Sudden Mischief

by Robert B. Parker

  "I'll make some coffee," I said.

  "Fine."

  Susan sat on a stool at her kitchen counter and watched me assemble the coffee and water in Mr. Coffee. When it was ready, I poured us each a cup.

  "Didn't you leave some Irish whisky here last year?" she said.

  "Yes."

  "I'll have some in my coffee," she said.

  I found the whisky in the cabinet above the refrigerator and poured some into her cup.

  "Thank you," she said.

  I put some milk and sugar in my coffee and leaned my hips on the counter next to the refrigerator. Brad came into the kitchen, barefoot, wearing a tee shirt and a pair of jeans. The tee shirt hung loose outside the jeans.

  "I smell java," he said.

  "In the pot on the counter," I said.

  He poured some.

  "Milk and sugar?"

  "Nope, I like it black as the devil's soul, and lots of it," he said. "These are your duds, I assume."

  "Yes."

  "Pants are a tad short," he said.

  "Tee shirt's kind of loose around the chest and arms too," I said.

  Susan smiled and sipped her coffee.

  "Any chow?" he said.

  "There's some eggs in the refrigerator," Susan said.

  "Suze, come on, I don't really cook very well."

  "Me either."

  "No? I figured you'd learned by now."

  "Never did," Susan said. "Never wanted to."

  "Damn," Brad said. "I'm really hungry."

  Neither of us said anything. Brad opened a few cabinet doors randomly and found some rye bread, and a half jar of peanut butter.

  "For shame," I said to Susan.

  "Only keep it for guests," she said to me.

  "You don't have any white bread, do you?"

  "No."

  "Jelly?"

  "Refrigerator."

  He found some boysenberry jam in the refrigerator and looked at it the way Macbeth had looked at the spot.

  "What kind is this?"

  "Boysenberry," Susan said.

  "Well, it'll have to do," Brad said. "Got something to make a sandwich?"

  "Knife is in the left drawer in front of you," Susan said.

  She took another sip of her coffee. Her face was contemplative. She looked as if she had just awakened from a deep refreshing sleep and was waiting to see what the day would bring. Brad made an amateurish looking peanut butter and jelly sandwich and ate it rapidly, hunched over the counter with swallows of coffee in between bites. As soon as he had finished, he made another one. This one was no better looking but it lasted longer. Susan and I were quiet while he ate.

  "Sorry to be stowing it away like this," Brad said, "but I am really famished."

  He finished his second sandwich and went to the sink to rinse his hands and face. I could see that he had a small gun in his right hip pocket. I took mine off my hip and put it on the counter top and rested my right hand on it, shielded discretely by the refrigerator. Brad dried his hands and face on a paper towel and refilled his cup and came to the counter where we sat and leaned his forearms on it.

  "Wow," he said. "Nothing like getting inside a shower and outside of some strong Joe to make you feel brand new."

  "So where have you been?" Susan said.

  "Round and about," Brad said. "I ran out of money three-four days ago."

  "And you came to me," Susan said. "Do you think I'll give you money?"

  "I had nowhere else to go, Suzie-Q."

  "Why didn't you go home?" Susan said.

  Her voice was calm and pleasant and implacable. Occasionally she raised her coffee cup with both hands and took a sip.

  "We're maybe not married anymore, sure, but hell, we're still family."

  "No, Brad, we're not family. That's what divorce means."

  "We meant something to one another, Suzuki. We meant quite a lot."

  "Brad, think about this for a moment. There was a reason why I divorced you."

  "Well, sure, I made some mistakes."

  "We both did, but finally after all that is taken into account, and to oversimplify a little perhaps, for effect, there's more to it than that. I divorced you because I didn't like you."

  Brad straightened as if he'd been stuck with a pin. He frowned and opened his mouth and closed it and opened it again and said, "I can't believe you said that."

  "One of the biggest problems you have, Brad," Susan said, "is you can only believe what you want to or need to. I didn't like you. I don't like you. The first time you came to see me I thought you were asking for help and I felt enough guilt to try to get you help."

