"Why are you interested in Boots Podolak," he said.
"You don't need to know," I said.
Epstein nodded.
" 'Course I don't," he said. "I don't need to know anything you know. And you don't need to know anything I know."
Epstein took a forkful of limestone lettuce and stuffed it in his mouth and chewed vigorously. I looked at my lobster stew for a moment.
"Do I hear a quid pro quo being asserted?" I said.
Epstein chewed his lettuce and swallowed it.
"You do," he said.
I nodded.
"We want to take him down," I said.
"We?"
"Me and a friend of mine."
"Friend who was almost shot to death last year?"
"Yes."
"Blames Boots?"
"We know Boots had something to do with it," I said. "You been keeping tabs on us?"
Epstein grinned at me.
"We don't like Boots, either," he said.
"You've been keeping tabs on Boots," I said.
Epstein pointed at me in affirmation.
"And up we popped," I said.
"You and Hawk," Epstein said.
"So what can you tell me?"
"You first," he said.
"Off the record," I said.
"You expect to engage in criminal activity in this venture?" Epstein said.
"Just being careful," I said. "It is possible that Hawk might, unknowingly, violate a federal statute."
"I work for the federal government," Epstein said. "I am not unfamiliar with criminal activity."
"Good point," I said. "So, off the record?"
Epstein nodded, and chewed some more lettuce. I told him the part about Hawk and the Ukrainians, and Hawk getting shot, and us dismantling Boots's operation to even things up. I trusted Epstein. I'd worked with him before. I told him about Tony Marcus and Brock Rimbaud, and the adventures we'd had in Marshport. Epstein listened silently while he ate his salad.
"I heard there was a Ukrainian guy got himself popped over on Blue Hill Ave a while ago."
"People are often popped on Blue Hill Ave," I said.
"Most of them aren't Ukrainian."
"Well," I said. "Not all of them, certainly."
"You and Hawk in on that?"
I smiled.
"I'll take that as a yes," Epstein said.
The waiter brought him some broiled scallops. Epstein started on them at once. I continued with my lobster stew.
"You talk to Ives at all?" Epstein said.
"Ives?"
"Yeah. You talk with him?"
"Why would I talk with Ives?" I said.
Epstein shrugged.
"I know you know him," Epstein said. "Got the Ukrainian connection. Ives is on the foreign side of things."
"You been in touch with Ives," I said.
"Yes."
"So you know I talked with him, because he told you."
Epstein stabbed a scallop with his fork and disposed of it.
"Well, since you put it that way," he said. "Yes."
"We needed a tough guy that spoke Ukrainian," I said. "I figured Ives would be a better source than Berlitz."
"He gave you the Gray Man," Epstein said between scallops.
I sat back and put my spoon down.
"Rugar," I said.
"His name changes more often than his appearance," Epstein said. "I always call him the Gray Man."
"He speaks Ukrainian," I said.
"He speaks a lot of things," Epstein said.
I nodded. Epstein finished his scallops.
"They still got Indian pudding here?" he said.
"I think so."
"Love Indian pudding," he said.
"Isn't that nice," I said.
The waiter cleared the table. Epstein ordered Indian pudding with ice cream. I had coffee. Men in suits and women in skirts came in and went out. The huge polished urns behind the service counter gleamed. The window next to us looked out on Winter Place, which was far too small an alley to live up to its name. Cold spring rain made all the surfaces in Winter Place gleam pleasantly. The waiter came back with coffee and Indian pudding. A scoop of vanilla ice cream sat on top of the pudding. Epstein looked at it happily.
"You don't like Indian pudding?" he said to me.
"I do. But not right now."
"Guy your size," Epstein said. "You don't eat enough."
I nodded. Epstein poked the ice cream with a spoon.
"Too hard," he said, and put the spoon down. "Give it a little time."
