Hi,” I said.

He seemed to shrink within himself and hastily clasped the pocket of his worn tan windbreaker. I now knew where he kept his wallet.

“Hello,” I said again, quietly.

“What do you want?” I couldn’t make out the accent at first. He didn’t look Hispanic or anything. He just looked old, a country all its own.

“You Mr. Binkleman?” I asked. There was a Binkleman on the mailbox at Marta’s. It was the only name I could remember.

“No. There’s no Mr. Binkleman, only Mrs. Binkleman. On the first floor in the back.” His voice pleaded with me to go away. He was walking all the time he spoke, his legs moving fast but his stride so restricted by the lack of swing in his joints that he had no chance of escaping me.

“Look, I’m not going to rob you. I’m a friend of the lady on two with the five kids.”

“They make a racket, those kids.”

“Have you seen Marta today, the mother?”

“Why?”

“I was supposed to have lunch with her. She must have forgotten,” I said.

“Must have,” he said. “She went to work this morning.”

“Work?”

“You’re not from the Welfare, are you?” He stopped trying to walk and risked a glance at my face. I think he was surprised that he had to look up so far.

“No.”

“Good. I wouldn’t talk to nobody from the Welfare. It’s no sin being poor, you know. It’s no sin being old. I deserve what I get from Social Security. It’s no handout. It’s just what I paid in, is all.”

I decided not to tell him that what he’d paid in had been inflation-eaten to the point it probably wouldn’t have bought a round-trip ticket to Miami Beach. He’d probably worked hard all his life, and he wasn’t lounging in any lap of luxury now.

I asked, “How do you know Marta went to work?”

“Her cousin, Lilian or something, picks her up in the car sometimes and then she goes to work, I think. She’s got more money then, anyway. Pizzas get delivered. Rent checks get mailed. You know.”

“You’re observant,” I said.

“Those kids make a lot of noise. I’m not deaf. God’s saving that for later, maybe.”

“Yeah,” I said. “Well, how’s your eyesight? Was she using her cane this morning?”

“No. But she looked like she should have been using it. Thank God I don’t need a cane yet. It’s a pity to see it in a young woman. Thank God old age didn’t hit me till I was old.”

We’d made it halfway to the dusty playground in the center of the housing project. The old man’s breathing was audible, his face redder than when we’d started our walk.

“You need a ride somewhere?” I asked.

“You’re from the Welfare, aren’t you, and I’m shooting off my mouth. I didn’t mean anything I said. I’m old, I run on at the mouth. I live alone. Sometimes I have long conversations with my dog.”

“I’m not from Welfare, honest, and I’d be glad to drive you where you need to go.”

“Need,” he said, making a noise somewhere between a cough and a laugh. “That’s a good one. Look, I don’t need much these days. And the reason I’m out here putting my feet down is because some kid doctor tells me I need the exercise. I used to like to walk, but I liked to walk at night in the glow from the street lamps, when it’s nice and cool. You walk now under the street lamps, you better keep your will in your pocket. So I go out in the daytime, but I don’t like it so much. You can see all the dog turds on the street.”

“At night you just step on them,” I said.

“Yeah,” he said, “but I liked it better that way.”

“Thanks for the chat,” I said. “Nice meeting you.”

“We didn’t meet,” he said, sticking out a bony hand. “I’m Hank Binkleman.”

“You said there wasn’t any Mr. Binkleman—”

“Yeah, I didn’t know what you wanted, right? I don’t tell people who I am anymore.”

“And is there a Mrs. Binkleman, or did you make that up too?”

“She’s dead fifteen years.”

“I’m sorry.”

“But about your friend I didn’t lie. She left early this morning, right after the kids went to school.”

“Thanks.”

“You’re welcome.”

He inched on, scuffing up small clouds of playground dust. I walked over to Paolina’s school.

One of the few things I like about the Cambridge public schools is that they don’t have middle schools or junior high schools or whatever the hell you call them, where they segregate the seventh-, eighth-, and ninth-graders from the rest and put all the truly unmanageable, hormones-out-of-control kids in one building and write it off. Paolina will go to her grade school until it’s time to hit Cambridge Rindge and Latin, a building big enough to remind me of my own Detroit high school.

