Twenty-Nine

“You can’t squeeze blood from a turnip” was another of my grandmother’s Yiddish standbys. It was fun to watch Taylor Baines try, but he couldn’t get an address other than 825 Winter Street out of Stuart Lockwood, Esquire.

I went home. A man who was either a bold thief or a genuine locksmith was in the process of drilling out the main lock on my front door.

I introduced myself as the owner of the door.

“Closing up the barn after the horses, I understand,” he said cheerfully. “Hi. Jack Daly. Gloria asked me to come by.”

Roz appeared on the front stoop, looking particularly fetching in a fifties-vintage housedress, with a tomato-red apron around her waist, and sporting yellow rubber gloves. Electric eye-makeup, possibly left over from the night before, and her striped hair completed the look. “I did call somebody,” she said defensively. “This guy just turned up first so I canceled the other one. Okay?”

“You have some ID?” I asked the locksmith.

“Sure.” He produced a printed business card, a driver’s license.

“Pleased to meet you.” We shook hands.

“Carlotta,” Roz said, practically dancing in her impatience, “I gotta talk to you.”

“I’ve been meaning to talk to you too.”

She led me into the kitchen.

“I see my kitchen floor will never look the same,” I said. All in all, that’s not such a bad thing. It never looked great to begin with.

“Look,” Roz said, “I know I screwed up about the locks, and about the red mailing tube, and about everything, but—”

“Hold that thought,” I said. “I’ve got to make a phone call. I’ve got to call Gloria and—”

“Call Gloria! That’s what I’m supposed to tell you!”

“So shut up a minute, and I will!”

When you call Green & White Cab, ninety percent of the time you get Gloria. She answers the phones, practically nonstop. I don’t know when she has time to sleep, let alone attend to other body functions.

“Good to hear from you, babe,” she said in as rich and fine a voice as you’re likely to hear offstage.

“You send me a lock man? Jack Daly?”

“Yeah. My brother Leroy recommends him highly. Says he’s good.”

“White guy. Thirties? Sandy hair?”

“You gettin’ cautious in your old age?”

“Hoping to stay alive long enough to enjoy one. Thanks.”

“Don’t hang up, babe. Sam asked me to call.” Besides being my on-again, off-again boyfriend, Sam is also the co-owner of Gloria’s cab company. He put up most of the money; she put up most of the savvy.

Sam’s been scarce since he got back from Italy. I’m sure he met some hot madonna in Florence. My voice iced over. “He’s got a tongue, and a phone as I recall,” I said.

“Shut up and listen,” Gloria said. “He wasn’t sure his line was clear. He says he heard your name come up in a bad situation.”

“Great. What kind of a message is that?”

“He’s gonna try take care of it, but he says you might want to back off.”

“‘Back off.’ Very nice. I appreciate that. ‘Back off’ is what some goon wrote on my bathroom mirror last night. If Sam Gianelli knew about it—”

“Whoa, babe. When he came by this morning, I told him about somebody trashing your place. He made a few calls. That’s where he got this. He didn’t know anything last night. You two still seeing each other or what?”

Gloria likes to keep tabs on my love life.

“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you,” I said. She never liked Cal.

“Go on, tell me anyway,” Gloria said. “You want to come by, do some driving tonight?”

“Can’t.”

“You sound troubled, babe.”

“I am, and not about my love life either.”

“What else is there?” Gloria asked. She reads romance magazines when she’s not answering the phone.

“Lots.” Like pairing up Hal Grady with Mickey Manganero. Quite a team. One man who moves money for the mob, another who handles receipts for a hot ticket like Dee.

“Look,” I said to Gloria. “Let me try out a couple questions. Who handles your night deposits?”

“I suppose you got a good reason for asking.”

“Trust me,” I said.

“My brother Leroy comes by. I figure nobody’s gonna mess with Leroy.”

“Are you or Sam or Leroy on some kind of exempt list, for making large deposits without filing one of those government forms?”

“The bank only has to fill in the blanks whenever somebody deposits or withdraws ten thou or more. We don’t turn that kind of cash at night with only eight vehicles on the road. I’m not on any exempt list and neither is Sam, far as I know.”

“Who would be on the exempt list?”

“Grocery stores. Sports stadiums, for sure. Fenway takes in more than ten thousand every time the Red Sox lose one.”

“What bank do you do business with?”

“Bank of New England.”

“Got a friend there?”

There is no place Gloria doesn’t have a friend. She gave an affirmative grunt over the line.

“See if you can find out where the Berklee Performance Center makes deposits, okay? And the name of the guy on the exempt list would be a real bonus.”

“I’ll see what I can come up with. Take care, now.”

Roz said, “Seriously, I think I found something important.”

“It’s hard to take somebody seriously,” I said to Roz, “when they dress like Donna Reed on speed.”

“Well, can I at least show you what I found?”

“Looks like you discovered a brand-new layer of kitchen floor. You taking up archeology?”

Roz said, “What do you think of this?”

“I think it’s a dustpan,” I said. “I’m glad you found it. Do you know how to use it?”

“Shit. Look inside, Carlotta. I’m not fooling around here.”

She carefully positioned the dustpan on the kitchen counter, a place where I frequently eat my meals, not always taking time for a sit-down dinner. I wondered if Roz would wash the counter off afterward. I wondered if I’d ever be able to eat there again without thinking of the filthy gray dustpan.

In the tray were three blonde hairs.

“You haven’t swept the floor since you were a blonde?” I guessed. “How long ago is that? Two months?”

“These were stuck in the goo in the kitchen. If you’ll take a good look, you’ll see they’re longer than my hair’s ever been.”

I picked one out of the tray. “Curly,” I said.

“Dyed,” Roz said. “Permed. Heat-damaged, like from a crimping iron. You know somebody with hair like that?”

I trust Roz on matters of hair. Anyone who spends the kind of time on dye jobs that she does ought to know her stuff. “You know, Roz, you have just taken a long step on the road to redemption.”

She beamed. Roz likes living where she does, likes her work, or lack of it.

“Of course,” I said, half to myself, “the next step is a lulu.”

That’s when the doorbell interrupted. I figured it was the locksmith. I was wrong. The locksmith could have let himself in.