The Widening Gyre

by Robert B. Parker

  "There's other times," I said.

  A cab came up the empty street and stopped on the other side. An old woman in a fur coat got out carrying a fat white cat. The cabbie pulled away and she walked up the dark steps to her door and fumbled at the lock and then went in.

  "If you had something you were working on, you'd stay away on Thanksgiving," Paul said.

  "I know."

  "If I'd gotten a chance to dance, like at Lincoln Center or something, I'd have gone. I wouldn't have come here."

  "Sure," I said. My glass was empty. I went and got the bottle and poured some more. I filled it before I remembered the ice. Too late. I sipped some neatly. Paul was watching me. A grown face, not a kid. Older maybe than eighteen because of the psychological experience he'd had and overcome.

  "You went off to Europe without her in 1976."

  "Yes." My voice was hoarse. More whiskey, relax the larynx. Good thing I hadn't used ice. Throat needed to be warmed.

  "It's killing you, isn't it?"

  "I want her with me," I said, "and more than that, I want her to want to be with me."

  Paul got up and walked over and stood beside me at the window and looked out. "Empty," he said.

  I nodded.

  He said, "We both know where I was when you found me, and we know what you did. It gives me rights that other people don't have."

  I nodded.

  "I'm going to hurt you too," he said. "We're the only ones that can, me and Susan. And inevitably I'll do it too."

  "Can't be helped," I said.

  "No." Paul said. "It can't. What's happened to you is that you've left Susan inside, and you've let me inside. Before us you were invulnerable. You were compassionate but safe, you understand? You could set those standards for your own behavior and if other people didn't meet those standards it was their loss, but your integrity was…"- he thought for a minute-"… intact. You weren't disappointed. You didn't expect much from other people and were content with the Tightness of yourself."

  I leaned my forehead against the cold window glass. I was drunk.

  "And now?" I said.

  "And now," Paul said, "you've fucked it up. You love Susan and you love me."

  I nodded with my forehead still against the window. "And the Tightness of myself is no longer enough."

  "Yes," Paul said. He took a large swallow of whiskey. "You were complete, and now you're not. It makes you doubt yourself. It makes you wonder if you were ever right. You've operated on instinct and the conviction that your instincts would be right. But if you were wrong, maybe your instincts were wrong. It's not just missing Susan that's busting your chops."

  " 'Margaret, are you grieving,' " I said, " 'over Golden-grove unleaving?' "

  "Who's that?" Paul said.

  " Hopkins," I said. "Gerard Manley Hopkins."

  "There's a better one from The Great Gatsby," Paul said. "The part just before he's shot, about losing the old warm world…"

  " 'Paid a high price for living too long with a single dream,' " I said.

  "That's the one," Paul said.

  Chapter 14

  It was the Monday after Thanksgiving, Paul was back at Sarah Lawrence College. I was back in my one-room office with a view of the art director on the corner of Berkeley and Boylston. It was 9:15 a.m. and I was reading the Globe and drinking some coffee. Today was the day I would have only two cups. I drank the last of the first one when my office door opened and Vinnie Morris came in. Behind him came a large blank-faced guy with a hairline that started just above his eyebrows.

  Vinnie was my age, a good-looking guy with a thick black mustache and his hair cut sort of longish over the ears. He was wearing a black continental-cut suit and a white shirt with a white tie. His camel's hair coat was unbelted and hung open and the fringed ends of a white silk scarf showed against the dark suit. He had on black gloves. The big guy behind him wore a plaid overcoat, and a navy watch cap on the back of his head like a yarmulke. His nose was thick, and there was a lot of scar tissue around his eyes.

  "Vinnie," I said.

  Vinnie nodded, took off his gloves, put them together, and placed them on the top of my desk. He sat in my office chair. His large companion stayed by the door.

  "You got any coffee?" Vinnie said to me.

  "Nope, just finished a cup I brought with me."

  Vinnie nodded. "Ed, go get us two coffees," Vinnie said. "Both black."

  "Hey, Vinnie," Ed said. "I ain't no errand boy."

  Vinnie turned his head and looked at him. Ed's septum had been deviated enough so he had trouble breathing through it. I could hear the faint whistle it made.

