Bad Business (17 page)

T
here was no peephole. When Cecile knocked and the door opened, Hawk and I were standing one on each side of it.

“Cecile?” a man's voice said. “Yes, of course it is. Come on in.”

I knew the voice. Hawk went in first. He moved the man down his short corridor without any visible effort, except that when they reached the end the man banged hard against the far wall. I turned to Cecile.

“You can come in,” I said, “and meet your date.”

She went in and I went in behind her. The man was Bob Cooper.

He said, “Spenser. My God. What the hell is going on?”

“He carrying?” I said to Hawk.

“Nope.”

“Carrying?” Cooper said. “What the hell would I be carrying?”

“Can't be too careful,” I said.

“I don't get this, Spenser. What are you doing here? Who the hell are these people?”

We were in a short hallway off of which the other rooms opened. There was a bedroom, a bath, a miniscule kitchen, and a living room. I gestured toward the living room.

“Sit down,” I said. “We'll talk.”

It was the kind of furnished apartment that graduate students rent, or newlyweds, or both. It was undistinguished in any way, except for the obviously new, and obviously expensive, big-screen TV/entertainment center opposite the brown corduroy couch.

“Absolutely,” Cooper said. “I'm eager to hear what you've got to say.”

Cooper sat on the couch. Cecile sat quietly in a badly painted Boston rocker in the corner nearest the door. Hawk leaned on the doorframe near Cecile. I sat in front of Cooper on a sea chest that had been painted brown and was being used as a coffee table. Cooper leaned back and rested one arm along the top of the couch. Casual. Fully at ease. A concerned CEO puzzled by the antics of subordinates.

“First,” I said, “there's nothing personal here. You seem like a nice fellow. Second, there's nothing judgmental. Your sex life is your business. I don't care if you have carnal knowledge of a Chevy Tahoe, as long as the Tahoe is a consenting adult.”

Cooper frowned mildly and looked quizzical.

“And third,” I said. “We got your ass, and it will just slow everything down if you try to pretend we don't.”

“What on earth . . .” Cooper said.

“Stop it,” I said. “Hawk and Cecile went to O'Mara's courtly love seminar, and Cecile, the lucky lady, made the cut and got invited to the women's mixer. O'Mara's assistant videotaped her, and you reviewed the tapes and, tastefully, picked her for an assignation.”

“That's absurd,” Cooper said. “I have no idea who this woman is.”

“Which is why you called her Cecile when you opened the door.”

“I did not. She must have misunderstood.”

“None of us misunderstood,” I said.

I looked at the big entertainment center. Mute and sort of threatening on the far wall.

“Hawk,” I said. “You know how to work that thing?”

“ 'Course not,” Hawk said.

“I imagine I do,” Cecile said.

“See what he's got on videotape.”

Cooper said to Cecile, “You seem a nice young woman. But this is, after all, an illegal entry, and you really ought to think of your own best interests here.”

Cecile picked up the remote from the end table beside the couch and clicked on the gizmos in the cabinet, and in a moment the screen lit. She walked over and looked at some videotapes in a holder, selected one, slipped it in, clicked another gizmo, and after a moment of blank blue screen, there was Cecile drinking white wine from a piece of clear plastic stemware at the Balmoral Castle ballroom. Cecile shut it off.

No one said anything.

Then Cecile said, “The tape of me is labeled Cecile. There are also tapes labeled Marsha, Dorothy, Caroline . . . and, you get the idea.”

“Play Marsha,” I said.

“Don't,” Cooper said.

Cecile looked at Hawk.

“Let's go to the videotape,” Hawk said.

She picked up another videotape cassette. Cooper started to get up. I leaned over and put the flat of my hand on his chest and gently sat him back down. Cecile put it in, did the hocus pocus with the remote, and onto the screen came Marsha. Like Cecile she was good-looking, and like Cecile she was black. We watched her with her white wine, chatting with other women, and smiling into the camera. Then there was a somewhat amateurish cut, and we saw Marsha naked, and smiling past the camera, in what was almost certainly this living room. The camera tracked her as she walked through the hall and into the bedroom. Then another clumsy cut and there she was in bed with Cooper.

