Looking for Rachel Wallace (9 page)

“I’m doing that now,” I said. “Listen.”

He listened.

I told him about the two-car incident on the Lynnway. I told him about the pickets in Belmont and the pie-throwers in Cambridge. I told him about the recent unpleasantness in the First Mutual cafeteria.

“Don’t you freelance types have an exciting time of it?” Quirk said.

“It makes the time pass,” I said.

“The business on the Lynnway is the only thing that sounds serious,” Quirk said. “Gimme the license numbers.”

I did.

“Course they could be merely harassing you like the others.”

“They seemed to know their way around.”

“Shit, everybody knows his way around. They watch
Baretta
and
Kojak
. They know all about that stuff.”

“Yeah,” I said. “Could be. Could even be a pattern.”

“Conspiracy?” Quirk raised both eyebrows.

“Possible.”

“But likely?”

I shrugged. “There are stranger things in this world than in all your philosophies, Horatio.”

“The only other guy I ever met as intellectual as you,” Quirk said, “was a child molester we put away in the late summer of 1967.”

“Smart doesn’t mean good,” I said.

“I’ve noted that,” Quirk said. “Anyway, I’m not ready to buy a conspiracy without more.”

“Me either,” I said. “Can you do anything about keeping an eye on her?”

“I’ll call Callahan over at the Ritz again. Tell him you’re off the thing, and he should be a little carefuller.”

“That’s it?”

“Yeah,” Quirk said, “that’s it. I need more people than I’ve got now. I can’t put a guard on her. If she makes a public appearance somewhere, maybe I can arrange to beef up her security a little. But we both know the score—I can’t protect her and neither can you, unless she wants us to. And even then”—he shrugged—“depends on how bad somebody wants her.”

“But after someone does her in, you’ll swing into action. Then you’ll be able to spare a dozen men.”

“Take a walk,” Quirk said. The lines from his nose to the corners of his mouth were deep. “I don’t need to get lectured about police work. I’m still here—I didn’t quit.”

I stood up. “I apologize,” I said. “I feel very sour about things now. I’m blaming you.”

Quirk nodded. “I get anything on those numbers, you want to know?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay.”

I left.

Susan and I were at the raw bar in the middle of Quincy Market eating oysters and drinking beer, and arguing. Sort of.

“So why didn’t you keep out of it?” Susan said. “Rachel had asked you to.”

“And stand there and let them drag her out?”

“Yes.” Susan slurped an oyster off the shell. They don’t offer forks at the raw bar. They just serve oysters or clams or shrimp, with beer in paper cups. There are bowls of oyster crackers and squeeze bottles of cocktail sauce. They named the place the Walrus and the Carpenter, but I like it anyway.

“I couldn’t do that,” I said. Under the vaulted ceiling of the market, people swirled up and down the main aisle. A bearded man wearing a ski cap and a green turtleneck sweater eyed Susan and whispered something to the man with him. The man with him looked at Susan and nodded.

They both smiled, and then they both caught me looking at them and looked away and moved on. I ordered another beer. Susan sipped a little of hers.

“Why couldn’t you do that?” Susan said.

“It violates something.”

“What?”

I shrugged. “My pride?”

Susan nodded. “Now we’re getting somewhere. And while we’re at it, if somebody wants to admire my figure, why not let them? I am pleased. Would it be better if they didn’t?”

“You mean those two clowns a minute ago?”

“Yes. And a man who admires my ass isn’t necessarily a clown.”

“I didn’t do anything,” I said.

“You glared at them.”

“Well, they scare easy.”

“Would you have liked it better if they’d told me to start wearing a girdle?”

I said, “Grrrrr.”

“Exactly. So what are you glaring at them for?”

“My pride?”

“Now we’re getting somewhere.”

“Didn’t we just have this conversation?”

She smiled and gestured at the bartender for another beer. “Yes, but we haven’t finished it.”

“So what should I have done when those two upwardly mobile assholes took hold of her?”

“Stood by, made sure they didn’t hurt her. Been available if she called for help. Held the door as they went out.”

“Jesus Christ,” I said.

“Or you could have locked arms with her and gone limp when they touched you and made it that much harder.”