  "Two black," Ed said.

  "Large," I said.

  "Two large," Vinnie said.

  Ed nodded and went out.

  "Slipping punches wasn't his long suit," I said. "You still with Broz?"

  Vinnie nodded.

  "Joe send you over?" I said.

  Vinnie shook his head.

  I leaned back in my chair and waited.

  "You been in Springfield?" Vinnie said.

  I nodded.

  "You been making a pain in the balls of yourself in Springfield?"

  "It's the least I can do," I said. "Spread it around."

  Vinnie nodded patiently. "Want to tell me what you been doing out there?"

  "No."

  "It's one of the reasons I like you, Spenser. I can always count on you to be a hard-on. Really consistent, you know. A hard-on every time."

  "Well, if I ever fail you, Vinnie, it won't be for lack of trying."

  Vinnie grinned. There wasn't a lot of warmth in the grin, but it seemed real enough. It was probably as warm as Vinnie could get.

  Ed came back in with the coffee in a paper sack. He'd bought one for himself. I wondered if that was considered exceeding orders. Rebellious bastard.

  "Thanks, Ed," I said when he put mine on the desk. I took the cover off and put it into the wastebasket, then I reached over and took Vinnie's cover and dropped it into the wastebasket. I sipped some. First sip of the day's last cup. Coffee got me sort of jumpy lately. Time to cut back. Man of iron will, no problem. I'd begin cutting back today.

  Ed tore a little half circle out of the cover of his coffee. He put the torn-out piece back into the empty bag and put the bag on the corner of my desk. I took it and put it into the trash. Neat work space, orderly mind. I drank the second sip of my last cup of the day. Ed slurped some of his coffee through the hole he'd torn in the cover.

  Vinnie said, "You went and talked with Louis Nolan. You told him that I sent you. How come?"

  "I wanted to see if he was connected to you and Joe."

  "And?"

  I shrugged. "And he is. He jumped up and lapped my face when I mentioned your name. Offered me some fruit." I sipped more coffee and smiled at him. "And here you are."

  "You know more than that," Vinnie said. "You know he put those two stumblebums to work on my job."

  "Yes," I said. "I do know that."

  "So, what do you make of it?"

  "You wanted Alexander's attention," I said. "You wanted to remind him of the kind of folks he was dealing with. So you had Louis hire a couple of local biceps to lean on anyone at all in Alexander's campaign. Couple of college kids were easy, and the two stiffs went for them."

  Vinnie looked at me for a long minute. Without moving his eyes he said, "Ed, wait in the corridor."

  Ed turned and went out and closed the door behind him. Vinnie got up and moved his chair around so he was sitting beside me.

  "What do you figure we want from Alexander?" he said. His voice was soft. Ed couldn't hear it if his ear were flat to the door.

  "I figure you want him to lose."

  "Because?"

  "Because you have a piece of Robert Browne and you and Joe like only sure things."

  Vinnie nodded thoughtfully. I drank a bit more coffee. Two cups a day was plenty.

  "You're still good," Vinnie said. "You always been good, and y
ou haven't slipped any."

  "Kind of you to say, Vinnie."

  "How'd you make the connection?"

  "Saw you in the background of a Browne campaign picture."

  "What made you look?" Vinnie said.

  "Somebody interferes with Alexander's campaign," I said. "Browne's a logical suspect. I just started looking at everything I could find on him."

  Vinnie drank some coffee. I wondered if he needed to cut back. He was about my age. Looked healthy, but you never could tell. You wake up one day and find you have to cut back on coffee. Scoundrel time.

  Vinnie was shaking his head. "You wouldn't go to the trouble," he said. "You wouldn't trace it all the way back to me just over a couple of gofers getting jostled."

  I waited. Vinnie was thinking things over. There was a little coffee left. I drank half of it. If I always drank just half of the remainder, it would never run out.

  "Okay," Vinnie said, "we're in it. You know we're in it, and I'm betting you know how far."

  I smiled.

  "You know we got the films of Mrs. Alexander."

  I smiled again.

  "Alexander told you, and sicked you onto it. You came back from Springfield and did your research because you figured it was Browne okay, but not because of the small scuffle we organized. Because of the films. He show you the films?"

