Chance s-23

by Robert B. Parker

  "Would he shoot you?" Susan said.

  "Depends."

  "Would you shoot him?"

  "Depends."

  "Everything does, I guess."

  "Everything but you and me, donut girl."

  "Present company, always excluded," she said.

  "This is going to bother you until you get some kind of closure on it."

  "I suppose it might," I said.

  "It will," Susan said.

  "I have a Ph.D. from Harvard."

  "This is going to bother me," I said, "until I get some kind of closure on it."

  Susan smiled.

  "It's good to face the truth," she said.

  "Would it help if I sat on your lap?"

  "It might," I said.

  CHAPTER 31

  Hawk and I went to see Gino Fish on a raw day with no sun and the wind coming hard off the Atlantic. Gino lived in a big colonial house on the ocean side of Jerusalem Road in Cohasset. There was a circular drive in front and a lawn that sloped to the seawall behind. The house was done in white cedar shingles which had silvered in the salt air, the way they're supposed to. A very handsome young man answered the door.

  "Gino home?" I said.

  "Who should I say is calling?"

  "Spenser," I said.

  "He knows me."

  "Certainly, sir, and the other gentleman?"

  "Hawk."

  "I'm Mr. Fish's personal assistant," the handsome young man said.

  "Is there something I could help you with?"

  He was wearing what appeared to be a pale blue sweat suit, with a stand-up collar. The sweat suit looked like it was made of silk. It also looked like it had never known sweat.

  "Just tell Gino we're here, and we want to tell him something about Marty."

  "Mr. Anaheim?"

  Neither Hawk nor I answered. The personal assistant still hesitated. Hawk and I still stood.

  Finally the personal assistant said, "If you'll excuse me for a moment."

  He closed the door.

  Hawk looked at me.

  "Personal assistant?"

  I shrugged.

  "That's what he said."

  Hawk nodded. The front door opened again and the personal assistant was there.

  "Mr. Fish is busy at the moment, but if you wish to wait, he'll see you as soon as he's through."

  "We'll wait," I said.

  "Please come this way then," the personal assistant said.

  He led us to the right off the central entry hall into a room with a huge picture window that looked out at the ocean. He gestured gracefully at the rock maple chairs with red plaid cushions that stood on either side of a brick fireplace. Neither Hawk nor I sat.

  "Mr. Fish will be with you as soon as he's free," the personal assistant said.

  "Yes he will," I said.

  The personal assistant frowned as if he were puzzled. Then he nodded politely and left the room. Hawk went and looked out the picture window at the harsh gray ocean ruffled white here and there at the tips of its waves by the onshore wind.

  "Thing about getting a place with a great view," Hawk said, "is, after you moved in and looked at the great view for a few days, you get used to it and it ain't a great view anymore. It just what you look at out your window."

  "You're a deep guy," I said.

  "And sensitive," Hawk said.

  "Maybe I should host a talk show."

  "Will you have me as a guest?" I said.

  "

  "Course not."

  Hawk continued to look at the ocean. The room where we waited was completely furnished in rock maple furniture with red plaid upholstery. Couch, four armchairs, two slipper rockers.

  There were a couple of Hingham buckets around to serve as ashtray stands, and there was a big red-toned braided rug on the floor. The fireplace had a large round eagle mirror over the mantel.

  "I wonder who's Gino's decorator," I said.

  "Molly Pitcher," Hawk said.

  "What was it we doing here?"

  "Looking for Bibi."

  "And why we think she be here?"

  "We don't," I said.

  "But we don't know where else to start. So if we find out what was going on between Gino and Marty and Anthony and Julius, maybe we'll get an idea of where to look for Bibi."

  "Or maybe we won't."

  "Welcome to the world of detection," I said.

  "And why we looking for Bibi?"

  "Because we're worried about her."

  "Of course we are," Hawk said.

  The door opened and Gino came in with Vinnie Morris. He saw Hawk and nodded to him. Hawk made no response.

