Sixkill

by Robert B. Parker

  "Now we walk back, and then walk back here, and then sprint another one hundred," I said.

  "Sure," Z said.

  We walked the two hundred at an easy pace. And sprinted one hundred. And walked two hundred. After the eighth sprint, Z threw up.

  "Hey," I said. "You're in Harvard Stadium."

  Bent over with his hands braced on his thighs, he gasped, "Outta shape."

  We sat in the empty stands for a bit while Z's health returned.

  "I thought I was in shape," Z said. "I thought I could fight."

  "Confusing," I said. "You sure you're a Cree Indian?"

  "What they told me," Z said.

  "Good," I said. "If you were Irish, Sixkill would be a really funny name."

  "Sounds better in Cree," he said.

  "Lemme hear," I said.

  He said something.

  "By God, you're right," I said.

  "What about that girl?" he said.

  "Know anything?"

  Z shrugged.

  "I was in the living room," he said. "Jumbo opens the bedroom door, tells me to call."

  "He have many guests like that in his room?"

  "Every day," Z said.

  "Always girls?"

  "Girls, boys," Z said.

  "Not choosy," I said. "And great natural charm."

  "They wanna fuck a star," Z said.

  "Dawn like that?" I said.

  "Ready to play any game Jumbo wanted."

  "He play games?" I said.

  "Kinky stuff?"

  "Yes."

  "Whadda you think?" Z said.

  "I'd rather not think about it," I said.

  "He used to carry sex tools in a gym bag," Z said.

  "Was Dawn Lopata his standard MO?"

  "Sure. Had them scheduled, like regular. Days ahead."

  "Any trouble before?" I said.

  "Not much," Z said. "Couple pregnancies. Paid them off."

  "And the boys?" I said.

  "None of them get pregnant."

  "The press?"

  "They write about him, his lawyers go after them hard, and they get sort of discouraged. But what does get printed is Jumbo pretending."

  "The public seems less willing to buy this kid's death," I said.

  "Which means Jumbo is in trouble," Z said. "You flounder, they let you drown."

  "So what is Jumbo Nelson really like?" I said.

  Z shook his head.

  "Sick," Z said. "Mean."

  "I'da guessed that," I said.

  Some clouds had drifted in front of the sun, and a light rain began to fall as we walked back to my car. Harvard probably had a deal with nature to clean up after someone barfs.

  20

  RITA AND I SAT with Jumbo Nelson in Rita's office. Jumbo's agent was with him, and a new bodyguard he'd imported from Los Angeles, who was wearing a black shirt, a black tie, and a snap-brim hat.

  The bodyguard leaned on the wall beside the door and folded his arms. The agent was a good-looking woman in a creamcolored pantsuit. She wore rimless glasses with a pink tint.

  "I'm Alice DeLauria," she said. "I'm Jumbo's agent."

  Rita introduced herself and me.

  "Boston is quite lovely in the spring," Alice said. "I hadn't realized."

  "Can the fucking schmooze, Alice," Jumbo said. "Tell 'em why we're here."

  Alice smiled.

  "Isn't he cranky," she said. "But okay, bottom line, we wish to discuss a change."

  "Such as?" Rita said.

  "Such as getting rid of this asshole," Jumbo said, and jerked his head at me.

  I looked at Rita.

  "Asshole?" I said.

  She smiled.

  "I guess he knows you better than I thought," she said.

  "I would advise you strongly against getting rid of Mr. Spenser," Rita said. "He is very good at this work."

  "He hasn't done a fucking thing to get this cockamamie charge off my back."

  "If it can be gotten off," Rita said, "we will do it."

  "I'm firing him," Jumbo said.

  "You can't fire him," Rita said. "He works for me."

  "Then I'm firing you," Jumbo said.

  "You can't fire me, either," Rita said. "Because I quit."

  "Quit?" Jumbo said. "You can't quit on me."

  "Can too," Rita said.