  I smiled.

  "Get a look if you can. Broad's really something-got an excellent-looking bush. Anyway, you did your research, saw that picture, went out to Springfield, and did what you did."

  I drank the last of the coffee. Half each time was only a theory. Like a tree falling soundlessly in the woods.

  "It was a mistake," Vinnie said. "Hassling Alexander's staff was a mistake. But…"-he spread his hands-"spilt milk. The question we have before us, you might say, is where do we go from here?"

  "If you drink too much coffee, doesn't it bother you?" I said.

  "No, drink it all day. Doesn't do a thing. You want Ed to get some more?"

  "No."

  "So where do we go, Spenser?"

  "Maybe I can try tea, or some of that decaffeinated stuff."

  "Stop," Vinnie said. "That stuff's slop. Coffee or nothing is the way I go."

  I nodded.

  Vinnie said, "Besides your problems with caffeine, you got any thoughts on our situation?"

  "You got something on Mrs. Alexander and I want it and you don't want me to have it," I said.

  "And we don't want you trying to get it," Vinnie said.

  "But I'm going to get it anyway."

  Vinnie nodded. "We could go public with the films if you get annoying."

  "And then you've shot your hold on Alexander," I said. " 'Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose.'"

  "Yeah, but his chances of election are zilch."

  "Maybe not," I said. "Maybe he rises above it. Maybe it backfires and people suspect Browne of the whole thing and give Alexander the sympathy vote."

  It was warm in my office. Vinnie got up and took off his overcoat and folded it carefully over the back of my other office chair.

  "And maybe it brings in the cops and the feds," I said, "and everybody's investigating the blackmail and they look more closely into Browne and you've lost your tame congressman."

  Vinnie pursed his lips and shrugged.

  "And you've thought of all that," I said, "or you'd have done it already. You wouldn't be here."

  "And if Alexander were willing to go that route, he wouldn't have you gumshoeing around looking into it," Vinnie said.

  "Maybe," I said. "Or maybe he won't unless he has to.

  I say we have a standoff. You blow the whistle on Mrs. Alexander, and I'll blow the whistle on Robert Browne."

  "'Course we could kill you," Vinnie said.

  "Hard to do," I said.

  "But not impossible," Vinnie said.

  "Can't prove it by me," I said. "But say you do, what happens then?"

  "People look into it," Vinnie said. He was looking out the window as he spoke, and a small thought-wrinkle appeared vertically between his eyebrows. "I don't know how many people you've talked with about Browne's connection. Knowing you, not many. Still, we buzz you and people will wonder. That goddamned nigger could be bothersome."

  "Especially when I mention that you called him a goddamned nigger."

  Vinnie shook his head and made a slight pushing gesture with his hand. "It's the way I talk," he said. "I know Hawk. Something happens to you, he'll be a royal pain in the ass till he gets it straightened out."

  I waited. Vinnie thought some more. Then he smiled.

  "So for the moment, say we don't buzz you. We still got things our way. We got Browne in our pocket, and if he loses, then we got Alexander in our pocket, 'cause we got the films."

  "So far," I said.

  "So far," Vinnie said. "We'd rather have Browne, all things being equal. He's in place, and we know him, and he's not as stupid as Alexander. But Meade would do in a pinch."

  "He'll be pleased with the endorsement," I said.

  Vinnie grinned his cold, genuine grin. "He'll have to be," he said.

  I thought about things after Vinnie left. It didn't sit right, none of it.

  I'd thought up a lot of good reasons why they didn't just go public with Ronni in the buff, but they didn't persuade me. The reasoning was too subtle for Joe Broz. Broz was old-fashioned and direct. His idea of finesse was to wire a bomb to your ignition. He wouldn't pussyfoot around with this. He'd spread the picture around and expect Alexander to go down the tube. And he'd be right. Alexander's constituency would not swallow having their hero married to the Whore of Babylon. And his opponents would be so heartened and amused that Alexander couldn't get elected to Cuckolds Unlimited. I knew something Vinnie didn't. I knew that Alexander would go in the tank for them rather than let his wife be smeared. I looked at my watch: ten of eleven. Too early for Irish whiskey.

