Robert B Parker - Spenser 26 - Hush Money

by Hush Money(lit)

  go out and listen."

  "WhyT'

  "Why not? Right now I got so little that knowing what he looks like will help:'

  Hawk nodded. '

  "I had a lover in Maine;' he said, "and he coming to Fitchburg, maybe I arrange to meet him."

  "Why don't you stick with Amir;' I said. "And I'll tag along behind Milo Quant. And we'll see."

  "Say we catch them doing the hoochie coochie," Hawk said. "What we got?"

  "More than we got now," I said. "That much," Hawk said. "Well, we've got some stuff," I said. "We've already got Amir connected to an outfit that is capable of pitching someone out a window:' "True." "What we don't have is proof that they did it, or any reason why:' "Prentice a blackmailer," Hawk said. "Could be a reason," I said. "Don't forget why we doing this," Hawk said. "I know. Robinson's tenure," I said. "I think we've got enough now. But it's messy. I want it clean:' "How often you gel, clean?" Hawk said. I grinned. "Figure I'm due," I said.

  KC Roth called me on the phone.

  "I'm sorry about the other day;' she said.

  "Un huh."

  "I guess I'm a little crazy ight now."

  "Probably."

  "It's not easy being me, you know."

  "I know."

  "I'm alone, I have no prospects, I need supp't. I guess sometimes I get a little too aggressive."

  "Nothing wrong with aggressive," I said. "But you need to focus it properly."

  "Easy for you to say. You're not alone."

  "The question isn't whether it's easy for me to say. The question is am I right?"

  "I didn't call up for you to give me advice;' KC said. "No;' I said. "Of course you didn't."

  "It's frankly none of your goddamned business."

  "It was," I said. "But now it isn't."

  "That doesn't mean I can't call you up and have a civil conversation, does itT'

  "No it doesn't;' I said.

  288 I¢rf- if. str

  "Well fine," she said and slammed the phone down. I seemed to be in a lovers' quarrel with someone who was not my lover. I hung up the phone and looked at it for a moment and then got up and went to get my car. Fitchburg is a little working-class city of 40,000 people about fifty miles west of Boston. It is also south of Ashby and southeast of Winchendon and north of Leominster, and a great many people don't care much where it is. The state college is up the hill from Route 2A. There were signs directing me to the evening's event. When I got to the auditorium there were several Fitchburg Police cars and at least three blue and gray State Police cruisers parked around the place, taking all the best spots. I parked in a slot that said Faculty Only, and walked over to the auditorium. There were cops in the lobby, cops at the entrances, standing around talking to each other. There were also several Ivy League-looking guys in shirts and ties and dark suits, clustered near the main entrance door, scanning the crowd. One of them was the guy with the horn-rimmed glasses who had come to my office with his associates and spoken unkindly to me and Hawk about Amir Abdullah. He had also spoken even more brusquely to us in Beecham, Maine. I had the impulse to step into his line of sight and say, "booga, booga," but I was there to observe, and I usually observed better if no one was paying any attention to me. I went in another entrance, and took a seat in the back. The room was full. Mostly students. From their conversations I gathered that not all of them were fans of Milo Quant. At 7:30 Horn Rims and his fellows walked out quietly and stood at parade rest on the floor of the auditorium between the front row of seats and the stage. I noticed that there were state and local cops along the walls on both sides of the auditorium. A heavyset woman in a pale blue pants suit came onto the

  S/ M, 289

  stage and stood behind the lectern. She waited for a moment and when she saw that the audience wasn't going to quiet, she began. "I'm Margaret Dryer," she said. "I'm the clean of student affairs here. Like many of you present I do not agree with Mr. Quant's view of the human condition." The audience quieted a little as she spoke. "But I agree with his right to hold those ideas and indeed to espouse them, however repellent I personally find them to be. That is the meaning of free speech, and I hope each and every one of you in the audience will respect Mr. Quant's right to free speech. There has been talk of disruption. I have heard itt just as you have heard it. The police are here. We have asked them to be here. We have asked them to protect everyone's right to civil discourse. We have also asked them to prevent any infringement on those rights, and they will do so." She paused for a moment. The audience was quiet. Then she turned and gestured toward the wings of e stage. "May I introduce our guest, Mr. Milo.uant, of Last Stand Systems, Incorporated." The audience booed the minute his name was mentioned. The booing magnified when he strolled out from the side and replaced Dean Dryer at the lectern. He stood silently for a time, smiling down at the audience, allowing the roar of boos to roll over him. He was a short fat man in a well-made blue suit, a white shirt, and a maroon silk fie. It was hard to be sure from where I sat, but his shoes looked as if they had lifts in them. His nose was sharp and curled a little at the tip like the beak of a falcon. His mouth was wide with thick lips. His face was fleshy. He had thick eyebrows that Ved down over the bridge of his nose. His upturned smile was V-shaped so that he looked sort of like a devilish Santa Claus.

