The operator said, "May I have your telephone number, sir?"-they never said phone at telephone business offices. I gave her the mystery number. She said, "I'll connect you," and in a moment a female voice said, "Mrs. Foye. May I help you?"
"You're damned right," I said. "This is Mr. Phunuff' -I turned my head and blurred the name-"and I am getting all sorts of mail from you people that doesn't belong to me. What have you got there for an address, anyway?"
"I'm very sorry, Mr. Poitras," she said. "What kind of mail are you getting?"
"I'm getting the kind I don't want and I'm about damned ready to call the DPU. Now what the hell kind of address have you got for me?"
"We have you at Three Sixty Beacon Street, Mr. Poitras."
"Yeah, that's right," I said, millified, "and you got my named spelled right? P-O-I-T-R-A-S?"
"Yes, that's what we have-Mitchell Robert Poitras."
"Well, then, how come I'm getting all this stuff in the mail?"
"Sir, if you could just tell me what exactly you are getting… ?"
"Yeah, right, well, look-Mrs. Foye, is it?-here's what I'll do. I'll package it up and send it all to you. Are you in Government Center?"
"Yes. Six Bowdoin Square."
"Well, I'll send it in and you'll see for yourself."
"If you'd…" and I hung up. Mitchell Poitras, 360 Beacon Street. I probably could have got Cataldo to get the address for me, or Frank Belson in Boston, but it's always good to know you can still do it on your own if you need to. It was a lot better than bullying a seventeenyear-old kid. Ma Bell was a worthy opponent.
Three Sixty Beacon would be somewhere around Fairfield or Gloucester. Condos: walnut paneling, skylights, private gardens, deeded parking, working fireplaces, gourmet kitchens. Amy had not lowered her standard any by moving in with Mitchell Poitras.
It was raining harder as I drove into Boston. The convertible roof on my MG was aging and some of the snaps were gone. Water leaked inoffensively around the snapless gaps and trickled amiably down the doorframe. Might as well save Amy Gurwitz, too, while I was in the neighborhood. They could make honor roll together. I couldn't ever remember making honor roll. Probably why my roof leaked.
Chapter 6
There are few city places handsomer than Back Bay, Boston. The long rows of brick town houses with their idiosyncratic rooflines and their black iron fences out front marched along the dead-flat landfill streets from the Common to Kenmore Square in parallel with the river. There were brownstone fronts, and occasionally gray granite fronts, and, rarely, marble fronts. But the dominant impression of these three- and four- and five-story contiguous buildings was red brick, softened by age and glazed with the cold November rain. There were trees and shrubs, and flower beds in the minuscule front yards. They were somber and wet now, but on summer days they frolicked with color and growth. Even in a cold wet rain, with the day getting darker, it was very nice there. Almost all the dog droppings were in the gutter. Three eighty-three was just past Fairfield, on the left, with a low wrought-iron picket fence and a gate. What was probably a magnolia tree stood in dark outline waiting for the spring. Three granite steps led to the doorway. There were double glass doors, and past them a small foyer with flagstone floor and a white wooden door with raised panels. I rang. Water dripped off the slate roof three stories up. The inside door opened and a women looked at me through the glass of the outer doors. She wore an ankle-length long-sleeved black dress with white fur cuffs and white fur at the collar. Her hair was blonder than a lemon and done in a mass of curls that overpowered her small face. Her nails were painted red, her eyes were shadowed, her lips were glossy crimson. She had large rings on each finger of each hand. The ringless thumbs seemed underdressed. As she stepped toward me her split skirt fell apart, showing high black boots with very high spiked heels. She opened one of the glass doors.
"Yes?"
Her face was startling. The rest of her was so noisy that you didn't pay much attention to her face until your nerves calmed a little. Up close her face was maybe sixteen years old. Behind the eye shadow and mascara and lip gloss and blusher and things I didn't know the name of was a barely formed sixteen-year-old face. She smiled inquiringly when she said yes and I noticed she had a space between her front teeth.
I said, "My name's Spenser. I'm looking for Amy Gurwitz."
"Why do you want to see her?" the girl said. Her voice
went with her face. It was a voice for saying, Oh, wow! and Far out! It was a voice to be raised in praise of rock musicians. She spoke carefully with her little voice, and slowly, as if nothing she said came easy to her. "Because her friend, April Kyle, is in some trouble, and I'm trying to find April so I can help her."
The rain continued to drip off the roof, splashing into a puddle that had formed in the hard dirt where the base of the granite steps met the foundation of the house. The girl bit her lower lip, moving her lower jaw so that the lip scraped slowly across the edge of her top teeth. When it scraped free, she did it again.
Finally, after cycling the lower lip past the upper teeth five or six times, she said, "Won't you come in, please?"
I said, "Thank you," and in we went.
There was a hallway with stairs along the left wall leading up. A doop on the right wall, another door past the stairs. A large oil pinting with romanticized mountains in it hung on the wall next to the right-hand door. The only other thing in the hall was a brass umbrella stand with maybe five umbrellas in it. They didn't look as if they'd ever been used. They were for show. Like a breast-pocket hankie. We went straight back past the stairs and through the door at the end of the hall. Then down three stairs to the living room. At the far end of the living room French doors opened out onto a patio. On the right-hand wall a large marble-faced fireplace, above it another picture of purple mountain's majesty. In the left corner was a bar, directly beside the step down, and in between the bar and the French doors were several beige armchairs and a large beige couch. The walls were beige, the carpet was beige. The woodwork was walnut.
"Won't you sit down?" She gestured carefully at the sofa.
"Thank you." I sat on the sofa.
"Would you care for a drink?"
Was it legal for a child to serve beer to a consenting adult in the privacy of her home? What if the Alcoholic Beverage Commission had the place bugged? There was one way to find out.
"I'll take a beer if you have one," I said.
If she was an agent, undercover for ABC, I could claim entrapment.
"Certainly," she said. "Excuse me." She walked behind the bar and bent over. I heard a door open. She stood up with a bottle of Molson Golden Ale. She found an opener, popped the top, reached under her bar, came up with a beer mug, poured the beer into the glass, taking her time, trying to get the whole bottle into the mug without overflowing the foam. When she had it full to the brim and the bottle was empty, she put the bottle out of sight, put the mug on a little walnut tray, and brought it to me. From a drawer in the coffee table she took out a coaster, put the coaster in front of me, and carefully put the beer on the coaster. She smiled again and then brought the tray back and put it out of sight behind the bar. She then came back and sat down in one of the armchairs across from me and crossed her legs, smoothing her skirt over her thighs.
"I am Amy Gurwitz," she said.
I picked up my beer mug, carefully so as not to spill, and took a small sip. I didn't dare guzzle it-she'd think she had to get me another one and that would kill the afternoon.
"Do you know where April Kyle is?" I said.
She frowned slightly, and I knew she was trying to think. "May I ask why you wish to know?" Amy said. Her hands were folded still in her lap. She had her head tilted delicately so that she seemed to be looking down over her cheekbones at me. Elegant.