Taming a Sea Horse s-13

by Robert B. Parker

  "I try to use this power wisely," I said. "Who's going to kill us?"

  Rambeaux shook his head. "I won't tell you nothing," he said. "I don't know where April is. I ain't going to know tomorrow neither. You can keep coming around and fucking with me but I still ain't going to know."

  "But if you're seen with me it'll cause trouble?"

  Rambeaux looked straight at me. His eyes were dark and shiny. "Stay away from me, man. Honest to God, I don't know nothing about April and you just going to get me killed for nothing."

  He had the gun pointed at me again. "Maybe not for nothing," I said.

  "Jesus, man, she's just quiff, you know. I go out and in an hour I collect ten more just as good."

  "So how come somebody punched your lights out over her and how come you're scared of dying over her, and how come I can't find her?"

  "Ain't her, man, it's who…" He shook his head. "No, you get out of here or I swear to God I'll shoot. I will waste you right fucking here."

  I stood with my hands in my hip pockets and my back to the windows, with the light from the windows brightening the rumpled silk sheets, on the unfolded bed. Rambeaux had the gun up now in both hands again, pointed at the middle of my stomach. He was shivering.

  "Okay," I said. "I'm going to leave you my card, in case you need to talk with me."

  I took my wallet out and pulled a card free and left it on the maroon lacquered coffee table that had been pushed against the wall to make room for the bed.

  "I don't want no card," Rambeaux said. "I don't want to see you again ever."

  "In case," I said. "Maybe even in case you need help."

  Rambeaux shook his head and stood, the gun pointed at me now held straight out in front with both hands:

  "She alive?" I said.

  Rambeaux nodded. "She fine, man, forget her."

  I nodded toward my card on the coffee table. "In case you need help," I said, and walked out carefully past him.

  I went down to Times Square' then and looked for Ginger Buckey but couldn't find her. I had dinner and went back and looked some more and still couldn't find her, so I went back to the hotel and went to bed. It was my most significant accomplishment of the day.

  11

  My motto is if at first you don't succeed, the hell with it. So, in the morning I packed and checked out and took the 10:00 A.M. shuttle back from New York. The shuttle runs between Boston and New York every hour on the hour and guarantees a seat. It is very convenient, usually late, and has size 42 seats, which can be difficult if you are a size 48 passenger. In Boston I got my car out of the parking garage and drove to my office.

  I got a cup of coffee to go and took it upstairs with me and sat at my desk. There were several days' worth of letters piled under the mail slot. Most of them spelled my name wrong, none of them mattered and I threw the batch into my wastebasket.

  I looked at my answering machine. The red message light glowed unblinking. No calls. I got up and opened both windows and looked out the window. I was still at the corner of Berkeley and Boylston streets, over a bank. Across the street the ad agency was still there, but Linda Thomas didn't work there anymore. They had a male art director now and I didn't know where Linda was. I drank some coffee. Spring air drifted into my office. Some exhaust fumes, too, but mostly spring air.

  I sat down and made out a bill to Patricia Utley for my time and put it in an envelope and addressed it. I peeled a stamp out of the little plastic dispenser that holds one hundred that the post office will sell you for a nickel, except they almost never have them in stock. I put the stamp on the envelope. There. Took care of business for today. Except for actually mailing. Maybe I should save mailing it to give me something to do after lunch. I got up and looked out the window some more. I hadn't worked out since the day before I went to New York. I felt tired and heavy. It was six hours until Susan got off work. I could leave the office, mail my letter, have lunch and take a nap until supper time. Or maybe put my laundry through and watch it dry. Time never weighs heavy on the active mind.

  There was some mail accumulated at my apartment on Marlborough Street, but except for a letter from Paul Giacomin, it was of less significance than the stuff at my office.

