Taming a Sea Horse s-13

by Robert B. Parker

  Two guys looking a little blurry came out of the club and walked up the alley past me. One of them saw me and the gun and looked quickly away. He murmured something to his friend. They moved away up the alley toward Boylston Street and I caught one of them glancing back as he rounded the corner. At ten-fifteen a guy in a seersucker suit and a straw hat with a colorful band came down the alley and looked at me, and stopped and looked at his watch and looked at me covertly while he was looking at his watch and hesitated and then rang the bell at the Crown Prince Club and went in. At ten-forty another guy came down the alley and saw me and stopped and started forward and stopped and turned on his heel and went back up the alley. The lunch crowd began drifting down the alley at eleven-thirty, all men, rep ties and pin collars and briefcases and Bally shoes and suits from Louis. Many of the lunchers paid me no mind. But some did, and I made them uneasy.

  My shirt was soaked through in back by twelve-fifteen when the big doorman in his Rudolf Friml uniform came out of the club and walked across the street. He was studiously uninterested in my gun.

  "Miss Coolidge has asked me to see what it is you might want," the doorman said.

  "I don't want anything," I said. "But thank Miss Coolidge anyway."

  "Miss Coolidge doesn't like you standing out here wearing a gun looking at the members. Members don't like it much neither."

  "I don't blame them," I said. "How'd you like to be caught walking into this place for lunch."

  "Miss Coolidge asked me to ask you to move along."

  "No," I said.

  The doorman looked at me for a full thirty seconds.

  "Gun buys you a little something," he said. "But don't count too heavy on it."

  "You don't think Miss Coolidge will be satisfied with my response?"

  "Don't seem likely," he said, and turned and walked back into the club.

  It was quiet again, except for the sound of the sweat soaking into my shirt. People came and went from the Crown Prince Club. I thought about lunch. Maybe a lobster roll, and a draft beer. Two drafts, the moisture condensing on the side of the cold glass. And maybe a second lobster roll, but then I wouldn't come out even, so I'd have to have at least one more beer. By two o'clock the lunch traffic had dwindled to a precious few. I was thinking about the different ways beer could be chilled, and which way was most effective, when a maroon Oldsmobile sedan pulled down the alley past me and pulled to the side. Two guys got out and walked toward me. They were both dark-haired and wore thick mustaches. They might have been brothers. The one that got out the driver's side had a sunburned face and his nose was peeling. He had on a madras plaid sport coat with green predominant and a yellow V-neck T-shirt. His hair was combed smoothly back from his forehead and he had on thick-rimmed RayBan sunglasses. His partner was maybe half an inch taller, his hair curled, wearing a Hawaiian shirt hanging out over his belt. Around his neck was a thick gold chain with an Italian pepper hanging from it. I could see by the way the shirt hung that he was wearing a gun under it.

  The guy with the sunburned nose said, "What's happening, chico?"

  I said, "Are you guys brothers?"

  "Yeah, why?"

  "I just wondered," I said. "Did you get your hair straightened or did he get a perm?"

  "Funny," the guy with the sunburn said.

  Curly said, "Don't fuck around with him, Paulie. It's hot, let's get him the fuck out of here and get back in the car."

  Sunburn nodded. "He's right, chico. Let's hear it, what are you doing standing out here looking at the club?"

  "You guys work for the club?" I said.

  "We're asking the questions, chico, and we're getting tired of it. What are you doing here?"

  "I'm staying in the sun," I said, "trying to get my nose to peel like yours. It's cute as a button."

  "Okay, pal," Curly said, "enough. You either haul your ass out of here now, or we drop you right here on the street."

  "Eek," I said.

  "You don't think we'll do it?"

  "I'm not sure you can," I said. "There's only two of you."

  "Listen, stupid," the guy with the sunburn said, "you don't know who you're dealing with. You are getting yourself in really bad trouble."

  "Who am I dealing with?" I said.

  "You'll find out-if you don't smarten up."

  "Listen," I said. "This is getting boring. You guys are stuck. They sent you over here to run me off but they told you not to make any trouble. So you can threaten me, but you can't back it up, because you were told not to."