  "Well, fuck you, then. There's a few other lawyers around," Jumbo said.

  "There are," Rita said. "And if you hire one, I'll bring him up to speed with where I am. Meanwhile, this meeting is over. Beat it."

  "Alice," Jumbo said. "Goddamn it. . . ."

  "Oh, shut up, Jumbo," Alice said.

  She stood up and put her hand out to Rita.

  "Well," she said. "Kind of short, but certainly sweet."

  Rita smiled and shook her hand.

  "Kind of sweet," Rita said.

  Jumbo stood up.

  "Fuck both of you," he said.

  Rita smiled.

  "Beautifully put," she said.

  The bodyguard opened the door. Jumbo waddled through it at full speed, with Alice DeLauria behind him. The bodyguard went out after them and closed the door.

  Rita and I looked at each other.

  "Who you suppose does the bodyguard's wardrobe?" I said.

  "George Raft," Rita said.

  21

  PEARL, SUSAN, AND I were sitting on the top step of her front porch on the first warm evening of spring. It was still light. The sun wouldn't set until after seven o'clock. Susan and I were having cocktails. Pearl was surveying Linnaean Street.

  "You're going to stay with the case even though you're fired," Susan said.

  "You think?" I said.

  She smiled.

  "I know," she said.

  "Why would I do that?" I said.

  "Because you told Martin Quirk that you would," Susan said.

  "I didn't say I'd do it for free."

  "But you will if you have to," she said.

  "How can you be so sure?" I said.

  "Because you are a simple tool, and I know you better than I know anything."

  "Don't be so cocky," I said. "You might be wrong, sometimes."

  "Are you sticking with the case?"

  "Well," I said, "yeah."

  "Is it because you told Quirk you'd do it?" Susan said.

  "Well, yeah."

  "Is anybody paying you?"

  "Well, no."

  "See?"

  "Okay, you got that part right," I said. "But it doesn't make me a simple tool."

  "I could sum you up in a sentence," Susan said.

  "What would it be?"

  "You do what you say you'll do. You aren't afraid of much. And you love me."

  "That's three sentences," I said.

  "I separated them by semicolons," Susan said.

  Sitting between us, as was her wont, Pearl was staring intently at a squirrel across the street. The yard was fenced and the gate was closed, so there wasn't much else she could do, but she was giving it a hell of a stare. We sipped our drinks. People passed. Several smiled at the three of us. Susan spoke to some of them.

  "Would you ever put your underpants on backward?" I said.

  "Is this a trick question?" Susan said.

  "No," I said. "Dawn Lopata's underpants were on backward when they took her to the hospital."

  Susan shook her head.

  "No one would make that mistake," she said.

  "Unless it was a man and he was rushed," I said.

  "Unless that," Susan said.

  "Also," I said, "she had rather large breasts but no bra."

  "How large?"

  "I never saw her in person," I said, "but in pictures she seems in the D-cup range."

  "Did she seem to be braless in the pictures?" Susan said.

  "No."

  "It's not a dilemma I've ever faced," Susan said. "But most women would not want to go braless with breasts that big."

  "My thought exactly."

  "And you ar
e wondering if maybe someone else dressed her?" Susan said. "And getting the bra on was too much work?"

  "I am."

  "Would that mean that Jumbo did it?"

  "Nope. But it means somebody wanted to, ah, clean up the scene a little."

  "Z?" Susan said.

  "Probably."

  "Have you consulted Quirk about this?" Susan said.

  "No."

  "Don't you think you ought to?" Susan said.

  "No."

  "Why not?" she said. "Why not take advantage of what he might have learned already?"

  "We decided not to consult," I said.

  "Why not?"

  "We both think the best thing is for me to start from scratch," I said. "And reach a conclusion and compare it with Quirk's."

  "He said that?"

  "No."

  "So . . . ?"

  "I mentioned it, and he agreed. There's stuff you know," I said, "without saying much."