  "Him?" Brad said.

  "Now I realize you were asking me for money," Susan said. "But I was not sufficiently, ah, evolved, and I misunderstood. I tried to save you."

  "By sending me him? Thanks a lot."

  "It was my mistake and it is my responsibility that he's involved with you. But I'm not going to compound that mistake by lying to you or to myself."

  "What are you saying?"

  "I'm saying that when you have finished your coffee and we're through talking, you'll have to leave."

  "And go where?"

  "Probably to hell."

  "And you don't care?"

  "You'll get there anyway," Susan said. "Whatever I do."

  "That's cold, Sue, that's really cold."

  "Yes," she said.

  "I'm just trying to stay alive, Susie."

  "I wish you success," Susan said.

  "And what happens if I won't leave? Your bully boy throws me out?"

  I smiled courteously.

  "You'll have to leave," Susan said.

  "Well, let me tell you right, damned, now, Suzie Qu-sie, I've dealt with tougher guys than him."

  "There's no need to put it to the test," Susan said. "I'll simply call the police."

  "Susan, for God's sake, I can't let the cops find me. If I have to leave here, I've got no place to go. If they find me, they'll kill me."

  "The cops?"

  "Of course not."

  "Who?"

  She said it so gently, and it slipped into the flow of the argument so easily that Brad answered it before he knew he'd been asked.

  "Wechsler and Gavin," he said in the exasperated tone one uses to explain the obvious to an idiot. Susan was looking at him over the rim of her cup. She sipped a little of the whisky-laced coffee and then slowly lowered the cup, and sat back a little.

  "Why?"

  "Why for crissake…"

  In mid-sentence Brad realized that he had said too much. He stopped and shut his mouth and his face had a set look to it.

  "Why are Gavin and Wechsler after you?"

  Brad shook his head. Susan was silent, waiting. Brad tried to match her silence but he couldn't.

  "They think I got something they want," he said.

  "What?"

  Brad clamped his mouth shut and shook his head.

  Susan waited. Brad shook his head. Susan looked at me.

  "Would you like to contribute?" she said.

  "It's a blue floppy disk," I said. "For a computer."

  "Shut up," Brad said.

  "What's on the disk?" Susan said.

  Brad shook his head. Susan looked at me.

  "I'd guess it was the record of his scam with Gavin," I said, "and indirectly, Wechsler."

  "Is that right?" Susan said to Brad.

  "Of course not," Brad said. "But you'll probably believe him anyway."

  "I probably will," Susan said. "Go ahead."

  "This is how I think it went," I said to Brad. "Feel free to correct me. I think you were looking for money and, being the way you are, you went to Carla Quagliozzi, your ex-wife, and tried to get some. She wouldn't give you any, but she sent you to her boyfriend, Richard Gavin, who is Haskell Wechsler's lawyer."

  "I don't have to stand around here and listen to this tripe," Brad said to Susan.

  "No," Susan said, "you don't."

  "Gavin arr
anged for you to borrow some money from Haskell," I said, "and of course you couldn't pay it back, and of course you got behind on the interest. Maybe Gavin expected that. Maybe Gavin baited you with the loan so they could squeeze you later. I don't know how clever he is."

  Brad tried looking out the window as if he were bored.

  "But I know how clever you are," I said. "So after they threatened you enough to scare you, they made you a proposition. Haskell accumulates a lot of cash, being a loan shark, and he needed to launder it. You run fund-raising events. So they'd finance the fundraisers, like Galapalooza, and you would then donate their costs, plus maybe a little extra for your vig, back to them through a dummy charity called Civil Streets."

  "See." Brad said. "See, Susan, how he is? If what he said was true, then Gavin and Wechsler would love me. Why would they be after me?"

  "Because you, being you, skimmed on them. You were supposed to pay off the other charities too, to make it look right. But you didn't. From Galapalooza you gave them what you agreed to, but you kept the rest, and stiffed the other charities."

