Lie Down with the Devil (7 page)

Hello, luck. A gift, an absolute gift: His left taillight was busted. An irregular sliver of red plastic had slipped its mooring, and the Volvo was unique on the highway. I wondered if Jessica had broken it to help me out. If she’d done it, I owed her a tip of my hat for enterprising behavior.

Speaking of hats, I had a couple of different ones in the car, plus a raincoat, a shawl, my bottles of water, a bottle for other purposes, bananas, a stash of Fig Newtons, and a plastic bag of hard candies to suck on. I was wearing layers and running shoes, ready for a long haul and looking forward to it. Tailing and surveillance are my meat; I like to do what I do well, and my fellow officers used to claim I had an infinite capacity for watching and waiting for something to happen.

In my work, it’s a strength. In my life … How long could I watch and wait for Sam to return? I’d waited a long time already, for him to make up his mind, for me to make up my mind. And now that we had come to an agreement, now that the proposal had been made and accepted, where was the payoff?

I’m too old to believe in happily-ever-after transformations, but for a minute, I’d let my guard down and bought into the fantasy. We hadn’t gone so far as to have invitations printed as Jessica’s mother had, but there had been a sense of anticipation. Now I had to peel it away, dismiss the scent of orange blossoms and the whole irrational mystique that’s grown up around
weddings, the perfect culmination, the perfect day, as though one day could alter the future, as though the right ceremony could forge a bond beyond the bond already created.

Legality, that’s what it was, a simple legal procedure that could be countered and later reversed by another civil procedure.

Marriage was what you made it. And so many made a mockery of it. My client was wary, and why not?

I followed the Volvo with the broken taillight, three cars back, northeast on North Square toward Sun Court Street. North Square turned into Moon Street and I hung a right onto Lewis, lots of rights and lefts till we hit the Surface Road and slid onto Summer. This was the easy part, the warm-up, because I knew where the Volvo was headed: South Station for the train to New York, the 8:20 Acela Express. Ken let Jessica off on Atlantic Avenue, leaving her on the wrong side of the street with lanes of busy traffic to cross. I didn’t see them kiss. Not a good sign. I wondered if she’d been able to carry off the dinner with aplomb, without asking him what his plans were for the evening or doing anything else to stoke suspicion.

As he drove away, I saw him lift a cell phone to his ear.

Ah, cell phones. They’ve made deception so much easier. When I’d asked whether she’d ever called home and found him unexpectedly absent, she’d replied that they had no landline, just cells. You call someone on his cell, ask whether he’s home, and he says, “Sure, honey, just kicking back here on the sofa watching the Celtics. How’s your day been?” You can’t exactly ask him to hold up the camera phone and shoot a picture to your phone so you can check his veracity. Not without inviting trouble.

He drove while he talked, but unlike so many other Bostonians, he drove well, holding his speed and position on the busy streets. If I was going to lose him, I’d lose him in the downtown swirl, I thought, so I edged closer, only one car behind, and tagged along through a yellow, then another one. Not suspicious behavior. Hell, there’s practically nothing you can do in a cab that’s suspicious in this city. The way Boston cabbies drive is truly awful, encompassing everything from abrupt U-turns in heavy traffic to wrong-way jaunts down one-way streets. And the cops usually wink. The way cops drive, well, that’s another story.

We took a quick right-left combo, my shadowlike behavior less than notable because that’s the way most of the traffic was heading. The man had just eaten, so we weren’t heading into the South End for a restaurant stop.

I was abruptly aware of a pulsing beat, heavy thumping bass coming from the Volvo. Yes, Ken had put his phone away and was jerking his head rhythmically. Maybe loud party music was his way of consoling himself for the departure of his fiancée. Or maybe the man was getting in a party mood and the anonymous letter was right on the button.

The Volvo reversed course, scooted over to Kneeland Street, and darted through Chinatown. Ken cut a right onto Washington Street without signaling and headed into the financial district. The shortcuts the man knew, he would have made a good cabbie. Fortunately, he didn’t seem to keep a keen eye on the rearview mirror. The god of traffic lights stayed with me; the red lights didn’t part us. The music blared so loudly that I could have followed him by ear.

