Small Vices Part 22

"Are we having a power breakfast?" I said.

"Yes."

"I was feeling kind of electric," I said.

"Of course," Rita said. "You confer with people at breakfast, and it makes them think you're too busy for lunch. It also gives you an excuse for coming in late."

The waiter poured us coffee, offered us juice, which I accepted and Rita declined, and presented us menus.

"If we were eating at Charlie's Kitchen," I said, "would it still be a power breakfast?"

"Certainly not," Rita said. "Don't you know anything? You read Boston magazine and they tell you where it's a power breakfast."

"Oh," I said. "Seems a high price to pay for knowing."

"Things don't come free," Rita said. "What have you got for me on Ellis Alves."

I told her what I knew, and what I thought, interrupting my discourse once to order some corned beef hash with a dropped egg, and a couple of more times to take bites of it when it came. I was slightly nonspecific when I reported my talk with Glenda. Rita listened quietly, sipping her coffee and eating the plain bagel, toasted, no cream cheese, which she'd ordered. It was the sort of breakfast Susan would have ordered, except that Rita ate both halves of the bagel. When I got through, Rita leaned back so that her white blouse stretched tight across her chest. It was a nice look.

"Cone, Oakes has a lot of clout in this city," Rita said, "and judges give us more leeway than some guy working out of his cellar in Weymouth Landing, but even we can't go into court with a case that consists of you standing up in front of the judge and saying that Alves's conviction doesn't make any sense."

"I understand," I said. "I just wanted to keep you, ah, abreast of the case."

"Nice phrasing," Rita said. "And you're right. It doesn't make sense."

She reached across and took a forkful of my hash and ate it.

"Oh, yum!" she said. "Don't you ever have to worry about your weight?"

"Just keeping it up."

"You b.a.s.t.a.r.d," she said.

We ate in silence for a moment. Rita finished her dry bagel and washed it down with her black coffee and looked distracted for a moment.

"A cigarette would taste good now," she said.

"Eventually you won't miss it," I said.

"How long for you?"

"Twenty-seven years."

"And you don't miss it?"

"Not a bit."

"How long before you didn't miss it?"

"Ten years."

Rita stared at me and said, "Oh, G.o.d!"

There was another silence while Rita gazed out window and mourned her smoking habit. It was spitting rain mixed with snow, and the streets around the Market gleamed like polished ebony.

Finally, still staring out at the weather, Rita said, "You can quit this case, you know."

"I know."

"I don't want you to get killed for Ellis Alves. Maybe he didn't do this, but he's done a lot. You'd be a bigger loss than he is."

"I know."

"Susan want you to quit?"

"No."

Rita's eyes widened. "No?" she said.

"No."

Rita was silent for a while.

"She's a pretty smart broad, isn't she?" Rita said finally.

"Yes."

"I didn't think you'd quit, but I wanted to be sure you knew where we stood on it."

"Thanks."

"Okay, we can establish the relationship between the eyewitnesses and Melissa's boyfriend easily enough. And I guess we can establish that Clint Stapleton was her boyfriend. That's just time and money. Send some paralegals over to Taft and ask enough questions of enough undergraduates."

Rita paused and looked out the window at the Market some more, then she shifted her gaze to me.

"I think that talking to Trooper Miller would pay off."

"If he'll talk. Which I don't think he will."

"You can pressure him with whatsisname's testimony."

"Bruce Parisi," I said. "He won't repeat it unless I'm punching him in the kidney."

"Okay, so you still can't take it to court. But you can threaten to take it to court and see what happens. I got some weight with the local DEA."

"Phil Fallon?" I said.

"My G.o.d, what a memory."

"What's Fallon going to do for me?"

"He could get Medford to pick up Parisi and hold him for a bit if that would do you any good," Rita said. "And make sure Miller knows it."

"Just because you ask him to?"

"Sure," Rita grinned. "In moments of despondency between marriages, I did him a couple of favors."

"That is despondent," I said.

"I know," she said. "I know, but the pompous little b.a.s.t.a.r.d is quite surprisingly good in bed."

"If you say so."

"Want me to speak to Phil?"

"Does it mean you'll have to schtup him again?" I said.

"No. It only means I'll have to let him think I will."

"Good," I said. "I wouldn't want to be responsible for a criminal act."

"Oh, come on," Rita said. "He's not that bad."

"So you say."

"Let me know," Rita said, "if you want Phil to have Parisi collared."

I thought about it for a little while and then I nodded.

"Go ahead," I said. "Have them grab Parisi."

"Good as done," Rita said.

"And thanks for helping," I said.

Rita grinned.

"You hate help, don't you?"

"Hate it," I said.

"I do too," Rita said. "Somebody's helping you and you have to take time off to listen to them and pretend you think their ideas are great and come up with an answer that makes them feel good, which is all time wasted when you could be thinking about the problem better than they can."

"And when the idea is in fact great..." I said.

"Even worse," Rita said.

"Sorry."

"It's okay," I said. "I got to think long thoughts about your chest."

"Just because I stuck it out a little?" Rita said.

"Yeah."

"Then I must stick it out more often."

"Please do," I said.

"You have a plan," Rita said.

"For your chest?"

"No, for Parisi and Trooper Miller."

"I think so," I said.

"You want to tell me?"

"No," I said. "Just have Parisi picked up and be sure Miller knows it. And that he knows it's got something to do with me."

"And your plans for my chest?" Rita said.

I grinned at her.

"It's a place to start," I said.

"Promises, promises," Rita said and signaled for the check.

Chapter 31.

THEY PICKED PARISI Up in Medford the next morning, and Miller was in to see me that afternoon. The office door was open, in case there was an impulse buyer wandering the corridor, and I was reading Calvin and Hobbes for the second time because I had heard that the strip was going to end, and I was trying to store up.

Miller came in and closed the door hard behind him. He walked across the room and stopped in front of me and stood looking down at me with a dead-eyed stare that was supposed to make me hide under my desk. I gave him a wide, friendly, open faced smile entirely suitable to the approaching holiday season. We did that for a while.

Finally Miller said, "On your feet, a.s.shole."

I looked around the office. "a.s.shole?"

Miller jerked his thumb in a stand-up gesture.

"Surely you've mistaken me for someone else," I said.