by Ace Atkins
“Spenser,” Ruger said. He made a motion, cigar in hand, of saluting me.
“Glad to know you’re a man of his word.”
“All is fair in love and war,” Ruger said.
“And you understand who you are protecting and what he does to children?” I said.
Ruger just drew on the cigar, legs crossed, his soft, lazy gray eyes on mine. Something about him had changed. He looked skinnier and even more gray, like a man who’d been locked away for a very long time and had just experienced daylight again.
“Always knew I’d have to kill your ass,” Hawk said.
Ruger’s cheek twitched again. He sat still and quiet.
“If you’re going to threaten me,” Ruger said, “how about you try to speak like a white man.”
“Wow,” I said. “So many reasons to hate this guy.”
“Long list,” Hawk said.
“Two assholes for the price of one.”
“Hot damn.”
We walked out of the Blackstone Club, passing T. W. Shaw and the bald guy I’d locked in the closet. No one offered to hold the door.
Some club.
43
That afternoon, Pearl was a welcome diversion from time ill spent with Peter Steiner and the Gray Man.
I sat alone in my darkened office, slumped into one of my client chairs and tossing a tennis ball into the empty anteroom over and over. Pearl and I made a great team, a resounding thud, thud rhythm like McQueen got going while stuck in the POW cooler. Pearl would catch the ball on the second bounce off the wall. Her hunting and retrieving instincts as deeply ingrained as mine to snoop and eat.
I tossed the ball through my office door to the outer door again, the repetition helping me unwind and focus, to practice what Susan called non-emotional, tactical thinking. I mulled over how to tactically eliminate the Gray Man from the equation and deliver the goods on Steiner.
On what I guessed to be my fiftieth throw, Pearl figured she’d had enough and bypassed me for the couch. She jumped up onto the cushions and began to work out the ball with her tiny teeth.
“Any ideas?” I said.
Pearl continued to chew.
“They won’t hesitate,” I said. “It will be quick and unexpected.”
Pearl chewed hard enough that the ball squeaked. The squeak seemed to surprise her, stopping her chewing, and then she resumed the activity with a squeak every few seconds.
“Lee Farrell is a great cop,” I said. “But his work might take months.”
Squeak. Squeak.
“We don’t have months,” I said. “These young women need to be heard. Carly Ly needs to be found. Investigations, civil suits, the Feds. Too much time.”
Squeak.
“It’s not what you look at,” I said. “It’s what you see.”
Pearl continued to chew but stopped momentarily to stare. Her skinny tail wagging back and forth. She looked content lying on her belly with her back legs spread out and her front paws holding the ball.
“I have to draw them out,” I said. “And the only way to do that is to keep annoying Steiner. Fortunately, being annoying is my skill set.”
Pearl dropped the ball, and it bounced onto the floor. She looked up at me with her brown eyes and yipped. She wanted me to retrieve it for her.
“We know Ruger will come for me,” I said. “It’s the waiting. Waiting is such hell.”
I reached down and grabbed the ball. She snatched it from my hand and started to squeak with even more fervor. I rubbed her back and her ears and thought about what Susan had said, about not saddling her with a puppy.
Pearl looked up at me, panting, with an immediate and familiar stare. I knew that look, had known it since I was a kid in Wyoming to that time I’d been ambushed in the woods by Gerry Broz and his men in Stockbridge. We’d been through much together.
“Me and you,” I said. “Always.”
I heard Mattie’s familiar triple knock on the door. Pearl jumped off my lap and bounded through my office and into the anteroom.
“I heard voices,” Mattie said.
“I was talking to Pearl.”
“Did she talk back?”
“Not yet.”
“Oh, thank God,” Mattie said.
I asked her to sit, and she did so in my chair. Mattie Sullivan looked completely at home with her Chuck Taylors kicked up at the edge of my desk.
“It’s a good idea for you to stay away for a few days,” I said.
I told her about Hawk and me meeting with Peter Steiner and his surprise very special guest. Mattie listened and for once didn’t speak until I was done.
“Nope.”
“They’ll kill me and you without giving it a second thought,” I said. “When this is settled, we can go back to our agreement. Okay?”
“Nope,” Mattie said again.
“This man doesn’t care about you,” I said. “He’s been paid to get rid of me.”
Pearl brought Mattie her ball. Mattie tossed it into the other room, but it didn’t have the elegant double bounce I’d perfected.
“Ever hear that discretion is the better part of valor?” I said.
“Is that an old saying where you come from?”
I nodded.
“We have an old saying in Southie, too,” Mattie said. “And Peter Steiner and Poppy Palmer can go royally fuck themselves.”
“Would you consider staying with Susan until things are settled?”
“I dunno,” she said. “Maybe.”
“She might need a little help with Pearl.”
“Planning on going somewhere?”
I walked over to the right-hand drawer of my desk for the .357 and a box of ammo. “Not a chance.”
44
Two days later, Mattie and I waited on the narrow front porch of a sagging duplex facing Blue Hill Ave in Roxbury. Grace Bennett’s little sister had finally agreed to meet with us.
