Boston Noir

  "You could jump into a car and be on 90 to New York in five minutes," he said.

  "They're looking for people who were in the park to help."

  "Good luck." He had it in his mind Beacon Hill wouldn't piss on somebody if he was on fire. He didn't believe her when she said it wasn't Beacon Hill's fault, reminding him that he'd struggled for the past few years in New York.

  He went to his studio while she made dinner--salmon and a cold rice dish she'd picked up on Charles Street. When he came down, she was pouring Pinot Grigio as she read a working paper on the Fair Trade movement.

  After they ate, he brought the dishes to the sink. Soon soap bubbles rose and popped.

  "Jeff. Are you coming?"

  He grabbed a towel. "Where?"

  "To the vigil, remember? Everybody's helping with the baby."

  "These people?"

  "Stop it," she said. "I'm going. I wish you would."

  "I've got work," he told her. "I'll be upstairs."

  After he brought the trash to the basement, he walked outside and stood on the steps. Over in the Public Garden, hundreds of people were fanned out, studying the grass and grounds, looking into the tulip beds, hoping for a clue, any tidbit of information, a revelation. Klieg lights police had stationed on the pathways shed an eerie glow throughout the park, and there were long, quivering shadows. Kids in shorts and hoodies served cold drinks. An uncomfortable silence and an unsettling sense of dread filled the early summer air.

  Maya was over by the Angel of the Waters, the statue that reminded him of one with the same name in Central Park, and she was chatting with a thick, busty blonde. As the other woman lectured, Maya folded her arms, solemnity on her face. When she spotted him, she beckoned him with a wave, but he pointed upstairs and made a little gesture like he was strumming a guitar. Then he went back inside.

  "I'm onto something," he said when she returned. "Don't be surprised if I don't come to bed." He held up a cloth sack she'd gotten at the Museum of Fine Arts that he'd filled with snacks and something to drink.

  "Jeff," she said, as she kicked off her flats, "look at this."

  Another flier. A sketch by a police artist.

  "It looks like you, Jeff."

  "No, it doesn't," he said, as he nudged it back toward her.

  "Gail McDermott thought so."

  "Gail McDermott...?"

  "The blonde on the first floor...Runs a PR agency..."

  He didn't know anyone in the building. "No," he said, tapping the flier, "that guy is old. He's half bald. Scruffy. It's not me."

  "I didn't say it was you..."

  "I'm going upstairs."

  "They're going to drag the lake tomorrow," she told him.

  Walking away, he said, "She's not dead."

  He couldn't keep the baby in his music room. It was as dark as a cave, and the soundproofing left the air stagnant and stale. He'd changed her and fed her and burped her and held her, tickled her chin, combed her downy hair with his fingers, bathed her with warm water with a face cloth, cooed at her, sang to her, played little figures on the piano. But the carton he converted to a bassinet was stupid, and she needed sunlight, so he brought her downstairs into the kitchen and sat with her on his lap by Maya's basil plants and thyme leaves.

  "Hey baby," he said as he cuddled her in his arms.

  Out on Beacon Hill, people had pulled their chins out of the air and were treating each other with decency and humility. They had a cause bigger than themselves now, something beyond parading their imaginary status. Or so he assumed. He hadn't left the apartment grounds since he took Baby Alice. Remembering that a few residents in the building didn't retrieve their Globe until the day's end, he brought her to the center of the king-sized bed, nestled her on goose down, and took the creaking spiral staircase to the lobby. As he started back up, the Globe under his hand, he heard the baby cry and hurried back to scoop her in his arms. He said, "It's all right, baby. Everything's all right." He bounced her and rubbed her back until she sighed and stopped fussing. He kissed her moist cheek.

  Down in her office in apartment 3, statue-still and silent, sat Gail McDermott, who, though she tried, couldn't convince herself she hadn't heard a baby's cry. Fresh cup of coffee in hand, she lifted the flier with the police sketch from her in-box, and yeah, it did look like Maya's husband, that New Yorker who was some sort of musician, the odd, scowling guy who dressed like a teenager and looked like he needed something no one could provide.