Epstein sat back a little and sipped some coffee. He was in no hurry. He was never in any hurry. He had all the time he needed. He'd get to where he was going when he needed to. I was getting tired of waiting for him. Which I knew was also a tactic. What would I say to get him talking? When in doubt, go with what you do best. I shut up. Epstein tested his Indian pudding again, nodded to himself, and took a bite.
"Boots Podolak took over the business of running Marshport," he said, "from his father, whose name was Holovka Podolak, who came to Marshport after a long time in the Russian mob and scratched out a living in the Ukrainian neighborhood, known as Strashnyy, which is, by the way, Ukrainian for 'horrible.' Holovka scratched so good and so often that eventually, in the late seventies, he took the city away from the Micks, who had taken it away from the Yankees."
"It's mostly black Hispanic now," I said.
"It's been black Hispanic for forty years," Epstein said. "But not at the top."
"Gee," I said.
"Holovka was mean and smart and had a lot of, ah, Eurasian connections," Epstein said.
He shoveled in some more pudding.
"And when he passed it on to Boots, the whole thing should have fallen apart, because Boots is a poster child for gene-pool dilution, but Holovka had made an alliance with an Afghani warlord."
"In Afghanistan?" I said.
"You think there are Afghani warlords hanging around pool halls in Marshport?" Epstein said. "Yes, an Afghanistan-based Afghani warlord."
He grinned and went back to his Indian pudding. I waited, drinking my coffee, watching him finish it off. I wondered if the name was politically correct. Shouldn't it be Native American pudding?
"Opium," I said.
Epstein nodded his head in a congratulatory way.
"Doesn't take you long," he said. "Podolak is the exclusive East Coast, U.S.A. distributorship for an Afghani warlord named Haji Haroon."
"Where'd the connection with Holovka come from?" I said.
"We don't know. We're guessing his father established it before he came to Marshport. We think he spent time there, maybe in his Russian mob days. The Soviets were there for a long time."
"And didn't it work out good for them," I said.
Epstein smiled.
"Opium's kind of bulky," I said.
"Too bulky for distant export like this," Epstein said.
"So Haji ships heroin."
"Exactly right," Epstein said. "And nicely alliterative."
"Does Haji supply, ah, management expertise?"
"He does."
"Afghani?"
Epstein shrugged.
"We don't know," he said.
"But you know there is somebody keeping an eye on Boots."
"We are convinced. Boots couldn't do this alone. And the Afghans don't trust members of another tribe, let alone some American of Ukrainian descent ten thousand miles away."
"So there's somebody."
"There has to be."
"So the Ukrainians are muscle."
"Yes."
"And there's an Afghani supervisor."
"Has to be," Epstein said.
"But we don't know who or where."
"Exactly," Epstein said.
I was quiet for a minute, watching Epstein enjoy his lunch.
"With that kind of setup," I said, "why is Boots trying to move into other turf?"
"We wondered about that, too," Epstein said.
"Now that I know about the Marcus family involvement, I'd say there are two probable reasons. One is: The opportunity presented itself when Tony wanted to help his son-in-law."
"And number two," I said. "Boots is stupider than a ballpeen hammer."
"Indeed," Epstein said.
"So what about the supervisor?"
"Maybe he's not so smart, either?" Epstein said.
"Or maybe," I said, "since the fix was in with Tony, they figured it was free money."
"Everyone likes free money," Epstein said.
"So," I said. "I see your interest. What's up with Ives?"
"We talk to one another more since nine-eleven."
"Wise," I said. "But I was asking what Ives's interest is."
"You'll probably need to ask him," Epstein said.
"I probably will."
Epstein drank the last of his coffee, looked sadly at the empty pudding dish, and pushed his chair back.
"Thanks for lunch," he said.
"I gather I'm paying?"
"How nice of you to offer," he said.
"I'm very patriotic," I said.