I’d picked up Mattie at Susan’s that morning and was looking sharp and polished in a black polo, crisp khakis, and dark suede desert boots. I’d dusted off my Braves cap and gargled twice. But Grace and Bri’s mother wasn’t taken by my looks and charm. When she’d opened the door, she’d promptly closed it, and it took a full five minutes before Bri let us inside.
“She doesn’t want me to talk about any of this,” Bri said. “Ever.”
The air inside the duplex was nearly as warm as outside, smelling of rich spices and cooking onions. Bri resembled her older sister, just as pretty, but a little shorter and heavier. She had on a long linen blouse with extra-wide sleeves that looked like wings when she stretched out her arms.
“You’re the girl who started this up again,” Bri said. “Right?”
Mattie looked to me. For the first time, she appeared to be at a loss for words. Her freckled face colored a bit.
“My friend’s little sister,” Mattie said. “Steiner tried something on her and took something that wasn’t his. We got it back, and she told me about the other girls.”
“A lot of girls,” Bri said. “So many of them.”
“Too many,” I said. “We’ve nearly lost count.”
She invited us to sit down in their small living room. The mother was back in the kitchen, rattling lots of pots and pans. Just in case we got too comfortable.
I recognized two of Grace’s paintings on the wall, big, bold tropical landscapes and religious allegory, along with many framed family photos and diplomas and two tall bookshelves stocked with old paperbacks. The television was playing a soap opera without sound, a man and a woman in a heated discussion in the lobby of a hospital. The woman slapped the man hard across the face.
“My mother thinks I should be quiet,” Bri said. “Keep the worst of it to myself.”
“And what do you think?” I said.
&nb
sp; Mattie nodded across from me, her lanky arms draped over her knees. She borrowed one of Susan’s fancy tank tops, black with some embroidery, and a pair of jeans. She’d ditched the ball cap but still had on her Chucks, chewing gum while Bri spoke.
“I think that way of thinking nearly destroyed me,” Bri said. “My mother blames herself. She believed in Peter Steiner, too. She fell for his flattery and all his talk about loving Jamaica. He talked about old ska music he listened to and knew a lot about politics back home. The PNP vs. the JLP and all that. He’s very charming. She thought he could help our family.”
“Maybe I should tell her I own a nice collection of original Toots and the Maytals records.”
“Tell her you can get me into Harvard, and she might listen,” Bri said.
“My girlfriend went to Harvard,” I said. “Does that count for something?”
Bri smiled. She had a very pretty smile and lovely hair woven into cornrows. Her skin was a light copper, and she had golden-colored eyes.
“Your sister said you’d been on his island,” Mattie said.
Mattie reminded me of Frank Belson. His idea of a polite interview was not blowing smoke in his subject’s face. Subtlety and smoothness weren’t part of Mattie’s process.
“Yes,” Bri said. “Many times. I was on the island maybe three, four times before I even told Grace. It’s a pretty amazing place. I never knew you could own an entire island. But that’s Peter Steiner. There was one big main house topped with a blue dome, like a mosque, and several little cottages across the estate. He had a saltwater pool made of mosaic tile and a private lagoon. We would fly into Nassau and then take a boat to the island. It was about an hour away.”
“And what did you see?” Mattie said.
I motioned my head back toward the kitchen, where it sounded like Mrs. Bennett was kicking a very large can down the road. The heavyset woman, in an ankle-length dress, blue, with tropical flowers, looked through the kitchen doorway. I smiled at her, and she quickly disappeared.
“Don’t worry,” Bri said. “My mother knows everything. She’s been to therapy with me and had to hear the worst of it.”
Mattie spread her feet out and rested her elbows on her thighs. She looked a bit like Carlton Fisk ready to give me a signal for a slider. I waited for the sign but received none.
“Mr. Steiner had a private plane,” she said. “He flew me and two other girls from Boston there. It was supposed to be a strategy session for our future. He and Poppy said we’d meet some of the brightest and most influential minds in the world.”
“And did you?” I said.
“We met a lot of creepy old men,” she said. “The first time I had no idea what to expect.”
“And the next times?”
“He told me he’d punish Grace,” she said. “If I told anyone about what I’d seen. Or, later, what I’d done.”
I felt all the air escape my chest. Mattie clenched her teeth, her face turning a deeper shade of red. It was a little like attending a sex education course with your daughter.
“Did he assault you?” Mattie said.
“On the first trip, he crawled into bed with me,” Bri said. “He told me that I reminded him of his sister. He said he only wanted to cuddle, but I knew what he was trying to do. And I knew it was wrong. I got away from him and stayed away from him the whole time. I took long walks and tried to stay around the help. On the flight back from the Bahamas and then Miami, Poppy wouldn’t speak to me. She told me I’d hurt his feelings and humiliated Peter.”
“What did you see on the island?” I said.
“Sex,” she said.
“Just out in the open?” I said. “Like National Geographic?”
“By the pool, in the pool, and in cabanas on the beach,” she said. “There were a dozen or so girls there. Most of them didn’t speak English.”
“Where were they from?” Mattie said.
