Five Classic Spenser Mysteries

by Robert B. Parker

  He said to Chico, “ ’Scuse me, bro,” and sat in the chair.

  “Name’s Red,” the fat man said. He was looking at Hawk carefully.

  Hawk nodded.

  “You got a name,” Red said.

  “Black,” Hawk said.

  “Well, you’re hot shit, ain’t you,” Red said.

  Hawk sat opposite Red and placed his elbow on the table. He and Red locked hands. Next to Red, Hawk looked nearly slender.

  “Anytime,” Red said.

  Hawk nodded and said, “You say.”

  Red said, “Now,” and lunged his forearm against Hawk’s. Slowly Hawk’s forearm bent backward toward the tabletop. Red’s teeth showed through his beard. Hawk had no expression. He looked at me. Four inches from the tabletop Hawk’s arm stopped moving down. Red grunted with effort. Hawk kept looking at me. I nodded and mouthed the word win. With no change in expression Hawk began to lift Red’s arm back up the way it had come. It was a steady, apparently effortless movement, except that the muscles in Hawk’s arm swelled so that the hem on the sleeve of his polo shirt split. He pressed Red’s hand firmly against the lit cigarette.

  Red said, “Ow,” and Hawk released his hand, picked up the two twenties and folded them neatly lengthwise in half, running his thumb and forefinger along the crease to smooth it. Red stared at him with the back of his right hand pressed against his mouth. No one spoke.

  Hawk gestured at the waitress. “Bring us a round,” he said, and handed her one of the folded twenties.

  “You got me when I was tired,” Red said. “My right arm was tired.”

  Hawk nodded pleasantly.

  “Double or nothing, left-handed,” Red said.

  Hawk nodded toward me. “Try him,” Hawk said.

  Red looked at me. “You left-handed?” he said.

  “No.”

  “Double or nothing?” Red said to Hawk.

  Hawk nodded. He stood and I took his seat. Red and I locked left hands.

  “I’ll call it,” Red said.

  “Sure.”

  Red said, “Go,” and I slammed his hand down onto the lit cigarette. The force scattered the cigarettes.

  “Wait a minute,” he said, “Wait a minute. I wasn’t ready.”

  “Okay,” I said. “We’ll do it again. You call.”

  We locked hands again. Red took in a couple of deep breaths.

  “All right,” Red said. “When I say go.”

  “Sure.”

  “Go.”

  Red’s grip tightened and he tried to turn my wrist.

  “You ready?” I said.

  Red nodded, straining against my wrist.

  “You sure?”

  “Ya.”

  “Okay,” I said and slammed his hand against the table.

  The waitress arrived with a tray of beer bottles and there was silence while she distributed them and picked up the empties. She went away.

  “Where the fuck did you guys come from,” Red said. “You guys got to be from another fucking planet.”

  “It’s because our hearts are pure,” I said.

  “I ain’t got the forty,” Red said. “I gotta owe it to you.”

  “When do I get it,” I said.

  “Tomorrow, you gonna be around. I get paid tomorrow.”

  “Sure,” I said. “We’ll be around tomorrow.”

  “I’m good for it,” Red said. “Ask any of these guys. I pay what I owe.”

  “I believe you,” Hawk said. “But where you work, case we have to come find you, case you forget.”

  “Transpan,” Red said, “but I won’t forget. Man, ask anyone. I owe you money, it’s like you got it in the bank. Tell him, Chico. He’s a brother, he’ll believe you.”

  Chico nodded.

  I ordered another round. “Winner buys,” I said Red licked the back of his right hand where the cigarette burn was reddening.

  “Another goddamned planet,” Red said. Hawk snagged a chair from another table and sat at the round one.

  “You guys all work at Transpan?” I said.

  “Yeah,” Chico said. “Sort of.”

  The waitress brought the beer.

  “What do you mean, sort of?” I said.

  “Contract work,” Red said. “We signed on to do training and weapons testing. Working on a two year contract. After two years we can sign on again or get out.”

  “Like the army,” I said.

  Red looked at me for a moment.

  “Yeah,” he said. “It’s like that.”

