Robert B. Parker: The Spencer Novels 1?6

by Robert B. Parker

“Pick some place we don’t like,” Hawk said. “So it get shot up we won’t feel bad.”

  “I got to meet Jocelyn Colby over here in something called the Puffin’ Muffin.”

  “Fine.”

  Vinnie looked at Hawk.

  “The Puffin’ Muffin?” he said.

  Hawk shrugged.

  “Get used to it,” he said.

  The Puffin’ Muffin, in the theater arcade, was one of the many shops in Port City designed for affluent Yankees, and located in places where affluent Yankees never went. When they did come, it was for an evening of theater at which time they were rarely hungry for muffins.

  “Got a nice big picture window,” Hawk said.

  “Yeah.”

  “Let’s not sit in it,” Hawk said.

  We took a seat against the rehabbed brick wall.

  There was a counter across the back of the place and a display case full of muffins. On the walls there were pictures of muffins; the pictures were interspersed with theater posters from the Port City Stage Company. The furniture was blond. Including the muscular waitress, with her long hair gathered in a geyser on top and tied with a pink ribbon. She poured us coffee from a thermos pot.

  “Is it possible to get a muffin with my coffee?” I said.

  She didn’t smile. People never thought I was as funny as I did.

  “Blueberry, bran, corn, banana, carrot, pineapple orange, cherry, raspberry, apple cinnamon, maple nut, lemon poppy seed, oat bran, cranberry, and chocolate chip,” she said.

  “Corn,” I said.

  “Toasted or plain?”

  “Plain.”

  “Butter or margarine?”

  “Neither.”

  “You want jelly with that?”

  “No.”

  “Honey?”

  “No.”

  She looked at the other two.

  “Same,” Hawk said.

  Vinnie nodded.

  The waitress went away.

  “Any sign of anyone following Jocelyn?” I said.

  Hawk grinned.

  “Same guy following the Greek.”

  “You,” I said.

  “Un huh.”

  “Nobody else.”

  “Nobody,” Hawk said.

  The waitress came back with three corn muffins and put them down in front of us. She freshened our coffee.

  “Can I get you anything else?” she said.

  “No, thank you,” I said.

  She nodded and ripped a check from her pad and put it facedown on the table. Vinnie passed it to me.

  “For crissake,” I said, “ammunition and coffee?”

  “I want the full ride,” Vinnie said.

  “It’s working out good up here, isn’t it,” Hawk said.

  “Yeah. If people weren’t trying to shoot us, we’d have gotten nowhere.”

  I sampled my muffin.

  “Long time no corn stalk,” I said.

  Across the room Jocelyn Colby came in wearing full foul-weather gear. She had on a long, yellow slicker, green rubber boots, and a green sou’wester with the brim turned up in front like a model in a cigarette ad. She saw me at the table and came straight over.

  I introduced her to Vinnie. I could tell from her expression that she would have preferred to meet me alone. But she was a trouper.

  “Have you caught him?” she said. She had big, violet eyes, with big lashes, and she knew it. She did a lot with them.

  “We haven’t seen him yet,” I said.

  The eyes widened.

  “My God,” she said. “He must have spotted you.”

  I nodded at Hawk.

  “He didn’t spot me,” Hawk said.

  Vinnie was looking for ways to improve his corn muffin. He broke off a piece and dunked it in his coffee, and ate it.

  “Any improvement?” I said.

  “Still tastes like a Frisbee,” Vinnie said.

  “Are you sure?” Jocelyn said to Hawk.

  “Yes.”

  “Well, he’s there. I’ve seen him.”

  “When did you see him last?” I said.

  “Last night, after the play. He was there, in the shadows, at the corner of my street.”

  I looked at Hawk. He shook his head.

  “You must have missed him,” I said to Hawk.

  “Sho ’nuff,” Hawk said, his eyes full of amusement. Jocelyn wasn’t looking at Hawk. She was giving me the all-out eye treatment.

  “I’m frightened,” she said to me.

  “Of course you are, I don’t blame you. He ever threaten you? Make any phone calls? Anything like that?”

  “Yes. There’ve been . . . calls.”

  “What did he say?”

  She shook her head.

  “They were, ah, dirty. Vicious and dirty.”

  “Sexual threat?” I said.

  “Yes. He said he was going to . . . do things to me.”

  I nodded. Hawk nodded. Vinnie was surveying the room. The waitress showed up and poured some coffee unasked into Jocelyn’s cup.

  “Want a muffin?” she said.

  Jocelyn shook her head.

  “We got bagels, you want some. Or we can make you some toast.” Jocelyn shook her head.

  “Frozen yogurt?”

  Still studying the room, Vinnie said, “Beat it.”

  The waitress opened her mouth. Vinnie looked up at her. She closed her mouth and left. Jocelyn paid no attention. She was looking at me.

  “How long have these threats been coming in?” I said.

  “They just started. Just last night, after I went in the house, right after I saw him in the shadows.”

  “And could you describe him again?”

  “Dark slouch hat, dark coat. He looks like the same one following Jimmy,” she said. “I’m sure it’s the same man. I’ll bet it’s someone jealous of Jimmy and me.”

