Robert B Parker - Spenser 15 - Crimson Joy

by Crimson Joy(lit)

  "Maybe," I said.

  "On a force that's eighty percent Irish," Quirk said.

  "Okay," I said, "let's take another approach. Is he really a cop?"

  "Why say so if he's not?" Quirk said.

  "Why say so if he is?"

  Quirk shook his head. "So we're right back to knowing nothing."

  "He did know your home address," I said.

  "Like I said, it's in the book." "But not the Boston book," I said. "He had to know to look in the South Suburban listing."

  "It's an easy guess," Quirk said. "An Irish name, not living in the city, you look for him on the Irish Riviera."

  "Sure, but it means he went to some trouble," I said. "If he wasn't a cop, and didn't know you, it means he had to find out who the officer in charge was, and then track you down through phone books or whatever, all to tell you he's a cop."

  "Give him a feeling of power," Quirk said. "Lotta psychos get to feel powerful by learning stuff about the cop that's chasing them."

  Quirk stood quietly by the board for a moment. Then he put the chalk down and walked to my desk and sat in my client's chair. My office window was open an inch and the sound of traffic filtered up from Berkeley and Boylston streets. I looked over my shoulder out the window and glanced automatically at the window where Linda Thomas used to be. There was a set of pastel Levolor blinds in there now.

  The rain still slid down the window as it had all week. There were flood warnings in western Mass. Clouds hung around the top of the Hancock building, and places where the storm drains had clogged, the water ran over the curbing onto the sidewalk.

  I looked back at Quirk. He was staring at his empty coffee cup as he turned it slowly in his thick fingers.

  "How about ballistics?" I said.

  "Bullets are from the same gun, but we don't know what gun," Quirk said.

  "How about taking a sample from every cop?" I said.

  "Commissioner says no. Says the union would raise hell. Says it unjustly casts suspicion on every officer, and would impair the function of the department, which is, as you know, to serve and protect our citizens."

  Quirk gave the coffee cup a sudden sharp spin with his fingers and scaled it into my wastebasket.

  "Probably wouldn't use his own piece anyway," Quirk said.. The tension in his groin was intense.

  "She used to compete with me," he said.

  "Your mother?" the shrink said.

  "Yes. She used to want to shoot baskets with us, stuff like that."

  "How old were you?"

  "Little kid, 8, 9 maybe."

  "And so it was hard to compete with her," the shrink said.

  "Well, when I was little."

  "Difficult for a child to compete with an adult," the shrink said.

  "Well, hell, yes, if you're a real little kid it's hard, even if it's a woman."

  The tension in his pelvis buzzed along the nerve paths. His breath was shallow.

  "But pretty soon, you know, pretty soon I got older and then she couldn 't compete with me."

  "At least not in basketball," the shrink said.

  He'd caught them once, at night, when he went to the bathroom. He heard his mother's voice and stopped and listened. The door wasn't closed entirely.

  "For God's sake, George, you 're too drunk to even do it."

  He heard the bed rustle and the springs jounce.

  "What am I supposed to do, rub it until you remember what it's for?" she said.

  His father's voice was a mumble. There was more movement. He edged closer to the door. And then it was suddenly wide open and his mother was there naked.

  "You dirty little pig, "she said. He could remember the feeling, the tightness in his stomach, as she dragged him by the hair back to his room and slammed the door. He heard the knob rattle, and when he tried to open it he couldn't. She had tied it shut. He still needed to go to the bathroom and he sat on the floor by the door, needing to go and filled with dread and something else he didn't understand, and cried.

  "Momma, momma, momma."

  CHAPTER 5.

  I was in my office thinking about whether to go out for a second cup of coffee when Hawk came in without knocking and sat in my client chair and put his Air Jordans on the edge of my desk. He was wearing starched jeans and a double-breasted leather jacket that looked like it had been made from the hide of an Arabian armadillo. He had two coffees in a paper sack. Well, why not. I wouldn't want to offend him.

  "Tony Marcus called me today," Hawk said. "Wanted to know if you and me would have lunch with him." "Lunch?" I said. "With Tony Marcus? What's on for tonight, dinner and dancing with Imelda Marcos?"

  "Tony say he can help you with the Red Rose thing."

  "Why?"

  Hawk shrugged. "Don't like it that some guy's killing black women."

  "Tony's become an activist?"

  "Tony been making his living from black women all his life," Hawk said. "Maybe he don't like seeing the pool depleted."

  "So why send you?"

  "Tony think you don't like him. Think maybe he send one of his own, ah, employees, you might whack him."

  "Okay, where we eating?" I said.

  "Tony likes the Legal Seafood in Park Square."

  "Me too," I said. "What time?"

  "Noon."

  "You think Tony knows something?"

  Hawk shook his head. "Think he wants to see if you know something." "Gonna be a quiet lunch," I said.

