God Save the Child

by Robert B. Parker

  “How can I help you?” he asked and gave me his big predator’s smile. Consoling. Reassuring. Phooey.

  “Fraser Robinson tells me you are pimping for Vic Harroway.” Croft didn’t move except for the big smile. It went away. He said, “I beg your pardon?”

  I said, “Knock it off, Croft. I’ve got you. I caught Robinson in a motel with an adolescent girl, and he confided in me. It doesn’t have to be a long fall for you; I’m not with the AMA. Or the Vice Squad. You want to supplement your income by pimping while you heal, that’s your doing. But I want to know everything you know about Harroway and Kevin Bartlett and how Earl Maguire got his neck broken and that kind of thing.”

  Croft reached over and pushed the intercom switch. “Joan,” he said into it, “I can’t be disturbed for at least a half hour. If an emergency comes up, switch it to Doctor LeBlac.” He turned back toward me. “This is a mountain out of a molehill, Spenser.”

  “Yeah, I’ll bet it is,” I said.

  “It is, in fact. Robinson is oversexed, and he’s married to a woman who is undersexed. Nothing pathological, but it was making their marriage an armed camp. He came to me for help. You’d be surprised how many people come to their family doctor in time of trouble.”

  I said, “Cue the organ.” Croft paid no attention.

  “Fraser is not only a patient, he’s a friend. Most of my patients are friends too. It’s not all injections and take-these-pills-three-times-a-day. A lot of any family doctor’s task is counseling, sometimes just being a guy that will listen.”

  “You may replace Rex Morgan as my medical idol, Doctor.”

  “I know, Spenser, you’re a smart aleck, but the practice of medicine doesn’t come out of texbook. Fraser needed an outlet, a chance for sexual adventure, and I gave it to him. It has saved his marriage, and I would do it again in a moment.”

  “How’d you happen to know about Harroway, Doctor?”

  “I’d heard about him in town. Being a doctor in a town this size, the word gets around; you hear things.”

  “You ever meet him?”

  “Of course not. We hardly move in the same circles.” Croft looked at me steadily.

  Candid. A modern Hippocrates.

  “How’d you happen to have a card with his phone number on it?”

  Croft’s eyes faltered, only for a minute. “Card? I’ve never had a card for Harroway.” He dropped his hands toward the middle drawer of his desk, then caught himself and folded them in his lap and leaned back in his chair.

  “Yeah you did, and you gave it to Robinson—a little white card with a phone number printed on it and nothing else.” I got up and walked past the desk to look out the window. It afforded a nice view of Route 128. Two small kids were sliding down the grassy embankment away from the highway using big pieces of cardboard for sleds. I turned around suddenly and pulled the middle drawer open. He tried to jam it shut, but I was stronger. In one corner was a neat stack of little white cards just like the one Robinson had given me. I took one out and stepped back away from the desk and sat down. Croft’s face was red, and two deep lines ran from his Arabian nostrils to the corners of his mouth. I held the card in my right hand and snapped the edge of it with the ball of my thumb. It was very noisy in the quiet office.

  He regrouped. “Well, naturally, it’s not the kind of thing you admit. But I ran into Harroway once or twice at a pub on the highway and one thing led to another and I spent an evening with one of the girls from his house. Afterward, Harroway asked me to take a few of these cards and give them to any of my patients who might be in, ah, the situation that Fraser was in.”

  “Croft,” I said, “I am getting sort of mad. You are bullshitting me. A little discreet business card, printed up with just a phone number on it, for the sexually dysfunctional? Harroway? Harroway’s idea of a subtle pander would be to stand oil the corner near the Fargo Building yelling, ‘Hey sailor, you want to get laid?’ You thought of this, and you’re in it like an olive in a martini.”

  “You can’t prove that.”

  “I can prove that. The point is you don’t want me to. If I have to prove it, you’ll be giving enemas at Walpole for the next five to ten. Now we can get around that, but not till you’ve spoken to me the words I’m longing to hear.”

  “What do you want?” Croft said. “What do you want me to tell you?”

  “Where’s Kevin Bartlett?”

  “He’s with Vic, in Boston. Vic’s got an apartment in there on the Fenway.”

  “Address?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You supply Harroway with drugs?”