I almost lost him near Winthrop Square, but there he was turning the corner. A little speed and I was on him as he made his way through the concrete canyons. Rain blurred the windshield and I prayed it would calm back into a drizzle. If it hadn’t been for the broken taillight, I’d have lost him twice.

He pulled over and parked abruptly. I rolled past; nothing else I could do, and circled the block at breakneck speed, a maneuver any cabbie in search of a fare learns to execute quickly.

The parking space was empty, the Volvo gone. Damn. He hadn’t parked. Had he pulled over to answer a phone call? To see if he was being tailed? The roads here were twisty one-way streets. I made a set of widening turns, reluctant to admit I’d lost him.
There! I caught a flash of a white zigzag taillight and screeched a left from the right-hand lane to a chorus of indignant honks.

I stayed well back as the Volvo led the way to Government Center, turned onto Cambridge Street, and sailed over the Longfellow Bridge into East Cambridge. Through Kendall Square, right on Broadway, right again. Just past a knot of high-rises, he pulled in to park at the curb.

Another phone call? Another ruse? Again, unless I wanted to advertise my presence, there was nothing I could do but circle the block.

The Volvo, to my surprise, was still there, parked. I caught a glimpse of a silhouette entering the lobby of one of the tall buildings nearby. The shadow carried something in hand, not a briefcase, more the shape of a woman’s tote bag. Right height, right weight, right coat.

I pulled in at a fireplug, puzzled. Killed the lights.

It didn’t look like the sort of building for an assignation, more like lab space for one of the many MIT offshoot start-ups in the area. Possibly legal offices or stockbrokers. It was after hours, Friday night, hardly time for a business meeting. Who knew? Maybe he was playing sex games on a desktop with a willing paralegal. I made a note of the time and the address and settled back to wait, proud of myself for tracking him thus far.

I thought about calling Paolina, safe, physically safe, at McLean. No. Even if she agreed to talk, I couldn’t risk any activity that might split my concentration.

I regretted—well, almost regretted—not bringing a partner, someone who’d casually enter the building foyer, determine whether there was a guard, read the
billboard listing the various offices. Someone who’d help while the time away, someone who’d talk, who’d help me decode Ken’s driving habits.

Mooney used to do that. Mooney always talked. It was one of the reasons we’d never dated; I’d enjoyed talking to the man too much to risk our professional relationship. God knows, I’ve had my troubles with romantic relationships. I despise the very word
relationship.

I put on a pair of lensless spectacles, removed my hat, and fluffed up my hair. If Ken, the groom, happened to change his habits and check the rearview, the cab itself would be unremarkable in the darkness, without the roof lights little more than a pair of well-lit circles. Some people, when they stop at traffic lights, glance at the drivers behind them, and if he did, I wanted him to see a different look, even if only a different misty outline.

I was tempted to race in and write down the names of the offices myself, but I’d have an awkward situation on my hands if he suddenly emerged, so I settled in to keep an eye on the door. I didn’t think there was much risk of missing his return to the Volvo. The place might have a back exit, but why bother with his car out front? I didn’t think he’d stay indoors long. It wasn’t intuition; he was parked in a no-parking zone.

He emerged twenty-two minutes later and stuffed the tote in the trunk. I logged the time, gave him a half-block head start, and we were off to the races.

Twenty-two minutes might be time enough for a quickie on an office desk, but it didn’t seem an attractive option. Okay, so maybe he had a little business to finish up after dinner. Now was the time for a playboy to head to a bar or to the unknown girlfriend’s bed. Or maybe he’d go back to the Allston digs he shared
with his devoted fiancée, drink the lonely night away, watch the Celtics win. That would keep my costs down; Gloria expected me to return the cab with a full tank.

He drove faster. I stopped thinking about where he might be going and concentrated on keeping up, following the silver zigzag as it slid through the river of red taillights. Back into Boston, the traffic lighter now, the workers all gone home, curled up contentedly by the fire or the flickering television. At a stoplight, I grinned at myself in the rearview. Tailing the guy felt good. If Allston was our destination, we’d head west soon.

He turned south. I kept the tail loose, followed him onto 93, the Central Artery, into the underground network of tunnels that locals call the Dig or the deathtrap depending on the daily news, headed toward Route 3. I scrunched my eyes, then opened them wide. The Dig is like one of those kids’ toys, a marble run. If you pick the correct lane, it shunts you out to your destination; if you have the misfortune to get in the wrong lane, you go to the wrong place. Often only one lane goes where you’re headed and at the moment I didn’t have any idea where I was bound. The silver zigzag raced on, flashing in and out of traffic. Was he on to me, or just having fun, enjoying the night drive?

