It’s a mile from Kenmore Square to Bonnie’s on Commonwealth Ave., a distance I could have rucked in less than twelve minutes in full gear during basic training. In the jungle, such speed meant noise. Barging your way through the bush like a drunk monkey, snapping branches and bamboo, signaled your position. Slow was fast. We covered a mile a day on patrol, and the guy in the rear would cover our tracks. We’d thought ourselves invisible but weren’t. Charlie was always watching us. Animals on the ground and overhead were, too.
This walk home would take me twenty minutes because of the ice and the treacherous sidewalk. It’s a damp cold night, and I sense like a blind man with his stick that I’m not alone. I stop, turn around and see a tall silhouette stop behind me. I face forward, and my eyes search ahead. Another figure. Short. They’re suits and irregulars, by which I mean that they are not standard-issue undercover officers. The minimum height for an officer in the Boston Police Department was five-eight and about a buck-forty for weight.
I’d bet the three initials of the agency they represented were stitched into the waistbands of their boxers. I chose the man in front of me and began my approach. Clean-shaven and odorless, he wore a white shirt and a dark tie under a dark overcoat. His brogues were black and polished. I walked up to the man until his face came into focus and said, “One, two, buckle my shoe, who are you?”
“Evening, Mr. Jones, or should I call you, Cleary. Shane Cleary.”
“Mr. Cleary will do. You and your partner pulled sentry duty at the morgue.”
I saw teeth. Personality ran scarce, and a sense of humor was rare among spooks. I delivered the punchline. “Law says if I ask you if you’re law enforcement, federal or otherwise, you have to come clean and identify yourself.”
“We’re not law enforcement, federal or local, Mr. Cleary.”
“Good to know. Private hire?”
“Not that either, Mr. Cleary.”
“Then, I’m all out of letters for this conversation. What’s the message?”
“Whatever it is that you’re looking into, don’t. Do I make myself clear?”
My thumb indicated the man behind me. “Does your friend have anything to add?”
His eyes grazed my shoulder, and the hard stare returned. “He’s the silent type, as in next time, you won’t see him, Mr. Cleary.”
“And you?”
“I’ll be the last thing you’ll hear in this life. This is a courtesy, Mr. Cleary. Some personal advice. Your friend inside the bar, I’d keep myself a safe distance from him.”
“And why is that?” I asked him.
“You know the song ‘Me and Mrs. Jones’?”
“Yeah, why?”
“Because whatever you two got goin’ on needs to stop. Have yourself a good night, Mr. Jones. Let’s not meet again, shall we?”
Most men would have puffed up their chest and cracked wise and thanked him for the career advice, as if he was a facilitator at one those popular workshops where people spent money to locate and liberate their Higher Self. I maintained eye contact and remained calm.
He stepped around me. I watched two men disappear into the night. A car drove by, stopped, and red brake lights appeared. I heard doors open and clap shut.
This cease-and-desist didn’t leave me abused and battered like a cheap paperback edition of The Thorn Birds. I stood there, convinced they were government men and not freelancers. Perhaps their warning was professional courtesy, respect for my military past, that I followed orders, but there would be no next time, only the bullet to the back of the head if I was lucky.
Call it a hunch, but I suspected Bonnie would be fast asleep after a day at the law firm. It wasn’t the duel between lawyers in the courtroom that tired her out. Her mind was Swiss-built for the fight, like a fine watch. All the parts moved with precision. It wasn’t the clientele either. Criminals and crimes fascinated her. Why people did what they did, and their hubris, thinking they’d avoid the metal bracelets around their wrists, kept her interest in the legal system alive. It wasn’t the rich and privileged who wore her down, who thought themselves above the law because they made money and employed people. She’d read enough Balzac, Dickens, and James to know that vanity accompanied money. Something else wore her down day after day, week after week, and month after month, and that was the men in her office.
Their condescension.
Their disrespect.
Their inability to see her as their equal.
Then there was their presumption that she’d part her legs for them, and that she’d be grateful to them for the pleasure. She said it didn’t matter whether they had sisters or not. They had neither shame nor style. She told me for a profession dependent on reading, analysis, and critical thought, the men in her office were boys who failed at all three, despite their degrees and licenses to practice law. She reminded me she’d gone out with me because I knew the right James. Not Frank or Jesse, but Henry instead of William, and I read for pleasure. Most people stopped reading because there were no more tests to take, and they preferred the screen at the theatre or the television at home.
