Robert B Parker - Spenser 10 - The Widening Gyre

by The Widening Gyre(lit)

  I said, "I can fix this for you. Not all of it. Not what it feels like, but the other part. I can take care of the blackmail."

  Alexander nodded. We passed Johnson's, its facade a dark green, the name in gold letters. A municipal bus stopped, let some people off, and moved on downtown.

  "It was mailed to my home," Alexander said. "In Fitchburg. A videotape. VHS format. No return address, Boston postmark." We turned into Court Square, walking past the City Hall complex with its tower. There was a small park in the middle of the square. I was quiet. He had started. I knew he'd finish.

  "I have a recorder, VHS. I played it one night while Ronni was out."

  We turned left at the far end of the square. The closed end. Beyond was expressway. Beyond the expressway, the river, adding its damp smell to the rainy night.

  "The film showed Ronni having sex with a young man in what appeared to be an apartment. It was apparent that she didn't know of the taping."

  At the open end of Court Square, across Main Street, the Civic Center was glowing and bright. Its lights glistened off the wet buildings. The right kind of rain makes everything look good. Even the color-coded parking garage seemed attractive in the soft autumn rain.

  "It was also apparent that it was Ronni. No possible mistake. I did not recognize the young man."

  We turned right again, back onto Main Street, and kept walking, away from the hotel. I wasn't wearing a hat. My hair was wet. Reflections of the traffic lights shimmered on the wet pavement. "Have you discussed this with her?" I said.

  "No. She doesn't know. She's not to know. Ever. It would break her heart if she knew."

  "I can't be delicate about this," I said. "The whole thing is indelicate. There's no way around it. I have to ask questions."

  "Yes," he said. "Go ahead."

  "You're persuaded that this is not a porno film, that is, something she posed for?"

  "I'm sure that it is not deliberately posed."

  "People don't just stroll around with videotape cameras," I said. "Someone set this up."

  Alexander nodded.

  "The room had to have enough light," I said.

  "It was daylight mostly," Alexander said. "One wall of the room was glass and it was bright daylight. The drapes were open."

  "Do you... has she... is there a way to narrow this down?" I said.

  Alexander said, "I don't understand."

  I took a deep breath. "Can we try to track down her partner or could it be any one of a number?"

  Alexander stopped and squeezed his eyes shut and then turned his head away from me and down, almost the way a dog will cower. He tried to say something and couldn't. He tried again and still couldn't. His hands were deep in his raincoat pockets, his shoulders were hunched, and he rocked a little, as if a gentle wind were making him sway.

  Finally he said, "I don't know," in a barely human voice.

  "Can you ask her?" I said.

  He shook his head.

  The wind picked up a little and the rain, while it was still fine, was beginning to slant a bit as it came down, and drive in our faces. I turned my back to it. Alexander still stood swaying, facedown, unaware.

  "If it came down to it," I said, "would you drop out of the race?"

  Without looking up he nodded again.

  "And never tell her why?" I said.

  Nod.

  "And throw your support to Browne?"

  Nod.

  "I've heard Browne is mob-connected."

  Nod.

  "And you'd support him?"

  Alexander's shoulders were beginning to shake. He raised his face. Tears were squeezing out of his squinted eyes and running down his face.

  "Yes," he said. His voice shook, but there was an energy in it I had never heard before. He straightened a little and stopped swaying. The rain came harder and the wind intensified. It was no longer a good rain to walk in. Even under other circumstances. It had gotten cold, as if November had reasserted itself. We were alone on the street, with the wind driving the rain before it.

  Blow, winds, and crack your cheek!

  "I would support Satan to spare her," Alexander said.

  I nodded. "So would I," I said.

  Chapter 8

  It was nearly midnight when we got back to the Marriott and went up with the water dripping off us and making small puddles on the elevator floor. Outside the door to his suite Alexander paused and looked at me. His eyes were a little red, but other than that he had it back together.

  "We'll be returning to Washington through the holidays. I don't use Christmas to campaign," Alexander said.

  I nodded.

  "I want her free of this," he said. "Remember that priority. It is the only absolute you have. She is to be free of this."

  I nodded.

  "And she's not to know."

  I nodded.

  Alexander put out his hand. I took it. We shook hands. Alexander stood a minute holding on to my hand after we'd finished shaking. He started to speak, stopped, started again, and then shook his head and released my hand. I nodded.

  "I have to trust you," he said. "I've no other hope."

  Then he went into the suite and I went next door to the room shared by Cambell and Fraser. I knocked on the door. When Fraser opened it I said, "Alexander's back. I'm going to bed."

  Fraser nodded, closed the door, and I went to my room on the other side of Alexander's.

  In the morning Alexander told Cambell and Fraser that I was doing a special assignment for him and that they'd have the full security responsibility henceforth. I rented a car and drove ninety miles back to Boston and straight to Morrisey Boulevard. It was twenty of eleven when I pulled into the visitors' parking space in front of the Globe. It was ten of eleven when I was sitting in the straight chair beside Wayne Cosgrove's desk in the newsroom.