  CHAPTER 29

  The next night Red showed up as promised. Hawk and I had hung around Pequod all day, topping off the excitement with a five-mile run along the highway, and we were just sipping the first beer of the day when Red came in.

  “Who gets the forty,” he said.

  I put out a hand and Red put two tens and a twenty in it.

  “Winner buys,” I said. “What will you drink?”

  “Beer.”

  I gestured at the bartender. He gave Red a beer, and a glass. Red ignored the glass and drank half the bottle from the neck.

  “We’re looking for a place to live,” I said. “Got any ideas?”

  Red shrugged. “Not much around,” he said. “I live out at the facility.”

  He finished the beer. I ordered him another. “Want a shot with that,” I said. “Get a good foundation for the evening.”

  “Sure,” Red said. “CC,” he said to the bartender. “Straight up.”

  “Everyone live there?”

  “Yeah, all of us.” He popped the shot and washed it with a swallow of beer. Hawk gestured at the bartender to bring another. “Us guys, the workers, security people. Nice facility.”

  “How ’bout the bosses,” Hawk said.

  “Sure, them too. Got an executive house. Fucking mansion.” Red drank half of his second Canadian Club. “Nice lawn, right on the river. Can’t see it from the road, it’s in the trees.”

  “Outside the complex?”

  “Un uh. Everything’s inside the complex, except the training range.”

  We had another round of beers. Red turned and leaned his elbows on the bar and surveyed the room.

  “Thing about this job is you’re stuck out here in the fucking sticks, you know,” he said. “Pussy is scarcer than balls on a heifer.”

  “No broads at the complex?” I said.

  “Couple old ugly fat-assed secretaries,” Red said. “Some executive quiff over at the mansion. But nothing for the blue-collar stiffs like you and me, you know.”

  “No wives?”

  “Naw, they don’t hire married guys.”

  “Except the executives.”

  Red finished his Canadian Club. Hawk got him another.

  “Not even them. Except for the kid.”

  Red drank a little of the Canadian Club, sipping it carefully as if it were a fine cognac.

  “There a kid there?” Hawk said.

  Red laughed. “Naw, the kid. Guy owns the whole Transpan thing is a guy named Costigan. I never seen him but his kid comes around once in a while, like to inspect, you know. Kid’s about thirty, thirty-five. Comes in like the regimental commander—you guys been in the service?” We both nodded. “Kid comes in, lives at the mansion, comes around watches us train, shit like that. Sometimes he brings a broad.” Red grinned. “Usually ain’t the same one.”

  “Must be a pain in the ass,” I said, “having him around.”

  “Naw, not really. Most of the time him and the broad are just at the mansion. They got a pool over there and a game room, place is like a fucking resort, you know. Shit, they been here about two weeks, now. We ain’t seen him for ten minutes.”

  “Big bucks, huh?”

  “Biggest. You ever hear of the old man? Jerry Costigan? He’s worth more than Saudi Arabia, for crissake. Kid goes everywhere with about eight bodyguards.” Red continued to survey the room. “Damn,” he said, “sure would be nice to see a little pussy.”

  “How long you
been here,” I said.

  “Eight months. If it wasn’t for that skinny waitress we’d all be dating Mary Palm and her five daughters. Like fucking a bundle of kindling, but it’s better than nothing.”

  The blond waitress in question hurried intently past us carrying a plate of gray pork chops toward a table in the front.

  “Queen of the Transpan Forces,” Red said. “Any of us get the clap, we all get the clap.” He laughed and drank the rest of his whiskey. “Just pass it back and forth through Doreen.”

  We got another round.

  “Where’d you work before?” Hawk said.

  “Angola, Zambia. Put in some time in Rhodesia.”

  “The old country,” Hawk murmured.

  “Construction?” I said.

  “Shit, no, man. Soldiering.”

  “Mercenary?” Hawk said.

  Red drank some whiskey. “Bet your ass, mercenary. Soldier of fucking Fortune, Jim. All of us are.”

  “Done a little of that,” Hawk said.

  “Yeah? Where’d you soldier?”

