”He does,“ Belson said. ”But this one he’s gonna do himself.“
”If he can,“ I said.
”That ain’t to say he might not have Wally around to hold you still,“ Belson said.
Billy U-turned over the safety island and headed back in toward town. He was young and stylish with a thick blond mustache and a haircut that hid his ears. Belson’s sideburns were trimmed at the temple.
”Reliable snitch?“
Belson nodded. ”Always solid in the past.“
”How much you pay him for this stuff?“
”C-note,“ Belson said.
”I’m flattered,“ I said.
Belson shrugged. ”Company money,“ he said.
We were passing Harvard Stadium. ”You or Quirk got any thoughts about what I should do next?“
Belson shook his head.
”How about hiding?“ Billy said. ”Doerr will probably die in the next ten, twenty years.“
”You think he’s that tough?“
Billy shrugged. Belson said, ”It’s not tough so much.
It’s crazy. Doerr’s crazy. Things don’t work out, he wants to kill everybody. I hear he cut one guy up with a machete. I mean, cut him up. Dis-goddamn-membered him. Crazy.“
”You don’t think a dozen roses and a note of apology would do it, huh?“
Billy snorted. Belson didn’t bother. We passed the Kenmore exit.
I said to Billy, ”You know where I live?“
He nodded.
Belson said, ”You got a piece on you?“
”Not when I’m running,“ I said.
”Then don’t run,“ Belson said. ”If I was Doerr, I coulda aced you right there at the curb when we picked you up.“
I remembered my lecture to Lester about professionals. I had no comment. We swung off at Arlington and then right on Marlborough. Billy pulled up in front of my apartment.
”You’re going up a one-way street,“ I said to Billy.
”Geez, I hope there’s no cops around,“ Billy said.
I got out. ”Thanks,“ I said to Belson.
He got out too. ”I’ll walk up to your place with you.“
”With me? Frank, you old softy.“
”Quirk told me to get you inside safe. After that you’re on your own. We don’t run a babysitting service. Not even for you, baby.“
When I unlocked my apartment door, I noticed that Belson unbuttoned his coat. We went in. I looked around. The place was empty. Belson buttoned his coat.
”Watch your ass,“ he said and left.
From my front window I looked down while Belson got in the car and Billy U-turned and drove off. Now I knew what and was getting an idea of how. I took my gun from the bureau drawer and checked the load and brought it with me to the bathroom. I put it on the toilet seat while I took a shower and put it on the bed while I dressed. Then I stuck the holster in my hip pocket and clipped it to my belt. I was wearing broken-in jeans and white sneakers with a racing stripe and my black polo shirt with a beaver on the left breast. I wasn’t up in the alligator bracket yet. I put on a seersucker jacket, my aviator sunglasses, and checked myself in the hall mirror.
Battle dress.
I unlocked the front hall closet and got out a 12-gauge Iver Johnson pump gun and a box of double-aught shells.
Then I went out. In the hall I put the shotgun down and closed a toothpick between the jamb and the hinge side of the door, a couple of inches up from the ground. I snapped it off so only the edge was visible at the crack of the door. It would be good to know if someone had gone in.
I picked up the shotgun and went out to my car. On the way down I passed another tenant. ”Hunting season so early?“ he said.
”Yeah.“
Outside I locked the shotgun and the box of shells in the trunk of my car, got in, put the top down, and headed for the North Shore. I knew what and how, now I had to find where.
I drove Route 93 out of Boston through Somerville and Medford. Along the Mystic River across from Wellington Circle, reeds and head-high marsh grass still grew in an atmosphere made garish with neon and thick exhaust fumes. Past Medford Square, I turned off 93 and took the Lynn Fells Parkway east, looking at the woods and not seeing what I was looking for. Medford gave way to Melrose. I turned off the Fellsway and drove up around Spot Pond, past the MDC Zoo in Stoneham, and back into Melrose. Still nothing that looked right to me. I drove through Melrose, past red clay tennis courts by the lake, past the high school and the Christian Science Church. Just before I got to Route 1, I turned off into Breakhart Reservation. Past the MDC skating rink the road narrows to a single lane and becomes one way. I’d been there on a picnic once with Susan Silverman, and I knew that the road looped through the woods and returned here, one way all the way. There were saddle trails, and lakes, and picnic areas scattered through thick woods.
Thirty yards into the reservation I found the place. I pulled off the narrow hot top road, the bushes scraping my car fenders and crunching under the tires, and got out. A small hill sloped up from the road, and scooped out of the side of it was a hollow the size of a basketball court and the shape of a free-form pool. About in the middle was a flatplaned granite slab, higher than a man’s head at one end that tapered into the ground in a shape vaguely like a shark fin.
The sides of the gully were yellow clay, streaked with erosion troughs, scattered with small white pines. The sides sloped steeply up to the somewhat gentler slope of the hill, which was thick with white pine and clustered birch saplings and bunches of sumac. I walked into the hollow and stood by the slab of granite. The high end was a foot above my head.
There was a high hum of locust in the hot, still woods and the sound of birds. A squirrel shot down the trunk of a birch tree and up the trunk of a maple without pausing. I took my coat off and draped it over the rock. Then I scrambled up the slope of the gully and looked down. I walked around the rim of the hollow, looking at the woods and at the sun and down into the hollow. It would do. I looked at my watch: 2:00.
I went back down, put my coat on again, got in my car, and drove on around the loop and out of the reservation.
There was a small shopping center next to the exit road and I parked my car in among a batch of others in front of a Purity Supreme Supermarket. There was a pay phone in the supermarket, and I used it to call Frank Doerr.
He wasn’t in, but the solicitous soft-voiced guy that answered said he’d take a message.
”Okay,“ I said, ”my name is Spenser. S-p-e-n-s-e-r, like the English poet. You know who I am?“
”Yeah, I know.“ No more solicitude.
”Tell Frank if he wants to talk to me, he should drive up to the Breakhart Reservation in Saugus. Come in by the skating rink entrance, drive thirty yards down the road. Park and walk into the little gully that’s there. He’ll know it.
There’s a big rock like a shark fin in the middle of the gully.
You got that?“
”Yeah, but why should he want to see you? Frank wants to see someone he calls them into the office. He don’t go riding around in the freaking woods.“
”He’ll ride around in them this time because if he doesn’t, I am going to sing songs to the police that Frank will hate the sound of.“
”If Frank does want to do this, and I ain’t saying he will, when should he be there?“
”Six o’clock tonight.“
”For crissake, what if he ain’t around at that time?
Maybe he’s busy. Who the Christ you think you’re talking to?“
”Six o’clock tonight,“ I said, ”or I’ll be down on Berkeley Street crooning to the fuzz.“ I hung up.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
I BOUGHT A POUND of Hebrew National bologna, a loaf of pumpernickel, a jar of brown mustard, and a half gallon of milk and walked back to my car. I opened the trunk and got an old duffel bag from it. I put the shotgun, the shells, and my groceries in the duffel bag, closed the trunk, shouldered the duffel bag, and walked back toward Breakhart.