Robert B Parker - Spenser 15 - Crimson Joy

by Crimson Joy(lit)

  They did as I said until they were leaning on the wall and would have to move their feet and arms and lunge to stand up.

  "You too, Red, and don't bleed on my rug." Red moved over, still holding his nose.

  "Now," I said, "you, Muscles. You ready to continue yet?"

  He was still on his knees, but he'd raised his head.

  "What do you mean?" he said. His voice was strained with discomfort.

  "You ready to teach me a lesson in race relations?" I said.

  "You didn't have a gun," he said.

  "Sure," I said. "If I didn't have a gun I could fight five of you. That seems fair."

  "If you hadn't kicked me," he mumbled.

  "I'd have punched you like I did Red and you'd have blood all over your pectoral muscles. You ready to stand up yet?"

  "Yeah." He got painfully to his feet and looked at me with his head half lowered. "We won't forget this," he said.

  "No, I certainly hope not," I said. "But I'm still game for a couple of rounds, if you like."

  "You holding the gun?"

  "Sure, just so I don't have to deal with all five of you at once. So I'll fight you one-handed. How's that sound?"

  "Sure, till I start winning, then you use the gun, right?"

  "You won't start winning, so the question is moot," I said.

  "You think you can fight me one hand?" "Sure," I said, and hit him square in the nose with my left fist. It rocked him back and the blood started. Just like Red. He shook his head and started toward me.

  "You on the wall, you start to move and I'll kill you," I said, and rolled backwards and let his right fist sweep past my chin. I hooked my left hand over his right shoulder and caught him on the cheek under his right eye. I did it twice more, short hooks before he could get his right shoulder and arm up for cover. When he raised the right arm I slid around him with a little shuffle and got a sharp hook into his kidneys. He grunted and turned toward me, and I slapped the gun from my right to my left hand and hit him full swinging straight overhand right on the chin, and he sagged and rubber-legged backwards two steps and sat down, his legs spread and flaccid, his arms sagging in his lap. He sat for a minute, then went over on his side and was still.

  One of the wall birds, a guy with a thick neck and very blond hair, said, "You said one hand." "At a time," I said.

  I put the gun back in my right hand. My knuckles were a little numb and would probably be puffy tomorrow. There was a pleasant touch of sweat on my forehead and the muscles in my shoulders and back felt energized and engorged. I felt good. Watch out, Red Rose, I'm on your trail.

  "Get him on his feet," I said, "and get him out of here."

  Red held on to his nose. The other three got the weight lifter to his feet and helped him as he wobbled among them. All five looked like they were trying to find a way to leave with dignity.

  One of them, the blond one, said, "We know where you are." I said, "You knew where I was this time, and look what it got you." No one had anything to add to that, so they shuffled the weight lifter through the door and were gone.

  I put the gun back under my arm, went to the sink in the washroom and ran cold water over my hands for a few minutes, and rinsed my face and toweled dry. Then I went back into my office and walked to the window and looked down at Berkeley Street where it intersects Boylston and did some deep breathing.. It seemed like he could trust her. He could talk to her about things he'd never said before. About that time in school. About his mother. She never told. They weren't supposed to. There was some sort of oath... it never hurts to keep your mouth shut.

  "My mother used to say that women would take me for all they could get." She smiled slightly and nodded.

  "Iguess she meant money. That they'd go out with me for my money."

  "Did you have a lot of money?"

  "Me? No. My father had some, but I never had any, and, I mean, I was a kid; kids don't have money."

  Today she was wearing a light gray suit with a high round collar and some pearls. Her stockings and shoes were white.

  "So maybe there was something else they'd take, "she said.

  "Like what?"

  She shrugged.

  "I always felt bad when she said that. It was like nobody would go out with me for, you know, just what they could get. And it made me feel like I was stupid, like if any broad wanted to take me for everything she could get, she could, and I'd be too weak to stop her."

  "Weak," she said. It wasn't exactly a question, and it wasn't exactly a comment.

  "Dumb, whatever."

  She nodded.

  "Must have made girls seem pretty scary, when you were a boy."

  "Well, not scary. I mean a boy doesn't have to be scared of a girl"

  "Um hmm."

  "I used to fantasize sometimes. "He would feel the surge of passion, almost ejaculatory, as he flitted closer to revelation. "I used to think about tying them up." He could barely speak for the rush of excitement. He felt the sexual thrill of it dance through him.

  "Um hmm."

  They were both quiet. I could tie you up, he thought. If I had my stuff with me. I could make you stay there and tie you up.

  "What do you suppose those girls were going to take?" she said again. He felt as if he might explode.

  "Me," he heard his voice. "They'd take me." "Away from?" she said.

  "Her. "His voice seemed loose from him, out there on its own in the room.

  CHAPTER 21.

  Susan and I were having dinner in Davio's on Newbury Street, in a booth in the back. Susan had developed a taste for red wine, so that lately she was putting away a glass at a single sitting. We had a bottle of Chianti between us and a salad each.

