Robert B. Parker's Old Black Magic

by Ace Atkins

  Without looking behind her, she said, “Join me, Spenser.”

  I walked along the terrazzo floor, the colorful little stones buffed to a high shine. Every sound was magnified, the room lit only by the golden afternoon sun.

  “This is my favorite time of day,” she said. “I prefer to see the works in natural light.”

  I didn’t say anything, only removed my hat. My father told me that only a rube would wear a hat in a museum. Or a church. “What are we looking at?”

  “Can’t you imagine it?” she said. “How full the room is with The Gentleman back at his post, watching you in all his bold glory and grandeur?”

  “Sure,” I said. “Why not?”

  Her eyes had yet to leave the empty space. A trapezoidal pane of sunlight shone across the floor. Dust motes played in the light. Marjorie breathed heavy and made agreeing sounds deep in her throat. She wore black today, a dress down to her ankles, with a lot of bangly bracelets and earrings that resembled bird swings.

  In her crossed arms, she held a letter in a basic white envelope. Without a word, she handed it to me.

  “What about the FBI?”

  “They are useless.”

  “Fingerprints,” I said. “Sometimes people get sloppy.”

  “Not him,” she said. “He’s careful.”

  “How do you know it’s a him?”

  “Just a feeling,” she said. “But a very strong one.”

  I shook the letter loose from the carefully torn end of the envelope. Like the others, it was neatly typed on a word processor in glorious eighteen-point Times New Roman. The letter insisted on a Saturday meeting at ten a.m.

  Frog Pond. $500K wire transfer for Msr. Picasso with information on others. This is an act of civility. Don’t disappoint me or all is lost.

  “Chatty bastard.”

  “We have the money,” she said. “And I have the authority. The old board gave it to me years ago.”

  “Does Topper know?”

  “There’s a lot Topper doesn’t know,” she said. “Or need to know.”

  “No arguments there.”

  “I don’t want this sloppy,” she said. “We get sloppy and we will lose the precious link. By the way, Topper doesn’t care for you a bit.”

  “Sad to hear,” I said. “We had so much in common.”

  “He’s a pompous ass,” she said. “But he not only speaks for the board, he is the board. Whatever Topper says goes. He stacks friends and family in all the other positions. It’s been that way for the last fifteen years. Every so often he’ll go behind my back and make business decisions that he has no right to make. Or no authority.”

  “Just what does he do for a living?”

  “Lives off an inheritance,” she said. “Just as his father before him, and so on. So very Brahmin that you don’t inquire.”

  “I noted the silver-handled cane.”

  “It’s a family heirloom,” she said. “Never goes anywhere without it.”

  “You think he’d try to stop you from paying the ransom?” I said. “If he knew about it?”

  “Well, he wants you gone,” she said. “And has already hired another investigator. The British so-called investigator. Expect a phone call from Topper tomorrow afternoon.”

  “But in the meantime?”

  “In the meantime, we have a lot to do,” she said. She turned and looked at me in profile. I nodded. “I don’t want the FBI to know. I don’t want the board to know. I don’t want the police or any of your associates to understand what’s going on. You are going to help me, Spenser. It’s going to be just me and you tomorrow.”

  “And a half a mil on deck.”

  “Don’t worry about the money,” she said. “That’s the least of our concern. You accompany me to the Common. Once I can verify the painting, I will wire the money into their account.”

  “You’ve gotten it all figured out.”

  “Would you rather not be involved tomorrow?” she said. “I can do this alone and you can sit around and discuss new terms with Topper.”

  “I’d rather have a colonoscopy with a garden hose.”

  She walked forward, hitting a velvet rope a few feet from where many paintings hung from a large wall with red wallpaper. Some of the frames were as large as dinner tables and others as small as a paperback book. All seemed Spanish in origin. Portraits of people and dogs, devils and saints. I watched as Marjorie unhooked the rope, stepped forward, and reached out to the gilded frame. In the faintest of sunlight, I saw the torn edge of a piece of ancient canvas. As she felt the texture in her fingers, she closed her eyes.

