by Ace Atkins
More talking from Mr. Ly. He was subdued this time, talking low and quiet, shaking his head and giving an elegant shrug. I understood the shrug.
“They say she ran away,” the translator said. “Because she had packed her things and taken a travel bag.”
“Ah,” I said.
Mattie cut her eyes over at me and nodded. She didn’t take notes this time. Maybe it was the office setting that inspired the note-taking. Or maybe it was in response to Rita’s professionalism.
“Did she say anything about the Bahamas?” Mattie said.
Mr. Ly shrugged again. He gave a very short answer.
“He says Carly didn’t like to talk to him,” the young woman said. “She kept many things to herself.”
Mattie asked whom Mr. Ly had spoken to at the police department. He nodded, stood up, and disappeared into the kitchen. The restaurant smelled very good, of Asian spices and fresh herbs. If I hadn’t eaten a pile of sandwiches on the way over, I would’ve ordered a nice banh mi.
“He has a card,” the translator said. “He and Carly never got along. She hated working at the restaurant. But she didn’t have the choice.”
“Did you know her very well?” I said.
“Of course,” the woman said. “I’m her older sister, Lilly. And before you ask, she didn’t tell me much, either. All Carly wanted to do was get far away from here and start her own life. The more she protested, the more my father asked of her. I think working for this Steiner man was her way out.”
Mattie was chewing gum. She was thinking hard about something, waiting to ask her next question. She was impatient—however, properly aggressive.
“Is this like Carly?” Mattie said. “To just leave?”
“Very much,” Lilly Ly said. “Very much.”
“Without calling?” I said.
She nodded. Mr. Ly returned from the kitchen with a business card from a Revere Police Department patrol officer. It appeared no one had thought to send out an actual detective to investigate.
“Did she ever tell you about Peter Steiner?” Mattie said.
“Why?” Lilly said.
“Well,” Mattie said. “Let’s say he is a person of interest.”
Lilly swallowed and nodded. Her father said something to her in Vietnamese, and she got up and went to the window to check on the customers. While she was gone, we were all silent. Mr. Ly sat quiet and still, looking out the window at the rain until his daughter returned.
“I believe she was in love with him,” Lilly said.
No one said anything. Mattie was getting better about listening, especially when she was on to something important.
“She talked about this Steiner man a lot,” Lilly said. “She told me he was very rich and very handsome. She said he was witty and clever and smelled very nice.”
“The same has been said of me,” I said.
Mattie kicked me under the table.
“Could she be with him?” Lilly Ly said. “Is that what you think?”
I nodded. Mattie nodded.
“She’s only fifteen,” Lilly said. “She has no experience with men. She has little experience outside Revere. Our mother is dead, and our entire life has been this restaurant. If she’s safe and you find her, would you have her please call home?”
We promised.
Mr. Ly started talking again, very rapid and with a lot of intensity. We listened although Mattie and I had no idea what was being said. When he finished, he smacked his hand against the table in exclamation, stood, and walked back to the kitchen.
“I’m sorry,” Lilly said.
“For what?” I said.
“For what he said.”
“What exactly did he say?” Mattie said.
“He believes Mr. Spenser is a policeman,” she said. “And he does not like policemen. Or trust them. He had many bad experiences back in Vietnam.”
Mattie worked over her gum. A woman walked into the restaurant carrying a plastic bag over her head but still soaked from the rain. Mr. Ly brought her neatly packed bags of takeout and rang her up.
“I would like some pictures of Carly,” Mattie said.
Lilly nodded.
“And would you show me where she lived?” Mattie said. “Her bedroom?”
Lilly pointed back to the kitchen. “We have a living space behind the restaurant. Give me a moment and I will take you.”
I thanked Lilly as she walked up to her father. They looked to be having a serious debate about the request.
“She’s on the island,” Mattie said.
“The worst being a best-case scenario.”
My cell began to pulse in my pocket. I checked the screen, the call coming from a Boston number I didn’t immediately recognize. I took it anyway.
“Goddamn it, Spenser.”
“My father used to call me that,” I said.
“They showed up,” a woman said. “They fucking showed up at my studio and knew we’d talked. They knew everything. I can’t have this. Bri can’t have this. Don’t you ever fucking call me again.”
“Grace?” I said.
“Damn right it’s Grace,” she said. “They said they know where Bri lives, too. I will never speak to you again. And forget about Bri. She’s scared shitless.”
“Did they threaten you?” I said.
The line went dead. I looked up at Mattie.
“Check the girl’s room,” I said. “I’ll be in the car. I have to make some calls.”
I walked up to the register, where Mr. Ly eyed me from a barstool. I asked him for a cup of coffee to go. As I waited, a golden Lucky Cat smiled as it raised its paw up and down in a show of peace and friendship.
I thanked Mr. Ly. He said nothing.
I ran out into the rain and back to the Land Cruiser. I left word with Henry to have Hawk meet me at Grace Bennett’s in the Seaport.
38
Grace Bennett was so thrilled to see me, she tried to slam her big industrial door in my face.