  Susan guzzled nearly a gram of Chianti and put the glass down.

  "Um," she said.

  "We've got a list of seven possibles among your clients," I said.

  "Possible Red Rose killer?"

  "Possible guy who left the rose and ran."

  "How did you come by the list?" she said.

  "We staked out the office and followed anyone who fit the description."

  "Who's we?"

  "Quirk, Belson, and me. Hawk stayed with you."

  "Because you were the man who'd seen him," she said.

  "Yes."

  "Did you compromise them?" "No," I said. "They never knew they were followed." I handed her the seven names typed on a piece of white paper. She picked up the paper without looking at it.

  "Of course I speculated on who it could be," she said. "To outrun you they had to fall within certain broad categories."

  I nodded. There was some bread in a basket on the table and I broke off a piece and used it as a pusher when I ate some salad.

  She looked at the list. Nodded her head.

  "Yes," she said. "These were some I considered. You must have eliminated others because they didn't look like the man you chased height, that sort of thing."

  "Yes." "It is unfortunate as hell," Susan said, "that our professional lives have had to intersect like this, so soon after we had reorganized our personal lives."

  "I know," I said. "But we have to deal with it. We've dealt with worse." "Yes," she said, and took another hit on the Chianti. "We have. And we can. It's just that the problem cuts across business and personal in a way that touches on the core of our relationship." "I know," I said.

  "We are able to love one another with the intensity that we do because we are able to be separate while we are at the same time one."

  "E Pluribus Unum?" I said.

  "I think that's something else," Susan said.

  The salads went and pasta came. When the waiter had set down the food and left, Susan said, "This thing is compromising the separateness. I'm never alone. If you're not with me, Hawk is. And when I'm working, one of you is there, at the top of the stairs with a gun."

  I nodded. I was having linguine with clam sauce. It was elegant.

  "You know that this has nothing to do with being tired of you," Susa
n said. She had her fork in her hand and was leaning forward over her tortellini.

  "Yes," I said. "I know that." "Or Hawk," Susan said. "There is no one except you I enjoy being with more than Hawk."

  "But you need time alone."

  "Absolutely." "But," I said, "we can't let him kill you." Susan smiled.

  "No. We can't," she said. "And I'm quite confident that we won't. If I'm to be guarded, who better?"

  We ate pasta.

  "If one of my patients is in fact the Red Rose killer, and left the rose in my hallway, I could probably make a stab at which of these names it is," Susan said.

  "But you aren't going to," I said.

  "I can't." She ate some more tortellini. "Yet."

  "Remember that it's not only you. It might be some unknown black woman that he's going to do next."

  Susan nodded. "That of course also weighs with me. This is very difficult." She drank some wine. "He has not struck, if you'll pardon the melodramatic statement, since Washburn confessed." "We both know the answer to that," I said.

  "Yes. He could lie low for a while." "But how long?" I said.

  "He'd probably be able to hold off for a while, but... it's need. The poor bastard is driven by a need he cannot resist. He's acting out something awful."

  "So he'll do it again."

  "Yes," Susan said softly. "And God only knows what going under cover costs him, and what he'll be like when he emerges."

  "You think he's one of yours," I said.

  She looked at the wine in her glass. The light above the booth shone through it and made it ruby. Then she looked back up at me and nodded slowly.

  "I think he's one of mine." "Which one?" I said.

  She shook her head.

  "I haven't the right," she said. "Not yet. If I'm wrong and he's accused, it will destroy him."

  "Godammit," I said.

  Susan reached across the table and put her hands on my mouth. She let her hands slide down from my mouth along my shoulders and arms and rested them on my forearms.

  "Please," she said. "Please."

  I took in as much air as I could get through my nose and let it out slowly, the way I used to let cigarette smoke drift out after I inhaled. She was leaning forward so far that the tortellini was in danger.

  "To be who I am. To be the woman you love, to be part of what we are, which is not like anyone else is, to be Susan, I have to be able to deal with this as I must. I must use my judgment and my skill and I mustn't let fear change any of that."

  I looked at her small hands lying on my forearms. It seemed as if we were alone in a void, no waiters, no diners, no restaurant, no world. And it seemed as if we sat that way for twenty minutes.

  "No," I said finally, "you mustn't. You're perfectly right."

  I looked up at her big eyes, and they held me. She smiled slowly.

