“So far,” Hawk said. “But he lucky, and he good. No way a pro like Rugar going to choose that kind of a setup to kidnap somebody.”
“Somebody chose it,” I said.
“Maybe it’s something else, and the kidnapping is a head fake,” Hawk said.
“What something else would it be?”
“How many people got killed?”
“Six by Rugar,” I said. “One by me.”
“Maybe that be the plan,” Hawk said.
“A murder disguised as a kidnapping?” I said.
“Like you haven’t thought of what I’m saying.”
“I have,” I said. “I’m just being devil’s advocate.”
“Nobody better,” Hawk said.
“It’s still awful amateurish,” I said. “I can’t see Rugar doing it that way.”
“You saw him do it,” Hawk said. “And seven people died, counting the one you killed. That’s what we got for facts.”
“And if it’s not a kidnapping,” I said, “then maybe we can start thinking of this as a murder case and start looking for motive.”
“We don’t have to decide,” Hawk said. “We can look into all possibilities.”
“Probably can exclude the guy that went over the cliff,” I said.
“We know the motive there,” Hawk said. “And we can at least drop the security guys to the bottom of the list.”
“It’s not quite a fact,” I said. “But it’s a pretty good bet that the thing was an inside job.”
“And it a pretty good bet that somebody knew how to get hold of Rugar.”
“So it might be smart to look for a guy who knew the island, and might have a connection to Rugar,” I said.
“Got anybody in mind?”
“It’s not much, but Bradshaw knows the island, he used to own it, and he has worked overseas for the government.”
“Doing what?” Hawk said.
“Information officer,” I said.
“Things are not,” Hawk said, “always as they seem.”
“True,” I said.
“So we look into Bradshaw, and we also see if we can find someone who would want to kill the minister or the groom,” Hawk said.
“Still a big order for a two-man unit,” I said.
“Yeah, but the two men,” Hawk said, “be us.”
29
Hawk and I met Ives at the bar in the Seaport Hotel on a Friday night. The hotel was an easy walk from the federal court-house, where Ives had a desk. He was sandy-haired and tweedy, with a blue oxford shirt and a red-stripe tie.
“Ah, Lochinvar,” Ives said, “and his raptor friend.”
“How about the end of the bar,” I said.
We sat on the first three bar stools, Ives between me and Hawk. “I assume you are seeking information,” Ives said, “to which you have no legal right, and for which you have no clearance.”
“Exactly,” I said.
“And you are planning to pay for the drinks.”
“I am,” I said.
Ives smiled and ordered Johnnie Walker Blue on the rocks. I had the same thing with soda. Hawk ordered champagne.
“We don’t sell Krug by the glass, sir,” the bartender said. “I can give you a list of what we do serve.”
“I’ll have a bottle,” Hawk said.
“I assume you wish to discuss our mutual friend the Gray Man,” Ives said.
“You know what I’m involved in?”
“Tashtego,” Ives said.
“Pretty good,” I said.
“I’m a listener,” Ives said. “It is my profession.”
“He still working with you guys?”
“Mr. Gray has joined the private sector.”
“No more money from his uncle?” I said.
“Not to my knowledge.”
“So who pays him now?” I said.
“I don’t know,” Ives said.
“Can you find out?” I said.
Ives smiled and sipped some scotch.
“Probably,” he said.
“Have any idea what he’s been doing recently?”
“Other than Tashtego? No.”
“Can you find that out?” I said.
“Probably,” he said.
Hawk was silently drinking champagne, alert to every movement of a young woman in a tight black dress at the end of the bar. You could never be sure where danger lay. I had typed up a list of salient people in the Tashtego affair. I took the list from my inside pocket and placed it in front of Ives on the bar.
“Recognize any of the names?” I said.
Ives took some glasses from his breast pocket and studied the list.
