Small Vices Part 24

"Un huh."

"Might have cleaned up his bra.s.s," I said.

"Un huh."

"State cops know about this?" I said.

"Healy's on his way," Quirk said. "You want to wait for him, make one statement instead of two?"

"Yes.

"Anything I need to know right now?"

"Miller's involved in the case that you got Belson and Farrell a.s.signed to in Cambridge... captain." Quirk's face had no expression. He was as big as I was, and thick. He was hatless, his dense black hair cut short and brushed back.

"I'm really something now," he said.

Across the floor the elevator doors opened and Healy got out. He had on a trenchcoat and a soft hat. He pulled the hat on harder and put his collar up as the wind swirled past him. He was alone. When he got to the crime scene he said, "h.e.l.lo, Martin."

Quirk said h.e.l.lo. Healy nodded at me and looked down at Miller's body.

"Tommy Miller," he said. "Been in a fight."

"With me," I said.

Healy studied me for a minute.

"Looks like you won," he said. He looked at Quirk. "I got a couple of my crime scene people coming by. You got any problem with that?"

"None," Quirk said. "I'm about to gossip a little with Philo Vance, here. You want to join us?"

"Yeah," Healy said. "Let's get off this roof."

"We'll go over to the Market," Quirk said. "Get some breakfast."

Chapter 33.

MOST OF THE traffic in the Quincy Market Building was ambulatory. People going to work, picking up coffee on the way. We got one of the little tables at the east end of the Market and a waitress gave us coffee while we studied the menu.

When we had ordered, Quirk said, "Spenser thinks this is part of something he's working on."

"You think this has something to do with the Alves case?" Healy said.

"Yeah."

"You know the Alves case, Martin?" Healy said.

"No."

"Why don't you tell Martin about the Alves case and then go ahead and tell both of us what you know," Healy said.

So I did, sticking to what I knew and not theorizing, while eggs and ham and toast and coffee were brought and eaten and the table was cleared and more coffee was poured. No one asked us to move when we were finished. Neither Quirk nor Healy showed a badge, but there was something about them that people recognized. We were welcome all day if we wished.

While I talked, neither Quirk nor Healy spoke, or even moved except to drink coffee. I could feel the weight of their concentration. When I was through, they were both quiet, thinking about what I'd told them.

"And you didn't shoot him?" Healy said.

"You know he didn't shoot him," Quirk said.

Healy nodded sadly.

"Yeah, I know," he said. "I knew it when I asked the question."

"Okay, we got the same facts you do. You want to theorize with us?"

"Sure," I said.

"You figure Miller put Parisi on you," Quirk said.

"Yeah. He'd know guys like Parisi, and he'd have leverage to make Parisi do him a favor."

"And he showed up right after Parisi got collared," Healy said.

"Why'd he do it?" Quirk said.

"Miller? I figure he talked with the kid, at the time of the murder..."

"Stapleton," Quirk said.

"Yeah, and the kid mentioned that his pro tennis career would be adversely affected if he got hauled in and questioned about his girlfriend's murder."

"And?" Healy said.

"And he may have mentioned to Miller that his dad had around two hundred gazillion dollars."

"So they made a deal?"

"Yeah."

"And Miller rigged it for Ellis Alves to take the fall so the pressure would be off the kid," Healy said.

"My guess," I said. "Either he came across Alves in the course of his employment or he looked him up in the case files under Rape."

"We can look at Miller's finances," Healy said. "See if he was involved in a case that Alves was involved in. See if we've got Alves in the Rape files."

"Then you show up and talk to the kid, Stapleton, and the kid gets scared," Quirk said. "And he calls Miller and Miller sends out some sluggers because he thinks you're like a regular person and a few big guys with guinea names can scare you right back to doing divorce tails."

"Guy I know heard that someone was looking to, ah, coerce me, so I had Hawk with me."

"Don't seem fair," Quirk said.

"Seemed fair to me," I said.

"Okay, I like it pretty good so far. Why'd Miller come after you himself when Parisi was picked up?" Quirk said.

"He was a cop," I said. "And a particular kind of cop. He was used to scaring people. He was a big tough guy. He was used to getting things done by slapping people around."

"Maybe so," Healy said.

"But I don't see why he comes on like Conan the Barbarian," Healy said.

"He came in, wanted me to stand up, I declined, and he came for me. I think before he started trying to find out what I knew, he wanted to be sure I wasn't wearing a wire," I said. "And things got away from him."

"Meaning you kicked his a.s.s," Quirk said.

"In a manner of speaking," I said modestly.

"Which made scaring you to death sort of problematic," Healy said.

"Yes."

"So he didn't get to find out what you knew, and he didn't get you to walk away from the case."

I shrugged.

"Tommy was a tough guy," Healy said.

"So who popped him?" Quirk said.

"The Gray Guy?"

"Miller told me it was way above," I said.

"Above what?"

"Above all of us," I said.

"You figure the Gray Guy comes from above?" Quirk said.

"He's not somebody you hire out of a pool hall someplace," I said.

"Kind of guy might use a.22?" Quirk said.

"Looked like a small hole in Miller," Healy said.

"Yep."

"Guy uses a.22 is a specialist," Quirk said. "Anybody can blow a hole the size of an ashtray in some guy's skull with a.44 Magnum."

"Guy uses a.22, wants people to know he's a specialist," Healy said. "Know how good he is."

"Use the right load and know where to shoot and you can put one in his head and have it ping-pong around inside the skull," Quirk said. "Do more damage than a Mag."

"How much more damage do you need to do?" Healy said.

The people moving through the marketplace were changing character. The workers in suits and overcoats had given way to the tourists in parkas and warmup jackets. They didn't hurry. They meandered, stopping at food stalls, looking at the food.

Quirk said, "You think this kid Stapleton did his girlfriend?"

"He's a better bet than Alves," I said.

"He got the kind of reach that could orchestrate this kind of coverup?" Healy said.

"The Gray Man and all?"

"I doubt it," I said. "But his father might."

"You think he hired the Gray Man?"

"He might have."

"You think the Gray Man clipped Miller?"

"Yes."

"You got any evidence for any of it?" Quirk said.

"Not a jot or a t.i.ttle," I said.

"How you going to get some?"

"I'll talk to the Stapleton kid again, see what happens."

"You want some cover?" Healy said.

I shook my head.

"No point being more macho than you need to be," Healy said.

"That ain't it," Quirk said. "He figures to keep pushing until the Gray Man makes a run at him again."

Healy looked at me. I nodded.