Ceremony

by Robert B. Parker

  The laugh again. As mirthless as a knife blade. "People been beating me up all my life, man. One more won't hurt."

  I nodded.

  She smiled slightly. "Get lost. There's nothing you can do for me. You don't know nothing about it. Just get out of here 'fore Trumps gets back, maybe with help, and blows you away. There's nothing you can do for me."

  "You want any money?" I said.

  "The honky solution to everything," she said. "Keep it. You give it to me and Trumps take it away. Just get out of here. And watch your back."

  I nodded again. "So long," I said.

  "Yeah," she said.

  I walked up through Chinatown, came out on Tremont, turned right, and the Zone was behind me. I crossed Tremont at Boylston and started across the Common toward Beacon. They were starting to put up the Christmas displays on the Common.

  There weren't many people in the Common, and the rain still came steady, but not very hard. We were maybe five degrees from a snowstorm. The falling rain made the lights in the city around the Common haze a bit and soften. The rain also made the air seem clean, and it muffled the sound of traffic on Tremont Street and Charles Street. It was still and wet. A cop sat on a barrel-chested sorrel horse near the wading pool. He had on a glistening yellow slicker. There was a damp horse smell as I passed them. I liked it. When I was small there were a lot of horses around. They pulled the trash wagons and the milk carts. There was always horse manure in the streets. When Emerson and Whitman had strolled across this Common speaking of "Leaves of Grass," there were horses abounding—dignified and symmetrical with a pleasant odor.

  Chapter 8

  I parked down from Amy Gurwitz's town house on Beacon between Exeter and Fairfield. I had to ride around the block for nearly an hour until a space cleared. The morning was clear and bright and the sun made stark shadows along the small bare trees in the tiny front yards along the street. I had a Thermos of coffee and a bag of corn muffins that I'd bought, recently made at a Dunkin' Donuts shop on Boylston Street. Say what you will about their architecture, Dunkin' Donuts makes a fine corn muffin. I ate one with some coffee.

  I didn't figure that April Kyle would be working the streets at 9:30 in the morning. Susan was in school. I'd already run my five miles along the river. The Ice Age art exhibit had departed the Science Museum. I'd read The New Yorker. Only an animal would lift weights at this hour. I was reading Sartoris that month, but I'd left it at Susan's. The Ritz Bar didn't open until I I :30. Why

  not sit around and look at the Gurwitz place? There was nothing else to do.

  Looking at Amy's place wasn't much to do. Nobody came out. On the other hand, nobody went in, either. The closest I came was when an elderly woman in a long black Persian lamb coat walked two animals past Amy's steps. I assumed they were dogs, though the size and look of them suggested a pair of pet rats on a leash, wearing little bitty plaid sweaters. I ate another corn muffin, drank some more coffee. The mailman went by. I tilted the seat back and slouched a little more. I crossed my arms on my chest. After a while I uncrossed them. Always self-amusing. Never without resources. A little after two in the afternoon a brown Chevrolet Caprice wagon pulled up in front of Amy's place and double parked. Three young women got out and went in to Amy's foyer and didn't come out. The Caprice pulled away.

  About 2:20 a man in a tweed sport coat and a long muffler walked down Fairfield Street from Commonwealth, turned left, and mounted Amy's stairs. He went in. I finished my coffee. At three a very fat guy appeared out of the alley that ran behind Amy's place and walked down Fairfield and went toward the town house. As he walked he sorted keys on a key ring. He went up the stairs and disappeared. The afternoon edged by.

  Nobody else went in. Nobody at all came out. Were they all visiting Amy? There was no other tenant in the three-story building. I'd noticed that yesterday. One mailbox, one buzzer, one entrance. So they were at least visiting Amy's place. The guy with the key was probably Poitras. Three young women, girls really, and one guy older than that, and Poitras. So what? Amy had some little chums over to listen to her Devo records and some guy had stopped by to see Poitras, who was a little late. None of the girls was April Kyle. So why was it my business? I looked at my watch. It was quarter to five. I had to meet Hawk at five. I looked at Amy's town house again. No clue appeared. There'd be other slow days. It could be my hobby. Like collecting baseball cards or old campaign buttons. In my spare time I'd come over and stare at Amy Gurwitz's doorway. It's good to keep busy.