  290 P.¢rt'- fi'. Prr The boos continued. He stood quietly, smiling. After a while the students tired. The boos dwindled. Finally it was nearly quiet. "There," Quant said. "Feel better?" There was some more booing, but there was also a scatter of laughter. Quant beamed down at us. "There, I'm not such a monster now am I? Look a little like your grandfather, maybe." Somebody laughed. Somebody yelled "Fascist." "Do you know where the word fascist comes from?" Quant said. He leaned slightly forward at the lectern, so that his mouth was closer to the microphone. He let his folded hands rest quietly on top of e lectern. "It comes from ancient Rome. It derives from the word fasces which refers to the symbol of Official Power, a bundle of reeds with an axe head protruding. We at Last Stand are hardly fascists. We don't symbolize official power. We oppose it. We oppose a government hell-bent to dissemble my country, your country, our country. We oppose a government which will make us not Americans, but mongrelized members of a word government where every Arab despot and cannibal dictator may say yea or nay to us." He was good. The audience was listening. "And we ask you to join us in that opposition. We are not asking of you the sacrifices that were asked of the men who founded this country." "And women," someone shouted. Quant smiled. "They made their own sacrifices. But I'm talking about the men who were asked to fight and often die for liberty. We don't ask that of you. We ask only that you keep yourself worthy of the liberty they died for. We ask that you keep

  yourself clean and straight. We ask that you value marriage. That you respect the God of our fathers. That you honor your ethnic purity. That you fulfill the destiny for which so many of those men suffered and died." He paused. They listened. He smiled warmly at us all. "If this be treason;' he said slowly, "let us make the most of it." Some people clapped. A few hooted. Most were quiet. Quant went on. If he spoke ill of other races and religions, if he said that all American values were to be found only in white Christian males, he said it obliquely, sliding it in always in terms of honor and cleanliness, heritage, straightness, and respect. He spoke until 8i 15, and then took questions. The majority of the questions were hostile. He handled them easily. He had heard them before. He clever said nigger, or queer, or Jew, or dyke. He managed also to be more magnanimous than his questioner, and he always had a gracious and convincing answer for even the most difficult questions.:. His answers were largely bullshit, but they.,lere good bullshit. I had years ago learned that it was useless to debate zealots. They had spent most of their adult life thinking intensely about the object of their zealotry. Normally their debaters had not. I wanted to stand and ask him if in fact he were wearing lifts in his shoes. But I was there to watch and listen and I didn't want to get into it with Horn Rims or any of
the other preservers of our heritage. So I shut up. Which is a ploy that often works well for me. When it was over, Quant was escorted out by his keepers and the cops. It was raining. A small group of students were standing across the street, getting wet, chanting "Two, four, six, eight, USA can't use your hate." I wondered why protesters so often demeaned their deepest-held convictions by

  29l 't'. Ptrr

  reciting them loudly in doggerel. Nobody in Quant's party paid any attention to them. And, in fact, neither did many people in Quant's audience. Shielded by an umbrella one of the security guys deployed, Quant got into his black Lincoln and departed with three bodyguards. The other security guys got into a large van. The protesters chanted at them until they were out of sight. Then they stood somewhat aimlessly for a few moments and then drifted away in various directions.

  I suspected that Quant hadn't convinced anyone who hadn't come convinced. But he had made them see that he was pleasant, and that he spoke as if what he espoused was both reasonable and kind, and they were puzzled. And maybe they didn't enjoy doggerel much, either.

  My car had a parking ticket on the windshield issued by the Fitchburg State Collele Campus Police. I took it off my windshield and tucked it carefully under the wiper of the car next to me. Then I got in and drifted along behind Quant with the windshield wipers making long steady sweeps across my glass, their sound like the rhythm of music that wasn't playing.

  the Quant limo pulled off of Route 495 near Chelmsford and into the parking lot of a big motel that looked like the Disney version of a Norman castle. The van kept on going. I followed Quant, and got into a slot in the next row and watched as Milo and his bodyguard deployed umbrellas and walked across the glistening parking lot into the hotel lobby. The place was more hotel than motel, in that it was four stories high and entry was through the front door. For my ptqoses, I would have liked the conventional one-room one-door approach, but the more I live the more I don't always get what I want. I sat for a while and thought. While I was doing this Hawk opened the passenger door and slid in, the rain

  beaded on his smooth head.

  "Ah ha!" I said.

  "Ah ha indeed, my good man;' Hawk said. "The game'g afoot."

  "Amir," I said.

  "Yowzah," Hawk said. "Rents a car this afternoon, comes out here 'bout three o'clock. I see him pull in and I take a chance and get into the lobby 'fore he do. There a phone booth fight by the desk. I'm in it with my back turned and

  294 v. etv vnr/ r

  the phone at my ear when he gets to the desk. He's got a

  reservation. He's in room four seventeen."

  "Good to know," I said.

  "Well, I got nothing much else to do so I hang around, sit

  in the bar, read a paper, drink some Perrier with a nice wedge of lime, have a club sandwich, drink some more Perrier and about five minutes ago in come a group of people and one of them is our man with the horn-rimmed glasses. They got

  reservations. Their rooms are four fifteen and four nineteen." "Either side," I said. "Un huh."

