Mortal Stakes

by Robert B. Parker

  He nodded. ”Yep, I been here since nineteen forty-six.“

  He turned toward the file cabinet. A pair of handcuffs draped over his belt in the small of his back, and he wore an army.45

  in a government-issue flap holster on his right hip. He rustled through the third file drawer down and came up with a manila folder. He opened it, his back still to me, and read through the contents, closed it, turned around, put the folder facedown on the desk, and sat down. ”You want a Dr Pepper?“

  he said?

  ”No, thanks. You have Donna Burlington?“

  ”Could I see your license again, and maybe some other ID?“

  I gave him the license and my driver’s license. He looked at them carefully and turned them back to me. ”Why do you want to know about Donna Burlington?“

  ”I don’t want to tell you. I’m looking into something that might hurt a lot of people, who could turn out to be innocent, if the word got out.“

  ”What’s Donna Burlington got to do with it?“

  ”She lied to me about her name, where she lived, how she got married. I want to know why.“

  ”You think she’s committed a crime?“

  ”Not that I know of. I don’t want her for anything. I just ran across a lie and I want to run it down. You know how it goes, people lie to you, you want to know why.“

  Donaldson nodded. He took a swig from his Dr Pepper, swallowed it, and began to suck on his upper lip.

  ”I don’t want to stir up old troubles,“ I said. ”She was eighteen when you busted her. Everyone is entitled to screw up when they’re eighteen. I just want to know about her.“

  Donaldson kept sucking on his upper lip and looking at me.

  ”It’ll be worse if I start asking around and get people wondering why some dick from the East is asking about Donna Burlington. I’ll find out anyway. This isn’t that big a place.“

  ”I might not let you ask around,“ Donaldson said.

  ”Aw come on, Hondo,“ I said. ”If you give me trouble, I’ll go get the state cops and a court order and come on back and ask around and more people will notice and a bigger puff of smoke will go up and you’ll be worse off than you are now.

  I’m making what you call your legitimate inquiry.“

  ”Persistent sonovabitch, aren’t you? Okay, I’ll go along. I just don’t like telling people’s business to others without a pretty good reason.“

  ”Me either,“ I said.

  ”Okay.“ He opened the folder and looked at it. ”I arrested Donna Burlington for possession of three marijuana cigarettes. She was smoking with two boys from Buckston in a pickup truck back of Scooter’s Lunch. It was a first offense, but we were a little jumpier about reefers around here in ’sixty-six than we are now. I booked her; she went to court and got a suspended sentence and a year’s probation. Six weeks later she broke probation and went off to New York City with a local hellion. She never came back.“

  ”What was the hellion’s name?“

  ”Tony Reece. He was about seven or eight years older than Donna.“

  ”What kind of kid was she?“

  ”It was a while ago,“ Donaldson said. ”But kind of restless, not really happy, you know—nothing bad, but she had a reputation, hung out with the older hotshots. The first girl in class to smoke, the first to drink, the first one to try pot, the one the boys took out as soon as they dared while the other girls were still going to dancing school at the grange hall and blushing if someone talked dirty.“

  ”Family still live in town?“

  ”Yeah, but they don’t know where she is. After she took off, they were after me to locate her. But there’s only me and two deputies, and one of them’s part-time. When nothing came of that, they wrote her off. In a way they were probably glad she took off. They didn’t know what to do with her. She was a late baby, you know? The Burlingtons never had any kids, and then, when Mrs. Burlington was going through the change, there came Donna. That’s what my wife says anyway.

  Embarrassed hell out of both of them.“

  ”How about Reece? He ever show up again?“

  Donaldson shook his head. ”Nope. I heard he got in some kind of jam in New York and he might be doing time.

