'That's preposterous,' he said.
'We softhearted,' Hawk said.
Gino looked at Vinnie.
'Am I to believe this, Vinnie?'
'Yeah.'
'Well, then by all means find her,' Gino said.
'If I learn of her whereabouts I will tell you promptly.'
'Might help if you'd tell us a little more about your business and Julius's,' I said.
Gino stood up slowly, but easily, and started from the room.
'Vinnie will show you out,' he said, and left.
We walked to the front door with Vinnie.
'Don't make a mistake about Gino,' Vinnie said.
'Just 'cause he talks like fucking William F. Buckley. He's got no more feelings than a crocodile.'
'You know where Marty is?' I said.
'No.'
'His wife?'
'Never met the wife. Don't know where she is.'
'Know anything that Gino didn't tell us?'
Vinnie looked at me with surprise.
'Hey,' he said, 'I take his money.'
'Yeah,' I said, 'you do. I apologize.'
'Thank you,' Vinnie said and held the door open.
Hawk and I departed.
CHAPTER 32
Fairhaven is on the old Route 6 in southeastern Massachusetts across the harbor from New Bedford. There's a long bridge that sets down on an island in mid-harbor and then continues on to Fairhaven. If you keep going on Route 6 through Mattapoisett and Marion and Wareham and Onset, after a while you're on Cape Cod.
The high school had been built during a time when people thought learning was important and the buildings in which it was supposed to take place reflected that view. There were a lot of libraries scattered around Massachusetts that had been built during the same period and had the same British Imperial look. The high school, like so many of the libraries, had gotten a little shabbier, as if to reflect current attitudes.
There were a few teachers there who'd been there eighteen years ago, but no one remembered any student named Bibi. A tight-jawed English teacher told me that she tried to forget them as soon as they left her room. And the principal told me he only remembered the bad ones.
'Yearbooks?' I said.
'We keep them in here,' the principal told me.
'If we keep them in the library, the students will deface them.'
'Students are great, aren't they?' I said.
The principal was a cautious man. He didn't commit himself on that. But, once he had assured himself that I wouldn't deface it, he gave me the 1977 Fairhaven High School yearbook, and allowed me to sit on a straight chair in the school secretary's office to read it. I found Bibi's picture easy enough. Except for the acquired scar tissue she still looked like seventeen-year-old Beatrice Costa had looked. Most Congenial. Drama Club 2,3,4. Yearbook Staff 4.
Newspaper 2,3,4. Cheerleader 3,4. Ambition: television news reporter. Quote, 'Hey, Abbey, where's the party.' There was nothing there about marrying Marty Anaheim and getting her nose busted.
I kept looking at the pictures until I found Abigail Olivetti, whose quote was, 'Bibi and I…'
I read the yearbook through for another hour and found nothing else to help me. The school had no record of Beatrice Costa's address or Abigail Olivetti's. The secretary told me that in a way to indicate that the question was stupid.
'We are not running a clearinghouse here,' she told me.
'Probably more of a warehouse,' I said.
'May I use your phone book?'
She handed it to me, and turned back to her desk work with an audible sigh. It was clear that I had no real understanding of her importance, and the pressing nature of her work. Not everyone can file detention slips.
There were seventeen Costas listed in Fairhaven, and one Olivetti. I wrote down the phone numbers and addresses and gave the phone book and the yearbook back to the secretary, and gave her my full-voltage smile. It was the smile that normally made them take off their glasses and let down their hair. I waited. Nothing happened. The woman was obviously frigid.
