Small Vices Part 18

Neither of us commented on the look he'd given her. It had been meant for me to see, and I'd seen it. She was too alert not to have seen it, too. And much too smart not to know what it meant. Susan nodded partly to me, partly to herself.

"He frightened me. I won't fight you on the protection."

"We're both safe until I make another move on the Alves case," I said.

"You can be so sure?"

"What makes him deadly is he says what he means, and he means what he says. It would be his trademark. He warned me off the case. If I'm off, he takes his money and goes home. If I'm not, he kills me."

"Do you know who this man is?"

"Not specifically," I said.

"But you know people like him," Susan said.

"Yeah."

Susan thought about that for a few moments.

"He's like Hawk," Susan said.

"Yeah, he is," I said.

We were quiet. Susan stared off through the doorway where the charcoal gray man had exited. She was slowly turning her barely sipped drink in a small circle on the table top. Then quite suddenly she looked back at me.

"And he's like you," she said.

"Maybe some," I said.

Chapter 25.

SUSAN HAD A home and office in a gray Victorian house on Linnaean Street in Cambridge that had been built in 1867. Her office and waiting room were off the entrance hall to the right on the first floor. Her home was a flight up. Across the entry hall opposite the office and waiting room, to the left as you came in the front door, was a room and bath which Susan called the study. It served as a spare room, a guest room, and a place to gather for professional purposes if the gathering were too big for her office. Though she never really used it, she had, naturally, furnished and decorated it within an inch of its life.

Hawk and I were in there. Hawk put his big gym bag on the floor and looked around. There were thick drapes and an oriental rug, and some ornate furniture and several oil paintings of American landscapes. The fireplace had a big bra.s.s fender. Hawk took a shaving kit out of the gym bag and took it into the bathroom.

He paused. The bathroom floor was tiled in some sort of thick, rust-colored tile, and the bath fixtures were Victorian, including an old-fashioned shower ring and a claw and ball Victorian tub. The walls had been painted a tone of the tile and glazed with a thin-over coat that had been dragged. There was an oval gilt-framed mirror over the pedestal sink.

"Place is so elegant," Hawk said, "I be ashamed to take out my shabby equipment in here."

"Or anywhere," I said.

Hawk put the shaving kit on the rim of the sink and came back into the study. The door was open and we could see Susan's waiting-room door across the hall. It was ajar. Beyond it, the door to her office was closed. She was with a patient. Late nights did not change that. Foul weather did not change that. Head colds did not change that. Playoff games or the arrival of Michael Jackson or implied death threats did not change that. Five days a week, Susan saw patients.

"You don't know this guy," Hawk said.

"Nope. Never saw him before."

"Funny, you'd think by now we'd know most of the gunnies around here," Hawk said.

"He said he wasn't local," I said.

"I told Vinnie about him. He don't know him. Tony Marcus don't know him."

"Neither does Quirk," I said. "And there's no one looks like him in the mug books."

Hawk took a Smith Wesson.12-gauge pump gun from his bag and stood it behind the door. Four rounds in the magazine, one in the chamber. He put a big Ziploc bag of shotgun sh.e.l.ls on the floor next to it. On the other side of the door, out of view of anyone in the hall, he laid a holstered Berretta Centurion, an extra magazine, and a box of 9-mm. sh.e.l.ls on the mahogany sideboard. Beside it he put a box of.44 Magnum sh.e.l.ls for the elephant gun he carried in a shoulder rig. Then he took a couple of changes of clothes out of the bottom of the bag and put them on the floor beside the couch.

"This thing fold out?" he said.

"Yeah. Take the cushions off, and you'll see the handle."

"Is it comfy?" Hawk said.

"I never slept on it. But I've never found a hideaway that was."

"Be sleeping in shifts anyway," he said and sat on the couch.

"What's the setup?" I said.

"Got me and Vinnie for one shift. Got Belson and the gay guy..."

"Lee Farrell," I said.

"Got Belson and Farrell on the second shift. Quirk say he'll come around when he can, give somebody a break."

"Nice parlay," I said.

Hawk grinned.

"Two cops, two robbers," he said. "How'd Belson and Farrell get the time?"

"Farrell say he wants to be in on this. He didn't say why. Belson say, after you got his wife out that mess in Proctor, he owes you and he's going to pay off. They don't like it they can fire him. Quirk don't want to fire him so he a.s.signs him and Farrell on special detail."

"Special detail," I said. "Quirk's got no authority to do that."

"Quirk don't give a s.h.i.t," Hawk said.

"No, he doesn't," I said. "He never has."

"And Vinnie?"

"You know n.o.body understands Vinnie. He just say he'll be here until it's over."

I nodded.

"Maybe he likes me," I said.

Hawk grinned.

"Maybe he like Susan."

"More likely," I said. "I want two people always with her. This guy isn't rent-a-slug."

"There'll be me and Vinnie, or Belson and Farrell. Henry say he's going to come around with a gun and sit in, and if he does he'll make three. But I not counting him. He's a tough little b.a.s.t.a.r.d, but he can't shoot for s.h.i.t. We know Belson's good. Quirk will be around some. How you feel about the gay guy?"

"Farrell. He's got a black belt in karate, and Quirk says he shoots better than anyone in the department."

"And he ain't going to grab me by the a.s.s?"

"He promised me he'd try not to."

"What you gonna do?"

"I'm going to go about getting Ellis Alves out of jail."

"What you going to do 'bout the man in the gray flannel suit?"

"I'm hoping to kill him," I said.

Chapter 26.