“Shut it off,” Cooper said.

His voice was hoarse. Cecile looked at me, and I nodded, and she shut everything down.

“My wife,” he said. “My wife can't know.”

“Why don't you take a walk around, Licorice Stick,” I said to Hawk, “see if you find some video equipment.”

“I'm leaving,” Cooper said.

He tried to stand, and once again I redirected him with the flat of my hand.

“No,” I said. “You're not.”

“You can't keep me here against my will,” Cooper said.

“Don't be silly,” I said.

He tried again to get up. I held him down. He tried to push my hand away. He couldn't.

“Coop,” I said. “You got no chance.”

He strained against my hand for another minute. I could see him debating whether to swing at me or not. He opted, wisely I felt, for not. Hawk came back into the living room with a video camera.

“Bedroom closet,” Hawk said. “Lotta other stuff in there too.”

“Video equipment?”

“Un-huh.”

“And?”

“A selection of, ah, adult novelty items.”

“Coop,” I said, “you dog.”

“Want to see?” Hawk said to Cecile.

“Oh, ick,” Cecile said.

“That mean I'm all you need?” Hawk said.

“It means, oh ick,” Cecile said.

Hawk grinned. Coop had assessed his position vis-à-vis fighting his way out of there, and found it not to be viable. He stopped pressing against my hand and leaned back again against the couch.

“Okay,” he said. “I have an eye for the ladies.”

He looked at Hawk standing beside Cecile.

“I mean, don't we all?” he said.

“Some of us don't use a pimp,” Hawk said.

Coop opened his mouth and thought about what to say, and apparently thought
nothing
would be best. He looked at me. A couple of simpatico white guys. I'd understand. He and I could clear this whole thing up.

“You want to be a senator,” I said. “Maybe president.
A sex scandal? A divorce, almost certainly messy? With the likely negative effect all that would have on Kinergy stock?”

“Okay,” he said. “You've got me by the short ones. What kind of deal can we make.”

“I thought you'd never ask,” I said.

“How much,” Coop said, “will this cost me?”

He felt better. He was back on familiar turf. He was making a deal.

“Hard to say at this point. I want my accountant to have full access to all Kinergy's financial records.”

“You mean an audit? Why?”

“I do,” I said. “I understand Kinergy has a cash problem.”

“Cash?”

“That's what they tell me.”

“Absolutely not,” he said.

“I want you to pay for the audit,” I said.

“I can't do that. That's absurd.”

“And,” I said, “I want to know everything you can tell me about Darrin O'Mara.”

“O'Mara?”

“Yep. The company pimp.”

“O'Mara? I don't know anything about O'Mara,” Coop said.

“That's the deal,” I said. “Audit and O'Mara. Or we tell everyone everything.”

“I'm not going to agree to that.”

“I've already spoken with Mrs. Cooper.”

“Wilma?”

“Yep.”

“About what?”

“If I were you I wouldn't want her to find out any of this,” I said.

“Oh God.”

“My thoughts exactly,” I said.

“I can't. I'll pay you. I am wealthy. I'll pay you a young fortune.”

“O'Mara and the audit,” I said. “Or Wilma and the press and probably the SEC and maybe the vice squad.”

“Jesus,” he said. “Oh Jesus, I can't. I can't.”

I leaned forward a little with my hands clasped and my forearms resting on my thighs.

“Coop, darlin',” I said. “You gotta.”

It was like pulling a camel through the eye of a needle. While we talked Hawk collected all the videotapes in a gym bag he found in the bedroom closet. Then he and Cecile sat and listened for a while. Then after about a half hour he stood.

“Me and Cecile got to go review all these tapes for evidence,” he said.

“Me and Cecile?” Cecile said.

“Might have to watch them two, three times. Make sure not to miss a clue.”

“Two or three times?” Cecile said.

