Yesterday's News - Jeremiah Healy Page 11

  "Hey, you! Can't you read the sign?"

  I looked up. A guy wearing construction clothes and a red hard hat stood on a second-floor beam with his lists on his hips like a foreman. He tossed his head toward the gate. "What does that sign say?"

  I waved the mailer at him. "I've got something here for Mr. Dykestra."

  "Packages go to the office"

  "Not this one." I sat down on a fairly flat piece of rubble and crossed my arms.

  "I'm coming down." He didn't sound pleased with me. I lost track of him as he wended his way back into the intact part of the building. He came out a first-floor door along the wharf, with a short, pudgy man in a large-patterned plaid three-piece suit clumping after him. Pudge's vest didn't reach his belt, and his pants didn't reach his shoes.

  As they drew even with me, the foreman pushed up his sleeves while Pudge said, "What kind of package you got for Dykestra?"

  "Confidential package."

  "Give it here."

  "You Dykestra?"

  The foreman said, "Give the man the package, asshole."

  I tried to sound hurt. "I was given explicit instructions to give this only to Mr. Dykestra personally. In hand."

  Pudge's jaw set. "In hand, huh? A process server? Al, this guy don't have a hard hat. Throw him off the job before the feds cite me for a safety violation."

  "With pleasure"

  I figured Al had watched me limp before he yelled at me, and he started for my bad left side. I pivoted on the weak leg, throwing my right hip into his left thigh. Reaching my right arm up and past his left armpit, I threw him over my hip. He landed on his back, the air whoofing from his lungs. My leg hurt as badly as he sounded.

  I said, "Mr. Dykestra, someplace we can talk this over?"

  Pudge watched me as he said, "Al, you gonna be okay?"

  Al, wallowing on the ground, nodded erratically. Dykestra said, "Let's sit down by the water."

  * * *

  "I gotta say, I figured you'd be around to see me."

  "Bruce Fetch give you a call?"

  Dykestra laughed. "Bruce is a good guy. He's had more than his share of problems lately, that's all."

  "Seems like the kind of town, everybody's got problems."

  A man was maneuvering a beamy sea skiff with a small out-board across the choppy bay. He was hunkered down in the stern, spray dousing him every time the prow smacked a wave.

  Dykestra said, "You see that boat?"

  "Yes."

  "What do you see?"

  "An old one barely making it."

  "That's pretty close to right. The guy in that skiff used to have a big fishing boat. Bank took it from him because the insurance company said the premium's tripled and the bank won't let him go out without insurance to cover their loan. So he loses his boat and now the poor bastard tries to feed his family the only way he knows how, by fishing handlines."

  "There a moral to this story?"

  "Yeah. Yeah, there's a moral awright. The moral is you gotta change, otherwise you lose what you got and get left with something worse."

  "And that's what you're doing here, changing things?"

  "Bet your sweet ass. This fuckin town's like a fat broad, you know? Has enough to eat, don't have no reason to look good, it just sits and eats. That's fine, till all of a sudden the food runs out, and nobody thinks the town looks good enough to treat to a dinner."

  I looked over my shoulder, partly to view the condo site and partly to watch for Al.

  "You're a long way from making this look good enough."

  "You gotta start somewhere, right? I grew up in Nasharbor. Wrong side of the tracks, wrong side of the sheets. I can't help that. But I got smart the hard way, and I got lucky, too. And now I can do something for the place, give it a hand, help pull itself out of the shit it's in before it gets any deeper."

  "And you figure Harborside is just what the doctor ordered?"

  "You gotta have some vision. You remember the Faneuil Hall area in the old days?"

  "I remember. "

  "Mud flats, open sewers, wharf buildings so cruddy the rats were looking to move up. Now, what do they get for those waterfront condos? Three, four hundred thousand."

  "That's Boston. The city draws young professionals like a magnet. Down here, I don't see people wanting to move into an area that looks like a Soviet missile landed last week. I see them going for single-family homes, bigger, with more property than they could buy in the city. "

  "Like I said, you gotta have vision. When Harborside hits its stride, other developers'll move on the other parcels around here. Snowball effect, you know?"