“They were mostly Eastern European,” Bri said. “I don’t know from where or how old they were. But they looked very, very young. Even to me, at that age, I knew they were just kids. It’s really hard to explain how Peter and Poppy made me feel. They made me feel important but disposable at the same time. I thought if I didn’t do this, if I didn’t act like I was older than I really was, I’d hurt my sister and my family. So I put on the makeup, the sexy clothes, the bikinis. I laughed at their jokes and did everything Poppy told me to do. I told myself this wasn’t forever. This was just something to get ahead.”
A large clanging came from the back of the kitchen. And then a steady string of curse words. Mother Bennett wasn’t pleased with the direction of the conversation.
“Poppy heard me singing once and told me I had a lovely voice,” she said. “She told me that I could be the next Rihanna and she knew people who could make it happen. I believed it. I believed all of it.”
“A promoter once told me I had a bright future as a boxer.”
“And what happened?” Bri said.
“He dropped me after my first loss.”
Mattie glanced over at me. “I thought you said you were undefeated?”
“Only spiritually,” I said.
“Did young women live there or just visit?” Mattie said.
“Both,” she said. “Why?”
Mattie told her about Carly Ly and that she’d been missing for several weeks.
“Sounds like the kind of girl Peter and Poppy would groom,” she said. “They knew the ambition of immigrant parents. I’m sure he promised her the world. My mother didn’t know any better. My father was alive back then. My father even dropped me off at Peter’s home. Poppy would greet him and speak with him like an old friend. She gave everyone the feeling of respectability, like she would be a chaperone.”
“How did you finally get away from them?” I said.
“Grace,” she said. “When Grace found out, she went after them. She made me promise to never see them again. She told me how dangerous they were and made me go with her to the police. But none of that mattered. No one cared about two girls from Roxbury. I hate to say this, Mr. Spenser, but you’re both wasting your time. Do you know how connected this guy is?”
I shrugged. Mattie shrugged.
“Don’t care?” she said.
“Nope,” Mattie and I said at the same time. I tipped my hat to Mattie.
“Poppy told me I was a special girl,” Bri said. “An exotic flower from the Caribbean. She paid me extra when I performed special massages on her friends. She said it was all normal and natural. I was only fourteen. I thought this was how adults acted.”
“Do you remember names of those special friends?” I said.
“Some,” she said. “Most all of that time is a complete blur.”
She gave us a few names I didn’t know, but one I recognized from many stories in The Globe. A recent U.S. senator who had been mentioned as a possible presidential candidate. The politician was often shown in the company of his wife discussing family values and his tough stance against crime. Bri Bennett’s explanation of her duties to the senator seemed contrary to both.
“Nobody will ever let us talk,” she said. “Too many people in the government and the police will stop it. They did this to us before and will do it again. I’ve come to the place where I can forgive people and make amends for my own decisions.”
“You were a kid,” Mattie said.
“I’m not a kid now,” she said. “Spending time with hate, waiting for revenge, is no way to live. I understand that now. Peter Steiner has too much money and power.”
“It’s different now,” I said. “I promise you’ll be heard.”
“I don’t know.”
“If you don’t,” Mattie said, “he’ll just keep on doing it. They kick out the old girls and bring in new ones. You can help them. Stop this sick bastard.”
Bri lo
oked back at the kitchen. Her mother stood there in her tropical frock, hands on her hips. The older woman looked to Bri and nodded. Bri nodded back.
“Okay,” she said. “I’ll do it.”
45
I spotted a crew from Cerberus the following night.
Susan and I had just left Henrietta’s Table inside the Charles Hotel and were walking back to Harvard Square. I was extolling the many virtues of their Yankee pot roast while still lamenting the loss of Rialto. Susan and I both very much missed our after-dinner conversations with Chef Jody Adams.
“Is there a game afoot?” Susan said.
“Perhaps.”
“Someone following us?”
“Two men,” I said. “One followed us from the Charles. The other joined him at the bus stop. They’re both following us now.”
“Are you sure?”
“Does a one-legged duck swim in circles?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “I don’t know any one-legged ducks.”
We passed Charlie’s Kitchen and walked on toward Brattle Square. A classical trio had set up by the T station, students playing a violin, a cello, and an electric keyboard. The music was lively and feverish and added much to the pursuit.
“I’ve never beaten anyone up to Mozart,” I said.
“Is that what you plan to do?”
“I would like you to walk into the Coop and order us two coffees,” I said. “I will join you in just a moment.”
“I’d rather not leave you.”
“If they wanted to shoot me, it wouldn’t be in plain sight on the Harvard Square,” I said. “I promise.”
“Then what are they doing?”
“Keeping tabs,” I said. “And reporting in.”
“And you want to give them a little reminder before they do so?”
“Probably.”
“As a trained therapist, might I suggest joint counseling?”
“You may.”
Susan had her arm hooked in mine, both of us strolling and window shopping. We took our time, making our way to the Coop. We stopped in front of the Ray-Ban store and Rebekah Brooks jewelry. Susan admired an antique pearl necklace on display. We continued on past the Beat Hotel and then the Coop, where we parted ways. I kissed her on the cheek as if we were saying good night, and I continued down Brattle Street toward the T station. I took my time, stopping off at the newsstand and catching a glimpse of one of the men following me.