I eased the door closed behind me. I hung my coat in the hallway. Delilah was sitting on the steps. I looked to her as if to ask where I could find Bonnie. Dee looked to the door that led to the living room and then sauntered up the stairs.
I stepped into the room to find Bonnie in sweats, sitting in her favorite chair, her feet up on a footstool. She’d sunken into the leather, and would’ve looked like a monarch on a throne if it weren’t for the bunny slippers. She was wired, alert, with her questions queued up.
“You’re up,” I said.
“It’s not that late.” She pointed to the chair opposite her. “Have a seat.”
“Not even five minutes, and already I feel like a teenager who’s missed curfew.”
“There’s something on the table for you.”
I walked over, dropped myself into the chair, and let out a sigh that competed with the cushion. Envious that I had no footrest of my own, I looked at her feet. “Nice horseshoes you have there.”
My hand swept over the table. I reeled it in and examined it. “Postcard from Mexico.”
“Signed by Vanessa.”
I flipped it over and read what Vanessa had written. La Patria es primero. The Homeland is First, Mexico’s national motto. The sentiment reminded me of Nazi Germany. I raised the card for her to see it. “I’m impressed. You visited Sylvia tonight.”
“You’re a terrible PI, Shane Cleary.”
“Geez, and here I was, ready to give you the discounted rate for finding a missing spouse.”
“Turn the card over, genius, and tell me what you see.”
The lighting was low, but I understood Bonnie when I’d read the postmark. “This was mailed from Somerville last week.”
“And Slumerville isn’t Mexico. The question is whether Sal is in tow.”
“What did Sylvia say?”
“She didn’t.”
“I don’t understand,” I said.
“Sal and Vanessa are not on hubby John’s Approved List, and not because they’re a mixed couple. It seems John doesn’t care for Sal’s last name, and not because the kid’s Italian.”
“Understandable.” I reread the postcard and revisited the picture. “Is Sylvia seeing Vanessa on her own, you know, playing the compassionate auntie?”
“I don’t know. I swiped the postcard.”
I teased her. “Isn’t stealing someone’s mail a federal offense, Counselor?”
“Only from a mailbox. I doubt that Sylvia will miss it since she has so many others.”
Bonnie explained that John and Sylvia had received postcards from such far-flung places as Argentina, Chile, Cuba somehow, and Puerto Rico. When they’d grown tired of the Americas, the couple contracted a case of jet fever for Europe and bedhopped through the usual suspects of France, Germany, and Italy before concluding the stamp collection for the passport in the UK.
“The happy couple won’t have a place to visit for a honeymoon at this rate,” I said.
“The world tour is another reason John is grumpy about the relationship.”
I put the card back onto the table. “Vanessa hasn’t returned to school in Montreal.”
“She’s young. What’s a good-looking mafioso with money to a young woman?”
“Love and bullets,” I said and asked her, “You think he’s good-looking?”
“That’s what you took away from everything I told you?”
I didn’t answer her. I did not want to revisit the conversation we had about the gig that had introduced me to Sal. I’d kept that discussion as tight as a surgeon’s sutures. All she needed to know was that it was a case of Lost and Found. Boston lost a slumlord, and I found a missing relative for Mr. B.
“How did it go with your friend in Kenmore?” she asked.
“It went.”
“I’ve had clients more talkative than you. Reminisce much?”
“Vietnam doesn’t inspire a Hallmark moment.”
“Maybe we should have him over for dinner,” she said. “I figure if he survived military food, he has a cast-iron stomach that I can’t dent.” I shook my head. “Okay, how about dinner out? We can find a restaurant close to where he’s staying.”
“He is staying at my old place.”
“That’s generous of you. I guess that makes it easier for me to meet him.”
“More like, I know where he is, though I don’t think seeing him is a good idea, Bonnie.”
“Are you ashamed of me, Shane Cleary, is that it?”
Delilah’s head peeked around the corner for a cameo. She retracted her interest and fled.
“Not the case, Bonnie.”
“Give me a reason. One.”
“How about, he’s trouble, Bonnie. Satisfied?”
“Trouble how? You do know I can fend for myself.”
“I know you can.”
We rose from our chairs. I watched bunny ears move toward me. She put her arms around my waist. “I’m a big girl, and I can take care of myself. I deal with big bad wolves all day long, and I eat lawyers for lunch.”
“Fairy tales and cannibalism, is that your metaphor for modern life?” I hugged her.
“There’s one thing I can’t figure out in all of this, though,” she said.
“What’s that?”
“You never once told me your friend’s name.”