Small Vices Part 11

She turned to me. Very firm.

"Will you leave or must I call the police."

"He is the police," Dark Hair said.

"He is not. He is a private detective. He's been told already that he's not welcome on campus."

Pink Rollers said, "Hey. A private eye?"

I said, "Here's looking at you, kid."

"Whoa, is that cool or what. A private eye."

Mrs. Cameron turned without a word and walked out of the room.

"Cops will be here soon," I said.

"The campus cops?" Dark Hair said mockingly. "What are you gonna do?"

"I'll probably go quietly," I said. "I don't think I'll shoot it out with them."

"Oh, d.a.m.n," Pink Rollers said and we all laughed.

I took several cards from my shirt pocket and handed them around.

"If any of you, ah, undergraduate women have anything to add about Melissa, or think of something later, or want to have a nice lunch paid for by me..."

"You can call us girls," Dark Hair said. "Kim's the only one that's really PC."

The familiar pulsating glow of a blue light showed through the front window and a minute later the front door opened and Chief Livingston came in with two patrolmen. Mrs. Cameron greeted him at the door.

"I ordered him to leave as soon as I discovered he was here," she said. "He basically defied me."

"He probably does that a lot," Livingston said. "Come on, Mr. Spenser, time to go."

"What charge?"

"What charge? Oh, Jesus Christ, excuse me, ladies, it is against college regulations for anyone to visit a domicile without permission of the resident supervisor."

"Oh, that charge," I said.

Livingston grinned, and jerked his head toward the door. I got up from the arm of the couch where I'd been sitting and walked to the door and turned. I'd been so successful with my Bogart impression that I tried Arnold Schwarzenegger.

"Ah'll be baack," I said.

None of them knew what the h.e.l.l I was doing. But they liked me. They all waved and hollered "good-bye" as I went out the door with the cops.

Chapter 16.

HAWK CAME IN to my office in the morning with some coffee and a bag of donuts.

"Coffee from Starbuck's," he said. "High-grown Kenya, bright and sweet with a hint of black currant."

"They sell donuts?"

"Naw, Starbuck's too ritzy for donuts," Hawk said. "Donuts are Dunkin'."

"With a hint of deep fat," I said.

We divided up the coffee and donuts. Hawk took his coffee and one of the donuts and went and looked down from my window at the corner of Berkeley and Boylston. He was wearing starched jeans and high top Nikes, and a blue denim shirt under a black leather field jacket. He had on a pair of Oakley sun gla.s.ses with cerulean blue reflective lenses.

"You think my new shades are cool?" Hawk said.

"Cold," I said. "Can you see, wearing them indoors?"

"No. But they too cool to take off."

I drank some Kenya coffee. "Bright and sweet," I said.

"Told you," Hawk said.

"You come up with anything that clears Ellis Alves?" I said.

"No. You adopt a kid yet?"

"No."

"You been annoying somebody though," Hawk said.

"That's sort of my job description," I said. "You wanna give me a list?"

"Ain't got the time to cover them all, but somebody's looking to have you killed."

"Moi?"

"Vinnie called me. Said one of the guys works for Gino told him there was a guy looking to have you killed."

"He want Vinnie to do it?"

"Don't know," Hawk said. "That's all Vinnie told me. He's full time with Gino now. He wouldn't be freelancing anyway."

"How much they paying," I said.

"Now that's ego," Hawk said.

"Well, how would I feel if somebody was offering five hundred bucks?"

"Be embarra.s.sing, wouldn't it," Hawk said.

He was still looking down at the street. It was a dandy fall morning, and a lot of people were hurrying around in the Back Bay like they had important things to do.

"Lotta nice looking women walk past your office," Hawk said.

"Hoping to catch a glimpse of me."

Hawk turned and came back and sat down in one of my client chairs. His jacket was open. I could see the b.u.t.t of a gun under his left arm. I could see myself in his reflective gla.s.ses.

"You working on anything but Ellis Alves?" he said.

"Nope."

