”She have any choice?“
Violet grinned. ”Not in this neighborhood, man.“
”How come you remember her so well?“
”She was white, man. Most of my chicks are black.“
”What happened to her?“
Violet shrugged. ”Moved uptown, fancy stuff, appointment only.“ He finished the beer. The bartender brought us two more without being asked.
”She work on her own?“
”Naw, she work for another broad, a madame, baby.
Very classy. Probably screwed only Baaahston dudes, dig?“
And again the whooping laugh.
”Can you give me the name?“
”I can get it, but that’s extra.“
”Another fifty?“
”That’s cool.“ Violet got up and went to a pay phone by the door. He was back in five minutes. ”Patricia Utley,“ he said. ”Fifty-seven East Thirty-seventh Street.“
”Thanks, Violet,“ I took a $100 bill out of my wallet and handed it to him. ”If you’re ever in Boston…“
Violet laughed again. ”Yeah, baby, if I ever want some beans…“
I finished the beer and got up. Violet turned and leaned his elbows on the bar. ”Hey, Spenser,“ he said. ”Utley works for very heavy people, dig?“
”That’s okay,“ I said. ”I don’t mind heavy work.“
”Well, you built for it, I give you that. But you walk around Utley careful, baby, this ain’t Boston.“
”Violet,“ I said, ”I’m not sure this is even earth.“
CHAPTER SIX
IT WAS DEAD quiet in my bedroom when I woke up in the morning. The sun vibrated in the room and the hum of my air conditioner underlined the silence. I lay on my back with my hands behind my head for a while and thought about what was bothering me about Linda Rabb.
What was bothering me was that she’d said she knew nothing about baseball till she met Marty but that she’d met Marty at a ball game when she’d asked for his autograph. The two didn’t go together. Nothing much, but it didn’t fit. It was the only thing that didn’t. The rest was whole cloth. Middle American jock-ethic-kid and his loving wife. In the off-season I bet he hunted and fished and took his little boy sliding.
Would he be going into the tank? “It’s what I do,” he’d said. “I know the rules.” I could understand that. I knew about the need for rules. I didn’t believe he’d dump one. I never believed Nixon would be President either. I got up, did 100 push-ups, 100 sit-ups, took a shower, got dressed, and made the bed.
There’s a restaurant in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, which makes whipped cream biscuits, and I got the recipe once while I was up there having dinner with Brenda Loring.
I made some while the coffee perked, and while they baked I squeezed a pint of orange juice and drank it. I had the biscuits with fresh strawberries and sour cream and three cups of coffee.
It was nearly ten o’clock when I got out onto the street.
There was a bright smell of summer outside my apartment house. Across Arlington Street the Public Garden was a sunny pleasure. I strolled on past the enormous Thomas Ball statue of Washington on horseback. The flower beds were rich with petunias and redolent of pansies against a flourish of scarlet snapdragons. The swan boats had begun to cruise the pond, pedaled by college kids in yachting caps and trailed by an orderly assemblage of hungry ducks that broke formation to dart at the peanuts the tourists threw. I crossed the bridge over the swan boat lake and headed toward the Common on the other side of Charles Street. At the crossing there was a guy selling popcorn from a pushcart and another selling ice cream and another selling balloons and little monkeys dangling from thin sticks and blue pennants that said BOSTON, MASS., in yellow script. I turned right, walked up Charles toward Boylston. At the corner was the old guy that takes candids with a big tripod camera; faded tan samples were displayed in a case on the tripod. I turned up Boylston toward Tremont and down Tremont toward Stuart. My office was on Stuart Street. It wasn’t much of an office, but it suited the location. It would have been an ideal spot for a VD clinic or a public exterminator.
I opened the window as soon as I got in. I’d have to remember not to do push-ups on the days I had to open that window. I hung up my blue blazer, sat down at my desk, got my yellow pad out, and pulled the phone over. By one thirty I had pretty well confirmed Marty Rabb’s biography as stated.
The town clerk’s office in Lafayette, Indiana, established that Marty Rabb had in fact lived there and that his parents still did. The office of the registrar at Marquette confirmed his attendance and graduation in 1965. I called a cop I knew in Providence and asked him if they had anything on Rabb when he was at Pawtucket. He called me back in forty minutes to say no. He promised me he’d keep his mouth shut about my question, and I half thought he would. He was as trustworthy as I was likely to find.
Linda Rabb was more of a problem. There was no record of her marriage to Rabb at the Chicago Hall of Records.
As far as they knew, Marty Rabb hadn’t married Linda Hawkins or anyone else in Chicago in 1970 or any other time.
Maybe they got married by some JP in a suburb. I called Arlington Heights and talked with the city clerk himself. No record. How about any record of Linda Hawkins or Linda Rabb? None, no birth certificate, no marriage license. If I’d wait a minute, he’d check motor vehicles. I waited. It was more like ten minutes. The air blowing in from Stuart Street was hot and gritty. The sweat had soaked through my polo shirt and made it stick to my back. I looked at my watch: 3:15.
I hadn’t had lunch yet. I sniffed at the hot breeze. If the wind was right, I could catch the scent of sauerbraten wafting across the street from Jake Wirth’s. It wasn’t right. All I could smell was the uncontrolled emission of the traffic.
The Arlington Heights city clerk came back on the phone.
“Still there?”
“Yep.”
“Got no record of a driver’s license. No auto registration. There’s four Hawkinses in the city directory but no Linda. Want the phone numbers?”
“Yes, and can you give me the number of the school administration department?”
“Yeah, one minute, I’ll check it here.”
He did and gave it to me. I called them. They had no record of Linda Rabb or Linda Hawkins. There had been eight children named Hawkins in the school system since 1960. Six were boys. The other two were named Doris and Olive.
I hung up. Very cooperative.
I called the first Hawkins number in Arlington Heights. No soap. Nor was there any soap at the next two.
The fourth number didn’t answer. But unless they were the ones when I finally got them, I was going to have to wonder about old Linda. I looked at my watch: 4:30. Three thirty in Illinois. I hadn’t eaten since breakfast. I went over to Jake Wirth’s, had some sauerbraten and dark beer, came back to the office at five forty-five, and called the fourth Hawkins again. A woman answered who had never heard of Linda Hawkins.
I swung my chair around and propped my feet on the windowsill and looked out at the top floor of the garment loft across the street. It was empty. Everyone had gone home.
There are a lot of reasons why someone doesn’t check out right off quick when you begin to look into her background.
But most of them have to do with deceit, and most deceit is based on having something to hide. Two pigeons settled down onto the window ledge of the loft and looked at me looking at them. I looked at my watch: 6:10. After supper on a summer evening. Twilight softball leagues were getting under way at this hour. Kids were going out to hang out on the corner till dark. Men were watering their lawns, their wives sitting nearby in lawn chairs. I was looking at two pigeons.
Linda Rabb was not what she was supposed to be, and that bothered me, like it bothered me that she met Rabb at a ball game even though she wasn’t interested in baseball till she married him. Little things, but they weren’t right. The pigeons flew off. The traffic sounds were dwindling. I’d have to find out about Linda Rabb. The Sox had a night game tonight, which meant Rabb wouldn’t be home. But Linda Rabb probably would be because of the kid. I called. She was.