Robert B Parker - Spenser 15 - Crimson Joy

by Crimson Joy(lit)

  "Nope. Hawk's been there all day every day with the upstairs door open. There's been no trouble and Susan isn't reporting anything special." "Hawk enjoying himself?" Belson said.

  "Like the birdman of Alcatraz," I said.

  Belson smiled. "It's the closest Hawk's ever come to jail," he said.

  "Keeps him off the street," Quirk said.

  "Now that I've narrowed it for you to seven, do you suppose you could find out which one is Red Rose?" I said. "While you're on sabbatical?"

  "Are we not trained investigators?" Quirk said.

  "Without getting us sued by the Boston Psychoanalytic Institute?" I said.

  "Maybe we get fired," Quirk said. "We'll open our own firm. Quirk and Belson, Private Inquiries." "Always a lieutenant," Belson said. "Alphabetically it should be Belson and Quirk."

  "We find anything, we'll be in touch," Quirk said to me.

  "Check the security guard and the cop first," I said.

  "Yeah," Quirk said.

  "Everyone else is what you'd expect to find, even the cop, because of you steering them," I said. "But how many security guards are getting psychotherapy from a Cambridge shrink, do you think?"

  "There must be some," Belson said.

  "Yeah, but everyone else but the cop fits the pattern, and we can sort of explain the cop job stress, Susan's reputation, word of mouth among the fuzz. The security guard is the atypical one. You got to start someplace." Quirk nodded. "I'll let you know what we find," he said.

  CHAPTER 19.

  I had the answering machine on in my office while I baby sat Susan and waited for Quirk and Belson to come up with something. In one of the oddest pairings since Mutt and Jeff, Hawk was helping them, and I was alone with my books and my radio and my Colt Python up in Susan's living room with the door ajar.

  I felt isolated and bored and useless and frustrated. My desire for the guy who'd left the rose and outrun me was tangible, like lust, and it tingled along my neck and shoulder muscles all the time I sat and waited and listened.

  To pass the time I beeped my answering machine and found a message from a woman named Sara, who said she was a producer for the Jimmy Winston show and would I come on and talk about Red Rose.

  I called her.

  "Oh," she said, very upbeat, "thanks for calling back.

  We know that not everyone is satisfied that this man Washburn is really the Red Rose killer." I said, "Un huh."

  She said, "And we can't get anyone to talk about it. We had the homicide commander on by phone-in last week, but since then no one in the police department or the district attorney's office will even return our calls."

  "Happens to me all the time," I said. "Makes you doubt yourself sometimes."

  "Ah, yes. Anyway, we know you've been involved in this case, and we wondered if perhaps you could come on some night and talk with Jimmy, and perhaps take some calls." "Sure," I said. The department couldn't force me to take a vacation.

  "Would it be possible," she said, "to come tonight?" "Sure," I said, "as long as I can bring a date." "Certainly," Sara said.

  Which is how it came about that Susan and I were going up in an elevator in a building near Government Center at quarter to ten at night.

  "Why are you doing this, again?" Susan said.

  "Sort of getting even for Quirk," I said. "He has to do what he's told. I don't." "Yes," Susan said. "I've noticed that about you."

  The elevator reached the seventh floor and we reported to the female guard at the reception desk. I noticed she was not from Bullet Security. The guard made a call, and in a minute a chunky blond woman wearing maroon harlequin eyeglasses came down the hall.

  "Hi," she said. "I'm Sara. Jimmy's waiting for you."

  We went down the hall and into the studio where Jimmy Winston, wearing earphones, was listening to a caller. He nodded as we came in and waved me to a seat across the U-shaped console from him. There was a swivel chair and earphones hanging from a nail. On a wall opposite Jimmy were the station's call letters in large print and the call-in phone number in equally large print. Below the numbers was a glass window and through that the control room. I sat in the swivel chair, Susan sat in another, pushed back against the wall by the door. I noticed that Jimmy checked her legs when she sat.

  "Well, you're entitled to your opinion," Jimmy said into the mike, "but frankly I'm sick of listening to it."

  He made a cut motion at the control room.

  "This is WKDK, the Thought of Boston, and I'm Jimmy Winston, back after this five-minute newsbreak."

  He pointed again at the control room. And leaned back in his chair and swiveled toward me. Through the glass I saw a cadaverous-looking newscaster settle in beside the engineer and begin to read the news.

  "They're out there howling tonight," Jimmy Winston said. He was a fat guy with a crew cut who wore dark glasses indoors. Black-rimmed Raybans. He had a long collared white shirt open halfway down his chest. His slacks were some kind of gray worsted, and he had his shoes off under the console.

  "You're the detective," he said.

  I nodded. "This is Susan Silverman," I said.

  He nodded briefly at Susan.

  "So whaddya know that you haven't been telling?" he said.

  "I've got a recipe for cornmeal pancakes," I said, "that I've never made public."