  I cranked up the MG, took a left on Gloucester, and headed for Copley Square. Hawk was standing outside the Copley Plaza Hotel wearing a glistening black leather jacket and skintight designer jeans tucked into black cowboy boots that glistened like the jacket. He was a little over 6 feet 2 inches, maybe an inch taller than I was, and weighed about two hundred. Like me. He blended with the august Bostonian exterior of the Copley Plaza like a hooded cobra. People glanced covertly at him, circling slightly as they passed him, unconsciously keeping their distance. He wore no hat and his smooth black head was as shiny as his jacket and boots.

  I pulled the MG in beside him at the curb and he got in.

  "This thing ain't big enough for either one of us," he said. "When you getting something that fits?"

  "It goes with my preppy look," I said. "You get one of these, they let you drive around the north shore, watch polo, anything you want."

  I let the clutch in and turned right on Dartmouth.

  "How you get laid in one of these?" Hawk said.

  "You just don't understand preppy," I said. "I know it's not your fault. You're only a couple of generations out of the jungle. I realize that. But if you're preppy you don't get laid in a car."

  "Where you get laid if you preppy?"

  I sniffed. "One doesn't," I said.

  "Preppies gonna be outnumbered in a while," Hawk said. "Where we going?" I took April Kyle's picture out of my pocket and showed it to Hawk.

  "We're going to eat dinner and then we're going to look for her," I said.

  "What we gonna do when we find her?"

  "I don't know," I said. "Urge her to go home, I guess."

  "What you paying?"

  "Half my fee," I said, "and expenses."

  "How much you getting?"

  "A buck," I said.

  "You paying for dinner?" Hawk said.

  "Yeah."

  "Better be a big meal."

  Chapter 9

  "You want somebody killed," Hawk said, "you gotta give me the whole dollar."

  "I like a man with standards," I said.

  We were walking on Washington Street toward Boylston. As we moved along people got out of the way, spilling to each side of Hawk the way water surges past the prow of a cruiser. No one mistook him for a cop. The night was pleasant, not very cold, and the streets in the Combat Zone were crowded. "Who this pimp I supposed to keep off your back?" Hawk said.

  "Name's Trumps," I said. "Black, middle-sized, long arms, drives a white Jag sedan. Looks like he works out. You know him?"

  Hawk stopped and looked at me. "Trumps," he said. "I wish I see you take that sap away." He smiled, and his face looked joyful.

  "Bad?" I said.

  "Oh, yeah-he bad, all right. He almost as bad as he think he is."

  "Bad as you?" I said.

  Hawk's face looked even more cheerful, the glistening smile even wider. "Course not," he said. "Nobody as bad as me. Except maybe you, and you too softhearted."

  We moved on again. Hawk paid no attention to the merchandise. He looked at the people.

  "Trumps operate independently," I said, "or is he part of a chain?"

  "Chain," Hawk said. "Works for Tony Marcus."

  "The regent of Roxbury," I said.

  Hawks shrugged.

  "You know Tony?" I said.

  "Sure," Hawk said. "Done a little work for him here and there." He grinned. "Security and enforcement division. He pay better than you."

  "Yeah, but does he have a nic
e personality?"

  Ahead of us, at the corner of Boylston and Washington, was a bar with a large flashing sign that said, THE SLIPPER. The sign was made up of individual white light bulbs, and they flickered on and off in a random sequence and gave the effect of strobe lighting in a disco.

  Hawk said, "Now we're not looking for Trumps around here, right?"

  "Right, we're looking for a white guy named Red. Or the kid in the picture, or both. Our only interest in Trumps is to keep him from blowing me up," I said.

  We went into the club. It was crowded and dark and loud. Behind the bar three naked young women danced in a pink light. Danced is probably too strong. I'd been to see Paul Giacomin in a couple of jazz dance recitals and my dance aesthetics were becoming polished. Some of the customers were watching closely; others paid no attention at all. Hawk and I pushed among the crowd looking for Red. A bar girl asked us to buy her a drink. I said no. She started to argue, and Hawk looked at her and she stopped and went away. It took maybe another minute before one of the bouncers picked up that we weren't here for the nudies or the booze. He eased over to us.