  "Oh," Susan said. "I'm blundering into that male thing again."

  "No matter where you go," I said, "you don't blunder."

  "Thank you," Susan said. "But talk to me about the, ah, male thing, a little more."

  "Quirk wants to know if Jumbo's guilty. He doesn't care if he can prove it. But he wants to know. If I go through the exercise and conclude that Jumbo is guilty, and Quirk's conclusion is the same, then he can relax and let them railroad Jumbo, even if there's no proof."

  "And that's justice?" Susan said.

  "Enough justice for Quirk," I said. "As long as he's sure Jumbo is guilty."

  "But he's never said all this."

  "Mostly not," I said.

  "But you know it," Susan said.

  "I do."

  "Because that would be enough justice for you," she said.

  "It would," I said.

  The squirrel had vanished, and Pearl was now staring thoughtfully into the middle distance.

  "And if you conclude that Jumbo didn't do it, or at least didn't do it with intent . . . ?"

  "I'll report it to Quirk, and he'll have to decide."

  "If he decides to fight it?" Susan said.

  "I'll help him."

  "If he decides to let Jumbo be railroaded?" Susan said.

  "He won't," I said.

  All three of us sat for a bit, looking into the middle distance.

  Then I said, "May I mix us up some fresh drinks?"

  "Yes," Susan said. "You may."

  So I did.

  Zebulon Sixkill VI

  "A bouncer?" Lucy said. "I can't be with a bouncer, for God's sake."

  "Gotta make a living," Zebulon said.

  "How much living can a bouncer make?" Lucy said.

  "Don't know."

  "You didn't even ask?"

  "No."

  "What's wrong with you?" she said.

  "Don't know," Zebulon said.

  "You're not going to play football anymore?"

  "Guess not."

  Lucy stared at him silently, and as she stared, he could almost see her withdraw into the perfect gloss of herself.

  "Thank God we didn't get married," she said.

  "Why?"

  "It would have been so much harder to leave you," she said.

  "Leave?"

  "My family disapproves of divorce," she said.

  "You're going to leave?"

  "One minute I'm living in a nice condo with the campus God, the man who's going to be a famous professional player and make millions of dollars."

  Zebulon shrugged.

  "Next minute I'm living in some dump with an Indian from Montana who works as a bouncer?"

  "I guess," Zebulon said.

  "I wasn't brought up for that, Z. I can't be that."

  "Maybe I can get back in shape," Zebulon said. "Transfer. Take care of business."

  "Maybe," Lucy said. "Maybe. Maybe. I can't wait for that, Z. The girls in my sorority used to call me Sister Squaw. They were jealous. Now they won't call me that. But they'll laugh behind my back. Last year's homecoming queen. This year's joke."

  "You don't love me," Zebulon said.

  Lucy looked at him silently for a moment. She seemed as if she might cry. But she didn't.

  Instead, she said, "Not enough."

  22

  I WAS WITH Z. We were confronting the heavy bag in Henry Cimoli's boxing room. Both of us wore light speed-bag gloves.

  "You're hitting it with your arms," I said.

  He was stripped to the waist, the sweat glistening on his body.

  "You get your power from your legs," I said, "and from your stomach and waist. Watch me. . . . You keep him off you with a left jab, say."

  I demonstrated.

  "Then, I'm exaggerating the movement and slowing it down so you can see it . . . In a crouch, like so, feet solid under you, and you lead with your right hip a little, that twists your body a little at the waist, and you torque the right cross around behind the hip, as your body unwinds, and all of you, once you got it mastered, explodes into the punch."

  I hit the bag, very hard. Z nodded.

  "If I can remember," he said.

  "You don't remember," I said. "You do it until it becomes muscle memory. Like riding a bicycle."

  "Crees don't ride bicycles," he said, and went into his boxing stance. He put a sharp jab on the bag that made it jump, then led a bit too much with his right hip and delivered a right cross, hard into the heavy bag.