  Jimmy's smile was automatic and meaningless.

  "Yeah, great. How about the serial killer? You figure the cops got the wrong guy?"

  Sara came into the room and handed Jimmy a piece of typescript.

  "We gotta change the promo, Jimmy. And there's a PSA after the promo where you just read the tag, okay?"

  "Jesus Christ," Jimmy said. "Why not wait till I'm on the goddamned air to tell me. What genius changed the promo, you?"

  "The programming..." Sara started.

  Jimmy waved his hand.

  "Never mind, for chrissake. I haven't got time. Beat it. I'll read this through and fix it on the air." Sara smiled painfully at us and scurried out. Jimmy shook his head and rolled his eyes at me.

  "Dizzy little broad," he said, and turned his attention to the new promo copy. I looked at Susan. She smiled at me serenely. "This is going to be really exciting," Susan said.

  The newscaster got through, and Jimmy turned the sound up on the studio speaker. A commercial for a car dealer came on.

  "Okay, we got about thirty seconds," Jimmy said. "I'll set the scene by asking you a couple things, then we go to the calls. You'll need the earphones for the calls." He looked sort of like a toad, but his voice had the rich timbre that professional voices have. Full of authority. Brook no insolence. Trust me. The air light went on and Jimmy said, "This is WKDK, the Thought of Boston, and I'm Jimmy Winston. This hour we'll be talking with a Boston private eye who says there's police cover-up in the Red Rose killings and is here to back it up with fact. How'd you first get on this case, Mr. Spenser?"

  I was looking at Susan. "Police cover-up," she mouthed silently, and smiled at me as sweetly as a field of alfalfa.

  "I was asked on by the man in charge of the investigation."

  Jimmy looked at his notes. "That would be Homicide Lieutenant Martin Quirk," he said. Everything he said sounded like either an accusation or the announcement of World War Three.

  "Yes."

  "He's no longer on the case," Winston said. "Why are you? You think Washburn's innocent?"

  "I don't think Washburn is the Red Rose killer," I said. "He looks good for it, and solves everybody's problems if he goes down for it. But I think the genuine article is still walking around loose."

  "Even though the top criminal investigative officials in the Commonwealth are convinced otherwise?"

  "Daunting," I said. "But yes."

  Jimmy lit a cigarette. It was maybe his fifth since I'd been there.

  "You want to solve this," Jimmy said.

  "I want it solved."

  "But wouldn't you rather it be solved by you?"

  "So I can make the movi
e deal and have my picture in People?"

  "I can't believe you hadn't thought of that," Jimmy said.

  "Try," I said.

  "You have evidence?" Jimmy said. "If you do, maybe you could tell us what it is, and maybe explain why neither the chief of police nor the Suffolk County District Attorney's office has it."

  I gave him everything I had except the stuff about Susan and our gang of seven. Jimmy looked disgusted.

  "You haven't got anything Lieutenant Quirk didn't have," he said. "Time for the phones." He looked at the small TV screen in front of him and saw six names displayed along with the towns from which they were calling.

  "We've got Clara from Boston. Hi, Clara, you're on the Thought of Boston."

  "Hi. Jimmy?"

  "Go ahead, you're on the air."

  "Jimmy, I love your show. I wanted to tell you that."

  "Thank you. Do you have a question for our guest?" Jimmy said.

  "Yeah. Mr. Spenser?"

  "Yes, Clara?"

  "You seen the bodies, right?"

  "Yes."

  "They were all undressed?"

  "Yes."

  "And raped?" Clara said.

  "No, not in the traditional sense."

  "Sure they was, he raped them and they ought to castrate the animal is what I say."

  "You say that often, do you, Clara?"

  "If they cut 'em off, he wouldn't be raping women and tying them up." Jimmy said, "Thanks, Clara, we'll keep you in mind. We have Ronnie from Reading on the line. Hi, Ronnie, you're on the air."

  "Jimmy?"

  "Yeah, Ronnie, you're on the air. Go ahead."

  "Jimmy, I think this whole thing is a media hype, you know. Incidentally, I love your show."

  "Thank you."

  "I mean, after all, they're only killing each other, you know. I mean, it's not like they were... you know. Let's forget about it. My kids was talking about it in school the other day. What kind of thing is this for kids to be talking about. I say let it die, stop stirring up trouble." Jimmy said, "You're saying because everybody involved is black it shouldn't interest the rest of us?"

  "They're just killing each other," Ronnie said.

  "Ronnie, you listening to me, Ronnie?" Jimmy said. "I want you now to go out in the garage and start up your car and suck on the tail pipe." He punched up the next button. More callers' names crawled across the television screen. "Marvin from Quincy, go ahead, you're on the air."

  "I think Mr." ah, Spenser there, your guest, is right and I appreciate his courage, you unnerstand? I mean they cover stuff up all the time. All they care, they want to look good in the papers, you know. Most of them got on the force so they could push people around..."