  "I came to see you," Gino said.

  "Now you come to see me."

  "Equipoise," I said.

  Gino smiled with neither warmth nor humor, on and off.

  "Geoffrey spoke of Marty Anaheim," he said.

  "Geoffrey?"

  "My assistant. He said you wanted to tell me something about Marty."

  "I just told him that to get in," I said.

  "I don't know anything about Marty. Is he back from Las Vegas?"

  "I didn't know he was in Las Vegas," Gino said.

  "I don't know if he's back. Marty worked for me for fifteen years. He does so no longer."

  "Can you tell me why?"

  "No."

  "Do you know his wife? Bibi?"

  "I'm afraid not," Gino said.

  "I require that my private life be my own. I treat others on the same basis."

  "He used to beat her up."

  "Beating people up is what Marty does," Gino said.

  "It is why I employed him so long."

  "You implied last time I saw you that Marty might be stealing from you."

  "Did I."

  "Yeah. You know Anthony Meeker?"

  "Who?"

  "That's a mistake, Mr. Fish. Last time we talked you knew his name."

  "It's a mistake of my age," Gino said.

  "I still think well, but I no longer remember well. Is Anthony Meeker Julius Ventura's son-inlaw?"

  "Yes, you implied last time that he might be stealing too."

  Gino was sitting in one corner of the big rock maple couch. He had his legs crossed and his thin hands resting in his lap. I could see the dappling of age spots on the backs of them. He pursed his lips a little and stared for a moment out his big picture window at what probably seemed to him, his ocean. He raised his hands from his lap and put his fingertips together and tapped his lips for a moment. Then he pointed his fingertips at me.

  "You think, Mr. Spenser, that I am being cute," Gino said.

  "It is not an unreasonable thought. I am capable of cuteness. Indeed there is very little that I am not capable of. But in this instance I know very little more than you do. There have been some financial irregularities in my business. It was Marty's responsibility to oversee all the financial transactions and to ensure that they were as alleged. These irregularities came inopportunely at a time when we were beginning to organize in contemplation of a merger. I came to you to see if you could shed any light on whether Marty was culpable. You didn't shed much, being primarily interested in getting me to shed some light on your interest. It was largely a waste of our time."

  "But you fired Marty."

  "No. Marty left."

  "Did he give a reason?"

  "None. He simply failed to show up for work one day, and I have not seen him since. You tell me he was in Las Vegas. He may still be there. Or he may be next door, I simply don't know."

  "When did he take off?"

  "Three, no, four days after I came to see you."

  I did some quick calendering in my head. That made it the same day we found Anthony. When I got more time I'd think about that.

  "As far as I know, Mr. Fish, he came to Vegas and checked into the MGM Grand either under another name, or in a room rented for him by another guy. Tough little guy, big nose, wore a Panama hat all the time. Very quick with a gun."

>   "You saw him there?"

  "Yes."

  "And you were in Las Vegas…?"

  "Looking for Anthony Meeker."

  "On behalf of his wife?"

  "His wife and his father-in-law."

  "Do you know why Marty was in Las Vegas?" Gino said.

  "Anthony Meeker was there with Marty's wife."

  Gino was very still. I waited. Gino looked at his ocean again.

  "And Shirley Ventura was in Vegas as well," he said.

  "You know about her."

  "Yes. Do you have any knowledge of who killed her?"

  "No. Cops are trying to act like it was a random act, but I don't think they believe it."

  "Do you?"

  "No. Whoever killed her made every effort to conceal her identity. Which means he thought he could be connected to her."

  "Her husband?"

  "Could be," I said, "though it doesn't seem his style."

  "Marty would enjoy something like that," Gino said.

  "He was apparently in the area."

  "It's his style, okay," I said.

  "And she had his hotel phone number on her person. But I don't see a motive."

  Gino was silent.

  "Do you?" I said.

  Gino didn't answer. He looked at Vinnie.

