The Front

  “Surveillance videos in all four cases?” Win asks.

  “Different clothing, but looks like the same guy to me.”

  “You mind if I ask you something?”

  “Probably.”

  “Why did you become a teacher and then quit?”

  “I don’t know. Why are you wearing a gold watch? You fix some rich person’s parking ticket, maybe let him off the hook for driving two hundred miles an hour in his Ferrari or something? Or maybe you really are a bank robber.”

  “My dad’s. Before that, his dad’s, before that, Napoléon’s—just kidding, although he was fond of Breguets,” Win says, holding out his wrist to show her. “According to family legend, stolen. Some of my esteemed relatives in the Old Country could have auditioned for The Sopranos.”

  “You sure as hell don’t look Italian.”

  “Mother was Italian. Father was black, and a teacher. A poet, taught at Harvard. I’m always curious why people want to be teachers, and it’s rare I come across one who felt the calling, went to all the trouble, then quit.”

  “High school. Lasted two years. The way kids are these days, I decided I’d rather arrest them.” Opening cabinets, returning various bottles of chemicals, dusting powders, crime lights, camera equipment, her hands nervous and awkward. “Anyone ever tell you not to stare? It’s impolite. You stare worse than a baby,” she says, sealing the bank robber’s note in an envelope. “Last resort would be to swab for DNA. But no point, in my opinion.”

  “If he’s not leaving sweat, not likely he’s leaving DNA, unless he’s shedding a lot of skin cells or sneezing on the paper,” Win says.

  “Yeah. Try wasting state police lab time on that one. Two years now I’ve been waiting for results on that girl who got raped in the Boneyard. The cemetery near Watertown High School. Not about bones. About smoking joints. Three years I’ve been waiting for results on the gay guy who got beaten to a pulp on Cottage Street. And forget all the hair salon breaks, what’s going down in Revere, Chelsea, on and on. No one’s going to take anything seriously until people start getting murdered right and left,” she says.

  They step out on the truck’s diamond-plate steel platform; she shuts the vertical rear doors, locks them. He walks her to her unmarked Taurus, dull paint job, lots of dings on the doors, and she gets inside, waiting for him to stare at her leg, waiting for him to ask some stupid question about how she drives with a fake foot. But he’s subdued, seems oblivious, is gazing off at her two-story brick police department, old and tired and much too small. As is true of most departments in Lamont’s jurisdiction, no room to work, no money, nothing but frustration.

  She starts the car, says, “I’m not going near the Janie Brolin case.”

  “Do what you gotta do.”

  “Believe me, I am.”

  He leans closer to her open window, says, “I’m working it anyway.”

  Her hand shakes a little as she adjusts the fan, and cool air blows on her face. She says, “Lamont this, Lamont that. And you snap to attention, do whatever she says. Lamont, Lamont, Lamont. No matter what, she gets what she wants and everything turns out great for her.”

  “I’m surprised you’d say that after what she went through last year,” Win says.

  “And that’s the problem,” Stump says. “She’ll never forgive you for saving her life, and she’ll punish you for the rest of yours. Because you saw her . . . Well, forget it.” She doesn’t want to think about what he saw that night.

  She drives off, watches him in the rearview mirror, wonders where the hell he got that piece-of-junk Buick. Her cell phone rings, and her heart jumps as it occurs to her it might be him.

  It’s not.

  “Done,” says Special Agent McClure, with the FBI.

  “I guess I’m supposed to celebrate,” Stump says.

  “Was afraid of that. Looks like you and I need to have another little face-to-face. You’re starting to trust him.”

  “I don’t even like him,” she says.

  It’s twenty of ten when he parks across the street from the courthouse, surprised to see Lamont’s car in her reserved space by the back door.