  "Jim," she called as she knocked again. "Jim."

  He opened the door a crack. "It's Jeff," he said.

  "Jeff." Gail McDermott introduced herself by handing him a business card. "I heard a baby."

  "Not here." He scanned the card. McDermott Communications, it read. Specialists in Crisis Management. The building's address was printed below.

  "Do you have the baby?"

  "Do I have--"

  McDermott pushed in, and he watched as she surveyed the living room. Plain, plump, and round-faced, she wore business slacks and a snug white silk blouse. No makeup, her hair tucked behind her ears. Flip-flops and a PDA on her belt.

  "No baby here," Jeff said, standing by the door.

  "I could've sworn--What's this?" She stared at the platinum album, framed on the wall. "I love this movie. Wait--You wrote this song? That song?"

  The one with the pig, he thought, yeah.

  "That was my sister's wedding song." She turned. "That's a beautiful song. Wicked beautiful."

  "Thank--"

  Upstairs, Baby Alice let out a cry. He sank as he realized he'd left the door open to his soundproof studio.

  "Oh, Jeff..." McDermott said, puffing up.

  Maya and Jeff, the baby in his lap, faced McDermott, who sat behind her desk, the Angel of the Waters in the Public Garden over her shoulder. Like Jeff, she'd converted a bedroom to a workspace.

  "Why?" Maya repeated.

  He said, "I don't know why."

  "Was she in danger, Jeff?" McDermott asked.

  "No. She was asleep."

  "Tell me what you were thinking..."

  He shrugged. "I wasn't thinking. I just, I don't know, reacted."

  "To what?" Maya asked.

  Is a man who no longer matters supposed to understand why he did something? "I don't know. Really," he replied truthfully. He looked down at the baby, who slept peacefully. Here, Maya, he wanted to say. I'm sorry. Take her and let's go home.

  But it was more, and much less, than that.

  "Ever do anything like this before?" McDermott asked.

  "No. Of course not."

  "We need a lawyer," Maya said.

  "I'll get you one," McDermott replied, holding up a blunt index finger. "But let's think this through..."

  She'd wriggled politicians, businessmen, and academics out of worse situations than this. Had the Patriots listened to her, the nation wouldn't think of them as cheaters. Had Larry Summers, he'd still be president of Harvard.

  She rubbed her temples. Stealing a baby from a stroller could seem a low thing. It had to be spun right. The guilty party had to define the crime.

  "It was an impulse," Jeff said.

  "So this is what you do in New York? You have an impulse and you steal a baby?"

  He hung his head.

  "Have you called the police?" Maya asked. She was still stunned, the morning a blur since she was pulled from the lecture hall.

  "That's not at the top of our agenda," McDermott replied. "We have to inculcate Jeff here."

  "Are you saying we sneak the baby back into the park?" Maya asked.

  "We could do that," McDermott replied. "But how does that help him?"

  Maya frowned. "For one, he may stay out of jail..."

  "That's the minimum outcome," McDermott said as she stood. "We can do better than that."

  Jeff brushed the baby's hair from her forehead.

  "Why does he take her?" McDermott said as she started to pace. "He's distressed, his career in shambles, no one ackno
wledges him. He has a sort of psychotic breakdown. Do I have that right, Jeff?"

  "Just about," he admitted.

  Maya looked at her husband, surprised he'd said it aloud.

  "Or he's committed an act of civic disobedience against Beacon Hill. He feels a smugness, a starchiness, a lack of soul...He's worried the child will grow up with a distorted sense of self. She'll be ill-equipped for life outside a tiny, out-of-touch neighborhood in a dynamic city, a great nation."

  Maya turned as McDermott circled behind her. "You don't believe that, do you?" she asked.

  "There's less pretension on Rodeo Drive," answered McDermott, who had grown up in the Ninth Street Projects.

  "No, I meant you can't believe the police will accept that as an explanation."

  "The police will be easy," McDermott said. "Getting your husband back on top of the music business is the trick."

