Mortal Stakes (13 page)

”Spenser, I want a hot dog and some beer and peanuts and a ball game. Could you please, please, please, pretty please, please with sugar on it knock off the writer bullshit and escort me through the gate?“

I shook my head. ”Writers aren’t understood much,“ I said, and we went in.

I was showing off for Brenda and took her up to the broadcast booth to watch the game. My presence didn’t seem to be a spur to the Red Sox. They lost to Kansas City 5-2, with Freddie Patek driving in three runs on a bases-loaded fly ball that Alex Montoya played into a triple. Maynard ignored us, Wilson studied Brenda closely between innings, and Lester boned up on the National Enquirer through the whole afternoon. Thoughtful.

It was four ten when we got out onto Jersey Street again. Brenda said, ”Who was the cute thing in the cowboy suit?“

”Never mind about him,“ I said. ”I suppose you’re not going to settle for the two hot dogs I bought you.“

”For dinner? I’ll wait right here for the cowboy.“

”Where would you like to go? It’s early, but we could stop for a drink.“

We decided on a drink at the outdoor cafe by City Hall.

I had draft beer, and Brenda a stinger on the rocks, under the colorful umbrellas across from the open brick piazza. The area was new, reclaimed from the miasma of Scollay Square where Winnie Garrett the Flaming Redhead used to take it all off on the first show Monday before the city censor decreed the G-string. Pinball parlors, and tattoo shops, the Old Howard and the Casino, winos, whores, sailors, barrooms, and novelty shops: an adolescent vision of Sodom and Gomorrah, all gone now, giving way to fountains and arcades and a sweep of open plaza.

”You know, it never really was Sodom and Gomorrah anyway,“ I said.

”What wasn’t?“

”Scollay Square. It was pre-Vietnam sin. Burlesque dancers and barrooms where bleached blondes danced in G-strings and net stockings. Places that sold plastic dog turds and whoopee cushions.“

”I never came here,“ she said. ”My mother had me convinced that to step into Scollay Square was to be molested instantly.“

”Naw. There were ten college kids here for every dirty old man. Compared to the Combat Zone, Scollay Square was the Goosie Gander Nursery School.“

I ordered two more drinks. The tables were glasstopped and the cafe was carpeted in Astroturf. The waitress was attentive. Brenda Loring’s nails were done in a bright red. Dark was still a long way off.

Brenda went to the ladies’ room, and I called my answering service. There was a message to call Healy. He’d be in his office till six. I looked at my watch: 5:40. I called.

”This is Spenser, what have you got?“

”Prints belong to Donna Burlington.“ He spelled it.

”Busted in Redford, Illinois, three-eighteen-sixty-six, for possession of a prohibited substance. That’s when the prints got logged into the bureau files. No other arrests recorded.“

”Thanks, Lieutenant.“

”You owe me,“ Healy said and hung up. Mr. Warmth.

I was back at the table before Brenda.

At seven fifteen we strolled up Tremont Street to a French restaurant in the old City Hall and had rack of lamb for two and a chilled bottle of Traminer and strawberry tarts for dessert. It was nearly nine thirty when we finished and walked back up School Street to Tremont. It was dark now but still warm, a soft night, midsummer, and the Common seemed very gentle as we strolled across it. Brenda Loring held my hand as we walked. No one attempted to mug us all the way to Marlborough Street.

In my apartment I said to Brenda, ”Want some brandy or would you like to get right to the necking?“

”Actually, cookie, I would like first to take a shower.“

”A shower?“

”Uh-huh. You pour us two big snifters of brandy and hop into bed, and I’ll come along in a few minutes.“

”A shower?“

”Go on,“ she said. ”I won’t take long.“

I went to the kitchen and got a bottle of Remy Martin out of the kitchen cabinet. Did David Niven keep cognac in the kitchen? Not likely. I got two brandy snifters out and filled them half full and headed back toward the bedroom. I could hear the shower running. I put the two glasses down on the bureau and got undressed. The shower was still running.

I went to the bathroom door. My bare feet made no noise at all on the wall-to-wall carpeting. I turned the handle and it opened. The room was steamy. Brenda’s clothes were in a small pile on the floor under the sink. I noticed her lingerie matched her dress. Class. The steam was billowing up over the drawn shower curtain. I looked in. Brenda had her eyes closed, her head arched back, the water running down over her shiny brown body. Her buttocks were in white contrast to the rest of her. She was humming an old Billy Eckstine song. I got in behind her and put my arms around her.