  “Absolutely not.” He wasn’t admitting what I hadn’t proved.

  “He ever give you money?”

  “Never.” The firmness of his denials seemed to give him confidence. He denied it again. “Never.”

  “Silly old me. I thought two nights ago by the bandstand on the Boston Common that you gave him a briefcase full of Quads and he gave you an envelope full of money.” Croft looked as if his stomach hurt. “Probably not that at all though, huh? Probably buying your collection of Kay Kayser records so he and the gang out at the house could have a sock hop. That what it was?”

  Croft looked at the window and then the door and then at me. None of us helped him. He opened his mouth and closed it again. He rubbed both hands, palms down, along the arms of his chair. “I want a lawyer,” he said. The words came out in a half croak.

  “Now that’s dumb,” I said. “I mean, I might let you off the hook on this if you help me find the kid. But if you get a lawyer, then all this is going to come out, and maybe you’ll end up being accessory to murder. You know how that’ll cut into a guy’s practice.”

  “I told you everything I know about the boy He’s with Vic in Boston.”

  “I need an address, and you have one. You’re too much involved with Harroway not to know. You give me the address and maybe I can keep you out of the rest.”

  “On the Fenway. One-thirty-six Park Drive, Apartment Three.”

  I reached across the desk, picked up Croft’s phone, and dialed. His eyes widened. “What are you going to do?” he said.

  “I’m going to keep you on ice for a while.” A voice answered, “Essex County Court House.” I said, “Lieutenant Healy, please.”

  Croft started up from his seat. I reached over and pushed him back down with my hand on his shoulder. “Be cool,” I said. “I can’t trust you not to warn Harroway. If I get the kid back okay, I’ll spring you.”

  Healy came on. I said, “This is Spenser. I got a suspect on the Bartlett kidnapping, or whatever.”

  Healy said, “Or whatever.”

  “And I want to put a lid on him for the afternoon so I can find the kid.”

  Healy said, “What’s his name?”

  “John Doe.”

  “Oh,” Healy said. “Him.”

  “He gave me a lead on the kid, Lieutenant, and I’ve got to be sure he doesn’t tip him off before I get there.”

  “I gather he didn’t volunteer the lead.”

  “We practiced the art of compromise.”

  “And you want me to bury him someplace without a charge till you get the Bartlett kid, is that right?”

  “Yeah.”

  “That is unconstitutional.”

  “Yeah.”

  “You think you’ll lose the kid if you turn your back on John Doe?”

  “Yeah.” Croft was sitting perfectly still now, not looking at anything. There was a pause at Healy’s end of the line. Then he said, “Okay. Where are you? I’ll have one of the road patrols in your area pick him up.”

  “We’ll be parked in the northbound lane of 128 under the Route 1 overpass. Red nineteen-sixty-eight Chevy convertible. Mass. plates seven-one-two-dash-two-three-four. If you need to contact me, call me here.” I gave him Susan’s number.

  Healy said, “If this backfires, Spenser, I’ll have your license and your ass.” and hung up.

  I said, “Okay, Doc
. You get the picture. Let’s go.”

  “How long will they hold me?”

  “Till I get the kid. When he’s home I’ll come by and get you out.”

  “How will you know where I am?”

  “Healy will know.”

  “Who is Healy?”

  “State cop, works out of the Essex County DA’s office. Don’t offer him money. He will deviate your septum if you do.”

  Croft called his girl again on the intercom, told her there was an emergency and he’d be gone for the day. We went out the back door of the office building and were parked under the Route 1 overpass when a blue State Police cruiser pulled up behind us and a tall red-haired state cop with big ears got out and came around to the driver’s side of my car.

  “You Spenser?” he said.

  “Yep.”

  “I’m supposed to pick up a Mr. Doe,” he said with no expression on his face.

  I nodded at Croft. The trooper went around and opened the door. Croft got out. The trooper closed the door. I drove away.

  24

  The light blue Smithfield cruiser was still parked in the Bartletts’ driveway, and Silveria, the bushy-haired cop, was reading a copy of Sports Illustrated in the front seat.

  I parked beside him in the turnaround, and he looked at me over the top of the magazine as I got out. “Better not park that thing on the street on trash day,” he said.