  "You think so, huh?"

  "Jesus, who writes your dialogue? Yeah, I think so. The point here is to get me to stop causing trouble here, not to escalate it."

  "Say that's right," Curly said. "That don't mean that you ain't going to run into trouble someplace else, if you get my drift."

  "Yeah, that's occurred to me. But see, you think I'm scared of you. You're used to it. Most people are scared of you. 'Cause you're official badasses, and you walk around with guns, and call people chico. What you don't understand is that you should be scared of me."

  The three of us stood there silently. Then the guy with the sunburn jerked his head at his brother and they turned and walked back to the Olds.

  "You'll see us again," he said, and got in the car. The engine cranked and the car backed up with a lot of engine noise and tire squealing. I waved good-bye as it backed into Boylston Street and pulled away. When they were gone I walked up to the corner and found a pay phone in a drugstore and called Henry Cimoli at the Harbor Health Club.

  "I need Hawk," I said. "I'm hanging around outside the Crown Prince Club, you know where that is?"

  "Yeah, I know. It's a whorehouse for Yuppies," Henry said.

  "Unkind," I said.

  "But true," Henry said. "I'll tell him."

  I bought a package of peanut butter Nabs at the check-out counter and went back down the alley and leaned against my car some more and ate the Nabs.

  At five-ten Hawk parked behind me in the alley and got out and walked over to me. He had on a pale lavender sport jacket over a pink tank top. His slacks were creamy linen and his shoes off-gray. He had on wraparound sunglasses and his head gleamed in the late afternoon sun.

  "You been here all day trying to get up courage to go in the Crown Prince Club," Hawk said. "And you want me to walk you over."

  "I been standing here all day," I said, "and first the doorman came over and asked me to leave, and then two gunnies came around and told me to leave."

  "You still here," Hawk said.

  "Yeah, but I think maybe I need someone to keep an eye on my back."

  "Who the gunnies?" Hawk said.

  "Don't know. They were maybe thirty, brothers, southern European, one of them called the other one Paulie."

  "Well, we know Perry Lehman connected."

  "Yep."

  "How come you standing around out here annoying everybody?" Hawk said.

  "I don't know what else to do," I said. "So I figured if I annoyed Lehman enough maybe something would happen and I'd know what to do."

  "You good at annoying," Hawk said.

  "Years of study," I said.

  "Yeah," Hawk said, "but you had a natural talent to start with."

  28

  At about a quarter to six, Perry Lehman came out of the Crown Prince Club. The doorman came with him. The doorman opened the door of a stretch limo, Perry got in and the stretch limo pulled away. I got in my car and followed it. We turned left onto Boylston and right onto Charles and left onto Beacon and headed west. The traffic was still heavy and the limo didn't go fast. There were a lot of stops. It wasn't hard to follow Lehman, but I wanted him to see me following, and with heavy traffic it took some doing. At six thirty-five the limo pulled into a long, curving drive in Chestnut Hill near the reservoir. I went right in behind it. The drive curved up among flowering shrubs and green lawn. The limo stopped under a portico in front of an enormous white chateau-style home. I pulled up behind it. A black man in
a light gray three-piece suit came out to open the door, and another one came out dressed the same and stood beside the limo and looked at my car.

  Lehman got out of the limo and turned and stared at me. The guy holding the door closed it and the limo pulled away. I sat in my car and looked back at Lehman. He said something to the two attendants and they all looked at me. Then the two black guys came over to my car.

  "Mr. Lehman wishes to know what you want."

  "Awful warm for a vest, isn't it?" I said.

  "State your business, please."

  "Actually I'm with the National Organization for Women, and I was wondering if Mr. Lehman would care to express himself on sexism in the marketplace."

  The two men looked at each other. "Equal pay for equal worth?" I said.

  The guy talking to me had a small vertical scar on his upper lip. He turned toward Lehman.

  "He's talking shit, Mr. Lehman, you want us to get hold of him?"

  Lehman didn't move any closer. "I want him to get the fuck out of here and leave me alone," he said.

