26

I kept my fingers crossed all the way over to Green & White. Gloria hadn’t promised me a cab. Gloria rarely promises anything, but she almost always delivers.

She was on the phone when I walked into the office. Whenever I think about Gloria, a phone is part of the picture, as if one were permanently welded into the chink between her shoulder and neck. Food is also included.

She had a jumbo bag of Tootsie Rolls on her desk alongside an open jar of peanut butter. As I watched, she spoke into the receiver, peeled a Tootsie Roll, and plunged it into the peanut-butter jar. The candy came out with a massive scoop of yellowish goo on one end. Gloria stuck the whole mess in her mouth and kept on talking on the phone. I swear she didn’t miss a syllable. I don’t understand it, but I saw it. It made my teeth hurt.

Gloria should write a cookbook: Junk Food Treats—Combinations Your Seven-year-old Never Thought Of.

She hung up the phone and flashed me a smile, her teeth amazingly white.

“Got you a cab,” she said. “When you gonna bring it back? Or shouldn’t I ask?”

“Don’t ask.”

“Bring it back in one piece,” she ordered. “You too.”

Somebody once ran me off the road in a Green & White. Gloria remembers.

“Listen,” I said, “if Paolina calls or comes around, give her a place to stay, okay? She’s having trouble at home.”

“That’s all you gonna tell me?”

“She ran away yesterday, stayed at my place last night, except I didn’t know it.”

“And you a private eye and all,” Gloria muttered. “I always said that girl was sharp.”

“Yeah,” I said, “she is. And she may figure I’d catch on if she spent more than one night. So if she comes to you, call me, okay?”

“What if she don’t want me to?”

“Gloria, she’s not even eleven years old. Tell her what you have to tell her, but let me know. The issue here is safety, okay?”

“You telling me it’s okay to lie to somebody long as they’re young enough?”

“Shit, Gloria,” I said, taking down a key from the pegboard, “I’m not trying to tell you anything. What a waste of breath that would be.”

“Those are the right keys,” she called after me. “Have a good ride. Any news from Sam?”

I pretended I hadn’t heard her.

The car was one of Gloria’s newer Fords, roomy enough, with loose steering and rotten brakes. I flipped off the two-way radio and turned on my tape deck, selecting an old Biograph blues collection. I turned the volume up full-blast and squealed the tires on the way out of the parking lot. I hoped Gloria heard me, but she was probably back on the phone, eating Tootsie Roll peanut-butter glop.

I pulled off at a Dunkin’ Donuts, bought half a dozen assorted and two large coffees. From a phone booth I dialed the Herald advertising office and told Helen to go downstairs and wait for Cab Number 34, Green & White. She giggled, which I did not take as a heartening response.

I’d debated whether to seat her in the front or the rear. A cab with two in front looks odd. But a passenger idling at the taxi stand near the pillow factory would look a bit strange too. I waved her into the front seat. All Gloria’s cabs have a plastic dividing shield that is supposed to stop bullets and effectively stops conversation.

“Didn’t recognize you,” she said. I sometimes think if I dyed my hair, my best friends wouldn’t know who I was. You get so used to seeing that red that when I stick it up under a cap, the change is dramatic.

I recognized her. She still wore basic black, but this time it was skinny black jeans and a scoop-necked T-shirt of Day-Glo chartreuse, topped off with a black sweater that looked like moths had been chewing the elbows. She had chartreuse ribbons in her jet-black hair. This woman was obviously a conservative. Roz would have sprayed lines of chartreuse dye.

I turned down the music, softening a fine Robert Johnson riff.

“How’d you get the cab?” she asked. “Boost it?”

“Don’t sweat,” I said. “We won’t get arrested.”

“How long’s this gonna take?”

“Depends how lucky we are. We’re gonna park in a cab stand, and you’ll look at some women and tell me if you see the one who brought that letter yesterday, and then I’ll pay you. I don’t want you identifying just anybody—”

“Hey, I wouldn’t do that.”

“Good. If you’re not sure, say so. Anybody you think of as a possible, I’ll take her picture.” I indicated the camera I’d placed on top of the meter.