  “Don’t your lips get tired when you read?” I said.

  “Your ears are gonna be tired when Mrs. Bartlett gets talking to you. She’s been calling you things I don’t understand.”

  “I gather no one tried to do her in.”

  “I think her husband might, and I wouldn’t blame him. Jesus, what a mouth on that broad.”

  “Watch me soothe her with my silver tongue,” I said.

  Silveria said, “Good luck.”

  Marge Bartlett opened the back door and said, “Spenser, where in hell have you been, you rotten bastard?”

  Silveria said, “Good, you’ve already got her half won over.”

  At the door I said to her, “I know where your son is.”

  She said, “We’re paying you to protect me and you run off on your damned own.”

  I said, “I know where your son is, and I want your husband and you to come with me to get him.”

  She said, “It’s lucky I’m alive.”

  I pushed past her into the house and said, “Where’s your husband? Working today?”

  She said, “Damn you, Spenser, aren’t you going to explain yourself.”

  I went to the sink, filled a glass with water, turned back to her. She said, “I want a goddamned explanation.” I poured the water on her head. She screamed and stepped back. She opened her mouth but nothing came out. The relief was wonderful.

  “Now,” I said. “I want you to listen to me, or I will get you so wet your skin will wrinkle.” She pulled a paper towel from its roller under a cabinet and dried her hair “I know where Kevin is. I want you and your husband to come with me to Boston and get him back.”

  “Can’t you get him? I mean, won’t there be trouble? I’m not even dressed. My hair’s a mess. Mightn’t it be better if you got him and brought him here? I mean, with me there he might make a scene.”

  “No,” I said. “I’ll locate him. And I’ll take care of any trouble. But he’s your kid. You bring him home. I won’t drag him home for you. You owe him that.”

  “My husband is working in town—Arden Estates—he’s putting up half a dozen houses near the Wakefield line on Salem Street. We can stop for him on the way.”

  “Okay,” I said, “let’s go. We’ll take my car.”

  “I have to change,” she said, “and put on my face and do something with my hair. I can’t go out like this.” She had on jeans and sneakers and a man’s white shirt. The curls on each side of her face were held in place by Scotch Tape.

  “We are not going out dancing to the syncopated rhythms of Blue Barron,” I said.

  She said, “I can’t leave the house looking like this,” and went upstairs. Twenty minutes later she descended in a double-breasted blue pinstripe pants suit with a blue and white polka-dot shirt and three-inch blue platform shoes. She had on lipstick, rouge, eye makeup, earrings, and doubtless much more that I didn’t recognize. Her hair was stiff with spray. She put on big round blue-colored sunglasses, got her purse from the table in the front hall, and said she was ready.

  I said, “I hope you got on clean underwear so if we get in an accident.” She didn’t answer me. And I left it at that. As long as she was quiet, I didn’t want to press my luck.

  When we found him at the construction trailer, Roger Bartlett was wearing green twill work clothes and carrying a clipboard.

  “Hey,” he said when I told him, “hey, that’s great. Wait a minute, I’ll tell the foreman and I’ll be with you. Hey, that’s okay.” He went across the bulldozed road to a half-framed house and yelled up to one of the men on a scaffold. Then he put the clipbord down on the subfloor of the house and came to my car.

  “Get in back, Roger, would you? It’s hard for me without wrinkling my suit.”

  She leaned forward and held the seat, and he slid into the back.

  On the ride in I told them a little of what I knew. I didn’t mention Croft or Fraser Robinson. I merely told them that I had an address in town where Kevin was staying, and I knew he was staying with Vic Harroway. Neither Bartlett nor his wife knew Harroway. “The sonova bitch,” Bartlett said, “if he’s hurt my kid, I’ll kill him.”

  “No,” I said. “You let me handle Harroway. He is not easy. You stay away from him.”

  “He’s got my kid, not yours,” Bartlett said.

  “He hasn’t harmed Kevin. They like one another. Kevin’s with him by choice.”

  Bartlett said, “The sonova bitch.”