“No,” I said. “I couldn’t do that. Maybe I could have stood by, or maybe if there were a next time I could. But I couldn’t lie down and let them drag me out.”

“No. You couldn’t. But you didn’t have to deprive Rachel of a chance for a triumph.”

“I didn’t think of it in just that way.”

“Of course you didn’t—just as you don’t perceive it that way when we’re at a party and someone makes a pass at me and you’re at his shoulder with the look.”

“Depriving you of the chance to deal with it successfully yourself.”

“Of course,” she said. There was a small streak of cocktail sauce at one corner of her mouth. I reached over and wiped it away with my thumb. “I don’t normally need you to protect me. I got along quite well without you for quite some years. I fended off the people I wanted to fend off, all by myself.”

“And if they don’t fend?”

“I call you. You’re not far. I’ve not seen you ten feet from me at a party since we met.”

I finished my beer. “Let’s walk up toward the Faneuil Hall end,” I said. It was nearly four thirty and the crowds were thin, for the market. “Maybe I’ll buy you a croissant.”

“I’m not bitching about me,” she said. She put her arm through mine. Her head came a little above my shoulder. Her hair had a faint flowery smell. “I understand you, and I kind of like your proprietary impulses. Also I love you, and it changes one’s perspective sometimes.”

“We could slip into that stairwell and make out,” I said.

“Later. You promised a lot of walking and eating and drinking and looking at people.”

“And after that?”

“Who knows?” Susan said. “Maybe ecstasy.”

“Let’s walk faster then.”

Quincy Market is old and lovingly restored. It is vast and made of granite blocks. Along each side of the long center aisle there were stalls selling yogurt with fruit topping, kielbasy on a roll with sauerkraut, lobster rolls, submarine sandwiches, French bread, country pate, Greek salad, sweet and sour chicken, baklava, cookies, bagels, oysters, cheese, fresh fruit on a stick, ice cream, cheesecake, barbecued chicken, pizza, doughnuts, cookies, galantine of duck, roast beef sandwiches with chutney on fresh-baked bread, bean sprouts, dried peaches, jumbo cashews and other nuts. There are also butchershops, cheese stores, a place that sells custom-ground coffee, fruit stands, and a place that sells Korean ginseng root. Outside on either side are arcades with more stalls and terrace cafes, and in restored brick buildings parallel were clothing stores and specialty shops and restaurants. It claims to be the number-one tourist attraction in Boston, and it should be. If you were with a girl in the market area, it would be hard not to hold hands with her. Jugglers and strolling musicians moved around the area. The market is never empty, and in prime time it is nearly unmanageable. We stopped and bought two skewers of fresh fruit and melon, and ate them as we walked.

“What you say makes sense, babe,” I said, “but it doesn’t feel right.”

“I know,” she said. “It probably never will for you. You were brought up with a fierce sense of family. But you haven’t got a family, and so you transfer that great sea of protective impulse to clients, and me.”

“Maybe not you, but usually clients need protection.”

“Yes. That’s probably why you’re in business. You need people who need protection. Otherwise what would you do with the impulse?”

I threw my empty skewer in a trash barrel. “Concentrate it all on you, chickie,” I said.

Susan said, “Oh, God.”

“I don’t think I’m going to change,” I said.

“Oh, I hope you don’t. I love you. And I understand you, and you should stay as sweet as you are. But you can see why Rachel Wallace might have reservations about you.”

“Yeah, except I’m so goddamned cute,” I said.

“You certainly are that,” Susan said. “Want to split a yogurt?”

It was three weeks before Christinas, and it was snowing big sporadic flakes outside my office window when I found out that they’d taken Rachel Wallace.

I was sitting with my feet up, drinking black coffee and eating a doughnut and waiting for a guy named Anthony Gonsalves to call me from Fall River when the phone rang. It wasn’t Gonsalves.

A voice said, “Spenser? John Ticknor from Hamilton Black. Could you get over here right now? It appears Rachel Wallace has been kidnaped.”

“Did you call the cops?” I said.

“Yes.”

“Okay, I’m on my way.”

I hung up, put my fleece-lined jacket on over my black turtleneck and shoulder holster, and went. My office that year was on the corner of Mass. Ave. and Boylston Street, on the second floor, in a small three-sided turret over a smokeshop. My car was parked by a sign that said No Parking Bus Stop. I got in and drove straight down Boylston. The snow was melting as it hit the street but collecting on the margins of the road and on the sidewalks and building ledges.