  "Or Harborside gets built, even though it's a bad tax time and market time for it. Only it's public money fronting the project, so after the construction bookkeeping gets entered, you're made whole. Then if Harborside's a bust, the taxpayers end up paying the tab, as usual."

  Dykestra smiled the way a magician does when someone in the audience yells out the secret to a trick he just performed. "I forgot you were listening to that Rust maggot. What other bullshit she throw at you?"

  "What difference does it make now?"

  "No difference. I just thought I could set you straight on some things is all."

  "You ever try to set her straight?"

  "Yeah." He got serious. "Yeah, I did try. I tried to show her how what I was doing here was putting people to work, people like that poor bastard in the skiff who won't have to risk drowning himself every day to put food on the table. I tried to show her the plans for this place here, the shot in the arm it'd give the city. Jesus Christ, you'd of thought that she'd get off on that kind of story. But no, man, somebody put a bee up her ass about this and about me. And all my nice talks with her, and even Bruce hosing her, just wasn't making no impression on her. And the shit she was slinging was starting to stick, not because it was true, you understand, but because she just kept slinging it. She was a screwy broad, that one. And I can't say I cried any when I heard she did herself."

  "You figure that's what happened?"

  "I figure that's what happened."

  "You know of anything in particular that would set her off?"

  Dykestra looked disgusted. "Aw, c'mon, man. Could have been a lot of things. Bruce said he told you about her being pregnant and all. That plus the Coyne guy getting stabbed. "

  "What do you know about Coyne?"

  "Nothing, man. Just from Bruce, that she was real upset about it. Like I said, a screwy broad. I was the editor, I would have fired her. "

  "You run your own crew here?"

  "I run. . . you mean the guys on the job here?"

  "Right."

  "Yeah. They're my employees. At least, they work for one of my companies. That's public record. Why do you want to know?"

  "Any of them drive an old Buick, couple offenders with just primer on them?"

  He didn't look away or stop to think. Maintaining eye contact, he said, "No. Nobody's got that kind of car I ever seen."

  I stood up. "Guess that's it for now. Al going to give me any trouble as I leave?"

  "Not if I walk you out." Dykestra rose, whisking the dust off the back of his pants with his hands. "'Course, I'm not on the site every day, so I wouldn't stop back here again if I was you."

  "Thanks, but I've seen enough."

  He shook his head. "You're wrong there, pal. Someday you're gonna think back and say to yourself, 'I saw Nasharbor and Harborside back when.' I'm telling you, this city is perched on the edge of greatness."

  I didn't have to ask where I'd heard that before.

  13

  I left the car in a visitor's spot and walked through the front door of the Beacon. The receptionist did not exactly light up.

  "I'd like to see Liz Rendall or Malcolm Peete, please."

  She told me to have a seat without asking for my name. From the chair, I could see her hissing into her mouthpiece. It took Arbuckle exactly thirty-four seconds to appear in the archway to the corridor.

  "Cud
dy, my office."

  I followed him back. Glancing around the crowded city room, I couldn't see Peete or Rendall.

  Once in his office, Arbuckle motioned toward the chair I'd used the last time. He closed the door behind him hard enough to rattle the glass in the interior window as he marched to his side of the desk.

  I said, "Good to show the ranks you're in command."

  "What?"

  "Slamming the door like that. Good device. Got to be careful not to overuse it, though."

  "I thought I told you not to come here after Tuesday."

  "You did."

  "Then what the hell are you doing here now?"

  "You told me to talk with Peete or Rendall. That's who I asked for out front."

  "I told you to talk to them on Tuesday. Today's Thursday. Am I going to have to call the cops?"

  "I wouldn't. Under the trespass statute, you have to ask me to leave again First. The receptionist heard you tell me to come back with you. Since you're someone in authority on the premises, it seems to me that I'm okay legally."

  Arbuckle did a slow burn. He did it well, but I decided not to compliment him.

  He said, "Why can't you leave well enough alone?"

