Robert B Parker - Spenser 30 - Back Story

by Back Story(lit)

  "Do you know where she went?"

  "School department shows only that it was an accredited private school."

  "I'm sure Taft will probably have it in their admission records," I said, so she wouldn't feel she'd failed.

  "Very likely," she said. "Chief Stone also asked me to tell you that we have built a file on Sarno Karnofsky, which Chief Stone has examined since he talked with you."

  "And?"

  "And he thinks you might find it interesting. Do you have a fax?"

  "I do."

  "If you will give me your fax number," she said, "I will fax you as much of the file as Chief Stone thinks relevant to your investigation."

  "That's very kind," I said. "But why didn't Chief Stone give me this stuff when I was there?"

  "Chief Stone didn't speak of it," she said. "But I would hazard that he wanted to reexamine the files himself and perhaps get further bona fides on you before he turned over secret surveillance material."

  "You got a nice little department there," I said.

  "We do. May I have your fax?"

  I gave her my fax number, and in about five minutes the machine rang and the material began to creep out of it. I waited until it was all out, and then assembled it and read it through twice.

  "I know," I said to Hawk, "that you are a simple lout with a gun, placed here for my protection."

  Without looking up, Hawk said, "Yassah."

  "But," I said, "I have come across some things which could actually be clues, and I was wondering if I might share them with you."

  "Long as you don't use no big words," Hawk said and put the newspaper in his lap.

  "Mrs. Sarno Karnofsky, the former Evelina Lombard, has her own phone, separate from her husband's," I said.

  "Sounds like the first step toward open marriage," Hawk said.

  I ignored him.

  "Seems that several times a week she makes a phone call to a phone belonging to Sigmund Czernak," I said.

  "See," Hawk said. "She got something going on the side."

  "Mr. Czernak resides in Lynnfield," I said.

  "Somebody got to," Hawk said.

  "Further underscoring the theme of independence," I said, "is the fact that Mrs. Karnofsky has her own bank account, separate from her husband's."

  "Maybe I wrong," Hawk said. "Maybe independence be the secret to a happy marriage."

  "How happy would you be if you were married to Sonny?"

  "If I was me?" Hawk said. "I be miserable."

  "I mean if you were a woman."

  Hawk grinned. "I be miserable," he said.

  "Every month," I said. "Mrs. Karnofsky wires two thousand dollars to the La Jolla Merchants Bank to the account of Barry Gordon."

  "Daryl's father?"

  "Yep."

  "Goddamn," Hawk said. "That maybe do sound like a fucking clue."

  "Maybe two," I said.

  49

  "I met a friend of yours today," Susan said. We were at the bar at Mistral, contributing quietly to the hubbub. On the other side of Susan, Hawk had caught the attention of a stunning young woman in a very small black dress, and they were talking deeply.

  "Really?" I said.

  "Yes. He said he'd seen me the other night at the Meridian, at Life Savor. Said to tell you Harvey says hello."

  Hawk turned way from the girl in the black dress and looked at the room.

  "Tall?" I said. "Kind of limp? Longish blond hair, suntan, blue eyes, a diamond stud in his ear. Funny sort of mouth. Like a shark?"

  "Well, I never thought of the shark thing," Susan said. "But yes. How do you know him?"

  I thought a minute about what to say, couldn't think of any way around it, and settled for the truth.

  "He's not a friend," I said. "He's a button man."

  "A what?"

  "A hired killer," I said.

  Susan frowned and didn't say anything for a moment. Then she said, "And he's letting you know he can reach me if he needs to."

  "Yes."

  "Is it the thing about Daryl's mother?"

  "Yes."

  The girl in the black dress was staring at Hawk's back in something like disbelief. What happened to their relationship?

  "We can kill him," Hawk said.

  "And maybe we will," I said. "But there'll be someone else."

  "We could kill Sonny," Hawk said.

  "And maybe we will," I said. "But he's hard to get to, and who watches Susan while we do?"

  "Maybe you should consult Susan," she said.

  "We should," I said.

  "I have always known the downside of loving you," Susan said. "And there's so much upside that it is well worth it."

  "I've been telling you that for years," I said.

  She smiled. "And it makes me uneasy to hear you talk about killing people because someone said he knew you."

  "You know what he meant," I said.

  "I know what he said."

  "I. "

  Susan shook her head. "Not you," Susan said. "Me. It's what I want. I'm the one that was threatened."

  "What do you want?"

  "I'm scared," Susan said. "I can't pretend I'm not. And I want to be protected."

  "You'll be protected."

  "But," she said, "I also know that you can't kill everyone who threatens me. How many might there be?"

  "There might be a fair number," I said. "There's a lot of people involved in ways I don't know yet."

  "So you need to finish up this case," Susan said.

  "I can walk away from this case," I said.