  But he hasn’t shown up around here anyway.“

  ”Okay, any last known address?“

  ”Just the house here.“

  ”Can you give me that? I’d like to talk to the parents.“

  ”I’ll drive you over. They’ll be a little easier if I’m there. They’re old and they get nervous.“

  ”I’m not going to give them the third degree, Donaldson, I’m just going to talk to them and ask them if they know anything more than you do about Donna Burlington.“

  ”I’ll go along. They’re sorta shiftless and crummy, but they’re my people, you know? I like to look out for them.“

  I nodded. ”Okay, let’s go.“

  We got into Donaldson’s black and white and drove back up the main street past the row of storefronts and the sparse yards. At the end of the street we turned left, down toward the river, and pulled up in front of a big shanty. Originally it had probably been a four-room bungalow backing onto the river. Over the years lean-tos and sagging additions had been scabbed onto it so that it was difficult to say how many rooms there were now. The area in front of the house was mud, and several dirty white chickens pecked in it. A brown and white pig had rooted itself out a hollow against the foundation and was sleeping in it. To the right of the front door, two big gas bottles of dull gray-green metal stood upright, and to the left the remnants of a vine were so bedraggled I couldn’t recognize what kind it was. The land to the side and rear of the house sloped in a kind of eroded gully down to the river. There was a stack of old tires at the corner of one of the lean-tos, and beyond that the rusted frame of a forty-year-old pickup truck, a stack of empty vegetable crates, and on the flat mud margin where the river lapped at the land a bedspring, mossy and slick with river scum.

  I thought of Linda Rabb in her Church Park apartment with the fresh jeans and her black hair gleaming.

  ”Come to where the flavor is,“ I said.

  ”Yeah, it’s not much, is it? Don’t much wonder that Donna took off as soon as she could.“ We got up and walked to the front door. There were the brown remains of a wreath hanging from a galvanized nail. The ghost of Christmas past.

  Maybe of a Christmas future for the Burlingtons.

  An old woman answered Donaldson’s knock. She was fat and lumpy in a yellow housedress. Her legs were bare and mottled, her feet thrust into scuffed men’s loafers. Her gray hair was short and straight around her head, the ends uneven, cut at home probably, with dull scissors. Her face was nearly without features, fat puffing around her eyes, making them seem small and squinty.

  ”Morning, Mrs. Burlington,“ Donaldson said. ”Got a man here from Boston wants to talk with you about Donna.“

  She looked at me. ”You seen Donna?“ she said.

  ”May we come in?“ I said.

  She stood aside. ”I guess so,“ she said. Her voice wasn’t very old, but it was without variation, a tired monotone, as if there were nothing worth saying.

  Donaldson took off his hat and went in. I followed. The room smelled of kerosene and dogs and things I didn’t recognize. The clutter was dense. Donaldson and I found room on an old daybed and sat. Mrs. Burlington shuffled off down a corridor and returned in a moment with her husband. He was pallid and bald, a tall old man in a sleeveless undershirt and black worsted trousers with the fly open. His face had gray stubble on it, and some egg was dried in the corner of his mouth. The skin was loose on his thin white arms and wrinkled in the fold at the armpit. He poured a handful of Bond Street pipe tobacco from a can into the palm of his hand and slurped it into his mouth.

  He nodded at Donaldson, who said, ”Morning, Mr.

  Burlington.“ Mrs. Burlington stood, and they both looked at Donaldson and me without moving or speaking. American Gothic.

 
; I said, ”I’m a detective. I can’t tell you where your daughter is, except that she’s well and happy. But I need to learn a little about her background. I mean her no harm, and I’m trying to help her, but the whole situation is very confidential.“

  ”What do you want to know?“ Mrs. Burlington said.

  ”When is the last time you heard from her?“

  Mrs. Burlington said, ”We ain’t. Not since she run off.“

  ”No letter, no call, nothing. Not a word?“

  Mrs. Burlington shook her head. The old man made no move, changed his expression not at all.

  ”Do you know where she went when she left here?“

  ”Left us a note saying she was going to New York with a fellow we never met, never heard nothing more.“

  ”Didn’t you look for her?“

  Mrs. Burlington nodded at Donaldson, ”Told T.P. here.

  He looked. Couldn’t find her.“ A bony mongrel dog with short yellow fur and mismatched ears appeared behind Mr. Burlington. He growled at us, and Burlington turned and kicked him hard in the ribs. The dog yelped and disappeared.

  ”You ever hear from Tony Reece?“ It was like talking to a postoperative lobotomy case. And compared to the old man, she was animated.