“Maybe learn something,” Hawk said.

“You might,” Cecile said. “In fact you probably better.”

“You like them feisty colored girls, too?” Hawk said to Cooper.

Cooper looked at the floor and didn't say anything. I gave Hawk the car keys and they left. As they went out of the apartment, Hawk said something to Cecile and I heard Cecile giggle.

I
t was late when I left Cooper. I caught one of the last cars to leave Kenmore Square on the Green Line, got out of the near-empty train at Park Street, crossed to the Red Line, and got on another near-empty train to Porter Square. It was almost midnight when I walked up Linnaean Street toward Susan's house. I liked the aloneness of the empty street, and the way I could hear my own footsteps.

Years of big business and years of political aspiration was a lethal combination. My discussion with Cooper felt like it had lasted longer than my police career. But, finally, I was pretty sure I'd gotten all Cooper had. It was a long time for not so much. But I had a date for the audit. And I had some idea of how O'Mara was fitting in.

The streetlights were on, but nearly all the interior lights were out in the condos and apartment buildings on either side of the street. Now and then there would be
one room with a light on. Someone who couldn't sleep. Worried about money. Health. Love. Children. Someone excited. Frightened. Depressed. Bored. Someone doing homework. Someone having sex. Someone having a pastrami sandwich on light rye. Someone sitting by themselves drinking scotch whisky and watching Letterman.

The lights were on in Susan's living room. I walked up the stairs and rang the bell. In a moment the door clicked and I went in. I had just closed the front door behind me when Pearl came boiling down the stairs all long legs and flappy ears, and attempted to lap me to death. I could see Susan's legs on the top step, with the light behind her.

“You let anyone in who rings?” I said.

“I saw you coming up the street,” she said.

“Sitting in the window all night hoping for me?” I said.

“You did call and say you were coming.”

“Well, yes,” I said. “If you want to think of it that way.”

I got Pearl sufficiently under control to climb the stairs and kiss Susan. She got me a beer and herself a glass of wine and settled onto the couch beside me in her living room, wearing pink sweatpants and an oversized white tee shirt with The Bang Group printed on it in orange block lettering.

“Tell me about the love nest,” she said.

I did.

Two beers later she said, “So you were able to blackmail him.”

“I was.”

“You are sometimes a heartless bastard,” she said.

“I am, but never with you.”

“That's true.”

“It's all that matters,” I said.

“To you,” she said.

“To me,” I said. “Who the hell else are we calling heartless.”

She leaned over and kissed me lightly on the mouth.

“Tell me about Mr. Cooper,” she said. “The lecherous bastard.”

“Hard to find a place to start,” I said.

“I have every confidence in you,” Susan said.

“Okay,” I said. “Cooper knew Gavin since they were both at Yale. After school Gavin joined the CIA and Cooper followed his destiny to the Harvard B School. They stayed friends. When he became CEO at Kinergy he felt the need of a loyal friend in a key position and hired Gavin to be chief of security.”

“To be a CEO?” Susan said. “Of an energy company? In Waltham?”

“I asked him about that,” I said. “He told me that he felt the whole team at Kinergy wasn't pulling together. He was getting threats from the no-dependence-on-imported-energy folks. He needed a tough guy, he said, that he could depend on, inside the company and in public. I had a sense he may have wanted some muscle behind him inside the company too, but he never quite said that.”

“Was Gavin really a tough guy?” Susan said. “I mean a lot of those CIA people are simply information analysts. They never leave their desks.”

“Quirk checked into him after he died. Nobody, of
course, will exactly say anything, quite. Quirk says that he was probably a covert operations guy. Which would make him a legitimate toughie.”

Susan smiled, and poured a little wine for herself. I still had beer left.

“Tougher than you?” she said.

“Unlikely.”

“What did he think about the cash problem?” Susan said.

“He said he wasn't a micromanager. He said that was Trent Rowley's domain. After Trent bit the dust, Bernie Eisen was looking after the financial end in the interim.”

“Did Cooper actually say
bit the dust
?”