CLINT STAPLETON'S HOME in New York City was on Fifth Avenue, near Sixty-eighth Street in one of those big gray buildings with a doorman, and a view of the park out the front windows. The doorman in a green uniform with gold piping held the door for me just as if I weren't a shamus, and the uniformed concierge eyed me without disapproval as I walked across the black and white marble lobby.

"Donald Stapleton," I said.

"Your name, sir?"

"Spenser."

The concierge phoned up, told whoever answered that I was down here, waited maybe a minute and said, "Yes, sir," and hung up the phone.

"Take the elevator to the penthouse," he said.

"Is there anyone else up there?" I said.

"No, sir, the Stapletons occupy the entire floor."

"How nice for them," I said.

The elevator opened into a little black and white marble foyer with a skylight. There was a thick white rug on the floor with a peac.o.c.k woven into it. The Stapletons' door, directly in front of me, had a glossy black finish. In the center of the upper panel was an enormous bra.s.s knocker in the shape of a lion holding a ring in its mouth. Below and to the right was a polished bra.s.s door k.n.o.b. There was a small black table next to the door, with curved legs and pawlike feet. A black lacquer vase with a golden dragon on it sat on a gold-colored doily on the table. A fan of peac.o.c.k feathers plumed out of the vase, and concealed just behind them was a small functional white doorbell. The door knocker looked too heavy for me. I rang the bell.

A stunning black maid in full maid regalia opened the door. She took my leather trench coat. She would have taken my hat if I'd had one, but I didn't. She ushered me into the living room and left with my coat. I checked myself in the mirror over the immaculate fireplace. In honor of the address I had worn a blue suit and black cordovan loafers with an elegant ta.s.sel. I had on a white oxford shirt too, with a nice roll in the b.u.t.ton-down collar. I hadn't actually b.u.t.toned the top b.u.t.ton of the collar. My neck being what it was, I tended to choke. But I had concealed the fact by making a slightly wide knot in my maroon silk tie, and running the tie right up over the top b.u.t.ton so you couldn't tell it wasn't b.u.t.toned. Susan says you can always tell, but what does she know about neckties?

The room was done entirely in tones of cream and ivory and white. There was a solid bank of picture windows overlooking the park. I was as impressed with the view as I was expected to be, but the rest of the room smacked of interior decorator. There was a child's fire engine, painted with an ivory gloss, on the coffee table. There was a white piano with the black keys painted vanilla. Ordinary things used extraordinarily, the designer had probably said. Extraordinary things restated and personalized. On the side board a pair of pearl-handled Gene Autry autograph toy six shooters lay at careful right angles to each other. I was pretty sure no one had ever eaten a green pepper pizza in this room, or made love on one of the off-white damask couches in this room, or sat around in their shorts in this room and read the Sunday paper. Men in dark expensive suits, with red ties and white broadcloth shirts, might, on occasion, have clinked ice in short, thick highball gla.s.ses while they tried to think of conversation to make in this room. Women in tight, long, expensive dresses with pearls that matched the decor might have held crystal flutes of Krug champagne while they gazed blankly out the window at the panorama of the park in this room. Waiters dressed in black tie, bearing small silver trays of endive with salmon roe, might have circulated in this room. And a nanny might, possibly, have walked through this room holding the hand of a small child in a zipped-up snowsuit on his way to be walked in the park on a cold Sunday afternoon, when the light was gray and the sun was very low in the southern sky. I would have bet all I had that the fireplace had never been warm.

A tall lean man with a good tan, wearing a fawn-colored double-breasted suit came into the living room with a blond-haired woman on his arm. She too had a good tan. The woman was wearing high-waisted black pants and a fawn-colored silk shirt with a stand-up collar and the top three b.u.t.tons undone. There were necklaces and bracelets and rings and earrings all in gold, and some with diamonds in them.

"Mr. Spenser," the man said. "Don Stapleton. My wife Dina."

We all shook hands. Dina had big blue eyes. Her hair was thoroughly blond and worn long and curly so that it cascaded down to her shoulders. She had a small waist, and a full figure above and below it. She was maybe forty-five and she looked as if life had been easy for her.

"Let's sit over here by the window," Stapleton said. "We can enjoy the view while we chat."

He carefully hiked up his pants so as not to bag the knee and sat in a white wing chair with a heavy brocade upholstery. She sat on the edge of a white satin straight chair, folded her hands on her lap, and gazed at her husband. Her shoes were sling strap spike heels in the same fawn color as her blouse and her husband's suit.

"As I told you on the phone," I said, "I'm sort of reexamining the circ.u.mstances of Melissa Henderson's death."

They both smiled politely.

"Did you know her?" I said.

"No," Stapleton said. He had a firm voice.

"But your son did," I said.

"I have no reason to doubt you if you say so," Stapleton said, "but we have no personal knowledge that he did."

"He never mentioned her to you? Brought her home? Showed you a picture?"

Stapleton smiled patiently, I was just doing my job, it couldn't be helped that I was stupid.

"Clint is a very good looking and popular young man," he said. "He had a lot of girls. He didn't bother to introduce us to all of them."

"He gave this one his letter sweater."

"If so, it was merely one of many he's earned. Clint is a very good athlete."

Dina Stapleton gazed at her husband. She nodded occasionally in support of what he said. She didn't speak.

"Clint appears to be of African descent," I said. "Neither of you appears to be."

"Clint is a chosen child," Stapleton said. "We adopted him when he was an infant. Dina couldn't bear a child and we decided that if we were going to adopt, we should save a little black baby from a life of depravity."

"Of course," I said. "Does either of you know Hunt McMartin or Glenda Baker?"

Dina's expression softened a little, the way it does when you recognize a familiar name.