by Ace Atkins
“Takes one to know one,” Mattie said.
“Do you want to tell me what’s on your mind, Poppy?” I said. “Subtlety is often lost on me.”
Poppy nodded behind my shoulder. Two more men walked up to the bar. One was a young muscular black man in a navy suit and the other was a thin Latino in a suit as pink as the inside of a conch shell. Not many men could pull off the pink. I pointed to him across the bar and nodded my appreciation.
“Don’t ever come to my home again,” Poppy said. “You have business with Peter, you take it up with Peter in Boston. But this is where I live, and you’re only causing trouble and embarrassment for me.”
“Trouble and embarrassment,” I said, “is in my Google profile.”
“You are insufferable,” Poppy said.
“True,” I said. “And you are an accomplice to a sexual predator.”
“That’s slanderous,” she said. “What on earth are you talking about?”
At close range, it appeared that Poppy’s breasts had been surgically augmented. They stood at attention like a pair of Tomahawk missiles. She had some kind of scrawl inked onto her rib cage and wore a diamond stud in her navel. She did not appear to be a woman of means. Or style. She was what Susan might call tacky.
“You help Steiner procure young women,” I said. “But soon, both of you will be whistling ‘Stone Walls and Steel Bars.’”
“My attorney will have a restraining order on you and this gawky young woman by this afternoon.”
Mattie’s face flushed. Her jaw clenched as she took two steps forward.
“That gawky young woman has the temperament and drive of a pit bull on Dexedrine.”
“I know who she is,” Poppy Palmer said.
Mattie hugged her arms tight around her body as if she didn’t trust her fists being free. “You don’t know a damn thing about me.”
“You’re a trashy little girl from Southie,” she said. “You grew up in the housing projects with a deadbeat mother who got herself killed. I would think that would make you more cautious.”
Mattie knocked the blue drink from Poppy Palmer’s hands. The glass shattered across the polished concrete. Poppy didn’t flinch, only smiled slightly. “Whoops,” she said.
My smile dropped. I looked into her flat, black eyes. “Then you know who I am, too,” I said. “And my reputation.”
“Of course.”
“Then you know I don’t quit.”
“Weren’t you shot in the back a few years ago?” she said. “Left to die in an icy river?”
That wasn’t a story that many people knew. Or one that I liked being known. It wasn’t best for business. Poppy Palmer could see I was taken aback and grinned. A waitress had walked up on us and started to rake the broken glass and blue ice into a dustpan.
“Things like that happen every day,” Poppy said. “People come and go. People disappear. This little girl with you is a reckless child lost on a battlefield.”
“This little girl isn’t lost,” I said. “She’s with me.”
Mattie rested her hand on my right arm. I nodded at Poppy. I nodded at the three men. Neither of them acknowledged they even saw me from behind the sunglasses.
“Then leave,” Poppy Palmer said. “You can walk away from here now, fly home to Boston, and go back to your small lives. I’m warning you. This will all come to a fast and violent end. All I have to do is snap my fingers.”
I nodded. “And I’d hate to get blood all over that man’s pink suit. Not many people can carry off the pink.”
“You against three of my best?” she said. “I’d like to see you try.”
Poppy Palmer’s nostrils flared even more as she breathed in and out. Small black straps covered her freckled, slightly peeling shoulders.
“Is that it?” I said. “Because I’d rather lie in the sun and catch up on my reading, if you don’t mind.”
“Do as you like.”
Poppy touched the top part of her upper lip with her tongue and laughed. A trail of sweat ran down from her temple and across her cheek.
Mattie and I walked back to the table under the striped umbrella. The waitress had cleared away the fries and the last bit of the club sandwich.
“What was that woman saying to you about being shot?” Mattie said.
“Something that happened not long before I met you.”
“Was it bad?”
“Yeah.”
“Real bad?” Mattie said.
“Took me a while to get back on my feet and in shape,” I said. “Susan helped. And so did Hawk.”
“How’d she know about that?”
“Boston is a small town.”
“You don’t believe that,” she said. “Something’s worrying you. I can see it all over your face.”
We watched as Poppy Palmer stood up from the bar and exited, three men trailing behind her. The black man in the blue suit walking up and placing a silk robe across her sunburned shoulders.
“Do you think if I tossed those guys into the pool, we’d be invited back to the Boca Raton Resort?” I said.
“Probably not.”
“Then I shall restrain myself,” I said.
30
Back in Boston, I dropped Mattie at her apartment and headed straight across the river to Cambridge and Susan’s. Pearl welcomed me home with much yapping and yipping, and Susan welcomed me home with something even more substantial. I awoke before daybreak to Pearl rattling her training crate and took her for a brief walk on Linnaean Street.
I’d slipped into Susan’s silk kimono adorned with tsunamis and koi to hasten the process. Since this was Cambridge, the few who passed by paid me little or no mind.
