Hardware

Hardware by Linda Barnes Page A

Book: Hardware by Linda Barnes Read Free Book Online
Authors: Linda Barnes
Hackney Bureau would close her down for using an ex-con driver, the Hackney Bureau would do just that.
    I made it from my house to the bumpy street fronting the Mass. Pike in seventeen minutes, which is damn good time.
    Gloria’s wheelchair loomed in G&W’s doorway. She was holding out keys, shaking them like Christmas bells. “Take the Ford in the shop. Seven sixteen.”
    â€œLocation?”
    â€œGot the police scanner going and a couple good drivers out lookin’. Guy’s who’ll keep their mouths shut. I’ll send specifics soon as I can.”
    â€œSure you don’t want cops?”
    â€œThis stays in the company, Carlotta.”
    If the music jams the bugs, I thought.
    I said, “See you.”
    â€œBe careful.”
    Go find a convicted felon in a missing cab somewhere in Franklin Park in the wee hours. Take your gun.
    And be careful.

ELEVEN
    I snapped on the radio as soon as I slammed the cab’s door, before Gloria could possibly have wheeled into position behind the phone console. I set it on full-band, then backed off to two-way. If Gloria wanted to risk sharing our conversation with others, that would be her call.
    â€œCarlotta?”
    â€œHeading up Harvard Ave., squeezing the yellows. Almost to Comm.” While I drove I wrestled with my coat buttons. There’s a period of adjustment to getting long-haul comfy in a cab. I punched buttons and moved levers; if I remembered correctly, 716 didn’t offer much in the way of heat.
    â€œGood girl. Keep it movin’,” Gloria said. I could hear the music over the box. I wondered what the cabbies thought about Gloria’s sudden conversion to rap and rock.
    â€œLook,” I said, “you call any of the places Marvin might’ve stopped?”
    â€œCarlotta, my brother is not pumping iron at Gold’s Gym. He didn’t stop for a nightcap. I have dialed every bar he hangs his sorry ass in, and those bartenders know that if they want any cabs picking up their drunks, they’d better tell me the truth.”
    Traffic eased after the Purity Supreme. I raced through Coolidge Corner and Brookline Village, one eye peeled for traffic patrols.
    A burst of static ushered in Gloria’s voice: “I got something. Woodsy area past the old clubhouse. Man thinks he saw tire tracks leaving the road, possibly the shadow of a car, all topsy-turvy. Guy sounds like he might be drunk. Not sure if he should call the cops. Didn’t even get out of his car. Just split, damn him.”
    I didn’t blame him. Why ask for trouble?
    â€œI’m on it,” I sang out. As I spoke, I flipped off the radio, convincing myself I’d need total concentration on the upcoming stretch of road. The Jamaicaway’s speed limit is thirty. Most drivers start having qualms at twenty, that’s how bad the street is, curving like an imitation mountain trail around Jamaica Pond. The mush storm and subsequent freeze had opened fissures in the pavement the size of craters. I braked from fifty to forty-five, nursing the accelerator. No good bottoming out in a pothole and losing the back axle.
    Road conditions were my excuse for radio silence. I didn’t want to speculate on Marvin’s fate, didn’t want to hear what Gloria was fielding on her scanner. Car overturned in Franklin Park, close to the Franklin Hills Project. Gloria would blame herself forever if something awful happened to Marvin.
    The road branched left, then straightened for a short run after the pond. I swung left at the rotary. No traffic, no cops, so I blasted over the bridge into the park.
    No approaching sirens shrieked. The streetlamps in the park get vandalized so often they’re no longer routinely replaced. No moonlight to aid my search. I flipped on my high beams along with the radio.
    â€œAnything else?” I asked.
    â€œKeep your radio on, dammit, girl. Nothin’. Guy took off before he could be sure what he saw was

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