Bad Business

by Robert B. Parker

  "It's Vinnie's position," I said, "that big just makes a better target."

  "But is he, ah, competent."

  V innie walked across my living room and looked out at the street for a moment.

  "Vinnie is a very skilled shooter," I said.

  "And ... ah ... loyal? Reliable?"

  "You mean will he stay? Yes. Vinnie is a very reliable person. He will stay with you, and I will come by and stay with you, and a man named Hawk will come by. One of us will always be with you."

  "Is Hawk his first or last name?" Adele said.

  "Just Hawk," I said.

  "And he's resourceful, too?"

  "Infinitely," I said.

  "How will I know him?" "Vinnie or I will introduce you."

  "And one of you will stay with me here, alone?"

  "Yes.

  V innie came back to the kitchen end of the living room and poured himself coffee.

  "I don't ... I wonder ... I mean at night?"

  V innie found some light cream in my refrigerator and added it to his coffee.

  "We'll try not to be piggish," I said.

  "I get a lot of sex, ma'am," Vinnie said. "I don't really need to have none with you."

  A dele actually blushed. It was a good sign. She had calmed down enough to be embarrassed. Vinnie was stirring five spoonfuls of sugar into his coffee.

  "I didn't mean ... I only . . ."

  "I know," I said. "This is new for you. You can trust us. We'll take care of you. And we'll respect your privacy and your modesty and you."

  She nodded and looked at Vinnie. He was sipping his very sweet coffee.

  "May I call you Vinnie?"

  "Sure."

  "And I'm Adele," she said.

  "Yeah," Vinnie said."I knew that."

  44

  I went to see Quirk in his new high-tech office in the new high-tech police headquarters.

  "Wow," I said. "You must be catching a lot more crooks now."

  "We got so many," Quirk said, "they're asking us to slow down a little."

  "I have a high-ranking employee at Kinergy that says the company is nearly broke."

  "Gee," Quirk said.

  "Two people from Kinergy have been shot," I said.

  "One of them is Healy's problem," Quirk said.

  "And the other one is yours," I said. "You think this might be a clue?"

  "It might be," Quirk said. "Who's your source?"

  "The source feels endangered and is in hiding," I said."I promised I wouldn't say."

  Q uirk leaned back in his chair with his thick hands laced across his flat stomach.

  "And," he said, "you know where this source is, of course."

  "I do."

  Q uirk swiveled his chair halfway and looked out the window for a bit.

  "I known you a long time," he said. "So I know I can't scare you into giving me a name."

  "Don't feel bad," I said. "I still think you're scary."

  "Thanks. Got any evidence to say the place is broke?"

  "Just the unsupported allegation of my well-placed source."

  "Judges love that," Quirk said. "And, say it's so, and say we could prove it, how does it connect with my murder?"

  "Don't you mean murders?" I said.

  "Other one's Healy's. I only claim credit for out-of-jurisdiction crimes if they're solved."

  "Of course," I said. "I don't know how it connects. Just strikes me that it might."

  "Sure it might," Quirk said. "And what I want you to do is go right over to the DA's office and tell them you have an allegation from an unnamed source that might be a clue, and you want a warrant to examine the books of the most successful corporation in the Commonwealth."

  "Didn't they donate a lot of money to the last election campaign of the current senate president?"

  "I believe they did," Quirk said.

  "Want me to mention your name?"

  "No."

  "Maybe Healy could get in there," I said.

  "You can ask him," Quirk said.

  "Think there's a chance?"

  "No."

  "Me either," I said.

  "So," Quirk said. "I would say it's up to you, Caped Crusader."

  "My forensic accounting skills may have corroded a little," I said.

  "Lot of that going around," Quirk said.

  "Still," I said, "if I blunder around over there long enough-"

  "Maybe you'll write Hamlet," Quirk said.

  45

  I met Susan at Copley Place, which is a high-rise mall in the middle of the city. She was looking into a shop window, studying a manikin in a red leather pantsuit when I found her.

