Robert B Parker - Spenser 03 - Mortal Stakes

by Mortal Stakes(lit)

  If you talk with me, then it's confidential, there's no aggravation at all. And I might do another one-arm push-up for you."

  "What if my bankrollers decided to cause you aggravation?"

  "I have a very high aggravation tolerance."

  She sipped her Campari. "It's funny, or maybe it's not funny at all, but you're the second person who's come asking about Donna."

  "Who else?"

  "He never said, but he was quite odd. He was, oh, what, in costume, I guess you'd say. Dressed all in white, white suit and shirt, white tie, white shoes and a big white straw hat like a South American planter."

  "Tall and slim? Chewed gum?"

  "Yes."

  I said, "Aha."

  "Aha?"

  "Yeah, like Aha I see a connection, or Aha I have discovered a clue. It's detective talk."

  "You know who he is then."

  "Yes, I do. What did he want?"

  She sipped some more Campari. I drank some Heineken. "Among my enterprises," she said, "is a film business. This gentleman had apparently seen Donna in one of our films and wanted the master print."

  "Aha, aha!" I said. "Corporate diversification." The waiter came for our order. When he was gone, I said, "Start from the beginning. When did you meet Donna, what did she do for you, what kind of film was she in, tell me all."

  "Very well, if you promise not to keep saying Aha."

  "Agreed."

  "Donna came to me through a client. He'd picked her up down in the East Village when he was drunk." She grimaced. "She was working for Violet then; her boyfriend had pimped for her before but had run from Violet. I don't know what happened to the boyfriend. The client thought she was too nice a girl to be hustling out of the back of a car with a two-dollar pimp like Violet. He put her in touch with me."

  The waiter came with our soup. I had gazpacho; Patricia Utley had vichyssoise.

  "I run a very first-rate operation, Spenser."

  "I can tell that," I said.

  "Of course, I would deny this to anyone if it ever came up."

  "It won't. I don't care about your operation. I only care about Donna Burlington."

  "But you disapprove."

  "I don't approve or disapprove. To tell you the truth, Mrs. Utley, I don't give a damn. I think about one thing at a time. Right now I'm thinking about Donna Burlington."

  "It's a volunteer business," she said. "It exists because men have needs." She said it as if the needs had a foul odor.

  "Now who's disapproving?"

  "You don't know," she said. "You've never seen what I've seen."

  "About Donna Burlington," I said.

  "She was eighteen when I took her. She didn't know anything. She didn't know how to dress, how to do her hair, how to wear makeup. She hadn't read anything, been anyplace, talked to anyone. I had her two years and taught her everything. How to walk, how to sit, how to talk with people. I gave her books to read, showed her how to make up, how to dress."

  The waiter brought the fish. Sole in a saffron sauce for her. Scallops St. Jacques for me.

  "You and Rex Harrison," I said.

  "Yes," she said. "It was rather like that. I liked Donna, she was a very unsophisticated little thing. It was like having a, oh not a daughter, but a niece perhaps. Then one day she left. To get married."

  "Who'd she marry?"

  "She wouldn't tell me--a client, I gathered, but she wouldn't say whom, and I never saw her again."

  "When was this?"

  Patricia Utley thought for a moment. "It was the same year as the Cambodian raids and the great protest, nineteen seventy. She left me in winter nineteen seventy. I remember it was winter because I watched her walk away in a lovely fur-collared tweed coat she had."

  The waiter cleared the fish and put down the salad, spinach leaves with raw mushrooms in a lemon and oil dressing. I took a bite. So-so. "I assume the films were what I used to call dirty movies when I was a kid."

  She smiled. "It is getting awfully hard to decide, isn't it? They were erotic films. But of good quality, sold by subscription."

  "Black socks, garter belts, two girls and a guy? That kind of stuff?"

  "No, as I said, tasteful, high quality, good color and sound. No sadism, no homosexuality, no group sex."

  "And Donna was in some?"

  "She was in one, shortly before she left me. The pay was good, and while it was a lot of work, it was a bit of a change for her. Her film was called Suburban Fancy. She was quite believable in it."

  "What did you tell the man who came asking?"

  "I told him that he was under some kind of false impression. That I knew nothing about the films or the young lady involved. He became somewhat abusive, and I had to call for Steven to show him out."

  "I heard this guy was pretty tough," I said.

  "Steven was armed," she said.

  "Oh," I said. "How come you didn't have Steven show me out?"

  "You did not become abusive."

  The entree came. Duck in a fig and brandy sauce for me, striped bass in cucumber and crabmeat sauce for her. The duck was wonderful.

  I said, "You sell these films by subscription." She nodded. "How's chances on a look at the subscription list?"

  "None," she said.

  "No chance?"

  "No chance at all. Obviously you can see my situation.