  "I think the Negroes should take care of their own problems..."

  "... think your mistake is quite simply attempting human solutions to a problem whose cause is elsewhere. Have you ever considered Beelzebub?..."

  "These crimes are symbolic of a larger sickness in this country. In a sense, every woman is bound and..."

  And so it went. At ten-thirty I got a call from a guy who suggested that if I was deranged enough to be on this show, I wasn't likely to be much use solving a series of murders.

  "Is this you, Goldman?" I said.

  "I admit to nothing," the caller said. But it was Maynard Goldman, and I knew it.

  "You saying there's something wrong with this show?" Winston said. I could hear the amusement in Maynard's voice.

  "If only we could get it down to something," he said.

  Winston made the cut sign to the engineer and Maynard was gone. Susan smiled at me encouragingly.

  The last caller before the eleven o'clock newsbreak wanted to know, if I ever caught the Red Rose killer, what I'd do to him.

  "Make him come on this show," I said.

  Jimmy did the news segue and lit up another cigarette as I hung up my earphones and pushed my chair back.

  "No need to crap on the show," Jimmy said. "We're the people's forum here. They got a right to their opinion."

  "That's not opinion," I said. "That's pathology. This is a forum for public masturbation."

  Jimmy shrugged and turned back to look at the opening promo copy. "Nice talking to ya," he said.

  "Gee," Susan said, "behind all the glamour and glitter..."

  She took my hand and we left.

  CHAPTER 20.

  Hawk was taking a turn sitting with Susan while I went down to the office to look at my mail and bill a couple of clients. I walked up Berkeley Street with the wind coming off the river behind me and scattering McDonald's wrappers before me as I walked. Susan was all right as long as Hawk or I stayed with her, but it was no way to live, and I knew how much she hated needing someone to guard her.

  Inside my office I picked up the mail from the pile on the floor beneath the mail slot and went to my desk and sat down with my feet up to open it. There were several calls flashing on my answering machine, and while I opened mail I turned them on.

  The first one said, "Hello, nigger lover. I heard you last night on Jimmy Winston, and I heard you trying to say it was a white man instead of letting the nigger fry like he should. Someone ought to shut your mouth for you." I finished reading through my telephone charges, as I always did, with the fond hope that I would catch the bastards in a mistake. There were five more messages on my machine. All concurred in various elegant ways with the first, except one which was a computerized vacation real estate pitch that made me yearn for the racist threats, and one in which a male voice said softly, "Maybe you're right about Red Rose, maybe he's still out there." I stopped looking at my mail and played that one back again. Then I took out the message tape, put in a spare one, and slipped the Red Rose tape in my jacket pocket.

  I finished up on the phone bill, opened a note from Rita Fiore, written on lavender paper and smelling of lilac scent. It said she was just checking in to see how I was and maybe we should have lunch. While I was mulling this the door opened into my office and five guys, who clearly did not represent the League of Women Voters, came in one by one and formed a semicircle around my desk. The last guy in shut the door.

  "You guys are in the Kerry Drake fan club," I said, "and you've come by to ask me to your next banquet."

  The leader was a weight lifter, obviously. The quartet backing him were all good-sized, although none of them would have scared me alone. The weight lifter had on baggy prewashed jeans and black Reebok coaches' shoes and a sleeveless blue muscle shirt that said Universe Gym across the front. Given the weather outside, he must have been freezing, but how else to scare me with his muscles?

  He said, "We want to talk with you, nigger lover." I said, "Ah, didn't I just hear you on the phone?" He said, "You're trying to get that nigger off." I said, "Truth, I am truth's servant, and I don't think he did it."

  "Yeah, well we do," he said.

  "Persuasive," I said.

  "We don't like niggers, and we don't like nigger lovers," the weight lifter said.

  I felt my frustration slowly catalyze into anger and the anger begin to build. I'd been wrestling with a phantom for weeks now, and here were live bodies, right before me, asking to wrestle. I held on. Five is a lot.

  "Could you make a bicep for me?" I said.

  The weight lifter actually made a start before he caught himself. I grinned to let him know I'd seen the start.

  "Step out around that desk," the weight lifter said.

  "Or you'll come around and get me," I said.

  He was in the center, slightly forward of the other four. The guy to his right was red-haired and square-shouldered with a swarm of freckles on his face.

  The weight lifter grinned slightly at his pals and said, "Yeah."

  I got up from my chair and walked around my desk. Without breaking stride I kicked him in the groin. I put a straight left into his pal's face and pulled my gun from under my arm with my right hand. The other three froze in a kind of tableau.

  The weight lifter sank to his k
nees, hands and forearms pressed between his legs. Red had taken maybe two steps back and was rocking back and forth, his hands to his face, the, blood trickling between his fingers.

  "You three dopes, up against that wall," I said. "Lean your backs on it. Now walk away."