  "This a social call," Cosgrove said, "or are you undercover for the Columbia Journalism Review?"

  "No, I came in to lodge a complaint about the Globe's white-collar liberal stance and they directed me to you."

  Cosgrove nodded. "Yes," he said. "I handle those complaints."

  "Well, what have you to say?"

  "Fuck you."

  "Gee," I said, "words must be your business."

  He grinned. "Now that we're through playing, you gonna tell me what you want?"

  "I want everything you have on Robert Browne."

  Cosgrove was tall and narrow with curly hair and glasses and a blond beard. He wore a three-piece suit of dark brown tweed, and a dark green shirt and a black knit tie. The vest gapped maybe three inches at his waistline and his green shirt hung loosely out over his belt buckle. "The congressman?"

  "Yes."

  "Why?"

  "None of your business."

  "Christ, how can I resist?" Cosgrove said. "You're so charming when you need something."

  "Can you dig it out for me? You're computerized. How long could it take?"

  "Yeah, sure, I can get it up for you, but being as how I'm in the news business, I can't help wondering if there might not be something, you know, newsy, about a guy like you wanting everything we have on a U.S. congressman."

  "And senatorial aspirant," I said.

  "Senatorial aspirant? Jesus Christ. Want a job on the editorial page?"

  "I need to know anything I can about Browne," I said. "I won't tell you why. Probably never will tell you why, and I'd rather no one knew I was interested."

  "Well, that sure sounds like a good deal for me," Cosgrove said. "Meet me someplace tonight, around six thirty, and I'll give you what I got."

  "Ritz bar," I said. "I'll pay."

  "You should," he said. The phone rang and Cosgrove picked it up. I got up waved him good-bye and went out. I turned in the rental car and walked to my office. It was still raining, steady and cold now. No longer pleasant. The office was stale from emptiness and I opened both windows while I went through my mail. Across the way the art director was in residence and I blew her a kiss from the
window. She smiled and waved. The mail was not worth opening. I dropped it all in the wastebasket. Maybe I should get an unlisted address. What if I did and nobody cared? I called the answering service. There were no messages. I sat down in my swivel chair and took out my bottle of Irish whiskey and had a drink. The cold wet air from the window behind me blew on my neck. I thought about lunch. I looked at my watch. Twelve twenty-five. I had another pull on the bottle. I looked at Susan's picture on my desk. Even filtered through a camera I could feel her energy. Wherever she was things coalesced around her. I made a small toasting gesture with the bottle.

  "Like a jar in Tennessee," I said out loud.

  I drank another shot of whiskey and looked at my watch again. Twelve thirty already. I put the cap back on the bottle and put it away. Lunch.

  I walked up to a Mexican place on Newbury Street called Acapulco and had a plate of enchiladas and three bottles of Carta Blanca. Then I walked to my apartment on Marlborough Street and went in and aired it out. There was a letter there from Paul Giacomin. Things were good at college. He was going to spend Thanksgiving with me, and he might bring a girl friend.

  Whiskey, enchiladas, and beer did not make for a lively afternoon. At 1:15 I lay down on the bed to read Legends of the Fall. About 1:30 I rested my eyes for a moment and at 3:20 I woke up with the book still open on my chest and the thick taste of empty calories in my mouth. I got up and took a shower and put on sweat pants and a waterproof jacket and ran along the Charles for an hour until my blood moved once again without protest through my veins and the guilt of sleeping during the day was dissipated. Then I went over to the Harbor Health Club and worked on their new Nautilus until I felt sure of redemption and it was time to see Wayne Cosgrove.

  I arrived at the Ritz bar freshly showered, shaved, and pleasingly exhausted at 6:20. I had primped for the Ritz bar, which was one of the few places in the city where ties are required and jeans are barred. I had on my brand new corduroy jacket with leather buttons and a tattersall shirt and a dark blue knit tie that picked up the blue in the tattersall. I took off my leather coat as I walked into the Ritz lobby and checked myself in the mirrors near the bar. With my gray slacks and my cordovan loafers I was fit for permanent display. My gun was tucked away on my right hip out of sight. I thought about getting a tweed holster but decided it would jeopardize my credibility.

  The bar was uncrowded and I got a small table near the window where people passing on Arlington Street could look in and assume I was closing an important deal. Cosgrove hadn't arrived yet. When the waiter came I asked for a Rolling Rock Extra Pale in the long neck bottle. They had none. I had to settle for Budweiser. Even the Ritz bar must disappoint occasionally.

  I had finished the first bowl of peanuts and managed to choke down three Budweisers when Cosgrove showed up. He was wearing the same outfit he'd had on earlier except he'd added a long plaid woolen scarf. He carried a big thick manila envelope.

  "Sorry I'm late," he said. "Knowing it was the Ritz I had to go home first and brush my teeth."

  "I don't mind," I said. "It just meant more peanuts for me."