  I read Paul's letter, and unpacked my bag, and changed into some sweats and went out to run along the river. I didn't want to and as I started I felt like there was sand in the gears, but as I kept moving things began to loosen in the vernal warmth along the esplanade. A lot of Frisbee was being played. Some of it with dogs. I had previously observed that dogs who catch Frisbees wear red handkerchiefs instead of dog collars; the accuracy of that observation was once again confirmed. Nothing like investigative training. I ran up to the Mass. Ave. Bridge and across it and down along Memorial Drive and across the old Charles River Dam and back across to Boston. By the time I had run a mile I was loosened up and able to pick up the pace and by the time I got to Leverett Circle I was pounding hard and steady and my shirt was soaking wet. I worked my way through traffic down along the waterfront and went into the Harbor Health Club. I didn't feel like pumping iron, either, but if I didn't rescue what was left after laying off in New York, I would feel even less like it tomorrow. And soon it would be too late.

  Henry Cimoli, who ran the place, was taking a young woman through the Nautilus equipment. He had a chart on a clipboard. He wore blue warm-up pants and a white sleeveless T-shirt and white basketball sneakers with padded high tops. There was scar tissue around his eyes and his nose was thickened, and there was a little gray in his short dark hair. But his waist was as narrow and his biceps as thick as when he'd been a featherweight boxer and gone a ten-round draw once with Sandy Saddler.

  "Slow," he said to the woman. "It's not how much you do, it's how right you do it."

  The woman had on dark blue shiny leotards and pale blue leg warmers and dark blue sneakers with a light blue stripe and a bright blue shiny ribbon tying her hair in a ponytail. She pressed up what appeared to be about forty pounds. I said hello to Henry as I went past. He nodded.

  "Now let it back down slow," he said. "Slow, Slow."

  I started at one end of the Nautilus setup and did three sets of everything. There weren't many people there in mid-afternoon and I could move from one machine to the next without waiting. I was halfway through when the young lady in the shiny leotard finished working out and headed for the juice bar. Henry stopped to talk.

  "Women are good," he said. "They'll do what you tell them and they'll do it strict, get more out of it than the guys. Guys want to pile on too much weight and heave it up, case somebody's watching. So they cheat all the time."

  I was doing curls, and it took most of my concentration.

  "But women don't know how to try as hard," Henry said. "They do the exercise right but they never learn to strain, you know. The guys do it wrong but will bust their ass doing it."

  I finished the fifteenth curl out of the third set. I was breathing hard, getting oxygen in. "You're not bad," Henry said.

  I nodded, getting more air. "Everyone says that," I said.

  "Not everybody," Henry said.

  I walked back home and showered and changed and had a beer. The first beer after a big workout makes the workout worthwhile. It was a little after four. I called Susan's number and left a message on her machine proposing dinner and talk. She called me back in twenty minutes.

  "I have one more patient," she said. "Shall I come there?"

  "Yes," I said. "I'll chill the wine."

  "Good."

  She hung up. I checked my watch. Time to provision. I had a couple of bottles of champagne. I put one in the refrigerator to chill and went to the market.

  By six o'clock I was ready. The champagne chilled in a crystal bucket. The boneless chicken was marinating in the juice of one lemon and one orange with a little ginger. The endive and avocado salad was ready to be tossed with dressing and the cornmeal and onion fritters were formed and ready for the skillet. I had on a new starched pink shirt an
d freshly ironed jeans, and cordovan loafers gleaming with polish. I smelled of cologne. My teeth were brushed and I was more scrumptious than the Dukes of Hazzard.

  I was making the salad dressing out of lemon juice and olive oil and honey and mustard and raspberry vinegar when Susan unlocked my front door and came into the apartment. She was wearing a black skirt and a lemon-yellow blouse with black polka dots and a pearl-gray jacket. Her necklace was crystal and pearl, large beads. She wore clunky black earrings and a big bracelet of black and gray chunks of something. Her stockings were pale gray and had a small random floral pattern. Her shoes were black and white. She had her large black purse and a lavender overnight bag.

  I watched her come in and take the key out of the lock and store it back in her purse and close the door behind her. I watched while reality rearranged itself so that she formed its center, and I felt my breath go in and out more clearly, as if the air had turned to oxygen.