  We drove along Storrow Drive with the river on our right, took the Kenmore exit, went up over Commonwealth Avenue and onto Park Drive. On the right, apartment houses in red brick and yellow brick, most of them built probably before the war, some with courtyards, low buildings, no more than five stories. It was a neighborhood of graduate students and retired school teachers and middle-aged couples without children. On the left, following the curve of the muddy river, was the Fenway. In early fall it was still bright with flowers, the trees were still dominantly green, and the reeds along the river were higher than a man. Whenever I passed them, I expected Marlin Perkins to jump out and sell me some insurance.

  Number 136 was three quarters of the way down Park Drive, across from the football field. At that point the drive was divided by a broad grass safety island, and I pulled my car up onto it and parked.

  Marge Bartlett said, “It’s not a bad neighborhood. Look, it’s across the street from the museum. And there’s a nice park.”

  “Breeding shows,” I said. We went across the street and rang the bell marked Super. A fat middle-aged woman with no teeth and gray hair in loose disorganization around her head shuffled to the door. She was wearing fluffy pink slippers and a flowered housedress. When she opened the door, I showed her a badge that said “Suburban Security Service” on it and said in a mean vice-squad voice, “Where’s Apartment Three?”

  She said, “Right there on the left, officer, first door What’s the trouble?”

  “No trouble,” I said, “just routine.”

  I knocked on the door with the Bartletts right behind me. No answer, I knocked again then put my ear against the panel. Silence. “Open it,” I said to the super.

  “I don’t know,” she said, “I mean the tenants get mad if …”

  “Look, sweetheart,” I said, “if I have to come back here with a warrant, I might bring along someone from the Building Inspector’s office. And we might go over this roach farm very closely, you know.”

  “Okay, okay, no need to get mad. Here.” She produced a key ring and opened the door. I went in with my hand on my gun. It was not a distinguished place. Two ro
oms, kitchen and bath off a central foyer that was painted a dull pink. The place was neat. The bed was made. There was a pound of frozen hamburg half-defrosted on the counter. In the bedroom there were twin beds. On each were some clothes.

  Roger Bartlett looked at a pair of flared jeans and a pale blue polo shirt and said, “Those are Kevin’s.” On the other bed was a pair of Black Watch plaid trousers with deep cuffs, and a forest-green silk short-sleeved shirt with a button-down collar. A pair of stacked-heel black loafers was on the floor beside the bed. On the bureau there was a framed eight-by-ten color photo of Harroway and the boy. Harroway had an arm draped over the boy’s shoulders, and they were both smiling.

  Two spots of color showed on Roger Bartlett’s face as he looked at the picture.

  “This the guy?” he said.

  “That’s him.”

  “He’s really quite nice-looking in a physical sort of way,” Marge Bartlett said. “The apartment is quite neat too.” Her husband looked at her, opened his mouth, and then closed it.

  “Let’s go,” I said. And we trailed out. The super came last in line to make sure we didn’t lift anything and closed the door behind her. I said, “Okay for now. If you run into Mr. Harroway, say nothing. This is official business, and it’s to be kept still.” I thought about invoking national security, but she might get suspicious.

  “What now?” Bartlett said when we got outside again.

  “We wait,” I said. “Obviously they’ll be coming back. Clothes laid out on the bed, hamburg defrosting for supper.” We walked back toward my car when Marge Bartlett said, “My God, it’s Kevin.”

  25

  On the far side of the Fenway two figures were jogging. One big man, one small one. Vic and Kevin. Harroway was taking it easy, and the boy was obviously straining to stay with him. Cross streets made a natural circle of that part of the Fenway, and one complete lap around it, without crossing any streets, was about a mile. If we stayed where we were, Harroway and the boy would run right up to us. We walked across to the park and stood, partly shielded by a blue hydrangea, watching them. As they got closer, you could see Harroway talking, apparently encouragingly, to Kevin, who had his head down, jogging doggedly. Harroway had on a lavender net sleeveless shirt and blue sweat pants with zippers at the ankles and white stripes down the sides. Kevin had on a white T-shirt and gray sweat pants, a little big and obviously brand-new. The boy was breathing hard, and Harroway said, “Just to the edge of the stands, Kev; that’s a mile. Then we’ll walk a bit. You can make it. You’re doing terrific.” Behind us, along the near sideline of the football field, cement stands descended maybe twenty feet below street level to the field.