Valediction

by Robert B. Parker

"I know," Linda said.

  We finished eating our supper. The silence was not awkward. We cleared the dishes and Linda served Sambuca and coffee. We sat on the couch to drink it and Linda turned toward me and stared with her melting gaze at me and then pressed her mouth against mine.

  I had never been with anyone like her. In her passion and the wide openness of her abandon, she was breathtaking. Her power suit was in a heap on the floor, tangled with her lavender undergarments and my suit.

  We made love--on the couch, and on the floor, at one point rolling against the coffee table and slopping our coffee and Sambuca onto the marble surface. Later we were beneath the glass-topped dinner table. Sometime later we went to bed.

  Linda lay on her side, propped on an elbow, looking down at me as I lay on my back beside her.

  "It would be absolutely idiotic," she said, "to be in love with you having just met this evening."

  "I know," I said.

  She said something that sounded like "ohhhh" and pressed her mouth against me again and we made love again. She cried out and dug her nails into my back. Sometimes we were crossways on the bed, and once we fell off and didn't pay any attention. Back in bed, long into the dwindling night, we fell asleep with our arms around each other. And I did something I had not done since Susan left. I slept.

  CHAPTER 21

  I walked back from Linda's apartment in the hot morning feeling somehow encapsulated, as if a fine high keening surrounded me, and the pavement were undulant and somewhat insubstantial. The space in which I moved seemed crystalline and empty. What I felt was shock. To feel for someone other than Susan what I had felt for Linda was so startling that the world seemed unlike the one I'd walked in yesterday morning. The Quincy Market area was nearly empty at that time of day. Newly scrubbed and shining, its shops and restaurants freshly open, full of promise. Hopeful.

  In front of my apartment on Marlborough Street, Vinnie Morris was parked on a hydrant, the motor idling, the windows of his TransAm rolled up. He lowered one of them. "Get in," he said, "we'll have breakfast."

  I got in the passenger side. Vinnie raised the window and the air-conditioning took care of what little warm air I had brought in with me.

  "You look like you been out all night," Vinnie said. He was a medium-size man, very compact, very neat. He had a thick black mustache and he smelled of musk oil, though modestly.

  "Yes," I said.

  We drove around the Public Garden and down Charles Street. Vinnie jammed the TransAm up onto the sidewalk on the corner of Charles and Mt. Vernon streets and we went into the Paramount Restaurant. I ordered whole wheat toast, Vinnie ordered steak and eggs.

  "Breakfast is important," Vinnie said.

  I nodded. "Got to keep that cholesterol level up."

  Vinnie said, "Aw, bullshit."

  We brought our food to a table, and sat.

  I drank some coffee. The world still echoed strangely around me, and the intrusion of Vinnie, the intrusion of the world in which I worked and lived, was jarring.

  Vinnie with a gun, Vinnie who spoke for Joe Broz, or kille for Joe Broz, was for me the ordinary, the workaday. I felt as if my footing were unsure as if the earth were slippery.

  "You were asking about Mickey Paultz, Vinnie said. He drank some coffee and put th cup down. His movements were careful an economical and precise. His nails were manicured.

  "Yes."

  "Tell me a little about why you want to know."

  "I'm looking into a religious group called the Reorganized Church of the Redemption. I noticed it has made a number of large low interest loans to the Paultz Construction Company."

  Vinnie was watching me carefully. He nodded.

  "After I had asked the head of this religious group about the loans, about where they got money for the loans, a couple of meanies came around and told me to butt out, or else."

  "Scared you right off, didn't they," Vinni said.

  "They drove off in a car registered to Pault Construction."

  "Don't mean Paultz is dirty," Vinnie said. "Maybe these guys were just a couple shovel operators on a slow day. Maybe Paultz is buddies with the church guy."

  "These were hoods, Vinnie. And the thing is, the church shows no visible source of income. Where they get the money to lend Paultz?"

  Vinnie cut into his steak. "The faithful?"

  I shook my head. "No. They receive money from the church, not the other way around."

  "Church pays them to be members?"

  "A stipend, for work," I said. "So where's the money come from?"

