Barrington Street Blues by Anne Emery Read Free Book Online Page A

him.”
    â€œI will. Thank you.”
    â€œAnd don’t go empty-handed. Bring him a pack of Craven A.”
    â€œFor a man in an oxygen tent?”
    â€œYou young people are too serious about this stuff. Bill smokes in there all the time. What’s he got to lose?”
    An entire wing of the hospital if he blows it up
, I thought, but kept it to myself. I thanked her again and joined Brennan at our table.
    â€œShe spent the war in England. But she gave me the name of somebody else.”
    â€œGood.”
    I would drop in to see Bill Groves. I also had to find Wanda Pollard and see whether Yvette’s story checked out. I hoped it wouldn’t, but I could not just sit on it. Prior to the Blue Typhoon affair, I had seen Wanda in court numerous times on drug and fraud charges, usually represented by Legal Aid and at least once by Ed Johnson. Perhaps he knew where she might be found. I took Burke on a detour on our way from the Legion.
    Ed and his wife, Donna, lived in a condo on Coburg Road, a block away from the law school. I punched in his number and he came down to meet us in the lobby.
    â€œYou guys out on a tear? Or taking part in a second-hand smoke study?”
    â€œWe were at the Legion. The ones who didn’t die in combat are being felled by nicotine poisoning.”
    â€œLegion, eh? Going anywhere now?”
    â€œNo, heading home. I have a question for you. You represented a hooker named Wanda at one time, didn’t you?”
    â€œYeah, and I’m representing her again next month. Wanda the Wand Whacker.” Brennan rolled his eyes.
    â€œAny idea where I might find her?”
    â€œYou’re not that desperate, are you, Collins? Good-looking guy like you? Speaking for myself, I’d rather —”
    I cut him off: “Spare us the details of what you’d rather do.”
    â€œLivin’ the blues,” Johnson said, “that must be it. You weren’t born on Tobacco Road or blinded by a brutal stepfather, so cruisin’ hookers would be the —”
    â€œI find him utterly convincing when I hear him play the blues,”Burke put in, “so he’s either lived the life at some point or he’s able to identify wholly with those who have.”
    â€œFunny you should say that, Brennan. Of course maybe Collins got plastered one night and confessed to you about his road trip.”
    â€œHis road trip.”
    â€œRight. Our Monty spent a year on the road with a band. Did you know that?”
    â€œNo.”
    Ed leaned towards Brennan and said in a mock-conspiratorial whisper: “Let’s just say there are certain jurisdictions in the United States of America where Collins, or whatever he was calling himself during that episode in his life, is
persona non grata
.”
    â€œCan it, Johnson. I was asking you about Wanda Pollard. I want to talk to the woman, that’s all.”
    â€œWhat in the world do you want to talk to old Wanda about?”
    â€œA case I’m working on.”
    â€œWhat case?”
    â€œJust tell me where the woman lives, will you?”
    â€œShe works Hollis Street near Cornwallis Park. Lives close by, in a dive on Mitchell Street. Unless she’s in a drug-induced coma somewhere, you’ll eventually be able to pick her up.”
    Wanda was nowhere in sight when Burke and I cruised down Hollis Street. I decided to come back the next day and call at her building. Since we were in the neighbourhood, though, one thing we could do was check out the scene of the shootings. I couldn’t remember the last time I had been inside the Fore-And-Aft. That may have been because it was long ago, or it may have been that I literally could not remember my time in there. It was that kind of joint. You didn’t go there to sip Frascati and discuss the latest art film. You went there to get pie-eyed and watch the jaded strippers grinding away on the makeshift stage. Burke and I drove down to the tag