Sudden Mischief s-25

by Robert B. Parker

  "You had no intention of telling me anything," I said. "Why did you agree to see me?"

  Ronan made a thin lip movement that he probably thought was a smile.

  "I like to get the measure of people," he said.

  "And you think you can do it in this amount of time?"

  "I believe I can," he said. "And I want them to get the measure of me."

  "Sure," I said. "About five foot six. Right?"

  "I have no interest in jokes, Spenser. Nor, frankly, any further interest in you. I have learned what I need to know. Granted, you, are physically imposing. You would probably make a good bouncer. But in any way that matters, you are a lightweight. I can reach into every crevice of this state. Should you become an irritant, I can have you squished like an insect. You are way out of your league here, and it would be in your best interest to recognize that."

  "Squished?" I said.

  Ronan didn't answer. He seemed entirely satisfied with his assessment of me and had nothing to add.

  "You college professors are a tough bunch," I said.

  Ronan smiled almost indulgently.

  "I am at the moment associated with a university," he said. "But surely you know my career."

  "Not as well as I will."

  Ronan laughed out loud. "Well, really?" he said. "Was that a threat?"

  "I guess so," I said. "You are, after all, an annoying little twerp."

  I thought Ronan might have colored a little under his tan, but his voice revealed nothing. He stood.

  "As I said, you would make a good bouncer. Let me show you the way out."

  Driving back across the causeway toward the rest of Marblehead, I wondered what there was in a simple harassment suit to make Ronan lean on me so hard.

  chapter six

  I WAS WITH Susan. We were lying in bed at my apartment with my arm under her shoulders and her head on my chest. Pearl was in exile somewhere outside the bedroom door.

  "One of us should probably get up and let the baby in," Susan said.

  "Absolutely," I said.

  We lay still.

  "Well?" Susan said.

  "I thought you were volunteering," I said.

  "You're closest to the door."

  "True," I said.

  "And you're a guy," she said.

  "That clinches it," I said.

  I got up and opened the bedroom door. Pearl bounded into the room, gave me a sidelong look which might have been reproachful, and hopped up on the bed in my spot.

  "This didn't work out exactly as I'd hoped," I said.

  "She'll move," Susan said, and, in fact Pearl did. She moved huffily down to the foot of the bed and turned around three or four times and lay down. I put my arm back under Susan's shoulders. She put her head back on my chest. Pearl put her head on my right shinbone.

  "My mother would never allow the dog anywhere but outside or in the kitchen," Susan said.

  "Barbaric."

  "I think that was a more general rule in those days," she said.

  "How long have we been together?" I said.

  "Roughly since the beginning of time," she said.

  "Or longer," I said. "And I barely know where you grew up."

  "Never seemed to matter."

  "No," I said. "It didn't. I guess we kind of liked the sense of living in the immediate present."

  "It was a way to symbolize that what happened before we met didn't matter."

  "Yes," I said.

  Outside my bedroom window, in the oblique bluish glare of the street lamps, I could see snow falling. It was falling lightly, a spring snow, the flakes spaced wide apart. It was the best kind of snow, because this far into March you knew it wouldn't last. Baseball season opened in nineteen days.

  "So, you grew up in Swampscott," I said.

  "Now it matters?" Susan said.

  "It matters to you," I said.

  She was quiet. With her forefinger she traced on my chest the outline of a bullet wound that I'd survived.

  "I guess everyone has scars," Susan said. "Yours, at least, show."

  "I got shot in the ass once in London," I said.

  "I always suspected you were mooning the shooter," she said.

  Outside the window the snowflakes were smaller, and coming faster, and straight down. Susan stopped tracing the scar on my chest and put her hand down flat over it.

  "So, I grew up in Swampscott," Susan said.

  "I knew that."

  "My father was a pharmacist. Hirsch Drug on Humphrey Street. My mother was a housewife."

  "No sisters or brothers," I said.