  Vinnie smiled his careful smile and chewed his steak. He ate in small bites, chewing thoroughly. He swallowed. "You have a theory," he said.

  "I say Paultz is dirty, he's making dirt, money, and he's laundering it through the church."

  Vinnie nodded. "Makes sense. He make money under the table, donates it anonymously to this church, they lend it back to him at a low rate. He invests it at a higher one, or uses it to build property and sells it at a profit and the money he gets is shiny clean. Maybe Joe will found a church."

  Vinnie ate some more. I drank my coffee and ate half a piece of toast.

  "Heroin," Vinnie said. I was quiet.

  "Mickey Paultz processes most of the skag that gets sold in New England," Vinnie said.

  "How nice for him," I said. "Where does he do the processing?"

  "Warehouse on the construction lot."

  "You folks do business with Mickey?"

  "You want to do dope business, you do it with Mickey. We do, Tony Marcus does, Worcester, Providence."

  "Would it break your heart if someone put Mickey away and left the business up for grabs?"

  Vinnie smiled. "Nature hates a vacuum, buddy boy."

  "And so does Joe Broz."

  Vinnie patted his mouth with a napkin. "Joe says you need some help on this, we'll help, up to a point."

  "Why don't you just waste Paultz," I said.

  "And move in, sort of like a proxy fight?" Vinnie shrugged. "Mickey's connections are good," he said. "Joe don't want to do it that way."

  "So he wants me to do it," I said.

  "He wants it done. You called us, you know. We didn't call you."

  "If I do this right, maybe I can get my own territory," I said. "Couple of junior high schools . . . "Hi, kids, I'm the candy man.' "

  "I don't like it too much either, tell you the truth," Vinnie said, "but Joe don't always check with me on these things. Joe likes dope. And you and me both know if Mickey Paultz don't do it, and Joe don't do it, then somebody else will do it."

  "So I take Paultz out, Joe moves in, and I look the other way."

  Vinnie smiled and jabbed his right index finger at me. "Most definitely," he said. "We get what we want, you get what you want, and all the junkies get what they want. What could be better?"

  I shook my head. "Hard to imagine," I said.

  CHAPTER 22

  Wearing a pair of chino pants and a shortsleeve white shirt I went to call on Mickey Paultz. I had bought the pants a couple of years ago in case someone gave me a pair of Top-Siders and invited me to Dover. The shirt I'd had to buy for this occasion, but it was a business expense-disguise. I was undercover as a deacon. Since deacons didn't go armed that I could see, and since I didn't go unarmed, I'd strapped on a .25 automatic in an ankle holster. A quick draw is not easy with an ankle holster, but it was better than nothing.

  Paultz Construction Company was on the southern artery in Quincy, a big sprawling ugly lot full of heavy equipment surrounded by chain link fencing with barbed wire on top, with an office trailer near the front gate. Back in the lot was a big prefab corrugated steel warehouse. I pulled the Ford Escort wagon that I had rented into the lot outside the gate and went through the gate and into the office. If the two sluggers who called on me were there, I'd simply turn around and leave. But I figured they wouldn't be. They didn't belong out front where the customers would see them. I was right. There was a fat woman in black stretch pants a
nd pink blouse manning the typewriter and answering a phone.

  When she got through on the phone she looked at me and said, "What do you need?"

  "Mr. Paultz," I said.

  A long unfiltered cigarette was burning in an ashtray.

  "He's busy," she said. The phone rang, she answered, talked, hung up.

  "I'm from Mr. Winston," I said. "I have to see Mr. Paultz."

  She took a drag on her cigarette, put it down. "I don't know any Winston," she said.

  "Ask Mr. Paultz," I said. "He'll want to know."

  She shrugged and got up and went through a door into the back half of the trailer. In a moment she came back and said, "Okay, go on in," then she sat down and picked up her cigarette. I went through the open door and closed it behind me.

  Mickey Paultz sat in an overstuffed chair with a piece of paisley cloth thrown over it. He looked at me and said, "What's up?"

  He was thin with short gray hair and rimless glasses. A kitchen table was next to the chair and on it were two phones and several manila folders.