  "If he uncovers something detrimental to our interests, Vinnie, will he use it?"

  "He might," Vinnie said.

  "He might not. Telling him not to won't make any difference."

  "Can he be controlled?" Gino said.

  "No."

  "If we kill him?"

  "Have to kill Hawk too," Vinnie said.

  Gino nodded thoughtfully.

  "Gentlemen," he said, "you see my situation. I want to know what you find out, but I don't want your investigation impinging on my business. Can we work out a financial solution?"

  "What do you think we're investigating?"

  Gino paused a moment and almost smiled a real smile for a moment.

  "Put that way, I must admit I'm not sure."

  "Don't feel bad," Hawk said.

  "We not sure either."

  "Well, who is your client?"

  "We have none," I said.

  "Are you merely curious?" Gino said.

  "We want to find Bibi Anaheim, see if she's all right."

  Gino stared at me and then shifted his eyes slightly and stared at Hawk. Then back at me.

  "That's preposterous," he said.

  "We softhearted," Hawk said.

  Gino looked at Vinnie.

  "Am I to believe this, Vinnie?"

  "Yeah."

  "Well, then by all means find her," Gino said.

  "If I learn of her whereabouts I will tell you promptly."

  "Might help if you'd tell us a little more about your business and Julius's," I said.

  Gino stood up slowly, but easily, and started from the room.

  "Vinnie will show you out," he said, and left.

  We walked to the front door with Vinnie.

  "Don't make a mistake about Gino," Vinnie said.

  "Just 'cause he talks like fucking William F. Buckley. He's got no more feelings than a crocodile."

  "You know where Marty is?" I said.

  "No."

  "His wife?"

  "Never met the wife. Don't know where she is."

  "Know anything that Gino didn't tell us?"

  Vinnie looked at me with surprise.

  "Hey," he said, "I take his money."

  "Yeah," I said, "you do. I apologize."

  "Thank you," Vinnie said and held the door open.

  Hawk and I departed.

  CHAPTER 32

  Fairhaven is on the old Route 6 in southeastern Massachusetts across the harbor from New Bedford. There's a long bridge that sets down on an island in mid-harbor and then continues on to Fairhaven. If you keep going on Route 6 through Mattapoisett and Marion and Wareham and Onset, after a while you're on Cape Cod.

  The high school had been built during a time when people thought learning was important and the buildings in which it was supposed to take place reflected that view. There were a lot of libraries scattered around Massachusetts that had been built during the same period and had the same British Imperial look. The high school, like so many of the libraries, had gotten a little shabbier, as if to reflect current attitudes.

  There were a few teachers there who'd been there eighteen years ago, but no one remembered any student named Bibi. A tight-jawed English teacher told me that she tried to forget them as soon as they left her room. And the principal told me he only remembered the bad ones.

  "Yearbooks?" I said.

  "We keep them in here," the principal told me.

  "If we keep them in the library, the students will deface them."

  "Students are great, aren't they?" I said.

  The principal was a cautious man. He didn't commit himself on that. But, once he had assured himself that I wouldn't deface it, he gave me the 1977 Fairhaven High School yearbook, and allowed me to sit on a straight chair in the school secretary's office to read it. I found Bibi's picture easy enough. Except for the acquired scar tissue she still looked like seventeen-year-old Beatrice Costa had looked. Most Congenial. Drama Club 2,3,4. Yearbook Staff 4.

  Newspaper 2,3,4. Cheerleader 3,4. Ambition: television news reporter. Quote, "Hey, Abbey, where's the party." There was nothing there about marrying Marty Anaheim and getting her nose busted.

  I kept looking at the pictures until I found Abigail Olivetti, whose quote was, "Bibi and I…"

  I read the yearbook through for another hour and found nothing else to help me. The school had no record of Beatrice Costa's address or Abigail Olivetti's. The secretary told me that in a way to indicate that the question was stupid.

  "We are not running a clearinghouse here," she told me.