  She shook her head. ”Never seen him,“ she said. The old man squirted a long stream of tobacco juice at a cardboard box of sand behind the door. He missed.

  And that was it. They didn’t know anything about anything, and they didn’t care. The old man never spoke while I was there and just nodded when Donaldson said goodbye.

  In the car Donaldson said, ”Where to now?“

  ”Let’s just sit here a minute until I catch my breath.“

  ”They been poor all their life,“ Donaldson said. ”It tends to wear you out.“ I nodded.

  ”Okay, how about Tony Reece? He got any family here?“

  ”Nope. Folks are both dead.“ Donaldson started the engine and turned the car back toward the town hall. When we got there, he offered me his hand. ”If I was you, Spenser, I’d try New York next.“

  ”Fun City,“ I said.

  CHAPTER NINE

  WHEN BRENDA LORING GOT OUT of a brown and white Boston cab, I was brushing off an old man in an army shirt and a flowered tie who wanted me to give him a quarter.

  ”Did you autograph his bra, sweetie?“ she said.

  ”They were here,“ I said, ”but I warned them about your jealous passion and they fled at your approach.“

  ”Fled? That is quite fancy talk for a professional thug.“

  ”That’s another thing. Around here I’m supposed to be writing a book. My true identity must remain concealed. Reveal it to no one.“

  ”A writer?“

  ”Yeah. I’m supposed to be doing a book on the Red Sox and baseball.“

  ”Was that your agent you were talking with when I drove up?“

  ”No, a reader.“

  She shook her head. Her blond hair was cut short and shaped around her head. Her eyes were green. Her makeup was expert. She was wearing a short green dress with a small floral print and long sleeves. She was darkly tanned, and a small gold locket gleamed on a thin chain against her chest where the neckline of the dress formed a V. Across Jersey Street a guy selling souvenirs was staring at her. I was staring at her too. I always did. She was ten pounds on the right side of plump. ”Voluptuous,“ I said.

  ”I beg your pardon.“

  ”That’s how we writers would describe you. Voluptuous with a saucy hint of deviltry lurking in the sparkling of the eyes and the impertinent cast of the mouth.“

  ”Spenser, I want a hot dog and some beer and peanuts and a ball game. Could you please, please, please, pretty please, please with sugar on it knock off the writer bullshit and escort me through the gate?“

  I shook my head. ”Writers aren’t understood much,“ I said, and we went in.

  I was showing off for Brenda and took her up to the broadcast booth to watch the game. My presence didn’t seem to be a spur to the Red Sox. They lost to Kansas City 5-2, with Freddie Patek driving in three runs on a bases-loaded fly ball that Alex Montoya played into a triple. Maynard ignored us, Wilson studied Brenda closely between innings, and Lester boned up on the National Enquirer through the whole afternoon. Thoughtful.

  It was four ten when we got out onto Jersey Street again. Brenda said, ”Who was the cute thing in the cowboy suit?“

  ”Never mind about him,“ I said. ”I suppose you’re not going to settle for the two hot dogs I bought you.“

  ”For dinner? I’ll wait right here for the cowboy.“

  ”Where would you like to go? It’s early, but we could stop for a drink.“

  We decided on a drink at the outdoor cafe by City Hall.

  I had draft beer, and Brenda a stinger on the rocks, under the colorful umbrellas across from the open brick piazza. The area was new, reclaimed from the miasma of Scollay Square where Winnie Garrett the Flaming Redhead used to take it all off on the first show Monday before the city censor decreed the G-string. Pinball parlors, and tattoo shops, the Old Howard and the Casino, winos, whores, sailors, barrooms, and novelty shops: an adolescent vision of Sodom and Gomorrah, all gone now, giving way to fountains and arcades and a sweep of open plaza.

  ”You know, it never really was Sodom and Gomorrah anyway,“ I said.