  "I know you would," Susan said. "But how would we feel if people could chase you off a case by implying a threat to me?"

  I had no answer for that, so I gave none. Sometimes it's effective.

  "I'll protect her," Hawk said.

  "You're protecting him," Susan said.

  "He can protect himself," Hawk said.

  "Twenty-four hours a day," I said. "Seven days a week until it's over."

  "I'll get a couple people to help me," Hawk said.

  Behind him, the young woman in the scant dress paid her bill with a credit card and stalked out without looking at Hawk. I didn't ask him who he'd get or if they were good. If he got them, they'd be good.

  "Quirk can talk to Cambridge," I said. "Have them put a car out front."

  Hawk grinned. "There be some known felons coming and going," Hawk said. "Be sure they know that."

  "I'll organize it with Quirk," I said.

  "Could Vinnie go with you?" Susan said to me.

  "If Vinnie's available, he'll go with Hawk," I said.

  We were quiet for a short time. I watched Susan think.

  "Yes," she said. "If one of us has to be unprotected, you are much more able than I am."

  "Suze," Hawk said. "He much more able than anybody. 'cept maybe me."

  50

  Sigmund Czernak had a big tree-shaded white colonial house with a rolling lawn and a picket fence that faced the town common. On the common, in front of a white eighteenth-century meetinghouse, there was some sort of fair. Folding tables with baked goods. Balloons. A popcorn machine that perfumed the air all the way to Czernak's back door. I parked in the turnaround at the top of the drive, headed out, between a dark blue BMW sports car with a gray top, and a black Mercedes SUV. There was a dark blue Ford Crown Victoria parked beyond the Mercedes. I went around to the front door, walking under a maple tree that must have been older than the house, and rang the front doorbell. A small, white, ratty dog yapped at me through the screen door.

  "Careful," I said to him, "I'm armed."

  From somewhere behind the dog, a woman's voice said, "Sherry, quiet down." There were footsteps, and Bonnie Karnofsky appeared in the doorway. Sherry didn't quiet down. She yapped some more.

  "Yes?" Bonnie said.

  "Hello," I said. "My name is Spenser, and I'm looking for anyone who knew Emily Gold."

  "Excuse me?"

  I said it again.

  "Who's Emily G
old?" Bonnie said.

  "Your classmate at Taft," I said. "Remember, you and Emily and Shaka and Coyote?"

  "You are talking ragtime," she said and raised her voice and yelled, "Ziggy."

  She had far too much blond hair, which would probably abrade the skin if you brushed against it. But her face was youthful and pretty, and her body was quite aggressive in tan shorts and a yellow tank top. A man appeared behind her, tall and slender with back hair slicked back tightly to his skull and big horn-rim glasses. The ratty little dog was yapping steadily.

  "Who's this," he said to Bonnie.

  "Guy asking questions," Bonnie said. "I don't know what he's talking about."

  "Whaddya want, Jack?"

  "I'm trying to locate people who knew Emily Gold," I said.

  "We know any Emily Gold?" he said to Bonnie.

  "Never heard of her," Bonnie said.

  "So fuck off," he said to me.

  "That was great," I said. " 'Fuck off.' Wow! You don't much hear talk like that anymore. It made my knees weak."

  "Bunny," he said to Bonnie. "Get Harry."

  She disappeared. Ziggy froze me with his stare. The dog yapped. It wasn't getting anywhere, but it wasn't losing ground either. Two men appeared behind Ziggy.

  "Him," Ziggy said. "Asking Bunny questions."

  The two men pushed past Ziggy and opened the screen door and came out onto the front step with me. The fresh popcorn smell drifted across the front law from the common. One of the men was wearing a flowered Hawaiian shirt unbuttoned over his undershirt. He pulled one side of it back to let me see that he was wearing a gun.

  "Eek," I said.

  "No rough stuff here," Ziggy said. "Take him somewhere."

  "We could go to the fair on the common," I said.

  "Look at that, Cheece," the guy in the Hawaiian shirt said to his pal. "He ain't scared."

  Cheece was a thick dark man with a Vandyke beard and small eyes kept barely apart by the bridge of his flat nose.

  "Yet," Cheece said.

  He took hold of my left arm and started to steer me away from the front door. "We'll go around back," he said. "Then we'll see."

  "Sure thing," I said and pulled my arm away. "No need to push."