Whew.
I’d guessed right, gotten lucky, going with the majority as we zipped under downtown, emerging from the claustrophobic tunnel alive, no heavy concrete panels crashing on my head tonight, escaping onto Route 3, dashing toward the South Shore. I tried to convince myself this was a good thing for my client. Aunt Ruthie in Hingham, sweet old Aunt Ruthie had invited our bridegroom over for a cup of chamomile tea.

There were strip joints on the South Shore. Maybe I’d spend most of the night in the Foxy Lady parking lot while Ken threw himself a little solo bachelor party. What would my client think of that?

I kept to the right lane, primed for the Volvo’s exit. We passed Quincy and Braintree. We passed Hingham. Marshfield. Plymouth. Where the hell was the man going? On vacation?

Vacation is what I think of when I cross the Sagamore Bridge over the Cape Cod Canal. Escape. Turning off the clock, turning back the clock to a simpler quieter time. I don’t go to the Cape—or “down the Cape,” as the natives say—in summer; too many tourists. I prefer it in the fall when the weather’s still fine and the ocean warm, preheated by the August sun. There’s a sense of relief on the Cape in the fall, all the summer people with their bustle and desperation gone. Sam and I once rented a cabin in Orleans and never woke before noon.

Mooney and I drove down to interview a witness in Falmouth. We stopped at a clam shack, walked along a white sand beach. I kept my distance, unwilling to be accused of playing up to the boss. Hadn’t done any good; the guys hooted when we returned and I had to take a lot of crap about sunburns.

The bridge shoved us onto Route 6, the Cape Highway, a straight shot to Provincetown, the end of the world.

It was just past ten o’clock. In downtown Boston, the streets would be packed with restaurant-and moviegoers, with fans emptying out of the Garden, long since renamed but never called anything else. Here, traffic was sparse. I slowed down, settled in behind a plumber’s van, and soothed myself with the thought that Route 6 had few exits and those carefully marked.
I could lie back a few cars, watch for the silver zigzag to leave the roadway.

The downside: If I missed him, I couldn’t double back on the divided highway. I shifted my butt in the seat, made myself deliberately uncomfortable to keep alert.

He didn’t take the first exit or the second. Not the third. The fourth was the charm, and I was momentarily relieved; I didn’t think my kidneys could make the trip to Provincetown.

Exit 4. Route 149. As a cabbie, I carry a mental map of the Boston area, but it grows sketchier the farther I get from town. The surroundings seemed vaguely familiar. Where had I driven heading south on 149? The old Barnstable Fairgrounds? Yes. The fairgrounds were to the west and Cotuit Bay must be at the end of the dimly lit, narrow two-lane road. Ken must be nearing his destination. No reason to leave Route 6 if he intended to continue east on 28, its southern low-speed parallel. I edged the cab a little closer. Sam and I had visited a restaurant down this way, close to the tiny town of Marstons Mills. Wasn’t there a small rotary, a traffic circus, a place where I might lose the magic taillight?

The Volvo stayed on the main drag, doing a 180 around the small circle before continuing to the south as though the rotary had been nothing but a stop sign. I wondered if there was ever enough traffic to make cars stop and wait at the rotary, whether there would ever be popular demand for a traffic light. Didn’t look like it, with wide open spaces all around.

Much of this part of the Cape is devoted to golf courses, but some of the low flat land is a military reservation. There are small towns dotted here and there, clumps of weather-beaten houses, wildlife sanctuaries.
I wondered about Indian reservations. The town of Mashpee is nearby and that’s the center of the Wampanoag tribe, along with Aquinnah on Martha’s Vineyard. The Nausett tribe, smaller than the Wampanoag, shares its name with the small town west of Mashpee. The taillights vanished over a rise and I sped up.

Lighting was minimal, but I didn’t want to risk my brights. Damn. Just as my hand moved off the steering wheel to find them, the wheel wrenched hard to the right and then I was fighting with the cab, hanging on as a loud thump, thump, thump announced trouble and the tires locked and skidded.