  ”What wasn’t?“

  ”Scollay Square. It was pre-Vietnam sin. Burlesque dancers and barrooms where bleached blondes danced in G-strings and net stockings. Places that sold plastic dog turds and whoopee cushions.“

  ”I never came here,“ she said. ”My mother had me convinced that to step into Scollay Square was to be molested instantly.“

  ”Naw. There were ten college kids here for every dirty old man. Compared to the Combat Zone, Scollay Square was the Goosie Gander Nursery School.“

  I ordered two more drinks. The tables were glasstopped and the cafe was carpeted in Astroturf. The waitress was attentive. Brenda Loring’s nails were done in a bright red. Dark was still a long way off.

  Brenda went to the ladies’ room, and I called my answering service. There was a message to call Healy. He’d be in his office till six. I looked at my watch: 5:40. I called.

  ”This is Spenser, what have you got?“

  ”Prints belong to Donna Burlington.“ He spelled it.

  ”Busted in Redford, Illinois, three-eighteen-sixty-six, for possession of a prohibited substance. That’s when the prints got logged into the bureau files. No other arrests recorded.“

  ”Thanks, Lieutenant.“

  ”You owe me,“ Healy said and hung up. Mr. Warmth.

  I was back at the table before Brenda.

  At seven fifteen we strolled up Tremont Street to a French restaurant in the old City Hall and had rack of lamb for two and a chilled bottle of Traminer and strawberry tarts for dessert. It was nearly nine thirty when we finished and walked back up School Street to Tremont. It was dark now but still warm, a soft night, midsummer, and the Common seemed very gentle as we strolled across it. Brenda Loring held my hand as we walked. No one attempted to mug us all the way to Marlborough Street.

  In my apartment I said to Brenda, ”Want some brandy or would you like to get right to the necking?“

  ”Actually, cookie, I would like first to take a shower.“

  ”A shower?“

  ”Uh-huh. You pour us two big snifters of brandy and hop into bed, and I’ll come along in a few minutes.“

  ”A shower?“

  ”Go on,“ she said. ”I won’t take long.“

  I went to the kitchen and got a bottle of Remy Martin out of the kitchen cabinet. Did David Niven keep cognac in the kitchen? Not likely. I got two brandy snifters out and filled them half full and headed back toward the bedroom. I could hear the shower running. I put the two glasses down on the bureau and got undressed. The shower was still running.

  I went to the bathroom door. My bare feet made no noise at all on the wall-to-wall carpeting. I turne
d the handle and it opened. The room was steamy. Brenda’s clothes were in a small pile on the floor under the sink. I noticed her lingerie matched her dress. Class. The steam was billowing up over the drawn shower curtain. I looked in. Brenda had her eyes closed, her head arched back, the water running down over her shiny brown body. Her buttocks were in white contrast to the rest of her. She was humming an old Billy Eckstine song. I got in behind her and put my arms around her.

  ”Jesus Christ, Spenser,“ she said. ”What are you doing?“

  ”Cleanliness is next to godliness,“ I said. ”Want me to wash your back?“

  She handed me the soap and I lathered her back.

  When I was finished, she turned to rinse it off, and her breasts, as she faced me, were the same startling white that her buttocks had been.

  ”Want me to wash your front?“ I said.

  She laughed and put her arms around me. Her body was slick and wet. I kissed her. There is excitement in a new kiss, but there is a quality of memory and intimacy in kissing someone you’ve kissed often before. I liked the quality. Maybe continuity is better than change. With the shower still running we went towelless to bed.

  “That’s all?”

  “That’s all. No name or return address or anything.”

  “And did he?”

  Linda Rabb looked blank. “Did he what?”

  “Did Marty lose his next game?”

  “Yes, he hung a curve in the seventh inning with the bases loaded against the Tigers, on purpose. I woke up in the middle of the night, that night, and he wasn’t in bed, he was out in the living room, looking out the window and crying.”

  Her face was very white, and her eyes were puffy.

  “And you wanted to confess it again.”

  “Yes. But he said no. And I said, ‘It will kill you to throw games.’ And he said a man looked out for his wife and his kid, and I said, ‘But it will kill you.’ And he wouldn’t talk about it again. He said it was done and maybe there wouldn’t be another letter, but we both knew there would.”

  “And there was.”

  She nodded.

  “And they kept coming?”