  "You hear the man?"

  "Tell him I can't hear him from so far away," I said. "Tell him to come closer."

  The other guard said, "Man, you're crazy. You fighting to get yourself hurt."

  "Get him out of here," Lehman said. His voice had risen slightly.

  I yelled out the window of my car, "Hey, Perry, who's Warren?"

  "Huh?"

  "Ginger Buckey went to St. Thomas with Warren and ditched him and took off with a musician. Who's Warren?"

  "Get him out of here." Lehman's voice was higher. "Now, get rid of him, I don't care how you do it."

  "Drive off," said the guard with the scar, "or we drive it off for you with you in the trunk."

  I put the car in gear and rolled on around the driveway. Slowly. Lehman had backed up into the front doorway. As I went by he said, "You're going to get yourself killed." His voice was high and shaky. "You're going to get killed."

  I made a small V sign at him and drove on down the drive and parked out on Beacon Street opposite the driveway with the motor running. My old Subaru had given out after 126,000 miles and I had a new one, a turbo coupe with four-wheel drive. The turbo meant it would go pretty fast, and if I had to thwart a villain during inclement weather I could put it into four-wheel drive. Right now going fast seemed more important. The two bodyguards walked down to the end of the drive and looked at me parked across the street. I shot at them with my forefinger. And smiled. The guy with the scar said something to his buddy, the buddy looked at me and said something back to the guy with the scar. He shook his head and they stood and looked at me. I looked back. We did that until it got dark and I got tired and the gas gauge began to get low on the idling car and I put it in gear and turboed off to bed.

  The next morning I was out front of Perry Lehman's house. I had a large cardboard placard nailed to a piece of 1 by 2 that I jammed into the ground near the end of his driveway. The placard said WHO'S WARREN? It was almost ten o'clock in the morning before Perry came down the driveway in his limo. The limo stopped by the sign and the chauffeur, in the same three-piece gray suit that the bodyguards wore, got out and pulled the sign out of the ground. He went around to the trunk and opened it, put the sign in and closed the trunk and came around to the front and spotted me and leaned back inside to speak to Lehman. Then he got in the car. The car sat motionless in the driveway for maybe five minutes before the two gray-suited bodyguards appeared. They looked across the street at me. I waited. They got in the limo. The guy with the scarred lip got in back with Lehrnan. The other got in the front with the driver. I must be making an impression, three bodyguards. How flattering.

  Off we went toward Boston. It took only about fifteen minutes, outside of rush hour. When the limo pulled into the alley in front of the club, the two bodyguards got out first. I stopped well up the alley. It was getting to where they'd assault me on this and I wasn't ready for that yet. I wanted to keep pressuring Lehman until he did something profoundly stupid that might prove useful to me. t trusted him to do that if I had enough time.

  With the guards watching me Lehman got out and walked to the club. There was a sign posted on the wall by the door. It said WHO'S WARREN? Lehman tore it off and went into the building. The bodyguards got back in the limo and it pulled away down the alley and made a U-turn. I backed into the street and pulled away first. I turned right on Boylston and right on Tremont and went around the block. The limo didn't chase me. I came through Park Square and back onto Boylston and pulled in and parked at the edge of the alley, and took residence on my front fender again. A few customers came and went. Some noticed me. At about noon I went up to the corner and called the Crown Prince Club and asked for Perry Lehman.

  "Who's calling, please?"

  "My name is Spenser."

  "One moment, please."

  Then Lehman's voice, sounding stiff and edgy. "What the fuck is this, Spenser?"

  "I was wondering if you could help me, Perry."

  "I'll help you, I'll help you right into the fucking ground," he said. "You think you can fuck with me like this? You're fucking with the wrong dude, pal; lemme tell you that."

  "Gee, Perry, all I wanted to know was if you happened to know a guy named Warren, member of the club…"

  Lehman hung up.

  I went back to the corner and leaned against my car some more and looked at the Crown Prince Club and let the Crown Prince Club look at me. Since yesterday when I talked with him I hadn't laid eyes on Hawk. I hadn't been looking for him, but it was still as puzzling as it always was that a guy as visible as Hawk could become entirely invisible whenever he needed to. Maybe he was really Lamont Cranstan.

