Pastime

by Robert B. Parker

  "Kid's a loose cannon, Spenser. You know that. Look what almost happened."

  "That's why I badgered him," I said. "I know he's excitable, I thought something might pop out."

  "Two barrels full of size-four shot were about to pop out in your face,"

  Vinnie said.

  "If he got the shot off," I said.

  "Sure, sure," Vinnie said. "I know you're good." He nodded toward Hawk.

  "And I know he's good. But scattering fucking protoplasm around Rocco's isn't going to do anything for any of us."

  I shrugged. "I probably wouldn't push him so hard if I had it to do over," I said.

  Vinnie nodded. "You got to stay away from Gerry," he said. "Joe insists on it."

  "Can't promise anything, Vinnie. Except that I won't harass him for fun."

  "I insist too," Vinnie said.

  "I know."

  "This is about you too, Hawk," Vinnie said.

  "I sort of guessed that, Vinnie."

  "We still got some room here," Vinnie said. "But not very much. Joe's going to want to talk with you.

  "Sure," I said. "How about Monday morning?"

  "Come to the office about ten. Joe don't get in as early as he used to."

  "Fine," I said and put the coffee cup down on the bar.

  "I'll walk out with you," Vinnie said. "You never know about Gerry."

  CHAPTER 17

  LENOX is two hours west from Boston on the Mass Pike. Paul and I rode out in the afternoon with Pearl leaning against the backseat, staring out the side window, alert as always for any sign of the elusive Burger King. It doesn't take long on the Mass Pike to get away from the city and into what Massachusetts probably looked like in Squanto's day. Subtract a few houses here and there that back up to the turnpike west of Framingham, cancel out an occasional Roy Rogers or food fuel stops, and the landscape is mostly low hills and woods, punctuated often enough by bodies of water that looked very brisk under the blue autumn sky. The hilliness allowed for some variety to the trip, allowing as it did for mild scenic vistas as the highway crested one low rise and you could see it curving gently up another hill a mile and a half ahead. It wasn't Arcadia, but it wasn't the New Jersey Turnpike either. "She probably never should have had a kid," Paul said to me near Grafton.

  "Ever?" I said.

  He shrugged. "Who knows ever?" he said. "But she wasn't ready for one when

  I was born."

  "How old was she?"

  "Twenty. She got pregnant when she was nineteen and she married my father to have me. She was going to enter her junior year in college."

  "But she didn't," I said. "Because she had to stay home with the baby."

  "Yeah. She went down to Furman, my father played football there."

  "I know," I said.

  "And they lived in-what did they call them then? The on-campus housing?"

  "Probably still called them Vets Apartments then," I said.

  "Yes," Paul said. "That's right. When I was a little kid I used to think it meant vet as in veterinarian, and I couldn't figure out why they called it that."

  In the backseat Pearl made a loud sigh and turned around once and resettled at the opposite window. I put my hand back and she gave it a lick.

  "I was always afraid she'd leave me," Paul said. "As long ago as I can remember, I was afraid she'd just run away and leave me and I'd have to go to the home for little wanderers."

  "Your father?" I said.

  "He barely counts," Paul said. "It's like he wasn't there. My childhood memories are almost empty of him."

  "What are they full of?" I said.

  There wasn't much travel midday, midweek, going west. I was doing seventy in the right-hand lane on the theory that cops always look for speeders in the passing lane. A trucker going eastbound flashed his headlights at me and I slowed as I crested the next hill. There was a two-tone blue state police cruiser parked sideways on the median strip with a radar gun. I cruised serenely past him at about fifty-seven.

  "Fear," Paul said. "Fear of being left. I was thin and whiny and had colds all the time and I used to cling to my mother like a cold sore. She couldn't stand it. She'd try to get me away from her so she could breathe and of course the more she tried the more I clung."

  I nodded. I could hear the therapist's voice in Paul's, and behind the calm exposition of past events, the pain and lingering fear that engendered the pain. I wished Susan had come with us.