  "They were childless until me. My father was forty-one when I was born. My mother was thirty-eight."

  "How'd that happen?" I said.

  "I don't think it was intentional," Susan said. "My mother never talked much about that kind of thing. Actually, my mother probably didn't know too much about that kind of thing."

  "Being born late could work either way for you," I said.

  She laughed, though I didn't hear humor in it.

  "Actually it went both ways. My father was ecstatic. My mother was not."

  "Feeling displaced?"

  "I'm afraid so."

  "Easy thing to feel," I said. "If she'd been the sole object of your father's affection for what, ten, fifteen years?"

  "Eighteen."

  "Then she is suddenly faced with competition at the precise moment when she is least able to compete."

  "Because she's tired most of the time," Susan said. "Stuck home with the baby, and Papa comes home after a pleasant day at the drug store, plays with the baby for an hour and says `ain't it great.' "

  "And your mother feels like there's something unwomanly about her because she doesn't think it's so great."

  "In fact, she resents the baby," Susan said.

  "Which makes her feel worse, which makes her resent the baby more."

  "My God," Susan said, "I'm naked in bed with a sensitive male."

  "Man of the nineties," I said.

  "No matter how often," Susan said, "it is always surprising that you know the things you know."

  "You hang around," I said, "you learn."

  "Depends on who you hang around with," Susan said.

  "I spend a lot of my life with people in trouble," I said. "I think some of them would have been in trouble if they'd been brought up by Mother Teresa, but a lot of them come from homes where the family didn't work right for them."

  "We meet the same kinds of people, don't we."

  "Except the kind you meet have managed to get themselves to a shrink."

  "Unless they are a shrink," Susan said.

  "Then they give themselves a referral," I said.

  We were quiet. Enough snow had collected on Marlborough Street to reflect the street lights, and the darkness outside my bedroom window had become somewhat paler. Susan still had her hand flat over the pale scars on my chest.

  Susan said, "We're skating very carefully on the surface here, aren't we."

  "Yes."

  "That's because we're on very thin ice."

  "I know."

  "It's not like you to be so oblique," she said.

  "It's not like us to be on thin ice," I said.

  "I… I'll get past this," Susan said.

  "I know."

  "But you'll have to bear with me," she said. "Right now this is the best I can do."

  "I'll bear with you," I said, "until hell freezes over."

  "There would be some really thin ice," Susan said.

  She took her hand off my scars and put it against my face and raised up and kissed me hard. Hell could freeze solid if it wanted to.

  chapter seven

  I PICKED RITA Fiore up at Cone, Oakes and Baldwin, where she was their senior litigator, and took her to lunch at the Ritz Cafe. The maitre d' got her a table by the window and let me sit there too.

  "Is this a three-martini lunch?" Rita said.

  "If you can control yourself," I said.

&nbs
p; "I have always controlled myself," Rita said. "Except maybe with that Assistant DA when I was in Norfolk County."

  We each ordered a martini. I had one made with vodka, on the rocks, with a twist. Rita was a classicist. She had it straight up with gin and olives. Outside our window on Newbury Street the snow that had fallen last night had melted except in corners where there was always shade. Rita drank her first drink and held it in her mouth for a minute and closed her eyes. Then she swallowed.

  "Good," Rita said. "What do you need?"

  "Maybe I've missed you," I said.

  "Yeah, and maybe you're going to guzzle down two martinis and come on to me."

  "In the Ritz Cafe?" I said.

  "Of course not," Rita said. "So what do you want?"

  "Francis Ronan," I said.

  Rita paused with her glass halfway to her lips. She leaned back in her chair and looked at me.

  "You're not going to law school."

  "No."

  She kept looking at me. Then, as if she finally realized that she was holding it, she raised her martini glass and took another swallow and put the glass down.

  "Working for or against?" she said.

  "Probably against," I said.

  "That figures," Rita said.

  "Why does that figure?" I said.

