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.
Gloriaâs wheelchair loomed in G&Wâs doorway. She was holding out keys, shaking them like Christmas bells. âTake the Ford in the shop. Seven sixteen.â
âLocation?â
âGot the police scanner going and a couple good drivers out lookinâ. Guyâs whoâll keep their mouths shut. Iâll send specifics soon as I can.â
âSure you donât want cops?â
âThis stays in the company, Carlotta.â
If the music jams the bugs, I thought.
I said, âSee you.â
âBe careful.â
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 cabâs 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.
âCarlotta?â
âHeading up Harvard Ave., squeezing the yellows. Almost to Comm.â While I drove I wrestled with my coat buttons. Thereâs a period of adjustment to getting long-haul comfy in a cab. I punched buttons and moved levers; if I remembered correctly, 716 didnât offer much in the way of heat.
âGood girl. Keep it movinâ,â Gloria said. I could hear the music over the box. I wondered what the cabbies thought about Gloriaâs sudden conversion to rap and rock.
âLook,â I said, âyou call any of the places Marvin mightâve stopped?â
âCarlotta, my brother is not pumping iron at Goldâs Gym. He didnât 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, theyâd better tell me the truth.â
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 Gloriaâs voice: âI 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. Didnât even get out of his car. Just split, damn him.â
I didnât blame him. Why ask for trouble?
âIâm on it,â I sang out. As I spoke, I flipped off the radio, convincing myself Iâd need total concentration on the upcoming stretch of road. The Jamaicawayâs speed limit is thirty. Most drivers start having qualms at twenty, thatâs 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 didnât want to speculate on Marvinâs fate, didnât 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 theyâre no longer routinely replaced. No moonlight to aid my search. I flipped on my high beams along with the radio.
âAnything else?â I asked.
âKeep your radio on, dammit, girl. Nothinâ. Guy took off before he could be sure what he saw was