  "There were four bodyguards, fight?" "Including the limo driver," Hawk said. "Plus Quant."

  "Two bodyguards in four fifteen;' I said. "Two bodyguards in four nineteen. Where's Quant go?"

  "Four seventeen," Hawk said. "Want to take a look?"

  "Sure," I said. "Why don't I register and we can look at

  the room setup.''

  "Call from the car," Hawk said, "make sure they have a room."

  I did. They did.

  "Okay," I said. "Stay here. I'll cl you."

  I left the motor running, took a gym bag from the trunk of

  my car, and walked toward the lobby. The gym bag looked fight, but all it contained were burglar tools. I checked into the lobby. They gave me room 205. I went up and let myself

  in and put the gym bag on the bed and called Hawk.

  "Room two-oh-five," I said.

  "Fine. Is the desk clerk a man or a woman?"

  "Woman."

  "Good. I'll come in tell her I'm Amir and I've lost my key."

  $A gfi 29

  "They often want to see ID," I said.

  "She'd be scared to ask me;' Hawk said. "Scared I say she racist for asking."

  "And if she remembers Amir at all it'll be that h's black

  and so ¢ you, so you must be him?'

  "Un huh?'

  "S you soon," I said.

  And I did. In aut ten nutes he knked on e door and I let him in. He smiled at me and held up the plastic key

  "She thought I look like Michael Jordany Hawk said.

  "You ow how to play that old race cd;' I said. "Don't you."

  "Ido;' Hawk said.

  The room was smndd B-class hotel. Tile ba and shower in the short hl as you came in e door, ng-sized bed, small robie d two chairs by the window, built-in beau with a lge television set on top of it. The dr unlked eltronically wie plastic cd d could chain lted from e inside. I looked at e ch bolt. The chain was attached to e dr frame by two sml brass screws. I took a small p b from the gym bag.

  "Bolt e door," I sd.

  I took the room key and went out and shut e dr. I hed Hawk set the chn lt. I opened the door with the plastic cd, slid the p b in rough e oning, d.pd e chn loose without much effom'I went back

  into e room and closed the door. "Shouldn't hard getting in theref' I said. "Once we in what we going to do?"

  "I guess we'll ask them what ey're doing herey I said. "And en we'll s what hapns."

  "at you want to hapn?"

  296 IrOff. Pstrr

  "I want everyone to get so percolated that they start saying things they will later regret and we might finally know something concrete."

  "And what we going to do they start hollering and the bodyguards come dashing in?"

  "I thought you had that covered;' I said.

  "'Course I got it covered," Hawk said. "I just meant you

  want me to shoot them or quell them with a stem look?" "Stem look will probably cause less ruckus," I said.

  "I'll work on it;' Hawk said, and we went out and took the elevator to the fourth floor.

  on the parking lot. We could have kicked the door in while singing Verdi's "Othello" and neither Milo nor Amir would have heard us. They were in bed together, zonked. Hawk walked over to the bed and leveledhis gun at them. When he was in place I closed the door, found the light switch, and turned on the lights. They slept on. Amir was on his side, his back to Milo who lay on his back, his mouth half open, snoring gently. Hawk put the big Magnum back under his.goat. He picked up the telephone from the bedside table and disconnected the handset and tossed it onto one of the soft chairs by the window table. There were dirty dishes on the table, remnants of food, glasses, and an empty champagne bottle. There were also five small plastic pill bottles, the kind prescriptions come in. I picked one of them up. It had no label. I took off the top. It contained five large maroon capsules. I dumped them out on the table. I picked.up another one. Blue capsules. All five were unlabeled. All five contained some sort of pills. I dumped all of them out on the table.

  "lecognize any of these," I said to Hawk.

  He shook his head.

  298 Iert- R. Pnrr

  "Only do booze," Hawk said. "But they don't look like prescriptions."

  Milo opened his eyes. They didn't focus. His mouth was still open and he was still making soft snoring noises. Hawk took his gun back out. Milo blinked a couple of times. He closed his mouth. He blinked a couple more times. Then he sat bolt upright and as he did so Hawk put the gun muzzle right up to Milo's face.

  "Don't yell," Hawk said.

  Milo fumbled at the bedside phone. He couldn't find the

  handset and couldn't seem to register that it was gone. "Phone won't work," Hawk said.

  "There's money in my wallet," Milo said in a thick voice.

  "In my pants pocket. On the back of that chair."

  "Wake him up," I said'and nodded at Amir.

  Milo turned and
shook Amir awake. He came back from wherever he was even more slowly than Milo had, but after a

  while everyone was awake and looking at each other. "Tell Milo who we are," I said to Amir.

  Both men had edged up into a sitting position, their backs resting against the headboard. Both were half covered by the bedclothes. Both their upper bodies were naked. Amir wore three thick gold chains. His chest was black and bony. There was a lot of short curly hair on it. Milo had no jewelry, nor hair

  on his chest. He was fat and pale with blotchy pink highlights. "They're;' Amir paused, "the white one is a detective." "Detective? Damn you, you have no right..."