  "And," I said, "you're about to put your tit in the tortellini.". He'd heard the boyfriend on the radio, Spenser. He'd been saying that the schwartze didn't do it. Did they know about him? Did the sonovabitch make him when he'd left the rose? Everybody else thought the schwartze did it. How come Spenser didn't? Did she? Did she know he did it? Did she know he tied all the other broads up and gagged them and watched them struggle and try to scream through the gag? He looked at the fish in the tank swimming quietly, the morning sun shining through the tank. She'd come out in a minute and say come in and then he'd be in the tank. Maybe she'd like being tied up. Some women did. They liked being tied up and naked and begging for it. He could feel the rush again as he thought about it. But he couldn't come talk to her anymore if he did something. And she might tell the boyfriend. Big bastard. In the papers it said he'd been a fighter. Fuck him. Maybe she'd told the boyfriend. Maybe she suspected him from what he said in there. They knew. Shrinks knew stuff even when you didn't want them to. She watched him all the time. She watched when he moved his arm or jiggled his foot, or shifted in the chair. She watched everything. She concentrated on him... the fish cruised in slow circles in the sunny water... she cared about him. She wouldn't tell the boyfriend. She wouldn't. The boyfriend thought it on his own. The has tard. She wouldn't tell. The office door opened. She was there in a dark blue dress with red flowers on it.

  "Come in," she said.

  When he stood, it startled the fish and they darted about in the tank.

  "My father used to go to whores," he said. "And then he'd feel bad about it and the next day he'd bring her roses." The shrink seemed interested. He thought she would be.

  "And she used to say, "You been with some floozie, George? "And he'd just sort of look at the floor and say, "A rose for you, Rosie," and he'd go away."

  "He wouldn't fight with her," the shrink said.

  "No, he never fought with her. He just got drunk and went to the whores."

  She looked quietly at him. There was always that quiet about her, that peaceful welcoming stillness. No judgments.

  "How did you feel about that?" she said.

  He felt himself shrugging, felt himself being casual.

  "Hell, he took me once," he said. He felt the feeling again in his stomach, the feeling of void ness She raised her eyebrows slightly. "Black hooker," he said. "I was about fourteen." The void was expanding and behind it the sensation, the hotness and tingle that always came. He heard himself telling her. He felt his daring and that added to the tingle. "Christ, she smelled bad."

  The shrink waited, inviting him with her calmness.

  "Turned me off," he said, still feeling himself being casual.

  They were both quiet, the shrink sitting perfectly still, he sitting as casually as he could, one arm leaning on the back of his chair. He could feel his eyes begin to tear. Still casual, he looked at her, blurred now, waiting.

  "I couldn't," he said, his voice shaky and hoarse. "I couldn't do anything. She was fat, and, and.. He felt his shoulders shake a little. "... hairy and... she was mean."

  "To you?" the shrink said.

  "Yes." So he was telling her. "Yes. She teased me and talked about how little it was and how weak it was and she tried to make me do it, tried, you know, to make me hard, and I couldn't and she got mad and said I was insulting her and I better do it or she'd cut it off and I was a bigot 'cause she was black." "Terrifying," the shrink said.

  "And my father was off somewhere fucking some other whore and I couldn 't get away."

  He struggled for breath. The sentences had been too long.

  "And," the shrink said.

  "And finally she threw me out of the room with no pants on and locked the door. And I had to wait there until my father came and took me home with his jacket wrapped around me. And some of the other whores saw me."

  "Did you talk about this with your father?"

  "He was mad at me for losing my pants. He said my mother would be mad at us."

  CHAPTER 22.

  Belson came by Susan's place at eleven in the morning and gave me a thick folder that had everything he and Quirk had learned about all seven suspects.

  "Quirk says read it and think about it and then we should talk," Belson said. "You, me, Quirk, and Susan, if she will."

  "Okay, I'll do it today," I said. "What are you going to do?"

  "Go home, introduce myself to the wife and kids, and take a nap."

  "Before you do that," I said, "see if you can compare this voice to the one I gave you before."

  "Red call you again?"

  "Among others. You'll see which one I mean. It's the one that says he might still be out there."

  "I'll see if we can get an unofficial voiceprint even though I'm on vacation," Belson said. "I'll let you know."

  Belson left and I began to read. Most of them were notable for not being interesting. There were no arrest records among them. Iselin, the Eastern studies prof, had had a jam while instructing in a private boys' school. A student had complained that Iselin solicited him, but nothing seemed to come of it. Two years later Iselin finished his Ph.D. at Harvard and stayed on to t
each. Larson, the cop, had applied for sick leave, pleading burn-out, and been told to seek counseling. All were married except Felton and Iselin. Iselin had never been married, and Felton was divorced. They'd already eliminated Larson, the cop, because his work record showed he'd been on duty and accountable during the time at least three of the murders had happened. Gagne, the Frenchman, was out too. He'd been in France visiting his family when the second murder took place during Harvard spring break. Of the five remaining, Felton, the security guard, jumped out. There were two college teachers, a medical intern, the owner of a gourmet food store, and a security guard. We could probably eliminate a couple of others if we could talk with them or their co-workers. We could establish if Charles, the intern, had been on duty during any of the murders, for instance. But then they'd know they were being gum shoed I liked Felton. I took his folder and read it again. There's only a little you can do in a short time without creating suspicion. He was forty-three years old, divorced, father deceased. Current address was Charlestown, but he had grown up in Swampscott. There was a Xerox of a page from his high school yearbook. His picture was there among others and his school activities were listed.