  "You were supposed to be helping me with that harassment case," Brad said. "How come you been snooping around in my other business?"

  "It fell in my lap," I said. "And I admit I stirred it up a bit, and maybe because I did, Gavin found out that you were cheating on the other charities. But it would have happened sooner or later. The charity groups talk to each other. Anyway, Gavin looked into it himself and was very unhappy to find that you'd cheated everyone else, because it meant sooner or later someone would complain and the AG's office would look into it, and everybody's fat would be in the fire."

  "Suze, do you believe all this?" Brad said.

  "Yes."

  "Well, I suppose you would, wouldn't you," he said.

  "So Gavin sent over a guy he'd once represented, guy named Cony Brown, to persuade you to cough up the money you'd skimmed. And of course you couldn't because you didn't have it, because you spent it as soon as you got it. And Cony got aggressive and you shot him, and took the disk-I assume you figured it would protect you if they didn't know where it was-and you scooted."

  "I should have sent you packing," Brad said, "the minute she sent you to me."

  "I probably hurried things along," I said. "But you'd have gotten yourself into this rat's alley anyway."

  "What I don't understand," Susan said, "the sexual harassment suit really started the unraveling of this whole thing. Why didn't you just show the pictures of Jeanette to her husband. It would have stopped him in his tracks."

  "I don't kiss and tell," Brad said.

  "Chivalry?" Susan said.

  "Whatever you think of me," Brad said, "there are things I believe in."

  Susan looked at me. I shrugged.

  "Hitler liked dogs," I said.

  "What the hell's that supposed to mean," Brad said.

  "People are inconsistent," I said.

  "Then why in heaven's name did you let him in?" Susan said.

  I knew the "him" was me. Neither one of them seemed able to use my name. I wasn't sure why, but I didn't mind.

  "To humor you."

  "You think?" Susan said to me.

  "Maybe there was a little more," I said. "Maybe he hoped that I would find him in such serious need of cash that you would relent and open your heart and your coffers."

  Susan nodded.

  "And he was probably scared. Gavin and Wechsler would have leaned on him pretty hard before they set him up in the fund-raiser scam. He might have thought a, ah, bully boy would be useful."

  "And he would have thought he could manipulate you," Susan said. "And he would have assumed that you would protect him because of me."

  "Which I will," I said.

  "No," Susan said. "You won't."

  The kitchen was quiet except for the soft white sound of air conditioning. I let my gun rest against my right thigh. Cony Brown was a pro and Brad had cranked him.

  "So," Sterling said, "you are prepared to throw me to the wolves? Both of you?"

  He looked hard at Susan. She had one last sip of her strong coffee and put the cup down and folded her hands behind it on the counter top. She looked back at Sterling.

  Then she said to me, her eyes still on Sterling, "Do you think he killed Carla Quagliozzi?"

  "Yes."

  "And… cut out her tongue?"

  "Yes."

  Something happened to Sterling's face. Something stirred behind his eyes that changed the way he looked. Something repellent peeked out through the bland Ivy League disguise. It was nameless, and base, and it wasn't human. We both saw it. Perhaps Susan had seen it as often in her work. She didn't flinch.

  She said, "You did that, didn't you, Brad."

  The thing darted in and out of sight behind his eyes. He didn't speak. Susan got up from the counter and walked around it and stood in front of Sterling.

  "You killed that woman and cut her tongue out," she said. "Didn't you."

  The kitchen was cool and still. I could feel the trapezius muscles on top of my shoulders begin to bunch. I took in some air and made them relax. When Sterling finally spoke it was shocking. His voice came out in an eerily adolescent whine.

  "What was I supposed to do?" he said. "They send some gangster to hurt me and I have to shoot him and the cops are after me. And I'm desperate. And down on my luck, for cripes sake, and go to her for help and she won't help. She says she's going to tell."

  "Tell the police?" Susan said gently.

  "Yes. Because of him."

  I knew he meant me. So did Susan.

  "He kept coming around, and then the cops, and she was going to go there and tell on me."

  "To the police?" Susan said. "She was going to the police?"