  Legal served the best seafood in the city and they didn't make you dress up to eat it. Marcus was there when Hawk and I arrived, sitting at a table with a smooth-faced blond woman who wore lavender lipstick and her hair pulled back on one side. Marcus had a fat neck and a big mustache and a short black Afro touched with gray, and he looked sort of soft. The look was deceptive. He had forced himself on the Irish and Italian mob in Boston and taken away the black community. Nothing much happened in Roxbury and along Blue Hill Avenue that Tony didn't get some of. Black Boston was pretty much his and there wasn't anything that the white mobs and the cops and the new Jamaicans had been able to do about it. He nodded at the two empty chairs and Hawk and I sat.

  "Bloody Marys are good here," Tony said. He had one in front of him. The blonde had a glass of white wine. The waitress stood beside us.

  "Something from the bar?" she said.

  I ordered a Sam Adams beer. Hawk ordered a bottle of Cristal champagne.

  "Jesus Christ, Hawk," Marcus said.

  Hawk smiled without humor or meaning.

  "You working with Quirk on this Red Rose thing?" Marcus said. "What do you know that's not in the papers?" "Nothing," I said. "How bout yourself?"

  Marcus shook his head without speaking. The waitress brought my beer and Hawk's champagne and more drinks for Marcus and the blonde. She opened the champagne, poured some for Hawk, and put the rest in a bucket near him. He smiled at her and seemed flustered. "Do you need a little time with the menus?" she said.

  Hawk nodded and smiled again, and she flushed slightly and hustled away.

  "Woman's fallen in love with me," Hawk said.

  "Who can blame her," I said. The blonde looked puzzled.

  "I don't like it that some honkie fruitcake is going around this city wasting black women," Tony said.

  I raised one fist and held it for a moment, above my head. Hawk murmured, "Right on, bro," and drank some champagne.

  Marcus shook his head. "I don't expect any understanding from a white guy," he said. "But you, Hawk?"

  Hawk put his glass down and leaned slightly forward toward Marcus. "Tony," he said, "I ain't black, he ain't white, and you, probably, ain't human. You want to look good down around Grove Hall, that's your business. But don't waste a lot of time with the black brother bullshit."

  The waitress came for our order. I ordered Cajun fried squid. Marcus ordered red snapper for himself and the blonde. Hawk ordered scallops.

  When the waitress left, Marcus smiled a little bit. He said, "You never been too sentime
ntal, Hawk."

  Hawk poured himself a little more champagne.

  "So it doesn't matter none what my reasons are," Marcus said. "All I'm saying is, if I can help on this thing, I will. I got a lotta contacts, a lotta resources." "What makes you so sure the killer's white?" I said.

  "What they said in the papers," Marcus said. He finished his Bloody Mary and gestured toward the waitress for another one and a white wine for the blonde. The waitress looked at me. I shook my head. She departed.

  "Tony, I don't like you," I said.

  Marcus shrugged. He didn't seem disheartened.

  "But I'll take any help I can get. The problem is, I don't even know enough to ask an intelligent question. The best guess is that it's a white guy and he's nuts. The stuff you were reading in the Globe is as much as I know either. All I can say is, if you hear anything, let me know. And if you catch the guy..." I shrugged.

  "We catch the guy, we going to kill him," Marcus said.

  "Okay by me," I said. "You clipped people for lots worse reasons."

  The food came. As always at Legal, it came as it was prepared, so my squid and Hawk's scallops came before the red snapper.

  "Go ahead, eat," Marcus said.

  "You think he's really a cop?" Marcus said.

  "Yes," I said.

  "Maybe you should let it be known that Tony Marcus is interested in this case. Might make him think twice." I looked at Hawk. He smiled happily and ate a scallop.

  "The guy who's doing this hasn't thought once," I said. "It's got nothing to do with thinking. He's probably doing it because he needs to. He isn't going to be frightened off." "Might make the papers, though," Hawk said, almost to himself.

  "Black Crime Lord volunteers to help trap Red Rose Killer." "Good PR," I said. "Federal strike force got a tap on you or something?"

  The red snapper arrived. Marcus took a bite; nodded to himself. "Whatever," he said, "just remember Tony Marcus is available with the full resources of the organization." "Your whores are scared," I said.

  Marcus frowned.

  "That's what it is. Your whores aren't willing to take a chance with a white hunter anymore because it might be old Red Rose."

  Marcus grinned, genuinely, and kept chewing on his redfish.

  "It's hurting business," Hawk said.

  "Worst thing happen on the street since AIDS," Marcus said.

  "Good to find a real reason," I said.

  "Maybe there's more than one real reason," Marcus said.

  Hawk and I were finished eating. Hawk took the champagne bottle out of the ice bucket. It was still half full. He put it back. Both of us stood up.

  "I hear anything, Tony, I'll let you know," I said. "And vice versa."

  Marcus nodded and put out his hand. I didn't shake it. Neither did Hawk.

  "Finish the champagne, Tony," Hawk said. "Goes good with six Bloody Marys."

  We turned and walked away. I heard Marcus mutter to the blonde, "The fucking odd couple."

