Walking Shadow

by Robert B. Parker

  "It would be my pleasure," I said.

  "We'll have to take turns, in fact. But it never hurts to demand the very best."

  Hawk and Vinnie both glanced at me for a moment, and then went back to looking around the room and watching the door.

  "Are you on your way to the theater now?" I said.

  "Yes."

  "Then I'll start my shift now. I'll walk you there."

  Hawk dropped a ten on top of the check.

  "Big tip," Vinnie said.

  "Reward for remembering all those muffins," Hawk said.

  "They're coming too?" Jocelyn said.

  "Just to watch," Hawk said.

  "Find out what makes him the very best."

  "Won't do you any good," I said.

  "It's a white thing."

  "Good," Vinnie said, and held the door open while Hawk went out and we followed him.

  CHAPTER 19

  With Hawk and Vinnie behind us, Jocelyn and I strolled through the misting drizzle to the theater next door. She went in to rehearsal, and I went up to Christopholous' office on the second floor. Vinnie and Hawk lounged in the theater lobby, blending in to the theatrical scene like two coyotes at a poultry festival. I sat in the chair across from Christopholous. The lights were on, making the day outside look even gloomier. The old brick office walls were bright with posters from previous Port City productions.

  "Does Rikki Wu contribute a lot to the theater?" I said.

  "A lot," Christopholous said.

  "And she holds an honored place on the board."

  "A camel will pass through the eye of a needle more easily than a rich man will enter the kingdom of heaven," I said.

  Christopholous grinned.

  "That may be true of heaven," he said.

  "It is very much not true of a theatrical board of directors."

  "The remark was sexist anyway," I said.

  "It should have been 'rich person."

  " "No doubt," Christopholous said.

  "Why do you ask?"

  "Just to know," I said.

  "But why do you want to know?"

  "Because I don't. If I knew what was important to know, and what wasn't, I'd have this thing pretty much solved."

  "Of course. Rikki's very generous. And very rich. Mr. Wu makes a great deal of money."

  "Gee, the restaurant didn't look that busy," I said.

  Christopholous shrugged.

  "Perhaps he has other interests," he said.

  "Like what?"

  "Oh, God," Christopholous said.

  "I don't know. It was just an idle remark."

  "Sure," I said.

  "How about Jocelyn Colby."

  "Jocelyn?"

  "Yeah. How do you and she get along."

  "Jocelyn? Fine. She's a nice young woman. Limited in her acting skills, but ever compelling in the right role. Very attractive.

  Especially up close. The cheek bones. And those eyes. Film might actually be a better medium for her."

  "You ever go out with her?" I said.

  "Go out? You mean date?"

  "Yeah."

  "God, no," Christopholous said.

  "I could be her father."

  "You've never had a, ah, relationship?"

  "What the hell are you talking about. She's an actress in a company I direct. She's a nice kid. She's around a lot. I like her.

  But, no, I've never even thought about having any kind of sexual relationship with her." Christopholous laughed.

  "You reach a certain age, and you discover that if you're going to talk with children, you'd rather they were your own."

  "You have children?"

  "Three," Christopholous said.

  "All of them older than Jocelyn."

  "Wife?" I said.

  "I divorced their mother, thank God, twenty years ago," Christopholous said.

  "What makes you ask about Jocelyn?"

  "Same answer as above," I said.

  "Just accumulating data."

  "But, I mean, are you asking everyone in the company if she went out with them? And why her in particular?"

  I didn't want to tell him. I didn't know why, exactly. But one of Spenser's crime-stopper tips is: You rarely get into trouble not saying stuff. I shook my head vaguely.

  "She have any romantic interest in anyone in the company?" I said.

  "Jocelyn is, ah, affectionate. I don't follow the social interaction of my company too closely," Christopholous said.

  "But she did seem sort of interested in Lou."

  "Montana? The Director?"

