"Sure," I said.
"And I want you to be as careful as you can be… and not let them kill you."
"None of us want that to happen," I said.
Hawk seemed not to be listening which was an illusion. Hawk always knew everything that was going on around him. He was looking at the road, and then at the meadow, and down toward the woods, and back at the road.
Vinnie was staring down at Pearl as he chewed his sandwich. She stared back up at him. He scowled at her. She continued to stare at his sandwich. Finally he pulled off a corner of the sandwich and gave it to her. She raised her head, swallowed it, put her head back in his lap and continued to gaze at the sandwich.
"Swell," Vinnie said.
"Do you think that Lonnie is connected to Craig Sampson's murder?" Susan said.
"He could be connected," I said.
"Or it could be something else."
"Like?"
"Like he's running some rackets in town and he doesn't want an outsider coming in, stumbling across them, and causing trouble."
"But isn't trying to kill you the wrong way to do that?" Susan said.
"If he's covering up something, wouldn't that just cause more attention to be brought?"
"I've thought about that," I said.
"And I've got a couple of conclusions."
Vinnie got careless with his sandwich, and Pearl snapped the rest of it out of his hand and sped away to finish it off. I pushed another sandwich toward Vinnie.
"Ever occur to you maybe I don't like dogs?" Vinnie said.
"It has," I said.
"Isn't she quick?" Susan said.
"Quick," Vinnie said, and unwrapped his new sandwich. Pearl came back to the table and looked at Susan and wagged her tail.
Susan bent over and gave her a kiss on the muzzle.
"Good for you," she said to Pearl. Then she looked at me and said, "Conclusions?"
"The first time they made a run at me was in Port City, in a public place, middle of the day," I said.
"Like maybe they weren't sweating the Port City Police Department," Hawk said, his gaze moving comfortably over the landscape.
"And the second time," I said, "they were in Boston, and if they'd have succeeded, who would tie it to Port City?"
"And even if somebody did," Hawk said, "maybe they still not sweating Port City Police."
"Hawk has reached the same conclusions," I said to Susan.
"I still say if it were me, I'd just lie low and await developments."
"Sure," I said.
"But a guy like Lonnie, he's used to doing what he wants to. He's an activist. And, he may have people to answer to. Maybe he gets a call from the head guy at Kwan Chang 'get the white guy out of our town." Say Hawk's right and he's wired with the cops. There's not a lot of risk. And he doesn't know I'm stubborn. So he warns me, and it doesn't work. How's he look now? He can't run Port City the way they want it, then the long will replace him. And he's going to run the Death Dragons, he can't lose face by letting me ignore him."
Susan nodded.
"So it makes sense from Lonnie's point of view," she said.
"But we still don't know whether he's involved in Craig's death."
"No, we don't."
"And we have no idea who was shadowing Jimmy?"
"No, we don't."
"And Jocelyn."
"About her I've got an idea."
Susan smiled at me.
"Oh, good," she said.
"Yes," I said.
"It's a start."
Pearl scrambled up on the bench seat between me and Susan and sat at table hopefully. Susan put her arm around her.
"You went to Harvard," I said.
"If I needed a translator, you think you could find one?"
"I imagine so," Susan said.
"I don't want a specialist in ritual folk poetry of the Tang Dynasty," I said.
"I need someone who can talk to street types."
"I sort of guessed that," Susan said.
"Wow," I said.
"You did go to Harvard."
Hawk speared two bread and butter pickles from the open jar, gave one to Pearl, and ate the other one. Pearl swallowed hers and waited. Nothing happened so she bounced up onto the table and put her nose in the jar. The mouth of the jar was too small and she couldn't get it all the way in, but she was able to put her tongue in and lap a little pickle juice. Vinnie watched in silence.
"Fucking dog's up on the fucking table eating the pickles," he said.
Susan smiled at him patiently.
"She likes pickles," Susan explained.
CHAPTER 25
Hawk and Vinnie were sitting with me in my office with the door locked to keep the Death Dragons at bay. We were drinking some coffee and eating some donuts. Hawk was reading a book by Cornel West, and Vinnie was sitting with his feet up on the corner of my desk and his eyes half closed, listening to his Walkman through the earphones. I had some mail to go through, and then I had to think about Port City. Most of the mail was junk. And so was most of what I knew about Port City. Vinnie was humming softly to himself. Hawk looked up from his book. "What you listening to?" he said.
"Lennie Welch," Vinnie said.
Hawk looked blank.
Vinnie gave him a sample. "
"You-oo-oo-oo made me leave my happy home…"
" "Lucky you can shoot," Hawk said and went back to his book.
Someone turned the knob on my office door. Hawk rolled left out of his chair, Vinnie went right. They came to their feet on either side of the door, guns out, hammers back. Vinnie was still wearing the Walkman. I was crouching behind the desk, with the Browning aimed at the door.
"Yeah?" I said.
"Spenser? Lee Farrell, is this a bad time?"
I put the gun away and nodded at Hawk to open the door. He did, and Lee walked in. He looked at Hawk and Vinnie still on either side of the door.
"Hawk," he said.
"Lee."
"Vinnie Morris," I said.