  Just his luck she’s decided to work late, and it would be just like her to assume his showing up to clear out some of his desk is a ruse. She’s so vain, she’ll be convinced his real intention is to see her, that he somehow knew she’d be here at this hour, that he can’t stand the thought of not being across the hall from her anymore. What to do. He needs files for court cases, his notes, personal items. It occurs to him it would serve her right if he cleared out his entire office, make her wonder if he’s ever coming back. He rolls down his window as his phone vibrates. Nana. Second time she’s called in the past hour. This time he answers.

  “You’re usually asleep by now,” he says.

  His grandmother keeps odd hours, takes her superstitious shower right after it gets dark. Goes to bed, gets up around two or three in the morning, starts fluttering about the house like a luna moth.

  “The nonhuman has stolen the essence of you,” she says. “And we must work fast, my darling.”

  “She’s been trying for years, still hasn’t touched my essence.” As he watches the back of the courthouse, the top floor lit up. The county jail. Can’t get his mind off Lamont. “Don’t you worry, Nana. My essence is safe from her.”

  “I’m talking about your gym bag.”

  “Don’t worry about my laundry, either.” He doesn’t show his impatience, wouldn’t hurt Nana for the world. “I probably won’t be able to drop by tomorrow, anyway. Unless you need your car?”

  “As I was on the threshold of sleep, the thing came in and I ordered it back out the door. You’ve gotten mixed up in far more than you bargained for,” she says. “It took your gym bag to steal your essence! To wear you like its own skin!”

  “Wait a minute.” He focuses on the conversation. “Are you telling me someone broke into your house and stole my gym bag?”

  “The thing came in and took it. I went out into the yard, then the street, and it drove off before I could pin it inside my magic circle.”

  “When was this?”

  “Soon after it got dark,” she says.

  “I’m coming over.”

  “No, my darling. There’s nothing you can do. I cleansed the doorknob, cleansed the kitchen of the evil energy from top to bottom . . .”

  “You didn’t . . .”

  “Eradicated its impure, evil energy! You must protect yourself.”

  She begins her litany of protective rituals. Kosher salt and equilateral crosses. Draw a pentacle over a photograph of himself. White candles all over the place. Octagonal mirrors on all of his windows. Hold the telephone against his right ear, never the left, because the right ear draws bad energy out, while the left ear draws it in. Finally, she exclaims, “Something bad’s going to happen to the one who did this!” And her Nana laugh, a good-hearted cackle as he ends the call.

  She’s always been unusual, but when she gets “on her broom,” as he puts it, she unnerves the hell out of him. Her bouts of premonition and clairvoyance, her spates of casting curses and spells, resurrect old feelings of foreboding, distrust, maybe even blame. Magic Nana. What good was she when it came to the worst thing that’s ever happened to him? All those promises about what the future held. He could go anywhere, be anything, the world was his to seize. His parents didn’t want another child because he was so special, he was enough. Then that night, and Magic Nana never saw it coming and certainly didn’t prevent it.

  That chilly night when she took her adoring grandson on one of her secret missions, and she had not the slightest sense that something was terribly wrong. How was that possible? Not even the faintest foreshadowing, not even when they got home and opened the door and were greeted by the most absolute silence he’s ever experienced in his life. He thought it was a game at first. His parents and his dog in the living room, pretending to be dead.

  After that he didn’t go on any of Na
na’s secret missions, has never had any interest in the same mystical guidance so many other people seem to need. All while he was growing up, this parade of strangers in and out of the house. The bereft, the helpless, the desperate, the frightened, the sick. All paying her whatever they could, whatever their commodity might be. Food, hardware, clothing, art, flowers, vegetables, handiwork, haircuts, even medical care. It never has mattered what or how little, but it has to be something. Nana calls it an “equal exchange of energy,” her belief that an imperfect ebb and flow of giving and receiving is what causes everything that’s wrong in the world.

  Without a doubt, it’s the root of what’s wrong between Win and Lamont. There sure as hell’s no quid for her quo. He stares at her retractable-hardtop black Mercedes, as shiny as volcanic glass, about a hundred and twenty grand, forget pre-owned. She doesn’t care what she pays, is too proud to ask for discounts, or more likely enjoys the rush of being able to afford sticker price, afford whatever she wants. He imagines what that must be like. To be a lawyer, an attorney general, a governor, a senator, to have money, to have an extraordinary wife and children who are proud of him.