  “Did a little Foreign Legion,” Hawk said.

  “No shit? The Frenchies?” Red laughed with pleasure. “C’est la fucking guerre, monsieur. Huh?” He put his hand out palm up and Hawk slapped it.

  “Oui,” Hawk said.

  “You in Indochina?” Red said.

  “Un huh.”

  “Missed that,” Red said. “But I done some shit in Malaya. God damn, I love it. A fire fight. Jesus. A fire fight’s better than fucking, you know. That’s got to be the most fun in the world. You like that shit?”

  “Fucking ain’t bad,” Hawk said.

  “Ain’t that the truth,” Red said. “How ’bout you, pal. Where’d you soldier?”

  “Korea,” I said.

  “He got medals,” Hawk said.

  “And seventy-eight bucks a month,” I said.

  “Mercenary’s better,” Red said. “Get the same fun and a lot more bread.”

  We finished the round and had another. “You quit soldiering after Korea?” Red said.

  “Yes.”

  “Don’t like the life?”

  “Don’t like the chain of command.”

  Red nodded. “Yeah, that’s a pain in the ass. The chicken shit. That’s why I like this. I don’t like the chicken shit, I quit. Move on. Fuck it.” He drank his whiskey. “And the guys, man. I love soldiering with the guys, you know?”

  I nodded. “I know,” I said.

  “So what do you do for a living,” Red said.

  I shrugged. “Little of this, little of that.”

  “Mostly we scuffle,” Hawk said.

  Red tipped his head. “Scuffle?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “We’re good with guns, we got quick hands.”

  “Shit,” Red said, “that ain’t bad. You working now?”

  “No. We’re sort of looking.”

  Red turned toward the bartender and gestured. “Man die of fucking thirst around here,” he said.

  “What kind of soldiering you do around here,” I said.

  “We’re training right now.”

  “Giving or receiving,” I said.

  Red frowned. “Huh?”

  “Are you training people or being trained.”

  “Being trained,” Red said. “Counterinsurgency.”

  “Figured you might already know that,” Hawk said.

  “Oh man, shit,” Red said. “Course I know that. I been an insurgent and a counterinsurgent and an imperialist fucking warmonger and fifty-three other things. But they pay me and they want to train me and I get trained.”

  “How come a weapons manufacturer is training troops?” I said.

  Red shrugged. “Supposed to familiarize us with some new-generation weapons. So’s we can go train customers. But I know counterinsurgency training when I take it.”

  “We were out past there yesterday,” I said. “Just cruising around and the security people told us to screw.”

  “Yeah. Security’s real tight.”

  “Don’t want people slipping in and scooping samples,” I said.

  Red grinned. “Ain’t people slipping in,” he said. “They don’t want people slipping out.” His face had reddened and for the first time his speech began to slur a little. If I’d had that many boiler-makers they could iron clothes on me.

  “You’re out,” I said.

  “Sure, they don’t worry about us. They worry about the workers.”

  “The workers don’t get out?”

  Red shook his head. He drank. Looked around the room. His eyes picked up the thin waitress and followed her across the room. “Getting drunk,” Red said. “Always tell when Doreen starts looking better.”

  “How come the workers don’t get out?” I said.

  “Got me,” Red said, his eyes still on Doreen. “Probably paying them shit and afraid one of them will complain to somebody. Most of them are foreign, probably illegal.”

  “Complain about pay and get deported,” I said.

  Red shrugged. “Company gets its ass burned too, though.”

  Doreen hurried past, frowning with concentration. Red patted her backside as she passed. She neither slowed nor looked at him.

  “They hiring out there,” I said to Red.

  “Don’t think so. You guys know weapons?”

  “Up to mortars,” I said. “For sure. After that, maybe.”

  Red nodded. “Anything else? Sometimes they need instructors.”

  “Hand-to-hand,” Hawk said. “PT. Arm wrestling.”

  Red grinned, “Yeah, too bad we ain’t looking for arm wrestlers. We got a PT and unarmed combat guy. Big old buck name of Elson.”

  “Billy Elson?” I said.

  “Naw, Lionel Elson from Hamtramck, Michigan.”