  I looked back. Tony was watching us leave and the blonde was pouring Hawk's champagne into her empty wineglass and smiling automatically.

  CHAPTER 6.

  On Wednesday morning I got an audio tape in the mail. There was no return address on the package, and nothing on the label of the tape. I went over to the office stereo and took out my Ben Webster tape and put in the new one. Over the kind of speakers that Ben Webster deserved I heard a man's voice speaking in a harsh whisper.

  Spenser, how are you? I'm the guy you're all looking for. I'm the guy doing those colored girls. You think you can find me? I don't think so. I don't think you're good enough. I think if you ever come up against me you're going to be up against something you can't handle. And maybe while you're looking for me, I'll be looking for you. And I know who you are.

  The whisper was probably to disguise his voice. The phrasing was that of a man reading something he'd written out earlier. There was no background noise, no telltale sounds of a clock chiming on the coast of Bohemia or the whinny of a zebra that lived only in the Tasmanian central plain.

  I played the tape again. It sounded just the same. I rewound it and played it again. After the fifth run-through I acceded to the fact that there wasn't anything to hear that I hadn't heard the first time. I called Quirk to tell him what I had, and he said Belson would come by and get it.

  Which he did.

  When he was gone I added up what I knew about the Red Rose killer. It came out to approximately nothing. Whatever had made him write Quirk had made him send me the tape. Or maybe it had. Or maybe there was an entirely other reason. Or maybe it wasn't really him. Maybe it was a crank. Or maybe Quirk's letter was from a crank. Or maybe both.

  I'd learned over the years how to react when I ran into a mystery wrapped in an enigma. I locked the office and went down to the Harbor Health Club.

  When I started working out there the Harbor Health Club was a working gym for fighters on the waterfront. The waterfront was run-down and warehousey, and Henry Cimoli, who ran the place, wore sweatshirts and Keds. Now the waterfront glistened with urban renaissance and the Harbor Health Club glistened with shiny leotards and Henry had on white satin sweats and Reeboks. A picture window looked out on the harbor and rows of Nautilus and high-tech Kaiser Cams, sparkling with chrome, lined the wall opposite. The Kaisers used compressed air for resistance and enabled you to do bench presses sitting up. There was probably a clear advantage to doing bench presses sitting up, and I hadn't the smarts to figure out what it was. I mused on this while I did I5 reps at 250. I was trying for more reps and less weight as the sweet bird of youth began to flutter. Across from the weight room, an aerobics class was under way in the exercise room. I mused on this while I rested between sets on the bench press. I mused that I had never seen a woman who looked good in leotards, with the possible exception of Gelsey Kirkland. Susan wore sweats and a T-shirt when she worked out. I mused that most men when they started working with weights tried to lift too much and cheated, and that most women did the exercise exactly as they should but didn't try hard. I mused that the Red Rose killer had threatened me, maybe, and wondered why. He hadn't threatened Quirk. He'd asked Quirk, in effect, for help. But me he'd challenged. Me he'd threatened. I mused that this was an interesting insight into Red Rose, but I also mused that I had no idea what it meant. Henry came into the weight room with a woman in full uniform. She wore a lavender leotard, with matching Nikes, and sloppy socks in a darker lavender. Over the leotard she wore a white sort of G-string that looked rather like a diaper. She had on white wristbands and a white headband, and a lavender ribbon tied in her hair. She had managed, somehow, to achieve a condition simultaneously thin and flabby. I was fascinated, and while I did my second set of bench presses sitting up I speculated on how you could be thin and flabby at the same time, and decided that as your body mustered up the energy to add an ounce of weight it was so spent having done so that the ounce turned instantly to flab. Henry smiled kindly and nodded at the machine for hamstrings. The woman got on backwards. Henry smiled even more kindly and got her turned around.

  "Heels under here," Henry said. "Now curl the legs up slowly." "What do you mean curl?" the woman said.

  "Try to touch your, ah, backside with your heel," Henry said.

  Henry had removed his glistening white warm-up jacket and his little upper body in its tight T-shirt looked like a clenched fist.

  "I can't," the woman said. "It's too heavy."

  "It's as light as it goes, ma'am," Henry said, and smiled kindly some more. "Maybe you could try a little harder."

  "It hurts," she said.

  "Well" Henry laughed kindly "like they say, ma'am, no pain, no gain." "I don't understand what that means," she said.

  I knew Henry knew I was there. But he wouldn't look at me.

  "Here," Henry said, "I'll help you. Now, curl your legs up, I'll give a push. There." "Is that enough?" she said.

  "No," Henry said. "Usually we like people to start with eight repetitions and
work up to twelve and then add some resistance."

  "Eight what?"

  "Do it eight times."

  "I've already done it once."

  "Right, only seven more."

  "I can't do seven more." "I'll give you a start," Henry said.

  Henry curled the machine up, bringing the woman's legs up to within maybe a foot of her thin, flaccid butt.

  "Ow," she said.