“Jimmy Aspirins and the Angel of Mercy.”
“Wouldn’t you like some sugar in your coffee?” Gino said.
I added a couple cubes and milk. I sat back and drank coffee. Say what you want about Gino Fish, but he was a solid host. If he had brought out tea biscuits, I might have been convinced to work for the other side.
“And who hired them?” I said.
Gino widened his eyes. “That is the question, isn’t it?”
“Did you have them killed?”
“No.”
He drank some coffee. He looked to Vinnie, who leaned forward with his elbows on his knees. Vinnie popped a piece of gum into his mouth and waited.
“Anyone else ask you to make inroads on Beacon Hill?”
Gino touched the parchmentlike skin that hung from his neck. He took in a deep breath, eyelids slowly drooping back into place. “Those men you mentioned do not come cheap. They are well connected and well paid. And they got in my way.”
I nodded. I was not thrilled with the way this was headed.
“Vinnie knows a man named Zebulon Sixkill who has recently fallen under my tutelage,” I said. “If you find him caught in the crossfire, I would appreciate him remaining unharmed.”
Gino uncrossed his legs. He stretched his neck and rubbed his fingers across his jawline. “And I would like the same arrangement for Mr. Perotti. Can you see to this?”
“That may be more difficult,” I said. “Some other people know.”
“But can they prove it?”
I shrugged.
“Let’s keep it that way, Mr. Spenser.”
Vinnie looked at me, seeming odd in his tailored suit and neatly barbered hair, and blew a huge bubble. The bubble popped in the brick room like a gunshot.
59
“THAT LYING LITTLE BITCH is making a goddamn mess out of everything,” Rachel Weinberg said.
“It certainly appears that way.”
We sat together in the back of the black Lincoln, with Lewis Blanchard at the wheel. I had been summoned to accompany Blanchard to Logan to pick up Rachel. I had dressed in jeans, a herringbone jacket, a blue button-down, and no tie. I did not want to appear overly eager. But I did come armed with news of the winds swirling in Boston, ill and otherwise.
“First she hires some local hooligans to scare people from a condo we need,” Rachel said. “And now she’s breaking into Harvey Rose’s offices to blackmail him. This is why she has no business running our company. Rick would have never acted like such an idiot. She has gone batshit crazy.”
Rachel smoked down one of her thin cigarettes. The windows were up because of the rain and fogged the car. The windshield wipers sliced water from the gray landscape of overpasses and on- and off-ramps.
“I don’t know if she broke into his office or if she had someone do it,” I said. “I am merely speculating.”
“Who the hell else would do it?” Blanchard said from the front seat. He did not turn around; the Town Car dipped down into the Sumner Tunnel. The sound of the engine roared, muffled in the enclosure.
“Were you aware that Jemma had studied under Harvey Rose?” I said.
“We knew she worked for him and we knew she went to Harvard Business School,” Rachel said. “Hell, she wouldn’t let us forget. But when she came over to us it wasn’t like Harvey Rose was gonna write a recommendation letter. He was pissed. That was the start of some bad blood between him and Rick.”
“She never told you that they had been close,” I said. “Or that she had been his intern while in Boston.”
“No.”
“Why do you think she’d keep that a secret?” I said.
“Because she’s a lying piece of trash,” Rachel said. “She has blindsided me about every order of business since Rick’s death.” Rachel pounded the armrest with the bottom side of her fist.
“Did you know she would be his successor?”
“Of course,” she said. “I had to vote on it. Rick wanted it so damn badly. But Jesus, I didn’t imagine what would happen. Or that she would try to fuck me over with the board. I just got back from a meeting in Vegas where they offered me a buyout. They want me off the board and to take a fucking check. Who do you think broached that simple subject?”
“What did you say?”
“You ever see that scene in Mommie Dearest when Faye Dunaway stands up and tells the board at Pepsi-Cola, ‘Don’t fuck with me, fellas’?”
“Yep.”
“That’s the G-rated version of my little speech.”
“And Jemma was there?”
“Of course.”
“Was a young man with her,” I said. “A big Native American guy.”
“No,” she said. “But why the hell not? I bet she’s fucked her way around the world. Twice.”
We emerged from the tunnel, the river appearing to the right. We passed under the Longfellow Bridge and by the boathouse. I assumed we were headed back to the Four Seasons, though Blanchard had not said. I did not speak until we turned left at Arlington and the Public Garden, nearly at the Four Seasons’ front door. “You heard about those two dead sluggers from Vegas,” I said. “Ever hear of them?”
“You think they worked for Jemma?”
“Or against her,” I said. “They weren’t local talent, and therefore not in my personal Rolodex.”
“Who were they, then?” Rachel said.
“Jimmy Aspirins and a guy they called the Angel of Mercy.”
“Are you shitting me?”
“I would not shit you, Mrs. Weinberg.”
“Lew?” Rachel said. “Sound like anyone we know?”
“No, ma’am.”
“I would recommend taking extra precautions,” I said.
“A turf war between Jemma and Harvey Rose?” Rachel Weinberg said. “Christ. Just what we need. A whore and a dolt.”
Blanchard turned onto Boylston and quickly under the porte cochere. The valet, in his crisp green uniform, approached the rear door. Blanchard looked back, right arm resting on the passenger seat. He waited. Rachel looked at me with pursed lips, crushing the cigarette into the tray.
“Rose doesn’t have the stomach,” Rachel said. Her jaw was clenched very tight, and she repeatedly shook her head in frustration.
“And Jemma?”
Rachel Weinberg nodded in thought. “Goddamn bitch.”
Lewis Blanchard half turned, drumming his fingers on the back of the headrest. The windows dripped with rainwater, the windshield wipers still going.
“You have enough people?” I said.
He nodded, lost somewhere in thought. “That’s all been covered.”
“If you don’t,” I said. I made an offhand gesture.
Blanchard nodded. The valet opened Rachel Weinberg’s door and she stepped outside without a word. If someone was going to harm Rachel, under the porte cochere of the Four Seasons would have been impolite as well as ill conceived. Blanchard drummed his fingers some more, looking off.
“Listen, Spenser,” Blanchard said. “We got this thing now. But we appreciate what you’ve done.”
“I haven’t done much.”
“You’ll be paid.”
“Never doubted it.”
“But for now . . .”
“Kind of hard to leave mid-stride.”
“I may have overreacted, hiring you.”
“How’s that?”
“You got to understand, I report to a whole fucking committee,” he said. “If it was just you and me, it would be simpler.”
“I don’t need money.”
“You got to get paid.” He paused. “You stay on it, it’ll be my ass. Legal issues.”
“Wish to elaborate?”
“Nope.”
Rachel stood close to the Town Car and lit yet another cigarette by the hotel entrance. Four valets waited nearby for the smallest word from their guest. Blanchard turned off the ignition and stepped outside the car. I followed. He offered his hand, and I shook it.