  “If this person actually makes contact,” I said. “What do you want me to do?”

  “If they bring the Picasso?”

  “Yes.”

  “Nothing.”

  “And if they don’t?”

  Marjorie reached back from the empty frame and faced me with all her largesse. She looked down at my running shoes and up to my bare head. She nodded slowly, an idea already burrowing in her mind. “I want you to snatch up the son of a bitch and shake loose whatever he knows.”

  I tilted my head and nodded back.

  “Do you have a problem with that, Mr. Spenser?”

  “Not at all,” I said. “I’m actually quite adept at such matters.”

  “And we keep this just between us?”

  I nodded. We turned from the wall of art and walked toward the marble staircase. We headed back down toward her office, our feet making big echoing thumps in the airy, empty museum.

  13

  THE TOP HAT WASN’T FAR from the Winthrop on Huntington, within spitting distance of the Northeastern campus. Inside, the bar was dim and as cold as a Baskin-Robbins. An old jukebox sat in a far corner playing “Mack the Knife” as a bartender served a shot of what looked to be antifreeze to an old gent in Boston Sewer Department coveralls. In a far back corner, two college-aged girls played pool. A ball ricocheted off the bumper and flew onto the floor.

  I picked it up and handed it back to the girls before sitting at the bar and ordering a Sam Adams. It had been a long day and I deserved a reward.

  The bartender was a young guy, too young to have been around twenty years ago. He was a little chubby, with one of those Hitler Youth haircuts and a long brown beard. Basic black T-shirt, jeans, and a chain hooked to his wallet.

  “We don’t serve Sam Adams,” he said.

  This was a first for me.

  “Allagash?”

  “Only PBR and shots.”

  “Retro,” I said.

  “It’s a dive bar,” he said. “That’s what we do.”

  At some point, the Top Hat had been a dive bar. Now it just played the part of one, catering to college kids and hipsters. Three guys at a nearby table drank beer and played a game of Jenga. They were appropriately tattooed and bespectacled. One of the girls playing pool wore a floppy black fedora and a vintage Iron Maiden shirt. Her friend had on a man’s white undershirt, cut-off jeans, and knee-length black socks.

  “How long has this place been here?”

  “Nineteen fifty-two,” he said. He set down a PBR. I recalled when it used to be a decent beer made in Milwaukee. Now the brand was owned by a Russian holding company capitalizing on nostalgia.

  “Who owns it now?”

  “Todd and Terry.”

  “And who are Todd and Terry?” I said.

  “Todd’s a graphic designer and Terry is in a band,” he said. “Their parents bought it for them.”

  “Must be nice.”

  “Yeah,” he said. “They didn’t want to change anything. The college tried to buy this whole block last year, but they wouldn’t sell. Too much history here.”

  “You don’t say.”

  The living history next to me in the Sewer Department coveralls was blurry
-eyed drunk, bald, and red-faced, with unkempt white whiskers on his face and objectionable breath. Three empty plastic cups sat before him, arranged in a sad pyramid.

  “You must come here often,” I said.

  He shook his head and didn’t answer. He only pointed to the bartender for another shot of Prestone.

  “That’s Otto,” the bartender said. “He came with the place. He’s here every day at four. On the dot. We kept the original jukebox and we kept Otto. Everyone just loves him.”

  Otto picked up an empty cup and showed it to the bartender. I looked around the room, noting the standard Christmas lights hanging from the ceiling, the mirrors advertising liquor, and several old movie posters for gangster films. Godfather, Goodfellas, Scarface, and Married to the Mob.

  “What’s up with all the Mob stuff?” I said.

  “This place used to be a Mob bar,” the bartender said. “I heard the original owner got whacked a long time ago.”

  “You know who?”

  “That was before I was even born.”

  “Of course it was.”

  I turned to Otto. “Do you know?” I said.