  "I know a place would sell you a matching whip," I said.

  "I'm sure you do," she said and gave me a kiss. "You have this Adele person's list?"

  "Adele person?" I said. "Do I detect a hint of repressed hostility?"

  "Yes," Susan said. "Do you have the list?"

  I handed her the list. She scanned it like a specialist reading an X-ray. Every time I was in Copley Place I was dazzled by how successfully it avoided any regional identity. In here you could be in Dallas or Chicago or Los Angeles or Toronto or Ann Arbor, Michigan.

  "Okay,"Susan said. "I can get most of this at Neiman's."

  I followed Susan through Neiman's while she bought makeup and underwear and jeans and tops and hair-care products and pantyhose and a pair of fashionable tan loafers and various items of personal hygiene. While she was there she bought herself a sweater and some pants. After I had paid I had just enough left for lunch, so we went downstairs to The Palm.

  "So why the hostility?" I said.

  "To this Adele person?" Susan said.

  "Yes," I said. "That hostility."

  "She strikes me as a sexual predator."

  "Sexual predator?"

  "Yes."

  "That seems unsympathetic," I said.

  "Um," Susan said.

  She had a glass of iced tea from which she took a sip.

  "I mean you have often made yourself sexually available," I said.

  "To you."

  "Yes."

  "I have the right," Susan said. "And she doesn't."

  "No."

  "Maybe she'll make herself sexually available to Vinnie or Hawk," I said.

  "That's her right," Susan said.

  "But not to me," I said.

  "That would not be her right," Susan said.

  "Even if she did," I said, "I would remain steadfast."

  "I'm sure you would."

  "Then why do you care?"

  "In one word," Susan said, "how would you describe your state of mind if I told you one of my male patients was living with me for a while."

  "One word?"

  "Yes."

  "Frenzied," I said.

  "Thank you."

  I took a drink of my Virgin Mary.

  "I can't ask her to leave right now," I said.

  "I know."

  "She'll be there for a while," I said.

  "I know."

  "I won't succumb to her blandishments."

  "I know."

  "But you're still going to be hostile?"

  "Yes."

  "But not to me," I said.

  She smiled the luminous smile. The one that makes her whole face color, and clocks speed up.

  "Of course not, my large kumquat," Susan said. "I love you."

  "Even more than Pearl?" I said.

  She kept the smile. "Don't go there," she said.

  46

  When I got back to my apartment, Vinnie, with his coat off and a nine-millimeter Glock on his belt, was cooking sausage with vinegar peppers on the griddle part of my stove. A big pot was heating on another burner. Adele and Hawk sat at the counter watching him. They were drinking some Gray Riesling.

  "On duty?" I said to Hawk.

  "Vinnie's on duty," Hawk said. "Besides which, you knows I don't get drunk."

  "I had forgotten that for a moment," I said.

 
; A dele said, "Hello."

  I said, "You seem to be warming to your protectors."

  "I am," Adele said.

  "It's probably some variation of the Stockholm syndrome."

  "Cecile called," Hawk said. "I told her to come over."

  "She get a nibble?"

  "Think so."

  "When?" I said.

  "Tonight."

  "I think you're back on duty," I said.

  "Pretty soon," Hawk said.

  A dele watched us as we talked, and glanced now and then at Vinnie as he nurtured his sausage and peppers.

  "Can you tell me who Cecile is?" Adele said.

  "What you're going to do?"

  "Cecile is a friend of Hawk's," I said."The rest is a little murky."

  "Will it be dangerous?"

  Hawk grinned.

  "Not for us," he said.

  The doorbell rang and Hawk went to let Cecile in.

  "I've got a date," she said as she came into the living room.

  "Of course you do," I said.

  "What a relief," she said.

  Cecile knew Vinnie. I introduced her to Adele.

  "I need a drink," Cecile said.

  "Martini?"

  "Rocks," she said, "with a twist of orange if you've got it." I made her the martini.

  "This has been fun," she said, "like, you know, cops and robbers, an adventure. And I always knew that Hawk and you were around."

