Small Vices Part 31

"Yes."

I waited. We bore right past the Garden and North Station, past the ruins of what used to be the West End.

There was a single defiant three-decker remaining, surrounded by pavement, like the isolated tombstone of a neighborhood that disappeared.

"This Rugar, who affects gray all the time-so tacky-is a gunman. He works out of New York and he is very expensive and, hence, very exclusive."

"Ever use him?" I said.

"I have Vinnie," Gino said.

"Before you had Vinnie," I said.

Gino smiled gently.

"His arrangement is simple. You pay nothing until it's done. Then you pay him promptly in full and in cash and he disappears. Once he commits to a project he stays on it until it is done, no matter how long it takes, no matter how far he has to travel. He guarantees results and he requests no payment until he gets them. Anyone who has dealt with him is not likely to try and, ah, renege on payment.

"And it prevents him from getting stung if the client turns out to be an undercover cop. He doesn't take money, he can just say he was humoring them and had no intention of killing anyone."

We went past the old Registry building and the new Suffolk County jail, past the Charles River dam, and onto Storrow Drive, going west at a leisurely pace.

"Where do I find Rugar?" I said.

"One might be better not to find him," Gino said.

"One might."

Gino sort of smiled. If it was a smile. Whatever it was, it was devoid of warmth or humor.

"People who wish to hire him," Gino said, "see an attorney in New York who arranges a meeting."

"And if the cops ever backtrack to him," I said, "he can claim that all his dealings with Rugar are privileged communication between a lawyer and his client."

"You are an astute man," Gino said.

"Yeah, and a swell dancer. How come you're telling me this?"

"Vinnie holds you in high regard."

"Good employee relations?" I said.

Gino spread his hands. They looked like the hands of a violinist.

"You know the attorney?" I said.

"Not anymore," Gino said.

"But the one you knew was a New York guy?" I said.

"Yes."

"And you don't know who replaced him?"

"No."

"No reason to think it wouldn't be a New York guy," I said.

"No reason," Gino said.

"Thanks," I said.

"You're entirely welcome," Gino said. "Where would you like us to drop you off?"

The sublet had run out, I had my office back. "My office is fine, corner of Berkeley and Boylston."

"I know where your office is," Gino said.

He leaned forward slightly.

"Did you hear that, Sammy?"

"Yes, sir," Sammy said. "Berkeley and Boylston."

"While we drive you there, may I offer another thought? I'm a thoughtful man, and what I think is often valuable."

"And your diction is tres elegant," I said.

"Thank you. My dealings with Rugar remain my business. I have spent a long and successful life among very deadly people. If I were a fearful sort, I would fear Rugar more than anyone I've ever known. I advise you to stay away from him."

"How's he compare with Vinnie?" I said.

"I would not ask Vinnie to go against him alone."

Vinnie sat in the front seat looking at the coeds from Emerson College as we turned off Storrow Drive and onto Beacon Street. He didn't seem interested in our conversation. In fact, Vinnie wasn't interested in many things. What he could do was shoot. I had never met anyone I wouldn't send Vinnie up against-except maybe Hawk. Or me.

We went up Beacon to Clarendon, turned up to Boylston, and drove back down to Berkeley. Sammy pulled up and double parked outside my building.

I said, "Thanks for the information, Mr. Fish."

"And the advice," Gino said. "You would be wise to heed the advice."

"And spend the rest of my life waiting for him to come back?"

"Perhaps he'll never learn that you survived," Gino said.

Several drivers behind us blared their horns. Sammy ignored them.

"He will if I do what I signed on to do."

"Get that schwartza out of jail?"

"Yes."

"The world is a better place," Gino said, "with him in jail."

"He didn't do what he's there for. I said I'd get him out."

"And you keep your word," Gino said.

"Yes."

Gino nodded slowly, looking past me at the corner of the Public Garden that showed on the left at the end of the block. Then he looked at me. His eyes were pale blue and as flat as a couple of one-inch washers. Again he made the motion with his face that might have been a smile.

"I don't think the beard becomes you," he said.

I got out of the car and watched as it pulled away and headed down Boylston. I watched it until it turned left on Charles Street and disappeared. Then I turned and went up to my office.

Chapter 43.

"CAN'T YOU SIMPLY turn over what you have to Rita and her big law firm," Susan said. "And let them get Ellis Alves out of jail?"

"I have knowledge. I have no evidence."

"You know that the witnesses against Alves are cousins of Clint Stapleton," she said. "You know that Clint Stapleton was the victim's boyfriend. You know that that State Police Detective..."

"Tommy Miller."

"Tommy Miller was involved in some kind of cover-up and then was shot when you were threatening to find out what it was. You know that a man shot you, to prevent you from looking further."

"And I know who it was," I said. "But none of that proves that Alves was framed, and so far there is no demonstrable connection between the Gray Man and the Stapleton family."

"But you know they hired him, don't you? You know that you were shot right after you confronted Clint Stapleton."

"I don't think I can get a court to just take my word for it," I said. "I think I have to be able to prove it. Especially with a guy like Alves. Even Gino Fish thinks the world is a better place with Ellis in jail."

"So how can you prove it?"

"Keep pushing. Stapleton, his father, his mother, cousin Hunt and his wife Ms. Congeniality. They're not pros. One of them will break."

"But pushing them makes you vulnerable to the Gray Man."

"So I'll have to deal with him first."

"You think you can find him through this lawyer?"

"Yes."

"You have to do it alone?"

"The goal is to decommission the Gray Man. How is not as important."

"Hawk would help you, and Vinnie. Chollo would come if you asked him."

I nodded. We were lying in bed together in Susan's bedroom. Pearl was draped diagonally across the foot, having been but recently allowed back in. The room was dark, lit only by the odd tangential light of the mercury street lamps on Linnaean Street.

"You're going to do it alone, aren't you?"

Susan's head was on my shoulder, my right arm was around her. A Browning 9mm. semiautomatic pistol lay unholstered right beside the alarm clock on the table next to the bed.

"We'll see," I said.

"Is it like being thrown from a horse? You have to get right up and ride it again so you won't be scared?"

"Something like that, maybe."

"Are you afraid?"

"It's not a question I ask myself," I said. "It's sort of like flying. Most people I know, in fact, are a little afraid of flying. But you fly anyway because life's too complicated if you don't, and you don't pay much attention, unless you're phobic, to whether in fact you are afraid."

"Do you intend to kill him?"

"I guess that's up to him," I said.

"You plan to give him a chance to surrender?"

"I'm not sure what I'm going to do, Suze. Some things become self-evident as they develop. Readiness is all."

Susan raised up on her elbow and put her face very close to mine. Her voice was very soft, and very fierce.

"f.u.c.k readiness is all," she said. "And f.u.c.k Shakespeare. Don't give the Gray Man a chance. Kill him as soon as you can."

"f.u.c.k Shakespeare?"

"And the whole English Renaissance for that matter," Susan said.

"And you a Harvard grad?" I said. "A resident of Cambridge?"

"This isn't some sort of knightly errand," Susan said. "This is your life, our life. Bring Hawk with you, and Vinnie. Kill him on sight."

"I'll try to do it the best way I can," I said.

Susan settled back down with her head on my shoulder again. We were quiet.