The Soul Collectors

24

When Darby reached the end of the stairs, she turned the corner for the ground-floor unit. She didn't knock yet. She had one small chore left.

She opened the cellar door and took the narrow set of steps. She reached the bottom and, ducking her head, moved underneath the exposed beams and pipes, past the community washer and dryer, to the end where the big plastic garbage cans that stored a week's worth of trash were kept.

From the bag she removed the folded sheets of paper wrapped in paper towels. She tucked them in her inside jacket pocket, snapped it shut and then dumped her trash.

Now she wanted to examine her jacket.

She had only two in her closet: this Schott leather racer, which she bought for her motorcycle, and a denim jacket Coop had somehow convinced her to buy, saying that they had come back into style. She spread out her jacket on top of the washing machine, where the light was the strongest, and started prodding the fabric and thick black leather with her fingers, searching for a tracking unit. They made them small now, about the size of a hearing-aid battery. A Massachusetts state trooper once told her about how they had used a tracking device to follow a Boston drug dealer supplying cocaine and heroin to the eastern part of the state. The dealer knew the troopers and local cops were following him, and so would drive to multiple parking garages to switch vehicles. It worked — until an undercover cop managed to get his hands on the long winter overcoat the dealer always wore, cut the fabric along the seam on the bottom of the coat where it wouldn't be noticed and slipped a tracking unit inside. The dealer could change cars as many times as he liked. The tracking unit sent out a signal to the laptops installed in state police cruisers. Where he went, they went.

She doubted she was being watched. Installing cameras down here would be a monumental pain in the ass. A listening device, maybe. This basement was small, and old, with lots of hidden cracks and crevices. Drop a bug and run. Cameras took time. First you had to find a place that offered the best view. Then you had to figure out where to hide it. Then you had to install it. That required moving things around. Drilling. Hooking up power packs or wiring the camera into an electrical system. Too much noise, too much commotion. Upstairs, inside her home, they'd have privacy, but not down here. Someone might decide to dump their trash and then the questions would start.

She had already searched the bottom half of her jacket and found nothing. Maybe she was being paranoid.

Maybe not. A quarter-inch of stitching had been removed on the right-hand corner of the Schott tag. You had to look closely in order to see it. Not a design defect. She had purchased the jacket, brand new, at the beginning of the autumn season.

She didn't have tweezers on her so she fished a finger inside, ripping more stitching, and felt something hard and cold. It took her a moment to wrangle it free.

Two small discs, each the size of a watch battery but thinner, like a wafer. A tiny green light glowed on one. The other one had to be the battery.

She tucked the tracking device inside her pocket for the moment, then went back upstairs to the lobby. She had to knock on the door a few times before someone answered.

The person who did was a tall and lanky blond-haired college boy who looked as if he had stepped out of the pages of a J. Crew catalogue: tight-fitting jeans, polished black oxfords and a white shirt underneath a dark blue cardigan — Tim something, one of the two guys who rented the place. Nice kid, shy. Spent a lot of time on his hair to give it that messy, bed-head look. He came from some small town in Colorado and went to Suffolk University, which was conveniently located right across the street.

He seemed stunned to see her standing there.

'Hey, sup there, Darby.'

She smiled. 'How's it going, Tim?'

'Great, just great.' Then his face grew serious. He stepped out into the hall and shut the door behind him to block out the music. 'Are you here about the noise? I didn't think anyone was home. Vin and Wendy said they were going to be gone for the month — Switzerland or something — and Sue upstairs, she said she wasn't going to be home tonight, so I invited some — '

'Relax,' she said, and smiled. 'I just wanted to know if I could borrow your phone for a minute. I lost my cell.'

'Sure, no problem.'

He dug into his front pocket. The music had turned mellow and moody, some guy pining away because of a broken heart and lost love.

Tim handed her his cell. She dialled 911 and gave the male dispatcher her name and address.