  "Good," I said. "Coupla thousand more reps, it'll be as natural as breathing."

  "Almost there," Z said, and hit the bag again.

  "Gimme ten more," I said.

  Which he did. When he stopped, he was puffing but not a lot. I nodded at the stool near the ring, and Z went and sat.

  "You doing your intervals?" I said.

  "Four times a week," he said.

  "How's that going?"

  "I'm up to fifteen intervals," he said.

  "We can do some intervals on the heavy bag, too," I said.

  "Hit it fast and slow?" Z said.

  "There's a couple of approaches," I said. "You been spending time with Henry?"

  "Yeah."

  "Can't hurt," I said.

  "Not drinking much, either," Z said.

  "No harm to that," I said.

  23

  DAWN'S FRIEND CHRISTINE gave me the names of several men who had dated Dawn. The first two I talked with said they'd been out with her only once. One of them said she was too needy. The other one said she was kind of boring. Neither seemed eager to be associated with a murder inquiry. The third dater's name was Marc Perry. I met him on a construction site, where he was working as a carpenter. He had dated her in high school, and he was more interesting.

  "You been doing this since high school?" I said.

  "Naw, went to Brown," he said.

  "Graduate?" I said.

  "BA in psych," he said. "Maybe I'll go to grad school in a while, I don't know. At the moment, I'm sort of looking around, and while I'm looking around, I kind of like this work."

  "Yeah," I said. "I would, too. Tell me about Dawn Lopata."

  "That guy really kill her?" he said.

  "Something did, don't know if it was him," I said.

  "Too bad," he said. "She was an okay kid."

  "You liked her?"

  "Sure," Perry said.

  "One of the other guys I talked with said she was needy," I said.

  "Yeah," Perry said. "Yeah, I guess she probably was."

  "How so?" I said.

  "You know, she was always afraid she didn't measure up. Like she always seemed worried that you were just there to bang her."

  "She was sexually available?"

  "Aren't they all."

  "I've always hoped so," I said. "Passive or aggressive?"

  "Hey," he said. "Were you a psych major, too?"

  "I'm best friends with one," I said. "Was she one of those women who sort of submit, or did she seek?"

  "Funny thing is," he said, "she was both.
She seemed eager, and she was very interested in whatever sexual contrivance you could, ah, come up with."

  "Positions?" I said. "Sex aids?"

  "Yeah, whatever you might know that she hadn't tried."

  "And the passive part?" I said.

  "Once you were, like, in the saddle, or whatever, she just lay there."

  "No response?"

  "Limp as a glove," he said.

  "She ever play choking games?"

  "Like cut off her breathing so she gets an extra thrill?"

  "Yeah," I said.

  "I got no interest in that stuff," he said. "Wouldn't do it if I was asked."

  "She ask?" I said.

  "Nope. You think that's how she got killed?"

  "Don't know," I said. "Why I'm asking."

  "I read that he strangled her," Perry said.

  "Me too," I said.

  "But you don't know."

  "Why I'm asking," I said. "Any of the other guys that dated her play choking games, that you know about?"

  "No," Perry said. "But it's not the kind of thing most guys talk about."

  "The sex that she was interested in, was that primarily aimed at intensifying your experience or hers?"

  He was silent for a time.

  "I don't know," he said. "You know? I mean, you're doing something that really turns the girl on, it usually turns you on, too, doesn't it. I assume that would be vice versa with her. I can't believe I'm talking about shit like this with a stranger."

  "Lucky. You were a psych major," I said.

  "Doesn't seem to be doing me much good at the moment," he said.

  "Any theories about why she was the way she was?" I said.

  He grinned.

  "Failure to resolve the conflict between passivity and aggression," he said.

  "Ah," I said. "That clears it up."

  "A BA in psych don't make me a shrink."

  "I know," I said. "But it might help you pay attention."

  He nodded.

  "All I can give you," he said, "is how she was really worried that you cared about her for herself, not for the sex."