  "You fellas looking for something?" he said, sort of politely. He was a bulky kid, probably a football player from Northeastern or B.C., wearing a white turtleneck sweater and a maroon sports jacket. Hawk looked faintly amused. "Guy named Red," I said. "Somebody told me he hung out here."

  The kid gestured at the room, dense with people and noise. "Lots of people hang out here."

  "Red's a pimp," I said.

  The kid made a spread-hands gesture, palms up. "You looking for broads?"

  "We from the Chamber of Commerce," Hawk said. "We here to give Red a Junior Achievement award."

  The kid stared at Hawk. Hawk smiled at him.

  "Any minimum here?" I said.

  "Ten bucks," the kid said.

  I gave him a twenty. He folded it in half and then half again and put it in the breast of his maroon blazer. He made a little traffic-stopping gesture about waist high with his left hand. "No trouble," he said.

  "None at all," I said.

  At the bar nearby a man wearing horn-rimmed glasses yelled at one of the dancing girls, "Can you pick up a quarter with that thing?"

  "No," she said. "Can you with yours?"

  "Maybe not," the man yelled, "but I can bat 'em around a little." He laughed and looked around the bar. The bouncer nodded at us and moved toward him. I looked at the girl dancing. Her face was blank as she stared out into the dark room.

  Hawk said, "I circle around this way. You go that way. Meet you in the middle."

  I nodded, and pushed toward the dark booths along the right-hand wall. In the second one I found Red. He was sitting alone in a booth for four, wearing his overcoat and drinking coffee. The overcoat was gray with black velvet lapels. His hair was red, and it had receded back sharply on each side, leaving a keen widow's peak pointing down at his forehead. I slid into the booth opposite him. He looked up from his coffee cup as he took a sip, then put the cup carefully back in the saucer.

  "What'll it be?" he said.

  His face was white and fat with puffy cheeks. There was some sweat on his upper lip. I showed him my picture of April Kyle. He looked at it and handed it back. "So," he said. His voice was very soft, hard to hear in the noisy room.

  "Know her?" I said.

  "Know a hundred like her," he said.

  "I don't want a hundred like her, I said. "I'm looking for her."

  "I heard you were," he said. I found myself leaning forward to hear him.

  I nodded. We were quiet. Across the room, above the crowd, a new team of three dancers came on stage. Red drank some more coffee. He held the cup in both hands as he drank, as if it were a bowl, ignoring the handle. He looked past me over the rim of the cup. I looked up. Trumps was there and behind him two other black men. Trumps's coat was unbuttoned. I looked at Red, "He the one you heard it from?"

  Red nodded.

  Trumps said, "The quiff told me she sent you down here. I was hoping you'd come."

  "Quiff," I said. "Trumps, you're a pleasure to listen to. I haven't heard the word quiff` since Eddie Fisher was big."

  "Never mind the shit, man. Get out of the booth. You got some things to learn."

  Red sipped some more coffee, his pale blue eyes blank as they looked at me. One of the men behind Trumps, a tall man with very square high shoulders, showed me a 62 gun. He held it low, concealed from the room by his body. A Beretta. Expensive. Nothing but the best.

  "Come on, smart ass," Trumps said. "We going someplace and see how tough you are."

  "You can find that out right now," I said. "I'm tough enough not to go."

  "Okay, motherfucker, then we'll do it while you sit there," Trumps said. His voice was hoarse and intense. He put his hand into his coat pocket and brought out a spring knife and snapped it open. Behind him Hawk appeared and banged together the heads of his two helpers. It sounded like a bat hitting a baseball. Trumps half turned. I caught his knife hand and yanked him toward me, turning the knife away as I did. I put my left hand behind the elbow of his knife arm and bent the arm backward. He grunted with pain. The knife clattered out of his hand onto the table. I pushed him away, picked up the knife, and folded the blade back into the handle. Trumps caught his balance with one hand on the back of the booth and stared at Hawk. Hawk smiled at him that pleasant, unfeeling smile. "Evening, Trumps," Hawk said. He held the Beretta loosely in his right hand. Not aimed at anything. Both of the men whose heads had banged were sunk to their knees. One leaned his head groggily against the edge of the table. The other rocked on his haunches with his hands clutched behind his head and his forearms pressing against his temples. Trumps's voice was choked. "What you doing in this, Hawk?"

