"How are you," he said.
"I'm as restless as a willow in a windstorm," I said.
"You in touch with Susan at all?" Quirk said.
He took a delicate sip of Irish whiskey and swallowed and put the whiskey glass down and drank some beer. His hands were thick. He was very exact in his movements.
"Yes," I said. "We talk on the phone."
"Give her my love," Quirk said.
I nodded.
Quirk drank again, he extended the little finger slightly as he sipped the whiskey. "You want to know about Mickey, right?"
"How did you know?" I said.
"You want to know about everything you've had anything to do with in the last ten years," Quirk said.
"And I adore hearing you talk," I said. Your voice is so musical."
"You talk with Devane?" Quirk said.
"Yes. He told me Mickey was shot sitting in his car in the Quincy Market parking garage. He said whoever shot him probably was sitting beside him. The murder weapon was a twenty-two automatic, and the brass was on the floor of the car."
Quirk smiled and sipped another very small sip of whiskey. "Hell," he said, "you know what I know."
"Nothing else?" I said. Quirk shook his head. "How about speculation."
"It had to be someone Mickey wasn't scared of," Quirk said. "No bodyguards. Mickey didn't usually travel without backup."
"Unless the back-up was who did it."
"But why would they do it there, with a twenty-two automatic?"
"Twenty-twos are chic these days," I said. "Like flavored popcorn."
Quirk shrugged.
"We're assuming it had something to do with the drug business. And the deal you and Devane rigged to put him away might have triggered something."
"Broz?" I said.
"I don't think so," Quirk said.
"No," I said. "I don't either. Joe went to some trouble so he wouldn't have to waste Mickey. Why would he do that and then when it was set have Mickey buzzed?"
Quirk signaled to a waitress for two more beers. "So who would want Mickey dead?" Quirk said.
"His supplier," I said.
"For fear Mickey would rat on him," Quirk said. "But how would the supplier know we were going to bust Mickey?"
The waitress brought two drafts and left. Quirk and I were looking at each other. "Could be a leak inside," Quirk said. "Of course it may just be something we don't know anything about. A jealous girlfriend, a mob deal that hasn't surfaced."
I nodded. "But," I said, "if you assume that, it gives you nothing to think about and nowhere to go."
"That's right," Quirk said. "So maybe somebody knew that Mickey was going to fall, and figured he'd talk out of turn."
I nodded. "So they got him to meet them alone in the parking garage and killed him."
"It had to be someone who had reason to meet him alone, and someone he wasn't afraid of."
"And someone who would use a twenty-two automatic," I said.
Quirk nodded. He was looking at the half empty shot glass in front of him. He put a forefinger into the whiskey and took it out and put it into his mouth and sucked on it absently.
"A broad," he said.
"Fills the criteria," I said.
"Say it is the supplier," Quirk said. "Is she part of the deal or do they hire someone?"
"Even a woman," I said. "Unless he knew her or something, Mickey wouldn't go without a couple of sluggos, even if it was a woman." I finished my whiskey and drank some beer. "Do we call her a hit person?" I said.
"A gunette," Quirk said.
"So we figure that a woman Mickey knows gets him to meet her in the Quincy Market parking garage. Or to meet her somewhere else and drive there. . . . "
"Meet her and drive there," Quirk said. "If it's full, she goes someplace else."
"Right," I said, "so he meets her someplace. They go to the garage. He parks and she blasts him."
Quirk nodded.
"Then she gets out of the car, walks over to the stairs, and down and out and . . ." I shrugged.
"Yeah," Quirk said, and shrugged a replica of my shrug. "And there we are. You got anything to add? What made you so interested?"
I told him what Tommy Banks had said about Sherry Spellman and Bullard Winston. "That's not much," Quirk said.
"I know, but Mickey was all there was. It was the only thing that didn't make sense. The only event that didn't fit into the explanation."
Quirk nodded. "Yeah, I know. You don't have any handle on the kid and Winston, so you start at the other end and see if it leads backwards to them."
"Back door," I said.
"You think this Spellman kid could shoot Mickey Paultz to death?"
"No," I said.
"But you could be wrong," Quirk said.
"I surely could," I said. "I'm getting used to it. But the kid?" I shook my head. "'Course I would have said she'd never spend the night with Winston either."
"Svengali?" Quirk said.
"Christ, I don't know."
"Maybe he used her to get Mickey."
"He wouldn't need to," I said. "He and Mickey were in cahoots."
"But Mickey knew you had Winston's confession," Quirk said. "Winston was hiding from him. If Winston set up a meeting, Mickey would have brought troops."
"What if Winston said no troops, as a condition. And Mickey thought, okay, I'll meet him and do it myself, only Winston beat him to it," I said. "Mickey have a piece?"
Quirk shook his head. I said, "Okay, maybe a variation on that."
"So where's the girl come in?" Quirk said. "Maybe she doesn't."
Quirk finished his whiskey. "You got a handful of broken parts," he said. "Nothing fits."
"But I have a nice personality," I said.
Quirk snorted. "What I'd do," he said, "if I were you, is I'd go talk with Broz, or at least Vinnie Morris. Mickey's supplier needs an outlet now that Mickey's dead, and Joe was all set up for it anyway."
I nodded.
"I'd do it myself," Quirk said. "But they hate talking business with me."
I nodded again. "I been thinking about the back-door approach."
Quirk raised his eyebrows slightly.
"What if I had everything backward," I said. "What if Mickey wasn't running Winston. What if Winston was running Mickey?"
Quirk pointed his chin up and put his head back and stretched his neck and sucked on his front teeth a little. "I'll have to think about that," he said.
"Me too," I said.
"Yeah," Quirk said, "but for you it's harder."
CHAPTER 41
My living room was littered with records and Paul and Paige were lying among them listening to Anita Ellis and Ellis Larkins. It was an album Paul had bought me as a half joking Father's Day gift. They were drinking jug wine and smoking. I sniffed.
"I believe I sense the presence in this room of a controlled substance," I said.
"You going to shoot at us?" Paige said.
"With the price of bullets the way it is," I said, "I'll let you off with a vicious beating."
Paige grinned at me. "Oooh, good," she said. "I'm really into that."
I went to the refrigerator and got a beer and sat at the counter and sipped it and thought and listened to Anita Ellis and thought. Paul and Paige passed the joint back and forth between them and the smell of marijuana grew richer. Back door. The Anita Ellis album ended and Paul put on a group called Razmatazz. What if Winston were running Paultz?
"They sound like halfway between Manhattan Transfer and the Four Freshmen," Paige said.
"Except the Freshmen had no female vocalist," Paul said.
Winston had churches around the country, disciples to mule the stuff around, a built-in way to launder the money. What if Mickey Paultz worked for Winston? Then what? I got another beer and a shot and went back to the counter. Then everything was possible.