37
WE HAD A little meeting to discuss plans. Five of us. Tony wanted one of his people on the scene, so he gave us Leonard. I wanted somebody to watch my back while I was watching Hawk's back, so I invited Vinnie Morris, who could shoot the smell off a skunk at one hundred yards. And we needed a Ukrainian speaker, so Rugar, whose name was now something else, but he wouldn't tell us what, had agreed to be there. Hawk arrived at my office before anyone else. I had not talked with him yet about my discussion with Epstein. I wanted first to discuss it with Ives. But I had a sense that the Gray Man might be more, or less, than he seemed to be.
"There's not a lot of time before the others get here," I said to Hawk. "But don't say any more than you have to in front of the Gray Man."
"Like I usually say more than I have to in front of anybody?" Hawk said.
"Gray Man's interests may not fully coincide with ours," I said.
"I'm shocked," Hawk said.
Vinnie came in with Leonard.
"You got coffee?" Vinnie said.
"I'm making it," I said.
And began to.
"Sinkers?" Vinnie said.
I reached behind my desk and plonked a box of Dunkin' Donuts on my blotter. Vinnie opened the top and looked in and nodded as if I had vindicated myself again.
"Nice working with you," Vinnie said.
He sat beside Leonard on the couch across the far wall and waited for the coffee to brew. My office door opened again and the Gray Man came in carefully, wearing his showy trademark outfit of gray suit, tie, shirt, hair, and eyes. There was nothing special about my office. I knew the Gray Man entered everywhere carefully. He sat on a straight chair to the left of my desk, turning the chair so that his back was not to Vinnie or Leonard… or the door. The coffee brewed. We all had some. I put the donuts in the middle of my desk, and people helped themselves at will.
"Do you have any scones?" the Gray Man said.
I shook my head. The Gray Man had a moment of disapproval and then had a donut instead.
"So how many buttons we gotta push," Vinnie said, "to put these people out of business."
"Don't know yet," Hawk said. "Tony got any thoughts, Leonard?"
"No," Leonard said pleasantly.
He was wearing a light-blue suit with a lavender shirt and tie. The tie probably cost more than my full attire. His neck was muscular above the Windsor collar.
"Spenser?" Hawk said.
"The town is locked up tight," I said. "There's a newspaper, the Marshport Call. Boots owns it. There's a radio station, WMAR, which is owned by a woman named Lucille Davidoff. Lucille is Boots's sister. Boots has run unopposed in the last four mayoral elections. There is no police union, the cops belong to Boots. Everywhere Boots goes, some Marshport cops go with him. The inner circle is Ukrainian, most of them Ukrainian nationals."
"Which be where Mr. Gray Man be useful," Hawk said.
The Gray Man looked vaguely self-effacing. It was a little hard to tell what he was thinking without close observation. His expression rarely changed.
"We could pop them one at a time," Vinnie said.
"We gonna pull the whole thing down," Hawk said. "We may pop some and we may pop them all, and we may do it one at a time, and we may do it all at once. But we gonna pull it down and they gonna know it was me that done it and they gonna know why and they gonna leave behind a trust fund for Luther Gillespie's kid."
"You have a plan?" I said.
"I just gave you the plan."
"Besides that," I said.
"No."
"Swell," I said. "How about we spray-paint UKRAINIANS SUCK on prominent buildings?"
"If I may," the Gray Man said. "The strategy is sound-take over the city. What we need are"-he glanced at me and smiled faintly-"additional tactics to accomplish the strategy."
The Gray Man's smile was as substantial as a wisp of fog on a windy night.
"I understand that they are short at least two Ukrainians," he said.
"They shot one," Hawk said, "and I shot one."
"Perhaps they would welcome a replacement."
"You?"
"Perhaps I could join them," the Gray Man said.
"You Ukrainian," Hawk said.
"I am a citizen of the world," the Gray Man said. "I am fluent in Ukrainian."
"What do we do for a translator?" I said.
"One does not necessarily preclude the other."
"Why?" I said.
"Why am I willing to help you?"
"Yeah."
"I tried to kill you and almost succeeded. Maybe it puts me in your debt."
"You think that's it?" I said.
"Possibly."
"You are a strange dude."
