Deep Pockets Read Online Free PDF Page B

but then got up and went to play volleyball instead.
    Three mornings, a week you’ll find me on the court at the Cambridge Y, spiking the ball for the Lady Y-Birds, an assortment of academics, cops, firefighters, and one mild-mannered accountant. Wednesday morning, we started slow and droopy, found our rhythm a game and a half into the match, and whipped the Waltham Y team in a close third game. I’ve been getting back into volleyball slowly after taking time off to recuperate from a bullet wound in my left thigh. I’m still wary of diving for the ball the way I used to, but for a while, with the score stuck at 12-12 in the final game, I forgot about pain and played tough.
    I celebrated the victory with a cold shower in a grim gray-curtained cubicle. The Y is not to be mistaken for some fancy health-club spa.
    Chaney would call as soon as the blackmailer got in touch. I could have waited until then, but waiting has never been my strong suit, and identifying the perp didn’t have to wait till money changed hands. I decided against my usual stop at the Central Square Dunkin’ Donuts and turned toward Harvard Square instead, moving into a crush of pedestrian traffic that flowed far more smoothly than its automotive equivalent. Small shops line both sides of the street as far as Putnam Circle, where the stores on the right give way to red Harvard brick. I took a gentle left onto Mount Auburn, another left at Plympton, passing ethnic restaurants, stores with hand-carved furniture, used shops selling secondhand books, and cafés, taking pleasure in the old houses, the one-of-a-kind shops, the absence of Taco Bells.
    Phillips is one of the so-called River Houses, although you can’t actually see the Charles because other Harvard houses, notably Lowell and Winthrop, block the view. One of the smaller houses, Phillips isn’t one of the original seven built when the house system began, but it was constructed to imitiate the originals in style, with a hidden open court, carved pediments, and elaborate entry arches, designed to look like buildings at Cambridge and Oxford.
    I tried side entries just for the hell of it but found them locked. I already knew the main entrance would be locked. All the Harvard Houses used to stay open during the day, but the tourists would come and use the bathrooms, since Harvard Square has almost no public toilets. When dormitory theft went up, the doors got locked, and the tourists went without. Occasionally, especially when I’m driving a cab late at night, I’ll lurk in the vicinity and wait for some careless undergrad to charge in the door. I say hello and exchange small talk, cruise past the guard as though I were the entering student’s buddy, get to use a decent bathroom. The guards in the front lobbies are supposed to make you sign in, but really they’re more like concierges, giving directions, offering advice. I always get in.
    Knowing the vulnerability of house security, I didn’t ring the bell and ask to speak to the master or the senior tutor. I simply waited for a student to fling the door wide, then entered on her coattails, taking advantage of the fact that I don’t look like a mass murderer. Part of me felt like scolding the cheerful student, a slim blond sprite, one of the golden children who invade the Square each year for the sole purpose of making the rest of the population feel old and jaded.
    A tasteful printed directory listed both a female and male master, with suite numbers for each. The senior tutor was female, ditto the resident adviser. I tucked names and numbers away in my memory and started exploring corridors, entering the sorts of rooms where tea gets poured from silver pots and overstuffed furniture is tastefully arrayed on worn Oriental rugs. The scent of lemony wood polish blended with the smell of potpourri. The interior spoke of solemn tradition, a certain level of comfort, the expectation of continued success.
    It sure didn’t smell like the Police Academy.