Bad Business

by Robert B. Parker

  "And now it's just Bernie," I said.

  "Yeah. But that'll change. Bernie hasn't got the cojones or the smarts without Trent to help him."

  "What's Cooper like?"

  "God knows," she said. "He might even be what he seems. I don't know. Mostly he's an absentee landlord. Spends a lot of time in D.C."

  "He married?"

  A dele smiled a little.

  "Big Wilma," she said.

  "Big Wilma."

  "She's the wife he married in college and never should have. But he can't divorce her because if he runs for president the divorce will kill him."

  "You think?"

  "Doesn't matter what I think. That's what he thinks."

  "He talks about this?"

  A dele smiled and didn't say anything.

  "To you," I said. "Under, ah, intimate circumstances."

  A dele continued to smile.

  "Coop fools around?"

  "I don't think Coop is ever fooling," she said.

  "Can you talk about Gavin?"

  "Un-uh," she said. "I got nothing to say about Gavin."

  "Scared?"

  "Prudent," she said. "Mostly he functions as Coop's bodyguard."

  "Coop needs a bodyguard?" I said.

  A dele shrugged.

  "He's very loyal to Coop," she said.

  "Do you know why Cooper needs a bodyguard?"

  "No."

  I nodded. Adele poured me some more coffee. She was sitting with her legs crossed, and when she leaned forward to pour, her short skirt got much shorter. My devotion to Susan was complete. I noted it merely because I am a trained observer.

  "You ever hear of Darrin O'Mara?" I said.

  "Why do you ask?"

  "His name keeps popping up," I said.

  She looked out the window for a time. Then she smiled.

  "The corporate pimp," she said.

  "Ah ha," I said.

  "Is that what detectives say?" she said. "Ah, ha!"

  "I used to say things like `the game's afoot,' but people didn't know what I was talking about."

  "And `ah ha' is shorter," she said.

  "Exactly."

  "What a funny guy you are," she said. "This is one of the most successful companies in the world. Are you at all impressed with anything that goes on here?"

  "Coffee's good," I said.

  She smiled. "I'll broaden the question," she said. "Are you impressed with anything? Anywhere?"

  "Susan Silverman is fairly amazing," I said.

  "That's the woman that was with you in Chatham."

  I nodded.

  "Tell me about the corporate pimp," I said.

  "It's just an expression," she said. "He used to spend a lot of time with Cooper and Bernie Eisen and Trent, before Trent died, and you know he's this sex guru. It's just sort of a joke around here."

  "Tell me about the time he spent."

  "God, you sound like one of my therapists," she said. "You know, he'd be at company social events, they'd play golf together, sometimes he'd come here to see one or another of them. They'd have lunch."

  "Any women involved?"

  "There were some, in those sex seminars he runs. Wives, some of our employees."

  "How about Coop?" I said. "He take one of those seminars?"

  "Not that I know."

  "Big Wilma?"

  A dele put her head back and laughed. "Wait'll you meet Big Wilma," she said.

  33

  Susan and I were cooking dinner at my place, for Hawk and a thoracic surgeon. Which is, of course, to say that I was cooking dinner and Susan was setting the table, and putting cut flowers around.

  The surgeon was an absolute blockbuster of a black woman named Cecile. I was making my own version of moussaka, with zucchini and onions and peppers and no eggplant. I hate eggplant. I was drinking a martini made with orange vodka while I cooked, and the rest of them were sitting at my kitchen counter drinking martinis too, and watching me.

  "I hope this isn't too exhausting for you," I said while the lamb was browning.

  "No," Hawk said, "I'm cool with it. But how come you didn't prepare in advance."

  "I was busy fighting crime," I said.

  "Who's winning?" Hawk said.

  "Crime," I said.

  "Little guy with the long hair reappear?"

  "Not yet. I'll let you know."

  "I ready to pounce," Hawk said.

  Susan took so small a drink of her martini that it might simply have been that she sniffed at it.

  "Something I've been thinking," she said."When you had lunch with the CEO of that company."