"So you probably stirring something up that somebody don't want stirred up," Hawk said.

"Unless it's someone I've offended previously and they're just getting around to it."

"Ellis Alves case makes more sense," Hawk said.

"Yes."

"So if it is, it mean maybe there is something wrong with the way Alves went to jail."

"Vinnie didn't give you any idea who wants this done?" I said.

"I don't think he knows," Hawk said. "He does, I don't think he'll say. Remember Vinnie ain't one of the good guys. He's pretty far off his range already. h.e.l.l, he wouldn't even call you direct. He called me."

"Good to know Vinnie's got standards," I said.

"Why we like him," Hawk said.

"Yeah."

I finished a donut and washed it down with the coffee. It was good coffee. Too bad they didn't sell donuts. It meant I was going to have to stop twice every time I shopped for two of the basic food groups. Life kept getting more complicated. a.s.suming that I had stirred up somebody from long ago wasn't useful. It was possible, but it didn't take me anywhere. I'd been doing this for a long time. There were too many possibilities. a.s.suming I'd touched a tender spot in the Ellis Alves thing was a more productive a.s.sumption.

"Could be someone I talked to," I said. "Could be somebody who heard I was looking into it and wanted to, ah, forestall me."

"Not everybody know how to organize a murder contract," Hawk said.

"No. But a lot of people in this deal have money. If there's enough money, there's somebody got a connection with someone that can talk to a guy."

"True," Hawk said. "We could go find the guy that told Vinnie and ask him what he knows."

"He too will not wish to tell me," I said.

"We can reason with him until he do," Hawk said.

"Make Vinnie look bad," I said.

"Yeah, it would."

"He's expecting us not to do that."

"Good to know you got standards, too," Hawk said.

"The contractor is going to find a taker," I said. "If he's offering decent money."

"Plus, I believe there a lot of people willing to do it for nothing," Hawk said.

"So maybe what we do is go about our business and let him take a run at us, and when he does we catch him and question him closely."

"What's this 'we,' white eyes?"

"You can't let me get killed," I said. "n.o.body else likes you."

Hawk grinned. He swallowed his last bite of donut and finished his coffee. He dropped the paper cup in the wastebasket and went to the sink in the corner and washed his hands and face carefully. He dried himself on a white towel that hung beside the sink. The towel said "Holiday Inn" on it, in green letters. It was one of my favorites. I had picked it up in Jackson, Mississippi, once when I was driving back from Texas, with Pearl the Wonder Dog. Whenever Susan came in she replaced the Holiday Inn towel with a small pink one that had a pale pink fringe, and a pink and green rosebud embroidered in one corner. As soon as she left, I put out the Holiday Inn towel again.

"I'll be interested to see who they get to do it," Hawk said. "And how good he is."

"Me too," I said.

Chapter 17.

A DARK-HAIRED WOMAN named Elayna Hurley, who was a single mother and had been in graduate school with Susan, came over to Susan's house on a Sunday afternoon while I was watching football and Susan was reading a book by Frederick Crews debunking her profession. Elayna brought her nine-year-old daughter with her. The daughter's name was Erika.

Pearl had chosen football over Frederick Crews and was sprawled on the couch beside me. I was warmed by her affection, but, in fact, had planned to sprawl on the couch myself. When they came in, Pearl sat bolt upright and eyed Erika the way a robin eyes a worm. Susan took their coats and took them into the bedroom and laid them on the bed. Erika came straight over and stood in front of me and put her hands on her hips like Shirley Temple.

She wore a maroon velvet Laura Ashley dress with a little lace collar. She had much too much blond curly hair, and she was kind of chunky. Susan returned from the bedroom.

"Who are you?" Erika said to me. I told her.

"How come you let your dog sit on the couch?"

"She likes it on the couch," I said.

Pearl looked at Erika balefully. Erika leaned very close to Pearl and blew in her face. Pearl shook her head. The hair on her back rose, and I quickly put a hand on her collar. Erika laughed loudly.

"Erika, honey," Elayna said. "Don't bother the dog."