”Jesus Christ, Spenser,“ she said. ”What are you doing?“

”Cleanliness is next to godliness,“ I said. ”Want me to wash your back?“

She handed me the soap and I lathered her back.

When I was finished, she turned to rinse it off, and her breasts, as she faced me, were the same startling white that her buttocks had been.

”Want me to wash your front?“ I said.

She laughed and put her arms around me. Her body was slick and wet. I kissed her. There is excitement in a new kiss, but there is a quality of memory and intimacy in kissing someone you’ve kissed often before. I liked the quality. Maybe continuity is better than change. With the shower still running we went towelless to bed.

“That’s all?”

“That’s all. No name or return address or anything.”

“And did he?”

Linda Rabb looked blank. “Did he what?”

“Did Marty lose his next game?”

“Yes, he hung a curve in the seventh inning with the bases loaded against the Tigers, on purpose. I woke up in the middle of the night, that night, and he wasn’t in bed, he was out in the living room, looking out the window and crying.”

Her face was very white, and her eyes were puffy.

“And you wanted to confess it again.”

“Yes. But he said no. And I said, ‘It will kill you to throw games.’ And he said a man looked out for his wife and his kid, and I said, ‘But it will kill you.’ And he wouldn’t talk about it again. He said it was done and maybe there wouldn’t be another letter, but we both knew there would.”

“And there was.”

She nodded.

“And they kept coming?”

She nodded.

“And Marty kept doing what they said to do?”

She nodded again.

“How often?” I said.

“The letters? Not often. Marty gets about thirty-five starts a year. There were maybe five or six letters last year, three so far this year.”

“Smart,” I said. “Didn’t get greedy. Do you have any idea who it is?”

“No.”

“It’s a hell of a hustle,” I said. “Blackmail is dangerous if the victim knows you or at the point when the money is exchanged. This is perfect. There is no money exchanged. You render a service, and he gets the money elsewhere. He never has to reveal himself. There are probably one hundred thousand people who’ve seen that film, and you can’t know who they are. He mails his instructions, bets his money, and who’s to know?”

“Yes.”

“And furthermore, the act of payment is itself a blackmailable offense so that the more you comply with his requests, the more he’s got to blackmail you for.”

“I know that too,” she said. “If there was a hint of gambling influence, Marty would be out of baseball forever.”

“If you look at it by itself, it’s almost beautiful.”

“I’ve never looked at it by itself.”

“Yeah, I guess not.” I said, “Is it killing Marty?”

“A little, I think. He says you get used to anything-maybe he’s right.”

“How are you?”

“It’s not me that has to cheat at my job.”

“It’s you that has to feel guilty about it,” I said. “He can say he’s doing it for you. What do you say?”

Tears formed in her eyes and began to run down her face. “I say it’s what he gets for marrying a whore.”

“See what I mean?” I said. “Wouldn’t you rather be him?”

She didn’t answer me. She sat still with her hands clenched in her lap, and the tears ran down her face without sound.

I got up and walked around the living room with my hands in my hip pockets. I’d found out what I was supposed to find out, and I’d earned the pay I’d hired on at.

“Did you call your husband?” I said.

She shook her head. “He’s pitching today,” she said, and her voice was steady but without inflection. “I don’t like to bother him on the days he’s pitching. I don’t want to break his concentration. He should be thinking about the Oakland hitters.”

“Mrs. Rabb, it’s not a goddamned religion,” I said.

“He’s not out there in Oakland building a temple to the Lord or a stairway to paradise. He’s throwing a ball and the other guys are trying to hit it. Kids do it every day in schoolyards all over the land.”

“It’s Marty’s religion,” she said. “It’s what he does.”

“How about you?”

“We’re part of it too, me and the boy—the game and the family. It’s all he cares about. That’s why it’s killing him because he has to screw us or screw the game. Which is like screwing himself.”

I should be gone. I should be in Harold Erskine’s office, laying it all out for him and getting a bonus and maybe a plaque: OFFICIAL MAJOR LEAGUE PRIVATE EYE. Gumshoe of the stars. But I knew I wasn’t going to be gone. I knew that I was here, and I probably knew it back in Redford, Illinois, when I went to her house and met her mom and dad.

“I’m going to get you out of this,” I said.