  "It doesn't look so well to me."

  "Can't you see—"

  "Aren't you going to ask me about my leg?"

  "Your leg?"

  "Yeah, I'm limping. Didn't you notice?"

  "I don't give a rat's ass about your leg."

  "You might be missing a story. Somebody tried to run me down this morning."

  "Sounds like a good idea to me."

  "It'd be a lot easier if you'd just let me hang around here, ask some questions and look at some files."

  "Get out. " He banged a button on his phone panel. "Jeannette, if you don't see this guy Cuddy go by you and out within sixty seconds, call the police."

  The receptionist's voice came over the speaker box. "And tell them what?"

  "Tell them to come get Mr. Cuddy the fuck out of here!"

  "Okay, okay."

  Arbuckle banged the button again and glared at me. I said, "I hope my knee'll hold up under the strain."

  Going through the building's front door, I saw Liz Rendall race up in a little American car with NASHARBOR BEACON on the driver's side door and a CB radio antenna stuck on the roof. She got out and said, "What's wrong with your leg?"

  "Hurt it this morning, jogging. Can I speak with you for a minute?"

  "Yes, but I'm running late. Wait in your car. I'll be right out."

  I went to the Prelude and waited. Two minutes later, she hurried through the door of the Beacon and into a different car, an Alfa Romeo convertible. Expensive transportation for a reporter. She started up and drove by, beckoning for me to follow.

  * * *

  Including Rendall, the aerobics class had seven members, all female. The instructor was a muscular woman with short black hair moussed into a spiky brush cut. The tempo was fast, and Liz was the only one in the loft who really could keep up with Spike. The ceiling vibrated with Aerosmith and Whitney Houston while the floor quaked from the cadence of the routines. Liz wore a yellow leotard outfit with the false socks, in navy blue, that I think are called leg warmers. Slim and sinewy, she moved well, and she knew it. The instructor treated the music as an opponent to conquer. Rendall welcomed the music as a partner to the dance, allowing its excesses to show off her capacity to be both energetic and sensual. I wondered if any of it was for my benefit. I caught myself hoping just a little that it was, which surprised me. Liz looked uncannily like Beth, but she wasn't like Beth at all. Liz was more like Nancy, though maybe a little more aggressive.

  The tape stopped after forty-five minutes. Rendall grabbed a towel and came over to me. The perspiration scent rolled in front of her, that sweet musk some women exude after hard physical work.

  Smiling, she shook her head, the ringlets of hair curling and recurling damply as she rubbed the towel from ear to ear. "You ever try aerobics?"

  "No."

  "Too sissy for you?"

  "Maybe it reminds me too much of another time."

  "What other time?"

  "When we all wore green and the leader had stripes."

  "Then I can't blame you." She passed the towel down her chest, the nipples underneath the stretch material doing their level best to pop out. "What'd you think?"

  "I thought you looked great."

  Rendall shook her head again, this time negatively. "I don't make myself look good to come here. I make myself come here to look good."

  "That's how I meant it."

  "Then I'm glad I dragged you along." She grasped my wrist, turning it so she could read my watch. There was a perfectly functioning clock on the wall, but she held tight, as though she were just learning to tell time. "I'm going to have to get out of here. You have a run-in with Arbuckle?"

  "Sort of. "

  "After I came back from lunch with you on Tuesday, he told me he never wanted to see you again. I tried to call you, but all I got was. . ." Liz scrunched her features and dropped her voice two octaves. "'You know, I run a motel here, lady, not some goddam message center.'"

  I laughed. "You do a good Emil Jones. How's your Gary Cooper?"

  "I'd rather you see my Julia Child. I've got copies of Jane's new articles and my notes on the old ones at home. We can talk over dinner tonight."

  "I don't think so."

  Her bubbly air subsided. "Look, I don't. . . I have the funeral tomorrow, Jane's, I mean, and I'm kind of down. This," she waved her hand around the loft, "has already started to wear off. I'd really appreciate some company tonight. Even just for dinner. What do you say?"

  I thought about how much lousier funerals were when you anticipated them. "Okay."