“There are several names anyone would know,” he said after a time. “Reubens, for instance. Everyone who loves music knows who he is. The Lessards are prominent residents of the Main Line. Of course, Peter Van Meer right here in Boston. Great wealth.”
“You know what I’m after,” I said. “Anyone who had a connection to Tashtego and would have the wherewithal to hire Rugar.”
“Bradshaw,” Ives said.
“What about him?”
“Government employee,” Ives said.
“Information adviser, I’m told.”
Ives smiled.
“Aren’t we all,” he said.
“He with you guys?”
Ives didn’t answer.
“What can you tell me about him?” I said.
“Nothing,” Ives said.
“If you were me,” I said, “would you look into him?”
“Yes,” Ives said.
“Anyplace you’d start?”
Ives shrugged. He finished his scotch, put the glass on the bar, and stood.
“That’s it?” I said. “That’s what I get for buying you Johnnie Walker Blue?”
“It’s a lot for one shot of scotch,” Ives said.
“Do you know how much the stuff costs?” I said.
Ives shrugged slightly and walked out of the bar.
Still looking at the woman in the black dress, Hawk said, “Bradshaw.”
“You were listening.”
“Sort of,” Hawk said. “Babe in the black dress might be a security risk.”
“You think we should frisk her?”
“We? I was thinking I frisk her while you fight the boyfriend.”
I looked down the bar. The woman in the black dress was sitting with an outsized young man jammed into an expensive suit, who looked, by himself, like an offensive line.
“Good deal for me,” I said.
“I could fight the boyfriend and you could frisk her,” Hawk said. “But what’s she get out of that?”
“Her loss,” I said.
Hawk nodded.
“What you gonna do ’bout Bradshaw?” he said.
“I think I’ll look into him,” I said.
“’Stead of fighting the boyfriend?”
“Yeah.”
Hawk shook his head sadly.
“All work and no play . . .” he said.
30
We were walking up the mall in the center of Commonwealth Ave toward Kenmore.
“You see them?” Hawk said.
“Black Caddie?” I said. “Double-parked just past Dartmouth Street. Outbound side?”
“And?” Hawk said.
“Gray Ford double-parked just this side of Exeter, in-bound side?”
“Whaddya think,” Hawk said.
“Could be nothing,” I said.
“Or it could be something,” Hawk said.
“We probably need to decide,” I said, “before we get between them.”
“Be my guess,” Hawk said.
The cross streets were alphabetical: Arlington, Berkeley, and so on. We were at the corner of Clarendon.
“If they don’t plan to shoot us, we look foolish taking evasive action.”
“True,” Hawk said.
“But,” I said. “Say they do want to shoot us.”
“We don’t want to encourage
that,” Hawk said.
“You know my motto,” I said. “Better to take needless evasive action, at the risk of looking foolish, than not to, and look dead.”
“That your motto?”
“I’m having it printed on my business cards,” I said.
“We can turn the wrong way onto Dartmouth, and probably shake them in the alleys,” Hawk said.
“But then we won’t know who they were,” I said. “Or if they were anybody.”
“If they anybody, we know where they come from,” Hawk said.
We had stopped walking and sat on a bench in the mall like a couple of tourists resting their feet. Neither of the cars moved.
“If they’re Rugar,” I said. “They won’t care about you. They’ll be after me.”
“You right,” Hawk said. “Maybe I just mosey on home.”
“Maybe you just mosey on up Clarendon to the alley, and you run lickety-split up the alley and back down Exeter.”
“Lickety-split,” Hawk said.
“And I’ll stroll languidly along toward Dartmouth, and if we time it right . . .”
“We’ll time it right,” Hawk said.
I nodded.
“We can end up with you behind the Exeter Street guys on that side. And I’m behind the Dartmouth Street guys on this side.”
“They expecting to catch us between them,” Hawk said, “and we catching them between us.”
“Rugar won’t be one of them,” I said. “Even if he sent them.”
“Why not?”
“He would do it alone,” I said.