  It will never happen.

  He couldn’t get into law school, business school, a doctoral program—Ivy League or otherwise—not even if he were a Kennedy or a Clinton. Couldn’t even get into a decent college, his application to Harvard probably laughed at, didn’t matter that his father had been a professor there. Good thing his parents weren’t around when his high-school guidance counselor commented that for such a “bright boy,” Win had the lowest SAT scores she’d ever seen.

  Lamont suddenly emerges from the courthouse back door in a hurry, briefcase, keys in hand, wireless earpiece pulsing blue as she talks on her cell phone. He can’t hear what she’s saying, but it’s obvious she’s arguing with someone. She gets into her Mercedes, speeds right past without noticing him, has no reason to recognize Nana’s car. He has a funny feeling, decides to follow her. He stays several cars behind her on Broad Street, then on Memorial Drive along the Charles River, back toward Harvard Square. On Brattle Street, she tucks her Mercedes in the driveway of a Victorian mansion worth six, maybe eight, million, he guesses, because of the location and size of the lot. No lights on, looks unlived-in and poorly maintained except that the grass is mowed.

  He drives around the block, parks a couple streets away, grabs a small tactical light he always keeps in Nana’s glove compartment. He trots back to the house, notices the grass and some of the shrubbery are wet. The irrigation system must have been on earlier. A curtained window dimly lights up, a barely discernible glow, barely wavering. A candle. He moves silently and out of sight, freezes when he hears a back door opening, shutting. Maybe her, maybe someone else. She’s not alone. Silence. He waits, contemplates barging into the house to make sure Lamont’s all right, has a bad feeling of déjà vu. Last year. Her door ajar, the gas can in the bushes, and then what he discovered upstairs. She would have died. Some people say what happened to her was worse than death.

  He continues to wait. The house is dark, and not a sound comes from it. An hour passes. Just when he’s about to do something, he hears the back door shut, then footsteps. He ducks behind a tall hedge, watches a dark shape turn into Lamont as she walks alone to her car, carrying something. She opens the passenger door and the interior light goes on. What appears to be sloppily folded linens. She tosses them on the seat. He watches her drive off, no sign of whoever she had been with inside the house. Bizarre thoughts race through his mind. She’s involved in something illegal. Drugs. Organized crime. Her recent shopping sprees—maybe she’s on the take. His new assignment—maybe there’s more to it than another one of her political charades. Maybe there’s a reason she doesn’t want him in her office, want him around.

  He remains in his hiding place a little longer, then starts exploring the perimeter of the house, his tactical light brightly cutting across damage to the siding where downspouts appear to have been forcefully removed, and along the roofline, more damage, the gutters gone. Copper flashing with a green patina, suggesting the missing downspouts and gutters might have been old oxidizing copper. Through a window by the back door, he can see the burglar-alarm panel. Green light, not armed. He uses the tactical light to tap out a pane of glass, reaches his hand inside, careful not to cut himself, and unlocks the door. He studies the alarm panel. Obsolete, inactive, green light indicates only that power’s on. The house smells musty, the kitchen in shambles, appliances ripped out, tarnished copper plumbing parts scattered over the floor.

  He walks in the direction of the room he’s fairly certain Lamont was in earlier, the beam of light cutting across the dusty hardwood flooring. Footwear impressions everywhere, some of them quite visible, perhaps from people walking through wet grass before entering the house. He crouches, takes a closer look at impressions that have no tread pattern, the familiar teardrop shape left by high-heel shoes. Lamont. Then others. Larger, round-toe, mesh tread pattern, and unmistakable stripe-shaped impression on the heel. Prada or a Prada knockoff. For a confused instant, he wonders if he left them. Not possible. For one thing, he’s still wearing his motorcycle boots. He realizes, uncannily, that he forgot his Prada shoes, left them in his gym bag, which now, according to Nana, has been stolen.

