"A real compliment," I said in her ear. "Thinks you're a high school kid."
"And he thinks you're a bully," she said.
"He's correct."
We made it back to the stairs. The sweat was soaking through my shirt, my collar felt as limp as an old dandelion. I realized I was holding Susan's hand. Hawk's face was shiny with sweat as he joined us on the steps.
"Sure do know how to have a good time, don't they?" Hawk said.
The man whose stomach I had stepped on was throwing up on the floor. Nobody paid him any attention.
"Trendy," I said.
The hall that had seemed oppressive when we came in now seemed cool and open after the living room. I led the way upstairs, still holding Susan's hand, with Hawk behind her. When we got to the second floor there were three December-May couples in the hallway, sitting on the floor in a circle passing a bong around. They paid no attention to us as we went past them and looked into the master bedroom. In the bed was a man and three young girls. All were without clothes. They were busy. None of the girls was April so I closed the door. There were people busy in Poitra's office also, using his swivel chair -which was tricky.
"In a swivel chair?" Susan said.
"To seek, to strive, and not to yield," I said. There was more activity in the guest room, and even something energetic happening in the bathroom. None of it involved Poitras or the two girls. They were on the third floor.
Chapter 30
When we opened the door to the photo shop, Poitras was sitting in a canvas-backed director's chair, spilling out on both sides of it. Amy stood on one side of him holding a tray of canap6s from which Poitras was eating as we entered. April stood behind him, her hands on his shoulders, massaging the base of his neck quietly. Sitting opposite was a middle-sized fiftyish man with a round face and an unhealthy-looking flush to his skin. He was wearing a gray pinstriped double-breasted suit and a conservative soft hat with a narrow brim. He looked like an unsuccessful diplomat. Behind the diplomat, leaning against the wall looking bored, with his arms folded, was an overweight slugger wearing a suede trench coat. The diplomat was reading a large sheet of lined paper. A half-drunk glass of something with a lime wedge in it was on the floor beside him. When we walked in they all turned and looked at us. Not startled, just annoyed. I looked at Hawk and then toward the slugger. Hawk nodded.
Poitras said, "I'm sorry, this is private up here… and then recognized me and Susan.
I said, "Say, Mitchell, you know how to throw some swell party."
Without looking up from his lined paper the diplomat said, "Didn't Mickey tell you the third floor was off limits? Get the fuck out of here."
The overweight slugger was still leaning against the wall, but he had uncrossed his arms and he didn't look bored.
I said, "We had a communications problem with Mickey when we arrived and had to ask him to leave."
The diplomat looked up. Poitras said, "He's a private cop, Hal."
The diplomat said, "What the fuck are you running here, you fat jerk? A private cop? Who's that with him, the fucking police commissioner?"
"I don't know, Hal. I don't know what he's doing here. He's been bothering me about the girls."
"You fucking baby raper, I shoulda known better than to try to do business with a goddamn child molester." He looked at the slugger. "Get them outta here, Vince."
The slugger straightened from the wall and Hawk pointed a handgun at him. "I think Vince overmatched," Hawk said in his friendly, gliding voice. He grinned at the diplomat. "You too, Hal." I went and took the slugger's gun and dropped it in my jacket pocket.
Everyone was still looking at the gun, steady in Hawk's hand, pointing at Vince. L went to the files and opened the top drawer. It was still full of evidence. I stepped across to Hal and took his sheet of lined paper from his hands. It was an inventory list for video cassettes with titles like Grade School Gals and Teeny Boppers. I folded it twice and put it in my shirt pocket. I didn't bother to pat Hal down. Guys like him never carried guns. They had employees like Vince to do that.
"Okay, April," I said. "You go with Mrs. Silverman."
` No.
"Yeah. Go sit in the car with her until we get through in here and then we'll go back to my place and have some milk and Fig Newtons, and we'll talk."
"No."
"You too, Amy, you should go too."
She didn't even look up. She had her head down, looking at the plate of canap6s, and she shook it.
"In a little while there's going to be cops here," I said.
"Cops?" Hal said.
"Yeah. Soon as the girls are out I'm going to call them."
Hal said, "That's no way to make a buck."
"Neither is this," I said.
Hal looked at Hawk. "Hey, man," he said. "Be smart. There's some bread to be made here."
Hawk grinned. Without taking his eyes off Vince he said to me, "Hear that 'Hey, man? This a soul brother -see how he know how to talk to us darkies? He say 'Hey, man' and he say 'bread.' ' Hawk stretched the bread out in a burlesque jive accent.
The diplomat raised his hands. "Hey, no offense. Black, white, makes no difference to me. There's a lot of money involved here. I'm talking about giving you guys apiece of it." Poitras was motionless in all this. Amy had put her canapds aside and taken his left hand. She held it in her lap with both of hers.
I said, "April. You don't have a choice. Go with Susan or we'll take you. Amy, you can go or stay."
Still without looking up, Amy said in a voice as small as her prospects, "Stay." There was something almost touching about the ugly fat man sitting there in his Thom McAn shoes with a little kid holding his hand and refusing to leave. Love? A turkey like that? Someone loved him? I shook my head.
"Go ahead, April," I said. I was beginning to feel tight inside. I'd been in here too long with the bizarre sexuality and the affectless children and the ugly men. There was force in my voice. April nodded.
She said, "Bye, Amy," and walked out the door. Susan went with her.
I said to Poitras, "There is a gentleman of some influence whose name we won't mention. He has offices in the South End and you served him as a supplier of youthful whores."
Poitras said, "I don't know what you're talking about." But there was no bite in his growl now. He was scared.
"Yeah you do. This gentleman has asked me to remind you that no mention be made of his name or his relationship to you. He says that some really dire things will happen to you if he gets involved."
Hawk glanced at me out of the corner of his eye. "Dire?" he said.
“I was dean's list once in school," I said.
“I can tell."
I said to Poitras, "You understand what I told you?" He nodded.
"I got a deal with this gentleman," I said. "So I want to be sure."
"I won't say nothing. I know what'd happen," Poitras said. I could barely hear him. His growl had become a mumble. Amy clutched his hand in both hers, rubbing it with the thumb of her top hand.
I looked around the lab. No phone. There was one in the office below. "Last chance, Amy. I'm going to call the fuzz."
She shook her head. I said to Hawk, "Think you'll be safe here without me?"
"I can always scream," he said.
Through the door to the lab I heard some commotion sounds from downstairs; then I heard Susan's voice.
She yelled, "Spenser," and there was a sound in her yell I'd not heard from her before. She was scared. I headed across the room. Hawk looked at me and then at Poitras and his group.
"Fuck them," he said. "Where they going -to go?"
As I pounded down the stairs he was right behind me. There was no one on the second floor. And as I rounded the landing and headed toward the first I saw Susan in the middle of a crowd of men and girls.
April was separated from her by a man wearing dark glasses. His shirt was open nearly to the waist and there was a bright smear of lipstick across the right side of his mouth.