  "Yes. I don't mean to suggest anything more than it was. She seemed for a while, when he first came aboard for Handy Dandy, to be especially interested in him. They'd have coffee together, and I know she called him a lot."

  The day outside was cold enough to awaken the thermostat. I could hear the steam heat tingling in the pipes, still unwieldy from summer dormancy.

  "What about him?" I said.

  Christopholous smiled and shook his head.

  "Ah, Lou," he said.

  "Life is imperfect. One must make do. Most of Lou's experience is in television."

  "Ugh!" I said.

  "Ugh, indeed," Christopholous said.

  "And worse, Lou is petty and pompous, and half as good as he thinks he is. But he can pull a play together. And at least while he is with us he appears to be committed to the company and to the rationale of the Theater Company. One cannot always hire the best Director. One must hire one who is willing to work for what one can pay."

  "It is ever thus," I said, just to be saying something.

  Christopholous shook his head.

  "Not necessarily," he said.

  "In my experience, the actors are a bit different. Here we almost always get actors who care about the craft, about the art, if you will. It is in many ways a terrible profession. Sticking to it in the face of all the reasons to quit takes dedication and toughness. For most of them, the payoff is performing. The really good ones can always give a good performance despite the playwright or the Director, even in television or a dreadful movie."

  "Olivier," I said.

  "Yes, or Michael Caine."

  "So, it's a kind of autonomy," I said.

  "If they're good enough and tough enough," Christopholous said.

  "Interesting that you understand that so quickly; most people don't."

  "I like autonomy," I said.

  "I'm not surprised."

  "Did Montana reciprocate any of Jocelyn's affection?"

  "I'm not sure 'reciprocate' is the right word. He might have exploited it briefly."

  "I've heard of that being done," I said.

  "I wouldn't make too much of this," Christopholous said.

  "Jocelyn has her crushes, and they are as changeable as April weather."

  "You know of any connection between her and the Wus?"

  "The Wus? God, Spenser, you move too fast for me. Why would she have any connection with the Wus?"

  "Why indeed," I said.

  "Of course she knows Rikki. I want my company to shmooze the board members. It's part of the job."

  "And one they savor," I said.

  Christopholous shrugged.

  "You have a goose laying a golden egg, you feed it," he said.

  "Rikki in particular enjoys being shmoozed."

  "How about Mr. Wu?"

  "He indulges her," Christopholous said.

  "That's really all I know about him. He comes very rarely to an event with her.

  When he does come he seems quite remote. But he seems willing to underwrite her without limit."

  "He ever meet Jocelyn?"

  "Oh, I wouldn't think so. Beyond a formal 'this-is-my-husband-Lonnie' kind of meeting. And if he had that, I'm sure he wouldn't register her. He never seems to be in the moment when he's here."

  "I know the feeling," I said.

  Through Christopholous' window I could see the rows of three story clapboard houses, flat-roofed, most
ly gray, mostly needing paint, with piazzas on the back. The piazzas were mostly devoid of furniture, except occasionally a dejected folding chair kept up the pretense. They seemed to be the place where people kept their trash. Clotheslines stretched across barren backyards at all three levels, but no clothes hung on them in the unyielding drizzle. The backyards grew a few weeds, unconnected and random in the mud.

  "No further sign of your shadow?" I said.

  "No, none. I guess you've scared him off."

  "Something did," I said.

  CHAPTER 20

  When I got to the lobby, Hawk was sitting on a bench against the wall, arms folded, feet thrust straight out, crossed at the ankles. The rain had made little impact on his polished cowboy boots. Vinnie was standing at the glass doors, looking out at the rain. He was a medium-sized guy with good muscle tone, and even features; and maybe the quickest hands I've ever seen. Hawk could catch flies with his hands. In fact, so could I. Vinnie could catch them between his thumb and forefinger. I sat beside Hawk. Vinnie kept staring out at the rain. "Nobody following that broad," Hawk said.

  "I know."

  "We going to stay on her, anyway?"

  "Yeah."

  Hawk looked at me for a moment.