  "Sir Lancelot asks you about a dragon, you don't figure they're working together."

  "I'm Sir Lancelot?"

  "You think you are."

  "Which makes Francis Ronan a dragon."

  "Not so loud," Rita said.

  "He has people everywhere?" I said.

  "He knows a lot of people and some of them are the kind that have lunch here."

  "Like us," I said.

  "No," Rita said. "Not like us."

  "So, tell me about him?"

  "First, none of this is for attribution," Rita said.

  She had lowered her voice, though I don't think she realized it.

  "What am I, Newsweek?" I said.

  "I mean it. You'll have to promise me that you will not tell anyone that I talked to you about Francis Ronan."

  "You sound scared, Rita."

  "I am."

  "I didn't think you were scared of anything."

  "I'm scared of him," Rita said. "You should be too."

  "Me? Sir Lancelot?"

  "You promise or no?" Rita said.

  "I promise."

  "Okay. I'll tell you everything I know about him. But first some free advice."

  "Free?" I said.

  "You sure you're a lawyer?"

  "Stay away from Francis Ronan. You have a case that brings you into conflict with him, get off the case."

  "Thank you," I said.

  "For what?"

  "For the advice."

  "You going to take it?"

  "No."

  "I didn't imagine you would," she said. "But it was serious advice. What do you want to know."

  "Everything you can tell me," I said.

  Rita leaned forward and spoke so softly that I had to lean forward too.

  "He is a legendary lawyer," Rita said. "You know that. He is the finest criminal defense lawyer I have ever seen. He's so smart, he's so… what is he… he's so… he wants so badly to win that he commits everything to every defense. Nothing else matters to him as much as getting his client acquitted. He will do anything to win. And he's that way regardless of the merit of his client's case, or, for that matter, the merit of the client."

  "He's represented some very bad people," I said.

  "The worst, and he's won for them. And the best, and he's won for them."

  "And it's made him rich."

  Rita finished her martini and ordered another one. I was still dawdling with mine. Martinis make me sleepy. Consumed at lunch they tend to blow my day, as is true at breakfast.

  "Yes. Actually, I think he was always rich. I think his family had money. But he has certainly enlarged his net worth over the years."

  "And he was a judge," I said.

  "Yes. Interestingly, he was not a terribly good judge. He is not judicious. He is not a great legal mind. He is a great litigator. But his judicial rulings were frequently reversed on appeal. He hadn't the patience, or, I guess, the sense of fairness, of"-again Rita looked for a word-"of decency," she said, "that makes a good judge."

  "How'd he feel about being overruled?"

  "It is said to have driven him mad," Rita said. "Have you met him?"

  "Yes."

  "Has he an ego?"

  "A lot bigger than he is," I said.

  "It's what made him so good as a litigator. The ego. He needed to win."

  Rita had picked up the menu and looked at it as she talked. Now she paused to read it.

  "Lobster sandwich looks good," she said.

  "You going to have it?" I said.

  "Oh, God no," she said. "With these hips, what are you crazy?"

  "Those are elegant hips," I said.

  Rita snorted and put down the menu.

  "I'll have the green salad," she told the waiter, "dressing on the side."

  I ordered the lobster sandwich.

  "You're doing that to be mean," Rita said.

  "I like lobster sandwiches. What's Ronan doing at Taft?"

  "Ego. He may be the greatest criminal lawyer in the world. But criminal lawyers tend to represent criminals. And some of the dirt maybe rubs off. I think he took the professorship at Taft because it was prestigious."

  "Does he actually teach," I said.

  Rita shrugged.

  "Taft's trying to build the law school. One way to do that is to attract a superstar. As you know, one of the prime perks of any teaching job is not to teach. Ronan is a superstar. My guess is that he probably lectures once a week. I think he would enjoy lecturing."

  "How about the wife?"

  "Don't know much about her. She's not his first wife. She's a lot younger, and the couple of times I've seen her she was a knockout."