She didn’t look at me.

“I know who’s blackmailing you.”

This time she looked.

I TOLD HER what I knew and what I thought.

“Maybe you can scare him off,” she said. “Maybe when he realizes you know who he is, he’ll stop.”

“If he’s wearing Frank Doerr’s harness, I’d say no.”

“Why?”

“Because he’s got to be more scared of Frank Doerr than I can make him of me.”

“Are you sure he’s working for Frank What’s‘isname?”

“I’m not sure of anything. I’m guessing. Right after I started looking around the ball club, Doerr came to my office with one of his gunbearers and told me I might become an endangered species if I kept at it. That’s suggestive, but it ain’t definitive.”

“Can you find out?”

“Maybe.”

“Marty makes a lot of money. We could pay you. How much do you charge?”

“My normal retainer is two corn muffins and a black coffee. I bill the rest upon completion.”

“I’m serious. We can pay a lot.”

“Like Jack Webb would say, you already have, ma’am.”

“Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.”

“But I don’t want you to start until we get Marty’s approval.”

“Un-unh. Your retainer doesn’t buy that. I’m still also working for Erskine, and I’m still looking into the situation.

I’m now looking with an eye to getting you unhooked, but you can’t call me off.”

“But you won’t say anything about us?” Her eyes were wide and her face was pale and tight again and she was scared.

“No,” I said.

“Not unless Marty says okay.”

“Not until I’ve checked with you and Marty.”

“That’s not quite the same thing,” she said.

“I know.”

“But, Spenser, it’s our life. It’s us you’re frigging around with.”

“I know that too. I’ll be as careful as I can be.”

“Then, damn it, you have got to promise.”

“No. I won’t promise because I may not be able to deliver. Or maybe it will turn out different. Maybe I’ll have to blow the whistle on you for reasons I can’t see yet. But if I do, I’ll tell you first.”

“But you won’t promise.”

“I can’t promise.”

“Why not, goddamn you?”

“I already told you.”

She shook her head once, as if there were a horsefly on it. “That’s bullshit,” she said. “I want a better reason than that for you to ruin us.”

“I can’t give you a better reason. I care about promises, and I don’t want to make one I can’t be sure I’ll keep. It’s important to me.”

“Bullshit, bullshit, bullshit.” She was leaning forward, and her nostrils seemed to flare wider as she did.

“My game has rules too, Mrs. Rabb.”

“You sound like Marty,” she said.

I didn’t say anything.

She was looking at the Christian Science dome again.

“Children,” she said to it. “Goddamned adolescent children.’‘ My stomach felt a little funny, and I was uncomfortable as hell.

”Mrs. Rabb,“ I said, ”I will try to help. And I am good at this. I’ll try.“

She kept looking at the dome. ”You and Marty and all the goddamned game-playing children. You’re all good at all the games.“ She turned around and looked at me. ”Screw,“ she said, and jerked her head at the door.

I couldn’t think of much to say to that, so I screwed.

She slammed the door behind me, and I went down in the elevator feeling like a horse’s ass and not sure why.

It was almost three o’clock. There was a public phone outside the drugstore next to the apartment building entrance. I went in and called Martin Quirk.

”Spenser,“ he said. ”Thank God you called. I’ve got this murder took place in a locked room. It’s got us all stumped and the chief said; ’Quirk,‘ he said, ’only one man can solve this.“‘ ”Can I buy you lunch or a drink or something?“

”Lunch? A drink? Christ, you must be in deep trouble.“

I did not feel jolly. ”Yes or no,“ I said. ”If I wanted humor, I’d have called Dial-A-Joke.“

”Yeah, okay. I’ll meet you at the Red Coach on Stanhope Street.“

I hung up. There was a parking ticket neatly tucked under the wiper blade on the driver’s side. The string looped around the base. A conscientious meter maid. A lot of them just jam it under the wiper without looping the string, and sometimes on the passenger side where you can’t even see it.

It was nice to see samples of professional pride. I put the ticket in a public trash receptacle attached to a lamppost.

I drove down Boylston Street past the Prudential Center and the new public library wing and through Copley Square. The fountain in the square was in full spray, and college kids and construction workers mingled on the wall around it, eating lunch, drinking beer, taking the sun. A lot of them were shirtless. Beyond the fountain was the Copley Plaza with two enormous gilded lions flanking the entrance.