  "Mr. Winston has to see you," I said. "He can't call. He thinks the phones are tapped. There's real trouble he says and wants to meet you in City Hall Plaza near the subway as soon as you can make it."

  Paultz's expression didn't change. "Okay," he said.

  I waited a minute.

  Paultz said, "You want something else?"

  A man of few words, I said, "No," and turned and went out.

  I drove straight to Boston and parked in front of the precinct station on Sudbury Street by a sign that said POLICE VEHICLES ONLY, grabbed a camera, and hotfooted it across the street to the Kennedy Building. Hawk was there near the funny-looking metal sculpture.

  "Winston go for it?" I said.

  "Unh-huh." Hawk pointed with his chin across the vast brick plaza in front of City Hall. By the subway kiosk on the corner, Bullard Winston stood glancing at his watch and shifting his weight lightly from one foot to the other as he waited. He was wearing a seersucker suit. I sighted my camera at him and focused through the telephoto lens.

  "Paultz coming?" Hawk said.

  "I'm not sure," I said. "I told him my story and he said okay and sent me away."

  "If he don't come, we gotta think of something else," Hawk said. "Can't pull this gig twice."

  "I know." Behind the funny-looking sculpture I kept the camera steady on Winston. That him?" Hawk said.

  Paultz got out of a white Chevy sedan that double-parked on Cambridge Street with the motor running.

  "Yes," I said. As Paultz came into my viewfinder I snapped pictures of him and Winston talking. They talked for maybe fifteen seconds before Paultz turned and glanced around the plaza. We stepped out from behind the funny-looking sculpture. I kept snapping pictures, Hawk put two fingers in his mouth and whistled. Both Winston and Paultz turned and stared. Hawk waved. I had cranked out maybe twenty pictures. I stopped and rewound the film. I took out the roll and slipped it into my pocket. I let the camera hang by its strap from my right hand and Hawk and I began to walk across the plaza toward Paultz and Winston.

  Paultz turned and spoke to someone in the Chevy. The doors opened and the two sluggers got out. Hawk was wearing an unconstructed silk tweed summer jacket and he unbuttoned it as we walked across the plaza.

  "Oh, to be torn 'tween love and duty," I said, " 'sposin' I lose my fair-haired beauty."

  "Those the two that threatened to do you in?" Hawk said.

  "Yep."

  "Fearful," Hawk said.

  We stopped in front of the four men. Winston looked uncertainly at Hawk. His face was narrow with fear. Paultz looked the same as he had in his office. Except taller. Standing he was maybe six four.

  "How's the weather up there," I said. Hawk chuckled softly.

  Paultz said, "I want the film."

  "I don't care what you want, Mickey," I said. "I got pictures of you and Winston together. I know you are washing money through his church, I know you process and distribute heroin out of your warehouse. And I want you to deal with me."

  Without a word Winston turned and began to walk rapidly away toward Tremont Street. Hawk looked at me. I shook my head. Winston kept going.

  "You give me the film or we take it," Paultz said.

  "In City Hall Plaza? A block from Station One?"

  Hawk said, "Couldn't take it anyway. Even if we in Siberia."

  "Do we talk?" I said.

  Paultz looked at me and at Hawk blankly. Then he said, "No," and turned and walked to the white Chevy. The sluggers went too. They got into the car and drove away.

  "I think Mickey just told us to stick it," I said.

  "I think Mickey know there's more than one way to skin a cat," Hawk said.

  "I think he knows that too," I said.

  "And you the cat," Hawk said.

  CHAPTER 23

  I had contacts made of my pictures at a fast service place in Harvard Square. I chose the best pictures and had half a dozen 81/2 by 11 glossies made up. I put four of them in a safedeposit box, kept one of them for Mickey Paultz, and took the other one with me when I went to call on the Reverend Winston.

  When he let me in he looked sick. And sleepless. Much of his calm elegance had gone.

  "What are you going to do?" he said when I came in.

  I handed him the photograph. "I'm going to negotiate with you," I said.

  Winston stared at the picture.

