The Snake Tattoo by Linda Barnes

found the key to his desk drawer, which made me feel dumb. I used it to lock up.
    I was tempted to drop by the Emerson’s office to check out the tuition rates. I wondered what it would cost to send Paolina. But on the way I looked around at the little ladies and gents marching to class with their designer labels and ninety-buck sneakers and carefully coiffed hair. There wasn’t a Hispanic visible. I thought maybe Paolina would do better in Cambridge. Her school is tough, but so is she.
    I headed back to Boston in a cold, gray drizzle that slicked the pavement. Despite the weather, the city looked great from far away. There’s a place on Route 2 where you can see all the downtown skyscrapers. You crest a hill in Arlington and there it sits: a toy model of Boston. Usually it’s in color, but today it looked like a black-and-white photograph, gun-metal building blocks stacked against a pale gray sky.
    Closer up, the streets looked dirty. Dead leaves and brown snow clogged the gutters.
    I went home, fed the bird, and fixed myself a toasted ham-and-cheese on rye. I turned on the radio and sat at the kitchen table to eat and deal with the mail. On WERS, Rory Block sang:
    â€œCan’t tell my future, Lord, I can’t tell my past.”
    T.C. gets most of my mail since he’s the one listed in the phone book. Today he got two begging letters from Presidential candidates, one Republican, one Democrat. I don’t know how the Republicans got his name. He also received an urgent personal message from Ed McMahon.
    I got an envelope with Mooney’s address on the back flap, scrawled in his handwriting, thank God, so it wasn’t from his mother. Inside was a check for two hundred bucks, marked “retainer” in that little space they leave for memos. I was going to rip it up, but then I decided it would be much more satisfactory to hand it back to him—once I’d found his hooker.

CHAPTER 9
    I fumbled in the depths of my shoulder bag, locating seven lipsticks and a fistful of ballpoint pens before grabbing the right cylinder. I don’t carry a full-sized flashlight—my purse weighs a ton already—but it’s not some dinky toy that can barely light up a keyhole either.
    I focused it on Valerie Haslam’s photo, propped on the dashboard of the cab, and memorized her flawless skin, tiny nose, deep-set eyes. If I concentrated hard enough, I could almost forget about impending frostbite.
    Squirming lower in the front seat, I bent my left leg and stuck my sneakered foot high on the dash. It wasn’t comfy, but it was different. I checked to make sure my flannel shirt was buttoned to the chin and my down vest zipped all the way up. I wiggled my toes. I wasn’t sure the baby one on the right foot was moving.
    The good news: I nabbed one of Gloria’s best cabs. When I flicked on the engine, warm air poured out of the heating vents.
    The bad news: I waited two hours for the cab, so it was well past one in the morning with no sight or sound of Janine, the hooker, or Valerie, the runaway.
    Mrs. Haslam hadn’t called me off, so I assumed the girl was still missing. On the other hand, Mr. Haslam hadn’t given me a buzz either. Probably Mrs. H. had tossed my phone number in the wastebasket as soon as I’d hung up.
    I was parked near the same Combat Zone alley, my home away from home. Gangs of tough young Orientals patrolled the street corners, speaking words I couldn’t understand. White-clad Danish sailors passed by—boyish, cold, and eager. One pounded on the hood of my cab. The sudden noise startled me, but he was just making a point to two gents sharing a bottle in a brown paper bag. Over on Washington Street, cars honked and gunned their motors. A saxophone player practiced the same mistakes, over and over. I didn’t know the song.
    I hadn’t really minded waiting for the cab. Leroy, Gloria’s baby brother, had been visiting. Gloria has these