  "Well, 'spite what everybody say, you not a moron."

  "You're too kind," I said.

  "I know. So I figure you going to follow her around for a while, see if she had any special reason for wanting you."

  "And then I'll see what she does when I stop following her around," I said.

  Hawk nodded.

  "And then maybe we know something," he said.

  "That'll be a nice change."

  "Christopholous says he never had any kind of affair with her."

  "She say he did."

  "So we have a lie," I said.

  "I'm betting it's the broad," Hawk said.

  "I think she whacko."

  "She seems a better bet to be lying than Christopholous," I said.

  "But at least it's an allegation can be tracked. If they were romantically involved, somebody must have noticed."

  "So you ask around."

  "Yep. Hawk says she was hot for the Director, Lou Montana."

  "And me and Vinnie stay in the area, case the Chinks strike again."

  "Asian Americans," I said.

  "I forgot," Hawk said.

  "How much time you be spending in Cambridge?"

  "Ever alert," I said, "for racial innuendo."

  "Wasn't there a petition over there, keep the nigger kids out of that school on Brattle Street?"

  "Of course," I said.

  "Everybody signed it, but no one ever called them niggers."

  "Sensitive," Hawk said.

  "Absolutely," I said.

  "Everybody knows words have the power to hurt."

  "They do that."

  Hawk grinned.

  "But not like a kick in the balls," he said.

  "No," I said.

  "Not like that."

  We were quiet. Actors and stage technicians, dressed very informally, came and went through the lobby.

  "So I'll follow Jocelyn a couple of days," I said.

  "Make her think I'm protecting her. And while she's rehearsing or whatever I'll ask around about her romantic interests, and you and Vinnie hang around in case the Chinks strike again."

  "Good plan," Hawk said.

  CHAPTER 21

  I stayed close to Jocelyn Colby for the rest of the week. Every morning when she came out of her apartment I was lurking somewhere out of sight: parked in my car up the street; strolling aimlessly by in the other direction; at a pay phone on the corner, talking animatedly to my answering machine. And all the time I did this, Hawk and Vinnie sat at a distance in Hawk's car and kept me in sight. I knew it was pointless. If there had been a shadow, Hawk would have spotted him. And the shadow would not have spotted Hawk. Hawk could track a salmon to its spawning bed without getting wet. But to make it work I had to pretend there was a shadow. So there I was in the rain, with the collar of my leather jacket turned up, and my hands in my pockets, and my black Chicago White Sox baseball cap pulled down over my forehead, staying alert for assassins, and pretending to shadow a shadow who didn't exist. My career did not seem to be taking off. Friday, when Jocelyn came home from the theater, I didn't tail her. I walked with her. If Port City downtown was ever going to look good, which it wasn't, it was now. Mid-October, late afternoon when the light was nostalgic, and the endless drizzle made everything shiny. As we walked, Jocelyn put her hand lightly on my arm.

  Ill "How nice," she said.

  "I haven't been walked home in a long time."

  "Hard to imagine," I said.

  "Oh, it's brutal out there," she said.

  "Most men are such babies.

  The good-looking men you meet, the ones with manners and a little style, are gay. The straight ones are cheating on their wives.

  Or if they're single, they want to whine to you about their mother.

  Or their ex-wife."

  "Where are all the good ones?" I said.

  "God knows. Probably aren't any."

  "I protest."

  She laughed.

  "I got a friend," she said, "insists that men are only good for moving pianos."

  "They make good fathers, sometimes."

  "And, the truth is," Jocelyn said, "I wouldn't mind if one galloped up and rescued me."

  "From what?"

  "From being a divorced woman without a guy," she said.

  "From being alone."

  "Alone is not always such a bad thing," I said.

  "You're not alone."

  "No."

  "You have Susan."

  "Yes."

  "So what the hell do you know," she said.

  "I haven't always had Susan," I said.

  "Yeah, well, I bet you didn't like that as much as you think you did."

