The Big Dig by Linda Barnes Read Free Book Online

collect. Sometimes no identifying number is given. The IG likes to think such callers operate from the noblest motives. Me, I wondered whether the Horgans had done any firing lately.
    â€œIt’s a complaint and we gotta follow up,” Eddie said.
    â€œAnd Horgan just happened to need a secretary? He fire his? She make the complaint?”
    â€œCaller’s definitely a guy.”
    â€œSo much for that.”
    â€œCarlotta?” Eddie sucked in a deep breath. “I was wonderin’. Maybe you could help me out here.”
    There was something in his voice that made me lean against the kitchen counter and brace myself.
    â€œThis ain’t about the Horgans. It’s more a general thing you could maybe find out for me. Ya know, where there’s heavy construction, there’s rumors. About, ya know, the mob, about, like, uh, mob involvement.”
    Here it comes, I thought, and suddenly I knew with cool certainty why the bastard had hired me. Because I used to be with a guy named Sam Gianelli. Used to . And the Gianelli name is so identified with the Boston mob that the fact that my lover—ex-lover—Sam Gianelli, youngest son of mob underboss Anthony Gianelli, has never been a player, never been a North End soldier, is something nobody, but nobody believes.
    â€œYou could maybe just keep your ears open,” Eddie muttered.
    I punched the button to cut the connection, took a deep breath, drank a glass of cold water. Then I went back to my living-room office and enthusiastically accepted Dana Endicott’s case. If Eddie hadn’t pissed me off I might not have taken it. But I figured it this way: He didn’t tell me everything when he hired me. Okay. So I wouldn’t tell him everything, either. And a little high-priced moonlighting would go a long way toward dispelling my anger. I’ve never been a Mafia moll and I don’t like being taken for one.

Chapter 6
    The missing woman and I had something in common: We both worked two jobs. Veronica James did days at a sort of pet camp, nights at a bar-restaurant combo called Raquela’s. By the time I’d finished quizzing Dana Endicott, filling twenty-eight pages with facts and queries, it was past seven, and my rumbling stomach influenced my decision to start the search with Veronica’s night job. Raquela’s served food.
    Dana had been late for a dinner engagement, so my first impulse—to examine the tenant’s room—hadn’t panned out. Another time, she assured me, signing a very substantial check as a retainer. I had her card; I should call and schedule an appointment.
    Arthur Goldman, the lawyer, still at his desk, verified that Dana Endicott was indeed a client and a good one, too. Her parents had been clients, before they’d moved to New York, and her grandparents, he believed, had been clients of his mentor at the firm. In other words, the check wouldn’t bounce. I filled out a deposit slip, stopped at the bank on my way to dinner.
    Not only are missing persons cases more my speed than construction fraud, smoke-filled bars are more my idea of places to investigate than early-morning building sites. Raquela’s was long and narrow, dimly lit, with a mahogany bar slicing it narrower, running the length of the room. Leather swivel bar stools with high backs sprouted from the wooden floor on metal poles. I chose a seat toward the rear, where I could keep an eye on the tables reflected in the long mirror behind the bar.
    I’d never visited the place as a customer. Too much of a pickup joint, with its trendy waterfront location. Wrong kind of sound, piped-in Sinatra and swing instead of live blues. I inhaled secondhand smoke and sipped overpriced beer. The clientele, mostly white, with lots of lawyers, to judge by the conservative suits, looked well-off, pleasantly buzzed on a mix of alcohol and affluence. I checked out the dating couples at the small tables, marvelling at the age