  "Protect and serve," I said.

  "Well, now I'm scared. I don't want to play anymore."

  "No need. Tell us the deal."

  "I go to an apartment on Park Drive," Cecile said, "and ring the bell for Griffin in two-B."

  "That's it?"

  "Yes. When someone answers I give my name on the intercom. He buzzes me in and I go up to apartment two-B."

  "Any instructions when you get up there?"

  "None," Cecile said. "I assume I disrobe."

  "Maybe I should go too," Vinnie said.

  "Vinnie will stay with Adele," I said. "Hawk and I will come along."

  "Do I have to go?"

  "You have to say your name so he'll buzz you in," I said. "Then Hawk can take you away."

  "And you'll go up?"

  "Knock, knock," I said. "Who's there."

  "What if he's watching, or he sees you through the peephole and he won't let you in."

  "He's gotta come out sometime," I said.

  Cecile shook her head.

  "I've gotten this far," Cecile said. "I need to get you in there."

  "We'll be with you," I said.

  She looked at Hawk. He nodded. "Okay," she said. "What's the plan."

  We got to the Fenway at 6:30 and drove slowly down Park Drive past 137 so Cecile could get a look at it. Then we went on around to Boylston Street and parked in the parking lot of a supermarket a block over from Park Drive. It was 6:45. Cecile's appointment was at seven.

  "One more time," I said. "You and Hawk will walk down Jersey Street. Hawk will stay around the corner out of sight and you'll continue on down toward the apartment. I'll walk up Kilmarnock Street and approach the apartment from that direction. Give me a little head start so I get there a little before you do. I'll stand on the front steps fumbling for my keys. You come up, pay me no attention, and ring the bell. The minute Hawk sees you ring the bell he starts down toward us. Your date upstairs can't be watching out the window because he's answering your ring. You get buzzed in and I go in with you, because I've lost my keys. I linger a moment to let Hawk in, you start slowly toward the elevator. Hawk comes in and goes up the stairs."

  "What if there aren't any stairs?"

  "We'll improvise" I said. "But I've been in some of these buildings. They have stairs that circle the elevator."

  "Whatever the setup," Hawk said, "you won't be alone for a second."

  Cecile nodded.

  "Still scared," she said.

  "Don't blame you," I said.

  "Easier than cracking thoraxes," Hawk said. Cecile made a try at a smile.

  "Not for the crack-er," she said.

  "So Hawk goes up the stairs," I said. "I get in the elevator with you. Hawk lingers in the stairwell at the top just out of sight and checks around the corner to see if there's a peephole. If there isn't, he walks down and stands beside the door. We go up. We get out on the second floor. You get out. I get out. You start down toward two-B. I look and if I see Hawk I know there's no peephole and I scoot down and stand on the other side of the door. If I don't see Hawk I stay in the elevator with the door open so it can't move and wait as you walk down and ring the bell. When the door opens Hawk and I run down the hall and barge in. You'll never be out of our sight."

  "Okay," she said. I looked at her.

  "You be all right?" I said.

  She nodded. I looked at Hawk.

  "Cecile's looking a little tense," I said. "Do people of African heritage get pale?"

  "Only through miscegenation," Hawk said. He patted her thigh and we got out of the car.

  47

  There was no peephole. When Cecile knocked and the door opened, Hawk and I were standing one on each side of it.

  "Cecile?" a man's voice said. "Yes, of course it is. Come on in."

  I knew the voice. Hawk went in first. He moved the man down his short corridor without any visible effort, except that when they reached the end the man banged hard against the far wall. I turned to Cecile.

  "You can come in," I said, "and meet your date."

  She went in and I went in behind her. The man was Bob Cooper.

  He said, "Spenser. My God. What the hell is going on?"

  "He carrying?" I said to Hawk.

  "Nope."

  "Carrying?" Cooper said. "What the hell would I be carrying?"

  "Can't be too careful," I said.

  "I don't get this, Spenser. What are you doing here? Who the hell are these people?"

