“Not without killing somebody,” I said.
“So?” Tony said.
“Not my style,” I said.
“So have Hawk do it for you,” Tony said.
“Also not my style.”
“But it your style to come ask me,” Tony said. “A simple African-American trying to get along in a flounder-belly world?”
“Exactly,” I said.
Tony smiled.
“I know Chet Jackson,” he said.
“You have any clout with him?”
“I might,” Tony said. “Pretty much got clout wherever I need it.”
“So much for the simple African-American,” I said.
Tony smiled again.
“You knew that was bullshit when you heard it,” he said. “I don’t know if I owe you anything or not. But you done me some favors.”
“Cast your bread upon the waters,” I said.
“Sure,” Tony said. “Tell me a story.”
I told him as much as he needed to know. Tony listened without interrupting while he smoked his cigar. When I was done, he put the cigar out in a big glass ashtray on his desk and leaned back in his chair.
“What the fuck,” he said, “are you doing mixed up in crap like that?”
“I ask myself that from time to time,” I said. “But I’m a romantic, Tony. You know that.”
“Whatever that means,” he said.
We sat. Tony got out a new cigar and trimmed it and lit it, and got it going evenly, turning the cigar barrel slowly in the flame of Arnold’s lighter.
“So how you want to do this?” he said.
Chapter 35
ACCORDING TO his police folder, Goran Pappas had graduated in the top quarter of his Richdale High School class and gone on to Wickton College on a basketball scholarship.
Wickton was a small liberal-arts college just across the New Hampshire line, south of Jaffrey. I spent the next day there and worked my way slowly through a host of reticent academics to arrive late in the day in the office of the director of counseling services. According to the plaque on her desk, her name was Mary Brown, Ph.D.
“Dr. Brown,” I said. “My name is Spenser. I’m a detective. I’ve been wandering your campus all day and am in desperate need of counseling.”
She was a sturdy woman with gray hair and rimless glasses. “I can see why you would,” she said. “Please sit down.”
I did.
“I’m trying to learn about a man who attended this college. Everyone who would know agrees he did. But no one will tell me much about him.”
“Because they don’t know much?” she said.
“Because they don’t know, or think it’s confidential, or don’t like detectives.”
“Surely that couldn’t be it,” she said.
“I was being self-effacing,” I said.
“I have been here for more than thirty years,” she said. “Perhaps I can help. What is the man’s name?”
“Goran Pappas,” I said.
She was quiet for a moment. The rimless glasses were strong, and they seemed to enlarge her eyes as she looked at me through them.
“I remember him,” she said.
“What can you tell me?” I said.
She smiled.
“What can you tell me?” she said.
“About anything you want to know,” I said.
“Then do so,” she said.
I told her everything I thought she’d want to hear, omitting only the names, except for Goran. When I was through she sat for a time, frowning.
“My goodness,” she said. “And what is it you are trying to accomplish?”
“To right the unrightable wrong, I suppose,” I said.
“I understand the allusion,” she said. “But specifically, what do you hope to accomplish?”
“I feel a little silly saying it. But… right now everything is coming out badly for pretty much everyone involved, except maybe the college president… I’d like to make everything come out okay.”
She looked at me silently through the distorting rimless lenses for a time and then reached up and tilted them lower on her nose and looked over them at me.
“My God,” she said.
I shrugged and gave her my sheepish smile. She seemed stable enough to risk the sheepish smile. Less stable women were known to undress when I did the sheepish smile. I was right. She remained calm.
“How can I check on you?” she said.
“If I could borrow a sheet of paper,” I said.
She gave me one. And I wrote down the names and phone numbers and recited them as I wrote.
“Captain Healy, homicide commander, Mass state cops,” I said. “Martin Quirk, homicide commander, Boston police. FBI man named Epstein, AIC in Boston.”
“AIC?”
“Agent-in-charge,” I said. “And Susan Silverman, Ph.D., who’s a psychotherapist in Cambridge.”
I handed her the paper.
“In the interest of full disclosure,” I said. “Dr. Silverman is my honey bun.”
“ ‘Honey bun,’ ” Mary said.
“Girl of my dreams,” I said.
“I’ll get back to you, Mr. Spenser,” Mary said.
Chapter 36
I WASN’T SURE WHO HAD TOLD what lies to accomplish it. But we were all assembled when Hawk brought Gary Eisenhower into Chet Jackson’s office. Chet was at his desk. Tony was in a chair across from Chet, with Junior and Ty-Bop leaning against the wall in the back of the room; Beth sat on the couch near him. Zel and Boo leaned on the wall near Chet, looking at Junior and Ty-Bop. I stood near the door.
When he got inside the room, Gary paused and looked around.
“Hot damn,” he said, and walked across the room and sat beside Beth on the couch.
“’S happening, Beth?” he said, and patted her on the thigh.
She smiled brightly.
“Okay,” Chet said. “You put this together, Tony. Talk to us.” Tony looked around the office.
“Lotta firepower in here,” he said.
Chet nodded.
“Hawk,” Tony said. “Spenser. My friends, your goons. Lotta force.”
I could tell that Boo felt dissed by being called a goon. But he didn’t speak. Zel seemed uninterested.
“So?” Chet said.
“I hope there’s no need for force,” Tony said.
“To do what?” Chet said.
“To resolve our problem.”
“Our problem? What problem do you and me have?” Chet said.
Tony looked around the room. He took out a cigar, trimmed it, lit it, got it going, took in some smoke, and exhaled.
“We don’t have to get too explicit here,” he said. “But you and I do business in the same territory, and we got an agreement in place that allows us to do that without, you know, rubbing up against each other.”
Chet nodded without saying anything.
“That gonna end,” Tony said, “’less you straighten out your love life.”
“My love life,” Chet said.
Tony took an inhale on his cigar and took it from his mouth, held it up in front of him, and exhaled so that he looked at the glowing end of the cigar through the smoke.
“Specifically, Mr., ah, Eisenhower,” Tony said. “I want him left alone.”
“What the hell do you care?” Chet said.
“Don’t matter why,” Tony said. “Only matter that I do.”
“And if I tell you to go to hell?” Chet said.
“You’re out of business,” Tony said.
Everyone was quiet. Beth looked bright-eyed and excited as she watched the back-and-forth between her husband and Tony Marcus. Gary Eisenhower looked sort of amused, but he nearly always looked amused. Maybe because he was always amused. The damned cigar kept being a cigar.
“You think you can put me out of business?” Chet said.
“I know I can,” Tony said. “And so do you.”
Chet nodded slowly.
“You and Spenser rig this deal?” Chet said.
“Don’t matter who rigged it,” Tony said. “It rigged. Take it or leave it.”
“He a friend of yours?” Chet said.
I knew he was stalling while he tried to think it through.
“He sent me up once,” Tony said. “So no, we ain’t friends. But he done me some favors, too.”