  "Bob Cooper," I said. "Kinergy."

  "Yes. Wasn't that a private club?"

  "That's why I felt so honored," I said.

  "So how did Mr. Long Hair get in?"

  "You're making me look bad," I said. "I never thought of that."

  "As long as one of us did," Susan said.

  "The finger of suspicion would point at Coop."

  "I'd think so," Susan said. "Of course I'm not a detective."

  "Oh shut up," I said.

  Susan smiled her contented smile and took in another gram of martini vapor. I went back to my moussaka.

  "Where did you learn to cook?" Cecile said. "I'm always curious about men who cook."

  "We been cookin', " Hawk said to her.

  "Shh," she said. "Did you learn from Susan?"

  Hawk and I laughed.

  "What?" Cecile said.

  "If I made you coffee," Susan said, "I'd burn it."

  "Oh. Then who?"

  "I grew up in an all-male family," I said. "My father and my two uncles. All of us cooked."

  "No women?"

  "None that lived there," I said.

  "So there was no stigma attached?"

  "No."

  The moussaka got made. The martinis got drunk. I opened some wine and we sat at the table to eat. Pearl took a position next to Hawk and poked her head in under his elbow and rested her head on his thigh. Hawk broke off a biscuit and gave it to her.

  While we were eating I said, "I've got a plan."

  "Oh, thank God," Hawk said.

  "I need some information on a guy named Darrin O'Mara who runs, ah, sex seminars."

  "Isn't he on the radio?" Cecile said.

  "You listen to him?" Hawk said.

  "No need," Cecile said. "I have you, Chocolate Thunder."

  Hawk grinned.

  "What you need?" he said to me.

  "I need undercover," I said.

  "At a sex seminar?" Susan said. "I'll do it."

  "You've been seen too much with me," I said.

  "I'll say."

  "What I need is Hawk and Cecile to enroll, and see what's really up in these seminars."

  Hawk looked at Cecile.

  "What do you think?" he said. "Doctor Covert?"

  "What are you trying to find out?" Cecile said.

  "I think there's something fishy about everything O'Mara's involved in. I need information."

  "I understand that," Cecile said. "But why look into these seminars?"

  "Because, at the moment, I have nothing else to look into, and I hate spinning my wheels."

  "And what do you expect to find out?" Cecile was not a fools-rush-in kind of girl.

  "I want to know if there's any reason for someone to refer to him as a corporate pimp."

  Cecile thought about it.

  "I'd be with you?" she said to Hawk.

  "Every moment," Hawk said.

  "And I wouldn't have to do anything I didn't want to do."

  "No," I said.

  "'Cept with me," Hawk said.

  "There isn't anything I don't want to do with you," she said.

  I looked at Susan.

  "Wow," I said, "why don't you ever say things like that to me?"

  "You're not Hawk," she said.

  "More deadly than the adder's sting," I said. "What do you think? Can you do it?"

  Cecile looked at Ha
wk. "What do you think, Licorice Stick?" she said.

  "Sure," Hawk said.

  L icorice Stick?

  34

  I met Marlene Rowley for lunch at the new Legal Seafood in Cambridge. The weather was nice so we sat outside in Charles Square. I didn't know whether it meant that widowhood agreed with her or didn't agree with her, but Marlene had porked up a bit. Her face was puffy and her butt was more robust. When we were seated she had a glass of white wine. I ordered iced tea.

  "Don't you drink?" Marlene said.

  "I try not to at lunch. Makes me sleepy."

  "Isn't that interesting," Marlene said. "It has no effect on me, you know."

  She was talking to me but her eyes were ranging Charles Square. The waiter brought our drinks and took our order.

  "You were taking a seminar with Darrin O'Mara," I said.

  "Who told you that?" she said.

  She took a large snort of white wine.

  "Darrin."

  "My God," she said. "That's a violation of confidentiality."

  "That's what it sounds like to me," I said.

  "That bastard," she said.

  "So tell me a little about that," I said.

  "Why?"

  "Why not?"