  There are other shoewear impressions, similar in size but different treads, maybe running shoes, hiking boots, maybe left by multiple people. Or maybe the same two people have been in here multiple times, obviously not always wearing the same shoes. He uses the tactical light for side lighting, takes photographs with his iPhone from three different angles, using a nine-millimeter cartridge from his pistol for a scale. He estimates the size of the Prada or Prada-like shoes is a ten, maybe ten and a half, about his size. He looks around some more, shining the light across ornate light fixtures, crown molding, cornices, and castings, probably original to the house. He finds the room he’s looking for, what appears to have been a parlor in the long-ago past.

  Footprints everywhere, some of them appearing to be the same as the ones in other areas of the house, and in the middle of the floor is a bare mattress. Nearby is a thick candle, the wax around the wick melted and warm, and an unopened bottle of red wine, a 2002 Wolf Hill pinot noir, same pinot, even the same vintage that Stump gave him earlier today when he talked to her at Pittinelli’s. The same pinot, same vintage, of the bottle he accidentally left in his gym bag along with his Prada shoes.

  He takes more photographs, returns to the kitchen, and notices something on a countertop that strikes him as peculiar: The torn cardboard and plastic packaging from a disposable camera—a Solo H2O with a flash. Maybe some insurance investigator taking pictures of the damage to the house. But rather unprofessional to use a disposable camera. He opens cupboards, rummages, finds an old stew pot, two foil pans. Careful how he touches them, he places the bottle of wine in the pot, the candle in one foil pan, and the disposable camera package in the other. One last sweep with his light, and he notices a window that isn’t latched, notices disturbed dust on both sides of the glass. More photographs using side lighting, but he doesn’t see any ridge detail, just smudges. A lot of peeling paint has been knocked off the sill and the outside of the sash. Could have been done by someone opening the window from the outside and maybe climbing through it.

  Stump sounds distracted when she answers her phone. When she realizes it’s him, she seems taken aback.

  “I thought I made it clear you’re on your own,” she says au thoritatively, as if she might arrest him.

  “The 2002 Wolf Hill pinot,” he says.

  “You’re calling me at this hour to tell me what you think of the wine?”

  “You said you just got it in. Has anybody bought it? And do any other stores carry it around here?”

  “Why?”

  Her tone is different, as if she’s not alone. An alarm is going off inside him. Be careful what you say.

  “Price shopping.” He thinks fast. “Uncorked it when I got
home. Amazing. Thought I’d get a case of it.”

  “You’re really nervy, you know that?”

  “So I was kicking back, started thinking. Maybe you should try it with me,” he says. “At my place. I cook a mean veal chop.”

  “I don’t believe in eating baby calves,” she says. “And I’ve got no interest in having dinner with you.”

  FOUR

  Nana’s Buick shakes and coughs as the engine turns off, and the driver’s door screeches open like a prehistoric bird.

  Win pockets the key, wonders why Farouk the landlord is sitting on the back steps, lighting a cigarette. Since when does he smoke, and he’s breaking his own rule. No smoking, no lighting matches or grills, not so much as a spark is allowed on the grounds of his nineteenth-century brick apartment building, a former school, impeccably maintained and rented to privileged people. Or in Win’s case, to someone who earns his keep. It’s past midnight.

  “Either you just started a nasty new habit or something’s up,” says Win.

  “An ugly shorty was looking for you,” Farouk says, a dish towel under him, probably so he doesn’t get dirt on his ill-fitting white suit.

  “She calls herself my shorty?” Win says. “Or is that what you’re calling her?”

  “She say it, not me. I don’t know what it is.”

  “Gang slang for girlfriend,” Win says.

  “See! I knew she was a gangster! I knew it! That’s why I’m this upset! I don’t want peoples like that, try very hard to keep things the right way.” In his heavy accent. “These peoples you see in your job, they come here, I have to ask you to move out! My tenants will complain and I will lose my leases!”