  We were in a short hallway off of which the other rooms opened. There was a bedroom, a bath, a miniscule kitchen, and a living room. I gestured toward the living room.

  "Sit down," I said. "We'll talk."

  I t was the kind of furnished apartment that graduate students rent, or newlyweds, or both. It was undistinguished in any way, except for the obviously new, and obviously expensive, big-screen TV/entertainment center opposite the brown corduroy couch.

  "Absolutely," Cooper said. "I'm eager to hear what you've got to say."

  Cooper sat on the couch. Cecile sat quietly in a badly painted Boston rocker in the corner nearest the door. Hawk leaned on the doorframe near Cecile. I sat in front of Cooper on a sea chest that had been painted brown and was being used as a coffee table. Cooper leaned back and rested one arm along the top of the couch. Casual. Fully at ease. A concerned CEO puzzled by the antics of subordinates.

  "First," I said, "there's nothing personal here. You seem like a nice fellow. Second, there's nothing judgmental. Your sex life is your business. I don't care if you have carnal knowledge of a Chevy Tahoe, as long as the Tahoe is a consenting adult." Cooper frowned mildly and looked quizzical.

  "And third," I said. "We got your ass, and it will just slow everything down if you try to pretend we don't."

  "What on earth . . ." Cooper said.

  "Stop it," I said. "Hawk and Cecile went to O'Mara's courtly love seminar, and Cecile, the lucky lady, made the cut and got invited to the women's mixer. O'Mara's assistant videotaped her, and you reviewed the tapes and, tastefully, picked her for an assignation."

  "That's absurd," Cooper said. "I have no idea who this woman is."

  "Which is why you called her Cecile when you opened the door."

  "I did not. She must have misunderstood."

  "None of us misunderstood," I said.

  I looked at the big entertainment center. Mute and sort of threatening on the far wall.

  "Hawk," I said. "You know how to work that thing?"

  "'Course not," Hawk said.

  "I imagine I do," Cecile said. />
  "See what he's got on videotape."

  Cooper said to Cecile, "You seem a nice young woman. But this is, after all, an illegal entry, and you really ought to think of your own best interests, here."

  Cecile picked up the remote from the end table beside the couch and clicked on the gizmos in the cabinet, and in a moment the screen lit. She walked over and looked at some videotapes in a holder, selected one, slipped it in, clicked another gizmo, and after a moment of blank blue screen, there was Cecile drinking white wine from a piece of clear plastic stemware at the Balmoral Castle ballroom. Cecile shut it off.

  No one said anything.

  Then Cecile said, "The tape of me is labeled Cecile. There are also tapes labeled Marsha, Dorothy, Caroline ... and, you get the idea."

  "Play Marsha," I said.

  "Don't," Cooper said.

  Cecile looked at Hawk.

  "Let's go to the videotape," Hawk said.

  She picked up another videotape cassette. Cooper started to get up. I leaned over and put the flat of my hand on his chest and gently sat him back down. Cecile put it in, did the hocus pocus with the remote, and onto the screen came Marsha. Like Cecile she was good-looking, and like Cecile she was black. We watched her with her white wine, chatting with other women, and smiling into the camera. Then there was a somewhat amateurish cut, and we saw Marsha naked, and smiling past the camera, in what was almost certainly this living room. The camera tracked her as she walked through the hall and into the bedroom. Then another clumsy cut and there she was in bed with Cooper.

  "Shut it off," Cooper said.

  His voice was hoarse. Cecile looked at me, and I nodded, and she shut everything down.

  "My wife," he said. "My wife can't know."

  "Why don't you take a walk around, Licorice Stick," I said to Hawk, "see if you find some video equipment."

  "I'm leaving," Cooper said.

  He tried to stand, and once again I redirected him with the flat of my hand.

  "No," I said. "You're not."

  "You can't keep me here against my will," Cooper said.

  "Don't be silly," I said.

  He tried again to get up. I held him down. He tried to push my hand away. He couldn't.