Looking for Rachel Wallace

30

The first cops to show were cruiser people—three cars’ worth despite the snow emergency—and one of them was, Foley, the young cop with the ribbons and the wise-guy face. They came up the attic stairs with guns drawn, directed by the frightened maid who’d called them. He was first. He knew who Rachel was the first look he took. “Son of a bitch,” he said. “You found her.” His partner with the belly squatted down beside English and felt his neck. Then he and another prowlie half-lifted, half-helped Momma English off her son’s body. While the prowlie held her, the pot-bellied cop got down on his hands and knees and listened to English’s chest. He looked at the young cop and shook his head.

“Gonzo,” he said. “So’s the horse at the bottom.” He nodded at Mingo, still sprawled at the foot of the attic stairs. They must have had to climb over him. “Two in the head,” he said. He stood up and looked at me. I still had my arms around Rachel. “What the hell you crying for?” he said. “Think how these guys feel.”

Foley spun around. “Shut up,” he said. “I know why he’s crying. You don’t. Close your fucking mouth up.”

The older cop shook his head and didn’t say anything.

Foley said to me, “You ace these two guys?”

I nodded.

Foley said, “Chief will want to talk with you about all this. Her, too.”

“Not now,” I said, “now I’m taking her home.”

Foley looked at me for maybe thirty seconds. “Yeah,” he said. “Take her out of here.”

The cop with the belly said, “For crissake, the chief will fry our ass. This clown blasts two guys, one of them Lawrence English, and he walks while we stand around. Foley, we got two stiffs here.”

I said to Foley, “I need a ride.”

He nodded. “Come on.”

His partner said, “Foley, are you fucking crazy?”

Foley put his face close to the older cop’s face. “Benny,” he said, “you’re okay. You’re not a bad cop. But you don’t know how to act, and you’re too old to learn.”

“Chief will have your badge for this and mine for letting you do it.”

Foley said, “Ain’t your fault, Benny. You couldn’t stop me.”

Mom English said, “If you let that murderer escape and allow that corrupt degenerate to go with him, I’ll have every one of your badges.”

There were four other cops besides Foley and Benny. One of them had gone downstairs to call in. One was supporting Mrs. English. The other two stood uncertainly. One of them had his gun out, although it hung at his side and he’d probably forgotten he had it in his hand.

“They murdered my son,” she said. Her voice was flat and heavy. “She has vomited filth and corruption long enough. She has to be stopped. We would have stopped her if he hadn’t interfered. And you must. She is a putrefaction, a cancerous foul sore.” The voice stayed flat but a trickle of saliva came from the left corner of her mouth. She breathed heavily through her nose. “She has debauched and destroyed innocent women and lured them into unspeakable acts.” Her nose began to run a little.

I said, “Foley, we’re going.”

He nodded and pushed past Benny. We followed. Rachel still had the blanket around her.

Momma shrieked at us, “She stole my daughter.”

One of the other cops said, “Jesus Christ, Fole.”

Foley looked at him, and his eyes were hot. Then he went down the attic stairs, and Rachel and I went with him. In the front hall on the first floor the two maids stood, silent and fidgety. The cop on the phone was talking to someone at headquarters and as we went past he glanced up and widened his eyes.

“Where the hell you going?” he said.

Foley shook his head.

“Chief says he’s on his way, Fole.”

We kept going. On the porch I picked Rachel up—she was still in her bare feet—and carried her through the floundering waist-deep snow. The cruisers were there in front with the blue lights rotating.

Foley said, “First one.”

We got in—Foley in front, me and Rachel in back. He hit the siren, and we pulled out.

“Where?” Foley said.

“Boston,” I said. “Marlborough Street, Arlington Street end.”

Foley left the siren wailing all the way, and with no traffic but cops and plows we made it in fifteen minutes. He pulled into Marlborough Street from Arlington and went up it the wrong way two doors to my apartment.

“You ain’t here when we want you,” Foley said, “and I’ll be working next week in a carwash.”

I got out with Rachel. I had been holding her all the way.

I looked at Foley and nodded once.

“Yeah,” he said.

He spun the wheels pulling away, slammed the car into snowbanks on both sides of the street making a U-turn and spun the wheels some more as he skidded out into Arlington.

I carried Rachel up to my front door and leaned on my bell till Susan said, “Who is it?” over the intercom.

I said, “Me,” never at a loss for repartee.

She buzzed and I pushed and in we went. I called the elevator with my elbow and punched my floor with the same elbow and banged on my door with the toe of my boot. Susan opened it. She saw Rachel.

“Oh,” she said. “Isn’t that good!”

We went in and I put Rachel down on the couch.

I said, “Would you like a drink?”

She said, “Yes, very much.”

“Bourbon, okay?”

“Yes, on the rocks, please.”

She still had her gray blanket tightly wrapped around her. I went out in the kitchen and got a bottle of Wild Turkey and three glasses and a bucket of ice and came back out. I poured each of us a drink. Susan had kept the fire going and it went well with the Wild Turkey. Each of us drank.

“You need a doctor?” I said.

“No,” she said. “I don’t think so. I was not abused in that sense.”

“Would you like to talk about it?” Susan said.

“Yes,” Rachel said, “I think I would. I shall talk about it and probably write about it. But right now I should very much like to bathe and put on clean clothes, and then perhaps eat something.” She drank some bourbon. “I’ve not,” she said, “been eating particularly well lately.” She smiled slightly.

“Sure,” I said. “Spenser’s the name, cooking’s the game.”

I started to get up. “No,” she said. “Stay here a minute, both of you, while I finish this drink.”

And so we sat—me and Rachel on the couch, Susan in the wing chair—and sipped the bourbon and looked at the fire. There was no traffic noise and it was quiet except for the hiss of the fire and the tick of the old steeple clock with wooden works that my father had given me years ago.

Rachel finished her drink. “I would like another,” she said, “to take into the bath with me.”

I mixed it for her.

She said, “Thank you.”

Susan said, “If you want to give me your old clothes, I can put them through the wash for you. Lancelot here has all the latest conveniences.”

Rachel shook her head. “No,” she said. “I haven’t any clothes. They took them. I have only the blanket.”

Susan said, “Well, I’ve got some things you can wear.”

Rachel smiled. “Thank you,” she said.

Susan showed Rachel to the bathroom door. “There are clean towels,” Susan said. “While he was out I was being domestic.”

Rachel went in and closed the door. I heard the water begin to run in the tub. Susan walked over to me on the couch.

“How are you?” she said.

“Okay,” I said.

“Was it bad?”

“Yeah,” I said.

“Was it English?”

I nodded. She rubbed my head—the way you tousle a dog.

“What was that old song?” she said. “ ‘Joltin’ Joe DiMaggio, we want you on our side.‘”

“Yeah, except around here we used to sing, ‘Who’s better than his brother Joe? Dominic DiMaggio.’ ”

She rubbed my head again, “Well, anyway,” she said. “I want you on my side, cutie.”

“You’re just saying that,” I said, “because DiMaggio’s not around.”

“That’s true,” she said.