  Such material must remain confidential to protect our clients."

  "People do sell mailing lists," I said.

  "I do not," she said. "I have no need for money, Mr.

  Spenser."

  "No, I guess you don't. Okay, how about I name a couple of people and you tell me if they're on your list? That doesn't compromise any but those I suspect anyway."

  There were carrots in brown sauce with fresh dill and zucchini in butter with the entree, and Patricia Utley ate some of each before she answered. "Perhaps we can go back to my home for brandy after dinner and I'll have someone check."

  For dessert we had clafoutis, which still tastes like blueberry pancakes to me, and coffee. The coffee was weak.

  The bill was $119 including tip.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  AT PATRICIA UTLEY S HOME I returned to the Calvados. Patricia Utley had some sherry.

  "Would you care to see the film, Spenser?" she said.

  "No, thank you."

  "Why not? I never met a man that didn't care for eroticism."

  "Oh, I'm all for eroticism." I was thinking of Linda Rabb in her Church Park apartment in her clean white jeans.

  "It's movies I don't like."

  "AS YOU wish." She sipped some sherry. "You were going to mention some names to me."

  "Yeah, Bucky Maynard--I don't know the real first name, maybe that's it--and Lester Floyd." I was gambling she'd never followed sports and had never heard of Maynard.

  I didn't want to tie Donna Burlington to the Red Sox, but I needed to know. If she'd ever heard of Bucky Maynard, she gave no sign. Lester didn't look like a self-starter. If he was in on this, it was a good bet he represented Maynard.

  "I'll see," she said. She picked up a phone on the end table near the couch and dialed a three-digit number. "Would you please check the subscription list, specifically on Suburban Fancy, and see if we have either a Bucky Maynard or a Lester Floyd, and the address and date? Thank you. Yes, call me right back, I'm in the library."

  "How many copies of that film are there?" I asked.

  "I won't tell you," she said. "That's confidential."

  "Okay, it doesn't matter anyway. The real question is can I get all the copies?"

  "No, I offered to show you the film and you didn't want to."

  "That's not the point."

  The phone rang and Patricia Utley answered, listened a moment, wrote on a note pad, and hung up.

  "There is a Lester Floyd on our subscription list. There is no Bucky Maynard."

  "What's the address on Floyd?"

  "Harbor Towers, Atlantic Avenue, Boston, Mass. Do you need the street n
umber?"

  "No, thank you, that's fine." I finished my brandy and she poured me another.

  "The point I was making before is that I don't want the films to look at. I want them to destroy. Donna Burlington has a nice life now. Married, kid, shiny oak floors in her living room, all-electric kitchen. Her husband loves her. That kind of stuff. These films could destroy her."

  "That is hardly my problem, Spenser. The odds are very good that no one who saw these films would know Donna or connect her with them. And this is not eighteen seventy-five. Queen Victoria is dead. Aren't you being a little dramatic that someone who acted once in an erotic movie would be destroyed?"

  "Not in her circles. In her circles it would be murder."

  "Well, even if you are right, as I said, it is not my problem. I am in business, not social work. Destroying those films is not profitable."

  "Even if purchased at what us collectors like to call fair market value?"

  "Not the master. That would be like killing the goose.

  You can have all the prints you want, at fair market value, but not the master."

  I got up and walked across the room and looked out the windows at Thirty-seventh Street. The streetlights had come on, and while it wasn't full dark yet, there was a softening bronze tinge to everything. The traffic was light, and the people who strolled by looked like extras in a Fred Astaire movie. Well dressed and good-looking. Brilliant red flowers the size of a trumpet bell bloomed in the little garden.

  "Mrs. Utley," I said, "I think that Donna's being blackmailed and that the blackmailer will eventually ruin her life and her husband's and he's using your films."

  Silence behind me. I turned around and put my hands in my hip pocket. "If I can get those films, I can take away his leverage." She sat quietly with her knees together and her ankles crossed as she had before and took a delicate sip of sherry. "You remember Donna, don't you? Like a niece almost.

  You taught her everything. Pygmalion. Remember her? She started out in life caught in a mudhole. And she's climbed out.

  She has gotten out of the bog and onto solid ground, and now she's getting dragged back in. You don't need money. You told me that."

  "I'm a businesswoman," she said. "I do not follow bad business practices."

  "Is that how you stay out of the bog?" I said.

  "I beg your pardon?"

  "You climbed out of the mudhole a bit too, is that how?

  You keep telling yourself you're a businesswoman and that's the code you live by. So that you don't have to deal with the fact that you are also a pimp. Like Violet."

  There was no change in her expression. "You lousy nodick son of a bitch," she said.

  I laughed. "Now, baby, now we are getting it together.

  You got a lot of style and great manners, but you and I are from the same neighborhood, darling, and now that we both know it maybe we can do business. I want those goddamned films, and I'll do what I have to to get them."