“I'm paraphrasing,” I said. “He also remarked that Adele, whom he liked personally, of course, was something of a man eater, and might not necessarily be reliable.”

“
Man eater
was his term?”

“It was,” I said. “Are you keeping a journal?”

“You can sometimes gain insight,” Susan said, “listening to the way people speak.”

“Have you done that with me over the years?”

“Of course.”

“And your conclusions?”

“Sort of a big John Keats,” Susan said.

“That would be me,” I said. “Silence and slow time.”

“And Cooper agreed to let your accountant in.”

“And staff,” I said. “Marty will need help.”

“Did he know anything about the special whatsises, or the funny accounting?”

“He said he didn't.”

“Do you believe him?”

“I think he was focused on being senator, and positioning himself for the presidency, and that Kinergy, having made him rich, was now merely a base. I think he had little interest as long as its profits kept growing and its stock kept soaring, which made him look good.”

“So Adele is right,” Susan said. “He let Rowley and Eisen run the company.”

“I'd say so.”

“How about the O'Mara stuff?”

“Cooper met O'Mara through Trent Rowley, he says. He, Cooper, is of course totally devoted to his lovely wife, Big Wilma . . .”

“He didn't call her Big Wilma,” Susan said.

“I'm paraphrasing. He's totally devoted to Big Wilma. Their marriage has been, of course, blissful, but . . .”

“Any children?”

“One son. A career Marine.”

“Really? Isn't that sort of odd. I mean from a family like that.”

“Probably,” I said. “But despite how swell Wilma is, and how happily married they are, Coop felt perhaps there was a way to enlarge his life experience and blah and blah and blah.”

“So he decided to take a seminar with Darrin O'Mara.”

“He did. The Eisens and the Rowleys brought him to one.”

“Not him and Wilma.”

I smiled.

“You should meet Big Wilma,” I said.

“Out of place?” Susan said.

“Like a mongoose at a cobra festival.”

“But isn't that O'Mara's rap? Freeing husbands and wives from the bondage of monogamy?”

I shrugged.

“In Coop's case it was hubbies only. Under pressure, he did allow that not only had he an eye for the ladies, but he had eyes for African American ladies in particular, which Big Wilma is not, by the way. And, because he's so decent a guy, and trying to preserve his wonderful marriage, and in order never to embarrass Wilma, or in any way imply a lack in her, he arranged for O'Mara to begin supplying him with the black women of his dreams.”

“What a guy,” Susan said. “Whose apartment is it?”

“Coop says it belonged to Gavin, who let him use it.”

“You believe him?”

“No. I'm sure Gavin rented it for him. But I don't care if he lies about stuff like that. If you let a guy like Cooper weasel on the small stuff, he thinks he's winning some of the battles, and it's easier to get the big stuff out of him.”

“Did others at Kinergy use O'Mara?”

“We know Rowley did, and Eisen. Coop thinks that probably some other executives were involved, but he doesn't know who.”

“You think that's a lie?”

“Probably.”

“But you don't care.”

“I'm not the sex police,” I said. “I just want to know who killed Trent Rowley.”

“God, I almost forgot that was what you were hired for.”

“I try to keep track,” I said.

“Did Cooper have anything to say about the longhaired man?”

“Not really. Said he was a friend of O'Mara's and because O'Mara asked, Cooper had his secretary call and get the guy into the dining club.”

“Does he know the man's name?”

“Doesn't remember. Says his secretary might know.”

“And when the man just sat there at the bar, you don't think Cooper wondered?”

“If you want to be president, and there's a guy who knows about you what O'Mara knew about Cooper . . .”

“You don't ask,” Susan said.

I nodded.

“So why would this friend of O'Mara's be following you?”

“Worried about what I might find out about Kinergy?”

“Why would he care?”

“Well, he is the corporate pimp,” I said.

“I suppose,” Susan said. “Do you really think that's all it was?”

“No,” I said. “I don't.”

“Do you know what else it would be?”

“Not yet,” I said.