"Lee Farrell."
Lee nodded at him.
Vinnie said, "I know he ain't a Chink, but he's wearing a gun."
"He's a cop," I said.
Vinnie shrugged, and went back and sat down. Hawk locked the door again and leaned on the wall. Lee looked around.
"You expecting trouble?"
"Just because the door's locked and I've got a couple guys with me."
"Guys? I know Hawk, and I've heard of Vinnie Morris."
I grinned.
"When you care enough to get the very best," I said.
"Yeah," Lee said.
He took a donut out of the box on my desk and ate some.
"I'm on my way to work," he said.
"I ran Craig Sampson's name through Triple I, and he's not there. So I queried the FBI and they have him."
"Why wasn't it in the Triple I index?"
"Nobody's perfect," Lee said.
"Is it his prints from the army? Or something else?"
"I don't know. I requested his file."
"And?"
"Their computer's backed up, they'll get to it."
"How soon?"
"FBI is a federal agency," Farrell said.
"How soon would you figure?"
"Not soon," I said.
"That's about when I figure. You got a fax?"
"Of course not," I said.
"I just got an answering machine."
"Yeah, silly question. I'll drop it off when it gets here. You taken up firearms yet, or do you still carry a pike?"
"I like a pike," I said.
"But it screws the line of my sport coat."
Lee stood. He looked at Hawk and at Vinnie.
"You seem in pretty good shape," he said.
"But, you need some extra backup, give me a shout."
"Thanks," I said.
CHAPTER 26
I'd caught a large corporation in a big insurance scam last year and been awarded ten percent by the insurance com
pany. I'd put most of it into the house in Concord, and the rest of it into a Mustang convertible, because I thought it would be dandy to solve crimes with the wind blowing through my hair. It was red and had a white roof, and when Susan was with me, I had to keep the top up because it messed her hair. And when Pearl was with me I had to keep the top up because she was inclined to jump out every time she saw a cat. And when I took it to Port City I had to keep the top up because it was always raining. The wipers worked good though, and I didn't seem to be solving crimes, anyway. I went off the highway at Hill Street and wound down toward the waterfront, descending as I went lower into the Port City social strata. Hawk sat in the front seat beside me and Vinnie Morris was in back.
"Got a plan for today, Cap'n?" Hawk said.
"When all else fails," I said, "investigate."
"You mean clues and shit?" Vinnie said.
"Yeah. I need to look at Sampson's apartment, and show his picture to people, and go to bars, and stores, and movie theaters, and restaurants and ask people if they ever saw him, and if they did, who was he with."
"How come you didn't do that right off?" Vinnie said.
"Hawk?" I said.
"
"Cause the police do police work better than he do," Hawk said. "
"Cause they got a lot of bodies available to do it. And he only got him."
"That would be a problem," Vinnie said.
"So why do it now?
Because that Boston cop told you about the FBI prints?"
"Yeah," I said.
"DeSpain told me that they had no history on him. Said there was no record of Sampson's prints."
"DeSpain?" Vinnie said.
"Used to be a state cop named DeSpain."
"Same guy," I said.
"DeSpain was good," Vinnie said.
"Tough bastard, but good."
"So either he's not good any more or he was lying to me," I said.
"So you gotta go over all the ground you thought he'd cover."
"Un huh."
"This is likely to annoy Lonnie Wu," Hawk said.
"Maybe," I said.
"And maybe DeSpain."
"Maybe."
"And maybe somebody do something we can catch them at," Hawk said.
"That would be nice." '"Less they shoot your ass," Hawk said.
"You and Vinnie are supposed to prevent that," I said.
"And if we don't?" Vinnie said.
"You don't like the plan," I said.
"I'm open to suggestions."
"Hey," Vinnie said.
"I don't fucking think. I just shoot people."
"Sooner or later," Hawk said.
We reached the street where Sampson's apartment was, and turned into it and parked on a hydrant in front of his building.
"It'll probably take me a while," I said.
"Probably will," Hawk said.
I put a small flashlight in my pocket, and one of those multi combination survival tools, and got out of the car into the pleasant steady rain. Hawk got behind the wheel and Vinnie came up in the front seat. Hawk shut off the lights and the wipers and turned off the motor. The rain immediately collected on the windows, and I couldn't see them any more.
I turned and walked toward the house where Craig Sampson had lived. It was three stories, gray, black shutters, white trim.
There was a front porch four steps up, and a front door painted black. Narrow, full-length windows framed the front door. The windows were dirty. There were shabby lace curtains in them. The house paint had blistered away leaving long, bare patches, but the wood beneath was gray with age and soil so that it nearly matched.
There were three door bells. The first two had names in the little brass frames beneath. The top frame was empty. I peered in through the murky glass past the ratty curtains. There was a narrow hallway, an interior door on the right, and a staircase rising along the right wall beyond it. I tried the front door. It was locked. I looked at the doorbells. There was no intercom associated with them. I rang all the doorbells and waited. Inside the house the first floor door opened, and a thin, angry-looking woman opened the front door. I checked the name on the first floor bell.
"Hello," I said.
"Ms. Rebello?"