  I set out ahead of them toward the back of the house where my car was parked. The two of them had to hurry to stay a step behind me. At the corner of the house, I turned right, and as Cheece came around the corner, I turned and hit him full out with a right cross that snapped his head left and put him on his back. As he rounded the corner, the guy in the Hawaiian shirt reached for his gun. I caught his right wrist before he could get to the gun and pulled him toward me and turned him so that I could bend his arm up behind his back. I put my left forearm under his chin and put some pressure on his neck. Then I turned both of us so Hawaiian Shirt was between me and the house. He was between me and Cheece, too, but Cheece was just now beginning to sit up, and I knew that his chimes were still ringing. It was Ziggy and whoever else was in the house that I needed to think about now. I began to back toward my car, dragging Hawaiian Shirt with me. He didn't make a sound. As I was halfway across the driveway, I saw Ziggy appear in the back door. He looked at Cheece, who was now on his hands and knees, and at Hawaiian Shirt and me in the driveway. He disappeared from the back door for a moment and then reappeared carrying what looked like a 9mm semiautomatic, though it could have been a.38- or a.40-caliber. If he shot me with it, the difference would be insignificant. I was at my car. I kept my left forearm tight on Hawaiian Shirt's throat and let go of his right arm and pulled my own small gun. I poked it into Hawaiian Shirt's back so he'd know I had one.

  "You stand right there or I will shoot you to death," I said.

  I let go of his throat. He didn't move. With him still screening me and my gun still pressed against his spine, I reached behind me with my left hand and opened my car door.

  "Stay right there," I said and slid in to my car and put the key in, starting the engine. From around the jamb of his back door, his body mostly screened, Ziggy was aiming at me with both hands on the gun. Still holding my gun, I put the car in drive and floored it. The car lurched forward, tires screaming with friction as they spun on the hot top driveway. Hawaiian Shirt hit the ground the minute the car moved, and a bullet thumped through the backseat passenger window of my car. I bent as low as I could as I tore down the driveway. I felt, more than heard, another bullet tear into the body of the car somewhere. Then I was out of the driveway and onto the street and gone, only a little worse off than I was before.

  51

  Ty-Bop and Junior were sitting on the front steps of Susan's house when I pulled up in front. They looked at me with recognition but no warmth. They were both black. Junior was about the size of Faneuil Hall, and Ty-Bop was average height and thin. They worked for Tony Marcus: Junior the muscle, Ty-Bop the shooter. I didn't care for them. I didn't care much for their boss, if it came to that. Even so, I nodded at them as I went up Susan's front stairs. Neither one nodded back. Churlish.

  Pearl greeted me with an exuberant lunge, and when I went into the hall, I squatted and endured her exuberance until it abated. Hawk stood in the door of Susan's study, across from her office, and watched. When it was over, I stood and went past him into the study and sat on the couch against the front wall below the window.

  "Ty-Bop and Junior?" I said.

  "Tony owed me," Hawk said.

  "Ty-Bop's about nineteen," I said.

  "He older than he look," Hawk said.

  "Okay, so maybe he's twenty," I said. "He's also a cocaine addict."

  "He won't use while he's working here," Hawk said.

  "You spoke to him," I said.

  "I spoke to him. I spoke to Tony."

  I nodded. "How about they're scaring the crap out of everyone on Linnaean Street," I said.

  "That's a bad thing?" Hawk said.

  "No," I said. "Susan seen them?"

  "Yes."

  "And?"

  "Any friend of mine," Hawk said.

  I nodded again. "Okay," I said. "As long as you trust them."

  "They'll stay," Hawk said. "Tony's word is good."

  "Got anybody else?"

  "Vinnie'll be back in town tomorrow," Hawk said. "Cambridge puts a cruiser out front at night from eleven to seven. And, if all else fails, we got you."

  "Not for a couple of days," I said. "I gotta go back to San Diego."

  "Barry Gordon?"

  "Yes. Can you arrange a gun?"

  "Just like last time," Hawk said. "How about Bonnie/Bunny? You find her?"

  "I found her."

  "And?"

  I told him.

  "Figure the husband's in the family business?"

  "Seems so," I said. "And he or his father-in-law or both of them don't want anyone talking to Bunny."

  "Or at least don't want you," Hawk said. "You thought you could waltz in there and chat her up?"

  "I was counting on charm," I said.

  Hawk grunted. "Maybe we need to get her out of there," Hawk said. "Get her someplace quiet where your charm can do its work."

  "We may have to," I said. "Let's see what I can shake loose from Barry. What time is Vinnie due?"

  "Be here tomorrow morning," Hawk said.

  I looked at the closed door of Susan's office.

  "She got a client?" I said.

  "Woman," Hawk said. "In a short skirt."

  "Observant," I said.

  "A natural gift," Hawk said.

  A client canceled, and Susan had a two-hour break before the next one. We had lunch together upstairs in her apartment. I told her what I knew and what I was going to do.

  "People are going to some lengths," Susan said.

  "And I'm not quite sure why," I said.

  "It must have something to do with that bank robbery when Daryl's mother got killed."

  "But what?" I said. "Was she there? Did she do the shooting? Is there something else?"

  "Do you think Barry Gordon kn
ows?"