Hawk nodded.
“One question,” Hawk said. “We get them surrounded, then what?”
“Then we’ll see,” I said.
“You just a planning fool,” Hawk said.
31
We crossed Clarendon Street and paused, as if we were looking at the kids playing in the small park. Then for the benefit of the guys in the cars, Hawk shook hands with me. He turned up Clarendon toward Newbury Street. I gave him a little wave. As he passed the public alley halfway to Newbury, out of sight from either car, he turned down. I turned right and left the mall to walk along the sidewalk, past the little park, on the river side of Commonwealth. I tilted my head as if I were listening, and then took out my cell phone and stopped and flipped it open and pretended to answer it.
“‘’Twas brillig,’” I said into the dead phone, “‘And the slithy toves . . .’” I nodded. “‘Did gyre and gimble in the wabe . . .’” I nodded again and listened and nodded. “‘All mimsy,’” I said, “‘were the borogroves.’”
Then I closed the phone and put it back in my pocket. Hawk was quick. He should be about at Exeter Street by now. I began to saunter along toward the Ford. I could feel the weight of my Browning on my right hip. There were fourteen rounds in the magazine, and one in the chamber. On each side of Commonwealth there was a march of brick and brownstone town houses. Most had small yards with shrubs. Halfway up the block toward Dartmouth I paused, staring, as if I’d seen something on the front walk of a town house. I stepped in and crouched down for a closer look, and as I did so, shielded by a shrub, I took the Browning off my hip and cocked it. Then I stood, with the gun against my right thigh, concealed in the skirt of my topcoat, and continued toward Dartmouth. It was getting dark. But in the streetlight at the corner of Exeter, I saw Hawk appear. Just before I came up on the Ford, I could see two men get out of the Caddie a block up on the other side. My guys would wait until I passed. I could see the car windows were down. They might not get out. They might shoot me from the car. I was whistling “Midnight Sun” as I strolled along. Footloose in the Back Bay, looking for love and feeling groovy. As I got to the car, I took a fast shuffle sideways, and standing just behind the passenger window, I pointed my gun in the window and said, “Move and I’ll kill you.”
The guy on my side had a sawed-off shotgun in his lap. He was right-handed, and it was too awkward for him to point it back at me. Sadly, he tried anyway and I killed him. The driver slammed the car into reverse and spun his wheels. I jumped away and steadied my aim on him. He slammed the car into drive and spun his wheels, getting away from the curb. The smell of burnt rubber was strong. He careened up Commonwealth. I aimed carefully at the back of the car and didn’t shoot. There were other cars. There were people. I could probably hit the car, but I wouldn’t stop it without shooting him. Which, given the circumstance, was uncertain. He was no use to me dead anyway. One was enough. The car ran the red light at Dartmouth Street, and slammed a right and disappeared with the disapproving sound of horns beeping angrily behind him. I looked across Commonwealth at the corner of Dartmouth. The black Caddie was still there. Hawk was sitting on the hood. I didn’t see anyone else. I made a palms-up gesture at Hawk. Where are they? Hawk jerked a thumb toward the sidewalk on the other side of the car. I holstered my gun and walked across.
32
I sat with Quirk in an interrogation room in the new police headquarters, across the table from the two guys Hawk had collared. One had a big, rapidly discoloring bruise on his right cheekbone. The other guy had a bandage across his forehead. Hawk had apparently banged him face-first against the edge of the Cadillac roof. Beside them sat a smallish man with a lot of curly hair that stood straight out from his head. He had on a blue work shirt and a wrinkled sport coat in a small gray-green check.
“Hawk clean on this?” I said to Quirk.
Quirk grinned.
“Good Samaritan,” he said. “Saw what was going down and intervened. We’re crediting him with a citizen’s arrest.”
I nodded.
“They got a lawyer?” I said.
“Don’t seem to speak much English,” Quirk said. “Not sure they know they can have a lawyer.”
