Bruce DeSilva - Cliff Walk

“Cool.”

“On the way home, I’m gonna switch to the Bigs. Big Bill Dolson, Big Pete Pearson, Big Time Sarah…”

“I never thought to sort them by weight class.”

I opened my mouth to say something more, but Claus was back with the coffee and cheesecake, and I saw no need to make him a party to my imminent rejection. Yolanda scooped a bit of the cheesecake into her mouth, closed her eyes, and went, “Mmmm.” I wanted to hear that sound again, but without cheesecake in the picture.

“So listen,” I said when Claus was gone, “Buddy Guy’s at the House of Blues in Boston a week from Saturday. Why don’t we go?”

“Not happenin’, Mulligan.”

“You don’t like Buddy Guy?”

“You just don’t know. I adore Buddy Guy. It’s you I’ve got a problem with.”

“Problem?”

“I told you before, Mulligan. I’m not into white boys.”

“It’s been a long time since I was a boy.”

“I’ll give you that, but you can’t outgrow being white.”

“Didn’t I tell you? I’m black Irish.”

“Doesn’t count,” she said, but her eyes were dancing.

“I’ve got rhythm, too.”

“Yeah, right,” she said. “You’re a regular James Brown.”

“We have so much in common, Yolanda.”

“This I’ve got to hear.”

“There’s the blues, for starters. We both dig Buddy Guy. And we’re city kids, both of us raised in one of America’s throbbing metropolises.”

“I thought you grew up here.”

“That I did.”

“Providence throbs?”

“Daily.”

“I haven’t noticed any throbbing.”

A thought popped into my head, but I suppressed it before it escaped. Instead, I said, “Buddy Guy’s from Chicago, too.”

“Actually, he was born in Louisiana.”

“Well, yeah. But his club’s in Chicago.”

“Before I moved here,” she said, “I used to hang out at his joint all the time. Don’t hear music like that anywhere else. Sometimes Buddy even showed up to jam.”

“You’re talking about Legends,” I said.

“Damn straight.” She eyed the colossal coffee stain. “Maybe you’re smarter than you look.”

“I’d almost have to be.”

She smiled at that, but part of her was still in Chicago. “The chitlins and cornbread at Legends were as good as my mama’s.”

I’d never met a chitlin, but it seemed unwise to bring that up. Instead, I played another card.

“My favorite poet’s from Chicago. She’s West Side, just like you.”

“Gwendolyn Brooks?”

“Patricia Smith.”

Yolanda looked skeptical, so I tossed out a few lines:

I always shudder when I pray,

so your name must be a prayer.

Saying your name colors my mouth,

frees loose this river, changes my skin,

turns my spine to string. I pray all the time now.

Amen.

“My, my,” she said. “Aren’t you full of surprises. What next? Maybe warble a verse or two of ‘Lift Every Voice and Sing’?”

“I can if you want me to,” I said, “but Claus would ask us to leave.”

“Better wait till we finish dessert.”

“You know,” I said, “Patricia reads in Boston every now and then. Next time, we should go see her.”

“Got a thing for sistas from Chi-Town, do you?”

“Just two of them.”

“Maybe you should ask her out.”

“She’s married.”

“So are you, last heard.”

“Yeah, but mine’s all over except for the lawyering.”

She thought about that for a moment while I idly compared her with Dorcas and almost laughed out loud.

“So Buddy Guy’s in Boston next week,” she said.

“Yes, he is.”

“Buddy’s no joke.”

“And I have two tickets.”

“Okay, let’s do this.”

“Great.”

“But we’re just going together. We’re not goin ’ together.”

“Of course not.”

“So you better keep that mouth and those hands to yourself.”

Not the final disposition of the case, I hoped. After a change of venue, perhaps she might entertain a plea bargain.

I was on my way back to the office when Peggi called.

“I didn’t find anything weird on his desktop,” she said.

“What about the laptop?”

“He left it behind when he headed out a few minutes ago for a meeting at the Rhode Island Hospital. I’ve got it open in front of me, but it’s password protected.”

“Try his birthday?”

“Yeah. Forward and backward. Also tried his wedding anniversary, his wife’s name, his kids’ names, his dog’s name, and all their birthdays. Except for the dog’s. I don’t know that one.”

“Well, it’s not something random,” I said. “He would have picked a name or number that means something him. Does he have a boat?”

“Yeah. The Caped Crusader. I tried it already.”

“His wife’s maiden name?”

“Tried it.”

“Siblings?”

“Tried them, too.”

“Parents’ names?”

“Don’t know what they were.”

“What about his middle name?”

“It’s Bruce. Already tried it.”

“Charles Bruce Wayne?”

“Yeah.”

“That explains the boat. Try ‘Batman.’”

She chuckled and said, “Didn’t think of that… Nope. Doesn’t work… Hold on a sec.” She put down the phone, and it was several minutes before she picked it up again. “I tried Robin, Batgirl, Joker, Penguin, Riddler, Catwoman, Poison Ivy, Two-Face, Commissioner Gordon, Gotham, and Batmobile. None of them worked.”

“Try Alfred.”

“Oh, right. The butler… Nope.”

“Dark Knight?”

“Bingo! I’ll go through his files and call you back.”

An hour later, she did.

“I didn’t find any videos at all,” she said. “He must keep them on a home computer, or maybe a portable hard drive.”

“Or maybe I was mistaken, Peggi. Go home, cuddle with Brady, and try to forget the whole thing.”

A state police cruiser, its lights flashing, had the entrance to the driveway blocked, so I pulled off the country road and parked Secretariat in weeds beside a rusted barbed-wire fence. Gloria Costa and I had smelled pig excrement a half mile down the road, and as we got out of the car, it was all we could do not to retch.

“Scalici lives here?” Gloria asked.

“He does. With his wife and two young daughters.”

“How do they stand it?”

“I don’t know. Guess they’ve gotten used to it.”

I fired up a cigar, and Gloria gave me a dirty look.

“That,” she said, “isn’t helping the situation any.”

“Is for me,” I said.

Gloria, one of the Dispatch ’s few remaining photographers, had lost some weight during her comeback from a vicious assault last year. Her emotional recovery was still a work in progress, but physically she looked strong now, with curves reemerging in all the right places. Except for the black, pirate-style patch over her right eye, she resembled a young Sharon Stone.

“They gave me a glass eye, but I think it makes me look deranged,” she’d told me. I told her the eye patch was hot. I would have been tempted if I didn’t know Gloria had started seeing somebody-and if I weren’t looking to lawyer up.

Gloria was the best one-eyed photographer I knew, better than most shooters with two. I opened the back of the Bronco, and she fetched her camera bag. Cops can be squeamish about citizens carrying concealed weapons, so I left the Colt locked in the glove box.

As we approached the driveway, a trooper rolled down the window of the cruiser, looked us up and down, and said, “The Dispatch, right?”