  "You're like a breath of spring," I said. "A whole new thing has happened."

  She put her purse down and her overnight bag, and smiled at me and said, "Shall I undress right here, or would you like to sip champagne and talk of the Big Apple, first?"

  "Undressing is good," I said.

  "Fine," she said, and began to unbutton her jacket. "Feel free to whistle `Night Train."'

  "Whistling is a little beyond me right now," I said. "Maybe I should just undress."

  "Race you," she said.

  Then she was naked, wearing only the ankle chain that she always wore because I'd given it to her when we came back from Idaho last year. And we were hugging one another and then we were on the couch.

  "How was New York," she said very softly, her lips moving against mine.

  "Helluva town," I murmured. "The Bronx is up and the Battery's down."

  "You seem very like The Bronx," she said, and pressed her mouth against mine and we didn't talk much for a while.

  12

  "So," Susan said, "what progress with April?"

  We were still undressed, but we were sitting upright on the sofa now, drinking Chandon Blanc de Noirs from fluted glasses, our feet on the coffee table.

  "Around none," I said. "There's something I don't like going on, but I don't know what it is."

  "You must be used to that, by now," Susan said. She had her head resting against my shoulder. My left arm was around her.

  "I've never learned to like it," I said. "I go see April and then when I go back she's gone, so I go see her pimp and somebody has obviously cleaned his clock and he won't say anything and he's scared to death and says I'm going to get us both killed. So I leave him and go see Ginger Buckey and she's not on the streets."

  "Maybe the women are simply busy at their work."

  "Maybe. But who beat up Rambeaux and why and what have I got to do with it?"

  "You're sure it was because of you?"

  "Yeah. Rambeaux was clear on that. His biggest sweat was to get me out of there and not be seen with me. He was so scared he couldn't sit straight."

  Susan was tracing the mark on my chest where Sherry Spellman had shot me. Low down there was another mark and below that a mark where there had been a drain.

  "God," Susan said, "you look like a scuffed shoe."

  "But sinewy and desirable," I said.

  "Of course." She sipped some champagne and leaned forward and got the bottle out of the ice bucket and poured some in her glass and poured some in my glass.

  "What are you going to do now?" she said.

  "I'll call Ginger Buckey," I said. "See if she knows anything about where April went."

  "Why should she know?"

  "It's not that she should," I said. "It's simply that she's all I have."

  "And if she doesn't know?"

  I shrugged and drank some champagne and my doorbell rang.

  "We could ignore it," Susan said. I shook my head. Susan smiled.

  "Of course we can't," she said. "It might be an orphan of the storm seeking shelter."

  I got my pants on and took my gun off the counter and buzzed the caller in and looked through the peephole in the door. In a moment Frank Belson appeared on the other side.

  "Balls," I said, and put the gun back on the counter.

  "Balls?" Susan said.

  "Frank Belson," I said. "I gotta let him in."

  "Of course," Susan said, and got up and went into my bedroom and closed the door. I opened the front door and Belson came in. He glanced at Susan's clothing in a small pile on the living room floor and didn't change expression.

  "You want some champagne?" I said.

  "What else you got?" Belson said. He wore his summer straw with the big blue band and his seersucker suit, very recently pressed.

  "Got some Black Bush a guy brought back to me from Ireland," I said.

  His thin face softened slightly. He nodded. I went to the kitchen and poured the whiskey neat into a lowball glass and handed it to him. He took a sip and tipped his head back and let it slide down his throat. He smiled in a satisfied way.

  "New York cops want to talk with you," he said.

  "They looking for crime-stopper tips?" I said.

  He shook his head and sipped the whiskey again. "They found a dead hooker with your card in her purse."

  "Shit," I said.

  "You know her?"

  "Ginger Buckey," I said.

  Belson nodded. "Detective second grade named Corsetti caught the squeal, found the card, called us to see if we knew you."

  "She murdered?"

  "You think they're going to call us on somebody hit by a cab in Queens?"

  "No. How was she killed?"

