“But you did,” I said.
“Yes.”
I stood.
“I won’t bother you again,” I said.
And I left.
Chapter 33
I TALKED WITH SUSAN on the phone for nearly an hour before we hung up. It was dark outside. My apartment was nearly still. There was a fire going, and the hiss of the logs supplied the only sound. I sat at my kitchen counter with a scotch and soda in a tall glass, with a lot of ice.
Was I involved in this thing because it resonated with me and Susan a long time ago? It had happened to me before. I didn’t think I was, but I had learned enough to know that motivation, including my own, was often murky.
I sipped my scotch and looked at the fire.
One of my problems was trying to figure out which side I was on. I wasn’t even sure how I wanted things to turn out. I had some sympathy for the women in the case, more for some than for others. I kind of liked Gary. The cuckolded husbands deserved some sympathy, but maybe some blame, or at least some of them.
I drank the rest of my scotch and made another drink.
I wasn’t exactly sure what real crime had been committed. I didn’t want Regina and Clifford Hartley’s complicated but functioning marriage to be destroyed. I thought it would be a shame if Nancy went on through life thinking her sexuality was a sickness. Abigail was a drunk. Beth was… I didn’t know what Beth was, but it wasn’t good.
But there was something wrong with the whole setup. Everything kept turning out not to be quite what it started out seeming to be. There was a lot of bottled-up stuff lying around, and Boo and Zel were rattling around like loose ball bearings. So why did I care? One reason was that no one else had hired me to do anything, and I like to work. It might have had to do with me being stubborn.
I drank some scotch. It was clarifying. People always claimed it was a bad sign if you started drinking alone. I always thought to sit quietly and alone and drink a little now and then was valuable. Especially if you have a fire to look at. What was it Churchill said? “I have taken more from alcohol than alcohol has ever taken from me.” Something like that. Good enough for Winnie, I thought, good enough for me.
I took my glass to my front window and looked down at Marl-borough Street. The lights in the brick and brownstone buildings seemed very homey. Outside it was dark and cold. Inside was light and warmth. There were people living there together, some of them happily, some not.
Sometimes I thought that Susan was the only thing in life that I cared about. But I knew that if it were actually so, it would destroy us. We both needed to work. We had to do things. Making moon eyes at Susan was not a sufficient career. It was cases like the one I was on that reminded me now and then that I could care about other things.
There was more sex in this case than I’d seen in a while, but none of it seemed connected to love. I realized as I looked out my window at the still city street that one of the things I was looking for in this mess was something grounded in love. Maybe the Hartleys, in their odd and bearded marriage, might be driven by love. Maybe not. Clarice Richardson’s reformation and triumph might have been grounded in love. But it could have been grounded in guilt, and survival… and courage.
“Good for you, Clarice,” I said. “Either way.”
As I drank my final scotch, I decided that I had two things to do next. One, I had to defuse Chet Jackson, and second, I had to find out a little more about Gary Eisenhower, aka Goran Pappas. Having a plan made me feel decisive, or maybe it was the three scotches.
I washed my empty glass and put it away. I put a steak on the kitchen grill. In a sauté pan, I cooked onions, peppers, mushrooms, and a handful of frozen corn with olive oil, rosemary, and a splash of sherry. I had some herbed biscuits left from Sunday when Susan and I had breakfast. I warmed them in the oven and when everything was ready, I ate.
And drank some beer.
Chapter 34
THE FIRST TWO PEOPLE I saw when I went into Buddy Fox’s were Ty-Bop and Junior. Ty-Bop was a skinny kid, strung out on something. He did the gun work. Junior was the size of Des Moines but meaner. He did the muscle work.
“Junior,” I said. “How’s it going with Weight Watchers?”
“You looking to see Tony?” Junior said.
Ty-Bop stared at me as he jittered against the back wall of the restaurant, listening to his iPod. He showed no sign of recognition, although he’d seen me probably a hundred times. His eyes were empty. His face was empty. He shot at what Tony told him to shoot at and, as best as I could tell, had no other interests except controlled substances and whatever music he was listening to. I don’t think I’d ever heard him speak. But he could shoot. He might have been as good as Vinnie, maybe even Chollo, who was the best I’d ever seen.
“Wait here,” Junior said.
He went past the bar and down a hall. Ty-Bop looked at me blankly. I grinned at him.
“How are things, Ty-Bop?” I said.
He jived a little and his head might have moved, but it was probably to the music.
“Listening to a different drummer?” I said.
Ty-Bop’s expression didn’t change.
“Good,” I said. “I like an upbeat approach.”
The room showed little sign that the South End had undergone considerable social change in the last twenty years. I was still the only white face in the room. Junior returned and jerked his head at me. I gave Ty-Bop a friendly thumbs-up and followed Junior past the bar. He was so big he could barely fit into the hallway, and both of us were too much. He stepped aside and gestured for me to walk past him.
“You know the door,” he said.
“Like my own,” I said, and walked on down the hall.
Tony’s office was small and without much in the way of ostentation. Tony was in there with Arnold, who was his driver. Arnold didn’t shoot as well as Ty-Bop or muscle as well as Junior. But he was a nice combination of both skills, and he had a little class. He was handsome as hell. And dressed great.
“Arnold,” I said.
“Spenser.”
Arnold was sitting on a straight chair, turned around so he could rest his forearms on the chair back. Tony was behind his desk. A little soft around the neck and jawline. But very dignified-looking, with a scatter of gray in his short hair, and none in his carefully trimmed mustache. As always, he was dressed up. Dark suit, white shirt, maroon silk tie and pocket hankie. He was smoking a long, thin cigar.
“Tony,” I said. “Do you color your mustache?”
Tony Marcus smiled.
“Actually, motherfucker,” he said, “I color my whole body. In real life, I’m a honkie.”
“Nope,” I said. “No white guy can say ‘motherfucker’ like you do.”
Tony nodded.
“Whaddya want?” he said.
“Need a favor,” I said.
“Oh, good,” Tony said. “Been hoping some wiseass snow cone would come in and ask for a favor.”
“You want me to pat him down?” Arnold said to Tony.
“No need,” Tony said.
“He’s got a gun,” Arnold said. “I can tell the way his coat hangs.”
Tony looked at Arnold.
“You done work with him, you think we need to worry ’bout the gun?”
“No.”
“Okay,” Tony said, and turned to me, and raised his eyebrows.
“Know a guy named Chet Jackson?” I said.
“Who wants to know?” Tony said.
“That would be me,” I said. “I look like some kind of bicycle messenger?”
“Why do you want to know?”
“He’s a danger to someone I sort of represent,” I said.
“And you can’t stop him?”