  "Hard on both of you," I said.

  "Sometimes she would actually hide under the bed," Paul said. "But I'd find her. She could run, but she couldn't hide."

  "Too bad your father wasn't around," I said. "Be easier if you'd had more than one person bringing you up."

  "He couldn't stand either one of us," Paul said. "Maybe at first he could, or did, or thought he ought to. I think my mother and he actually loved each other, whatever the hell that quite means. But they shouldn't have got married. They just…" Paul seemed wordless. He shook his head, put his hands up in a gesture of bafflement. "They just shouldn't have gotten married…" He stared straight ahead for a moment. Pearl leaned forward and snuffled at the back of his neck, and he put his hand up absently to pat her muzzle. "Or had me," he said.

  "But they did," I said. "But they did."

  CHAPTER 18

  THE Tailored Lady was a boutique off Church Street in downtown Lenox. It was in a sort of shopping center, where private houses had been converted to stores in which you could buy turquoise jewelry and Icelandic sweaters. The woman who ran it wore a blue blazer over a green turtleneck sweater. She was very polite, but she couldn't tell us anything at all.

  "I'm sorry," she said, "that I can't be more helpful. I could find my copy of the American Express receipt, but it would merely duplicate what you have."

  "You don't remember if she was with anyone?" Paul said.

  She smiled and shook her head. Matching the sweater and blazer was a Black

  Watch plaid skirt. Her blonde hair was caught back and tied with a little

  Black Watch ribbon.

  "There are so many tourists," she said. "It's the start of the foliage season, and"-she smiled as if she were saying something daring-"the fall getaway time. A lot of women come in for lingerie." She paused as if weighing the propriety of what she said. "Usually there are men with them." She glanced demurely down at her Cobbie Cuddlers shoes.

  "Where do they usually stay?" I said.

  "Oh, there are so many places. It depends on price, I should think. There's a tourist information booth across the way that could probably give you a list."

  She was looking straight at me and I realized she was appraising me. I grinned at her. The grin I used before Susan, the one where women slipped their house keys in my coat pocket as soon as I'd used it. I saw something show through for a moment in her face, passing over it the way the shadow of a cloud moves quickly across a field. And I knew that the Talbot's outfit was a disguise. And I saw the assertive body suddenly, inside the disguise. Then the look was gone again. But I knew I'd seen it, and she knew I'd seen it. It was my move. I smiled again, a modulated version of the killer grin, and said, "Thanks very much. Sorry to bother you."

  And she said, "You're welcome." She was wearing an ornate wedding band with diamond chips set in it. But I knew that would not have been an issue. As

  Paul and I turned and went out of the store toward the tourist information center, I looked back once at the now apparent body that seemed somuch realer than its inessential camouflage, and took a deep breath. The price of monogamy.

  Across the way, a plump woman in a flowered purple dress gave us a printed list of area hotels and bed and breakfast accommodations. There were eighty-seven of them.

  "Of course we only cover the immediate Lenox area," she said. "People come from all over the Berkshires and eastern New York State to shop. So your friends might very well be staying in Pittsfield or Williamstown or Albany,

  New York, even Saratoga."

  "How
encouraging," I said.

  We took the listing, got a road map out of the car, and took both to a restaurant specializing in cheesecake. Paul had a chicken salad on light rye. I ordered a turkey on whole wheat with mustard. And another one plain to go. He had a Coke. I abandoned any hint of prudence and had coffee.

  Neither of us had cheesecake.

  "How we going to do this?" Paul said.

  I drank some coffee. Not as much fun as the woman in the preppie disguise would have been. But better than nothing.

  "Say your mother's with Beaumont. Which isn't a bad bet, since no one can find him either, and some good people are looking." I took a bite of the turkey sandwich. The menu had advertised fresh turkey. It seemed to be fresh from the turkey roll. It wasn't particularly good, but that was no reason not to eat it. "That being the case, if they are out here, and he gets a hint that someone's looking for him, they'll be gone ten minutes later. If he's in trouble with Broz he has reason to run."