  Otto looked at me, trying to focus on my face. He stifled a belch and turned up the fresh shot. The two girls that had been playing pool wandered up to the bar. The girl in the floppy hat had brown hair with purple highlights at the ends. The other girl’s basic men’s tank top highlighted a left arm covered in sleeve tattoos. Lots of flowers and dragons.

  “Hello,” I said.

  “Don’t I know you?” said the girl in the floppy hat.

  “I doubt it.”

  “You’re a professor,” she said. “Right?”

  “I’m the dean,” I said.

  “Of what school?”

  I smiled. “School of hard knocks.”

  “Is that what happened to your nose?”

  I put a finger to my most disfigured attribute and winked at her. The girls giggled. Spenser. Ol’ friend of the world.

  The bartender snapped open a couple more PBRs. The tattooed girl wandered off to the juke box, selecting Frank Sinatra singing “My Way.” The bar was dim and cool and not a bad place to spend a weekday afternoon. I figured its having been a Mob bar might, or might not, be true. But it would be worth looking through property records. Maybe making some calls to some friends in the bar business.

  The side door snapped open, letting in a lot of bright light. A thin man with slick black hair walked up to the bar. He wore a summer-weight navy suit and a starched white shirt open at the collar. I could smell his aftershave even before he sat down.

  He asked for a pint. He was given a tin can of PBR.

  “Nice view,” he said. His accent reminded me of Dick Van Dyke dancing with a broom. He watched the girl in the cutoff jeans lean over the table to make a corner shot. Her shorts were very short.

  “Man can’t even get a decent pint in Boston,” he said. “What’s wrong with this picture?”

  He kept a very short beard, black stubble. He had dark skin and eyes, a dimpled chin, and a yellow pocket square in his coat.

  “My name is Marston,” he said. He offered his hand.

  “Alfred P. Doolittle,” I said.

  “No,” he said. “You’re not. You’re Spenser. You can’t fool me.”

  “With a little bit of luck.”

  “Figured it’d happen sooner or later,” Marston said, tilting the beer. “We’d bump into each other. Me and you working the same case. Least for now.”

  “Just stopped in for a drink,” I said. “Might play a little bit of Jenga.”

  “No such thing,” he said. “You got the same little morsel from Mr. Chad Hartman. The poor chap was hustled.”

  I drank some beer. “Are you following me?”

  “All is fair,” he said. “In this high-stakes game.”

  One of the kids at the small table piled one too many pieces on the Jenga tower and the whole thing collapsed. There was a lot of hooting laughter and another round of beers being bought. The problem with hipsters is that they were so damn agreeable.

  “What do you think?” Marston said. He took out the pocket square and wiped at the wet bar before setting down an elbow.

  “I think we’re both wasting our time,” I said. “The only thing original about this bar is the sign outside. Twenty years is a long time, friend.”

  “But it was worth you checking out.”

  I stared at him. “All leads are.”

  “I’ve heard all about you, Spenser,” he said. “But this is a bit out of your league. This is an international case worth millions of dollars. I don’t think you quite have it in you, old boy.”

  “Call me ‘old boy’ again,” I said. “And you’ll learn what league I’m in.”

  “Oh, my,” he said. “Oh, my. A tough. Wow. We have an authentic Boston toughie on our hands. What fun. Well, I wouldn’t waste too much of your time chasing down dead ends. I stopped in as a courtesy. The Winthrop board has decided to go with someone much more experienced. You’ll be notified tomorrow.”

  “I’ll be waiting by the phone,” I said.

  “Call it professional courtesy,” he said.

  He smiled, laid down a twenty, and left the beer before heading out. The bartender and I watched him go. The doorway grew bright for a moment and then turned dark.

  “What an asshole,” the bartender said. He stroked his long beard.

  I lifted the can of PBR and toasted him. I pushed the twenty Marston left toward him and told him to get Otto another round. Otto straightened up, quickly finding some dignity, and thanked me. He seemed to be awake from his regular afternoon stupor.

  “How long you been coming here, Otto?” I said.

  “Forever,” he said. “And a day.”

  “You remember a guy named Eddie?” I said. “The bartender?”