“Where they from?” I said.
“I don’t know, one of those stan countries in Central Asia,” Quirk said. “Boogaloo-stan, or something.”
I looked at the two guys. They were ordinary-looking guys. Both had dark hair. One had a beard touched with gray. He wasn’t that old. Whiskers always seem to be the first to go.
There was a knock and the interrogation-room door opened.
“Captain,” a woman said, “lawyer’s here for these two.”
A black man came into the room wearing a gray three-piece suit that looked vaguely as if it might have been made for him in Europe. His close-cut hair was gray. He wore gold-rimmed glasses and carried a briefcase.
“Lamar Dillard,” he said. “I represent these two gentlemen.”
“You’re not some guy from the pool,” Quirk said. “You cost money. Who hired you?”
“An interested third party,” Dillard said, “who I am under no obligation to name.”
Quirk nodded.
With Dillard was a small woman with smooth black hair worn long, and big, dark eyes. She wore a plain gray dress with a white collar, and low shoes that were probably comfortable.
“This is Ms. Glas,” Dillard said. “Ms. Glas will translate.”
“You know me,” Quirk said. “This is Spenser.”
Ms. Glas went to the two shooters and began to murmur softly to them in a language that didn’t sound familiar.
“Yes, Captain, I do know you,” Dillard said. “Is Mr. Spenser a police officer.”
“Mr. Spenser is the intended victim,” Quirk said.
“If there was a crime intended,” Dillard said.
“We know they were driving a stolen car with phony plates,” Quirk said. “We know they had concealed weapons for which they are not carrying any proof of licensing. They might even turn out to be undocumented aliens.”
Ms. Glas continued to speak softly to the undocumented aliens. They looked at Dillard and said something to Ms. Glas. She shook her head and spoke some more.
“And of which of these alleged crimes is Mr. Spenser the alleged victim?” Dillard said.
“They tried to kill him,” Quirk said.
“From their appearance, the opposite wo
uld seem the case,” Dillard said. “Ms. Glas, ask them if their injuries came from being mistreated by the police?”
She spoke. They answered.
“They say it is a black man who did that, on the street,” Ms. Glas said.
Dillard grimaced slightly.
He said to Quirk, “Could you excuse us, Captain. I think I need to speak to my clients alone.”
“We’ll be in my office,” Quirk said. “The officer can direct you.”
“I know where your office is, Captain,” Dillard said.
“Me, too,” Quirk said, and we went out of the room.
33
In Quirk’s office I said, “I don’t care about these guys. I want to know who hired them.”
“Yeah,” Quirk said. He poured two cups of coffee and set mine in front of me on the edge of his desk. “Plus, we get into a trial and we may need Hawk to testify . . .”
“And Dillard might be able to raise questions about his respect for the law?”
“Something like that,” Quirk said.
“Well, you have some bargaining chips,” I said. “Probably no papers, stolen car, fake plates, unlicensed guns.”
“Dillard may come up with papers,” Quirk said, “and a couple gun licenses.”
“What police chief in the state would issue a carry license to these two clowns?” I said.
Quirk looked at me silently.
“Oh,” I said, “chicanery.”
“There are towns in this great commonwealth,” Quirk said, “where you can buy a gun license, if you know the right name to whisper.”
“And Dillard would know the right names.”
“Works for Tony Marcus a lot,” Quirk said. “Hell, Ty-Bop’s got a gun license.”
“From where?”
“Some Podunk town out in western Mass,” Quirk said.
“Ty-Bop’s never been west of Brighton,” I said.
“I’m sure he hasn’t,” Quirk said. “Tony’s got a white lawyer, too, guy named Stackpole. Got a suit just like Dillard’s. Tony uses him for white specialty stuff.”
“You think Tony sent Dillard?”
“Whether he sent him or not, Tony knows he’s here,” Quirk said. “And he don’t disapprove.”
Rough Weather Page 9