I didn’t like John Flaherty.
It took me two days to cross the guy’s path, although we supposedly worked the same shift. The bastard’s hours were so irregular Gloria should have given him the boot, except, of course, he’d been personally recommended by her partner—my lover—good old Sam Gianelli.
I finally asked Sam about him, worked it in real casually while we were up in my room, sated and lying back on the bed. Bonnie Raitt crooned “Angel From Montgomery” in the background:
“I am an old woman, named after my mother.
My old man is another child that’s growin’ old.
If dreams were thunder, and lightnin’ was desire,
This old house would have burnt down
a long time ago.”
I sang along with the first verse. Whenever I hear that song I have to restrain myself from leaping up and grabbing my guitar. It didn’t seem appropriate at the moment.
“You know this Jack Flaherty?” I said, running my fingertips down the line of dark curly hair on Sam’s chest. “At G and W?”
“Nah.” Sam yanked my arm lower, and I couldn’t hear any tightness or discomfort in his voice. “You think I know all the drivers?”
“Just the women,” I said, to keep it light.
“Oh, yeah, that Rosie, she’s one hot dame.”
“Yeah?” The idea cheered me up. I hoped crabby Rosie went home to one steamy romance after another.
“Oh, you got a lot to learn before you’re in Rosie’s league,” he assured me. A pretty good liar, Sam. Papa Gianelli should be proud.
“Just give me one thing that I can hold on to.
To believe in this livin’ is just a hard way to go.”
Raitt gave the song one of her fine wailing finishes. Her voice quieted the other noises in the room, from the ticking clock to T.C. meowing in the corner. He likes to warn me when I pay too much attention to another male.
After that, I didn’t feel bad about not telling Sam why I was driving for G&W. I figured we were even, both lying. It might not be the perfect basis for a meaningful relationship, but it was fine for what we had going.
Anyhow, it took me two days to meet this Flaherty, two minutes to decide I’d seen him someplace before, and two seconds to spot him for a jerk. He was a couple years older than me, which made him young by G&W standards, maybe the only Caucasian driver under fifty. He had bad teeth, yellow and crooked. His face was well shaped, but all the features seemed squeezed together in the center. His eyes, nose, and mouth were too small for the flesh surrounding them. He was the kind of guy who gabs with men, but takes a friendly hello from a female as an attempted seduction, so I couldn’t get into the kind of conversation that would have naturally led to the questions I longed to ask: So where’d you work before this? How do you know Sam Gianelli? Ever been in Ireland? Collect much money for the IRA last week? Buy any machine guns?
I followed Joe Fergus for half a night, Andy O’Brien the other half. Choosing the guys who’d met at the Rebellion, and giving precedence to Irish-sounding surnames, the next night I followed a Maloney and an O’Keefe. None of them robbed the Bank of Boston. O’Brien made a brief stop at the Rebellion, but I didn’t see any other cabs in the parking lot. O’Keefe dropped somebody off at the Yard of Ale. Maloney picked up a fare in front of the All Clear. I tried to make something of it, but taxi drivers get a lot of barroom business these days, what with bartenders worried about getting sued if some drunken patron piles his car into the neighborhood nursery school after tossing back one more for the road.
I listened to radio calls, wrote each one down, but couldn’t find a pattern. No calls from a mysterious woman in red at midnight. I was careful to note any woman’s name that blared out of the squawkbox, because of what old Pat had said about a woman being involved. But G&W, a small cab company, tried for personalized service. Gloria radioed the name of each caller along with the address: George Burke at 468 Beacon, Mrs. Edelman on Cumberland. Sometimes just a first name, sometimes just a last. I wrote down a lot of women’s names.
I was getting nowhere, and Margaret Devens was coming home tomorrow. Not only was Margaret coming home, but I’d called Mr. Andrews and Cedar Wash Condominium Resorts was threatening to revoke my twenty K unless I showed up with my husband, Thomas, within the week. The missing persons report on Eugene Devens had drawn a fat zero. Between Sam and screwed-up biorhythms, I couldn’t sleep. I couldn’t connect with Mooney on the phone—
As my grandmother used to say: You’re such a brain, you can worry more in one minute than other people can in a whole year.
Wednesday night, I decided John Flaherty was the one to tail. I waited until he signed in—late again. He sailed off in cab 442, one of the brand-new ones, which didn’t make me like him any better, since I was stuck with another antique. He spoke up maybe ten minutes later, accepting Gloria’s offer of a fare in the South End.
Now I know the back roads of Boston. I can beat a civilian to any city location with minutes to spare, but another cabbie, that’s a different story. I screeched the tight curves on the Fenway, cut over to Huntington Avenue by the Museum of Fine Arts, and was blessed by the god of traffic lights for once in my life.
A well-dressed young couple promenaded the sidewalk in front of 117 Pembroke Street. The man carried a slim briefcase, and the woman was decked out in Ralph Lauren’s version of what Connecticut WASPs wear to the market. I pulled into an unlit sidestreet with a decent view, and waited maybe five seconds for G&W 442 to catch up with me.