  "I don't need you prying into my sex life."

  "You don't?"

  "Oh don't be so smart."

  "I'm trying," I said. "But I'm not succeeding. What were the seminars like?"

  "Could you order me another glass of wine?" Marlene said.

  "Sure," I said.

  When that was accomplished I said, "What were the seminars like?"

  Marlene drank from her second glass.

  "They were emancipating," she said. "When I entered the program I was in thrall to sexual convention."

  "Yikes," I said.

  "Do you know what thrall means?"

  "I do," I said.

  "What?" she said.

  "Captive," I said.

  "Well, you are smart," she said.

  "I am. But not because I know what thrall means. Tell me about escaping the bondage of sexual convention."

  "That's one of the first things we learned," Marlene said. "Darrin explained that people would be uncomfortable with sexual freedom, and would denigrate it."

  "Disparage," I said.

  "What?"

  "Denigrate means disparage."

  She frowned.

  "Yes," she said.

  Several waiters arrived at our table with lunch.

  "So what did you do to escape?" when they left.

  "Darrin taught us to experience our sexuality as fully as we could."

  "Not a bad thing," I said. "Did he offer specifics?"

  "Specifics?"

  "How were you to accomplish the experiential thing?" I said.

  "Excuse me?"

  "Did you, ah, spouse swap? Meet people at mixers? Hang outside of South Station and yell, `Hey, sailor'?"

  "Don't be offensive," she said.

  "Sometimes it gets away from me," I said.

  "Well, I am not going to sit here and talk about my most intimate experiences with you, if that's what you think."

  "Isn't modesty just another snare of conventional sex attitudes?"

  Marlene showed no interest in her crab salad. She snagged a busboy on his way by.

  "Could I have some more wine?" she said.

  "I send your waiter right over," the bus boy said.

  "Why are you asking me all this?" Marlene said.

  While she waited for the waiter, she tipped her glass up to drain the remaining droplets. I had a spoonful of my chowder.

  "I'm detecting," I said when I'd swallowed the chowder. "Did O'Mara do anything but urge you to be free?"

  "I am paying you to find out who murdered my husband," she said.

  The waiter brought Marlene a glass of wine.

  "You should probably bring me another glass, when you get the chance," she said to the waiter.

  "Certainly, ma'am," the waiter said. He glanced at me.

  "More iced tea, sir?"

  I shook my head. Marlene guzzled some wine. I had some chowder.

  "Did O'Mara do anything to help free you of your Victorian hangups?" I said.

  Marlene was looking around the courtyard. There might be someone important.

  "What we learn in the seminar experience, and what we say and do there, belongs to us, and to no one else."

  "Not even me?" I said.

  She giggled and raised her wineglass toward me. "Especially not you," she said.

  The waiter arrived with the backup glass and she finished off the one she was drinking so he could take it with him.

  "Did you and Trent meet Bernie and Ellen at the seminar?" I said.

  "Of course not. Bernie and Trent worked together at-" She tried to say Kinergy, but got the G transposed and it came out "Kingery."

  She didn't seem to notice. I asked her some more things. She drank some more wine. I finished my chowder. She didn't touch her crab salad. I drank the rest of my iced tea. She had some more wine. I continued to learn nothing about Darrin O'Mara. I considered Spenser Crimestopper, Rule 2: If after repeated efforts you don't succeed, quit. I paid the check. As I was paying it, Marlene stood suddenly.

  "I have to wee-wee," she said.

  "Thanks for sharing," I said.

  She turned from the table, and staggered and fell backward and sat hard on the brick patio with her legs splayed out in front of her. I got to her just ahead of a woman at the next table. "Are you all right?" the woman said.

  "Shertainly," Marlene said.

  I got my hands under her armpits and hoisted her up. "Shleepy," she said.

  "She needs the ladies' room," I said to the woman at the next table. "I'll get her there. Can you go in with her?"

  "Of course," the woman said. I wanted to kiss her.

  "But if she falls again," the woman said, "I don't think I can pick her up."