'There's an SUV parked at the end of my street, on the corner of Temple and Cambridge,' she said. 'Looks like a Chevy Tahoe, either black or navy-blue, and I think it has tinted windows. I keep seeing these college kids walking up to the car and exchanging money for tiny baggies holding what looks like heroin. Could you send a squad car over?… Great, thanks so much.'

She hung up, handed the phone back to Tim and said, 'The bedroom that faces the street? You mind if I go in there and watch the show?'

'No, not at all. That's mine.' He opened the door. 'A real-live drug bust. Cool. Haven't seen one of those before.'

He took her through a living room with beanbag chairs and hand-me-down sofas with dented cushions. The built-in bookcase shelves around the fireplace were bare, coated in dust. The party had moved to the kitchen, where a keg had been set up. A gaggle of preening college girls — there were five of them — either stood or sat at the table playing quarters with a guy she assumed to be Tim's roommate, a smug pretty boy who no doubt coasted through life on his good looks.

The girls didn't like the way he shifted his attention away from them.

'Well, hello there,' he said, offering his hand. 'I'm Timmy's roommate, Gregg.'

'Darby. Nice to meet you.'

'I've seen you before.'

'I live upstairs.'

'Oh. I was pretty sure you were a model.' His smile was as perfect and charming as his face. 'You're definitely pretty enough to model swimsuits and stuff.'

'You've got me confused with someone else,' she said, and, looking back at Tim, nodded with her chin to get moving.

Tim's small bedroom was surprisingly neat for a college student, the walls stuffed with posters and photographs, some framed, of Boston Red Sox players and different ball parks from across the country.

'Ted Williams,' she said, pointing to a signed picture. 'You've got good taste.'

'Best there ever was and ever will be.'

Darby moved to the corner window. The SUV was still there.

'Can I get you a beer?' Tim asked.

'I'm all set, thanks. I won't be here that long.'

Tim lingered close by, looking anxious.

'You don't have to stay here,' she said. 'Go back to the party.'

'Nah, that's okay. Those girls are interested in Gregg, anyway.'

'He strikes me as sort of a douche.'

Tim chuckled. 'He sort of is. And the girls love it for some reason. The more he shits on them, the harder they fight.'

'That will change after college, trust me.' She couldn't see anything behind those tinted windows. How many people were in there?

'He's going to move to Hollywood,' Tim said. 'Going to be a famous actor.'

'He'll wind up doing soft-core porn. If he's lucky, he'll find some rich cougar looking for arm candy and shack up with her.'

'What's going on with that guy you hang out with, what's his name, the one who looks like Tom Brady?'

'Coop.'

'Right, Coop. Good guy. Where's he been? I haven't seen him around.'

'He moved to London three months ago.'

'You guys still, you know, dating or whatever?'

'We never dated,' she said, and the night he left flashed through her mind: Coop running back through the rain and kissing her. He called her later, from the airport, and he told her how he really felt about her. Now, each time they spoke on the phone, he didn't bring up what had happened between them.

You haven't either, a voice added.

A Boston squad car, lights on but sirens off, came to an abrupt stop in front of the SUV. Two patrolmen jumped out, leaving their doors hanging open as they drew their weapons. Another squad car pulled up alongside the SUV, blocking the driver's-side door.

Showtime. Darby moved away from the window.

'Thanks, Tim.'

'You taking off?'

She nodded. 'Got some work I need to do.'

'Before you go, I was wondering… ' He swallowed, then swiped a hand across his mouth. 'I was thinking maybe we could grab a beer together, or something.'

Darby smiled. 'Tim, I'm flattered. If I was your age, I'd take you up on that offer in a heartbeat.'

The hope crumbled in his eyes, and his pale face reddened with embarrassment. 'I wasn't asking you, like, out on a date or anything. I thought we could, you know, hang out or something.'

'Hang out,' Darby said. 'Sure. Absolutely.'

Tim, ever the gentleman, walked her to the front door. Even held it open for her.

Darby said just loud enough for Gregg to hear: I'll call you next week, Tim, and we'll set something up.'

She gave him a quick hug and a peck on the cheek before leaving.