  I had another bite, another draught of coffee.

  "So we can't just start calling places up," Paul said, "because somebody might tell him."

  "Well, maybe if you called and asked for your mother," I said.

  "What if he answers?" Paul said.

  The waitress came past with coffee and refilled my cup. I rewarded her with a dazzling smile. She didn't notice.

  "Say who you are. Ask for your mother."

  "And if he hangs up?"

  "We hotfoot it over there and try to get them before they leave."

  "And if I get her?" Paul said.

  "Tell her the deal," I said. "You're worried about her. You want to see her."

  "And what if she hides under the bed?"

  "I don't know what to do about that," I said.

  "Why not get the police to help?"

  I shook my head.

  "Too delicate," I said. "The Lenox cops may be the ultimate police machine for all I know. But small-town police forces often aren't, and I'm afraid if they start looking for Richie and your mother that they'll spook them for sure." I put a second spoonful of sugar in my coffee. "Besides," I said, "they haven't done anything illegal that we know, but, if the cops get in it, and they have…"

  "Yes," Paul said. "I understand. We've got to protect my mother in this."

  I finished my sandwich, and ate the chips that came with it, and the sour pickle. I drank some coffee. The pickle made the coffee taste metallic.

  "What if they are registered under another name?" Paul said.

  "That's harder than everyone thinks it is," I said. "Unless you've got a lot of cash so that you needn't use a credit card, and you register someplace that doesn't require an identification. Most places do. Of course

  Beaumont may have credit cards and ID in another name. He sounds like the kind of guy that might."

  "And if he does, and they use another name?"

  "Then we won't find them this way," I said. "We'll find them another way."

  "Well," Paul said, and his face seemed tight, and colorless, "it's not much of a plan but it's better than any that I've got."

  I nodded. The waitress brought the check. I paid. We got up and went out to the car where I gave Pearl the plain turkey sandwich, and when she was through eating it I got some bottled water and a plastic dish out of the trunk and gave her a drink. Then Paul and I walked her on the leash around

  Lenox for about a half hour until she'd accomplished everything one would hope for, then we got back in the car and began looking for a motel that took dogs.

  CHAPTER 19

  THE Motel Thirty in Lee had no objection to Pearl. They also would have had no objection to the Creature From the Black Lagoon-or Madonna. We sat in a room with pink wallpaper on beds that had pink chenille bedspreads. Each of the beds would vibrate for five minutes if you put two quarters in a slot. Pearl circled the room carefully, went into the bathroom, drank noisily from the toilet bowl, came back out, selected one of the beds, hopped up, turned around three times, and lay down on it. Paul started calling.

  It took three hours to call everyone on the list. No one had anyone namedRich Beaumont or Patty Giacomin registered. After the last call, Paul hung up the phone very carefully, and got up and walked to the window and looked out at the blacktop parking lot. He was perfectly still. His shoulders were hunched in angular pain, and for a moment I saw the fifteen-year-old kid I'd originally met, deadened with defeat, paralyzed with desperation.

  "We'll find her," I said.

  Paul nodded, and continued to stare down at the parking lot.

  Pearl was quiet on the bed. Her head resting on her forepaws, her eyes on me, moving as I moved. She always watched me.

  "When I was small," Paul said, "and my father was at work, and there was just me and her in the house, I remember I used to scheme to get her atten tion, not just to be nice, but to be responsible. I wanted her to be a mother. I'd be in my room and I'd spill something and I'd think, `Okay, now she'll have to come in here and do something."'

  "Like an adult," I said.

  Paul's back still had a quality of asymmetric tension to it as he spoke.

  "Yeah."

  "An adult could be trusted," I said.

  "Yeah."

  "An adult wouldn't leave you."

  Without turning, Paul nodded. He put his hands in his pants pockets and leaned his forehead against the windowpane.

  "Like she has again," I said.

  The light outside the window was getting gray, and I could hear the wind picking up. Pearl looked uneasy, and her eyes followed me in even small movements.

