Yesterday's News

up?”
    “No, Mo. South Boston was pretty much true blue.”
    “Bet your ass. Not in Chelsea either. The Irish and the Jews were proud to be in this country. For that matter, you never even saw a Fiat over in the North
    End, did you?”
    “Not that I can—”
    “No, no, of course you didn’t. All the neighborhoods back then bought American. Now they’re calling them ‘imported,’ you know. Not ‘foreign’ anymore but ‘imported,’ like that justifies the king’s ransom you gotta pay for them and the whack you give the trade deficit when the dealer negotiates the check, but who cares, right? Tell me this, how the hell you gonna depend on a car you couldn’t communicate with the guys who built it?”
    “Communicate?”
    “Talk with them, for God’s sake. How you gonna know if a Yugo’s built right, huh? You don’t have a next-door neighbor or a guy dating your sister works in a factory on them. You got instead some preppy fraternity president telling you on a television commercial costs a hundred grand a minute how great the little boxes are, but you never get to talk to a guy who builds one.”
    “You could talk to a mechanic, and I think Ford and GM buy some time on the tube now and—”
    “Speaking of a hundred grand.” Mo reached for a comatose cigar on the comer of his half-opened top drawer. A good sign that he was winding down. “You know that’s what one of them goes for now, don’t you?” He lit the cigar with a war memorial lighter as big as a softball.
    I said, “A Yugo?”
    “No, no. A parking space.”
    “I thought you said fifty?”
    “John, you gotta pay attention here. Fifty just gets you an outdoor space where you gotta contend with the snow and the soot. You want a roof over the little fucker’s head, you gotta go a hundred.”
    “That seems—”
    “I just read it. In our new ‘Downtown’ section, the Sunday supplement that’s supposed to win us over all the yuppies I can’t stand who’ve done this to the city in the first place. A ‘garage condo’ now starts at one hundred grand cash money. Can you imagine that?”
    “I sure can’t.”
    “And we’re not talking your own little garage either, my friend. We’re talking one measured slot under a leaky pipe on the third floor of a place looks like Michael Caine’s gonna gun down a CIA agent before midnight.”
    “Mo, I wonder if I—”
    “Yep, it’s either shell out the long yard for a condo garage space, or leave your little Yugo out on the street. I was mad about this ticket until I passed this one car, old beat-up Mazda, got seven or eight of them tucked under the one wiper still attached. Know what the guy had on his bumper?”
    “No.”
    “Guy’s got this sticker, says meter maids eat their young. I love it.”
    “May as well be hanged for a sheep as a lamb.”
    “What?”
    “I said—”
    “I heard what you said. Who the hell was talking about livestock here?”
    “Mo, it’s just an—”
    “You know, I gotta lot of work to do before deadline. I can’t spend the whole afternoon bringing you back on track like this.”
    “I know, Mo, and I appreciate it. I’m here about a client you referred to me. Jane Rust.”
    Mo took a deep drag on the cigar, blew a perfect smoke ring, then another. “What did you think?”
    “I met with her today, and I thought I’d come see you, find out what I might have on my hands.”
    “This Rust. Mid-twenties, kind of mousy, nervous?”
    I felt a little ping. “You don’t know her.”
    “I know her, I just don’t know her, you know?”
    “You lost me.”
    Mo knocked some ashes into his drawer. “Couple of years ago, editor here got me a job teaching adjunct, a journalism school crosstown. This Rust was in one of my classes. Or so she said on the phone.”
    “She called you Professor Katzen with me.”
    “Hah.” Mo set down the cigar. “Professor Katzen. Yeah, she would, she’s the one I’m thinking of.”
    “She telephoned you?”
    “Yeah. She needed an investigator to nose around Nasharbor. Somebody who wasn’t already wired into the big boys down there.”
    “She tell you why?”
    “No. You gonna?”
    “No. Statute says I can’t. But I would like to know this—you figure her for a conspiracy nut?”
    Mo stuck the cigar back into his mouth and spoke around it. “Can’t help you there. I just don’t remember her much. Only saw her for a couple of hours on maybe ten Tuesdays two years ago. She asked some questions, gave some