  Perry must have decided to wait me out because for the rest of the day I was undisturbed. When the limo came to pick Lehman up in the late afternoon they paid me no rnind. Lehman got in without even looking. The doorman when he opened the door ignored me and the two bodyguards did the same. They got out and flanked the car and never once glanced my way. Then they got in and the limo went to Chestnut Hill with me behind it.

  I didn't go into the drive. I was trying to fine-tune this just short of violent confrontation. So I parked out on Beacon Street again, and nobody came and looked at me until it got dark and I went home.

  Rejection.

  The next day I went through the routine. At noon that day Lehman got a telegram inquiring about Warren, and at four that afternoon a special delivery letter came for Warren, c/o The Crown Prince Club. I continued to be ignored. Perry's people were big aggressive guys but they weren't shooters. That kind of trouble would come from the people who owned Perry. It was getting toward the time when I figured it would come, and I wanted it to come. I needed to have a run-in with the pros and win, before I took my next step. I didn't have a plan exactly but I had some sort of inchoate sense of where I wanted this to go. It was much more than I was used to having.

  29

  The pros appeared on Monday afternoon as I was following Perry home. A brown Dodge sedan stayed two or three cars behind me out Beacon Street to Chestnut Hill. They did a decent tail job, but it's hard, with one car, to tail a guy who's expecting it. Lehman's limo swung into his driveway and I parked on the street in front. The Dodge turned off into a side street before it reached me. They wouldn't hit me outside Lehman's house. I sat for a while and thought about where I wanted them to hit me. Someplace where Hawk would have room to operate, somewhere that had open space so I could see them coming before they got in range.

  I put the Subaru in gear and U-turned and headed back down Beacon Street to Chestnut Hill Avenue. I drove at an easy speed out Chestnut Hill Ave. through Brighton to Soldiers Field Road, along the Charles River near the Public Theater. The river in this section was bordered with open parkland, punctuated by hot-topped parking areas. People picnicked here and launched boats and walked dogs and jogged and threw Frisbees and rode bicycles. Across the river Watertown merged with Cambridge and on my side
the road curved on past Harvard Stadium and became Storrow Drive.

  I got out of the car and looked aimlessly around the area. It was not crowded, most people were eating supper. The commuter traffic heading out toward Newton was thinning. I had my gun out and held it at my side hidden behind the car. It was heavy artillery for me. An S&W .357 magnum in case one of the hit men was a Cape buffalo. The brown Dodge came into the parking area and I moved down toward the front of my car for a better look at the water. Whichever side they came on I could move to the other. The Dodge swung in on the driver's side of the Subaru and parked. Without looking at it I moved a couple of steps around to the other side of my car, staying near the front where the engine made a better shield than the passenger compartment. The driver and two other guys got out. I hadn't seen any of them before. One of them went to the trunk and opened it, and two others looked across the river at the apartment building being completed. Hawk's white Jaguar pulled in off the roadway and pulled in beside the Dodge. The guy at the trunk stared at it and then looked toward me. I moved another step behind the car. The two gunnies near the front of the car produced handguns and began to move around my car toward me. The guy at the trunk produced a double-barreled shotgun and stepped toward the rear of my car. I crouched.

  Hawk stepped out of his jag with a .12 gauge pump and hit the guy with the doublebarrel a horizontal butt stroke on the back of his head. He went down, the double-barreled shotgun went sliding along the ground toward me and Hawk leaned over the roof of the Dodge and pointed the pump gun at the two gunnies in front.

  "Y'all freeze," he said.

  The two handguns stopped still, I straightened up behind the Subaru and pointed my gun at them. The lead gunnie turned his head carefully and stared at Hawk.

  "Howdy doo," Hawk said. And smiled kindly.

  I said, "Take the piece by the barrel, with your left hand, and throw it in the river. You, with the hat, do it first."

  The guy with the Red Sox baseball hat tossed his gun in the river.