  "Yes."

  Tears had formed in Sterling's eyes.

  "She was my wife, for cripes sake. She was supposed to help me."

  "So you had to kill her?" Susan said.

  "I was supposed to let her tell?"

  "And the… tongue," Susan said.

  "So they'd know."

  The sound of his voice had lost all hint of the man from whom it came. It sounded like a drill bit binding in metal.

  "They'd know what?"

  "That she was going to tell on us, so I had to kill her. It was a, a symbol. So they'd know I was protecting all of us."

  "They being Gavin and Wechsler?"

  "'Course."

  Susan looked at me.

  "What did you use?" I said.

  "My jackknife. My father always said a man was no better than the knife he carried. I always carry a good jackknife."

  "And what did you do with it?"

  "With what?"

  "The tongue," I said.

  "The thing in the sink, you know…" He made a grinding noise.

  "Disposal," Susan said.

  "Yuh, disposal." He gestured down, with his forefinger.

  Susan stared at him for a moment with no expression on her face, then she turned and walked back and stood next to me. The counter was between Sterling and us. He looked a little dazed.

  "What was I supposed to do," he said. "Everybody I turn to lets me down."

  Susan took a deep breath and let it out and walked to the end of the counter and picked up the phone.

  "No," Sterling said.

  He put his right hand behind him, feeling for the gun in his back pocket. I brought mine up from beside my thigh and aimed it at the middle of his chest.

  "Try to use the gun and I'll kill you," I said.

  Sterling froze in mid gesture. He looked at Susan.

  "Take the gun out slowly, hold it with your thumb and forefinger only, and put it on the counter in front of me. And step back away from it."

  The thing in behind his eyes was seething now. He didn't want to give up the gun. He wanted to kill both of us and everyone else who wouldn't help him. But the thing didn't make him blind. Maybe he saw something in my eyes. Maybe he knew that shooting him would satisfy me i
n ways that few things could. Slowly and carefully he took the gun out and put it on the counter. It was a Targa.380. He still seemed dazed. I picked the gun up and stuck it in my belt.

  "Susie," he said. "For God's sake, Susie."

  Susan dialed 911.

  "I'm not going to stay here," he said. "You can shoot me if you want."

  I shook my head. And he turned and walked from the kitchen. I followed him. He went through the living room to the hall and out the apartment door, down the stairway, and out the front door of the building. The door swung shut and latched gently behind him. From the front hall window I watched him run in the late afternoon sunshine under the filtering trees, up Linnaean Street toward Mass Ave.

  Susan came to stand beside me. She put her forehead against the wall beside the window and closed her eyes.

  "My God," she said. "My God."

  I stood beside her without touching her, and we stood like that until the cops came.

  chapter forty-nine

  SUSAN AND I sat across from each other in her kitchen with a bottle of Irish whisky on the counter between us and no lights on. Pearl had been liberated from the office and tended to, and was lying on the couch in the living room. The cops were gone. The sun was down, and the early evening had taken on a bluish tint outside the kitchen windows. "What will happen to him?" Susan said.

  "Brad? They'll catch him."

  "You seem so sure."

  "He's too dumb," I said. "He won't last long."

  "Can they prove he did what you said he did?"

  "Well, they've got his gun. It should match up with the slugs they took out of Cony Brown and Carla."

  "How awful… the tongue especially."

  "I know," I said. "Funny thing. It was supposed to reassure Gavin and Wechsler. I don't think Wechsler even noticed it had happened. This was mostly Gavin and Brad, I think. But Gavin took it as a threat. You know, keep quiet or this will happen to you. He was walking around with bodyguards."

  "You don't think Wechsler was involved?"

  "He was involved," I said, "but basically just to have his money laundered. I don't think he even knew the mechanics."

  "Because of the way he acted when you confronted him?"

  "Yes."

  "And you trust your instincts?"

  "Have to," I said. "Most of the actually important clues in this business are really how people are. If you can't read human behavior pretty good after a while, you never get very good at this."