  “You and Christopholous are an item?”

  She looked down at the tabletop. She didn’t say anything.

  Hawk was looking at the door, his coat open, leaning back a little in his chair. Vinnie’s jacket was unzipped. His eyes ranged the room. The only people besides us were two middle-aged women in sweat clothes sharing a dish of frozen strawberry yogurt. I waited. She was silent.

  “You and Christopholous?” I said.

  She shook her head.

  “I didn’t mean to say that.”

  I waited.

  “I can’t talk about it.”

  I waited some more. She raised her amazing eyes toward me and gave me the full charge.

  “Please,” she said. “I simply can’t.”

  “Sure,” I said.

  Her eyes were very intense. “Imploring” was how she probably thought of it.

  “You will protect me?” she said.

  “Of course,” I said. “We’ll be there every minute.”

  “Could you, I mean no offense to anyone, but could you do it yourself.”

  “It would be my pleasure,” I said. “We’ll have to take turns, in fact. But it never hurts to demand the very best.”

  Hawk and Vinnie both glanced at me for a moment, and then went back to looking around the room and watching the door.

  “Are you on your way to the theater now?” I said.

  “Yes.”

  “Then I’ll start my shift now. I’ll walk you there.”

  Hawk dropped a ten on top of the check.

  “Big tip,” Vinnie said.

  “Reward for remembering all those muffins,” Hawk said.

  “They’re coming too?” Jocelyn said.

  “Just to watch,” Hawk said. “Find
out what makes him the very best.”

  “Won’t do you any good,” I said. “It’s a white thing.”

  “Good,” Vinnie said, and held the door open while Hawk went out and we followed him.

  •19•

  With Hawk and Vinnie behind us, Jocelyn and I strolled through the misting drizzle to the theater next door. She went in to rehearsal, and I went up to Christopholous’ office on the second floor. Vinnie and Hawk lounged in the theater lobby, blending in to the theatrical scene like two coyotes at a poultry festival.

  I sat in the chair across from Christopholous. The lights were on, making the day outside look even gloomier. The old brick office walls were bright with posters from previous Port City productions.

  “Does Rikki Wu contribute a lot to the theater?” I said.

  “A lot,” Christopholous said. “And she holds an honored place on the board.”

  “A camel will pass through the eye of a needle more easily than a rich man will enter the kingdom of heaven,” I said.

  Christopholous grinned.

  “That may be true of heaven,” he said. “It is very much not true of a theatrical board of directors.”

  “The remark was sexist anyway,” I said. “It should have been ‘rich person.’”

  “No doubt,” Christopholous said. “Why do you ask?”

  “Just to know,” I said.

  “But why do you want to know?”

  “Because I don’t. If I knew what was important to know, and what wasn’t, I’d have this thing pretty much solved.”

  “Of course. Rikki’s very generous. And very rich. Mr. Wu makes a great deal of money.”

  “Gee, the restaurant didn’t look that busy,” I said.

  Christopholous shrugged.

  “Perhaps he has other interests,” he said.

  “Like what?”

  “Oh, God,” Christopholous said. “I don’t know. It was just an idle remark.”

  “Sure,” I said. “How about Jocelyn Colby.”

  “Jocelyn?”

  “Yeah. How do you and she get along.”

  “Jocelyn? Fine. She’s a nice young woman. Limited in her acting skills, but ever compelling in the right role. Very attractive. Especially up close. The cheek bones. And those eyes. Film might actually be a better medium for her.”

  “You ever go out with her?” I said.

  “Go out? You mean date?”

  “Yeah.”

  “God, no,” Christopholous said. “I could be her father.”

  “You’ve never had a, ah, relationship?”

  “What the hell are you talking about. She’s an actress in a company I direct. She’s a nice kid. She’s around a lot. I like her. But, no, I’ve never even thought about having any kind of sexual relationship with her.” Christopholous laughed. “You reach a certain age, and you discover that if you’re going to talk with children, you’d rather they were your own.”

  “You have children?”

  “Three,” Christopholous said. “All of them older than Jocelyn.”

  “Wife?” I said.

  “I divorced their mother, thank God, twenty years ago,” Christopholous said. “What makes you ask about Jocelyn?”

  “Same answer as above,” I said. “Just accumulating data.”

  “But, I mean, are you asking everyone in the company if she went out with them? And why her in particular?”

  I didn’t want to tell him. I didn’t know why, exactly. But one of Spenser’s crime-stopper tips is: You rarely get into trouble not saying stuff. I shook my head vaguely.

  “She have any romantic interest in anyone in the company?” I said.

  “Jocelyn is, ah, affectionate. I don’t follow the social interaction of my company too closely,” Christopholous said. “But she did seem sort of interested in Lou.”

  “Montana? The Director?”

  “Yes. I don’t mean to suggest anything more than it was. She seemed for a while, when he first came aboard for Handy Dandy, to be especially interested in him. They’d have coffee together, and I know she called him a lot.”