The Christmas tree in the Prudential Center was lit already although it was only three forty-five. I turned left at Charles and right onto Beacon and parked at the top of the hill in front of the State House in a space that said Reserved for Members of the General Court. They meant the legislature, but Massachusetts calls it the Great and General Court for the same reason they call themselves a Commonwealth. It has something to do I think with not voting for Nixon. To my right the Common sloped down to Tremont Street, its trees strung with Christmas lights, a very big Nativity scene stretching out near the Park Street end. The snow was holding on the grass part of the Common and melting on the walkways. Down near the information booth they had some reindeer in pens, and a guy with a sandwich board was standing by the pens handing leaflets to people who were trying to feed popcorn to the deer.

Ticknor’s office was on the top floor looking out over the Common. It was high-ceilinged and big-windowed and cluttered with books and manuscripts. Across from the desk was a low couch, and in front of the couch was a coffee table covered with manila folders. Ticknor was sitting on the couch with his feet on the coffee table looking out at the guy on the Common who was handing out leaflets by the reindeer pens. Frank Belson, who was a detective-sergeant, sat on the couch beside him and sipped some coffee. A young guy with a face from County Mayo and a three-piece suit from Louis was standing behind Ticknor’s desk talking on the phone.

Belson nodded at me as I came in. I looked at the kid with the County Mayo face and said, “DA’s office?”

Belson nodded. “Cronin,” he said. “Assistant prosecutor.”

Ticknor said, “Spenser, I’m glad you could come. You know Sergeant Belson, I gather.”

I nodded.

Ticknor said, “This is Roger Forbes, our attorney.”

I shook hands with a tall gray-haired man with high cheekbones and sunken cheeks who stood—a little uncomfortably, I thought—in the corner between the couch and a book shelf.

Cronin said into the phone, “We haven’t said anything to the media yet.”

I said to Belson, “What have you got?”

He handed me a typewritten sheet of paper. It was neatly typed, double-spaced. No strikeovers, no x-ed out portions. Margins were good. Paragraphs were indented five spaces. It was on a plain sheet of Eaton’s Corrasable Bond. It read:

*Whereas Rachel Wallace has written several books offensive to God and country; whereas she has advocated lesbian love in direct contradiction of the Bible and common decency; whereas she has corrupted and continues to corrupt our nation and our children through the public media, which mindlessly exploits her for greed; and whereas our public officials, content to be the dupes of any radical conspiracy, have taken no action, therefore we have been forced to move.

We have taken her and are holding her. She has not been harmed, and unless you fail to follow our instructions, she will not be. We want no money. We have taken action in the face of a moral imperative higher than any written law, and we shall follow that imperative though it lead to the grave.

Remain alert for further communication. We will submit our demands to you for communication to the appropriate figures. Our demands are not negotiable. If they are not met, the world will be better for the death of Rachel Wallace.

R(estore) A(merican) M(orality) RAM

I read it twice. It said the same thing both times. “Some prose style,” I said to Ticknor.

“If you’d been able to get along with her,” Ticknor said, “perhaps the note would never have been written.” His face was a little flushed.

I said to Belson, “And you’ve checked it out.”

“Sure,” Belson said. “She’s nowhere. Her hotel room is empty. Suitcases are still there, stuff still in drawers. She was supposed to be on a radio talk show this afternoon and never showed. Last time anyone saw her was last night around nine o’clock, when the room service waiter brought up some sandwiches and a bottle of gin and one of vermouth and two glasses. He says there was someone taking a shower, but he doesn’t know who. The bathroom door was closed, and he heard the water running.”

“And you got nothing for a lead.”

“Not a thing,” Belson said. He was lean and thin-faced with a beard so heavy that the lower half of his face had a blue cast to it, even though he shaved at least twice a day. He smoked five-cent cigars down to the point where the live end burned his lip, and he had one going now that was only halfway there but already chewed and battered-looking.

“Quirk coming in on this,” I said.

“Yeah, he’ll be along in a while. He had to be in court this afternoon, and he sent me down to get started. But now that you showed up, he probably won’t need to.”