Valediction Part 11

"Wondered when you'd think of that," Hawk said. "I be along."

When I hung up, Winston looked at me and licked his lips. "What is this about a bodyguard?"

"You're the only one who can tie Paultz to this," I said. "He'd sleep better if you were dead."

Winston said, "Oh, my dear G.o.d."

"It's all right," I said. "Hawk will keep you safe for now, and I'll arrange with a man I know to give you round-the-clock protection."

"Is Hawk the Negro who told me Paultz had to see me?"

"Yes."

"The one who was with you when you took the pictures?"

"Yes."

"He'll guard me alone?"

"He could guard Yugoslavia alone," I said.

"I could have some deacons come."

I shook my head. "If there's trouble, they'll just get hurt," I said.

Winston nodded. There was no resolve left in him. He was scared and it made him weak. In ten minutes Hawk showed up at the front door carrying a leather gun case and a Nike gym bag. He nodded at Winston, took a box of 12-gauge shotgun sh.e.l.ls from the gym bag and set them on the table, put a box of .357 sh.e.l.ls beside them, unzipped the gun case, took out an Ithaca shotgun, loaded it, and leaned it against the table. Then he looked around the room.

"Good place to get shot from the street," he said.

I nodded. Winston seemed to sink back deeper into his chair. He looked smaller than he had when I'd first met him.

"Let's find an inside room," Hawk said. He put his ammunition back into the gym bag. Picked up the shotgun.

I said, "I'm going out and work on things. I'll be back to give you a break."

Hawk nodded. Winston looked at me as if I were his father leaving him at a strange nursery school. "Do what Hawk says," I told him. "You'll be fine."

He nodded. I left him with Hawk and let myself out the front door.

I went to my office and called Vinnie Morris. He wasn't there. I asked for Joe Broz. There was no one by that name there. Which was a crock, but Joe had always been shy. I left word for Vinnie to call me and hung up and sat.

Across the street there was something hanging in Linda's office window. I looked harder. It was a big red heart. I smiled. The phone rang. It was Vinnie.

"For crissake, don't you know better than to ask for Joe," he said.

"Self-amus.e.m.e.nt," I said. "You still want to help me on the Paultz thing?"

"Depends."

"I need some people to keep Bullard Winston alive."

"The minister or whatever the f.u.c.k he is?"

"Yes. He's all we've got on Mickey."

"You with him now?"

"No. Hawk's got him."

"He's safe enough for now," Vinnie said,"Unless he annoys Hawk."

"How about you pick it up at eight o'clock, give you time to organize it."

"Sure. Where is he?"

I told him. "I'll be there at eight to meet you. Come yourself so I'll know they're your people."

"No sweat, just make sure you don't jerk us off on this one, buddy boy. We do this and you don't dump Paultz and Joe is going to say it ain't cost-effective. You understand?"

"Would I mislead you, Vinnie?"

"Yes," Vinnie said. "But only once."

I said, "See you at eight," and hung up. Before I left the office I drew a large smile face on a piece of typewriter paper and taped it into my window facing Linda's heart.

CHAPTER 27.

Vince Haller drew up a trust agreement for me that was twenty-eight pages long and read like the Rosetta Stone.

"They give courses in gobbledygook at law school?" I said.

"Law school is gobbledygook," Haller said. "No need for a special course."

"If it had been written by a sentient being, what would it say?" I was in Haller's office in the penthouse suite at 5 Staniford, thirty-eighth floor. Genuine antiques, original oils, Oriental rugs, word processors, good-looking secretaries, twelve attorneys. There was gold in gobbledygook.

"It would say that all earning of the capital funding of this trust would be paid to the Reorganized Church of the Redemption, in the person of Sherry Spellman, or her designee, and successors in perpetuity. It would say further that money deposited to this trust was deposited irrevocably."

"Who administers the trust?" I said.

Haller smiled. "Me," he said. "Or my designee and successors."

"Fee?"

"No fee," Haller said. "A tax deductible donation of time at our standard billing rate will be made each month." He was wearing his trademark white suit and a wide maroon knit tie with a gold collar pin.

"So all I have to do is get the thing funded and we're in business."

Haller handed me a deposit slip. "Got the account all ready. Opened it with a one-hundred-dollar tax deductible donation of my own. Checks should be made out to the Reorganized Church of the Redemption Trust."

"I have a feeling that the deposits will be in cash," I said.

Haller shrugged. "Always a negotiable instrument," he said. "You want to come out to the house for dinner Sunday? Mary Margaret has been On my a.s.s to invite you out."

I shook my head. "Thanks, Vince, but I can't make it Sunday."

Haller nodded. "How are you?" he said.

"Still here," I said.

"I got a bottle of Black Bush," he said, "that I brought back from Ireland last time. Want to drink it with me and talk a little?"

"No," I said. "I talk too much as it is."

"How alone are you?" Haller said.

"Paul's with me, and I see Hawk a lot." Haller shook his head.

"And I've met a very wonderful woman," I said.

"They're all wonderful," Haller said.

"Well, many of them," I said.

"I love them," Haller said. "The way they talk, how they smell, the way they touch their hair, everything."

"I know," I said.

"I never thought one woman was enough," he said.

"I've always thought it was."

"Mary Margaret shares your view," Haller said. He stood and took a bottle of Bushmill Black Label Irish Whiskey from an antique highboy, poured two shots, and came around the desk and handed me one. "They don't export it, you know," he said. "Got to buy it in Ireland."

We drank.

"Mary Margaret's a fine woman," he said. "Good mother, good wife." He grinned. "Dutiful lover. But I got a girlfriend in Cambridge that the nuns never got to." He drank some more whiskey and shook his head. "Twenty-six years old, knows things that surprise even me, and I've been researching the field for some years."

"You love your wife?" I said.

"Sure." Haller came around the desk and poured more whiskey into my gla.s.s. "Best of all, but I love the girlfriend, too, and I know a woman in Washington I love, and I have loved five or six other women in the last five or six years."

I drank some of Haller's whiskey. It made Murphy's taste like Listerine.

"Worth the trip to Ireland," I said.

"Yeah, it's wonderful, isn't it. You love this woman you've met?"

"Yes."

"Surprise you?"

"Yes."

"You'll learn," Haller said. "You still love Susan?"

"Yes."

Haller smiled happily. He nodded. "See? See? Already you're learning." He filled his gla.s.s and pushed the bottle toward me across the desk. His phone rang. He picked it up and listened and said; "Tell him I'll get back to him, and Alma, hold all my calls, will you, honey?" He hung up.

"Maybe I loved a woman in Los Angeles," I said. "At least a little."

"Sure you did, why not give her a buzz? Never can tell when you'll get to L.A."

"She's dead," I said.

"The broad you were body-guarding?"

"Yes."

"Took the firm six months to get that straightened out with the L.A. prosecutor's office too," Haller said. "I didn't realize she mattered to you that way."

I looked at my whiskey, the light from the window made the amber look golden when I held it up. I drank some.

"I'm not sure I did either," I said.

CHAPTER 26.

"I have a friend," Susan said on the phone, "a guy friend."

I felt vertigo way inside. I said, "Yes."

"I've known him for a while," Susan said. "Before I left."