  “Don’t know him,” I said. “How about PT?”

  Red laughed. “I look like a guy does a lot of PT. Lionel does the PT but most of us don’t pay much attention. Him and Teddy Bright.”

  “Well, ask around, will you? We’re looking for work and we’d rather work in some out-of-the-way place, you know?”

  “Where there ain’t a lot of cops,” Red said.

  “Where it’s quiet,” Hawk said.

  Red winked and finished his drink. “I can dig it, babe. Lot of us got places we better not go back to.”

  Hawk smiled pleasantly.

  Red rocked slightly against the bar. “I’ll ask the cadre chief,” he said. “You never know.”

  “Hardly ever,” I said.

  CHAPTER 30

  “Man got himself a private army,” Hawk said, “like a Chinese warlord.”

  I nodded. We were driving toward Hartford, east, directly into the morning sun. The road was curvy and not wide.

  “We could kick the shit out of Lionel and Teddy,” Hawk said. “Maybe persuade folks we could do their job better.”

  “That’s always an option,” I said. “Let’s try this way first.”

  Hawk shrugged. “Hate getting tied in to those government assholes,” Hawk said. “They could fuck up a square knot.”

  We found a diner in West Hartford with an outside pay phone. Hawk went to order breakfast and I called Ives on the number he’d said was always manned. He’d misstated slightly. This morning it was womaned. She said a noncommittal hello. I said I wanted to talk with Ives and she said could he call me back. I gave her the pay phone number and hung up and waited.

  Ives called back in five minutes. “Good to see you early-birding it,” he said. “Caught any worms yet?”

  “Not yet,” I said. “Here’s what we need. We need two guys that work at the Transpan weapons facility in Pequod, Connecticut, to disappear.”

  “Permanently?” Ives said.

  “A month ought to be plenty,” I said.

  “What are their names?”

  “Lionel Elson and Teddy Bright.”

  “Teddy Bright?”

  “Would I make it up,” I said.

  “What else can you
tell me?”

  “They are instructors in hand-to-hand combat and physical training at the Transpan test range.”

  “Why does a manufacturer have a hand-to-hand combat instructor?”

  “We’ll find that out,” I said. “After you scoop Lionel and Teddy.”

  “Do you care how we do it?”

  “No. We’re angling to get hired in their place and so it shouldn’t look rigged and it shouldn’t connect us.”

  “Hurry?”

  Behind me a big ten-wheeler ground past, down-shifting as it slowed for a stoplight in the next block.

  “Ives,” I said. “You need to remember why I’m in this?”

  “Ah yes, the maiden in the tower.”

  “After this is over, Ives, you and I may have to discuss your tone. But right now I want her out of that tower,” I said. “And every day she’s not out of it is a long and wearing day.”

  “We’ll move with judicious speed, young Lochinvar. Sit tight.”

  “Do it in the evening when Hawk and I are sitting around the bar in the Pequod House.”

  “We know our business,” Ives said. “We don’t need too much advice.”

  “Didn’t you guys engineer the Bay of Pigs.”

  “Before my time, laddie buck. I’ll call you at the Pequod House when it’s done and tell you your order has been delayed.”

  I hung up and went into the diner. Hawk was on a stool eating steak and eggs. There was a teen-age girl behind the counter wearing cutoff jeans and rubber shower clogs. She looked at me when I sat down.

  “Coffee,” I said. “Cream and sugar.”

  She brought it black in a thick diner mug and pushed the cream pitcher and the sugar shaker at me.

  “Ives gonna do it?” Hawk said.

  “Yeah.”

  “He gonna fuck it up?”

  “Maybe not,” I said.

  “Folk at Transpan might think it funny that these guys disappear right when we come on the scene.”

  “Maybe, but if they do what have we lost. We’re outside looking in now.”

  “They get suspicious,” Hawk said, “maybe they decide to clip us.”

  “They’ll decide to try that sooner or later,” I said. “I still don’t see us being any worse off for trying.”

  Hawk wiped up some egg yolk with his toast. He put the piece of toast in his mouth and wiped his fingers on a napkin.