  "Probably more of a warehouse," I said.

  "May I use your phone book?"

  She handed it to me, and turned back to her desk work with an audible sigh. It was clear that I had no real understanding of her importance, and the pressing nature of her work. Not everyone can file detention slips.

  There were seventeen Costas listed in Fairhaven, and one Olivetti. I wrote down the phone numbers and addresses and gave the phone book and the yearbook back to the secretary, and gave her my full-voltage smile. It was the smile that normally made them take off their glasses and let down their hair. I waited. Nothing happened. The woman was obviously frigid.

  "Are you through here?" she said finally.

  "No more pencils," I said.

  "No more books. No more teacher's dirty looks."

  "Really!" she said.

  As I left the building, classes were changing and the students were milling about in the halls. They seemed inconceivably young to me. Full of pretense, massively other oriented, ill formed, partial, angry, earnest, resentful, excited, frantic, depressed, hopeful, and scared. When she was this age, Beatrice Costa had pledged herself to Marty Anaheim and nothing after was ever the same.

  I sat in my car with the motor running and looked at my lists of names. It made more sense to start with the one Olivetti than to work my way through all seventeen Costas. I dialed the number and a woman answered.

  "My name is Spenser," I said.

  "I'm a detective trying to locate a woman named Bibi Anaheim, whose maiden name was Bibi Costa."

  "I remember Bibi," the woman said.

  "She's a friend of my daughter's."

  "Your daughter is Abigail Olivetti?"

  "Yes. Where did you get her name?"

  "From the high school," I said.

  "Does your daughter still see Bibi?"

  "Oh, I should think so, they've been best friends since they were little," the woman said.

  "Does your daughter live in town?" I said.

  "No, she's up in Needham."

  "Mass.?"

  "Un huh. She's all grown up now of course. Married and kids and all. And she waited, thank God, un
til she was old enough."

  "Who'd she marry?" I said.

  "Carl Becker. He's got a big job with the phone company and they had to move up there. But she calls home every week, and sometimes the kids get on."

  "Isn't that nice," I said.

  "Is she a housewife?"

  "No, she works in a bank. I think it's too much, with the children and all, but she's very modern, I guess. Things are different now."

  "Ain't it the truth," I said.

  "Can you give me her address and phone number? I'd like to get in touch with her."

  "About Bibi Costa?"

  "Yes."

  "Is Bibi in some kind of trouble?"

  "I don't know," I said.

  "She's missing and I'd like to find her."

  "I don't think I should give out Abbey's number," the woman said.

  "Well, just the address then."

  "No, I think you should talk with my husband. You can call back tonight if you'd like to. He gets home about six."

  "Thank you," I said.

  "That won't be necessary. Can you tell me if any of Bibi's family lives in town?"

  "No, there was just Bibi and her mother. Her mother remarried and moved away years ago."

  "You don't know where?"

  "No."

  "Do you remember who she married?"

  "No."

  "Well, thank you very much," I said, "for your time."

  We hung up.

  It goes that way a lot, conversation often dries up as they start thinking about how they don't actually know you, and don't quite know what you're up to. It's always wise to get as much as you can as soon as you can. If I couldn't find Abbey Becker in Needham, Massachusetts, I'd turn in my file of Dick Tracy Crimestopper tips.

  As I started back across the bridge toward New Bedford, I was calling information on my car phone.

  CHAPTER 33

  Abigail Becker lived on School Street in Needham in a small gray shingled ranch house with white shutters and a bright blue door. There was a pink bicycle with hand brakes and gear shifts and low-slung handlebars leaning against the side of the house. I parked on the street near a hydrant across from the house and sat in the car with a large cup of decaf and two plain donuts. The street was lined with houses that looked like the Becker house, varying only in color and ornament. It was empty of life at 10:15 on an overcast Wednesday morning in the fall. Kids in school, parents at work. It was raining sporadically and it was dark enough so that the houses where someone was home showed lights in the windows.