“Hey, I could do that,” she said. “I’m a great photographer.”

And here I thought her only outlet for artistic expression was the candy-cane stripes on her fingernails.

“Well, I’d like to be a photographer,” she amended, “but you can’t make any good money at it.” She hefted the camera. “You ought to have a tripod.”

“I know. I thought it might be a little conspicuous.”

She held the thirty-five-millimeter to her eye. “Good long lens on this thing,” she said.

I’d borrowed it from Roz. She’d do the developing. For a price.

“I’d better take the shots,” I said. “You concentrate on the faces.”

I explained the layout to her on the way to Hunneman’s. She asked very few questions, mainly about time and money, hers and mine.

I breathed a sigh of relief when I saw the cab stand was clear. I hadn’t wanted to get into a chummy conversation with a Town Taxi driver or into any competition either. A one-cab stand in a bad part of town probably didn’t bring in a day’s wage. I wondered if anybody ever used it and hoped the INS hadn’t picked it as a prime surveillance spot.

It was great for watching the bus stop. If the lady left in a car, it might be a bit more difficult. I yanked a pair of binoculars out of my handbag, and Helen spent some time focusing them. I told her to use them as little as possible, just on parking-lot ladies.

Hunneman’s windowless storefront made staying unobserved easier, but I kept looking around for phone-company vans, delivery trucks, other possible INS vehicles. I didn’t want Clinton to catch me ignoring his warning.

The cab got stuffy and I cranked down my window. I instructed Helen not to point, to describe the clothing of the women I should photograph. I warned her that they poured out the door fast. We ate doughnuts and drank coffee. She didn’t demand much in the way of conversation, and I was grateful for that.

I warned her about the kerchiefs.

“I’ll work on eyes and hair,” she said.

“Think you can do it?”

“Photographer’s eye,” she boasted. “If she walks by, you just be ready to snap her.”

Hunneman’s doors yawned. I shrank back on the seat instinctively.

“Sit back,” I barked at Helen. “The idea is to see them without getting seen.”

“Whoa,” she said. “There’s a lot of ’em.”

“Take them one at a time. Check out the ones who peel off to the parking lot first.”

“Shit,” Helen murmured. That was all she said for the next five minutes.

“Plaid skirt, pale blue blouse,” Helen said. “Ten feet down the front walk.”

“Sure?”

“Hell, no, she’s just the closest I’ve seen.”

She was walking toward the bus stop. I focused and shot through the front glass, hoping the glare wouldn’t kill the image.

“Green blouse,” Helen said. “She could be it. Got her?”

Another one heading for the bus stop. I hoped the bus would take its sweet time arriving. I picked up plaid skirt in another shot. Roz would have criticized the composition.

“This one with the beige flowered dress,” Helen said.

“Well, which one is it?”

“I’m doing my damned best,” she said.

I wondered if I should have brought more film. The third lady walked to a different bus stop, across the street. I saw Lilia out of the corner of my eye. Marta hadn’t been able to stop her today.

“It’s not the one getting into the gray Chevy on the lot, is it?” I asked.

“Nah.”

Something to be grateful for.

The crowd started thinning. The bus on the far side of the street arrived.

“Which of the three is most likely?” I asked.

“Green blouse.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know. I’m not sure. The walk.”

The bus swallowed up flowered dress. I could see another bus approaching in my rearview mirror. The women crowded toward the street, clutching their handbags.

“That’s about it.” Helen gave a deep, relieved sigh. “Doors have been closed a while.”

The women streamed onto the bus.

“Take another look at those two,” I said.

“Yeah,” she said. “I think the green, but I’m not a hundred percent sure.”

The bus took off. I hit the ignition and followed.

“Hey—” Helen said.

“I know, this isn’t in the deal.” I fumbled the agreed-upon cash out of my pocket, added ten more. “I’m going to drop you at the next light. Take a cab or something. If I need you, I’ll be in touch.”

She could follow orders. She put the binoculars down on the seat and got her hand on the door handle, ready to fly. As soon as I stopped at the corner of North Beacon and Market, she was gone.

The bus turned left, and so did I.