  Cosgrove sat down and handed me the big envelope. The waiter appeared. Cosgrove said, "Martini, stirred not shaken, twist of lemon."

  "No olive?" I said. ,

  "Only a fucking beast would have an olive in his martini," Cosgrove said. "Olives are packed in brine, ruins the taste."

  "I figured the gin and vermouth had already done that."

  Cosgrove shrugged. "No accounting for taste," he said.

  "You prove that," I said. "What's the scarf for?"

  "Strangling muggers," Cosgrove said. "You still working for Meade Alexander?"

  "You've been busy," I said.

  "Are you?"

  "Yes."

  "That why you want the Browne stuff?"

  "No comment."

  The waiter brought Cosgrove's drink and a fresh bowl of peanuts. He looked at me. I shook my head. I'd only been redeemed for a half an hour.

  When the waiter left, Cosgrove took a sip of his martini, looked pleased, put the glass down, and said, "No fucking comment? You work a week for a politician and you're walking around saying no fucking comment?"

  "You're right," I said. "It's embarrassing. Ask me again."

  "You investigating Browne for Alexander?"

  "I don't want to answer that question," I said, "and if you ask it again, I'll beat your teeth in."

  Cosgrove nodded. "Better," he said. He drank some more martini. "How's Susan?" he said.

  "She's away," I said.

  Cosgrove started to speak, looked at me, stopped, and then said, "I wouldn't have thought Meade Alexander was your style."

  "I don't think he is," I said.

  "On the other hand," Cosgrove said, "who is your style, except maybe that goddamned African assassin you hang around with."

  "Hawk," I said. "I'll tell him you said that."

  "That was on deep background," Cosgrove said. "How come you're working for Meade Alexander?"

  "Best offer I had."

  "How's Mrs. Alexander?"

  "Fine."

  "Hear she drinks a little."

  "Don't we all," I said. "Know anything worth telling about the Alexanders?"

  "We having dinner afterward?"

  "Sure."

  "I'll think on it," he said, and sipped more martini.

  Chapter 9

  We ate in the cafe.

  "Ronni Alexander drinks. We both know that," Cosgrove said. "She drinks too much and when she does she gets boisterous, and sometimes mean. When I was in the Washington bureau it was sort of a common joke."

  "I picked up some of that," I said. "Why haven't I ever read about it?"

  Cosgrove ate some scrod. "We do news, not gossip. Or we try to. The fact that a congressman's wife's a boozer isn't news unless it involves her in something that is news, you know?"

  "And I gather it didn't."

  "Not that I ever knew. They live in Georgetown. She didn't spend much time in public with him. When she did usually she'd be on good behavior. And the staff was very alert."

  "No other scandal?"

  Cosgrove shook his head. "Nope."

  "What kind of congressman is Alexander?"

  Cosgrove sipped a little white wine. "Disaster," he said. "He really is a born-again fundamentalist Christian. And that limits him. His options are so proscribed by his convictions that he can't legislate very well. He's not a big thinker either. He's impatient with complicated issues because he doesn't understand them. Often he doesn't even know they're complicated."

  "What's his chance of getting elected to the Senate?"

  "Possible."

  "In Massachusetts? I thought this was the most liberal state in the country."

  "The national media says that because we went for McGovern in 72. It's bullshit. Some parts are liberal, some parts are conservative. But the statewide mood these days, as us political analysts say, is conservative, bedrock, down home, let's-get-back-to-the-old-verities-and-truths-of-the-heart-that shit. Bobby Browne's a traditional liberal-social programs, government money, federal mandates. Keynesian economics. Straight New Deal Democrat." Cosgrove shrugged. "Most people are saying fuck that. Guy paying twenty percent interest wants a change. Browne's a continuation. Hell, Eddie Moore hand-picked him when he decided to retire."

  I was having broiled scallops with lemon butter. I ate some.

  "So you think Browne has reason to worry."

  "Yes."

  "Who's the paper backing?"

  "Browne. Jesus Christ, Spenser. Meade Alexander once wanted to ban the teaching of evolution in the public schools."

  I nodded.

  "I mean, U. S. senators are supposed to be worrying about how not to have a nuclear war. Alexander worries about unisex bathrooms and jiggle television."

  "He honest?" I said.

  "Who, Browne or Alexander?"

  "Either."

  "Alexander's honest. He's so honest he mak
es your teeth hurt. I don't know about Browne. Most of them aren't. Honesty in a public servant is overrated."

  "How about Farrell?"

  Cosgrove grinned. "Old Fix. Fix thinks he's John Wayne, carries a fucking gun, for crissake. But he's hot these days. The world is coming closer to Fix's point of view. If Fix has one. He's been the resident fascist on the City Council for twenty-two years and he believes in counting heads and calling in favors and paying off debts. He believes in getting even. He believes in arm-twisting and buttonholing and rabble-rousing. When Alexander surfaced in the Senate race, Fix jumped aboard early. All that piety gives Fix a good tone, and if Alexander makes it, things will pick up for Fix. One thing I'll give him, he knows how politics work."