  "I been shrunk so much my skin's about to pucker," Paul said. "I know what's happening to me. I know why I feel like I do, and now I need tocome to terms with it. But it still hurts just as if I didn't understand it."

  "And when we find her?" I said.

  The reminiscent shrug again.

  "Getting past that takes more than understanding," I said.

  "Yeah?" Paul said. "How about heavy drugs?"

  "Always an option," I said.

  A few drops of rain splattered heavily against the window. Pearl's ears went up and she stared at the window, then glanced quickly toward me. I put my hand on her shoulder and left it there. Outside it had gotten quite dark.

  "You mean will, don't you?" Paul said.

  "Yeah."

  "You mean self-control."

  "Yeah."

  Paul turned slowly away from the window and looked at me seriously. His hands were still in his pockets. Behind him the fat raindrops were spat tering more often against the glass, and the wind was rattling the window and skittering leaves across the blacktop in the parking lot among the economy cars and trucks with hunting caps on them.

  "Heavy drugs would be easier," he said.

  "I know," I said.

  Outside, the storm came with a rush, driven by wind and slashed by lightning. It chattered against the window, and when the thunder followed,

  Pearl sat bolt upright and leaned against me and swallowed hard.

  We were quiet inside the cheap motel room listening to the storm in the gathering darkness.

  CHAPTER 20

  HE was aging. He still carried himself with the Oeatricality he'd always had, as if there were an audience watching his every move, and he was play ing to it. But he had gotten smaller, and his cheekbones had become more prominent, and his hair had thinned, though most of it was still black. We were sitting in his office thirty-five floors up at the lower end of

  State Street. Behind Broz, through the rain-blurred picture window that covered that whole wall, I could see the harbor. The rain that had started yesterday in Lenox had followed us back, and had been slanting in on Boston uninterrupted for nearly twenty hours.

  Joe was wearing a black suit with a matching vest. His shirt was white with cutaway collar, and he wore a gray and white striped tie with a big Windsor knot. Along the left wall was a full bar, complete with brass rail. Leaning against the bar with his elbows resting w
as Vinnie Morris.

  "Usually," Joe was saying, "you are in the way, and it surprises me to this fucking moment that I haven't had someone hack you."

  He had a deep phony voice, like the guys that call up and give you a recorded sales pitch on the phone. He spoke as if diction were hard for him and he had to be careful not to speak badly.

  "Everyone makes mistakes," I said.

  "And every time I talk to you and listen to your smart mouth it surprises me more." He leaned back in his high-backed blue leather chair and clasped his hands behind his head. "This time we might have a common interest."

  "I'd hate to think so," I said.

  "Spenser," Vinnie Morris said from the bar, "we're trying to work something out. Whyn't you button it up a little bit."

  "We could take a different approach," Joe said.

  "Like Gerry did," I said.

  "Gerry's got a temper," Joe said. "Who worth his salt don't have a temper?

  Huh? Tell me that. Guy's going to inherit this." Joe made an inclusive mo tion with his right hand. "Guy's got to have some pepper. Right, Vinnie?"

  "Like you, Joe."

  "That's right. I always had the fucking pepper. People knew it. Kept them in line. They knew I wouldn't back off. And they know Gerry's a piece of the same work."

  Joe had unlaced his hands from behind his head and placed them flat on the desk where he was leaning over them, looking at me hard when he talked-a picture of intensity. But there was nothing there. It was a performance. Broz didn't believe it anymore. Vinnie and I never had.

  Joe was silent for a minute, leaning forward over his desk, staring at me.

  I had the feeling he might have forgotten what he was saying.

  "So what do you want to talk about?" I said.

  Joe frowned at me.

  "You want to say what the problem is with Gerry and Rich Beaumont?" Vinnie said to Joe.

  "He wearing a wire?" Joe said.

  "No, Joe."

  "You checked him before?"

  "Like always, Joe. Every body, every time."

  "Good," Joe said. "Good."