I let Susan sleep and fed Pearl and filled her water bowl. Checking Susan’s fridge, I was delighted to find she’d visited the farmer’s market and stocked up on vegetables, eggs, and freshly made sourdough bread. I diced up an onion, a green pepper, and tomato to sauté in a good amount of butter. Once they softened, I added four farm-fresh eggs. The coffee perked and the toast browned in the oven.
Once I finished, Pearl trailed me to the small breakfast nook, where I tore off a small bit of toast and tossed it to her. I read The Globe, an actual physical newspaper, until Susan walked into the room.
“You stole my robe,” Susan said.
“I think it makes me look like Toshiro Mifune.”
“A little tight in the chest and arms.”
“I take it you want it back?”
Susan nodded. I shrugged, stood, and dropped the robe.
Susan giggled. I was completely naked.
“I’m being harassed in my own home,” she said.
“Would you like me to put on a T-shirt?”
“Pants would be nice,” Susan said, shielding her eyes and going straight for the coffee. “Pants would be greatly appreciated.”
I walked upstairs and dressed in jeans and a black T-shirt. When I returned, I handed her a snow globe I’d brought her from the airport. It featured both a flamingo and an alligator.
“I don’t know what to say.”
“It screamed of you,” I said.
“I’ll find a wonderful spot on the back of the guest toilet.”
“Perfect,” I said.
Susan looked at my empty plate and to the kitchen and then back to my plate. I stood up, sautéed the rest of the onion, pepper, and tomato, and mixed in more scrambled eggs for her.
“And what’s this?”
“Huevos pericos,” I said. “Another gift from South Florida.”
Susan took a seat, snatching the front page from me. I took the funny papers and had gotten nearly through Arlo & Janis when she tapped at the paper with her fork. I let down the edge of the paper shielding my face. I’d seen William Powell do it once in a movie.
“How was
it?”
“Didn’t I tell you last night?”
“We didn’t talk much last night.”
Susan ate more huevos pericos and offered a small bite to Pearl. I raised my eyebrows but said nothing. “And?” she said.
I told her about Boca and what we’d learned among the salty air and palm trees.
“That woman confronted you at the hotel?”
“She did.”
“That’s insane.”
“It is,” I said.
“What do you think she hoped to accomplish?” she said.
“I think she wanted me to say ‘eek’ and jet on back to Boston.”
“Which you did.”
“But I did not say ‘eek.’”
“So you found out Peter Steiner abuses young girls wherever he goes, and even has a private island to entertain special guests and those he and Poppy Palmer would like to blackmail.”
“Correct.”
“And you got word from your Fed pal that he’ll reopen the investigation his predecessor bungled.”
“That’s about the tall, short, and sideways of the situation,” I said.
Susan appeared to be finished with breakfast. I stole the other half of her toast before she could stab my hand with her fork. “And just what do you think Poppy Palmer gets out of all this?” she said. “Besides the money.”
“I don’t know,” I said. “I get the money. But the rest is more a question to you.”
“She either has serious daddy issues,” Susan said, “or she is a predator as well.”
“Working as a team.”
“She’s taken a serious interest in stopping you,” Susan said. “Very personal.”
“Maybe she was just interested in seeing me in the flesh,” I said, deciding not to worry her with Poppy’s threats. “Given my national reputation.”
“I saw your reputation earlier,” Susan said.
“And?” I said.
Susan waffled her hand in a so-so gesture.
I folded the paper and set down the funny papers. I raised my eyebrows at Susan, and it made her smile.
“Changing the subject,” Susan said. “It sounds like Peter and Poppy have been cultivating their lifestyle for years.”
“Typical sociopath, Dr. Silverman?”
“Evil is a relay sport when the one you burn turns to pass the torch.”
“Freud?”
“Fiona Apple.”
“Is it fair to say Peter Steiner experienced some serious trauma as a kid?”
“That’s one theory,” she said. “Wherever and however a person felt most vulnerable or afraid as a child, they often want to master these feelings. So sexually abused children may grow up into hypersexual adults or conversely sexually avoidant adults. Not with every case, but with many.”
“If what we’ve heard is even halfway true, finding new victims is a compulsion.”
“We all have sexual feelings, but life experiences and personality disorders affect what we do with them.”
I nodded and drank the rest of my coffee. “Are you going to bill me your hourly rate?”
I stood to refill both our cups of coffee. I added some milk and sugar to Susan’s cup. It was the absolute least I could do.
“I would,” Susan said. “But this is Mattie’s case. Pro bono.”
“And me?”
“Meet me upstairs and we’ll work something out.”
I left the coffee on the table and did as I was told.
31
I was seated at my desk listening to Sarah Vaughan and tapping along to the music with an unsharpened pencil when Captain Glass called.
“Spenser,” she said. “Where are you?”
“Strolling with the one girl,” I said. “Sighing sigh after sigh.”
“Are you drinking on the job?”
“Sumatran roast,” I said, lifting a mug. “With a little sugar.”
“Listen up, bud,” she said. “The victim I told you about. I spoke to her. And she says she’ll talk to you.”