Paolina’s school is on Cambridge Street. Her teacher is Mrs. Keegan, a sweet Quaker lady I’ve met when accompanying Marta to parent-teacher conferences. Marta doesn’t like to go alone because of her English and because of her arthritis. She says I make a better impression with the teachers, being American-born, and I hope she’s wrong, but Marta’s pretty sharp. I like Mrs. Keegan because Mrs. Keegan likes Paolina.

There was a second teacher in the room, a younger woman, maybe a student teacher. She gave me a dour look. In low tones Mrs. Keegan explained that the students were in the middle of their art lesson. I assured her my visit would take no time at all and really was urgent. She called Paolina’s name.

I could hear a snort and some laughter and a few quick words of Spanish from a cracking adolescent male voice. Seemed like the visiting art teacher wasn’t totally in control.

When Paolina appeared, her cheeks looked hot.

“What did that kid say?” I asked. “I couldn’t understand it. You’re not teaching me the right slang.”

“Nada,” she said. “He’s a goon. Most of the kids here are real space cadets.”

Maybe the red cheeks had nothing to do with the boy’s words, the answering giggles. Maybe she was just embarrassed at being singled out. She’s shy in class. I keep trying to encourage her to open up and ask more questions, but Marta tells her the opposite, so she’s a little confused.

Marta doesn’t really believe in school. Not for girls. It makes me grind my teeth at night.

“How are you, sweetie?” Paolina winced and turned to make sure the door was shut.

“Sorry,” I amended. “How are you, kiddo?”

She was wearing a checked shirt and a denim blue-jean skirt with a lot of showy gold seam-stitching, the kind that looks like it was made by some trendy designer. Marta made it for her last birthday. Give Marta some fabric and a break from the arthritis and you’ve got a new outfit.

Paolina said, “You checking to see if I’m in school?”

“I wouldn’t have to haul you out of class for that, would I?”

She was twisting a piece of gold wire in her hands.

“What’s that?” I asked, stalling for time. She seemed angry and annoyed. I needed a chance to figure out this new moody sister of mine.

She held it out on the palm of her hand. At first I thought it was some kind of fancy paper clip.

“It’s like a stick man,” I said. “Nice. For a pin?”

She turned it sideways. “It’s a fish,” she said. “For a pendant.”

Batting a thousand, I thought.

“Are you taking me out?” she asked.

“No.”

“Too bad.”

“Why?”

“I’m bored,” she said.

“Let me see the fish.” When you looked at it from the right angle, it was an elegant design. Simple. The basic shape depended on only one twist of the fine wire, but Paotina had spiraled the entire span before starting, so the fish seemed more complex than it was.

“I can’t go to your game tomorrow,” Paolina said.

“I’m sorry. I need my cheering section. But I can pick you up afterward.”

“Not afterward, either. I can’t see you tomorrow. Probably I’m not supposed to talk to you at all.”

“Why?”

“I dunno,” she said, staring at the floor tile as if the checkerboard pattern were about to rearrange itself. “Look, I better get back in before Miss Lenox blows her top.”

I put my hand on her shoulder. “Sweetie, I need to find your mother, and I’m not sure where she’s working today.”

“Don’t call me ‘sweetie,’ okay?”

“Old habits die hard.”

“And my mom doesn’t work, you know that.” Paolina’s voice gets higher when she’s angry. Two disks of color appeared on her cheeks.

“Paolina, I’m not trying to catch her—”

“I’m not supposed to talk about it. Marta said I’m not.”

“Like you’re not supposed to know any Manuela Estefan?”

“I don’t know her. I don’t.” Her gaze moved a little higher, maybe to the tops of her shoes.

“Paolina, this business about Manuela Estefan is important. If you know her, if you’ve ever heard the name—”

“I said I don’t know her.”

“I don’t want to scare you—” I began slowly.

“Then don’t,” she cut in. “Everybody’s always saying tell me this or tell me that. And don’t tell this and don’t tell that. I can’t even keep it straight anymore. I can’t—”

Her lower lip wobbled, but she gulped down a deep breath and straightened her shoulders. I haven’t seen her cry in maybe a year. She used to cry a lot when she was seven. I wondered when it was she’d quit, and I hoped I didn’t have anything to do with her switch to stoicism.

Before I could say another word, she was gone, inside the classroom, slamming the door behind her. I stood in the doorway and watched her take her seat, head held high, blinking back tears.

Talk to me, I wanted to shout. Talk to me.