  "So why is he so dangerous?" I said.

  "Because in any adversarial circumstance he will do anything to win. He is very wealthy and he is hugely connected, including all the bad guys he's defended."

  The waiter came with Rita's salad and my lobster sandwich, with mayo, on sourdough bread. Rita ate some salad. I had a bite of my lobster sandwich.

  "Pig," she said.

  I nodded modestly.

  "So how come you are involved with Ronan?" Rita said.

  "His wife and three other women are suing Susan's ex-husband for sexual harassment."

  "Susan's ex-husband?"

  "Yes. Guy named Brad Sterling. He changed it from Silverman."

  "Yeah. Swell. I was thinking of changing mine to Fire."

  "Fire Fiore?" I said.

  "No, idiot, Rita Fire, attorney-at-law. So what's your deal with Sterling Silverman?"

  "Susan asked me to see if I could help him out. She says he's on the brink of dissolution."

  Rita stared at me. "Susan asked you to save her ex-husband?"

  "In a manner of speaking."

  "And you're doing it?"

  "I'm looking into it."

  "And you have to go against Francis Ronan to do it?"

  "Maybe."

  Rita stared at me some more.

  "Are you out of your fucking mind?" Rita said.

  "Not yet."

  Rita started to speak and stopped and started again and stopped without saying anything. She sat silently shaking her head.

  "You told Hawk about this yet?" she said finally.

  "Yeah."

  "He have any comment?"

  "He said, `Umm."'

  "You got any idea what he meant by that?"

  "I think he was implying that this enterprise fraught with peril."

  "Umm," Rita said.

  "Maybe," I said.

  "You say you've met Ronan?"

  "Yeah."

  Rita smiled. "And did you get along?"

  "Not really well," I said.

  S
he smiled wider. "Were you properly respectful?"

  "I told him he was an annoying little twerp," I said.

  Rita laughed out loud, and a couple of people in tweed clothing looked up from their scrod and stared at her. Rita met their look and held it, and they looked quickly back at their scrod.

  "I don't mean to laugh," Rita said. "It is actually quite serious, but goddamn! You and Francis Ronan." She shook her head still smiling. "A match made in heaven," she said. "You're as arrogant as he is."

  "And taller," I said.

  "Be careful with him," Rita said. "Be carefuller than you have ever been with anybody."

  "Sure," I said. "And maybe he needs to be careful of me."

  Rita looked at her glass, discovered a little undrunk martini in the bottom. She picked it up and drained it and put the glass down carefully in the exact same spot where she had picked it up.

  "Maybe," she said.

  chapter eight

  ACCORDING TO THE list Sterling's secretary had given me, there were three other women in the harassment suit: Olivia Hanson, Marcia Albright, and Penny Putnam. Penny Putnam lived in an apartment on the water where the Charlestown Navy Yard used to be. I decided to visit her first. It was close and I like alliteration.

  Penny's address was a big rambling gray clapboard while-trim apartment complex on Pier 7. There was parking under, and the front door was a flight up. A big pretty woman answered the door. I asked if she were Penny Putnam, and she said that she was. She smiled. She was friendly. I could tell she liked me. I asked if I could ask a few questions about the sexual harassment suit she was involved in, and the valves of her attention closed like a stone.

  "I'm sorry," she said. "I have no comment."

  "Why not?" I said.

  The door closed more firmly than the valves of her attention. So the trip shouldn't be a complete waste of time, I stood for a moment and looked across the harbor at the downtown waterfront. Nice view. Then I turned and went back to my car and drove away. I was still sure she liked me. Her rejection was circumstantial.

  I went across the Charlestown Bridge and picked up the Central Artery near North Station. They had built a third tunnel under the Harbor and were in the process of dismantling the Central Artery and putting it underground. The result was that City Square had disappeared and there were convoluted detours from Charlestown to Mattapan. It was always exciting to see where you would end up.