Always prepared, I stuck a Red Wing steel-toed boot in the frame to stop it.
“Hero’s welcome,” Hawk said.
I tried to talk sense and logic through the door, with little success. Grace threatened to call the cops if I didn’t leave. I looked to Hawk and shrugged.
“Man,” Hawk said. “She do love you.”
“Who’s that with you?” Grace said.
“Woody Strode,” I said.
Hawk grinned. I winked at him. He’d always admired Woody Strode.
“What do you want?” she said.
“I want to know who threatened you.”
“What does it matter?”
“Because my friend Woody and I are prepared to stop them.”
Hawk began to whistle “You’ve Got a Friend in Me.”
I looked to him. “Really?”
Hawk shrugged again. The door slowly rolled back. Grace Bennett was wearing short navy shorts and a V-neck white T-shirt. Her curly hair pulled back into a loose ponytail. Her chest sweating with a light sheen.
Hawk stepped up. “Well, well, well.”
“Who are you?” she said, looking up at him.
“Let us in, babe,” Hawk said. “I’d be happy to tell you all about myself.”
Grace walked away but left the door wide open. We stepped into her warehouse apartment and studio. A radio played some classical music from somewhere in the open space. If I’d been a much more cultured man, I might have named that tune.
“Rachmaninoff,” Hawk said.
“I was just about to say that.”
“Mm-hm,” Hawk said. He moved on into her studio as if he’d been invited. He found one of her larger paintings and studied it for a while. He had yet to remove his sunglasses and stood as still as a mountain, taking it all in.
“He doesn’t look like an art lover,” Grace said.
“Maybe,” Hawk said. “But I know you dig you some Préfète Duffaut.”
Grace moved up closer to talk, standing a good head shorter than Hawk. She looked him up and down. Hawk was wearing a tight black T-shirt, form-fitting black pants, and cowboy boots. He was looking decidedly Hawkish today.
“Who the hell are you?” she said.
“The man of your damn dreams.”
Grace began to smile. She had a very nice smile.
I stood by her open kitchen area and leaned against the counter, feeling like a stranger in a strange land. I took off my ball cap and shook the rain off the brim. “What did they tell you, Grace?”
Grace looked over to me and then back at Hawk. Hawk hadn’t moved, still staring at her big painting of a colorful city of little shacks, palm trees, and a wide starry sky. I could spot the Caribbean influence and some religious themes, but that was all I had.
“Only one man,” she said. “And he threatened to kill me.”
“He say anything else?” I said.
“He gave me the address where my mother and Bri live in Roxbury,” he said. “Told me to let sleeping dogs lie.”
“Poetic,” I said.
Hawk stepped away from admiring the art and glided over to where we stood. Like everything Hawk did, the move was effortless and smooth. The muscles in his big arms shiny with rainwater, looking contained and ready at any moment.
“You promised to keep this between us,” Grace said.
“I did.”
“You promised everything I said was confidential.”
“It was.”
“Then how the hell did they know?”
I shook my head. I leaned against the granite counter. The rain intensifying outside, falling hard on her windows and down onto the street between the two warehouses. I played with the hat in my hand for lack of an answer.
“I pulled open the door,” she said. “The man grabbed me by the throat and put a gun to my head. He walked me back here and made me kneel on the ground as he told me what would happen to my entire family. How does that sound to you?”
“Did he say who sent him?” I said.
“We both know goddamn well who sent him,” she said.
“Did he say anything about me?” I said.
Grace swallowed. She looked to me and Hawk and then slowly shook her head. “I told you everything he said. He threatened me and then left.”
I nodded.
“Miami Blues,” Hawk said.
Something about the efficient and direct threat reminded me of someone I knew all too well. Hawk stood close by, hands resting on his hips. I could hear him breathing, smooth and cool, waiting for the answer.
“He was a white man,” she said.
“Always fucking things up,” Hawk said.
“About y’all’s age,” she said. “He was dressed in gray.”
I glanced to Hawk. Behind the sunglasses, he was still and impassive. It didn’t even appear he was breathing.
“All gray,” she said. “Suit was gray, shirt was gray, tie was gray.”
“Notice anything else?” I said.
“Face had a weird look to it,” she said. “Reminded me of a dead man. Like he wasn’t getting the right circulation. And he had a ruby stud in his left ear.”
Hawk didn’t say a word. I looked at him again. We both knew but neither of us were about to say it.
“You look like that’s someone you know,” Grace said.
I nodded.
“Will he do as he says?” she said.
I nodded again.
“Who is he?”
“A man who almost killed me,” I said. “But I had other plans.”
Hawk took off his sunglasses and tucked them into the neck of his shirt. He gave me a long, hard look. “I thought you and Ruger had an understanding.”
“Me, too.”
“That man not like you and me,” Hawk said. “Man like Ruger doesn’t have a code to live by.”
“Certainly seems that way,” I said.
Hawk looked over at Grace and smiled. Susan said Hawk’s smile could turn most women’s knees to jelly. Grace looked a bit unstable as she smiled back. Hawk turned to me. “If it is him,” Hawk said. “This time, you’re gonna have to finish it.”