  “Crazy Eddie Ciccone?” he said. “Sure, sure. He was a real gent. Treated me regular and everything. He left a long time ago. You and him friends?”

  “No,” I said. “But we’re about to be.”

  “Sure miss Eddie,” he said. “Good times.”

  “Thanks, Otto,” I said, patting his back. “Never doubted you for a minute.”

  14

  THAT NIGHT I MET LOCKE for dinner at Legal Seafood at the Long Wharf.

  He was waiting for me at a corner booth overlooking the harbor. I ordered a real beer, an Allagash White, and Locke had a vodka gimlet made with fresh lime juice and garnished with a cucumber. He looked as if he’d aged ten years from earlier in the week. He coughed several times into his fist until the drink arrived.

  “Paul Marston,” Locke said. “He’s a real prick.”

  “He followed me to Woonsocket,” I said. “I should’ve been more careful.”

  “Marston’s a tricky little snake,” he said. “He’s tried to cheat me before. Bribed my sources. Gotten trusted confidantes to work with him instead. He’s better at manipulating people than actually doing the legwork.”

  “Either way,” I said. “Looks like Topper wants me gone.”

  “But,” he said. He coughed a bit more. “You have Marjorie Ward Phillips on your side. She’s decided she likes you and can use you. Don’t underestimate that detail.”

  Outside the plate-glass windows, tourists milled about the aquarium and IMAX theater, the Duck Boats unloading from their final voyage of the day. Tall lamps flickered on as the sky darkened along the waterfront.

  “What can she do against the board?” I said. I sipped the beer, washing away the taste of the Top Hat.

  “They’re scared to death of her,” he said. He played with the little stirrer in his cocktail. “You have yet to meet the real Large Marj. Just you wait. The only reason she hasn’t challenged Topper and the board is because she’s fixated on something. What have you found out so
far?”

  “I have a name of a man who might’ve influenced one of the guards to open up that night.”

  “I knew it,” Locke said. He smiled wide, blue eyes shining. “I just knew they had someone on the inside.”

  “He owned a crummy bar years ago,” I said. “But he has a common name. At least for Boston. I plan to chase him down after tomorrow morning.”

  “What is tomorrow morning?” Locke said. He raised his white eyebrows.

  “Can you keep a secret?” I said.

  “Did I not mention I am a dying man?” he said. “Who could you trust more?”

  “Large Marj got another letter,” I said. “They’ve promised the return of the Picasso sketch for five hundred grand. She secured money from a donor and is ready to wire it to an account of their choosing. And I’m going along to make sure they play fair.”

  “Alone?”

  “Just me and Marj,” I said. “The Dynamic Duo.”

  The waiter brought me a large plate of the seafood cioppino, a rich tomato broth with mussels, clams, scallops, and a lobster claw. Locke had the salmon salad, picking at the meal in bites too small for Susan Silverman.

  “If the letters are real,” I said, “the original crime may be irrelevant. The museum only wants the paintings back.”

  “True,” he said. “But if you know the source, you might find out where and with whom they ended up.”

  “Can I tell you what a pleasure it is to dine with someone who speaks proper English?”

  Locke smiled. His hands shook as he cut into the salmon with a fork and took a small bite. I ordered another round of drinks. What the hell. I was on the Winthrop tab.

  “If the contact is less than forthcoming, Marj wants me to shake the truth out of him.”

  “Are you prepared to do so?”

  I smiled. I cracked open the lobster claw and forked out the meat.

  “What if it’s a con?” he said.

  “Then it’s back to plan B,” I said. “I find the guy who owned the Top Hat bar and move up the food chain. And try to watch my tail next time for annoying little Brits.”

  “There was a time, maybe ten, twelve years ago when I thought I had The Gentleman,” he said. “I was almost sure of it. I’d flown to Paris to meet with some reputable people who deal in disreputable objects. I was prepared, and approved, to pay up to five million for the return of the El Greco. They offered photos and even paint chips that appeared to be of the period.”