  "I prefer having her," I said.

  We turned up Jocelyn's street. The cement sidewalk was buckled with frost heaves. The three-deckers crowded right up against the sidewalk, with no front yards. The blinds were drawn in their front windows. Their living rooms were a foot away from us as we walked along. She rummaged in her shoulder bag as we approached the house where she lived. It took her half a block of rummaging, but by the time we got to her door she had found her key.

  "Thank you," she said.

  "You don't need to be here until ten tomorrow morning. I sleep late on Saturdays and Sundays."

  "You don't need me here at all," I said.

  "There's no one following you."

  She stopped with her key half into the lock. Her eyes were very wide.

  "You have to come," she said.

  "No," I said.

  "There's no one. If there were, Hawk or I would have caught him."

  "He's not around because you are," she said.

  "If you leave, he'll be here."

  "He didn't spot us," I said.

  "We're good at this."

  "So what have you got going?" She sounded like an angry child.

  "You going away with Susan?"

  "We're working on a house," I said.

  "Fine. You're working on a house with Susan." She made the name sound like it had many syllables.

  "And you don't give a goddamn what happens to me."

  "You'll be swell," I said.

  "There's no one shadowing you."

  "So." She stood with her hands on her hips now, the key dangling untended in the lock.

  "You think I made it up."

  "You tell me."

  She was like a fourteen-year-old who'd been grounded. She talked with her teeth clenched.

  "Prick master," she said.

  "Wow," I said.

  "Prick master. I don't think anyone has ever called me that before."

  "Well, you are a prick master," she said and turned the key in her door and wrenched it open and went in and slammed it shut.

  Up the street Hawk
pulled the Jaguar away from the curb and cruised up to the house and stopped. I got in the back. Vinnie was sitting up front beside Hawk with a shotgun between his knees.

  Hawk pulled the car away from the curb. The wipers moved at intervals back and forth across the windshield of the Jaguar. Hawk had the radio on softly playing.

  "Still got that magic touch with the broads," Vinnie said to me.

  "Don't you."

  "Just a spat," I said.

  "She don't like it that you not coming tomorrow?" Hawk said.

  "She called me a prick master," I said.

  Vinnie half turned in the front seat and looked at me.

  "Prick master?" he said.

  "I never heard that. Broad's pretty colorful."

  At Hill Street, Hawk turned and headed up Cabot Hill. Vinnie was faced around front again and was looking out the car window at the near-empty street as we climbed away from the waterfront in the rain. He was chuckling to himself.

  "Prick master," he said.

  "I like it."

  CHAPTER 22

  Hawk waited until I went in the front door of my place on Marlboro Street before he pulled away. It was an old brownstone and brick townhouse, a block from the Public Garden, which had been turned into condominiums in the early eighties, when condos were high, and the living was easy. The lobby was done in beige marble. The oak stairway turned, in a series of angular landings, up around the open mesh elevator shaft. Spry as ever, I skipped the elevator and took the stairs. I was wearing my New Balance running shoes with the aquamarine highlights and went up the stairs with very little noise, for a man carrying as much armament as I was. Since my visit from Lonnie and the Dreamers I felt I needed more fire power. I was wearing the Browning.9 mm on my hip with a round in the chamber and 13 in the clip. I also had the.357 butt forward on the left side of my belt with six rounds in the cylinder. I had decided against a blunderbuss.

  My place was on the second floor, and as I turned toward my door down the hall past the elevator shaft, I smelled cigarette smoke. I stopped. I sniffed. I checked the elevator shaft. The car was at the top, resting quietly on the sixth floor. My place occupied the whole second floor. The smell of cigarette smoke was from my place. It was a fresh smell, not the stale remnant of a cigarette long since smoked, but the fresh smell of one just lit, drawn in deeply and exhaled. I looked at my door. There was no change in the way light shone through the peep hole. I took the Browning off my hip, and cocked it and walked quietly back down the short hall to the stairwell behind the elevator shaft.