  "No matter how long you look at it," I said, "it is still going to be a picture of you and Mickey Paultz."

  "It doesn't prove anything," Winston said. I slammed my palm down on the tabletop. Winston jumped.

  I said, "Come on, Bullard. You are through and you know it. I know what's been going on. I can tie you to Paultz and it's only a matter of time before the cops or I can prove it in court." It was a trick I learned on the cops. Call them by their first name, makes them feel less important. Bullard didn't seem to feel at all important. He pressed his clenched hands against his mouth and stared down at the picture.

  I lied to him. I said, "I'm not after you, Bullard. I'm after Paultz."

  He raised his eyes toward me. Salvation. "You lay it out for me, all of it, how it worked. How much money, where it came from, how much you got off the top for the laundry job, all the things you know."

  "If I do?" he said.

  "Like I say, I'm not after you."

  If he'd been smarter, he'd have known I was lying. My ploy to get them pictured together was warning enough for Paultz to eliminate anything incriminating on his lot or in his business. I didn't care. Whether Paultz ran the heroin store, or Joe Broz, or Harry the horse, made very little difference to me or to the junkies whose lives would be forfeit to it. What I really cared about was Sherry Spellman.

  "I'll tell you all I know," he said. And he did. I took notes and when he was through I let him reread my notes and had him sign each page. He did without protest, although I could tell that seeing it written out on paper made him nervous. It was about as I had it figured, although the numbers were higher than I'd guessed. One thing I noticed was that as far as I could tell there was only Winston's word on the Paultz connection, which meant if Winston were dead, there'd be no real way to tie Paultz to any of this. If I knew it, Paultz knew it. I went to Winston's desk and used his phone. I left word with Henry Cimoli for Hawk to call me, gave him Winston's number, and hung up.

  "I'm going to wait here for a call," I said. "Did anyone else in your organization deal with Paultz?"

  "No."

  "You're the only one that knows where the money comes from?"

  "Yes."

  "How'd it start?"

  Winston stared out through the glass at Commonwealth Avenue. "The first donations were anonymous," he said in a flat soft voice. "Big donations when we were struggling to get a foothold. Life-saving donations."

  "Seed money," I said. "It's the same way they develop a junkie."

  "Then one day Mickey Paultz came and called on me. He introd
uced himself, explained that he'd been the anonymous contributor, and made another donation. In cash, always cash. No strings. That continued for a while and then he came again and asked for a loan. I was sorry, embarrassed even, but I explained to him that I'd spent all of his donation money on church business. He said that was understandable, that he'd give me a very large donation and ask me to lend that to him. I was puzzled. Naive, I suppose, but I couldn't see why he'd want to do that. He insisted, and I said that I had never seen anything done like that, and that I felt I should consult an attorney before I did it."

  Winston paused and hunched his shoulders a little.

  "Then Paultz explained it to me. He told me where the money came from and why he had given it to me and said that I'd be through if people knew it was dirty money."

  "And?" I said.

  "And there'd be no more donations if I didn't go along."

  I nodded. "Hard to give up," I said. "The church, the power, the home, the car, the deacons, the whole thing."

  "I couldn't," Winston said. "I couldn't give it up. I'd created it, built it, made it work, made it flourish. I couldn't."

  We were both quiet until the phone rang. I answered. It was Hawk.

  I said, "I need a body guarded. Can you take the first shift while I work up some more troops?"

  "Winston?"

  "Yes."

  "Paultz?"

  "Unh-huh."

  "Wondered when you'd think of that," Hawk said. "I be along."

  When I hung up, Winston looked at me and licked his lips. "What is this about a bodyguard?"

  "You're the only one who can tie Paultz to this," I said. "He'd sleep better if you were dead."

  Winston said, "Oh, my dear God."

  "It's all right," I said. "Hawk will keep you safe for now, and I'll arrange with a man I know to give you round-the-clock protection."

  "Is Hawk the Negro who told me Paultz had to see me?"

  "Yes."

  "The one who was with you when you took the pictures?"

  "Yes."

  "He'll guard me alone?"

  "He could guard Yugoslavia alone," I said.