  "I never was on top, actually." Jeff stared at Baby Alice. He wondered what their daughter might've looked like if ambition hadn't gotten between his word and Maya and their son.

  "Go shower and shave, Jeff," McDermott said, as she returned to her desk. "Maya, get over to Newbury Street and buy him some grown-up clothes. I'll watch the baby." As she sat, she added, "By the way, I get five hundred dollars an hour, and you're on the clock until this is done."

  Okay then. Two in the morning and Jeff was in his spot, his guitar on his lap, his fingers on the steel strings. The Angel of the Waters hovered over him, wings open, arms outstretched. Cast as far as he could see, the park was splendid under a starry summer sky, the flowers asleep until dawn. In the near distance, a policeman patrolled on horseback.

  He strummed a minor chord, another, anoth--

  What? Was that...Was that a baby's cry?

  He put the guitar on its case, walked to the dry, shallow fountain at the foot of the statue, and, oh my God, there was a baby. The missing baby. Baby Alice.

  He scooped her up, nestled her in his arms, and dashed to Beacon Street. There wasn't a car in sight. Damn. Plan B. He raced to their building and rang every bell. Someone answered, a man with a high, flowery voice.

  "I found the baby," Jeff said hurriedly into the speaker. "The missing baby. I found it. Call the police."

  McDermott, in plaid pajama bottoms and a Big Papi T-shirt, reached him first, and by the time Maya rushed downstairs in her robe and slippers, most of the building was in the lobby, waving at the baby, patting Jeff on the back.

  "Look, Maya," he said breathlessly. "She was in the park. Under the statue."

  "It's a miracle," she muttered.

  "She doesn't look hurt," McDermott said, peering over Maya's shoulder.

  Jeff nodded. He was crisp in new green khakis, a striped shirt from Brooks Brothers, and boating shoes, his hair combed, the part where it should be. For a moment, he drifted deep into the story McDermott had concocted. He felt like a man who'd done something worthwhile.

  Wanting no part of the charade, Maya left to retrieve his guitar.

  The police came. Two squad cars, burly guys in uniforms. The Herald beat the Globe there, and its photographer got him cradling the baby, cops surrounding them as they came down the brownstone steps. "Sox Sweep Yanks--Again!" read the Herald headline that ran alongside a vertical photo of Jeff and Baby Alice. "Our Angel Safe and Sound" was the caption. The story on page three identified him as a famous Hollywood songwriter. They got his first name right, all four letters, and found an old photo of him sandwiched between Linda Ronstadt and Bonnie Raitt taken at some benefit show long ago.

  "That was an awful thing to do, Jeffrey," Maya said, turning away whenever he approached. "You need help."

  Citizens Bank tried to give him the $5,000 reward they'd put up, but, as McDermott instructed, he insisted it go to Baby Alice. Her parents, cordial young lawyers who were saving to buy their first home, thanked Jeff by inviting him and Maya to brunch on Rowes Wharf. Over the meal, he learned the nanny was back in Nicaragua, courtesy of immigration services.

  "Glad you got that poor woman deported?" Maya asked as they walked back to their apartment.

  He was glad about a lot of things, if not that. The day after the baby was recovered, Jeff was flown to New York to appear on The Early Show, where he was interviewed about the Miracle of the Angel.

  "Yes, I have some new songs," he said as the interview wound down.

  "Will you be writing one about Baby Alice?"

  "I like that idea," he replied, as McDermott had instructed when she media-trained him.

  Some big country music star he'd never heard of asked to hear his new material. A publisher with offices in New York, Nashville, Los Angeles, and London offered to rep him. And a hip-hop mega-producer secured the rights to his old song from the movie, pledging to turn it into a hit again, "as soon as I find the look for the product."

  When he finally returned to Beacon Hill, he hardly recognized the woman who greeted him. Despite the turmoil, Maya seemed content, energized yet at ease, all the sharp angles gone. The pace of the old town suited her, she said. She'd moved on. "Go back to New York, Jeff," she said, and he did.