  The more I thought about things, the more they didn't make any sense. It wasn't Broz's style. It wasn't even Vinnie's. It was about Ed's style. It was something that should have been simple and was being complicated. Usually when that happened to something I was trying to figure out, it meant that there was too much I didn't know.

  Why didn't they just use that film? Why the fancy blackmail? It didn't make sense. Not Broz's kind of sense. It made amateurish sense. But Broz was not amateurish. I looked at my watch again. Eleven o'clock. I had to see the film. I didn't like to ask, but I had to. I had nowhere else to go. I spent some time reassuring myself that my interest in the film was simply professional. And it was. Completely. Like a doctor. Detached. Maybe if I got an early flight to D.C. I could watch the movies in the afternoon.

  I called Alexander's office in Washington and told him that I was coming down and why. Then I pulled out my typewriter and wrote up what little I knew about things. It took one page, double-spaced. I folded it up, put it into an envelope, sealed the envelope, and took it over to the Harbor Health Club to leave with Henry Cimoli.

  Henry had a problem with T-shirts. If he got them big enough for his upper body, they tended to hang down to his knees like a dress. If he got them the right length, he couldn't get his arms through the sleeves. He'd solved it so far by getting the right length and cutting the sleeves off, but as his health club got tonier and tonier, he'd begun to look into custom tailoring.

  "If anything happens to me, give it to Hawk," I said. "Otherwise don't open it."

  "Can't be a list of the people who don't like you," Henry said. "Envelope's not thick enough."

  "It's my secret formula," I said. "How to be more than five foot four."

  "I'm five six," Henry said.

  "So how come when you fought Sandy Sadler he kept punching you on the top of the head?"

  "I was trying to bull inside," Henry said.

  I went home to pack.

  Chapter 15

  Alexander's Washington home was a three-story yellow frame house on the corner of Thirty-first a
nd O Streets in Georgetown. He let me in.

  "Ronni's away for the afternoon," he said. "It's in the den."

  He led the way. The house was elegant Victorian, entirely immaculate. The den was fireplaced, paneled, leather-chaired, and hokey. There was a bison head mounted on the wall above the fireplace.

  Alexander said, "You know how to operate one of these?"

  I said I did. The videotape player was in a cabinet under the television. The connection wires ran up behind the cabinet.

  "The tape is in there," Alexander said. "Everything is on. Simply push the play button."

  He handed me a key. "Lock the room while you are watching. When you are through leave the tape in the recorder and lock the door. I have another key."

  I nodded.

  "I'm going to work," he said.

  I nodded. He paused at the door to the den, looking at me. He started to speak and stopped. His face looked hot. I said, "I'm sorry I have to do this." He looked at me another moment then went out and closed the door behind him. I went and locked it and left the key in the lock, then I went back and pushed the play button and sat in a leather chair and looked at the TV screen.

  There was an interval of blank screen then some miniature polka dots against a black background and then a full-face medium shot of Ronni Alexander. She was doing a kind of inexpert dance, her arms above her head, her hips swaying. The sound cut in, not very clearly, as if the microphone were too far away, but I could hear that Ronni was humming as she danced, and, by listening hard, I could tell that she was humming "Night Train." I felt itchy with embarrassment. She danced past a table and picked up a glass, the shallow kind that people serve champagne in and shouldn't. She drank off the contents and threw the glass against the wall. Still dancing, she unbuttoned her blouse and slowly peeled it off. She was looking at someone in the room. I couldn't see much of him. Just the back of a dark head with a very expensive haircut. Ronnie unbuttoned her skirt at the side and slid the zipper down and held it momentarily with a look of contrived coquettish-ness, then let it drop. She wasn't wearing pantyhose. She was wearing underpants and stockings and a garter belt. A garter belt. Jesus Christ. The last garter belt I could remember was the year Mickey Mantle won the Triple Crown. She took off her bra. She unsnapped her garters and rolled her stockings off, one at a time, slowly, still making pseudodance movements and humming "Night Train." She drank several more glasses of champagne and tossed the glasses away. Tempestuous. Finally she slid out of her last garment and was naked. I thought of Alexander watching this and my throat felt tight.