I dropped my unsharpened pencil and picked up a pen.
“Just you,” she said. “Don’t bring along that Southie Nancy Drew. Okay? This thing that happened was ten years ago. It’s taken her some time to make sense of it all. Steiner and Poppy Palmer made her life a living hell. She can’t take any more trouble from that freak show.”
“Would any of her troubles be facilitated by a certain security company in Miami?” I said.
“Who’d you talk to?”
“I often work in strange and mysterious ways.”
“Strange is right,” Glass said. “Woman’s name is Grace Bennett. She has a studio in the Seaport. I warned her you could be a real pain in the ass.”
“Ah,” I said. “You like me. You really like me.”
I was about to ask her for contact information. But Glass had already hung up.
Just then, Mattie walked into my office. She’d been doing a little online research for me in the anteroom to my office. “Anything?” Mattie said.
I told her. And the condition of me going alone.
“That’s bullshit,” she said.
“Maybe,” I said. “Consider me a surrogate sleuth.”
“But if she won’t talk to me or the Feds, what good is she?” Mattie said. “We need every victim we can find.”
“I’ll try and make the case.”
Mattie walked over and took a seat on the edge of my desk. She reached over to the computer and shut off Sarah Vaughan. She mashed a couple buttons, and soon there was some electric drumbeat and the sound of a woman whose voice seemed well autotuned. Sarah didn’t need autotune.
“You’re going to try and work the ole Spenser charm?”
“My charm is timeless.”
“It better be.”
With that, I took the stairs down to the back alley and drove to the Seaport.
Grace Bennett lived on the fifth floor of a rehabbed brick building off Sleeper Street in what developers call a live/work space.
It was hard for me to think of the area as anything but the old Fort Point Channel, a bunch of warehouses by the docks and piers. But with new branding came new hotels, restaurants, shops, and art galleries. She buzzed me in immediately and pulled back a large metal industrial door to let me in.
Bennett was a young black woman, tall and thin, with lots of curly hair and nice dimples. She wore cut-off jean shorts and a red T-shirt that advertised Raising a Reader. Her feet were bare, and her hands covered in blue paint. Her skin was light, and her eyes were green. There was something about her that reminded me of a young Dorothy Dandridge.
“You look different than I expected,” she said.
“What did you expect?”
“Humphrey Bogart in a trench coat.”
“The stuff dreams are made of,” I said in my best Bogart.
She gave me a confused glance and led me to a chair by a long bank of industrial windows, not unlike those in my new place in the Navy Yard. But her view, with windows that looked out to a nearly identical brick warehouse across the street, wasn’t as stunning.
“I guess you know everything,” she said.
“Actually,” I said. “I know next to nothing.”
“Lorraine didn’t tell you anything?”
I shook my head and took a seat in a wide, comfortable blue chair. “I’m not even allowed to call her Lorraine. Only Captain. Your Highness, if I’m being informal.”
“She’s not as mean as she acts,” Grace said. She sat in an identical chair across from me and tucked her bare feet up under her. “She was actually very kind to me and my sister during this whole thing.”
“Actually, for some reason, that doesn’t surprise me.”
“Damn,” Grace said. “This was a long time ago
. Did you know I had to leave Boston?”
I shook my head.
“Moved to Cleveland for a while.”
“I would make a Cleveland joke,” I said. “But I happen to like it.”
“It’s not bad,” she said. “Right?”
I nodded. A calico cat wandered in from the workspace along a far wall where there were a few easels and several large paintings. I wasn’t close enough to see what they were or what style, but they looked very modern to me, with bright and bold colors. Most of what I knew about paintings had come from those who’d spent their lives trying to steal them.
The cat hopped up in my lap and expected me to reward it with a good scratch. I obliged. I didn’t think Pearl would mind.
“I worked for that son of a bitch for almost two years,” Grace said. “I was young, naïve, and ambitious as hell. That’s what got me. I was told I was one art show away from fame. I trusted them. I let them flatter me. I introduced them to my little sister. God. It’s so awful. I was so stupid and selfish to let that happen.”
Grace began to cry. I continued to scratch the cat and waited to hear more.
32
“Does all that make sense to you?” Grace said.
“My girlfriend is the shrink,” I said. “But I understand a little bit about sociopaths and manipulations. Especially when the victims are teenagers.”
“I wasn’t a teenager when I went to work for Peter,” Grace said. “I had an art degree from BU and had been working on my own for almost a year. Peter and Poppy came to one of my shows in Cambridge and bought one of my paintings. When I heard who they were, I was impressed, flattered, and grateful. Can you believe it? It was a large piece no one expected to sell, and they took it home that night. A week later, Poppy called me to have a drink and help her hang it. Have you seen their home?”
“Yep,” I said. “Big enough to dry-dock the Queen Mary.”
Grace finished cleaning her hands with mineral spirits and clapped her hands for her cat. The cat sprung from my lap and into hers. I’d never had a cat but appreciated their athleticism.
“When did you start working for Steiner?” I said.