  Hawk nodded at me. "I with him," he said.

  "The honky?"

  "I usually call him Ofay, but yeah, I with him."

  "Against a brother?"

  "Uh-huh. "

  Red was silent and still across the booth. No bouncers came near.

  Trumps said, "I didn't know you in this, Hawk."

  Hawk smiled and nodded.

  "He rousted me in front of one of my whores," Trumps said.

  "He does that," Hawk said.

  "He got me when I wasn't ready," Trumps said.

  Hawk smiled. "Don't matter none," he said. "He get you when you're not ready, when you are ready. You a mean little bastard, Trumps, but Spenser's the best around-almost."

  "I didn't know he was with you, Hawk," Trumps said. "He is," Hawk said. He looked at Trumps. Trumps shifted slightly and looked at his switchblade, lying on the table in front of me. Then he looked back at Hawk.

  "I didn't know," he said again.

  "He ever get back-shot or something, I know who to look for," Hawk said. "Never happen," Trumps said.

  Hawk reached down and yanked both groggy men to 64 their feet. The muscles in his upper arms bunched when he did and stressed the sleeves of his leather jacket.

  "Before you go," I said to Trumps. "Have you seen that girl I was looking for?"

  Trumps didn't look at me. He looked at Hawk the way his whore had looked at him. "She's one of Red's," Trumps said. "She work for Red." Hawk nodded. He made a small dismissive gesture with his right hand and Trumps and his helpers left. The helpers were very rocky as they moved through the crowd.

  "Ofay?" I said.

  "I a real traditional guy," Hawk said. He put the Beretta into his belt and slid into the booth beside Red. There was more sweat on Red's upper lip, I thought.

  "Not too many people hassle Trumps," Red said.

  "It's time they started," I said. "How about the girl? April Kyle? She one of yours?"

  "You ain't a cop."

  "No." Red looked at Hawk. "He ain't either," he said. It wasn't a question. I held April's picture up. It was a graduation picture with the hokey overripe color that school pictures always have. April was smiling. Her hair was long to her shoulders and brushed back like Farrah Fawcett.
Styles die hard in the subs. The neck of a sweater showed in the picture and the frilly little round collar of her blouse. Behind the bar the first trio of nudes came back onto the runway. The air was hot and thick with smoke—some of it was pot. "Yeah, I had her for a while," he said. "She split."

  "When?"

  Red shrugged. "Week ago, maybe-hard to keep track, you know? I got a lot of girls."

  "Where's she live?"

  "South End, Chandler Street."

  "What address?"

  "Hell, man, I don't remember-she's got a room down there someplace."

  "You remember," I said. "You know where all your girls are. You probably got half a dozen girls in the same building."

  "No way, man, I don't do that. These kids come in here and they don't know their ass from a hole in the ground. They get in trouble. All I do is organize them a little. Look out for them on the street."

  "And they call you Uncle Red and giggle when you tickle them," I said.

  Red looked at his empty coffee cup. "Hey, man," he said in his soft voice.

  "I’m telling you straight."

  I shook my head. "I'm too old to listen to horseshit," I said. "Gimme the address and we'll be on our way."

  Red looked at Hawk beside him. Hawk smiled. Red looked back at me. "I ain't scared of you," he said. He jerked his head at Hawk. "Him either."

  I said to Hawk, "Where did we go wrong?"

  Hawk was motionless with his hands folded on the table before him. When he had no reason to move, his repose was nearly stonelike. His face had a perpetual look of noncommittal pleasure. Without changing his expression Hawk hit Red across the throat with his left hand. Red gasped and rocked back against the booth. He put both hands to his throat and made harsh wheezing noises. Hawk didn't look at him. He was back into repose, his hands quietly clasped in front of him.

  "Soon as you can talk," he said, "tell Spenser the address."

  We sat quietly, listening to the harsh music. The crowd had thinned. The girls shuffled on the runway. The smoke drifted through the pink spotlight in ragged wisps. It was a hot and joyless room, nearly full of people, nearly devoid of humanity. Red was rocking back and forth, both hands clutching his throat. Twice he started to speak and nothing came out. Finally he said in a soft croak, "Three Eighteen and a half. Three Eighteen and a half Chandler Street. Apartment Three B."