  "I'll wait outside," I said. "If you need me, just sort of clear the way, and I'll come in and get her."

  The woman from the next table smiled. She was a strong-looking woman with a large chest and black hair salted with gray.

  "Okay," she said.

  I steered Marlene toward the ladies' room, and waited outside. After a longer time than I would have thought, they came out.

  "I wee-wee-d," Marlene said.

  "Swell," I said.

  35

  I got a room at the Charles Hotel, and maneuvered Marlene I up to it. She thought we were going to throw off convention's thrall, but I got her to lie down on the bed for a minute first. She fell asleep at once. And I made good my escape.

  I went across the river to my office, with the intention of opening my window, putting my feet up on my desk, locking my hands behind my head, and figuring out who killed Trent Rowley. I might have sat there a long time, but fortunately when I went in the light was flashing on my answering machine. Yea, a distraction, I pressed the new message button.

  The voice said, "Quirk. I'm on Lime Street. Something you might be interested in. You'll see the cars."

  L ime Street is on the flat of Beacon Hill, old Boston. Red brick, narrow access, town houses, money. It's not a very big street, and it was easy to see the half dozen police cars, parked wherever their drivers had felt like parking them. There was crime-scene tape strung around the entrance to a four-story brick town house. The front door had one violet pane in the window. I told the uniform at the door that Quirk had called me. He nodded and yelled back into the house.

  "Guy to see the captain."

  There was a moment, then a voice yelled something, and the uniform ushered me in.

  A nother uniform said, "Captain's straight back."

  I walked down the hall to the back room and into a bright room, with a lot of windows that looked out onto a tiny garden. There was a big-screen television and a music system, a wet bar and some heavy leather furniture. On the floor, facedown, was a dead man with a lot of blo
od on the back of his head. He was wearing a green terrycloth bathrobe. Quirk stood with his hands in his hip pockets, looking down at the body. Crime-scene people were dusting, and photographing, and shining lights. Belson stood next to a pair of narrow French doors that opened into the tiny garden. He was looking at the room. He didn't say anything when I came in. I knew what he was doing. I'd seen him study a crime scene before. He probably didn't know I was there.

  "You called?" I said to Quirk. He looked up.

  "Know this guy?" he said.

  "Gotta see his face."

  Q uirk was wearing white crime-scene gloves. He bent down and slipped one hand under the dead man's head and raised it. I squatted and took a look.

  "Gavin," I said. "Security director at a company called Kinergy. Out in Waltham."

  "Found your name in his Rolodex," Quirk said.

  I looked down at Gavin. There was a nine-millimeter pistol on the floor a few inches away from his right hand. Behind me, Belson moved away from the French doors and began to move slowly around the room. I didn't have to look to know what he was doing. He always did the same thing. He looked at everything. Opened every drawer, picked up every lamp, moved every drape, every pillow, every seat cushion. He looked under rugs, behind furniture. The crime-scene people did what they did. Belson did what he did.

  "Suicide?" I said.

  Q uirk shrugged.

  "Bullet entered the top of his mouth," he said. "Exited the top of his head in the rear. Consistent with a guy ate his gun. Piece is a nine-millimeter, Smith & Wesson. One round missing from the magazine. Been recently fired."

  "Note?"

  "On his computer screen. No signature."

  Q uirk picked up a piece of paper from an end table near the couch.

  "We printed out a copy." He handed it to me.

  I killed Trent Rowley. I accept my responsibility. But I can no longer live with it.

  I handed it back to Quirk.

  "Sound like him?" Quirk said.

  "Hard to say."

  "You involved in the Rowley thing?" Quirk said.

  "I am."

  I looked out into the tiny garden. There was no one there.

  "Let's you and me go outside, and I'll tell you what I know."

  Q uirk nodded toward the narrow French doors and followed me out into the garden. There was a small stone bench next to a little pool with a miniature waterfall making a pleasant sound. The rest of the little space was flowers and herbs, and four tomato plants. I sat beside Quirk on the stone bench and told him what I knew about Gavin and Kinergy.