  "Gunshot, Corsetti didn't say much."

  "Am I a suspect?"

  Belson shook his head. "Naw, they just want to know if you got anything would help. I told them I knew you, I'd swing by and ask."

  "I was looking for another whore, kid named April Kyle. Ginger Buckey had the same pimp and I asked her if she knew about April and she said no."

  "What's the pimp's name?"

  "Rambeaux," I said. "Robert Rambeaux, lives on Seventy-seventh Street." I gave him the number.

  "Any thoughts on who done it?"

  "No, but it's sour," I said. "I found April and then she disappeared. So I went to see Rambeaux and somebody had beat him up and scared him gray. He said I was going to get him killed. Then I went to ask Ginger Buckey some more questions and I couldn't find her and now she's dead."

  "Anything else?" Belson said. He walked to my kitchen and poured another shot of whiskey.

  "April worked out of a house called Tiger Lilies."

  "Elegant," Belson said. He drank some whiskey and shook his head with respect. "New York ain't going to put people on overtime," he said. "Hookers get aced, you know."

  "Tell them to check Rambeaux," I said.

  "Sure," Belson said. "They sit around waiting for me to call and tell them what to do. They're grateful as hell when I do."

  "Drink the Black Bush," I said.

  "Sure, but not fast. It's a waste to drink it fast."

  "Take the glass," I said. "Sip it in the car."

  Belson grinned for the first time. "Okay," he said. He glanced at the tangle of clothes on the floor. "My love to Susan," he said.

  13

  Maine is much bigger than any of the other New England states and large stretches of it are, to put it kindly, rural. Lindell is more rural than most of Maine. If three people left, it would be more rural than the moon. The center of town appeared around a curve in a road that ran through scrub forest. There was a cinder block store with a green translucent plastic portico in front and two gas pumps. Next to it was a gray-shingled bungalow with a white sign out front that said in black letters LINDELL, MAINE, and below it U.S. POST OFFICE. Across the street was a bowling alley with a sign in the window that said Coors in red neon script. Beyond the three buildings the road continued its curve back into the scrub forest. Some years back there had been a timbering ind
ustry, but when the forest got depleted, the timber companies moved on while Lindell sat around and waited for the new trees to grow. I parked in front of the Lindell sign and went into the building. Half of it was post office, one window and a bank of post office boxes along the wall. The other half .of the building was the site of town government in Lindell. Town government appeared to be a fat woman in a shapeless dress sitting at a yellow pine table with two file cabinets behind her. I smiled at her. She nodded.

  "Hello," I said. "I'm looking for a man named Vern Buckey."

  The fat woman said, "Why?"

  "I need to talk with him about his daughter.

  "Vern don't like to talk to people," the woman said. There was a gap in her upper front teeth about four teeth wide.

  I smiled at her again. She didn't swoon. Was I losing it? Of course not. She was just obdurate.

  "Sure, ma'am. I don't blame him. I respect a person's privacy. But this might be important to Vern." If the smile didn't work, the silver tongue would.

  "Vern don't like people talking about him neither," she said.

  "Well, sure," I said. I was smiling and talking. "Nobody does, but why don't you just tell me where he is and I'm sure I can explain it to him."

  "Vern don't like people telling other people where he lives."

  "Lady," I said, "I don't actually give a rat's ass what Vern likes, if you really want to know. I drove seven hours to talk with him and I want to know where he is."

  The woman laughed a wheezy laugh. "A rat's ass," she said, and laughed some more. "By God."

  She fumbled around in the litter on the table and found a tired-looking pack of Camels and got one out and lit it with a kitchen match that she scratched on the underside of the table. She inhaled some smoke and blew it out with a kind of snort.

  "Well," she said, "you're a pretty good-sized fella."

  "But fun-loving," I said, "and kind to my mother."

  She smoked some more of her Camel. "Let me tell you something for your own good," she said. She was squinting through the smoke from the cigarette, which she left in the corner of her mouth while she talked. "If you go bothering Vern Buckey he'll knock you down and kick you like a dog."