  "Great. Anything you can't eat?"

  "Shrimp."

  "No problem. You have a good sense of the city yet?"

  "Getting there. "

  "You take Main Street to Armory, then a right onto Armory to The Quay. Follow The Quay all the way to the end. My place is the last one on the right. Seven-thirty, bring white wine? She headed for a makeshift locker room off in a corner.

  "Hey, you have a house number?"

  "Last place on the right. You can't miss it."

  I watched Rendall bounce lightly on the balls of her feet as she moved away. After the folks I planned to see next, a homecooked meal sounded better and better.

  * * *

  I bought a crabmeat plate and lemonade at a luncheonette, then crisscrossed the east side of town till I found Grantland Avenue. Knocking on doors, I finally got someone to point out Gail Fearey's place. The homes on Grantland made the shacks on Crestview look like the mansions at Newport. What cars there were reminded me of the primered Buick, stilted on cinder blocks or slumped in carports like old dogs.

  Fearey's house was a tiny ranch on a narrow lot. The driveway was packed dirt with a few patches of gravel too deeply embedded to erode away. A broken, rusted tricycle was at the edge of the driveway, as though somebody had run over it in the winter and just left it there to degrade over time.

  The siding was dull yellow here and Hat white there. A picture window had nine frames where there should have been glass. Cardboard, irregularly cut and of different colors, was stapled over four of them. I walked to the front metal door that had neither screen nor storm window. The stock wooden door behind it affected a mail slot. I reached through the metal door and knocked on the wooden one.

  On my third try a female voice, husky from too much smoking, spoke from the other side of the door. "Who is it?"

  "Gail Fearey?"

  "Who is it?"

  "Ms. Fearey, my name is John Cuddy. I'm investigating the death of Jane Rust, and I'd like to talk with you."

  "I don't wanna talk about her."

  "Just a second." I took a twenty from my wallet, tearing it in half. "I'm going to slip half of a twenty dollar bill through the mail slot, Ms. Fearey. You get the other half if you let me com
e in. You piece the two halves together, the stores will accept it."

  No reply.

  I flipped the slot and shot the first half in to her.

  After a moment, she said, "You got any ID?"

  "Yes. Here it comes."

  After another moment, the locks clicked and the door itself came open. I pulled the metal door out and stepped inside.

  "Here's your ID." She was about five-two and looked anorectic, the big blue eyes popping from a waif's teardrop face like a Margaret Keane painting. Acne scars riddled each cheek, and she used no makeup that I could see. Her lips were bloodless, her clothes a tee shirt that hung off her and jeans that billowed where they should have filled. "Where's my other half?"

  "Of the twenty?"

  "Right."

  "You get that after we talk."

  A world-weary expression came over her features. "Sure."

  Fearey turned away, walking to a gut-sprung chair. The chair and the daybed sofa across from it had metallic gray electricians tape in a lot of places. A bulky color TV nearly caved in the milk crates beneath it. The video was on, but no sound came out. A thick elastic band stretched tautly from the ears of the channel changer to a brick on the floor. Sitting, she saw me staring at the set.

  "Tuner's gone. Rubber band's the only thing can hold it on a channel."

  I chose the daybed sofa. "Is the sound gone, too?"

  "No. The brat's asleep in the other room. He's been acting up lately, so keep your voice down, okay?"

  "Okay."

  "Got a cigarette?"

  "Sorry."

  "Think I got some somewhere. Just a second."

  Fearey shuffled to the kitchen counter, pushing a Burger King bag onto the floor before finding a crushed pack of something. She pawed through three drawers for matches.

  Coming back and lighting up, she said, "I'm trying to quit. For the kid. Bad for his lungs too, they say now."

  I nodded. "I understand you lived here with Charlie Coyne."

  "No."

  "No?"

  "No. He lived here with me."

  "The difference being?"

  "This house was my parents'. They died, and I got it. Charlie, he never owned anything in his life."

  "How'd you meet him?"

  "Charlie?"

  "Yes."

  "I thought you wanted to know about Rust, the reporter."