I nodded again.
“Ain’t no other way, babe.”
39
“We can offer Grace Bennett protection,” Quirk said. “And I will personally reach out to the police in Revere about this missing kid. Jesus, Spenser. Anything else we can do for you?”
“I put on a pork roast this morning,” I said. “Could you send over a prowl car to check on it?”
Quirk didn’t respond. I stood at the open door of his office, with Captain Glass and Detective Lee Farrell seated close to his desk. Farrell had been recently reassigned to Sex Crimes. He was a slender man of medium height with blondish receding hair and a neatly trimmed mustache. I’d known him a long time.
“I’d like to interview Bennett and her sister,” Farrell said. “And all these kids Mattie has rounded up. She’s good.”
“Tenacious,” I said. “She’s tenacious.”
“And she wants to be a cop,” Glass said.
Quirk raised his eyebrows and offered a look of approval from behind his desk. “No kidding,” he said. “Tell her to come talk to me sometime. Her IQ can only improve the sooner she shakes working for Spenser.”
Glass grinned. Farrell, being a true friend, did not.
“What else do you have?” Quirk said.
I told him about the Gray Man.
“You sure?” Quirk said.
“Uh-huh.”
“Have you told Susan?” Farrell said.
“Nope.”
“Christ,” Quirk said.
“Who’s the fucking Gray Man?” Glass said.
Quirk gave her the CliffsNotes version. “Some weirdo assassin that has a hard-on for Spenser,” he said. “Shot Spenser in the back on the Weeks Bridge. Spenser fell into the river and nearly died.”
“Terrific,” Glass said. “You think he’s on the payroll of the security company?”
“I’ve never known his real name,” I said. “Or his nationality. But what I’ve gathered, he’s exactly the type they like to employ. Peter Steiner and Poppy Palmer know I’ve been making inquiries, and they’re not comfortable with anyone they can’t threaten or bribe.”
“I tried to find the old case file at the DA’s office,” Glass said. “You’ll be shocked to know it disappeared.”
“What about our records?” Quirk said.
“Not a trace,” Glass said.
“Christ,” Quirk said. He got up from his desk and walked to his window, fingering open the blinds and looking out into the parking lot. “No reason we can’t nail this pervert and let Rita Fiore sue his balls off at the same time.”
“Exactly what I was thinking,” I said.
“And Poppy Palmer?” Farrell said. “What about her?”
“Rita’s suing her, too.”
“She’s the roper?” he said. “She procures the girls.”
“She’s assaults them, too,” I said. “They work as a team.”
“That’s a new one,” Farrell said. “A man and a woman pedophile team. Might be something Susan could figure out.”
“It might take all the shrinks in Harvard to make sense of those two.”
“Thank God that’s not our job,” Quirk said. “I don’t give a damn about Steiner’s money or his motivation. Or who the fuck he spends time with on the links. I want these sickos locked up.”
Quirk was a man of great clarity. Farrell and Glass stood, and she walked past me out the door.
“Sorry about Pearl,” Farrell s
aid.
I nodded.
“How’s the new pup?” he said.
“Even more,” I said. “Stop by and meet her sometime.”
Farrell shook my hand and left. Quirk and I were alone. He looked up at me from his desk, his bricklayer hands folded before him. “Close the door.”
I did.
“Sit.”
I sat.
“This isn’t a fucking joke,” he said. “Or a goddamn game. You need to warn Susan.”
“I will.”
“She needs to know this fruit case is back,” Quirk said. “We can send some guys to watch her, too.”
I nodded.
“And don’t you dare quote me on this, Spenser,” Quirk said, lifting his eyes to me. “But if that nut job comes for you, you got to put him down fast. All that chivalry and knighthood bullshit doesn’t mean jack squat.”
I nodded. “Hawk agrees with you.”
“Me and Hawk in agreement?” Quirk said. “What’s the world coming to?”
40
I brought a pizza and flowers to Susan. And a basted bone to Pearl. Her chewing had grown worse, two antique chairs recently falling prey to her sharp little teeth.
“You certainly know the way to a girl’s heart.”
“I had a hard time deciding on the beef knuckle or the ham bone.”
Susan swatted me on the nose with the summer bouquet. I marched the pizza upstairs to her kitchen, Pearl sniffing and following behind me. I placed the pizza box in the oven and unwrapped the ham bone for Pearl.
Pearl snatched it up and marched away with it in her mouth as if just receiving an Oscar.
I turned on the oven, found a bottle of Ipswich in the refrigerator and a bottle of Chianti in the pantry. I opened the wine, poured a glass, and cracked open my beer off the edge of the counter.
Susan was still dressed for work in her shrinking outfit. A black silk jumpsuit with tall black heels. She pulled out her earrings and kicked off her heels, snatching up the wineglass.
“Long day.”
“The last client was especially trying,” she said.
“It’s funny,” I said. “I can talk to you about my work. But you can’t talk to me about yours.”