  Her face was whiter now than it had been. I could see the makeup more clearly.

  "You want her back in the mudhole?" I said. "She got out, and you helped her. Now she's got style and manners, and there's a man that wants to dirty her up and rub her nose in what she was. It'll destroy her. You want to destroy her?

  For business? When I said you were like Violet, you got mad.

  Think how mad it would make Violet." She reached over and picked up the phone and pressed the intercom button.

  "Steven," she said, "I need you."

  By the time the phone was back in the cradle, Steven was in the room. He had a nice springy step when he walked.

  Vigorous. He also had a.38 caliber Ruger Black Hawk.

  Patricia Utley said, "I believe he has a gun, Steven."

  Steven said, "Yeah, right hip, I spotted it when he came in. Shall I take it away from him?" Steven was holding the Ruger at his side, the barrel pointing at the floor. As he spoke, he slapped it absentmindedly against his thigh.

  "No," Patricia Utley said, "just show him to the street, please."

  Steven gestured with his head toward the door. "Move it," he said.

  I looked at Patricia Utley. Her color had returned. She was poised, still controlled, handsome. I couldn't think of anything to say. So I moved it.

  Outside, it was a warm summer night. Dark now, the bronze glow gone. And on the East Side, midtown, quiet. I walked over to Fifth Avenue and caught a cab uptown to my motel. The West Side was a little noisier but nowhere near as suave. When I got into my room, I turned up the air conditioner, turned on the television, and took a shower. When I came out, there was a Yankee game on and I lay on the bed and watched it.

  Was it Lester? Was it Maynard with Lester as the straw? It had to be something like that. The coincidence would have been too big. The rumor that Rabb is shading games, the wife's past, Marty knew something about it. He lied about the marriage circumstances, and Lester Floyd showing up asking about the wife and Lester Floyd's name being on the mailing list. It had to be. Lester or Maynard had spotted Linda Rabb in the film and put the screws on her husband. I couldn't prove it, but I didn't have to. I could report back to Erskine that it looked probable Rabb was in somebody's pocket and he could go to the DA and they could take it from there. I could get a print of the film and show Erskine and we could brace Rabb and talk about the integrity of the game and what he ought to do for the good of baseball and the kids of America. Then I could throw up.

  I wasn't going to do any of those things, and I knew it when I started thinking about it. The Yankee game went into extra innings and was won by John Briggs in the tenth inning, when he singled Don Money in from third. Milwaukee was doing better in New York than I was.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  I SPENT A GOOD DEAL of time thinking about how to get the master print of Suburban Fancy from Patricia Utley and consequently spent not very much time sleeping till about 4:00 A.M. I didn't think of anything before I fell asleep, and when I woke up, it was almost 10 and I hadn't thought of anything while I slept. I was shaving at 10:20 when there was a knock at the door. I opened it with a towel around my middle, and there was a porter with a neat square package.

  "Mr. Spenser?"

  "Yeah."

  "Gentleman asked me to give this to you."

  I took it, went to the bureau, found two quarters, and gave them to the porter. He said thank you and went away. I closed the door and sat on the bed and opened the package. It was a canister of film. In the package was a note typed on white parchment paper.

  Spenser, This is the master print of Suburban Fancy. I have destroyed the remaining two copies in my possession. My records show a copy sold to the gentleman we discussed last night. There are ten other copies outstanding, but I can find no pattern in their distribution. You will have to deal with the gentleman mentioned above. I wish you success in that.

  Doing this violates good business practice and has cost me a good deal more than the money involved.

  Violet would not have done it.

  Yours, Patricia C. Utley She had signed it with a black felt-tipped pen in handwriting so neat it looked like type. I'd wasted a sleepless night.

  I got out the Manhattan Yellow Pages from the bedside table and looked under "Photographic Equipment" till I found a store in my area that rented projectors. I was going to have to look at the film. If it turned out to be a film on traffic safety, or VD prevention, I would look like an awful goober. Patricia Utley had no reason particularly to lie to me but I was premising too much on the film's authenticity to proceed without looking.

  I had mediocre eggs Benedict in the hotel coffee shop and went out and got my projector. Walking back up Fiftyseventh Street with it, I felt furtive, as if the watch and ward society had a tail on me. Going up in the elevator, I tried to look like an executive going to a sales conference. Back in my room I set up the projector on the luggage rack, pulled the drapes, shut off the lights, and sat on one of the beds to watch the movie. Wasteful practice giving me a ro
om with two beds.

  Motels did that to me often. Alone in a two-bed room. A great song title, maybe I'd get me a funny suit and a guitar and record it. The projector whirred. The movie showed up on the bare wall.

  Patricia Utley was right, it was a high-class operation.