  DARK WATERS

  BY PATRICIA POWELL

  Watertown

  Promptly at 7:19, right in the middle of Jeopardy!, the entire house went black; no electricity! and she'd had to rustle through her drawers to find candles to light up the kitchen so she could see to eat a tin of sardines with crackers and slog through half a bottle of Chardonnay. Later she had crept upstairs, weary and slightly depressed, to read peacefully a book on uncertainty she'd been trying to sink her teeth into for some time. She had not long settled into the chapter on "discomfort" when she heard the knocking on the front door downstairs, which was immediately perplexing for she did not really know anyone in the area that intimately, she'd just moved near six months now, had told no one of her whereabouts except her best friend Rhonda, and she was not expecting Rhonda, nor expecting that Rhonda would've disclosed her location to Fred. And yet who could it be knocking on her door at this hour--11 according to the clock on the bedside table. Who could it be?

  She swung out of bed irritated as hell, padded over to the window, and flung back the lace curtains. Outside the night was impenetrable and the trees swayed drunkenly and against the frosted window, the silvery slanted rain. It had been raining all day, and now it was dark, with big winds howling through the walls and the rain battering the roof, and outside, outside was the black and sodden night. She was wearing a long see-through pink gown that in the early years of her marriage used to excite her husband greatly. But that was another story altogether. She hauled on a white duster over her gown, pulled on satin slippers, and looked around quickly for something big, something heavy, something that with just one blow would carry off the culprit. She found a screwdriver, which she slipped into her pocket, and a big heavy-duty metal flashlight she switched on at once, lighting her way downstairs to put an end to the disturbance.

  Her name was Perle, she was forty-seven, and just six months ago she got up one morning and decided she was leaving her marriage. She was not leaving her children, mind you, who were away at college, she was leaving Fred, as things between them had been dead for some time, the two of them like ships passing in the night en route to some unknown destination. The truth was, early on she had lost herself, had given it over, thinking that was love, did not know where he ended and she began, and now she wanted to retrieve herself, for she had stopped living, she was just coasting now, on the sea of life. It sounded like a cliche, she knew, but that was how she saw it. She did not say a word to him the morning she left. She waited until he was gone to the hospital to visit the sick and the dying--he was an evangelical minister who believed in the laying on of hands--then she packed one suitcase full of clothes, another of her face products as she had a tendency to break out into boils, and she called the movers to collect the upright her mother had given her. Heading west, she slowly drove away from her life that morning in the white Pontiac, stopping on
ly once to fill it with gas and to buy a cheese sandwich and a bottle of water. She rented a semi-furnished one-bedroom in Watertown, a sleepy little place that had a river running through it. She knew no one, no one knew her, and except for the tortured sonatas she played in the early mornings upon arising, she interacted only with the hairdresser where she went for a weekly rinse and set, the cashier at the bank for she was living off some CDs she'd put away for a rainy day, and the Armenian grocers that lined both sides of the main drag with their dark overstocked little shops full of Mediterranean goods.

  Who is it? she cried weakly, and then she muscled up herself, for this was ridiculous. Who is it? she snapped, her voice unrecognizable even to her, and the pounding stopped at once. A face was pressed up against the glass, a dark face wet and wild with a falling-down mustache and a felt hat pulled so low she could barely see the eyes, but she could sense the desperateness in them. And when a sliver of lightning lit up the porch, she saw it was a white man slightly stooped, or maybe he was holding something, his raincoat glowing in the brief light.

  It was crazy what she was about to do, she knew all the stories, knew them up and down, knew too there were white men who preyed on black women, and yet she yanked open the door and he stumbled in, wet and heavy and dank with the smell of dread.

  What? she cried. What's the matter! She ushered him into the kitchen, where he leaked water all over her floor, perhaps even blood, she could smell iron. She had the light pointed on his face, which looked gray and swollen, and on his pin-striped suit, on the untied shoes that looked slightly small for his long slim frame. She had the screwdriver poised for his heart at her side.