Again, the wispy, short-lived smile.
"We are all strange dudes," he said. "In what we do, there are no rules. We have to make some up for ourselves."
"Can you get in there?" Hawk said.
"Yes."
"Sure?"
"I have lived a various if desperate life," the Gray Man said. "I know a lot of people… and a lot of tricks."
Hawk nodded. The Gray Man looked carefully at Leonard.
"I commend you on your suit," he said.
Leonard nodded.
"I too like clothes."
Leonard nodded again. He carried a faint scent of sandalwood.
"You work for Tony Marcus."
Leonard nodded.
"You are a neutral observer?" the Gray Man said.
Leonard shook his head.
"Then you are with us?"
"As long as Tony is," Leonard said.
The Gray Man nodded.
"Tony is changeable," I said.
"I have heard that," the Gray Man said.
Leonard remained within himself. For all I could tell, he was thinking about Stagger Lee and trying to remember the song lyrics. Vinnie had earphones in and was listening to his iPod. I drank some coffee. The Gray Man was right. We were all strange dudes.
Hawk looked at me. I shrugged.
"I don't see no reason you shouldn't get inside Boots's operation, if you can," Hawk said to the Gray Man.
"It may take some time," the Gray Man said.
"We got some time," Hawk said.
He looked at Vinnie.
"You the only one these people ain't seen," he said.
"Their loss," Vinnie said.
"Maybe you can hang out in Marshport," Hawk said. "In amongst the criminal element where you be right at home."
"I ain't no criminal," Vinnie said. "I'm a shooter. People hire me are criminals."
"See what you can see," Hawk said.
Vinnie was on his feet, selecting another donut from the box.
"Sure," he said.
"Bro," Hawk said to Leonard, "what you planning on doing."
"Stand by," Leonard said. "You need me, you holler."
"Might make sense if you hung around, kept an eye on Brock Rimbaud," Hawk said.
"He's so annoying," I said. "It's like a matter of moments before somebody can't stand it anymore."
Leonard smiled.
"I can do that," he said.
"You see anything interesting, you can let us know," Hawk said. "Balloon goes up, we let you know."
"Soon as we find a balloon," I said.
38
WHEN HAWK AND I came down the long escalator from the second level, Ives was sitting on a circular bench near Bloomingdale's, on the first floor of the Chestnut Hill Mall, eating roasted cashews from a small bag. "Ah," he said when we reached him, "the Nubian warrior."
"My people from Natal," Hawk said. "Ah is of Zulu extraction."
Ives smiled vaguely.
"Cashew?" he said.
I took a couple; they were still warm. Hawk shook his head.
"Spenser say you might be more interested in Boots Podolak than you letting on," Hawk said.
"Oh?"
"Say maybe you not as helpful as you seem," Hawk said. "Giving us the Gray Man."
"I didn't actually give him to you," Ives said.
His eyes were following a young woman in high heels and a short skirt who was heading down the mall toward Filene's.
"Lochinvar came to me, you'll recall, looking for a translator. The Gray Man seemed suitable."
"He work for you?" Hawk said.
Ives was wearing a tan summer suit with a blue oxford shirt and a green-and-blue striped tie. A snap-brimmed straw hat tilted forward over his narrow forehead. The wide hatband matched his tie. He studied the young woman for a moment as she receded down the mall. He ate a couple more cashews and offered me some. I shook my head.
"Currently?" Ives said. "He does."
"So what's he doing for us?" Hawk said.
"I assume he's helping you translate."
"And what's he doing for you?"
The young woman went into Filene's. Ives shook his head slightly in sorrow.
"Oh, my," Ives said. "Tight young ass."
Hawk didn't say anything.
"All ass is good," Ives said. "But these young housewives with their personal trainers… visions of sugarplums."
I said, "We're after the same thing, Ives."
"Tight young ass?"
"Besides that," I said. "You want something from Boots Podolak, and since officially you are supposed to work on foreign stuff only, you want something that has to do with the Afghan connection."
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