"What's your story," she said. She was nearly as tall as I was, and high-shouldered, and narrow. Her hair was about the color of the house and tightly permed. She was wearing a flowered dress and sneakers. The little toe of her right sneaker had been cut out, presumably to relieve pressure on a bunion.
"You the landlady?" I said.
She nodded. I took out my wallet and opened it and flashed my gun permit at her. It had my picture on it, and looked official. She squinted at it.
"Police," I said.
"I need to take another look at Craig Sampson's apartment."
I closed my wallet and stowed it. I knew she had no idea what she had just looked at.
"Well, I wish you'd be a little neater this time," she said.
"I'm going to have to rent that place."
"Lady, my heart bleeds," I said.
"All I got to think about is how somebody shot your tenant full of holes."
I figured nice didn't work with her.
"Yeah, well, you already looked once," she said.
"And I got no rent coming in from the place."
I nodded and jerked my thumb up the stairs.
"Just unlock the deceased's door," I said.
Still muttering, she turned and walked up the stairs ahead of me, limping on her bunion.
"I got a mortgage to pay… I don't get income out of this place, I still got to pay the mortgage… Bank don't care who got killed, or who didn't. I don't pay the mortgage, I'm out in the street… You people just take your own sweet damn time about it… What am I supposed to do with his stuff, anyway?"
At the third floor there was a tiny landing, lit by a 60-watt bulb in a copper-tone sconce. She took some keys from the pocket of her house coat and fumbled at the lock.
"Don't even have my glasses," she said.
"Can't see a damn thing without them."
She finally found the keyhole and opened the door and stepped aside.
"Close the door when you leave," she said.
"Downstairs too.
They'll lock behind you."
"Sure," I said and stepped past her into the apartment and closed the door. I listened for a moment and heard her limp back down the stairs. Then I turned my attention to the apartment.
CHAPTER 27
There was a bathroom directly opposite the front door, a two stride hallway to the right that led into a bed-sitting room with a huge black-and-white theater poster filling the far wall, and some gray light coming in wearily from the single dormer window. The poster was of Brando in A Streetcar Named Desire. The bed was one of those oak platform deals with storage drawers underneath. There was a green Naugahyde arm chair, and a gray metal desk and chair. At the foot of the bed was a gray metal foot locker. The walls were white, but an old white and one that hadn't been washed very often.
I could hear the rain on the roof. I looked out of the one window for a moment and watched the rain fall gently past me and down three stories and onto the roof of my convertible. The rain had hurried the fall of leaves along the street. They plastered the roadway with limp, green-tinged yellow spatters, and collected in the storm culverts and backed up the water. A gray and white municipal bus moved past, sending spray up from the puddles onto the sidewalk. I turned back to the room. Everything was neat. Ms.
Rebello had probably stepped in after the cops had tossed it. Funny they should have left it messy. Usually they don't.
I started at the bathroom and went through the room slowly.
Even in a bath-and-bed apartment there are lots of places to look when you don't know what you're looking for. I looked under the rug and in the toilet tank. I felt inside the water spout in the tub.
I used the plier part of my combination tool to take off the show
er head. I pulled the stopper from the drain and shined my flashlight in. I shook out the towels, and felt carefully over the shower curtain. I checked the tiles in the shower to make sure there wasn't a loose one with something hidden behind it. I did the same with the baseboard, and the ceiling molding. I removed the nut from the tap in the sink drain and found a wet soap-and-hair ball. I didn't know what I was looking for, but I knew that wasn't it. I shined my light into the sink drain. I emptied the wastebasket and put the stuff back in. I smelled the shaving lotion and looked at the bottle against the light. I tasted the baby powder and then emptied the container into the toilet. There was nothing in there but talc. I flushed the toilet and threw the container in the wastebasket. I held the shampoo bottle up to the light. I examined the toothpaste tube, and the deodorant stick and the shaving cream can. All of them were what they appeared to be. I took the toilet paper off the roll and looked at it carefully from each end. There was nothing rolled into it. I shined my light between each vane on the radiator. I checked the medicine cabinet. When I was satisfied that there was nothing that would do me any good in the bathroom, I moved to the big room. And in about ten minutes I found it.
Taped to the bottom of one of the storage drawers in the platform bed was a white envelope and in the envelope were eight Polaroid pictures, seven of a woman with no clothes on, one, taken in a mirror, of a man and woman with no clothes on. The man was Craig Sampson. The woman was holding a towel in front of her face.
I took the pictures over to the desk and sat down and spread them out on the desk and turned on the gooseneck lamp that sat on the back corner of the desk. I studied them in an entirely professional way. She was lying on, or standing beside, a bed in what was probably a hotel room. She was either stark naked (five pictures, including the one with Sampson) or wearing the kind of garter belt and stockings get-up that has so successfully weathered the test of time in Playboy (three pictures). I was comforted by the garter belt poses. I'd begun to think only of and I still cared for that sort of thing.
The room was very still while I looked at the pictures. There was the white sound of the rain on the roof, the occasional settling creak of an old house responding to the steady weight of gravity, and an occasional sound of steam heat knocking tentatively in the pipes.
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