Well, we had one exciting night, let me tell you. Cab 442 took the couple as far as the Westin Hotel. I mean, they could practically spit as far as the Westin from Pembroke Street. Walk? At night? God forbid.
442 queued up for the Westin’s doorman, and was rewarded with a fare, a lone businessman. From the Westin we journeyed to the Hyatt Regency in Cambridge, tracing Storrow Drive to the Mass. Ave. Bridge, which is a mess of construction lights and battered yellow barrels. Then Memorial Drive up to the Hyatt’s front door. Nothing odd in that. I ran my meter just the way Flaherty should have been running his. I’d check the total with Gloria. If I couldn’t nab him for anything else, maybe I could get him for embezzlement.
Gloria gave him another fare. Allston, near Boston University. I stayed close around the rotary and across the B.U. Bridge. Whatever else he was, Flaherty was a good driver. Fast. I hoped he didn’t keep his eyes glued to his rearview mirror.
So it went. He kept busy. He wasn’t dogging it, that’s for sure. He grabbed hailers off street corners, worked Kenmore Square cab stands, took his share of radio calls. I was starting to enjoy myself, finally getting accustomed to the timezone shift, discovering how city nightlife had changed since my last stint as a cabbie. Miniskirts and patterned stockings were back, but with a tough high-heeled edge to them. I saw women wearing black lipstick; men, too. I liked the gritty feel of Kenmore Square. It seemed like a place at home in the dark, pulsing with the restless energy of the red and blue neon Citgo sign. It made me want to smoke cigarettes and listen to funky music, not the bleat of the cab’s radio.
At 2:45 A.M. Gloria put out a call to cab 102 to pick up Maudie someplace in Dorchester. 102 started to respond, then Flaherty cut in, and said he’d take it; he was practically next door.
Which was a lie.
I hung way back, over three hundred yards. If I lost him now, it wouldn’t be so bad. I could pick him up from the street address. It was after he scored the fare that worried me.
In front of a battered triple-decker, a well-dressed man in his twenties, with a muscular build and swaggering walk, was escorted to the cab by two young males, big fellows, maybe Hispanic. They looked like the kind of hoods who’d beat up an old lady like Margaret Devens just for the fun of it. The man who got into the cab carried a gym bag. I tailed them toward Franklin Park, keeping well back.
I cut my lights during the race through the park, relying on 442’s taillights and the occasional overhead streetlamp. The road felt like it hadn’t been repaired in twenty years. If Flaherty didn’t actually see me, he could probably hear my car bottoming out in the ravines the Department of Public Works calls potholes. I flicked on my lights at the rotary, followed 442 over the bridge past the Arnold Arboretum and onto the Jamaicaway.
Brake lights flared, too late for me to make an inconspicuous stop. The passenger bailed out on Brookline Ave., in front of Fenway Park. I sailed by, took a left, and three-pointed a turn. By the time I nosed the cab back onto the main street, I could see 442’s taillights heading down Brookline to Park Drive.
I would have followed the passenger, except for one thing. The young man had carelessly left his gym bag in the cab.
I prayed for heavier traffic. A nice van to hide behind as we played follow-the-leader over to Commonwealth Ave. No such luck. I pulled in behind a big old dented Pontiac.
I had to squeeze the yellow light at the B.U. Bridge. I’m always surprised when I do that and two cars behind me come barreling through as well.
For a while, I thought Flaherty was homing the gym bag to the cab company, which got me worried. If Sam was there to take possession, I didn’t want to be a witness. I breathed easier when 442 passed the shortcut most of the cabbies take home.
442 coasted to a stop on Harvard Street, across the street from the Rebellion. I took a quick turn into an alleyway. Angling my rearview mirror, I could see Flaherty run across the street, gym bag tucked under his arm. He went to the side door of the bar.
By this time, it was 3:35. Way after closing time. I got my cab turned around, a tight maneuver in the narrow alley. I almost bashed into two parked Green & White cabs. I wrote down their numbers, and started cruising the neighborhood looking for more. I found one right in the Rebellion’s parking lot. In a loading zone around the corner, I saw G&W 863, a cab I’d tailed two nights ago. Sean Boyle’s cab.
Okay. Something was going down at the Rebellion, something that looked very much like a meeting of the Gaelic Brotherhood Association. Something that could involve the contents of one gym bag picked up at “Maudie’s” in Dorchester. I wondered if the contents of the bag came in neatly banded little bundles, like the cash in T.C.’s litter box.
I had options. I could sit here like a dummy. I could find a good location, take photos as each cabbie departed.
The GBA pin I’d found in Eugene’s locker seemed suddenly heavy. It weighed my collar down. I touched it. I could just walk in.
Damn. There was the matter of the bartender. If it was the same bartender, old Billy what’s-his-face, and if he remembered me, recalled my questions, my license, my card, I’d be sunk.
Maybe I’d have gone in anyway. Maybe I’d have taken some Pulitzer Prize photos, maybe I’d have gotten zip. I’ll never know.
Flashing blue lights appeared out of nowhere, racing up behind me.
Shit. I smacked my horn in pure frustration, pulled over. The cops. Always there when you need them.