Looking for Rachel Wallace

“Not much,” I said. “If it checks out, he’s got an alibi for all the time that he needs.”

“Run it past us,” Belson said. “We won’t mention you, and we’ll see if the story stays the same.”

I told Belson what English had told me. The cop I didn’t know was writing a few things in a notebook. When I was through, I got out of the Plymouth and into my own car. Through the open window I said to Belson, “Anything surfaces, I’d appreciate hearing.”

“Likewise,” Belson said.

I rolled up the window and backed out and turned down the drive. As I pulled onto the street I saw Belson and the other cop get out and start toward the front door. The small drift of snow that had blocked the driveway when I’d arrived was gone. Man in English’s position was not without resources.

19

The main entrance to the Boston Public Library used to face Copley Square across Dartmouth Street. There was a broad exterior stairway and inside there was a beautiful marble staircase leading up to the main reading room with carved lions and high-domed ceilings. It was always a pleasure to go there. It felt like a library and looked like a library, and even when I was going in there to look up Duke Snider’s lifetime batting average, I used to feel like a scholar.

Then they grafted an addition on and shifted the main entrance to Boylston Street. Faithful to the spirit, the architect had probably said. But making a contemporary statement, I bet he said. The addition went with the original like Tab goes with pheasant. Now, even if I went into study the literary influence of Eleanor of Aquitaine, I felt like I’d come out with a pound of hamburger and a loaf of Wonder bread.

By the big glass doors a young woman in Levi’s and rabbit fur coat told me she was trying to raise money to get a bus back to Springfield. She had one tooth missing and a bruise on her right cheekbone. I didn’t give her anything.

I went through the new part to the old and walked around a bit and enjoyed it, and then I went to the periodical section and started looking at the Globe on microfilm to see what I could find out about the Belmont Vigilance Committee. I was there all day. Next to me a fragrant old geezer in a long overcoat slept with his head resting on the microfilm viewer in front of him. The overcoat was buttoned up to his neck even though the room was hot. No one bothered him.

At noon I went out and went across the street to a Chinese restaurant and ate some Peking ravioli and some mushu pork for lunch. When I went back for the afternoon session the old man was gone, but the broad with the missing tooth was still working the entrance. At five o’clock I had seven pages of notes, and my eyes were starting to cross. If I weren’t so tough, I would have thought about reading glasses. I wonder how Bogie would have looked with specs. Here’s looking at you, four-eyes. I shut off the viewer, returned the last microfilm cassette, put on my coat, and went out to a package store, where I bought two bottles of Asti Spumante.

I was driving up to Smithfield to have dinner with Susan, and the traffic northbound was stationary a long way back onto Storrow Drive. I deked and dived up over the Hill and down across Cambridge Street past the Holiday Inn, behind Mass. General and got to the traffic light at Leverett Circle almost as quick as the people who just sat in line on Storrow. The radio traffic-reporter told me from his helicopter that there was a “fender-bender” on the bridge, so I turned off onto 93 and went north that way. A magician with the language—fender- bender, wow! It was six when I turned off of Route 128 at the Main Street-Smithfield exit. Out in the subs most of the snow was still white. There were candles in all the windows and wreaths on all the doors, and some people had Santas on their rooftops, and some people had colored lights on their shrubbery. One house had a drunken Santa clutching a bottle of Michelob under the disapproving stare of a red-nosed reindeer. Doubtless the antichrist lurks in the subs as well.

Susan’s house had a spotlight on the front and a sprig of white pine hanging on the brass doorknocker. I parked in her driveway and walked to her front door, and she opened it before I got there.

“Fa-la-la-la-la,” I said.

She leaned against the door jamb and put one hand on her hip.

“Hey, Saint Nick,” she said, “you in town long?”

“Trouble with you Jews,” I said, “is that you mock our Christian festivals.”

She gave me a kiss and took the wine, and I followed her in. There was a fire in her small living room and on the coffee table some caponata and triangles of Syrian bread. There was a good cooking smell mixed with the wood-smoke. I sniffed. “Onions,” I said, “and peppers.”

“Yes,” she said, “and mushrooms. And rice pilaf. And when the fire burns down and the coals are right, you can grill two steaks, and we’ll eat.”

“And then?” I said.

“Then maybe some Wayne King albums on the stereo and waltz till dawn.”

“Can we dip?”

“Certainly, but you have to wait for the music. No dipping before it starts. Want a beer?”

“I know where,” I said.

“I’ll say.”

“White wine and soda for you?”

She nodded. I got a bottle of Beck’s out of her poppy-red refrigerator and poured white wine from a big green jug into a tall glass. I put in ice, soda, and a twist of lime, and gave it to her. We went back into the living room and sat on her couch, and I put my arm around her shoulder and laid my head back against the couch and closed my eyes.

“You look like the dragon won today,” she said.

“No, didn’t even see one. I spent the day in the BPL looking at microfilm.”