  The day outside was cold enough to awaken the thermostat. I could hear the steam heat tingling in the pipes, still unwieldy from summer dormancy.

  “What about him?” I said.

  Christopholous smiled and shook his head.

  “Ah, Lou,” he said. “Life is imperfect. One must make do. Most of Lou’s experience is in television.”

  “Ugh!” I said.

  “Ugh, indeed,” Christopholous said. “And worse, Lou is petty and pompous, and half as good as he thinks he is. But he can pull a play together. And at least while he is with us he appears to be committed to the company and to the rationale of the Theater Company. One cannot always hire the best Director. One must hire one who is willing to work for what one can pay.”

  “It is ever thus,” I said, just to be saying something.

  Christopholous shook his head.

  “Not necessarily,” he said. “In my experience, the actors are a bit different. Here we almost always get actors who care about the craft, about the art, if you will. It is in many ways a terrible profession. Sticking to it in the face of all the reasons to quit takes dedication and toughness. For most of them, the payoff is performing. The really good ones can always give a good performance despite the playwright or the Director, even in television or a dreadful movie.”

  “Olivier,” I said.

  “Yes, or Michael Caine.”

  “So, it’s a kind of autonomy,” I said.

  “If they’re good enough and tough enough,” Christopholous said. “Interesting that you understand that so quickly; most people don’t.”

  “I like autonomy,” I said.

  “I’m not surprised.”

  “Did Montana reciprocate any of Jocelyn’s affection?”

  “I’m not sure ‘reciprocate’ is the right word. He might have exploited it briefly.”

  “I’ve heard of that being done,” I said.

  “I wouldn’t make too much of this,” Christopholous said. “Jocelyn has her crushes, and they are as changeable as April weather.”

  “You know of any connection between her and the Wus?”

  “The Wus? God, Spenser, you move too fast for me. Why would she have any connection with the Wus?”

  “Why indeed,” I said.

  “Of course she knows Rikki. I want my company to shmooze the board members. It’s part of the job.”

  “And one they savor,” I said.

  Christopholous shrugged.

  “You have a goose laying a golden egg, you feed it,” he said. “Rikki in particular enjoys being shmoozed.”

  “How about Mr. Wu?”

  “He indulges her,” Christopholous said. “That’s really all I know about him. He comes very rarely to an event with her. When he does come he seems quite remote. But he seems willing to underwrite her without limit.”

  “He ever meet Jocelyn?”

  “Oh, I wouldn’t think so. Beyond a formal ‘this-is-my-husband-Lonnie’ kind of meeting. And if he had that, I’m sure he wouldn’t register her. He never seems to be in the moment when he’s here.”

  “I know the feeling,” I said.

  Through Christopholous’ window I could see the rows of three-story clapboard houses, flat-roofed, mostly gray, mostly needing paint, with piazzas on the back. The piazzas were mostly devoid of furniture, except occasionally a dejected folding chair kept up the pretense. They seemed to be the place where people kept their trash. Clotheslines stretched across barren backyards at all three levels, but no clothes hung on them in the unyielding drizzle. The backyards grew a few weeds, unconnected and random in the mud.

  “No further sign
of your shadow?” I said.

  “No, none. I guess you’ve scared him off.”

  “Something did,” I said.

  •20•

  When I got to the lobby, Hawk was sitting on a bench against the wall, arms folded, feet thrust straight out, crossed at the ankles. The rain had made little impact on his polished cowboy boots. Vinnie was standing at the glass doors, looking out at the rain. He was a medium-sized guy with good muscle tone, and even features; and maybe the quickest hands I’ve ever seen. Hawk could catch flies with his hands. In fact, so could I. Vinnie could catch them between his thumb and forefinger. I sat beside Hawk. Vinnie kept staring out at the rain.

  “Nobody following that broad,” Hawk said.

  “I know.”

  “We going to stay on her, anyway?”

  “Yeah.”

  Hawk looked at me for a moment.

  “Well, ’spite what everybody say, you not a moron.”

  “You’re too kind,” I said.

  “I know. So I figure you going to follow her around for a while, see if she had any special reason for wanting you.”

  “And then I’ll see what she does when I stop following her around,” I said.

  Hawk nodded.

  “And then maybe we know something,” he said.

  “That’ll be a nice change.”

  “Christopholous says he never had any kind of affair with her.”

  “She say he did.”

  “So we have a lie,” I said.

  “I’m betting it’s the broad,” Hawk said. “I think she wacko.”

  “She seems a better bet to be lying than Christopholous,” I said. “But at least it’s an allegation can be tracked. If they were romantically involved, somebody must have noticed.”

  “So you ask around.”

  “Yep. Christopholous says she was hot for the Director, Lou Montana.”

  “And me and Vinnie stay in the area, case the Chinks strike again.”

  “Asian Americans,” I said.

  “I forgot,” Hawk said. “How much time you be spending in Cambridge?”

  “Ever alert,” I said, “for racial innuendo.”

  “Wasn’t there a petition over there, keep the nigger kids out of that school on Brattle Street?”

  “Of course,” I said. “Everybody signed it, but no one ever called them niggers.”